"To be a teacher in the right sense is to be a learner.  I am not a teacher, only a fellow student."  (Soren Kierkegaard)

• Home
• Professional Staff
• Board of Directors
• Calendar
• Ritual Events
• Education
  • Religious School
  • Adult Education
• Auxiliary Organizations
  • Youth Groups
  • Old Enough To Know Better
  • 50 is the New 30
  • Sisterhood
  • Men's Club
• Tikkun Olam
• Cemetery
• Volunteer Opportunities
• Donations & Payments
• Beth Sholom News
• Contact Us

A FEW PRE-SHABBAT WORDS FROM RABBI AARON

Great and Awesome Day
We have arrived at the last of four special Shabbatot preceding Pesach, the Great Shabbat. Various commentators offer a range of explanations regarding the ancient name - Shabbat Hagadol. According to one tradition, this Shabbat was more lengthy than usual because the rabbi would go into detailed descriptions of the laws concerning Pesach [the Long Shabbat]. Another explanation focuses on the haftarah, taken from the prophet Malachi. Toward the very end of the haftarah we read: "See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day [HaGadol veHaNora] of the Lord comes.  He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers..."

Great and Dreadful - What Does it Mean?
Nora can mean awful or dreadful, or it can mean awe-inspiring. Malachi is painting a portrait of the End Time, the arrival of the Messiah. The Rabbinic haftarah editors clearly meant to etch the outlines of Passover with messianic overtones. Subtext: The redemption from Egyptian bondage is a glimpse of a long-awaited future redemption. It is no accident that the same Elijah evoked by Malachi visits us at our seder table - and that according to tradition, on some future Passover seder night (around the corner?), Elijah will announce the imminent arrival of the messiah.

...And What Happens Then?
There is a great range of rabbinic opinions regarding the job description and identity of the messiah. That discussion far exceeds the scope of this drash. My 2 cents' worth: I find myself agreeing with Robert Levine, who wrote a provocative book called There Is No Messiah and You're It. The title pretty much says it all. There is no messiah: waiting for a messiah becomes a way of not taking responsibility for mending the world. And You're It: If the world is in need of a champion, who are you waiting for? Even if one doesn't subscribe to the traditional belief in the Messiah as a person, there is a range of ideas about a messianic age; a time somehow different from the painfully steep hill which we struggle to climb.

I fiercely believe in such a time. That is not the same as saying I have certain knowledge of a messianic World to Come. Saying that I believe in it really means that my soul yearns for it. Ever since my childhood  years, I've wondered what such a time might be like. I entertained several ideas, including a personal messiah [just like the phrase in the kedusha for Shabbat: al yedei David meshiach tzidkecha - ...by the hands of David, Your righteous anointed one], to Isaiah's utopian vision of a peaceful world, whose swords have been beaten into plough-shares.  

And then, during my most recent retreat at Spirit Rock, I heard some words, a quote from Thomas Merton (1915-1968), of blessed memory. Merton was a Trappist monk of the Abbey of Gethsemani,  Kentucky. He was a poet, social activist and student of comparative religion. In 1949, he was ordained to priesthood and given the name Father Louis. Merton was an important bridge between East and West, as you'll likely infer from these words, which ring as prophetic and sublime as anything else I've read...

"Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in the eyes of the Divine. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed...I suppose the big problem would be that we would fall down and worship each other."

Not only would the hearts of parents and children be reconciled, all of God's creatures would clearly see God's Presence in each other. That will be a Great and Awesome day.

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Aaron