Olfactory Memory and Temple Sacrifices

The inner doors to my son’s school opened to let through the onslaught of parents picking up our children, and we were instantly surrounded by a moist, bready smell.  “Why are they baking bread?” another parent asked, “it’s not Friday!”  And I remembered - they were going to bake hamentashen this morning - at least in my son’s class, and probably others.

In the Torah reading cycle, we are in Leviticus, full of bloody, gut-flaying animal sacrifices - and a few somewhat cleaner bread and grain and incense sacrifices.  But in the holiday cycle, we are at Purim, that joyous holiday on which we eat (depending on Ashkenazi/Sephardi background) yummy pastries designed like a man’s hat, or the slightly more disgusting version of his ears.  

In a post-sacrificial Judaism, the holiday yummies are probably more likely to conjure some level of religious connection than the sacrifices.  But where the Mishnah makes the transition from sacrifice to prayer, I would like to suggest that our own experiences of holidays through food, tasted but especially smelled, may in fact hold a more direct connection for us.

The phrase ריח ניחח - re’ach nicho’ach - a fragrant (pleasing) scent, appears numerous times in Torah, all in direct relation to various sacrifices - four times in this week’s reading.  Whether grain or beast or fowl, a fire offering provides a pleasing scent, often specifically described as “for G-d.”  The fact that these sacrifices were commonly consumed by the priests (and, in the case of the Passover sacrifice, by the masses), we can begin to see the connection between the altar that stood before the Holy of Holies and our grandparents’ (for example) kitchens.  

For me, the smell of latkes frying or chicken soup cooking on the stove can bring me home to my mother’s kitchen.  Fresh baking challah, tzimmes, brisket, roasting chicken, cholent, and yes, hamentashen, may be among foods that bring you to various kitchens of your memory.  

And not just any memories, but memories of Jewish time, exactly the kind of time that the sacrifices helped to mark.  The everyday, the Sabbath, various holidays and seasons.  

The association Jews have with food (there’s some idea that you can’t attract Jews to a program without it) is, therefore, not just about putting something in the belly.  It has the potential to be so very deeply spiritual -- in the sense that our kitchens are our altars, filled at their best with ריח ניחח, re’ach nicho’ach, pleasing odors that permeate our very souls and bring us into relationship with each other. It is an inherently spiritual relationship, in the sense that neshamah, soul, is related to breathing (as is smelling), and ru’ach, wind, another word for soul, is directly related to the word re’ach, odor.

Chag Purim sameach - a very happy and joyous Purim to all.  May your olfactory memories tingle, this week and always, with your own efforts or the efforts of someone you love.  

Happy Ritual Change of Year

“I’m looking forward to 2014...I’m so ready to move on.” (Anonymous) 

Yes, me too.  2013 has been a strange year, in some ways painful and in some ways freeing, definitely filled with unexpected transitions.  

But isn’t a calendar change arbitrary?  If we are so ready to move on, can’t we do it without the new year’s arrival?  Shouldn’t a new day be enough?

Sure!  Every day is a new beginning.  “Every day Creation is renewed.”  

One of the reasons I think the New Year holiday is so profound - even if our resolutions don’t last - is that it is so highly ritualized.  We prepare for (at least) a week: Facebook friends, organizations, newscasters and more count down what they see as important music, movies, events, and so forth from the past year.  We are encouraged thus to reflect on our own year, on its ups and downs, on our own successes and “failures,” and ultimately on what we would like to change in the coming year.  And then we all come together - in person or via technology - to count down the last minutes and seconds to the new year.  (But even as I write this it is already 2014 in parts of the world; I understood this early, growing up on the west coast, when the clock struck midnight in the “heart” of our country (Times Square) at 9pm.  See how arbitrary it is?)

Ritual is powerful.  Ritual awakens us - “wake up and see”! - urges us into awareness.  

We don’t have to wait for a new year.  We can ritualize our mornings.  We can wake up to a practice of prayer, reflection, renewal.  If we don’t already do something like this, we can resolve right now that in the new year we will.  Take note - it’s not just tonight as the clock strikes midnight, but:

Every day Creation is renewed: wake up and see

In the spreading light of dawn

The world and all it contains

Coming into being new and fresh,

Filled with divine goodness and love.

Every day, Creation is renewed: wake up and see.   

Rabbi Sheila Peltz Weinberg

(Kol Haneshamah: Shabbat VeHagim)

So my resolution for 2014 is, when I feel like I am ready to move on, to leave something behind, I’m not going to look for an upcoming transition - a year or even a day.  As the saying goes, “never put off until tomorrow what can wait until the next day.”  Oh, wait - that’s the procrastinator in me.  “Never put off until tomorrow what can be done right now.”  This breath, this moment - now is the time!

Wishing you and yours many blessings in the year to come, moment by moment and day by day.  Happy New Year!

Havdallah - Blessing of Separation

Most holidays have a beginning and a middle, but the end can be less clear.  I think of Thanksgiving - before the holiday there is all the planning (where and with whom) and cooking, and then there is a time when all that planning comes together for a meal.  But how does it end?  From the dinner table to the football game - moments of drifting away, hugs goodbye for those who have gathered?

I love the ritual of Havdallah - a ritual that marks the end of Shabbat and all major Jewish holidays with candle, wine, and spices.  The candle, with its multiple wicks, sheds more light than the single-wicked candles that begin holidays - brightening the dimness that is the transition from holy time to the everyday.  The spices often make me think of smelling salts, even as they also carry a sweetness forward into the week to come.

There is great value in recognizing changes - from season to season, from year to year, and major life transitions. My graduating class modified the Havdallah ritual for our transition from being rabbinical students to being rabbis.  It was a profound moment, and that ritual as much as the larger graduation ceremony, helped us (certainly me) to move from one place in life to another.

This past Saturday evening, as my family ushered in the new week with the Havdallah ritual, I felt again the larger value of marking transitions.  I was entering my first week after separating from my employer.  I could feel the difference - the inevitable losses and changes in relationships I had worked hard to build that are no longer necessary, the shift in myself to cultivating new and different relationships and doing different work.  As the candle burned and we sang the blessings, I reflected on these changes.  As the candle sizzled out in the wine at the end of the ritual, I felt a calm come over me. I was ready to move forward.

Many holidays are, in themselves, markers of transition - either in some obvious way like marking the new year, or in more subtle ways.  Indeed, any holiday can help us to mark change, as we go around the seasons.

Holidays and rituals that mark transitions help us to name the changes in our lives.  By naming, we give ourselves space to acknowledge and process changes, both privately and publicly.

We can bring meaning to the holidays through our own reflections: Where were we last Thanksgiving, or ten years ago?  Who have we spent this holiday with?  Who are we spending it with this year?  What does it mean for us?  If you, like me, are also celebrating Chanukah, ask the same questions about this Festival of Lights - and then ask how the convergence of these two holidays changes our experience of them.

Whatever holiday(s) you are celebrating this week and in the coming month, may you find whatever blessings you need - blessings of naming change, blessings of light and joy, blessings of gratitude.

Losing Our Religion?

[Note: This post predates the creation of this blog by a week - originally posted at www.cbict.org/yepblog, where I posted regularly during the last academic year.  I repost it here as it was the first in my return to blogging this year.]

Much ado is being made about a recent Pew survey suggesting that the number of those identifying as Jewish is dwindling, and that those who do identify as Jewish are not identifying religiously.

Judaism is a culture – and a religion.  Judaism is values and actions, it is rituals and community, and it is about our place in the Oneness of the universe.  Notice the word “and.”  Judaism is not one of these things, it is all of these things.

Torah – the Five Books of Moses – is filled with mitzvot, commandments.  The word mitzvah has been distilled in recent times to mean “good deed.”  But this is a simplification that neglects the values of the original words.  The Talmud, the “oral Torah” of the early rabbis, understands these commandments in a variety of ways.

One teaching says that all mitzvot are rules about relationship, either between one person and another or between a person and God.  Those things seen as the Jewish “religion” typically fall into the latter category, but in fact even those that are about interpersonal relationships are ultimately about God.  We are all made, according to Torah, “in the image of God,” and thus every encounter with another person is an encounter with a bit of godliness.  And ultimately it is through our relationships with each other that we come to know God.

An example: The mitzvah, “ve’ahavta lereyacha kamocha,” love your neighbor as yourself (Leviticus 19:18) – and the mitzvah, “ve’ahavta et Adonai Elohecha,” love your God (Deuteronomy 6:5).  The former is described by Hillel as “the whole of Judaism, all the rest is commentary,” while the latter is recited as part of the Shema in virtually every Jewish prayer service and at bedtime.  This is a commandment that encompasses emotion and experience, but also holds expectations for behavior.

Rituals help us focus.  The act of putting on a kippah (yarmulke – head covering) or a tallit (prayer shawl) or tefillin – all “commanded” through mitzvot, and all nearly unique to Judaism – can bring the prayers we are about to recite (which are not very unique) into a physical, tangible experience.  The actions and the order and timing of prayer, not the language in which the prayers are spoken nor the words themselves – this is Jewish religion.

We are commanded to remember the story of the Exodus.  The Passover seder is traditionally a family occasion, and is celebrated by more Jews than any other holiday, including people who have left the “religious” part of Judaism behind.  There are literally hundreds of different haggadot telling the story of coming to freedom – often in contemporary terms, and sometimes with no clear religious context.  The gathering in of family and friends, the sharing of a story, the reminder that we are not the first generation to struggle – this is Jewish religion and Jewish community.

The practice of mitzvot has necessarily evolved over the generations.  We no longer sacrifice in a Temple that no longer stands. Artistic variations of ritual garments and utensils (e.g. candlesticks) in every generation.  Judaism will continue to evolve.  But the ideas and rituals of Judaism are religious – whether or not an individual who identifies with Judaism identifies as religious.  So I would argue that we are not losing our religion, but rather continuing to change and shape our religion even as it shapes us.