It's All Torah

Dear friends,

Sunday evening we will gather to celebrate Shavuot, the culminating event of our Kumah Festival. The events in Israel/Palestine can be seen as a shadow over the celebration, which they no doubt are, but they can also be seen as an enhancement of our task: to receive the Torah.

Torah is a thing of beauty, a piece of divinity, a crystalized gem of justice. It is also ugly, human and morally wrong. Accepting the Torah is accepting life itself with all its beauty, complexity and horror.

In the Brachot tractate of the Talmud we find the following comic story:

Rav Kahana entered and lay beneath his teacher, Rav’s bed. He heard Rav chatting and laughing with his wife and having relations with her. Rav Kahana said to Rav: Your mouth is like one who has never seen a cooked dish! (meaning your behavior is lustful) Rav said to him: Kahana, you are here? Get out of here! This is no way to behave. Rav Kahana said to him: It is Torah, and I must learn.

A similar story relates Rabbi Akiva following his teacher into the bathroom and observing the intricacies of his defecation practice, and then reporting to his students what he learned from it. When they challenge his impertinence, Akiva gives the same answer: It is Torah, and I must learn.

Torah is life, and life is not always pretty. Receiving the Torah is accepting the gift of life with everything that comes with it. Many Israelis will be doing it in bomb shelters. Palestinians in Gaza marked Eid Al Fitr yesterday in their homes, or in the rubble of what was their home. This is humanity, which points to the enormity of our task.

Our task lies in our ability to enter the truth of human reality, to see it, to know it, and from within that knowledge to transcend it. “Now that my eye has seen you,” says Job to God toward the end of the Book, “I am at ease with the human condition.” He could only accept God once he looked Him squarely in the eye. Then he was able to transcend.

Our gathering by the water on Sunday (6pm at Pier 45) will help us transcend. We will see one another in person after many long months (!). We will hear beautiful live music from three amazing musicians, Mike McGinnis, Frank London and Tripp Dudley. We will watch a dance performance by the incredible Davalois Fearon, who we met earlier in the festival. We will attach our fabric-prayers to Suzanne Tick’s vertical loom, and create our own Wailing Wall of art. And we will undress the Torah and sing with her sing her song of life.

Bring your kids, friends, and strips of fabric - this will be special.

I can’t wait to see you all in person on the pier.

Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Misha