Jewish Values - What does it mean to be "a good person"?

Kedoshim 5771/2011

©Rabbi Neil A. Tow

“Living the Values”

“Value” is a great selling point.

“A good value”, “Value-added”, “Best values in town.”

Value is not only a great selling point for cars and electronics, but also for political campaigns and organizations, like synagogues.

We hear terms like “Family Values” or “Jewish Values”.

While all of these “values” are positive, i.e. they are designed to provide benefits when we’re talking about things, or to represent the best of our beliefs and aspirations when we’re talking about our programs for life and faith – from time to time it’s important to step back from the terms and to make sure we’re clear about what we mean.

Often we hear criticism of values messages that are tied to belief and ritual structures as in religion.

Often we hear that specific values statements are secondary to a basic premise, “Being a good person.” 

Being good people is a worthwhile goal, but it’s unclear what exactly “being a good person” means. 

“Good” or “goodness” is a relative term, not an absolute one, and what one person, religion, society believes is good may be less so in another place. 

Jewish values, God’s teachings, are meant to be eternal, and meaningful through every generation.

If we are to be “good people”, we must give attention to the teachings in this week’s parasha, Kedoshim, that challenge us to think carefully and critically about how to explain and express the values encoded in the Torah message.  We need to be clear about what it means for us to be good people.

I hope that the discussion tonight will be the beginning of a longer and wider discussion about how we teach and act on Jewish values here in our synagogue, in our homes, in the street, at work, at play.  If we’re going to strive always to be good people, we need to be good people wherever we are, in whatever we’re saying or doing.  And we need to be willing and humble enough to recognize when we haven’t been as good as we were able to be.

Let’s take one example of a teaching a values based message from this week’s parasha.

“Lo tikom ve’lo titor et bnay amecha”, “Do not take vengeance or bear a grudge against your fellow human beings…”  What is the value addressed by this statement? Striving to live in harmony with other human beings.  Forgiveness.  Letting go of past wrongs in hope of creating future rights. Anything else?

What does it mean to take vengeance?  What does it mean to bear a grudge?

Rashi shares a teaching:  Vengeance = Reuben says, “Lend me your sickle.”  Shimon says, “No.”  The next day, Shimon says, “Lend me your hammer.”  Reuben says, “No, I’m not lending to you just like you didn’t lend to me.”

Grudge = Reuben, “Lend me your hammer.”  Shimon says, “No”.  The next day, Shimon says, “Lend me your sickle.”  Reuben says, “Here, take it, I’m not going to be like you who didn’t lend to me.”

The Rabbis in the Talmud argue that the verse from this week’s parasha refers only to property issues – the tool exchange, that otherwise it might be permissible in the case of a great teacher, who seeks to defens his/her honor, unlike King Saul who gave up his honor (machal al kevodo). (Yoma 23a)   

A midrash (B.Rabba Teodor-Albek, Vayera, 55, R’Avin Patach) suggests that we’re not to take vengeance or bear grudges amongst ourselves, but that God will carry out vengeance against other nations who wrong us.

Now that we’ve explored one of the values in this week’s parsha.  How do we teach this to our children?  How do we teach it to ourselves? 

Ideas:  Model it, discuss it around the table, debate it, values artwork – post it in our houses as reminders, study the Torah commentaries on it, write about it, project the value into public discourse in our towns – with local politicians, school boards, parent teacher associations…

The Torah teaches us that we live by these teachings and that they give us life, “Ve’chai bahem”(Lev. 18:5).  May they become one with our lives, one with ourselves, one with our children, and one with our community our world in our hopes and dreams and in reality.  Amen.

Shabbat Shalom.

Time for a New "Jewish" Musical

What are the classic "Jewish" musicals?
Fiddler, Joseph, Yentl...

It's time for a new one!

It's time for us to create memorable, singable, music about Jewish life in our time.  That one of the lead characters in "Rent" is Jewish does not qualify "Rent" as a "Jewish musical".

Instead, we need new songs to sing that can share the beauty, complexity, tradition and change of American, and worldwide, Jewish life.

But, of course, as Tevye said, "It's not easy!"

What would be the setting of such a show?  The West Bank, where Israelis and Palestinians dance around one another in an alternately peaceful and dangerous rhythm.  The meeting halls of the modern Jewish movements from Reform to Orthodox who confront the high cost of Jewish living, demographics, and the potential erosion of Jewish communities and Jewish institutions.

What would be the organizing theme of such a show?  Gridlock on the road to peace ("peacelock?").  The strain between individualism and group identity in American society.  Skepticism of organizations and membership in current thinking.

Who would be the lead characters?  Israeli and Palestinian peace activists.  Heads of major Jewish organizations.  Disconnected laypeople.  Seeking laypeople.

In the spirit of the Passover holiday, these questions are better than any possible answers and the suggested answers do not reflect the broad and diverse identities of American and world Jewry.  They are only the beginning of an answer.

The heart of the matter is that as much as I love Fiddler, Joseph, and Yentl, I'm concerned that these seem to be the only musicals that tell the world the Jewish story.  While their messages are universal and timeless, and their melodies are fun and memorable, it's time to write the next series of songs that will get stuck in our heads and in the heads of others.  The fusion of music and words in the interest of sharing the Jewish message is the goal.  The answer may be that we simply need to sing more of our own songs as we tell our stories to our children, friends, and co-workers, as we extend the walls of our synagogue and Jewish institutions wider to become active parts of our larger communities. 

The purpose of this post is, as we find in the Passover Seder, to open up with a question.  The answer will, I hope, come from all of us.

Exodus and the Power of Jewish Identity

Shabbat CholhaMoed Pesach 5771/2011

Rabbi Neil A. Tow © 2011

1.      What is your favorite part of the Seder?

2.      Mine is bechol dor vador, chayav adam lirot et atzmo ke’ilu hu yatzah mimitzrayim…

3.      In every generation, a person is obligated to view herself as though she has left Egypt…

4.      In every generation:  In my parent’s generation, Israel was a new reality in the world scene and the country was growing and welcoming immigrants from all over the world.  There was an Exodus from the old Jewish worlds to a new one.  When I was young, I witnessed the campaign for the Exodus of the Russian Jews, the refuseniks.  Today, we are witnessing uncertainty and wonder at the potential future Exodus stories for the Jewish people, the potential for Palestinians to unilaterally declare a state in September, a gradual decrease in the number of perspective immigrants to Israel from FSU and Ethiopia, even as Nefesh beNefesh reports 26,000 Olim have come in since the program began in 2002.

5.      Whatever happens in the demographic and political realm, we must all strengthen our Jewish identities if we are to have the strength to confront the challenges, and the community feeling to celebrate the happy and holy moments, in the years ahead.

6.      Not only must we ask and answer the basic questions, what do we believe?  What does Israel mean to us?  What is our relationship with Jewish law and practices?

7.      We also need to glue that material into our souls by asking tougher, probing questions like:  How do I make Judaism part of my life and outlook?  How does my Judaism influence the way I behave and speak? 

8.      The Exoduses of today are about carrying and strengthening the Jewish people through an era of continuing political challenge to the State of Israel, and of living in a society that seems to both promote “tradition”, religion, and family values while also sending messages of non-participation, skepticism about organizations and fads and trends that come and go…

9.      How will we move from this generation to the next as Jews, knowledgeable about who we are, what we believe, what we stand for, seeing the world through the prism of our values, and creating Jewish lives that can both blend with our own lives and also challenge us to explore new paths of meaning, faith, practice, and belief that will take us to a higher level of awareness and living. 

10.  The journey of our ancestors from slavery to freedom was more than political and geographic, it was a journey of the spirit.  May we have meaningful and productive life journeys with the Exodus as our powerful and unifying force, a force facilitated by the Eternal One.

11.  Shabbat Shalom and Moadim Le’simchah!

Jewish humor

Thank you to Cantor Bill Walton for this one:

What did the Jewish spiritual seeker say to the hot dog vendor?

"Make me one with everything."

Shabbat ha'Gadol - Dayenu!

Parshat Acharei Mot 2011/5771

“Dayenu”©Rabbi Neil A. Tow

1.      Eelu hotzi….eelu natan lanu Torah…Dayenu

2.      It would have been enough for us, Dayenu.  Enough if God just took us out of Egypt, if God just gave us the Torah…any of these would have been enough for us, enough of a miracle to bind us as a people and turn us to God.

3.      The follow up to Dayenu in the Haggadah, is that God did all these things, presented us with such great gifts of goodness, and the follow up ends, “God brought us to the Land of Israel, and built for us a Temple as a place to seek atonement for our sins.”

4.      From slaves living under the power and whims of a flesh and blood ruler we participate with our hearts and souls in a building project of our own commanded by God, who sits above all earthly rulers, to build a place where we can stand honestly before God, confess, repent, and remake broken relationship with the Divine.

5.      We can say Dayenu for Yom Kippur too, for Jewish life, for the holidays and occasions that mark our time:  If God had only given us Shabbat, dayenu, if God had only given us Yom Kippur…and how amazing is it that we have so many opportunities to reflect, to connect to the world, to create community, to bring God’s presence into the world…

6.      When we’re into our routines, when we’re on the go, as life moves from one responsibility and activity to the next…what is dayenu for us?  What is sufficient?  What are the things that we need, to live, to thrive, to grow? 

7.      Passover is a time to sweep away the chametz, not just the physical chametz, the products made with leaven, it’s a time to brush away the spiritual chametz, the build-up, the thick, soft, leavened stuff that slowly accumulates around the heart…to get back to the simple, unleavened stuff of life, 18 minute matzah – that’s all we need, 18 minutes for flour and water to turn into basic, simple bread, bread that sustained slaves on their way out of Egypt, spiritual bread that can ground us once again

8.      What are the things we need to survive? The flour and water of life.

9.      This Passover, when we gather for Seder, when we visit with friends and family, when we walk outside in the hopefully warm and clear spring air, let’s all find our inner Dayenu, and let’s see the world around us from the perspective of dayenu – it is enough and more!

10.  All together – Dayenu!

11.  Shabbat Shalom.

Mourning for a person we've never met, In memory of Tim

Recently, Tim, the husband of a good friend of mine passed away after a long struggle with cancer and its debilitating effects.  I only knew Tim through the heartfelt and moving stories of loving care that my friend gave to her ailing husband. 

When I read the email this morning from mutual friends that Tim has passed away, my heart broke even though I had never actually been in the room with him.  I had never known him before the illness weakened his body and spirit.  He lived for me only through sincere, raw, real and loving descriptions and the pictures in my mind that those words created.
And so I believe we live, and exist, within the love of those who love us.  No matter how distant in space or time the death of someone else's loved one may be with respect to our own existence, there is the potential for empathy when we listen closely to the words spoken about a person.  We can, then, make a connection to the person, whether that person is alive or lived 10, 100, or 1,000 years ago.  Our potential for empathy is a gift from God, who made us in God's image, allowing us to have a small window into what is eternal.

May Tim's memory always be for a blessing, yi'hay zichro baruch.

 

Parshat Metzora - Bringing back someone who was sick into the family, community

Parshat Metzora 5771/2011

©Rabbi Neil Tow, 2011

*Please excuse incomplete sentences!*

1.      It’s been a long, difficult winter, and spring doesn’t feel so springy yet…

2.      There have been lots of colds, sniffles, all kinds of bugs going around

3.      How many people have had something this past season?  More than one something?

4.      The parsha this week is about a person who is on the mend, on the mend from tzara’at, a sickness/disease of skin.

5.      Not important – what was disease, is important – how we bring back sick person to self, family, community after sickness over.

6.      What happens when sick?  Stay in room.  Stay away from other people healthy. Special diets, Medicines. Can’t move around as much.  Aches and pains.  We’re not who we usually are, body just doesn’t respond.

7.      Can’t go to regular activities.  Feel like outsider, falling behind, everyone else having fun.

8.      Parents take care of us, loved ones take care of us, friends send us notes, care packages, even visit if it’s safe to visit.

9.      Still, doesn’t feel the same, different, uncomfortable.

10.  How do we get back into the groove, into our activities again?

11.  Parshat Metzora – teaches us how – starts in a way that sounds strange

12.  2^nd verse says, On the day when the metzora will be pure again, the metzora is brought to the kohen, to the priest.  And then the 3^rd verse says, The kohen will go outside the camp to examine the metzora.

13.  Do others lead the metzora to the priest?  Or does the priest go out himself to meet the person? 

14.  Seforno – metzora brought to a place just outside the camp (the large encampment of the Israelites in the wilderness), and the Kohen can then more easily come to see.

15.  The kohen who is not infected with the disease has to go outside the camp to where the “sick” person is, to see that person. 

16.  Kohen represents the spiritual community and carries the community with him as he steps over the boundary line, effectively enlarging the borders to include the person who will be examined and, hopefully, will soon return to be amongst friends and family.

17.  To help someone who’s been sick feel like part of the group again, it’s up to us to do something similar to what the priest did long ago – we have to actively reach out, visit when possible, make sure someone who is sick knows that his/her friends and family are surrounding them with love, attention, caring even if they’re not right there in the same place.  We have to send all this over the border of the sick room, and then help the person who was sick to feel welcomed and comfortable on returning to school, to work, back home.

18.  My prayer is that we all have the courage to step forward in this work, which is part of tikun olam – repairing the broken parts of the world, and helping to make them whole again.  By helping others to feel wholly themselves, we also make ourselves more sensitive, stronger and more whole – and also we create the positive energy that will increase the presence of chesed – loving-kindness and compassion in our world.

19.  Shabbat Shalom.

"One People", Dvar Torah for Parshat Tazria/Shabbat Ha'Chodesh 5771/2011

*Note:  I usually number paragraphs in my Divrei Torah as a way of organizing my thoughts. 

One People

Tazria/Hachodesh 5771/2011

Rabbi Neil Tow©2011

1.      Back in the 1980s a group of Israeli singers got together in we are the world style to sing on behalf of needy children in Israel, they sang this song…

2.      Am echad im shir chad, hamanginah le’olam tisha’er, am echad im shir echad, nashir lachem ki atem lo levad, kulanu beyachad lema’an kulam, betikvah shenagia ve’yishma ha’olam, am echad, im shire chad.

3.      One people with one song, the tune will last forever, one people with one song, we will sing to you for you are not alone, we’re all together for everyone, with the hope that we can do the right thing and the world will hear, one people, with one song.

4.      A great song, with a great campy sing along melody, a great message…

5.      And we observe Shabbat HaChodesh and reread the message of leaving Egypt, beginning of time for Jewish people – people, nation, “one nation under God…”

6.      And we read parshat Tazria, about rituals at time of birth of children, celebration of new life, new hope.

7.      Spring, new life, new birth and rebirth for the people “one nation, under God”, but are we also “indivisible” as in the language of the pledge?

8.      It is time for us to recognize and celebrate the unity that binds us as a people even with the various divisions that appear to divide us

9.      Divisions:  Religious movements, believers and atheists/humanists, Zionists and anti-Zionists, all political backgrounds.

10.  These divisions are real, and they are not arbitrary.  Represent different ways of expressing our Judaism, of expressing our relationship to the State of Israel, of expressing our beliefs in the realm of politics and decision making for citizens of our country.

11.  The spirit of Passover comes to remind us that we’ve let the divisions define us more than what we share.  And in Israel specifically, there has been a trend toward centralizing religious authority in the chief rabbinate and recently MK Margi expressed the view that religious streams other than mainstream traditional in Israel should not receive any government funding or support.

12.  There is a middle ground – middle ground is usually controversial and requires supreme effort to maintain equilibrium, but it’s well worth the hard work.  Middle ground is stepping back to recognize our shared history, shared fundamental values, shared people-hood without giving up our particular approaches to our Judaism.

13.  This is the middle ground that could transform the Arab world as well.  The answer is neither dictatorship nor pure democracy, but elected representatives, checks and balances, dialogue, disagreement, reconciliation, peaceful transfers of authority.

14.  May our prayers for this Passover season be prayers for unity. Unity of self, unity of family and community, and most of all, unity among the Jewish people. Let’s talk about unity at our Seders.  Let’s work toward unity by extending invitations to our Seders and to Passover meals to new friends in our community.  Let’s make unity our kavannah, our lens when we read the Haggadah and sing the songs of the holiday.

15.  And then we can all, hand in hand, have a new Exodus together, feeling closer, supported and affirmed by all those around us.  Shabbat Shalom.

Bruchim ha'ba'im! Welcome to my blog!

Shalom u'vracha, Welcome and blessings to you!
I decided to start the blog "Rabbi Tow's Window" as a way of sharing my thoughts and writings.  My hope is to be part of the larger dialogue of Jewish individuals and groups going on across the world. 

The title "Rabbi Tow's Window" comes from the beautiful 3rd floor window in my synagogue office on the third floor of the Glen Rock Jewish Center in Glen Rock, New Jersey where I serve as rabbi.  Through this window, I watch the seasons change, and I notice that the vista changes as leaves fall and then regrow in the spring.  As I grow, I recognize that through experiences and learning my perspectives evolve and I can ask better questions and have better tools to search for answers. 

I welcome input and response and dialogue on the issues in this blog.

In the words of the Tefilat Ha'Derech, the traveler's prayer, "May it be God's will to guide us toward peace and wholeness."

With blessings,
Rabbi Tow