CHANGE AND NEWNESS

Do we like "new" things? We eat new food everyday for breakfast lunch and dinner, some days we eat rye bread some days we eat Challah. Challah is a holy bread, rye is not. We can certainly enjoy rye bread at Jewish restaurants filled with Kosher corned beef and mustard. We can bless the bread ourselves as we sing the Motzi to thank God for the Kosherness in the meat and thereby also blessing the rye bread in addition to the meat.

So we want new foods? Can we go out and eat shrimp and lobster and complain our Kosher diet is too regular, not "new" and therefore boring? 

No, we cannot hurt ourselves when we are angry at others. Ingesting non-Kosher foods is an act of hurting oneself, if you are Jewish. We must stick with the security of Kosher foods so not to hurt oneself, even if there are people who disapprove, but this disapproval is just based on ignorance.

As Jews we can eat new Kosher foods in our diet that we have not eaten all year, such as blueberries and raspberries because they come into season regularly grown during the summer months only. Or watermelon. We can then eat the fruits and thankfully to God to sing the new foods Blessing: "The Shehekeyanu". Or sing this beautiful Blessing when buying new clothes or the purchasing of a new electronic item or new appliance.

To watch the moon change every night: a new moon, a quarter moon, a half moon, a three quarter moon, a full moon. The moon changes every night predictably and we as Jews can count on a Rosh Chodesh once a month to celebrate the newness of this astronomical fact and turn it into a wonderful religious experience, to love the moon.

To yet find out this past week that Saudi Arabia did not even legally allow its women to drive motorized vehicles, it was against their law. Who is hurtful and who is not? The people who oppress women are the hurtful ones and the people who love and care for women giving us our equal rights to men are the people who are merciful and good, righteous people to be honored and respected.

So this change and newness has been expressed and honored by the Jews in Israel as we now allow women to pray at the Kotel, to read Torah at the Western Wall. Finally also to have the newness of being a Muslim woman and being behind the wheel of a car.

So, what you like is change? Newness? I do too. But not as in a "New Testament" as one's Bible. Instead to stick with the true and tried and turn the original old wheels (i.e. Honor One's Father and Mother, Do Not Murder...) Commandments that we already know work, instead of turning back-breaking new wheels that will end up in flat tires because they are not the truth, they are not The Jewish Faith.

What can we do to heal the world and try something new? Help a woman find new employment or start a new small business.

Find a way you can honor the women in your lives, be for us a way to newness as each day everyday you bring to us your delight in different ways, not the same: a box of chocolates or/and a bouquet of flowers, a new and different flower each time, Roses and Geraniums of redness or Lilies that are the pureness of whiteness.