Where Our Home Values Are Reinforced by “The Street”

 Parshat Emor opens with a curious redundancy: “Emor el haKohanim… v’amarta aleihem” “Speak to the Kohanim… and say to them” (Vayikra 21:1). Why the repetitive language? Chazal derive from here that adults must ensure children uphold standards. Rav Zalman Sorotzkin points out that this lesson could have been taught without such repetition as the Torah does elsewhere. So why the repetition when it comes to these rules? Rav Sorotzkin explains that there are two forces that shape a child: the home and “the street.” Parents teach, model, and try to instill values. But as children grow, they are increasingly shaped by their peers, their social circles, the subtle (and not-so-subtle) messaging of “what everyone else is doing.” When those two forces are aligned, something powerful happens. The messages a child hears at home are reinforced outside of it. There’s no friction, no confusion, no mixed signals. But when the home and the street diverge, when parents are saying one thing and the surrounding culture is saying something contrary, then the challenge of chinuch becomes much harder. With this backdrop Rav Sorotzkin explains that when a Kohen tells his child he can’t eat treif or he must keep Shabbat, it is a message that every Jewish parent conveys to their child. And when a Kohen child is told that he can’t speak lashon Harah that too is a lesson universally applicable to all Jewish children. But when a young Kohen is told he cannot become tameh so he can’t go near a cemetery, the child might protest. He might say, “But all of my friends are playing ball by the cemetery; why can’t I go too? Why can’t I be like everyone else?” In the case of the special rules of a Kohen, the “street” is not reinforcing the message emanating from home. It may even be undermining it. In response to the challenge of mixed messages that the Torah states: Emor… v’amarta. Say it, and then say it again. When the environment doesn’t support our values, we need to double down at home. It’s an honest recognition of the challenges surrounding educating our children. This Shabbat, when the Teen Minyan joins and leads the 9 AM Minyan in the Sanctuary, we remember the great gift that exists when we have “a street” that reinforces our Jewish values. Our Teen Minyan is “the street” for those teens who regularly attend. At the YIH Teen Minyan kids are influenced by, and gravitate towards, people and ideas that are not working against our values; they are reinforcing our values. Teen Minyan is a Makom Tefilah that kids choose to be at because their friends are there and they feel comfortable there. With the guidance of Rabbi Litton, the Teen Minyan is not just a place where teens attend. It’s a place that they take responsibility: They lead the davening, they lein, and they are depended on. They decide for themselves what their experience will look like. This is not something being done to them. It’s something being created by them.How appropriate it is that we recognize the Teen Minyan on this Parshat Emor because Teen Minyan is where we are fortunate that the “street” mirrors our home values and where peer-influence reinforces parental aspirations. We live in a world where many parents feel like they are fighting an uphill battle because the messages outside the home are clashing with the messages within it. Today let us pause and recognize that our shul in general, and the Teen Minyan in particular, is a space where we don’t need Emor v’amarta because the message is already being echoed, amplified and reinforced. As a parent of 2 Teen Minyan participants, the rabbi assigned to Teen Minyan in my early years in Hollywood, and the current Senior Rabbi of YIH I am grateful for the Teen Minyan. It is a program and a space that has benefited our community for decades and it is worth continuing to nurture, support, and celebrate.

Winn Dixie: A Tribute

 Imagine the scene. It’s Friday afternoon, an hour before Shabbat. You’ve had a busy week, and Shabbat preparations are extending closer to candle lighting than you expected. You check your menu for dinner: you still need to make that salad. It should not be a problem until you realize that you forgot to buy the kosher-brand croutons. All the kosher-supervised grocery stores close 2 hours before Shabbat. Are you going to have to change your menu? Will your Shabbat guests be deprived of enjoying your favorite salad? But then you remember: Winn Dixie! Our neighborhood grocery store, right in the heart of Emerald Hills with an extensive selection of kosher products, including many varieties of kosher croutons. Once you’re going to Winn Dixie for the croutons, you quickly review what else you might need for Shabbat at this late hour.  You decide to buy one more package of glatt kosher chicken to grill for dinner and some Pas Yisrael cookies so that you’ll have some extra treats on hand for your lunch guests’ kids. We are all familiar with some version of this scenario. I have seen many of you anxiously waiting to check out at Winn Dixie (why didn’t they ever install self-checkout?)  on a Friday afternoon as shkiya approached. Years ago I had an idea to set “office hours” at Winn Dixie. It seems that some people are reluctant to “bother the Rabbi” in his office, even if they have something to discuss. Each of the YIH Rabbis have offices on the shul campus in order to be accessible and to make it as easy as possible for community members to engage with us.  My thinking was that catching up after bumping into me at Winn Dixie was a lower barrier of entry than making an appointment to meet me in my office or for coffee. This idea was conceived before Walmart delivery, Instacart, DoorDash, Amazon etc and you had to leave your house to purchase your groceries. Even now, none of these delivery options would help when it’s 30 minutes before Yom Tov and you ran out of yahrzeit candles, forgot to buy flowers, or you need Cholov Yisrael milk. That’s why I could always count on finding a minyan of people at Winn Dixie late Friday afternoons. Alas, this Erev Shabbat saving grace is no longer available to us. Our Winn Dixie has permanently closed. This week we read the double Torah portion of Acharei Mot and Kedoshim, and next week we will read Emor. The literal translation of the first words of these three Parshiyot is “After death we say they were holy”. This idiom has been utilized as a commentary on the human tendency to only appreciate something or someone after they are gone. We should be more appreciative of what we have while we still have it. Nonetheless, as Winn Dixie sits empty it is an appropriate time to reminisce and reflect on this neighborhood institution. Yes, I know that we still have Publix. But for this Emerald Hills resident, going to Publix feels like an excursion while going to Winn Dixie always felt like a quick stop. Not to mention the fact that Publix (so far) has far fewer kosher products compared to Winn Dixie. For our family, Winn Dixie was the store that our children could walk to without crossing any streets. And it was the first store to stop in after Pesach to buy our post-Pesach Entenmanns donuts.  Many of us became friendly with the employees at Winn Dixie: we knew their names and they knew the products that we liked. I enjoyed the “Shabbat Shalom” salutation I would receive, along with my receipt, from the cashier on Fridays. Word on the street is that a new, fully kosher supermarket will be taking over the space. This could potentially benefit kosher consumers in many ways. However it does mark the end of an era. At fully kosher stores we might be less likely to run into and to interact with non-Jewish or non-observant neighbors, acquaintances and strangers. At a fully kosher store parents will never have the experience of telling their child that they can’t buy something because it’s not kosher. And at a fully kosher store you can’t buy non-dairy whipped topping for your Shabbat dessert trifle - 10 minutes before Candle lighting. 

The Sounds of Sirens -The Sounds of Silence

 The practice of sounding a siren for two minutes of silence has its roots in South Africa. During World War I, a businessman in Cape Town suggested that his church observe a silent pause in memory of those who fell in battle. This custom later spread throughout the British Empire, and eventually to many different nations and cultures. The tradition was imported to pre-state Israel. The British installed air-raid sirens across the country at the outset of World War II. At first, the new State of Israel used the sirens for ceremonial purposes only sparingly: when Zionist leader Theodor Herzl’s remains were flown in from Austria in 1949, and after a 1948 massacre on a kibbutz. After the War of Independence, the Rabbinate of Israel decided to designate Memorial Day on the day before Independence Day. The newly installed national system of air-raid sirens provided a means to simultaneously alert everyone in Israel to observe the silence at the same time. In 1959, the Knesset established Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. Both have been marked by the sounding of sirens ever since. In Israel, a minute-long siren marks the beginning of Yom Hazikaron. The siren is heard all over the country and lasts for one minute, during which Israelis stop everything, including driving on highways, and stand in silence, commemorating the fallen and showing respect. People cry openly in the streets and radios play a constant stream of sad songs. Yom Hazikaron is a national day of mourning, and many restaurants and movie theaters are closed. The next morning, a two-minute siren is sounded at 11:00 am, which marks the opening of the official memorial ceremonies and private remembrance gatherings at each cemetery where soldiers are buried. As families head to military ceremonies to visit the graves of loved ones, there is a heaviness in the air. Last year, before Yom Hazikaron, Miriam Lock wrote, “Sadly, sirens are a part of life in Israel, and during times of war they become all too common. There are the ambulance sirens that mean someone is seriously ill or has been injured in an accident or, God forbid, a terrorist attack, and is being rushed to the hospital. There are the red alert sirens we have been hearing so often during this never-ending war, an eerie sound telling us to run to our shelter or safe room. People often jump at any noise that resembles the red alert siren signifying an imminent missile attack. So, after the Swords of Iron War began and missile attacks became a daily occurrence, the ambulance sirens in Israel were changed to avoid confusion.” Miriam notes that all of these different sirens can be confusing for young children. She gives the example of her grandson Yoav, four years old, who heard the Yom HaShoah siren while in kindergarten and was frightened, thinking at first that it was a missile alert siren and that he had to run to the shelter. He was comforted and assured by his teacher, and when he came home, he told his father, Miriam’s son, that he felt scared that day. These days the IDF Home Front produces videos explaining the different sirens and how they sound. A siren is poignant, because while it is loud, it also affords a moment of silence and stillness to remember and reflect. Our Yom Hazikaron- Yom Haatzmaut program will begin on Tuesday night at 6:30 PM in the Sanctuary, with the sounding of a siren. I urge you all to attend. There will be special youth programming taking place in the Tent and upstairs. Be a part of this powerful moment of communal silence; a silence of reflection, remembrance and gratitude, which will segue into an evening of celebration (music, dancing and refreshments) as we mark the gift of Medinat Yisrael on its 78^th birthday.