STEPPING INTO YOUR SELF WITH A LITTLE YIRAT SHAMAYIM, ROSH HASHANAH, 5780 / 2019

Shanah Tovah, everyone. It is wonderful to see us all together, the Midway Family, and may we all be blessed with a New Year of Prosperity, Health, and above all, Peace.

           Several men are in the locker room of a golf club, cleaning up after eighteen holes in the hot sun. A cell phone on a bench rings and a man engages the hands-free speaker function and begins to talk. Everyone in the room stops to listen.

He says: Hello

She says: Honey, it's me. Are you at the club?

He says: Yes.

She says: I'm at the mall now and found this beautiful leather coat. It's only $1,300. Is it okay if I buy it?

He says: Sure, go ahead if you like it that much.

She says: I also stopped by the Mercedes dealership and saw the new AMG C 63S sedan. I really liked it.

He says: How much?

She says: $75,000

He says: Okay, but for that price, I want it with all the options.

She says: Great.  And one more thing. The house we wanted last year is back on the market at a reduced price. They're asking only $2.3 million.

He says: Well, go ahead and give them an offer, but start at $2 million.

She says: Okay, I'll see you later. I love you.

He says: Bye. I love you too.

The man ends the conversation, looks up, and all the other men in the locker room are looking at him in astonishment. Then he smiles and asks: Anyone know whose cell phone this is?

            Every now and then, people say. Be yourself. I think that is, in general, good advice. Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), the Irish poet and playwright, is purported to have said, “Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken.” That, too, is fairly sound advice. But suppose you were to wake up one day and realize that you don’t particularly care for the person you’ve become? Should you still strive to be yourself or should you strive to make some changes and be the person you think you ought to be?

            Felicity Huffman, one of the stars of the comedy-drama “Desperate Housewives,” is one of the 51 people who got caught in a college admissions scheme that has brought shame to her and to her family. She admitted to paying $15,000 to boost her older daughter’s SAT scores in order to increase her chances of admission into a good university. “Good university,” by the way, has since been identified as places like Stanford, Yale, Georgetown and the University of Southern California.

            This is about as clear an example of cheating as there is. Why would a parent do something like this? The predominant reason given in the media was anxiety over their children’s future and whether the parents had done enough for their children. Who among us, so many parents in this room, hasn’t wondered whether we have done enough for our children?

            Should I have gotten her that math tutor in the eighth grade?

            Should I have encouraged him to take a couple more AP courses?

            Should I have discouraged her from taking so many AP courses?

            Should I have made him go to that therapist for his social anxieties?

It’s not easy being a parent.

I mention Felicity Huffman because I commend her for having come around, for having done the right thing—admitting her guilt and accepting her punishment, which includes 14 days in prison, a $30,000 fine, and 250 hours of community service. That sounds like a fair punishment, but the real punishment was not the sentence given by the judge, but the question posed to her from the daughter she wanted to help, who asked her mother why she didn’t believe in her, capping that question with a more damning statement: “I don’t know who you are anymore.” Perhaps Felicity realized that she had become someone she didn’t want to be.

            When parents take over their children’s lives, becoming their CAOs—their Chief Advancement Officers—completing their homework, writing their essays, and challenging the school every time they perceive a given grade to be unfair—they do a great disservice to their children. And this may sound a tad harsh: the disservice committed is preventing a child from either succeeding or failing on their own. There is nothing sweeter than a success achieved by one’s own independent efforts, and as for failure, parents have a critical role to play when it comes to failure. We are able to teach our kids to never confuse failure with tragedy. We’ve all learned that lesson, in many cases the hard way, but it’s true. And it’s a lesson best learned at a younger rather than an older age. To rid children’s lives of failure is to deny them an important learning experience. And if you say, not without reason, that it’s not what you know but who you know, I will counter that by saying that the who-you-know will probably open some doors for you, but ultimately it’s the what-you-know that keeps you in the room. There has to be a good deal of correspondence between what the public sees on the outside of a person and what is actually going on within the inside of a person.

L’olam yehei adam yerei shamayim b’seter uvegalui

People should always be yerei shamayim,

(something like people who act always with reverence for heaven, whatever that means)

in public and in private.

This is a truth found in our prayer books and our mahzorim, recited every single morning. It’s an ideal, to be sure, because everyone has a public life that is a little different from their private life. I would assume as much and there’s nothing wrong with that, but there is something wrong with a public face that is so out-of-whack with one’s private life that the two clash in what can only amount to a tragic and fatal collision.

I think very sadly about how hard it must have been for Robin Williams, a brilliant comedian and actor, to be Robin Williams. Or Kate Spade, the fashion designer, to be Kate Spade.  Or Anthony Bourdain, the celebrity chef, to be Anthony Bourdain. When they ended their lives, as all three did, we were shocked. We suddenly learned that their private persona was at serious odds with their public persona. They had so much to live for, they were all so talented, they were all so bright and creative, yet they could not synch their public and private lives? They were not the people they really wanted to be.  

There is an old midrash about Yom Kippur (really it’s about this entire season of repentance) which I have always found a bit forced, but over the years, come to appreciate. It’s a midrash in which an analogy is drawn between Yom Kippur and another Jewish holiday, but one that on the surface would seem the least likely candidate for an appropriate analogy, and that is Purim.  The midrash essentially draws this comparison on the basis of an alternative name for Yom Kippur (a Day of Atonement) which would be Yom Kippurim (a Day of Atonements). And so the midrash goes—Yom Kippur is really (and now I’m going to translate): Yom (a day), k’ (like), Purim (Purim). And how exactly is Yom Kippur like Purim? It is like Purim in a number of respects, but for our purposes, they are both days of wearing masks. On Purim, we wear the masks of Esther and Mordechai, and on Yom Kippur we wear the masks of someone we are not. We put on our masks, or in other words, we enter this whole season of teshuvah in disguise, failing to see within ourselves all the stuff that is making us believe or act in ways that do not truly reflect just how talented, just how blessed, just how loveable we really are. In our heart of hearts, we all know what we need to change, and we even come close to admitting what it is we need to change, but ultimately, change is hard. To change means having to concentrate and invest in ourselves and what happens if we fail?

            This resistance to change seems to be universal. And you know who resists change most vehemently? Addicts. Addiction is a serious problem in our nation. If you are, or you know anyone who is addicted to drugs or opioids, you need or you need to get someone else help. It’s a matter of life or death. The National Institute of Drug Abuse estimates that every day in our nation, 130 people die of drug overdose. These people have become something they are not; their addiction is preventing them from being who they truly are. There is a way to break the habit, which entails both an alternative drug therapy and a 12-Step program. The 12-Step program, I think, is a particularly effective program for those courageous enough to follow it.  And the thought occurred to me that if it works on the addicts, maybe it would work on any of us who need to change, but no matter how many times we make the commitment, the resolution, the pledge, somehow we end up drifting. Could it be that we are addicted to our own bad habits and negative attitudes?

I don’t know how many of you attend a 12-Step program, and I’m not asking you to tell me, but if you do go, I want to commend you and honor you for seeing within yourself a need that the 12-Steps addresses, and for you having the courage and discipline to change. There are 12-Step programs for alcohol addiction, drug addiction, gambling addiction, food addiction, and I wish there was one more 12-Step program for attitude addiction, devoted to all of us who are trying to kick those aspects of ourselves that are, let’s say, unlovable. It’s those personality traits that make us jealous, envious, resentful, arrogant, dismissive, condescending, temperamental, vengeful, spiteful, loud, self-righteous, petty, stingy, lazy, bigoted... I could keep going but while in the presence of a fundamentally loveable crowd such as this one, there is no need. We each know our weaknesses, we each know our shortcomings and how difficult it is to extirpate them from our character. And that’s where the 12-Step program comes in because woven within the 12-Steps is this definite world view which compels us to take the steps that move us to change.

Step #1: Admit that you are powerless over your addiction.

Step #2: Accept into your life a power greater than yourself.

Step #3: turn your life over to that power.

I need not go into all 12-Steps because the first three actually tell us something that our Jewish heritage has been telling us for 2500 years:

L’olam yehei adam yerei shamayim b’seter uvegalui

People should always be yerei shamayim (live in awe of Heaven)

in public and in private.

The 12-Step program, whether it is framed within a context of spirituality or secularism, will always remind you that you can’t do it alone, that you have to find a power greater than yourself to help you make the changes you need to make. For us, as Jews, that power is the power of yirat shamayim, living in reverence of and with reverence for heaven.

The yirei shamayim walk this world not as the king of beasts, but as guests of God in a world of His creations—the mountains and the valleys, the oceans and the heavens, the planets and the stars. They see themselves as guests in God’s home and because they are guests, they behave as guests, with a large degree of reserve and respect for the world in which they find themselves.

The yirei shamayim do see themselves as the very pinnacle of material creation. As the Psalmist puts it, “You have made humanity just a tad shy of angelic” (Psalm 8:6). The yirei shamayim can look at the crooks, the murderers, the dictators, the terrorists, and still claim that with all of its faults, human life is outstanding. And because humanity has been so marvelously crafted by God, one dare not think of harming oneself, no more than one might think of destroying the work of a Michelangelo or a Picasso, though in this case, the artist is God. That creates an urgency to synch your public face with your private face.

The yirei shamayim not only believe that they must do what is right and good and moral, but they believe that they are every year, or possibly every moment, held accountable for their every action. In other words, they are not lone actors in this world. They are partners with God—subordinate partners to be sure, but partners nonetheless—and they had better toe the line when it comes to their responsibilities in this world.

Yirei shamayim are not arrogant, for arrogance would be a sin. But yirei shamayim are confident, as creations of God, that they are worthy of love—the love of others and the love with which they ought to treat themselves. I want to let you know that we are all worthy of love. And we’re loveable not because we’re perfect—who is perfect anyway?—but we are loveable because we are the most extraordinary of all creations on earth. And until we find life elsewhere in our universe, we are the most extraordinary creations within the universe, to be loved by others, and to be worthy of self-love as well.

V’ahavta l’reiakha kamokhah

Love your neighbor as yourself… (Leviticus 19:18)

Love yourself! But that returns us to our initial question: Do you love yourself? And what happens if you don’t, if you have become someone you really don’t want to be?

Whatever it is within yourself that you don’t love, you can get rid of. But you’re going to have to admit that you are powerless, and that there does exist within this universe a power greater than you, and that this power is capable of operating within you if you let it, and with that power operating within you, you can make just about any change you put your mind to. You have to become one of the yerei shamayim, operators in life who act only with great reverence of and for Heaven, and you have to do it in public and in private. Not easy, but doable.

Does the possibility of a long-term period of concerted effort scare you? Don’t let it scare you. Adam and Eve were exiled from the Garden of Eden. They lived together, east of Eden, tilling the earth, raising children, and struggling to stay alive. After years of struggle, when their children were grown, the dog had died, the mortgage was paid, they decided to travel and see the world.  They journeyed from one corner of the earth to the next. In the course of their journeys, they happened upon the entrance to the Garden of Eden, the old neighborhood, now guarded by the cherubim, angels, bearing an eternally turning, flaming sword. They considered whether or not it was possible to return to it.  Suddenly, the cherubim disappeared, the eternally turning, flaming sword vanished into thin air; the path into the Garden opened and a marvelously rich voice filled the air: “Eve, Adam—if you really want to return, you are free to enter.” Adam and Eve immediately recognized the voice as the voice of God. God had not spoken to them since their exile and now God spoke again, this time with an invitation to return to paradise. But the two had forgotten what paradise was like, and so far as they were on vacation, they wanted to know what they could expect should they devoted their limited time to a trip to Eden.  So this is where God had to become a travel agent, to explain the better features of Eden. “The Garden is paradise,” God responded. “In the garden there is no work, no struggle, no toil, no pain, no suffering. In the Garden there is no self-consciousness, no moral dilemmas, and no challenges. Day after day, life goes on, uneventful, no surprises, everything is perfectly controlled. It is an endless life of ease.” Eve turned to Adam and Adam to Eve, whereupon Eve said, “Our lives together have been all about the challenges we’ve met, the successes we’ve achieved, and the failures we’ve overcome. It has been the crises that we have endured, without running away from them, hiding from them, that have made us the humans we are today.” And Adam, reflecting on Eve’s response and God’s description of paradise, concluded, “It sounds like a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.” The two turned their backs on paradise, and as Eve and Adam continued on their journey having refused even an hour or two in Eden, one could hear that deep, resonant voice again say, “Good choice.” (After a tale by Rabbi Ed Feinstein).

            If you were to think back on some of the most memorable moments in your life, aside from those times when the One Arm Bandit smiled generously upon you in Vegas, the moments we appreciate the most are very often connected to extended periods of sacrifice. These are periods in our lives when we kept late hours, concentrated on just a few goals, exerted ourselves mentally and physically, and accomplished what we needed to accomplish either on our own or with a trusted team. We shortchange ourselves when we think that what we have coming to us we can get for free. And what we get for free, when we get it, is not appreciated, for after all, we exerted no effort in obtaining it. Change is difficult, but if you really want to change, the difficulties are what make the whole process worthwhile.

            One last thought. We believe in the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. We also believe in the God of Sarah, the God Rebecca, the God of Rachel and the God of Leah. There is only one God, but each of our ancestors had their own unique relationship with God. Their God is not going to help you. Only your God is going to help you, and your God is the God that you establish an intimate relationship with. It’s your God who will be your higher power.

            Be yourself, but be the self that is fashioned by God. Don’t be the self fashioned by resentment, hatred or jealousy, drugs, alcohol or gambling or an unhealthy solicitousness for your children. Be the self in private that everyone loves in public, and if you fail, that’s no sin. The only sin is to think that change is impossible… And also answering someone else’s cell phone pretending to be someone you are not.

            Shanah Tovah, everyone.

THE TREE OF LIFE / THE TREE OF TRUTH

One of the tasks of the sages of old is to determine why one narrative of the Torah follows another. This phenomenon, known as semikhut parshiyot, or the juxtaposition of stories, applies to this week’s parashah, Hayyei Sarah. The first story in Hayyei Sarah, meaning “the life of Sarah,” oddly enough is not about her life but about her death. She dies at 127 years of age and Abraham must go about the business of securing land for her burial. This story follows the much discussed and debated tale of Abraham’s sacrifice, or attempted sacrifice of his son Isaac, also known as the Akeidah (literally, the Binding, Isaac having been bound upon an altar and prepared for sacrifice). So the rabbinic question in this case would be—why does the tale of Sarah’s death immediately follow the tale of Isaac’s sacrifice. The Torah is silent on this matter so the rabbis resorted to their creative juices to craft an answer. And they found their answer in Satan—the evil angel.

Satan, never up to any good, decides to inform Sarah about the attempted sacrifice. He transforms himself into the likeness of Isaac and appears before Sarah. Sarah, seeing her son, but noticing that something looks a tad off, inquires of her son’s wellbeing, asking the exact question Satan would have her ask—What has your father done to you? And so Satan, in Isaac guise, does something we would all typically admire: he tells the truth. He goes through the whole narrative—how God instructed Abraham to take the boy, travel to some far-off destination, build an altar, bind the child on the altar, prepare to offer the child to God, and with knife raised above the child’s head, an angel from heaven intervened and prevented Abraham from completing the task. Not a word Satan spoke was false, but for Sarah’s fate, it made no difference. So shaken by the initial details, her soul departed before Satan completed the full account. And that, the rabbis tell us, is the reason the tale of Sarah’s death immediately follows the tale of the  Akeidah, Isaac’s Binding.

The rabbis’ explanation is often used as a morality lesson in how we go about expressing the truth. As the old adage goes, the truth hurts. But how hurtful should the truth be? Should the truth scathe? Should it kill? Is every truth worth verbalizing if it serves no other purpose than hurting the person who hears it? As one might expect, the rabbis advise discretion. But there is another way of understanding the rabbinic tale of Sarah and Satan, and one that very much addresses the challenges of our day.

Last Tuesday, when we gathered at the Mid-Island Y in memory of our 11 slain brothers and sisters, murdered by a person filled with hate¸ I found myself incapable of singing. It was a strange phenomenon. I had already spoken on several occasions to our Religious School students about the tragedy, and had no problem discussing the massacre at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue, and how our own synagogue had long ago instituted security protocols and safety measures in the interest of keeping our members safe. And yet, while on stage, before a crowd of thousands, the weight of how hateful people can be, how self-righteous they can be of their convictions, how perfectly diabolic they will act given the  opportunity, weighed heavily upon me, and I that felt if I opened my mouth the slightest, I would dissolve into tears. I was facing a truth, and the truth is that there are people in this world who absolutely detest Jews. They hate our guts.

But as true as that may be, it is also not the full truth. The first memorial I attended was sponsored by the Islamic Center of Long Island located in Westbury, NY. Imagine the Moslems pulling together a memorial in memory of 11 slain Jews. There were many rabbis and Christian ministers present, including, of course, representatives of the Moslem community. They spoke lovingly of the Jewish people, lamented the lack of civility in the nation and the hatred that is fueling so many of our debates. Last night, at our Shabbat service, two Moslem families attended to show their solidarity with us. We welcomed them and their presence was a sure gesture of their respect for us. Just a couple days ago, I received a call from our old custodian, Roberto, who just had to speak to me, to express his condolences on the murder of 11 strangers, but whom he knew as Jews and therefore connected to our community, a community of Jews whom he does know and loves. So yes, there are people in this world who hate us, but there are also people in this world who love us, and when we hear only one part of the truth, without looking at the full truth, we die the death of Sarah.

              We are living in silos of partial or incomplete truths. We talk to people who reflect our own political views rather than engaging those with different points of view. We are speaking in echo chambers and instead of reaching out to our neighbors who differ with us in love, we demonize them as the enemy and dismiss their views as dangerous. It may be very difficult to love one’s neighbor, but when we feel justified in hating our neighbors, it will almost always go nowhere good.

              Thank God for America. It has been and I suspect will continue to be a wonderful place for the Jewish people.  And for every anti-Semite who resides in this country, there is a minyan of non-Jews who love and respect us. So beware focusing on incomplete truths. We must always embrace the fuller truth. For some of us, it will be the only way we will ever be able to sing again.

Shabbat Zakhor Video-var Torah 2

GETTING THE MESSAGE STRAIGHT, ROSH HASHANAH SERMON 5776 / 2015

 

Shanah Tovah—A Good New Year, everyone.  So good to see you all in a new space for a new year.  The holidays should not only be a time for accepting apology and granting forgiveness, but also for expressions of appreciation and gratitude for what we have been given during the year.   And I want to begin with a thank you to you all.  I want to thank you for teaching me so much and sharing your wisdom with me.  When I listen to you, your challenges and frustrations, the lessons you have gained through professional and personal experience, I gain a great deal—with almost every interaction I have with you.  And the insights you give me, the perspectives you grant to me are greatly appreciated.  That kind of knowledge cannot necessarily be found in books—secular or sacred—which make those lessons all the more special.

Imparting the right lesson is not always easy and even professional teachers run the risk of inadvertently communicating the wrong lesson. There was the crisis of the grammar school teacher who wanted to convey to her young charges the evils of liquor so she secured two very large glass jars, one filled with pure spring water and one filled with good ole’ Kentucky Bourbon.  She had her fifth graders gather around the exhibit and then took a worm and dropped it ever so delicately into the jar full of spring water and there the worm swam about in carefree delight to the amusement of all the children in the class.  The teacher then took another worm and dropped it ever so delicately into the jar of Kentucky Bourbon and within ten seconds the worm grew listless and, to the horror of the children in the class, sunk dead to the bottom of the jar.  The teacher then looked at her stunned class and asked, “Children, what do we learn from this little experiment?”  And one kid in the back shouted, “Drink Bourbon and you’ll never get worms.”

So that clearly was not the moral of the story, at least as the teacher hoped it would be conveyed,  but there you have it—we don’t always learn what we are supposed to learn and when our learning seems off, when the message doesn’t seem right, it’s important to stop and seriously question whether we got the message right, if the message was in some way garbled, or flawed in its transmission, or if we simply misunderstood it in some way.

The fact is that we live in an ocean of messages.  The music we listen to, the ads we read, the television shows we watch, etc. all are designed to convey something to us.  And one of the great message delivery systems that surround us on a daily basis is architecture and design.  The way we arrange the space in which we live is a message about what is important to us or what values we aspire to.  If you look at your living room or den, the place where you spend the most time, perhaps it is the kitchen, those spaces and how you have arranged those spaces tell a story about who you are.  Maybe it’s a story about elegance, or hobby collections, or revolt against authority; or maybe a message about safety, or living life in a fun way.  When I see a mezuzah on the front door, or if I don’t see one, it tells me something about the people inside.  It may be the wrong message or the right message.  The mezuzah on that front door conveys some message.  But ask yourself, and ask your family, what your home design reveals about what is important to you and above all, if the message that is being conveyed is the message you want conveyed.  What might you do to tweak the design in order to tighten the message?  It’s an interesting question and I’m sure there are several interior designers in the congregation today who would start passing around their business cards were it not for it being Yom Tov, a sacred day when we don’t do business.

We just finished a major renovation of our synagogue and sanctuary.  We’ve pulled out the building a bit, installed an elevator, made the building handicap-accessible, redesigned the Ark, installed new lights, tore up the carpeting and laid new carpeting, and replaced individual seats with bench pews.  The new design says something about us as a Jewish community.  It says a lot of things about us, including the desire to feel uplifted, and necessarily by the springs in the seats we sit on.  There is something else that our new sacred space says about us louder than anything else and I think it would be a shame to leave its identification only to our imaginations.  So I’m going to spell it out for you.

But before I spell it out for you, I want to talk to you about an issue that has been particularly troublesome to me and to the Jewish community in general.  It has been this controversy in the community about our government’s leading role in creating the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, more popularly known as the Iran deal.  Senator Schumer and Congressman Israel have both come out in opposition to the deal, but Congressman Jerry Nadler didn’t.  And Congressman Nadler represents the Upper West Side of Manhattan—a pretty liberal concentration of people—but also some very Conservative areas of Brooklyn—Midwood and Borough Park.  Anyway, after a truly consistent record of supporting Israel throughout his lifetime, Nadler was condemned as anti-Israel and New York Assemblyman Dov Hikind parked a double decker bus in front of the Congressman’s Manhattan office with a banner of the Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei smiling and thanking America.  And then, what happens, is the New York Times and the Jewish Week print articles about how the Iran deal is tearing the Jewish community apart.  The New York Times, August 28, 2015, headline:  “Iran Deal Opens a Vitriolic Divide Among American Jews.”

Now I have to tell you, I am really opposed to this deal.  In fact, I am scheduled to speak at a rally in New York City, just outside the United States Mission to the United Nations, East 45^th Street between First and Second Avenues this coming Sunday, September 20, at Noon.  That’s how opposed I am to this deal.  I don’t like this deal at all.  I don’t believe that this is the only way to respond to a belligerent nation like Iran; given all we know about the historically lethal mixture of religion and politics, I don’t think nuclear power and a theocracy is a combination that in any way serves American interests; I especially distrust that combination when such a country refers to us as the Great Satan; and although I don’t trust Iran to abide by whatever protocols have been set, I really don’t trust the inspectors to reign in Iran when Iran will, as even the deal’s supporters admit, violate the agreement.  But I say all this with the following caveat:  I may be totally wrong.  I am, as someone once said, really bad at predictions, especially about the future.  And that’s why Jerry Nadler deserves better, especially from the Jewish community, because he’s doing what I’m doing—really what we are all trying to do—each from our own peculiar perspectives:  Do what is right for the free world.  He may be right or he may be wrong.  I may be right or I may be wrong.  One thing for sure: Neither he nor I, nor anyone in this room, can predict the future and that ought to dampen some of the passions that have erupted in the Jewish community.  We all ought to state our positions with a little more humility.

Several months ago, Newsday asked me to write a piece for their weekly Ask the Clergy section, and the question was whether we should take the Bible literally.  This is the kind of question I love and so I consented to write a piece, which they edited—I would say conservatively—and even the photo they printed of me was a faithful rendering of exactly what I looked like 17 years ago.  But aside from that, in that piece, I quoted Abraham Joshua Heschel, the great theologian and poet of the 20^th century who wrote: “The surest way of misunderstanding revelation is to take it literally…”  He is basically saying—Don’t be a fundamentalist.  Don’t read the Torah literally.  Don’t be so sure that reading the words themselves gives you a full appreciation of what the Torah is trying to say.  And though that may sound radical or even heretical, it is pure rabbinic Judaism—whether one is Conservative, Orthodox or Reform, none of us reads the Torah literally because we have always read the Torah, these Five Books of Moses, through the lens of another Torah, namely the Oral Torah or the Talmud.    

The Talmud has a curious way of presenting arguments to us and it’s a bit frustrating but it’s the Talmudic style.  It begins with an old rabbinic teaching called a Mishnah, and then later rabbis give us some interpretations of that Mishnah.  Maybe it’s a Mishnah about when Rosh Hashanah begins, or what constitutes a kosher sukkah, or whether to believe witnesses when they bear testimony.  Once the Mishnah is stated, rabbis who live at a much later time give us their interpretations of what the Mishnah really means, and guess what, the Talmud often rejects the rabbis’ interpretations as illogical or irrational.  You may ask, well if that rabbi’s argument was irrational or illogical, why did it find its way into the Talmud?  Great question.  And the answer, I believe, is that the rabbis weren’t put out by illogical or irrational answers.  They were delighted that anyone would take the time to argue a point of Torah.  The Talmud is what we would refer to as a sefer kadosh, a holy book, and its holiness comes not from is dogmatic prescriptions but in its respect and admiration for all those who would busy themselves with words of Torah, who would struggle with those words, play with those words, debate those words.  They saw a certain sanctity in the conversation and in the dialogue.  In fact, on those occasions when the Talmud will actually cite the law, it will give us the opinion of the hakhamim, the Sages, which one generally can assume to be the Law, but then it also might include words to the effect of Rabi Me’ir Amar—But Rabbi Mei’r says something else.  In other words, the Talmud gives us the minority opinion.  But why should we care about the minority opinion?  It’s not the law.  We shouldn’t follow it.  It’s only one guy’s opinion—but the Talmud sees that solitary opinion as critical.  There is a respect shown to the minority by citing the opinion.  My friends—this is Judaism at its best.  This is a Judaism that creates a safe space for people to speak honestly, openly, and respectfully.  And even though it could very well be that one positon is correct and the other is not, both positions are accorded a certain degree of legitimacy.

So what do we make of the so-called vitriol of debate within Jewish circles?  Well, it isn’t the kind of Judaism that the rabbis ever envisioned.

When I came out with my article against the deal, it generated several letters from people who took issue with my reasoning.  And that’s fine.  That’s what healthy debate is all about.  Am I angry with them?  No.  Are they haters of Israel?  Not the people I corresponded with.  They made some excellent points.  They haven’t convinced me, and I don’t think I convinced them, but that’s okay.  We can disagree with each other and still remain one people.  And by the way, whenever the media reports that the Jewish community is divided on some issue, that’s not news.  The Jewish community has been divided for about 3500 years.  But is our primary message a message about division?  Not at all.  The message is this:

All of Israel are friends / ktrah kf ohrcj

It’s a phrase lifted directly out of a prayer we recite prior to Rosh Hodesh, each new month.  And it’s not a joke.  It’s serious, but clearly there are people who got the message wrong.  If the Jewish community, a community that has been divided for 3500 years and a community that has stuck together for 3500 years cannot model how a loving community disagrees, humanity is lost.  None of us knows the ultimate truth.

              Beware the people who know the truth.  They are dangerous.  In August of this year, Jerusalem was the scene of a Gay Pride Parade.  An ultra-Orthodox Jew, recently released from jail having served a ten year term for attempted murder and aggravated assault, went on a stabbing rampage in the parade, wounding several people and ultimately murdering a 16 year old marcher by the name of Shira Banki.  When a crime of this nature is committed, and committed by an ultra-Orthodox Jew, it embitters us toward religion, and observance, and Orthodoxy, and even God.  People were deeply upset as well they should be.  And even if you may not have heard of this horror, the crime sent a shock wave throughout Israel.  Shira’s name headlined every newspaper in Israel.  But there is a Conservative / Masorti rabbi in Jerusalem, Yosef Kleiner is his name, who wrote something rather remarkable.  He wrote that after all was said and done, he was very proud of what happened.  What happened?   What happened was almost every arm of the Jewish world expressed outrage at what this haredi man had done.  It was clear to one and all, from the Prime Minister of Israel to the mayor of Jerusalem, that his actions did not represent Torah, did not represent Orthodoxy, did not represent the will of God, and was nothing less than a total hillul hashem, a violation of God’s name.  The perpetrator of this crime might sport a beard, wear a black hat, white shirt, black pants, tzitzit flying at his side and the message of his dress says something, but one thing it doesn’t reveal is the spiritual state of his heart or soul.   Just because you dress for piety doesn’t make you pious.  This man was so sure of his Torah, so sure of his position that he granted himself the authority to kill.  But I can tell you right now that anyone who operates with that kind of certainty in their life knows nothing about God and what they think they know about God is probably wrong.

              Shalom Bayit—Peace within the home, is a very important Jewish value.  For there to be peace within our community, our synagogue, our homes, we have to think differently about how we listen to each other and how we speak to each other.  A few years ago, Dianne Schilling wrote an on-line article for Forbes on “Ten Steps toward Effective Listening.”  You can look it up on-line if you like but I want to underscore just a few of her ten points:  She wrote that in order for listening to be effective, you have to 1) Keep an open mind; 2) Don’t interrupt and don’t impose your “solutions;” 3) Try to feel what the speaker is feeling; and finally 4) Pay attention to what isn’t said—to the non-verbal cues.  I find her advice very wise.  In order to listen to the other person, you have to really keep quiet and engage that person face to face and listen to the words, the feelings and the emotions.  It doesn’t matter if we are talking with our boss, our employees, our spouse or our children.  In order to listen you have to be quiet and attentive. 

When it comes to speaking, you need to ask yourself only three questions before you open your mouth.  The three questions are:  1) Is it true?  Thinking something is true, doesn’t make it true.  Hearing that something is true, doesn’t make it true.  Reading something on the Internet almost invariably means it’s false.   I like to say that everything on the Internet is false until proven true.  Well, that may be a bit of an exaggeration, but really, if you are going to say it, it better be true and that means doing a lot of research before saying anything.  2)  Is it kind?  Words can be terribly damaging.  If you need to say something, you ought to be able to say it in a kind way, without wounding, without sarcasm, without resentment or anger.  I know that’s difficult, but maybe it’s better to not say anything rather than say something in the wrong way or at the wrong time.  And finally 3) Is it necessary?  What you are about to say, do you really have to say it?  What would happen if you didn’t say it?  Sometimes the better part of diplomacy is not what is said, but what is not said.  There is sometimes great wisdom in writing long letters, printing them out, and then ripping them up or deleting them before you hit the Send button.

              I used to think that our greatest failing as human beings was our love of material goods.  This sacrifice of the spiritual in favor of the material—the pursuit of luxury or money—that was our greatest failing.  But I think differently now.  Today I believe that our greatest failing as human beings is our love of the petty resentments and hatreds that we either nurture or collect year after year after year.  This inability to forgive others and to dwell on the injustices that have hurt us.  The inclination to judge others as if we ourselves were the bearers of ultimate truth.    There is something in human nature that loves that sort of negative energy.  And the thing is this.  You can collect money your whole life and actually create the potential for doing something good with it.  But if you collect resentments and nurture your anger year after year, and indulge your will to judge others, no good, no good at all, will ever come of that.  

              The renovation.  I want its message to be clear.  I want the Torah to be read in the middle of the sanctuary, and so that is where the bimah now is.  The Torah has to always be central to our lives.  Those laws that question our instincts and reign in our more unseemly inclinations—that needs to be in the center.   There can be no partition between the bimah and you and there isn’t, because the Torah has to touch our lives and we have got to respond to Torah. 

stn rcsv lhkt cure hf

The word has got to be very close to you

Close enough that you can hear it, understand it, respond to it,

lhpc

In your mouth

So you can repeat it, question it, argue it, love it,

u,uagk lhcckcu

And in your heart so that eventually you can do it   (Deuteronomy 30:14)

Or perhaps not do it, but you’ll never know what to do, unless you come to struggle with the words of Torah that lead us down a certain road.  And what road is that?

ogub hfrs vhfrs

Its road is the road of pleasantness

ouka vh,uch,b kfu

And all its paths are paths of peace  (Etz haim hi…)

Shalom Bayit—Peace within our home, our community, our synagogue, our world.  This is a great Jewish value.  Let’s pledge to listen more intently.  Let’s pledge to speak more carefully.  Let’s cleanse ourselves of the petty hatreds and resentments that undercut the positive energy that flows through us from God.  Let’s make Torah central to our lives.  This is the year of renovation.  The sanctuary speaks a certain message.  Now is the time to integrate that architectural message into ourselves and by so doing, renovate our very selves.

Shanah Tovah, everyone.

DIRTY DANCING WITH IRAN

John Boehner, as speaker of the House of Representatives, holds a very important position in the hierarchy of American politics.  Should anything happen to the president, and the vice president is unable to take over, it’s the speaker of the house who is next in line.  The irony of that succession should be apparent to all, for if there are any two political actors more at odds with one another in government these days, its Mr. Boehner and the president.  That’s, in part, what makes Mr. Boehner’s invitation to the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, to address congress March 3 so exacerbating for the president.  The president and the prime minister really do not see eye to eye, and the president claims that the invitation to the Israeli prime minister was made without consulting the White a House, a breach of protocol, if only unwritten.  On top of that, some in Israel believe that Mr. Netanyahu is using the address to congress to bolster his own popularity back home just prior to national elections.  And so the whole thing is sort of messy—Boehner is perhaps trying to embarrass the president, the prime minister may be using the speech as political clout, and the once behind-closed-doors tension between the Israeli and American leaders is suddenly glaringly thrust into the public eye.  Then again, these decisions are rarely neat and clean.  Politics can get down and dirty—that’s for sure.  But this entire episode should move us to ask—Just why does the president care that the representative of one of America’s closest allies, Israel, addresses congress, even if he wasn’t consulted.

What the president may be most concerned about is what Mr. Netanyahu is going to say, and what he will probably say is that the United States is inches away from cutting a deal with a country that has consistently threatened Israel and the west.  That’s right.  Word on the street is that Mr. Obama is now willing to concede to Iran certain limited nuclear capabilities.  Should Iran, a country that has repeatedly voiced its sworn commitment to destroy Israel, be given even limited nuclear capabilities?  Is that a wise move on America’s part, Iran having threatened America as well?  According to Mr. Netanyahu, it is an exceedingly risky agreement and exposes the west, particularly Israel, to eventual nuclear attack.  It was Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister’s policy of appeasement that allowed an untrustworthy and power-hungry Hitler to throw Europe into a devastating World War.  Is Mr. Obama about to commit the same error in conceding nuclear power to a bellicose and belligerent Iran?

These are important questions that all of us need to ask as we listen to the viewpoints of pundits and commentators more in the know than any of us.  But this I will say.  If I were Binyamin Netanyahu, and I felt that my closest geopolitical ally was about to make a mistake that throws my country into jeopardy, I’d be on a plane to talk to congress as well at the first invitation.  My first and foremost duty is not to Mr. Obama, but to my country.  It just so happens in this case, as in so many cases when it comes to dealing with the Middle East, the interests of Israel and America are closely aligned, although clearly the president in this case doesn’t see it that way.

Oh, well—as I said earlier, politics can get pretty down and dirty.  By the same token, I cannot think of anything more down or dirty than conceding to Iran any nuclear capability in exchange for some promise that it’s going to behave in the future.  Mr. Netanyahu—welcome to America.  Go to congress and speak the truth.

HEY--STAY AWAY FROM THOSE HANUKAH CANDLES

These days, when I mention Rock of Ages, someone might think I’m referring to the hit Broadway musical or Hollywood film by the same name.  But long before the entertainment industry got its hands on a time-honored metaphor for God, Rock of Ages sat quietly on the page of the siddur containing the Hanukkah blessings.  It began the famous hymn Ma’oz Tzur yeshu’ati—

 

Rock of Ages, let our song praise Your saving power

You amid the raging throng were our sheltering tower.

Furious they assailed us, but Your help availed us.

And Your word broke their sword when our own strength failed us.

 

If only God’s words continued to break the actions of the enemies these days, we would all be a lot safer and happier.  No matter—Hanukah begins this week, the first candle to be lit Tuesday evening, and we’ll all be singing Ma’oz Tzur, Rock of Ages, the way it was meant to be sung.

 

Hanukkah, as the rabbis continue to remind us, is a minor holiday, but there is nothing minor about a prayer asking God to take care of those in this world who are intent on harming innocents.  Unlike the Maccabees, who took fate into their own hands, smashing the enemy themselves, we ask God to keep us from war and violence, and if there is a power beyond the sword that can spare us all, it would be the word of God. 

 

One of the rules of the lit menorah is to not interfere in anyway with the burning of the candles.  We are not to interrupt the flame or even use the flame to our advantage.  That’s a wide swath of no-nos, encompassing anything from using the lit candles to roast hot dogs to even reading by the menorah’s light.  Hanerot hallalu kodesh heim—these candles are holy, and as holy, we dare not touch them or use them in anyway except to publicize the miracle of Hanukkah.

 

Holiness demands caution and reverence.  We do not, for example, touch Torah parchment directly, or walk on Jerusalem’s Temple mount in that area where the Temple once stood, or take change for ourselves out of the Tzdakah box.  That which is holy is sometimes marked as such by becoming unusable, untouchable?  Why?  That’s a really good question for which, I am sure, multiple answers exist, though I will be so bold as to venture only one possible answer. 

 

Humans are, by nature, inquisitive, curious, and… invasive.  It is how we learn about the world and how we interact with it.  But when we establish a realm of holiness, a realm left untouched and undisturbed, it serves as a reminder that we are guests in a universe created by a power greater than ourselves, and faith in that power energizes and humbles, at one and the same time.  Maoz Tzur, the Rock of Ages has lived for eons before us and will continue to live for eons after us.  Ultimately, the criminals die, as do we all, but the spirit of God endures, so too the spirit of justice and compassion, the spirit of honesty and love.  Hanukkah is only a minor holiday, but it offers us some major philosophical latkas to munch on, the whole year through.  Bon appetite!

 

WOULD DINA TOO ACCUSE BILL COSBY? VAYISHLAH, 2014 / 5775

Page through the Bible and the number of titillating or sordid sex tales are few and far between, but this week’s parashah, Vayislah, comes about as close as the Bible gets to the stuff of the National Inquirer.  The story goes that Dina, Jacob’s only daughter, wandered out of the comfy and secure tents of her father to interact with the ladies in the neighborhood.  Shechem, a Hivite prince, ran into her, and she into him, and he unceremoniously raped her.  But then, at least according to the text, Shechem fell in love with her, and moved his father to secure her for him in marriage.

To make a long story short, Jacob was none too happy with this development, his sons less so, and after a negotiation in which it would appear that Shechem consented to all the prerequisites for this match to take place, two sons of Jacob, Shimon and Levi, entered Shechem’s town and murdered all the males.   

In recent times, as our awareness of women’s issues has come into sharp focus, it has been noted that the one voice absent from this biblical narrative is Dina’s.  What was her read on this unanticipated relationship?  The text describes the initial encounter as a rape, but then goes on to describe Shechem’s love of Dina.  Rape and love are not a comfortable pair.  What did go on there?  Did Dina welcome Shechem’s forward advances?  Was Dina overpowered by a prince in the neighborhood who overstepped his bounds?  Dina is silent.  We can only wonder what her impressions were.

The absence of Dina’s perspective may not be, as some have suggested, the consequence of a male narrator uninterested in the female point of view.  And we can say this based on recent developments surrounding Bill Cosby, now that some 19 women have come forward to accuse him of a variety of sexual assaults.  But wait—when did these alleged encounters take place?  Women have accused Cosby of incidents that took place some 20, 30 and even 40 years ago.  Where were their voices up until now?

The fact is that unwanted sexual advances are not generated by love but by an opportunity to take advantage of someone who is either vulnerable or powerless to fend off the assault.  It takes a whole lot of courage to admit in public that one has been abused or taken advantage of.  It could be understood as an admission of failure, a confession of weakness—an unpleasant twist to a painful situation.  And there is always the real possibility that doubts about the story will arise, that someone will cast the accuser as a liar, and by this add insult to injury.  We can’t say for sure that Cosby is guilty, but we certainly cannot say that the extensive time lapsed between crime and accusation is proof that the crime never happened. 

I hope Bill Cosby is innocent.  He’s brought a lot of laughter into our lives.  But I hope that the accusations against him are taken seriously, no matter how much time has lapsed between the alleged assault and the accusation.  It takes a lot of guts to accuse a powerful person, in public, of a crime committed against oneself. It may take 10 or 20 or 30 years for the abused to summon the courage to speak.  And as for Dina, she has remained silent for over 3,000 years.