Shabbat Shalom. Rabbi Rachel Silverman - Ki Tavo, September 17, Page 1

Transcription

1 Shabbat Shalom. During this month of Elul, even as the summer comes to an abrupt halt and the pressures of the year begin, I strive to cultivate a practice of reflection and growth. I yearn to remember the bigger picture - that a year in the life of a congregation is more than these few weeks, that a school is larger than its opening few days, and that the universe is nothing without God. In an atmosphere of chaos, questions, and anxiety, I practice giving myself physical or verbal cues to slow down, to look again with new eyes, and to engage differently with those in front of me. With this mindset, I am particularly struck by a liturgical piece from the beginning of this week s parasha. In the hectic time of a harvest, when there would certainly have been chaos and anxiety, we are instructed what to say when we drop off our fruit at the Temple. These instructions act as a cue, allowing the presenter to express gratitude to God and truly savor the moment. Arami oved avi - at the very start of our parasha, is the beginning of this prescribed liturgical piece that we are to say after we ve entered the Land, and when we are presenting our First Fruits to a priest at the Temple. Arami oved avi - My father was a wandering Aramean. He went down to Egypt with meager numbers and sojourned there; but there he became a great and very populous nation. The Egyptians dealt harshly with us and oppressed us; they imposed heavy labor upon us. We cried to the Lord, the God of our fathers, and the Lord heard our plea and saw our plight, our misery, and our oppression. The Lord freed us from Egypt with a mighty hand, by an outstretched arm and awesome Rabbi Rachel Silverman - Ki Tavo, September 17, Page 1

2 power, and by signs and portents. He brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. Wherefore I now bring the first fruits of the soil which You, O Lord, have given me - Deuteronomy 26:5-10 Known in Rabbinic parlance as mikrah bikkurim, this is the pilgrim s recitation upon bringing the first fruits to the Temple. In a few short lines, an Israelite bringing his offering to God is able to demonstrate, both verbally and physically, just how far he and his family have come from a life of slavery. As he is placing a basket full of produce that he has grown in the Land of Israel at the feet of the priest, he is reminded of a time when he was not free - and that it was God who brought him to this new place. The power of these words forces the pilgrim to recognize that this is not just another errand or task to be done, but an opportunity for thanksgiving and connectedness with God. Of course, this is not why many of you are familiar with this passage. We are familiar with it because Arami oved avi ( My father was a wandering Aramean ) is the only biblical text explicitly prescribed by the Mishnah for inclusion in the Maggid section of the Haggadah. In other words, you ve likely read it year after year at your Passover seder. The connection between this passage and the Passover seder is not an intuitive one. This passage, as described in the Torah, is meant to be recited on Yom Ha- Bikkurim, the Day of the First Fruits - which of course, is not Passover but rather Shavuot. So why did the Rabbis choose this passage as a focal point of the seder? Rabbi Rachel Silverman - Ki Tavo, September 17, Page 2

3 There are, as with any other question in our tradition, a multitude of answers. I want to share with you a few of them, taken from Rabbi David Silber s new book, A Passover Haggadah; Go and Learn - a book that is one part Haggadah and one part commentary and essays. Daniel Goldschmidt contends that the Arami oved avi piece was chosen because of its familiarity among the masses who would be reciting it at the seder. Israel Yuval suggests that the authors of the Haggadah chose to focus the seder-night liturgy on the passage from Deuteronomy to distance themselves from the practice of the early church fathers who based their Easter homilies on the Exodus version of the Passover seder. Josh Kulp, from the Conservative Yeshiva, argues in his recently published Schechter Haggadah, that the passage from Deuteronomy 26 was chosen primarily because of its brevity, which rendered it better material for the Midrashic exegesis that was the Rabbis principal interest. Along similar lines, Silber tells us that Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik suggested that the choice to include these verses in the Haggadah, provides a markedly concise description of the Exodus experience, was intended to emphasize that the goal of the seder is to draw meaning out of the text. Thus the main activity of the seder is not a recitation or a reading of biblical texts, but rather explication of Torah. According to R. Soloveitchik, the selection of this outstandingly brief passage was designed to encourage participants to focus on the questioning, on the learning, and on intellectual engagement - rather than on the text itself. But this is Rabbi Silber sharing Rabbi Soloveitchik s answer. I want to share Silber s own answer with you - and share it in the contexts of both the book of Deuteronomy and my mission here at KI, which is education. Rabbi Rachel Silverman - Ki Tavo, September 17, Page 3

4 The uniqueness of Deuteronomy as a book of the Torah is that it is told in a series of speeches given by Moses, rather than a chronological narrative. Moses retells the story of the Exodus to a generation that had not experienced it for themselves. Similarly, the reason that the Rabbis who constructed the seder chose these verses is that their audience was also the Jew who had not been a slave in Egypt. Had they quoted from Exodus, it would be simple for us to disregard the lessons, for we ourselves were not slaves in Egypt. But by quoting Deuteronomy, a book that, in the span of three verses, says both I have come into the land (26:3) and the Egyptians did evil to us and abused us (26:6), the reader is forced to wrestle with some very difficult ideas. The seder attendee is compelled to place him or herself in the shoes of both those that came into the Land of Israel and those who were slaves in Egypt - two groups of people separated by much more than a generational gap. It is that dichotomy, that wrestling and questioning between truths, that the seder is all about - and in actuality, it is what education is all about. A good educator asks you to push your limits, to experience life from someone else s vantage point, and to question meanings. And a great educator differentiates his or her teaching to match each students learning style, in order to help the pupil reach those goals. In 1956, educational psychologist Benjamin Bloom published what has now become known as the Bloom Taxonomy of Educational Objectives - a method for classifying teaching outcomes. While not exactly a hierarchy, every teacher knows that it is easier to teach to the bottom level of this list than the top level. The most basic objective is knowledge - when a teacher asks a student to memorize, write, state, or recall something, the pupil is being tested on his or her knowledge. Rabbi Rachel Silverman - Ki Tavo, September 17, Page 4

5 When we ask a 5-year-old to recite the Four Questions at the Seder, she is not actually demonstrating her ability to formulate questions or analyze a problem; rather, she is showing off her memorization skills. Climbing the ladder from knowledge, the more advanced objectives on Bloom s list are synthesis and evaluation - asking students to create, conclude, argue, judge, evaluate, and critique. A teacher of mine once told the story that his young daughter watched his wife bless the candles at the seder, and, used to seeing her mother say a different blessing on a weekly basis, the daughter asked Why not shel shabbat?. In effect, she was asking, Mah nishtanah ha layla ha zeh - Why is this night different from all other nights?. Rather than simply memorizing a text, she observed a situation, compared it to what she had expected her mother would say, and thus formulated a question. Much the same, the goal of the Pesach seder is not knowledge - the goal of the seder is analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. When a pilgrim brings his first fruits to the priest at the Temple, he recites the Aravi oved avi passage. The first step in this recitation is certainly knowledge - he must learn the lines to recite. But that is not the goal. If both taught and received correctly, he is evaluating the situation at hand, comparing it to his people s past, and the only logical conclusion is one of thanks-giving, directed at God. Later in our parasha, we read...you have seen all that the Lord did before your own eyes in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land, the great trials that your own eyes have seen, those great signs and Rabbi Rachel Silverman - Ki Tavo, September 17, Page 5

6 portents. But the Lord has not given you a heart to know and eyes to see and ears to hear until this day. (Deut. 29:1-3) Again, in Rabbi Silber s words, The Torah seems to be suggesting that the people who actually witnessed the Exodus and stood at Sinai were not fully there, in the sense that they never understood or internalized the experience: the people who left Egypt and stood at Sinai were the ones who made the Golden Calf and wanted to return to their place of bondage! Deuteronomy, on the other hand, addresses the people who were not physically present at those event: the generation that was never in Egypt and was therefore able to attain a critical distance from the experience of slavery. To these people the Torah says, it is because you were not in Egypt that you can understand Egypt. It is because you were not there that you were as if there. The goal of education is to be able to understand and give meaning to that which one has not experienced oneself. We educate our children so that they will grow into empathetic, compassionate, and thoughtful adults, who understand and therefore do not repeat our historical mistakes. We continue to educate ourselves because we know that we haven t fully reached that ideal state yet. There is always more to learn and understand - and there are always new ways that we can apply our knowledge. Jewish education is a life-long process. Had the Rabbis thought learning stopped at bar/bat mitzvah, the seder would not be based on asking questions, expounding meanings from verses, and engaging in text. So when the senior staff of KI sat Rabbi Rachel Silverman - Ki Tavo, September 17, Page 6

7 down to build an educational vision for the year, we endeavored to do it in a way that pushes people to continue to move along Bloom s Taxonomy - in a way that allows for a variety of different learning styles at all ages and content knowledge levels. To meet the needs of our diverse congregation, we are offering learning opportunities for everyone from toddlers to seniors, specifically including teens and adults, and encompassing all levels of learning. Tomorrow you ll be receiving an detailing the wide-variety of classes, lectures, experiences, and program opportunities that we ll be offering this year - with more to come as the year goes on. To highlight just a few, I want to whet your appetite for some parts of the new adult learning series that we ll be offering: If you ve been hesitant to join a class at KI thus far, for fear of not knowing enough, or, perhaps, being the only non-rabbi in the room (!), we re offering a series of introductory classes. We ll start with an Introduction to Judaism class. This is not the Hebrew school class of your youth; this 3-session course is aimed at all of you well-educated adults who want to discuss some of the basics of Judaism. Why do we do what we do? Where do our traditions come from? What does Judaism say about God, Torah, and Israel? Throughout the year, we ll tackle three topics in more depth - there will be an Introduction to Shabbat class in January; when we re closer to Pesach, we ll offer an Intro to Passover course; and back by popular demand, Rabbi Kippley-Ogman Rabbi Rachel Silverman - Ki Tavo, September 17, Page 7

8 will once again be offering her 10-session Learner s Minyan course, to give us a chance to delve deeper into the siddur. If experiential learning is more your style, we invite you to take either the Tree of Life Quilting class or the Jewish Eating series - and of course to join us for a number of Family Education programs which are being planned in the coming weeks. You ll have opportunities to learn Hebrew (at multiple levels, including an advanced class), to learn Trope (Torah, Haftarah, and Megillah), to study Talmud, and to join smaller groups of people in a similar life-stage as you. We re starting a Post-Conversion class led by our Rabbinic Intern, Tiferet Gordon; a pre-marriage class led by psychologist Rachel Barbanel-Fried; and a parenting class specifically for parents of teenagers, led in conjunction with the Coolidge Corner Collaborative. Lastly, I want to invite you to join us for our three Shabbatonim this year. Different from last year s vision of a Shabbaton, which was aimed at kids, we ve picked three Shabbatot to make community-wide celebrations of Shabbat. Two will take place here at KI and the third will hopefully take place off-site at one of the local summer camps. We ve picked weekends that are already full of great programming, like visiting scholars-in-residence, Cuddle Up Shabbat, and when our Informal Educator, Rafi Spitzer, is scheduled to be here. We ll be offering Shabbat dinner options - choose to eat here at the synagogue or be matched up and hosted at other members homes. There will be a post-kiddush program on Saturday, and then we ll send you home for some rest, and reconvene for a community Havdallah. Whether it is your practice to celebrate Shabbat every week Rabbi Rachel Silverman - Ki Tavo, September 17, Page 8

9 or just on special occasions, these Shabbatonim are designed to enhance your Shabbat experience. I know that I speak for KI s entire staff when I say that we re here to help you along your journey with Jewish learning. It is such a priority for us, that we re making it a point to model this kind of learning. The teachers in the nursery school meet monthly with Rabbi Kippley-Ogman, for their own learning. We re forming a Community of Practice for the religious school teachers, to grow and learn together, reflecting on their work. And we ve created as deep and rich a set of programs as these, for our young children, our religious school families, and our teenagers. I began today with the observation that I strive to cultivate a practice of reflection and growth for myself. I invite you to do similarly - choose a class, a topic, or an opportunity that speaks to you; and venture bravely down the unknown path that only education can illuminate. We aspire to teach the children of KI that learning should be a lifelong pursuit. Let s model that for them, and in the process, grow ourselves. Shabbat Shalom. Rabbi Rachel Silverman - Ki Tavo, September 17, Page 9

10 Rabbi Rachel Silverman - Ki Tavo, September 17, Page 10