On Parshat Vayechi: Beauty and the Beast & Nahum, a person of Gamzu

 The original Disney version of Beauty and the Beast is a wonderful and magical story with a colorful cast of characters and timeless songs.  I found myself though thinking this week about the opening moments of the film, the prologue that sets the stage for the story.

 

The narrator tells of a prince who lived in a beautiful castle in the country.  One stormy and cold night, an old woman comes knocking at the door to ask for food and shelter for the night.  The prince, though he has everything in the world he could need, and plenty to offer, turns her away.  The old woman says do not judge by appearances, but by what is in the heart.  When he turns her away again she transforms into an enchantress who punishes the prince by turning him into the beast.

 

I was thinking about this premise when Joseph and his brothers are speaking after the death of their father Jacob.  As the Book of Genesis draws to a close this week, Joseph’s brothers are concerned he will bear a grudge against them and punish them after their father dies.  

 

Joseph reassures them and says, “Although you intended to do me harm, God intended it for good – so as to bring about the present result, the survival of many people.”

 

Joseph’s evaluation called to mind a Rabbi of the Talmud who’s story could well have been the inspiration for Disney’s version of Beauty and the Beast.

 

Nahum of Gamzu was a person who suffered horrific loss of limbs and function.  Since he was known as a righteous person, his students asked him why such suffering had befallen him.  He explained to them what happened:  He was once traveling the road to his father in law’s house, and he had a load divided onto the backs of 3 donkeys:  one of food, one of drink, and one of other delicacies.  A poor person came along and said to me, “Rabbi, please help me with something to sustain me!”  Rabbi Nahum said, please wait until I unload the donkeys and then I’ll give you something to eat.  However, before he could unload the donkeys the poor man died.

 

He prayed that God would bring him pain to atone for the way he could have helped the poor man more quickly.

 

While Nahum does not turn the poor man away like the prince in the story, both stories suggest to us that when there is a need, we should do what we can with the least amount of delay.

 

But what’s more amazing about Nahum is how he stayed positive, faithful, and hopeful despite what happened to him.  Our Sages looked at his name, especially the name of the town he came from, Gamzu, and explained he is a person who would always say “Gam zu le’tovah”, “This too will be for the good.”  No matter what happens, he believed good would come from it.

 

Joseph makes the same claim to his brothers, and our ancestors over the last many centuries affirm it was God’s plan for Joseph to end up in Egypt and then be able to help the family.

 

As far as we can tell, Joseph never bears a grudge against his brothers, and only tests their character to determine, and perhaps also show, the way they have grown up, for the better.

 

But it is one thing to look back and see what good may have come from something, but the great philosopher John Stuart Mill argued that good may come from evil, but tragically, and just as easily, evil may result from the good.  And it is one thing to look back wistfully from a place of comfort, and another thing altogether to be in the moment, experiencing the suffering first hand.  

When we or someone we care about suffers, we’re inclined to want to fix the problem, but we’re not always able to, nor are the professionals always able to fix what is wrong.  And during these times, the clock ticks on, meaning we have to keep ourselves going at the same time – and we may feel depleted as a result.

 

The awareness we cannot always fix things is an important awareness – and a loving presence is often the best gift we can give, similar to the time Abraham is sitting in pain outside his tent, and the Torah tells us God is there – present but not as a healer or miracle-worker, just present so that Abraham is not alone.

 

Let’s commit this week to being fully and lovingly present for someone in our lives, a family member, a friend, a neighbor.  If we can be present in this way, acknowledging but not trying to fix the other person, then we may be able to give the other person the empowerment to find his or her own way through the healing maze since they will know that someone is there to reassure and offer compassionate voice.

 

And let’s not forget, that in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, it is love that transforms the beast back into a human being, and when we’re suffering we may feel like we are the disease, or the condition that causes the pain, and through loving presence we can help someone realize they are, like the prince, a human being through and through, made in the image of God.

 

 

 

 

Yom Kippur 2021/5782: Transforming anger into blessing

 What is the most popular expression of anger in popular culture?  Some might say the short, red, humanoid anger emotion from Disney’s Inside Out, but I argue it is Dr. Bruce Banner, the Hulk, who has been an iconic character for decades.  The key moment in understanding him, and a key lesson for us at Yom Kippur, and during this season, comes in the Avengers movie, when Dr. Banner arrives in New York, with the alien army already causing chaos, Captain America says to him, “Now might be a really good time for you to get angry.”  And he responds, “That’s my secret Captain, I’m always angry.”

            Of all the emotions we have all felt over the past 18 months, fear, uncertainty, anxiety, and loneliness, to name a few --  anger, at least at first, did not make my list.  But it is there, like a cancer it hides inside us and it is magnified by all the other emotions and stressors we feel.  Even Dr. Banner is able to keep his slow boiling anger under control and unleashes it only when necessary, but we all do not have his level of control.

We are living in times when anger brews in a world turned inside out, and it’s not only related to Covid19, but , among other things, to the steadily increasing polarization of our society, the demonization that’s followed in its wake, the expanding scope of environmental disasters we’ve witnessed – fire and water, and the impact of all these stressors taken together.  And in Israel last spring we witnessed the greatest peacetime loss of life in Israel at Meron on Lag B’Omer, a day of bright light turned into darkness, over the summer a new round of rockets attacks on Israeli cities, 13 American soldiers and Afghan allies murdered in Kabul, and so much more.

            Anger is with us.  We may not be feeling it right now, but it’s there, and the healthiest way we are going to make it through this New Year together is to be honest and open about it, and, to decide how we can turn this emotion into an ally rather than a divisive and toxic enemy.

            The Rabbis teach us as human beings we are known by three qualities that define us.  We are known b’kaso, be’kiso, be’koso, by our anger, by how we use our financial resources, and, finally, by our cup – our ability to control our impulses, meaning our temperance .  How does our anger define us?  We may get angry about things that on the surface are passing annoyances, stubbing a toe, someone cuts us off on the road.    And we may get angry about real issues of depth and complexity in connection with our values and desires to improve this world.  Anger is an emotion that shows we care about something that happened or is happening.  We do not get angry about things to which we are in all other ways indifferent.  The Rabbis are teaching us heaven judges us by whether our anger is mainly about minor and inconsequential things or, about the more significant and lasting issues of our lives, our communities, and beyond.  

Anger, like power, need not be a negative force all the time.  If we are angry about things that matter, about the fact that our world does not yet reflect God’s fullest vision of what a holy, just world can be, a world overflowing with blessing and the radiance of God’s Presence – that’s a good anger.  That is anger free from demonization, free from hatred for ourselves or others.  

            In this spirit, allow me to share the story of how two people helped a third overcome his unbridled anger and hate to open the gates of healing and blessing where we could not have imagined before.  You may have already read it in Chicken Soup for the Jewish Soul, about a Cantor, his brave wife, and a Klansman whose lives came together in Nebraska.

            Cantor Michael Weisser and his wife Julie moved to Lincoln, Nebraska thirty years ago.  While unpacking, their phone rang, and the voice said, “You will be sorry you ever moved in to that house, Jew boy!” Then the line went dead.

            Two days later they received a thick brown mailing with a card that read, “The KKK is watching you, Scum.”  The mailing included anti-Semitic caricatures of Jews, blacks, and other race traitors and threatening messages, including, “Your time is up!” and “The Holohoax was nothing compared to what’s going to happen to you.”

            The police identified the source of the mailing as Larry Trapp, an avowed Nazi and the state’s grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan.  Trapp, 44 years old, was diabetic and in a wheelchair, but still he was thought to be responsible for fire-bombings of several African American’s homes around Lincoln and the burning of an Asian refugee assistance center.  Authorities had become aware he was discussing plans to bomb Cantor Weisser’s synagogue.

            After the hate mail, and new local calls to recruit for the Klan,  Julie Weisser began to wonder about how lonely this man must be, how isolated in all his [anger driven] hatred.  She would sometimes drive past his apartment complex, and while infuriated and revolted by him, she was intrigued how he could become so evil.

            She told Michael of an idea she had:  She was going to send Trapp a letter every day, along with a Bible passage from the Book of Proverbs, a book that teaches lessons on how to treat our fellow human beings.

            Michael liked the idea but didn’t want Julie to identify herself in the letters for fear of reprisal.  So she held off on her plan, and then Trapp launched a white supremacist series on a local TV channel with a call-in hotline.  Michael would call the KKK hotline and say things like, “Larry, do you know the first laws Hitler’s Nazis passed were against people like yourself with physical deformities, physical handicaps?”

            Michael asked Julie, if he ever picks up the phone, what should I say?

            Julie answered, “Tell him you want to do something nice for him.  Tell him you’ll take him to the grocery store or something.  Anything to help him.  It will catch him totally off guard.”

            Trapp, feeling increasingly annoyed by Michael’s calls, one day picked up the phone and shouted, “What do you want?  Why are you harassing me?”

            “I don’t want to harass you Larry, I just want to talk to you.

            “What do you want, make it quick.”

            “Well, I was thinking you might need a hand with something, and I wondered if I could help.  I know you’re in a wheelchair and I thought maybe I could take you to the grocery store or something.”

            There was silence.  “That’s ok.  That’s nice of you, but I’ve got that covered.  Thanks anyway, but don’t call this number anymore.”

            Before Trapp could hang up, Michael replied, “I’ll be in touch.”

            Trapp was feeling confused.  A young person helped him get his wheel chair onto an elevator at the eye doctor.  When he asked where she was from, the voice said, “From Vietnam.”

            That night, he found himself crying, thinking of his assaults on the Asian community.

            Although he had spoken to Michael and told him he was rethinking things, a few days later he was on TV again shrieking about kikes, half-breeds, and the Jewish media.

            Michael was furious, and in a follow-up call, Trapp said, “I’m sorry I did that…I’ve been talking that way all my life….I can’t help it…I’ll apologize…”

            The next day, the Weisser’s phone rang, Trapp said, “I want to get out, but I don’t know how.”

            They asked to come over to break bread together, he hesitated, then finally agreed.  While preparing to leave, Julie looked for a gift to give, and decided on a silver friendship ring of intertwined strands, something Michael never wore.  He said, “I’ve always thought those strands could represent all different kinds of people on earth.”

            At the visit, he yanked off his two swastika rings.  These rings had defined his hate as symbols he wore for so long, rings that as his diabetes advanced caused him physical pain as his hands swelled.  Julie gave him the ring they brought.  They all broke down crying.  In November of 1991, he resigned from the Klan, and wrote apologies to the many people he had threatened or abused.  Julie cared for him through his last year of life.  In June of 1992, he converted to Judaism with a ceremony at the very synagogue he had once planned to blow up.  

            At his funeral, Michael Weisser said, “Those of us who remain behind ask the question, ‘O Lord what are human beings…We are like a breath, like a shadow that flies away…And yet somehow, we know there is more to our lives than what first meets the eye.”

            Larry Trapp had been full of anger his whole life that fueled his hate and led to pain and suffering of others and warped his soul.  Michael and Jullie Weisser could have dismissed him, or cut off his ways of communicating his rage against others, but they responded with compassion.  Clearly we all need to be safe in our compassionate efforts, and in this case they were careful, and through their intervention they turned anger into an open heart, and enabled a human being to do teshuvah, repentance, for the pain he caused to others.  Trapp had been a hateful white supremacist, that’s what he cared about, and that appeared to be all he cared about.  The Weissers imagined there could be more, another side to him, a second soul hiding behind the thick layer of rage.  His apartment, full of Nazi and hate paraphernalia was a shrine to his hate.  Our ancestors were aware of the potential destructive depth of this type of rage.  They teach us in the Talmud that becoming full of anger is equivalent to idol worship.  What idol does anger cause us to worship?  It causes us to worship ourselves.  In other words, only what we are incensed at matters.   

            Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel reminds us even God has anger.  We see it expressed on several occasions in the Bible.  In an effort to explain God’s anger in the Torah, Heschel teaches us God’s anger is ‘not an irrational, sudden and instinctive excitement, but a free and deliberate reaction of God’s justice to what is wrong and evil…Its meaning is instrumental:  to bring about repentance, its purpose…is its own disappearance.  

            This afternoon, we’ll read about how Jonah gets angry with people and with God.  When the residents of Nineveh repent immediately on hearing Jonah’s announcement that they have to repent and change their ways.  Instead of considering himself the most successful prophet ever, he gets angry with God who sees the people change their ways and has a change of heart.  He felt he couldn’t rely on God’s word anymore – God’s message was ‘In 40 days Nineveh will be destroyed’, and now the people of the city have changed.  God’s answer to Jonah in the end is compassion overcomes anger, but Heschel teaches us, beyond justice and anger lies the mystery of compassion.  

            And that is a mystery for us that is worth everything to us in the New Year.  Compassion is the reason we are here.  It is on every page of the machzor.  Some may write this off as naivete or weakness, but as we can see God’s compassion follows serious and soul-searching trials.  It is the more difficult path, but it is the more lasting path, the path of blessing.

            How can we follow God’s example and use our anger for the good?

If we’re going to get angry about something, make it about something significant, something holy.

            Yom Kippur is a day to remind ourselves what we should be angry about.  

            Our righteous anger is a precious resource.  While we feel it, we need to direct it in ways that are relevant and meaningful to us otherwise we risk it burning out when spread too thin.  We will not all agree on our goals, and as a result we may find that our own righteous anger comes against another’s, even right here within our own community.  The lesson of Yom Kippur is we can still be part of the same community, if we can really listen to each other, and open our hearts

             

            For those of us who are fasting, it is important to be aware of our mood and behavior today.  Without the usual nourishment our senses are heightened and we may feel a little less patient and thoughtful. A recent term for feeling this way is ‘hangry’, anger caused by hunger.  A congregant of mine once explained how he grew up going to a synagogue on a city street, and often, when they opened the windows to cool off the sanctuary on a hot Yom Kippur day, the smell from the pizza parlor across the street would waft through…goodness…what meditation and self-control they must have had there to get through that day.  If we can be aware of our responses today, and slow down our reactions with some deep breathing, we may be able to pinpoint the little things that trigger us so we can then focus on getting angry about the big things. 

            Uncertain times, loneliness, fear, the force of bad habits and the difficulty of breaking them, all can cause us to rage, to strike out at the seeming disorder.  That was the story of Larry Trapp, and like his name, he was trapped in this cycle of anger and hate.  Today, Yom Kippur, is a day we expose our own fears, angers, uncertainties, and pain, like an open live wire threatening shocks to anyone who gets too close when our armor is stripped away.  This place, and this time, are safe havens for us to think, to feel, to breathe, to decide what is worth getting angry and doing something about, and to decide what is unworthy of draining our hearts and souls of their precious energy.  

            Our ancestors teach us we are judged by God on 3 things, b’kaso, b’kiso, be’koso, and the first one b’kaso, is, what is the nature of our anger?  

            What will we choose to be angry about this year?  How will we use this precious resource in a way that motivates us to act on what we care deeply about in a way that ends by dousing our righteous rage with the cooling water of compassion.   

            Today is a day for us to begin to decide.

 

Tzom Kal, wishing an easy & meaningful fast to all those who are fasting, and may we be written and sealed in the Book of Life.

2nd day Rosh Hashanah 2021/5782: Masorti & Supporting the diversity of Judaism in Israel

So much is the same about Judaism and Jewish identity as its observed in Israel.  For example,  they celebrate 2 days of Rosh Hashanah like we do in the Diaspora.  But beyond that, the structures of Jewish religious life in Israel are in many ways so different than here.  This is one of the reasons the reasons we’ve launched a partnership between Shaare Shalom and The New Kehilah of Ramat Aviv, the Conservative synagogue in Tel Aviv, so that in this new year we can get to know each other, spiritually, socially, and then we will be able to advocate for our brothers and sisters in Israel and they us, benefit from their wisdom and experience, and develop a closer relationship between our two worlds.

 

In order to explain more, I would like to take you on a journey.  

When I was studying in Israel for a year during rabbinical school fifteen years ago I interviewed for the student Rabbi position at a lovely congregation in Loudoun County, Virginia.  At the time, I had a vague idea of where Loudoun County was, somewhere, as my father explained it, in the neighborhood of Dulles Airport.  We chatted on a Skype connection from our apartment in Jerusalem at a time when Zoom only meant to ‘go really fast’.

 

During that year in Jerusalem, Rachel and I joined a synagogue called Kehilat Mayanot, a Masorti congregation, Israel’s branch of Conservative, egalitarian Judaism.  

 

It was so different from what I knew growing up.  Mayanot did not have its own building.  At the time, they held services in a classroom in a school building in the Baka neighborhood of the new city, a 15-minute walk from our apartment. Members of the synagogue rotated hosting the oneg after Saturday services.  The dress was very casual, and one Saturday morning someone’s dog wandered into and out of the room where we were praying.  During the Dvar Torah, members of the synagogue would interrupt the speaker and ask questions.  Children sat under the table during the Torah reading eating Bamba snacks.  The overall feel may have been casual, but we were in the company of high-level professionals, and professors both of Judaic studies and other subjects as well who all were motivated to teach, give divrey Torah, and to lead soulful and energetic services.

 

During our time there, the Ramat Rachel neighborhood was well under construction and growing, a former Kibbutz property turned into many new apartment buildings to the east of the Old City, and just north of where Mayanot gathered.

 

A parcel of that land was zoned for a synagogue, and Mayanot submitted a bid to build its building on that property.  Most of the Mayanot members lived in or near that neighborhood.  The bid looked to be successful, until it wasn’t. 

 

A group, supported by one of the religious political parties, having discovered that a Masorti community wanted to build there, submitted a competing bid and eventually the municipality chose their bid over Mayanot.  The party who’s bid was accepted was not local and did not even have an established congregation in the area.  

 

This was a difficult moment, because I love Israel – a place of wonderful relationships we made with Mayanot members and faculty at Machon Schecter with whom we still keep in touch after all these years, but I struggle with the way its citizens who are Jewish, but not Orthodox, are treated.  

 

The government pays the salaries of Orthodox rabbis, and so the members of their congregations do not need to pay dues.  Masorti communities not only need to pay dues, but face discrimination on establishing places to pray.  If a Masorti rabbi  was found to have officiated a wedding, they could be jailed.  For years, even our way of praying has not been included.  And as you may know, it is forbidden to pray in a mixed group at the main plaza of the Western Wall.  

 

And then, just this past month, after Orthodox Jews interrupted and interfered with Masorti Jews praying in the current egalitarian area at the Western Wall, Eliezer Melamed, a leading Orthodox Rabbi, chief Rabbi of Shomron and head of its yeshiva, wrote a piece in a religious news publication that echoed like the voice of the angel telling Abraham to stay his hand and not go through with sacrificing his son.

He said, quote, “it is correct to set aside the ‘Ezrat Yisrael’ area for them to hold their prayer services in a respectable manner,” Rabbi Melamed wrote.

“If more people come to pray adhering to their rules, the area allotted to them in the Ezrat Yisrael space should be increased as needed.”

[Orthodox and charedi people] should be happy that more of their Jewish brothers and sisters are connecting to the site of the Temple, and more of them want to pray to their Father in Heaven.”

 

[And if] They need a Torah scroll [the Western Wall's rabbi] should take care of it."

(https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/310396)

 

On this second day of Rosh Hashanah, with the Binding of Isaac as the central story that anchors the day, while it may seem the Conservative and Reform movements are, in a way, bound on the altar there is change occurring at the highest levels.

 

Heads of the Masorti/Conservative movement sent a high-level delegation to meet with leaders of the current government, and Nachman Shai, the minister for Diaspora affairs, recently wrote that the government of Israel, in setting the relationship with Jews in the diaspora, quote, “is slowly but surely taking responsibility…we realize we have disappointed you and are doing teshuvah, repentance, with a sincere desire to make things right in the future.”  Shai explains the government is committed to bringing back the Kotel compromise, that is, formalizing an egalitarian prayer section at the Western Wall.  He wants us to know that they believe in us, and are ready for our critique and  ideas, and most of all to be our partners.   

 

If I could speak directly to Mr. Shai, I would say, here at Shaare Shalom, we are already your partners!  Our partnership with The New Kehilah of Ramat Aviv launched with a series of joint online classes to help us prepare for the high holidays, and that was just the beginning.  Together we will be able to accomplish things we could not do alone. 

 

It’s so important for us to connect with Israelis, both us grown-ups and our kids.  This fall the students of both communities will be learning together in a joint religious school program.  They will literally put faces and names to people who live there, and so, when our kids go to college, they will not only know about Israel in theory, they will have relationships and a holy connection. 

 

Jeff Cymet, the Rabbi of the New Kehilah, is American born and raised, and is one of the leaders of the Masorti movement.  He is an amazing teacher, and spokesperson for the movement, and we’re blessed that he and his community are 100% in favor of this partnership that will strengthen both our communities.  Among the many projects Jeff has worked on, he is one of the visionary founders of a school in Tel Aviv for students from Charedi orthodox, Masorti, and secular backgrounds.  I feel sure he will be able to help us begin to resolve disunity amongst the Jewish people here in North America.  We have a lot to learn from each other, not only in information but also in inspiration.

 

The Masorti movement benefits from dynamic leaders like Rabbi Jeff as it’s grown now into a phenomenon that the Israeli public is increasingly recognizing as a meaningful way of connecting Jewishly, with 80 communities, and reaching thousands of youth and adults each year, a program for enabling Bnai Mitzvah students with disabilities to celebrate their simchas,  a school training Rabbis and educators in Jerusalem, a youth movement, and Tali, a like-minded school movement, the Masorti movement is growing.

 

Masorti offers many Israelis a way of reconnecting to Judaism as a religious and spiritual path.  A May 2016 study showed 1/3 of Israeli Jews identified with Reform and Conservative Judaism.

 

Our partnership and wish for Israel to be more supportive of Masorti and Reform Judaism is not an indictment of Israel as a nation.  Israel’s existence, and persistence, as a democratic state in the middle east is a miracle, a miracle of courage, endurance, and an indefatigable vision of hope, strength, and belief in the power of an evolving homeland in which calls of the muezzin mix with the sound of church bells and the buzz of Jews praying and learning, where scientific and technological discovery proceed at a rapid pace, and where our ancient dream of building a homeland continues to evolve into a light unto the nations.  

 

This project of ours is a way of helping Israel, and us, grow and evolve even further.  It’s a learning curve whose only goal is increasing blessing, and as our tradition says, ma’alin ba’kodesh, rising up in holiness.

 

In the same way, at the end of the Akedah, we read Abraham returns to his servants, but the Torah does not mention Isaac returning.  Our ancestors believe Isaac is going off to school, to the primeval yeshivah of Shem and Ever, where he will himself grow from this experience into a more mature adult.  

 

That’s our hope too, that the miracle of modern Israel continue to be an ongoing story in which the State celebrates and supports all forms of Judaism practiced within its borders.  Diaspora Minister Nachman Shai and his government are eager to do so, and what a blessing that will be. 

 

Just as all of us, here, in Israel, and all over the world say Ado-nai Echad, God is one, we pray for unity and strength here, and with our brothers and sisters in Tel Aviv, with whom, God willing, in another year or so, we will be able to meet in person as we go together on a mission to visit Israel and literally join hands in prayer and thanksgiving for the blessings that flow from Israel to us, and from us back to them in return.  

 

Please join us as we continue to create and grow this partnership with Israel! 

 

Shana Tovah.

 

 

 

First Day Rosh Hashanah 2021/5782: The Power of Hope

 

What lessons do we remember from elementary school?

 

I before E except after C.

 

Writing letters in block and cursive, or in more recent years, making a presentation on Google slides.

 

There is a lesson from Mrs. Nielsen, my fifth-grade science teacher that’s stayed with me over the years, a lesson that does not so much speak to me about science but more about our faith and confronting a New Year that is, unfortunately, feeling like an extension of the previous 18 months rather than a whole new world and a broader return to life as we knew it.

 

This lesson is called the law of conservation of energy, which explains the energy within a system cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be converted from one form to another, unless energy gets added from the outside.

 

When we come to this moment, the beginning of a new year in the Jewish spiritual calendar, especially this year, as energized and enthusiastic as I am about being here with you and joyfully welcoming the New Year with an open mind and heart, I suspect I’m not the only one feeling some heaviness of spirit and fatigue at the lingering and growing Coronavirus numbers, here, in Israel, and elsewhere in the world.  

 

We walk around at times with weariness and dread.  For example, when I was at the bus stop with the other bus stop families on the first morning of school, after the cheer that went up after the kids boarded the bus, everyone was saying how they hoped schools will stay open.  Again, concern, and a gray cloud over an otherwise hopeful moment.

 

As we wait for vaccines for our youngest community members, and for vaccines to get to people all over the world, we need to find an outside source of energy  to infuse us with a fresh sense of hopefulness, purpose, and meaning as we experience a time that is chaotic not only because of the virus but because along with it we’ve witnessed social, political, environmental upheavals of a variety and intensity, both here and abroad, that feel unprecedented, complicated and transcendent. 

 

And so, let’s make all our 5^th grade science teachers proud today, and apply the law of conservation of energy to open up for us a new way of experiencing Rosh Hashanah, the beginning of the New Year.

 

It’s at this time of year our tradition teaches us that the outside energy we’re looking for is available, and happily for us it is available to us all at no out-of-pocket cost, and it is zero emissions, zero negative emissions.

 

We heard this words in today’s Haftarah – dirshu Ado-nai be-hi-matz-oh, k-ra-u-hu bih-yoto karov – Search out God where the Holy One can be found, call to God when God is near.

 

Our tradition teaches us that these ten days, Rosh Hashanah, the days in between, and Yom Kippur are the days when God is especially close.

 

The Baal Shem Tov encourages us to stay positive though about the potential for God’s energy to infuse us with new strength this time of year.

 

He teaches us the Rabbis of the Talmud (Yevamot 105a) tell us God is close by during these days but for an unexpected reason.

 

Looking back on our history we might have thought God was always close to us during the days the Temples stood in Jerusalem, those holy places to where all the people turned their hearts, where the Ark of the Covenant and the priests pronounced the mysterious Name of God once per year and all the people who could made pilgrimage.

 

He argues – to the contrary -  it is easier now, in the days after the Temples, for our prayers to be answered and for us to experience the ru-ah ha’Kodesh, the Divine spirit.  Why is that?  He says when a monarch is in the palace, it’s much more difficult to approach that person than when the King or Queen is out there on the road, where anyone can approach him or her.

 

That’s us, we’re the ones out on the metaphorical road.

 

 

So how, under these circumstances, do we approach God and tap into the spiritual energy we need?

 

We all have access to this energy whatever the nature of our belief or questions of faith.  

What’s most important to enable us to access this energy is to nurture hope in ourselves -- not a smarmy, Hallmark-holiday special type hope, but an earnest, durable feeing inside that what we do, however minimal it may feel, however insignificant we may feel, makes a difference.  If we can do that, then our hearts will be open and our souls receptive.

Rabbi Hugo Gryn, who was a prisoner in Auschwitz, tells the story of hope in the unlikeliest of places.   Another inmate who approached him on a cold December evening in the camp to say tonight is the first night of Chanukkah.  His father made a little menorah out of scrap metal, he used threads from his uniform for wicks, and for oil, a little butter he somehow got from a guard.  This was a huge risk, and Gryn protested at the waste of precious calories.  Wouldn’t it be better to share the butter on a crust of bread than burn it?  His father said, “Hugo, both you and I know a person can live a very long time without food.  But Hugo, I tell you, a person cannot live a single day without hope.  This is the fire of hope.  Never let it go out.  Not here.  Not anywhere.  Remember that, Hugo. (R. Kenneth Cohen in Chicken Soup for the Jewish Soul, 247-248)

 

Real hope restores life.  The prophet Ezekiel tells the compelling story of the valley of dried bones he sees in a vision, with the voice of the people from this place saying “Our bones are dried up, our hope is gone, we’re doomed.”

 

Rabbi Meir Levush reads these words, our hope is gone, and reminds us that hope is the kusta de’hayuta, the stuff of life, it is the energy source that in our mystical tradition is a part of the soul that stays active while we sleep enabling us to wake up in the morning.  There it is, definitively, hope as a source of power!

 

On a national scale, it is the energy source that leads our ancestors from slavery to freedom, and gives us the wherewithal to do all the mitzvot necessary to  raise up our world, in our time, to justice, to inclusion, to faith in each other, our tradition, and faith in the Source of Creation itself.

 

I’m arguing that hope can be a real motivational force in our lives, a force that ties directly to the latent potential in the air and water of these holy days as expressed in the prophecy of Isaiah.  Even so, my gut tells me for many of us hope may be a rare commodity.  If we’ve experienced so many setbacks that our lives are at a stand-still, if our health is compromised and we can’t fully realize our goals, if we’re in a dark place emotionally or in our relationships, if a relative or friend is suffering, or has succumbed to Covid 19, the most persuasive message of hope may sound at best empty, and at worst insulting.

 

Still, allow me to share an adapted version of a message from Rabbi Naomi Levy, that I pray can be helpful for all of us in this moment.  Here’s the message:

It’s so much easier to be hopeful in life’s highs…easier for the Children of Israel to find hope in the Exodus, in the face of miracles, of seas parting, than it was to find hope in the schlep, in the journey out of Egypt through the desert in the heat without shade or food.

But that’s our challenge, to find hope in each day.

It’s so much easier to find hope in the ideal of God, the loving, all-powerful, all-knowing God of the universe who neither slumbers nor sleeps, than it is to find hope in a God who is silent in the face of suffering and death and disease and terror and war and genocide and natural disaster.

But that’s our challenge, to find hope and faith in this broken, breath-taking world.(From Hope Will Find You)

 

Let’s be as courageous as we can be for this challenge.  To do so in this New Year we will have to challenge ourselves.  For those who may have watched the TV show Seinfeld, you may recall the character George Costanza at one of his lowest moments, when he tells his friends about how every instinct and decision he’s ever made were wrong and made his life worse.  And so his friends urge him then to just do the opposite.  And when he does, to his surprise, his life begins to change, for the better.  This bit does not mean we should also do the opposite, but it does mean that teshuvah, reflecting, changing direction, and remaking the world in a way that is full of hope, requires courage, scrappiness, and a willingness to flirt with failure.

 

We will need to get up to act at times we feel full of fear or we’re on the fence, and we’ll need to move when we’d rather sit still, and reach out to God in prayer when we’d prefer not to even speak.

 

The energy we need is outside our system – for all of us today here and joining us from home, without touching, we’re going to need to virtually join hands, and then we’ll see that although the God to whom we pray, who is the Source of Hope, is invisible, and silent, the people we see around us are very real and in need of hope as much as we are.  If you are able to feel this hope in the New Year, share it, let it spread like electricity until we all feel it, in our own capacity.

 

And then let’s all thank our 5^th grade science teachers for the lessons in the fundamentals of science that continue to help us open our eyes and hearts and to not only welcome in a New Year, but create a year that is altogether new, renewed, and re-energized for us, for Israel, and for the world.  Amen.

 

 

Tashlich, 2021

 Tashlich is the ceremony for symbolically letting go of our sins of the past year.

This poem is a reflection on Tashlich:

Tashlich

 

It’s easier to throw

Than to really let go

 

Crumbs and pebbles sail and sink

What we want to cleanse in our souls, though

Weighs heavy

Concrete blocks bound to our feet

Head too heavy for the neck to hold it up

Shoulders burdened by an invisible yoke

 

And as the crumbs

Drift away

There is a mental switch

The bread should stay on shore

And be the base for something delicious

And nourishing

 

It’s me should be in the water

Drifting

Floating

For a few moments, the water’s hands

Carrying the weight for me

Beginning to dissolve the thickness

The agglutination of all my wrongdoings, and wishi’ddones,

My It’snotformetodos, my conventientlyoverlookeds,

And my Itookthemforgrantedagains…

 

It’s so much easier to throw

Than to really let go

 

Parshat Shofetime 2021/5781: Unity for the People and for Purpose

 

            

    The classic story goes something like this…The new Rabbi starts at the synagogue and during Shabbat services notices something strange.  During the chanting of the Shema, half of the congregants in the sanctuary are standing and half of them are sitting down.  During the kiddush after the service the ones who stood during the Shema were arguing with the ones who did not.  Waving this off as a fluke, he is surprised to see the same thing happen the following week.   After Shabbat he visits the Emeritus Rabbi and says, “I noticed half the congregation stands for the Shema and half sits.”  “Yes, that’s correct.”  “ So, is the tradition to stand for Shema?”  “No, that’s not the tradition.”  “Is the tradition to sit for the Shema?”  “No, that’s not the tradition.”  “So what’s the tradition?” The new Rabbi said, exasperated.  The Emeritus Rabbi responded, “The tradition is to argue about it after services.”

            The two sides of this debate are not so far apart in their thoughts and practice.  They both agree the Shema is an important prayer, and both sides belong to the same synagogue.  

            This week we’ll be reading from the Torah portion Shofetim, all about judges, and law enforcement officers.  Another name for this portion could be Law and Order.

            Our Torah portion includes one of the most prominent and memorable statements Tzedek, Tzedek Tirdof – Justice, justice, you shall pursue it!  Twice the word justice calls out to us, emphasizing that while justice cannot solve all conflicts between us, the justice system, also imperfect, is the way we can strive to bring God’s hope for a just society into being.

            But the only way we can have a justice system in the first place is if we all agree to live by that system, to recognize the law as binding, in other words, we have to be unified or else the justice system will have no authority.

            The Shema argument story is a good example of how we can have unity without having uniformity.  We don’t have to agree, we don’t have to dress the same, talk the same, like the same food or art.  In fact, God has been wary of uniformity since the beginning of time.  This wariness about uniformity is the reason God destroys the Tower of Babbel in the days after the great flood.  At that time, everyone speaks the same language, thought the same way, and they are all consumed by fear.  After God topples the tower, we all start speaking the different languages of the world, all of us with a different sound and look, but all of us from one line, one family, unity but not uniformity.

            Still, unity is no easy goal for us to reach.  It can be elusive.  Despite video chats and social media, many people feel lonelier and more isolated, even more so during the pandemic, and stress, anxiety, depression and other related conditions are everywhere.  

            When we read Tzedek, Tzedek, Tirdof, Justice, Justice you shall pursue it, we hear a lesson pointing toward hope.  Tirdof is in the singular, and so it sounds like the Torah is speaking to each of us as individuals.  But I think during these times we need to read it differently.  When the Torah says ‘you’ shall pursue it, I believe it’s the communal you, all of us together.  We’re one whole, and by looking out for each other, and seeing each other as part of our extended family, means we stand up for each other especially at the times when we may not have the strength to stand up for ourselves.  And our help may not be about legal issues, it may me enough to cheer someone up, to do a small act of recognition and kindness to spring us from the shells we may build around ourselves during these difficult times.  And if anyone wants to debate standing or sitting for the Shema, see you after services!  

Shabbat Shalom.

            

            

 

 

 

The Olympic spirit and the Book of Deuteronomy: "They shall run and not grow weary, they shall walk and not grow faint." (Isaiah 40)

The opening ceremonies of the Tokyo Olympics are all done.  The parade of nations, lighting of the torch, and the games are officially open.  I’ve always loved the Olympics games, the way so many countries gather in one place for sport, to meet and greet, to show that as a species we can be competitive without being in life and death conflict, that at least for a few weeks people can put aside politics, ideology, and historical baggage to do something fun and inspiring together.  

This morning I heard a news story about a unique Olympic team, a team of 29 refugees, who are competing on behalf of 80 million refugees worldwide.  This team includes a woman, a judo competitor, who escaped from war ravaged Syria and made it to the Netherlands where she started a new life, continued training, and eventually brought over her husband and family.  

 

In spite of all this inspiration, and all the perspiration about whether there should be a games this year or not, with the looming Covid crisis with the Delta surge here and abroad, the games still represent an ideal, a hoped for state of relationships between countries and people.  The Games are neither convenient nor cheap to put on, even without a worldwide Covid problem, and terrorism and politics have impacted the games, just a few examples, in Munich in 1972, and in the Moscow games in 1980, and the LA games in 1984.  

 

So the Games, and the vision they offer, are fragile, and they represent nothing less than a risk that’s taken every couple of years, a risk to the country that commits to put them on, a risk for the athletes who dedicated their lives to try and get a spot on the national teams, a risk to the fans to attend – remember Atlanta 1996, we’re just a few days shy from 25 years since that bombing attack.

 

But I hope we can agree that the Games are a worthwhile risk, the same way God, and Moses, believe that leading our ancestors over the Jordan to a new life in the Promised Land is a worthwhile risk.  The entire Book we’re reading now through the end of summer asks the question of whether the special relationship between God and our people can survive us crossing the Jordan and living settled amongst the many people of the land, and whether, once we’re building farms, planting crops, and tending flocks we will have the same closeness to the Invisible God of the universe we did when we depended on the manna falling from the sky or the miraculous water coming up from the desert ground.  

 

It’s a big risk, especially because so many times since we went  free from Egypt we’ve challenged and rebelled, and returned, and then challenged again.

 

And so we can only see the lessons of these summer Torah readings as God having faith in us, giving us the spiritual and legal tools to keep the fire of our faith and connection burning from one generation to the next.

This way of thinking suggests a question we need to ask ourselves, a question that Olympic athletes undoubtedly ask themselves every day of training, and every day of competition, while others – God, coaches, family, friends, fans may have faith in us, do we have faith in ourselves?  

 

This Shabbat, the first after Tisha B’av is called Shabbat Nachamu, The Shabbat of comfort, and the message is while we may lose faith in ourselves, or struggle, or fall, while hope may be elusive, there is nothing more inspiring at an Olympics, or in life, than the person who gets pushed, or falls, or falls behind, and who nonetheless finds a way to finish the race, and that by opening our heart to reaching out the invisible and ever present Source of Strength in the universe, we may begin to find the will and to rise, as the prophet Isaiah tells us with words that, in my view, speak to our ultimate source of will whether on the playing field or on the pathways of life, “Adonai, God of the Universe, the Creator, never grows faint or weary…God gives strength to the weary, fresh vigor to the spent…Those who trust in Ehyeh, the Source of Being, shall renew their strength as eagles grow new feathers, they shall run and not grow weary, they shall walk and not grow faint.”

Balak: In search of control

 We all would like to feel a sense of control, of knowing what will happen to us.

 

We design elaborate plans when we’re working on a project, or say, for example, writing a Dvar Torah, and we may feel we’ve covered all the points, all the concerns, all the possibilities for the project we’re developing or the message we’re writing, and still they go off in directions we did not expect and by the end what we envisioned is no longer what originally planned.

 

As an example, when I was in college and started singing a capella music with the Jewish group on my campus my voice teacher told me that even with good technique, and breathing, and knowing the music, occasionally a sound will come out like a voice breaking, and he said, go with it, don’t judge yourself by that result, maybe someone who heard it thought it sounded interesting!

 

The bottom line is however much we try to control outcomes, we may often find the facts of the matter may have changed or our perspective may have been too narrow or ill-defined in the first place.  

 

My teacher for Tai Chi Chih explained it to me this way.  He said, don’t try to do the moves, just let the happen.  

 

In this week’s parsha, Balak, the King of Mo’av, seeks to curse the Israelites after hearing about how they defeated the Amorites.  In order to take hold of his fate, he summons Balaam the magician to act on his behalf.  Balaam turns down the offer to curse the people after God tells him not to do it, but then Balaam goes along with Balak and his people, ostensibly to perform the curses against the Israelites.

 

Now Balaam gets himself in trouble for the same reason.  As Balaam rides his donkey on the way, the donkey sees an angel of God with sword in hand and so walks off the road.  Frustrated when the donkey lies down in front of the angel that Balaam himself cannot see, Balaam beats the donkey three times until the donkey speaks to him and  God opens Balaam’s eyes to see the angel in front of them.

 

Balak here wants to control the outcome and steer his fate, but he only has one way in mind to do so.

 

Balaam similarly wants to take control of the donkey who has seemed to get out of hand.

 

In the end, God frustrates both Balak and Balaam.

 

Instead of cursing the people, Balak stands on the heights and proclaims blessings instead of curses, among the blessings he says the familiar words we heard at the start of the service this morning, “Ma tovu ohalecha Ya’akov mishkenotecha Yisrael…” How good are your tents O Jacob, your dwelling places, Israel.”

 

In both situations Balak and Balaam try to direct the flow of action and outcome and the more they strain, the tighter their grip on their vision and expectations, the further they get away from their goals.

 

God humbles them both.

 

Balak and Balaam are well-spoken and clever, but Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch explains they both become unhinged by passion and greed, so they become unworthy of their gifts, and God then intervenes…

 

The lesson then of the story of Balak and Balaam is the only way to achieve righteous goals is with sincerity, purity of purpose, and the humility to continually re-evaluate all these elements to make sure we’re pursuing more than what feels right or good for us in the moment.

 

When we are watching the search and rescue effort after the collapse of a building, or a tide of evil pushing back when an army re-deploys from a conflict zone, or when we leave extra early but end up sitting in traffic anyway, we may begin to ask whether any effort is worthwhile when forces beyond our control appear to stifle us at every turn.

 

The faith we pray and practice here can help us navigate the jagged, unpredictable, and undulating surface of our lives.  For thousands of years, these prayers, that have changed but a little, remind us there is so much more to know than we can possibly register with our senses.  They remind us the goal for us as individuals, and as a people, is to move beyond the animal spirit of survival and to enable us all to feel God’s Presence within and around us.  All the prayers, all the Torah learning, all the art and symbolism point toward this goal, and no other.  There is no higher goal than living a life that transforms, the lesson of a story like Balak and Balaam into a goal in and of itself, the goal that more control, more knowledge, may give us a feeling of comfort and stability, but the message that ties all Torah stories together is that God does not want us to always feel safe, comfortable, and reassured that we can direct the course of events, because that is God’s job!

 

No, instead, the Rabbis of the Talmud teach us the most important lesson of humility, an’ve’tanut, that we must lamed leshoncha lomar ani lo yo’de’ah, we must teach ourselves to day I don’t know, or like Rashi, and other great explainers of Torah and Talmud write in their commentaries, Lo yadati peyrrusho, I don’t know what this means.

 

These thoughts are helpful to us since we will strive to fulfill our visions, even if we’re jousting at windmills, God appreciates our efforts as long as we remember that we’re mortal, and fallible, and and the better striving, the real striving for us, is contributing to the sanctification of life and community and love which are ongoing projects for the Jewish people and so by definition open to our efforts but beyond our complete control because they’re really God’s projects!

 

And how sweet, and wonderful, and challenging and compelling it is for us to be a part of these projects that don’t result in skyscrapers, longer lasting lightbulbs, or better public transit but rather result in a sense that we are family, one family, one people, dreaming together. 

The Red Heifer Ritual, Juneteenth, and Shabbat: Journeys of Liberation

 Shabbat Shalom!

 

This Shabbat is the first official Shabbat we’re back in the sanctuary, an open door to everyone, we’re back to reading seven Torah aliyot, so many of us have received the vaccination that the average number of new cases per 100,000 residents in Montgomery county over the past week is under 1.

 

During these times, we are hearing, we’re getting back to normal.  But we could only be returning to normal if we are the same today as we were fifteen months ago.  The past months and it’s impact on us cannot be undone so that we re-enter life picking up from the spot we exited our timeline back then.  

 

We cannot go back.

 

To illustrate this point, some of us may remember the film version of Tom Clancy’s gripping story The Hunt for Red October, about Ramius, a Russian submarine commander, who as captain of an advanced new nuclear submarine, conspires with his officers to defect to the United States and hand over the apocalypse machine  The key scene in this film is a private meal Ramius takes with his officers, who, feeling nervous about their plan, begins to say we should go back, and then Ramius interrupts them saying, there is no going back, because Ramius informed a Russian admiral of their plans.

 

I will try to say it as he did, “There will be no going back.”

 

The wisdom of today’s Torah reading corroborates this point of view.  The ritual of the parah adumah, the red heifer, underlines the way the Torah, and our entire tradition, teaches us that moving from impurity to purity is a visible and tangible.  

 

The effort to find an appropriate red heifer, to prepare all the materials necessary, expresses how monumental and fundamental is this transformation.  When it is complete, the person who undergoes these rites is no longer the person who came forward to receive them in the first place.

 

Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch emphasizes the ritual of the red heifer is, quote, the “clearest public proclamation of ritual purity, and [this ritual, which is referred to as a ‘fundamental statute of the Torah’] is indeed the fundamental concept of moral freedom of will on which the entire Torah is based.”(Commentary p. 584)

 

The red heifer ritual is public, it is visible to all, and it is tangible, full of color and solemn pageantry.

 

In our own way, we’ve been living through an extended modern-day version of the red heifer ritual during the pandemic.  Many of us have had to alter the basic contours of our lives, our families, our work, our socializing, our communicating and gathering with others, nearly everything.  Our keeping with the needed rules and regulations, doing things in ways that are so different from what we knew, mirrors the mysterious spectacle of the red heifer, since in both cases, the pathogen, whether a spiritual one or a biological one, is itself invisible.

 

But what does Hirsch mean when he argues this ritual that we read in detail today is the fundamental concept of moral freedom of will on which the entire Torah is based.  

 

He argues, if we cannot purify ourselves from contact with a dead body, which is the purpose of the ritual, something that cannot be avoided, then he says it would be impossible for us to observe the Torah as such.  

 

In other words, there has to be a clear, structured way for us to transform ourselves and restore ourselves to being able to gather together with the rest of the community, with the rest of our people.

 

But what the ritual of the red heifer does not do is remove the mixed emotions that are likely to fill the hearts of those who go through it.  The ritual purifies a soul, but it cannot purge the sense of grief of loss the individual feels over the death of the loved one for whom the individual impurified themselves to tend with love and gentleness to their final arrangements. 

 

Stepping forward into this new world, it is important for us to keep in mind not only the people who we’ve lost to Covid19 but also other losses we’ve experienced, at minimum, the dislocation we feel from the changes we’ve had to make to our lives.

 

But the point of Rabbi Hirsch’s observation goes beyond the ongoing conversation we have about what we’ve lost, what we’ve learned and what we now hope for.

 

He is explaining to us that our spiritual journey is about a choice we have to make.  The people must choose to perform the red heifer ritual or face living in a world in which they can neither participate in nor appreciate the blessings the Torah offers.  That decision is in our hands as much then as it is today.

 

No doubt, God is gracious and compassionate, but as Rabbi Hanina teaches in the Talmud, everything is in the hands of heaven except the fear of heaven.  The relationship must involve both parties meeting each other at a common border. 

 

Joining in with the community in prayer, to make the minyan as we’re doing today, is a critical step in creating the moral universe the Torah and our later tradition challenges us to create.  Gathering for prayer re-emphasizes for all of us the values we strive to live by, the hopes of peace we reach for, and helps wake us up from our lives that especially over the past year I’ve heard described many times as a blurry hamster wheel of time best represented not by the Hunt for Red October but by another film, Groundhog Day.

 

And what better symbolic example of making real our hopes for creating a world of justice and tolerance today than the adoption of Juneteenth just a few days ago as a federal holiday.  Today, the 155^th anniversary of the time slavery was abolished in Texas, is a similar experience to the mysterious ritual of the red heifer, one that makes official a moment of recognition and transformation, like Passover, the holiday for which we read the red heifer ritual as a preparation every year, like Passover Juneteenth is a reminder of avdut l’cherut, the transformation from slavery to freedom, physical and spiritual liberation from the shackles of the past, and an expanding lens of hope for the future.

 

I cannot think of a time when on one Shabbat I’ve felt blessed to stand at the intersection of so many spiritual pathways from restriction to freedom, from despair to hope.  The ritual of the red heifer releases the impure to rejoin the community and fully participate again.  Juneteenth tells a story of celebration and liberation that rings through the years from aftermath of the Civil War and through the 400 years since the first slaves were brought to our shores.  And then there is Shabbat itself, an oasis of time when we let go of the week that’s passed, permit ourselves not to think of the week to come, and glory in this present, holy day, a day that is for deep breaths, for appreciating what we often take for granted, a day that is celebrated zecher litziat Mitzrayim, in memory of our own liberation from slavery in Egypt.

 

May these stories and these transformations renew our hearts, strengthen us, challenge us, and enable us to envision not a return to normal, but a journey toward an amazing, meaningful, and holy new reality that God has asked us to help create.