Rabbi Steven Moskowitz Rabbi Steven Moskowitz

The Need for Perserving Life

What follows is my sermon from Yom Kippur morning.

Part 3 in our return to Jewish values series. Preserving life—pikuach nefesh.

Rabbi Israel Salanter, the founder of the Mussar movement which emphasizes personal ethics and the importance of refining one’s character, was a leading thinker in nineteenth century Lithuania. Beginning in 1846, the world faced a cholera pandemic that spanned nearly fifteen years. He was still a young scholar at the time, when the epidemic first reached Vilna. He decided to focus all of his energies on saving lives. He argued, and as Judaism teaches, pikuach nefesh—the preserving of life—takes precedence over all other commandments, most especially ritual observances. He enlisted his students to help care for the sick. He rented a building that served as a makeshift hospital for 1500 people. He became enraged when his fellow rabbis argued that Shabbat and holiday observances should take precedence over health measures.

He publicly declared that everyone should listen to doctors first and foremost.  When physicians advised people that they should not fast on Yom Kippur because that might weaken them and make them more susceptible to disease, Rabbi Salanter did the most dramatic thing of all. He issued a ruling that said every Jew should eat on Yom Kippur. He did not stop there. Afraid that people would not heed his advice, he traveled from synagogue to synagogue on Yom Kippur morning, with wine and cake in hand, recited the kiddush and then ate in front of everyone. Some reports suggest that Salanter did not leave each synagogue until he was sure everyone had also eaten.

And so, this year’s decision to hold services online and not in person was easy. Of course, it was emotionally difficult. We miss each other. We miss being together. But from the perspective of Jewish law and the guidance it affords, the decision was easy. Health takes precedence. I am even tempted to take out a pastrami sandwich and eat it on this Yom Kippur to add an exclamation point to this teaching. Health is first and foremost.

Moses Maimonides, the great medieval thinker—he wrote books of philosophy and law— illustrated this point in a different manner. He was also by the way a physician. If, on Yom Kippur, someone says, “I am too sick to fast,” and doctors examine the person and determine, “It’s all in his head. She is healthy enough to fast,” and the person still proclaims, “I am too sick to fast. I must eat,” ignore the doctors and listen to the person. He rules, it is better to err on the side of caution. It is better to be extra careful when determining matters of health. The observance of the holiday takes second place to health. Pikuach nefesh wins.

I could offer plenty more examples from our tradition, of instances where Judaism says in effect, “Break Shabbat for the sake of saving life.” Judaism is crystal clear about this despite how some Jews presently behave.

The tradition goes even further. We are commanded not simply to choose our health over the demands of Jewish ritual, but to care for others. The Torah states: “Lo taamod al dam reacha.” This is usually translated as “Do not stand by the blood of your neighbor.” Judaism understands this verse, as well as others, to mean that we have an obligation to save someone’s life. Do not stand idly by. We are not allowed to walk by when we see someone in danger. Do not look away when someone’s health is in jeopardy. We have to try to help. We have to at least call EMS. We are not allowed to say, “It’s not my problem. Or, it’s not my business.” The health and safety of others is very much our business and our mitzvah. To be even more dramatic, if you see someone struggling to swim and in danger of drowning, you cannot say, “I don’t know how to swim. Or, I don’t know her. Or, he should not have been swimming in the first place. Or, they are not Jewish.” Instead we are commanded to ask, “What can I do to help?” It is as simple as that. You have to help save a life. You have to help preserve life.

One of the things that is most striking about our response to our current pandemic is the newfound realization that our health is dependent on the health of others. If the person standing next to me in the supermarket cannot afford to get proper health care, then my health is impacted. If people standing next to me at the gym decide that the rules of social distancing are too cumbersome and limiting for them, then my health might be put at risk. If people sitting to my right and my left at the restaurant now seating 25% of its occupancy feel that the rules about wearing masks are some infringement on their individual liberties, then my health is potentially endangered. Never have we had such a glaring example that even though I may have access to the best doctors, and I may follow all of the state’s guidelines, my health and well-being is tied to everyone else’s health. Rich and poor, law abiding and law evading, are bound to one another in one single family of people.

Lo taamod al dam reacha—you shall not stand by the blood of your neighbor. We are commanded to care for others. The health of every human beings must become each and everyone’s concern. Our individual soul’s heath is dependent on the health of other souls. The pandemic should offer us a great unifying cry rather than divide us into class and sects, New Yorkers and Texans. We are in this together, whether we recognize it or not. And we are in this for some time. And so, we must exercise resolve. Don’t let your guard down. Why? Because other people’s lives are in your hands. Wearing masks when you are in situations in which you are going to bump into others—whether they be family, friends, or strangers, staying home if you have a fever, not congregating in large groups is about the health and safety of everyone. My health, your health is the community’s responsibility. This is our God-given duty.

Part of the reason why we are so divided is that we are not all doctors like Maimonides or trusting of experts like Salanter. Scientists and physicians should be taking the lead. Listen to the scientific consensus. The bubbe meises to which some of our brethren cling (look no farther than Brooklyn) will not help to lift us up out of this plague. Lo taamod al dam reacha! Care for one another as if your own life depended on it. Why? Because it is what Judaism demands of you. And because your life actually does depend on it. The Talmud teaches: “If you save a life, you have saved an entire world. If you destroy a life, you have destroyed an entire world.” Every person, every human being, is an entire world. And we are each responsible for these many, many worlds.

The Torah’s holiness code from which that verse about standing by the blood of your neighbor is taken, opens with the following words: “You shall be holy.” And then it goes on to offer a lengthy list of ethical commands. There are the obvious: “Do not steal.” And the not so obvious: “Leave the gleanings of your field for the poor and the stranger.” It is fascinating that the holiness code is by and large defined by ethical precepts and not ritual commandments. Holiness is first and foremost derived from how we treat each other. For years, I thought the concluding verse: “You shall not falsify measures of length, weight, or capacity. You shall have an honest balance and honest weights” offered a simple message. If you go to fill up your car with gas you have to trust that a gallon is a gallon. That sticker on the gas pump emblazoned with the official seal of New York State’s Weight and Measures department means more than we think. It signifies an objective truth.

Why is this the last word of the holiness code? Why does the most well-known chapter of the Torah detailing this litany of ethical precepts, one found in the exact center of our holy scriptures end with something so seemingly mundane? For years the explanation alluded me. And then, recently, it occurred to me like a revelation. It’s almost as if the holiness code likewise has that sticker appended to its conclusion. If we cannot agree on what a gallon is then everything begins to unravel. In our own age, the meaning of this verse has become glaringly apparent. Society is built on trust. There have to be objective measures upon which we all agree. I can’t tell you how to accurately determine if a gallon of gasoline is exactly a gallon, but I trust that someone who knows how to is doing exactly that.

And this points us toward a way out of our current crisis and how we might find ourselves sooner rather than later on the other side of this pandemic or at the very least more unified in our collective response to the virus. Listen to experts. Sure, doctors don’t always agree with each other. And the world’s experts have been stumped by the Coronavirus. Sure, even the most brilliant and experienced scientists are discovering something new about this virus every day and revising their understanding on a regular basis. But you have to trust the scientists, or we are never going to get through this. Like everyone else I have read far more about viruses than I ever wanted to, but my new-found knowledge does not make me equal to the expert who has spent a lifetime devoted to studying these microscopic organisms. Read Facebook posts less and follow the CDC guidelines more. Some might claim that the CDC has become politicized and that it has changed its mind about wearing masks or the transmissibility of the virus, but we disavow science to our own peril. Of course, scientists revise their understanding as they learn more. Yes, they even change their minds. But the Torah proclaims: “You shall have an honest balance and honest weights.” And that means follow objective wisdom. Listen to the scientific consensus.

The glue holding that sticker to the pump is losing its grip. I am watching—and this sometimes frightens me more than the virus itself—as this sticker gets peeled off bit by bit. The only way to get out of this is by trusting experts. Scientists are going to make mistakes just like every other human being. But listen to the counsel of our tradition. Follow doctors’ advice. Run after Rabbi Israel Salanter’s example.

But that’s not the whole story. Over the course of the past six months, people have said, more often than I can count, “As long as you have your health.” And at the beginning of the pandemic I heard in this cliché an affirmation of the Jewish dictum of pikuach nefesh. You must do everything, and anything, to preserve life. Health takes precedence over Shabbat. Health is more important even than Yom Kippur. But as the pandemic grew longer, and as the weeks became months, I began to hear a question mark at the end of this phrase. “As long as you have your health?” people began to ask and then later some even started to add, “As long as you have your health. Isn’t that right, rabbi?” And those questions left me wondering. Maybe that’s not all there is to it. Of course, if one is faced with debilitating pain, little else matters, but there is more to life than easily and effortlessly drawing a breath in and out of our lungs.

And this is why I admire Rabbi Salanter so much. He understood that there are two sides of the nefesh. Last night we explored what an honest accounting means, what true soul-searching entails, that this is how we refine our character and build a more ethical life. This morning we explored the physical health of the soul. The two are intertwined. Working out at the gym, guarding your health, must go hand in hand with caring for the spirit, for sustaining the inner life. And all of this must be done in the context of loving friends, and a caring community. Kehillah is the framework for exploring the soul and caring for the soul. As long as you have your health is only half the story.

You need to take care of the spirit as well and that does not just mean the difficult soul-searching I spoke about. We need to restore and strengthen our spirits. We need to bolster our faith. On Shabbat, the tradition teaches us, we are given an additional soul, a neshamah yetirah. Yes, the Hebrew language provides us with an additional word for soul. Neshamah comes from the Hebrew meaning breath. On Shabbat some extra spirit is breathed into each of us just as it was when God breathed the breath of life into the first human beings. Our breath serves as a constant reminder of the physical and the spiritual. Our spiritual health is of equal importance to our physical health. This too is not an individual pursuit, but a communal responsibility. This is why Shabbat is celebrated with our community—even when it is virtual. We depend on others to uplift us with our shared prayers and songs. This is why the Shabbat table is the quintessential Jewish space. It is not the synagogue that is central but the table around which you now gather that sustains us and feeds the soul.

We breath in that spirit of Shabbat. We gain strength from our community. We search within and explore how we can do better. We search without and discover how we must protect others and safeguard their health as well as our own. We are reminded again and again, most especially during these difficult and most trying of years, that we are sustained by the very same values that have nurtured our people for centuries. Pikuach nefesh—preserving life. Heshbon hanefesh—soul searching. And kehillah—community. Hold on to these values. Double down on committing to them. Gain strength from them. They will help us to surmount any and all challenges.

And so, I conclude with a prayer. May the coming year indeed be a year of health, a year of spiritual renewal, a year of honest self-examination, and most of all, a year when we can return to wrapping our loving arms around one another. And, may that day be very soon. 

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Rabbi Steven Moskowitz Rabbi Steven Moskowitz

Writing Our Own Torah

We often describe the Israelites journey through the wilderness as forty years of wandering, implying that they were forever on the move. And yet the concluding chapters of Numbers delineate twenty places at which they encamped. There is the wilderness of Sin where the manna first appeared and Rephidim where the people complained about lack of water and Moses struck a rock in anger.

The medieval commentator, Rashi, observes that the Israelites were really on the move in the first year when they left Egypt and the last year when they prepared to enter the land of Israel. During the thirty-eight intervening years they were actually living normally at one place or another. They were not constantly on the run, or even on the move. Instead they journeyed from Egypt to the promised land in stages, stopping for even years at a time at one oasis or another.

Often when recounting a trip, we speak about the destination, we paint a picture of what we experienced there. Perhaps we encountered in this place great natural beauty or met unique and wonderful people in that land. And yet the Torah never arrives at its destination. It concludes with the journey’s goal incomplete. Thus, we imply that its chapters and verses are about aimless wanderings. We never arrive so our journey lacks direction and purpose.

And while there is great value in meanderings, in setting off on a walk that offers no purpose than to be accompanied by others or one’s thoughts, this might not be the most accurate description of our forty years in the wilderness. Instead “the Israelites set out from Rameses and encamped at Succoth. They set out from Succoth and encamped at Etham…” (Numbers 33)

The Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism, teaches: “Whatever happened to the people as a whole will happen to each individual. All the forty-two journeys of the Children of Israel will occur to each individual, between the time he is born and the time he dies.”

For the first years of my life I lived in Northern New Jersey, and then we journeyed to the suburbs of Saint Louis and then back again to New Jersey and then back once more to Saint Louis. And then I spent my years of college in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and then it was off to Jerusalem for the start of rabbinical school and then to Cincinnati to complete my studies where I made the pronouncement, “I will move anywhere but New York.” And then we moved to Great Neck and Dix Hills and now Huntington which are all of course in New York.

Each place, that was more often than not chosen for me by circumstances, offered new adventures: the birth of children and new jobs. Each place offered new discoveries and something even more to learn.

And so now I find myself encamped in Huntington waiting out this unexpected, and unforeseen, pandemic. What will we learn of ourselves? What will we learn of each other? How will we arise from this crisis better than before and better than we can now imagine?

The Torah offers a blueprint for our lives. We find ourselves in its pages.

The destination is always off in the distance, and perhaps even after the conclusion of the book. Life, and meaning, are found in the unexpected places we find ourselves, the places at which we pause. That’s where life happens.

And that is where our Torah is written.
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Rabbi Steven Moskowitz Rabbi Steven Moskowitz

Our Synagogue's Response to COVID-19

We are writing to update you about our synagogue’s response to the coronavirus outbreak. First of all, as of this writing, our programs, classes and services are going ahead as planned. We are staying in touch with the local health authorities and staying up to date with information from the Centers for Disease Control. If need be, or if it is required of us, we will make changes to our schedule.

We urge you stay informed as well. It is important that we rely on facts, and advice, from medical experts. This is what will continue to guide our synagogue’s response and should also guide our personal responses.

Regarding hygiene we are cleaning our facility, most especially our classrooms, and surfaces with which people regularly come into contact on a more regular basis. We are insisting that our students wash their hands with soap and water more often and most obviously before they eat. It is important that everyone practice good hygiene. Still, the single most important thing that we must do is the following: if you feel sick, in particular if you have a fever or cough, you not only should stay home, but must.

We must not only care for ourselves, and our families, but each other. While hugs, and kisses, might become increasingly limited, compassion for others must always remain our singular concern and our community’s defining characteristic. It is what makes us a caring community. Continue to show concern for others. There are many different ways to offer support even if it might mean, in the future, more text messages and phone calls rather than personal interactions.

Finally, let us address our fears. Each of us deals with these in different ways. Some are more afraid than others. We cannot allay all fears. We can, as a synagogue, be guided by medicine. Of course, we are bound by faith, but in this circumstance, we lean first and foremost on science and the expertise of health professionals.

The following story is told of the famous Rabbi Israel Salanter, a leading Orthodox rabbi in nineteenth century Vilna. During the cholera epidemic of 1848, medical authorities advised people against fasting on Yom Kippur. And so, what did Rabbi Israel Salanter do? He ascended the bima during Yom Kippur services, stood before his congregation, and then recited the motzi and ate. Stay in touch with me so that I can continue to offer emotional and spiritual support.

The Jewish value of pikuach nefesh, caring for our health, takes precedence over all other commandments. We will continue to live by this value. We will continue to lead by this value. We will remain informed by medicine and sustained by faith.
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Rabbi Steven Moskowitz Rabbi Steven Moskowitz

I Walked in the March Against Antisemitism to Reclaim Our Home

Don George, the preeminent travel writer, offers an insightful observation in The Way of Wanderlust: “Becoming vulnerable requires concentration, devotion, and a leap of faith–the ability to abandon yourself to a forbiddingly foreign place and say, in effect, ‘Here I am; do with me what you will.’ It’s the first step on the pilgrim’s path.”

American Jews have awakened to feelings of abandonment. Our home has become a foreign place. Antisemitism is no longer something that happens over there or something that occurred back then. It is here. It is now.

We debate the causes. It is because American leaders resort to language which demonizes minorities. We argue about the reasons. It is because university professors label our devotions colonial oppressions. We blame politicians–at least those who stand in opposition to our partisan commitments. We say it is because they are unwilling to stand with us or to fight alongside us. We debate with our fellow Jews–often even more vociferously–about their vote, telling them it is all because of who they voted for or who they plan to vote against. We hear, it is because of those Jews not our kind of Jews.

Jews are being murdered when they gather to sing Shabbat prayers. Jews are attacked when they come together to celebrate Hanukkah. Jews are killed when they go shopping for kosher chickens. Where? Here. In America.

What once felt like a welcoming home no longer makes us feel at home.

And so, on Sunday, I joined with my wife and daughter, and twenty-five thousand others and marched across the Brooklyn Bridge....

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Rabbi Steven Moskowitz Rabbi Steven Moskowitz

Why Religion Stays Relevant

Google Maps and Waze have transformed the way we drive. No longer do we have to listen to 1010 on the ones. No longer do we have to check News12 before leaving the house. Now our iPhones make instantaneous calculations and then reroute us around traffic.

Of course, you have to trust the phone. You have to have faith in its algorithms. You have to let go of all that accumulated wisdom gained from years of driving around the New York area.

Our children find this letting go easy and natural. They are digital natives. We find this far more difficult. We still remember the days of folded maps and AAA Triptiks. A student recently remarked about his parents and my contemporaries. He constantly admonishes his father with the words, “Dad, if you are going to use Waze you have to listen to it.” And so we listen begrudgingly, although there are times that we still think we know better.

Our parents’ generation finds this letting go even more troublesome. They refuse to give a measure of authority to a tiny cellphone. Reason does not work. I gently prod....

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Rabbi Steven Moskowitz Rabbi Steven Moskowitz

Open the Door!

The Bible proclaims: “There shall be one law for the citizen and for the stranger that dwells among you.” (Exodus 12:49) Moreover, the Bible commands, no less than 36 times, “Love the stranger.”

Many are the strangers who wish to make this great nation their home!

And yet America remains divided. There are those who wish to open our country’s borders to immigration. On the other side, there are those who wish to secure our borders, afraid that Muslim immigrants in particular will bring terrorist attacks.

In case there is any doubt, I stand with those who wish to open our doors. I stand against President Trump’s recent Executive Order banning immigration from seven Muslim countries for four months and in the case of Syrian refugees, indefinitely. In this great country of ours we are not meant to discriminate. And so on Saturday afternoon, I joined the protesters at JFK airport to raise my voice in support of my Muslim brothers and sisters. (You can read more about my experience.)

My stance should come as no surprise to those who have heard my sermons and read my writings. I remain deeply committed to the ideal that America is first and foremost a nation of immigrants. My family was welcomed here. I in turn must welcome others....

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Rabbi Steven Moskowitz Rabbi Steven Moskowitz

Responsibility to Protest

The signs stood as my accusers.

A young woman held a hastily scrawled placard, “They warned me about this in Hebrew School.” Another held, “Remember the St. Louis.”

On Saturday I found myself at the impromptu protest rally at JFK airport. The anger was palpable. The indignation continues to simmer. It boils over on social media. It is heard from other nation’s capitals. A few lawmakers speak out. Governors weigh in. More and more raise their voices.

I had spent the better part of Saturday afternoon reading the newspaper about Friday’s executive order. I became increasingly agitated. Soon I heard about the rally forming at Terminal 4. I thought, “I will go next time. It’s not in today’s plans.” I read some more. I grew enraged. I paced back and forth. I became indignant. I put on a warmer pair of socks, grabbed some gloves and headed for the door. I drove to JFK. I wondered if I would be able to find what I expected to be a small group of hundreds.

As soon as I pulled into the parking garage I heard the shouts....

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Rabbi Steven Moskowitz Rabbi Steven Moskowitz

Fifteen Years Later: A Prayer

Lord our God, I offer this prayer fifteen years after the 9-11 attack.

On the morning of September 11, 2016, I felt once again the comfortable cool air of a late summer day and turned to look up at the deep blue sky. And all I could think about was that terrible, dark day of fifteen years ago. I thought of the fear and terror of that morning. I remembered those taken from our midst and how they were robbed of their futures. And I was robbed of their companionship. All I could think about were those smiling photographs looking up at me from our newspapers. They were torn from our families; they were stolen from our homes. My heart remains wounded. Now even so many years after that day, I strain to hear their voices. I long to feel their embrace....

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Rabbi Steven Moskowitz Rabbi Steven Moskowitz

9-11 and Making Holy War

The Bible’s Book of Deuteronomy, which Jews are in the midst of reading, details the laws about making war. It is worth noting that although we might prefer to cling to the words of the prophets and their lofty visions of peace: “Nation shall not lift up sword against nation” or “The wolf shall lie down with the lamb,” the Jewish tradition is not a pacifist tradition. It allows for war. The Book of Deuteronomy in fact recognizes that this will be the Jewish people’s lot when they cross the Jordan and conquer the land of the Canaanites. It most especially recognizes that sometimes we must fight wars of self-defense. Of course, before attacking an enemy terms of peace must be offered.

The Bible continues. The priest speaks to the troops and says: “Sh’ma Yisrael—Hear O Israel! You are about to join battle with your enemy. Let not your courage falter. Do not be in fear, or in panic, or in dread of them. For it is the Lord your God who marches with you to do battle…” (Deuteronomy 20) This refrain of “Don’t be afraid, God is with you” is often repeated. Such words make us uncomfortable. This week we are marking the 15th anniversary of 9-11, a day that continues to wound and a day in which our country, and our city, were attacked by people who believed that they were likewise doing God’s bidding, that their heinous acts had God’s blessing. So how do we read our holy books and not cringe at even such vague similarities?

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Rabbi Steven Moskowitz Rabbi Steven Moskowitz

"Primary Wonder"

I wandered to the beach for lunch, accompanied by Denise Levertov and her poems.

I discovered:

Days pass when I forget the mystery.
Problems insoluble and problems offering
their own ignored solutions
jostle for my attention, they crowd its antechamber
along with a host of diversions, my courtier, wearing
their colored clothes; caps and bells.
                                                          And then
once more the quiet mystery
is present to me, the throng's clamor
recedes: the mystery
that there is anything, anything at all,
let alone cosmos, joy, memory, everything,
rather than void: and that, O Lord,
Creator, Hallowed One, You still,
hour by hour sustain it. (Sands of the Well)

I looked up...


Creator!

Hallowed One!

Days pass when I forget the mystery...

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Rabbi Steven Moskowitz Rabbi Steven Moskowitz

Noah, Klinghoffer and Intoxicating Tragedies

In 1862 a reviewer wrote the following about Victor Hugo’s publication of Les Miserables: “One cannot read without unconquerable disgust all the details Monsieur Hugo gives regarding the successful planning of riots.” And yet most people describe the Broadway production of “Les Miserables” to be among their favorites. It is a remarkable show. 150 years after the Paris Uprising of 1832, or depending on your perspective the June Rebellion, with no allegiances to either side in that struggle standing among us, we are afforded the luxury of historical perspective. We can more easily judge the artist’s work.

This is among the challenges confronting us when evaluating the production of John Adam’s opera, “The Death of Klinghoffer.” Not only is thirty years insufficient time to grant us an objective, historical view, but the struggle continues. Palestinian terrorists remain our enemies. The memory of a painful summer of war still haunts us. We do not see a death, but murder.

And yet I decided to evaluate the opera....

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Rabbi Steven Moskowitz Rabbi Steven Moskowitz

Ki Tavo and Treasures

What is a treasure?

I can treasure something.  Some people treasure cars, others shoes.  More often people treasure not that which is the most costly but that which was given to them.  They then hold in their hands a keepsake.  The possession acquires value because of the giver rather than because of its monetary value.  My most valued kiddush cup is not that which is even the most beautiful but that which was given to Susie and me by her grandparents and which served the family for several generations.

I can treasure a book, the Torah.  I wonder.  Does it matter which scroll I read or is it the words that I spend my years examining and pondering that are the more important and therefore the most treasured?

I can treasure someone.  Most treasure family, a spouse, children, parents and grandparents.  I wonder.  Do their actions make me treasure them less?  If I become disappointed with them do I love them any less?  On the contrary, if they do something which makes me proud do I treasure them even more?  I think not.  They are treasured because of who they are.  They can do right or even wrong, but they are family and will always be treasured and loved. 

So too the Jewish people.  In the Torah we are called God’s treasure, an "am segulah," a treasured people.  Is God’s love dependent on what we do?  “And the Lord has affirmed this day that you are, as He promised you, His treasured people… (Deuteronomy 26:18)  We are treasured because God promised.  The giver grants sanctity.  The giver lends meaning to the treasure.

The cup with which we sanctify Shabbat reminds me of our grandfather.

And yet the verse continues: “…His treasured people who shall observe all His commandments.” Grand expectations are placed upon our shoulders.  We expect so much of those we love.

Are we loved any less if we fall short?     


Not by God.  But most certainly by ourselves.
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Rabbi Steven Moskowitz Rabbi Steven Moskowitz

Riding in Circles

The following is the sermon delivered at Friday evening Shabbat services.

When we were younger all of us took our required math classes.  Some of us enjoyed these.  Many did not.  In those classes we learned about the basics of adding and subtracting, multiplying and in my most advanced class, division.  Later we learned geometry and there I first found out about this magical number called Pi.  Pi is a curious number.  It is a mathematical constant of 3.14159 and so on.  In recent years it has been calculated out to 10 trillion digits.  In theory it goes on into infinity without ever repeating.  It is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter.  It is in a word the constant around which a circle revolves.

Like a circle the Torah is perfect and so I am given to wondering, what is its Pi.  What is the verse around which the Torah spins?  Is it its opening verse: Bereshit bara Elohim—In the beginning God created heaven and earth?  Without a beginning that immediately establishes God’s relationship with the world there could be no Torah.  But you can’t spin around a beginning or ending for that matter.  Is it instead the command to observe Shabbat: Zakhor et yom hashabbat—Remember the Sabbath day?  Can there be a more central command to Jewish life than Shabbat?  Perhaps instead the verse: Vahavata l’r’echa kamocha—love your neighbor as yourself?  Some have pointed out that when the Torah is unrolled to that verse of Leviticus 19:18 the scroll is perfectly balanced.  This verse stands at the exact center of the Torah.  It certainly could be argued that if we observed this command day in and day out we would do more to elevate our lives and the lives of those around us.

Still I remain unsatisfied that these verses could be the Torah’s constant, that these could represent the circle of the Torah’s Pi.  This week in Parashat Beshalach, we read not only the Song of the Sea, containing the words of Mi Chamocha, but the following as well: So God led the people roundabout by way of the wilderness.  And I have come to believe that these words are in fact the linchpin for the remainder of the Torah’s story.  God intentionally led the people on what would become a forty year journey.  I know that we have read the commentaries suggesting that it was not God’s intention at the outset.  It was instead the Israelites’ sins that caused a few month journey to turn into one of forty years.  We recall as well the teaching that only those who were born as free people in the wilderness could become a free nation in their own land.  Slaves cannot really know freedom.  And so the slaves must die so that a new, free people can be formed. 

In fact this forty year long journey was always God’s intention all along.  That is clear from this week’s parsha.  The famous Jewish philosopher, Franz Rosenzweig, suggests this as well.  He writes that God purposely misdirects us.  We only discover our freedom when pointed in the wrong direction.  I think that God just kept leading us in circles until we learned enough to realize the dream of entering the Promised Land.  Have you ever considered the fact that our central book, the Torah, concludes without this dream being realized?  It ends at the edge of the land, at the border of a dream.  And then what do we do?  We circle back to the beginning: Bereshit bara Elohim.

One of the geniuses of our tradition is having faith in the messianic redemption, but also always believing that the messiah’s arrival stands at a great distance.  This notion is codified by the rabbis when they wrote (and I share this in honor of the upcoming Tu B’Shevat): If the messiah comes and you are planting a tree, first finish planting, and then go to greet the messiah. (Avot deRabbi Natan)  When the messiah gets too close we tend to forget about the here and now.  There are plenty examples from our history (Shabtai Zevi is the most notorious) but the lessons are the same.  If you believe that this guy is the messiah then you stop trying to fix things yourself and say instead, “He will take care of it.”  You forget to plant the tree.  So we sing and pray for the messiah’s arrival but continue to take care of things ourselves.  The dream is held at a distance.  The Promised Land is across the way, off in the distance.  We circle back and begin the journey again. 

As many of you know, I am an avid cyclist.  Others might suggest, obsessed but to the aficionado, avid is the preferred name.  Every ride is a new journey.  While I always circle back home, I almost never ride the same route.  Sometimes I look for a new road to explore. Other times I just don’t want to climb Mill Hill.  Then there are days when I realize that climbing Mill Hill will be worth the tail wind I will gain riding out of Bayville.  How many times have I raced on Berry Hill on my way back towards Huntington and never even noticed Temple Lane?  How many miles are required to discover a new, potential home?  How many years of journeying and wandering are necessary?

Part of the problem is our goal-oriented society.  A life without goals appears meandering and aimless.  The sentiment is that without a predetermined destination we are lost.  But it is possible to explore without ever being lost.  When I ride I don’t carry maps.  I know that if I am riding west the Sound is always on my right.  And how do you know that the Sound is on your right when it is not within sight? By the temperature.  As you approach the water the air cools and even though the Sound is outside of view, you can feel it’s near and so you can ride, and explore and wander without ever really being lost.  The direction can only be a feeling.    

You can’t learn and grow if everything is about a goal.  The destination, the goal, is not the purpose of a journey.  School is supposed to be about discovery and not about test scores and grades.  If the message of our tradition were all about goals, then Torah would conclude with the Book of Joshua and not Deuteronomy.  The lesson of the Torah is revealed in this week’s verse.  In journeys we discover our Torah.  In wandering we find our lessons.  When you wander you discover things that are unintended.  It is there that we write stories. 

Think of the stories from vacations and travels.  Rarely do we retell them as follows: Everything went according to plan.  We followed our itinerary to the letter.  Our plane took off on time.  Our driver picked us up at the appointed hour.  More often, it is recounted like this: we were walking and exploring and we happened into this restaurant because we were tired and hungry and we discovered this gem.  We were the only foreigners there.  The food was delicious.  We talked to the chef.  Now we go back there every time we visit.

Life-long friends can be made when there is a mistake in your seat assignment.  Would we remain in the seat or berate the flight attendant about the error?  Leon Wieseltier once observed, Serendipity is how the spirit is renewed.  Wandering is how truths are discovered and lessons learned.  It could be as simple as a new route for a bike ride or as profound as a new friend.  Lessons are gained on journeys.

This week we discover the guiding verse of our most sacred book.  It is not as others would suggest.  It is instead about the journey and wandering.  The key Hebrew word is Vayesev.  It is translated in most Bibles as leading roundabout.  God turns the people around and around and around.  We could almost say that God spins us around in circles. The verb shares the same root as one word for circle. 

People always think that a journey is a straight line.  It is not.  It is instead a circle.  But even a circle has a constant.  That is a lesson learned long ago in math class.  There is a certain principle within each and every circle.  The Torah is the same.  And God led the people roundabout.  We continue on the journey.   Who knows what lessons might be learned.  The Torah never concludes.  We take a mere breath in between reading its last word and its first.  The Torah is drawn in circles. 

Have faith in the journey.  Even though we might wander in circles there remains a constant with infinite meaning. Relish the wandering.  At times we might only be able to sense the destination. Other times the goal appears mysterious. Understand this: we always circle back home. 
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Rabbi Steven Moskowitz Rabbi Steven Moskowitz

Learning from the Whirlwind

What follows is the sermon I delivered this Rosh Hashanah Morning. This was programmed to post prior to the start of the holiday and the delivered version will as always contain some minor changes, but for those who wish, the written text follows. By the time you are reading this I hope to say that the sermon was met with resounding nods of agreement and most importantly, a rekindled resolve to act.  If it stirred the pot then let it only be for good and in the hopes of building a better future together.

Let us begin with a familiar biblical story. It is the story of Adam and Eve. According to the Torah, God created Adam from the earth and Eve from his rib. God placed them in the Garden of Eden with only one instruction. You can eat from any fruit or vegetable you want except those from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. You know the ending. What is the first thing they did? They ate. “Shira and Ari, we are going to leave you home alone tonight. You can watch whatever you want on TV. Just no HBO after 1 am.” And if you believe that the TV was off and that my children were in bed by midnight, then let me tell you about a talking snake. And the Torah relates. The serpent said to the woman, “Did God really say, you shall not eat of any tree in the garden?” And so the snake convinces the woman to eat the fruit. It is not an apple by the way except for in medieval Christian art, but instead, according to Jewish tradition a pomegranate or etrog. She likes it and gives it to Adam and he eats it and also likes it. What’s not to like about a fruit picked fresh off a tree? Only one problem. God said, Don’t eat it. And now they ate. They gained knowledge, which I always think is a good thing. God confronts them. God says, “Ayekah? Where are you?” Do they admit their wrongs? No, of course not. Adam says, “The woman who You created, she made me do it.” Eve says, “It was the talking snake.” That’s a good one, Shira and Ari. “We forgot to turn the TV off.” Blame the talking snake. Own up. Take responsibility for your mistakes. Correct your failings. God banishes them from the garden and says, “Cursed be the ground because of you; by toil shall you eat of it all the days of your life.” (Genesis 3)

And now we know. Cursed be the ground because of us. Is there any lingering doubt? Do we dare reject science? Our world is no longer Eden. So let me state my claim at the beginning. Climate change is affecting our world. Is the memory of Hurricane Sandy already a distant memory?

Let me offer but a few reminders. Here are the numbers for our own Long Island. According to FEMA, over 95,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed, most by the waters of the devastating storm surge. Nearly 40,000 of those suffered damage greater than 50% of their value. In the weeks that followed we volunteered to help our neighbors. Our congregation partnered with Nechama, a Jewish disaster relief organization, and helped a family with the ugly and messy task of removing waterlogged floorboards. This particular family lacked insurance and so we helped them with those tasks that involved unskilled labor. Ari and I pried up board after board of their dinning room’s wooden floor and carted couches and chairs filled with water to the curb. Most remarkable of all is that we worked alongside not just other congregants but a young man who drove to Long Island from Minnesota and used his two weeks of vacation to volunteer and help out after Superstorm Sandy. Most nights he slept in his car. He worked each and every day of his vacation to help out complete strangers. He appeared motivated by nothing other than a deep sense of altruism. Would we have given up our vacations to help his community if the situation were reversed? On another day I drove to Long Beach to volunteer at FEMA’s disaster relief center. I was overwhelmed by what I saw. The beach parking lot was filled with mountains of trash and debris. The piles of cut trees at the end of driveways and those collecting in Huntington’s parking lots was little in relation to all of these household belongings, furniture and appliances piled along what was only weeks before our beautiful Long Island beaches. 4.4 million cubic yards of debris had to be cleaned up from the Island following the storm. Many of us were without power for weeks. In fact over 1 million customers lost power. Who could forget the gas shortages that followed, the maddening frustration of having to wait in lines for such a basic necessity and then still being unable to find gas? Should I continue? Do we wish to relive those weeks? I ask, has our beloved island been effectively rebuilt? We have restored power and rebuilt boardwalks. But rebuilding is not the same as preparedness. I read that LIPA can now communicate better with repairmen when they are in the field. But better communication and improved emergency management is not the long-term thinking and planning I envision. We have repaired our beautiful beaches and carted away the debris. But the ocean and the Long Island Sound will find its way into our towns once again.

We require a fundamental shift in our thinking. Everything we have done as enormous as these tasks have been is still but small changes. We have eaten of the fruit. Have we gained any new knowledge? Have we learned something new? This is my focus for this morning. What should we have learned from Hurricane Sandy?

The hurricane should have been a wake up call that we can no longer live as we have, that our bargain with nature has failed. We look to generators as if they are permanent fixes, we write about tree removal as if it is redemptive, but so much more must change. We cannot buy a peace with nature. We cannot build walls high enough to protect us from the sea. Nature will win. And yet we go on as if our only plan is a prayer that this storm was in fact once in a lifetime storm. I am not a prophet but I remain convinced that it was not. I remain certain that such storms are the makings of a new and different future for which we are ill prepared.

I am convinced that much of the changes that we see are due to climate change. Perhaps there are among you skeptics, so let me offer some evidence. This past year CO2 measurements in the atmosphere surpassed the scientific red line of 400 parts per million and yet again there was just an article in the day’s papers. According to climate scientists our environment will become increasingly unstable the longer it remains above 350 ppm, a number we passed in 1985. Everyone is aware of the science. True, some discount it. But the evidence is nearly unanimously accepted by scientists. These greenhouse gases make for an increasingly unstable world. Weather patterns change. Ocean levels rise. If they rise only by inches catastrophic consequences can follow. An inch more added to the oceans can mean the difference between a storm surge flooding a city or not. I recognize that some might still be unaccepting. Only last week there was an article that insurance companies are beginning to factor climate change into their risk models. They are beginning to look to complex computer programs to model the future rather than historical examples. In assessing their risk, and of course their investment, they are factoring climate change into the equation. But still we go on with our lives as if Hurricane Sandy is but an aberration the likes of which we will never see again even as our friends on the South Shore are still struggling to lift themselves out of this disaster. If you are still unconvinced, I would refer you to Harvard's Center for Health and the Global Environment. I had the privilege of having dinner with its director, Dr. John Spengler, and a number of its faculty this summer. I was impressed with their strategy. Too often questions of science and reason become mired in politics. This school remains singularly devoted to science. It evaluates the risks, costs and benefits of energy production in scientific terms. Read their paper on the costs to human health of coal power. Learn there that coal generates almost half of the nation’s electricity, but 4/5 of greenhouse gases caused by utilities. In case you still wish to read more, there are flyers with more information.

Science, and even businesses, are tilting towards the need to change our ways. What lags behind? Our political system. And even more importantly, ourselves. Mayor Bloomberg is pushing a plan for how New York City will deal with climate change yet I still have not read of such a plan for Long Island. Here we need one grand plan not hundreds. We remain fractured into towns and villages. Let me say this loud and clear. Unless we find a way to transcend the divisions and the interests of a Long Beach and a Brookville, a Syosset and a Fire Island we will never be ready for nature’s next storm. When it comes to addressing these environmental changes there should be no small local interests but instead unified, communal gestures. Why did we spend millions of dollars to fill in the newly formed breach on Fire Island? This served only a small, local interest. There are days when I feel as if Long Island politics have become akin to my halcyon days when my brother and I would furiously try to stay ahead of the ocean’s waves as we dug tunnels in the sand. The sand of course kept collapsing our tunnels no matter how hard we worked, no matter how high we built the sand castle’s walls. Unless we are able to develop a new approach for all of Long Island nature will win again. Let me correct myself. Nature will always win. But if we make strategic decisions that are in the interest of all of Long Island we will be able to continue to call this place a home. Otherwise all we will leave for our children and grandchildren are private islands powered by personal generators. How I wanted my own generator during the days and weeks following the hurricane. And I do remain grateful to all those who offered us help during the storm, from a hot shower to warm bed, from Wifi to TV’s football games. But a generator is not a communal solution, except perhaps if it is mandated for all gas stations. It is only a private inheritance. Long Island desperately needs a grand, strategic plan. I continue to believe that we are called not to preserve our own private way of life but to make our lives, and the lives of our neighbors, and our world, even better.

What can we do? It is not only about advocating for clean power over coal or LED light bulbs over incandescent. It is not only that every new building project should be green. It is not only about driving less and car-pooling more. Of course small gestures can help. How many times do we meet friends at restaurants rather than sharing a ride? The notion that our lives are independent and private, that community is only an assemblage of “likes” is erroneous. We are bound to each other. No fence, no town borders will create a safe home for ourselves and our children. We require instead a change in attitude. It is a fundamental shift in how we lead our lives.

Let us take counsel from our tradition. For thousands of years our Jewish tradition has taught that we are custodians for our world. It begins with the command to Adam and Eve. While we are certainly allowed, and even encouraged, to enjoy the blessings of this world and while we are obligated to improve our world, we are also commanded to care for nature, to protect the world for ourselves and future generations. The tradition calls this baal tashchit, do not destroy. We are forbidden from wasting or destroying anything. It begins with the food that we throw out after meals and especially parties. It moves to the unnecessary extra miles we drive in our cars. The Talmud argues about the location of factories and in particular tanneries. They must be placed a significant distance from town and never on the west from where the prevailing winds in Israel blow. Even though this industry was crucial in the ancient world, our rabbis recognized their fumes were also dangerous. (Baba Batra 2:9) The parallels are obvious. The concern of the ancients should be our own. Advances in technology and knowledge should not mean a diminution of concern for nature but instead a heightened awareness of our attachment to the natural world.

The second paragraph of the Shema speaks of the rewards and punishments for not observing the commandments. For years the Reform movement removed this from our prayerbooks. But on closer examination we discover an insight from our tradition that is sorely needed for our own age. “If, then, you obey the commandments that I enjoin upon you this day, loving the Lord your God and serving Him with all your heart and soul, I will grant the rain for your land in season, the early rain and the late. You shall gather in your new grain and wine and oil—I will also provide grass in the fields for your cattle—and thus you shall eat your fill.” (Deuteronomy 11) The rewards here all have to do with nature. If we observe, it will rain when it is supposed to rain. Our tradition is intimately tied to nature. So many of our holidays are tied to the seasons and to agriculture. Passover is for example not only our redemption from Egypt but also about the barley harvest. Now that we are no longer farmers we have lost this connection embedded within our beloved tradition and we are poorer for it. We have come to believe that our holidays and our celebrations are divorced from nature, that we can live an isolated existence celebrating our sacred occasions, comfortable in our homes, protected from the storms. Hurricane Sandy changed that. Superstorm Sandy should have awakened us from our slumber and shocked us to change.

To be fair I also discovered something that was good in the midst of the whirlwind. I rediscovered the value of hachnasat orchim, hospitality. Our patriarch Abraham is viewed as the model for hospitality. Three strangers come to visit him. They will soon announce that he and Sarah will become parents. He welcomes them in and prepares for them a meal. Ok, truth be told, he instructs Sarah to cook for them. He slaughters the calf himself, but she had to do all the cooking. The Torah reports: “As soon as he saw them, he ran from the entrance of the tent to greet them and, bowing to the ground, he said, ‘My lords... Let a little water be brought; bathe your feet and recline under the tree. And let me fetch a morsel of bread that you may refresh yourselves...’” (Genesis 18) And what does our tradition make of this? The Rabbis teach: “Hachnasat orchim is greater even than welcoming God’s presence.” (Shabbat 127a)

Once the storm clouds receded from our island, we ventured into the streets. Many of our neighborhood streets were impassible. We walked and visited with neighbors with whom we had only waved when racing down our blocks in our cars, hurrying to our next scheduled activity or meeting. Now, the power was off. The TV’s were silenced. The Internet was muted. There were no schedules to keep. There could be no meetings. All we had was our small neighborhood. We met people for the first time. On those cold evenings there was nothing to do but gather at the one house that had a warm fire and good wine. There we talked and of course complained. There is nothing like complaining to bind people together. And yet as soon as the power was restored we returned to many of our old ways.

Like Adam and Eve, we seem to think we can forever live in Gan Eden. God asks again, “Ayekah?” Where are we going? Back to the talking serpent. The lesson of the Torah is not that snakes can talk, but that nature has a voice. It speaks. It tempts us with its beauty and grandeur. It lulls us into thinking that we can tame it, that we are its master. It deceives us like the serpent. Now we have new knowledge. The storm has passed. The floodwaters have receded. We should have learned that eventually the ocean will always win. We should have known that the winds will beat us back. “And then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind…” (Job 38) Have we listened?

Like many I traveled to the beach this summer. More often than not I find the ocean’s water and waves restorative. But this year I noticed something different. Each morning when we arrived at the water’s edge, carrying our beach chairs, coolers, footballs and towels, I discovered that the beach had been remade. One morning the sands were flattened and we could tip toe into the salt water. Another morning there was a small shelf at the water’s edge from which we could jump into the waves. And still another morning the high tide had left a small pool in which my young niece could comfortably wade. I thought to myself, “If this is the power of the sea on a calm day, if the beaches’ sands can be remade day after day when its waters are calm, how much the more so when whipped up by the winds of a tropical storm.” Who are we to think we can fight its fury and waves. The psalmist declares: “The ocean sounds, O Lord the ocean sounds its thunder, the ocean sounds its pounding. Above the thunder of the mighty waters, more majestic than the breakers of the sea is the Lord, majestic on high.” (Psalm 93)

Still, even the power of King David’s words will not still my worries. Thus the only question that should remain on our lips, “What new knowledge have I gained? How must my life change? How must our community change?” We know the future will be different. But we only want to rebuild. We want it to be just like it was. Will we continue to build castles of sand or will we summon the courage and fortitude to build something different, and greater, although perhaps smaller, for our children? Will we respond to the thunder of the ocean’s fury and not once again offer the soothing mantra “We will rebuild!” but instead join together to build a new and different and even greater future? I offer this prayer. I cannot pray that the every storm will veer out into the open sea and will never again touch our shores. We do not pray for what is impossible. Instead I pray, may we summon the strength to build something even greater, and safer, and more lasting of our home, of our Long Island.
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Rabbi Steven Moskowitz Rabbi Steven Moskowitz

Ed Koch z"l

I admired Ed Koch.  In particular I liked his brashness.  I did not always agree with his views, but I could always count on knowing where he stood.  I could reckon with his ideas.

Following his recent death I was somewhat surprised to learn that he searched throughout Manhattan for its best burial spot, finally choosing a site in Trinity Church's cemetery.  The stone was erected prior to his death, and I recently saw a photograph of him walking beside it.  A haunting image!   But that is Koch chutzpah!  Here is what is written on the stone: "Edward I. Koch; Mayor of the City of New York 1978-1989; 'My father is Jewish, my mother is Jewish, I am Jewish.' (Daniel Pearl, 2002, just before he was beheaded by a Muslim terrorist.); Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one."


His funeral is tomorrow.  As I reflect on his legacy it occurs to me that history's greatest heroes should not require so many words.  Below is Ben Gurion's grave.  The grave sits beside his wife's, alone on a hilltop in the Negev desert, at the kibbutz he later called his home, Sde Boker.


"David Ben Gurion; 1886-1973; immigrated to Israel 1906."

Judaism in its wisdom assigned no words to the lighting of a yahrtzeit candle.  I have often stammered over this lack of blessing, over the absence of prescribed words.  Now I see.  The silence speaks.

Words sometimes belie the legacy.

Addendum:  I missed that there is a concluding epitaph at the bottom of Ed Koch's head stone.  It reads: "He was fiercely proud of his Jewish faith. He fiercely defended the City of New York and he fiercely defended its people. Above all, he loved his country, the United States of America, in whose armed forces he served in World War II."
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Rabbi Steven Moskowitz Rabbi Steven Moskowitz

Toldot

I am unable to leave Sandy behind.  Perhaps better to say that Hurricane Sandy will not let go.  Her winds and waves continue to torment my dreams.  True, life is returning to normal on the North Shore.  Power has been restored.  Our homes are again warm.   Nonetheless for our friends and family living only miles away the struggle continues.  Far too many, in the place we call home, are without even the most basic of necessities.

I find this painful to witness.  I pledge not to sit idly by.  I must vow to do more.

I find it as well painful to read the opening verses of this week’s portion, about our forefathers Jacob and Esau.  Here is that story.  Jacob and Esau are twins.  Esau was born only moments before Jacob.  Jacob emerges holding on to his brother’s heel.  He is thus called “Jacob, meaning heel.”  Esau becomes a skilled hunter.  Jacob is more mild mannered and toils in the house (nay, tent).  One day Esau returns from hunting and spies the lentil stew that Jacob is cooking.  Esau screams, “Give me some of that red stuff to gulp down, for I am famished…” (Genesis 25:30)  Seeing an opportunity, Jacob tells Esau to sell him his birthright.  Esau relents saying, “I am at the point of death, so of what use is my birthright to me?”  Jacob insists that Esau make a solemn vow renouncing the birthright.  He does.  And thus Jacob claims the birthright of his older brother.

How many people take advantage of the pain and suffering of others, especially during the past weeks?  How many gas stations unnecessarily raised their prices?  How many people stole from others when their homes were unprotected?  There were far too many who took advantage of their brethren and profited from their hunger, thereby spurning their very heritage and casting aside the ties that should bind us together.  Then again there were far more (at least I continue to believe, I must believe, that there are always more good than bad) who ran to help, who contributed much needed supplies, who offered assistance, who continue to write checks for repair.

And now my thoughts turn to Israel.  Why must Jacob and Esau continue to fight?  Let it be said that I stand with the State of Israel.  I stand with my people, with Jacob who later becomes Israel in its struggle with Esau.  Still I wonder why can’t brothers live in peace, why must they fight over birthrights, inheritances and blessings?  Why can’t we live by the prophet’s words, please God may it be soon? “And they will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation. And never again will they learn war." (Isaiah 2:4)

I understand the intricacies of the modern Middle East.  I recognize the failures of the Palestinians to build something (anything!) positive in Gaza after Israel unilaterally withdrew from this territory.  I can argue with the best of them whether Jacob stands guilty of stealing the birthright or as the Torah records, “Thus did Esau spurn the birthright.”  Sometimes I wish that such discussions should be of no consequence.  I just want peace.

Yehuda Amichai, the great Israeli poet, writes:
Not the peace of a cease-fire,
not even the vision of the wolf and the lamb,
but rather
as in the heart when the excitement is over
and you can talk only about a great weariness.
I know that I know how to kill,
that makes me an adult.
And my son plays with a toy gun that knows
how to open and close its eyes and say Mama.
A peace
without the big noise of beating swords into ploughshares,
without words, without
the thud of the heavy rubber stamp: let it be
light, floating, like lazy white foam.
A little rest for the wounds—
who speaks of healing?
(And the howl of the orphans is passed from one generation
to the next, as in a relay race:
the baton never falls.) 
Let it come
like wildflowers,
suddenly, because the field
must have it: wildpeace.
Let that be our prayer.  For our tortured souls following Hurricane Sandy.  And for our embattled (once again) Medinat Yisrael, the State of Israel.
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Rabbi Steven Moskowitz Rabbi Steven Moskowitz

Hurricane Sandy + 2 Weeks

I am thankful that our home now has heat and power and that life is slowly returning to normal in our neighborhood, on Long Island's North Shore. Today our streets were finally cleared of trees and debris. But for far too many, such days are a long way away. We must not rest until all are healed!  "It is not up to you to finish the work, yet you are not free to avoid it." (Avot 2:21)



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Rabbi Steven Moskowitz Rabbi Steven Moskowitz

Chayei Sarah


This week we read about the death of Sarah.  The portion begins: “Sarah’s lifetime—the span of Sarah’s life—came to one hundred and twenty seven years.  Sarah died in Kiryat Arba—now Hebron—in the land of Canaan; and Abraham proceeded to mourn for Sarah and to bewail her.” (Genesis 23:1-2)  Abraham then proceeds to purchase a burial plot from the Hittites to bury Sarah.  It is this purchase that makes the Cave of Machpelah a holy site and Hebron the first Jewish city.  All the patriarchs and matriarchs are buried there except Rachel who is buried in Bethlehem.

Both of these cities are of course in the modern day West Bank and despite my Jewish history and commitments thus found in disputed territory.  I have visited Hebron a number of times and spoken with the Jews who live there, a small, zealous outpost of settlers among a multitude of Arabs.  I remember once asking, “Why would you want to raise your children in such a dangerous and life-threatening environment?”  Their answer was simple and direct, “Because this is our home!”

I have been reflecting on this sentiment during the past week as I first watched people refusing to leave their homes despite evacuation orders and then vowing to rebuild their homes despite the fact that their towns will be subject once again to devastating hurricanes and tidal surges.  (I believe this storm is only the beginning of the changes we might see because of the “weather weirding” brought on by climate change.) 

What makes so many refuse to let go of their homes?  What makes even rational people stay in their freezing homes despite the fact that they have plenty of invitations of warm beds elsewhere?  (I stand guilty!)  What makes us so attached to these mere physical structures?  What makes us cling to these places even when it might not serve our best interests or may even jeopardize our safety?

I have long believed that communities are defined not by the buildings they construct but instead by the people who inhabit them.  A family is more than the house in which they live.  A neighborhood and community, a family and nation, can then survive despite even the worst of devastations.  As much as we might invest in these buildings they are not what is most important or even what should be most lasting. 

Yet it took the temperatures to dip into the 30’s before my family and I finally decamped to another home.  Once it becomes a home it is hard, if not impossible, to imagine that our house might not be the protecting shelter it has always been.  But this is exactly what we must imagine.  In order to march forward we must time and again let loose of the grip of these buildings, and places, and even our very homes.  Holding on these we might never be able to change or carve a better path toward a brighter future. 

What will guarantee our future will never be our beautiful homes, or even our holiest of cities, but the people, and communities, with which we surround ourselves.

And finally we pray for President Obama and all of our newly elected leaders.  May they put aside partisan ideologies and instead look toward the work that can only be done together in order to better our great nation.  May compromise and the common good of all become the defining features of a shared and better future.
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Rabbi Steven Moskowitz Rabbi Steven Moskowitz

Vayera and Sandy

The following is the message I was able to get out to the congregation prior to Shabbat Vayera.  

I trust that you and your families are safe and that if you suffered any damage it was not catastrophic.  As long as the damage was only to property and each and every one of us is uninjured I will proclaim my thanks and sing our blessings.  My family and I were fortunate.  Our house was unscathed.  Our neighborhood suffered many downed trees and power lines.  As frustrating as our present circumstances might be, they are, compared to far too many, only an inconvenience, albeit a maddening one, given that we still have no power or heat or phones or the mighty Internet.  We are forced to walk a half-mile where we can receive cell phone reception.  Thus like our forebears we have to venture to this well in order to connect with others.

At such times it becomes apparent that as our lives become increasingly dependent on technology we become quickly crippled without it.  The World Wide Web is now reduced to our small neighborhood.  Today it is only those who we can see and converse with face to face.  It would seem that there is no global community when we are confronted by a hurricane.  Now our lives are once again local. Amazon and Google, Apple and Verizon, LIPA and Cablevision are no match for nature’s fury.  The wind and the waves, the ocean and the sea have won—again. 

And Job cried out to God.  And God answered out of the tempest saying, “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundations?...Have you penetrated to the sources of the sea, or walked in the recesses of the deep?” (Job 38)  Our human ingenuity is in truth no match for nature.  We cannot tame the sea.  We can only stand in awe. Let us relearn that human beings have great limitations and that nature commands our utmost respect.  More often, I still recall, nature’s majesty asks me for admiration.  Today I stand in fear.

Hurricane Sandy was a devastating storm.  It will take us months and perhaps even years to recover.  So much was destroyed.  Far too many lives were lost. Yet in the midst of the whirlwind I discovered something anew.  I found again the meaning of the Jewish value of hachnasat orchim, hospitality.

In this week’s portion Abraham welcomes three visitors and prepares a meal for them.  They deliver news of the impending birth of Isaac.  (Genesis 18)  Once when hiking with Bedouin guides in Israel’s desert I learned of the importance of hospitality.  The Bedouin live far apart and are dependent on passers by for information.  Travelers shared know-how about the wilderness they traversed, whether the usual route was blocked or the path washed out by flash floods.  The Bedouin would loudly grind bitter coffee to announce that travelers were lodging in their tent.  When people heard the rhythmic pounding of the coffee beans they would come to gather in order to hear what news the travelers had to share.

Today the sound of chainsaws and generators call neighbors together.  We gather to see what news others have gleaned.  At first we asked each other if they were ok.  Then it turned to the questions of: How are the roads?  Where can you get cell phone reception?  Where is there Wi-Fi? (I am presently at the Huntington train station where there is Wi-Fi.)  Where can you buy gas?  Where did you see LIPA trucks?  What can we do to help? 

Of the many mitzvot, hospitality is among the most important.  We reach beyond the boundaries of our private homes and welcome others in.  We even welcome strangers into our lives.  “How can we help?” must become our new mantra.  The Talmud reports that Rav Judah once said that welcoming other people is even greater than greeting the Divine Presence.  (Shabbat 127)

There is a pressing need that even when the power is restored and the routers once again flicker green that we still walk through our neighborhoods and reach out to others offering more than a friendly wave.  We will offer them the comfort of our human presence.  Why must we wait for a hurricane to be neighborly?   The question must become what can we do for others.

Soon our power will be restored and we will be tempted to once again retreat to our virtual world.  Will we choose instead to look out at the pain that continues on our very own Long Island?  Some even in our own congregation may be hurting.  And so we must pledge to bring healing to others, to our neighbors, to our community.  Once we have tended to our own repairs this must become our focus.  

As always if you need any help or support please feel free to reach out to me.  I apologize that I have been difficult to reach during this hour of need.  I too am limited by technology.

We will be unable to gather for Shabbat Services this evening given that the synagogue building still does not have power.  I would have liked to be together at this moment, but it is impossible and perhaps even unwise given how many streets are still impassible.  We will join for Shabbat prayers next Friday when we will gather to sing prayers of thanks as a community.

Stay warm and stay safe.
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Rabbi Steven Moskowitz Rabbi Steven Moskowitz

Newsday Faith Column

I was recently interviewed for Newsday's "Asking the Clergy" column. The question was "It is said that God created us in the his own image. If so, was his image male because he created Adam first? Or, female, because he saved the best for last, Eve? Both images are mentioned in Scriptures. He is God, the Father in passages like Isaiah 64:8 and Jeremiah 3:4. But God also is described as mother or acting as would a mother. These are examples in Genesis 1:27 and Hosea 13:8." The column appeared on Saturday, March 10th. What follows is my response.

I think the Jewish perspective is that God is neither man nor woman. Trying to define God in human terms leads to problems because God is only subject to divine definitions.

Maimonides said that we can only talk about what God is not, not what God is. The scriptural references to God as a man are poetic license. People can imagine God however they choose to imagine God. To really, truly understand God, you must realize that God is neither man nor woman. God is not human.

The beauty of the Hebrew language is that there are many different names for God. Some are feminine. Some are masculine. But all are just scratching at the surface. The beauty of the English language, on the other hand, is that you can refer to God using gender neutral terms.

The Hebrew approach is "Let's get every name under the sun in there." The lesson I take from that is choose the name that speaks to you at that moment. My favorite name for God is HaMakom, which literally means "the place." I think it is beautiful because God is where you find God, and what your needs are directing you to call God.
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