"Doing?"

For those of you who do not get our synagogue newsletter, here is my monthly column and blessing for January 2015:

“Doing?”

When our daughter Tali was just a little over a year old, she already talked and communicated with words.  If we were busy with something, she would run over and look up with a questioning expression on her face, and say, "Doing?" A whole sentence there... clearly meaning, "What are you doing?"

We have kept that expression all these years in our family and often ask each other, "Doing?"  meaning we are interested in everything that is going on in your life and want to hear news.

So, I thought of taking a moment to answer the question, "Doing?" regarding your rabbi's current activities and projects.

I have begun an art project of mixed media collage, paint, and calligraphy, depicting letters of the Hebrew Alef-bet, with a brief explanation on the back of the small canvases about the letter's mystical energy and meaning. These “Alef-bet Collages” on canvas are available exclusively in our gift shop.

Letters Yud, Shin, Daled, part of the Alef-Bet Collage series by Rabbi Alicia Magal

In the Interfaith community, I have been participating since October, and will continue through February, in a bi-weekly Social Justice Public Policy Seminar for Faith Leaders.  I am the sole rabbi in our cohort this year.  This informative series is funded through the Monsignor Edward J. Ryle Fund, with the mission of “Working for justice, dignity, and the common good.”  The program presents faith leaders with information about communicating effectively on public policy issues, within the limits of functioning under a 501C3 status.  The series is designed to enable faith leaders to explore and understand Arizona’s social justice public policy issues and to demonstrate and communicate the importance of these issues to their congregations and communities. Some of the topics include Health and Human services, Education policy, the Environment, Justice System and Prisons, Immigration, the Arizona Legislature, Faith Communities and Public Policy, Money: How Government Gets It and Spends It, and Translating Knowledge into Action. 

I look forward to sharing some of these issues with you and hearing your response.  Our prophetic tradition demands that we raise our voices and take action for justice.

A personal area of development that I am pursuing is through the Mussar Institute, from January through this coming summer: an in-depth, spiritual immersion for Rabbis and Cantors. The 6-month online study program will culminate in a retreat at Brandeis-Bardin Institute campus in the Los Angeles area this summer. The goal is to nurture and develop personal, spiritual practice with the tools and traditional Jewish wisdom literature of Mussar. The Hebrew term Mussar (מוּסַר), is from the book of Proverbs 1:2 meaning righteous, moral conduct, instruction, and spiritual discipline.   

I will share insights from this study and practice in the coming months.

So, besides preparing weekly “journeys” we take together here at the JCSVV at Shabbat services and Torah study, offering prayers and visits to congregants who need blessings for healing, teaching classes, and performing life cycle ceremonies, I am fully occupied with continuing personal growth and learning which I bring to you, my beloved congregation and community. 

And… of course, Itzhak and I are personally awaiting the birth of grand-baby girl twins, hopefully sometime in late January.  Now you know a bit of what I’m “doing.”

-- 

Blessing for Tevet  (Dec. 23, 2014  - January 20, 2015)

May we show patience during the darkest, coldest time of year, and use the time to bring warmth and light to those around us.  May we offer gratitude as we turn the corner toward  longer days and more light.  May we each embody this time of turning by demonstrating an intention to grow, learn, and continue to gain insights, so that we improve our positive speech and action.   –Amen.

PS. If you want my review (negative!) about the new Exodus movie, check out my blog. http://www.redrockrabbi.blogspot.com

Exodus movie - YUCK

Just came home from the much awaited movie Exodus... I am so upset and disappointed.  The movie was not true to the Torah, the midrash, the archeological findings... and left out much of the scenes of awe and wonder.

So there might be conjecture as to whether Moses knew of his true ancestry before he was an adult... but turning this into a brother against brother was a stretch.  Where was the scene where he kills a taskmaster to save a Hebrew slave and then needs to flee?  I'll skip over the drawn out battle scenes at the beginning where he saves his "brother's" life... the future Pharaoh Rameses.  His Egyptian sword is practically elevated to a character in itself, but where is his staff?

Where is his being called from the burning bush? Rather he is buried in a rocky landslide during a rainstorm with only his face above ground, and suffering from a broken leg???  Huh?

And God is portrayed as a petulant boy who chides Moses rather then empowering him???!!!

Where is the humble, stuttering Moses who needs Aaron his true brother as spokesman? Nowhere.  Where is a "duel" using his staff turned to snake matched by the Pharaoh's wizards? Nowhere.  Rather there are scenes of Moses as guerilla army trainer preparing the Hebrew men for battle through archery lessons.  God as the little boy tells him he isn't getting anywhere that way (Hebrews are being hanged every day for not giving up Moses who is hidden in their midst at the home of Nun - papa of Joshua ben Nun who doesn't appear at all as protege for the future... ). So the plagues begin in a graphic, naturalistic style to force the Egyptian people to pressure their Pharaoh to give in to Moses' demand that the Hebrew slaves be set free.  There are no warnings or repeated requests by Moses to Pharaoh... Those ugly blistery, bloody, scary plagues just keep on coming.

The slaying of the first born is a touching scene that finally does break Pharaoh's resolve.

Moses wants to lead the Hebrews out by the route he had taken years before southward through the straits of Tiran to Midian where he had met Zippora, was accepted by her wise and kind father Jethro, and started a family.  Zippora seemed like the best cast character in the whole movie.

Moses decides instead to take a route eastward through the mountains, since the rocky terrain will make it very difficult for Pharaoh's chariots to follow.  When Moses leads the Hebrews down the cliff sides to the sea, it isn't marshy or easy to ford as he had expected from his previous crossing to Midian, but rather there are crashing waves and very deep ocean water.  Rather than confidently stretching forth his staff, he lies down on the beach after throwing his Egyptian sword, which he has kept all this time, into the water.  Alerted by cawing birds he later notices that his sword is sticking up out of the water, showing that the water had receded.  He seems bewildered, surprised... unsure of how to proceed. 

Where is Nachshon ben Amminadav to show his faith by jumping into the water which then recedes?  Where are the walls of water on each side?  Nowhere.  They Hebrews kind of slosh through muddy pools that look like the bay on Cape Cod at low tide.  Pharaoh and his remaining charioteers soon follow into the water.  The Hebrews scramble onto a rocky shore on the other side, and suddenly there is a mano-a-mano moment where both Moses and Pharaoh are alone facing each other, and both are thrust into the tsunami-like tidal wave that envelopes them, followed by a slo-mo montage of drowned and floating horses, pieces of chariot wheels, and dead soldiers.  Somehow the next scene features close ups of both Moses on one side of the sea which has returned to its lapping of the shore, and Pharaoh is standing on the other side, dazed, bruised, but whole.

Fast forward, not to a monumental Sinai ablaze with smoke and fire, from which the elders are warned not to approach, but rather to a unassuming rocky outcropping where Moses is busy chipping away with a hammer and chisel at stone tablets.  No booming dictation of the Commandments; nor even a holy silence filling the screen, but merely the God-boy figure warning Moses that if he doesn't have the faith to follow through he should put down his hammer.  Moses reflects for a second and keeps on chiseling.  That's it for the Giving of the Ten Utterances??!!

So skip over building the Mishkan - Tabernacle with the golden ark and its coverings.  None of that here. Jump to the very last scene years later as Moses, aged, with a flowing white beard,  rides in a covered wagon kind of cart with a plain wooden box, ostensibly containing the Tablets of the Law, placed unceremoniously and unadorned behind him. 

There are so many midrashim possible to mine for gems.... How did the writers and director come up with these scenes that extended the battles and reduced the awe-inspiring narratives?

The costumes, sets, music, and effects were so professionally crafted, why not the dialogue and character development?

I am mystified by this production, and saddened that this is what may stay in the minds of movie-goers, especially those who haven't studied the Torah and its commentaries.

You know what would have been great... if they included bits of midrash - children finding whatever they wanted in the walls of water... etc.

and... a kind of dream sequence when Moses leads the Children of Israel out... they start to sing Mi Chamocha… and it turns into Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. speaking to the blacks in America about their Exodus from slavery…. a contemporary seder with children singing "Let my people go" and strains of Hallel. "B'tzeit Israel.." When Israel went out of Egypt ... all kinds of Exodus reminders in our world today…..