See latest reports and photos
of Shul activities at
www.sydshul.co.za.
Shiurim @ Sydenham Shul
 Sunday morning 9 am—Mishna & Mys
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ticism Rabbi Goldman (boardroom)
Monday 1 pm - Businessman’s Lunch
& Learn (Ukhuni Furniture Centre, Wynberg)
Tuesday 1 pm—Ladies Shiur
Rabbi Goldman (Elk Hall)
Tuesday 7:45 pm - Gemorra Bava
Metziya Rabbi Goldman (Rabbi’s home)
Tuesday 8:15 pm - Talmud Brachos (for
young men) Rabbi Stern (Rabbi’s home)
Wednesday 8:00 pm - Practical Halacha
(for men) Rabbi Stern (Rabbi’s home)
Shabbos 8:15 am - Chumash Shmos
Rabbi Stern (Shtibl)
What’s Nu?!
The Barmy Boy
Dylan Kilov
Mazal Tov Russel & Hayley and grandmother
Fay Kilov.
Calendar
 Shacharis 8:15; Shtibl Shacharis 8:45
 Shul Brocha in the Seeff Hall sponsored by
Russel & Hayley Kilov in honour of Dylan’s Bar Mitzvah at the Kosel on 10 April.
 Mincha: 5:50 pm
 Shabbos ends: 7:00 pm
 Thank you to Charlie Fine Printers. For
all your printing requirements call Jeff Fine
011-493-8522.
Acknowledgements: Chabad.org, Zahavi.
Please take Good Shabbos Sydenham home
if you will only carry it within the Eiruv.
Hilton Sawitzky, Nathan Fine & Tony Sacks
of HNT FURNISHERS wish all congregants a good Shabbos. Call them on 011-089
-1700 about gift vouchers for all simchas.
10 March 2012
Parshas Ki Sisa
16 Adar 5772
Heresy Cloaked in Piety
By Rabbi Yossy Goldman
How did the Jews who had just weeks earlier
personally experienced the Revelation at Sinai
and the Ten Commandments justify their
demand for an idolatrous golden calf?
Well, on the face of it, it did seem as if it
might have been a genuine expression of a
need for leadership. What was their argument? Make for us gods who will lead us because
this man Moses who took us out of Egypt, we do not
know what has become of him (Exodus 32).
Moshe was still up on the mountain, appeared
to be late in returning, and they feared he
wasn’t coming back at all. The people’s demand for a visible, tangible leader to replace
Moses appeared reasonable. Arguably, it
seemed to be a sincere call for religious guidance and for a means of better identifying
with the One G-d.
But where did it end? Not only in blatant
idolatry but also in adultery and even murder.
The verse reads Vayokumu litzachek - And they
arose to revel. Commentary interprets the word
litzachek - revel as depraved merry-making
which included wild orgies of unbridled immorality and the killing of Hur, son of
Miriam, who tried to stop them.
Here we find a profound message as relevant
today as in days of old. It sometimes occurs
that people make demands cloaked in piety or
religious fervor. But, beneath the surface lies
a selfish desire and sinister motivations. Often, people ask for G-d when what they really
want is sin!
Where was G-d during the Holocaust? This most
disturbing question may be asked in a variety
of ways. It could be out of a genuine desire to
understand the most challenging philosophical
issue of the day. On the other hand, it might
also be asked almost flippantly as a convenient
excuse for one’s own religious inadequacies.
A good test of where the question is coming
from is this. If I gave you a watertight answer
for the question of G-d and the Holocaust
(assuming I had one), would you begin living a
G-dly life? Would you start putting on Tefillin
today? Will you be in Shul tomorrow? If not,
then the fact that you don’t do so now cannot
be attributed to your having a gripe with G-d.
Either you weren’t raised with that important
tradition or you aren’t sure how to do it, or
perhaps you just couldn’t be bothered and are
using the Holocaust as a convenient rationalization.
Do you know how expensive it is to keep Kosher?
Again, this may be a passionate cry of religious
zeal, or perhaps a real concern to make
Kashrut more accessible to the masses. Unfortunately, it might also be a cheap excuse for
someone who has no intention of keeping kosher at any price.
I once heard a story about three Jewish apostates in Russia of old. They met for drinks in
the local tavern and were discussing the reasons why each of them left the faith. One says
being a Christian opened new doors for him in
business. The next said he fell in love with the
Squire’s daughter and had to convert to marry
her. The third says he had philosophical difficulties with the Torah and Talmud and was
inspired by the theological doctrines of Christi-
anity. Whereupon the other two turned on
him and told him in no uncertain terms that
he was bluffing. “That story you can tell the
Goyim. Us, however, you cannot fool. Tell
us the truth.”
Let us be honest. Why blame our own inadequacies on a mysteriously inexplicable G-d or
on a Judaism we find fault with? Why say we
are looking for G-d when we are really looking for the path of least resistance? Let us
not abuse that which is holy for purposes of
self-justification.
Even if we are not prepared to live a holy
life, at least let us be honest.
Parsha Pointers
Ki Sisa: Hertz Chumash pg 352;
Living Torah pg 441
The people of Israel are told to each contribute exactly half a shekel of silver to the Sanctuary. Instructions are also given regarding
the making of the Sanctuary's waterbasin, anointing
oil and incense.
"Wise
hearted"
artisans Betzalel and Ahaliav are
placed in charge of the Sanctuary's construction, and the people are once again commanded to keep the Shabbat.
When Moses does not return when expected
from Mount Sinai, the people make
a Golden Calf and worship it. G-d proposes
to destroy the errant nation, but Moses intercedes on their behalf. Moses descends from
the mountain carrying the Tablets of the
Testimony engraved with the Ten Commandments; seeing the people dancing about
their idol, he breaks the Tablets, destroys
the Golden Calf and has the primary culprits
put to death. He then returns to G-d to say:
"If You do not forgive them, blot me
out from the book that You have written."
G-d forgives, but says that the effect of
their sin will be felt for many generations. At
first G-d proposes to send His angel along
with them, but Moses insists that G-d Himself accompany His people to the Promised
Land.
Moses prepares a new set of tablets and once
more ascends the mountain, where G-d rein-
scribes the covenant on these Second Tablets. On the mountain Moses is also granted
a vision of the divine Thirteen Attributes of
Mercy. So radiant is Moses' face upon his
return, that he must cover it with a veil,
which he removes only to speak with G-d
and to teach His laws to the people.
The Kabbalah of the
Absurd
By Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
The major impediment to a proper understanding of Purim is a confusion between
madness and the absurd. The distinction is
not trivial. Madness is cheap. Absurdity is
ingenious.
A joker feigns madness; idiots see themselves
and laugh nervously. A comedian commits
the absurd, with superb, brilliant genius.
That is the core distinction: Madness has no
brains. Absurdity is intelligence in a context
of madness.
All of us know madness well. We spend a
third of our lives insane. At day, we walk
about making rational decisions and at least
attempting to make sense. But then at night,
a strange thing happens. We lie in stillness
and madness sets in. The world survives, but
only because we wisely quarantine the madness to the privacy of our own beds. It is
madness nonetheless.
The world is filled with madness, infinitely
more than it is with sanity. Nature itself is a
wondrous weave of the two, of symmetry
within chaos, meaning within randomness,
signal emanating from within the background noise. The scientist sets his focii
upon the patterns, the predictable, that
which can be defined and known within reason. His world is a chimera, reality escapes
his grasp. For reality is mostly mad.
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Religions rely on dogma before reason. Mathematics on axioms before corollaries. Philosophy
looks to break the chains of dogma and axioms-and it fails, miserably. For without madness there
is no world.
Now let me tell you the Kaballah of reason, madness and absurdity: In our world, madness lies
below reason. In the higher world, the positions
are reversed.
Reason is G‑d contracting His infinite light
within the puny boxes of a consistent world,
beating out the notes in rigid conformity to the
tick-tock of the metronome, following the colorcode in deathly paint-by-numbers order. The
result may be magnificent, fascinating, fodder for
countless doctorates and journals- -but it is nothing less than a suffocating straitjacket for a living,
infinite G‑d.
The unencumbered context of the Infinite Light
is totally mad. Anything could be, all at once--or
nothing at all. There is no reality since all things
could be, therefore none of them really are.
Whatever is, is without reason, without meaning,
as a toddler will tell you, simply "because."
The Kabbalists call this realm the world of Tohu.
It precedes the world of Tikun. The chassidic
masters called it the transcendent light that precedes the constricted, orderly realm of the immanent light. From it extends all the chaos, axioms,
dogma and madness of our mad world. From
tikun and immanent light extend order and reason. And that is why madness has the power to
win over reason.
Jews are absurd because they continue to exist.
There is no reason for this. But furthermore--and
these two must be related--because we insist on
telling G‑d what to do. Not some silly god that
sits on a stool and frets over nature. The ultimate
Reality of Being. We enter a throne room to
which we could never be called, since there we
do not exist nor can we exist, and there we say,
"Let us tell You how to run Your kingdom."
Purim is absurd because Haman knew the secret
of G‑d's madness and rose beyond reason to that
place with a lottery, obviating his own reason and
appealing to Chaos. Raising his feud with Mordechai to a gallows 50 cubits high, the 50th gate
that cannot be understood and there he expected
his chance to win, in a place where nothing matters, because it is beyond all that.
And from there was His downfall. For he did not
know that G‑d is not just reasonable or mad.
G‑d is absurd.
All of reality is absurd, as absurd as the king who
decrees that those who he decreed to be eliminated by his decree should stand and protect
themselves from those that he decreed should
eliminate them--and he prays that they should
win.
As light wins over darkness, tikun over tohu, the
Jew over his exile. May we soon be redeemed.
Live & Laugh
And yet, tikun is the destiny of tohu and it's healing. Transcendence finds fulfillment in immanence. And this is where the absurd comes to
play.
A British passenger in a taxi in Dublin leaned
over to ask the driver a question and tapped him
on the shoulder. The driver screamed, lost control of the cab, nearly hit a bus,
drove up over the curb, and stopped just inches
from the edge of the bridge over the Liffey River.
Purim is absurd because Judaism is absurd because the very existence of Jews is absurd. Ultimately, G‑d is the proto-absurd.
For a few moments everything was silent in the
cab, and then the still-shaking driver said, "I'm
sorry, but you scared the devil out of me."
Simply put: Judaism is absurd because it demands
an absurd G‑d. A G‑d who wakes in the middle
of the slumber of transcendent madness and says,
"They are my people, the people of this dream,
and I must save them." That isness should care.
That that which is should have meaning. Reason
in a context that defies all reason.
The frightened Brit apologized to the driver and
said he didn't realize a mere tap on the shoulder
could frighten an Irishman so much.
The driver replied, "Will the saints in Heaven
forgive me -- it's entirely my fault. Today is my
first day driving a cab.
I've been driving a hearse for the last 25 years."