June 19: Shlach l’cha – Numbers 12:1-15:41
Summary: Moses sends 12 spies into the land of Canaan to see what it is like and if it will be easy to possess. 10 of the spies return with a negative report and only two, Joshua and Caleb, return with a positive report. The people are discouraged. They complain and want to go back to Egypt. As a result God punishes them. Moses also instructs the Israelites regarding setting aside challah, the observance of the Sabbath, how to treat strangers, and the laws of tzitzit.
Lesson: What is the most annoying question a child can ask? “Why”? Why this, why that. However the question “why” is one of the most wonderful questions that Reform Jews ask. We often ask “why” – and our question has a purpose. The more we understand about our religion the deeper our religious connection can be. Our founders wanted to know “why” women couldn’t pray together with men? “Why” women couldn’t count in a minyan? “Why” women couldn’t be rabbis? Thanks to the question “why” we now have women, we have LGBTQ+ people, we have people of color – all enjoying the freedom and the pleasure to be a Reform Jew.
Our Torah portion this week also asks “why”? Why do we wear a tallit? In the Torah portion we read this morning, we are taught: “The Eternal One said to Moses as follows: Speak to the Israelite people and instruct them to make for themselves fringes on the corners of their garments throughout the ages; let them attach a cord of blue to the fringe at each corner. That shall be your fringe: look at it and recall all the commandments of the Eternal and observe them, so that …you shall be reminded to observe all My commandments and be holy to your God. I am the Eternal your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God: I, the Eternal your God.” This is the commandment of Tzitzit – of wearing a tallit.
What an interesting commandment…Why does God want us to wear a fringe on our clothes? After all, as the feminist theologian Judith Plaskow notes, “why should the creator of the universe care whether we put a ‘tassel on the corner of our clothes in every generation’ and what possible difference can it make…?” (Lawrence Hoffman, ed., My People’s Prayer Book, vol. 1 [Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights, 1997], p.115). And yet many of us still do! For many of us, wearing a tallit is a source of spiritual meaning.
True to Reform theology and unlike a more Orthodox approach, wearing the tallit is equally open to women and men, and is never something we would make mandatory. Rather, we hold to individual choice, whereby individuals do not judge others for the ritual decisions they make.
“Why” do we wear a tallit? We learn in our Torah portion that God wants us to wear a tallit to “remember the commandments and to observe them.” In the most traditional sense wearing a tallit is a physical reminder that we should actively live a Jewish life by fulfilling commandments.
Let me add a more modern, a more spiritual understanding. I believe that ritual acts are important. They have the power to move us into a spiritual place. Just as lighting candles on Friday night prepares us for the spirituality of Shabbat, wearing a Tallit can prepare us for the spiritual act of prayer. Yehuda Amichai, the great Israeli poet, also asked “why” wear a tallit. And in a beautiful poem he answered:
Whoever put on a tallis when he was young will never forget:
taking it out of the soft velvet bag, opening the folded shawl,
spreading it out, kissing the length of the neckband (embroidered
or trimmed in gold). Then swinging it in a great swoop overhead
like a sky, a wedding canopy, a parachute. And then winding it
around his head as in Hide-and-Seek, wrapping
his whole body in it, close and slow, snuggling into it like the cocoon
of a butterfly, then opening would-be wings to fly.
And why is the tallis striped and not checkered black and white
like a chessboard? Because squares are finite and hopeless.
Stripes come from infinity and to infinity they go
like airport runways where angels land and take off
Whoever has put on a tallis will never forget.
When he comes out of a swimming pool or the sea,
he wraps himself in a large towel, spreads it out again
over his head, and again snuggles into it close and slow,
still shivering a little, and he laughs and blesses.
May we always ask “why” so that our Judaism has meaning and purpose. May we wrap ourselves in talitot, so that we may snuggle close to our Judaism…laugh and bless.
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Don Goor