Shalom Everyone,

Tonight, tomorrow evening, Shabbat morning, and next Shabbat, we are happy to offer a number of opportunities to learn, grow, pray, spiritually explore.

Tonight – join us for the next 4-session installment of our Zohar study group, The World of the Zohar.  Beginning this evening, we will proceed through the Zohar from the beginning, working through its multiple meanings with the fantastic translation and illuminating commentary of Daniel Matt.  At each session, we read through the text, study it with a hevruta (study partner) and then review it as a group.  It is a lively and engaging experience – please join us!  All are welcome, and no experience is necessary!

Tomorrow, Friday evening, beginning at 6:00, join us as we are led by Rabbi David Seidenberg in prayer, Tu B’Shevat celebration and study as part of our Scholar-in-Residence series, Talking About God: Radical Frontiers.  In addition to Friday night, David will also present a teaching Saturday morning during Kiddush.  Both teachings will connect the worlds of Kabbalah and the environment, two of David’s areas of expertise.

Please don’t miss the opportunity to join us Friday night for a potluck after our services.  Childcare will be provided.

Shabbat morning – The splitting of the Red Sea presents a moral problem for us, namely, can we allow ourselves to rejoice when the price of freedom is the destruction of human life?  Join us for a Shabbat morning discussion on this question as we look at teachings that give some surprising answers!  After services, during Kiddush, please join us for a teaching with Rabbi David Seidenberg.

Next Shabbat, 2/11 – We are happy to welcome Rabbi Andrea Cohen-Kiener to lead the Lev Chadash Minyan, beginning at 9:45.  Reb Andrea is a nationally known teacher and writer, and her contribution here at CBI is a rare opportunity. 

These are just a few of the opportunities to connect, explore and learn at CBI.  Please join us, and we can talk over Kiddush and share our questions, insights and stories.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Justin David

Dear Friends,

With the increased daylight, we also see a flourishing of opportunities to pray, learn and explore at CBI!  Please join us this Shabbat and over the next couple of weeks for these great opportunities:

Tonight:  Join us for Kol Shabbat, a Shabbat of rich singing with Felicia Sloin, joined by yours truly and David Weidenfeld at 6:00.  

Tomorrow: Lev Chadash Minyan led by Rabbi Nancy Flam, beginning at 9:45.  As always, a beautiful and rich experience for all, and don’t miss the next Lev Chadash Minyan, to be led by Rabbi Andrea Cohen-Kiener, on February 11.

Next Friday Night: A Shabbaton with Rabbi David Seidenberg as part of CBI Adult Series “Talking About God: Radical Frontiers.”  Join us for a service led by David at 6:00 incorporating traditional prayer, Hasidic chanting and movement, to be followed by a potluck and teaching.  David weaves together Kabbalah and the environment in an evocative celebration of Tu B’Shevat!

Thursday, February 2: Zohar Study Group continues!  After a vibrant 4-session introduction, our Zohar Study Group starts up again on February 2, 7:00.  Studying the Zohar is really a multilayered journey – through the texts and ideas of Jewish tradition, through degrees of self-awareness, and through visions of God.  This is accessible and engaging study for everyone – no experience necessary!!

A beautiful aggadah (rabbinic story) that suggests how our celebration of Hanukkah may tap into a deep human yearning we all may experience this time of year.  From the Talmud, Tractate Avodah Zarah (foreign worship) 8a:

"Our Rabbis taught: When Adam Ha-Rishon (the first human being) saw the day getting gradually shorter, he said, ‘Woe is me, perhaps because I have sinned, the world around me is being darkened and returning to its state of chaos and confusion; this then is the kind of death to which I have been sentenced from Heaven!’ So he began keeping an eight days’ fast. But as he observed the winter equinox and noted the day getting increasingly longer, he said, ‘This is the world's course’, and he set forth to keep an eight days’ festivity. In the following year he appointed both as festivals..."

Our Rabbis taught: When Adam, on the day of his creation, saw the setting of the sun he said! ‘Alas, it is because I have sinned that the world around me is becoming dark; the universe will now become again void and without form — this then is the death to which I have been sentenced from Heaven!’ So he sat up all night fasting and weeping and Eve was weeping opposite him. When however dawn broke, he said: ‘This is the usual course of the world!’ He then arose and offered up a bullock whose horns were developed before its hoofs, as it is said [by the Psalmist], “And it [my thanksgiving] shall please the Lord better than a bullock that hath horns and hoofs.”

            The Rabbis of the Talmud ask, “Why Hanukkah?” by which they probably mean, “What is the spiritual/existential basis for this holiday?”  We have developed some important and succinct answers to this question: the triumph over oppression, the restoration of hope, the celebration of miracles, to name a few.  But like most things, the reality for us is more complicated. 

The original story does feature a small band of freedom fighters, led by the Maccabees, against an authoritarian and cruel regime led by the Greek/Syrian King Antiochus.  But in just a couple hundred years after these original events, our Sages understood that a military victory was perhaps a thin and even dangerous precedent upon which to carry forth a holiday into the next generations.  So, out of whole cloth, they devised the “miracle” of Hanukkah.  According to the Talmud, when the Maccabees seized control of the Temple in Jerusalem, they found the last remaining canister of oil with the seal of the High Priest, insuring that is was still pure for ritual use.  There was enough for one day, but it lasted for eight, and so we have the “miracle” of Hanukkah. 

While the rabbinic story serves as an evocative symbol for the themes of the holiday, Later generations have wondered if the unexpected longevity of the ritual oil was such a great miracle, especially when compared to the splitting of the Red Sea.  And so, Hanukkah leaves us with a conundrum: do we celebrate a military victory that glorifies violence and a ruling family that eventually succumbed to the corruption of power, or do we celebrate an invented miracle that in and of itself leaves one asking for more?

            In a surprisingly contemporary vein, the great Hasidic master Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev (19^th C.) points a way toward resolving our Hanukkah dilemma:

            “The formula of the blessing over candles is, “…who performed miracles for our ancestors in those days, at this time.”  All miracles were outside of time, such as the miracles in Egypt, the splitting of the Reed Sea and the Jordan River, and all these miracles were above nature.  However, such is not the case with the miracles of Hanukkah and Purim, which were in the midst of nature, for the Hasmoneans and their sons waged a war, and on Purim there was Queen Esther.  Thus, we bless on Hanukkah: “…who performed miracles…,” that is to say, in time, which is this world, in the midst of nature God performed miracles.”

            I love this teaching because it seems to speak to our contemporary inclination towards doubt.  Yes, Hanukkah is predicated on a military victory, with all of its inherent problems.  Yes, the “miracle” of Hanukkah is not such a miracle.  But, through the confluence of both these strands, we have the opportunity to think of the ways in which a feeling of the “miraculous” is inherent in everyday, natural processes.  The Maccabees experienced the “miraculous” through the work of their hands, and so do we, and not just through our work, but through the mere fact of being.  Levi Yitzchak has drawn on Hanukkah to teach a powerful, mystical idea, not altogether different from the words of Joni Mitchell, “We are stardust.”

            As with so much in our tradition, the “radical amazement” (to use one of Abraham Joshua Heschel’s favorite phrases) to which the great Levi Yitzchak calls is actually hardwired into our daily practice.  Three times a day, we are given the opportunity to meditate upon a prayer of Thanksgiving in the Amidah.  At the climax of this prayer, we give thanks, “for the miracles that attend us daily, evening, morning and afternoon.” 

            So let us be aware of these daily miracles, and utilize our creative spirituality to name them as such.  Through this naming, we, like our ancestors, transcend both the oppression of this world and the easy sentimentality that ignores what is truly miraculous: the daily pulse of creation that works itself through our individual lives.

Hey Everyone - Check out this handy, one-page sheet for lighting the Chanukiah (Menorah for Chanukah)!