Friends from my congregation invited me to their chavurah's seder Monday night. There were about 50 people there (largest group they've ever had). I hadn't known in advance that my friend would be leading it, so that was a nice touch. It was a warm, friendly seder, complete enough to be satisfying and expedient enough that the kids present weren't getting too antsy. There wasn't as much singing as I'd expected, but what there was was enthusiastic. It was a good experience.

New insight (reported by my friend, attributed to Rabbi Symons): we can view the four sons as the filling-out of a matrix (ok, he didn't say matrix) of wisdom and piety. The quiet son has neither. The simple one has piety but not wisdom. The rasha (evil son) has wisdom and no piety (he uses his wisdom to rebel). The wise son has both. The rabbis tend to do this sort of 2x2 mapping of attributes to types of Jews, so this is in that spirit.

For the first time (or maybe second?) our congregation offered to match people looking for seders with people who could take guests. (Before that everyone asked the rabbi, I think.) Matching for the first night was very successful. I requested a seder for the second night but it didn't happen -- but I didn't know that early enough to do something about it. So sigh. A second seder isn't necessary for me, but it's nice to do if I can, particularly if it's different in some way from the first. Someone asked on a mailing list tonight why Reform Jews would have second-night seders; what I wrote was: the first seder is to fulfill external obligations -- to God, to family, to those who can't/won't handle some of the content, etc.; the second seder is to fulfill internal obligations -- study, spiritual growth, etc. So next time I'm at home for Pesach I plan to hold my own second-night seder; it sounds like enough of my friends don't go to one regularly that they'd possibly be available to come to mine. (Whether they'd want to come is an open question, but it can't be answered now anyway so why worry?) I think next year we're going to Toronto, though, so probably not for two years.

Morning services on Tuesday went well. The crowd was smaller than it will be next week (seventh day) for Yizkor. Usually my rabbi asks me to read part of the holiday megillah (Song of Songs, for Pesach); I'm lousy at reading poetry, particularly translated poetry, so I'm glad he asked others to do so instead. (I'm always happy to read from Ruth or Kohelet.) Instead he gave me an aliya, which was nice -- I so rarely get to hear my Hebrew name used!

Foodies: my favorite brisket is made in a pan on the stove in tomato sauce and spices. (Simmer two hours, slice thinly against grain, simmer two more hours.) I don't have a suitable kosher-for-Pesach pan. Google suggests that I can cook a brisket in sauce in the oven to good effect; I would welcome specific suggestions that work well for you. The oven-cooked briskets I've had have been closer to the "roast + gravy" model than the "barbecue beef" model -- also good, but not the effect I'm looking for this time.

Omer: day 2. Haven't forgotten yet. :-)

Last week we began reading Sefer Vayikra [Leviticus], which largely concerns itself with priestly rituals, including korbanot ("sacrifices"). It's tempting to want to hit the virtual fast-forward button at this time of year; offering livestock on the altar doesn't speak to most of us. Last week [another congregant] brought another way of thinking about this: these were not the acts of a primitive people as the Rambam opines, but rather an awe-filled moment when ordinary Israelites get to stand within a few paces of the presence of God. What an experience that would be!

Since the destruction of the Temple, korbanot have been replaced by prayer. As with the korbanot, we follow a specific ritual in our prayer, hoping to draw closer to God. We don't just make stuff up; there is a specific order, a specific ritual. God may no longer be within a few paces, but even so, there are times in our prayer ritual when we might still make that connection.

The interesting thing about korbanot, to me, is that it's a joint activity. The Israelites need the priest to perform the ritual, but the priest can do nothing if the Israelites don't show up and do their part. Prayer, too, is a joint activity; we rely on our leaders to facilitate our prayer rather than each just doing our own thing, but leaders without people ready to pray can't do much. Our leaders can help us draw closer to God -- and we can help our leaders, and each other, do the same. While individual prayer is possible, it's not the preferred form.

This week's portion begins with the ritual taking out of the priestly leftovers. The priest dresses a certain way to collect the ashes from the altar, changes clothes, takes the ashes outside to a pure (tahor) place... it's all very formalized. Last week we learned from the korban; this week, what can we learn from the after-effects?

What I take from this is that the holy act of bringing Israel closer to God does not begin and end with the offering of the korban. It begins with the selection of the animal or the measuring-out of produce, and it ends with the removal of the ashes. So, too, our prayer need not begin with the opening niggun and end with kaddish. Prayer produces residue, like ash, that is as holy as the prayer itself. What will we do with it? After we leave here, perhaps we will continue to contemplate our relationship with God or, even better, discuss torah over lunch with each other. That's not just passing time; that is a holy, priestly, activity.

In a few days we'll all (I hope!) be enjoying sedarim for Pesach. The celebration of our redemption needn't end with the eating of the afikomen. We should continue to reach out to God, and we should remember that we do that through the reading of the haggadah and the singing of songs, and also from the sweeping-up of the matzah crumbs afterwards.
The Pesach lamb was the first korban commanded to Israel; at the seder that replaces it, may we remember that the experience of kiruv should not end at the altar.

The book of Vayikra (Leviticus) is mostly concerned with the operation of the priestly and levitical system. One of the main functions of that system is to offer korbanot ("sacrifices", though that's not really a good translation). It can be pretty hard for me to connect with most of this book.

I think (please correct me if I'm wrong) that the first korban that Israel is commanded in is the Pesach lamb. (Tha patriarchs, and others, offered sacrifices before that, but I think this was the first commanded one.) The korban and its public after-effects, the blood on the doorposts, were necessary to get us out of Egypt. They were essentially private offerings (one per family). After this the priestly system took over, with the priests acting as agents for Israel.

Today we don't offer korbanot; we offer prayer instead. Since prayer replaced korbanot, can we take any lessons from the text about korbanot and apply them to prayer?

The big thing I notice is that the korban was a joint activity: the individual brought the animal (or grain or fruit) and the priest provided the ritual. Both are needed: without the individuals the priests have nothing to do, and without the priests the individuals can't do much. It's like this with prayer too: we have leaders who act as facilitators, but we are each individually responsible for doing our parts. The person on the bimah can lead us in the right words, but we have to bring our intentionality. Either one by itself isn't enough. Our tradition does support individual prayer, just as Israel was individually commanded in the Pesach korban, but in neither case can we act only individually. It's not enough to stay home and be spiritual; we also have to come together and support each other.

[Approximation of the mini-d'var for tonight's minyan, mentally assembled on the drive home from work.]

Rabbi Symons and I have continued to study midrash, but I fell off the wagon when it came to posting translations. When I was only a little behind I had some notion that I would catch up. But no, those things never get better with time. :-) We just started our third series, so I'm going to just start here. (The first was the akeidah and the second was the crossing of the sea of reeds. Now we're doing the beginning of Moshe's leadership.)

As before, I'm generally trying to translate pretty closely, rather than finding the phrasing that flows most smoothly in English, because part of the point is to improve my language skills. Well, except for the parts where I waved my hands more broadly because I got the gist just fine but fell down on some individual words. As always, comments, corrections, and improvements are most welcome.

And let me just praise Rabbi Symons here: not only did he make me nice large photocopies of this text (the original lines were maybe 3" wide -- tiny font), but he cut out and taped together all the resulting pieces to make nice continuous columns for me! That's kindness!