Well, and Your Humble Blogger has started going to Torah Study again. My new local shul is Reform, and evidently the practice at Reform shuls is to have Torah study before service on Saturday mornings, unlike the Reconstructionist practice of having discussion during the Torah service itself. There are advantages to each, but so far it has meant that I can go to the study session and then sneak out before the service proper, which isn’t really what I want, but there it is.
Anyway, at Temple Beth Bolshoyeh there’s a rotation for leading the Torah Study, and it was Senior Rabbi’s turn this week (that’s Senior Rabbi, not Rabbi Emeritus, who doesn’t take a turn—the rotation is Senior Rabbi, Associate Rabbi and Cantor, and it would just be wrong to think of them as Papa Bear, Baby Bear and Mama Bear). Now, I’m afraid I don’t like Senior Rabbi very much; he’s clearly learned and all, and he’s clearly exactly the sort of Rabbi that is needed at a place like Temple Beth Bolshoyeh, all charisma and passion and jokes and theater and networking and (presumably) organizational skillz. Still, I find him overwhelming and a trifle annoying.
So. We didn’t study the portion this week. Rabbi had us all talk about how to get people to want to build Sukkot in their backyard. That is, not the reasons in Lev 23, or just because it is in Leviticus, but new reasons that are relevant to our own lives and times. He got the usual answers: reconnecting with the environment, harvest/food/hunger/thanksgiving issues, and (he has to plant this one) homelessness. Then he had us try to do that with the Lulav and Etrog, and that was harder. We went through the body symbolism (etrog=heart, palm=spine, myrtle=eyes, willow=lips) (why is myrtle always eyes? Do myrtle leaves look that much more like eyes than other leaves do?), and holding them all together symbolizes that we pray with our whole being. He also went through another symbol system, where fragrance=good deed and fruit=learning, and thus the etrog stands for those people who have both learning and good deeds, the palm stands for those who have learning but no good deeds, the myrtle stands for those who have good deeds but no learning, and the willow for those with neither learning nor good deeds, and yet still we all stand together in the eyes of the Lord, just as we hold the etrog and lulav together on Sukkot.
There followed some spirited defense of the willow. I wanted to know if the rabbis were unaware of the massive pharmaceutical benefits of the willow, while one fellow praised the way a line of willows acts as a windbreak. Papa Bear thought we missed the point—and then corrected himself. The point, really, was that what we were doing, trying to give modern meaning to ancient custom, is what the rabbis did after the Temple was destroyed. We are stuck with the customs (more or less, as this is a Reform shul), but we are not stuck with the meanings the Rabbis chose. We can make the willow mean something else.
A good lesson, I thought.
chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.