Monthly Archives: March 2021

While it is known that I do not agree with various aspects of the haredi outlook, I still respect this world very much for its passion and its many wonderful characteristics. And it is exactly because of this that I hope that by writing this essay I am making a small contribution toward helping the haredi community to rectify a crucial ideological mistake, which has brought haredi Judaism into disrepute.It seems to me that part of the haredi community has adopted an idea that is totally foreign to Judaism but is, strangely enough, fundamental to classical Christianity.

This is a typical example of how probably because of the experience of exile Christian ideas have infiltrated several dimensions of haredi Judaism through the back door. This may be true even of other segments of religious Judaism that are not at all haredi.

Saving ones soul

Classical Christianity teaches that under all circumstances one must save ones soul, and must even sacrifice life itself for the sake of the salvation of ones soul. This means that one has to live a life of total religious devotion even when it would result in death. And it is exactly against this point of view that the Jewish tradition adamantly protests.

For Judaism, to live is more important than to be saved.

The argument that if we dont live a religious life of shemirat hamitzvot (observance of the commandments), our souls are, by definition, contaminated, and we wont inherit Olam Haba (the World to Come) is totally rejected within the Jewish tradition.

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It is only after we have secured our physical existence that we are obligated to observe the commandments, and it is only then that we have lost out on real life if we did not observe them.

This doesnt mean that we should violate the commandments so as to live a comfortable life. It just means that we must make sure that we can at least live a simple life that allows us to breathe; that we dont become deathly ill or completely unable to live a human life.

Why? Because nothing is holier than life itself, not even when we would combine all the divinely-given commandments. Compared to life itself, they are all secondary.

To live is the greatest mitzvah of all

To put it differently: The most important biblical commandments are Uvacharta bachayim And you shall choose life (Deuteronomy 30:19) and Vchai bahem, vlo sheyamut bahem And you shall live by them [the mitzvot] and not die because of them (Leviticus 18:5; Tractate Yoma 85b).

Only three prohibitions override this obligation to preserve life: When one is forced to kill an innocent person in order to save ones own life; when one is forced to have sexual intercourse with somebody with whom one, by biblical law, it is not allowed to have relations; and when one is forced to worship idols (Yoma 82a). Only in these three cases are we commanded to die rather than transgress.

This is true also in a situation of shmad (religious persecution), when the Jewish community as a whole is forced to be baptized, or compelled by an enemy to violate the laws of Judaism merely for the sake of violation (Sanhedrin 64a).

It is important to remember that we are allowed to take certain reasonable risks such as driving a car, flying in a plane, crossing the street, or similar things as long as the chances of being killed are minimal and, in the words of the Talmud, many have trodden there. Otherwise, life would become totally impossible (Tractate Shabbat 129b).

For the same reason, we are allowed to try to save somebody elses life only when it is reasonably certain that we ourselves will remain alive. We are also allowed to put our lives at risk when we need to defend our country and its population, since this means saving the lives of many. Whether one is allowed to voluntarily sacrifice ones life for another is a matter of dispute.

In all other cases, we are obligated to violate all these commandments. And therein lies the rub.

WHEN PART of the haredi world insists that yeshivot and chederim stay open and large religious gatherings be permitted, etc., that part of the haredi world would be unable to function properly and that social pressure would be required so that many young and not-so-young people would not leave the fold, cease observing the commandments, and thereby forgo the World to Come, it has adopted a Christian idea.

The argument that saving ones soul is the primary value, and if that means that some people will definitely die as in the case of coronavirus then this is preferred, since the people who died will at least not have violated the Torah and will consequently inherit the World to Come, is quintessentially Christian.

What those in the haredi community who believe this do not seem to realize is that they have abandoned one of the most crucial tenets of Judaism: the absolute commandment to preserve life. With the few exceptions mentioned above, preservation of life always has priority.

It is therefore beyond comprehension that a part of the haredi community has rejected a major tenet of religious Judaism.

What Judaism teaches is actually something astonishing: Not only does Jewish law demand that a Jew not observe the mitzvot when they are in danger of death on a single occasion, but that if they are continuously in danger of death, they must violate all the commandments throughout their lives, if that is the only way to stay alive! While such a situation is highly unlikely, theoretically this could mean that one would never be allowed by Jewish law to keep kosher or observe Shabbat, etc., if by doing so, one would constantly be in danger of death. One would have to violate all the commandments for all the years one lives (till 120)!!

In other words, life itself is so important that when we are forced to choose between life and the commandments, we must choose life, even when that life has no Jewish (ritual) context whatsoever.

What we obviously need to ask is: Why? Why is life so important that everything else has to give way, even something as important as the very essence of our identity our Jewishness and Judaism?

DOES CLASSICAL Christianity not make more sense when it claims that we should always save our souls before the body? What, after all, is the meaning of life if not to serve God?

Apparently, Judaism maintains that there is something about life that is untouchable. Life is God-given and a substance that cannot be measured, is beyond all definition, and is totally out of the range of what human beings can ever understand, or even grasp.

That Christianity has taken a different path would seem to be because it considers life more of an obstacle than a virtue. This belief likely owes much to the influence of Plato, who considers the soul to be imprisoned by the body, from which it needs to liberate itself. The body is a hindrance.

Judaism, however, sees the body as a highly important helpmate in the growth of the soul. The soul can grow only through virtuous bodily actions. God created the body not to frustrate the soul but to help it. Otherwise, why have a body? Without the body, the soul has no value, because it cant accomplish anything without it.

For Judaism, God is to be found within the mundane in holy deeds. Judaism is, as Abraham Joshua Heschel states, the theology of the common deed (The Insecurity of Freedom). God is concerned with everydayness, with the trivialities of life, which can be raised to high levels without ever leaving the common ground. It is not concerned with the mysteries of heaven, but with the blights of society and the affairs of the marketplace. It is there that we find God. In doing the finite we are able to perceive the infinite (Man Is Not Alone).

It is for this reason that the need to keep the body alive will always be more important than the need to save the soul. One can save the soul only after the body is secure. Put differently: Saving the body is the highest expression of saving ones soul.

This is one of the fundamental differences between Judaism and classical Christianity.

It is one of the great tragedies that a sector of the haredi community has adopted a Christian idea.

The misguided notion of Talmud Torah

To be sure, there are other important issues at play in explaining why the haredi community reacts the way it does.

One of these issues is the belief that learning Torah is the ultimate goal of every Jew, and that all other endeavors such as the functioning and upkeep of society, the running of the Jewish State, its commerce, its agriculture, and more are of much less importance compared to the study of Torah.

This idea, however, is entirely wrong. This view of Talmud Torah is akin to idol worship. The often-quoted rabbinic statement Vtalmud Torah knegged kulam, the study of Torah is equivalent to all the commandments (Shabbat 127a), does not mean that Torah learning is the ultimate objective of Judaism. If that were the case, it would belong to the category of the few mitzvot we mentioned above, for which one has to give up ones life rather than transgress. But it is not.

The meaning of this statement is figurative. Without learning Torah, we would not know how to fulfill the commandments and transform ourselves into more sublime and moral, holy people; we would not know how to run a just society, how to work the land, how to do business, and how to deal with our fellow human beings.

All the commandments depend on learning Torah. Without that knowledge, one wouldnt know how to observe the commandments. But this has never meant that we need to give up our lives for learning Torah. In fact, doing so is forbidden! Sure, learning Torah is considered to be one of the most virtuous mitzvot and a form of Divine worship. One can only argue that it is of ultimate importance because Torah is the life blood of the Jewish people. But still, its not as holy as life itself.

The notion that learning Torah is the ultimate goal, to which all of life should be subordinated, is a false and dangerous one.

May the haredim move away from this Christian idea concerning saving ones soul and the concomitant mistaken belief about learning Torah. May God bless them

Original post:

The haredi-Christian tragedy and the idol worship of Talmud Torah - The Jerusalem Post

This op-ed first appeared in The Jewish Week.

Clubhouse is an invitation-only social media application through which users join virtual rooms for dialogue through their iPhones. Users move seamlessly through virtual rooms to listen and discuss topics such as entrepreneurship, marketing, culture and, in my case, Judaism. It is like an interactive podcast. Clubhouses appeal as an audio-only application is reflected in its subscription of 10 million users, an increase of 8 million users since January. It is now the fifth most popular downloaded app through Apple.

The Clubhouse room I entered had the approximate title of Vashti as the unworthy Jewish heroine of modernity. As I joined the virtual room, I was prepared to defend the oft-maligned Vashti the queen banished by an angry King Ahasuerus as the unsung heroine of the Purim story.

The Chabad rabbi called on me and asked for my opinion. I acknowledged that the Talmud and other commentaries provide multiple reasons for Vashtis refusal, and we each need to discern which explanations provide truth for us. I also shared that through this discussion room, I had learned something new about Vashti and the Talmud. This experience reminded me of the famous teaching that wise people learn from every person (Pirke Avot 4:1) and how much there is to learn from new, virtual forms.

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Clubhouse provides an intriguing virtual platform for dialogue. I have listened and engaged in discussions about Judaism, Israel and antisemitism. Participants on Clubhouse reflect a wide range of ages and demographics, a more diverse population than is typically found in Jewish institutions.

Seth Cohen, the founder of Applied Optimism, a community and experience consultancy with a focus on supporting organizations in the Jewish community, has observed that Clubhouse is drawing a younger audience than is often found in our established institutions.

Clubhouse provides a frictionless, inclusive and low barrier environment in which one can explore their Jewish identity in both meaningful and deeply personal ways, according to Cohen.

Clubhouse began with a small membership of prominent tech investors. As it started opening up, general users who joined the platform helped its popularity surge. Today it represents a grassroots initiative led by people, according to Tori Greene, an administrator of the Shabbat Shalom club on Clubhouse, which has 11,000 members and followers.

Greene also points out that Clubhouse is not an intentional Jewish space but a virtual space with Jewish content, and users easily gain access to a variety of different perspectives on ideas and values that they may not encounter from in-person forums, possibly a part of its appeal. As Cohen summarized, Clubhouse is not an end but rather the beginning of ways to foster a playful, experimental way to engage others Jewishly. We can learn a lot about successful Jewish engagement simply by scrolling through Clubhouse, listening in on the rooms with Jewish content and observing the participation of Clubhouse users.

The Talmud teaches that if you want to learn about a new practice, go out and see what the people are doing (Menachot 35b). During these past few weeks, I have seen and heard that our people are on Clubhouse. As Rabbi Hillel wisely advised us, Now go and learn (Shabbat 31a).

Rabbi Wendy Pein and Seth Cohen will appear in a Clubhouse room titled A roomful of rabbis talking about the Jewish future at 8:30 p.m. March 17. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of JTA or its parent company, 70 Faces Media.

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This rabbi has seen the future, and it sounds like Clubhouse - The Jerusalem Post

(Each Saturday, a faith leader offers a personal perspective in this space. To become part of this series, email religion@recorder.com)

As a child, I was alarmed about waste and over-consumption. In my home, we received two newspapers that went unread many days. Appliances were left on day and night. Packaging materials abounded, and so on. As an adult, aversion to waste continues as a guiding light. Waste feels like a sin. My arising on this planet has a cost. I feel an obligation to consume the materials I need to sustain myself and to repay those resources through good works and generosity. Reverence and mutual care are in the divine image.

Stewardship of creation is a foundational norm for Christians and Jews and Muslims. There is a deep mitzvah, or sacred deed, in the Bible enjoining us not to waste. This simple phrase is the basis for Jewish laws that touch upon everything from waste management to basing our diet around foods that take up fewer nutrients from the soil.

In Genesis, God articulates Let us make man in our image. Who is God speaking with? Man is created in the image of God and the image of creation. In a sense, we have two natures our human natures and our Godly, or spiritual nature. The genius of a healthy religious life is to balance between our two natures. We preserve ourselves and enjoy the pleasures of life AND we consider others, consider the impact of our consumption on other life forms and on the planetary future.

A Jewish foundational text, the Talmud, asks the question: Who is rich? The best-known answer is One who has joy from their portion. Other answers include: One who has a compatible life partner; One who provides work for others; and one who has a conveniently located outhouse(!). The biblical system of taxes, donations and tithes worked to prevent vast inequality of wealth. The Bible requires a sabbath (fallow year) for the landowners and the canceling of debts every seven years. The obscene and imbalanced intergenerational hoarding of wealth could never arise in a biblical culture. Could these values and practices infuse our economies now?

Greed is the precise opposite of balanced, modest consumption. Greed is inherently imbalanced. It is fear-based. Hoarding is the attempt to fill a spiritual void with bank accounts and TVs. Greed has a social implication as well. We can only put personal accumulation of wealth above shared human needs if we feel detached from others and from nature. This disconnection opens the door to fear, hiding and lying. Too few are the corporations that put human and environmental health and transparent fairness in their business culture.

I love western Massachusetts because so many of us earn part of our sustenance through the work of our hands, whether through gardening or handicraft. We share, reuse and recycle. We enjoy the beauty of our region as a simple pleasure of life. We make it a priority to support local farmers and producers. We rely on each other. In a modest land-based economy, many of us have the blessing of joy from our portion.

Balance between our more personal needs and the needs of others has always been a hallmark of intentional and religious. Today, rebalancing our culture of consumption is literally a matter of life and death. From Deuteronomy 30:19: I call heaven and earth to record this that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.

Rabbi Andrea Cohen-Kiener serves as rabbi at Temple Israel Greenfield.

Temple Israel Greenfield has a 100-year history of living Jewish values and transmitting Jewish culture in Franklin County.

Services are held Tuesday mornings and Friday or Saturday on each sabbath. A full calendar is here: https://templeisraelgreenfield.org. Diverse service styles are offered from traditional Ashkenazi and Sepharadi to chanting, contemplative and new music.

Hebrew and Torah (Hebrew scriptures) classes are offered on Thursday afternoons. Adult, family and child educational classes and offered on Sunday mornings and other times.

Temple Israel Greenfield has sustained social justice programs in gleaning, food justice, immigrant support and racial justice. TIG works with allies as a member of the Interfaith Council of Franklin County.

The Temple Israel Greenfield facility is currently closed and all meetings and classes are held online. Contact Temple Israel for links to zoom gatherings.

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Faith Matters: Rebalancing our culture of consumption - The Recorder

The book of Vayikra preoccupies itself with korbanot, what today we might describe as the peculiarities of ritual sacrifice: which types of animals should be sacrificed, where they should be offered, what accompaniments should be presented alongside them and how and when they should be presented.

The nature of sacrifice as we understand it has shifted dramatically in the last 2,000 years. We have no temple and no animal sacrifices, so what then are we meant to learn from korbanot? Why need we concern ourselves with the details of sacrificial law?

Lets begin with the word itself. In Latin, sacrifice finds its root in two words: sacer, meaning sacred rites traditionally performed by priests, and the verb facere, meaning to place something. The implication is that sacrifice is the act of making something sacred by setting it aside for a specific religious purpose. In Hebrew, this is more often the translation associated with the word kadosh, or holy. We see this later on in the book of Leviticus, when we are commanded kedoshim tihiyu: be holy. The commentator Rashi explains this command as telling us to be separate and keep distance from illicit sexual relationships. In both words, sacrifice and kadosh, there is an implicit distance between that which we wish to designate as holy and all other things. This distance could be either physical or metaphysical. Shabbat, for example, becomes imbued with holiness by setting it aside from the remaining days of the week.

The act of bringing sacrifices doesnt create distance and separateness in the way that the word might normally imply. Rather it requires closeness. The individual must be at a certain location and must offer the animal in a certain way. It is very much a hands-on activity. The word korban itself comes from the Hebrew root meaning close. The korban not only requires closeness, but can also be said to engender closeness between the giver and God.

Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler notes that the way one grows their love for another or for God is by giving unconditionally. One might think that what makes us love another person is all the wonderful things they do for us and that our love grows as those individuals continue to grow in their devotion to us. In fact, Rabbi Dessler asserts the opposite. Relationships become more powerful when we give to them unconditionally without expectation of return. This constant giving creates a sense of buy-in or connectedness to that which you have given, and engenders an investment on the part of the giver which in turn initiates more giving. Giving begets loving which in turn begets giving. This is probably most apparent with parents and children. Parents give unconditionally before they ever get anything in return.

The act of korbanot is teaching us this very lesson. Korbanot are about creating closeness; closeness with God and closeness with community. The korban creates a paradigm for how to build, connect and deepen devotion. It is the opposite of sacrifice, which puts things aside and designates them as separate. Korbanot are about connecting and giving unconditionally.

When we read the Torah portion of Vayikra, we can hear the message of the korbanot calling us to the message of closeness and connectedness with others. We can use this time to think about what we can each be giving unconditionally to those around us and to the community so that we can continually build a more cohesive society.

Read this Torah portion, Leviticus 1:1 5:26 on Sefaria

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About the Author: Anat Barber is an alumna of the Ruskay Institute for Jewish Leadership and the Wexner Graduate Fellowship Program and completed a dual degree program in Jewish studies and Public Service at NYU. Anat is currently the assistant director of capital gifts and special initiatives at UJA-Federation of New York.

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Parashat Vayikra: I Give, Therefore I Love - My Jewish Learning

LONDON (JTA) Newcastle, the heart of northeast England, is not a small city with its approximately 300,000 inhabitants.

But to the few British Jews that cast their eyes northward from Manchester and London, the city is little more than what it was in Roman times an outpost straddling the edges of Hadrians Wall.

To the Romans, Hadrians Wall marked the edge of the civilized world. To many Jews in London, Newcastle might as well be the edge of the Jewish world.

The some 600 overlooked Jews who call Newcastle home are a microcosm of the challenges that have affected U.K. Jewish communities outside the London Bagel Belt: how to sustain a shrinking and aging community.

Yet just across the slow-running River Tyne, the redbrick houses of Europes last great yeshiva town are visible in the smaller neighboring city of Gateshead.

As if etched from an Isaac Bashevis Singer story, Gateshead is where prayer and Yiddish jokes escape through the open windows of the towns multiple yeshivas, and where on a Friday evening black-frocked Talmud scholars sprint home to place Shabbat candles in windows. The Tyne crossing takes you to a different Jewish world.

Perhaps it was always meant to be this way Gateshead was founded, so the histories go, by a shocked and dismayed group of Lithuanian Jews who, having stepped off the bows of the ships that ferried Jews from the Russian Baltic to the beating heart of industrial England, thought that the Newcastle community had anglicized to such a degree that they had lost their authentic connection with Judaism.

By 1929, Gateshead had become the British outpost for a prestigious network of Eastern European-style yeshivas, and over the decades its early winter nights played host to the best and brightest scholars of the haredi Orthodox world.

In recent years Gateshead, which previously had little contact with their brethren across the Tyne, has begun to extend a helping hand, even throughout the COVID crisis, by ferrying men needed to complete the minyan of 10 needed for daily prayers at Newcastles one Orthodox synagogue. They also bring bread from a well-regarded Gateshead kosher bakery.

Two Jewish men make their way home from synagogue in Gateshead, England, on the first day of Rosh Hashanah, Sept. 18, 2020. (Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

We are very different sides of the same coin, but it is the same coin because we are all Jewish but they are very different community from ours, said Anthony Josephs, the chair of Newcastles Orthodox congregation.

Nestled in a north Newcastle suburb, the modernist building that the Jews of Newcastle built for themselves in 1986 was supposed to be the future, a statement of intent that the community was here to stay even though it went up during a time when the citys Orthodox community condensed from three synagogues into one.

Now the brown-bricked building that was billed as a new long-term home for the community has been sold. It will be replaced by an apartment building.

When that shul was built, I dont think that anybody could have anticipated that it would only be in operation for 35 years but thats the reality, sadly, Josephs said.

The former 300-seat synagogue is in many ways a window into the predicament of regional Jewish communities across Britain, many of which are shrinking quickly and trying to figure out where they are going. Where once were small and thriving communities, there is now only a flicker of a Jewish presence. Today Sunderland and Middlesbrough the northeasts second and third largest cities have Jewish populations of one and four, respectively.

Josephs, a bespectacled white-haired man, is blunt.

Im sad to say that in 10 or 20 years there may be no traditional Orthodox Jewish community in Newcastle, he said. The projections that were done some years ago saw the community was dwindling, and unfortunately that is still the case it is dwindling still, but at a faster rate now.

In 1950, there were nearly 2,500 Jews in Newcastle, but as the city entered a long industrial decline, the population has plummeted. The city was once a big producer of steel and materials to build trains and ships, as well as an import-export center for commodities such as coal. The import-export traffic has shifted out of the region, and other industries have become less profitable.

A view of Newcastle, a city in northeast England, on Sept. 29, 2020, after tighter restrictions were put in place to help mitigate the spread of COVID-19. (Oli Scarff/AFP via Getty Images)

For years, the pattern has been that students leave Newcastle for university and never return.

It is a vicious cycle, Josephs said. We have shrunk because we are small to begin with, and as a result the ability to find a Jewish partner has diminished and, of course, the streets of London are paved with gold and opportunity.

In the region, only haredi Gateshead driven by high birth rates, low housing prices and a constant supply of students into the community (fueled in part by the lower-than-London cost of living) is growing.

But Newcastles Jewish future is, if not like Gatesheads, perhaps a little more optimistic than many suggest.

In a redbrick former Methodist Hall, nestled in a suburb north of Newcastle, the Newcastle Reform Synagogue is bubbling along.

Well still be here, said Linda Scott, the cheerful chair of the synagogue. Our numbers arent high, but weve recently had an influx of young families. Scott estimates that her congregation stands at somewhere around 100 families, although far fewer attend regularly.

Across Britain, Liberal and Reform synagogues are increasingly coming to be seen as the only viable Jewish denominations outside of the major Jewish hubs, sustained by a diverse and geographically spread-out group of Jews who dont want to attend more traditional synagogues.

Many midlevel towns that once had small but well-established Jewish populations such as Blackpool, York and Bradford have seen their once large Orthodox congregations melt away and their Reform or Liberal counterparts remain. Even nearby Darlington, with its own tiny Jewish population, saw its only congregation read the room and switch denominations in the late 1980s.

A view of the Gateshead Talmudical College, the citys most prestigious yeshiva. (Jacob Judah)

Newcastles Orthodox may well be facing the same fate, says the synagogues part-time rabbi, Sybil Sheridan, who believes that the future in the region is increasingly in the more flexible progressive denominations.

Sheridan, 66, who in normal times zips up and down the railway line from London once a week to tend to her small flock, says that students some of whom will stay are a likely avenue that will sustain the community in the long run.

But in Newcastle, the rabbi warns, it would be a mistake to see the decline of one congregation as a net positive for the other.

It is a mutual dependence, and neither can really survive without the other, as each plays their role and operates institutions that the small community desperately need.

Condensation is a pattern. In June 2019, one progressive synagogue in Dundee, Scotland, decided to move to the nearby university town of St. Andrews after its congregation dwindled. Newcastle has also received the refugees from around the region the last Jews of Middlesbrough, Sunderland and countless smaller cities that have shrunk and vanished.

Judaism outside of the major Jewish cities, Sheridan says, is a different and more traditional experience for many.

In London, communities dont feel the need to be involved. They come along to have Judaism done to them, she said.

But, Sheridan added, with the sort of size at Newcastle Reform, people feel they have a stake in the community and so they work that bit harder to keep it going.

If you look historically, Jews have always lived in small villages think of the shtetlach of Eastern Europe. You dont need big buildings to live a Jewish life. You need a community, but that community doesnt need to be big. Having small communities as well as your large central ones is the way it should be.

Members of the Newcastle Reform Synagogue celebrate a recent Hanukkah. (Courtesy of Newcastle Reform Synagogue)

Ed Horwich, the chairman of the Jewish Small Communities Network, an organization that supports Britains regional communities, agrees.

It is important for the Jew in North London and the Jew in Manchester to know that there is Jewish life outside of those bubbles, he said. They have exactly the same Jewish life, in fact, probably more so because in North London you can drive on Shabbat and eat a bacon bagel and everyone will still call you a Jew. In Newcastle, you could never get away with that.

The rest is here:

The Jewish community in Newcastle, England, is shrinking. But it's getting some unexpected help. - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

The poet and teacher Jessica Greenbaum, a friend for over 30 years, and her co-editor, Rabbi Hara Person, recently guided me through their new Haggadah, Mishkan HaSeder: A Passover Haggadah. I was so happy to have their company and wisdom. It is natural and genius to illuminate the Haggadahs questions and metaphors with poetry. The result is one of the most moving Haggadot that I have read. Greenbaum and Person have elevated the familiar and cast new light on a story that has been retold for generations. Their work around the foundational story of the Jewish people enables readers to fulfill the commandment of experiencing the Exodus personally and meaningfully.

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Greenbaum said her interface with Judaism and spirituality is through metaphor. Her poetry selections for the Haggadah highlight the organic connection between the contemporary poems and historical text. The editors also pay homage to the Jewish tradition of reading a text closely. Texts are cherished in Jewish tradition. They are read over and overto parse, deepen and, as my children said when they were little, to understand them more better. The poems Greenbaum and Person have offered in this Haggadah make it so.

In the spirit of the Talmud, contemporary and historical texts converse over time and space in Mishkan HaSeder. We have this double spread, or the conversation between the right side of the page and the left side of the pagethe historical text and the contemporary text, Person explained. On the left is a counter text, arguing and challenging the historical text. Its a dialogue, the ultimate re-engagement with what is on the right side of the page.

A brilliant example of this traditional back-and-forth dynamic across the page, and across the generations, is the editors deconstruction and rebuilding of the Four Questions. This seder classic is on the Haggadahs right page. Greenbaum and Persons version of the questions on the left page inspire seder participants to delve more deeply into them. In their adaptation, the first question asks: Havent we taken this trip before? Just last year? Why go again? Is it possible to see different things upon arriving this time?

The next three questions innovate by requesting people to fill in the blanks. For example: What about our neighbors we left behind? The ones visited by the Angel of Death? How do I live with their tears? How do we live with the tears of_______? These deliberately open-ended questions grew out of discussions between Greenbaum and Person on social justice issues, such as working for others freedom. Person noted that the underlying question is about myriad aspects of personal liberation. Have we been redeemed? she asks. Have we done all we could to help the stranger? Have we done all we could to hear the call, the cry of the oppressed, the call to justice?

Greenbaum connects the questions to tikkun olam and poetry. Poetry has always had a voice of social justice, she said. Sometimes its more overt. But if youre observing the world, youre observing sorrow. In your own world, you might make meaning from sorrow by creating a poem out of it. Thats tikkun olam, as much as you can do it for yourself and others.

Greenbaum and I read some of the poems in the Haggadah together. She asked me to bear in mind that were sharing a way toward revelation. She added: There is also the goal of bringing our whole lives to the moment and to the seder. Poems are written out of the experience of a whole life, not from a homogeneous slice of it. Theyre about the human condition. Greenbaums selections tap into the holiness inherent to the themes of inclusion, disability, immigration and transgender equality.

She pointed out that Erika Dreifuss poem Dayenu is important for the way it describes how a family has experienced distress and is in the present moment with joy. Dreifus writes:

At Passover, we read aloud from the Haggadahand we mention four children.When I was growing up, we laughedas each found its match around the table:the wise child, the rebellious, the simple.But later, the laughter stoppedWhen we reached the child who is unable to ask.

Greenbaum noted that Rose Blacks poem Invitation shows how people can feel like a stranger at a seder. Everyone is invited to come and partake. But how does it relate to a persons tradition and their family? Black begins her poem:

half of me from pickled herring in New Yorkhalf of me from fields of corn in Indiana

all my mothers ancestors from Polandall my fathers from Alsace-Lorraine

all the Jews who came before Jewish and Catholicever existed, before the pyramids of Egypt

Greenbaum said that she and Person read each poem out loud together. Emma Lazaruss poem The New Colossus, which includes the iconic lines, Give me your tired, your poor/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free/The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, brought them to tears.

Karl Shapiros poem The 151st Psalm complements the immigrant theme, portraying God as the ultimate immigrant who is very much in the world with the poet.

Immigrant God, You follow me;You go with me, You are a distant tree;You are the beast lows in my hearts gates;You are the dog that follows at my heel;You are the table on which I lean;You are the plate from which I eat.

Greenbaum also includes President Bidens favorite poem, The Cure at Troy by Seamus Heaney, in the Haggadah. The president read it with Lin-Manuel Miranda atthe inaugural gala. Heaney writes:

So hope for a great-sea-changeOn the far side of revenge.Believe that a further shoreIs reachable from here.Believe in miraclesAnd cures and healing wells.

That stanza, said Greenbaum, is built for Passover. It says that our story is archetypal, and not just for us.

It is only right to end this literary tour of Mishkan HaSeder with Greenbaum and Persons poems. Person addresses the fact that Passover is a home-based holiday and that it has traditionally fell to women to clean and cook for it. In her resonant poem Passover Love Song, Person writes: The seder is a love song written/in the language of silver polish/and dishpan hands.

Greenbaum pointed out that her poem After Reading Fatimah Asghars Ghazal, WWE is about a Muslim immigrant family whose aunt loves to watch wrestling on television. Asghars poem reveals that the aunts husband has been abusing her and shows that she is only free when she watches wrestling. Here are the first lines of Greenbaums affecting poem:

If you ask around you find that the immigrant grandparents of the 1950sLoved watching wrestling. I was discussing Fatimah Asghars spell-binding poemIn relation to Jacob, you know, wrestling, and also how Rebecca stealsThe house gods and co-opts misogyny to take control, as Asghars poem does,and everyone started chiming in about their own grandparents, how, whenstill learning the language, they would watch Channel 5 on Fridays

In Mishkan HaSeder, sacred texts and contemporary poetry interact across the page like the brightest of fireworks. This is a Haggadah that asks us to think about what is missing in our understanding and execution of social justice. It asks to honor the strangers among us. Its a stunning achievementa wholly distinct way to distill Judaisms central narrative.

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And Then: New Haggadah Captures Ancient and Contemporary Aspects of Passover - jewishboston.com