writings-of-the-rara

KING DAVID’S DIRECTIVES / DISTURBING NECESSITIES

2012-01-05T22:56:00.007-05:00

One of the intriguing features about the Bible is its honesty. It records details about our ancestors’ lives that perhaps were best left relegated to the rest of the skeletons in the family closet. We learn that Abraham lied about his relationship with Sarah, that Jacob duped his father Isaac, and that as a teen, Joseph was a brat. Did we really need to record all this?

The answer, of course, is yes. These sacred stories serve as platforms and inspiration for discussion and debate. If all were recorded as exercises in moral perfection, there would be nothing to talk about—and that is no position for a Jew. This week’s haftarah, Vayehi, is a case in point. Taken from the second chapter of I Kings, we become privy to King David’s last words to his successor, the wisest of all the kings of Israel, David’s son, King Solomon. And the father, as one would expect, gives his son some loving advice—study Torah, follow the ways of God, be strong, be a man, and when it comes to my enemies—Yoav ben Tzeruyah and Shimi ben Gera—knock ‘em off, my boy. You’ll know what to do!

What was the biblical editor thinking?

That’s a difficult question to answer, the editor having died centuries ago. So let’s ask a different question. What are we thinking when we read words like those? Do we think that the Bible teaches us that revenge is ok? Such a lesson would actually violate the Torah. Do we think the narrative intends to paint David in a negative light, his vengeance prevailing over his compassion? Or do we think the narrative intends to paint David in a positive light, securing his son’s tenure by ridding him of potential enemies. Machiavelli would be so proud. Asking the questions is as engaging as attempting the answers.

I begin reading this haftarah with a sense of embarrassment. How could one of the greatest kings of Israel stoop to such a questionable action and moreover, ask his son to do his dirty work? And then, a reality check kicks in. Sometimes taking care of the enemy quietly is superior to out-and-out war. In recent times, some highly suspicious accidents have taken place in Iran—computers controlling nuclear reactors have been compromised by viruses, unexplained explosions take place in nuclear plants, and cars of nuclear technicians suddenly blow up. Lives have been lost and it would be naïve to believe that these actions were unplanned or accidental. But as the West watches a threatening and bellicose Iran go nuclear, and given the political complexities involved with a direct military attack, King David’s sentiments come to mind. Sometimes the most ethical choice is as disturbing as it is necessary.

If only we lived in a world where all the ethical dilemmas were black and white. Such dilemmas do exist—in fairy tales. But one thing the Bible is not—it’s no fairy tale.

WHAT TEBOW TELLS US ABOUT OUR RELIGIOUS SELVES

2011-12-16T10:43:00.000-05:00

PDFs or public displays of faith have long been a staple of American sports, particularly in baseball, where players are often seen crossing themselves while stepping up to the plate. And now the PDF discussion is taking center stage as the Denver Broncos starting quarterback, Tim Tebow, has achieved a modicum of stardom while unabashedly vocal about his faith. His unique style of thanking God is to kneel on one knee and bow his head. He may recite a prayer, I don’t know, but he clearly assumes a prayerful position for a few seconds. In fact, the action has been dubbed “tebowing,” and is increasingly imitated by other athletes and Christians. Tebow also typically begins his postgame interviews by thanking "my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." And with the interview’s conclusion, he will be sure to say, "God Bless."

Tebow was born in the Philippines to parents who were Baptist missionaries. He obviously learned his religious lessons well. And so here he is, playing in the NFL, responsible for turning the Broncos’ dismal record around, visibly religious, and for some, even die-hard football fans who can well-appreciate his skills, his religiosity generates a good deal of discomfort.

The real question here is what is it about Tebow’s religiosity that makes us uncomfortable? He is not asking us to thank God with him. He is not, at that moment, asking us to be Christian. His kneeling on the field is no more ritualistic than the touchdown dance of his teammates. What is bugging us about Tebow?

America is committed to freedom of religion and as such, our government has always been careful to never show any favoritism toward or mandate as official, any one religion. Decades of constitutional debate have lead us to consistently remove prayers, benedictions, invocations, and expressions of faith from public gatherings. In barring all, we have shown favoritism to none. But I wonder if the rule of unintended consequences has not kicked in.

Having succeeded in not showing favoritism to any one religion, we have perhaps inadvertently created an environment that is suspicious or even hostile to religious expression. Instead of allowing an atmosphere in which faith communities can hear each other’s prayers and respect each other for those varied expressions, we have demanded that our commonality rest on the absence, rather than the presence, of God. In ridding these beautiful expressions of religiosity from public view, we miss countless opportunities to develop an appreciation and respect for each other’s traditions. I, of course, do not believe in Jesus as the messiah, but I am moved by those whose faith, however shaped, has influenced them to think deeply about life, morality, goodness, and a host of other issues that are deserving of our attention, and much more of it than they ever receive.

I think Tim Tebow deserves our respect for his religious faith, as do all our friends in faith communities who seek a relationship with God. Now lest you think I believe that Tim Tebow’s faith has moved God to support his team over any other, that’s not possible. As we all know, God is a Minnesota Vikings fan. But that’s a whole other discussion. In the meantime, let’s turn to Tim and say “Go Tebow,” and God bless.

JACOB AND FANTASY PROBLEMS

2011-12-08T23:24:00.000-05:00

My mother would have referred to Jacob as a nervous choleria—which would be Yiddish for a nervous wreck. All right, can you blame him? He’s been away from his brother Esau for 20 years and the last time they were together, Jacob had visions of Esau chasing him around the wilderness with a butcher’s knife raised above his head. Well, not exactly, but suffice to say that Esau was prepared to murder his brother over the stolen birthright. And now the time has come to return home, to face his brother, and perhaps the consequences. Oy—what to do?

So this is what Jacob does. He first sends messengers to Esau saying that while in Haran, he had become exceedingly wealthy, implying thereby that some gifts would be forthcoming. The messengers come back saying that Esau is on his way to meet Jacob accompanied by 400 men. 400 men? That doesn’t sound like the Rockettes, even if they were dressed in tights—which they weren’t—so Jacob’s anxiety deepens. He divides his camp into two, thinking that if Esau attacks the one, the other may escape. Then he prays to God. Then he sets aside a gift to Esau fit for an unrepentant and venal Wall Street capitalist—200 she goats, 20 he-goats, 200 ewes, 20 rams, 30 camels and their colts, 40 cows, ten bulls, 20 she donkeys and ten he-donkeys. It was like giving Esau the Bronx Zoo. Did that set Jacob’s mind at ease? No—he was up all night, wrestling with an angel, and with the break of dawn, walked away in need of a hip replacement. Finally, he divided his family into thirds. The front guard consisted of the maids and their children, next Leah and her children, and last Rachel and Joseph, placing the family dearest to him in the rear guard, hoping that they, at least, would survive the inevitable slaughter.

Jacob is a man in need of xanax. And then the moment of truth arrives: Esau and his band of 400 non-Rockette types. So what happens? Esau runs to greet Jacob, embraces his brother, kisses him, and there are tears, even flowing from “I’m-Going-To-Rip-Your-Head-Off” Esau. Esau initially refuses the gifts, though Jacob prevails upon him to accept, and then Esau offers that the two brothers travel home together, though this plan does not come to fruition for good reasons. As for the birthright—not a word about the theft is spoken: not a single word. So much worry for so little. What is the Torah trying to teach us here?

You know—you can’t predict the future. We would like to be able to predict the future, but we can’t. Some of us are worriers. Wait—if you’re Jewish, then by definition, you’re a worrier. But many of the problems that occupy our days and our nights are what I like to refer to as fantasy problems. They are the problems that we don’t have right now, but they are the problems that we think we’re going to have tomorrow. And we base many of our decisions not on the problems that we face directly, but on the problems we think we’re going to face tomorrow, or at some future date, which brings me back to a fact of life—no one can predict the future.

We get ourselves crazy over fantasy problems. We think we know what we will face tomorrow, even though such an idea defies all reason. The Torah forbids anyone from acting as a fortune teller (Deuteronomy 18:10-12). Since no one can predict the future, it is a dishonest business. And to consult such people is to waste your money. James Russell Lowell, the American poet, critic and diplomat, wrote: “Let us be of good cheer, remembering that the misfortunes hardest to bear are those that will never happen.” So true. Jacob could have used a good dose of Lowell, but the point is, we all could!

THE HEAVEN WITHIN

2011-12-02T14:45:00.004-05:00

Jacob’s ladder has become a very popular theme among Jewish artistic works as it forms a kind of bridge between a tired biblical story and a mystical landscape that moderns are leery to cross. The imagery is vivid. The ladder rest on earth, its top pierces the heavens and angels ascend and descend, just as the biblical narrative describes. But since it was a dream, and since angels, equipped as they are with wings, need no ladders to either ascend to heaven or descend to earth, Jacob’s ladder need not be understood as a literal stairway to heaven. One might better understand it as a pathway down into Jacob’s soul. Jacob’s ascent is not really a going up into heaven, but a reaching inward to the depths of his soul. The further he explores that which already resides within his heart or soul, the “higher” he is on his metaphorical ladder. The angels ascending and descending are really a mirror image of what is going on. The angels are like a spiritual energy that goes deeper and deeper into the subconscious, probing for answers about who Jacob is and what is his purpose on earth. Facing such questions would be a true ascent or going up. And then once Jacob has explored the depths of his soul for the answers he seeks, the angels, the spiritual energy reverts to the conscious level, and that would be the descent—the return to reality. Jacob’s dream need not be about the heaven above, but the heaven within, and each of us is blessed with this internal heaven.

Jacob, guilty for having taken his brother’s blessing, fearful that his brother Esau may murder him in revenge, and now running to a land he has never visited, must be very scared. This is our ancestor—the future father of the Children of Israel? And yet, in the dream, we catch a glimpse of Jacob’s greatness. In spite of all his problems, he is not a failure. His greatness rises to the surface as the voice of God assures him of wealth, children, esteem and an eventual return to the land he loves. This is the voice of God not in the heavens above, but in the depths of his soul. The voice of God in the heavens is a commanding voice, but the voice of God within us is a guiding voice. For Jacob, it is the voice that says your life is not over for there is brilliant future awaiting you. Your next great step is to look to the future with hope, and not get mired in the complexities of the past.

The voice of God within Jacob is not an anomaly, but a reality. We are each blessed with the voice of God within us. It urges us to make decisions at every point in time that are healthy, reasonable, sometimes daring or bold, always ethical and sensitive, and always life-affirming. The future belongs to the people who believe in it. In order to get from here to there, you will not necessarily need a ladder, only a dream.

SARAH AND MASCARA

2011-11-17T16:34:00.002-05:00

Let’s talk about beauty. Beauty is big business in America. In the year 2010, Americans spent 33.3 billion dollars on cosmetics and other beauty products (see Smart Money, April 20, 2011, Ten Things The Beauty Industry Won’t Tell You). That’s a lot of eyeliner. Sales in 2010 were up 6% over 2009 so however ugly the economy is, people are looking good. And we’re not just talking adults. Girls, aged eight through 12, spend 40 million dollars a month on beauty products while young ladies, aged 13 to 17, spend 100 million dollars a month. Wow--when I was that age, I was lucky to afford a bottle of coke and Mad magazine.

Beauty is a topic of interest this week because of our matriarch, Sarah, who was according to the Torah, a real beauty. Abraham seemed to have it all—wealth, power, and a knock-out of a wife. So concerned was he of her beauty that twice he passed her off as his sister, fearing that the Godless of the land would kill him in order to capture her—a real prize wife.

In today’s parashah, Hayyei Sarah, the Torah uses an odd description of Sarah’s age at the time of her death. It reads that Sarah’s lifetime “came to one hundred years and twenty years and seven years” (Genesis 23:1). Why the Torah inserts a math problem into the middle of a sad story is beyond me, but it wasn’t beyond Rashi who explained this rather strange formulation. He wrote that Sarah was as free of sin at the age of 100 as she was at the age of 20. And she was as beautiful at the age of twenty as she was at the age of seven. The Torah specifies each age group to give us some information about Sarah’s life. I wonder if she ever used mascara, blush, lip gloss, or body glitter.

I don’t see any moral problem in wanting to look more attractive or even spending a few bucks for beauty. But the whole issue does raise a few questions. For example, when we expect beauty of ourselves, particularly women, is that a message of any value at all? And who is determining exactly what the standards of beauty are? And would people feel differently about beauty products if they knew they were first tested on animals, to the animals’ detriment, as some are? And finally, having spent all this money on cosmetics, do they work?

The Torah is not an illustrated scroll. We do not know how beautiful Sarah was. But if she was as beautiful as the Torah claims her to be, then that beauty must have been of the most authentic beauty that exists, and that is hardly a physical phenomenon. Cosmetics cannot hide an angry soul or a bitter disposition, lipstick does not put a smile on a face nor glitter a twinkle in the eye. In actuality, cosmetics may actually have a detrimental effect on one’s natural beauty if they are seen as a cover up. If one’s beauty does not emanate from within outward, beauty products will be of no effect. Do we really want to tell young girls that they need to be more beautiful or that their natural beauty is in some way deficient? What a horrible message. Beauty is not so much in the eye of the beholder as it is in the heart of the beholden. Ladies—you’re natural beauty is all you need. Finally—a Devar Torah that can really save you a few bucks.

JEWISH AND DRUNK

2011-10-28T00:10:00.000-04:00

My father drank. Every night as he sat down to dinner, he opened a cabinet door behind him and pulled out a bottle of Canadian Club. He filled a shot glass full of Canada’s famous 80 proof whiskey, lifted his glass, turned to everyone seated at the table and pronounced the following toast:

Mi zol d’leiben iber a yur

We should all live one more year…

and downed the spirit in a single move. I never saw my father drunk. I rarely saw him take a second drink.

Among Noah’s other distinctions is his being the first of humanity to become inebriated. Let’s not hold this against him. After the flood, he established a vineyard, sold grapes and grape juice, some of it fermented and when he drank enough of it, the erstwhile captain of the most famous ark in history fell into a drunken stupor. The Torah makes no mention of Noah repeating his mistake. But experience tells us that there are plenty of people who do, and among them, are plenty of Jews. How many Jews? Enough for there to be an active organization addressing the issue: JACS, which stands for Jewish Alcoholics, Chemically Dependent Persons and Significant Others.

It is clear from all the research on the subject that some people are prone to addiction. But at the same time, it is equally clear that people need to learn how to drink responsibly. That knowledge is gained by emulating a model. One such model is of the person who drinks with moderation. Another such model is using wine to sanctify a moment in time, that is, to say kiddush on Shabbat.

You may have heard the words “Savri Maranan?” just before the blessing over the wine with the rest of the congregation responding, “L’hayyim.” “Savri Maranan?” is Aramaic for “Gentlemen, have you formed an opinion?” and “L’hayyim” means “To Life!” What is the origin of this fun yet odd minhag (custom)? An explanation for what it is all about comes to us from the Midrash, specifically Midrash Tanhuma, Parashat Pekudei (Siman 2), in which we learn about the interrogation protocol in the case of capital crimes. After all the evidence has been analyzed and the witnesses examined, the head of the trial would turn to those charged with the task of casting a verdict and ask, “Savri Maranan?—Gentlemen, have you formed an opinion?” And if the gentlemen had found the defendant innocent, they would say “L’hayyim—For Life.” But if the defendant was found guilty, they would say, “Lamavet—For death.” The condemned prisoner would then be given wine, and lots of it, in order to numb the condemned to the punishment of death. The Midrash goes on to explain how important it is then, prior to the blessing over the wine, for the gathered to shout “L’hayyim—For Life.” We all know just how dangerous irresponsible drinking can be. For those of us who do drink, it is critical that we drink responsibly” L’hayyim—for life,” and not irresponsibly, “Lamavet—For Death.”

I once asked my father why, in his toast, he asked for only one more year of life. Why not ask for several, as long as he was at it. And he thought for a minute and responded, “One should never ask for too much.” Moderation: the guiding principal in how we drink, the guiding principle in how we live.

RAW DEAL?

2011-10-19T12:56:00.000-04:00

\The name Abd al-Aziz Salaha means nothing to most of us, but we all remember his hands. Back in 2001, he was one of the Arabs who beat an Israeli soldier to death in Ramallah and then proudly thrust his blood-covered hands out the window to a cheering Palestinian crowd. He has been released in exchange for Gilad Shalit. Nasser Yataima was the brains behind a Passover tragedy in which 30 seder participants gathered at Netanya’s Park Hotel were murdered and 140 wounded. He has been released in exchange for Gilad Shalit. You might recall the bombing of the Moment Café in Jerusalem in 2002 in which 12 people were murdered and 54 wounded, thanks to Walid Anajas. He has been released in exchange for Gilad Shalit. 477 convicted criminals and terrorists have been released with another 550 to be released in the next two months, a total of 1,027 people in exchange for one Jew. I mention all this by way of saying that the first casualty of the Shalit deal (I hesitate to call it a prisoner swap) is justice. Actually, this is an egregious example of how emotions can move us to compromise our sense of justice, if not to undermine it completely.

Back in 2004, you might recall Israel released 430 prisoners in exchange for three dead soldiers and one Israeli businessman, a deal struck with the terrorist organization, Hizbollah. Writing for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Nadav Shragi determined that by 2007, only three years later, those who had been freed were responsible for the deaths of 35 Israelis.

Trying to understand the benefits of the Shalit deal is actually mind-boggling. From the perspective of Middle East shuk haggling, the Arab world couldn’t be happier. With one Jew they were able to secure the freedom of 1027 prisoners, many who had been serving life or multiple life sentences. Will this encourage future kidnappings because as everyone can see, kidnapping is profitable? Because Israel has handed a dramatic political victory to Hamas, the violent face of Palestinian identity, has it strengthened Hamas at the expense of the more reasonable Fatah, which would not bode well for future peace negotiations? While we might say that Shalit’s victory has been won at the price of 1027 prisoners, only time will tell if that price will go up, as released prisoners return to their pernicious ways and take the lives of other sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters. It’s only a conjecture, but history has shown it a probability.

So why did Israel do it? How do we explain it? Robert H. Mnookin, a Harvard professor and chair of the university’s negotiation program offers this unique perspective.

"Gilad Shalit is a known individual: what psychologists call an 'identifiable being.' His picture has been plastered throughout Israel. The Israeli press has written hundreds of articles speculating about his well-being. By contrast, the Israelis who are endangered by this deal are mere statistics—an unidentifiable group of people who may die in the future. Psychologists call these “statistical lives.” There is a long line of psychological research showing that, in making decisions, human beings will incur far greater costs to save one identifiable being from immediate peril than to enact safety measures that might save many more statistical lives."

The Wall Street Journal, October 17, 2011

You know, I’m delighted that Gilad is back with his family and returned to our people. I am not delighted by any stretch of the imagination with the price that has been paid for his freedom. But I am not an Israeli politician and I do not bear the joys or responsibilities attendant with that venerable role. And thank God for that because were I in that position, and were I to wake up one morning to learn of news of a terrorist attack perpetrated by someone I released, I don’t know how I’d get the blood off my hands.

YOU CAN GET SOME SATISFACTION

2011-10-11T00:21:00.002-04:00

Over Sukkot, there is a tradition to read Kohelet, otherwise known as Ecclesiastes. It is a biblical work attributed to King Solomon, and as the rabbis put it, a King Solomon whose cynicism, so prevalent throughout the work, is a reflection of his advanced years and a man who has possibly seen more than one would ever care to see. In fact, some have read Kohelet and come to the conclusion that it is a depressing work. As a case in point, consider this verse from chapter three (19):

“…they [man and beast] have one and the same fate: as the one dies so does the other,and both have the same life breath; man has no superiority over beast,

since both amount to nothing”

Ouch. I wonder if the depressing valence of Kohelet is due to the absence of a strong rock beat that might mask the otherwise gloomy lyrics? For example, have you ever considered this song dark and gloomy?

I can't get no satisfaction / I can't get no satisfaction

'Cause I try and I try and I try and I try

I can't get no, I can't get no...

OK, OK…we hear you! Now it is unlikely that Kohelet was written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, but the plaintive cry of an unfulfilled life is strangely contemporary. In fact, Kohelet could be, in some sense, a precursor to modern day existentialists were it not for Kohelet’s profound belief in a God who is very much in charge of the world. But absent that significant detail, I would not characterize Kohelet as depressing as much as brutally honest. The realities of life ought to put a few questions in our heads about our own self-importance or the possibility of a just world. Maybe our discomfort with Kohelet stems from the fact that it sounds so at odds with what we would expect from the Bible. Then again, Kohelet is part of the Bible. What we ought to expect of the Bible is brutal honesty and in Kohelet, we get it in spades.

Kohelet recognizes that human beings are simply animals (chapter 3), which just happens to be the conclusion of contemporary anthropologists; that the wealthiest among us leave this world naked and penniless—our apologies to the Trumpster (chapter 5); and that governmental patronage makes for unjust and corrupt judgments against the innocent (chapter 5). This may cynically be framed as pessimism, but a more sobering assessment may be that it is simply reality.

Kohelet, the man, tells it like it is, and aside from his disturbing misogynistic views (to be fair, he isn’t terribly fond of men either), he ends up advising us to follow a very pragmatic and balanced lifestyle which includes keeping our promises, tempering our Temple attendance, enjoying what we have, seeking companionship, being discreet, dismissing much of the gossip around town, and most importantly, following God’s mitzvot and, as Kohelet put it, to “cast your bread upon the waters for after many days you will find it” (Ecc. 11:1). I was always bothered by that phrase because as a metaphor, it’s impossible. After you’ve cast your bread upon the water, you never find it—a bird eats it, a fish swallows it, or the waters dissolve it. Cast your bread upon the waters and it’s gone, period. But not according to Kohelet. Be generous, be giving, loosen your grasp on your material wellbeing, share with others and in time, your generosity will be requited in some way. And in this world of longing and desire, in this world of existential meaninglessness, that may just be the way to get some satisfaction.

THE BIG IDEA

2011-10-04T18:12:00.000-04:00

One of the explanations for the fast of Yom Kippur is that in keeping with the profound sanctity of the day, we liken ourselves to angels who neither eat nor drink. Some go so far as to explain the white kittle as the dress of the angels and the fact that we stand so much on Yom Kippur has to do with the single-leggedness of angels. They actually do have a leg to stand on, but only one, and it has no joints, so they are forever standing. Just thinking about it makes my feet sore.

Nonetheless, I love this explanation, which is really odd because I don’t think, in my heart of hearts, that I actually believe in angels of any sort. But I do believe that some people demonstrate a quality of goodness and selflessness in their lifetimes which is angelic in nature. Even more importantly, I believe that human beings ought to do what angels are supposed to do which is to be the messengers of God. In Hebrew, the term for angel is malakh, and malakh is a messenger. So if on Yom Kippur we are meant to be angels, what exactly is God’s message we are to be delivering?

God’s message at this time of year is that of a poorly run airline which gets you to where you need to be, but sadly, not your baggage. In this case, however, the loss of baggage is a boon to you and all those around you. You are going to make it into the New Year, but without all the baggage you’ve been schlepping around for years—the anger, the frustrations, the disappointments, the resentments, the cynicism and the grudges. Lost. Misplaced. Disappeared. Irretrievable. We can enter the New Year with an opportunity to focus our energies on productive growth, our thoughts turned to the future, not the past.

OK—there are angels. But not in heaven. The angels are here with us on earth, in a multitude of personalities who refuse to let negative energy dominate their lives. The message of God is a big one and yet so simple. Forgive others their sins against you, and you can live freer and more positively focused than ever before in your life.

STAND STILL OR GET MOVING?

2011-09-22T23:09:00.000-04:00

Rosh Hashanah is almost here. This Shabbat is the last Shabbat of the old year, 5771. The parashah we read is a double, Nitzavim Vayelekh, and the name of these two parshiyot contrast with each other beautifully. Nitzavim is a term that implies standing or fixed in some spot while Vayelekh is a verb meaning movement or walking. The fact that this double parashah is read just before Rosh Hashanah is eerie, for the two names essentially pose a question to us all. In the New Year, are we going to stand still or move, are we going to change or are we going to remain the same?

That question is easy to ask but difficult to answer. This is a time of year when Jewish educators and rabbis piously talk forgiveness, repentance, in short, about positive and courageous change in one’s life. Some people flippantly say that they are going to change but have no intention to do so. Others cynically say that they won’t change because after all, people don’t change. But after all the greeting cards are sent, the prayers recited, and the apples dipped, the most basic function of the New Year may remain unfulfilled: honest and enduring change.

Judaism is a tradition that believes deeply in the power of the human spirit. If we are our choices, and we choose every second of our lives, then the grandeur of our spirit moves us to make good choices with every breath we take. Do we resist those good choices? Quite often we do. Change might mean sacrificing some ego, giving up some long-cherished anger, or even losing face. But asking for forgiveness from one person whom you may have hurt in some past exchange, is worth at least two days of praying in a five-and-a-half hour service. Actually it’s worth a lot more than that.

There ought to be a holiday devoted to eating brisket. We can all get together and celebrate and that would be just lovely. But if that’s what Rosh Hashanah has become in your life, then you’re not doing Rosh Hashanah. Rosh Hashanah is the stuff that real-life drama is made of: facing our failures, confessing our shortcomings, and making amends. So what’s it going to be: Nitzavim or Vayelekh? Whether you remain the same or make the gutsy changes that life demands of us, is up to you.

L’shanah Tovah Tikateivu—May we all be inscribed into the Book of Life with abundant blessings, blessings that we may enjoy ourselves and blessings that we may be privileged to confer on others.

THE ANNOYANCE BLESSING

2011-09-15T21:00:00.005-04:00

Let’s play a game. I want you to think of something that is really annoying. A few examples are in order. Washing dishes. If only we could eat and get out of clean-up, dinner would be much more pleasurable. Traffic jams. You’ve been stuck for over 45 minutes due to someone else’s carelessness. Finally, taxes. You earned every cent you have—why does the government have to take it away, and take so much!

You probably have your own favorite annoyances. Hang on to them because now we’re going to play the next part of this game. Put a positive spin on each situation that drives you crazy. You may have to wash dishes, but that means you had a meal, and not everyone in this world enjoys such a fundamental need. You may be stuck in traffic, but that implies you actually own, or at least lease, a car. It may mean that you have places to go to. It can also indicate that if you’re late, someone is going to care. Owning property, having a purpose, and being accountable to people, these are all aspects of a full life. And finally taxes—perhaps the most annoying fact of life. If you owe taxes, that means you’re making money. In this economy, don’t bemoan that situation.

So often, our annoyances expose a short-sightedness that we need to address. The blessings in our lives are abundant, but due to our impatience, or values that may be temporarily askew, we indulge ourselves in our own irascibility which if not irritating to others, certainly diminishes ourselves. By becoming petty, we become small. That’s a shame because every second we live is precious.

So goes one of the curses in today’s parashah, Ki Tavo, which includes the Tokhekha or a list of maladies that will befall the Jewish people should they abandon the ways of God.

In the morning you shall say “If only it were evening!”
and in the evening you shall say, “If only it were morning!”—

because of what your heart shall dread and your eyes shall see.

(Deuteronomy 28:67)

In other words, wherever you are, you will wish you were somewhere else. Your heart and your eyes will be making you crazy. How’s that for a curse!

As soon as we become annoyed, we ought to stop and thank God, because somewhere in the annoyance is a blessing, and in acknowledging the blessing we strengthen ourselves and our humanity.

The Tokhekha always depicts God as punishing humanity for its sins. That’s a classic idea but one that has never resonated with me. I don’t believe in a punishing God and frankly, question why God would even bother. People are so adept at punishing themselves without God’s help. Let’s strive to not be counted among that group.

TEN YEARS AFTER 9/11--THE HOUSE IN YOUR HEAD

2011-09-09T11:33:00.003-04:00

It’s difficult to believe that ten years have passed since 9/11. I remember that day. Clear skies, balmy temperature—the weather was all wrong. If ever there was a day in need of God’s metaphoric disapproval or wrath—a thunderstorm or hurricane—it was that day.
Ten years ago, we were dealing with questions about whether one can have a funeral without a body. When should we give up on the miracle of finding our loved one alive? When should we give up on finding our loved one dead? When should we give up? That was the real question; it was a question about hope.

We all go through periods of hopelessness. At those times, if we have clarity of mind, we will seek help. We seek help from a spouse, friends, therapists, or clergy. We may take medication. We explore our faith traditions with greater seriousness. We pray and hope that God will answer us.

There is a prayer, a line in Psalm 27 which I love because it is so outrageous. "May I dwell in the House of the Lord all the days of my life…" (Psalm 27: 4).

What a request. I’m clergy and even I don’t want to live in the House of the Lord all the days of my life. Sometimes I want to travel, or go shopping, or get a haircut—none of which takes place in the House of the Lord. But the psalmist cannot possibly be asking to live in the House of the Lord for that duration. What the psalmist is really asking is to live a life of peace, of being an instrument of God’s goodness in a world so often lacking in that presence.

In our post 9/11 world, it is easy to live life with a lingering sense of anger and bitterness, with sweeping generalizations about Moslems, with a sense of cynicism, that is the very rejection of hope itself. We can live like that and many do, but imagine yourself with that type of attitude walking around in the House of the Lord—a space of peace, and hope, and love, and inspiration to further the goodness of God on earth. It’s incongruous.

The synagogue or temple or church that you attend is very important, but the house of worship that you carry in your head is more important. The God we believe in is the One who urges us to fill this world with solutions not problems, hope not despair, dialogue not destruction, love not death.

Of the 3,000 or so lives lost on 9/11, the greater tragedy would be the silencing of the living, for when the living are silent, they are as good as dead—bodies that are absent from the world. It was bad enough that people had to mourn without their loved one’s body to bury. Let’s make sure that our bodies—our hearts and minds—are used in the next decade to spread the world with abundant and generous acts of kindness and love because that’s what people who live in the House of the Lord all the days of their lives, do.

JERUSALEM—IT’S OURS

2011-09-01T13:51:00.001-04:00

What’s your favorite city? New York? Las Vegas? Paris? Within our collective consciousness, Jews have a favorite city: Jerusalem. It’s not the Big Apple. It’s not Sin City. It’s not gay Paris. It is the Holy City and it belongs to the Jewish people.

As I write or say these words, I catch myself. How selfish can I possibly be! By virtue of what do I claim Jerusalem ours to the exclusion of others who may lay claim to it? And, above all, why should Jerusalem matter to me anymore? Good questions. Here are a few good answers.

We ought to recognize the arrogance of those who would have us forget Jerusalem. New York is an international phenomenon, but no one tells New Yorkers to forget New York. Paris is also an international phenomenon, to be sure, but no one tells Parisians to forget Paris. Yet somehow, Jerusalem, an international phenomenon no less than New York or Paris, must be politically shared. Why? Is the world afraid of Israelis making Jerusalem off limits to the international community? That would be bizarre. Jerusalem, the Holy City, the city whose name translated actually means the City of Peace, is open to everyone, Jews, Christians and Moselms. It is not open to terrorists, as I hope no city would be. On the other hand, try, if you will, entry to Mecca, the holiest city in Islam and birthplace of Mohammad. You will find that the entire city is reserved only for the faithful and that, by Islamic definition, would be Moslems.

The world does not owe Jews anything more than the simple respect accorded anyone or any nation ready to contribute to civilization. Jerusalem is part—and a very large part of Jewish history. Denying our historical connection to Jerusalem is an attempt to weaken us as a people and a nation, for a nation must have a collective memory, and those memories include Jerusalem as the center of our religious life, the capital of a former Jewish commonwealth, a place of intense literary creation sacred to so many, namely the Bible, and it is Jerusalem’s destruction that we have mourned for centuries. Those who claim that none of this matters can do so, for Jewish continuity is not their concern.

But more than Jewish history, Jerusalem is the Jewish present as well. It is a symbol of Jewish renewal and rebirth, of Jewish guts, both in the sense of our spiritual lives and the blood we have shed in our efforts to make the Jewish past the Jewish present. The Moslems have Mecca and Medina. The Christians have Bethlehem and Rome. The Jews make no claims to any city in the world, other than Jerusalem. The world that finds this so outrageous is acting unfairly to the Jewish people.

In our Torah portion this week, Shoftim, Moshe teaches us that should a legal case be so complicated that we need a greater authority to resolve it, we should go to the judges who reside in “that place that the Lord chose” (Deuteronomy 17:10). As later history would clarify, that place would be Jerusalem, but I love the way Jerusalem is anonymous in the Torah portion. Why? Because for Jews, there is no other place. That silent understanding of what Jerusalem means to us is in part what keeps us together as a people. Jerusalem is welcome to all people of peace. But remember, Jerusalem is the Jewish people’s. We should say it unself-consciously, and with the humility such a responsibility entails.

IFTAR, EARTH-SHATTERING AND POWERFUL

2011-08-25T23:26:00.000-04:00

Many of us on the East coast have been preoccupied with an earthquake at the beginning of the week, and now a hurricane, Hurricane Irene, approaching us at the end of the week. This got me thinking about the fact that hurricanes get names and earthquakes don’t. That’s not fair—is it? Anyway, buried beneath the earthquake and the hurricane is a story that deserves widespread attention and on some level, it’s as earth shattering as an earthquake and as powerful as a hurricane.

We are in the midst Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting all day, a time when the values of humility, patience, and submissiveness to God are emphasized. It is regarded as an auspicious month for it is at this time of year that the first verses of the Quran were revealed to the Islamic prophet Muhammad. At sunset, the family will gather to break the fast at a meal known as Iftar. Prayers are recited after which there is a festive meal beginning with the eating of three dates, a custom that apparently dates back to Muhammad.

I mention all this because this year, on Thursday, August 25, 2011, the Israeli Ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, hosted an Iftar dinner at his home, attended by some 60 people, among them imams, rabbis, and representatives of the White House. Islamic and Jewish prayers were recited at the dinner and the food served was certified hallal, which as you know, is the Islamic equivalent of kosher.

You may think the ambassador’s hospitality strange at this time. The Palestinians are seeking to establish a state via a United Nations declaration rather than face the hard work of negotiations. Hamas terrorists have again been lobbing deadly rockets into southern Israel sending thousands into bomb shelters for coverage. And with popular revolt continuing in a number of Arab countries, Israel’s future relations with those countries remain deeply uncertain. Is this a time for the ambassador to break pita with the Arabs?

I think the answer is that there is probably no better time to break pita with the Arabs, as the Israelis, embodying the best of Jewish values, remain committed to shalom, to the peaceful, negotiated resolution of this conflict. I can’t imagine the ambassador easily deciding to host an Iftar celebration. But as is the case with Michael Oren, he never takes the easy way out. What is easy right now is to become cynical and jaded about the prospects of peace. A great leader will resist that poisonous temptation and opt, instead, for its polar opposite—hope, optimism, and faith in a God who will help us reach our goals. Iftar comes from an Arabic term meaning conclusion, similar to our word for the end of the Torah reading or maftir. Let’s pray that Ambassador Oren’s Iftar will not only bring an end to the fasting, but an end to the violence and an end to the hatred, after which we can all celebrate at a meal of dates, milk and honey.

Hanukkah and the Miracles of Every Day

2010-12-03T12:05:00.002-05:00

It’s Hanukkah—holiday of light, candles, dreidels, latkes, sufganiyot, presents, and above all—miracles. When moderns hear a story like the one told about the Maccabees recapturing the Temple, finding one tiny bottle of kosher olive oil that would last only a single day, yet burned eight full days, some of us must be wondering—did that really happen, and should our skepticism overtake us, would that be the death of Hanukkah as we know it?

The Bible records what we would refer to as miracles, but never refers to them with the word nes, the Hebrew word we commonly use for miracle. The Torah is much more comfortable talking about otot, signs, or nifla’ot, wonders. Almost all the wonders of the Bible have been analyzed from a scientific perspective. And so the splitting of the Red Sea was due to a possible if unusual tidal phenomenon; the earth swallowing of the rebel leader Korah and his band of trouble makers might have been an earthquake; and the manna that daily fell from heaven and fed the Israelites for 40 years can be traced to a certain kind of edible secretion of insects found in the Sinai desert and gathered by the Bedouins until this day.

Interesting—but also, a little disheartening. When reading the Bible scientifically is motivated by an interest in explaining away miracles, or rendering the wonder less wonderful, then such an approach misrepresents the Torah’s meaning. The miraculous tales of the Bible do not necessarily ask us to believe in them literally, but only to recognize the hand of God operating within the world, and to be filled with a sense of wonder over what it is we see.

The rabbis’ ambivalence with supernatural miracles is reflected in a Talmudic tale (Shabbat 53b for those of you who would like to look it up), in which a nursing mother dies leaving behind her destitute husband and baby. The man was in no position to pay for a wet nurse to continue feeding his child, but Heaven suddenly altered his body so that he himself could feed his child in the exact manner as the deceased mother had. A miracle! Two rabbis respond to the miracle. Rav Yosef says—Wow, what a great man he was for Heaven to have performed such a miracle! Abaye responds by saying—On the contrary, this man must have been defective for Heaven to have altered nature in his behalf. In other words, don’t be so impressed with the supernatural; there are sufficient wonders within the natural world that should move us to be filled with awe and reverence for God.

G. K Chesterton, a prolific 20th century English writer put it as follows—“The whole order of things is as outrageous as any miracle which could presume to violate it.” So, in the end, what to make of that little bottle of oil that burned for eight days? If it happened, it was a miracle. But the real miracle is that the Jewish people, after 2000 years, still tell the tale and move others to look for the miracles in life. I hope you’ll find some otot, signs and nifla’ot, wonders, in your own life today, and every day.

SAY THANK YOU--IT'S GOOD FOR YOU

2010-11-24T13:47:00.000-05:00

It’s official—gratitude is good for you. Don’t take my word for it, though, just check out the November 23, 2010 issue of the Wall Street Journal which featured an article entitled, “Thank You—No Thank You: Grateful People Are Happier, Healthier Long After the Leftovers Are Gobbled Up.” The article cited evidence by researchers who have determined that people who are grateful make more money, less prone to alcoholism, far more resistant to viral infection, exercise more and sleep better. OK—I’m sold, but as the infomercials would put it—Wait, there’s more.

Kids who are grateful also fare better. These kids suffer from fewer headaches or stomach aches, earn better grades, set goals higher than others, express greater satisfaction with family and friends, and my favorite—are less materialistic. Our mothers taught us to say “Thank you,” but who knew it was such great medicine?!

My answer is that Jews knew and we’ve known it for a long time. Although people tend to identify prayer with petition, a lot of prayer revolves around thanking God for what we have—and those prayers take place at least three times a day. The fundamental characteristic of the religious personality is gratitude. Religious people sense this gratitude and attribute the blessings in their lives to a power greater than they.

I had my high schoolers engage in an interesting exercise recently. I asked them what they were grateful for and I recorded their answers. I then told them that I would not stop recording until they could cite 100 things, people, circumstances for which they could be grateful. They did it—and I loved to watch them smile and laugh as they threw me their answers. Just thinking about all the blessings in our lives makes us more content.

This probably sounds like a Thanksgiving piece and to some extent it is. But it is also a Hanukkah meditation. Hanukkah, celebrating a military victory of the Jews over the Syrian Greeks, could have as easily been a holiday to focus on the people who lost their lives in that war. But we know that it is a celebration of the miracle of that time, and by extension, the miracles in our own lives. And who set the record straight on Hanukkah more than any other rabbi or sage? It was Eleanor Roosevelt. Mrs. Roosevelt said, “I’d rather light a candle than curse the darkness.” At this rather dark time of year—typically the darkest of any time during the year—what do we do as Jews? We light candles. What a powerful lesson and we have our tradition to thank for making us people who would rather focus on the light than the darkness.

If you will truly have a happy Thanksgiving or a happy Hanukkah, it will probably be because you live with a sense of gratitude in your heart. And to that I’ll say: Todah LaEl—thank God.

BLESS, MY SOUL

2010-11-05T12:48:00.000-04:00

I like blessings. I like to give them and I like to get them. Who wouldn’t welcome a blessing now and then? There is a tradition to bless our children every Shabbat, a practice that my wife and I have followed since the birth of our three great kids. We don’t really hear of our ancestors blessing their children on such a regular basis, but this week, we do witness Isaac blessing his children, and of his timing for such a blessing, we might as well say—Finally!!

You see, when our father Isaac chooses to bless Esav, his first born, he does so at an advanced age and when his eye sight was already impaired. He tells Esav, lo yadati yom moti, I do not know the day of my death. Isaac—did you have to wait so long to bless your eldest? Ovadia Sforno, an Italian commentator of the 15th century, notes that a blessing that is delivered just before death is a blessing of superior quality. He reminds us that Jacob blessed his children just before death and Moses blessed the Children of Israel just before his death. Both choose propitious times to deliver a blessing, and Isaac seems to do the same. But why would a blessing before death be any better than a blessing recited with sincerity at any other time? Sforno teaches us that as one approaches death, the soul and the body begin to separate as the soul prepares for departure. And so a blessing that comes from the soul at the point of death is, in a sense, a blessing of deep spiritual quality, for it is already distanced from the constraints of the physical shell that contains it. It is no wonder that Isaac says to Esav, tevarekhekha nafshi b’terem amut, let my soul bless you before I die.

We don’t need to wait until the point of death before we bless our children. A blessing that comes from the heart is precious beyond gold no matter how often it is recited. But you know, there are souls that are in shape and there are souls in need of exercise. And a soul that has been given proper attention, via prayer and Torah study, will invariably be a soul more prepared to deliver a blessing of enduring worth. We need not wait until the time of death to have souls that are prepared to fully bless others. So let’s think about this… Are our souls in shape? Do we need to exercise them more? Are we delivering those blessings to our loved ones as regularly as we should?

I hope the answers to those questions are yes, and if not, I hope you will be able to answer yes to these questions, real soon.

OPEN YOUR EYES, BUT NOT YOUR MOUTH

2010-10-21T22:09:00.003-04:00

This past Thursday, Juan Williams, a news analyst with National Public Radio, was fired from his job after statements made on the Fox News Channel. Among the offending views expressed was the following:

“… when I get on a plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."

NPR has long been concerned with Williams many appearances on Fox News, a station whose right-wing leanings are at odds with NPR’s more liberal stances. NPR actually requested Fox News to stop identifying Williams as an NPR host when he appears on the network. Williams apparently crossed the line this week in revealing his own fears or anxieties and suggesting that the war against terrorism is not readily distinct from opposition to Islamic doctrines that run counter to the western ideology that characterizes democratic and free nations.

In parashat Vayera, there are at least three incidents where that which is seen is either not identified for what it is or in some way completely invisible. Three strangers show up at Abraham’s tent, and neither he nor Sarah understood that these were messengers from God. Hagar, spent and despairing in the wilderness, lays her child down to die for lack of water, failing to see the well that is only feet away from her. Finally Abraham stops short of sacrificing his son to God, coincidentally discovering a far better alternative, a ram caught in a thicket just behind him. In all three cases, not seeing the reality for what it is, brings the viewer to error. Sarah ends up not taking the messengers seriously, Hagar is on the verge of giving up her’s and her child’s life, and Abraham almost sacrificed his beloved son to God.

Seeing the truth is only the first part of arriving at the truth. After we see the truth, we have to be able to verbalize it. All attempts to dictate how we speak about what we see are violations of free speech. A communication distorted is the first step on a road to error.

Before God brought destruction upon the two wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, He says, “…shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, since Abraham is to become a great and populous nation and the nations of the earth are to bless themselves by him?” (Genesis 18:18). God probably knew what would happen if He mentioned his intentions to Abraham. Abraham would challenge the wisdom and the justice of it all, and that is exactly what happened. But it was in sharing the plan with Abraham, and the subsequent debate, that the righteousness of the plan became ever more transparent. Honest perceptions will not always be pleasant perceptions, but in speaking them aloud we at least give others the chance to challenge us and thereby refine our views. We should be suspicious of all those who try to shut us up. It was actually a good week for free speech, but not such a good week for NPR.

A MAJOR MIRACLE FOR 33 MINERS

2010-10-15T10:41:00.000-04:00

I don’t think any of us could help but feel emotionally moved by the rescue mission that took place in Chile this week. The drawing up of 33 Chilean miners, trapped a half mile below the earth for 69 days, was an exhilarating, moving, and deeply emotional experience for all involved.

One need not be a half mile below the earth to feel trapped or gripped by despair. In the case of the Chilean miners, their families were equally trapped above the earth, cut off from the ability to save their loved ones. Both the men below the earth and the families above have had to exercise tremendous faith, day by day, to continue to believe that they would be reunited at some point. They had to have faith in the people designing the rescue and supplies shafts, the workers who constructed the implements for salvation, the company that financed the operation, the government, foreign industries that assissted, neighbors and friends and family who continued to support them throughout the ordeal, and I would imagine that many found their strength in God.

The difference between having faith in all these various people and having faith in God, is that the people had specific roles to play. God did not. We can’t call Him the general contractor or the overseer. God is the One who helps us through ordeals, but that could mean the ordeal of successfully rescuing the 33 miners, which in the end it was, or it could have been the ordeal of losing them, which thankfully it wasn’t. An interesting headline in the Wall Street Journal read that the rescue effort was 75% science and 25% miracle. I disagree. I think that the rescue effort was 100% science and I believe that is was also 100% miracle. There is something profoundly riveting of people around the world joining together to help and assist one another, and in this contentious and competitive world in which we reside, this may be one of the clearest concretizations of miracle that we ever are witness to on earth.

The details of salvation are more often than not in the hands of you and me and others or other factors over which we exercise little control. But God, as the power who assures us that we can stand up to whatever challenge comes our way, is with us in multiple circumstances, joyous and sorrowful, to help us endure, grow and ultimately thrive.

It has always been of great interest to me that in our parashah, God instructs Abraham to Lekh Lekha, to go forth from his native land and from his father’s house to a land unnamed and unknown. God does not say that He would bring Abram to Canaan—He is actually silent on where the land would be. Couldn’t God have been more specific? Well, maybe not. You see, the devil is in the details, but God is in the generalities. The challenge is always to invest those details with a heavenly direction, a godly purpose, and a divine passion. And when we all work together, human beings make miracles. We did this past week, in Chile.

THE BALD AND THE BEAUTIFUL or BURNING TEMPLES AND BATHING BEAUTIES

2010-07-16T00:24:00.001-04:00

There are some reservations these days about whether we should be observing Tishah B’av or not. Israel is reborn and Jerusalem is more beautiful than ever—what’s with all this mourning?

In fact, there are many good reasons to continue these mourning traditions, including a day to reflect on how the errors of the Jewish people brought about this destruction. But among those good reasons is one which is rarely mentioned and that is a day to celebrate the resilience of the Jewish people. Our temple was destroyed, the city in which God presumably resided was left a smoldering ruin, and many of us were exiled or taken captive to another land. This should have been the end of us, but for some reason, it wasn’t. We redefined Jewish worship, made our spiritual lives independent of a single city, latched onto Torah study with a vengeance, and emerged 20 centuries later a sovereign nation once again. That’s pretty cool. And there is a message in there for all people.

One of those people may not be anyone who ever studied about Judaism, but one who carries the spirit of Judaism in her heart. Her name is Kayla Martell. She was recently crowned Miss Delaware. Kayla is unique because she is bald. She suffers from a rare disease known as alopecia areata, an autoimmune hair loss condition for which there is no known cure. She is healthy in all other respects, but given her hair condition, entering a beauty contest would not be the first thing on most women’s minds. Not Kayla. She has entered many beauty contests. She wore a wig for the Miss Delaware pageant, but is as comfortable without the wig. She is also the founder of Caps for YAPS (YAPS standing for Youth Alopecia Patients), an organization which has now collected more than 2,000 caps and scarves for young patients afflicted with this disease.

In discovering more about Kayla, I began to wonder what is it in the human spirit that allows us to face loss and failure, and in spite of it all, persevere and thrive. She could so easily have crawled into a corner and hide, yet she competes for the crown to rest on that bald head of hers. And what is it with the Jewish people—homeless for two thousand years, exiled from one place to another, blamed and persecuted for a crime they never committed, yet stronger and more self-confident than ever before?

I’ll tell you the secret behind Kayla and the Jewish people—it is the power and energy of God. And so each morning, we thank God for oter Yisra’el betifarah, crowning Israel with beauty. The Jewish people are beauty queens, our beauty, as is Kayla’s, is in an indomitable spirit that will forever strive for life in spite of all the challenges we face.

SINAT HIMAM AND TALKING POLITICS

2010-07-15T22:37:00.008-04:00

Right now, the Jewish people are in a certain time of year known as bein hametzarim, “Between the Straits” or “in the narrows.” It is a three week period that began with the minor fast of Shivah Asar b’Tammuz, commemorating the breaching of the walls of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 BCE, and ends with the major fast of Tishah B’av, commemorating the destruction of the two Temples, the first by the Babylonians and the second, later by the Romans. The Gemara in Yoma 9b states that the Temple was destroyed because of sinat hinam, senseless hatred. I often think of that phrase as redundant because so much hatred is senseless. Hatred moves us to say and do stupid things. And when an entire population crescendos in the number of stupid statements uttered or acts committed, some revered structure, a Temple is bound to be burnt to the ground.

Sinat hinam is never more prevalent than when people talk politics. It is as if politics were a license for one or more parties to become uncivil, if not downright brutal. The shame is that argument is healthy and essential to a democracy, but when people are either intimidated to speak freely or humiliated for having spoken, debate fails to do what it is intended to do—clarify our thinking on issues that matter to us most. So, in the interest of identifying sinat hinam among us and thereby rooting it out of our own political exchanges, I offer the following three tips—

1. Remain calm and relatively objective. The idea in debate is to create light, not heat. Shouting, name calling, or profanities, prevents the issue at hand from being fully examined. Engaging in such crude tactics will dash the opportunity to further understand the point being debated. This leads to the second issue which is…

2. Address the issue without attacking your debating partner. You need not tell the other person that his or her views are personally offensive or hurtful, because your debating partner is not what is being discussed. Moreover, you should never humiliate your debating partner by questioning his or her intelligence, or knowledge, or sincerity. These attacks are all irrelevant to the matter at hand. So stick to the issue. And finally…

3. Remember that your fellow debater is not the enemy to be vanquished but a person whose view point you ought to, in the very least acknowledge. Be civil, polite, and respectful. Avoid sarcasm. Thank God you’ve got someone who will talk to you about so potentially divisive a topic as politics. But should you choose to point your verbal gun at your debating partner, you will bring the debate to a close summarily. Debate isn’t about killing each other; it’s about gaining clarity of thought. That requires civility throughout.

We should not fear political discussions. I wish we had them more often. Sadly, there are so many people who just don’t get it. Sinat hinam is of no use in any community unless, of course, you intend to destroy that community.

EATING BLOOD AND LOVING IT

2010-04-23T12:46:00.000-04:00

Many years ago, in the era prior to cell phones, microwave ovens and color TV, I used to help my mother kasher meat. If that sounds odd to you because, you might reason, isn’t meat just kosher once you buy it, the answer is it is, but that’s because today it has already been soaked and salted. Not so in the 1950’s. Back then, you would wash off the meat, submerge it in tepid water for half-an-hour, remove it and cover it generously with kosher salt, both sides, replace the meat on a perforated board, propped up at about a 20 degree angle, and let it sit there for one hour.

The whole purpose of these actions was to drain it of all blood, for as we learn in the Torah—

Lo tokhlu al hadam…Don’t eat anything with its blood… (Leviticus 19:26a)

The blood is regarded as the life of the animal and we dare not consume the flesh with the life intact.

The respect that Judaism nurtures for life is famous. These seemingly simple rituals point to bigger ideas that make a difference in how we live. In respecting life as we do, Jews should never turn their heads away from another person’s pain, or take animal life viciously, or treat subjects like abortion or euthanasia lightly, and so forth. And actually, the whole issue of rumors and whether we become accessories to their distribution also falls into the category of not eating blood. Rumors which kill others emotionally and spiritually, and could kill others even physically, should never be spread by anyone, especially Jews.

So here’s something to think about. The next time you receive an e-mail about someone who has been mistreated or hurt, a university that has made some outrageous decision, a country that has become particularly abusive, take a look at that e-mail and ask yourself a few questions:

Do you know who wrote this?

Do you know if it was ever distributed in a reputable publication?

Is it dated?
Are its claims substantiated by references to established research volumes?

If your answers are “No” to any one of the above questions, chances are someone has just sent you a slanderous, defamatory, piece of gossip, based on nothing except the author’s prejudices. Material like this is designed to spill blood, an individual’s or an institution’s. It makes no difference—the intent is murderous and the author wants you to eat the blood.

Don’t do it. Take the article, submerge it in your trash file, and don’t send it on to anyone else. Unless you can yourself verify the truth of that article, in distributing it, you become an accomplice to an immoral act and violate the Torah’s prohibition against eating blood.

CAN A JEW BE CRITICAL OF ISRAEL?

2010-04-16T00:27:00.000-04:00

I was recently charged with never uttering a critical word about Israel. That made me chuckle because as far as I am concerned, I’m always critical of Israel. And that’s good because being critical is about reflection, assessment, objectives, success and failure and all the criteria that would make for a fair and honest evaluation. Above all, criticism underscores one of the ideological foundations of Israel—the fact that it is a free society and that people can say pretty much whatever they want to with impunity.

I think the problem is really most people haven’t the foggiest idea of what true criticism actually is. They think criticism and immediately think complaint, disapproval, or accusation when, in fact, true criticism involves that and that which is praiseworthy, commendable, or laudable. Sometimes critics see plays that they actually like. When they shower compliments on some production, it’s not because they have temporarily abandoned their professional duty—approval is actually a part of criticism. In fact, you can almost be sure when the critical perspective has been abandoned in listening to a perspective or review which contains nothing but complaint, disapproval or accusation. That’s not real criticism unless, of course, you’re reviewing hell.

Most of what passes as criticism of Israel these days is thinly veiled anti-Semitism. That statement itself would raise the ire of many claiming that anytime criticism is voiced, the critic runs the risk of being called anti-Semitic. But the fact is that when criticism emanates from a worldview which sees Israel as a European colonial power, an intrusion into the Middle East, an apartheid state, deserving of annihilation, that’s not criticism. You better love the object of your critical eye. If you don’t, your words will not be criticism but they will be hostile and hateful.

Israel is a beautiful country with a host of imperfections and shortcomings. The Orthodox are given way too much money in return for so many refusing to serve in the army; minority parties are given way too much power due to Israel’s peculiar democratic structure; and in this land of milk and honey, there are still way too many children who go to bad each night without so much as a glass of milk. Forget about the honey. And yet, at 62 years of age, surrounded by a persistent and invidious Arab belligerence, Israel has achieved technological, pharmaceutical, and medical breakthroughs that few other countries can lay claim to. It’s an amazing and magical little country. To walk its streets and alleys is to feel the energy of thinking and vibrant people, as well as a loving and compassionate God.

I’m critical of Israel. But being critical is not, by definition, being negative. Sometimes you can actually like what you see. I see Israel and I love her. If you ever go to Israel, you’ll fall in love with her too. Be a critic.

THE KOSHER CONTINUUM

2010-04-09T10:58:00.001-04:00

Many of us grew up an old Yiddish adage which went something like this—Shver tzu zain a Yid—it’s hard to be a Jew. Why is it so hard? Well, there are a lot of dos and don’ts, and on top of that, the general public—what shall I say?—hasn’t always liked us. But this viewpoint should not go unchallenged. So here goes: for those of us who live in North America today, living Jewishly has never been easier.

Take kashrut, for example. Let’s say a Jew’s diet fundamentally involves two broad parameters—no shell fish or pork and no mixtures of meat and dairy. In either case, observing these parameters cost neither time nor money. Some might say that it is a hardship to give up foods or combinations which they find so appealing, but let’s be real—if giving up a ham sandwich is your definition of hardship, then you should be thanking God for the hardships you have to endure in your life.

All right, you counter, maybe those aspects of Kashrut are easy, but that’s not all what kashrut is about. And yes, I would agree, but here’s the point. At some time in the evolution of Jewish thought, keeping kosher became like being pregnant—you either were or you weren’t. Let’s reject that either/or, all or nothing, black or white thinking. Perhaps you are a Jew who never touches pork. That’s great—you’re on the kosher continuum. Perhaps you are a Jew who would never mix meat and dairy—that’s great. You’re on the kosher continuum. Perhaps you are a Jew who never buys unkosher meats but you only have one set of dishes—that’s great. You’re on the kosher continuum. I reject the idea that in order to be kosher, one must do it all. I reject it precisely because there is no agreement in the Jewish community as to what “all” actually is. On the other hand, we do know what nothing looks like, and nothing is where I would hope no Jew would choose to be. Get onto the kosher continuum and then let’s talk about doing more.

Judaism, for too long, has been dominated by dogmatic thinking that has diminished Jews who are trying. Let’s free ourselves of that mode of thought and honor those who both try and strive for more. Kashrut is a beautiful system whereby God asks us to be mindful of what goes into our mouths, and by extension, how we view our place on earth. We are guests in God’s house and thus not all his creations are ours for the taking. We may take the life of one of God’s creatures but not in a painful or careless manner. Meat and dairy are, on some level, symbolic of death and life respectively, so we maintain a strict separation of these realms for a holy people must live fully and not permit death to overwhelm us. If you’re on the Kosher continuum, that’s great. But don’t get stuck doing the same thing year after year. Where nothing changes is the domain of death. Do more. Think more. Move deeper into the Kosher continuum. It’s easy to be a Jew because it’s all about you living fully, and living fully is what Kashrut moves us to embrace.

GOVERNMENT, MORE OR LESS

2010-04-08T17:04:00.000-04:00

With the notable exception of the ultra-Orthodox, most Jews in the United States are Democrats. Some claim, particularly in the Reform movement, that it is our heritage that has determined our voting pattern. The prophetic cry to treat the widow, orphan, and stranger with greater compassion seems to fit well into a Democratic platform that expands the role of government to care for the vulnerable. How can anyone argue against this? It seems so fundamentally right.

In examining some of the deeper political rifts in America, the Jewish community needs to remember that our nation’s history began not in the late 1800’s, when the Jewish migration to America picked up steam, but a couple of centuries earlier, with the pilgrims who left an English political structure they despised. These early settlers were bound by the idea that government should be an object of suspicion and distrust. When the founding fathers established three branches of government designed to ”balance” each other, they created a government that would never advance quickly or efficiently. To the contrary, it was crafted to hamper the vision of any one branch, particularly the Executive, and in that way keep people free from the tyranny of the one (i.e., the president). People may be disappointed with President Obama’s inability to deliver on his campaign promises, but that fact alone points to a government working precisely as the founding fathers envisioned it.

Were there a debate between Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel on one side, and Franklin, Adams, and Jefferson on the other, the outcome could be disturbing for American Jews. Whereas the prophets would demand of a government that it finally correct all the ills society is subject to, the founding fathers would be wondering what planet they had come from? Didn’t they understand that no government, since the beginning of time, has been able to accomplish that? Didn’t they understand that government rarely served to free the people, but rather strapped them with unreasonable taxation and in other ways curtailed their personal, God-given freedoms? In defense of the prophets, they could not possibly have known that. They were not operating with the hindsight of the founding fathers who deliberated over the effects of 2,000 years of monarchial rule and determined it hopelessly corrupt. They thus lead the country to a new political paradigm, one in which government was legitimized only by consent of the governed. The governed would naturally limit governmental powers, thus minimizing the extent to which it could impact on or interfere with their lives. Alexander Hamilton, the country’s founding economist, actually argued against a federal income tax, citing that it would be a burden to the people.

The debate about health care in this country is not so much about making health care accessible and affordable—everyone agrees, in principle, to that. Rather the debate has to do with the more fundamental question of the role of government, especially the extent of that role in people’s personal lives. Republicans, on balance, favor smaller government for the reasons stated above. And so, the Jewish community, having framed health care as a personal right rather than a choice, and in keeping with Democratic practice, sees a deepening governmental presence in health care as innocuous. Like the prophets, we see government as a solution and work toward that perfect government. Not everyone is as sanguine as we about perfecting governmental bureaucracy.

There is something disingenuous about using the prophets as the biblical basis for the Jewish people’s natural connection with the Democratic party. The prophets, for all their wisdom, neither knew nor understood what Democracy was all about. Who knows how they would vote today? On the other hand, our founding fathers might have thoroughly enjoyed a conversation with the prophet Samuel, who was first approached by the people to create a monarchy in Israel. Samuel was distressed with this development and saw it as a rebellion against God. In the end, he reluctantly consented, presumably because God Himself tells Samuel to concede. And Samuel does, but not without a prediction of what that king would do to Israel:

This will be the practice of the king who will rule over you: He will take your sons and appoint them as his charioteers and horsemen, and they will serve as out runners for his chariots. He will appoint them as his chiefs of thousands and of fifties; or they will have to plow his fields, reap his harvest, and make his weapons and the equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters as perfumers, cooks, and bakers… He will take a tenth part of your flocks, and you shall become his slaves. (I Samuel 8:11-13; 17)

Ouch.

But fair is fair: we also don’t know how Samuel would vote today, knowing that we trashed the monarchial system he so hated. In the end, the political debates in this country are fascinating, and when conducted respectfully, are enormously enlightening. But we would do well to keep in mind what is really being debated. It is often said that America is behind Europe in so many ways. Perhaps, but America remains one of the most robust experiments in personal freedom and human rights. We should not be dismissive of the nature of our debates over government which go to the very heart of what it means to be a free and responsible member of society.

CIVIL DISAGREEMENT

2010-04-02T08:24:00.001-04:00

Listen, I don’t want to chastise any one for poor behavior but lately there have been a series of signs pointing to a breakdown in civilized discourse in our world. There was, for example, Representative Joe Wilson, a Republican of South Carolina, who disrupted President Obama’s address to congress by shouting “You lie.” In another instance of political rage, Representative Bart Stupak, a Democrat of Michigan, was interrupted in a speech on health care reform when a voice from the Republican side shouted “Baby Killer.” It was unclear whether the intent of the charge was that the bill, which endorsed government subsidized abortion, was a baby killer or Stupak himself, in supporting the bill, was a baby killer, but it made no difference—the shouted charge was deeply jarring and upsetting. And finally, to prove that uncivilized behavior is not the domain of any one political party, Representative Eric Cantor, Republican of Virginia, had a bullet shatter the window of a regional office, and has been the object of such virulent anti-semitic attacks, he is loathe to even reveal their specific content for feat of copycat racists spreading the hate even more than it already is.

I’m preaching to the choir when I say that such verbal abuses and acts of violence are totally out of bounds in a democracy, and I suspect that the good majority of us are as outraged as any decent citizen would be in learning of these offenses. But perhaps the time has come to examine ourselves--Have we contributed, even if only inadvertently, to a climate of intolerance and enmity in the country?

One of the sadder facts of political discourse these days is the extent to which honest and vigorous debate is curtailed by people whose political positions are overshadowed by their passion. Debate should never be about who can shout the loudest, who can humiliate most effectively, or whose sarcasm is sharpest. These are all ways we focus on anything but the issue at hand. It is people who lack an understanding of a problem who will most likely resort to destroying their opponent rather than debating the issue. Who wants to debate under those conditions? And when true debate is suppressed, we all lose, for it is within the give and take of political argument that we can actually better understand our differences and thus the issues at stake.

I don’t personally know anyone who has ever insulted the president of the United States or put a bullet through a congressman’s window, but I know plenty of people who become so enraged in a political debate that their manner moves others to bring discussion to a close. That’s a problem. A democracy that can’t discuss an issue civilly is an impoverished democracy and cannot thrive for any length of time.

Most of the Talmud is a weaving of mahlokot—debates. Sometimes those debates got sharp, but mostly they were witty and clever and conducted in an atmosphere leshem shamayim, that is, for the sake of heaven or to clarify what exactly heaven wants of us. I’ll tell you this—heaven doesn’t expect us to agree with each other, but heaven expects that when we disagree, we disagree respectfully and civilly. Let’s talk about this more to our family, friends and neighbors and let everyone know that our threshold for tolerating uncivil behavior has just dropped significantly.

GOOD CHOICE JUDAISM—A LIBERATION MOVEMENT

2010-03-26T10:30:00.000-04:00

The most interesting question to cross my desk this week was from a college student who wanted to know if wraps were kosher for Pesah. After all, they are flat and on Pesah flat is good. So, rabbi, the question went—are wraps kosher for Pesah?

Matt (fictional name) is a serious Jew. By “serious Jew” I mean that this is a kid who really thinks about his Jewish identity. By all conventional definitions, he is unobservant for he neither keeps kosher nor observes Shabbat in the traditional manner. But conventional definitions overlook the nuances of his Jewish identity. He could eat pork, but he chooses not to. He could ignore Shabbat, but on those occasions when he is called to a minyan, he participates. There are all sorts of expressions that dogmatic traditionalists use to disparage a Judaism like Matt’s—wishy-washy, compromised, pick and choose, and the worst of all—typical Conservative Jew. In answer to these attacks, I would note that had Matt been a slave in Egypt, he would have been redeemed with the rest of us. God may just have a different view of what kind of Jew Matt really is.

So Matt, I know that you live on wraps, and they are flat, and your reasoning that they may just be fit for Pesah for that reason alone is very appealing, but sorry—they are pure hametz. I would give them up for the duration of Pesah. But stuck as you are in HU (that stands for Hametz University), let’s think of ways you can observe Pesah when navigating the campus cafeteria. Fruits are okay. Vegetables are okay. Meat, poultry, eggs and fish are all okay. I’d give up the bagels, pizza, English muffins, donuts, cake or cookies (do we really need all those cookies?), and I’d give up the waffles and pancakes too. As for rice, beans and corn, they are kitniyot—a special designation of food from which Ashkenzaim refrain and Sefardim do not—and I rule leniently on that so I wouldn’t worry about those food items. But just make sure Mom sends you a couple boxes of matzah if you can’t find any at the local super market

Anyway, that’s what I told Matt. I wouldn’t have told that to everyone because everyone is different. But this is exactly where Matt needed to be for Pesah. The dogmatics might be outraged with the liberal nature of this rabbinic advice. In their world, you either are or you aren’t, either you’re kosher or not, observant of Shabbat or not. The world is divided into either/or. But either/or Judaism is an artifice of people drawn to strict definitions. These definitions divide us; you’re either in the group or not. This approach is highly divisive and dismissive of the majority of Jews, which is reason enough to question its legitimacy. I no longer permit dogmatics to define who we are as Jews. At the time of our Exodus from Egypt, I invite you to join me in this liberation movement.

Hag Kasher ve’Same’ah—a very happy and Kosher Pesah. I trust you’ll make the best Jewish choices for yourself and your family.

A TORAH FALLS: REFLECTIONS AND RESPONSES

2010-03-17T12:18:00.001-04:00

This past Shabbat at Midway, like so many we observe, was very wonderful. We welcomed an auditioning rabbi who shared Torah with us, we joyfully concluded the Book of Exodus, we blessed the upcoming month of Nisan, we offered blessings to a hattan (groom) and kallah (bride), and we ate the best cholent to be found on Long Island. Our spirited services were momentarily interrupted with a loud thud, at which point we became painfully aware that one of the Sifrei Torah had fallen from its resting position onto the floor. No one holding it had slipped and no one dropped it. Perhaps the chair on which it rested was inadvertently jostled, but whatever the circumstances—the fact is we were all caught unawares as the Torah toppled to the floor.

The Torah is not only a symbol of all that we hold dear, but is itself a compilation of so much we hold dear. We thus treat it with great kavod (honor). We rise before it as the Ark is opened, we kiss it as it passes by us in procession, we are honored to be called to it, and when it is worn beyond repair, we lay it to rest beneath the earth as we would a loved one who passes away. When a Torah falls, it is both jarring and upsetting, and so we as a community must reflect on the meaning of this mishap and respond to it.

THE REFLECTIONS

Was it a Bad Omen?

No, it was merely an accident. Conservative Jews are not superstitious. Actually, since we so often elevate happiness over sadness, and this past Shabbat was a very happy one, we might even say that the Torah fell on a day when the power of the semahot (the happy occasions) prevailed over this one startling event. We are not the first synagogue to experience such a mishap and we won’t be the last. Sometimes these things happen which is precisely why there is a literature (thin though it may be) on what to do when it does happen.

Did we Sin?

Sin is a pretty powerful word. The Hebrew word for sin, “het,” means missing the mark, and to the extent that we missed the mark that day, perhaps we did sin. It was not a sin that falls on any one person, but a general sin that falls on a community that must now pledge to take better care of their Sifrei Torah. That is a problem we need to address.

Perspective

The Torah is very dear to us, but we must carefully distinguish between Torah (learning, study, knowledge and wisdom) and the Sefer Torah (the scroll). The Sefer Torah fell, not our love of Torah, and we dare not turn the Sefer Torah into an object of worship. You might recall that in response to a venomous snake attack, Moshe Rabbeinu fashioned a copper snake, mounted it on a pole and presented it to the bitten Israelites whereupon they recovered. Understandably, the copper snake was revered long after Moshe’s death until King Hezekiah (king of Judah, 7th century BCE) destroyed it for “the Israelites had been offering sacrifices to it” (II Kings 18:4). Our sadness with a fallen Torah is understandable, but it is still only an object. When we make of it more than what it is, we abandon the Torah which forbids such object worship, and that sin is far worse.

Must we Fast for 40 Days?

There is a minhag (custom) that anyone who drops a Torah, or witnesses the Torah dropped, fasts for 40 days (sunrise to sunset only). The minhag suggests that we fast one day for each day it took Moshe to compose the Torah. I like the seriousness with which the minhag takes the mishap, but it seems to fall short of what such a mishap demands. If a dropped Torah in some way symbolizes our need to hold Torah with a stronger grip, then I wish to suggest a response that encompasses fasting, Torah study, Tzedakah and Tefilah (prayer).

THE RESPONSES

We Need Forty Fasters

I am declaring 7 Nisan, 5770, corresponding to Monday, March 22, 2010, a fast day for our congregation. The fast is from sunrise (7:16 AM) to sunset (7:39 PM). I am looking for at least 40 fasters to fast on that day. A full fast would mean giving up food and drink. A partial fast would be giving up food, but not drink. A symbolic fast would be giving up some food product (like all sweets or bread, etc.) for the duration of the day. Any way you choose to fast is kosher. You may participate in this fast even if you did not see the Torah fall and even if you were not present that day. We are all one community and thus may all participate in this communal act of devotion to Torah.

Ma’asim Tovim—Good Deeds

During the fast day, I would like you to contact someone you know in the community who could use a kind word, or some encouragement, or a listening ear. You might give that person (or people) a gift, but I would suggest that the greater challenge would be to give the gift of yourself—your interest, your concnern and your kindness. On the fast day, let’s make sure that we bring a smile to someone’s face or a sense of contentment to someone in need. Some of the most powerful mitzvot are unsolicited acts of love and kindness.

Tzedakah

A typically Jewish response to tragedy or sadness is to fill the world with a dose of goodness or happiness equal to or larger than the sorrow experienced. This is a time for Tzedakah. I would like to channel money into two important funds. The first is our Torah Education Fund which is the fund used to subsidize Torah learning projects for the benefit of our community. The second is Hatzilu, our marvelous local kosher food suppliers for the elderly and indigent of Long Island, Queens and Brooklyn. Their supplies have diminished at a time when the demands for their services have increased dramatically. Please make your checks payable to Midway Jewish Center and earmark them with the fund of your choice; we’ll do the rest.

Tefillah, Talmud Torah, Hagbahah, Kissing the Torah & Break Fast

On Monday, March 22, 2010, at 7:00 PM, we will hold a special Minhah or Afternoon service, at which time we will daven Minhah, study Torah, open the Ark in a special ceremony to remove and carry the Torah around the sanctuary so that everyone can give it a kiss. We kiss a sacred book when it falls to the ground and a kiss is a very nice way to make up after a hurtful episode. We will conclude our Tefillah and Torah study with a break fast.

Sefer Torah—We Won’t leave You Unattended Again

Finally, a new policy. Even though we have propped up the Sefer Torah on a chair without incident for years, we will from now on honor one of our good members with an opportunity to sit next to the Torah so that we never leave it unattended again.

In Conclusion

There is a record in the Talmud about a tragedy that befell the students of Rabbi Akiba. Twelve thousand pairs of his disciples, that is 24,000 students in all, died at one time. The cause of death was “they did not treat each other with respect” (Yevamot 62b). The kavod (respect) we show to the Torah is important, but the kavod we show to one another is even more important. Our day of fasting will be a day in which we rededicate ourselves to Torah and the Kadosh Barukh Hu by rededicating ourselves to each other and to our community.

2010-02-18T21:29:00.002-05:00

BUILDING A MISHKAN IN MASSAPEQUA

I’m a big believer in unprovoked, senseless and gratuitous acts of kindness. Do you ever think about what kind thing you did today—throw a stranger a smile, open a door for a co-worker, listen to a colleague’s worries, or volunteer at a local hospital, food pantry or shelter? This probably sounds hopelessly trite but it is these very acts of kindness that make life worthwhile and inspire others.

Let me say something about the younger generation. They get dumped on a lot for not showing up at church or synagogue and perhaps not engaging in formal rituals the way their parents did, but I don’t think they are any less religious than we were at their age. I think they are searching for new ways to experience God. Their sense of religiosity is almost synonymous with the very acts of kindness this world lacks. The younger people get it and maybe their love for ma’asim tovim, good deeds, should in fact be the success stories that generations of Jewish leadership have been looking for. The kids have really absorbed what we have always taught them is most important: making this world a better place.

According to a recent Pew study, one in four American millennials—that’s the name for people born after 1980 and came of age around the millennium—identify themseves as "atheist," "agnostic" or "nothing in particular." And yet when it comes to a variety of faith beliefs, their beliefs are not far from those of their parents. The implication is that although they define themselves as secular, they’re fairly lousy secularists, which is what I’ve suspected all along.

I meet kids with good hearts all the time, willing to do for others, intersted in learning, honest—sometimes to a fault—and I wonder why they would not find religious services deeply appealing. Those are all the values we talk about. Oh well—I guess when we’re reading in the Torah about building a mishkan, a portable sanctuary in the wilderness, they too are thinking about building their portable sanctuaries—but in Massapequa (that’s just a figurative expression for anywhere or no where in particular—I liked the alliteration of “mishkan,” “Massapequa,” but you know what I mean). They’re building the places where God may dwell in their communities, their neighborhoods, their families, and their businesses. I can live with that. God said to Moshe—“..make Me a sanctuary that I might live among [the people]” (Exodus 25:8). So wherever the people are found, that is where God may be found—as long as you are willing to build that sanctuary—with good deeds, kindness, sacrifice and gifts given with no expectation of reward. If you can’t find God in shul, find Him wherever you want, find Him in Massapequa, but you’ll have to do some building. Consider this piece your building permit.