#10 adar

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Jew & A - 10 Adar

Today's Jew & A is all about favorites! Answer in the tags, reblogs, or comments!

What's your favorite holiday?

What's your favorite Jewish food?

What's your favorite part of davening?

What's your favorite ritual?

Who's your favorite Jewish scholar?

And remember, you can always ask us at Outreach by Adellah some questions for Jew & A as well!

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#MitzvahChallenge

This week's mitzvah for the #MitzvahChallenge is Kibbud Av v'Im (honor your father and mother)!

Reblog this post with an example of the mitzvah for a chance to be featured in the next edition of OBAWeekly!

Good luck preforming this mitzvah!

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Jew Quiz - 10 Adar:

This week's Jew Quiz is all about the Mishkan items mentioned in Ki Tisa! Take it here:

In this week's parsha, Ki Tisa, we learn about some of the objects in the Mishkan. Take this quiz to find out which one you are!

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New You: Better Jew - Steps to Becoming FULL SHOMER - 10 Adar

Shabbat is easily one of the most important mitzvot in the entire Torah, a mitzvah which is to be observed by every Jewish man, woman, and child, and even by the non-Jews and animals in our midst. Shabbat is a day of rest where we distance ourselves from the stressors of our week and both literally and metaphorically “unplug” ourselves from the hectic nature of our wider world. However, in our modern day, many Jews have trouble truly observing Shabbat. Even with a strong desire to become shomer shabbos, many well-meaning Jews find themselves bested by work, social media, and the other things life throws our way. If you find yourself relating to this sentiment, this guide is for you! 

A step by step guide to becoming FULL SHOMER™

Stage 1: Acknowledging Shabbat

To start becoming shomer shabbos, you don’t need to go from 0 to 100; you just need to go from 0 to 1. Instead of treating Shabbat just like any other weekday, take a few minutes before dinner on Friday to light some candles and make a blessing over some wine (or grape juice) and challah. Don’t even worry about making sure to light them 18 minutes before sunset. Simply marking Shabbat in some way is a great basis for future observance. Aside from the traditional rituals, you can also make Shabbat special in your own ways. Perhaps you can have a more elaborate dinner than you normally would, you can make sure not to answer any work emails, or you can make an effort to spend more time with your family than you would during the week. Any steps you can take to make Shabbat special will have the effect of making future increases in Shabbat observance come much more naturally to you!

Stage 2: Learning

Now that you are marking Shabbat as a special day, clearly with the intention of becoming more connected with your Jewish culture, the next step is to start to use this day to learn more about Judaism! You can take time to read the weekly Torah portion, brush up on your Hebrew, or say a few prayers. When I was first restarting my Jewish journey and was not yet a member of a synagogue, I found it extremely fulfilling to listen to musical Kabbalat Shabbat services online as a way to welcome Shabbat. Although ways of observing Shabbat which involve less technology are certainly preferable, you should take your journey at your own pace. Don’t worry if your current observance is not “ideal”, as long as it is helping you achieve your Jewish goals.

Stage 3: Tefillah

Once you start acknowledging and learning about Shabbat on your own, the next step is to do so with others! Jews are not a people which exist in solitude, and there is a reason why so many of our prayers use the pronoun “we” instead of “I”. Truly, the most Jewish way to observe Shabbat is in a congregation with other Jews. Take the time to reach out to a local temple/synagogue/shul (whatever floats your boat) and inform them that you would like to join their congregation for your first Shabbat service. I guarantee that you will have a positive experience every single time. Nobody will judge or shame you if you are not the most knowledgeable on Hebrew, praying, or when to stand up and sit down. Especially if you inform them of your visit, any synagogue you want to try out will be a welcoming environment with some of the kindest people you have ever met to guide you through the process. As I’ve reiterated earlier, don’t sweat it if the only way of getting to synagogue is driving. The important thing at this stage is just becoming more connected to Shabbat. The specifics can be worked out later.

Stage 4: Community

This next step is to get involved in your Jewish community, which will probably come to you pretty naturally once you’ve been going to synagogue for a while. You’ll become friends with other members there and become involved with the events and volunteer opportunities that are announced after services. The longer you spend in the Jewish community and the more active you are in it, the more you will feel connected to your Jewish culture. This is a perfect ingredient to becoming more observant of mitzvot like Shabbat. Not only will you want to become more observant, but as an integral part of your community, you will now have the resources to do so, such as a place to stay over Shabbat! 

Stage 5: Go All Day

Now that you have somewhere to spend Shabbat, make an effort to have your observance there lasting all day long. Spend all Shabbat at your shomer shabbos friend’s house if you can, or try to get a lunch invite after synagogue every week. Anything you can think of to extend your observance of Shabbat in your Jewish community past the hours of synagogue is great for improving your relationship with Shabbat! This will also make it much easier in the future for you to cut back on any remaining technology you’ve still been using over Shabbat, as you’ll have lots to do instead of just being on your phone.

Stage 6: Cut Back on the Tech

If you’re already active in your community and have somewhere to spend Shabbat this step should be pretty easy for you, but everyone always has a couple vices. For example, you might carry your phone with you “just in case” or use it as an alarm, or you might drive to synagogue. This stage is about cutting out those last couple of small things that are keeping you from being truly and fully shomer shabbos. As often as you can, try and spend the night at someone’s house so you don’t have to drive, invest in a kosher alarm clock, leave your phone at home, or do whatever you need to do to make the final small step to full observance. You don’t have to make a commitment to do this forever; just take it week by week, and try to have a fully observant Shabbat as often as you can. At this point, you’re almost there! There’s only one more step.

Stage 7: Complete Consistency

They say that doing something consistently for 3 weeks makes it a habit. I’m not sure if this would mean fully observing 3 or 21 Shabbats, but either way, consistency in your observance is important. If properly observing Shabbat is important enough to you that you start doing it every single week - no exceptions - there will be little that can get in your way from here on out! 

So, there you go! That’s how you become FULL SHOMER™. I myself have also been through all of these stages and can attest to this method of reaching full Shabbat observance. Good luck to everyone on their Jewish journeys!

Tell me in the tags:

Which stage of Shabbat observance do you think you’re at right now? Do you have the goal of becoming fully shomer shabbos? How do you plan to achieve that goal?

Jew Joke:

What do you call a Jewish man who can open any door with a salmon?

A loxsmith

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Halacha Hayom - How the Golden Calf Gave Us Rosh Chodesh - 10 Adar

Rosh Chodesh, literally meaning “the head of the new [moon]”, and it is a celebration of the first day of every Jewish month, always occuring on the day of a new moon. Rosh Chodesh is considered somewhat of a holiday, as there are special prayers we say on the day. There is a custom of feasting and of women getting a day of rest on Rosh Chodesh. In the days of the temple, there were also additional sacrifices that we offered to Hashem on this day. It is considered to be a day of renewal, a time for self reflection and for a fresh start in the new month. So, how did Rosh Chodesh come to be, and why are women given a special emphasis on this day?

In this week’s parsha, Ki Tisa, we learn about the repercussions of the sin of the Golden Calf (read this week’s Torah & More article for a more in depth explanation of the parsha). Hashem was, rightly, extremely upset with the Jewish people for creating an idol to worship while Moshe was at Har Sinai. However, although Hashem was originally tempted to wipe out the Jews entirely, Moshe was able to convince Him to rethink this decision by reminding Him about the exodus from Egypt, the very same event the Jews had clearly forgotten about while creating the Golden Calf. Hashem instead chose to forgive the Jewish people and turn this mistake into an opportunity for them to improve themselves. This renewal and forgiveness inspired one of the major themes of Rosh Chodesh. Just as Hashem forgave the Jewish people and gave them a clean slate to work with after the Golden Calf incident, Rosh Chodesh is an opportunity for us to forgive ourselves and each other for our mistakes and start fresh in the coming month.

The other aspect of Rosh Chodesh as a day of rest for women also has its roots in the story of the Golden Calf. According to Pirkei d'Rabbi Eliezer 45, there were two groups of people who did not participate in the creation of the Golden Calf, the tribe of Levi and all of the Jewish women. This is cited as evidence for why the tribe of Levi has a special position among the other tribes and why women are given a special day of rest on Rosh Chodesh. Both are rewards for not participating in the sin of the Golden Calf. The fact that women did not contribute to the Golden Calf is also a perfect example of the role of women in Jewish society. Since we are imbued from birth with the natural ability to find it easier to cultivate a relationship with Hashem, we can serve as examples of piety when the rest of the nation is led astray.

This is how a sin as immense as that of the Golden Calf could create such a unique and important celebration for the Jewish people. Rosh Chodesh is a time of renewal and forgiveness, a reminder of how Hashem forgave us after our sins. It is also a time to appreciate the women in our lives and all the work they put into sustaining the Jewish people… and to give them a much needed break! Perhaps on the next Rosh Chodesh, you can take a moment to acknowledge a hardworking woman you may know, or if you are one, take the opportunity to have a day off!

Tell me in the tags: Have you ever observed Rosh Chodesh before? How might you like to observe it this month?

Jew Joke:

Where do Jews go to get the cheapest idols?

Idollartree

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Throughout Time & Space - The City Avraham Came From - 10 Adar

Avraham was the very first of the Jewish patriarchs and certainly one of the most righteous. He is the paradigm of kindness, hospitality, and generosity - a figure for Jews to look up to. Avraham is also known throughout many stories involving him to be extremely obedient to Hashem. “Kill your son”, “leave your homeland”, whatever Hashem says, you can pretty much count on Avraham to do it. However, although that “kill your son” commandment is a pretty interesting one (and definitely a topic for a future Torah & More article), today we are going to focus on the other aforementioned commandment, 

לֶךְ־לְךָ֛ מֵאַרְצְךָ֥ וּמִמּֽוֹלַדְתְּךָ֖ וּמִבֵּ֣ית אָבִ֑יךָ אֶל־הָאָ֖רֶץ אֲשֶׁ֥ר אַרְאֶֽךָּ׃

Go forth from your native land and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you

Of course, we know the land that Hashem eventually showed Avraham (Israel), but what do we know of the land that Avraham came from? Well, not much. Here is one of the only times it is mentioned in the entire Tanakh:

וַיֹּ֖אמֶר אֵלָ֑יו אֲנִ֣י יְהֹוָ֗ה אֲשֶׁ֤ר הוֹצֵאתִ֙יךָ֙ מֵא֣וּר כַּשְׂדִּ֔ים לָ֧תֶת לְךָ֛ אֶת־הָאָ֥רֶץ הַזֹּ֖את לְרִשְׁתָּֽהּ׃

Then [God] said to him, “I am יהוה who brought you out from Ur of the Kasdim to assign this land to you as a possession.”

Did you catch that? Avraham is from a city called the “Ur of the Kasdim”. It may seem impossible to trace this remark back to a specific city, but we actually can! In fact, it seems likely that “Ur of the Kasdim” is the same ancient Sumerian city state of the infamous Ea-Nasir complaint tablet! So, what might life have been like for Avraham in the city of Ur when he lived there, from about 1812 to 1738 BCE when Hashem told him to leave (1948 to 2023 Hebrew Calendar)?

At the time Avraham lived in Ur, the city no longer held any major political position in the region. Only a couple centuries before, it had been the most populous city in the entire world, but it had long since fallen after the demise of the Third Dynasty of Ur by Avraham’s time. By the time he was born, Ur was ruled by the Amorites during the First Dynasty of Babylon. In fact, the time he lived under Babylonian rule almost perfectly coincided with the life of King Hammurabi of Hammurabi’s code (one of the first written legal codes, often noted for its brutal punishments). Akkadian, the language this code was written, would have also been the lingua franca of Babylon during this time because of language reforms headed by Hammurabi. Of course, Avraham would have still spoken Hebrew, though it was not a common language where he lived. In this land, a very large pantheon of gods was worshipped, and after Hammurabi’s death (which Avraham was present in Ur for) the king became considered a god as well.

No wonder Hashem told him to get out of there! How could a single Jew get a whole “new” religion started in a massive idolatrous empire which would have rallied against him. No, a new level of holiness as high as Avraham’s could have only been achieved in a new and holy land, and Avraham, having understood monotheism since the age of 3 (Bereshit Rabbah 95:3) understood this fully. This is why Avraham was so ready to pack up his things and immediately leave the land of his ancestors, because he understood that it was not a holy land and not a place befitting the holy task laid out for him. 

The same is true for the Jews of today. Although this is not necessarily a suggestion that every Jew who reads this immediately packs their bags and moves to Israel, it is true that every Jew should always be aware of their environment and strive to inhabit a holy and righteous place just as our father Avraham did.

Tell me in the tags: Would you ever want to visit Avraham's homeland? What do you think it might have been like to live there?

Jew Joke:

Why did Avraham really leave Ur?

Because he came in there for one G-d, but they tried to upsell him on a whole pantheon!

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Torah & More - The Twofold Sin of the Golden Calf - 10 Adar

In this week’s parsha, Ki Tisa, Aharon tells the story of the Golden Calf, an idol which the Jews created for comfort and “protection” after losing faith in Moshe (and evidently also Hashem):

וַיֹּ֣אמְרוּ לִ֔י עֲשֵׂה־לָ֣נוּ אֱלֹהִ֔ים אֲשֶׁ֥ר יֵלְכ֖וּ לְפָנֵ֑ינוּ כִּי־זֶ֣ה ׀ מֹשֶׁ֣ה הָאִ֗ישׁ אֲשֶׁ֤ר הֶֽעֱלָ֙נוּ֙ מֵאֶ֣רֶץ מִצְרַ֔יִם לֹ֥א יָדַ֖עְנוּ מֶה־הָ֥יָה לֽוֹ׃

They said to me, ‘Make us a god to lead us; for that fellow Moses—the man who brought us from the land of Egypt—we do not know what has happened to him.’

וָאֹמַ֤ר לָהֶם֙ לְמִ֣י זָהָ֔ב הִתְפָּרָ֖קוּ וַיִּתְּנוּ־לִ֑י וָאַשְׁלִכֵ֣הוּ בָאֵ֔שׁ וַיֵּצֵ֖א הָעֵ֥גֶל הַזֶּֽה׃

So I said to them, ‘Whoever has gold, take it off!’ They gave it to me and I hurled it into the fire and out came this calf!”

Observant readers may notice something interesting in this passage. The people of Israel cite Moshe specifically as the reason they created the Golden Calf. They are not worried about where Hashem has gone (though, of course, Hashem can never “go missing”), but only about whether Moshe will still be around to lead them after overstaying his projected visit duration on Sinai. And yet, the disappearance of Moshe seems to be enough to warrant the creation of an idol, a new god to replace their mortal leader. Why is this, and what does it teach us?

Humans are naturally inclined to follow authority figures, whether it be a parent, a political leader, or a charismatic and confident friend. However, what this section of the Torah teaches us is that we should not idolize our authority figures, and we should always make logical and rational decisions about who we choose to obey. In Ki Tisa, the Jewish people were so distraught that their beloved and idolized leader (so idolized in fact that they credit Moshe with bringing them out of the land of Egypt instead of Hashem!) had not returned from Har Sinai in time that they literally made an idol to replace him, despite the fact that their actual G-d, Hashem, is always in their midst. 

As Jews, it is important that we understand the difference between authority figures and G-d. Authority figures can come and go. They can keep their promises, or they can break them as Moshe did. This is why we should not put our trust in them, as is said in Psalm 146:

אַל־תִּבְטְח֥וּ בִנְדִיבִ֑ים בְּבֶן־אָדָ֓ם ׀ שֶׁ֤אֵ֖ין ל֥וֹ תְשׁוּעָֽה׃

Put not your trust in the great,

in mortal man who cannot save.

We should only give our complete and undivided devotion to Hashem, never to mere mortals, lest we risk making idols out of them, literally or figuratively.

Tell me in the tags:

Have you ever struggled with blindly trusting authority figures? Why do you think it is important to trust in Hashem rather than in humans?

Jew Joke:

What’s the term for when the doorway gets clogged as everyone leaves shul?

Yidlock

[outreach-by-adellah]

Kavanah & Tefillah - What Does the Shema Really Mean - 10 Adar

The Shema is the central prayer in Judaism. We recite it when we get up and when we go to bed, we post it on our doors, we teach it to our children before anything else, and it holds a truly special place in our liturgy. However, its meaning is somewhat elusive, which is befitting of a 6-word prayer which serves as the central focus of the Jewish faith. Sefaria gives the translation as follows:

שְׁמַ֖ע יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל יְהֹוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֵ֖ינוּ יְהֹוָ֥ה ׀ אֶחָֽד׃

Hear, O Israel! יהוה is our God, יהוה alone.

However, there are dozens of other translations of this message as well, all of which focus on a different aspect of this prayer’s multifaceted meaning. This translation emphasizes the fact that among all the gods, Israel only worships Hashem. However, there are also translations which seem to emphasize that Hashem is a unity, or that Hashem is the only god there is, not just the only god we worship.

The most important part of the Shema is not the translation of “Hashem echad”, although HaShem ex had it may be the most confusing aspect of the prayer and subject to many different interpretations. In truth, the most important part of the Shema are the first two words after which it is named: Shema yisrael, “Hear, O Israel!”. This part of the prayer, no matter how it may be translated, is always a call for the entire people of Israel to heed its following message. This is the most powerful part of the Shema. The fact that in our most central prayer, which is recited just as often in public as in private, we always call out to our entire people to listen to our declaration of faith is a perfect representation of the Jewish people.

We are never at it alone. A single Jew is nothing in the face of our modern world. This is why the Jewish people are a people of community. Even in our most central prayer, often recited in the solitude of our own beds, we are thinking about our entire community and including them in our worship and devotion to Hashem. The true intention behind the Shema is to be a reminder of not only what the Jews stand for - our one true G-d, Hashem - but also who we stand with, which is our entire Jewish people.

Tell me in the tags:

What part of the Shema is most meaningful to you? Why do you think the Shema is such an important prayer? 

Jew Joke:

What is the most important prayer for a salmon?

Shema Fishrael