A Very Hanukkah Minyan

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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://mishkan.shulcloud.com/form/reg-morning-minyan-evergreen

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

Transcript

Transcript

0:02  
Thanks, Emmett, here we go,

0:18  
and open to receive the light. May I be empty and open to receive?

0:31  
May I be full and open to receive the light? May I be full and open to receive? May I be empty

0:49  
and open to receive?

0:54  
The light, may I be empty and open to receive? And

1:03  
open to receive? The light, may I be full and open to receive? May I be empty and open

1:23  
be empty and open to receive the light. May I be empty and open to receive? May I be full and open to

1:38  
receive the light? May I be

1:42  
full and open to receive? May

1:47  
I be empty and open to receive? The light, may I be empty and open to receive? May I be full

2:00  
me, may I be full and open to receive? The light, may I be full and open to receive?

2:26  
I mean, I mean, I mean,

2:37  
I mean moda, NIFA,

2:54  
Rabbi Taha

3:03  
Teja, modani,

3:19  
binishmati, bechamna, grateful am I as I sit before

3:32  
you,

3:35  
Living spirit

3:38  
of the world, this soul you gave me your great faith in me, may I be grateful, may I be good. I

4:15  
a

4:22  
knowledge i i do before you, in your face, spirit, living and enduring. You have returned within me, my soul with deep love, abundant is your faith. I feel like that moda ni line, you know, Hebrew always, very often, puts the verb before the subject, which kind of makes it sound like Yoda, you know, like mode. I do acknowledge. I do grateful. I am. But this line in particular. Begins that way because we're starting first thing in the morning, and, like, the crusties are still in our eyes, and some of us still aren't really fully awake. And so the traditions, like, you know what? Well, maybe like, don't start using God's four letter holy and awesome name. Maybe like, start with yourself. Start with yourself. And when you're talking to God. You're just, you're talking to an intimate lafane, you you know, but you're not starting to use like that, you know, any of God's fancy names here. It's just really an intimate moment with you, you know, with the master of the world, the living and enduring spirit. But you know, you're coming up with sweet little metaphors for God, but not necessarily using some of the language that we will get into as we go further and deeper into the service. All right, friends. Good morning. My kids are off school today, so we're visited by and we are Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, we're visited by and we're going to enjoy the presence of this kindergartner and second grader. Can I help you? Yeah, but you also can, well, this is where I'm doing minion, sweetheart. All right, you're gonna have to, you're gonna have to be resourceful. Okay, okay, you can move this if you want to, somewhere else. Yeah, alright. Alright. And I'm conscious here in this room, Aiden. I was so happy to see your face and to see that you're here this blessing for, you know, going to the bathroom. Officially, this is the one. This is the one that's called the quote, unquote bathroom blessing. But Rabbi Eugene Borowitz, who was a, like, really, really big deal in the Reform Movement, theologian, thinker, writer, and talked about using this blessing for the first time after having surgery in the hospital and really not appreciating the existence of a blessing for everything coming out okay, until, you know, there's a time when you're not sure if everything's going to come out okay and stay in when it needs to stay in. And you know, because truly, as this, as this describes, we have nicovid, we have passages and we have openings, and it is known before you, oh God, that if one of them were to open at the wrong time or be closed at the wrong time, it could be impossible to stand before you, even for a moment. And so this morning, in honor of your having woken up, in honor of all of the openings and closings, opening and closing when they're supposed to so much that you can be here today we say this blessing. Feel free. I'll you know the next time we meet, I should have it all transliterated here for you, but we'll do it both in Hebrew and in English. Baruch atah, Adonai, Elohim, a share, yeah. COVID

COVID so blessed are you our God, creator of the universe, who formed the human being with wisdom and created within us openings and hallows. It is known and is obvious and known before your glorious throne, that if one of them were ruptured, or if one of them were blocked, it would be impossible to exist and to stand in your presence, even for a short while, even for a moment. Blessed are you who heals all flesh and performs wonders? And then in particular, this is where a little addition two words, the rabbi, Harold schulweis, who was a Reconstructionist rabbi in Los Angeles. Well, he was a, he was in conservative rabbi, but ultimately, he he really his theology was a very Reconstructionist one, and he would say, if you add the two words through us, through us at the end of any blessing, you stop making it about some god out there. Blessed are you who heals all flesh and performs wonders through us and we and that gives us the ability to thank the doctors and the nurses and the people who, over the course of generations and generations, have thought about how to take care of one another, the spouses, the friends who heals flesh and performs wonders through us. Maine, all right, I'm gonna go over here to ASHRAE,

all right, and if you if your screen is not muted by accident, perhaps just check if your screen is muted to make sure that we're not getting weird interference that comes through if. All right, and I'm going to begin to sing ASHRAE. And as we're as I'm kind of going through just as this chant, feel free to feel free to chant along with me over on your side. Also feel free to think from A to Z, from hollif to TAF, what you're expressing gratitude for this morning. Noah asks the question, what would the Hebrew edition be for? Through us? Like Baruch Aton, I reckon the sarma flee last so it's hmm, through us like,

like, Derek Banu, I'm not sure. No, I would need to look into that. If anybody who knows Hebrew, modern Hebrew, maybe better than I do on this call wants to hazard a guess, like, try it. I'm gonna find out the answer for you. Sure.

11:20  
Oh, dark. Keith, yeah, beautiful, yeah, hallelujah.

11:28  
Oh, yeah.

11:36  
Hallelujah. Anybody have anything that starts with a you're feeling grateful for yoshvei or B or C.

11:49  
I'm grateful for Adira, my daughter. Oh, yeah, hallelujah. Oh. Oh, yeah, ability and anti anxiety. Man, so good. I Shrey, your

12:23  
How about B through L O Ya Hall, hey, my friends who are here at breakfast with me, only kind words at this table. Ya Hallelujah. Thank you.

12:40  
Te he la applies

12:53  
to you also

13:00  
Now all the sun. Shame Coach, may I

13:26  
Hallelujah I

13:40  
Oh, god,

14:00  
oh, for being resilient for electric vehicle chargers, I can only imagine for people with electric cars like how relieving it is when you park in a parking lot and you know that you, like, are running low on charge, and you see a thing and can plug in your car while you go into the grocery store. And I can't, I mean, I can't wait one day to get an electric car to replace my car with an electric one. And also, I'm, like, already nervous about the feeling of, like, running low. And anyway, I'm all falicious, like, blessings this Minion, cats and Irene. What a blessing that both of your parents are alive and you can help them, friends and friendship, family and caffeine, more than one person being grateful for coffee this morning, a warm place to live and good food, burgeoning friendships, kind people being called bubbi. By your grandchildren, pretty what a gift, hot chocolate and apples for applesauce. Yes. All right, my friends, I'm going to move forward into Papa. I'm going to move forward into the schma, the Hey, hey, hey, whoa, whoa, not nice and not nice. Adira, sweetheart, if you can't take it, whoa, you guys, this is life. Guys. Hang on, guys. I've been very clear this table is only for kind, looks and kind words. None of that, none of that, none of that, none of that. All right,

so blessing for love, a blessing for love. All right, grab my four corners of my seat seat. Yeah. Oh, Aiden, you guys, you don't want to even hear it. It happens every so often.

All right, I'm grabbing the four corners of my seat seat. I am pulling them into me and holding them all the contradiction with love. Oh, oh, they won't Damn it. All the contradiction, all of the all of the frayed edges, you know, holding them with love in one hand, baruja tarunai A Bucha El deava,

16:54  
covering her eyes. Shima yisra, Yisrael,

17:08  
Adonai elohinu, Adonai

17:17  
EHA depauci,

17:29  
I

17:33  
love

17:58  
vishara, Ravi shara,

18:06  
and you will love with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. And these words which I speak to you today shall sit on your heart, and then you'll open your heart, and your heart will let them in as often as possible. You shall repeat them to your children and speak of them in your home and on your way, when you lie down and when you rise up, you shall bind them as a sign on your hand. They will be symbols before your eyes. You shall write them on the door posts of your house and on your gates. I wanted to share with you this morning, little teaching about Hanukkah and about, let me find it. Here it is, come, come, come, come, come. Where are you? Little teaching

18:57  
bash, where are you? Where are you? Where are you?

19:01  
Speaking of Mezuzah, here we go. Ah, let me so I think I've shown you before, this little resource. Hadar puts it out, and it's called divesh, and it is, at least in theory, a kids resource for learning about Torah and holidays. So this is the Chanukah the Hanukkah episode. And so I wanted to show you these, these connections that the Rambam and the tradition makes between giving tzakah, giving charity, and where you place, where you place your you know the symbols of your Jewishness. So the menorah obviously, is a pretty obvious symbol of the fact that somebody who lives in that home is Jewish. Ish during this season. So here is Rambam. So I love what they do here. I don't know why they don't do this for adults as well. You know, in trying to be, in trying to give you education, they let you know where is the person who's writing, writing. How long ago were they writing? So the Rambam in Spain and Egypt, and finally, later, 850 ish years ago, and he writes, the mitzvah of lighting Hanukkah candles is extremely precious. He had owed a person should observe it carefully to publicize the miracle and increase our praise of God and thanks for God's miracles. Even if a person relies on charity to have enough food, they should lend out or sell their own clothing, enough to purchase oil and have Hanukkah candles, which I would love to discuss, but I want to, I want to move on to make sure we get to some of this other stuff in here, but they observe. It's unusual for rabbi to call a mitzvah extremely precious, like maybe lighting the Hanukkah Menorah was one of his favorite mitzvot. Why might he have used this language for Hanukkah candles, and in what ways is the mitzvah of Hanukkah candle? Lighting extremely precious to you. What is the purpose of lighting Hanukkah candles? And you know, he answers it here to publicize the miracle, to create a context for our increase of praise of God and thanks for God's miracles. But finally, if a person was struggling to have enough money to buy food, why on earth should they spend money on Hanukkah candles? So feel free to answer that in the chat as I go on here, customs sadaka on Hanukkah, there's a custom to give sadaka While your while your Hanukkah candles are burning. So 350, years ago, Avram gumbien said that it would be a custom on Hanukkah that young people who are poor would go from door to door to collect on Hanukkah. Why might that be? Think about that for a second. There are some houses that have a menorah in the window, and at those houses, people who were poor would go from door to door. Think about how you receive people who come to the door you know, who you know are asking for something. And if you put a menorah in your window, how you might be different as a receiver, knowing that you're projecting into the world. Hi, I'm Jewish. I'm giving thanks for the miracles of the season and for my resources that I have a warm house here, and I'm, you know, a place to put a menorah in the window. How might you receive somebody who is in need differently during this season. So Rabbi Moshe Sofer, aka the khatam Sofer, 200 years ago, wondered what made this different from any other time. It's always good to give tzedakah. Why would there be a minhag for poor people to go around collecting specifically on Hanukkah? And he writes, the person who is poor could enter and exit people's homes between their Mezuzah and their candles, because candles would be put in the doorway. Right? This description of a poor person walking between the Mezuzah and the candles makes sense. If Hanukkah candles are lit in doorways, I think last week, we looked at some of the Halakhot around, putting this literally in the doorway, according to the Gemara, that is where you're supposed to light them, in the doorway. In the Gemara, placing your Hanukkah candles in the doorway seems to be for the reason of pursuing Nisa, publicizing the miracle. This is also the reason the Gemara tells us to light at the time of evening, when people are still outside, perhaps walking home from work, so that they would be able to see our candles, according to the khatam Sofer, the magena of RAM teaches us that something else is supposed to happen at this time too. So what is supposed to happen at this time? People are supposed to come and go between the Mezuzah and the candles and actually collect tzedakah.

All right, so they say here down at the bottom, try it out. Most of us light our Hanukkah candles indoors, placing them in the window instead of in the doorway, but we can observe the custom of the Magana VRAM and the Hattam sofa, but keeping a tzhadaka box near our Hanukkah candles make it the minhag, the custom in your home to give tzedakah while the Hanukkah candles are lit, making a connection between this Mitzvah of lighting and publicizing, sharing the miracle and also giving something real to people who are in need. And I'm just kind of reading here, yes, I will put the link here in the chat for this. If you buy Hanukkah candles with some money you would have spent on food, it means you still have hope that the miracle, miracles can happen for you, hope feeds too that you can't live on. Just hope. Yeah, beautiful. Any other little comments about this before? Where we do a prayer for healing and say, Keith, any other observations about any of this stuff? Other than that, the graphics are cute.

All right,

great, all right, let's go into a prayer for healing, which we will do. You know what we're gonna we're going to do this prayer for healing. I'll show you. I'll show you how and where. Because last week, for those of you who weren't here, what we talked about was the section in our davening, in the Amida that the rabbi's identified as, you know what, during Hanukkah, say these words, and they basically say, you know, we give thanks for God who rose up and fought our fight, the, you know, the small over the the over the Mighty, the small over the few, over the many, the weak, over the mighty. And you know, Martin, you pointed out reasonably, you know, this idea that, like God, fights our fight, but not their fight. God fights for our, you know, sports team, but not their sports team. It's like this has led to some pretty gruesome, bloody wars over the years, and we're not sure if, if, like, that's actually the way that we want to observe Hanukkah, you know, the idea of God fighting our fight, but not their fight. And what I want to suggest, and I had this conversation a few of you here in the Sunday morning, Sunday afternoon Torah study group, as we talked about the book of Joshua. And, you know, kind of like God, the warrior God fighting, you know, on our side, and not their side. And what I suggested was, you know, to the extent that all of what we're doing on some level is a metaphor, there are times when praying for God to be Victorious on the side of the goods, so to speak, on the side of health and life is actually really valuable, like for a person living with cancer trying to have the chemotherapy drugs beat the cancer right, like beat it into submission, make it disappear, go away. Have the good healthy cells that are trying to overwhelm and and ultimately fight against the the unhealthy cells that are proliferating. We actually we need, sometimes, for precisely that kind of victory of health and life over the forces of chaos and destruction, even from within our own body. And so I wanted to look at the prayer for Hanukkah al hanissim this morning as a healing prayer, as a healing prayer, thinking first and foremost about our bodies and praying and hoping and wishing for ours and our friends and families, for the forces of health and life and strength and immunity within our own bodies to prevail over the, you know, forces of chaos and sickness, and to pray for that within one another and to pray for that within the world as well. So I'm reading irene's thing here. When my niece and nephew were growing up, we would take 10% of Hanukkah gift budget and discuss which charities we would donate to, and my niece now tides 10% beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. That's great. I love the idea of creating new Hanukkah traditions that end up becoming tradition traditions. All right. So this is great. This is now where, yeah, feel free to go, go ahead and and share the names of folks you're praying for and thinking about everyone on Aiden's list here, Sherry, Aiden, Sheri, you may know, Sherry, everyone in minion, all of your parents in minion, which you're thinking about this morning, Margaret and Sufi Nazm, since you're Sherry And Delia, all right? So you can go ahead and continue to list names, and if you're over on your side of the computer, read the names out loud, even as I'm even as I'm singing here

29:27  
a honey, seem they all have poor can they all have who wrote The a hat? You mocha. I

29:37  
see Tala voting. Ze

29:53  
al ha Nisei.

30:09  
I see to vote. Deah Milham by a Mima hambaz, man has,

30:34  
I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean,

30:41  
may all of them, everyone you have mentioned, have a complete healing of body and spirit, and all the various parts and pieces live harmoniously and tending toward life and toward health and toward healing. And may not mean, all right, because it is 834 we are going to say Keith Tom mourners, Kaddish. Here is there anybody this morning? I know there are folks you're thinking about to say, Kadisha tome, mourners, Kaddish, to honor their lives. Thinking about mark near love. Nathan Pollock, Jan Kalis, mom, who just died a few days ago unexpectedly, her hearts are with her and her family. Is there anybody who would like to lead Kaddish this morning sister Clemente Davlin,

all right, I'll leave Kaddish this morning. Yeezy, hornam, Libra Ha, may their memories be blessings. You know what? And this morning, just you know, as we go into Erev era Hanukkah, everyone who died fighting the good fight. Hanukkah is really so much about fighting an unlikely battle. So everyone, everyone who has died fighting for good Trouble, honoring all of their memories. Eat, good.

32:36  
Blah, blah,

32:58  
Rabbi, Rabbi, Rabbi,

33:09  
Shamaya, friends,

33:19  
amen, may their memories be blessings. And I thought I'd close out this morning with a modern Hanukkah classic hem the macbeats to send you off into your day with a little bit of joy and irreverence. So here we go. Tell me if you can't see this, or if this needs to be optimized video for video sharing. All right, here we go.

33:59  
I'll tell a tell tale. Tell, tell, tell Yeah. Max bees in Israel, hell, hell yeah. When the Greeks tried to sell, sell, sell, sell, but it was all to no avail. Veil, veil, veil, yeah, yeah. The war went on and on and on

34:19  
until the mighty Greeks were

34:25  
Gone, yeah, I put my lockers in the air sometimes.

34:46  
Candlelight, and I told you once, now I told you twice out the miracle of the

34:54  
candlelight. They took the

34:56  
feel, feel, feel their arrival. Thought, are they. For real, real, real, real. Those Max bees. They never yield, yield, yield kill. They chart the head with sword and shield, shield, shield, shield, shield, yeah, yeah. The war went on and on and on

35:15  
until the mighty griefs were gone. Yeah, hopping

35:21  
my lockers in the air, sometimes saying, hell

35:25  
spin the dreadl to just wanna celebrate for all late nights, singing, light the candle. We sing, we play dreidel. Light the candle.

35:40  
When you play jail ride a candle light, and I told you once, now I told you

35:51  
twice. And the great menorah, great days we kept on burning. What a celebrating sing, what a celebration. A Great return to Torah,

36:15  
learning. Because, oh, I

36:40  
singing. Just

36:41  
want to celebrate for all late nights. Singing, light the candle. We sing all late nights, then we play dreidel. Light a candle. Light, and I told you once, now I told you,

37:00  
and I told you once, now I told you

37:15  
twice, all right? I.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai