Composed a DVar Torah

This effort took much of the day.  Its first draft is done to my satisfaction.  It is probably too long for an optimal oral presentation.

Our congregation, whose titled people have not endeared themselves to me, essentially leaving me out more than they should, jolting my pain centers as they do this, undertook a major project.  In the absence of a Rabbi, congregants in turn prepared the shabbos sermon, which became known as Torah Talks.  First a signup sheet, which would get three people doing this as volunteers, and two of them not worth being in shul Saturday morning.  Like many things, when I expressed to the VP who initiated the project, that invitations would expand participation and the quality of the talks, I got my now expected dismissive wave of the palm in response.  But anyone who thought this through would figure out quickly that it's a better way to do this.  And so the project was assigned to somebody who took it seriously.  She assembled a wide array of speakers with very few Second Acts.  Over about six months, a pattern has emerged with lawyers talking about something law, scientists finding some science in their presentation, genealogy enthusiasts going that route, and people really focused on Torah staying within the bounds of the parsha.  I expected to be bypassed, as I can be eccentric in my comments, but Tazria-Metzora is Torah's foray into medical care, so the invitation came to me.

I read commentaries, almost none having to do with medical care, as tzaraat is really a mythical disease, the external expression of misconduct, with intervention lacking the privacy protections that American law currently mandates.  Yet the Kohanim did function in some ways like doctors.  Sometimes more like loyal soldiers carrying out a mission, but sometimes given latitude to deal with uncertainty.  They did what they were told, used interventions that were more of a sure cure than most of what we do today, and never challenged what they were told to do.  So I was able to follow our emerging tradition to match, or sometimes contrast what Torah illustrates as the proper path, though isn't always really the best thing to salute and do without challenge.

It took effort, more than I've given anything, but it came out well, at least in writing.  And most important to me, I got on the invitation list.

The composition in its written form.  

https://richardplotzker.medium.com/torah-talk-tazria-metzor-d2f3b71e5643   And with two reads in my computerized stats.

Gone without a Word

People come and go.  A shabbos candle lasts about an hour, a yarhtzeit candle about 24 and a shiva candle about a week, then the flame disappears, though the attraction of the flame usually peters out long before it reaches its end.  Not so with our congregant, a person always noticed, a colorful and omnipresent fixture for his tenure in a place that really lacks of interesting characters.

He arrived unobtrusively, I cannot even remember when or how.  Nearly all our members are from big cities, with a now negligible representation from the European shetl's.  This fellow developed his speech pattern in Arkansas, he mentioned a town that had a small Wikipedia blurb, and entertained us in private conversation and a few pretty good divrei Torah.  I never pressed him on where else he had lived or how he migrated to Wilmington, though I knew he was a military veteran who had medical appointments at our VA.  He had a Harley and pick-up truck, the latter parked in the lot of the synagogue on occasion and the former, which I never actually saw, acquired a designated space in our parking lot right next to the Rabbi's space.  I assumed he is a convert, called to the Torah as ben Avraham, but of adequate proficiency with the blessings and Torah choreography.  His divrei Torah coordinated contemporary themes with the broad theme of the weekly reading though without much detail from the portion itself or from learned sources.  Never asked if he had a job.  He was able to attend morning and evening minyanim pretty much daily, which goes against having to be someplace else during customary working hours but the modern world running around the clock, there are people who have the days off and work after dark.  And while he had served in the military he did not look physically disabled though many a pension comes from PTSD which would not be apparent to a social associate. 

During his years with us, not a lot, he contributed a good deal more than most, despite his somewhat enigmatic presence.  On site twice a day.  When we needed cooking, whether for cholent on shabbos or an occasional barbeque to entice people to congregational meetings, he obtained the supplies and did the cooking, presumably with some kashrut supervision from others more familiar with the rules.  The food was always wonderful.  He would drive the visiting Cantor to the train at the end of shabbos, presumably in the pickup rather than the motorcycle.  I never paid attention to whether he took wine, grape juice or schnapps at kiddush.  But he was both omnipresent and a little obscure.

Then one day the Rabbi asked if somebody could transport the Cantor to his train after Havdalah.  It's a semi-rhetorical request, as everyone has a car and nobody has any other pressing obligation after dark on any Saturday night.  Somebody would get him there, but not his usual ride in the pick-up truck.  It's owner, our curious congregant, had slid out just as suddenly and unobtrusively as he had arrived.  His whereabouts were announced as Georgia, no mention of why.  Wife remained locally.  As tempting as it was to check out whether the extradition laws between Delaware and Georgia were looser than other interstate agreements, I didn't, or more correctly wouldn't know how.  He just seemed curious when here, curious when gone, but a great contributor to the few years he blended among us.

Aliyah Sound Bites

One of the phenomena that has infiltrated our local shabbos morning service, one which has actually led me to reduce the frequency of my attendance has been the running commentary that precedes each Aliyah, refereed to with a certain derision as Aliyah Sound Bites.  I detest them enough to go someplace else on shabbos morning which I plan to do next shabbos and sometimes make the assessment that no place is better than our sanctuary on shabbos morning so I upgrade my weekly holy experience by going no place.  Not long ago, I passed this comment to a senior Conservative rabbinic friend amid a larger assessment as to why I think many previously observant Jews have voted with their feet in increasing numbers to deplete attendance on Saturday mornings, myself among them.  He seemed a little surprised that I isolated this part of the morning that made the most negative impression upon me, since he had been at the forefront of encouraging his colleagues to replace some of the shabbos morning sermon with this type of running commentary as a form of machshava to better appreciated what is being read when it is being read.  I judge it more as tircha d'tzibburah, lengthening an already long service with trivial ideas that lack any exposition, much as our TV news has replaced analysis of events with a couple of minutes of photos.  Citizens are dumbed down that way and Jews are spoon fed if not dumbed down as well.

Having carried a pager for most of my medical career, one of the most negative features has been multiple interruptions that destroy any focus or personal exploration.  If you are seeing patients in the office and the pager goes off you cannot deal with the message as an opportunity as much as a reason to dispatch the person doing the interruption as quickly as possible.  Aliyah Sound Bites transpose this process to Torah exploration, something that many of us only get to do once or twice each week.  Learned Judaism really has an elegance to it, a give and take much like Medical Rounds where an issue arises that has many different facets to it.  The Torah reading while divided into seven often unequal parts has a unifying cadence that is sacrificed by inserting constant minor interruptions.  I regard the sequential approach of the seven olim each week as part of that cadence, part of the pageant of Torah.  It represents a pause more than a change in thought.  Since the printing press, it is a chance to glance at a commentary as a footnote to what was just read or to read on to the next aliyah or merely to offer a warm handshake to the person returning to his seat following his honor.  Those pauses enable people to direct their attention to where they would like it to be.  Aliyah Sound Bites on the other hand let somebody else select how the natural pauses between chantings are utilized.

My rabbinic friend in his email to me also asked what I would like the rabbi to do instead.  My first reaction was to have a traditional d'var Torah or sermon.  There is a reason why these expositions have endured for centuries, though often quality dependent.  Many of us study a measure of Torah each week, sometimes the weekly portion, sometimes a particular subject that spans several locations in the scroll, or sometimes an offshoot such as a sage's commentary or a modern commentary.  Nobody that I know of who does this opts for a piece of triviality that can be knocked off in minute.  And multiply triviality seven times or eight if you count a Haftarah Sound Bite as well.  Torah understanding accrues with ideas of greater substance, ideas that are amenable to challenges and citations to the contrary of what is being expressed in the portion being studied.  To pretend that seven spoonfuls each week compensates for a real effort where ideas flow from one to another diminishes the many learned people in our sanctuary each week to occupants in the lecture hall of Rabbinical Junior College.  It's a real negative to me.  And I will try to escape it this coming shabbos.

Shabbos Prep

A lazy summer Friday with a few things to tidy up around the office as I take my final lap or two as a Delaware physician.  I am more inclined to think about shabbos today than to engage in useful work, though not ignore my closing tasks.  I read Rabbi Wein's weekly D'var Torah on the Project Genesis site earlier in the week.  Normally I make supper before I go to work but this week I delegated the task to my wife.  There are few bottles of craft beer worthy of shabbos in the fridge.  Of the local clergy, the one who gives the most consistently erudite and thoughtful weekly message presides over the Reform congregation.   He has not spoken this summer, delegating the task to congregants who have done quite well, though they do not have the core knowledge to link their message to a parallel message of Torah.  Some of the Rabbis in my community also lack that skill but the Rabbi Robinson of Beth Emeth stands out in that regard.   And they always get ten Jewish men there to enable me to say Kaddish.