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בס״ד TORAH WEEKLYParshat Shemini 17 - 30 March, 2019 WHY KEEP our physical health but for our meant when he said with pri- 17 - 23 Adar II, 5779 spiritual health. It is not for de “my children run a Jewish KOSHER our bodies but for our souls. home” - is the kitchen. A First Torah: This week’s parshah, It is a Jewish diet to help Jews kosher kitchen makes a Jewi- Leviticus 9:1 - 11:47 Shemini, introduces the remain spiritually sensitive to sh home truly Jewish. It also their innate Jewishness. extends a very warm and elo- Second Torah (Parah): Torah’s dietary laws. Animals While the Torah quent invitation to all fellow Numbers 19:1-22 must chew their cud and have split hooves to be kosher, fish actually records no official Jews. Here you are welcome. need fins and scales, and a list reason for these laws, the Here it is safe to come in and Haftorah: of forbidden fowl is enumera- rabbis and philosophers have eat. Make yourself at home. Ezekiel 36:16-36 ted. speculated on their purpose. Your favorite diet They act as a bulwark against may build healthy bodies, but CALENDARS To those of us in Jewish education, it is a assimilation, we are taught. a kosher diet builds healthy We have Jewish On a simple level, if we souls. Calendars, if you would continuing source of disap- pointment that so many Jews keep kosher, inexorably, we By Rabbi Yossy Goldman like one, please send us still believe the kosher laws will shop with fellow Jews, a letter and we will send to be outdated. After all, socialize with fellow Jews WHEN SAYING you one, or ask the Rab- they reckon, in the desert our and remain close to Jewish bi / Chaplain to contact ancestors needed to protect communal life. A rabbinic NOTHING IS us. themselves from trichinosis friend of mine once asked a THE RIGHT FAMILY and all sorts of diabolical very high-profile Jewish busi- PROGRAMS diseases so some kind of die- nessman why he was about to THING TO SAY Do you have tary system was needed. But marry a non-Jewish woman. I ran into a friend at family on the outside today, they argue, in an age Couldn’t he find a “nice the market, and she looked Jewish girl”? His reply was who are struggling, of refrigeration, government sadder than when I had seen inspection and modern hygie- very revealing. “I just don’t her recently at her father’s please contact or have mix in those circles anymore, them contact our office ne standards, the kosher laws shiva. “It’s hitting me harder are archaic, anachronistic and Rabbi.” There is no doubt that to learn more about our now,” she paused, looking quite dispensable. had he still kept Kosher his down, “and there was so family programs. You How sad. The fact life choices may well have much family business going and they are not alone, is that the kosher laws were been very different. on.” At first, I thought she we are here to help. never given to us for health On a deeper, more meant those nasty family spiritual level, keeping kosher GRAPE JUICE & reasons. If they happen to dynamics that can be cataly- keeps our Jewish souls sensi- MATZAH be healthy or provide good zed by a death in the family, hygiene that is purely a fringe tive to things Jewish. This is but she meant it literally. The Aleph offers free clearly a mystical concept and Grape Juice and Matzoh benefit. It may well be one people around her were very of the perks but it has never imperceptible to our physical for you to be able to focused on the “business” of been the reason. senses, but according to our her father’s estate, despite her make the blessings every I often joke that if the sages it is a fact. Just as too repeated requests that these Shabbos. Please have kosher laws were for health, much red meat or fatty foods conversations wait until after your chaplain / Rabbi then all the rabbis should look are bad for your cholesterol, the mourning period was contact us to enroll, it is like Schwarzenegger! And non-kosher foods are bad for over. available to all prisons. those who don’t keep kosher your neshamah. They clog Proper shiva proto- should look sickly. In fact, your spiritual arteries and col requires that people who ALEPH INSTITUTE anecdotal evidence seems to prevent those warm, healthy want to pay their respects do Hyman & Martha Rogal prove the very opposite; your Jewish feelings from circula- not initiate the conversation; Center average religious type looks ting through your kishkes and instead, they are to sit quiet- 5804 Beacon Street rather scrawny (or overwei- your consciousness. ly and wait for the mourner Pittsburgh, PA 15217 ght) and the non-kosher guys It’s very important to speak. They follow the are the ones with the big to have a mezuzah on your mourner’s lead. After all, it’s 412-421-0111 door. It identifies your home Fax: 412-521-5948 biceps! the mourner’s show, so to spe- So let it be stated as Jewish. But what really www.alephne.org ak—we are there to comfort categorically: kosher is not for defines your home as a “Jewi- them, not add to their pain [email protected] sh Home” - what your zayde with inappropriate conversation or behavior. Why is that so We don’t all have the luxury of Moses softening hard to do? It’s challenging enough to “say the right thing” the blow with consoling messages from G-d. Sometimes, under difficult circumstances. When we are given a pass, there are simply no answers—at least none that we can however, where we don’t even have to speak except to offer comprehend with our limited intelligence. Sometimes, life simple mandatory scripted words of condolences, why are makes absolutely no sense. Someone is in distress, and you we so uncomfortable with silence? struggle for answers as to why they are suffering or why an I tried to explain to my friend how people react to inexplicably horrible event has happened. When we accept grief and mourning differently, where some negate or avoid that we don’t have the answers, we can open ourselves up to pain by becoming preoccupied with busy work or mundane the wisdom of silence. Then, if and when we choose to spe- matters to feel a sense of control. Looking back, I wish I ak or act (because there are times when we must speak and could take back my words. In a misguided attempt to make times we must act), we will serve the moment or the person her “feel better” or “fix the situation,” I was negating her or the situation in the right way. emotions, whereas I should have held the space to witness So This Time, I Got It Right and validate her experience. Instead of giving her the “gift” Last week I was in synagogue with a woman whose of my wisdom and advice, I wish I could have given her the mother recently died after a protracted and painful illness. gifts she really needed: empathy, compassion and a silent With tears welling up in her eyes, she shyly confessed how but warm embrace. in the last days she was praying for G-d to take her. “I feel What Is Silence Anyway? a little guilty about that. Was that bad?” Words of advice It’s one thing to shut down external noise, but what streamed into my head. Of course, it’s not bad! You were about the noise inside? Have you listened to yourself lately? an amazing and loving and devoted daughter who couldn’t Research has clocked the average person as having 12,000 bear to see her mother suffering. But I said nothing, becau- to 60,000 thoughts per day, 95 percent of which are the se the real question (“Why did my mother have to suffer same thoughts from the day before. And what’s worse, 80 so?”) could not be answered. Instead, I looked into her eyes percent of our thoughts are negative. Despite the books on with soft tearful eyes of my own and with silence held the mindfulness that I leave strategically around the house, my space for her to accept it all—the grief and the love, the husband isn’t fooled. When he catches me staring into space guilt and the relief. with darting eyes, he’ll ask: “How’s the conversation going When in doubt, pause and say this acronym to in your head?” Umm, you probably don’t want to know; it’s yourself: WAIT, which stands for: “Why Am I Talking?” not pretty in there. Just as we are to use the gift of speech for the good, let us Is silence just the absence of noise, the mere ces- also learn to use the gift of silence. Sometimes, it’s just sation of the inner chatter? Try to stop thinking and pretty what is needed. soon you’ll be thinking about how you’re trying to stop By Hana Perlberger thinking. Instead of picturing silence as a mere empty void, however, imagine silence as a gateway to another dimen- sion. Silence leads to stillness, which leads to awareness, PASSOVER If for some reason your orders were not submitted which leads to presence—the state of being that accepts the for Passover, please ask the Chaplain or Rabbi to contact present moment as it is.

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