After the Election: What happens now?

Over the past two weeks since the Presidential election, I've read countless reactions to the election itself, reflections on the State of the country, and reactions appointees to Cabinet and White House posts.  Responses across the country have ranged from reflective thinking and writing to boisterous protests.

As an American citizen, I'm concerned at every change of administration, perhaps more so on some occasions than others.  Will the candidates fulfill their campaign pledges?  Will a spirit of unity carry us forward no matter who wins?  Will my future and my children's future be more safe and secure?

The rhetoric and tone of this particular election was harsh, worse than mudslinging I'd heard in previous elections, but maybe only worse in degrees at this level since equally repugnant mudslinging  was happening in other elections, and in local politics where I live now it seems that there are few public officials who are not under indictments for corruption.

I'm reminded of a billboard sign that used to hang next to the Delaware Memorial Bridge.  It read, "Calm down!  Anxiety fuels recessions."  Many today feel that 'keep calm' is not wise advice.  Many today feel we must speak up and speak out.  This response does fit will within the American democratic spirit.  We cannot dispute the election results themselves, unless compelling evidence arises, but we must always be ready to make sure that those who represent us know well what values we expect to drive policy-making decisions and votes.

The thoughts I'm expressing here were motivated by a passage I read in Malcolm Gladwell's 2013 book David and Goliath (Published by Little Brown & Company).  He shares the story of Andre Trocme, a Huguenot Pastor, who was serving the the village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon during the World War 2 years.  At the first Sunday service following Germany's occupation of France, Trocme preached a sermon:  "Loving, forgiving, and doing good to our adversaries is our duty.  Yet we must do this without giving up, and without being cowardly.  We shall resist whenever our adversaries demand of us obedience contrary to the orders of the Gospel.  We shall do so without fear, but also without pride and without hate." (Gladwell, 2013, p. 264)

Trocme's heartfelt and defiant tone strikes a balance between maintaining the open-heartedness that faith demands while also calling up the courage that faith also asks us to have in the face of adversity.

Pastor Trocme's spirit can be a guide for us as we gauge how we will conduct ourselves and how we will respond to the varieties of challenges our country faces now.  His approach enabled his parishioners to save the lives of 5,000 refugees, of which 3,000-3,500 were Jews.

May we have the strength to live out his spirit and message today.

Noah - We're all in the same boat

We’ve all heard the expression, we’re all in the same boat.

Meaning, we’re all in the same situation.  No one has any advantage over anyone else.  The same challenges, the same benefits.

Some have speculated the expression comes from the sinking of the Titanic, when upper class passengers found themselves, literally, in the same boat as steerage passengers.  Everyone was together, and in that togetherness, status itself was not relevant or significant.

As we approach election day, I cannot help but think about our country in light of the story of Noah that we read from today.  Noah, his wife Na’amah, his children and their families, all are together, along with all the animals of the world – all in the same boat.

Let’s clarify one significant point about the word ‘boat’.  An Ark is not a boat.  It does not have a rudder.  It does not have oars for steering.  Like a rubber ducky in the bathtub, the Ark goes where the current takes it – really, where God directs it.  And so when Noah, Na’mah, and family say, ‘We’re in the same boat’ – It’s an even stronger expression because they are completely in God’s hands.

I cannot help but think about our country as the boat.

And all of us, of different backgrounds, different political beliefs, different levels of Jewish identification, we all are living under the laws of this country, and, we’re responsible for keeping those laws and creating community here no matter who gets elected to local, state, and federal offices.

After the election on Tuesday, no matter the result, it will be up to us to decide what will be the next meaningful steps to strengthening the democracy in which we live so that we can continue to shape our country, and so our children will have the chance to shape our country when they’re ready for voting and civic action.

Clearly, not all human beings got onto the boat, only Noah and his family.  The Torah describes the rest of the world as lawless and corrupt, and, sadly, tragically, unworthy of being saved.  While this is a story, it is a difficult story, one that reminds us how many people, good people, righteous people, even right here in our own community, feel left out, without a sense of belonging or connection.  Like those swept away by the floodwaters, so many people with meaningful ideas and energy they want to give, never get the chance.

The Rabbis imagined that the wicked generation of the flood surround the Ark and are trying to smash it, break it, destroy it, as the rains start to fall.  God steps to protect Noah’s family – the lions and bears retaliate, and God closes them in. 

But let’s reimagine this teaching.  Let’s reimagine it as the people outside the Ark are the people who would like to be part of the community, part of the Jewish community.  They would like to participate, volunteer, learn, just feel more Jewish but they don’t know how or just cannot find the right bridge or entry point.

And in this case, let’s take our reimagining one step further – we open up the door to the Ark and we welcome them on board, with a hello, a handshake, and an invitation to look around. 

We’re here today for a variety of reasons – because we choose to be, because there’s a special occasion that draws us here, maybe someone else brought us.  My prayer is that when we leave, we take something with us, a feeling, a sense of connection, of being part of something special, and we invite one other person to join us the next time.  We invite someone else to our house on Friday to light candles together, to share a tasty challah.  We get together in a small group to study a topic of interest, to see how thousands of years of Jewish ideas and experiences can help us sort out the difficult questions.  We hold someone’s hand who may be sitting here with us but is far away emotionally, in a world of crisis and hurt, hold their hand just long enough so they know they’re not alone.

The story of Noah is a story of great loss.  Very few survive the cataclysm, a destruction made all the more powerful to behold because just last week we read Braysheet ba’ra, God created the world, and hineh tov me’od, behold God saw the world was very good.  How could everything have gone so wrong so quickly?

Now though we have a chance, together, in the same boat as we all are here in the USA, to reimagine our own surroundings, regardless of the result of the Tuesday election, to reimagine them as a place where our Jewish values set the tone instead of our fears, where we are constantly on the lookout for mitzvah opportunities, and where donkeys and elephants are just two examples of the wonders of God’s creation.

Bi'ray'sheet - Starting the Torah reading again -- 5777/2016

One of my favorite urban legend stories, urban legend only because I cannot verify it, comes from Jewish Theological Seminary, my school in the City.

It’s told that one of the Bible professors, a rather quiet soul – a great writer but not a very engaging teacher – was known to enter the classroom at the time the session was to begin, and he would start to teach without paying much attention to who was in the class, nor for the formalities of greetings and check-ins.  The story goes that one day, none of his students showed up for the session, and without looking up, and as usual, he started teaching to an empty room.

This teacher may have said amazing things, but without anyone to hear them, the message will fall flat. 

The same is true with God – out of an empty universe, God creates a world, full of life, full of color, and with us, students, partners, living images of Godself.

We’re here not to take God’s place and pretend to be the masters.

Our goals are different. 

We’re here to hear, to listen to God’s voice ringing out from the moment of creation, from the moment that the Rabbis teach us God looked into the Torah itself as a blueprint and created the world we can see (Pesikta Zutarta Gen 1:1) – from the moment God created the world for the merit of the Torah as the first word is B’raysheet, and Torah itself is known as ‘ray’sheet’, as it says in Proverbs, God created the ‘ray’sheet’, the beginning, of God’s way before creation.(Midrash Rabbah)

And so we are here to listen to the Torah again, to pay attention, make mental notes, and most of all to internalize the message again this year as we begin to hear today the first of the 54 weekly Torah portions.

For more than 2,000 years Jewish communities have established the regular chanting of the Torah. 

The custom may have begun as early as the 3^rd century Before the Common Era, since the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Torah was intended for public reading.

But we do not read out loud anymore.  Others do – While I don’t agree theologically with them, I do admire the motivation and passion of those Christians who hop onto the subway trains in New York, open their bibles, and preach the word of God on the train ride.  I’ve seen this a few times and felt the surge of feeling, not the intellectual feeling of coaxing meaning out of the Torah verses, but the reverence for the presence of God in the words, for the good energy that flows from the sense that God cared enough to share wisdom with us so that we could have a way of becoming the people and the nation God hoped we could be.

And we need this feeling now, in a critical time for our country and the Jewish people.

The rhetoric of the election, even in its final stages, suggests that it’s ok to say almost anything regardless of its truth or falsity, regardless of the impact of the words on others.  Many school districts across the country, especially in this election, are either cancelling classes on November 8^th or trying to move polling places outside of the school due to the contentious nature of the debate, with self-appointed groups planning to go to polling places in different cities to verify results.

The rhetoric from UNESCO that we discussed a couple of weeks ago continues to be harshly anti-Israel despite official statements from its director. 

As we begin to hear the Torah again, we know that we do not agree with every point, nor do we find immediate relevance in each story or passage, but we do find when we hear the words of Torah again the sense that we can rely on the Torah as a source of God’s Presence and power in the world – a reminder that we can lean on God, lean on each other, and find strength in the courage of generations past who negotiated some of the most tumultuous and oppressive eras of human history.  Shabbat Shalom.

Dvar Torah: Ki Tavo - Sharing is Caring?

1. Share everything.

2. Play fair.

3. Don't hit people.

4. Put things back where you found them.

5. CLEAN UP YOUR OWN MESS.

6. Don't take things that aren't yours.

7. Say you're SORRY when you HURT somebody.

8. Wash your hands before you eat.

9. Flush.

10. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.

11. Live a balanced life - learn some and drink some and draw some and paint some and sing and dance and play and work everyday some.

12. Take a nap every afternoon.

13. When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.

14. Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Stryrofoam cup: The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.

15. Goldfish and hamster and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.

16. And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first workd you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK.”

― Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

The number one rule Fulghum learned in Kindergarten – share everything.

Sounds like a wonderful idea.

The Rabbis are not so sure.

They teach us, there are 4 types of people, exemplified by 4 statements about the way we think and relate to others with regard to our possessions.

What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is yours.  This is average and some say it’s the way of the people of Sodom.

What’s mine is yours, and what’s yours is mine.  This is a simpleton.

What’s mine is yours and what’s yours is yours.  This is a reverent person.

What’s mine is mine, and what’s yours is mine.  This is a wicked one.

According to the Rabbis, ‘share everything’ is the virtue of only a simpleton, someone disengaged, disconnected, often translated as ‘ignorant’. 

The reverent one, the Chasid, is considered such because he or she offers his or her things to others but does not expect anything in return.

I read a recent parenting article that suggested a similar lesson – That it is a better parenting technique not to expect siblings (or friends) to share what they have but to give them space to negotiate when and how they will share what they have – empowering them to make the decision.

(Let me pause here for a moment.  What do you think of this teaching?)

And so we find support also in our parsha that sharing everything, at least to start, is not always the best way to operate.

This week, as our parsha concludes, Moses, according to a tradition, hands over the Torah to the people, but according to this Midrash (Yalkut Shimoni 938) Moses hands over the Torah to his brothers and sisters the Tribe of Levi.  The others, the rest of the people, are not so happy about this.

They approach Moses and say, “Hey Moses, Our teacher,” (I added the Hey for effect)  We also were at Sinai, and the Torah was given to us, so why are you giving the Tribe of Levi authority over it?  And then the Levites will say to us tomorrow:  (Again I add for effect) Na, na-na-na-nah  The Torah wasn’t given to you, it was given to us!  - But Moses was happy about this…

Why was he happy?

He was happy because at that moment he knew that all the people of Israel are seeking to be closer, and wanting to love God. 

Once again, the lesson here is that to get to the point we all want to take part, that we all want to share in something special, first we may require going without it to make sure it’s what we really want.

We soon will welcome in a New Year together, and when we begin to think about our hopes and expectations for the New Year we can take a page from these two teachings, one from the Rabbis on the words of our parsha, and one from our Rabbis about the way people think and act in general.  We can take a page that reminds us to think very carefully about what we are seeking as we make the turn of teshuvah.  Are we dreaming, are we realistic, a little of both?  Are the ‘things’ we’re hoping for actual items or are we really searching for intangibles like peace of mind, strength, patience, clarity of thinking, and inspiration? 

We still have time to sort through our thoughts – and I invite you to join us Sunday evening at 7 for Selichot, a time when we’ll join together here in a smaller, intimate setting, in the round, to meditate, sing, pray, reflect, seek healing and take that necessary deep breath we need to clear away for a moment the cares of the day and begin to imagine what tomorrow could be.

And although I’’ve suggested I disagree with Robert Fulgum about share everything, I will promise Sunday evening that we’ll have milk and cookies – good for us, and good for the soul.  Shabbat Shalom.

Parshat Shoftim - What is justice? - 15th year after September 11, 2001

When I was 8 years old I had the chance to visit Anne Frank’s house in Amsterdam, Prinsengracht, number 263.  In light of this season of remembering September the 11^th, I want to share some well-known words Anne Frank wrote in her diary.

“In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.”

Anne Frank’s immortal words ask us to have faith that ‘peace and tranquility’ will return again.

She does not though ask, at least in this passage, for justice.

She does not seek the destruction of the enemy, or tribunals.  She simply holds fast to a faith that the world will restore itself, that hate will transform to love, that cruelty will transform to gentleness. 

Sadly this vision is not yet realized.  15 years after September 11, 2001 we continue to mourn the murder of 3,000 people, the tragic loss of so many first responders, and the sickness and death of many who worked at the site in lower Manhattan and contracted diseases as a result.

Much of the past 15 years has been a search for justice and search for rebuilding. 

But what act of justice or rebuilding can make up for even one life? 

Is there really a compensatory justice?  Or is the effort a way to prevent future attacks?

Today we take a moment to consider the pursuit of justice the past 15 years.  The United States military went into Afghanistan to pursue terrorists, searched for and took out Osama Bin Laden and others.  There is more security at airports.  For a time there was even a terrorism threat message coded by colors.

But as the Talmud teaches, a life is a world, and only God can create or recreate a world.  We can only keep memories alive, tell the story, and make sure that we not only do not forget but also teach the values of tolerance, thoughtfulness, and peaceful ways to resolve conflict.

We also look around, our country, our world, and we wonder perhaps justice is so imperfect, not in is philosophy, but in its application, that we just have to get used to the efforts of judges and courts to do their best, as we always do, and that the hope for tzedek – for justice at all levels, is something that is a striving, a hope, a goal that we work towards whether we work in the legal field or not.  It is a human striving, for creating a world that every day reflects the kind of world God hopes we can create.

Our parsha teaches us how tenuous the line be justice and injustice can be, and how we must be able to believe in the justice system first – Our ancestors, like us, were wanderers – Like us they did not always know what the road ahead would be for them, what the future would hold.  But they did not have the resources, things like DNA, photo, and video that could help establish evidence in a court room.  And so the ancient justice system was based on witness testimony, and that testimony alone could establish innocence or guilt.

Al pi shnay e’dim or shlosha edim yakum davar – a case can be valid only on the testimony of two witnesses or more…

Fifteen years after 9/11 it’s important to ask ourselves, to ask ourselves to think like witnesses and to offer a loving and honest critique of where we’ve come to all these years after the tragedies in Manhattan, at the Pentagon, and with Flight 93 that fateful day, to look and to witness whether in that time we’ve set up our Jewish communities to provide more help and support to those in need, to cross the aisles and meet the people we don’t know and forge stronger connections, to reach out to people living nearby us – people of all backgrounds and religions and get to know them, are we creating moments when it’s possible to disagree without being disagreeable, are we praying regularly?  Not praying only for things or for people but tefillah in the sense of self-reflection, appreciation of the world and its blessings, prayers of gratitude.

Are we creating the world that Anne Frank, during one of the darkest chapters of human history, the world that she believed was possible?