A Taste of Shabbos – Parashat Pinchas

Plug into the sacred, to illuminate the mundane. Immerse into the sacred to water the profane. Listen to the sacred to sing to the secular. I present these images to emphasize this concept, because it is so vital in Jewish thinking. We make Havdalah on Motzei Shabbat when the Sabbath leaves, not just to say goodbye, but to take the flavor, smell, and light of Shabbos with us into the week. These ideas are also a fundamental theme of this Torah portion. Pinchas is usually read as a prelude to the three weeks, the ‘Achilles heel’ of the Jewish calendar. Though this time commemorates the dark days of Jewish history, we are promised that in the future, they will be extraordinarily bright. In fact, the Hassidic masters tell us that if we dig deep, we can reveal the holy connection now.

The topics in Pinchas are multi-fold.  One that takes up lots of space, are the listing of all the additional offerings brought during the festivals. One that stands out in our times is the single offering of the eighth day following Sukkot, otherwise known as Shemini Atzeret, and the ninth day which is Simchat Torah, outside the land of Israel. (In the diaspora, they are separated but in Israel, both are on the same day, the eighth one.) In modern times, this day has become since 2023, the infamous ‘October Seventh,’ the day of the inhuman attacks that involved the horrific destruction and torture and captivity of a multitude of Israelis of all ages, and their communities in and around Gaza. This all took place while Jews in the rest of Israel and around the world, celebrated one of the happiest days of the year.

What is special about this holiday? The Talmud tells us that during the previous seven days of Sukkot, offerings were brought on behalf of all the seventy nations in the world, starting from 13, in diminishing order, till reaching a total of 69. On Shemini Atzeret, only one offering was brought. What was this one for? The sages bring an example of a king who invited ambassadors from all over to a big party. He had a close friend whom he begged on the last day, ‘please stay with me one more day; your departure is difficult for me.’ This guest is the nation of Israel, G-d’s special friend. But the expression is strange; it actually says, ‘Your separation from each other is difficult’ rather than saying ‘your separation from Me is difficult.’ In other words, as we read about in many other sources, G-d is much more pained by people not being kind to each other than lacking in ritual observance.

Another nuance of ‘Stay one more day,’ is that if you can stay together in complete unity, you can take that unity with you even into a world where disunity may be all around you. About sixty years ago, I taught a group of second grade girls who were very close to each other. At the end of the year, for various reasons, many of the families had to move to different places, and the girls were very sad. On the last day of school, I sat on a low chair and gathered them around me, asked them to hold hands, and tried to explain that when people love each other, their souls are permanently connected, like G-d said on Shemini Atzeret, ‘Stay with me one more day.’ That day of oneness can last forever!

In our post-modern world, strict religious observance is much less prevalent than it was in pre-war Europe for example, with a broadly differentiated spectrum between levels of observance. Somehow, however, the post October 7^th Jewish world has lost many of those impermeable degrees of separation. On one hand, Antisemitism rears its ugly head in the most unlikely of places- cities and countries that have lived in peace and prospered from Jewish involvement. Here in tiny Boulder, a monster with a fire bomb attacked a peaceful demonstration of folks walking to bring awareness to the hostages. One of the victims was a most remarkable and elegant woman who recently passed away from her burns, and became one of the most well-known American Jewish women in the world. There was a memorial service for her last week in Boulder with over 400 people in a show of unity above time and space. There were speakers who praised her not just for her talents and wisdom, but mainly for, as the line in the Shabbos prayers, a woman whose value and inner and outer beauty, on so many levels, was ‘above pearls’ (in Karen’s case, also beyond Diamonds, her actual married last name.)

Even the president of Israel sent a long and heart felt letter to her family. Talents galore, like musical prowess, home designer expertise, combined with complete and unconditional love and devotion to family, friends, and yes strangers too, and dedication to many social causes. This is a rare combination in one person, but she showed and inspired us and the world, that it can be done. Though her life was taken all too quickly, she lived the maxim, ‘we can’t create more hours in life, but we can use the hours we were given to the fullest.’ Karen certainly used her hours in an exceptional and inspiring way.

Regarding time, there is a story about the previous Lubavitcher Rebbe whose birthday and liberation was last week. He was speaking to some Hassidim who were getting nervous because they had a plane to catch. He told them to calm down because as written in Tanya, the world is being recreated every moment and so the plane they were worried about, hadn’t even been created yet! He also taught that the main thing is to make your life count! I think of course about Karen, as well as the brave ones in Israel who were taken ‘before their time,’ but lived the lives they had filling every moment with the mitzvah of living in the holy land. Israelis above all show that high tech and commitment to ancient and contemporary Torah texts- both high tech and deep texts- can live and thrive together. The biggest challenge now is to keep in mind- and heart- the divine message of ‘Your separation is hard on Me.’ Unity is the key! Shabbos too teaches us that a day devoted to G-d can be seamlessly joined with a day devoted to our family and friends. As mentioned, the Havdalah practice at the end of Shabbat is meant to infuse the rest of the week with Shabbat mojo. Through taste, smell, and sight, this practice infuses the memory of holiness, togetherness, and Jewish joie de vivre into what can otherwise become the murkiness, heaviness, and frustrating experiences of the next six days. And that is the vision of the world to come- a day that is filled with the spirit of Shabbos all week long!