Rabbi's Corner

We are Dan Ornstein and Rena Kieval, rabbis of Congregation Ohav Shalom in Albany, NY. Ohav is a fully egalitarian-traditional Conservative synagogue affiliated with the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. You'll be pleased to know that our three top priorities as rabbis of the congregation are: 1) helping individuals and families seeking a Jewish spiritual home to find it with us; 2) empowering people Jewishly with tools of Torah study, prayer, and Jewish knowledge; 3) giving all generations the opportunity to grow and feel comfortable as part of a caring and supportive Jewish religious community.

We look forward to hearing from you. Please feel free to contact Dan by e-mail or Rena ravrena@gmail.com . We are both here to serve your pastoral, spiritual, and overall Jewish needs and concerns. On the Rabbi's Corner page, please find recent sermons that we wrote.   Enjoy, and best wishes!

Rabbi Dan Ornstein and Rabbi Rena Kieval

Rabbi's Sermon

Adonai, Open My Lips ~~ Pathways into Prayer

by Rabbi Dan Ornstein and Rabbi Rena Kieval

              We are pleased to welcome you to worship with us on the High Holydays and throughout the year. We at Ohav Shalom are deeply committed to creating a sacred space for prayer that is meaningful and true to tradition, yet is also creative, accessible and non-threatening for as many people as possible. We strongly encourage participation in our davening at whatever level you are able and comfortable, but we do not require it. 

              Traditional Jewish worship is a communal experience.  As we pray together, we focus on the needs, joys and sorrows of the community, rather than merely on ourselves. We praise and petition God with one large collective voice that “storms the gates of heaven.”  Yet in Jewish prayer there are also moments of exquisite silence in which the deep hopes, dreams and concerns of individuals find their own quiet voices.  Jewish worship seeks to address both the community and the individual.  At Ohav Shalom, in all of our services we try to ensure that there are stretches of time that allow for quiet contemplation, as well as moments of “joyful noise” and song.

 

Gifts of Prayer

Through participation in formal Jewish prayer we may:

express wonder and gratitude at the miracles of God’s creation

raise our awareness of the ethical values of Judaism

strengthen our connection to God

strengthen our connection to the Jewish community and the entire Jewish people

discipline ourselves to recognize God’s ongoing presence in our lives

  

 Challenges / Struggles with Prayer

Our language and our liturgy have bound the Jewish people together for thousands of years by allowing us a common means to express our faith.  We recognize the importance of traditional Jewish worship, especially the use of our sacred language, Hebrew.  At the same time, we are sensitive to the frustrations that some people experience when they walk into a traditional service because they are unfamiliar with the forms of the service and/or with Hebrew.  In response, we offer the following suggestions for enhancing your own prayer experience and your comfort level in the synagogue:

 Create a structure for yourself: establish a regular attendance schedule that is manageable for you, and a routine for yourself at services, such as a regular area to sit in, people to sit near, and specific prayers to focus on.  Come as often and for as long as you feel comfortable.  Feel free to “start small” and build from there, but try to make your structure a regular one.

 Thinking about Prayer in General

Our relationships with Jewish prayer, as with all of Judaism, is not a static one.  As we mature spiritually, our experience of prayer changes and matures with us. There is no one “right way” that you should always feel at services. Be open to different responses you might have – a prayer that usually seems meaningless to you may suddenly draw you in, and vice versa.  At any given time, certain themes may resonate with you because of something that is happening in your life or in the larger community.   

              Consider the following questions which might be relevant to you:

  1. Why do I pray?  What do I pray for?  Can I pray if I’m not sure I believe in God?
  2. I was turned off to Judaism in my childhood.  How can I begin to explore my heritage anew as an adult? 
  3. Does the Bible have something of meaning to teach me?
  4. What are the principles and values by which I live?  Which of these have I learned from being Jewish?  What do I want to pass on to my children?
  5. When reciting the Sh’ma Yisrael, I affirm that there is only one God who is the ruler of the universe.  What does that mean?  Is this idea important for the way I live my life?
  6. When reciting the Amidah, I come directly before God.  What do I want to say? Does God hear my prayers? 
  7. How can I become a better person through prayer?

Thinking about a Particular Prayer

 Questions to consider to help understand a prayer:

What values and beliefs does this prayer express?

What did these words mean to the author of the prayer? Why was it written?

Do these words mean the same thing to me, or my contemporaries, as they did to the author(s)?

Is the author speaking as an individual, as a member of the Jewish community, or as a member of the world community? 

Would my life be different if I recited this prayer on a regular basis?

 Learning for a Lifetime

We encourage you to continue learning and exploring the richness of Jewish prayer.   To understand the siddur, the service and the depths of Jewish prayer, there is no substitute for attending services.  As you sit in the synagogue, the pages in the prayerbook and the rhythms of the service become familiar and more comfortable. Teaching and commentary are a part of every service and will also enhance your learning.  

Ohav Shalom and other area synagogues and Jewish institutions offer classes in Hebrew and in prayer literacy.  Take advantage of our extensive offerings in Adult Studies.  We can also recommend books that may assist you in your quest for learning.  

Ask questions.  Seek out the support and insights of people you meet at services and of the Ohav professional staff.   If you would like to explore any of these issues with us, please feel free to call at 489-4706.  Either of us can also be reached by reached by email: Rabbi Ornstein at Ohavrab@aol.com and Rabbi Kieval at Ravrena@gmail.com.  We are ready to speak with you and to assist you on your path.   

  

Home to Israel --- Rosh Hashanah 2006

              The thin, pure sound of a shofar pierced the Jerusalem evening.  The sun was beginning to set, and out the window the city glowed with its famous golden hues.  Then another shofar call rang out, this time from a different direction.  I picked up the shofar that lay on the table next to me and blew a loud blast towards the open window.   From a neighboring building, came the sound of yet another shofar.  For the next several minutes a group of anonymous Jews created a chaotic chorus of dueling shofarot.  

              I had this delightful “only in Israel” experience a few weeks ago, when  I visited Jerusalem for an unexpected whirlwind trip.   A trip to Israel is always an enormous spiritual and emotional high for me.  Usually, that high begins as soon as I check in at the airport in the U.S. and the reality sinks in that I am about to depart for Israel. I think of how for centuries my ancestors dreamed of reaching our homeland, of how even those who did get there, had to endure so much more than a one-day journey and relatively small monetary cost to reach their destination.  I cannot believe my good fortune to live in this era of air travel and in this time of Jewish sovereignty in a Jewish state. 

              I started out this trip with those same feelings  – but then I  warned myself: this trip would not be about the spiritual highs of visiting Israel. Rather, this trip would be about living the everyday business of life - helping my parents, who were facing a medical issue, with errands and household chores. I would have no opportunity to study, to see sights, or to just walk the streets and soak in the land; this would not be the kind of trip one might record in a journal, or, for that matter, speak about in a sermon.  

              Well – guess what? I was right, but I was wrong.  I was right because for that brief time in Israel I was occupied almost entirely with so-called “normal” tasks of life.  But I was wrong, because it turns out that in Israel, even the most routine moments can take on layers of meaning that reflect what makes Israel like no other place on earth.   

              Let me tell you about some of those moments. After landing at Ben Gurion airport, I entered a sherut – a shared taxi, driven by an Israeli Jew from Morocco.  Our small group of passengers was a microcosm of Israel – comprised of Jews whose native countries were: Israel,  the US, Persia, Russia, Morocco, England and Yemen.  Some were obviously religious, some were obviously secular, and others were somewhere in between.  Each Jew with a story, and ready to share it with a fellow Jew in the next seat.  Only minutes in the country, and I was already tasting the miracle of kibbutz galuyot – the ingathering of the exiles -that Israel represents; the dream of a haven and a home for all Jews. 

              Our little group had a chance to become well acquainted when a dispute over our fares for the ride to Jerusalem led to a stalemate and the driver refused to leave the airport.  Oy.  We sat in the parked van, debating and getting to know one another.  It was another “only in Israel” scenario: each Jew with an opinion, each with a need to take a stand; it felt positively Talmudic to me.  Or maybe, I thought, it was like a family spat, even though we were a group of virtual strangers.  Because in Israel, people all seem “familiar,” more like family than like strangers. 

              Finally, it appeared that our monetary dispute was about to be  resolved when an additional passenger appeared from the terminal;  her contribution should help cover the remaining cost of the cab.  But she too had a story – she pleaded with the driver: I just came all the way from Jerusalem to greet my sister at the airport, but I missed her. Now I have to turn around and go back.  This trip was a complete waste of money for me – do you think you could give me a break on the fare back home?   Oy. I wasn’t sure whether to chuckle or groan, as I waited for the next round of arguments and imagined sitting there for the rest of the week. To my happy surprise, our driver granted her a nice discount and we at last set out for Jerusalem.  Family members can be incredibly stubborn in an argument; sometimes family members are caring and flexible like no one else.   

              Members of the greater Jewish family still flock to Israel. Despite security threats, and the complexities of a democratic state absorbing populations from many different cultures, immigration continues.  From January – July 2006, an estimated 11,000 Jews from around the world made aliyah, became permanent citizens of Israel.   For some of them, Israel is a haven from persecution; for others it is a religious fulfillment; for still others, Israel  represents the address of choice to lead a meaningful Jewish life.  

              One of those immigrants, a young woman from our own congregation, Julia Garfinkel,  made aliyah the very week of my trip.   I was thrilled to be able to speak to her on the other side of her momentous journey and hear about her group’s arrival:  the planeload of new immigrants landed out on the tarmac, where they were welcomed with music, flowers and a festive gathering of friends, relatives, and government officials.  Israel marks the arrival of new immigrants as more than just moving a different country.  This is a welcome home reception – a piece of the fulfillment of a Jewish dream, to make Israel a home that gathers in all Jews, like a family.  

              Family members trust each other. When I realized at a store that I did not have the correct cash to pay for several bags of groceries, the shopkeeper did not even blink – no problem, he said, so you’ll come back later and give me the money.  Family members care what is happening to the people around them.  So it is still the case in Israel that when the hourly news comes on, bus drivers and merchants turn on their radios full-blast, and all conversation stops while people listen.  Afterwards, whether or not they know each other, the listeners are likely to break into a discussion of what they have just heard - everyone has an opinion.  People argue, and sometimes drive each other crazy, as family members do, but they are also staunchly loyal to one another, and will protect each other even at peril of their lives.       

              Israelis are proud that they live “normal” lives no matter what is going on; but their “normal” is not quite ours. My own family had recently  provided me with a stark example of how “normal” concerns and matters of ultimate significance coexist in Israel.  This past summer, two members of my family were in the hospital at the same time: my mother, for a medical procedure that was serious, but not  unusual for a woman her age.  At the same time, my 25-yr-old cousin Gidon was in the hospital, for several weeks in critical condition, after lying in a coma and undergoing several surgeries.   Gidon was severely wounded while serving in Lebanon.  He is slowly recovering now.   

              In Israel, soldiers are no more anonymous than civilians – my cousin described to me how everyone in her town froze in fear when the army car arrived to report that her son had been wounded.  Israelis feel every one of these hurts personally, like family, and people throughout the country know the names and stories of soldiers who have been killed or wounded. Israel cares for its families like family, too – when Gidon was wounded, his brother, also serving in Lebanon, was immediately discharged from duty, so there would be no additional trauma to the family.    

              My cousins fight bravely -  like most Israeli young people - even when they don’t like the government’s policies, even when at worst they are risking life and limb, or when at best, they must put their young lives on hold.  They articulate clearly that they do this for the sake of a dream – for a Jewish state that can live in security and – ultimately – in peace.

              Israel is a complicated but wonderful family, and that is one reason that when we go there, many of us feel that we are home.  Another reason, of course, is the history that surrounds us there – our ancient roots, still evident everywhere, and our hopes for the future.  But something else makes Israel Jewish.  What could be more Jewish than a passionate commitment to life?  L’chaim, we say when we  toast – to life!  And --- u’vacharta b’chayim – choose life. That is Jewish. Everywhere in Israel, one encounters a profound respect for life.  For the lives of its soldiers, for example.  Did you know that Israeli soldiers are accompanied directly into combat areas by doctors, who risk their lives so that the wounded can be treated on the spot?  Gidon’s family feels certain that his life was saved by the ambutank in which he was treated instantly as it carried him away from the combat area. An ambutank is a tank which carries no weapons, only medical equipment and personnel, and the wounded.   

              Choose life! At Hadassah hospital, I witnessed a modern hospital busily providing state-of-the-art health care. Did you know that a large number of the patients at Hadassah, and several of the doctors, are Arabs?  I could not help thinking of the contrast: Hizbollah used their own people as human shields in hospitals, schools and other non-military locations.  Meanwhile, Israelis were diligently giving life and care to all who need it, even to potential enemies. This is a Jewish state.  

              Despite suicide bombers, despite Hizbollah, despite threats of annihilation from Iran, and despite a world that rarely has a good word to say for it, Israel’s commitment to life and to morality is strong. That commitment is not only about war. Did you know that tiny Israel is a world leader in disaster relief? When a devastating earthquake hit India several years ago, an Israeli team was among the first to arrive there to help out.  The Israelis expertly constructed a mobile hospital in which they and medical relief teams from other countries saved countless Indian lives. 

Israel has made strategic and moral mistakes.  But out of its respect for the sanctity of all human life, Israelis struggle endlessly with the moral dilemmas brought on by her security issues. Some of us bristle about the way the nations of the world hold Israel to a higher moral standard than other countries – but in Israel one does not hear that frustration expressed.  If you read the Israeli press, you know that Israelis are the first to hold themselves and their government to the highest of moral standards.  We should be proud that it was our Jewish country that dropped leaflets ahead of time attempting to give the Lebanese time to evacuate.

              Our tradition describes two images of Jerusalem: shel matah, earthly Jerusalem, a spot that is human and imperfect; and shel malah – the heavenly city, which is imagined poetically as God’s chief residence. A beautiful psalm expresses a yearning for the time when these two Jerusalems will be joined together. One tradition says that the heavenly Jerusalem could be perfect since it is God’s realm. But God chooses to stay connected with us, so instead of being divinely perfect, God's Yerushalayim is filled with brokenness and pain, corresponding to the earthly Jerusalem. God moves the heavenly realm towards greater perfection only as humans move the earthly place towards wholeness. 

              Perhaps, however, the two Jerusalems are not so separate. The modern state of Israel is not perfect. But in a mere six days I experienced there an earthly place which I believe contains more than a little of that Yerushalayim shel ma’alah, in the way that it dreams, in the way that it pulses with life, in the way that it struggles with ultimate issues, and in its commitment to the sanctity of life. If the Jewish spiritual path is to connect everything we do with the sacred, to bring the holy into everyday life, then the state of Israel and its citizens, whether they practice formal religion or not, are quintessentially Jewish.  

              Rosh Hashanah is called Yom Ha-Zikaron – the day of Remembrance; and in a few moments, during the musaf amidah, we will recite the Zichronot, in which we ask God to remember us and God’s longstanding relationship with us.  But relationships work both ways - it’s not only God who has to remember– we too need to remember.  As the new year begins, we can each remember who we are by actively connecting with our Jewish country.  Israel needs our support, and we need Israel for our own health as a people and as individuals.   Some suggestions:     

Learn to read or speak Hebrew.  Modern Hebrew is one of the best examples of bringing together the earthly and the heavenly, as the ancient Hebrew of the Torah, our sacred tongue, is used to constantly and creatively update the language, to keep it rich and alive and normal – so that in Israel, for example, based on an ancient Hebrew word, a cell phone is cleverly called a “pele-phone” a wonder phone.

              Subscribe to a periodical that will keep you connected to Israel – I highly recommend the Jerusalem Report, a magazine with intelligent reporting about current events, culture, and all aspects of life in Israel told from differing perspectives.  

              Become an advocate for Israel through political and social action groups, or simply by teaching and explanation with friends and co-workers.  

              Connect by investing through your wallet - support Israel financially. As Israel  recovers from the destruction in the north – of homes, of forests, of businesses, there are many families who need assistance.  Buy Israel Bonds; and donate through UJF, Magen David Adom, Hadassah, or the worthy organization of your choice, many of which have set up emergency funds in recent months.  

              Finally, every Jew who is able owes it to him or herself to walk in that unique place that is a Jewish country, and to know how it feels to really come home.  Walk in the land where streets are named for famous sages of the Talmud as well as for great Zionist leaders.  Where telephone rates go down on Friday afternoons so people can call and wish one another Shabbat Shalom. Plan your next visit to a Jewish state that against all odds is teeming with energy, with “normal” life, and with hope for the future. 

              As we listen today to the blasts of the shofar, imagine being in the city where it is “normal” for Jews to loudly practice their shofar skills at summer's end.  And, imagine too that the sound of a shofar piercing the air in Jerusalem is the announcement that our tradition imagines it to be – the announcement of a world that is shalem – whole, and filled with sounds of music, celebration and praise.  Kein yehi ratzon – may it someday be so. 

                                                

 

Our Numbered  Days  --- Rabbi Rena H. Kieval

this sermon was delivered by on Kol Nidre night , 2006

“Like sands through the hourglass of time, so are the days of our lives….”  The screen fills with the image of an hourglass, and we watch as the sand rushes through from top to bottom. The rhythm of the soundtrack (bum-ba-bum-ba) warns us that the clock is ticking.  

In this opening to the long-running TV soap opera, “Days of our Lives,” the image reminds us in this ominous, and slightly silly, way that each of us has been allotted a finite number of those grains of sand, and as the days pass, they run out.   None of us could argue with that truth, or truism, but it does not tell the whole story.  The TV image presents life as an expendable resource which gets used up as we live it.  Jewish teaching agrees that our lives are finite, but Judaism teaches that life can also grow richer and deeper as the days pass.  As we live it, life gets less, but also… more.

Major events in our lives direct us to focus on these weighty matters – a rite of passage like a birthday; illness, the death of a loved one, or of someone our own age.   Two days ago I celebrated a birthday - my 53rd..  (And by the way, Congregation Ohav Shalom, I think I am correct in noting that for the first time in at least 30 years, probably longer, one of our congregation’s rabbis is eligible for membership in AARP!)  Two days from now, I will go through another rite of passage - as Shalom and I send our son Daniel off to Israel for his first year of college, and we graduate to that stage of life currently known as “empty nesters.”  So, these matters are especially on my mind right now. 

But we don’t need a personal milestone to encourage us to take stock. In this holy season, the calendar asks us to look with stark honesty at ourselves, at our priorities and our relationships, at our fears and at our hopes, at what we do with our passing days. The prayers of Yom Kippur recognize that when we look to the future, we wonder – what lies in store for us in our later years. So in these prayers we cry out to God : al tashlicheinu l’eit ziknah!   Don’t cast us out – like the sins we cast out in tashlich – don’t cast us aside in our old age!  

We ALL say this on Yom Kippur, no matter our present age. Because the truth is that aging is a life-long experience, it is not just something we do after 50, or after 65, 70, 85, or at whatever point we think represents old age.  Of course, at certain times concerns about aging are more immediate than at others, but chances are that right now almost everyone in this room is in some way confronting issues of aging, either our own, or that of someone we are close to.   And no matter how old we are, how we look at aging reflects something deeper: it reflects how we perceive life and how we find meaning in it.  Is meaning in life determined by our work, or our waist size; by our relationships, by our spiritual perspective, by the “stuff” we accumulate, or by certain societal ideas of success? Our answers to these questions determine how we experience the passing of the days of our lives.

              What messages does our culture deliver about meaning?  In 21st century American culture, people are highly rewarded for two things: being attractive and being productive; and -- despite all the lip service to “50 is the new 30” or “70 is the new 50” or however the current numbers go, both attractiveness and productivity are equated with youth. Thus, loss of particular physical attributes, or retirement  from the workplace, present big challenges in a society where appearance and incomes are strong markers of  personal worth.  

There are counter-voices even in American culture. Some of us are familiar with the Red Hat Society, through which groups of older women  gather in red hats and purple dresses to enjoy the freedom from conformity that comes with getting older, and to celebrate just being themselves.  

On a more serious note, as our population ages, an increasing number of books and studies seek to highlight the perks of getting older. In one excellent example, the book “Necessary Losses,” Judith Viorst describes the gifts of aging, among them the blessing of perspective.  She quotes one writer: “Old age is like climbing a mountain.  As I climb higher, I get more and more tired and more and more out of breath. And as I climb higher, the view around me gets more and more spectacular.” 

Having perspective can make us more patient, more forgiving, more understanding.  Patient, forgiving, understanding. Think about it: on Yom Kippur, aren’t those precisely the qualities we try to elicit from God, God who is old beyond any human concept of old, and who therefore has Perspective with a capital P? Patience, forgiveness and understanding.

              It is no secret that with increased age come difficult losses – loss of physical abilities and strengths, loss of loved ones, and sometimes, loss of independence or of mental abilities.  We all know that, yet our culture tends to treat aging as a deep dark secret - botox, nips and tucks, firming exercises and lying about our birthdays  are all supposed to hide the truth- as though the signs of age won’t be felt by every one of us who lives long enough! 

As we get older in the 21st century, we face extra obstacles because of the fast pace of technological development that permeates so much of our lives.  I was so proud  - as a middle-aged and non-techy kind of  person - when I knew I had mastered this technology.  I learned to use email and voice mail. I could program a VCR, and even download and upload data on ... floppy discs!  Oops! I had hardly begun to feel proud of myself when many of those skills were obsolete. Now I am faced with DVD’s, DVR's, flash drives, MP3’s, blogs and text-messaging, and next year there will be a new set of terms and technologies! It is easy to feel left behind and excluded when the tools of communication are changing so quickly. Think about how a relatively simple, yet essential, communication tool, the telephone, has been completely transformed in the past few decades.  Our basic necessities are changing at a whirlwind pace; for those who are slowing down mentally and physically, keeping up can be even more difficult. 

Our culture does not like to look honestly at aging; it is easier to treat older people as another species, rather than to see all of us as the same species who are at different points along the age continuum.  Jewish tradition, in contrast, is bluntly honest about aging, as it usually is about the complexities of real life.  In the Bible we see heroes aging – we see our patriarch Isaac, blind and bedridden in his old age.  The once vital King David loses both his political and his physical strength in old age – the Bible describes how he is chilled to the bone and cannot get warm no matter how many blankets are piled upon him. The Talmud tells us of Honi ha-Maagel - a Jewish folk character. Once, the story goes, Honi fell asleep for 70 years, like a Jewish Rip Van Winkle.  When he awoke, his loved ones had all died, and nobody alive remembered him. His loneliness was unbearable, and he cried out memorably: chevruta oh mitutah! Fellowship or death!

Our sages were sensitive to the issues of aging, some of which apparently never change, as we hear when one older rabbi in the Talmud complains: When we were young, they kept telling us to behave like adults.  Now we are full-grown adults, and they treat us like babies.  (Bava Kamma 92b)

More often, though, Jewish tradition presents a very different picture of aging: a more famous story about that same Honi, for example, tells of a man who meets the very aged Honi planting  trees. How old are you? the man asks him. One hundred years old, Honi answers. The man laughs: You fool, do you actually imagine that you will live to eat the fruits of these trees? Honi responds that he

knows he will never see fruit from the trees.  But he is content and fulfilled by the knowledge that, as he says, “just as previous generations prepared the world for me, I am preparing it for the generations to follow.”    

In the Torah, age is a sign of spiritual strength and power – after all, our “founding father and mother” - Abraham and Sarah - began their journey with God as an older couple, already with long experience of life.  Long life is seen as a reward, a gift, not a burden or something to be endured.  In Jewish tradition, age and wisdom are synonymous - the word zaken is used for both. That presumes that even in our older years, we find value in life.  Still, an older person is to be respected just by virtue of his or her years, wise or not.  Even one who has lost his mental faculties is to be respected, says the Talmud; he is like an aron kodesh - a holy ark. Like an aron kodesh, a person is a container of holiness, whether or not Torah is still in him. 

There is no concept in Jewish tradition of older people becoming obsolete.  While, as you know, the obligation to perform mitzvot has a starting age – bar or bat mitzvah – there is no “retirement age” for mitzvot.  You have to be old enough – but not “young enough” to count in a minyan. One of the beauties of a shul community is that it is not homogeneous or age–determined. In many of our other social networks, we interact mostly with people in our same stage of life:  with other parents of school-age kids, for example, or with other residents of the senior community.  Not so a religious community.

Since today is Yom Kippur, I have to say, though, that I am not sure that we at Ohav Shalom have succeeded in creating enough opportunities for different generations to mix and experience what we all have to offer one another, and I am sorry. Perhaps we contemporary Jews have been so concerned – maybe obsessed - with fears about continuity and the need to keep young people connected, that we have tended to neglect our older ones. American Jews are sometimes guilty of practicing what is called “pediatric Judaism.”  But Judaism is not only for children and their parents, it can enrich all of us throughout our lives. And our community needs all our members, of every age.  I invite you, and I know I speak for Rabbi Ornstein and the rest of our leadership when I invite you to share with us your ideas about how Ohav could better serve all age groups.

We all know the mitzvah of honoring one's parents, the 5th commandment, kibbud av va'em.  The Torah has another mitzvah explicitly about older people: the Torah tells us: mip-nei sei-vah ta-kum, v’hadarta pnei za-ken.  The first part – “stand with respect before an older person” is, by the way, posted on the buses in Israel, where respect for elders is still consciously taught.

The second part (“v’hadarta”) is usually translated "revere the elderly,"  or “show deference to the elderly.”   But contemporary activist Danny Siegel points out that literally hiddur pnei zaken means l’hader,  to make beautiful, the faces of older people.  How does one

do that, Siegel asks?  By allowing older people to shine.  We can help people's faces shine with beauty when they experience respect and caring. And as we age, it is our task – and our opportunity – to use the later stages of life to let what is real shine through and beautify our own faces. 

Sociologists speak about later age as a time to use our life experience and wisdom to transcend the physical, and to deepen our spiritual, emotional and intellectual well-being.  Alice Shalvi, the brilliant Israeli educator and activist now in her 70's, recently wrote -  “What I have lost in longevity, I have redeemed by profundity. Compelled by failing physical strength, I sit more, recline more, rest more frequently. But in those moments of physical non-action and bodily passivity, the spirit can soar if I unleash it from everyday concerns. As I close my eyes to meditate and fold my hands in my lap in the traditional gesture of supplication, my thoughts and words reach up to God, Whose grace is always with me.”

Judaism teaches us to sanctify time, to see the blessing in each moment. The fact that we have less time remaining doesn’t mean that the moments are less or that we are less.  One mystical scholar suggests that old age can be the Shabbat of our life.  Shabbat,  when we can slow down, stop focusing on creating material things, and instead treasure each moment as sacred and precious, precisely because it is finite. Precisely because it is finite, it can connect us to infinity, to the eternal.  

These are some of the lessons of mortality and of aging – but in Judaism, these lessons should be part of everyday life for all of us, healthy or ill, at any age.  In Judaism, life has intrinsic worth and value.  Maybe that is why it is sometimes said that a society can be judged by how it treats its elderly.  Not only because we are mandated to care for the elderly as for any potentially vulnerable members of society, but also because our attitudes towards aging are directly related to our attitudes towards all of life.  

Each day that we live, less time remains, but each day we have more. Those grains of sand on the top of the hourglass are running out, but look at the bottom! The bottom of the hourglass keeps filling with the accumulated treasures of our passing days: wisdom, people we love, understanding, joy and peace.

The days of our lives are numbered.  When we plead with God “al tashlicheinu,” don’t cast us off in our later years, we acknowledge that many of the hardships and the blessings we will face are out of our control, they are in God’s hands.  But how we respond to those hardships and blessings is in our hands. So in another psalm we ask God to be our guide and teacher.  We say, teach us to number our days, teach us to make each day count, so that we may get for ourselves a heart of wisdom.     

  Highly rewarded

 

 

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Congregation Ohav Shalom, Conservative/Egalitarian Synagogue in Albany, NY
 
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113 New Krumkill Road
Albany, NY 12208

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info@ohavshalom.com