A very full morning of Torah and Jewish Thought was had this Sunday morning with the Sixth Grade, and one of those topics was from Ecology to Theology. What unites thsoe two topics?
That's the question our 6th graders tried to use today. Here's one of the first questions they had to tackle:
Who among the following draws water from the Jordan River:
a)
Israelis?
b)
Syrians?
c)
Lebanse?
d)
Palestinians?
e)
All of the above?
It’s all of the above. As our students learned in a far-ranging
set of questions in a quiz, there is a
large number of people dependent on a very small source of water in and around Eretz
Yisrael. The drain on the Jordan river is so intense, very little water even
makes it to the Dead Sea, which is shrinking at a horrifying rate. The need for
rain in the Middle East cannot be understated, and the power of droughts in that
arid climate is a serious threat. This is why Israel has actually invested
heavily in water reclamation and desalinization efforts. Desalinization is
expensive and electricity intensive, but it puts less of a strain on the water
sources of the area. Israel now gets up
to 80% of its fresh water from plants on the coast like this one in Hadera.
In comparison to the Midwest, where there is no rainy
season, Israel has a clear rainy season that begins around some coat in the
fall and ends at Passover time in the spring. Ensuring there's enough moisture
just in the general atmosphere to keep crops alive has been a serious concern
of any people who farm in this area of the world.
And that's why we were looking at and listening to the
prayer for dew, or Tal . The prayer is a very flowery, beautiful poem
asking for God to bless us in multiple ways, each blessing to fall like tall dew.
This special prayer is inserted into the
musaf service on the 7th day of Passover. The issue of water is so serious that
the prayer is still chanted in part or whole in the nusach/melodic mode of
the Yamim Nora’im, the High
Holidays!
Here’s a simple rendition of prayer:
And here is full text and translation :
|
:אֱלהֵינוּ וֵאלהֵי אֲבותֵינוּ |
Our God and God of our ancestors: Dew, precious dew, unto Your land forlorn, Dew, precious dew, the good year’s crown, we
await, Dew, precious dew, let fall upon the land; Dew, precious dew to make the mountains
sweet, Dew, precious dew, our granaries to fill, Dew, precious dew, that we our harvest reap, You are Adonai our God For a blessing, not for a curse, Amen. |
In addition to exploring Tal, we spend a bit of time talking about the Four Children
in the Haggadah, and how the Talmud Yerushalmi, the Talmud of the Land of Israel, explains the wicked son in a very particular way. That and a bit of fun with the four sons and
we took a few minutes to finish up our unit on the Tallit.
Until the mid 1980’s,
there was commandment in Sefer Bamidbar, the Book of Numbers (ch. 15, vv.37-39),
that nobody could perform for over 1500 years. Which one?
וַיֹּ֥אמֶר יְהוָ֖ה אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֥ה לֵּאמֹֽר׃
Adonai said to Moses as follows:
דַּבֵּ֞ר אֶל־בְּנֵ֤י יִשְׂרָאֵל֙ וְאָמַרְתָּ֣ אֲלֵהֶ֔ם וְעָשׂ֨וּ לָהֶ֥ם
צִיצִ֛ת עַל־כַּנְפֵ֥י בִגְדֵיהֶ֖ם לְדֹרֹתָ֑ם וְנָֽתְנ֛וּ
עַל־צִיצִ֥ת הַכָּנָ֖ף פְּתִ֥יל תְּכֵֽלֶת׃
Speak to families of Yisrael and instruct them to make for themselves
fringes on the corners of their garments throughout the ages; let them attach a string of blue to the fringe at each
corner.
וְהָיָ֣ה לָכֶם֮ לְצִיצִת֒ וּרְאִיתֶ֣ם אֹת֗וֹ וּזְכַרְתֶּם֙
אֶת־כָּל־מִצְוֺ֣ת יְהוָ֔ה וַעֲשִׂיתֶ֖ם אֹתָ֑ם וְלֹֽא־תָתֻ֜רוּ אַחֲרֵ֤י
לְבַבְכֶם֙ וְאַחֲרֵ֣י עֵֽינֵיכֶ֔ם אֲשֶׁר־אַתֶּ֥ם זֹנִ֖ים אַחֲרֵיהֶֽם׃
That shall be your fringe; look at it and recall all the mitzvot of Adonai
and observe them, so that you do not get distracted by your heart or let your
eyes lead you astray.
The commandment
to place a string of techeylet/sky blue, was
impossible for Jews to fulfill after the Jewish dyeing industry was wiped out
in the Byzantine period. The color,
derived from a snail known only as the chilazon, became an object of legend and myth.
Colorfast blue and purple dyes were extremely expensive in the ancient near east, saved for royalty and priesthood. Even once lost, Jews dreamed of restoring the blue threat to their tallitot, as the Talmud taught of its powerful spirutual meaning in Tractate Menachot (43b if you want to check) where we find the words of Rebbe Meir: "For the techeyelt is as the color of the sea, and the sea is as the color of the sky, and the sky is as the color of God's glorious throne."
So why, aside from the extra step to tie these blue threads, do so few people wear this blue? Our students agreed the answer may lay in that there is a cost to the strings, over $40 a set. In the times of the Mishnah, wool dyed with genuine techeylet was worth more than its weight in gold! The other reason we discussed that this mitzvah has just recently been restored to function, and Jewish tradition can be slow to change, even when that change is going back to the way things used to be! But our hope is that our students, regardless of gender, now understand something of why so many do embrace the practice of wearing tzitzit with Techeylet.
Rabbi Bonna Haberman Browns, zichronah livracha/of blessed memory, in prayer with with
techelyet strung tzitzit and tefilin.
