Devarim/Shabbat Chazon 2015/5775: Our greatest strengths are our greatest weaknesses

During Hurricane Sandy – the trees in my neighborhood took a major hit.  The trees that shaded our yards and streets, the trees that created a canopy of color along the roads, the trees where swings hung from branches, trees that we even gave names to – the wind simply tore many of them out of the ground, and they ended up snagging power lines, blocking the roadways, and even causing damage to homes and fatalities when they fell.

The trees, one of the town’s greatest strengths became one of the towns greatest weaknesses.

The same happens with us.  Our greatest strengths are our greatest potential weaknesses.

Tonight we begin our observance of Tisha B’Av, the Ninth day of Av, the day that commemorates the destruction of both Jerusalem Temples and many more tragedies of Jewish history, including the expulsion from Spain in 1492.

Who destroyed the Second Temple?  The history books tell us it was the 10^th Roman Legion.

Our ancient Rabbis tell us we did it to ourselves.

They teach us that our greatest strengths became our greatest weaknesses.

We were busy with Torah study, doing mitzvot, and gemilut chasadim – acts of lovingkindness.

And so how could we imagine that our Holy Temple would be destroyed?  We were doing right.  We were making the world a more holy place.  They teach us the Second Temple was destroyed due to sinat chinam, causeless enmity, or as Rashi explains it, pointing out the sins and faults of others when there was no cause to do so.

Exactly what strength became our weakness?

We were thoroughly immersed in learning, in awareness of God, in selfless acts of helping one another.

Dr. Gordon Livingston explains that ‘practically any human characteristic…even kindness…when indulged to an extreme can produce undesirable results…we need to acknowledge that those qualities of which we are most proud can prove our undoing.’

We can only speculate on what led to causeless enmity among our ancestors.  Perhaps we overindulged in the pursuit of holiness to the point that we disregarded other priorities, family, friends, our work, taking care of ourselves…The Talmud teaches many stories about great teachers who sacrificed their families and well-being in pursuit of Torah study…

Perhaps in our eagerness to study we began to believe only our own perspective was correct.  The Torah does teach that one reason the Temple was destroyed was that we were over zealous in making legal judgments, we judged too harshly.

Or in our eagerness to do mitzvot we began to take pride in the fact we were doing mitzvot and we fell victim to self-importance.

Or in our zeal to help others we forgot about how vulnerable and fragile we all are and neglected to be gentle and discrete.

Our greatest strengths are our greatest weaknesses.

It’s still hard to digest the Rabbis message that we destroyed the Temple when the Romans set the fires and knocked it down.

It’s as hard to digest as the message that what we do best, our blessings, can somehow lead to conflict even pain.

So should we try to do everything in moderation?  Try to avoid extremes all the time?  This sounds like a recipe for an unfulfilling life, a life of walking on eggs, a life of never allowing ourselves to experience the lows of loss and mourning, the highs of pure joy, and everything in between.  Our tradition holds us accountable for the wonders of this world that we do not experience during our lifetime.

Rather, we keep in mind that Tisha B’Av shares much with Yom Kippur, the same sundown to sundown fast, the same restrictions, the same idea that we must be reflective about ourselves, and with God, so that we can do teshuvah, so that we can turn toward our best selves, and create the best community for each other.

As Dr. Livingston continues and expands, ‘the final and controlling paradox[is] only by embracing our mortality can we be happy in the time we have….our ability to experience any pleasure requires either a healthy denial or courageous acceptance of the weight of time and the prospect of ultimate defeat.’

Instead of trying to walk the middle of the road, we should live boldly, and with humility at the same time, humility enough to remember that when our best talents and blessings turn into a tidal wave, we need to throttle back, reevaluate the purpose of what we are doing and the process by which we’re doing it.  We need to be fully comfortable with the unknown lifespan of events, of people, of relationships, of all the things that are important to us.

And so, ironically, the message about Tisha B’av is that our ancestors could, should have, contemplated that the Temple might be destroyed in order to stay humble and recognize how their strengths turned into weaknesses.  The prophets said time and again that the Temple itself  

Moses helps our ancestors to learn this lesson.  When we start reading tomorrow from Deuteronomy, Rashi tells us how Moses reminds the people where they stayed in the desert throughout the years of wandering, not just a list of places, but specifically places where they challenged God, and so it is up to Moses, at this moment of transition, to offer rebuke, and guidance, to them. 

We hear today the voice of Moses, and the voice of our conscience, knowing that we are as mortal and fragile as the trees that surround us, as the stones of the ancient Temple.

Shabbat Shalom.

Pidyon Shvuyim (Redeeming captives)...Again

We pray for the Israeli citizens Abraham Mengitsu and the Beoduin Arab who are being held in the Gaza strip and for their families.

Regardless of how or why they entered Gaza, redeeming captives (pidyon shvuyim) is a fundamental value and goal for the Jewish people.

We pray for their safe return.  As we say 'Shalom Aleichem' to Shabbat tonight, may we soon be able to say 'Shalom Aleichem' and 'Salaam Aleikum' to these two Israeli citizens as they return to Israel proper.

Amen.

Parshat Pinchas 2015/5775: Leadership and Jewish Pluralism in Israel

It’s a pretty standard story, someone says he is at college and his major is philosophy – and the question is, What job can you get with that degree? The standard response is – a shepherd.

Many of our ancient Jewish ancestors and leaders were shepherds.  Moses, our greatest prophet, was a shepherd, not by training but as a result of his life journey.   It sounds like a pretty easy job at first.  Watch the sheep, let them graze…but leading the flock requires skill and is dangerous.  Animals attack the flock.  The shepherd has to fight them off.

This week in our parsha, there is a transfer of leadership – and the big question that challenges us is - how do you get the flock to move together in one direction?

This work is not like a cattle roundup with riders on horses moving around the herd.  It tends to be the work of one person at a time.

I learned the lesson of how to lead a flock of sheep at a wonderful site in Israel called Ne’ot Kedumim, the Biblical gardens, outside of Tel Aviv.  They have a small flock there and those who are willing can try their hands at leading the flock.  There is a secret that the folks there revealed to us, a secret that without it there is no chance of success.  No amount of gesturing, hollering, or pointing the way can work unless we first figure out who is the lead sheep.  Once we know who is the lead sheep, we motivate the leader to move, and then the rest follow the lead sheep. 

This critical insight teaches us an invaluable lesson about leadership.  Effective leadership amongst us human beings, only comes from establishing, first, a strong relationship one to one.  No leader, no matter what her vision and how appealing it is, can drum up support only on the basis of that vision.  First, she must build relationships with one person and small groups, one at a time.

To try to force a group of people to move as one, like forcing the flock to move, to force conformity, is to replicate the horrors of Nazi Germany and other oppressive regimes.  Real, effective leaders know that there are significant and powerful differences in any constituency that require sometimes compromise and sometimes going our own way.  As an example, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr and Malcolm X both pursued civil rights, but in radically different ways.  Real leaders know that success is a mixture of teaching a vision and also building consensus, not an easy task.

There is a contemporary example of forced conformity, one that impacts our Conservative egalitarian Judaism in Israel as well as reform and even modern Orthodox movements in Israel -- the religious establishment in Israel, an establishment that has maintained a monopoly on marriage, conversion, kosher supervision, the totality of Jewish religious life.  Non-Orthodox congregations receive minimal financial assistance from the government.  And officials who represent the establishment like religious affairs minister David Azoulay condemn down other streams of Judaism.  This past week Mr. Azoulay said about all non-Orthodox Jews, ““A liberal Jew, from the moment he stops following Jewish law, I cannot allow myself to say that he is a Jew.”  Afterwards he softened the argument, saying, “These are Jews that have lost their way.”  While other ministers support liberal and all forms of  Judaism in Israel, and while the prime minister’s office maintains that Azoulay’s point of view is not its official stance – it is a sad state of affairs that without the Orthodox political parties, the coalition would fall apart, and so important transformations in Israeli society like adoption of a more expansive conversion law have recently been rejected, and there has been apowerful backlash against the change in the law that now obliges all to serve in Israel’s armed forces, reducing the exemption for students studying full time in yeshivot.

I experienced the discrimination against liberal Judaism 10 years ago when I was studying in my Israel year, living in west Jerusalem.  We belonged to the Masorti the Conservative minyan Ma’yanot.  They wished to purchase a piece of land in a new housing development, but Shas, the Sephardic religious party, the same party that Minister Azoulay belongs to, put in a competing bid to acquire this land only to block May’anot from acquiring it.

It is critical to know that Orthodox Jews make up 10% of Israeli society but control 100% of the religious establishment.

There are now well more than 50 Masorti Conservative congregations in Israel from Eilat as far north as Kiryat Shmona near the border with Lebanon.

They are taking a leading role in integrating Israelis back into religious life, showing youth and adults alike opportunities to learn and grow.  Natan Sharansky, leader of the Jewish Agency has said this – inspired by Masorti’s bar mitzvah program for students with special needs is amazing and holy work – and even this program received a rebuff from the city of Rehovot.  Mayor Rahamim Malul, in April, called off the bar mitzvah ceremony for 4 autistic boys that was to be held at a special needs school in the city because a Masorti-Conservative Rabbi was going to officiate.

Minister Naftalit Bennet wrote about how Israel is the home for Jews of all types, all backgrounds, and this spirit of unity is one that we take from our Torah reading this week, as Moses passes the torch of leadership to Joshua, he pleads with God to make sure the people have a new leader – so that the people will not be like a flock without a shepherd – and the Alshech teaches that this new leader, the new shepherd, is someone who will be able to bring down God’s influence and presence to people who can share the message – to establish the one on one relationships that will extend God’s covenant in an ever expanding network, to all anashim, nashim ve’taf, men women and children…

And we hope and pray that the Israeli government will not only speak of one Jewish people but immediately begin to engage in high level dialogue and outreach to the Masorti-Conservative, Reform, Modern Orthodox and other liberal streams of Judaism in Israel that are bringing people back to faith and opening up opportunities for Jewish involvement in such exciting and innovative ways.

Over the course of this year, I want to begin to develop the relationship of our community to our Masorti brothers and sisters in Israel, to get to know them and to show our support for their trailblazing work.  Like Joshua, they have major work ahead of them to overcome the inertia of the religious establishment.

Yehi  ratzon she’tishreh Shechinah al ma’aseh yadam.

May God bless the work of their hands.

Amen.

Balak 2015 - Liberty and Freedom

Balak 2015 – July 4 Weekend

I love it when July 4 falls on Shabbat.  Both July 4 and Shabbat are celebrations of freedom, and so the two parts of my identity – the Jewish and the American can celebrate equally and at the same time.  Both holidays are holidays of freedom – July 4 represents the beginnings of freedom for the colonists from Great Britain and Shabbat is a day to remember going free from Egypt – instead of living on Pharaoh’s time and under Pharaoh’s oppressive rule, God takes us out to freedom, gives us the Torah and also Shabbat, the wonderful gift that for the slaves was a radical departure from the heavy daily labor and for us is a welcome change of spirit and pace today.

Both days may even end in fireworks, although after Shabbat fireworks are much different – there is a tradition of pouring alcohol onto a plate then taking the flames of the havdalah candle and lighting the alcohol – it is beautiful as it burns down blue, dancing in the dim light.

We fought for freedom against Great Britain, but although Patrick Henry said, “Give me liberty or give me death,” we will see how freedom and liberty are not exactly the same thing.  In Jewish tradition, these two are not the same – the distinction is important and central to who we are and what we do as a people,

When we go free from Egypt we go me’avdut le’cherut, from slavery to freedom.  But in that freedom we do not have liberty to do whatever we want to do – we learn that lesson time and again in the desert.  Bilaam the magician, who we read about this Shabbat, is also not at liberty to do what he wants – the Rabbis teach us his intention is to curse the Israelites, just as Balak hires him to do, God directs him only to give blessings to the people instead of curses.  The word liberty suggests we’re emancipated, like a slave, as the Torah teaches about a former slave - yetzei la’chofshi chinam, the slave is emancipated from servitude and no longer responsible to the former master, now no longer tied to a master, independent.     

On the other hand, cherut, freedom, gives us a chance to choose to accept God’s covenant at Sinai, or not, it is liberty with a recognition of responsibility…

That is the responsibility that comes along with the gifts of freedom, and that responsibility is a heavy and a scary one, such a heavy and a scary one that tragically people, even nations, choose to give up their freedoms to live in places as oppressive as Egypt was for the Jewish people.  An example that is all too present and horrible is ISIS - these terrorists proclaim a new caliphate, a new united Islam, their way, and only their way.  For them, even Hamas, the terrorist group that governs Gaza, is not strong and strict enough either in its religious approach or in its politics. 

Why would someone want to give up freedom?  The reports about recruitment to ISIS are startling.

Sasha Havlicek, chief executive of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue said. –  "We're seeing young women (people) from across Western countries both expressing their support for and migrating to Syria now in totally unprecedented numbers," with the promise of living under centralized Islamic rule, with the promise of free housing, water, and no rent as the reports say, except that in order for all this to happen first they must be willing to take away freedom from others and take their lives simply because they do not adhere to the same religion or same principles.  The horrific attacks in Tunisia, France, and Kuwait were bloody and horrifying recent examples of this thinking.

The Israelites in the desert, the nation that Bilaam sees from the hills is one that, with fits and starts, does take responsibility for its newfound freedom and does take measures to give life and respect to fellow Israelites – when Bilaam looks down and says his famous words “Ma tovu ohalecha Yakov, mishkenotecha Yisrael.”  ‘How good are your tents people of Jacob, your dwelling places, O Israel.’ The Rabbis ask what is so ‘good’ about the tents of the Israelites?  What makes them so unique from every other desert people who set up tents?  The Rabbis teach they set up their tents so that the opening of one person’s tent would not face the opening of any other person’ tent, to ensure privacy – privacy, kavod/respect, something Pharaoh denied them in Egypt is now something they seek to ensure for one another. 

Cherut – freedom with responsibility - The modern state of Israel does the same – we saw the way they set up a field hospital in Nepal after the earthquakes that leveled buildings and whole villages.  They treated victims, delivered babies, and more.  They did the same in Haiti and treated 2,700 patients in the Phillippines after the typhoon.  Let’s not forget also the way that Israel set up a field hospital to treat victims of the civil war in Syria and the way Israeli hospitals have treated family members of PLO and Hamas officials.

Let’s not overlook that liberty is a good thing, at least for a while – it’s the feeling of the beginning of summer vacation, time to let go, but then there needs to be structure, when we look at liberty to freedom as a spectrum, freedom is the more mature and developed way to be, the way of challenging us to build relationships, seek unity, visit the sick, and do all the other mitzvot when even God does not step in to tell us ‘to do or not to do’.  It’s up to us.  It is this level of caring and reaching out since it’s the right thing to do, the holy thing to do, that inspired Reverend Clementa Pinckney and his parishioners at Emanuel AME Zion church in Charleston to open the door to the alleged shooter Dylan Roof, to open the door and welcome him in without a second thought, to the time of Bible study and prayer.

Events in Charleston, the Middle East, and the heroic service of our men and women in uniform, remind us that the pursuit of freedom requires risk and sacrifice – sacrifices that are often too much for us, too painful to bear, but what better goal for us could there be than to take the blessings of freedom we are privileged to have and extend them to others, to close the gaps between us, and with other ethnicities and religions, and to fulfill the vision of those who signed the declaration of independence. 

Shabbat Shalom.

Parshat Chukat - Solidarity Shabbat: Reflections on the Tragedy in Charleston

Whether from the pulpit at a church in our area, at the vigil for unity this past Monday in Hackensack, from the pulpit at Emanuel AME in Charleston, and from the families of the victims – we have heard expressions of forgiveness to the alleged shooter Dylan Roof.  We have heard people pray for him and for his family.

I am curious how these sound to Jewish ears.  I personally feel ambivalent about them.  After centuries of blood libels, Crusades, expulsions, massacres, the Holocaust and other violence against Jews whether by physical force or through force of words, the idea that I would forgive someone who murdered my loved one or that I would pray for that person or his family, would be as shocking and inconceivable as forgiving or praying for an SS Commander or a Hamas terrorist.

We can read forgiveness in this case, as in others – like the way Pope John Paul the 2^nd forgave and prayed for the family of Mehmet Ali Agca, as something different from saying, “I absolve you of guilt”.  This is my read on it – I imagine the late Pope would debate me on this.  A wise person once said, “All forgiveness is self-forgiveness.”  This to me is the only acceptable form of forgiveness in such an egregious case.  Jewish tradition teaches us not to bear grudges, not to mistreat our enemy’s property, and not to hate a fellow human being in our hearts.  But ironically, it is Moses himself who bears a grudge against the people for the way God punishes him in this week’s parsha, the way God prohibits him from crossing into the Promised Land.  Moses both blames the nation for his punishment and does not forgive them, later he says, “God got angry with me because of you and said ‘You will also not go there.’”  He says that when at the time of the punishment God clearly places the onus on him, and on Aaron, for their lack of faith!

Moses blames others and holds a grudge.   Forgiving the alleged perpetrator of the Charleston Church shootings does not suggest that the shooter not go through due process of law, rather, that individuals, and the community as a whole, should not be burdened with anger, frustration, and fall into inertia.  The Rabbis teach that anger is avodah zarah, idol worship – in anger we grip our personal agenda and feelings so tight that we are the center of the world, as opposed to God. 

Interim pastor Norvel Goff sees other grim possibilities of what could happen if anger boils in the community – A lot of people expected us to do something strange and to break out in a riot," said Goff "Well, they just don't know us. We are people of faith."

People of faith, like Moses after his punishment, know that lying down and turning the other cheek do not lead to justice, or to greater faith or community building, and they also know that violence does not solve problems, it only creates new ones.  And this is one way the Rabbis make sense of Moses’ punishment, if the people would see Moses and Aaron just speak to the rock, and not hit it, they would say, “This rock that cannot speak nor hear and does not require sustenance can fulfill God’s word, so much the more so can we.”  Hitting the rock is, in this case, a violent act, despite the fact that Moses once struck a rock for water with no adverse reaction.

On this Shabbat of solidarity with our African American brothers and sisters, and brothers and sisters of all religions and colors of the rainbow, we recognize how meaningful but how incredibly difficult it must be for the families of victims to forgive themselves enough to let go of emotions that might prevent them from living meaningful lives even as they mourn the loss of loved ones, loved ones who are gone forever.  And let’s recommit ourselves to the unity, to the solidarity that is the spirit of this, and really every Shabbat – each Shabbat remembers creation, and the Torah teaches that the entire world is a tree of life, a family that grows from common ancestors.  Even in bucolic and generally peaceful Glen Rock and other towns where we live, we can attend services at another house of worship, meet the people, share in their joy and prayers.  As Mark Gewirtz wrote in a recent piece, we can ourselves and with our children and students, talk about our fears, explore what are the invisible walls that separate us from others and begin to break through them.  Pastor Thomas Johnson in his sermon this past Sunday said we should do this, the same way President Reagen said to Premier Mikhael Gorbachev 28 years ago, “Tear down this wall!”

And although we always hope for unity without a crisis, people of faith also know that our tradition and our community helps us to weather a crisis by reminding us we are not alone, providing structure when the world feels like it’s falling apart.  Boston Marathon bomber Dzokar Tzarnaev made an apology in court, and one of the victims, an amputee named Rebekah Gregory said in this spirit, “Your intent was to destroy America.  You have actually unified us.” 

We cannot be satisfied with speaking unity, or singing it, we cannot be comfortable with living near each other, we need to reach out, we need to introduce ourselves, have the courage open up to those around us whom we don’t know yet and along the way practice thoughtful self-forgiveness so that our burdens don’t break our will, our backs, or our faith.

Shabbat Shalom.