Shabbat (comparative religion, mostly)

Our associate rabbi just came back last week from a month-long training program for chaplains in the air force, and he had a lot to say about that (both last night and this morning). He was, not surprisingly, the only rabbi in their group of 30. There were two priests and the rest were assorted Protestant ministers. Quite a mix, he said.

At torah study we talked about the direct contact that Moshe had with God (when God would descend on the mishkan and speak to him). The rabbi pointed out that we tend to not make a big deal about this -- "oh yeah, God talked to Moshe" as opposed to getting excited about it. Why are we so blase about it? The Christians he spent the last month would have been all over that sort of thing with excitement, he said. (I pointed out that compared to the revelation at Sinai, this is less dramatic. It doesn't happen out in public and it doesn't involve the whole people. We tend to focus on the immanance and pure power of that moment with the whole people.)

This led to a discussion of the transcendant versus immanent God, with my rabbi speculating that the Christians he's met seem to be much more focused on an immanent God, while he (personally) is more comfortable with a transcendant God. (Yes, of course it's some of each, but different people are comfortable with different divisions.) Most of the Christians in his group were happy to talk about their direct, personal relationships with God; most Jews, in his experience, are uncomfortable doing that. (We might or might not have such relationships, but we don't tend so much to talk about them.)

I think there is a structural issue there, at least when you talk about lay people. (Not so much clergy, I hope.) Christianity is a religion, and if you're part of the community it's because you're part of the religion. You can assume a high degree of agreement on basic theological principles. But Judaism is also a people, and there are quite a few people who identify as Jewish but don't believe in God, or don't share your understanding of what God wants or how to relate to him. They are part of the community for other reasons. So if you find yourself talking theology with the guy sitting next to you at the annual meeting, the odds are somewhat lower that you'll share core beliefs, especially in liberal congregations. In other words, the density of religious feeling in the congregation is lower.

When it came time for the ice-breaker question in the service, he asked us to share a significant religious moment from our childhoods. (He initially said a Jewish moment, then realized not everyone grew up Jewish.) People talked about all sorts of things -- seders, other family moments, b'nei mitzvah, camp, and other things. I said something to the effect that all of my significant religious experiences from childhood were negative so I wouldn't talk about those, but that the talmud states that a convert is like a newborn so I'm free to talk about anything Jewish. This got a big laugh, and when I was done the rabbi said something like "we'll all be here for you to help you through your adolescence; these are difficult years, but I'm sure you'll pull through". It's nice to have a rabbi with a sense of humor. :-) By the way, I talked about reading torah -- and it was actually the second time I read, not the first, that I really, really felt a connection with it.

Pacing is not one of the associate rabbi's strengths, so when he left at a bit after 10, we were just getting to Barchu. (Usually we start the torah service around 10:15.) I took over the service and tried to expedite, choosing shorter melodies and skipping optional readings and stuff like that, but we were still running pretty late. (It's hard to make up that much time in kriat shema and t'filah, after all.) Unfortunately, this week's torah reader didn't realize that we were running so late, so she didn't abbreviate the d'var she'd prepared or otherwise expedite. She was also kind of nervous, and seeing people leave partway through her part of the service probably didn't help. I feel for her. I talked with her some after the service, but I also need to send a note to the mailing list about tricks for keeping a service on track. I'm not perfect either, of course, but I seem to have picked up some hints by observing my rabbi. And maybe I need to get a clock for the room.

Ki Teitze

This Shabbat's torah portion talked about the bird and the chicks. If you come upon a nest and want to take the chicks, you have to first send the mother bird away; the reward for this is long life. (Aside: Elisha ben Abuyah became an apostate when he witnessed a violation of that promise, according to the talmud.) This is one of two commandments for which the stated reward is long life; the other is honoring your parents.

Is there a connection? Sending the mother bird away before taking her young resonates with that -- that if we would do that for a bird, how much moreso should we honor people. And is there a connection between both of those and the rebellious child?

If a child is so rebellious that his parents can't deal with him, the torah says, they are to kill him. There's a judicial process, and the rabbis added many, many restrictions to ensure that it could never actually happen. (And they say it never happened.) So the penalty for not honoring your parents is not getting a long life, and the degenerate case of that is a very short life for extreme dishonor. Not that we should take that literally.