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dignity and elegance. Wearing the
same gown on a visit to an AIDS
clinic in Botswana would elicit a
response of sheer incomprehension.
Such symbolic language is the very
substance of the ritual communica-
tion system embedded in Torah.
Through the words, acts and objects
of Jewish ritual, both those divinely
and those humanly generated, deep
meaning is communicated to those
who comprehend the language.
The Example Of Shabbat
Let's explore the home rituals of
Friday night, of the inception of
Shabbat, as a model for this thesis.
Shabbat begins with the lighting
of a minimum of two candles. In
Greek mythology, a human stole fire
from gods reluctant to share its trans-
formational productive power, and
the thief suffered eternal punishment
for his crime. In" Rabbinic Midrashic
thought, fire was lovingly shared by
God when His human creations were
frightened by the setting of the sun.
God passionately desired humanity
to continue the productive transfor-
mation of the imperfect world, and
therefore, He granted them freedom
to create and provided them with the
tools necessary to achieve that goal.
Thus, when we light the candles
of Shabbat, we enact our awareness
of the central challenge of using our
freedom and our capacity for human
productivity to better God's world
and to improve the lot of his crea-
tures.
Why then two candles? Because,
in the ancient Temple in Jerusalem
there were two "constant fires" burn-
ing — one on the outer altar, the
other on the Menorah in the inner
sanctuary. They represented the two
contexts for human productivity, the
material realm and the spiritual
realm. Healthy productivity may not
totally neglect one or the other of
those aspects of human identity.
In some homes the next rituals are
the singing of Shalom Aleichem and
Eishet Chayyil, welcoming the
Sabbath, followed by the blessing of
the children with the priestly "three-
fold" blessing.
. Singing at the Shabbat table was
not invented by Rabbi Shlomo
Carlebach, of blessed memory. In the
temple in Jerusalem, the Levites sang
psalms, reminding them and the rest
of the Jewish people that we each
have distinctive gifts and talents that
we received not only for our own
benefit and pleasure, but that we are
Spirituality
expected to utilize in the service of
God and our people.
Next in the traditional order is the
blessing of children, just as the
Priests of old blessed the people gath-
ered in the temple courtyard. We are
reminded that we parents are the
Priests of our homes, bearers of the
responsibility to assure the moral
education of the next generation and
the continuity of the Jewish people.
The text of the blessing, recorded in
the Torah, concludes with a prayer
for peace, the ultimate blessing of
both home and nation.
The recital of Kiddush fulfills the
Torah's mandate, "Remember the
Sabbath to keep it holy." The rabbis
taught that intellectual cognition is
not sufficient in achieving such
memory — that verbalization is nec-
essary. Much as inner love in a rela-
tionship is not sufficient, expression
through words is essential.
The words of the Kiddush,
affirming the holiness of the day,
make mention of God as creator of
the universe, and as liberator of the
Jewish people from the land of
Egypt. This dual awareness of God
as universal and as particular, as
transcendent and as imminent, is
critical for the Jewish striving for
holiness that is founded upon the
tension between producing ideal
existence in thy narrow circle of fam-
ily and community and extending
those same ideals into the society
and world as a whole. The words of
Kiddush are recited, by rabbinic
instruction, after thanking God for
the cup of wine being held in our
hands. The wine, reminding us of
the wine libation of the temple in
Jerusalem, affirms our conviction
that spiritual wholeness is achieved
not in the rejection of, but in the
integration with, material pleasure
and joy. This message is further rein-
forced by the emphasis on the eating
of special foods at the Shabbat meal,
to affirm consciousness of the spiri-
tual - purpose of bodily pleasures.
Recovering The Temple
Like the priests in ancient times prior
to their entry into the temple, some
Jews now wash hands. The bathing
of the hands in water as symbol of
preparedness for fulfillment of one's
mission, is derived from the story of
creation, in which all purposeful
material existence is differentiated
out of the primal waters over which
God's spirit hovers.
What a powerful metaphor, what a