The Jewish Path - A spiritual guide to Judaism

The Jewish Path  - A spiritual guide to Judaism

By Rachael Orbach

Judaism is a God centered religion.  Everyday is infused with the presence of God.  God is in our food, our speech, everywhere we go.

We say thanks to God  100 times a day.  In the morning, as soon as a Jew wakes up, we say thanks.  Modeh Ani.  Thank you.  Thank you for waking me up this morning and giving me the chance of another day.  Thank you for giving me breath, thank you for bringing me to this moment.

In order to have a day infused with God, we wash our hands.  Washing symbolizes the rinsing away of unclean thoughts.  

Judaism is a religion of intention.  We have to mean what we say and say what we mean.  

To bless the food that we eat, we realize all the human and Godly work that went into the making of the food.  Ever think about the process of baking bread?  First the sun shines down on the seed.  Some seeds spout, and some do not. We don’t know actually which seeds will show the process of life.  The seed sprouts.  Then it starts to grow and pushes up a shoot of a small green leaf.  Some spouts are eaten by birds, or bugs, but enough are left to grow and develop. Then finally the plant produces seeds.  We harvest these seeds.  Have you ever seen a wheat stalk ready to be harvested?  Who had the idea that this could be the “bread” from the earth.  It doesn’t even look edible.  An apple, banana I can understand, but this thing that has spikes around it. How can we eat that?  Well someone had the idea, and now we take the seeds ground them up and it becomes flour.  We still cannot eat plain flour.  We have to take other ingredients and combine them and cook or bake.  Who had the idea to take yeast and add it to the flour with water? That is the basis of our bread. Then, and only then after all this process do we actually have bread with is the staple of most people’s diet and has been for over 5000 years.  

Jews have a special blessing for the bread.  Hamotizi and Birkat Hamazon. We thank God for the bread, so much that we use these special blessings to give thanks for the process of making, this bread.

Everything that a Jew does, is for the glory of God. How we dress, reflects the respect we have for God. If someone dresses immodestly, they are not taking into account that we humans are created in the Image of God. This image of our bodies is very important, and we should be glad that we are created in such a way.

Roles of people in life.

Each person has their own role in life.

When the Holy Temple was standing, the Cohenim were the most exulted and the Cohen Gadol the most of all. They had to perform all the duties of the Temple, doing the sacrifices, and reciting the prayers, with the most perfect intention. If a Cohen didn't recite the confession of the sacrifice with the proper intention, then the sacrifice was invalid and had to be done again, with the proper intention. Who knew if the intention was correct? The Cohen himself had to be extremely honest, (as an example to all the people) and confess if he didn't have the proper intentions.

The next role in Jewish life was the Levite. The Levites had the important role of bringing music and enjoyment to the Temple. They blew the trumpets that announced when each of the sacrifices were offered, and they sang the Psalms that accompanied the sacrifices.

Then the Israelites, were the last category in the Jewish people. This is everyone else. Even within this huge group of people, each one has a different role. There are Rabbis, men who have studied the Talmud, and the Halacha, (Jewish Law), and are able to take a leading role in the community.

One of the most important laws in Judaism is the one of modesty. This is for men and women. Men, as women are not allowed to dress immodestly. The type of clothes you wear focuses attention to how you want people to react to you.

What type of job you do also reflects how you want people to react to you. If a woman wants to learn Torah, nowadays it is perfectly acceptable in the Orthodox world for a woman to be knowledgeable and know how to read the Talmud. But for a woman to overstep the bounds of tradition, and especially the laws of modesty, is not accepted in, Normative, Orthodox Judaism. I have found that when women are heads of the synagogue, eventually, the men do not go. There is also a problem of Kol Esha, that is the prohibition of women to sing in public. The synagogue should be free of anything that has to do with immodestly. When a woman is chanting the Torah, the men's minds might wander away from the text to her beautiful voice. This takes away from the spiritual experience that happens in the synagogue.

In the Orthodox Judaism, there is also a separation, sometimes symbolic, sometimes more sturdy between men and women. In Jewish law, a woman can chant the Torah if and only if there is no man who is able to do this. If this is the case in many synagogues outside the land of Israel, this is a very sad state of affairs.

I had started the process to be come a conservative Rabbi, but I gave it up because of many reasons. One was because of modesty, another was that many synagogues just give lip service to Jewish Law. The married women do not cover their hair, the synagogues are located a long way from where people live, and they drive to the synagogue even on Shabbat. The laws of work on Shabbat preclude this type of behavior. if the person lives too far to go to synagogue, and would have to drive, it is better to honor Shabbat than to drive and have to violate a number of Shabbat prohibitions. Have a minyan in your house, if you live too far away. If there is not enough, 10 men, then pray by yourself. Many people do this all over the world and God accepts all prayer!

There was once that I was asked to go to San Diego to lead a Shabbat at a synagogue, Ok, no problem, I'll drive. I asked a few questions.

1. Is there a place to stay near the synagogue? Well, it is a very far walk, two hours by foot.

 wow, that's far.

2. Is there Kosher food? No.

Ok, I'll bring my own food.

3. What do you want to me to talk about for the Dvar Torah? The Parsha? - No, that might make the congregation uncomfortable.

Ok, I'll talk about Shabbat. - well, most of the congregation don't keep Shabbat.

Modesty? - No, they don't dress modest.

Israel? - well, ok, but only as a tourist attraction

They ended up asking another student, who not only drove down, but back on Shabbat. What type of role model did this 'rabbi' do? If this is what the reform and conservative movements are about, to cater to the laziness of the congregation, and not show them a proud Jew, who is happy and follows Jewish law, then yes, there will be a big split in Judaism. Those who really are God centered and give their lives and really feel God in their lives, and those who only do it lip service. A woman can have a big impact by working in a school, being an educational director, writing books, blogs, but not calling herself a rabbi and slapping the tradition in the face.

If you really want to be Jewish, and be a leader you have to be a conserver. You have to see that God really does run the world, and that there are things that are forbidden to do.  

Keeping Kosher. Yes, there are animals that Jews don't eat: pigs, camels, rabbits. We also don't mix milk and meat together. We wait 6 hours between eating meat and eating milk products. We have separate dishes, Why is Kashrut so important? It helps train the mind that there are things that as Jews we don't do.

Shabbat. There are many things that a Jew does not do on Shabbat. Light fire, drive a car, turn on a light, watch TV, handle money, sew. What does Shabbat teach us? That we can give one day to God from the week. We can trust in God at least for one day a week. We spend time talking, yes, good old fashioned talking to friends and family. We have time to take walks. We can see the splendor in the Universe. On this day we take a deep breath from the everyday life. Yes, it can all start up again, when you see those three stars at night, but we have the memory of the day of creation, where we are free from the ringing of the cellphone, the cars on the streets, the blare of the YouTube.

Prayer. We pray from the prayer book. This prayer book has been handed down, and added to throughout the generations. We have a history of the Jewish people in the Siddur (prayer book) We have the Temple Service, the 18 blessings, written by the Rabbis of the Talmud, we have King David's Psalms. When we pray from the Siddur, we give life to the printed words, they fly up to Heaven and live with the angels, never to be forgotten.

We have different prayers during the year to help us to adjust to the different seasons, there are holidays of joy and of sadness, and of atonement.

The Holidays. This year we have the Chagim (holidays) in abundance. This might mean that this year especially we need to examine our deeds, thoughts and speech with extra intention. We have lots of days that we will be in synagogue. We need to use that time and have special intention to really catch the meaning of the prayers.

I would like to bless everyone to have a Good Sweet New Year!

Shana Tova uMevorachet!

Rachael Alice Orbach
052-7500608
rachael.alice@yahoo.com
http://lifecoachjerusalem.weebly.com/