Vayeilech

I said this at the streaming service on September 11 2021, on Shabbat Shuva

'Hello everyone. Shabbat shalom. One way or another, it’s lovely to be here again…
Today we read parashat Veyeilech.
In it, we read that Moses tells the people of Israel everything they need to know as they take their next step in their Jewish Journey into the promised land.
He tells them:
Be strong and brave and don’t be afraid of what’s ahead חִזְק֣וּ וְאִמְצ֔וּ אַל־תִּֽירְא֥וּ וְאַל־תַּעַרְצ֖וּ
Then Moses writes down the Torah and he tells the priests to put it besides the Ark of the Covenant. Moses dies confident in the knowledge that his successor is in place and that his Sefer Torah is safely available for future reference.

Cutting forward 1000s of years, in the aftermath of the destruction of the second Temple, Rabbi Akiva and the sages radically reinterpret Moses’s Torah and replace Temple Judaism with Talmudic Judaism, which is where we are today.
The sages of the Talmud are aware that they had changed so much about the Torah and how Judaism is practised, that they imagine that Moses himself wouldn’t recognise it.

There is a profound story in the Talmud about this realisation. In b.Menachot 29b, God gives Moses the opportunity to sit at the back of Rabbi Akiva’s classroom and Moses doesn’t understand what they are talking about.
Moses doesn’t understand God’s decisions either. Twice he asks God why and twice God tells him in no uncertain terms to Be quiet, this is the plan that came up in my thoughts.
שתוק כך עלה במחשבה לפני
In other words, no one can know or control what happens, not even Moses.

That’s what we’ve learned in the time of Corona.

We live in an age of powerful technology, and the Torah is hosted on the fantastic website Sefaria, where our entire tradition is available to us in an instant. And we have streaming services that lets me talk to you now. We live in an age of science where eight new vaccines were developed in one year to protect us, with more on the way.

But with all the knowledge available to us, we also live in an age of uncertainty, where we don’t know where the next terror attack, plague, fire or flood is coming from. Twenty years ago, who would have thought that 3,000 people would die, out of the blue, on a sunny Tuesday morning. Who would have thought a global pandemic would stop me hugging my children for a year.

The only thing that is certain is that change is coming, in ways that we can’t know now. The future isn’t ours to see, as the lovely song goes. But it’s not que cera cera, in Judaism. Our tradition is do good things, do teshuva and do mitzvot.

We are always trying to tilt the arc towards Justice as Martin Luther King said: ‘We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.’
Or as Maimonides says on Repentance:
‘If a person does just one mitzvah, he will overbalance himself and the whole world to the side of virtue, where he brings about his own and everyone’s salvation and deliverance.’

We aren’t just victims in the face of the whims of an unknowable God. We can do good things, regardless of a specific outcome.

When things don’t go our way despite our best efforts, we have to allow ourselves to be completely re-invented to the extent that the future form might barely resemble the current iteration. And that it will be ok like that. It will be ok like that.

Moses himself didn’t recognize the changes that were made to his laws, but he had the wisdom to leave us the operating system. He wrote down and placed his Sefer Torah in the Ark of the Convenant for us to re-interpret and live by generations later.
Including these words from today’s parasha…
חִזְק֣וּ וְאִמְצ֔וּ אַל־תִּֽירְא֥וּ וְאַל־תַּעַרְצ֖וּ
Be strong and brave and don’t be afraid of what’s ahead…
As it says in the last line of Adon Olam
וְעִם רוּחִי גְּוִיָּתִי, יְהֹוָה לִי וְלֹא אִירָא:
And with my spirit and my body God is with me, I won’t be afraid

Summary of Mattot Massei

I said this on Zoom Shabbat 2020

This is a very short summary of this week’s Torah Portion Mattot -Mase’ei.

Here is some context. It comes right at the end of the Book of Bamidbar, just before we start the Book of Devarim. It’s the end of one thing and just before the beginning of another. Its takes us right to the edge of the journey from the forty years in the desert to the next stage in our adventure in the promised land. You could title this combined parashah of Mase’ei Mattot: ‘we’ve come a long, long way together, through the hard times, and the good’

It starts with some ground rules, concerning with vows and oaths. If married women make vows, their husbands can annul them and if young girls make vows their fathers can annul them. But the good news is that vows of widows and divorced women hold. It says: “whatever she has imposed on herself, shall be binding on her too”

But before you get too excited about that, it goes rapidly downhill.
Moses makes an awful demand on his officers in his military campaign against the Midianites. He insists they kill all the women and children except for the virgins. Moses distributes the booty to the tribes including the cattle, the asses and the people who are virgins. I’m just going to leave that there.

The rest of Mattot discusses the very interesting story of the tribes of Reuven and Gad who don’t want to cross over to the Promised land. They don’t want to move across the Jordan with the other tribes. They like it where they are, thank you very much. Moses is furious.

He says: “Now you are a breed of sinful men, have replaced your fathers, to add still further to God’s wrath against Israel. If you turn away from Him and he abandons them once more in the wilderness, you will bring calamity on all this people”

But they come to an agreement. Moses makes them an offer they can’t refuse. Moses says: If you do this and agree to join the battle with the other against the Amorites and other local tribes, you can stay where you are in the land across Jordan. He says, if you don’t do this, know that your sin will overtake you. The last Parashah, Mase’ei, starts with a recap of the 42 steps and encampments that made up our long, long journey from Egypt to where we are now in our story. So, as we go forward, we look back at where we’ve come from.

Then God gives Moses further instructions to give to the people before they go into the land of Canaan. He says, destroy their Gods, and dispossess all the inhabitants of their land because if you don’t, they will be stings in your eyes and thorns in your side. God then defines very clearly the boundaries of the land of Israel. North, South, East and West. Having sanctioned bloodshed in war, God then goes on to forbid it very strongly and with lots of detail for the next 28 verses. This is more like it. There is a distinction made between unintentional murder and deliberate murder, with very different penalties. Unintentional murderers should flee to cities of refuge (Arei Miklat) where they should stay until the death of the High Priest. This is because we don’t want more blood spilled by avenging relatives. Straight-out murderers on the other hand, face the death penalty after a proper trial with more than one witness.

God says: “you shall not pollute the land in which you live; for blood pollutes the land.” “You shall not defile the land in which you live, in which I myself abide, for I the Lord abide among the Israelite people”

וְלֹ֧א תְטַמֵּ֣א אֶת־הָאָ֗רֶץ אֲשֶׁ֤ר אַתֶּם֙ יֽשְׁבִ֣ים בָּ֔הּ אֲשֶׁ֥ר אֲנִ֖י שֹׁכֵ֣ן בְּתוֹכָ֑הּ כִּ֚י אֲנִ֣י יְהֹוָ֔ה שֹׁכֵ֕ן בְּת֖וֹךְ בְּנֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵֽל:

The very last law discussed in the very last chapter that takes us out of the desert is once again about women. It says that the daughters of Zelophehad can marry whomever they like but it must be within their tribe if they want to inherit their father’s estate. It names them. They are: Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Noah.

The parashah ends with: “These are the commandments and the ordinances that the Lord commanded the children of Israel through Moses in the plains of Moab, by the Jordan at Jericho” אֵ֣לֶּה הַמִּצְו‍ֹ֞ת וְהַמִּשְׁפָּטִ֗ים אֲשֶׁ֨ר צִוָּ֧ה יְהֹוָ֛ה בְּיַד־משֶׁ֖ה אֶל־בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל בְּעַרְבֹ֣ת מוֹאָ֔ב עַ֖ל יַרְדֵּ֥ן יְרֵחֽוֹ

As President Josiah Bartlet once said: “What’s Next?”

Pinchas,

Pinchas, today’s Parasha, is one of three places in the Torah that describes Yom Kippur. It is described twice in Leviticus In Emor and Aharai Mot and once here in Numbers.

They all describe Yom Kippur as a day of self -affliction. Emor has most of the details about the day as a whole. Aharai Mot makes clear the punishment for not doing the self-affliction. PInchas contains the shortest description of the day.

Emor and Aharai Mot’s descriptions are close together, both being in Leviticus. The Pinchas Yom Kippur description is much further along in Numbers. This is what it says in today’s Parasha: “On the tenth day of the same seventh month, you shall observe a sacred occasion when you shall practice self-denial. You shall do no work. וּבֶעָשׂוֹר֩ לַחֹ֨דֶשׁ הַשְּׁבִיעִ֜י הַזֶּ֗ה מִֽקְרָא־קֹ֙דֶשׁ֙ יִהְיֶ֣ה לָכֶ֔ם וְעִנִּיתֶ֖ם אֶת־נַפְשֹׁתֵיכֶ֑ם כׇּל־מְלָאכָ֖ה לֹ֥א תַעֲשֽׂוּ׃

According to the Mishhnah, all three sources are read on Yom Kippur in the Temple by the High Priest. The Mishnah vividly describes the drama of the day… --- Enter stage left the synagogue attendant or the Hazzan He takes the Torah scroll and passes it along to the Head of the synagogue, And then he passes it to the deputy high priest who then gives it to the high priest. It’s a biblical pass the parcel. The high priest stands, takes the scroll and reads the two Leviticus sources to all the assembled people. The sources are close together so there isn’t too much rolling involved. Then he rolls up the Torah completely. He hugs the closed scroll to his chest and says, “More than I have read before you, is written here!” And then off by heart, he says the Torah portion about Yom Kippur that we read today. There’s no reading at that stage, just off by heart reciting. It’s not too long, so the High Priest is not required to have a great memory.

It’s almost as if the ritual in the temple is being given significance by demonstrating that it is all anchored in the Torah. It’s the words describing the actions of the day. Once the actions are no longer possible, once the Temple is no longer in business, the words are all we have left. The words and the story are what remains. But the story continues…

The Mishnah’s description of reading the parts of the Torah about Yom Kippur in the Temple on Yom Kippur is passed along and passed along to the later generations of rabbis of the Gemara.

They wonder about why the High Priest has to say the last source, our Pinchas source today off by heart, without reading it from the scroll. They have a few theories but don’t come to a conclusion. They worry that it will look like there’s a mistake in the Torah script. They wonder if it’s because of wasted blessings. They wonder if it’s a more practical reason which is that it will take longer to roll the scroll to the correct place and that the waiting for them to find the right place will be an afront to the assembled congregation. (We’ve seen it happen a few times at Assif. I can tell you it’s not the end of the world)

The Talmud ends the discussion with a lovely story ….it says after the High Priest concludes his reading, each and every person present brings a Torah scroll from his house and reads from it for himself in order to show its appearance to the community.

By the time the Torah scroll reaches us today, we have interpreted some of the meaning of the text out of existence. In some places, we’ve defined things more clearly like the biblical law of self-affliction on Yom Kippur becomes the Mishnah’s laws of don’t eat or drink, wear shoes, wash, use lotions or have sex. Sacrifices and Temple practise are long gone. The Zealotry of Pinchas has been rejected by the Sages of Talmud. As Rabbinic Jews, we’ve changed the Torah’s literal meaning in many places with an army of legitimate interpretative devices and yet it still remains our beloved and holy Torah.

We still stand today like the High Priest, clutching the Torah scroll as tightly as ever, two thousand years later. We still show the words of the Torah to the assembled congregation and we sing: Vzot haTorah asher sam Moshe lifnei b’nei Yisrael

This is the Torah that God gave to Moses who gave it to the Israelites.

This is the Torah that the High Priest received from his deputy who received it from the shul president who received it from the shul attendant.

This is the Torah we bring from our houses, making it our own.

This is the Torah powered by our love to transcend the literal, to hold a multiplicity of shared meaning.

Zot HaTorah. ---

Emor

The Parasha today outlines the details the Jewish Calendar. It describes Shabbat, Pesach, Rosh Hashana, Shavuot, Sukkot and the counting of the Omer. These are all recognizable occasions that add shape to the Jewish year. It’s amazing to me that there it is written in the Torah and it is also in my brain and my body. The Torah portion today describes the foundations of how my days, my weeks and my year takes shape. I eat matzah on Pesach or I fast on Yom Kippur or I light candles on Friday night. We are the people who do these things. We’ve been doing these things for thousands of years. They call us Jews. But things move on and there are now festivals that aren’t mentioned in the bible. Like Lag Ba Omer which is only mentioned in the 12th century. The earliest reference to Lag Ba Omer is by Isaac ben Dorbolo (12th century, northern France), so it’s quite a modern innovation. As a child, I have vague memories of lag ba omer, spent climbing on the mountain where we lived. We melted marshmallows over a fire, and we made bows and arrows. But that was in South Africa in the 60’s, and lag ba omer is not part of my calendar anymore. In Israel, for many Charedi Jews, Lag B'Omer has become a day of pilgrimage to the tomb of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochei in the Galilee town of Meiron. Apparently, they visit Meiron in their thousands where they dance, pray and celebrate Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochei who revealed the secrets of the Zohar, the book of the kabbalah. Yesterday, there was a stampede in Meiron, and 45 men and boys died there while trying to emerge from the Marquee where they were celebrating. Although I am not like the people who were there, I am in mourning for the part of my family that was. Being a woman, it wasn’t my party, and being a Litvak from South Africa, I’m not a follower of kabbalah, but I do love the story of Shimon Bar Yochei from the Talmud. This is it: Rabbi Shimon and his son were hiding from the Romans. They went and they hid in a cave. A miracle occurred and a carob tree was created for them as well as a spring of water. They would remove their clothes and sit covered in sand up to their necks. They would study Torah all day in that manner. At the time of prayer, they would dress, cover themselves, and pray, and they would again remove their clothes afterward so that they would not become tattered. They sat in the cave for twelve years. Then they emerged from the cave and saw ordinary people who were plowing and sowing. Rabbi Shimon bar Yoḥai said: These people abandon eternal life of Torah study and engage in temporal life for their own sustenance. The Gemara says that every person to whom Rabbi Shimon and his son directed their eyes was immediately burned. A Divine Voice said to them: Did you emerge from the cave in order to destroy My world? Return to your cave. They again went and sat there in the cave for another twelve months. This time the father had learned his lesson. Although the son had not. Everywhere that the son would burn with his judgy fiery laser beam stare, the father would heal. I love this story because says we can’t live in a cave forever. We need to leave it at some stage and start engaging in the real world with all its imperfections. But it also describes a situation where not everyone is up to that generosity of spirit. The father can, but the son cannot, but that’s the real world too. And for those of us that can, our job for ever and ever will be to heal the damage done by those who cannot show that generosity of spirit.

Sukkot 2020

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We read today in Leviticus 23 ‘you shall live in booths, seven days; all citizens in Israel shall live in booths, in order than future generations may know that I made the Israelite people live in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God’

And so, it was that thousands and thousands of years later, far away in Cape Town, my parents enacted this ritual for us where we built and decorated our Sukkah and ate some of our meals there.

It was a radical exercise in imagination so that my brother, sister and I would know what God did for us when we left Egypt. 

Our Sukkah had a view of the Atlantic ocean in front of it, and by day we could see the blue sky through the Schach.  My parents attached bedsheets to a wooden gazebo, and we decorated it with drawings and cards, and we hung fruit from the beams above. It was fun.  My grandparents came for supper and we invited our friends to eat with us too. In old photos, I can see we are wearing jumpers and coats, so it clearly wasn’t peak summer, but October in Cape Town is generally dry and not too cold.

It seems like a very different experience sitting in the Sukkah in the Northern hemisphere. For one thing, it’s often raining this time of the year.

It’s amazing to me that the main mood of Sukkot is halachically mandated as joy.  We’ve just come out of Yom Kippur where we deprive ourselves, do a lot of chest thumping about how much we need to improve our ways; and this is what I usually associate with Jewish moods. Joy, not so much.

But in fact, joy is what is required on Sukkot.

Rambam, or Maimonides, born in 1135 in Córdoba in Southern Spain writes in his great halachic code, the Mishnah Torah: ‘During Sukkot one is obligated to be joyful and of good heart, he, his children, his wife, the members of his household and all who accompany him…

Rambam goes on to say that all of those people should have joy in their own way.

Kol echad keraooy lo.

He gives some examples of what this means. He says the children should get yummy snacks. The woman should be given pretty dresses and jewellery. Men should eat meat and wine. So far, so good.  

But then even Rambam gets all heavy on us again.

He says: “When one eats and drinks, one must also feed the stranger, the orphan, the widow and other unfortunate paupers. But one who locks the doors of his courtyard and eat and drinks with his children and wife but does not feed the poor and the embittered soul—this is not the joy of a mitzvah, but the joy of his belly.”

Although we can have fun and we need not deprive ourselves, joy for us must mean the joy of helping the vulnerable.

So, a generosity of spirit, of hospitality and inclusion is baked into the festival of Sukkot at this stage.

The Zohar takes it to another level. It introduces the concept of inviting seven special ushpizin, the Aramaic word for lodger or guest to your Sukkah. It is another exercise of radical imagination, as these guests are not the demanding and hungry real-life needy people that Rambam mandates.  They are not living gerim, orphans and widows. They are our deceased male ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Joseph and David.

Each of these special guests brings an aspect of divine as the spiritual focus of the seven days of Sukkot. Each day, one of the seven takes a turn to lead the others. For example, on day one, Abraham leads with chesed or lovingkindess, then Isaac leads with Gevurah or power, then we have one for Tifferet for splendour, one for nezach or eternity, one for hod or glory, one for yesod or foundation and the last one, David for malchut or kingship.

We say a long and special prayer for the Ushpizin: ‘Enter exalted Holy guests, enter Holy Patriarchs, to be seated in the shade of exalted faithfulness in the shade of the Holy one Blessed be he’

There’s a footnote under that prayer in my Arts Scroll machzor that says: ‘portions of food that would go to these guests should be distributed among the poor, preferably as guests in one’s own sukkah.’

I knew nothing about this when I grew up in South Africa, but I love the proliferation of Ushpizin.  Many of these collections of dignitaries become posters that you can use to decorate your Sukkah. I’ve seen great Chabad rabbis, Jewish Matriarchs versions and portrayals of International artists co-operatives. They are all fabulous. But none of them would be my choice.

Of course, in real life I can only invite another five people who must be the ger, the orphan, the widow, the needy and one more with an imbittered soul. But in the sukkah of my imagination I can invite whoever I like.  So, this is who I’d like to share a meal with…

My first choice is Maimonides for his Lovingkindness.

My choice for Gevurah is my grandmother who taught me strength through bending.

I choose Mendelsohn for his splendorous piano concertos

For nezach or eternity, I want to invite my entire family many of whom are here today

Representing hod or glory, I would like to invite all of you here, my holy Zoom community.

For yesod or foundation, I’d like to invite my friends from wherever they live now in the world

and the last one, for malchut or kingship I want to invite my rabbis and teachers, past and present.  

In my imaginary sukkah, the sun is shining, and we are eating food that Yotam Ottolenghi cooked

In my imagination, we are all in our own ways, joyful and of good heart.

In my imagination, we are all together.

Shabbat shalom and wishing you a very chag sameach.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Va-ethannan

I said this aloud yesterday, 02/08/20 on Shabbat Nachamu in real life shul - Assif minyan:

I had a professor at UCL who would do a Talmud shiur once a week. We were studying a section about idol worship. He was not one for musing but one day he mused that he would love to go back in time and see what idol worshippers looked like then.  I thought to myself, well, Professor, you can just look at me now if you want to see an occasional idol worshipper. And I can’t speak for everyone in the class, but I bet you they are occasionally idol worshippers too. We’re not all going round kissing crucifixes and throwing stones at a statue of Merculis, because there are many less visible forms of idol worship available to us.

Speaking personally, it’s very difficult to remember that there is nothing else besides God. Nearly 100% of the time, I walk around feeling separate from the whole, and in my own little head, thinking about my own little experience. I separate myself from the unity of everything that is God by caring more about Israel than I do about most countries in the world. I separate myself by loving my children more than I do all the children in the world. I worry about my own personal future and although I know I shouldn’t, I fret about my past.

I’m willing to bet you do too.

Today we learn the commandment that forbids idol worship.

    It says: ‘You shall not bow down to them and serve them, for I the lord your god is a jealous god visiting the guilt of the parents upon the children upon the third and fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing kindness to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.’

Idolatry is one of the Ten Commandments that we read today, and it’s quite high up on the list.  

For Maimonides, idolatry is particularly problematic.  That’s because he’s all about the transcendent (God above matter) and immanent (god in matter) unity of God. The God he prays to is the Ein Od god. His God is all inclusive of what we experience as the good, the bad and the ugly. I imagine he truly understands the radical statement that we read in today’s parashah in verse 39

 

 

Know this day, and consider it in your heart, that the Lord, He is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath: there is nothing else.

The JPS translation for Hasheyvota el levavecha is  Keep in mind.

Or you could say settle it or put it in your heart.

That’s why idol worship is such an issue for Rambam. Because to say there is a separate form of god in any form is to misunderstand the infinite vastness of the project. It’s an either-or proposition. Either God is everything. Or there are  bits of things in our world with god and bits without. If we pray to the idol as god, we are understanding that the non-idol things in the world are not god, which is abhorrent to Maimonides.

Granted Rambam is a genius that knows the Truth with a capital T, so what do the rest of us do? Us that weren’t at Sinai ourselves and aren’t so enlightened as Rambam? 

The Torah today tells us what to do. We must brainwash ourselves and our children of this truth and these instructions, when we stay home and when go out into the world, when we lie down and when we get up, we must bind them a sign on our hand and let them serve as a symbol on our heads etc So that even when we’re not feeling it, we can refer to it.

So that we can do goodness and fairness, even when we’re not feeling the love   

That’s why it says in verse 39: ‘Know this day, and settle it in your heart, that the Lord, He is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath: there is nothing else.

It’s the difference between knowing better and doing better. Knowing something is true happens once. Keeping in mind takes a lot of ongoing work.

And if you need some help with the knowing God part, I came across this useful teaching from the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe Rabbi Yosef Yitchak.  He is wondering about the commandment to love God and he says this:

The commandment to love God lies in the previous verse, “Hear O Israel . . .” The Hebrew word shema (“hear”) also means “comprehend.” The Torah is commanding a person to study, comprehend and reflect upon the oneness of God. Because it is the nature of the mind to rule the heart, such contemplation will inevitably lead to a love of G‑d.

If one contemplates deeply and yet is still not excited with a love of G‑d, this is only because he has not sufficiently refined and purified himself of the things which stifle his capacity to sense and relate to the divine.

Aside from this, such contemplation by the mind will always result in a feeling of love.

I would like to add though that besides purifying myself of the things that stifle my capacity to sense and relate to god, I also need to give myself a break, to slow down and to accept that I am just human and doing the best I can.  

I can be confident that on the days that I’m not feeling the love, I can still play by the rules.

Emor Dvar Torah

I said this on Zoom Shabbat on 09/05/2020

A month ago, when I noticed that Michael Isaacs was organising a rota to do the leyning (singing from the Torah), I wrote him an email, where I said that I had only leyned once before seven years ago at my daughter’s bat mitzvah. I wrote, ‘Could you give me something to leyn that is short and about a month in the future so that I can have a daily practise of a thing’

But honestly when I volunteered, I never imagined that I wouldn’t be leyning in shul in a familiar place with familiar faces, with all of you, my holy congregation.

And so it was that I sat on my bed for a month, listening to a recording of Claire’s voice on my phone trying to follow along to learn to leyn the words of this week’s Parasha. Parashat Emor.  I was given chamishi to do because it is short and because it has many familiar words. It describes the laws of Yom Kippur.  I practised and I practised:

 אַ֡ךְ בֶּעָשׂ֣וֹר לַחֹדֶשׁ֩ הַשְּׁבִיעִ֨י הַזֶּ֜ה י֧וֹם הַכִּפֻּרִ֣ים ה֗וּא מִֽקְרָא־קֹ֙דֶשׁ֙ יִהְיֶ֣ה לָכֶ֔ם וְעִנִּיתֶ֖ם אֶת־נַפְשֹׁתֵיכֶ֑ם וְהִקְרַבְתֶּ֥ם אִשֶּׁ֖ה לַיהוָֽה׃

 

“Mark, the tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement. It shall be a sacred occasion for you (plural) you shall practice self-denial, and you shall bring an offering by fire to the LORD” Leviticus 23:27

 

It goes on to say that we must do no work on this day and that this an everlasting law for your descendants in all your dwelling places.

I get goose bumps when I read that now as I sit in my dwelling place. Yom Kippur has been a law from then until now, until me. Now we pray in place of fire-offerings, but we keep all the rest of the laws of Yom Kippur and we've been keeping them for over two thousand years. There’s something miraculous in that. Generations of people have experienced Yom Kippur from then until now.  How many orbits has the earth made with our people experiencing Yom Kippur every time? We are the people who keep Yom Kippur, come what may. 

Now I wouldn't consider not starting my fast with soup, chicken and potatoes, jelly and tinned fruit, as my mother has always done.  
I can’t imagine not going to shul for Kol Nidrei with all the people in my beloved community wearing white clothes and canvas shoes.
I can’t imagine not signing up for stewarding inside so I can still see my friends, and not miss any of the davening.
I can’t imagine a Yom Kippur without having a chat with Bruce and Oren and Pam and Jeanie during the break.
I can’t imagine not sitting alone during Neila and then my kids coming to find me and then they sit next to me, as we go through the last hour together.
I can’t imagine not kneeling and standing up again with everyone during the service.
I can’t imagine not crying along with everyone else on the last Avinu Malceinu.
I can’t imagine not ending my fast with a slice of sister's sponge cake, surrounded by my whole family, all of us hungry, exhausted and clamouring for food.

But I might have to.

We are now in the time of corona, a place that none of us living today have experienced before. So far, we know what Zoom Pesach looks like, and Zoom Havdalah and for us today, Zoom Shabbat.

But what will we be doing on the evening of September 27 until the evening of September 28 in 2020? How will Yom Kippur be different this year? How will we keep the laws of Yom Kippur specified in this week’s parasha? So much has changed in the last two months. My heart sinks when I think that this will have to change too.

As we learn in Emor, the rules of Yom Kippur are simple. We have to practise self- denial and we must not work. We have to make a fire offering to God, and we have to make this day of Atonement, a sacred occasion.

The laws of Yom Kippur are introduced with a tiny word. The word is Ach. It’s a small word but it punches above its weight. I wouldn't have ordinarily noticed that word except I had was having to sing it aloud over and over again. There is a note called a pazer over it. My brother in law David, who is an experienced leyner, told me that the pazer is used to prolong a word significantly. It places strong emphasis on the meaning of the word. Pazer means distribute or disseminate or spread out. This relates to the high number of notes in its melody.  

Sefaria translates Ach as 'mark', as in 'mark my words'. But that's not how Rashi translates it. He sees it as a word of exclusion, like 'only'.  Rashi says the word Ach or Only teaches us that Yom Kippur ONLY works for those who repent.

Or opposite to this meaning, a baraita in Massechet Shavuot is quoted, which says the verse goes on to say Yom Kippurim hu as in It is. This additional emphasis on it is serves to teach us that the day atones in any case.  This means the day itself atones, whether we repent or not.  The day itself does the work on us. Just by being alive on the tenth day of the seventh month, they day itself has the power to change us.

That’s what we can learn from Corona.

We can let ourselves be changed by the day. Not to be scared of change, but rather to understand it and be present to the opportunities it offers us in every moment. Things change all the time. Generations come and go. The Temple is built and destroyed, built and destroyed. The printing press is invented. Genocide happens. The Internet is invented. Global warming changes everything.

The pazer on the word Ach or only, reminds us that while it looks like only one thing is possible, in fact, a multitude of possibilities are spread out for us.

So, while I notice I am resisting change to how we do Yom Kippur, I remind myself anything is possible. The day itself has the power to change us. Even if we do nothing at all on the tenth day of the seventh month this year, the day itself will make atonement for us. 

Next year, when Yom Kippur comes around, the world will have changed, and we will have changed too. But not too much. Please God, we will all be with one another again to experience it together.