Oprah's Production of Greenleaf Compared to Jewish Production of Shabbat

 Nadene Goldfoot                                             

  The Conservative synagogue in Portland, Neveh Zedak with the 10 Commandments on the side

Here it is,, Friday morning, and I've been thinking about all the anti-Semitism hitting our country once again big-time.  How is it that so many Americans believe the worst that they hear and see on TV about us Jews? Why are they so quick to believe  the worst?  So this is my Shabbat homily:  

My past several weeks have been spent in my free-time indulgence of watching a Netflix production on TV.  Thank goodness for Netflix, I feel.  My son set it up for me on my new SMART TV.  Remaining home during COVID 19 has been entertaining with Netflix at my fingers.                                                    

I watched Oprah Winfrey's production of Greenleaf and enjoyed it very much.  Here I am, an older Jewish lady watching a program about a Black community's minister's family and all that goes on in their ministry, good and bad alike.  Besides the story-line that kept me coming back for more, it had fantastic singing.                                               

    The daughter is preaching. It's a mega-church with thousands of attendees.  

Needless to say, it presented a completely different experience to me including what they use their time in their churches for.  In other words, their plan from Sunday from 10am to 12am of what they cover is so different from a Jewish experience.  Oprah, I give you an A+ for your production.  It held my attention every minute. Both Black Protestants and Jews have year-long lesson plans on how to worship but come to it in a completely different way.  

Oprah's rendition may not be the average, no doubt, of all Black churches, and she is being sued by one such minister, but it gives me an idea.  I daresay that I was impressed with the characters' ability to quote so much of their bible in their daily lives in facing their own problems.  Sometime during the week, they were learning it.                                                   

Let me explain what goes on in a synagogue as a comparison.

We go to synagogue on Shabbat.  Shabbat is the time from Friday evening until all day Saturday with a designate time of beginning and ending.  Actually, it ends when 3 stars in the sky can be seen, something I learned in while living in Israel.  We have levels of experiencing our religion today;  Orthodox, Conservative and Reformed.  Within these 3 groupings, Jews themselves are divided into Cohens, Levites and Israelis.                           

In the synagogue, the time is addressed by reading from the Torah, and then another scroll called the Haftorah.  There is singing, like in Oprah's story, but is led by the Cantor.  In Orthodox synagogues, there are no musical instruments used. 

                                                   

Hebrew is used with translations in English, of course.   Not only does it differ from English in the letters, but it is read from right to left.  

Shabbat is a day of celebration as well as prayer.  Many Jews attend synagogue services on Shabbat even if they do not do so during the week. Services are held on Shabbat eve (Friday night), Shabbat morning (Saturday morning), and late Shabbat afternoon (Saturday afternoon).

                                                             

The torahs are scrolls that are read and are kept in a cupboard behind the rabbi, and than taken out one at a time.  Cohens are first to be called up to read  the Hebrew words to the congregation.  This amounts to the  1st Five Books of Moses,   and the belief is that Moses himself wrote these while on the Exodus over the 40 years. This consists of, in this order:  Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.  

After this section is read, the Haftorah is then used, which is a designated reading from a certain part of the Tanakh (Old Testament) that relates to the Torah section.  For instance, I'll start at the beginning.  Genesis  1, In the beginning...

The Haftorah, which means conclusion,  is the lesson from the prophets after the reading of the Law.  To this section, ISAIAH XLII is read.  This is like a year's long lesson plan of what to be read and is copied in all synagogues throughout the world.  

    A bar mitzvah boy, at age 13.  He has been studying for it for the past several years. This is his big day, considered as a man in the synagogue.  it's his birthday, so he'll also receive presents.                      

At this reading,  first Cohens are called up to read, then Levites, and finally the others there may be called to read, for all the men have gone through their bar mitzvah, and know how to read in Hebrew.  Of course, our bible, called a Tanakh, has translations in your native language, such as mine in English.  Anyone can follow along in the English section.  Our Tankah (bible)  also includes explanations and explains what the great scholars such as Rashi had to say about it. 

                                                             

 An orthodox rabbi prepares for a holiday with the boy practicing blowing the shofar.   

When I inherited my parents' oldest 2 volumes set of the Pentateuch and Haftorahs, I sat down for weeks, I kid you not, and read and read, mainly the explanations.  The explanations were a lesson in themselves. By the way, this set was edited by Dr. J.H. Hertz, Chief Rabbi of the British Empire, 13 October, 1937.  

                                                             

   Synagogue service in West Hemstead, New York 

With the reading finished,  the rabbi may speak.  Prayers are sung, and familiar ones have great melodies.  In many small communities, an Oneg Shabbat takes place, a luncheon in a dining area, or it may just amount to a dessert, like on Friday night.  Someone in the congregation was the designated host.  It's nice, a time to get acquainted.                                   

   Saturday morning in Brooklyn, Orthodox Service-women and men are divided -may have women upstairs in a balcony so they can see proceedings and participate from there.  They may have their children with them.  It helps all to concentrate better.

I bring all this up because our history, our past, is all in this reading, and I just wonder how many gentiles have ever studied about our past to have come to such terrible conclusions about it.  I know that the Evangelicals, who know of our important characters of the past, know about them better than many Jews do, so they must be familiar with our history.  How much do others know?  Is it covered in advanced schooling of public high schools or colleges and how is it covered and by who?  In other words, what kind of spin is given about our history?  

Whatever it is, and whatever the media in our country is showing, must be helping anti-Semitism along as it has reached giant proportions lately.  Whatever is happening in Israel affects anti-Semitism, and to me this is very sad.  People are depending on TV from al Jazeera and such for their facts, which are so distorted that it makes me swoon.  Sometimes they get some of the facts correct, but then writers can manipulate with words so cleverly, that it all comes out in a jumble of mis-facts.  Words used can emit a tone, an atmosphere, and damn the people that should be praised.  If they're writing from the other side of the fence, you have to be very careful of how much you can swallow.  Reed College in Portland was famous for teaching their students to think, "What's the source?"  I know, it goes for Jewish writers as well.                                    

Our past history of writing about history, and I'm going back to Egyptian days, has been to have been very honest in comparison with Egypt's recorded history.  Egypt was already sharp enough to only let people know the best about them.  They would cover up walls of information from a pharaoh who was later in disgrace.  

Whereas our prophets, who wrote, spilled the beans on David's errors, as well as all the others.  We were not a perfect people that way, and our mistakes made it into our Tanakh.  We're sort of like the Down Syndrome children in that way, telling the truth;  well, at least in our biblical history, that is.  Today we live in a new atmosphere among other cultures, and we have people who have learned to lie like everyone else. When that happens, I think-that person knows nothing about his ancestors or our mores and morals.  They've inherited wonderful genes and they're using this gift the wrong way.   

I'm not the only person to think like this.  The Chinese are also very much aware of bringing disgrace upon a house.  They also cringe when one of their family does something wrong.  It's these cultural issues that often help to keep a culture in check.   I'm still left with wondering how much all cultures know about us Jews.  Not much, I'd say.                                       

Paddock, 64, of Mesquite, Nevada, fired shot after shot from his room at Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino down on the crowd of about 22,000, sending terrified concertgoers running for their lives.

A lone gunman unleashed a rapid-fire barrage of bullets from the 32nd floor of a Las Vegas hotel late Sunday, killing at least 59 people and injuring more than 500 others attending a country music festival below, officials said.  It was the worst mass shooting in modern American history, and Stephen Craig Paddock was "solely responsible for this heinous act," Assistant Clark County Sheriff Todd Fasulo told reporters Monday night.  (October 1, 2017) 

 We've had a rash of such killings going on.  I'm beginning to wonder what is in our bottles of vitamins, etc, that shouldn't be there.  What's going on besides immediate media, better than past results.  

Pastor Martin Niemoller: “In Germany they came first for the communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist.  Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.” Someone has to start speaking up besides the few of us.

Much of our culture says to attend a place of worship once a week, whether we be Jews or Gentiles.  This practice is dwindling in both groups. Have people been learning to treat everyone fairly?  To get along with others and treat them like people in their own family?  Or is that asking too much.  How do we all attain that?  Some have tried with socialism and communism. I don't see that workable.  I see so much of what we need to attain coming right from family values;  to first be born into a family;   to have that family be a loving family with high values.  We have to start at home and teach our children by how we treat our children.  That's the key.  It starts at the breast.    

Resource: edited 2:08 pm Pacific time

https://www.thewrap.com/oprah-winfrey-fires-back-at-frivolous-lawsuit-over-greenleaf-tv-series/

https://www.templesinairi.org/blessing-after-torah-reading.html

https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-torah-service/

https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/las-vegas-shooting/las-vegas-police-investigating-shooting-mandalay-bay-n806461