TorahParsha

Changing

(for Parshat Tzav)

 

i
The priest who brings an offering upon the Altar, in the Temple, shall put on his priestly linen garment.

He shall remove his garments when he leaves the Temple.

He shall put other garments on.

ii
The priest puts his garments on, and he takes them off again.

He serves in the Temple, and he goes away.

He comes and he goes.

iii
Such a man must know that his life is in flux.

He must know that his life can change.

*
Perhaps it is precisely such a man who is called to serve in God’s Temple, at God’s Altar.

 

____

Originally shared in 2009

Shabbat shalom,

Abe

www.TorahParsha.com

Please join me for a lecture at Columbia / Barnard Hillel

I'll be speaking at Columbia / Barnard Hillel (in Manhattan) this Tuesday (the 27th) at 7PM. Information below--free feel to share, and I hope you can make it. Location is 606 West 115th street (off Broadway), room 401.

Kol tuv,

Abe

 

People of Text in a Visual World

 In a world driven by pictures and design, where do the People of the Book find a home? In a talk spanning Sinai to neuromarketing, a Jewish poet and advertising professional takes a hard look at how we read, see, and speak—to offer a new kind of Jewish communication for our era.

About the speaker: Abe Mezrich is the creator of TorahParsha.com, a weekly series of poetry on the Torah. He is also Director of Communications at Mediaocean, one of the most heavily-used advertising technologies in the world. He is a graduate of Yale and YeshivatHar Etzion.

 

What is a home?

 for Parshat VaYikrah

i

Cain gives a gift, a minchah, to God.

Abel, too, brings his minchah.

God accepts Abel’s gift

and rejects Cain’s.

Cain kills Abel.

*

In God’s Tent, too,

you can bring a

a minchah,

a gift,

before God.

*

This is the Tent

all Israel built

from material they offered together,

from the work they shared.

 

ii

When every man is for himself

in a world of winner-take-all

there cannot be enough to go around.

Even a gift comes to violence.

*

A home is an inversion of this.

Together we take a small place

and make it a wide world.

Sometimes that place

is large enough to house God.

 

_____

Shabbat shalom,

Abe

 

Please pray for Neshama Emuna bat Batya

TorahParsha.com

 

How a leader creates a people

(for Vayakhel - Pikudei)

i

God tells Moses to command the people

to donate materials

and craft the parts

that will make up God’s Tent,

God’s home.

*

When the people finish this work—

when they have given their materials

when the expert craftsmen have crafted

when the masterful women have woven cloth—

God says to Moses:

you, now,

take these parts

that the people have made

and assemble them into My Tent,

My home.

 

ii

A leader is one

who finds the amazing things

that each of the people offer

that each of the people can make

with the gifts they own

with the talents they have within them.

He knows how,

when these parts come together,

when these people come together

they can become something incredibly holy:

they can become a home for God.

 

Shabbat Shalom, Abe

____

Please pray for Neshama Emuna bat Batya

Why a near-calamity is a gift

 

thought for Purim

 

i

On Hanukkah we take the Menorah—

light kept inside the Temple,

light kept inside our homes—

and bring it to the window

to the door

to the street

light for passersby

for all to see.

*

On Purim we drink wine.

The Talmud says:

wine enters, the secret emerges—

we drink,

we share what is within.

On Purim,

we also give alms to all who ask

and give gifts of meals.

Money for all,

food for all,

our selves for everyone.

 

ii

The Greeks sought to take Judaism away.

Haman nearly massacred us.

The dangerous wide world crept in to our very center

to rip it out.

God saved us.

 

iii

The world having reached so deep,

now the sharp lines between the world outside us

and the world within

between the hidden light

and light to be revealed

between our quiet secrets

and our conversation

between what we own

and what we offer

were shown as permeable.

*

This was a gift:

across such porous borders

we can finally carry our inner holiness outward

and share what makes us up.

At last we can be one with each other.

 

____

Chag Purim Sameach,

Abe

 

With thanks to Kathi and to Yossi Nissenfeld

 

www.TorahParsha.com

 

Can we learn what God wants of us?

for Parshat Titzaveh

 

i

The Ark in God’s Tent

is full of words.

Within the Ark are the stone Tablets of the Testimony:

the stone Tablets with the writing of God.

And from above the Ark,

God speaks: He tells what He will command to the Children of Israel—

the speech of God.

*

The other words of God’s Tent

are the words on the High Priest’s uniform.

His breastplate and his shoulder pads bear the names of the Tribes.

The gold plate on his forehead reads: Holy to HaShem.

*

These are all the words of the objects of God’s Tent.

 

ii

The High Priest enters the Tent

bearing words that say:

here is my community (the Tribes);

and:

there are people, things, lives that are holy to HaShem.

*

God speaks from the tent, saying:

This is what I, God, command to the Children of Israel.

 

iii

Man comes to God, saying:

I know my community,

and I know that there is holiness.

*

When Man comes to God in this way,

God says to him:

Now here is what you must do.

 

____

With this talk of Rabbi Chanoch Waxman as a starting point.

Shabbat Shalom, Abe

____

Please pray for Neshama Emuna bat Batya