Rabbi Berel Wein, who died last Shabbat at the age of 91, was one of the longest serving rabbis of our time; his career spanned over sixty years. In addition to decades of service as a congregational rabbi he also was an educator, yeshiva founder, and director at OU Kosher. He is perhaps most famous as one of the first rabbis to embrace recorded audio cassettes, subsequently upgraded to YouTube, as a mechanism for teaching. Although he was also a prolific author, I do not recall having read any of his books and I am not sure if I ever met him personally on any of the occasions when I attended Beit Knesset HaNasi in Rehaviah, the final pulpit occupied by Rabbi Wein.
But I will always remember something that he shared on a podcast interview a few years ago when asked to reflect on serving as a rabbi for so many decades. Each rabbi, Rabbi Wein said, only has three or four drashot. Everything else that he says are just variations on a small number of themes. Since I learned about Rabbi Wein’s death I have been thinking about what my three or four drashot are and I think I have identified them. Hopefully they are familiar to you!
1. Be nice to people.
2. Learning Torah well uncovers complexity and the need to balance between competing values and competing goods and is the opposite of fundamentalism.
3. Doing mitzvot with knowledge in a conscientious way is altogether different and more profound and rewarding than doing mitzvot in a superficial and casual way.
And number 4, Tefilah b’Tzibbur, communal prayer, can be an opportunity for transcendance and encounter with the Divine.
Today I am going to share some variations on drasha number 4.
One of the central orienting interpretive questions of parshanut in Sefer Devarim is exploring the connection between standing on the cusp of entering Eretz Yisrael and the need to either repeat or introduce for the first time those mitzvot that appear in the book. In that context we can evaluate a new mitzvah or religious concept that represents a significant religious transformation that is introduced in Parashat Re’eh; the idea of a centralized location of worship:
וְהָיָ֣ה הַמָּק֗וֹם אֲשֶׁר־יִבְחַר֩ ה אֱ-לֹהֵיכֶ֥ם בּוֹ֙ לְשַׁכֵּ֤ן שְׁמוֹ֙ שָׁ֔ם
“…you must bring everything that I command you to the site where the LORD your God will choose to establish God’s name.”
Unlike earlier epochs of Jewish history, God will designate one location in Eretz Yisrael – we know that ultimately Yerushalyim was chosen – and that spot will become the only location where our animal sacrifices are to be brought and the only place where the vegetarian Mincha offerings are to be brought.
לְשִׁכְנ֥וֹ תִדְרְשׁ֖וּ וּבָ֥אתָ שָּֽׁמָּה׃
We are to seek out God’s presence and go only there.
This explains why Parashat Re’eh introduces the allowance of eating bassar hulin – “secular meat” that was not the byproduct of a sacrifice offered on an altar. If there is only one altar upon which korbanot can be brought, people who live far from Yerushalyim will need a way to eat meat.
The centralization of worship is counter-intuitive. If you think back to the foundational belief of Jewish theology, as articulated by many Jews’ first exposure to Jewish philosophy, Uncle Moishy: “Hashem is here. Hashem is there. Hashem is truly everywhere.” But, if that is so, why should I need to go to the Beit Hamikdash to worship? It’s a lot more convenient to have an altar in my neighborhood.
And indeed, throughout the time when we had a beit hamikdash, Tanakh tells us that Jews worshipped on illicit bamot – private neighborhood altars. There were good kings and there were bad kings, but none of them succeeded in suppressing the worship of God on private neighborhood altars. The bamot were not shrines to idolatry, they were places of worship built by people who couldn’t invest the effort needed to travel to Yerushalayim.
Even after the beit hamikdash was destroyed, our desire to find places of worship that were more convenient and more compelling endured as a countervailing force to the desire for unity. Every Jew needs a shul where he or she can daven. And every Jew needs a shul into which they will not step foot.
When we first spent Shabbat in Yerushalyim as a family we were so excited to take our children to shul on Friday night. As I have shared before, my “second favorite shul” is Yakar in Jerusalem and, as you can imagine, my children had heard me speak about it a lot and could understand my excitement to daven with them there. But shortly after we started walking Sophie, who at the time was not yet 8 years old, turned to us and said, “if shul is in this direction, where are all those other people going?”
It didn’t occur to her that there might be more than one shul in Yerushalyim.
If God’s presence is everywhere, why even try to centralize worship?
Ma’aser Sheni, the “second tithe” is another mitzvah that is introduced in Parashat Re’eh and it is a complement to the centralization of worship.
After tithes have been separated from our produce and given to the Kohanim and Levi’im, our religious functionaries who cannot support themselves by farming their own land, the Torah instructs us to take a second tithe from our produce and bring it to Yerushalayim where the farmers themselves eat their own ma’aser sheni.
Ma’aser Sheni is a gift that you give to yourself. Food that grows in Eretz Yisrael is not kosher until all of the terumot and ma’aserot are separated. Most of what is separated is given to others, ma’aser sheni must be separated, and then it is given back to the farmer who must eat it, or food of a comparable value within the walls of Yerushalayim.
וְאָכַלְתָּ֞ לִפְנֵ֣י ׀ ה אֱ-לֹהֶ֗יךָ בַּמָּק֣וֹם אֲשֶׁר־יִבְחַר֮ לְשַׁכֵּ֣ן שְׁמ֣וֹ שָׁם֒ מַעְשַׂ֤ר דְּגָֽנְךָ֙ תִּירֹשְׁךָ֣ וְיִצְהָרֶ֔ךָ וּבְכֹרֹ֥ת בְּקָרְךָ֖ וְצֹאנֶ֑ךָ לְמַ֣עַן תִּלְמַ֗ד לְיִרְאָ֛ה אֶת ה אֱ-לֹהֶ֖יךָ כׇּל־הַיָּמִֽים׃
You shall consume the tithes of your new grain and wine and oil, and the firstlings of your herds and flocks, in the presence of the LORD your God, in the place where God will choose to establish God’s name, בַּמָּק֣וֹם אֲשֶׁר־יִבְחַר֮ לְשַׁכֵּ֣ן שְׁמ֣וֹ שָׁם֒ so that you may learn to revere the LORD your God forever.לְמַ֣עַן תִּלְמַ֗ד לְיִרְאָ֛ה אֶת ה אֱ-לֹהֶ֖יךָ כׇּל־הַיָּמִֽים׃
The gift that we give to ourselves, inculcates reverence for God. Seforno points out that the high court sits in Yerushalayim and the reverence or fear is induced by their presence, but Rashbam, more accurately in my opinion, notes that being in proximity to the resting place for the Divine presence fills one with awe. God is everywhere, but some places inspire awe and reverence more than others. Yerushalayim is not the same as a neighborhood altar. Davening in PJs in your bedroom is not the same as getting dressed and coming to shul.
And the end result of this process should be joy:
וְשָׂמַחְתָּ֖ אַתָּ֥ה וּבֵיתֶֽךָ
You and your family should rejoice as you eat your maaser sheni meal in Yerushalayim.
When Rabbi Danny Nevins was the dean at the Jewish Theological Seminary he produced a tzedakah calculation form modeled on the 1040 forms that we use for filing our income taxes. The form, still available online, is intended as a way for families to translate the Torah’s categories of agricultural gifts in the Land of Israel to the financial gifts that Jewish households make today. The project, in my opinion, should not be taken as a matter of literal halakhic obligation, but rather as a creative way to understand how the agricultural mitzvot functioned in a premodern tzedakah system and can, in that way, offer helpful guidance for our own tzedakah choices.
Within this system, ma’aser sheni is translated into the money that one sets aside to save up for a trip to Israel or some other site of Jewish meaning. It is an obligatory investment in one’s own religious inspiration. It takes time and it takes resources to have an inspiring religious experience and the Torah insists that we give to ourselves alongside the larger gifts that we set aside for others.
I would argue that the spirit of ma’aser sheni can be translated, not only into a trip to Israel or to an ancestral homeland in Europe, but also to a trip to your local shul to daven alongside other Jews in a sacred space.
Investing in your own religious inspiration does not only mean coming to shul, it also entails what happens when you are here and how you choose to make the most of the opportunities communal prayer can provide. And, each one of us will find our own answers to that question.
Some of us are inspired by crowding into the small shul on Friday night when the entire room seems to sway along with our singing. Some of us are inspired by the grandeur and beauty of this space as our voices soar to the height of the ceiling and then beyond to the Heavens themselves. Some appreciate the quiet efficiency of a weekday Shacharit and some find meaning in helping to convene a minyan or standing next to a mourner reciting kaddish..
And alongside those moments, I am also particularly inspired by praying in isolation, surrounded by nature and some of the most sincere moments of prayer in my life took place in my bedroom. Sincere prayer can even take place in pajamas. Rabbi Akiva, the Talmud relates, often prayed alone and his prayers on those occasions were categorically different with ecstatic movements which would have been inappropriate in public.
I hope you all noticed that the shul is now distributing tickets for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. And the question as we enter the holiday season and the substantial investment of time and energy in being in shul together for so many hours over so many days for week after week after week, is what will make that experience meaningful. And while each one of us is inspired by different moments and our souls are touched by different facets of the holiday season, I hope you each consider the greater community as you weigh your own allocation of time and energy and focus.
There is the famous joke about the man who quips, “Hayim comes to shul to talk to God and I come to shul to talk to Hayim.” Probably for most of us, we take turns being inspired by the collective holiday experience, and providing the inspiration for others. We talk to God and we are inspired by standing next to others who talk to God. Our souls are ignited by a shul filled with Jews yearning to connect to their Creator, and we help fill the shul so that our friends’ souls can be ignited.
Tefilah b’tzibbur, communal prayer can be an opportunity for transcendence and an encounter with the Divine. Let’s try to do that today and in the days to come.
Rabbi David Wolkenfeld 