Friday, November 21, 2014

Toldot: Honesty

Toldot 5775/2014
Honesty

If you search for tenderness
It isn't hard to find
You can have the love you need to live
But if you look for truthfulness
You might just as well be blind
It always seems to be so hard to give

Honesty is such a lonely word
Everyone is so untrue
Honesty is hardly ever heard
And mostly what I need from you

While Billy Joel’s song might be asking for honesty from a friend, today, knowing what happens in this week’s Torah portion, I feel compelled to sing this song to our ancestor Jacob.  While Jacob does receive a comeuppance for his moral mistakes, and while we might choose to forgive his father and grandfather, Jacob, who became Israel, the namesake of the Jewish people and nation – we might hope that he would be able to see ahead the impact of his actions.  The man who is ‘yoshev ohalim’, tent dweller, who in his tents studied the Torah, we would hope he might well know in his heart that lying, deception, and taking advantage of others are all wrong.  Unfortunately, he seems not to be aware of these truths.

Later, the great prophet Jeremiah warns us, “Beware everyone of his friend, trust not even a brother, For every brother takes advantage, every friend is corrupt in his dealings.’(Jeremiah 9:3)

Our Rabbis teach:  the ancestors who caused God to flood the world were guilt of, among other things, gezel, theft.  The world was full of theft and deception. 

Everyone was so untrue.

Those people washed away in the floodwater.

Bible scholar Nahum Sarna reminds us that the storyteller does not condone Jacob’s behavior.  For each of his wrongdoings, he experiences an equal dose of poetic justice whether from his Uncle Laban or by the tragedies that follow him when he enters the Promised Land after years of exile from the land of his ancestors.

Let’s focus on our story for a moment, a story that depends not so much on actions but on words, a story in which words make a difference.  Jacob may dress up like Esau and offer his father food prepared in the style Esau prepares, but in the end, Jacob says to his father, “I am Esau,” when Isaac asks him, “Who are you?” 

In this story of deception, words lose their meaning.  “I am Esau”, a name, the most meaningful, most noticeable, word to each of us, is nothing more than a mask.

I’m thankful to my colleague Rabbi Paul Jacobson for bringing to my attention the teaching of Rambam, Maimonides, who summarizes how we should think about the words we speak, “With truth, and an honest spirit and a pure heart.”(Hilchot Deot 2:6)  We should strive to do better than our ancestor Jacob did in the early part of his life, before he learned to be satisfied with what he had and could say to his brother, “Please accept my gift…for God has favored me and I have plenty.”  But, wait a second, listen to that line in Hebrew, “Kach na et birchatee…”  Take my blessing?  By saying this Jacob brings up the stolen blessing again, even as he seems to want to reconcile and make amends. 

And still we strive to do better, to speak in ways that honor the words we use and the people with whom we share these words.  Michal Kotler-Wunsh teaches that growing up she heard, “the Holocaust began with words…”. 

The story of Jacob, of taking the blessing, is a story that begs us to redeem, to save and revive words and their meanings.  If words love and justice, peace and fairness, mitzvah and ultimately life are to have meaning for us, then let’s think three times and speak once when we say them.

I dedicate this Dvar Torah tonight to the memory of the 4 victims of the terror attack on the synagogue in Har Nof, Jerusalem, Rabbis Moshe Twersky, Aryeh Kupinsky, Cary William Levine, and Avraham Goldberg, may their memories be for a blessing.  Their last act on this earth was reciting words, words of thanksgiving, blessing, love, and faith, names of God, appreciation of the world.  We can honor their memory by pursuing honesty in our speech, that leads to action, that God willing, helps to create the places we live, the places we pray, and the dialogue that we hope will knit this world together as the strands of conscience and life seem to be blowing and freezing in the winter winds.

Shabbat Shalom



Friday, November 14, 2014

Rosh Hashanah Sermon 2014/5775: A Jewish Response to Adversity

Rosh Hashanah 2014/5775:  A Jewish Response to Adversity
I recently answered an online questionnaire, the type where you answer a series of questions and based on your answers it tells you, for example, which Harry Potter character are you.  This one is designed to answer a question appropriate for a rabbi or minister:  Which Bible prophet are You?  I’d been thinking and writing about prophets and prophecy, so I thought, why not.  First question, from 8 animal photos, which one is your mascot?  I chose a camel.  How do you handle stress?  I like to travel and see new places.  If you knew the world would end in 24 hours, what would you do?  I would spend it with my family.  And now the big reveal, which Biblical prophet am I? (Thoughts?)  I am Elijah, Eliyahu Ha’Navi.  I was satisfied with that answer.  I chose not to click on the ‘Retake’ button.  Not just satisfied, very satisfied.  Allow me to explain why.
A good friend of mine has experienced significant health problems the past couple of years.  He was, and is, someone who is creative, whose career was at a positive and meaningful turning point before his health declined.  This friend called me this past summer and told me a story that continues to ring in my soul months later. 
His wife works in the busy downtown of a major city.  While she was out and about in the city between meetings, a complete stranger approached her, got her attention, and told her, “Your husband is going to be ok.”
When my friend called me up, my first reaction was that his wife met Eliyahu Hanavi, Elijah, the angel of God who visits the Jewish people and guides us when we are most vulnerable, for a boy at a bris, at the end of Shabbat as we face a new week, at the Passover Seder when we look to God to guard us and our families, the one who will announce the coming of the Messiah.
  Sure enough, the following week, his test results came back negative, and he received good news about how help for his condition was available sooner than he expected and from a previously unknown source.
This is not the first time I’ve experienced an Elijah moment.  A colleague once told me of how a complete stranger showed up at his synagogue on Purim when the Megillah reader did not show up for the occasion.  The complete stranger volunteered to read, chanted the entire Megillah, and then left, never to be seen there again. 
Unfortunately, the news also trends the other way.  Instead of welcome and surprising good news, the report comes back inconclusive, or negative, and we find ourselves praying, yearning, for Elijah to come, asking God about why our lives feel incomplete, unfinished, and unfulfilled.  Or we are in the neutral zone – a place of neither good nor bad, either satisfied at life being uneventful or searching our souls for the motivation to grow, to reach potential we know we have or the motivation to believe what we dream is possible.
I want to shine a light today into a place in our lives, and in the life of the Jewish people, that is halfway between what is and what could be, often a place of frustration.  Why are our hopes and dreams unfulfilled?  Why do we, and our loved ones, seem to suffer in an unnecessary and seemingly unfair way?  And how does Jewish tradition teach us to respond to adversity? 
When we think about these questions, whether for us as individuals, or for the us as a community, one of my first thoughts turns to a good friend, and colleague, Pastor Roger Spencer.  A couple of years prior to his retirement and in the midst of our 7th year of teaching together, he experienced a grave health challenges and we’ve been praying for his healing ever since.  Pastor Spencer is the senior clergy-person in Glen Rock, not only by his over two decades in the pulpit, also by his generous and thoughtful presence, willingness to muster his congregation to serve those in need, and for being a teacher and mentor to so many.  He has been a teacher and mentor to me since I came to Glen Rock.  And he mentored at least 20 vicars, interns, students studying to be pastors themselves. 
When Pastor Spencer took ill, it was during our class about the psalms of the Bible, the great poems that are part of our collective consciousness, poems like, ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…’.  Or ‘Ado-nai, My God, why have you abandoned me?’  Poems that confront the questions we are exploring today. 
  Every year, his intern would join us to plan and teach the interfaith class, and I connected particularly with one, David Drebes, he was a thoughtful thinker and teacher.  I told him that once in a while I like to watch the Sunday morning preachers on TV to get some ideas about public speaking and preaching.  David explained that one popular preacher Joel Ostein, whom I’ve watched, preaches the ‘prosperity gospel’, that God is always seeking the good for us.
I’m not sure whether I can tell God is working for the better for me or not, for the better of us, for Israel.  In my work, I sit with people in crisis and in mourning. I make eye contact, listen to them, and reflect with them.  The emotional illness for those who are suffering is most often loneliness, a sense of isolation from self, family, and community, and the deeper question they ask, and I’m sure we have asked at times is, ‘Why me?’    
The harsh reality that things do not always get better does not mean that we give up, that we stop searching for new ways to think about ideas, events, and visions that are important to us.  If that we there case, if we became so cynical and accepting of an unfortunate reality, if we began to believe that no new or re-energized potential was available, then we might as well close down schools and colleges, stop publishing any new books on any subject already covered, and take away pens and notebooks from poets and dreamers.  And we will not give up.  On Rosh Hashanah we widen our vision, open our hearts, and we take the next steps in our journeys.
As we widen our vision, let’s look at the big picture for the Jewish people at this moment and then funnel our thoughts down until we end up again right here, with us, in this room on Rosh Hashanah.
Israel faced adversity this summer, again, a painful reminder that the state of war continues.  It’s unfortunate for our people, for the whole Middle East region, that nearly 70 years after Israel came into being, it’s existence, while vital and inspiring, is far from complete and secure.  The war that ended over the summer was tragic not just for the Jewish people but for the world as a whole.  Events of the past summer, and today, show how unstable and dangerous the entire Middle East continues to be with the likes of Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, ISIS and Syrian leadership carrying out mass slaughter against their own civilians, against fellow Muslims, against Christians as well.  Why then does the overwhelming critique still fall on Israel, so small in size and population compared to the rest of the Arab world?  If it took 143 years here for women to achieve the right to vote.  If it took 188 years to pass comprehensive civil rights legislation here, then Israel is far and away advanced after less than 70 years.  Syria, Iraq, Iran all had a heard start on Israel in the 20th century to work out the kinks in their young nationhood and yet now, into the 2nd decade of the 21st century, these states still are basically ruthless dictatorships much of whose efforts are directed to fighting against Israel and western democracy and values.  Israel is not perfect, no country is, that’s the burden that all democratic countries struggle with, but at least Israel recognizes it is still in a place of striving, still seeking to give form to Herzl’s dream. 
And what of anti-Semitism that has been rising especially in European Union nations?  The age of reason, that began in Europe, was supposed to reveal we are all human beings, as Shakespeare said we are all, ‘fed with the same food…warmed and cooled with the same winter and summer’.  The brutality of the 20th century, use of technology in both world wars as an agent of evil and destruction in the hands of power hungry empire seekers, perpetrators of genocide who themselves were far advanced in education and culture, they undid that fantasy forever.  This summer, and in recent years, we watched in horror at the fire-bombing of synagogues in and near Paris, shootings in Toulouse, and other violence both verbal and physical toward Israel and pro-Israel people, including murders at the Brussels Jewish museum, and reports that Jews in Europe are wary of going outside publicly identified as Jews and deeply concerned about the influence of far right politics.  Here in the US, the shootings at the Jewish Community Center in Overland Park Kansas brought the dangers closer to home.  I don’t believe we are at a crisis moment in this country as far as anti-Semitism, but I do believe that we cannot let our guard down and that we must continue to build new partnerships between Jewish communities and between the Jewish community and others.  Here in Bergen, as an example, I’ve been working with colleagues and Jewish Community leadership to build a strong relationship with the growing Korean-American community and to strengthen the relationship with the African-American community and the NAACP. 
And now we come to us here, from the complexities of persistent international challenges, to us, right here, looking into the New Year just like Moses looks over into the Promised Land.  The difference for us is that, God be willing, we will get to continue our journeys.  My personal journey here will end this spring.  For me, for us, this is a year of transition.  For 9 years I’ve been honored to join with you to welcome and celebrate the New Year and continue to make Jewish life happen day after day.  There is more I hope that we can accomplish together over the next ten months.  Together – together with the generations of the founders of our community some of whom are here in this room and the rest are here with us in spirit today.
 A great Rabbi, Rabbi Eliezer, spoke exactly this message some 2,000 years ago, Lo alecha hamlacha ligmor, ve’lo atah ben choreen le’hi’ba’tel mimenah.  It is not up to us to complete the work, but we are not free to avoid it.  However difficult the scene may be for religion in general, or our type of Judaism, in particular, I feel moved with the passion of R. Eliezer who spoke his words at a time that our people were in a much worse position than today.  Temple burned and desecrated.  Leadership exiled.  Widespread suffering.  We here are in a much stronger position, with well over 100 years of community building experience in this country.
I remember at a family Shabbat dinner a few years ago meeting a gentleman whose wife had been a long-time teacher at my Seminary, JTS in New York.  He introduced me to his family, spoke to me for a few moments, and then said, “Rabbi, you have an impossible job.”  An impossible job - My mind raced to come up with a clever answer, something confident, reassuring, hopeful.  And then I remembered that my work is really our work.  He might have been talking to me, but he was really addressing all of us.  And our work is to continue to build up our community whether Israel is at war or at peace, whether anti-Semitism is rife or at a barely audible whisper.  It is not impossible. 
And…it is not easy.  It is work that gives us something back, that builds us up as much as we give out in time, energy, and love.  Livnot u’lhibanot as the name of the classic Israel seminar is called, we build, and we are built, fortified, energized, connected to and by what we create. 
Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur help set the stage for working together, all of us, as equals, in the New Year that starts today.  These days remove all our acquired titles.  During these days, we are all executive officers, all of us members of the board.  The lawyer who knows about legal loopholes has no advantage over anyone else in seeking teshuvah.  The doctor who knows how to heal the body and mind cannot offer us a prescription for greater self-awareness or repentance.  The teacher is a student.  The parent is again the child and hand-made and molded creation of God.  The child, even before she can talk, is able to sing directly to God. 
My friend whose wife met Elijah the prophet remains hopeful despite his challenges that he will one day get back to doing the things that are his passions, that he will one day be able to live and work and be the person that he always strove to be and continues to strive to be.  At any moment we could meet Elijah, and we might be happy or not happy with the news we hear.  Still, the great Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor, writer, and speaker, begs us not to despair of what may come.  He asks us to ‘face the human condition – as Jews’ and to ‘let every experience be a dynamic force’.  Whether we confront anti-Israel or anti-Semitic hatred, or whether we are working to build and grow our Jewish community, we must confront the difficult and painful questions that may fill us with despair or fear.  At those moments we call on Elijah the Prophet, Eliyahu Ha’navi, to be our invisible and steady guide, (all sing) Eliyahu Ha’navi
L’shana tovah tikatevu.


  

Dvar Torah: Chayey Sarah - Putting Our Souls Into It 2014/5775

 Is there a song that’s a favorite?  That we could listen to a million times without getting tired of it?

(What’s a song like that for you?)

For me, James Taylor’s Shower the People You Love with Love, Neil Young’s Heart of Gold, Frankie Ruiz’s La Cura

Is it the melody of the song we love, the meaning of the lyrics, a combination of both?

As a person who leads prayer services often, I find it interesting which prayers draw the most participation.  When do we hear all our voices ringing out together the most?  Shema and Ve’ahavta, Alenu, BeRosh Hashanah Yikatevun on the High Holidays.

Familiar melodies, with meaningful and challenging words.  They may flow and offer ease of participation to sing, but the messages each of these prayers communicates is neither plain to the eye nor free of moral and religious dilemmas and questions.

I think we return to favorite songs, prayers, to films, books, and poems most often when they are difficult, when they are challenging, we go back to them because they say something we feel on the surface, or deep down after time and thought help us to see why our minds and hearts connected to them.

This willingness, this motivation, to go back, to devote ourselves to finding meaning is the key motivator as we read from parshat Chayey Sarah this Shabbat, especially as Eliezer, the senior supervisor in Abraham’s household, leads the mission east to find a wife for Isaac.  The test he proposes to God that will identify the right wife for his master’s son is this:  The first who draws water both for all the members of the caravan and for all 10 camels will be the one.  It is a huge amount of water to draw by hand, more than 250 gallons.

Why would Rebecca take such efforts on behalf of strangers, on behalf of pack animals belonging to strangers? 

The great Rashi observes simply that by drawing all the water for men and animals she shows that she is by nature a person who acts with loving-kindness and selflessness. 

In our tradition, we also depend on the kindness and selflessness of others to help us grow, spiritually and in character. 

We’re part of a team, part of a whole, part of a family that descends from the family of Noah after the flood.  The material, the songs, books, poems, that fill us with wonder, that make us smile, the prayers that we share and sing together, these are points of common interest, and should be the beginning of meaningful conversations for us. 

The services we pray are meant to be the beginning of these types of conversations, pushing us, leading us to opportunities to open up about the ideas that do not always appear in songs on the radio.  Here we create the safe place to explore the questions that attract our attention whether because we are inspired or because we feel distant, in disagreement, in doubt.

Our favorite songs, the ones that are significant, that tell a story we remember and think about regularly, the prayers that we connect to the most, are keys into our souls, into who we are, and who we want to be.  They lead us to focus on what is most important to us, a lesson our Rabbis taught in the Mishnah, 1,800 years ago.

“Anything upon which life depends has the value of your entire self.”(Mishnah Arachin 8:2)

Shabbat Shalom.


Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Erev Rosh Hashanah 5775/2014: Asking for the big things


            Rabbi Simcha Bunem of Pezitcha, the Chasidic master, tells the story of a King’s son who rebelled against his father.  His father exiled him in return.  Time passed, and the King’s compassion for his son awakened and he sent an official to find his son.  After many long searches, the official found the son in a distant city, living barefoot, in tattered clothing, in miserable quarters.  The official bowed before the King’s son and said to him, “I was sent by your father, My Master the King, to ask you what you need, what you want.”  The King’s son began to cry and said, “If it will be favorable to my father the King, could I please have a pair of solid boots that are clean and shiny?”
            Rabbi Simcha Bunam told the story and then taught:  We are the same way.  In our prayers before Our Parent in Heaven we bring small requests, for sustenance, for prosperity, but we do not cry out for God’s Presence that is in exile, and we do not ask for complete redemption.  Our greatest transgression is that we forget we are each the children of a King.(Iturei Torah volume 7, page 10)
           
            Each of us is the son or daughter of a King, and it is more than reasonable for us to ask for basic help from God, especially at this time when God is so close to us, and to our hearts.  As the holiday begins, we are aware that on Shabbat and holidays that we do not make personal requests.  We take out the personal request prayers from the Amidah on these days, but our tradition teaches that we can and we do make requests from God for the entire Jewish people.  Rabbi Yisrael Reisman teaches us this lesson – when we say ‘Zochrenu Le’chayim melech chafetz ba’chayim” – Remember us for life, King-Ruler who desires life – this is a request for our whole people. 
            On Rosh Hashanah, let’s not forget our own needs, our own wants, our own hopes and dreams, but let’s also look to the world with a wide-angle lens.  Let’s expand our prayers to the width of the world, however grandiose these prayers may sound. 
            Let’s pray that God’s Presence stays close with us beyond these Days of Awe and through the year.  Let’s pray that this year the world evolves and achieves at least the first level of redemption, however we choose to envision that step forward – whether peoples and nations choose dialogue and diplomacy over conflict and destruction or we find ways to reduce or eliminate the spread of infectious disease across the world or reduce hunger and homelessness here and abroad.
            On the day that all our prayers are phrased in the ‘we’, what are our most passionate prayers for our communities, for our families, for our country, for our brothers and sisters in Israel? 
            It is time to dream big.  As we discussed at the beginning of Elul, it is time to imagine a year that is not only new in the sense that it is 5775 now instead of 5774.  It is time to imagine a year that is new in its perspective, different in fundamental ways as a result of our prayers and the efforts that result from them.  Let’s not be limited by the models and modes that are routine.  Over the next 2 days we have an amazing opportunity to re-imagine the most complicated challenges, problems, and dilemmas we face as a people, whether concrete, spiritual, or moral.
            Let’s take up this invitation to Rosh Hashanah, the New Year, and all the upcoming days of awe and reflection in the spirit of Shel Silverstein z”l one of my favorite poets:
            If you are a dreamer, come in,
            If you are a dream, a wisher, a liar,
            A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer…
            If you’re a pretender, come sit by my fire
            For we have some flax-golden tales to spin.
            Come in!
            Come in!
Shana Tovah u’metukah!