Yigdal

First of all, Osim Tmurah.

If you try to exchange an animal that is meant to be an ola, or a chatat, or an asham, or a shlomim, that has already been consecrated for that purpose, and you try to exchange it with an animal that is not kadosh, that is not consecrated yet, that animal too will become kadosh, right? That's a tmura, right? We say in Yigdal, lo yamir tato, God won't change God's religion.

A tmura is where you're trying to make an exchange.

But it doesn't work.

The last Yisod.

The last line in Yigdal.

The Ben Yo Yodah points out, fascinating HaAra, the Gemara tells us in Masecha Shabbos, as we know, in the Maimon Harsinai Gemaras, that we heard the first Debor, we died.

Hashem brought us back to life with the Tal of Tchia.

We have this kind of piyutim of lyrical Rashuyot which are very, uh, interesting.

But, uh, when I'm talking about para liter- liturgical piyutim, I'm thinking of, for example, um, Adon Olam or Yigdal Or even Lecha Dodi, which are not part of like a Tefillat Shmoneh Esreh, but are said either in advance or at the end of the service.

Lecha Dodi is special because, uh, it's, it, it belongs to, uh, it came from, from, uh, Safed, from Tzfat in the 16th century when they created the whole, uh, service of, of Kabbalat Shabbat.

But again, it's not, it's not something that is, uh, uh, uh, that makes an, a, a, a Halakhic challenge like, uh, singing a piyyut, Aderet, uh, uh, uh, ve-Emunah within, uh, Chazarat HaShatz of the Amida.

There's a lot of other things about Judaism that's worth, that are worth investigating and looking at.

Why don't we try to, you know, shift a little bit away from the political and move into the more creative, artistic, academic area of Jewish prayer and Jewish liturgy?" The way we got the name, I was actually sitting in my office with Laila and Daisy, and we were thinking, "What are we gonna call this thing?" Sometimes these things happen in like a flash, and just sitting there, I said, "We should call it Asherah." It was just one of those, you know, that Alma Shachna Salomi calls these aha moments.

And I didn't wanna call them revelatory moments.

I just said, "Yes, that's it.

[laughs]

Um, so beyond being recognized as this ancient Canaanite goddess, Asherah is also the symbol of the tree of life.

And so one of the things that I'm so grateful for Rabbi Jericho Vincent speaking about in the interview that I did with them in the journal is the ways in which Asherah has always been part of Jewish life, Jewish prayer, Jewish practice.

She has maybe just become more invisibilized or assimilated into other forms of Jewish ritual.

once in a long while, but he was consulted on everything.

So it's a common practice in many shuls that on Friday night, after Meiriv is over, they sing Yigdal.

You look in the Shulchan Aruch, they're opposed to reciting Yigdal, period.

I'm not sure exactly why, but they're opposed to recitation of Yigdal.

So if you look on the art scroll, they changed it.

They put Adon Alam, but nobody says Adon Alam.

They still keep on saying Yigdal.

My impression is that Rabbi David Feinstein must have told them, just change it, and the people will go along.