By Samuel Eskenasy

iMasoret is a new all-in-one Jewish tradition application.  It serves as a vast info center that can accompany the user wherever they go.  iMasoret includes all the siddur prayers (in Nussach  Ashkenaz  Sfarad  and Edot Hamizrach) for Israel and for The Diaspora. Also included are The Holy Days, the books of the Torah, Tehillim(Psalms), Lessons, Kabbalah, Blessings, and Songs.  The app even provides locations of Jewish sites of interest including kosher establishments, synagogues and hotels.

Some features included are:

•     Shabbat and Yom Tov tefilot:  includes Shacharit Mincha and Maariv songs in three Nussachim, Laws & Customs, and Songs
•       Tehillim: In text, there are week day or monthly readings, and there is the option of Neshama letters.
•       Books: includes Torah(5), Nevi’im (19), and Ketuvim (11(
•       Kabbalah + Lessons: a very wide variety of lessons in text, audio, and video formats
•       Songs + Poetry: another option that provides a comprehensive coverage of centuries of Jewish wisdom, all in text and video.
•       Blessings: all the daily prayers for before and after a meal, and what to say for each kind of meal.
•       A calendar with important times.
•       A search option for finding any word or sentence in any of the content as well as a help function
•       Comments – the user can add his comment to some part of the text that will then be available for all others using the application.

The iMasoret is a fully multilingual application.  The current version provides English and Hebrew, subsequent releases will provide Spanish, French, Russian, and German.

The application also has a business directory that any establishment can join to reach a large pool of potential customers.  Find out more at www.imasoret.com

By David Sigal, from appstudio

This app came about from my realization that when people go to Shul to daven, they almost never pull out an electronic device. Back 8-9 years ago I remember seeing people trying to daven in a shul from their Palm Pilots and that looked very unnatural. Pocket PC screens were dim, not multitouch, low resolution and one had to tap on a button almost every second to scroll the text. Besides, there are ample amounts of siddurim in a shul, and most people still prefer to read from a physical siddur.

Now with over 200 thousand apps on the iTunes App Store we were surprised not to find a single dedicated Birkat Hamazon app that I could use as a bencher. Mind you there are a few apps that have a text of Birkat Hamazon in them, but before iBirkat was released we haven’t seen a single app that focuses solely on benching. So I got myself a few Jewish apps, among them iPhone Siddur app, but the only time I found myself opening this app was to read Birkat HaMazon. After a few dozen times of opening said app and navigating to the bencher I realized there is a need in the market for a clean, convenient and quick access to the text of beching, and this is how iBirkat was born.

Designing this app we had a few things we wanted to accomplish and so far this is what we have achieved:

1. Currently this is the only bencher app that is on the market, that means that other apps that have Birkat Hamazon text in them are not focused on Birkat Hamazon, but rather include it along with other texts and features (no need in navigating through an entire Siddur).
2. Our app is free and has no ads in it, it is intended as public service app
3. iBirkat has elegant scroll view as opposed to static page views and our app takes advantage of the accelerometer and adjusts the text to the adequate screen position.
4. Birkat Hamazon text is available in iBirkat in most commonly used nussachim (Ari, Eidut Hamizrah, Sefard and Ashkenaz) which are easily accessible from main menu via a picker.
5. Overall pleasant design and ease of use

The app has been through two updates already, and we are working on producing a version for both the iPad and the new high definition iPhone 4 screen.

Download or find out more here

For a feature request or any comments about iBirkat you can email
appSTUDIO at: info@appstudio.co.il

]]> http://jcarrot.org/birkat-hamazon-iphone-app-ibirkat/feed 3 http://jcarrot.org/twocovenants http://jcarrot.org/twocovenants#comments Wed, 05 May 2010 20:22:11 +0000 Rabbi David Seidenberg http://jcarrot.org/?p=11866

The iridescent colors reflected off an oil slick are like a twisted and distorted rainbow.

There is a special correlation between this week�s Torah portion and the rainbow covenant of Noah�s time. And there is a foreboding contrast between the rainbow covenant and what�s happened in the Gulf of Mexico. The tension between these dynamic relationships in many ways defines the predicament of our time.

Just as this week is the week we read about the central covenant of the Torah encoded in the Sabbatical and Jubilee years, it is also the week when the anniversary of the rainbow covenant falls. It is no random happenstance: the covenant represented by the Jubilee is in many ways a response to the covenant with Noah and the animals.

How so? The covenant of Noah�s time�the first covenant recorded in the Torah�includes the land and the animals as covenant partners with God alongside the human family. This is also the case with the Jubilee covenant: the land is promised her Sabbaths as a condition for the Israelites to settle upon the land, while the people are required in the Sabbatical year, when the land is resting, to open their fences to allow the wild animals in to eat their fill.

The first condition�to let the land rest�is a fulfillment of the promise in the rainbow covenant that God will no longer destroy the land because of humanity: here God promises to exile humanity in order to save the land from being destroyed. The second condition�allowing the wild animals into the fields�is a tikkun for what happened after the rainbow covenant: even though the animals were partners in God�s covenantal promise not to destroy the earth, they afterwards became fodder for the humans (�like green plants I give you them all�).

Instead, here, in the Sabbatical year, the humans are required to allow their agriculture to go wild and to invite the wild animals to share what grows. This is not only a tikkun for the permission granted to human beings to eat animals. It is also a return to the Garden of Eden, where animals and human beings shared the same food.

And the Gulf of Mexico? In the rainbow covenant God promised not to destroy the Earth because of us, but God did not promise that we wouldn�t destroy the Earth. As the oil laps at the shore and threatens vast ecosystems, important food sources, and endangered species, we must realize that God�s covenant is not enough to save us. The iridescent colors reflected off an oil slick are like a twisted and distorted rainbow. The tragedy and horror of this accident remind us that we have reached a point where we can undo God�s rainbow covenant at the expense of our own lives and the lives of other creatures.

These are the worst of times, because the threat is that close and that enormous. And these are the best of times, because we can wake up to our potential for love and righteousness and create a sustainable world, a world that reflects the rainbow covenant as it was meant to be: a promise to honor and cherish all beings, as God does, and so to act in God�s image.

Then, to quote a medieval prayer (from Pri Eitz Hadar), may we be privileged to see �the whole return to its original strength�and to see the rainbow, joyful and beautified with his colors.� Yashuv hakol l�eitano ha rishon, v�niratah hakeshet, sas umitpa�er b�govanin.

David Seidenberg is the creator of neohasid.org and a teacher of Judaism and ecology.

Life in general distracts me. It’s true no matter what I’m doing or where I am. If I go into the food co-op for bread and peanut butter, I’ll carry out shampoo and trail mix; when I resolve to run twelve times around the track, I lose count after the third loop. Even when I get through a task, I often neglect to follow up or look back to consider its lessons. By the time I’m halfway through, my mind is already whirring off in another direction.

So I was a little concerned when I signed up for a 21-day “spring rejuvenation cleanse” and learned that it would involve focus. In multiple ways. But this also got to the heart of why I wanted to purify in the first place.

To get the most out of this food-based detoxifying experience, the approximately 50 participants are supposed to eat certain foods, avoid others, prepare detoxifying recipes, breathe deeply, take long walks, and journal about the whole thing each day. On top of all that, our guide encourages us to “eat mindfully”. I figured if I could do all of that, I might have a fighting chance of getting my attention deficit into the black.

Just before the cleanse’s official start date of April 5, I realized I already had an advantage when it came to mindful eating. To get started, I headed to my bookshelf.

Of course, it took me a few minutes of looking at other books and trying to remember why I was there, but soon I was leafing through my copy of Food for Thought, Hazon’s curriculum on Jews, food, and contemporary life. I turned to chapter 2, “Gratitude, Mindfulness, and Blessing our Food”, and started to get reacquainted with the berachot for the things I eat every day.

Usually, I only remember to say blessings over food or beverages on special occasions – at a Shabbat dinner, or during a Pesach Seder. I can count on one hand the number of times a year I say the Birkat Hamazon, or bensch, after a meal. During the 21 days of the cleanse, I decided, I would finally corral my attention and make it happen.

Food for Thought lists not two or three, but six blessings over noshes and meals (it’s the same list available from online resources like My Jewish Learning and Chabad). This demands even more attention.

First of all, I can’t start shoveling the morning’s oatmeal (pictured above) into my mouth while I iron my pants. No. I have to pause. Then I have to quiet my mind enough to consider: Is this food primarily made of grains? Or animal products? If it is a fruit or vegetable, does it come from a tree or the ground? The second step is to remember the last phrase after the standard preamble blessing God, ruler of the universe. Is it He who creates varieties of nourishment? (for foods made of grains that are not bread), or He who creates the fruit of the tree? The third step is to say it. Then, of course, you can dig in.

Throughout the first days, I kept severing my string of consciousness. On the first night, I even determined, as I fussed with my salad in the kitchen, that I should say “borei p’ri ha’adamah.” One step down! I thought. This’ll be a cinch. But by the time I brought everything to the table, I forgot and just started eating.

When I did remember that night, I decided to do it anyway. So I stopped. I put down my fork and I looked up from the book I was reading. I held the bowl in my hands, looking down at the mix of green in the lettuces and examining the shades of orange and ivory in the other vegetables. Then I said the blessing aloud.

Next, I turned to my salmon. I said the blessing I had been trying to learn for the past day, the one that applies to fish, dairy, candy, and other miscellaneous foods–a collection of things that reminded me a lot of the sundry thoughts jumbling through my head most of the time. I stumbled a little, but finally remembered the words: “shehakol niyah bidvar”–”at whose word all came to be.”

Then I picked up my fork and started over.

Stop and think; choose a blessing and bless; eat.

It seems a simple line of thought, and one that I can eventually complete. Maybe by the time I’m eating bread again, I’ll even make it to bensching.

Note: The Hebrew translations above are actually from My Jewish Learning, not Food for Thought. I noticed differences in each source I consulted. If you have thoughts on why that might be, feel free to comment!

The month Nisan begins tonight and with it, so many associations. Last year, I wrote about the practice of refraining from eating Matzah from Rosh Hodesh Nisan (i.e. tonight) until Passover. Most people make, if any, the association of dreaded Pesach cleaning and preparation. I’ll be writing some about that in a few days or next week, God willing, but for now, let’s stick to things connected specifically to Rosh Hodesh Nisan.

One association fewer people make is that Birkat haIlanot, the blessing over blooming trees, is typically said in the month of Nisan:

ברוך אתה ה” אלוהינו מלך העולם שלא חיסר בעולמו כלום וברא בו בריות טובות ואילנות טובות ליהנות בהם בני אדם

Barukh Atah Adonai Eloheynu Melekh haOlam, sh’lo hisar b’Olamo kloom, uvara vo b’riyot tovot v’eelanot tovot lehanot ba-hem b’ney adahm

Blessed are you, Hashem our God, King of the universe, for nothing is lacking in His universe, and He created good creatures and good trees in it so that people can enjoy them.

( * There are a few variations of the blessing. This is the way it appears in the Shulhan Arukh. I suppose if you’re learning this for the first time, you’re learning it from me; say it the way you were taught it.)

The occurrence and wording of the blessing make sense: we tend to bless God for those things that benefit us and happen at specific times (think holidays.) We also make blessings on anything enjoyable (Birkhot haNehenin.) But there is more to this practice than simply making the blessing. First, you have to see the tree. It is not enough to know that this is when it will happen or to hear that someone else saw it. Second, it is the blossom or flower of the tree that you must see. Third, we say the blessing only when we see this happen to/on a tree that produces edible fruit. Finally, each person says this blessing only once per year, upon seeing such a bloom for the first time.

Among the purpose of blessings is to compel us to see the beautiful in the ordinary and in the extraordinary and to appreciate these as gifts from God. Birkat haIlanot has a particularly beautiful way of doing this. “One who goes out,” says the Shulhan Arukh, “in the days of Nisan and sees trees from which a flower is blossoming, says [the above blessing.]” (OH 226:1) Truthfully, the later scholars tell us, the blessing is not connected only to this month, but that this is the time when trees typically bloom in warmer countries (the Shulhan Arukh was probably compiled in Tz’fat and was based on material “the Mehaber” previously compiled there and in Adrianople, Turkey.)

This blessing fits into a category known as Birkhot haRe’iyah, blessings of seeing, made when seeing things: rainbows, lightning, certain people, oceans and, of course, trees in bloom. Sometimes it is hard to look at something in nature and see a spark of God in it, have a spiritual experience from it. How much harder it is to look at people, especially the ones you don’t like, and see God in them. All the soft-spoken rabbi talk about “the image of God” in the world won’t make that easy. These blessings help. Notice that the rule isn’t that one should go out looking for such a tree. When you go out, starting around now, it says, you have to observe everything around you; don’t necessarily look for a tree, but when you spot one–which means you have to observe everything around you–say this blessing.

Of course, the timing of the blessing makes sense because people mark Rosh Hodesh Nisan and it’s around now that trees start to bloom in many parts of the world (at least in the northern hemisphere.) But I posit that there is another reason. We start paying attention to blossoming trees tomorrow because in a certain way, that’s what tomorrow is all about. Rosh Hodesh Nisan is a time to remember that redemption is on its way. Just as we must do with trees, beginning tomorrow, if not all the time, we have to start looking around. Miracles can (Nisan from Nes, miracle) happen at any time anywhere. Maimonides even defines a miracle this way: when something unusual but within the limits of the natural order happens at precisely the right time. Usually we don’t notice miracles until after they’ve happened. Most scholars hold that you can’t say Birkat haIlanot after the actual fruit comes out; the whole point of the blessing is to thank God for potential. Right now (Rosh Hodesh begins in a few minutes here on the East Coast) is a particularly auspicious time to be thinking about potential. Our redemption as a people and as individuals is as close and as evident as the blossoming trees. Only by remembering to bless it will we remember–and merit–to see it.

Hodesh Tov!

Today was the first of the month of Adar. In Hebrew we sing “Mi SheNichnas Adar, Marbim b’Simcha” meaning – “whoever enters the month of Adar, will abound in happiness”. This is the month in which we are encouraged to play and be silly and joyful.

It seems that there is an idea in our consumer society that happiness is something that happens to us… usually later. It may coincide with acquiring new things, or with joyous events, or with some standards of success. It is time to put all thoughts of, or standards for, achieving happiness aside, and practice generating happiness in our bodies right now…and now…and now…

We have the power to create happiness (or any other mood) by declaring it to be so in our being. Practice by remembering a spontaneously happy moment. Where were you? Who was with you? What did it feel like in your body? Where did you feel it? Can you generate that same feeling by remembering that moment? Could you create those sensations in your body now?

The blessing in Adar is our ability to declare, create, and feel the happiness in each moment, to put aside our doubts, and to blur the distinctions between good and bad. Everything is a manifestation of oneness. How awesome! Melinda Ribner, in “Kabbalah Month by Month” says, “When we are privileged to recognize the awesomeness of life, not knowing is often a higher form of knowing” (p. 146-7).

On the 14th of Adar, we will celebrate Purim. It is said that when the Messiah comes, Purim will be the only remaining holiday. In the miraculous story, a Persian Queen, Esther, courageously revealed her Jewish identity to King Achashverosh in order to save the Jews from the decree of death orchestrated by the king’s wicked advisor, Haman. On this holiday we wear costumes and read the story aloud. Whenever the name of Haman is said, we shake our noisemakers and boo loudly to blot out his name.

It is said that Haman came from the line of Amalek- the tribe who is a long standing perpetrator against Jews. The numerical sum of Hebrew letters of this word adds up to the sum of the letters in the Hebrew word “safek”- doubt. So while we are booing Haman, and Amalek, on a deeper level we are also booing our doubts.

In “The Twelve Dimensions of Israel”, Nechama Nadborny tells us, “Today, Amalek is the psychic force which causes us to question our direction, doubt our purpose, to hesitate, to slip and fall. The more we are able to detail and identify our personal Amalek, the faster we can sharpen our flight instinct and free ourselves of those convoluted thoughts which prevent us from joyously running in tune with Divine Will” (p. 205).

One practice that you can try on Purim, is to think and feel your own doubts each time the name “Haman” is said and then use the noise to blot them out. The point of the exercise is to experience the physicality of our doubts. We often think of them as thoughts, and forget to feel them in our bodies. Once we have an embodied experience of our doubts, we can learn from them and choose to hold on, or to let them go.

Let us remember that some of these doubts are really quite valid and worthy. They can be wake up calls. And, we can feel comforted knowing that many of us have similar doubts. It is part of being human. I want to be clear that the point of this exercise is to help us lighten up a little, and to remove ourselves from the good/bad framework.

Ultimately, we want to be free from our suffering from doubt.

What do you feel in your body when you are caught in the grips of unknowing and indecision? As you shout and boo and make noise at your doubts, notice how this resonates in your body. Are there places that feel looser, or tighter? How does it feel when you are able to let go of these doubts? How does it feel in your body when you are resistant to letting go? Can you begin to develop in inner “boo” to change your attitude and your physicality when your thoughts no longer serve? Can you invite joy and levity into this process?

Our task this month is to ask for and receive guidance. The true tension lies in the moments of doubt and indecision. Perhaps we stay there for so long because we think there is a right and wrong decision, when in reality, we have many choices that will lead to more choices, and as we slowly enter spring, it’s time to keep on moving.

Good thing we have another tradition on Purim to help us get out of indecisive stuckness, which is to get drunk until we don’t know the difference between the wicked Haman and Mordechai- Esther’s righteous uncle.

The intention behind this tradition (whether you get drunk or not) is to be in the unknowing about what is good and bad… if there even are such things. It is all a manifestation of Divine will. And from this unknowing, we can ask for guidance and make a choice. Many of us have been exploring this ability to be in the unknowing with the snow accumulation this past month. This snow is our teacher. Other life circumstances can also be our teachers, if we choose to see them as such.

I would like to thank my teachers at Tai Sophia Institute for the healing arts. They have reminded me of the ancient wisdom that in making any choice, there are only two questions to ask: Will this honor the Ancestors- the parents, grandparents and great-grandparents? And, Will it serve the next generations- the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren?

It is common to ask ourselves, “what do I want.” With this new perspective, perhaps we can have more clarity about “how will I be of service”. Blessings on this new month and the unfolding springtime! May we find it in our will to delve deeper into the projects we have already begun. And may we be thoughtful and trusting of our choices and learn to be in our being without thinking too much about doing.

On Shavuot, when we celebrate receiving the Torah, we also celebrate the offering of the first fruits in the Temple, the bikurim.

The offering was a supremely humble gesture: the fruits which form first on a tree are often smaller, less perfect, only hinting at the abundance to follow. In ancient Israel, these offerings were gussied up, surrounded by the more beautiful fruit which grew later, brought sometimes in gold baskets, accompanied by flutes, processions. All the trappings of art and wealth were used to beautify the offering. Yet without the small, perhaps wrinkled fruit of the bikurim, there could be no offering.

It was at this moment of offering that the Torah teaches us to recite the story of redemption, the same one we now read in our Passover haggadah. The story was also a garland, as it were, for the bikurim offering, connecting our history to the very physical redemption of another spring and another growing season.

These first fruits acted as a reminder that everything—society, civilization, culture, wealth, religion—are all built on a relationship to the earth. The people who brought the offering were taught to trust in God’s providential care for the earth, praying, in the words of the Torah: Hashkifah mime’on kodshekha “Look out from the sanctuary of your holiness, from the heavens, and bless your people Israel and the earth which you gave us…” (Deut. 26:15) The bikurim made a kind of opening for us to think about our relationship to the rest of life and creation.

I am reminded, when I think of this simple gesture, of a teaching of the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism. When God gives instructions to Noah for building the ark, Noah is commanded: Tsohar ta’aseh lateivah “Make a light-opening for the ark.” (Gen. 6:16) In Hebrew, the word teivah has the meaning of both “ark” and “word”. The Baal Shem Tov therefore taught us to read the verse this way: “Make an opening for light within every word you speak.” Open up each word and gesture — to meaning, to feeling, to the outside and unexpected.

Instead we create ghettos within ghettos. We act as though civilization were a self-enclosed system, sealed shut, like Noah’s ark, daubed everywhere with pitch. We act as though the economy, not the ecosystem, is what produces our food, fuel, wood, cloth, everything we need to live comfortably.

Even Torah can become a kind of ghetto, a book that looms so large before us it takes up the entire horizon. A mishnah in Pirkei Avot says, “A person who is walking along repeating a teaching and interrupts his learning to say, ‘What a beautiful tree,’ it’s as if he deserves to forfeit his life.”

Outside of all this human activity lies what we call “nature,” from which we extract our needs and into which we cast our waste. But are we really supposed to see only the words on the page, to hear only the sounds of human culture, and nothing else?

The Baal Shem Tov’s teaching continues: “Make your words shine, because in every letter there are worlds, souls, in every letter divinity.” If we really pray and learn from the depth of our being, we begin to see the beauty and holiness of creation within our words. When that happens, beholding a tree is no longer an interruption of one’s learning, but a continuation. That’s anyway the Chasidic interpretation of the controversial mishnah.

On Shavuot, we study all night in order to become open to how every word in the Torah shines with meaning. Similarly, the first fruits teach us to remember that in every being, every creature, every small piece of fruit and every stirring of life, there are also worlds, souls, and divinity.

If we only see the divine in ourselves, if we only appreciate human initiative and activity, then our words, our world, cannot be whole. When our civilization becomes a sealed-off room, a cheder atum, when the walls that separate us from other creatures become too thick, we ourselves cannot survive.

This is what the Torah says: “Make a light opening for the ark, and complete the ark from above.” One might have thought that a window diminishes a wall; after all, a hole makes a wall less complete. But an ark needs an opening which lets in light and sea air, which is, as it were, open to God’s care and nature’s storm, in order to be complete and life-sustaining.

“Make an opening…” to the elements, to the more-than-human world of nature, and complete it “from above”—to me this means: by opening to the world around us, we also make ourselves open to the divine, the more-than-human dimension of being and becoming that we call God.

In a time when our contact with the non-human world may be limited to parks, gardening and natural disasters, how can we open up to the full meaning of prayers and rituals like the bikurim offering, which are so connected to the earth? If we are cut off from other people, we must open our words, our language, toward them. Likewise, if we are cut off from the source of our physical life, from the natural world, we must actively open our culture and our sense of caring toward nature.

We learn the same lesson from the giving of the Torah itself. There is a midrash which teaches that Israel only heard the first letter of the first word of the ten commandments, which was Alef, the silent one, the first letter of Anokhi “I AM”; not the “I”, but the purest perfect silence, a miraculous silence open to all the possibilities of the universe.

That which comes first, that which is still and small, like the Alef, or the bikurim, is a place where we can find new meaning, and new wisdom. Only by making an opening to what is beyond the words, beyond human culture, are we able to receive revelation. This is one reason why Torah was given bamidbar “in the wilderness”.

If we invite God to look down on us, to bring blessing and revelation, on the holy day of Shavuot, we must look out, and look up, create openings in our world, holes in our ark, in order for the holy to get in. Facing global climate change, we are beginning to acknowledge as a civilization that we have to pay attention to more than ourselves. But if we take these teachings seriously, then the reasons for our attention are far deeper and broader than our own survival.

Our civilization is only one chamber in the ark of life which carries us through the cosmos unto God. The infinitude of living things, the nefesh-kol-chai, upon which our lives depend, the manifold changes and processes of Creation, all manifest the infinitely diverse faces of God’s image. All of these faces, the proverbial shiv’im panim which stands for all possibiliites, all teach us Torah.

May we be blessed to learn the Torah of life from the bikurim, from the fruits, and from all the species who are our fellow travellers, and may we learn from the Torah to share blessing with all creation.

P.S. If we can let the earth teach us Torah, we should also pray for the earth. Just as we pray after the Torah reading for our community, our country, for peace, and for Israel, here are some examples of prayers on neohasid.org that you daven alongside these prayers in your community.

Eating is beyond rote; most of the time, when we’re hungry, we simply wander over to the fridge or call for take-out with nary a thought. At the Atlantic Monthly, however, Zeke Emanuel makes the case for prayer before meals. Reflecting upon the Motzi and the other brachot, he notes:

The prayer serves to synchronize the starting of a meal. It also is a shared activity. Said out loud and communally, the prayer literally unites people. Thus a prayer makes a community for a moment. At the family dining table it serves as a reminder of the unity of the family.

Although Emanuel’s focus is ultimately on a “secular” prayer before meals, he’s spot on. Taking the time to “say grace” before eating – whether a blessing or the unreligious/pan-religious “thanks for our privileged position and access to wonderful food” – truly is a quick and simple way to connect to your food and all who worked to put it in front of you. But what about after the meal?

The Birkat Hamazon too often falls by the wayside for the semi-observant (read: me). When I’m in a rush, all too often, I “forget” to recite it because it’s much longer than the pre-meal blessings (which are on average 10 words). Yet I acknowledge there’s something to be said for post-meal thankfulness. And even though I don’t bench, I like to think I fulfill the spirit behind the prayer.

A perfect example, and I don’t mean to be tongue-in-cheek about this, was my first slice of post-Pesach pizza. From Boston’s North End (the city’s Little Italy), the pizza’s crust looked thick and crispy, the cheese-grease pooled ever so slightly. I was grateful even to smell it. And afterwards, the warmth radiating from my belly, I was grateful it had gone. In that moment—and every moment where post-ingestion bliss is felt, that contented smile growing across a diner’s face—it’s a subconscious Birkat Hamazon.

At Pesach we drink a lot of wine. Why is it called the symbol of our joy?

In an arid environment, wine can be seen a method of preservation. If you do not live or work near a well or a spring or some other source of fresh water you need to have something else to drink during the day.

• Milk does not last without refrigeration; actually we can think of cheese as a form of dried milk (that is a form of preserving milk).
• Crushing olives obtains oil, which while highly useful, does not quench thirst.
• Squashing pomegranates produces a very tart juice, but it doesn’t last long at room temperature.
• Squeezing dates creates a very sweet paste our ancestors called “dvash“.
• And figs don’t produce much in the manner of a drinkable juice either.

The Grape

But, that other fruit mentioned among the seven species, the grape, undergoes an amazing transformation when it is crushed, squashed and squeezed. With just the right amount of exposure to oxygen it becomes a drink that, like a good person, becomes more distinguished as it ages.

And so we Jews treat this juice with respect, initiating special moments of our lives and our experiences as a people by praising G!d for our ability to grow harvest and transform the grape into such a wondrous beverage.

One year I even made some of my own.

We express this awe in the words of the Kiddush. While the Kiddush differs slightly depending on the specific occasion, clearly the most frequently recited version is that sung on Shabbat. At that time we bring to mind the beginnings of creation and our role in it as well as our liberation from slavery in Egypt. Many of us know the melody composed by Lewis Lewandowski in the 19th century., but Jewish, liturgical, musical creativity has continued.

Mack the Knife sings Kiddush?

The 59th Yahrtzeit of Kurt Weill is soon upon us. Weill, the son of a Chazzan, died April 3, 1950 which corresponds to the second day of Pesach, or this year Friday April 10. Among the many wonderful works by Kurt Weill (who is best known for “Mack the Knife”) is a Kiddush.

[I paraphrase from the Jewish Heritage Online Magazine]:

Kiddush was commissioned in 1946 by the Park Avenue Synagogue in New York (at the time, Weill may have been living at 231 E. 62nd St.), where it was first performed by tenor solo, chorus, and organ, during a Friday night service by Cantor David Putterman. Weill dedicated the score to his father Albert, who survived the Second World War and became a citizen of the State of Israel.

I first heard this version of the Kiddush sung by my dear friend Cantor Richard Botton at Central Synagogue in Manhattan in the late 1970s and was deeply moved by its expressiveness. Cantor Botton later recorded the composition on Rockport Records [CD RR 5009] From Generation to Generation and I listen to it frequently.

When my wife, R. Deborah R. Prinz celebrated her retirement from the pulpit rabbinate at Temple Adat Shalom in Poway, CA (in 2007), I purchased the sheet music so that I could learn and sing the Kiddush (with a piano accompaniment) at the Erev Shabbat service honoring her. I continue to sing it often (a cappella with family accompaniment) at home on Erev Shabbat.

A recording is available on the Web, for those not familiar, sung by Cantor Garfein and choir (for some odd reason I can’t get it to play on my Mac now, and, if I remember correctly I did not find this a particularly moving rendition, though it ends with the sweetness it calls for).

Sheet music is available.

Recently R. David Posner (Temple Emanu-El, NYC) spoke about Weill’s Kiddush on the radio show “Mad About Music” WNYC, (February 1, 2009). Here’s an excerpt from their conversation:

POSNER:
I do remember when I was younger, ten, eleven years old, I must have stopped by the time I was eleven years old, listening to Elvis Presley recordings, the Everly Brothers, I remember. I thought they were very good country singers. So I chose the Kurt Weill “Kiddush” because this is a jazz version of the “Kiddush”, which is the sanctification of God with the instrument of wine, praising God for being the creator of the fruit of the vine, and also thanking God for the Sabbath, on which this particular “Kiddush” is always recited, 52 weeks a year. Temple Emanu-El started to use this version of the “Kiddush” among maybe eight or ten that our Cantor does. And at first the congregation was somewhat uneasy, but after a half a dozen listenings, they were totally convinced and totally sold on a jazz version of the Kiddush, normally that they’ve always heard in chordal harmonies, very straight, and now with a fluidity that is so appealing and so mystical in its own way.

Wine, like freedom can lead to a powerful headiness

At the beginning of the Kiddush we praise G!d who enables us in our wonderful capacity for growing, harvesting and processing the fruit of the vine.

As I write in my own Haggadah:

Tonight we recline. Our reclining is not a sign of laziness, but of freedom, a respite as we await instructions on how to proceed. No one forces us to eat on the run, at our desks, or out in the fields at our work. We can enjoy a meal that includes conversation and song, a meal that focuses our attention on the burgeoning year as it blossoms around us and encourages renewed growth within us. Our meal also intensifies our awareness of the efforts for freedom still pursued by ourselves and others.

After drinking three of our four cups of wine, we also know that we have come most of the way from the degradation of slavery to the dignity of freedom. But freedom, like wine, can lead to a powerful headiness. Liberation itself is not the goal.

We have the strength to act according to our own decisions. Yet we understand that not every decision we make is the correct one, merely because it is ours. Though we can act out of strength, we have also learned that not by might, nor by power, but by the awesome divine attributes of justice and mercy will we all achieve wholeness.

Wine [Creation/Liberation]… and Song

And so, this year at Seder as we drink our last cup of wine, and on Shabbat when we make Kiddush, I hope we pause to become more aware of our strengths and abilities, consider different melodies that can carry our words, and rejoice in the creation and our liberation.

Purim is a pretty strange holiday. The text we read, Megillat Esther, isn’t a typical biblical book; it makes no mention of the big guy upstairs. Its heroine, a nice Jewish girl bunking with her uncle, ends up in the arms of the non-Jewish king (oh gosh!), and exchanges certain things, namely her wedding vows, in order to save her people. The story ends with the Jews going out on a revenge spree, killing thousands. And how do we celebrate this event every year? By dressing up in costumes, making lots of noise, gorging on delicacies and getting drunk out of our minds ad d’lo yada. Pretty strange in comparison to, let’s say, Yom Kippur, where we don’t eat or drink, instead spending the day in deep and contemplative prayer. What’s even stranger is that we’re taught that Purim is an even “higher” holiday than Yom Kippur. In fact, the rabbis teach that during the Messianic Era, Purim will be the only festival that we observe.

So why the near-obsession with alcoholic beverages? We usher in our holiest days with a hefty cup of wine, and during Purim we are commanded to not only drink, not only to become inebriated, but to get smashed, utterly and completely wasted. What gives? How can a set of laws that call for the best behavior, and the pinnacle of ethical culture sanction getting drunk to the point that we cannot distinguish between “cursed be Haman” and “blessed be Mordechai”?  Generally, drinking to the point where one cannot know the difference between right and wrong is seen as a bad thing. The mystical depths of Hasidic thought bring new light to this issue, hopefully making you feel a little better about throwing away your inhibitions this coming Purim. Besides, your zaydie and bubbe did it well before you were born.

The Kabbalists (not of Yehuda Berg lore) came up with this pretty nice teaching that I alluded to before; Purim and Yom Kippur are very much connected. Kippur in Hebrew means “like Pur”, which our rabbis subsequently made to mean “like Purim.” How could Yom Kippur possibly be like Purim? Rather than spoil ourselves in food, drink, and dance like we do on Purim, we await all day for that glorious lox and shmeer platter. While on Yom Kippur we refrain from the physical pleasures and atone, on Purim we become almost gluttonous. It is precisely within this indulgence of the physical that Purim takes on its special significance.

I mentioned before that the rabbis of the Talmud inform us that during the Messianic Era Purim will be the only festival that we commemorate. They also tell us that during this era, G-dliness will fill the world and we will be connected with the divine every moment of every day. It is due to this teaching that the Hasidic masters suggest that Purim is in reality a higher day of atonement than Yom Kippur. Through our embracing of the physical world, specifically with the aid of drink, one can reach the innermost depths of the soul.  How often have you had a bit too much to drink and found yourself sobbing yourself to sleep, because you had suddenly had some kind of alcohol-induced epiphany? A few times I’m sure, it happens to the best of us, and with reason.

Hasidic thought teaches us that everything in this world falls into two categories; the holy and the not yet made holy. Everything that exists exists for the glory of G-d. It’s up to us to take everything and realize its purpose. Hasidic thought also teaches us that we don’t contain within ourselves one soul, but two; the G-dly soul and the animal soul. When we drink to excess and with no purpose, our animal souls get the best of us; in fact, we turn into animals! But when this drinking is done with a higher purpose, namely, in the service of our Creator, or in the process of finding ourselves in this universe and contemplating our true existence and our true selves, we are doing a great mitzvah. It’s within this idea that the rabbis teach us that only Purim will be celebrated in the Messianic Era and that Purim is a higher day than Yom Kippur. It’s easy to repent and become inward thinking while you can’t eat, while you are in denial of the physical. But precisely because Purim is a day of feasting, drinking, singing, and dancing, the power to repent becomes that much harder and therefore that much deeper. This is why our rabbis insist that Yom Kippur is “Ke-Pur,” like Purim.

Now I know what you’re thinking, this guy is just giving a standard “drink as much as you want because G-d says so” schpeel. Au contraire, to get drunk under the guise of religious obligation, without connecting to the purpose is no different than going out on a bender in Cabo. So this Purim when you’re drinking to your heart’s delight please keep these teachings in mind and the following cocktails in hand! Happy Purim!

Continental

This cocktail is easy, quick, refreshing, and requires minimal work (since you’ll probably be gone by the time you get around to it)

2 oz. White Rum

.5 oz. Crème de Menthe

Squirt of fresh lime juice

Twist of lemon

STIR

Baja Gold

For all you spring breakers and uni students at heart…

Pour the following into a cocktail shaker with a generous amount of ice and DRAIN into a cocktail glass

2 oz. Anejo (Dark) Tequila

.5 oz. Blanco (Light) Tequila

.5 oz. Triple Sec (I prefer Bol’s brand)

3 oz. pineapple juice

.5 oz. lime juice

Twist of lime