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SELECTIONS FROM THE BOOK THIS IS THE BOOK on holidays I was looking for when I began, as an adult, to reconnect with my heritage--one that synthesized material I could only get from a variety of sources, went beyond the superficial to embrace the richness and depth of our tradition, and, with a full range of information on why and how to celebrate, provided a foundation for both knowledge and action.
The purpose of The Lifetime Guide is to help you do just that: introduce or enhance holiday tradition in your own home. It is for the first-time celebrant and the veteran of many holidays; those who want to follow tradition to the letter as well as those who want to increase their understanding of some aspect of observance; those looking for an authentic folk custom and those needing inspiration for new ways to celebrate. RESPECTING OTHERS ALTHOUGH we must not be slaves, we are also commanded, repeatedly, not to ever forget we were slaves. The danger of liberty is that once given control, the formerly oppressed can take advantage of their new positions to wield power over others. How often in history have liberation movements, once achieving their immediate aims (toppling the existing structure), succeeded only in establishing a new tyranny (Church Reformation, French Revolution, Bolshevik Revolution, overthrow of the Iranian Shah, the Taliban. . .)?
The Israelites were to retain the humility of their former lives (the hallmark of the authentic Jewish personality, khutzpah notwithstanding) in order to remain sensitive to the plight of others. We treat servants like guests, provide food for widows, orphans and strangers, are kind to foreigners, use honest weights and measures in our business dealings, help the poor and do not act with prejudice--precisely because we were slaves in Egypt. In three dozen of Torah's social laws we are instructed to take certain action based on our early experiences: the hurt we suffered was to teach us to refrain from inflicting pain on others. Our entire religion, summarized by Hillel as "do not do to others that which is hateful to you," is drawn directly from our experience as slaves. (You were slaves, you didn't like the humiliations, whippings, restrictions, so don't degrade, torture or oppress others.) Judaism's new concept of freedom and unmatched standard of social ethics was designed to create a just balance in a world that seems to thrive on injustice. If realized, this system would revolutionize the world in ways no liberation movement since the Egyptian Exodus has even approximated. Its unique legislation--which gave the world such concepts as life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, tolerance and the six-day work week--governs virtually every aspect of a Jew's personal life and his/her relations to the world: political, legal, ethical, spiritual, environmental, economic. . . . They are laws meant to liberate all peoples from physical, spiritual, psychological, emotional and ecomonic oppression. For only the release of all people from such restraints will allow God's grand scheme for the world to be fulfilled. THE MIRACLE OF HISTORIC COINCIDENCE THE ESTABLISHMENT of the State of Israel. . .seemed to fit the pattern of deliverance the ancient Jews experienced and the prophets promised to their children. . . .Never before had a people been dispersed, remained distinct, and returned thousands of years later to reclaim and rule a piece of property from which they had been forcibly expelled. Never before had such near total devastation been followed almost immediately by the community's resurrection. There were signs of Ezekiel's dry bones all over it. Still, some questioned whether it could just be an anomalous blip in history. After all, the Maccabees [see Khanukah], seen as saviours in their day, had been successful--but only briefly. Bar Kokhba [see Lag B'Omer], considered to be the Messiah, had recaptured Jerusalem--for an even briefer period of time. Would the new Israelis eventually follow in their footsteps? The circumstances surrounding the establishment of Israel suggested something different. It occurred during an opportune moment before the Iron Curtain firmly descended (and US-USSR cooperation, needed for establishment of the state, dissipated), anti-Semitism rose, post-Holocaust sympathy waned or the British changed their departure timetable. . . . Within months, days--even hours--the windows of opportunity could have closed. Recognizing that fact, although he risked Arab attack, Ben-Gurion made the now-or-possibly-never decision. According to a story current in Israel prior to the Six-Day War, when a rabbi was asked about the impending crisis he replied it would be resolved either the natural way or by miracle. The natural way, he explained, would be to settle it by miracle. And it would be a miracle to settle it in a natural way. Nakhmanides believed the redemption would come in a natural course of events, with the consent of nations, and would begin with just a partial ingathering of the exiles. As it did. Considering what had happened in prior decades, and what was going on in the word, wouldn't we say that what he defined as a course of events was a miracle?. . . .(The Tourism Ministry did not encounter criticism when, in the 1980s, it touted Israel as "The Miracle on the Mediterranean.") Even if the secularists would not call it that, achieiving statehood was still a phenomenal change in the status of the Jewish people, and every bit the chance for a cultural and spiritual, as well as political resurgence the prophecies promised, an opportunity to build the foundation for the just society Torah envisions and prescribes. We were back in control in our homeland, the only place on earth . . .where our full potential, in every aspect of life, can be achieved. |
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HISTORIC 
RELIGIOUS
