Kol Tzedek
  • Spiritual Life
    • COVID Community Guidelines & Brit
    • Shabbat Links
    • Spiritual Care
    • Yahrzeits
    • Life Cycles
    • KT's Simcha Band
  • About
    • Purpose, Vision, & Priorities
    • Calendar
    • Staff
    • Community Resources
    • Black Lives Matter
    • Budget
    • Event Requests
    • Employment Opportunities
    • Contact Us
  • Membership
    • Become a Member
    • KT Community Brit
    • Get Involved
    • Member Login
    • Update Your Sustaining Share
  • Learning
    • Sha"tz Training Program
    • Torah School
    • Adult Learning
    • Members' Teachings
    • Rabbi's Blog
    • Rabbis' Sermons
    • The KT Library
  • Ways to Give
    • Donate
    • Sponsor an Oneg
    • Sponsor Captioning
    • Dedicate a Prayerbook
    • Friends of KT
    • 5783 L'chaim Campaign

Rabbi's Blog

an unrecognizable future

1/25/2019

 
This week we read Parashat Yitro, in which the Holy One reveals the Torah through Moses at Mt. Sinai. As you can imagine, many stories are told about this mythic moment, and even more about the nature of Torah itself. One of my favorite midrashim creates an unexpected portal in time.

Rabbi Yehudah taught in the name of Rav:

When Moses went up Mt. Sinai he saw the Holy Blessed One sitting and putting small crowns on the letters of Torah. Moses inquires: Why are you spending so much time doing this tedious work? To which the Holy Blessed One explains, in a future generation there will come a person by the name of Rabbi Akiva who will interpret each and every one of these crowns and create piles and piles of Jewish practices based on them. With a bit of incredulity, Moses demands that God reveal such a person. Wayne's World-style, The Holy One turns Moses around and he is all of a sudden sitting in the back row of Rabbi Akiva's Beit Midrash. Rabbi Akiva is teaching Torah but Moses doesn't recognize the teachings. Moses is very upset. And then at one point, a student asks Rabbi Akiva: "Teacher, how do you know it is so?" To which he replies: "It is halacha that was given to Moses at Mount Sinai." And Moses was comforted. (B.T. Menachot 29b)

Here the rabbis foreground their deep belief that Torah is expansive and ever-changing. And their insistence that there is a thread of continuity between that which Moses received at Mt. Sinai and that which we come to understand as the meaning of Torah in our time. This is what my teacher Rabbi Benay Lappe refers to as an unrecognizable future. We are inheritors of a tradition whose resilience is based on reinterpretation in every generation. The rabbis are saying, that is what The Holy One intended, which is why there are so many little beautiful details awaiting your meaning-making.

If any of you have ever studied a passage of Talmud, you will know that one of the first challenges is pronouncing any series of names that precedes many teachings. Often these attributions come as linguistic stumbling blocks and patriarchal reminders. And yet they also allow us to place ourselves in an ancient lineage.

​I like imagining Moses sitting in the Kol Tzedek Beit Midrash (newly catalogued!), utterly perplexed and also completely at home as we transmit Torah from Sinai, as we claim and reclaim our roots and our reasoning. If Rabbi Akiva represented an unrecognizable future for Moses, you can only imagine what we represent. Another Torah, another world, is not only possible, she is on her way.

Wishing you all a Shabbat Shalom!
Rabbi Ari Lev

Comments are closed.

    Rabbi's Blog
    ​

    You can search Rabbi Ari Lev's blog below:

    Author

    Rabbi Ari Lev Fornari brings Torat Hayyim, a living tradition, to Kol Tzedek through thoughts about prayer, justice, and community. 

    Archives

    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Office & Mailing Address: 707 S 50th St, Philadelphia, PA 19143 
 General Questions: (267) 702-6187 or info@kol-tzedek.org
Shabbat & Holiday Services: Calvary Center for Culture & Community, 801 S 48th St, Philadelphia PA 19143
  • Spiritual Life
    • COVID Community Guidelines & Brit
    • Shabbat Links
    • Spiritual Care
    • Yahrzeits
    • Life Cycles
    • KT's Simcha Band
  • About
    • Purpose, Vision, & Priorities
    • Calendar
    • Staff
    • Community Resources
    • Black Lives Matter
    • Budget
    • Event Requests
    • Employment Opportunities
    • Contact Us
  • Membership
    • Become a Member
    • KT Community Brit
    • Get Involved
    • Member Login
    • Update Your Sustaining Share
  • Learning
    • Sha"tz Training Program
    • Torah School
    • Adult Learning
    • Members' Teachings
    • Rabbi's Blog
    • Rabbis' Sermons
    • The KT Library
  • Ways to Give
    • Donate
    • Sponsor an Oneg
    • Sponsor Captioning
    • Dedicate a Prayerbook
    • Friends of KT
    • 5783 L'chaim Campaign