Pulled in Two Directions

Rabbi Melanie Aron

February 1, 2003

Announcing the coming of the month of ADAR ALEPH this morning raises some interesting questions about the Jewish calendar. Ours is a lunar calendar with the months in synch with the progress of the moon. This enables me to impress younger children by being able to predict with certainty the coming of a full moon, and also conveniently to monitor the approach of the high holidays all summer long by watching the night sky.

But the Jewish calendar is not an exclusively lunar calendar in that the Jewish festivals have a seasonal component and need to be celebrated at the right time of year. For that reason adjustments had to be made to bring the lunar calendar into conformity with the solar cycle of a 365 _ day year. Early on the rabbis realized that there are 235 lunar months exactly in 19 solar years and so they created a cycle of leap months which would keep the holidays in their appropriate places.

Each 19 year cycle includes 12 years with 12 lunar months and 7 leap years with 13 lunar months. For the math majors among you, you can calculate whether a Jewish year is a leap year, by dividing the number (5763) by 19. If it leaves a remainder that is either 1,3,6,8,11,14,or 17 an additional month ADAR BET is added to the calendar. The calendar has some other intricacies as well, which insure that Yom Kippur never falls on a Friday or a Sunday, thus enabling the fast to be completed without impinging on Shabbat.

The image of the Jewish calendar being pulled both by lunar and solar forces appealed to me. It brought to mind other ways in which we are pulled in more than one direction.

In this weeks Torah portion we are reminded repeatedly of our obligation to be solicitous of the needs of the widow, orphan, indigent and the stranger. " You shall not ill treat any widow or orphan. If you do mistreat them, I will heed their outcry as soon as they cry out to Me." And further: "If you lend money to My people, to the poor among you, do not act toward them as a creditor." And further, "You shall not oppress the stranger, for you know the feelings of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt." We are to lean in the direction of compassion and kindness. Maimonides in his commentary on this parshah, goes so far as to instruct us to speak tenderly with the poor and needy, show them unvarying courtesy, speak sensitively to them, protect their property and try not to harm them.

But in this same Torah portion we are also reminded that our desire to be generous to the defenseless should not then lead us to favor them in court. We read last night: "Nor shall you show deference to a poor man in his dispute." In court, it is the call of justice that we should heed, even as our heartstrings are pulled to the call of mercy.

Similarly in our Haftarah portion Jonathan was pulled in two directions by his loyalty to his father and family, and by his love for David. He never abandoned his father, even to the extent of dying at his side in battle, but he never betrayed his friend, and saved his life on several occasions.

As modern Jews being pulled in two directions is part of our daily lives.

In our minds we have conflicting standards of knowledge and truth. The teachings of the rabbis speak to us in one way, the Greek philosophers in quite a different way. We learn Creation and Evolution, Freud and Heschel. I remember sitting in my high school history class and being told that the Crusades were the best thing since sliced bread, whereas in my Hebrew High classes, they were the greatest disaster to afflict the Jewish world, up until the time of the Holocaust. Many have traced our success as American Jews in theatre, literature and comedy to our status as outsiders, seeing America with different eyes. But to some extent that is also how we are to classical Judaism. With regard to the mindset of the Talmud, or even the late medieval codes, we are also strangers, seeing that world through the lenses of an outsider.

It is not just our minds that are pulled in two directions, it is also our lives. In our day to day activities, we are constantly pulled by our various loyalties. Will we find time in our daily schedules for prayer or meditation, minyan services or yoga? Will our diet be kosher or some more contemporary health or weight loss regimen? In our free time do we see Jewish films or popular movies, run up to San Francisco to see The Chosen, or to downtown San Jose to see The Sound of Music? Our days and weeks include a multiplicity of choices as we wind our way through our daily lives.

Just as the task of balancing justice with mercy is not accomplished at one time but instead continues throughout our lives, so too is our attempt to balance the Jewish and secular components of our lives. Like the Haftarah's Jonathan we are not willing to let go of either of our loyalties, even when maintaining them both is difficult. We pray that we might find the reconciliation that the rabbis achieved with the Jewish calendar, where lunar and solar live together in balance.