On Potential - Inspiration of Abraham and Sarah

Potential

October 2015/5776

While I’m not a scientist, I’ve found that basic lessons in science can open the door to truths in spiritual world as much as in the physical world.  The law of conservation of energy, Occam’s razor, Newton’s laws of motion…

What do a stretched bow and arrow, a stretched rubber band, a wrecking ball held by its vehicle…

They all have potential energy – energy stored up in the object by virtue of its position, by virtue of gravity.

As we begin to tell the stories of Abraham and Sarah, their children, grandchildren, and our beginnings, we look at our early ancestors as full of potential.  Only souls full of potential energy can hear God’s voice and react by setting out on a long journey toward an unknown, unfamiliar Land.

What contributes to this potential energy for them?  What pushes them out of comfort and into the wilderness?

The most famous of the stories comes from Rabbi Chiya (Midrash Rabbah):

Terah was an idol manufacturer who once went away and left Abraham in charge of the store. A man walked in and wished to buy an idol. Abraham asked him how old he was and the man responded “fifty years old.” Abraham then said, “You are fifty years old and would worship a day old statue!” At this point the man left ashamed.

Later, a woman walked in to the store and wanted to make an offering to the idols. So Abraham took a stick, smashed the idols and placed the stick in the hand of the largest idol. When Terah returned he asked Abraham what happened to all the idols. Abraham told him that a woman came in to make an offering to the idols. Then the idols argued about which one should eat the offering first. Then the largest idol took the stick and smashed the other idols.

Terah responded by saying that they are only statues and have no knowledge. Whereupon Abraham responded by saying that you deny their knowledge, yet you worship them! At which point Terah took Abraham to Nimrod.

Nimrod proclaims to Abraham that we should worship fire. Abraham responds that water puts out fire. So Nimrod declares they worship water. Abraham responds that clouds hold water. So Nimrod declares they worship clouds. Abraham responds that wind pushes clouds. So Nimrod declares they worship wind. Abraham responds that people withstand wind.

Nimrod becomes angry with Abraham and declares that Abraham shall be cast into the fire, and if Abraham is correct that there is a real God, that God will save him. Then Abraham is cast into the fire and is saved by God.

Here we find Abraham as an idol breaker, someone who is already sensitive and on a search for truth – this story is one way of showing potential energy for hearing and responding to God.

Potential energy also is a tool for injustice as well, as we see incitement continuing in Israel over the past week, more attacks, more suffering, a terror and fear campaign that is tragically ongoing – and unlike Abraham and Sarah, common ancestors for us, for Christians, and Muslims,

Abraham and Sarah who teach a message of inclusion, welcoming, of a journey together, incitement from pulpits and Hamas leaders has fanned the flames of hatred and violence.

For us, the message of Shabbat could not be more different, and transformative for the good; for us, we have this gift of Shabbat when we can imagine the world as it could be, when we let go of externals – knowledge, position, status and the like -  that define us, when we have the opportunity to dream about who we could be…on Shabbat we’re reminded that we’re all children of God, all priests of a holy nation, all students of Torah…

This is also potential energy – as our ancestors teach us, Shabbat is a taste of the world to come, ma’ayn olam ha’ba, in the words of Nahmanides, the Ramban.  A time when, over and over, we pray for shalom, not necessarily the absence of conflict, rather, the presence of wholeness despite conflict – respect, communication, as well as strength and force when necessary to protect and extend life.

Many have written the recent violence suggests that the enemies of Israel harbor and preach hatred for Israel, for the State that came into being in ’48, not only for the results of the war in ’67.  And we counter back in the spirit of Shabbat as a moment of potential and vision that the Jewish people and the State of Israel have a role to play in this world, a role to play that is significant – with respect to Shabbat, to remind us that we are finite, fragile, and need renewal, recharging to be fully present to ourselves, our loved ones, and to God.  The State of Israel, to teach that to live in an area that has been the epicenter of conflict and conquest for millennia does not doom the people of the region necessarily to dictatorship and suffering, that if deserts can bloom and people can live and raise their families, whether Arab or Jewish, then this just might be possible in other parts of the same region.

What will we do with our potential energy this Shabbat?  How will we envision our lives for the next week – imagine them in the most realized and fulfilled vision of what we hope they could be.

Remembering Richard Lakin z"l

We remember and honor the life and work of Richard Lakin z”l, a cousin of Woodbury Jewish Center member Rebecca Greene.  Muslim terrorists boarded and attacked passengers on a city bus in the Armon Ha’Natziv neighborhood of Jerusalem.

Doctors worked to stabilize him and save him but, in the end, he was not able to survive.

Richard’s story is as tragic as the story of every victim of terrorism anywhere in the world.

We should keep in mind that he and his wife Karen, who made aliyah to Israel in the mid 1980s were involved in work toward creating co-existence between Israelis and Palestinians.

Students from the Hand in Hand Jewish-Arab Education center composed a poster for Richard’s healing recently in both Hebrew and Arabic.  He had been atutor to many students from that program.  This program’s mission statement is:

Our Mission at Hand in Hand is to create a strong, inclusive, shared society in Israel through a network of Jewish-Arab integrated bilingual schools and organized communities.

We currently operate integrated schools and communities in five locations with 1,100 Jewish and Arab students and more than 3,000 community members.

Over the next ten years, we aim to create a network of 10-15 schools, supported and enhanced by community activities, altogether involving more than 20,000 Jewish and Arab Israeli citizens.  

Jews and Arabs - learning together, living together - and inspiring broad support for social inclusion and civic equality in Israel.

Rabbi Levi Weiman-Kelman, Richard’s Rabbi from congregation Kol Haneshama in Jerusalem reflected on Richard’s life:

“He was just a deeply optimistic and hopeful person, and refused to be deterred by the grim political reality here,” said the Jerusalem synagogue where Mr. Lakin was a longtime member. “He wasn’t oblivious to the reality, but it didn’t affect his basic existential nature. He could not imagine a solution wasn’t possible and that people couldn’t learn to live together.”

Tonight we focus on the blessing of Richard’s life and example, and how the way he lived his life reflects the spirit of our ancestor Abraham’s example.  God tells Abraham the other peoples of the world will be blessed by his example, ve’hitbarachu ve’zaracha kol goyay ha’aretz, so that in the future, the generations will say, as Rashi teaches, “May God give you the blessing of Abraham.”  Abraham – whose offspring are the descendants who become the people of Israel, Muslims, and Christians as well. 

A person like Richard who actively seeks to bring peace between people, who is a descendant of Aaron the High Priest, who not only prays for peace but loves and pursues peace, is an especially bright light.  Let’s not forget also that in cities like Haifa, just as one example, Arab and Israeli populations have lived in relative harmony unlike in other cities – so much so that in Haifa there is an annual festival that recognizes and celebrates the holidays of many religious groups – with Arabs wearing red Santa hats, and Jews playing Chanukah songs to mixed crowds.

When I was last in Jerusalem, a city that last summer was a target of Hamas rockets, a city that in recent days has seen terrorist stabbings and shootings, I met the embodiment of an Israeli institution that demonstrates a strong commitment to diversity; one that honors Arabs and Muslim religion and tradition, Qadi Iyad Zahalka, the chief judge of the Muslim Shariya court in Jerusalem.  These courts have existed since the time of the Ottoman Empire, and Jewish, Christian and Druze communities also have courts as well. 

The murder of Richard Lakin z”l calls us to renew our efforts to both support security and defense services in Israel and those who seek to teach co-existence as well.  But co-existence cannot be a substitute for lasting peace and the acceptance on the part of Arabs in Israel that Israel as a state is here to stay.  Tragically, even seemingly educated and enlightened Palestinians believe that the Jewish state is only a temporary construct – as my colleague Rabbi Daniel Gordis discovered from one of the Palestinian teachers who works with him in Jerusalem.

Richard Lakin made aliyah and became a teacher and facilitator, building relationships, and we must not let the spark that drove him to Israel die out, just as we continue to celebrate and study the spark of faith and belief that pushes Abraham in this week’s parsha to put his son Isaac’s life on the line in his readiness to respond to God’s command. 

Chayey Sarah 2015: Remembering Yitzhak Rabin z"l

The evening of November 4, 1995 did not reveal its tragic conclusion immediately after Yigal Amir fired shots at Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin z”l.

As one observer recalled, at first there was an idea that the bullets fired had been blanks, and then news over the radio that Rabin had been shot, and then news that in fact he had been assassinated came over the radio waves.  The people on the buses heading away from the peace rally held their breath, waiting and listening, for updates.

Waiting is one of the most difficult things for human beings to do.  In our parsha, we find Eliezer, servant to Abraham, who is on a mission to find a wife for Isaac, and twice he must wait and see whether his mission will be successful.  Twice he holds his breath to see whether God will grant him success.

The first time, he watches while Rivkah, Rebecca, proceeds to draw water for his associates and his camels.  Will she finish providing water and fulfill the requirement Eliezer has set for identifying the right person for Isaac?

The second time, Rebecca already has proven her worth in the watering test, and Eliezer waits for Rebecca’s family to agree that she may go – they even say ‘Let her stay with us for a few days first…’  At that point, he cannot wait any longer and requests leave to go.

The first time he waits on his own accord, to see if his own plan will be successful.

The second time he waits to see if others will support and help him move forward on his journey.

These two types of waiting are so common and frequent for us, and in most cases much ado about nothing.

In many cases, the waiting is not urgent.  We hope for a response soon, but we can live without it for days, months, even years in extreme cases.

But we also know the pain and the challenge of waiting when we do need an urgent response, when the waiting itself weighs heavy on our hearts, when our minds spin with speculation on what may or may not happen.

When Rebecca’s family says, “Let her stay with us a few days…’, the word ‘yamim’ here is the word for ‘a few days’, most commentaries read it not as a few days but as a year, a whole year as the Torah uses the same word in describing how within a year someone who sells a home in a walled city may redeem the home from the buyer.

Here, it’s a waiting game, Eliezer cannot wait, he has a long trek ahead, and Rebecca’s family feels compelled to wait before they send her off.

And so we see an example here of how the emotional impact of waiting crushes us between the world we know and the world as it may soon be, between our expectations and what life serves up to us in reality – at times as a result of what we do, and do not do, and at times by chance.

This happens when we are waiting for a diagnosis, waiting for test results, for a notice whether our son daughter niece or nephew got into his or her first choice college.

Each of these moments, though, has a conclusion, possibly an unpleasant conclusion, but at least some closure, however upsetting and awful the closure may be.

The deeper human challenge is how do we wait when we don’t know the outcome, when it’s not clear that anything’s changing anytime soon, when we’re living through evolution rather than revolution?

In reflecting on the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin z”l, many have written about whether the Oslo peace process was evolutionary or revolutionary, and would itever have produced a lasting settlement even if Rabin had lived.

After the fact speculation on this does not help move us closer to resolution.  We could say the same types of things looking backwards, wondering what Judaism today would be if the status quo had persisted in 19^th century Germany and not produced Orthodoxy, Conservative, and Reform Judaisms.

We seek savlanut, meaning patience, as an antidote to our impulsiveness, to impulsiveness that prevents us from thoughtfulness – which takes time and patience.  One reason we leave the Garden of Eden is things are just too easy and available to us there.  That environment enables our impulsiveness, our search for immediate gratification.

Being patient and pursuing evolutionary change has been all the more difficult of late.  This week, two Jews were attacked in Crown Heights.  And stabbing attacks continue in Israel.

If our inclination is to throw up our hands at the ongoing tragic and horrible events of the past weeks, we should remember how a wise person said, “If you can finish your life’s work in a lifetime, you’re vision and dreams are not broad and ambitious enough.”

God gave us today to live, today to make an impact on the world – tomorrow is a mystery, a gift that we hope to receive.

As we learn in the Mishnah, Rabbi Tarfon said: The day is short, the work is great, the workers are lazy, the reward is great, and the Master of the house presses."

We can be patient and plan carefully, but then we charge forward!  There is no time to waste.  Yitzhak Rabin went boldly out into the square to rally for peace, and before that to fight for Israel’s existence.  We should go out boldly, too, unlike those who preached hate against Rabin and acted on that hate – we choose to act differently, bringing the message of the prayers we are about to recite like bonfires into the world – sim shalom tovah u’vrachah, Bring peace, goodness, and blessing into the world, chen va’chesed ve’rachamim, sweetness, lovingkindness, and compassion; let there be tzedakah u’vrachah, justice and blessing, rachamim ve’chayim, thoughtfulness and a renewed emphasis on the value of life.

Amen.

Parshat Toldot: Celebrating our veterans

Parshat Toldot 2015/5776

This week we pay tribute to veterans who served in the armed forces, who sacrificed in order to preserve and extend our freedom, and also to help others to be free.

One of our distinguished American veterans, a winner of the congressional medal of honor, Colonel Jack Jacobs, originally from Long Island City, was badly wounded in a North Vietnamese ambush on March 9, 1968.  In his memories of that day, he reflects, quote, “There is a huge benefit that comes with being a very small person.[Col Jacobs is not 5 foot 3]  I can survive on very little food and even less water.  I can curl up and sleep anywhere, crawl anywhere, hide anywhere.  Small people are not much of a target, and so I don’t understand how large, slow people survive the rigors and dangers of war.  If I were two inches taller, I’d be dead.”

Colonel Jacobs, by the way, said in a talk I attended that when he was an analyst on TV news he had to stand on a box when he gave his commentary.

In his case, he was happy to be overlooked by the enemy, happy to be a bit less of a target. 

While being disregarded by the enemy may be an advantage in war, being overlooked, disregarded, or not listened to is awfully painful for us here at home.  Many of us know that despite our best efforts and kindnesses, we have experienced all these alienating feelings.  Perhaps we were the last to be picked when choosing teams at recess in elementary school.  Someone else got the part in a play we thought was best for us.  Someone else got a scholarship or a promotion at work. 

Today we heard the story of Esau, son of Isaac and brother to Jacob.  We hear his pain and frustration at the way his brother twice has ‘supplanted’ him, taken away his birthright and his blessing.  In both situations, Jacob took the initiative, in the first he used the power of his ready made food and Esau’s casual and dismissive nature to take his birthright, and then in the second, Jacob lied to his already blind and weak father, taking advantage of a vulnerable person again, to Esau’s loss.

The word ‘supplanted’ va’ya’k’veni comes from the word akev, meaning heel, the root of the name Jacob who already seeks to take Esau’s place at birth as he holds onto his brother’s heel as they come into the world.

Knowing what it feels like to be taken advantage of, disregarded, overlooked, passed by helps us to identify with Esau’s bitter tears and cries upon hearing from his father that Jacob has taken the blessing designated for him.

Is there anything that we can do when we suffer the way Esau suffers?  Anything we can do more than lamenting the pain of loss and the challenge of rethinking what our future will be given that we did not fulfill our expectations of ourselves.  What can we do with what may now be a more negative image or feeling toward the people who wronged us?

We must confront the fact that Esau says he will seek revenge against his brother. 

But we also recognize that when the brothers reunite after years of living apart, Esau and Jacob embrace each other and Esau, seeing gifts his brother has brought to placate the brother he feels may still harbor anger, says, “Yesh li rav – I have enough, my brother, let what you have remain yours.”

Esau, who pledges revenge, now fulfills the teaching of the Rabbis about a righteous person, a righteous person says “What’s mine is yours, and what’s yours is yours.”

Though he does not say it in so many words, Esau has forgiven his brother.

And so one path for us is the path of forgiveness.  Forgiving ourselves for what we wished to achieve and did not.  Forgiving others so that their actions, whether intentional or unintentional, do not hold sway over our consciousness any more.

But long before Esau speaks words that evoke forgiveness, he does something else – he says to his father, “Halo atzalta li be’rachah – have you not reserved a blessing for me?...Bless me too!”  He speaks up for himself, and requests a blessing from his father.  As the Seforno points out in reading Esau’s request, Esau is thinking clearly, evaluating his options, and Seforno puts these words into Esau’s mouth, “Even though you thought to bless me with the higher blessing, one would not think that it was in your mind that I would have everything and my brother would end up divested of and lacking any blessing.”(Seforno to Gen 27:36)

In other words, of course Isaac must have had two blessings in mind, and he does, a blessing that speaks of healing for it ends by saying, “When you grow restive, you shall break your brother’s yoke from your neck.”  One day you will no longer live under someone else’s shadow, under someone else’s influence, you will find your own way and carve your identity into the story of our people.

May the spirit of Colonel Jack Jacobs, the small guy with a heroic heart, and the spirit of all our veterans encourage us to seek hope and possibility and potential where we might otherwise see obstacles, challenges, and closed doors.

Allow me to share in this spirit from the closing words of Colonel Jacobs book “If Not now, when?”

Some of us are fortunate to spend some time with the few who have served and bear the scars to prove it.  Yes, visiting badly wounded troops makes you self-conscious, uncomfortable, frustrated, angry, and guilty.  But it also generates pride that our society can produce such magnificent young people.  They have an unquenchable optimism, a certainty that they will overcome the rotten luck and physical constraints, and a conviction that they will prevail.  With the same dedication they displayed in volunteering to be our proxies, and in taking care of each other on the battlefield, these splendid citizens take pride in working hard every single day to accomplish simple things that the majority of us take for granted.  The USA would be a much better place if we would emulate them.

Shabbat and Kristallnacht, November 2015

Shabbat and Kristallnacht

Shabbat in the eyes of the mystics is a wedding ceremony between God and the people of Israel, a moment of union and renewal out of the week-long tide of work, routine, responsibility, and the roller coaster that is life. 

At a wedding, one of the most recognizable traditions we perform is that we break a glass at the end of the ceremony.

Traditionally, we would say that we break the glass to remember the destruction of Jerusalem our holy city even at this time of celebration, lest we forget the sadness of loss and exile as we sing ‘Od yishama be’arey yehudah uve’chutzot Yerushalayim’, ‘Again the sound of celebration and happiness, bride and groom will be heard in the cities of Judah and in the courtyards of Jerusalem.’  Often the phrase, “If I forget you, Jerusalem…” was also included in the ceremony.

And increasingly we think of the glass as a symbol of a world that is broken and in need of healing and repair, a world in need of renewal, reshaping, and remaking.

And so Shabbat and the Jewish wedding ceremony share symbolism and meaning.

The broken glass began though in the world of folklore, a way of using a loud noise to scare away evil spirits from the place where we are celebrating with hope.

All three symbolisms are meaningful as we observe in just a couple of days the 77^th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the German-Nazi term for pogroms in November 1938 that plundered 75,000 Jewish owned businesses, murdered 91 Jews, and sent 30,000 Jewish men to concentration camps.

It was a 48 hour period of time when the tragedies and terrors of destruction and exile were horribly and violently rekindled in Jewish minds nearly 2,000 years after the Roman legions, after whom the Nazis designed their own symbols, destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem.

It was a pogrom that reinforced just how broken and inhuman humanity and leadership in Germany had become, when police and fire fighters stood by and watched the atrocities and the burning and enabled them instead of preventing them.

It was a day that the demonic side of humanity broke out and the sound of the breaking glass did nothing to electrify and activate other nations.  A report on world reaction to Kristallnacht published two years ago explains:

What is also noteworthy about the [diplomatic report] documents is what they do not contain. In this respect, they point to the failure of the international community and its far-reaching consequences. The diplomats almost unanimously condemned the murders and acts of violence and destructions. The British described the pogrom as "Medieval barbarism," the Brazilians called it a "disgusting spectacle," and French diplomats wrote that the "scope of brutality" was only "exceeded by the massacres of the Armenians," referring to the Turkish genocide of 1915-1916.

Nevertheless, no country broke off diplomatic relations with Berlin or imposed sanctions, and only Washington recalled its ambassador. Most of all, however, the borders of almost all countries remained largely closed for the roughly 400,000 Jewish Germans.

Kristallnacht memories burn us today as we watch in continued horror the violence against Israelis in the streets, violence right here in New York, two brutal attacks on Jews in Brooklyn.

And perhaps the saddest reflection on Kristallnacht is that, like the Nazis after the 2 days of the pogrom, many still blame the Jewish people, the State of Israel, for creating the “issues” that lead others to commit violence against them.  The world still blames the victims.  And sadder still is that this mentality extends beyond anti-Semitism to poisonous words and actions against anyone who is different, gays and lesbians, refugees from war torn countries in the Middle East and Africa, people of different skin colors and religions.  We see the disturbing overtones here, the same victims the Nazis targeted in the course of their persecutions, despite advances in rights and privileges here and abroad, still become victims, even after the world has studied to the last details what the Nazis did in the years after 1938.

This weekend when we recall Kristallnacht, let’s keep the glass broken, remember the pain of destruction and exile, and hear again the loud noises of breaking glass so that we can with God’s help and courage become sensitive and responsive to injustice.