The Book of Daniel

I offered the following remarks at my installation service at Westchester Reform Temple.

I’d like to thank Rabbi Ellen Lippmann, my friend and mentor, for being here tonight and for her beautiful installation remarks. Rabbi Lippmann teaches me by her own example that a rabbi’s most important tool is her or her own self—that the more deeply in touch a rabbi is with his or her own humanity, the more deeply he or she can serve the human family. You are a beautiful human being, and this is why you make the world a more beautiful place.

I’d also like to thank Rabbi Blake, Cantor Abramson, Rabbi Levy, and Cantor Kleinman, for so beautifully preparing this installation service, and more importantly, for guiding me into the unique experience of serving the Jewish people as a member of the clergy. I am humbled by your dedication to doing this work well and honored to be a part of this team.

Equally, I’d like to thank Helene Gray and Marcy Harris, along with the whole search and transition committee, for so graciously welcoming me and my family into this community. Through your warmth, Leah and I are reminded of the Jewish communities in which we grew up.

Finally, I’d like to thank my family. In particular, I’d like to thank my parents, Bob and Linda Reiser. You raised me and my siblings in a home that overflowed with love. At our best, our lives are an attempt thank you. And I’d like to thank my wife and partner, Leah, and acknowledge our sweet, curious, five-month-old daughter, Gavi. If you’ve not yet met Leah, then when you do, you’ll immediately discover her easy people skills, her tremendous emotional intelligence, and her natural spirituality. It sounds like a line because I say it all the time, but I say it because it’s true: Leah is my rabbi. I aspire to be more like you.

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My parents named me Daniel, but their reason for doing so is unclear. I’m not named after a relative. And they weren’t particularly attached to the meaning of the name—which is Hebrew for “God is my judge.” They tell me that they just liked the name. In fact, they liked it so much, that they named my older sister Beth Danielle, and then when I was born, they decided to recycle the name for me. How’s that for a hand-me-down!

My parents liked that Daniel was a classic Jewish name from the Bible, although they—and until recently, I—knew very little about my biblical namesake.[1]

According to the story, Daniel was an Israelite who was raised not in his people’s homeland, but in faraway Babylon. There, his non-Jewish neighbors spoke a foreign language, practiced a foreign religion, and observed foreign cultural customs. Like Joseph or Queen Esther, Daniel attained a position of influence in the government, despite his outsider status. It's a classic Diaspora story. But unlike Joseph—who, during his reign in Egypt, adopted an Egyptian name[2]—and unlike Queen Esther—to whom we refer by her Persian name, Esther, rather than her Hebrew name, Hadassah[3]—unlike Joseph or Queen Esther, Daniel made a concerted effort to be called by his Hebrew name.[4] While Joseph or Queen Esther conceal their Israelite identity until the last possible minute, Daniel, despite his outsider status—or maybe even because of it—Daniel’s greatest wish is to be known as a Jew.[5]

As a Jew, I grew up feeling like an outsider in Tallahassee, FL. I was one of only four Jewish students in my grade. A classmate once asked me if—since people who celebrate Christmas are called “Christians”—this classmate asked me if I was a “Chanukkan.”

Appropriately, it was around this time that my mom started coming to our elementary school to teach the Chanukkah story to my class.[6] I remember sitting on the rug in my second-grade classroom as she read Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins, or as she posed the math problem to our class: If you need two candles for the first night, and nine candles for the last night, how many candles total do you need for the whole holiday?

It was also around this time that my parents starting throwing their annual Chanukkah parties for our Jewish friends, and that my dad started writing his annual Chanukkah plays. The plays were parodies of classic Broadway musicals, performed by the kids for the adults, and full of corny puns. In their own silly way, the plays would retell the story of Chanukkah—not as an epic battle between the Jews of ancient Israel and their Hellenizing neighbors, but rather as about the small-but-mighty Jewish community of Tallahassee, FL, fighting to maintain their identity as cultural outsiders.

So despite my having been asked if I was a “Chanukkan,” and with no small effort by both of my parents, I grew up, like Daniel of the Bible, taking great pride in being known as a Jew. I have a vivid memory of being five or six years old and celebrating Simchat Torah at our synagogue. I was marching around the sanctuary, waving an Israeli flag with glee. I remember feeling then: the rest of the world has red and green as Christmas colors, but I have blue and white—Jewish colors, my colors. 

Jewish educational theorists[7] talk about the four axes of Jewish learning: what Jewish information you know, what Jewish actions you practice, what Jewish ideals you believe in, and what Jewish communities you feel like you belong to—or, knowing, doing, believing, and belonging. I've come to believe that primary among these is belonging. The others—knowing, doing, and believing—all depend upon and are strengthened by how deeply you feel like you belong to the Jewish people.

By belonging, I don’t mean loyalty. One can feel a deep sense of belonging, even while struggling with their Jewishness. I know plenty of Jews who have for many years been estranged from any recognizable Jewish practice, but nevertheless feel themselves somehow attached to this people and its heritage. Belonging, then, means not unwavering loyalty, but rather, feeling like Jewishness is mine—like I have a stake in it—both when I love it and when I don’t.

I feel a sense of belonging to the Jewish people in two ways. The first one brought me here; the second one impels me forward.

First: I feel like Jewishness is mine—like I have a stake in it. Hebrew feels like my language. Rosh Hashanah feels like my new year. Blue and white feel like my colors. I’m proud that, like my biblical namesake, my Hebrew name and the name by which I’m known in public are one and the same.

Second: Because my Jewishness belongs to me, I feel that belong with the Jewish people. The Jewish people feels like my home, and as a result, I’m responsible to help care for it. My greatest hope in becoming a rabbi of this congregation is that you’ll feel the same way too—that you and I are responsible to one another, and that together, we’re responsible to the Jewish people and the world.

The Book of Daniel is about a Jewish kid in a non-Jewish environment who was proud to be a Jew. But it’s more than that. It’s about a person who found a place where he felt like he belonged. Thank you for making me feel like I belong here—with the Jewish people, and in particular, here at WRT. I hope that as a result of our time together, you’ll continue to feel like you belong here too.

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[1] Such unfamiliarity is not uncommon in the Jewish community. The Book of Daniel is never read in synagogue—it doesn’t feature as a haftarah portion or appear as one of the holiday readings. Additionally, the book is written not in Hebrew, but in Aramaic, making it difficult to access in its original language.

[2] See Gen. 41:45, and also a few verses later, at 41:51-52, where Joseph spurns his homeland in the names he gives his sons.

[3] See Esther 2:7.

[4] See Daniel 1:7 and also 5:12-13.

[5] Daniel refuses to eat non-Kosher food (Daniel 1); Daniel's three friends refuse to bow to the statue of the King (Daniel 3); Daniel is thrown into the lion's den for practicing Jewish prayer (Daniel 6)

[6] On the likely historical connections between the Book of Daniel and the Maccabean revolt, see The Jewish Study Bible, “Introduction to the Book of Daniel.” There, the author argues that, based on the prophecies in the second half of the book, it is easy to date to the book’s composition to the era of the Maccabean revolt. In this case, the Book of Daniel should be understood as historical fiction, intended to uplift the Maccabees in their struggle to maintain their Jewish identity.

[7] Cyd Weissman in The Lomed Handbook for Powerful Learning Experiences, published by the Coalition of Innovating Congregations.

Giants, Grapes, and Grasshoppers: or, “Small, but Mighty”

The following was delivered as my first D'var Torah at Westchester Reform Temple.

Often, when I tell someone that I’m from Tallahassee, their first response is: “There are Jews in Tallahassee?” And people are right to be surprised: there are not a lot of Jews in Tallahassee. Growing up, I was one of only four Jewish students in my grade. Once, a classmate asked—that, since a person who celebrates Christmas is called a Christian—this classmate asked if I was “a Chanukkan.”

But despite our small number—or maybe even precisely because of it—the Tallahassee Jewish community is surprisingly strong. It’s a tight-knit community. I have a vivid memory of being five or six years old and celebrating Simchat Torah at our synagogue. I was marching around the sanctuary, waving an Israeli flag with glee. I remember thinking then: the rest of the world has red and green as Christmas colors, but I have blue and white—Jewish colors, my colors.

The Jews of Tallahassee may have been weak in number, but within our community, we had a strong sense of belonging. You might describe us as “small, but mighty.”

In this week’s Torah portion, the Israelites struggle to recognize that they, too, are “small, but mighty.” Moses sends 12 scouts to do reconnaissance on the Land of Canaan: to discover if the land fertile or barren, if its inhabitants are strong or weak, if its cities fortified or unfortified. Ten of the scouts return with a troubling report of a land inhabited by giants, and to prove it, [1] they bring back a giant cluster of grapes—so large that it must be carried on a pole between two people. “We looked like grasshoppers in our own eyes,” they say, “and so we must have looked like grasshoppers in the eyes of the giants.”

Only two of the scouts disagree: “Yes, the land is inhabited by giants,” they say, “but we can overcome them.” Yes, we may be small, they admit—small, but mighty.

I have come to believe that being “small but mighty” is a central theme of Jewish life. I’ve seen this theme in three areas on which I’d like to focus this evening: in the congregations I’ve served, in our sacred stories, and in my own life experience.

My first student pulpit was in Laramie, WY. The Jewishcommunity there told me the story of how, several years ago, when one of their members died, she had requested full traditional Jewish burial rites—including taharat haguf, the washing of the body.  With no Jewish funeral home or burial society nearby, it was up to the members of the community to wash and prepare for burial the body of this woman whom they had known and loved. It was emotionally taxing—but the vibrancy of their Jewish lives demanded everyone’s full participation, no matter the task. The community was small—small, but mighty.

Even in larger, better-resourced congregations—like TempleShaaray Tefila of Manhattan—I’ve found that strength doesn’t necessarily come from numbers. In fact, on the High Holidays, when virtually all of the congregation’s 1,400 families show up, the congregation is at its most diffuse—unwieldy, like a giant cluster of grapes. But in its smaller cohorts—the Torah study group, the nursery school families, the active seniors group—the congregation finds its strength. The room may not be as full as on the High Holidays, but the sense of belonging is at its highest.

Whether in Laramie or in Manhattan, today’s synagogues aren’t the first Jewish communities to feel small but mighty. The theme stretches far back into our tradition. And this brings us to the second area on which I’d like to focus: our sacred stories.

You might say that “small, but mighty” is the unifying theme of our sacred stories. Listen to their narratives: a slave named Joseph rises from the depths of prison to the heights of Egypt to save the entire Ancient Near East from famine; a fugitive named Moses who should have been drowned at birth leads a popular slave uprising to emancipate his people from the world’s most powerful empire; a provincial young woman named Esther risks her life before the king to have an evil decree against her people reversed; a renegade family named Maccabee refuses to let the tides of universalism whitewash their Jewish pride. They are, all of them, grasshoppers, overturning the tables of giants.

Our tradition’s obsession with the small but mighty didn’t happen by coincidence. Our ancient forbears knew all too well that next to the empires of Egypt, Babylon, Greece, or Rome, the tiny Kingdom of Israel did indeed look like grasshoppers.

No wonder, then, that despite the privilege typically granted to the eldest child in the ancient world, our Jewish tradition is full of stories about the success of the youngest: Isaac, Jacob, Rachel, Joseph, Moses, David—all youngest siblings.

But here, we begin to see the pitfalls of being small but mighty. Because it’s not that the younger siblings are inherently better. In fact, our stories often paint the upstart younger sibling as obnoxious, redirecting our sympathies towards their slighted older brothers and sisters. Think of Jacob, for example, who schemes and steals his way to victory over his older brother Esau. It’s as if Jacob knows all too well that he is small, and so he must go out of his way to prove that he is mighty.

And this brings us to the third area on which I’d like to focus: my own life experiences—or, as they call it in rabbinical school, my “autobiographical theology.”

First, let’s unpack that term. An autobiographical theology is where you tell the story of your life, and tell how that story informs the things that you believe.

My autobiographical theology begins as the youngest in my family. Growing up, I used to idolize my older siblings and cousins. Everything they did, I wanted to do. If they graduated from fifth grade, I wanted to graduate from fifth grade. Of course, by the time I reached fifth grade, they were already graduating from high school. And then of course by the time that I graduated from high school, they were already getting married. And so, like our ancestor Jacob, I fell into one of the traps of being small, but wanting to seen as mighty. I felt like I was always playing catch-up—always chasing after some distant future, but never quite reaching it. I idealized their world and denigrated mine. I imagined them to be giants, and me, only a tiny grasshopper.

There’s the autobiographical part; now for the theology.

I came to believe—as with my relationship with my older siblings and cousins—that I was flawed and God was perfect. I came to believe that God wanted of me perfectionism. I came to believe that any sign of imperfection was a sign of weakness, that the perfect person I was supposed to become was always just over the horizon.

But this theology led me only to a dead end.

I’m still working to release myself from the theology of playing catch-up. I’ve come to learn that my siblings and cousins are not perfect. They are not giants, and I am not a grasshopper.

And I’m working to live in relationship with a God Who isn’t perfect either. I guess that’s something we humans have in common with God: that we—like God—are imperfect, but worthy of love. That we—like God—are small, but mighty.

And so, I return to that giant cluster grapes, that vine from the Land of Canaan that the scouts in our Torah portion cut down, that cluster of grapes so big that it had to be carried on a pole by two people. The scouts showed it to the Israelites to prove Canaan was inhabited by giants, that the Israelites were mere grasshoppers.

But of course, we can look at it another way. Because yes, the grapes were big. And yes, the Israelites felt small. But despite our size, we lifted those giant grapes. The grapes don’t prove that we are small, but rather, that we are strong. And so we continue to carry those giant grapes—in our communities and in our sacred stories, in our autobiographies and in our theology—as we lift, and celebrate, and bless the sweet, sweet fruit of the vine.

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[1] See Rashi on Num. 13:23 (citing Sotah 34a)

All Hands are Needed to Build Our Community

I offered the following drash on one of my last Shabbatot as student rabbi at Kolot Chayeinu / Voices of Our Lives.

We’ve likely all heard the phrase. It’s enshrined in Kolot’s mission statement. Maybe you’ve even used the phrase to describe Kolot to your friends. Or perhaps you have a t-shirt on which the phrase is printed. In fact, I’m so confident that you know what phrase I’m talking about that I’ll let you finish my next sentence for me: “Kolot Chayeinu—where doubt can be…” [an act of faith].

I’m told that the phrase originally came from the mouth of Kathryn Conroy. Apparently, in her original formulation, she said: “doubt is an act of faith”—rather than “can be an act of faith.” She still holds by that distinction. In Kathryn’s reasoning, doubt is driven by the faith that doubt is warranted.

This evening, as I reflect on my year at Kolot, you might have faith that I’m going to be speaking about doubt. After all, this week we read from Parshat Emor, where a man is stoned to death for committing an act of doubt—for daring to pronounce God’s unpronounceable name. After all, this has been a year in which I wrestled with my own doubt—learning to distinguish what I say I believe from what I actually believe.

But if you’ve begun to doubt that I’m actually going to talk about doubt, you’ve done so in good faith. Because tonight, I want to talk about the less well-known, second part of Kolot’s mission statement—the part that isn’t often used to describe Kolot to friends and isn’t emblazoned on any t-shirt, the part that for me captures what is truly special about this congregation. The full mission statement reads: “Kolot Chayeinu: where doubt can be an act of faith and all hands are needed to build our community.”

This year, I have seen that all hands are indeed needed, wanted, encouraged, and utilized in building this community. All hands are needed to populate the list of volunteer Torah readers. All minds are needed to hear the wisdom of a new or a seasoned darshan. All voices are needed to the lift souls of the Shabbat morning chant group. All talents are needed to bring parents in as artists in residence for the Children’s Learning Program. All imaginations are needed to create original theatre pieces for the High Holidays. All kitchens are needed to make and deliver home-cooked meals to a house of illness, mourning, or joy. All brave souls are needed to create a race task force, to post “Black Lives Matter” signs on the High Holiday bima, or to sustain an anti-racist Omer counter. All stories are needed for families to discuss what Jewish life is like for interfaith couples. All perspectives are needed to create no litmus tests around Zionism. All heads, hearts, hands, and feet are needed to take what are typically for synagogues barriers to entry and transform them into sources of vibrancy.

One experience in particular proved to me that Kolot is a place where all hands are needed to build our community.

Earlier this year, a blizzard pounded New York with nearly 27 inches of snow—the second snowiest storm on record. It happened to be a Saturday: Shabbat Shirah at that, the Torah portion where we chant the Song of the Sea. It also happened to be the day of an afternoon Bar Mitzvah service. But despite the snow, Kolotniks who were able to make it to the building sprung into action: shoveling the stairs, setting-up the ark, putting together the podium, hanging the fabrics in the sanctuary, arranging the sound system. Later in the afternoon, when the mayor closed the roads and shut down the above-ground subways, the guests of the Bar Mitzvah family were stranded in Manhattan, unable to get to Brooklyn. Nearly a dozen Bar and Bat Mitzvah families showed up that day to fill the breach, to support and celebrate the child who became a Bar Mitzvah, to show that the Bar and Bat Mitzvah ritual is not about “me” but about “we.”

That whole day, the snow came down sideways, like a wall of water. Inside, we chanted the Song of the Sea, as we and our mythic forebears walked through the parted Sea of Reeds—a different kind of wall of water, the one no less astounding than the other. It’s said [1] that the Sea didn’t split until all the Israelites stepped in the water. How true it was that morning.

I’ve found that all hands are needed not only to build this community in particular, but also to mark Jewish time in general. This week’s parshah hints at this. The parshah contains the Bible’s most complete list of the Jewish holiday cycle, but it makes a distinction between Shabbat and all the other holidays. Commentators throughout the generations [2] have tried to understand what makes Shabbat unique. One answer—in the form of a short story by Chaim Nachman Bialik—demonstrates both what makes Shabbat unique and also why all hands are needed to mark Jewish time.

The story is called “Short Friday.”

One Friday evening as Shabbat is rolling in, a country rabbi finds himself stranded on the road, unable to make it home. After midnight, he checks in at a roadside inn. In the morning, the innkeeper is shocked to see that the rabbi checked in after Shabbat began! The innkeeper decides that it must not be Shabbat after all, that he has gotten his days of the week confused. Embarrassed of his mistake, the innkeeper clears the house of all signs of Shabbat. When the rabbi awakes, the house is running like a normal weekday. The rabbi assumes that he has slept all the way to Sunday. He packs his bag and heads home. Just as he is arriving to his village, all of the townspeople begin pouring out of the shul. Only then does the rabbi realize his mistake.

I like this story for two reasons. First, it demonstrates that Shabbat is unlike other holidays because Shabbat is, in a sense, supernatural. That is, there’s nothing in nature that lets you know it’s Shabbat. While Passover always occurs on a full moon, Rosh HaShanah on a new moon, Yom Kippur on a waxing moon, and Chanukkah on a waning moon—Shabbat, by contrast, pays no attention the moon.

And this leads to the second reason that I like this story: because Shabbat is unnatural, “all hands are needed” to make it a day apart. When the rabbi in our story travels on Shabbat, the innkeeper assumes it’s a weekday; when the innkeeper does business on Shabbat, the rabbi assumes it’s a weekday. Without a community in which to observe Shabbat, Saturday looks the same as Sunday or Tuesday or Friday. Shabbat happens only because we all say it does. All hands are needed to mark Jewish time.

So where are we this Shabbat? We’re at Kolot Chayeinu: Where doubt can be an act of faith, and where all hands are needed to build our community.

My prayer for Kolot is that you continue to embody the second half of your mission statement. Because as we know, it’s simply true that doubt is an act of faith. But that’s not obvious to the whole world. Doubt can be an act of faith here at Kolot only because we all say it can—and for this to happen, all hands are needed.

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[1] See http://www.g-dcast.com/nachshon/ at the 3:00 mark

[2] See Sifra 23:144; Rashi on Leviticus 23:3; Heschel, The Sabbath, p. 10

Gavriella Yona Sivan bat Daniel v-Me'irah

This afternoon, we welcomed our daughter into the covenant of the Jewish people and gave her her Hebrew name. Below, the words we shared about that name, and a video of the celebrations.

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Gavriella

Our sweet Gavi,

Leah: Your first name comes from my Grandma Gail. One of the very first things I knew to be true was that my grandma loved me and that I loved her.

When I was only a few years old, my grandmother began teaching me my colors by studying the large oil paintings that hung on her walls. She would point to a man’s overcoat and tell me what color it was: “Not purple, but aubergine.” A wisp-ing flower petal: “that’s blush.” A woman’s hat: “lemon chiffon.” It wasn’t that “purple” or “pink” or “yellow” weren’t accurate; it was that she saw beauty in vivid detail. Not just in the colors on a painting, but the beauty in people too. She saw those she loved with extraordinary clarity and loved us for every detail. Where others would have seen only “purple,” she saw “aubergine.” Her gift for seeing and appreciating us made us all more beautiful.

Daniel: I never met your Great-Grandma Gail, though she and I do share a birthday. And through family stories, I feel like I know her well. One thing I do know about her is that when she was diagnosed with cancer, the doctors told her she had a year to live. But she lived another eight—and in those years, she founded a community center for people whose lives had been touched by cancer. She was a fighter, fierce, strong. And so it seems appropriate that your name, Gavrielle—or Gavriella, as we are going to call you in Hebrew—means “God is my strength.”

In our Jewish tradition, Gavriel is the angel of fire, who sits at God’s left hand. And like a firebrand, Gavriel comes to represent strength, determination, a burning persistence in the face of all obstacles.

Leah: From your Great-Grandma Gail, we hope that you will inherit the ability to see and create beauty wherever you go.

Daniel: And like Gail, or the angel Gavriel, we hope that strength will burn deep within you.

Yona

Leah: Your second name, Yona, is after my dad, your Papa Jonny.

Your grandpa was a seriously silly man. Like a magnet, he attracted those around him, bring them together in laughter—whether it was by publically picking his friends’ noses, or asking my friends at sleepovers if they wanted to sleep in the toothpaste or the orange juice, or, when he left a restaurant, pretending to sign autographs as he walked out the door, as if he were a celebrity and his fellow diners were his adoring fans. He seemed to be perpetually trailed by laughter. Yet, the magnitude of his silly was matched only by the depth of his heart. His jokes and antics helped others let their guard down; his silly was a means of connection, a gateway to the seriousness of his heart. And this was where he really shined, in the quiet moments after the laugh.

Daniel: On the day that your Papa Jonny died, it felt as if our world had flooded. Your mom and I were living in Jerusalem, and as if the weather sympathized, that year was the rainiest winter on record. But as early as the week of Shiva, it brought your mom and me great comfort to imagine the child that we would someday, God willing, name after your Papa Jonny—whose Hebrew name was Yonatan.

Your second name, Yona, is Hebrew for “dove.” And like the dove on Noah’s ark, your arrival is at once a reminder of what we lost when our world flooded, and also a reminder that even after the greatest of floods, we once again walk on dry land.

Leah: From your Papa Jonny, we hope that you inherit a great joy in play and a serious depth of heart. And when your world floods, as it inevitably will, we wish for you the courage and strength to always find the dry land on the other side of despair.  

Sivan

Daniel: Your third and final Hebrew name, Sivan, is after my Grandma Sally and my Aunt Stella. When I was growing up in Tallahassee, my aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents were scattered all over the country. We would see each other a few times year—for a simcha or on a family vacation. But Grandma Sally and Aunt Stella both spent the last few years of their lives living in Tallahassee, and as a result, I grew especially close with them. You could always find them at our piano recitals, community theatre productions, or at our house for Shabbat dinner. On Sundays, I used to go with my mom over to Aunt Stella’s to deliver her a sandwich from Subway, or with my dad to Grandma Sally’s to play Scrabble. They were simple outings, and I loved them.

Leah: Your third Hebrew name, Sivan, is also the name of the Hebrew month in which your dad and I were married. It’s also the month in which the holiday of Shavuot occurs—when, according to our tradition, the Israelites stood at Mount Sinai to receive the Torah. As one legend has it, the Israelites stood beneath Mount Sinai, like a wedding couple standing beneath the chuppah.

Today, as you enter the covenant of the Jewish people, you—as your dad and I did on our wedding day, and as the Israelites did at Sinai—you are joining the Jewish family.

Daniel: As with my Grandma Sally and my Aunt Stella, may that family always be close.

Conclusion

Daniel: Gavriella Yona Sivan—we give you this Hebrew name in honor of your Great-Grandma Gail, your Papa Jonny, your Great-Grandma Sally, and your Great-Aunt Stella.

Leah: There are many gifts we hope you will inherit from them. But most of all, as you carry their legacy with you; we hope that you will make for yourself your own name in the world.