The verdant beauty of Berkshire summer is upon us. The hills are spectacular in their new green cloaks. The pollinator garden at CBI is bright and blooming. During “no-mow May” I watched as wildflowers sprung up all over our lawn and butterflies danced from one to the next. Sometimes I feel a little bit sorry for everyone whose synagogue and environs aren’t as beautiful as ours are. We are in a really stunning place. It still sometimes takes my breath away.
I emerged from Shabbat to the news of the horrific shooting at a grocery store in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Buffalo. The shooter was motivated by racial hatred and by the so-called “great replacement theory” – the belief that Jews are orchestrating a “replacement” of white Americans with people of color. That same argument has motivated many shootings in houses of worship and elsewhere.
My son likes to say “We live in a society.” It’s our refrain. We need to be mindful of other people’s needs, because we live in a society. If a kid is being bullied, it’s good to stand up for them, because we live in a society. If a neighbor needs help carrying in the groceries, we offer to help, because we live in a society. We have obligations to each other, because we live in a society..
Reb Zalman z”l — Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, of blessed memory; a formative teacher for me before and during rabbinical school — used to say that revelation is like the radio. God is the Source of the broadcast, and that broadcast is always streaming into creation. And as for us? We’re radio receivers. We receive revelation on the levels to which we’re attuned.
This year April overlaps, more or less, with the lunar month of Nissan. At the full moon of Nissan we retell our people’s core story as we celebrate Pesach, festival of our liberation.
As it says in the traditional haggadah:
We were slaves to a Pharaoh in Egypt, and the Holy One brought us forth from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm… Therefore it is incumbent on each of us to see ourselves as though we, ourselves, had been brought forth from Mitzrayim.
This month brings Purim, our festival of costumes and masks and merriment.
When my son was little, he used to confuse the names Yom Kippur and Purim. One year he was very excited to wear a costume to Yom Kippur… until I regretfully informed him that Yom Kippur was not the costumes and silliness holiday!
He didn’t know it, but he was following in the footsteps of our sages.
