Looking Back, Going Back

Vayera 2011/5772

Looking Back, Going Back

This past Wednesday evening, we had the privilege of hosting at the Jewish Center Col. Jack Jacobs, winner of the Medal of Honor for heroism on the battlefield in Vietnam. 

In the Question and Answer session, a member of the community, who himself had fought in Vietnam, asked Jacobs how could he have gone back to Vietnam, greeted and hugged the Brigadier General who had fought against him.  Jacobs in fact did shake hands, and spend time, talking, and remembering with the opposing general. 

The individual who asked the question found it morally problematic to shake hands with the person who was responsible for the deaths of American soldiers in the field. 

Jacobs responded that he was on a search for answers to questions he had been carrying with him for over 40 years.  And in the television coverage of that meeting, he said that he and the Vietnamese general were alike – They both were in command of soldiers, and responsible for the lives and actions of the soldiers, just on opposing sides.

Jacobs returned to Vietnam not only as a way to look back but as a way to look inward, inside the present, into feelings and memories that were, that are, real and present, persistent thoughts following a time of great trial.

Is there danger in looking back?  Is there danger that we will find empathy where there once was none?  Will we question ourselves and our actions?

The angels who save the Life of Lot and his family warn them not to turn around and look back at the city they are leaving.  Why do they offer this warning?

Rashi explains that Lot had been corrupted by living amongst the people of Sodom and only by Abram’s merit did he escape—therefore, he must not look back on the destruction while he escapes. 

Here, Rashi argues that the warning is meant to prevent Lot from thinking that he escaped because of his own merit, and perhaps even to prevent schadenfreude—a sense of relief we feel when we witness the suffering of others and realize that we are not touched by it.

Radak explains the warning as a measure to prevent Lot from waiting to leave.  Do not look back, they warn, lest you get caught up in the destruction.

Rashbam suggests that the warning is a timeless one, that people must not gaze upon the presence of Divine beings and their actions, just as Moses himself would not be able to actually ‘see’ God one day at Mt. Sinai despite an earnest desire to commune with the Holy One.

It is interesting that there appears to be no warning against basic sentimentality, no warning against the possibility of returning someday to revisit the place where Lot and his family experienced conflict and later great loss of their home and possessions.

After hearing Col. Jacobs respond to the question, I find myself wondering whether Lot might have similar feelings, a need to search for answers to his practical and existential questions.  I wonder if Abram himself wants to revisit the cities that he tried to protect and search for evidence that there had in fact been 10 righteous people.

As we gather this evening and as Veterans Day, 11/11/11 comes to an end, I feel compelled to look backwards, to try to envision the individual journeys of millions of veterans who left home and went to serve all over the world.  And I recall hearing from a veteran of the Israeli army how he only knew the war from what happened between himself and the soldier marching in front of him, and I quote from Remarque’s classic book on WWI All Quiet on the Western Front “We have lost all sense of other considerations, because they are artificial. Only the facts are real and important to us. And good boots are hard to come by."(Ch. 2) It is up to the community to keep alive the stories and energy of our veterans, to appreciate the causes for which they fought and their individual experiences on the way to battle, out in the field, and back on the homefront.

Lot also was in a conflict, and got out, so he is a veteran, too – a veteran who suffered great loss but also kept marching, kept moving toward the future.

Lech Lecha 2011/5772 - Ready to go?

Lech Lecha Dvar 2011/5772

Ready to go?

I hope that by this evening everyone, everywhere has their power back after the October nor’easter that bent trees, tore down wires, and knocked out power to 3 million people in the tri state area.

At one point during the three days that I did not have power, I strongly considered establishing a Jewish Amish sect, giving up electricity altogether for wood burning stoves and fireplaces, or another alternative, setting up my own solar panels and windfarm in the backyard.

We made it through our time with the help of friends and I hope that everyone in our community who lost power found a way through the outages with safety and security.

What was compelling though was not the power outage itself, I had been through those before.  What was compelling was the feeling of frustration and inertia.  The feeling that we could not get moving on time-sensitive projects and plans we had hoped to complete during the blackout.

Avram, though, seems to feel no sense of inertia when God says to him “Lech Lecha”!  Leave your land, your birthplace, your father’s house and go to the Land I will show you.  God instructs him to go, and then he goes.

In practice though, it is difficult to just pick up and leave, especially if the power is out, although Avram was not concerned with either snow or PSE&G.

There are a thousand questions to answer before we leave home whether for a short trip to the market or during a cold, dark evening in October.  Should we go or wait?  What do we need to take and what will we carry everything in?  Where are we going and for how long?  What will happen with our home while we are gone? 

I want to know what Avram was thinking between when he heard God’s call and when he decided to continue his journey west.  What did his wife Sarai say about the trip?  After all, travel in those days was even more difficult than today, with pack animals and no Kosher Nosh and Shop Rite along the way to pick up lunch. 

The ‘what’ and ‘how’ questions are only the beginning for us as they are for Avram, Sarai, and their family.  There are questions that come from the heart: What will it feel like to leave?  How will we react to feeling displaced?  Will I learn anything from the experience?  Will I be the same person or a new person when I get back?

What was Avram thinking when he left?

Ideas….open the floor.

It is my prayer today as we still wait for everyone’s power to be restored that everyone will return home safely to their homes and that everyone’s lives get back into their routines.  It is also my prayer that in all our journeys we will have the presence of mind, and ability to step back and see at least most of the picture of what we need in items and what we feel inside.  Then, whatever the circumstances of the trip may be, we will travel with the fullness of faith that inspires Avram to travel even when God does not tell him exactly where is headed when he packs up his family and strikes out west across the wilderness.

Shabbat Shalom.

Dvar Torah: Noah -- Bullying, nature, nurture, and future

Dvar Torah

Noach 5772/2011

New Jersey enacted what some have called the toughest anti-bullying law in the nation.  And as of this month school officials in several districts have complained that the implementation of the law is difficult since the law is unclear regarding procedures and that officials find themselves using the bulk of their time figuring out if certain words and behaviors fit within the scope of the law, writing reports, and contacting parents.

Hopefully this new law, which also includes measures for preventive education, will reduce bullying in our New Jersey schools.

What the law does not address, though, is the deeper sources of the behavior whether it is the verbal kind or the physical kind.  Whether it occurs in the elementary school playground, between candidates in political campaigns, or in battles between peoples and nations, human beings seem to be prone to conflict and aggression.

We see all these things when we look outward, and what do we see when we look inward, at our sources in the Torah, especially this week when we read of Noah and the flood?

God destroys the world since the world was full of evil, like a computer that has become filled with malware and viruses to the point that it simply cannot function anymore – and then the user reboots the whole system, wipes the digital slate clean.

The question about the world at the time of Noah is:  Does the world begin with the evil in place already?  Or does the evil behavior of Cain ripple across the generations and infect the world in a downward spiral?

When Noach, wife Namah, and family leave the ark, God says, “I will not destroy the earth on account of humanity, for indeed the inclinations of the human heart are evil from youth.”

Robert Alter argues that here God is simply recognizing the “evil of which man is capable” and that God “concludes that given what man is all too likely disposed to do, it is scarcely worth destroying the whole world again on his account.”

But didn’t God create us?  Couldn’t God have predicted what human beings would do?

Radak, Rabbi David Kimchi (late 12^th early 13^th century), argues that the evil inclination is called ‘yetzer hara’ since it was created within us (notzar imo), that the evil inclination is within us before the yetzer hatov, the good inclination, and the good inclination does not come into being fully until the person grows and acquires it little by little.(Radak to Genesis 8:21)

Radak goes as far as saying that God decided in God’s wisdom to create human beings with the evil inclination first. 

I find myself confused and frustrated by this view, and if you find yourselves confused and frustrated, you are not alone.

The great Rabbi Yiztchak Abravanel was confused too.  He argues that “we cannot escape” from answering the question whether ‘evil from youth’ is correct or incorrect.  He argues, if it is correct, how come God waits until the generation of the flood to destroy the earth, why not destroy the world earlier?  And if ‘evil from youth’ is incorrect, and God punishes only as a result of judgment against their behavior, how come God does not punish them in each and every case of their misbehavior?

While I do not like to think that we are only born with the evil inclination, I do find wisdom in the idea that a primary goal of our lives is to actively seek to acquire and grow the good inclination within us.  There is great potential for personal growth through connection to Jewish community and participation in activities that stimulate us and challenge us to ‘acquire’ the good inclination.

Yesterday, we went as a group to serve dinner at the Bergen County homeless shelter in Hackensack, dinner that was prepared and served by our community.  It is an amazing facility that does amazing work under its director Julia Orlando.  Every time I enter though I feel a minor sense of anxiety, what will I see, will I be safe, what will happen while I’m there?  And then, each and every time, I see the humanity in each and every person who receives food from our serving spoons and I talk to the shelter employees, one of whom yesterday said he’s ‘doing God’s work.’

Just as Radak writes, we have to work to acquire the good inclination, to make it part of our lives – that given our good judgment – the mitzvahs that cause us to have fears about our time, our existential fears, may be just the programming we need for our growing and changing human systems.   

And perhaps in the end we might say that we are not born with an ‘evil’ inclination, but rather a flow of energy that has little direction or shape, that cannot convert thought into appropriate action – which might answer why a baby cries sometimes just because he or she cannot communicate needs in a clear way to the world.

To come full circle, here’s my amendment to the anti-bullying law, “It is up to every person within the community to take responsibility for directing the minds, hearts, and energy of our youth (and adults) toward the values and behaviors that help people live full, meaningful lives.”

Is there a 2^nd for this motion?

Shabbat Shalom.

Plain, Simple Shabbat - Nitzavim-Vayelech 5771/2011

Rabbi Neil A. Tow©

We love vacation and spending time away from home.  We crave special days, days off, national holidays with parades and parties.  We love the novelty of changes and transitions, or at least the heightened energy of anticipated new experiences.

We like novel and amazing combinations.  In today’s Beettle Bailey cartoon, the Sergeant commands Beetle to order a special pizza, “My sergeant wants a pizza with a banana, strawberry, and whipped cream topping.”

And then, equally as strong, is the comfort of the familiar:  The regular day; The routine.  It’s nice to know that 99.9% of the time when we order a pizza there is a crust, sauce and cheese on top. 

Nevertheless, we might sincerely believe and expect that the Shabbat before Rosh Hashanah would be a major occasion, a moment for recognition and celebration of the upcoming New Year.  At the very least, we might expect this Shabbat to have a special name just the way the Shabbat after Rosh Hashanah has a name, Shabbat Shuvah.

This Shabbat however is a plain and simple one.  Our tradition does not even call this Shabbat the usual name given to the Shabbat before the beginning of a new month Shabbat Mevarchim, the Shabbat of Blessing.  We actually do not announce this week the coming of the New Month since Tishrey, the first month is different than the others.  There is judgment ahead, and it is a time for spiritual preparation and reflection.  Also, according to tradition, we want to fool Sahtahn, the Accusing Angel, of when the New Year will come so that this Angel will not bring curses for our New Year.

It’s a plain Shabbat, vanilla, no toppings, cheese pizza, monochrome.

And in that plain-ness, in that routine-ness, there is a blessing for us.  There is a reminder that every Shabbat is a holiday.  Every Friday night through Saturday is special and holy.  While Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur with the shofar, the white kittel, bowing low, exalted words are all part of the way we welcome and begin to create the New Year, the weekly Shabbat marks the time.

 A regular experience of the weekly Shabbat can make the High Holidays more meaningful.  It is the spiritual exercise that gets us ready for the High Holiday marathon.  It is the place where we familiarize ourselves with the words of the Torah so that when we turn back to Genesis and Leviticus for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur we’re reviewing and deepening our readings of these passages and we are more closely connected to their context.  The regular Shabbat is the place for us to live in a world filled with God’s Presence so that we will be able to on Rosh Hashanah fulfill the opening words of this week’s parasha and stand more confidently in God’s Presence.

Another reason we do not announce the new month on this Shabbat.  From the pen of Chasidic Master Rabbi Shmuel Bornstain, we do not recite the new month blessing since the New Month-New Year does not flow from the week before.  It does not require any energy of the time that precedes it.  And for Rabbi Bornstain this idea is a lesson for us that in the New Year we can start completely anew, as though on the first day of Tishrey we will be born and the preceding days disappear and do not come to mind.

Let’s enjoy this plain Shabbat together so that in the days ahead we will be more ready for the wonderfully rich and exalted experience of the High Holidays.  Let us also remember that we are also at heart simple, flesh and blood, people who want to live the best way we can in this world, and looking for hope and renewal in the New Year – today we realize our humble origins and the sound of the shofar, and the prayers of our community, will once again raise up our spirits, our hopes, and our aspirations.

Shabbat Shalom.

Parshat Ki Tavo - Being our 'Best'

Ki Tavo Dvar 2011/5771

Rabbi Neil A. Tow©

To do our best is a goal.  It’s a hope, a striving, a desire to fulfill our potential.

When we have a ‘best’ moment it inspires us and gives us strength.  It is an ideal moment of sharing when we give something to the world that is nourishing, energizing, and that motivates others to stretch themselves and achieve greater heights.

When we give our best effort, even when that best effort does not reach the level we hoped, it is important for us to recognize the people who helped us, who taught us, who trained us, who devoted their spirit to us so that we could succeed. 

The same idea infuses the ritual of bikkurim/first fruits that the Torah describes in the opening verses of parshat Ki Tavo.

When the Israelites enter into the Land, they will bring their first fruits to the Temple, and present them there to the kohen/the priest.  Then they will recite the familiar story of our national origins that we read in the Haggadah at our Passover Seders, “My ancestor was a wandering Aramean…We went down to Egypt…God freed us with a mighty hand…brought us to a land flowing with milk and honey, and so now I bring the first fruits of the soil which You, O God, have given me.”

That “You, God, have given me?”  Didn’t my family and I plant and tend the soil?  Didn’t we work the land, survive through the change of seasons and harvest the crop by bending our own backs, scratching up our hands, and flexing our muscles? 

A commentary called ‘Akedah’ looks closely at the commandment to bring the first fruits and notices that the verse reads, “You will take from the first fruits of the earth that you will bring me’artze’cha/from your land.”

And he makes the following observation:  The reason for the commandment of bikurim/first fruits is to remove from our thinking that ‘artzecha’ means the land belongs to us.  He argues that we might get stuck on this point and not notice that the same verse ends with, ‘…that Ado-nai, Your God, gives to you…”  By bringing the first fruits, we demonstrate that we know the land and its produce are not ours and that the blessings that come from them are infused with the Presence of God who brought us here from Egypt and gave us the opportunity to farm this land.

The same is true as we reflect on all that our coaches, teachers, and mentors have given us to enable us to do our best. Lest we ever begin to think that we are only a product of our own skill, our own initiative, our own inventiveness.  How can we recognize all those people who influenced us and guided us to the moment when we are sharing our best with the world?  Can we even remember who they all are?  It is likely that many of these influences were not even intentional.  They happened through chance encounters, things we heard or read from people we do not know personally and may never meet.

If we can raise the consciousness that we are a patchwork stitched from the influence and inspiration of others, then we will keep our humility and sense of self—and in all that we do, we will always be doing our best.

Parshat Shoftim: Sword of Damocles - Sinai Over Our Heads

Shoftim 2011/5771

Sword of Damocles

Rabbi Neil A. Tow©

A tyrant named Dionysius was the ruler of a city called Syracuse in southern Italy in the 4^th century BCE.  He had people in his court whose job it was to inflate his ego, flatterers.  Damocles was one of these hired flatterers, and one day after Damocles praised his patron for his great wealth and luxury, Dionysius said to him, “If you think I’m fortunate, why don’t you try out my life?”

They arranged everything for Damocles to live the life of his patron and he was having a wonderful time until he noticed that a sharp sword was hovering over his head, a sword hanging from the ceiling by a horse hair.  His patron said, ‘this is what the life of a ruler was really like.’

Damocles was eager to return to the way things were, to his poorer life, but a safer life.(Thanks to N.S. Gill for explaining the passage from Cicero that tells this story.)

In Jewish tradition, the closest parallels I can think of are a source from the Mishnah (Chagigah 1,8), “The laws concerning Shabbat, feast-offerings, and misuse of holy property are like mountains hanging by a hair.”  And another, from the Talmud Shabbat 88a, “’They stood be’tachtit ha’har’”, the Rabbis explain this expression (Exodus 19:17) to mean, they stood literally tachat ha’har, under the mountain, and God held the mountain over their heads saying, in a very forceful way, that they really had no choice but to accept the Torah.

The sword of Damocles over his head, the mountain hanging by a hair, the mountain hanging above the heads of the people.

These are powerful and disturbing images that share in common a reality that responsibility and leadership are not easy for us to handle and may fill us with uncertainty and fear.  Responsibility and leadership are risks that make us vulnerable.

Shoftim ve’shotrim titen lecha bechol she’arecha, the parsha opens for this week opens, ‘Judge and officials you shall appoint them in all your cities.’   

To be a judge or an official of the court is to have the sword and the mountain hanging over our heads, as we wrestle with ideas and issues that are difficult to understand and apply to changing circumstances.

And so we find that taking on responsibility and leadership and implementing them are heavy tasks for anyone.  In the end, as much as the Torah teaches that the people must appoint leaders, we may not want to take those leadership roles due to the way they impact our lives and put us in difficult positions of supervision, decision making, and authority.

How many prophets tried to avoid the responsibility of being a prophet from Moses onwards?

It is essential that we remember the challenges of responsibility, the challenges of leadership and that there are moments when we can and should say ‘no’ when our judgment tells us that it is not the right moment for us to step forward. 

And there are other moments when it is time for us to step forward confidently whether the situation and path ahead is clear or whether there are obstacles in the path ahead.

The sword of Damocles and Mount Sinai hanging above our heads are as much about being humble and sensitive as they are about fear.

My prayer is that all our positions of responsibility, all our leadership will take us to new and meaningful places in our lives and give us the opportunity to step back and appreciate the challenge and blessing of leadership, and to celebrate and respect the power of leadership to bring order, meaning, and peace to others.  Shabbat Shalom.

Parshat Re'eh: Making Choices

A choice?

Rabbi Neil A. Tow©2011

Living in an Arab Spring world, I feel more than ever thankful that we have different types of choices we can make about our lives, about who represents us, in this country.

We live in a place where there are many choices open to us about how to use our time, what we buy and do not buy, the kind of life we want to make for ourselves.

And at the same time, I struggle with the idea of choice.  To have too much latitude to choose can sometimes be a curse instead of a blessing.  To stress that a wide array of choices is best can cause delay instead of advancement. 

From a spiritual point of view, the conflict between choice and varying levels of determination receives its best expression in the statement of Rabbi Akiva in the Mishnah, “Everything is foreseen, but freewill is granted.”

The question of choices and determination is the opening message of Parshat Re’eh.  “Take notice,”God says, “I put before you today blessing and curse.”  The blessing – if you follow God’s mitzvoth, the curse – if you do not.  The language of Devarim makes the issue black and white.  There appears here to be no gray area.

And we find ourselves asking difficult questions about choices today.  Many are questioning vaccinations for children and the processing of milk.  School districts ask questions about school uniforms versus free choice of what to wear.  The recession forces choices about our consumption and habits. 

Perhaps sometimes we’d prefer to receive specific advice and personal guidance through our struggles and questions.  Sometimes we might prefer to leave our options open and seek multiple opinions as we often do in our health care.

The voice of our tradition comes through as we contemplate our choices, or as we think about the limits we place on choices for ourselves or for others, or the limits that we experience – the decisions we are able to make even about limits are themselves choices!

What guides us in our lives is the litmus test of whether our choices reflect the best wisdom of our tradition as it is refracted through the teachings of the Torah, the later Rabbis, and the discussions and debates that we have within our community up through to today.

Often we find that when limits are placed that they actually open up new choices and opportunities we may not have previously thought to exist. 

And then there are the times like the weather situation we face this weekend, a situation determined for us by forces outside our own control.  We have the opportunity to make choices even when nature seems to rally against us.  After the major storm hit Glen Rock last year, we formed an Emergency Preparedness group and we’re now mobilized and ready, in the event it is safe, to turn our synagogue into a temporary shelter during the storm.

My prayer is that we will weather the storm with minimal damage and inconvenience, and that in the wake of the storms, that we will feel a renewed sense of opportunity to make choices in our lives that will continue to bring meaning, holiness, and beauty.