Dvar Torah: Beha'lotcha 5776/2016 -- Becoming the Leaders We Can Be

A Jewish school I know of in another state made it clear at the beginning of each school year that its early childhood students, particularly girls, should not come to school wearing colorful, poofy princess dresses – for reasons of safety on the playground and for convenience in the classroom.  And despite this annual announcement, over the course of the year there would inevitably be numbers of girls who decided to put on the dress (say ‘yes’ to the dress?) anyway. 

When I look at my own dress clothes, fairly straightforward, small burst of color here and there, it tends to feel drab, even gloomy, when compared to the bright colors of a princess costume and the even brighter smile on a child’s face when she wears it. 

There’s also something that’s similar, in both cases, whether in a princess dress or a suit, a military uniform, a doctor’s white jacket, in every case, even with all the training and experience of a professional, whether princess or professional or in any leadership role in life, in all our roles we are playing a part.  Each part has a lingo, various scripts depending on the situation, an expected voice or tone, and in many cases a uniform.

Uniform does not make or break the role, after all, some police, for example, wear plain clothes, but if a business person would go into a high level negotiation meeting in a clown suit, then, I suspect everyone would be scratching their heads, scratching their heads about identity, and the assumptions, beliefs, and ultimately the trust that comes from a sharper sense of identity.

There is a profound crisis of identity across political, religious, and social lines that make leadership challenging in the early part of this 21^st century.  In the political arena, it is less clear what a democrat or a republican is or is not.  The lines between religious denominations are grayer then even before.  In a time that TV commercials suggest we ask our doctor about a certain treatment plan, for example, we may take on some of the doctor role ourselves.  It’s a muddled and complicated picture of identity, roles, and assumptions that makes leadership harder since it’s less clear who is the leader, who is the group that requires the leadership, and what’s the relationship between the two.

Today, we heard about two Israelites Eldad and Medad, who have cameo roles in the Torah, just here in chapter 11 of Numbers.  When God’s spirit fills Moses and 70 elders, they offer prophecy, and then God’s spirit leaves them and they stop offering prophecy.  Like a car, when it has fuel it can move, but when it’s empty it’s two benches with a roof. 

Two men, Eldad and Medad, continue to offer prophecy even after the spirit leaves the others, and they make these prophecies in the camp rather than in the Mishkan, the Holy Place.

Joshua, 2^nd to Moses, asks Moses to denounce them or hold them.  Joshua seems to think they are acting out of order, but Moses, again, puts things into perspective for Joshua saying, “Would that the entire people of God be prophets, if God would but place God’s spirit on them.”

We recall Moses mentoring Joshua in a similar way at Mount Sinai, when Moses comes down from the top and hears the people partying by the golden calf, Joshua says to him, “I hear the sound of war in the camp!”  Moses responds, “I don’t hear the sound of strength, or weakness, just the sound of song.”

In both moments, Joshua takes a hard line regarding identity, the description of sound in one, and the identity of prophets in the other.

And in both moments, Moses reminds him that his first impressions are incorrect, that he must step back, and see reality in context.

Context, after all, is a necessary element for evaluating leadership.  The high level business person just might choose to put on a clown costume if her company is negotiating a deal on importing clown clothing for Barnum and Bailey.

As we are living in a time when all manner of identities are grayer, less well-defined, then the way we identify anything depends upon a cumulative evaluation of spoken words, dialogue, writing, and the way a person or group chooses to act in a variety of settings, whether in peace or conflict.

We might react the same way, for example, to Joshua if a small group of people declare themselves to be prophets, but the Meshivat Nefesh, Rabbi Yochanan Son of Aaron Luria (Alsace, born 1440), explains Eldad and Medad did not want to be prophets, did not want the status, in fact, they wanted none of it and tried to escape until ha’kavod radaf acha’rey’hem, the honor chased after them, and they achieved the merit of being prophets all the time, like Moses.  And as a result, their lives changed forever since they had to maintain purity, and would have to live more often away from their families to do so. 

Leadership, though, is not something reserved for people who fit certain roles in which leadership is expected.  It is a way of thinking and living.  Tablet Magazine writer Liel Leibovitz says it best, quote, “As Eldad and Medad…show us so unequivocally, we all have within us the engines of our own greatness. All we need to do is start them and see change coming, not from above but from within, sustainable and real and sweeter than we can imagine.”

If each of us can summon the courage to lead, to find our voice, to take a stand for our beliefs, we will find the energy to do it – working on behalf of ourselves and others breeds more energy for doing this work rather than sapping us.

And there are times, even if it’s not a deal about clown clothing, that we must change the uniform, change the language, and even the usual approach like the girls who put on princess dresses when running, climbing, sliding, and doing a day’s learning in the classroom.

A distinguished American, whose statue and picture I saw several times when at the Capitol in Washington this past week, put the choice to wear a princess dress against the rules in a lasting expression, “A little revolution now and then is a good thing.”  That distinguished American, Thomas Jefferson.

Dvar Torah: Behalot'cha 5776/2016 - Responding to Fear

Vayhi binsoa ha’aron vayomer Moshe, Kuma Ado-nai ve’yafutzu oy’vecha mi’panecha…

We recite this pasuk, this verse, as we take out the Torah to read and study.

We equate the Torah moving from one place to another with taking the Torah from the Ark, the aron, and carrying it around the sanctuary for everyone to see and touch.

Why at this moment does Moses say, “Advance O Lord, and let Your enemies be scattered, may Your foes flee before you!”?

At this moment of hope for the Israelites, finally we will be moving from Mount Sinai, at this moment of beginning for every Torah service for us, why is there talk of enemies and war?

We know that our enemies in the past have taken Torahs, stolen them, burned synagogues down, trampled and defamed the Torah itself. 

The Torah itself cannot be a shield, but the people of the Book can be a shield, can keep and grow its influence whether under oppression or, please God, through many generations of peace ahead, peace to study, to live, and to sing out our prayers in full voice.

As I’ve said many times before, we live in a climate of fear.  There is a sense that danger is around the corner – whether in the car, and we’re wondering whether a driver is texting and not paying attention, or the lone-wolf terrorist, the more rapid spread of disease via airplane flights, and now the uncertainty about the future of Europe as one of the Union’s biggest names pulls out, there is a sense of fear that infuses our everyday life and thinking.

Of course, my parents hid under desks during potentially nuclear air raid drills, and nuclear missiles were armed and ready to fly from Cuba in 1962.  Fear is nothing new, but at least back then the battle lines were a bit clearer, we believed we knew who was the ‘us’ and who was the ‘them’.

The beginning of the Torah service Vayhi binsoa that is part of our Torah reading tomorrow is a reminder that we must not let fear drown out the Presence of God, of hope, of joy in our hearts.  Rashbam, Rashi’s grandson, explains Moses says Kumah Ado-nai, Stand up God, be Present God since at the moment the Ark of the Covenant moves the Shechinah, God’s indwelling Presence, disappears from above the Ark itself. 

And so when Moses says Kumah Ado-nai, he is asking just as we do for God to be present, for there to be the possibility of courage, of vision, and of insight that can help us put our reality into a new frame, a frame that does not dismiss the possibility of danger, rather, a frame that accepts danger and evil as part of this imperfect world and gives us the strength to bring blessing and be a blessing for each other no matter what danger appears on the horizon and no matter, as the Shadow said, no matter what evil lurks in  the hearts of men…

Bechukotai: 5776/2016 Triumph and Tragedy

In just two days, we will observe the 72^nd anniversary of the D-Day invasions.  On June 6, 1944, allied military forces crossed the English channel and invaded Germany’s ‘Fortress Europe’ in the beginning of a drive that would result in turning back German victories in Western Europe as the Russians pushed from the East .  24,000 Allied troops and countless air, sea, and land craft participated in the operation.  It was a moment of unity and resolve in the face of a terrible threat.

Seventy two years later, when Omaha and other Normandy beaches are quiet, destinations for tourism and holidays, Islamic fundamentalism spreads into Europe, enormous waves of refugees fleeing violence in the Middle East seek to enter. 

On our own shores, the plague of gun violence, and other violence whether through hate speech or physical violence at presidential campaign events, continues to wreak havoc on our schools, on our families.  The recent shootings in Minnesota and then UCLA highlight how persistent the problems are and how challenging it seems to be to put an end to it, how to balance the freedoms and protections of the Constitution and the value of life without upending democracy. 

In Israel, violence persists as well, and for the first time in recent memory I have heard from people who recently traveled there, people who otherwise would walk briskly and confidently down the streets, that they were more on edge and suspicious of the unkown.

Why is it that our places of greatest triumph are also places of great tragedy? 

When we’ve reached such great heights of unity against evil, of creating a representative democracy out of British colonies, of creating a modern Jewish State out of a dusty desert, that we then confront such great challenges, challenges that threaten to upend the amazing and courageous work of previous generations to lay the foundations of the way of life we live and hope to teach to our students and children?

The same is true for Mount Sinai.  As we complete reading from Sefer Vayikra, the Book of Leviticus, today, we acknowledge we’ve been at Sinai for a long time.  Since we arrive there following the Exodus, we’ve been encamped for some 2 years and at Sinai we receive the Torah, we experience our greatest moment of unity and aspiration, the moment we will celebrate at Shavuot in one week, and also one of our most infamous moments, creating the Golden Calf, Egel Ha’Zahav.  Just as God prepares to give us the guidance we will need not only for the wilderness but for the rest of our future, we turn away, and the people violate what will be the first and second commandments right at the foot of the Holy Mountain.

The Book of Leviticus ends by reminding us of the Holy Mountain, “These are the mitzvot that God gave Moses for the Israelite people on Mount Sinai.”(27:34)  This sounds like a throw away, a postscript, a reminder that just in case we’ve forgotten as we listen to the Torah chanting, we’ve been at Sinai and we’ve heard all God has had to say.  This moment is over, and it’s time to move on.

Before we move on though, the Torah reminds us in this innocuous sounding end to the Book, when we might expect something more majestic, that D-Day, Pushing back against violence here and abroad, and maintaining a Jewish democratic state in the middle east are vital goals but the process of doing so is painful, painstaking and gradual, and tragically beyond the lifetime of any single one of us. 

And so the great Rabenu Bachya, from Spain, teaches us to read this last sentence through a different lens, the lens of looking into the future, into the unknown.  When the Torah says, “These are the mitzvot,” “Eleh ha’mitzvot”  Bachya explains, “The word Eleh, these are, means the mitzvot are eternal, they will be forever.” 

Bachya gives us a new lens, the lens of accepting the rabbinic wisdom kol hat’cha’lot kashot, all beginnings are difficult, and then challenging us to hold fast to faith when triumph turns into tragedy, when tragedy can often stay around too long, when maintaining the whole comes into conflict with healing a part, when we lose hope, when we question the structures that gave us security and reliability and feel our humanity our finite-ness more than we care to feel it. 

Bachya’s reading here, a reading shared by many others, should remind us of how difficult it is to build something, anything, to maintain it, to grow it, to nurture its passion and energy so that overtime an idea, an organization, a person, a family, a nation dos not grow into a fixed rhythm it cannot break, into patterns that while familiar and comforting, do not open up opportunities for self-reflection.

And the same occurs in Jewish communities, even in traditional ones.  Of late, we’ve seen out of the Orthodox, that is the Orthodox Jewish world, strong statements of a necessity to step back from accepted norms to make sure that Jews do mitzvot with the correct kavannah, intention, and in the most thoughtful and humane way.  Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo has written about taking off his kippah in order to remember why he wears it.  Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz has written about ‘swearing off’ kosher meat altogether and turning vegetarian due to disturbing news about conditions in some kosher slaughterhouses.  The Modern Orthodox world has been struggling mightily with the movement in our area and others to confer official Jewish leadership status to women.  Some in the Orthodox world have even endeavored through significant controversy to find a way to permit Shabbat observant Jews to text on Shabbat.   All these things have come up even as the same Jews in these communities continue, as we do, to honor Shabbat and holidays, to study the Torah of ethics, the Torah of tradition, and the Torah of keeping alive a thousands year old tradition in the face of earth shattering change.    

Suffice to say, for our own community, if those to the right of us can struggle mightily and think creatively about their future, then so can we.  We here, like the soldiers on Omaha beach, struggle to keep the fire of faith burning here in our own community even as we confront a world that tends to tell us to swear off of faith and focus on other things that seem to be more important at the moment.

Triumph and tragedy happen hand in hand, just as the Rabbis say ‘life and death are in our mouths’ as far as what we say to one another, just as the Rabbis teach us that all beginnings are difficult. 

First though imagine the person you want to be, the family we want to have, the country we wish for, the Israel we pray for, get that vision and picture so clear in mind that it’s almost real and may the ruach the spirit of this Shabbat lift us up under our wings so that we can make that vision real, through triumph, and tragedy.