See You At Sinai

Hey there, my name is Rabbi Jen Gubitz, and I'm pumped to be joined by Rabbi Jodi Gordon as we welcome you to the OMFG podcast, Jewish wisdom for unprecedented times. Hey, Jodi.

Hey, friend. OMFG, what a fabulous 4-letter word. Those 4 letters really do the trick from OMFG, spring is beautiful, but my allergies to OMGF, baked by Melissa's gluten-free cupcakes, are delicious, to OMFG, Israel. As rabbis, we have come to know that when the stories of our lives meet the stories of Jewish tradition, transformation, growth, something awesome happens.

Jodi and I are experts in the letters J and G, boxed macaroni and cheese, suit jackets made out of sweatshirt material, and doing math multiples of 18. And we want to bring you our conversations that express our love for Judaism and make it relevant in the world as we mine Jewish wisdom for strength and resilience in these unprecedented times, with a dose of humor. Because as Mark Twain says, "The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter." This week we are talking about Torah.

Both with a big T and little t, acknowledging this moment in our Jewish calendar as we arrive at Shavuot, that mountaintop moment that we also call Tz'man Torah Tenu, the time of receiving Torah at Mount Sinai. So to start us off, let's warm up with some Torah trivia where there are no wrong answers. Jen, what's your favorite book of the Torah?

Genesis. Jodi, what's yours?

Okay, fine, you can have Genesis. I do have a sweet spot for Exodus. Jen, What's your least favorite part of the Torah?

Before I answer that question, the reason Genesis is my favorite book of Torah is because of my bat mitzvah, but also because my name is in it. My least favorite part of the Torah is any statute that reads as hateful to our way of life today, that causes pain to LGBTQ folks, and so on. What about you?

Uh, samesies.

Jodi, this is very important. What were you wearing because we were all there at Mount Sinai.

Oh, comfy pants and flip-flops for sure. What about you?

Probably identical ones with constellations on them. Uh, probably not flip-flops, probably sneakers, and probably an Indiana University hoodie.

It happens. So I feel really good and warmed up to our conversation about the Torah, don't you?

Ready? So, what is Shavuot? First, let's get clear on this holiday. It's always 50 days after Passover, and it's one of the 3 pilgrimage festivals, the other 2 being Sukkot, where we dwell in booths, and Passover, where we celebrate redemption. On Shavuot, we join the collective memory of the Jewish people and stand again at Sinai to hear the Ten Commandments.

It also has agricultural dimensions of celebrating the grain harvest of early summer and bringing bikurim, which means your first fruits, to the temple in Jerusalem. Today, it's celebrated by having marathons of learning, which are often called a tikkun l'el shavuot, and eating a lot of dairy, which is funny because a lot of Jewish folks do happen to be lactose intolerant.

So, first of all, we should note that leading up to this episode, Jodi was eating, I think for dinner or second dinner, a big bowl of ice cream. But even more important, this episode is spiritually sponsored by Lactaid, korrekt?

Absolutely. Another major theme of Shavuot, though, is also tied to a Megillah, or a scroll, which sort of lives as its own book that we read on this festival, the Book of Ruth. Shout out to my grandma Ruth, my first favorite Ruth. But the scroll illuminates the relationship between two biblical women, one of course named Ruth and Naomi. Ruth is the Moabite daughter-in-law of an Israelite woman named Naomi. Ultimately, Naomi's son, who is Ruth's husband, dies. And while one of her daughters-in-law chooses to return to her homeland, Ruth stays and famously says to Naomi, "Wherever you go, I will go.

Wherever you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people and your God my God. Where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried." The ancient rabbis consider her the very first person to convert to Judaism because of this statement.

So Jen, you have a lot of experience working with people converting to Judaism, right?

It's true. It's something I really care about, helping people find a religious and cultural perspective that helps them live their best life. And I'm reminded of a particular moment with regard to this. On the first night of learning an introduction to Judaism, when we could gather in person, We would all stand on the bima, the platform in the sanctuary, holding the Torah, which— most Torahs are pretty big, so it was an unfamiliar and somewhat bulky task. A lot of people were afraid to touch it, weren't sure if they were allowed to touch it because they may not have been Jewish. But by the conclusion of the semester, we would go back to the bima and everyone would really hold the Torah in a way that felt so different than the first time. This time they clung to it tighter with a sense of comfort and love for the sacred item and its teachings. We rabbis are so used to holding the Torah that we don't really think about it too much anymore. But for many of them, it was their first encounter with Torah, and it was so powerful to witness. Jodi, do you remember a powerful or unusual or perhaps awkward Torah experience in your life?

Okay, well, let's just say that powerful and awkward aren't always the same thing, but I do have a great unusual story. So at the synagogue where I serve, we have a Torah scroll that is over 200 years old that has been entrusted to us by the Memorial Scrolls Trust, which rehabilitated and redistributed more than 1,500 Czech Torah scrolls that were found following the Holocaust. And those Torah scrolls now live all over the world. And entrusted to Jewish communities where they're used today. So we have this amazing Torah scroll, it's over 200 years old, it's from the town of, um, Rishonov in what is now the Czech Republic. And I had a congregant who got really into the history of this Torah. He wanted to make a documentary about it, which he did. It's actually incredible. And he learned that the Memorial Scrolls Trust was having a gathering in New York City. I think it was February 2019. And they wanted to have as many Torah scrolls that were on the East Coast of the United States from this trust sort of there for a Torah reunion. And he came to the synagogue and he said, Rabbi, I really want our scroll to be at this gathering in New York City. I don't suppose you would let me take the Torah on my own? And, you know, for all sorts of reasons, you know, it felt like one of the rabbis should travel with the Torah. So Long story short, I strapped our Torah into our Dinah No car seat because I figured if we can keep my 4-year-old safe, we can keep our 200-year-old Torah scroll safe. I drove the Torah to New York City. I participated in this truly beautiful event at Temple Emanuel in New York City with my congregants and with over 75 Torah scrolls that had been rescued after World War II and now lived in congregations throughout the East Coast. And then it was 9 o'clock at night and I wasn't prepared to drive back to the Berkshires in the dark. And so I called my good friend Rabbi Bethy Miller, who we both love— shout out to Rabbi Bethy Miller— who lives—

shout out to Bethy—

just, just about half an hour away and planned a little sleepover, which led to me having a slumber party with our Torah. We slept in different beds, but we definitely had an overnight pajama party. And the last thing I will say about this is that our Torah scroll has special dressing. We don't have a sort of a common or typical cover for it, and so underneath its mantle, underneath its main decorative covering, we have what is known in our community, what we call the Torah onesie. So it felt particularly fitting to be having a slumber party with my Torah scroll in its onesie, and it was great. What about you?

I was gonna ask you, what, what does the Taurus sleep in?

A onesie.

Cool, cool. Um, that's so funny. I have actually a similar story to tell. It didn't actually happen to me, but it happened to my friend Sarah Burrows when we were RAC legislative assistants in Washington, D.C. And basically we had these weekend retreats called Latakén where we would welcome hundreds of teens from around the country for a Shabbaton weekend of learning and activism. And because we celebrated Shabbat together, we also had a Torah on site, which means the Torah also needed someplace to stay safely each night in the hotel. So Sarah got to have the Torah as a roommate, and she was so anxious but also conscientious about being roommates with the Torah and wanting to bring it great honor and respect. And I think she was just frankly quite uncomfortable that anytime she needed to change clothes or get dressed for the day, she would do it in the bathroom so that the Torah could have the privacy of the room and Sarah would take the privacy of the bathroom. She does not actually remember this story. I think it is a core story for me with regard to the Torah, but I checked in with her today and she was like, "Yeah, I do not think— did I behave well towards the Torah?" That was really her question. It makes me think, though, of like those baby carriers, right? Like, I'm imagining people like, in the same way that you can carry a dog in a baby carrier, like a little ergo holding the Torah, or even one time I actually did push the Torah in a stroller because I needed a place to put it during Tachabat. So listen, that's brilliant. You, you used a car seat. There's just really lots of, lots of ways to lovingly show our love for this sacred, sacred object in our lives.

As a student rabbi at NYU's Bronfenbrenner Center, I once got— I was gonna say I got stuck, and then I was gonna correct myself, and then I'm just gonna own it. I got stuck with the largest and heaviest of all the Torah scrolls for the High Holy Days, and I asked somebody if they knew how much it weighed, and they estimated that that particular scroll did weigh close to 100 pounds, and I I also feel like I almost got a hernia on my first Rosh Hashanah as a senior rabbi. So I feel like I have been on many journeys with the Torah. But Jen, you know, we started the episode by saying we were thinking about Torah with both a big T and a little t. And usually when rabbis say that, it's our way of saying, right, that sometimes we're talking about the Five Books of Moses, the thing that is, you know, scribed on parchment and wrapped around you know, the two etzim, the two sticks basically, and rolled up. And sometimes we mean like that little Torah, and sometimes we mean Torah in a more expansive sense of meaning, you know, learning or wisdom that is encompassed in our tradition. And one thing I think I have become aware of or noticed more recently is that in this year-plus of pandemic living, I think there's been a shift where in some ways, in our community at least, it feels like there has been more and more expansive Torah learning than perhaps there's ever been in the 9 years that I have been a part of this community. And I have not physically touched our Torah scrolls since March 6th, 2020. And so I think there is this amazing way in which some of us who enjoy, you know, sort of laboring in the garden of Torah, as a professor of ours at HUC used to call it, while maybe there has been physical distance from capital T, big T Torah, in some ways I think we've come closer, we've gotten more creative with how we encounter Torah in the world. And so I don't know, I think that's just something I'm curious if other people have experienced.

So first of all, I think the phrase is toiling in the vineyard of our Lord. That's how I heard it.

We'll have to ask Rabbi David Sperling.

I guess so. So yeah, toiling in the vineyard of our Lord. I love what you're saying, though, Jodi, about how we're physically far from the sacred object of Torah, but in some ways, the Jewish world has brought Torah into so many more homes during the pandemic. So many more folks have access to it. You know, it's like universal design is when everyone starts buying weighted blankets and it actually makes them affordable for people who really need them. So I think of all the people who physically are not able to get close to Torah because they do not live near Jewish communities. Maybe they cannot leave their homes because of challenges with their health. And suddenly, universal design, not that we wanted it to be this way, but this time all you need is a Wi-Fi connection. To connect to Torah. And I think we have seen how Torah is really sustaining and has been a sustaining element for Jewish people. Someone was saying to me, actually, in a— I think I was in a Beit Din for conversion, and they were saying how all of their friends who are not part of the Jewish community have been really bored during the pandemic. And that they just have had trouble deciding what they should go to because there is so much to do and so much meaning and depth to find. And that was really profound to me that the proximity of Torah has just gotten closer.

Right. And that people are coming close to it, and there is this amazing meeting that is happening in the way that, you know, I love the vision of what universal design means in this case, right? But As soon as you cut down on all the friction points that might keep a person from coming close to Torah, when it comes to then you can open your laptop at 9:58 on a Shabbat morning, and in 2 minutes, you know, this engaging, nourishing, interesting, you know, fascinating conversation will unfold, and when you close your laptop at 11:15, you're still in your home and your day continues. For some people, that's the difference between engaging in Shabbat morning Torah study and not wanting to get up early enough to get dressed, to get in the car, to go to the synagogue, to wind up not getting home until noon. And I do not know, I think there is some wisdom there.

Well, that was the work I would do. You know, the idea was that I would do Torah study in cafes and bars. Hmm. Right? So bringing Torah out into the world, even if not physically, and actually transforming secular spaces into sacred spaces. But yeah, access has been amazing. I also have not touched a Torah in a long time, but I wanted to create some sort of Torah experience at the beginning of the pandemic. And I found all of my consecration Torahs, which are those probably like, I do not know, 6 or 7-inch gold foil-wrapped plastic handle Torahs. And someone had given me a gift of mini olive oil bottles, which when you take the olive oil out are perfect place to rest little consecration Torahs. And so I made my own little reusable transportable ark, and during the Torah service, I would hold it up and tell everyone to blow a kiss at the Torah because I don't think we are going to be kissing the Torah in person anymore directly. And it was this really sweet moment. And also it was sweet because there was a great shortage of those consecration Torahs.

That was the great shortage of 2018.

The great consecration Torah shortage. Of 2018, where Jewish educators around the world were in crisis because someone stopped making them. What happened?

I don't know, but now we buy the plush ones. And then speaking of sleeping with Torahs, I get pictures from like parents of our kindergartners showing me pictures of their kids sleeping in bed with Torah. And in some ways that feels like we've come full circle, right? Like, how close can you get to Torah? You too can sleep with it.

We're just modeling for our tiniest scholars what it means to really cleave to these ancient words of our tradition.

Totally.

That's funny. Oh my God, that's good. So for our final segment, we want to share our favorite Torah verses or parts of Torah with you. We each thought of a couple that we're excited to share with you. So Jodi, what's— you start us off. What's one of your favorite Torah verses?

Okay, well, if I'm gonna kick us off, I feel like I have to start at the beginning. Right in the beginning of Genesis, the story of creation, and there's that beautiful repetition of vayar Elohim et kol asher asah v'chineh tov ma'od. With each brushstroke, with each day of creation, we read that God looks at all that God has created and declares that it's good. I think it's a beautiful reminder about having perspective, this vision of, like, God as divine artist stepping back from the canvas surveying her creations and being able to say like, "Yes, this, like, this is what I want to see in the world." And so I have to start there. God as divine artist, this is very good.

Beautiful. And there's a great song to accompany it. I also picked something from Genesis. It's at the end when Joseph is revisiting the pit into which his brothers threw him. Many years prior. And the brothers see him looking in the pit and they are like, "Oh no, he is this man of great power. He is going to— and our dad is dead. We are finished. He is going to end our lives." And the Midrash comes in, the commentary, a bit, and I am conflating the story, what is in the Torah, the Five Books itself, and then what is in the commentary. But ultimately, the Midrash, Tanhuma, and a bit of the text considers him looking in this pit and reflecting back on all of the trials and tribulations of his life, and that instead of going after his brothers with anger, he actually offers a word of gratitude for all of the moments in his life, good or bad, that brought him to where he is today.

That was my bat mitzvah Torah portion. I love that.

That was my senior sermon at HUC. I remember that.

I remember.

Dug in hard.

So for my next sort of top 3, I have great affection for this one-off line that comes at the beginning of Exodus, and it's right when the Israelites are preparing to leave, right? It's the night before they're going to get up and go, and right there in the middle of chapter 12, we read that Moses takes Joseph's bones with him, just as Joseph had asked. So we're meant to understand that somehow, maybe 400 years later, who knows how long in like the accordion of time not being time in Torah, we're supposed to believe that Moses knows where to find Joseph's bones, right? Because at the end of Genesis, Joseph makes his progeny promise that when God remembers them and takes them out of Egypt, right, they'll take his bones with him. And now it's Moses, and Moses isn't related to them. And how does Moses know where the bones are? And there's this great little grammatical thing that happens. So the word for bones in Hebrew is atzamot, which has the same Hebrew root, that ayin, sadi, mem, for our fellow Hebrew scholars, as the word for essence, right, of etsem. And so there's this whole idea, right, that somehow what we carry from our past into our future matters, right, that Moses can't lead the people to freedom without Joseph's bones, right? How do we carry forth the essence of past generations with us into an unknown future? So I like that. I like that verse very much.

I love that. I also love— and we should do an episode on awesome women in the Torah about how or who tells them where Joseph's bones are.

And I mean, maybe we can get her as a guest. She appears all throughout history.

We'll have to check with Sarah bat Asher's PR firm to see if she's available and can— I'll get on that. I'll get on that. So I was thinking of Korach, first because I know the summer portion is the best because of camp. I think there was a time in my life where I did not think that Torah existed the rest of the year, but only existed in the summer portion. Totally. And so in Korach, Korach and his followers rise up against Moses and Aaron, and their punishment is that the earth opens up and swallows them, which is an image that reminds me of that old Saturday morning show, The Land Before Time. You know what I'm talking about?

Oh, I love that show.

Okay, okay, me too. But it also makes me think of two people. First, of a congregant, Peter Gossels, of blessed memory, and second, of Peggy Morrison, who is alive and well. I was just emailing with her. She taught me to think, and they both taught me to think of Korach differently, as a leader who really rose up against the status quo to fight hierarchy. Something to be said about leading a rebellion. Even if there might be more successful ways of doing so. I'm not sure that Korach was the ultimate model of leadership, but I think that in these moments where we see injustice or where we see something that we feel is unjust, that rising up and finding ways to fight hierarchy is really important. So shout out to Peter Gossels and Peggy Morrison and Korach.

So last but not least for me, is the story of the daughters of Tzilofchad, which I want to start by saying, and I hope that there are people in our listenership who know what I'm talking about, have you ever seen the Fishes Eddy drinking glasses set called the Heroes of the Torah? They're these like little juice glasses they sell with pictures of famous male rabbis. So I have for a long time thought that they need to make a new set of Heroines of the Torah, and that those should include Noah, Machla, Hoglah, Tirzah, and Milcah. The 5 daughters that are known as benot Tzlochad, or the daughters of this man named Tzlochad. And what is amazing about them, right there in the Book of Numbers, is this story that seemingly out of nowhere, although we get hints of who they are a little bit earlier, they step forward, they speak up, which, pause, women speaking in the Torah is unusual enough that it should get like a big highlighter around it, and they create change, right? They advocate for themselves. The quick story on them is that as daughters of their father who had no sons, theoretically, according to the first sort of version of the rules, they shouldn't have gotten his inheritance. And they step forward and say, like, "No, give us a holding in our father's inheritance. Like, we are his family." And I love their story because they are successful, because there embedded in Torah from the very beginning is an acknowledgement from God that sometimes both law and custom must evolve to meet reality. So big fan of the Daughters of Tzelofchad. Love them.

We're— I'm gonna have to— you're giving me a big to-do list now. I need to reach out to Fish's Eddy.

I think it's such a good—

we'll see, we'll see what we can get into production.

Niche audience, but I would buy them, let's just say.

I'm imagining someone in the Fish's Eddy store being like, M-A-H-L-A-H, who was that? I've heard about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but I'm not so sure about these Machla! So my final favorite scene is really one of the final moments in the Torah, the Five Books of Moses, at the end of Deuteronomy. And it is about Moses' death. And he does not get to go into the land with everyone else. And in the Book of Deuteronomy, he does not actually fight God about this decision, which is a surprising character change for him because he was constantly negotiating with God. However, in the Midrash— we— I love Midrash, basically— in the Midrash, which again, to be clear, it means it's not in the Torah scroll, Moses actually begs God to let him live. And then he begs the ministering angels, and then he runs to beg the sun, and then he runs to beg the moon and the mountains and the hills. Any part of creation that he can find, he begs them to intercede on his behalf, to no avail, of course. And so when he dies, the text of the Midrash shows God weeping. It shows the heavens weeping and all of creation weeping. And I think this moment in Torah and Midrash is so beautiful because it speaks to our human condition. None of us really want to die, and many of us are quite afraid of it, but it is the way of the world. And when we each do breathe our last breath, I love the idea that even God weeps.

So Jen, perhaps as a way of bringing this episode to a close, we can introduce our listeners to the famous Rabbi Ben Bagbag, which first, great name, Rabbi Ben Bagbag, who famously taught, "Turn it and turn it again, for everything is in it." And he's referring to, of course, Torah. So I hope that our listeners over the course of these days ahead will find some Torah for themselves, big T or little t, that brings greater sense of meaning to their lives.

And get some cheesecake, or if you need to get the Daya dairy-free cheesecake, I think it could be called quotation cheesecake.

I think that's what they do.

But whatever— do they call it quotation cheesecake? I'm not in their PR marketing team. But get something dairy that reminds you also of the sweetness of Torah, because we think of Torah as this sacred and sweet tradition by which we can live our lives. This episode of the OMFG podcast was brought to you by Rabbis Jen Gubitz and Jodi Gordon, editing brilliance by Jesse Ulrich, and brought to you by the letter F.

Okay, Sid, what is your favorite F word?

F word? What do you mean?

Like a word that starts with the letter F.

Um, why do you want to know?

Auntie Jody wants to know.

But why? I don't know. Okay, um, I guess me either fungus. I think that sounds like a really funny word. Fungus, fungus, fungus. And, and yeah, fungus is probably actually it.

I thought you were gonna say fart.

Fart. Yeah, that's fungus and fart. That's mine.

Sweet as honey, sweet as honey, sweet as honey on our tongue. Sweet as honey.