Blessings for the New Year
What follows is my sermon from Rosh Hashanah evening.
People think that blessings happen to you. This is what I also always thought and believed. In fact, this is how I ordered my spiritual life. Blessings find you. They capture you at the unplanned, and unexpected, moments. For years I held on to this idea.
Leon Wieseltier, the writer and thinker, once wrote: “Serendipity is how the spirit is renewed.” He wrote those words years ago when bemoaning the closing of his beloved record store. He taught that we are losing the art of browsing. We no longer wander into a record store or a bookstore and discover something new and wonderful. I admit. It’s been years since I went to a bookstore—or even seen a record store—and found myself lost in the poetry section, sitting on the floor, trying to decide which of the many newly discovered poetry books I might purchase—or asking the record store employee which Blues CD he might recommend to add to my collection. Those serendipitous moments sustained my spirit. They renewed my soul.
It’s the casual meeting, the unplanned encounter that restores us. At least that is what I thought. That is how I believed it is best to approach a spiritual life. I gravitated toward the meeting that was unexpected. I gained more sustenance from the chance encounter. That casual discussion in the lobby of our synagogue or the random debate at the oneg renewed me; the new friend made when we were both on a delayed flight to Los Angeles. I marveled about that experience. An upended journey transformed into a blessing by this chance encounter.
But then in March all this came crashing to a halt. The unexpected, the unplanned, the unchoreographed, came to frightens us. The serendipitous bumping into a stranger no longer electrifies our spirit; it terrifies the soul. We rush past the chance meeting so as to minimize contact and avoid the potential for contagion. We no longer linger. We no longer meander through occasions. Life moved online....
This post continues on The Wisdom Daily.
People think that blessings happen to you. This is what I also always thought and believed. In fact, this is how I ordered my spiritual life. Blessings find you. They capture you at the unplanned, and unexpected, moments. For years I held on to this idea.
Leon Wieseltier, the writer and thinker, once wrote: “Serendipity is how the spirit is renewed.” He wrote those words years ago when bemoaning the closing of his beloved record store. He taught that we are losing the art of browsing. We no longer wander into a record store or a bookstore and discover something new and wonderful. I admit. It’s been years since I went to a bookstore—or even seen a record store—and found myself lost in the poetry section, sitting on the floor, trying to decide which of the many newly discovered poetry books I might purchase—or asking the record store employee which Blues CD he might recommend to add to my collection. Those serendipitous moments sustained my spirit. They renewed my soul.
It’s the casual meeting, the unplanned encounter that restores us. At least that is what I thought. That is how I believed it is best to approach a spiritual life. I gravitated toward the meeting that was unexpected. I gained more sustenance from the chance encounter. That casual discussion in the lobby of our synagogue or the random debate at the oneg renewed me; the new friend made when we were both on a delayed flight to Los Angeles. I marveled about that experience. An upended journey transformed into a blessing by this chance encounter.
But then in March all this came crashing to a halt. The unexpected, the unplanned, the unchoreographed, came to frightens us. The serendipitous bumping into a stranger no longer electrifies our spirit; it terrifies the soul. We rush past the chance meeting so as to minimize contact and avoid the potential for contagion. We no longer linger. We no longer meander through occasions. Life moved online....
This post continues on The Wisdom Daily.
The Need for Community
What follows is my Rosh Hashanah morning sermon.
Years ago, when my children were very young, and I was not so old, Susie and I both had to officiate at separate occasions. And so, Ari tagged along with me and Shira with Susie. It was a baby naming. After officiating at what would now be a twenty-year-old’s ceremony, I told my then five-year-old he could go outside and play with the other young children. Later I was told by the grandparents the following story. The other children apparently asked Ari who he was and why he was there. He was the only kid who was not family at the event. Ari explained, “My dad is the rabbi.” The children looked at him quizzically. “What’s a rabbi?” one asked. “What does a rabbi do?” another one of the kids said. And Ari responded, “He goes to parties.” I have held on to that story for some time. As funny as it sounds, and apparently as easy as my job appears to five-year old’s, Ari was serious. And he points us toward an important, Jewish message.
Since Purim, and the middle of March, I have felt like I have been officiating at your sacred occasions with an arm tied behind my back. I could not offer a hug of consolation at funerals. I could not embrace you when we shared joyous occasions. (I am of course the guy who even hugs his electrician after he finishes his work.) And I miss the essence of my calling and the defining element of our congregation and our people. I do not mean to suggest that we should not be social distancing or that we should not be wearing masks. Health comes first. But at this moment, I am missing a great deal. Like you I just want to wish 2020 away. And even though we could not, or should not, have made any other choice for these High Holidays, standing in this sanctuary without you, is like trying to lift a thousand-pound weight alone. Our prayers are really only our prayers if you join in, if we sing together. So, I hope you have been singing loudly because that is what we need more than ever. I miss seeing your smiling faces. I miss marching the Torah around the congregation during the hakafah and catching up with every one of you. At this moment most especially, I miss seeing you gathered with family members and friends. And I am left to imagine you sitting in front of your computer screens or TV’s and smiling back at me. This year is a year like no other.
And so, my sermons will be different than other years. On these days, I often speak about contemporary issues like antisemitism, but this year I really only have one question for this moment and for this hour. How are we going to get through this? And by this I don’t mean the upcoming election. I mean instead how are we going to get through a year in which everything is turned upside down, in which we have had to master online learning, how to estimate six feet, how to safely get together with friends, when and where to wear masks, and how to evaluate risk on daily, and evenly hourly, basis. I will wander into contemporary events, and offer present examples to illustrate my points, but there really is only one big question that is vexing our souls.
We are scared. We are frightened. We are worried. We wonder when, if ever, we will be able to wrap ourselves around our friends, and even strangers, and swirl around in a sweaty, celebratory hora. So, here is my answer to that question. Here is the response required of us. We should return to our Jewish roots. Let us take comfort and gain strength from the Jewish wisdom of ages past. I admit. It’s not a particularly original idea and it may not seem like a creative notion, but I am a rabbi after all, and I have found our tradition’s wisdom to be the best medicine for any crisis.
This morning I wish to make the case for Jewish values. Why do Jewish? Because this is what we need right now. And so, this sermon is in truth one big long, sermon but in three parts.
I am going to offer three Jewish values that we need more than ever and that I am certain if we hold on to even more tightly, we will not only get through these months—and may it not be years—of struggle, but will find ourselves with renewed strength on the other side. And here are those three values: kehillah—community, heshbon hanefesh—soul searching, and pikuach nefesh—preserving life. We need to return to some basic Jewish values. This morning I will explore one, kehillah—community. You will have to come back on Yom Kippur for the other two.
#1. Kehillah. Community. As far as Judaism is concerned, we only realize our full potential in the company of others. The solitary ascetic is an ideal of other traditions but not of ours. It’s not just because the ascetic does not enjoy a pastrami sandwich. It’s mostly because the ascetic sets him or herself apart from others. You can’t really do Jewish by yourself. You are supposed to study with others. And you are supposed to pray with others. There is nothing more emblematic of our people than the hora. It’s what makes a Jewish wedding a Jewish wedding, or at least what used to make a Jewish wedding.
I often teach couples that as much as they might be worrying about what they should have for the appetizer course or what the band should play for the first song or if table ten got their lambchops on time, it’s not their job to make sure their guests have a great time, but the guests’ job to makes sure the couple dance at their wedding celebration. It is a mitzvah of the highest order to make sure a wedding couple dance, called in the tradition gemilut hasadim, a deed of lovingkindness. When we do this, we imitate God. God ensured Adam and Eve’s happiness when making sure they danced at their wedding ceremony. This is what our tradition imagines God does. God pushes a loving couple together and helps to swirl them around in a circle of happiness.
And I offer all this not to make the many couples I spoke with about rescheduling their 2020 wedding ceremonies feel remorseful, but to remind all of us that it is others who lift our lives, that is the company of family and friends, the community that make our events holy. We have had to reimagine how to include others in new and different ways these past few months. Not having a grandparent in our sanctuary at a bar/bat mitzvah and not having the throng of friends at a wedding is not what any of us expected or even what Judaism urges, but health takes precedence. And so, we gathered on Zoom. This is not to make us feel even more forlorn, but to remind us of what is most important to our faith and what is most enduring about our Judaism and what will also get us through this. Things most certainly look different this year, but they will always be animated by the values that nurture us. Kehillah—community—sustains us.
In Hebrew the word for community or congregation is kehillah. It is derived from the word kol—voice. Scholars suggest this is because the community was called together. The voice gathered us. I think it is instead because our voice is only a voice when it is heard by others. You may be more comfortable singing in the shower, but you’re not heard from there. Only when you are heard does your voice have resonance and power. Only when someone responds to your pain, or joins with you in song, is your soul transported by healing or lifted even higher with joy. The best prayer is when you are with others. Sure, you can pray by yourself (although I would not recommend singing the Shema in the shower) but if you really want to pray you need a minyan. The mourner’s kaddish is only supposed to be said in the company of others. Judaism says, “Don’t mourn by yourself.” And again, although I would have preferred to wrap my arms around friends in their hour of grief, the pages and pages and pages of friends assembled on the Zoom gallery for shiva was a powerful image to behold.
There was the kehillah. There stood the congregation—standing together as one although separated and apart. That is the “we” we need to reclaim. That is the “we” we need to wrap our arms tightly around.
I still miss you. And I find myself imagining who I am going to hug when this is all over. Which of my many friends will I run to wrap my arms around? I imagine that the handshake might never return—all those articles about the many germs on the ends of our fingers will leave some lasting scars—and the kiss on the cheek may become a thing of the past as well, but the hug can return. So, who will you hug first? It does not have to be me, but it can be if you want. I just hope each of us has a similar, lengthy list of friends who we will run to wrap our arms tightly around.
When the world seems spinning out of control the best medicine is to return to our roots, to go back to the wisdom of old. One of those roots is the power of community, the Jewish value of kehllah. Let the memories of our standing together, of our singing together in one voice, of our dancing together in a whirling circle sustain us.
Michael Twitty, a proud Jew and the author of The Cooking Gene, a book that is part culinary history and part memoir, and that suggests cooking and food can help to heal our country’s racial tensions, offers insights about our community. He says, “For me the negative situations that I have incurred cannot and will never outweigh my positive experiences. When we are at our best, we look out for each other. You don’t want any Jew to be alone. To not have a place at the seder table, a place to break the fast. In Judaism, being together is more than just community building, it is human sustaining. You are part of a family.” One might expect that Twitty would feel otherwise. He converted to Judaism some fifteen years ago. And for those who don’t know as well, Twitty is Black and gay. His words take on even deeper meaning. Let his idealism and vision restore our hope. He proclaims, “Judaism is more than just community building, it is human sustaining.” Michael Twitty is right. Kehillah sustains our spirits.
Recently I read a fascinating story. Some chutzpadik Israeli scientists at the Arava Institute decided that they should plant the 2,000-year-old date seeds discovered in the ruins of Masada. I would have thrown out those shriveled, ancient seeds. Instead they planted them. And a few weeks ago, they harvested the dates from those trees. Granted it took a little modern ingenuity to help this process along. Yet this image is one that I am holding on to, and that is sustaining me through these months of struggle. I looked in amazement at these photographs. There were people enjoying the sweet dates harvested from 2,000-year-old seeds. This is the same healing balm afforded to us. We have the seeds. They need not be excavated or unearthed. Here they are.
And I promise the sweetness will likewise return. True friendships will survive without parties and hugs. Caring, warm and loving, communities will outlast setbacks.
Remember these days when we could not hug. And promise me this. Let it not scar you but instead remind of how precious friendship is, how divine human touch can be, and how stirring the power of community will always be.
Kehillah—community will carry us beyond these difficult and painful days.
Years ago, when my children were very young, and I was not so old, Susie and I both had to officiate at separate occasions. And so, Ari tagged along with me and Shira with Susie. It was a baby naming. After officiating at what would now be a twenty-year-old’s ceremony, I told my then five-year-old he could go outside and play with the other young children. Later I was told by the grandparents the following story. The other children apparently asked Ari who he was and why he was there. He was the only kid who was not family at the event. Ari explained, “My dad is the rabbi.” The children looked at him quizzically. “What’s a rabbi?” one asked. “What does a rabbi do?” another one of the kids said. And Ari responded, “He goes to parties.” I have held on to that story for some time. As funny as it sounds, and apparently as easy as my job appears to five-year old’s, Ari was serious. And he points us toward an important, Jewish message.
Since Purim, and the middle of March, I have felt like I have been officiating at your sacred occasions with an arm tied behind my back. I could not offer a hug of consolation at funerals. I could not embrace you when we shared joyous occasions. (I am of course the guy who even hugs his electrician after he finishes his work.) And I miss the essence of my calling and the defining element of our congregation and our people. I do not mean to suggest that we should not be social distancing or that we should not be wearing masks. Health comes first. But at this moment, I am missing a great deal. Like you I just want to wish 2020 away. And even though we could not, or should not, have made any other choice for these High Holidays, standing in this sanctuary without you, is like trying to lift a thousand-pound weight alone. Our prayers are really only our prayers if you join in, if we sing together. So, I hope you have been singing loudly because that is what we need more than ever. I miss seeing your smiling faces. I miss marching the Torah around the congregation during the hakafah and catching up with every one of you. At this moment most especially, I miss seeing you gathered with family members and friends. And I am left to imagine you sitting in front of your computer screens or TV’s and smiling back at me. This year is a year like no other.
And so, my sermons will be different than other years. On these days, I often speak about contemporary issues like antisemitism, but this year I really only have one question for this moment and for this hour. How are we going to get through this? And by this I don’t mean the upcoming election. I mean instead how are we going to get through a year in which everything is turned upside down, in which we have had to master online learning, how to estimate six feet, how to safely get together with friends, when and where to wear masks, and how to evaluate risk on daily, and evenly hourly, basis. I will wander into contemporary events, and offer present examples to illustrate my points, but there really is only one big question that is vexing our souls.
We are scared. We are frightened. We are worried. We wonder when, if ever, we will be able to wrap ourselves around our friends, and even strangers, and swirl around in a sweaty, celebratory hora. So, here is my answer to that question. Here is the response required of us. We should return to our Jewish roots. Let us take comfort and gain strength from the Jewish wisdom of ages past. I admit. It’s not a particularly original idea and it may not seem like a creative notion, but I am a rabbi after all, and I have found our tradition’s wisdom to be the best medicine for any crisis.
This morning I wish to make the case for Jewish values. Why do Jewish? Because this is what we need right now. And so, this sermon is in truth one big long, sermon but in three parts.
I am going to offer three Jewish values that we need more than ever and that I am certain if we hold on to even more tightly, we will not only get through these months—and may it not be years—of struggle, but will find ourselves with renewed strength on the other side. And here are those three values: kehillah—community, heshbon hanefesh—soul searching, and pikuach nefesh—preserving life. We need to return to some basic Jewish values. This morning I will explore one, kehillah—community. You will have to come back on Yom Kippur for the other two.
#1. Kehillah. Community. As far as Judaism is concerned, we only realize our full potential in the company of others. The solitary ascetic is an ideal of other traditions but not of ours. It’s not just because the ascetic does not enjoy a pastrami sandwich. It’s mostly because the ascetic sets him or herself apart from others. You can’t really do Jewish by yourself. You are supposed to study with others. And you are supposed to pray with others. There is nothing more emblematic of our people than the hora. It’s what makes a Jewish wedding a Jewish wedding, or at least what used to make a Jewish wedding.
I often teach couples that as much as they might be worrying about what they should have for the appetizer course or what the band should play for the first song or if table ten got their lambchops on time, it’s not their job to make sure their guests have a great time, but the guests’ job to makes sure the couple dance at their wedding celebration. It is a mitzvah of the highest order to make sure a wedding couple dance, called in the tradition gemilut hasadim, a deed of lovingkindness. When we do this, we imitate God. God ensured Adam and Eve’s happiness when making sure they danced at their wedding ceremony. This is what our tradition imagines God does. God pushes a loving couple together and helps to swirl them around in a circle of happiness.
And I offer all this not to make the many couples I spoke with about rescheduling their 2020 wedding ceremonies feel remorseful, but to remind all of us that it is others who lift our lives, that is the company of family and friends, the community that make our events holy. We have had to reimagine how to include others in new and different ways these past few months. Not having a grandparent in our sanctuary at a bar/bat mitzvah and not having the throng of friends at a wedding is not what any of us expected or even what Judaism urges, but health takes precedence. And so, we gathered on Zoom. This is not to make us feel even more forlorn, but to remind us of what is most important to our faith and what is most enduring about our Judaism and what will also get us through this. Things most certainly look different this year, but they will always be animated by the values that nurture us. Kehillah—community—sustains us.
In Hebrew the word for community or congregation is kehillah. It is derived from the word kol—voice. Scholars suggest this is because the community was called together. The voice gathered us. I think it is instead because our voice is only a voice when it is heard by others. You may be more comfortable singing in the shower, but you’re not heard from there. Only when you are heard does your voice have resonance and power. Only when someone responds to your pain, or joins with you in song, is your soul transported by healing or lifted even higher with joy. The best prayer is when you are with others. Sure, you can pray by yourself (although I would not recommend singing the Shema in the shower) but if you really want to pray you need a minyan. The mourner’s kaddish is only supposed to be said in the company of others. Judaism says, “Don’t mourn by yourself.” And again, although I would have preferred to wrap my arms around friends in their hour of grief, the pages and pages and pages of friends assembled on the Zoom gallery for shiva was a powerful image to behold.
There was the kehillah. There stood the congregation—standing together as one although separated and apart. That is the “we” we need to reclaim. That is the “we” we need to wrap our arms tightly around.
I still miss you. And I find myself imagining who I am going to hug when this is all over. Which of my many friends will I run to wrap my arms around? I imagine that the handshake might never return—all those articles about the many germs on the ends of our fingers will leave some lasting scars—and the kiss on the cheek may become a thing of the past as well, but the hug can return. So, who will you hug first? It does not have to be me, but it can be if you want. I just hope each of us has a similar, lengthy list of friends who we will run to wrap our arms tightly around.
When the world seems spinning out of control the best medicine is to return to our roots, to go back to the wisdom of old. One of those roots is the power of community, the Jewish value of kehllah. Let the memories of our standing together, of our singing together in one voice, of our dancing together in a whirling circle sustain us.
Michael Twitty, a proud Jew and the author of The Cooking Gene, a book that is part culinary history and part memoir, and that suggests cooking and food can help to heal our country’s racial tensions, offers insights about our community. He says, “For me the negative situations that I have incurred cannot and will never outweigh my positive experiences. When we are at our best, we look out for each other. You don’t want any Jew to be alone. To not have a place at the seder table, a place to break the fast. In Judaism, being together is more than just community building, it is human sustaining. You are part of a family.” One might expect that Twitty would feel otherwise. He converted to Judaism some fifteen years ago. And for those who don’t know as well, Twitty is Black and gay. His words take on even deeper meaning. Let his idealism and vision restore our hope. He proclaims, “Judaism is more than just community building, it is human sustaining.” Michael Twitty is right. Kehillah sustains our spirits.
Recently I read a fascinating story. Some chutzpadik Israeli scientists at the Arava Institute decided that they should plant the 2,000-year-old date seeds discovered in the ruins of Masada. I would have thrown out those shriveled, ancient seeds. Instead they planted them. And a few weeks ago, they harvested the dates from those trees. Granted it took a little modern ingenuity to help this process along. Yet this image is one that I am holding on to, and that is sustaining me through these months of struggle. I looked in amazement at these photographs. There were people enjoying the sweet dates harvested from 2,000-year-old seeds. This is the same healing balm afforded to us. We have the seeds. They need not be excavated or unearthed. Here they are.
And I promise the sweetness will likewise return. True friendships will survive without parties and hugs. Caring, warm and loving, communities will outlast setbacks.
Remember these days when we could not hug. And promise me this. Let it not scar you but instead remind of how precious friendship is, how divine human touch can be, and how stirring the power of community will always be.
Kehillah—community will carry us beyond these difficult and painful days.
Finding the Lights
What follows is the story I shared on the second day of Rosh Hashanah.
This morning, I offer a Jewish story.
In a mountain village in Europe many centuries ago, there was a nobleman who wondered what legacy he might be able to leave for his townspeople. He was a very wealthy man and wanted to use his fortune to enrich the community for years to come. After much consideration, he decided to build a synagogue.
He told the townspeople what he had set out to do and everyone became really excited. “But there’s one condition,” he said, “You cannot see the plans for the building until it is completely finished.”
Soon the work began with architects and craftsmen working for days on end. Materials were carted in and there was a constant racket as they worked. But as the nobleman warned, no one was allowed to see what was being designed inside. After this went on for weeks, everyone began to wonder what their new synagogue would look like. Would it be like that first sanctuary in Jerusalem with gold and silver, crimson, and blue? Would it have a huge menorah, an eternal flame, stained glass windows? Would the seats be in rows or in the round, the bimah high or low? The Ark rounded or square?
The people could hardly wait to see what was being built for them!
Finally, after several months—now you know for sure it’s a fictional story, an announcement went out that the synagogue was completed, and a great cheer erupted across the town. The nobleman called everyone to come as he would finally reveal what the synagogue looked like.
When the people came and started to look around, they marveled at its beauty and how perfectly it was designed. They sanctuary was exquisite, the ark awe-inspiring. There were even corners, nooks and crannies everywhere in which the townspeople could gather. It was a good kibbitzing kind of congregation. The ark was indeed inlaid with gold, the huge menorah glistening, and the stained-glass windows bursting with color.
But as the sun was setting, the synagogue began to grow quite dark and someone asked, “Where are the lamps? How will this place be lit? How will we see the words in our prayerbooks at night?”
“Aha! I’m glad you asked,” said the nobleman. He pointed to brackets, which had been placed on the walls throughout the synagogue building. Then he began to give every family in the town a lamp, which they were to bring with them and light each time they came to the synagogue.
“Each time you are not here,” he said, “a part of the synagogue will be unlit. This is to remind you that whenever you do not show up, especially when the community needs you, when your fellow members require your presence, some part of God’s house will be dark.”
A beautiful story, that offers a powerful message. Yet, this may seem like a strange story to share on this Rosh Hashanah given that you cannot be here in our synagogue. But it may be the most important story we could share this year. Here is why.
If you think a synagogue is a building, then you are wrong. We are a synagogue—even though this year we are gathered in many different homes. We are a congregation—most especially this year. We are a community. We are a kehillah kedoshah—a holy community because of the light we offer each other and the light we can bring to the world. Of course, the light burns brighter when we are together, when we are dancing and singing together, but the light of our congregation must never remain confined to these walls. It must reach out to one another. We must always care for one another. We must bring the light to others.
It is a curious thing that for most of my twenty some odd years of serving as your rabbi we did not have a building and a sanctuary of our own. We wandered throughout the North Shore of Long Island observing Shabbat, celebrating holidays and rejoicing at simchas. But those years taught me the most important lesson I would ever learn and the teaching we might most need for this moment.
It is you that makes a synagogue.
I know you are missing this place on this day most especially, but don’t let anyone ever tell you that it is only here where Jewish life is most felt. The lights that illumine our synagogue community are exactly where you sit. Hold on to that. Allow that light to lift you up and carry you to a year of peace, renewal and most of all, health. Shanah tovah.
This morning, I offer a Jewish story.
In a mountain village in Europe many centuries ago, there was a nobleman who wondered what legacy he might be able to leave for his townspeople. He was a very wealthy man and wanted to use his fortune to enrich the community for years to come. After much consideration, he decided to build a synagogue.
He told the townspeople what he had set out to do and everyone became really excited. “But there’s one condition,” he said, “You cannot see the plans for the building until it is completely finished.”
Soon the work began with architects and craftsmen working for days on end. Materials were carted in and there was a constant racket as they worked. But as the nobleman warned, no one was allowed to see what was being designed inside. After this went on for weeks, everyone began to wonder what their new synagogue would look like. Would it be like that first sanctuary in Jerusalem with gold and silver, crimson, and blue? Would it have a huge menorah, an eternal flame, stained glass windows? Would the seats be in rows or in the round, the bimah high or low? The Ark rounded or square?
The people could hardly wait to see what was being built for them!
Finally, after several months—now you know for sure it’s a fictional story, an announcement went out that the synagogue was completed, and a great cheer erupted across the town. The nobleman called everyone to come as he would finally reveal what the synagogue looked like.
When the people came and started to look around, they marveled at its beauty and how perfectly it was designed. They sanctuary was exquisite, the ark awe-inspiring. There were even corners, nooks and crannies everywhere in which the townspeople could gather. It was a good kibbitzing kind of congregation. The ark was indeed inlaid with gold, the huge menorah glistening, and the stained-glass windows bursting with color.
But as the sun was setting, the synagogue began to grow quite dark and someone asked, “Where are the lamps? How will this place be lit? How will we see the words in our prayerbooks at night?”
“Aha! I’m glad you asked,” said the nobleman. He pointed to brackets, which had been placed on the walls throughout the synagogue building. Then he began to give every family in the town a lamp, which they were to bring with them and light each time they came to the synagogue.
“Each time you are not here,” he said, “a part of the synagogue will be unlit. This is to remind you that whenever you do not show up, especially when the community needs you, when your fellow members require your presence, some part of God’s house will be dark.”
A beautiful story, that offers a powerful message. Yet, this may seem like a strange story to share on this Rosh Hashanah given that you cannot be here in our synagogue. But it may be the most important story we could share this year. Here is why.
If you think a synagogue is a building, then you are wrong. We are a synagogue—even though this year we are gathered in many different homes. We are a congregation—most especially this year. We are a community. We are a kehillah kedoshah—a holy community because of the light we offer each other and the light we can bring to the world. Of course, the light burns brighter when we are together, when we are dancing and singing together, but the light of our congregation must never remain confined to these walls. It must reach out to one another. We must always care for one another. We must bring the light to others.
It is a curious thing that for most of my twenty some odd years of serving as your rabbi we did not have a building and a sanctuary of our own. We wandered throughout the North Shore of Long Island observing Shabbat, celebrating holidays and rejoicing at simchas. But those years taught me the most important lesson I would ever learn and the teaching we might most need for this moment.
It is you that makes a synagogue.
I know you are missing this place on this day most especially, but don’t let anyone ever tell you that it is only here where Jewish life is most felt. The lights that illumine our synagogue community are exactly where you sit. Hold on to that. Allow that light to lift you up and carry you to a year of peace, renewal and most of all, health. Shanah tovah.
Kol Nidre's Mystery and Power
Kol Nidre is a mysterious prayer. Scholars suggest its origin may very well hearken back to the belief in magic found in ancient Babylonia some 1500 years ago. Its language is striking. “Let all vows, resolves and commitments…be discarded and forgiven, abolished and undone.” It has even provided the basis for antisemites to say, “See you cannot trust the word of Jews. Look at what they say on their holiest day.” Controversy surrounds its words.
Yet its haunting melody and its majestic accompanying rituals are what transports us. The drama of the open Ark, the Torah scrolls adorned in white, and our congregation’s leaders holding these scrolls close to their hearts, lift our spirits. The cantor’s chanting of its words—irrespective of their meaning—stirs our souls. We hold fast to the melody. (And we acknowledge that no one sings it better than our cantor!) We cling to the mystery of Kol Nidre.
I turn to the words of the mystics whose teachings I often find mysterious but whose insights carry me through the power of this, our most sacred evening of Yom Kippur.
Isaac Luria, the sixteenth century mystic, offers a parable. It is a foundational teaching of Jewish mysticism and kabbalah. He teaches:
At the beginning of creation God spoke; and primordial light infused all existence, contained in radiant vessels.
And intention arose in the mind of God: to create a being capable of choice, able to distinguish good from bad, holy from profane.
God breathed in and withdrew—tzimtzum—and for the smallest moment was absent, to make space for human beings to develop their godly essence, as expressed in the divine intention: “Let us make the human being according to our image.”
Utter darkness reigned; the forces of chaos tore at the cosmos; the vessels were broken. All creation threatened to fall asunder.
At that instant, when darkness was complete and creation was in peril, the human being came into existence.
And God breathed out again, filling the universe once more with splendor.
But what of the rays of light that escaped from the broken vessels—were they lost forever?
Now the fusion of the divine intention and human potential became clear. For human beings are able and thus commanded to retrieve the wandering rays of light—those entangled in darkness, lost in unlikely corners of the universe.
Each act of kindness, each effort to be human in inhuman circumstances, returns a spark of light to its Source.
The rays of light are everywhere. And when all have been retrieved and uplifted, the messianic time of peace will be upon us. (As quoted in Mishkan HaNefesh: Machzor for the Days of Awe)
I take heart in the message. We must uplift creation.
And I find myself again and again drawn to the modern mystic Leonard Cohen z”l. Listen to his Anthem: “There is a crack in everything (there is a crack in everything). That's how the light gets in.” Is this perhaps a modern rendition of our ancient words?
I pray. When the words and music of Kol Nidre reach your ears, may you find your strength renewed. We are going to need it more than ever during this upcoming year.
We must lift up these rays of light.
That’s how the light gets in!
Rosh Hashanah from Home
This Rosh Hashanah will be like no other. The Cantor and I will be standing in our sanctuary. And you will be watching our services on your TV's, computers or even iPhones. You will be participating from your homes.
If you have not yet registered to access the livestream link, please do so on my congregation's website. Rosh Hashanah begins tomorrow evening with services at 8 pm and then morning services on Saturday and Sunday at 10 am. Children's services are on Saturday at 1 pm. We will gather for in person Tashlich services at Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Park beach on Saturday at 4 pm. Please wear a mask and bring breadcrumbs so that you can symbolically cast your sins into the Long Island sound.
Judaism teaches that our homes are a mikdash maat, a small sanctuary. The meals that we share, the blessings that we recite, the love that we discover there, help to sanctify our homes. Our tradition has never believed that you can only observe Jewish rituals in a synagogue, or that Jewish bests can only happen in our beautiful sanctuary. In fact, it is the day of Rosh Hashanah that is holy, not the place where we observe it. Judaism sanctifies time not space, we teach over and over again. This year we are really going to have to take this principle to heart.
Given that we will not be together and that you will be celebrating Rosh Hashanah from the comfort of your homes, I wanted to offer some suggestions for how you might make your home feel more like a sanctuary. Think about which room in your house would be best to help you feel like this is a prayer experience. Discuss this with your children. Entertain a debate about this question. And then watch from there. If you are able to stream the services to a TV, do so. If this is a technological leap for you then don't do it for the first time on Rosh Hashanah.
Still this is not a Netflix movie, so I would not recommend a bowl of popcorn by your side to watch services. Then again do what you are comfortable doing and what will help you make this into a meaningful and uplifting experience. If you usually wear a kippah and tallis in synagogue then put them on. If you like to dress up for services, then do so. I know no one will see how stunning you look, but it might help to get you into the right frame of mind. But certainly, don't make outfits a fight with your kids. Let them enjoy the service and take in the music of our prayers however they are comfortable.
If you like to follow along in the prayerbook then have your prayerbook open or download the Kindle or free Flip versions. Some of the prayers will be shown on the screen. Sing along, and sing really loudly, when you see those words. Listening to our cantor will help to lift your spirits. But singing along with her will add to your experience.
God hears all prayers wherever they might be offered—and however they might sound. When it comes to prayers it's first and foremost about the words and the intentions.
When we light the Rosh Hashanah candles on the bima, you can light your candles. When we drink the kiddush wine, you can drink some wine. Of course, you can start earlier with the wine if you like. And by all means have a plate of apples and honey, and maybe even a round hallah, waiting to enjoy for what will be your own private oneg.
If you are watching these services by yourself, and you're missing the opportunity of seeing your fellow congregants, then call them or FaceTime them before or after services. And if you know congregants who are watching services by themselves then call them before or after services. Or even call them during services. If kibbitzing with friends during services is part of what makes Rosh Hashanah enjoyable then do it.
The only rule for this year is that we need to grab as many opportunities as possible to lift our spirits.
May these services help to strengthen our spirits. May this Rosh Hashanah help to carry us toward a year of health.
If you have not yet registered to access the livestream link, please do so on my congregation's website. Rosh Hashanah begins tomorrow evening with services at 8 pm and then morning services on Saturday and Sunday at 10 am. Children's services are on Saturday at 1 pm. We will gather for in person Tashlich services at Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Park beach on Saturday at 4 pm. Please wear a mask and bring breadcrumbs so that you can symbolically cast your sins into the Long Island sound.
Judaism teaches that our homes are a mikdash maat, a small sanctuary. The meals that we share, the blessings that we recite, the love that we discover there, help to sanctify our homes. Our tradition has never believed that you can only observe Jewish rituals in a synagogue, or that Jewish bests can only happen in our beautiful sanctuary. In fact, it is the day of Rosh Hashanah that is holy, not the place where we observe it. Judaism sanctifies time not space, we teach over and over again. This year we are really going to have to take this principle to heart.
Given that we will not be together and that you will be celebrating Rosh Hashanah from the comfort of your homes, I wanted to offer some suggestions for how you might make your home feel more like a sanctuary. Think about which room in your house would be best to help you feel like this is a prayer experience. Discuss this with your children. Entertain a debate about this question. And then watch from there. If you are able to stream the services to a TV, do so. If this is a technological leap for you then don't do it for the first time on Rosh Hashanah.
Still this is not a Netflix movie, so I would not recommend a bowl of popcorn by your side to watch services. Then again do what you are comfortable doing and what will help you make this into a meaningful and uplifting experience. If you usually wear a kippah and tallis in synagogue then put them on. If you like to dress up for services, then do so. I know no one will see how stunning you look, but it might help to get you into the right frame of mind. But certainly, don't make outfits a fight with your kids. Let them enjoy the service and take in the music of our prayers however they are comfortable.
If you like to follow along in the prayerbook then have your prayerbook open or download the Kindle or free Flip versions. Some of the prayers will be shown on the screen. Sing along, and sing really loudly, when you see those words. Listening to our cantor will help to lift your spirits. But singing along with her will add to your experience.
God hears all prayers wherever they might be offered—and however they might sound. When it comes to prayers it's first and foremost about the words and the intentions.
When we light the Rosh Hashanah candles on the bima, you can light your candles. When we drink the kiddush wine, you can drink some wine. Of course, you can start earlier with the wine if you like. And by all means have a plate of apples and honey, and maybe even a round hallah, waiting to enjoy for what will be your own private oneg.
If you are watching these services by yourself, and you're missing the opportunity of seeing your fellow congregants, then call them or FaceTime them before or after services. And if you know congregants who are watching services by themselves then call them before or after services. Or even call them during services. If kibbitzing with friends during services is part of what makes Rosh Hashanah enjoyable then do it.
The only rule for this year is that we need to grab as many opportunities as possible to lift our spirits.
May these services help to strengthen our spirits. May this Rosh Hashanah help to carry us toward a year of health.
Finding Kindness
This week was a good week.
I discovered a poem.
It was revealed to me as I turned through the pages of our new prayerbook, Mishkan HaLev. It called to me as I prepared for the upcoming High Holidays.
I learned more about the inspiration for the poem. While traveling on her honeymoon in Columbia, the bus on which she and her husband journeyed was robbed. A man was killed, and all of their belongings were stolen. Left alone when her husband went searching for how to get themselves out of this mess, she met a stranger who listened to her tale, despite her broken Spanish, and offered sympathy and compassion in return.
The poem emerged. It was if it scribbled its own words in her journal.
I started wondering.
Is every revelation born of serendipity? Is compassion best felt from those we least expect? Can kindness only be learned through pain?
The Torah declares: “Therefore, write down this poem and teach it to the people of Israel; put it in their mouths, in order that this poem may be My witness against the people of Israel.” (Deuteronomy 31)
Is the Torah’s journey of pain intended to teach kindness and compassion?
I recognize. This is not the poem the Torah intended. And yet I remain thankful for the teaching.
I remain grateful for small discoveries—and poems that uplift a week and offer reminders that kindness can transform us, and even something so seemingly small as listening to another’s pain can redeem our burdens.
I discovered a poem.
It was revealed to me as I turned through the pages of our new prayerbook, Mishkan HaLev. It called to me as I prepared for the upcoming High Holidays.
Before you know what kindness really isI endeavored to learn more about the poet who until this blessed hour was unknown to me. Naomi Shihab Nye was born in my hometown of St. Louis, Missouri. Her father was a Palestinian refugee and her mother an American who traced her lineage back to Germany. Nye spent her teenage years moving between Jerusalem and San Antonio, Texas.
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.
I learned more about the inspiration for the poem. While traveling on her honeymoon in Columbia, the bus on which she and her husband journeyed was robbed. A man was killed, and all of their belongings were stolen. Left alone when her husband went searching for how to get themselves out of this mess, she met a stranger who listened to her tale, despite her broken Spanish, and offered sympathy and compassion in return.
The poem emerged. It was if it scribbled its own words in her journal.
I started wondering.
Is every revelation born of serendipity? Is compassion best felt from those we least expect? Can kindness only be learned through pain?
The Torah declares: “Therefore, write down this poem and teach it to the people of Israel; put it in their mouths, in order that this poem may be My witness against the people of Israel.” (Deuteronomy 31)
Is the Torah’s journey of pain intended to teach kindness and compassion?
I recognize. This is not the poem the Torah intended. And yet I remain thankful for the teaching.
I remain grateful for small discoveries—and poems that uplift a week and offer reminders that kindness can transform us, and even something so seemingly small as listening to another’s pain can redeem our burdens.
Say Your Blessings Slowly
This week we read a lengthy list of curses, beginning with what the Torah imagines to be the worst kind of people: “Cursed be the person who misdirects a blind person on his way.— And all the people shall say, Amen. Cursed be the person who subverts the rights of the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow.— And all the people shall say, Amen.” (Deuteronomy 27)
It continues with a list of what will befall those who disobey God’s command: “Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.” And an abbreviated list of blessings that those who heed God’s mitzvot will enjoy: “Blessed shall you be in the city and blessed shall you be in the country.” (Deuteronomy 28)
The theology is crystal clear. Obey God’s commandments and blessings will follow. Disobey God’s mitzvot and you will see a long, detailed list of curses. It is not a very comforting thought. The graphic curses are in fact frightening. They make one recoil. Perhaps they even make people uncomfortable with the Torah and its stark theology. I for one don’t find the threat of cures a particularly effective way of motivating me to do good.
The tradition appears to recognize this dilemma. When chanting this portion, the Torah reader chants these lengthy curses in a very soft voice and in a rushed manner. To recite these curses in a loud and commanding voice would be to suggest a confidence in this theology. It would be to affirm something we experience to be false. Everyone can cite examples of people who follow all the commandments and yet experience far too many calamities and likewise those who appear to subvert the rights of the stranger and appear to enjoy untold blessings. And so, what do we do? We recite these words in hushed tones.
It is almost as if the tradition is instructing us to dwell on the blessings and rush past the curses.
The Hasidic master Simhah Bunim of Pshischa notices something more. He teaches that these detailed punishments are only attached to one specific command. He hears the Torah shouting: “Because you would not serve the Lord your God in joy and gladness over the abundance of everything.”
It continues with a list of what will befall those who disobey God’s command: “Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.” And an abbreviated list of blessings that those who heed God’s mitzvot will enjoy: “Blessed shall you be in the city and blessed shall you be in the country.” (Deuteronomy 28)
The theology is crystal clear. Obey God’s commandments and blessings will follow. Disobey God’s mitzvot and you will see a long, detailed list of curses. It is not a very comforting thought. The graphic curses are in fact frightening. They make one recoil. Perhaps they even make people uncomfortable with the Torah and its stark theology. I for one don’t find the threat of cures a particularly effective way of motivating me to do good.
The tradition appears to recognize this dilemma. When chanting this portion, the Torah reader chants these lengthy curses in a very soft voice and in a rushed manner. To recite these curses in a loud and commanding voice would be to suggest a confidence in this theology. It would be to affirm something we experience to be false. Everyone can cite examples of people who follow all the commandments and yet experience far too many calamities and likewise those who appear to subvert the rights of the stranger and appear to enjoy untold blessings. And so, what do we do? We recite these words in hushed tones.
It is almost as if the tradition is instructing us to dwell on the blessings and rush past the curses.
The Hasidic master Simhah Bunim of Pshischa notices something more. He teaches that these detailed punishments are only attached to one specific command. He hears the Torah shouting: “Because you would not serve the Lord your God in joy and gladness over the abundance of everything.”
Perhaps the rebbe is correct. And all we require is the ability of the Hasidic masters to rejoice with even the most meager of blessings. They teach. All it takes is the posture of joy and gladness.
And I am beginning to detect how to begin and how to reorient this cursed year. Quickly, and softly, detail the curses. Slowly, and loudly, enumerate our blessings.
And then let joy and gladness fill your hearts.
And I am beginning to detect how to begin and how to reorient this cursed year. Quickly, and softly, detail the curses. Slowly, and loudly, enumerate our blessings.
And then let joy and gladness fill your hearts.
Indifferent No More!
We offer prayers of strength and healing to our fellow Americans who are only beginning to survey the devastation from Hurricane Laura.
This week we read, Ki Tetzei, the Torah portion containing the most commandments. According to Moses Maimonides, the great medieval Jewish thinker, 72 mitzvot can be discerned from this week’s verses. They offer detailed instructions for how to reach out to others, of how we might best express our concern for other human beings. These rules are about inculcating the value of compassion for our neighbors.
This principle is illustrated by one example: “If you see your fellow’s ox or sheep gone astray, do not ignore it; you must take it back to your fellow… so too you shall do with anything that your fellow loses and you find: you must not remain indifferent.” (Deuteronomy 22) The tradition adds several exclamation points to this commandment when it rules that anyone who finds a lost object or animal and does not try to return it to its rightful owner is considered a thief.
The wisdom is clear. If, when finding an object, we say not, “Look what I found!” but instead ask, “To whom does this belong?” we begin to fashion a wider circle of concern. Our failures to correct injustices, whether they be small or large, begins with our indifference. How do we begin to turn toward others and not away?
This week we were confronted by the image of a black man shot by police officers. While the specifics of this case remain obscured, we join in offering prayers for Jacob Blake’s recovery. We pray that his Milwaukee home might soon find peace. We pray for strength in behalf of those who raise their voices in protest. One fact remains startlingly clear. Black men, and women, are far more likely to suffer violent deaths at the hands of police than their white neighbors. I have known this truth for some time, but I feel as if I have only begun to see it this summer.
I shall not remain indifferent.
Do the many objects adorning my home, that bring me a measure of comfort and peace, really belong to me or are they better meant to be shared with others? Does my continued silence, and the seemingly petty efforts to correct past failings, constitute the thievery our tradition admonishes us against?
I shall not remain indifferent.
I desperately want to look away. This is not the America I know. This is not the America I love. But as I am learning more and more this is the America my neighbors know. This is the America they find difficult to love. My dream is tarnished by their pain.
I turn to the wisdom of our tradition. But even Moses Maimonides is failing me. And so, I turn to other voices.
Maya Angelou, the American poet and civil rights activist writes in her incomparable poem, “A Brave and Startling Truth”:
…We, this people, on this small and drifting planet
Whose hands can strike with such abandon
That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living
Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness
That the haughty neck is happy to bow
And the proud back is glad to bend
Out of such chaos, of such contradiction
We learn that we are neither devils nor divines
When we come to it
We, this people, on this wayward, floating body
Created on this earth, of this earth
Have the power to fashion for this earth
A climate where every man and every woman
Can live freely without sanctimonious piety
Without crippling fear
When we come to it
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world
That is when, and only when
We come to it.
The miraculous is the neighbor I wish to ignore. I can no longer turn away. I must not turn aside. Their pain must become my pain.
Do not remain indifferent.
This week we read, Ki Tetzei, the Torah portion containing the most commandments. According to Moses Maimonides, the great medieval Jewish thinker, 72 mitzvot can be discerned from this week’s verses. They offer detailed instructions for how to reach out to others, of how we might best express our concern for other human beings. These rules are about inculcating the value of compassion for our neighbors.
This principle is illustrated by one example: “If you see your fellow’s ox or sheep gone astray, do not ignore it; you must take it back to your fellow… so too you shall do with anything that your fellow loses and you find: you must not remain indifferent.” (Deuteronomy 22) The tradition adds several exclamation points to this commandment when it rules that anyone who finds a lost object or animal and does not try to return it to its rightful owner is considered a thief.
The wisdom is clear. If, when finding an object, we say not, “Look what I found!” but instead ask, “To whom does this belong?” we begin to fashion a wider circle of concern. Our failures to correct injustices, whether they be small or large, begins with our indifference. How do we begin to turn toward others and not away?
This week we were confronted by the image of a black man shot by police officers. While the specifics of this case remain obscured, we join in offering prayers for Jacob Blake’s recovery. We pray that his Milwaukee home might soon find peace. We pray for strength in behalf of those who raise their voices in protest. One fact remains startlingly clear. Black men, and women, are far more likely to suffer violent deaths at the hands of police than their white neighbors. I have known this truth for some time, but I feel as if I have only begun to see it this summer.
I shall not remain indifferent.
Do the many objects adorning my home, that bring me a measure of comfort and peace, really belong to me or are they better meant to be shared with others? Does my continued silence, and the seemingly petty efforts to correct past failings, constitute the thievery our tradition admonishes us against?
I shall not remain indifferent.
I desperately want to look away. This is not the America I know. This is not the America I love. But as I am learning more and more this is the America my neighbors know. This is the America they find difficult to love. My dream is tarnished by their pain.
I turn to the wisdom of our tradition. But even Moses Maimonides is failing me. And so, I turn to other voices.
Maya Angelou, the American poet and civil rights activist writes in her incomparable poem, “A Brave and Startling Truth”:
…We, this people, on this small and drifting planet
Whose hands can strike with such abandon
That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living
Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness
That the haughty neck is happy to bow
And the proud back is glad to bend
Out of such chaos, of such contradiction
We learn that we are neither devils nor divines
When we come to it
We, this people, on this wayward, floating body
Created on this earth, of this earth
Have the power to fashion for this earth
A climate where every man and every woman
Can live freely without sanctimonious piety
Without crippling fear
When we come to it
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world
That is when, and only when
We come to it.
The miraculous is the neighbor I wish to ignore. I can no longer turn away. I must not turn aside. Their pain must become my pain.
Do not remain indifferent.
Rearrange the Furniture
A familiar Yiddish folktale.
Once upon a time in a small village lived a seemingly poor unfortunate man who lived with his wife, his mother, and his six children in a little one-room hut. Because they were so crowded, the once loving couple often argued. The children were rambunctious, and often fought. In winter, when the nights were long and the days were cold, life was especially difficult. The hut was full of crying and quarreling.
Once upon a time in a small village lived a seemingly poor unfortunate man who lived with his wife, his mother, and his six children in a little one-room hut. Because they were so crowded, the once loving couple often argued. The children were rambunctious, and often fought. In winter, when the nights were long and the days were cold, life was especially difficult. The hut was full of crying and quarreling.
One day, when the poor unfortunate man couldn’t take it anymore, he ran to the Rabbi for advice. “Rabbi,” he cried, “things are really bad, and only seem to be getting worse. We are so poor that my mother, my wife, my six children, and I all live together in one small hut. We are too crowded, and there’s so much noise. Help me, Rabbi. I’ll do whatever you say.”
The Rabbi thought for a long while. At last he said, “Tell me, my poor man, do you have any animals, perhaps a chicken or two?” “Yes,” said the man. “I do have a few chickens, also a rooster and a goose. “Excellent,” said the Rabbi. “Now go home and take the chickens, the rooster, and the goose and bring them into your hut to live with you.” Although the man was a bit surprised, he said, “Of course, Rabbi. I will do whatever you say.”
The poor unfortunate man hurried home and took the chickens, the rooster, and the goose out of the shed and brought them into his little hut. When some weeks had passed, life in the hut was worse than before. Now along with the quarreling and crying there was honking, crowing, and clucking. There were even feathers in the soup and goose poop on the floor. The hut grew smaller, and the children bigger.
When the poor unfortunate man couldn’t stand it any longer, he again ran to the Rabbi for advice. “Rabbi,” he cried, “you should see what misfortune has befallen me. Now with the crying and quarreling, there is also honking, clucking, and crowing, and even feathers in the soup. Rabbi, it couldn’t get any worse. Help me, please.” The Rabbi listened and thought. At last he said, “Tell me, do you happen to have a goat?” “Oh, yes, I do have an old goat, but he’s not worth much.” “Excellent,” said the Rabbi. “Now go home and take the old goat into your hut to live with you.” “You cannot possibly mean for me to do this, Rabbi!” cried the man. “Come, come now, my good man, you must do as I say at once,” said the Rabbi.
The poor unfortunate man shuffled back home with his head hanging down and took the goat into his hut. When some weeks had gone by, life in the little hut was much worse. Now, with the crying, quarreling, clucking, honking, and crowing, the goat went wild, pushing and butting everyone with his horns. The hut seemed even smaller, and the children appeared bigger. When the poor unfortunate man couldn’t stand it another minute, he again ran to the Rabbi. “Rabbi help me!” he screamed. “Now the goat is running wild. My life is a nightmare.”
The Rabbi listened and thought. At last he said, “Tell me, my poor man. Is it possible that you have a cow? Young or old it doesn’t really matter.” “Yes, Rabbi, it’s true I have a cow,” said the poor man fearfully. “Go home then,” said the Rabbi, “and take the cow into your hut.” “Oh, no, you cannot mean for me to do this, Rabbi!” cried the man. “Do it at once,” said the Rabbi. The poor unfortunate man trudged home with a heavy heart and took the cow into his hut. “My Rabbi is surely crazy?” he thought.
When some weeks had gone by, life in the hut was even worse than before. Everyone quarreled, even the chickens. The goat ran wild. The cow trampled everything. (And the poop, well that should not be detailed.) The poor man could hardly believe his misfortune. At last, when he could stand it no longer, he ran to the Rabbi for help. “Rabbi,” he shrieked, “help me, save me, the end of the world has come! The cow is trampling everything. There is no room even to breathe. It’s worse than a nightmare!” The Rabbi again listened and thought. He offered words of support and sympathy.
At last he said, “Go home now, my friend, and let the animals out of your hut.” “I will, I will, I’ll do it right away,” said the man. The poor unfortunate man hurried home and let the cow, the goat, the chickens, the goose, and the rooster out of his little hut. That night the poor man and all his family slept peacefully. There was no crowing, no clucking, no honking. There was plenty of room to breathe. The children no longer fought. And there was no longer anything for husband and wife to argue about. They just wrapped their arms around each other, smiling and breathing in the peace that had enveloped their home.
The very next day the poor man ran back to the Rabbi. “Rabbi,” he cried, “you are so wise. You have made life sweet. With just my family in the hut, it’s so quiet, so roomy, and so peaceful. My home is filled with blessings! You have restored joy to our hearts.” (My retelling is based on It Could Always Be Worse: A Yiddish Folktale by Margot Zemach.)
Sometimes all it takes to see our blessings is a little rearranging.
Blessings are more about perspective than fact. Shaping this perspective is the essence of the Jewish command to recite blessings. We say a blessing so that we are more apt to count our blessings, so we are more likely to see our blessings.
Perhaps for these High Holidays that will be like no other, all we need to do is a little rearranging. Then our blessings will become clearer. Perhaps it is as simple as rearranging the furniture.
Today is the first day of the Hebrew month of Elul, beginning the forty days of repentance that culminate in Yom Kippur’s final shofar blast. Let the rearranging begin. Let us turn toward one another. Let us begin the task of shaping our perspective. Let us begin this new command of transforming our homes small sanctuary.
These days blessings are harder and harder to see, but they are still there, all around us. It may be as easy as moving some things around.
The poor unfortunate man hurried home and took the chickens, the rooster, and the goose out of the shed and brought them into his little hut. When some weeks had passed, life in the hut was worse than before. Now along with the quarreling and crying there was honking, crowing, and clucking. There were even feathers in the soup and goose poop on the floor. The hut grew smaller, and the children bigger.
When the poor unfortunate man couldn’t stand it any longer, he again ran to the Rabbi for advice. “Rabbi,” he cried, “you should see what misfortune has befallen me. Now with the crying and quarreling, there is also honking, clucking, and crowing, and even feathers in the soup. Rabbi, it couldn’t get any worse. Help me, please.” The Rabbi listened and thought. At last he said, “Tell me, do you happen to have a goat?” “Oh, yes, I do have an old goat, but he’s not worth much.” “Excellent,” said the Rabbi. “Now go home and take the old goat into your hut to live with you.” “You cannot possibly mean for me to do this, Rabbi!” cried the man. “Come, come now, my good man, you must do as I say at once,” said the Rabbi.
The poor unfortunate man shuffled back home with his head hanging down and took the goat into his hut. When some weeks had gone by, life in the little hut was much worse. Now, with the crying, quarreling, clucking, honking, and crowing, the goat went wild, pushing and butting everyone with his horns. The hut seemed even smaller, and the children appeared bigger. When the poor unfortunate man couldn’t stand it another minute, he again ran to the Rabbi. “Rabbi help me!” he screamed. “Now the goat is running wild. My life is a nightmare.”
The Rabbi listened and thought. At last he said, “Tell me, my poor man. Is it possible that you have a cow? Young or old it doesn’t really matter.” “Yes, Rabbi, it’s true I have a cow,” said the poor man fearfully. “Go home then,” said the Rabbi, “and take the cow into your hut.” “Oh, no, you cannot mean for me to do this, Rabbi!” cried the man. “Do it at once,” said the Rabbi. The poor unfortunate man trudged home with a heavy heart and took the cow into his hut. “My Rabbi is surely crazy?” he thought.
When some weeks had gone by, life in the hut was even worse than before. Everyone quarreled, even the chickens. The goat ran wild. The cow trampled everything. (And the poop, well that should not be detailed.) The poor man could hardly believe his misfortune. At last, when he could stand it no longer, he ran to the Rabbi for help. “Rabbi,” he shrieked, “help me, save me, the end of the world has come! The cow is trampling everything. There is no room even to breathe. It’s worse than a nightmare!” The Rabbi again listened and thought. He offered words of support and sympathy.
At last he said, “Go home now, my friend, and let the animals out of your hut.” “I will, I will, I’ll do it right away,” said the man. The poor unfortunate man hurried home and let the cow, the goat, the chickens, the goose, and the rooster out of his little hut. That night the poor man and all his family slept peacefully. There was no crowing, no clucking, no honking. There was plenty of room to breathe. The children no longer fought. And there was no longer anything for husband and wife to argue about. They just wrapped their arms around each other, smiling and breathing in the peace that had enveloped their home.
The very next day the poor man ran back to the Rabbi. “Rabbi,” he cried, “you are so wise. You have made life sweet. With just my family in the hut, it’s so quiet, so roomy, and so peaceful. My home is filled with blessings! You have restored joy to our hearts.” (My retelling is based on It Could Always Be Worse: A Yiddish Folktale by Margot Zemach.)
Sometimes all it takes to see our blessings is a little rearranging.
Blessings are more about perspective than fact. Shaping this perspective is the essence of the Jewish command to recite blessings. We say a blessing so that we are more apt to count our blessings, so we are more likely to see our blessings.
Perhaps for these High Holidays that will be like no other, all we need to do is a little rearranging. Then our blessings will become clearer. Perhaps it is as simple as rearranging the furniture.
Today is the first day of the Hebrew month of Elul, beginning the forty days of repentance that culminate in Yom Kippur’s final shofar blast. Let the rearranging begin. Let us turn toward one another. Let us begin the task of shaping our perspective. Let us begin this new command of transforming our homes small sanctuary.
These days blessings are harder and harder to see, but they are still there, all around us. It may be as easy as moving some things around.
Build Your Own Temple
The Book of Deuteronomy emphasizes that worship in general, and the sacrifices in particular, cannot be performed in sanctuaries throughout the land, but must instead be centralized and moved to one location. That location will later become Jerusalem and its Temple. “When you cross the Jordan and settle in the land that the Lord your God is allotting to you… then you must bring everything that I command you to the site where the Lord your God will choose to establish God’s name…” (Deuteronomy 12)
Why would the one God need to be confined to this one place? Moreover, how can God be limited to one location? Historians and scholars have puzzled over this law. Biblical scholars suggest that the reasons for this law are political. In their view it was written during a time when Israel’s leaders wanted to centralize worship, and power, in the capital. The Book of Deuteronomy reflects this philosophy.
Moses Maimonides, on the other hand, argues that sacrifice is an inferior form of worship. Prayer is the ideal. Over time Jewish law works to limit sacrifice. Deuteronomy is therefore a step in this educational process. Before eliminating sacrifice entirely, it is limited. Sacrifices can only be performed in this one location.
Sefer HaHinnukh, a medieval commentary, offers an interesting explanation. It suggests that a sanctuary can only inspire people. It does so if it is unique and unparalleled. When we can do something anywhere and everywhere it loses its power and grip over our lives. This is of course why the Western Wall is such a powerful place and why it holds greater meaning to far more Diaspora Jews than Israeli Jews. For us it is a place of pilgrimage. For Israelis it is their backyard.
Yet, with the destruction of the Temple in the second century, Judaism became purposefully decentralized. Many rituals were moved to the home. Each and every home became a sanctuary and is called by our tradition, mikdash maat, a small temple. The sanctuary became not so much about location but instead about experience. Place became secondary to time. This is how Judaism remains. We mark days as holy.
The Israeli songwriters Eli Mohar and Yoni Rechter capture this sentiment when singing about Tel Aviv, a city that a mere 100 years ago was only a patch of sand.
Thus, wherever we might find ourselves we mark Shabbat as holy. This day is called by Abraham Joshua Heschel, a sanctuary in time.
And so, wherever these words might find you, whether we see each other in person or virtually, I wish you and your family, a Shabbat Shalom.
Why would the one God need to be confined to this one place? Moreover, how can God be limited to one location? Historians and scholars have puzzled over this law. Biblical scholars suggest that the reasons for this law are political. In their view it was written during a time when Israel’s leaders wanted to centralize worship, and power, in the capital. The Book of Deuteronomy reflects this philosophy.
Moses Maimonides, on the other hand, argues that sacrifice is an inferior form of worship. Prayer is the ideal. Over time Jewish law works to limit sacrifice. Deuteronomy is therefore a step in this educational process. Before eliminating sacrifice entirely, it is limited. Sacrifices can only be performed in this one location.
Sefer HaHinnukh, a medieval commentary, offers an interesting explanation. It suggests that a sanctuary can only inspire people. It does so if it is unique and unparalleled. When we can do something anywhere and everywhere it loses its power and grip over our lives. This is of course why the Western Wall is such a powerful place and why it holds greater meaning to far more Diaspora Jews than Israeli Jews. For us it is a place of pilgrimage. For Israelis it is their backyard.
Yet, with the destruction of the Temple in the second century, Judaism became purposefully decentralized. Many rituals were moved to the home. Each and every home became a sanctuary and is called by our tradition, mikdash maat, a small temple. The sanctuary became not so much about location but instead about experience. Place became secondary to time. This is how Judaism remains. We mark days as holy.
The Israeli songwriters Eli Mohar and Yoni Rechter capture this sentiment when singing about Tel Aviv, a city that a mere 100 years ago was only a patch of sand.
My God—here we have no Wall, only the sea.In Tel Aviv there are no ancient walls. And yet this city is also holy becomes it teems with renewed Jewish life.
But since you seem to be everywhere
you must be here too.
So when I walk here along the beach
I know that you are with me
and it feels good.
And when I see a tourist
beautiful and tanned
I look at her not only for myself, but also for you
because I know that you are in me
just as I am in you
and maybe I was created
so that from within me you can see
the world you created
with new eyes.
Thus, wherever we might find ourselves we mark Shabbat as holy. This day is called by Abraham Joshua Heschel, a sanctuary in time.
And so, wherever these words might find you, whether we see each other in person or virtually, I wish you and your family, a Shabbat Shalom.
No More Tests and Trials
Really? Another calamity? Now you throw hurricanes at us too.
The Torah responds: “Remember the long way that the Lord your God has made you travel in the wilderness these past forty years, that He might test you by hardships to learn what was in your hearts…” (Deuteronomy 8)
And I shout back, “No more tests.”
Our prayer book adds: “Purify our hearts to serve You in truth.”
Why must there be so many hardships? And why must there be any hardship at all? How do these challenges purify our hearts? At the very least can these difficulties be spread out. Why does tzuris appear to come in successive waves? Just when we feel like we are gaining enough strength to stand up again another wave comes crashing in and knocks us down.
The tradition suggests that the righteous are tested even more than the wicked. Abraham was, for example, tested not one time but ten. Who then would we want to aspire toward righteousness? The tradition counters that what makes people truly righteous is that they do not seek the title of tzaddik. They do good for its own sake. They do not wish to acquire status and stature. Their suffering becomes added proof of their righteousness.
Still these days I find myself wanting to run in the other direction. 2020 is exhausting. It is bedeviling. Enough! No more!
Then again if we are able to find meaning in even the most difficult of challenges, and amidst this current piling of incremental difficulties, we will better for it. When we are tested our hearts grow stronger. The problem is not these tests and trials. It is found instead when we offer meaning and lessons about other people’s challenges. When we offer a cliché to a friend, “What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.” Or when we try to interpret someone else’s pain or explain away their difficulty, we add to the pile of tzuris. In that moment, when we think we are offering a healing explanation we do more harm than good. No one wants their pain to be justified.
During Tuesday’s storm our beautiful apple tree was uprooted and fell on our neighbor’s property. Yesterday our neighbor walked over to our house so we could strategize about the tree’s removal. I had never met Dan before. I only saw his family playing on the other side of our fence.
Perhaps a new friendship will take root. After five years of living on either side of the fence a tropical storm forced us to strike up a conversation.
The wilderness, and the tempestuous challenges found therein, is indeed where life is lived. It occupies the majority of the Torah. There is no Torah found after this last book of Deuteronomy when we cross over to the Promised Land. Our Torah is only discovered in the hardships of the wilderness.
While I am exhausted by this year’s unending tests, I have faith I will emerge stronger and even better.
Your heart is likewise in your hands. Your challenges are yours from which to wrest meaning. You must carve your own path through the wilderness.
But you never know. A new friend might be found on the other side of the fence ready and willing to walk by your side.
Together we can hope, and pray, there is not too much more wilderness ahead.
The Torah responds: “Remember the long way that the Lord your God has made you travel in the wilderness these past forty years, that He might test you by hardships to learn what was in your hearts…” (Deuteronomy 8)
And I shout back, “No more tests.”
Our prayer book adds: “Purify our hearts to serve You in truth.”
Why must there be so many hardships? And why must there be any hardship at all? How do these challenges purify our hearts? At the very least can these difficulties be spread out. Why does tzuris appear to come in successive waves? Just when we feel like we are gaining enough strength to stand up again another wave comes crashing in and knocks us down.
The tradition suggests that the righteous are tested even more than the wicked. Abraham was, for example, tested not one time but ten. Who then would we want to aspire toward righteousness? The tradition counters that what makes people truly righteous is that they do not seek the title of tzaddik. They do good for its own sake. They do not wish to acquire status and stature. Their suffering becomes added proof of their righteousness.
Still these days I find myself wanting to run in the other direction. 2020 is exhausting. It is bedeviling. Enough! No more!
Then again if we are able to find meaning in even the most difficult of challenges, and amidst this current piling of incremental difficulties, we will better for it. When we are tested our hearts grow stronger. The problem is not these tests and trials. It is found instead when we offer meaning and lessons about other people’s challenges. When we offer a cliché to a friend, “What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.” Or when we try to interpret someone else’s pain or explain away their difficulty, we add to the pile of tzuris. In that moment, when we think we are offering a healing explanation we do more harm than good. No one wants their pain to be justified.
During Tuesday’s storm our beautiful apple tree was uprooted and fell on our neighbor’s property. Yesterday our neighbor walked over to our house so we could strategize about the tree’s removal. I had never met Dan before. I only saw his family playing on the other side of our fence.
Perhaps a new friendship will take root. After five years of living on either side of the fence a tropical storm forced us to strike up a conversation.
The wilderness, and the tempestuous challenges found therein, is indeed where life is lived. It occupies the majority of the Torah. There is no Torah found after this last book of Deuteronomy when we cross over to the Promised Land. Our Torah is only discovered in the hardships of the wilderness.
While I am exhausted by this year’s unending tests, I have faith I will emerge stronger and even better.
Your heart is likewise in your hands. Your challenges are yours from which to wrest meaning. You must carve your own path through the wilderness.
But you never know. A new friend might be found on the other side of the fence ready and willing to walk by your side.
Together we can hope, and pray, there is not too much more wilderness ahead.
Rescuing History
Today marks Tisha B’Av, the day commemorating nearly all Jewish tragedies, most especially the destruction of the first and second Temples, and the subsequent 2000-year exile from the land of Israel.
Our weekly portion appears to foretell this cataclysm.
It was all because of sinat chinam, baseless hatred among Jews, the rabbis argued. This provided an opening for Rome to conquer Jerusalem. Jeremiah earlier laments: “Jerusalem has greatly sinned. Therefore, she has become a mockery.” (Lamentations 1) We stand guilty. History is evidence of our sins.
Generations of Jews find blame for historical tragedies in our own actions. “If only we had been more faithful to God. If only we had not disobeyed the commandments. If only…” Such are the explanations offered for millennia. And while there is great spiritual power in seeing historical tragedies as occasions to reexamine our ways, and to look within our souls to discover how we might be responsible and how we might even be deserving of blame, it appears blasphemous when looking back at more recent tragedies. To suggest that the Jewish people are somehow to blame for the Nazis murderous rampage is sacrilege.
It may be in keeping with Deuteronomy’s thinking, but it has no place in my faith. Even the teachings offered by the rabbis explaining this day of Tisha B’Av cannot, and should not, be reckoned with the historical record. Sure, it is always better to ask, “What can we learn? How can we do better?” than to point fingers at some mysterious other. Isn’t that what the Nazis did? “Why did Germany lose World War I?,” they asked. And they shouted in response, “It was because the Jews stabbed us in the back.”
“Why is this pandemic raging throughout our country?” we now ask. Do we say, “It is because of him or her or them?” Or do we ask, “Is it because we think too much about ourselves and not about others?” One answer leads to name calling and despair. The other offers the potential for spiritual growth and change. It may not make for the accurate telling of history, but it can offer the opportunity for repair.
And thus, I resolve. No more blaming of victims. Look within for rescue.
The Torah continues, offering an antidote to its own stark theology. “The Lord will scatter you among the peoples…. But if you search there for the Lord your God, you will find Him, if only you seek Him with all your heart and soul…”
When you find yourself distressed and despairing, start up the search once again.
The Hasidic rabbi Menhaem Mendl of Kotzk teaches: “The very act of seeking God, the longing to find God, means ‘you shall find God’; that in itself is enough.”
For now, that will have to be enough.
Our weekly portion appears to foretell this cataclysm.
Should you, when you have begotten children and children’s children and are long established in the land, act wickedly and make for yourselves a sculptured image in any likeness, causing the Lord your God displeasure and vexation, I call heaven and earth this day to witness against you that you shall soon perish from the land which you are crossing the Jordan to occupy; you shall not long endure in it, but shall be utterly wiped out. (Deuteronomy 4)Not only do these verses foretell tragedy, they also assign blame. We are the victims of our own wrongdoings. No wonder that the prophet Jeremiah castigates the people and blames them for causing destruction of the first Temple, even though it was the Babylonians who laid siege to Jerusalem. No wonder that some 500 years later, the rabbis again fault the people for the decimation of first century Jewry, the destruction of the second Temple, and the slaughter of Jerusalem’s inhabitants at the hands of the Romans.
It was all because of sinat chinam, baseless hatred among Jews, the rabbis argued. This provided an opening for Rome to conquer Jerusalem. Jeremiah earlier laments: “Jerusalem has greatly sinned. Therefore, she has become a mockery.” (Lamentations 1) We stand guilty. History is evidence of our sins.
Generations of Jews find blame for historical tragedies in our own actions. “If only we had been more faithful to God. If only we had not disobeyed the commandments. If only…” Such are the explanations offered for millennia. And while there is great spiritual power in seeing historical tragedies as occasions to reexamine our ways, and to look within our souls to discover how we might be responsible and how we might even be deserving of blame, it appears blasphemous when looking back at more recent tragedies. To suggest that the Jewish people are somehow to blame for the Nazis murderous rampage is sacrilege.
It may be in keeping with Deuteronomy’s thinking, but it has no place in my faith. Even the teachings offered by the rabbis explaining this day of Tisha B’Av cannot, and should not, be reckoned with the historical record. Sure, it is always better to ask, “What can we learn? How can we do better?” than to point fingers at some mysterious other. Isn’t that what the Nazis did? “Why did Germany lose World War I?,” they asked. And they shouted in response, “It was because the Jews stabbed us in the back.”
“Why is this pandemic raging throughout our country?” we now ask. Do we say, “It is because of him or her or them?” Or do we ask, “Is it because we think too much about ourselves and not about others?” One answer leads to name calling and despair. The other offers the potential for spiritual growth and change. It may not make for the accurate telling of history, but it can offer the opportunity for repair.
And thus, I resolve. No more blaming of victims. Look within for rescue.
The Torah continues, offering an antidote to its own stark theology. “The Lord will scatter you among the peoples…. But if you search there for the Lord your God, you will find Him, if only you seek Him with all your heart and soul…”
When you find yourself distressed and despairing, start up the search once again.
The Hasidic rabbi Menhaem Mendl of Kotzk teaches: “The very act of seeking God, the longing to find God, means ‘you shall find God’; that in itself is enough.”
For now, that will have to be enough.
Waiting for Leadership
I am losing faith in leaders.
I am losing faith in Moses.
He is given to anger. He frequently loses his temper with the Israelites. A few weeks ago, he smashes a rock and God then tells him that he will not be allowed to enter the Promised Land. This week we find him standing on the other side of the Jordan River, offering the Israelites some last tidbits of advice before handing the leadership reigns to Joshua. (The entire book of Deuteronomy is in large part Moses’ farewell address, filled with a lengthy to do list of exhortations: “Don’t forget…. Don’t you ever…. You better not…. Beware of…”)
Moses appears exasperated and even exhausted. I recall that he never really wanted the job. He begs for God to pick someone else. He complains that he is not a good speaker. And now forty years later, Moses appears to be saying, “I told you so.” He castigates the people and exclaims: “I cannot bear the burden of you by myself…. How can I bear unaided the trouble of you, and the burden, and the bickering!” (Deuteronomy 1) Was his early premonition correct? Did he know that no matter how much he cajoled and how often he prodded, no matter how many times he shouted and how frequently he commanded, his followers would disappoint?
Or is this the natural course of leadership? The gap between the leaders’ expectations and the people’s behavior is sometimes too wide. It pains the leader to even acknowledge or give voice to this widening gap. I am left wondering.
I am certain that during these days I find myself increasingly disappointed in Moses. I am losing faith in his leadership. Why did he not begin with the words, “I am grateful for the privilege of leading you. We have experienced untold heights. We crossed the Sea of Reeds. We stood at Sinai. We have also experienced unimaginable challenges. I admit. Eating manna gets tiresome day after day. Running out of water on more than several occasions was indeed trying. But here we are, at the edge of what will be our new home, standing at the precipice of our hoped-for redemption. Thank you for the honor of calling me your leader.”
Instead he begins with complaints. “I can’t take your complaining and bickering.” He is exhausted by the call. He is tired after forty years. And all he appears able to say is that it’s all their fault. Moses appears unable to share their burden and pain.
The Torah offers a solution. Appoint magistrates and tribal leaders to share the heavy lifting of leadership. Rabbi Larry Kushner comments: “Insulate the leader within a bureaucracy! This is more than the simple delegation of responsibility; it is the creation of artificial, ritual distance necessary for the leader to be able to lead and love.”
Delegating helps to get the job done effectively. No one can, or should, do everything by him or herself. The big job of leading requires the work of many capable hands. Perhaps even more importantly, delegating creates a protective shield around the leader. He is not burdened by all the complaints. She is not beaten up by all the bickering.
When leaders’ hearts become filled with every trouble, they are unable to love.
Thank God for Joshua. He comes on to the scene at just the right time. I take heart in his advice: “Be strong and courageous.” (Joshua 1)
That’s what I am going to have to lean into these days.
Chazak v’amatz—be strong and courageous.
I am losing faith in Moses.
He is given to anger. He frequently loses his temper with the Israelites. A few weeks ago, he smashes a rock and God then tells him that he will not be allowed to enter the Promised Land. This week we find him standing on the other side of the Jordan River, offering the Israelites some last tidbits of advice before handing the leadership reigns to Joshua. (The entire book of Deuteronomy is in large part Moses’ farewell address, filled with a lengthy to do list of exhortations: “Don’t forget…. Don’t you ever…. You better not…. Beware of…”)
Moses appears exasperated and even exhausted. I recall that he never really wanted the job. He begs for God to pick someone else. He complains that he is not a good speaker. And now forty years later, Moses appears to be saying, “I told you so.” He castigates the people and exclaims: “I cannot bear the burden of you by myself…. How can I bear unaided the trouble of you, and the burden, and the bickering!” (Deuteronomy 1) Was his early premonition correct? Did he know that no matter how much he cajoled and how often he prodded, no matter how many times he shouted and how frequently he commanded, his followers would disappoint?
Or is this the natural course of leadership? The gap between the leaders’ expectations and the people’s behavior is sometimes too wide. It pains the leader to even acknowledge or give voice to this widening gap. I am left wondering.
I am certain that during these days I find myself increasingly disappointed in Moses. I am losing faith in his leadership. Why did he not begin with the words, “I am grateful for the privilege of leading you. We have experienced untold heights. We crossed the Sea of Reeds. We stood at Sinai. We have also experienced unimaginable challenges. I admit. Eating manna gets tiresome day after day. Running out of water on more than several occasions was indeed trying. But here we are, at the edge of what will be our new home, standing at the precipice of our hoped-for redemption. Thank you for the honor of calling me your leader.”
Instead he begins with complaints. “I can’t take your complaining and bickering.” He is exhausted by the call. He is tired after forty years. And all he appears able to say is that it’s all their fault. Moses appears unable to share their burden and pain.
The Torah offers a solution. Appoint magistrates and tribal leaders to share the heavy lifting of leadership. Rabbi Larry Kushner comments: “Insulate the leader within a bureaucracy! This is more than the simple delegation of responsibility; it is the creation of artificial, ritual distance necessary for the leader to be able to lead and love.”
Delegating helps to get the job done effectively. No one can, or should, do everything by him or herself. The big job of leading requires the work of many capable hands. Perhaps even more importantly, delegating creates a protective shield around the leader. He is not burdened by all the complaints. She is not beaten up by all the bickering.
When leaders’ hearts become filled with every trouble, they are unable to love.
Thank God for Joshua. He comes on to the scene at just the right time. I take heart in his advice: “Be strong and courageous.” (Joshua 1)
That’s what I am going to have to lean into these days.
Chazak v’amatz—be strong and courageous.
Quotes
This page offers a monthly quote that readers might find inspiring or meaningful, thought provoking or occasionally controversial.
Shevat 5783
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
Joyce Kilmer
Tevet 5783
Be still, my soul, and steadfast.
Earth and heaven both are watching
though time is draining from the clock
and your walk, that was confident and quick,
has become slow.
So, be slow if you must, but let
the heart still play its true part.
Love still as once you loved, deeply
and without patience. Let God and the world
know you are grateful.
That the gift has been given.
Mary Oliver, Devotions
Kislev 5783
Pilgrim is a word that accurately describes the average human being; someone on their way somewhere else, but someone never quite knowing whether the destination or the path stands first in importance; someone who underneath it all doesn't quite understand from whence or from where their next bite of bread will come, someone dependent on help from absolute strangers and from those who travel with them. Most of all, a pilgrim is someone abroad in a world of impending revelation where something is about to happen, including, most fearfully, and as part of their eventual arrival, their own disappearance.
Heshvan 5783
Monsters exist, but they are too few in numbers to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the functionaries ready to believe and act without asking questions.
Tishrei 5783
By walking I found out
Where I was going.
By intensely hating, how to love.
By loving, whom and what to love.
By grieving, how to laugh from the belly.
Out of infirmity, I have built strength.
Out of untruth, truth.
From hypocrisy, I wove directness.
Almost now I know who I am.
Almost I have the boldness to be that man.
Another step
And I shall be where I started from.
Elul 5782
People are so completely and so powerfully alienated that they are reduced to things; in the meantime, the things they produce and the things they purchase have acquired all the livingness that people have lost.
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.
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.
Don't Give the Keys to the Likes of Pinchas
Christians consider Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulcher sacred. It is there that they believe Jesus was crucified, buried and later resurrected from the dead. And yet the many denominations that comprise Christianity do not always agree about how this place is to be revered. 150 years ago, a compromise was enacted detailing when the Orthodox, Coptic, Ethiopian and Catholic churches are allowed to perform their rituals. A schedule is followed. By and large this has ensured peace in this holy place.
This was not always the case. On a hot summer day in 2002 a Coptic monk moved his chair out of the scorching sun and into the shade. Rival monks accused him of breaking this compromise and disrespecting their faith. A fight ensued. Eleven monks were taken to the hospital. And yet, when I visited the church a few years ago, the church appeared a freer place of worship than either the Dome of the Rock or our sacred Western Wall.
At the church no one interfered with the many different ways pilgrims prayed. Some took pictures. Some marveled at the artwork. Others posed for selfies. Many fell on their hands and knees to kiss the stone on which Jesus’ disciples placed his body. People were clearly overcome by emotion. There were many tears and many more songs and prayers. I found myself marveling at their religiosity.
I also found myself admiring their freedoms. No one policed behaviors. No one shouted that something was inappropriate. No one said, “Stop doing that! This is a holy place.”
Before walking up to Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, from which Muslims believe Mohammed ascended to heaven and Abraham nearly sacrificed his son Ishmael, my bag was thoroughly searched. We were not allowed to take any Jewish religious objects, such as a tallis or prayerbook, up to the mount. Apparently, the authorities fear that we might then recite a Jewish prayer on the mount. It is, by the way, Israeli security officials who enforce this ban.
Once we entered the large plaza Muslim officials approached our group to explain that this is a holy site and what we’re allowed to do and not do. They examined the women in our group. Some were told that they were not appropriately dressed. They were given specific directions about how better to respect this sacred place. Some were handed scarves to cover their shoulders. I asked if I could enter the Dome of the Rock, as I had done many years before, but was told, “It is only for Muslims.”
Is it the worry about provocations that makes my entry now forbidden? Perhaps. Certainly, after the first and second intifadas there is justified concern about what might lead to another outbreak of violence. Then again non-Muslims are forbidden from entering the holy city of Mecca. Let’s be honest, there is a growing trend among the faithful that the other, the non-Muslim, the non-Jew, the non-Christian, somehow diminishes the sanctity of a holy place. Even the term “non” is an attempt to draw a sacred circle around oneself by drawing others outside. Only those who are inside the circle are holy, or chosen. I reject this tendency. I reject the sentiments of Pinchas who killed those he believed defamed God. “Pinchas, son of Eleazar son of Aaron the priest, has turned back My wrath from the Israelites by displaying among them his passion for Me…” (Numbers 25)
The Western Wall is little different. I can walk up to these sacred stones wearing shorts and a T-Shirt. Women, on the other hand, must be sure their shoulders are covered and their skirts an appropriate length. If not, they are given schmattas to cover themselves. Women must pray in the women’s section. I can roam the much larger men’s section and search its broad length for a private place to pray.
I am not however free to lead a Reform service for the men and women of my congregation at the main Western Wall plaza.
And so, I find myself envying my Christian brethren.
Apparently, the situation I admired was not always the case. In the twelfth century Saladin, then the ruler of Jerusalem, gave the keys to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher’s front doors to a local Muslim family. The Joudeh family continues to hold these keys to this very day. And that might be the secret to the freedom I so desire.
It is entrusted to another.
Muslims are the religious authorities for the Dome of the Rock. The ultra-Orthodox control the Western Wall.
Perhaps if we want to restore freedoms to our own faith, we need to trust someone else with the keys.
Perhaps spiritual truths are gained, and religious experiences heightened when we don’t worry about who is in control. If we are true to our faith we should say, “The house belongs to God alone.”
We might discover that doors to our faith might be opened by giving the keys to someone else.
This was not always the case. On a hot summer day in 2002 a Coptic monk moved his chair out of the scorching sun and into the shade. Rival monks accused him of breaking this compromise and disrespecting their faith. A fight ensued. Eleven monks were taken to the hospital. And yet, when I visited the church a few years ago, the church appeared a freer place of worship than either the Dome of the Rock or our sacred Western Wall.
At the church no one interfered with the many different ways pilgrims prayed. Some took pictures. Some marveled at the artwork. Others posed for selfies. Many fell on their hands and knees to kiss the stone on which Jesus’ disciples placed his body. People were clearly overcome by emotion. There were many tears and many more songs and prayers. I found myself marveling at their religiosity.
I also found myself admiring their freedoms. No one policed behaviors. No one shouted that something was inappropriate. No one said, “Stop doing that! This is a holy place.”
Before walking up to Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, from which Muslims believe Mohammed ascended to heaven and Abraham nearly sacrificed his son Ishmael, my bag was thoroughly searched. We were not allowed to take any Jewish religious objects, such as a tallis or prayerbook, up to the mount. Apparently, the authorities fear that we might then recite a Jewish prayer on the mount. It is, by the way, Israeli security officials who enforce this ban.
Once we entered the large plaza Muslim officials approached our group to explain that this is a holy site and what we’re allowed to do and not do. They examined the women in our group. Some were told that they were not appropriately dressed. They were given specific directions about how better to respect this sacred place. Some were handed scarves to cover their shoulders. I asked if I could enter the Dome of the Rock, as I had done many years before, but was told, “It is only for Muslims.”
Is it the worry about provocations that makes my entry now forbidden? Perhaps. Certainly, after the first and second intifadas there is justified concern about what might lead to another outbreak of violence. Then again non-Muslims are forbidden from entering the holy city of Mecca. Let’s be honest, there is a growing trend among the faithful that the other, the non-Muslim, the non-Jew, the non-Christian, somehow diminishes the sanctity of a holy place. Even the term “non” is an attempt to draw a sacred circle around oneself by drawing others outside. Only those who are inside the circle are holy, or chosen. I reject this tendency. I reject the sentiments of Pinchas who killed those he believed defamed God. “Pinchas, son of Eleazar son of Aaron the priest, has turned back My wrath from the Israelites by displaying among them his passion for Me…” (Numbers 25)
The Western Wall is little different. I can walk up to these sacred stones wearing shorts and a T-Shirt. Women, on the other hand, must be sure their shoulders are covered and their skirts an appropriate length. If not, they are given schmattas to cover themselves. Women must pray in the women’s section. I can roam the much larger men’s section and search its broad length for a private place to pray.
I am not however free to lead a Reform service for the men and women of my congregation at the main Western Wall plaza.
And so, I find myself envying my Christian brethren.
Apparently, the situation I admired was not always the case. In the twelfth century Saladin, then the ruler of Jerusalem, gave the keys to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher’s front doors to a local Muslim family. The Joudeh family continues to hold these keys to this very day. And that might be the secret to the freedom I so desire.
It is entrusted to another.
Muslims are the religious authorities for the Dome of the Rock. The ultra-Orthodox control the Western Wall.
Perhaps if we want to restore freedoms to our own faith, we need to trust someone else with the keys.
Perhaps spiritual truths are gained, and religious experiences heightened when we don’t worry about who is in control. If we are true to our faith we should say, “The house belongs to God alone.”
We might discover that doors to our faith might be opened by giving the keys to someone else.
The Voice of Others
A few poems.
Gerard Manley Hopkins, a nineteenth century Jesuit priest and English poet, writes:
Gerard Manley Hopkins, a nineteenth century Jesuit priest and English poet, writes:
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.And Denise Levertov, a twentieth century American poet, offers:
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And, for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And through the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
Faith’s a tide, it seems, ebbs and flows responsiveHafiz, the fourteenth century Persian poet, affirms:
to action and inaction.
Remain in stasis, blown sand
stings your face, anemones
shrivel in rock pools now wave renews.
Clean the littered beach, clear
the lines of a forming poem,
the waters flood inward.
Dull stones again fulfill
their glowing destinies, and emptiness
is a cup, and holds
the ocean.
What is the difference
Between your experience of Existence
And that of a saint?
The Saint knows
That the spiritual path
Is a sublime chess game with God
And that the Beloved
Has just made such a Fantastic Move
That the saint is now continually
Tripping over Joy
And bursting out in Laughter
And saying, “I Surrender!”
Whereas, my dear,
I am afraid you still think
You have a thousand serious moves.
And this week, in our Torah, we discover another poem:
“Mah tovu ohalecha, Yaakov…” With these words we begin our morning prayers.
So records our Torah.
And so, we are reminded. Torah is about more than just listening to our own voice.
How fair are you tents, O Jacob,So said Balaam, the foreign prophet sent by Israel’s sworn enemy, the Moabites. King Balak instructs Balaam to curse the Jewish people. Instead the prophet provides us with a prayer.
Your dwellings, O Israel!
Like palm-groves that stretch out,
Like gardens beside a river,
Like aloes planted by the Lord,
Like cedars beside the water…
They crouch, they lie down like a lion,
Like the king of beasts; who dare rouse them?
Blessed are they who bless you,
Accursed they who curse you! (Numbers 24)
“Mah tovu ohalecha, Yaakov…” With these words we begin our morning prayers.
So records our Torah.
And so, we are reminded. Torah is about more than just listening to our own voice.
Prophet or Rebel?
The prophets of old shouted and railed against injustices. Few listened. At best they were surrounded by a small number of loyal, disciples. Most ignored their pleas. They turned a deaf ear to their screams. And yet, centuries later, we turn to their words for inspiration.
The prophet Isaiah declares:
And yet, despite the fact that we read these words every Yom Kippur, Isaiah’s shouts and cries remain muted. He was ignored in his own generation. He is still by and large ignored today.
Perhaps it is because communities, and even countries, too easily become unraveled by such screams. Is this why the prophet Jeremiah was jailed? Prophets, with their calls for change and their demands to undo injustices, are threats to the established order. Where they see injustices aplenty, others see an unraveling of what they have come to love and an undoing of the many comforts they now enjoy.
Is it possible that Korah was a prophet? The tradition answers with an emphatic, “No.” Korah, and his followers, question Moses’ leadership. They say, “You have gone too far! For all the community are holy, all of them and the Lord is in their midst.” (Numbers 16) The Torah judges these words to be the fomenting of rebellion. God sides with Moses. The earth then swallows up Korah and his followers.
I am thinking that there is a very thin line between prophecy and rebellion.
The Talmud counsels: “The world endures on account of people who are able to restrain themselves during a quarrel.” (Babylonian Talmud, Hullin 89a). The prophets quarrel with everything. They see injustices everywhere. The world might not very well endure if we are led by prophets.
Then again, the world might never change, or be made better, if we fail to heed their words.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel opines:
We cannot quarrel with everyone and everything. And yet, we must heed the prophetic voice. Some things must change and must not be allowed to endure.
“Prophet or rebel?” is the question that continues to haunt us.
The prophet Isaiah declares:
Cry with full throat, without restraint;
Raise your voice like a ram’s horn!
Declare to My people their transgression,
To the House of Jacob their sin….
This is the fast I desire:
To unlock the fetters of wickedness,
And untie the cords of the yoke
To let the oppressed go free;
To break off every yoke.
It is to share your bread with the hungry,
And to take the wretched poor into your home;
When you see the naked, to clothe him
And not to ignore your own kin. (Isaiah 58)
And yet, despite the fact that we read these words every Yom Kippur, Isaiah’s shouts and cries remain muted. He was ignored in his own generation. He is still by and large ignored today.
Perhaps it is because communities, and even countries, too easily become unraveled by such screams. Is this why the prophet Jeremiah was jailed? Prophets, with their calls for change and their demands to undo injustices, are threats to the established order. Where they see injustices aplenty, others see an unraveling of what they have come to love and an undoing of the many comforts they now enjoy.
Is it possible that Korah was a prophet? The tradition answers with an emphatic, “No.” Korah, and his followers, question Moses’ leadership. They say, “You have gone too far! For all the community are holy, all of them and the Lord is in their midst.” (Numbers 16) The Torah judges these words to be the fomenting of rebellion. God sides with Moses. The earth then swallows up Korah and his followers.
I am thinking that there is a very thin line between prophecy and rebellion.
The Talmud counsels: “The world endures on account of people who are able to restrain themselves during a quarrel.” (Babylonian Talmud, Hullin 89a). The prophets quarrel with everything. They see injustices everywhere. The world might not very well endure if we are led by prophets.
Then again, the world might never change, or be made better, if we fail to heed their words.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel opines:
This is our tragedy: the insecurity of faith, the unbearable burden of our commitment…. Our faith is too often tinged with arrogance, self-righteousness. It is even capable of becoming demonic. Even the creeds we proclaim are in danger of becoming idolatry. Our faith is fragile, never immune to error, distortion, or deception. There are no final proofs for the existence of God, Father and Creator of all. There are only witnesses. Supreme among them are the prophets of Israel. Humanity is an unfinished task, and so is religion. The Law, the creed, the teaching and the wisdom are here, yet without the outburst of prophetic demands coming upon us again and again, religion may become fossilized. (“No Religion is an Island”)
We cannot quarrel with everyone and everything. And yet, we must heed the prophetic voice. Some things must change and must not be allowed to endure.
“Prophet or rebel?” is the question that continues to haunt us.
Why Juneteenth Matters
What follows is my sermon from Shabbat Services on June 19th. Join us every Friday evening at 7 pm on Facebook Live.
David Ben Gurion once said:
The killing of George Floyd has shaken me. It has awakened in a great many people feelings of empathy, indignation, and despair. We have come to realize we are still not doing better. To be sure I should have been shaken years ago, and even decades ago. And I have spent the past weeks not only reading, and trying to learn more, but also examining my own attitudes and views. A verse in this week’s Torah portion sounds much different than it has in other years. Here is this week’s story that led to this newfound revelation. After returning from scouting the land, ten spies deliver a negative report, and fomented discord among the newly freed Israelites. They say, “We came to the land you sent us to; it does indeed flow with milk and honey… [But] the country that we traversed and scouted is one that devours its settlers.” (Numbers 13). My brethren are being devoured. I watched it on CNN. It unfolded right before my eyes.
Van Jones, a commentator who I find intelligent, insightful and who struggles still to work across party lines, remarked that there has always been a tension between the dreams of our nation’s founders and the reality in which they lived and thrived. Thomas Jefferson, the primary author of our Declaration of Independence, is also the man who owned slaves and fathered children with at least one of these slave women. He is the same person who wrote: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
As I look inward, as I search within my soul, as I peer into the nation that has almost exclusively offered my family and me promise and opportunity, these truths no longer appear as self-evident as they once did. I recall the history lessons of my youth. Growing up in St. Louis I remember studying the Civil War. The teacher opined, “The war was really about secession. It was not about slavery.” And I dutifully regurgitated that opinion on my test so that I might be awarded an A. Yesterday it occurred to me—and I mean literally yesterday, because until these past weeks it never even entered my mind to more closely examine that teaching—that this is like saying, “World War II was really about the invasion of Poland. It was not about the Holocaust.” This makes no sense. This makes no sense, most especially to my Jewish ears.
The Nazi’s murderous and antisemitic ideology drove it to savage Europe and slaughter six million of my people. The ideology that Jews were sub-human animated this regime. Likewise, slavery, and the ideology that Black lives are worth less than White lives, that people of color are less than human, that other human beings, who we believe, and our Jewish teachings loudly declare are created in the image of God, can be bought and sold as property, animated the South. For the soldiers of the Confederacy, the ideology of slavery led them to charge into battle. And the fact that we are still arguing about this, and denying this basic fact, and teaching that the Civil War was not really about slavery, is why we find ourselves in our current situation, a situation in which the lives of our fellow Americans who are people of color, can be killed in broad daylight by the very people who are meant to protect us—and I mean protect all of us, that is protect every single American. The safety, rescue and protection that I feel when the police drive by is not what all law-abiding Americans see. Through his tears, Van Jones, exclaimed this moment in which we now find ourselves might be different. He said, “A black man was killed, and people care.” People care. S’lach li. Forgive me for not paying attention when it was Trayvon Martin or Michael Brown or the countless others. Forgive me for turning away and not doing more to fight racism.
150 years later, after the Emancipation Proclamation, there are still far too many remnants of the racist ideology that almost destroyed our nation and threatens to rip us apart once again. Things must change. And they must change now. No more statues venerating Confederate leaders. No more Confederate flags symbolizing what was supposed to be a defeated ideology. No more military bases named for Confederate generals. Sure, study their tactics in War Colleges and offer praise for their strategies if warranted, but their names do not below in the public squares of a nation that wants to truly live up to its founding dream that all are created equal.
Second, mark today, this day of Juneteenth on your calendars. Mark it as we do Passover. Remember that on this day, on June 19, 1865, two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation, the last remaining slaves were delivered the news that they were free. Allow that lesson, a lesson that I was never taught in all my required American history classes, to sink in. People endured more years of slavery because it took that long for the news to reach Galveston, Texas and the far reaches of the Confederacy. Juneteenth represents the very idea we celebrate on Passover and the very best dreams of this country’s founders. This is not a rewriting of history. It is instead a correcting of how we teach history. This day must come to mark an honest accounting of our nation’s struggle to square its sometimes-tortured realities with its loftiest dreams and visions of itself. Only an honest accounting, and forthright reckoning, will do.
And finally, commit to learning more about the pain and suffering of our fellow Americans. When I speak about antisemitism in general, and the Holocaust in particular, and most especially to non-Jewish groups I ask two things of my listeners: 1) that they acknowledge historical truths, namely the countless antisemitic persecutions our people have endured and regarding the Holocaust, the Nazis’ systematic determination to exterminate our people, and 2) that they understand our pain. #1 must come before #2. I never really expect that they will understand what it really feels like to stand in my shoes, that they might feel this history as I feel it and as a Jew feels it. That would be unrealistic, and even illogical.
And so, I have resolved. I am not going to ask one of my few Black friends (and that small number should in itself stand as an embarrassment and indictment) to explain his or her pain to me. I worry that may only do more to assuage my guilt than to rectify our problems. What then are we going to do in this moment? I can tell you what I am going to do first. And you are welcome to join me. I am going to redo my homework from those high school years. I am going to relearn my history. I am going to read more and learn more. Watch the documentary “13th” with me. It is eye opening. Join me for a discussion of this movie. Bring your middle schoolers and high schoolers to the discussion. Email me if you are interested in joining me on this journey.
The healing begins with a renewed call to learning and listening. The repair could very well start by adding one more holiday to our calendar. Think of all that began not only with our going out from Egypt but with our sustained, and stubborn, remembrance of that historical moment at our Passover Seders. Our fellow Americans may be uplifted by such a day just as we continue to be uplifted, every year on the 15th of Nisan. It is long past time that the pain of our fellow Americans becomes our pain. We know all too well the feelings of the stranger. And no one should be made to feel like a stranger ever again.
David Ben Gurion once said:
Three hundred years ago a ship called the Mayflower set sail to the New World. This was a great event in the history of England. Yet I wonder if there is one Englishman who knows at what time the ship set sail? Do the English know how many people embarked on this voyage? Or what quality of bread did they eat? Yet more than three thousand three hundred years ago, before the Mayflower set sail, the Jews left Egypt. Every Jew in the world, even in America or Soviet Russia knows on exactly what date they left—the fifteenth of the month of Nisan; everyone knows what kind of bread the Jews ate. Even today the Jews worldwide eat matza on the 15th of Nisan. They retell the story of the Exodus and all the troubles Jews have endured since being exiled. They conclude this evening with two statements: This year, slaves. Next year, free men. This year here. Next year in Jerusalem, in Zion, in Eretz Yisrael. That is the nature of the Jews.Ben Gurion offers a remarkable insight. Our Passover celebrations are about remembering our going free from Egypt. Every symbol on our tables is meant to do one of two things: on the one hand, to recall the pain and suffering of slavery, i.e. eating the haroset and maror or on the other hand, to celebrate the joy of being free, namely drinking four cups of wine and reclining. Why do we observe this holiday? Why do we celebrate Passover, over 3000 years after the event it commemorates? So that we might not only remember our own pain but also so that we might be sensitive to the pain of others. We eat matzah so that we might be better attuned to the suffering not just of Jews but of all people. The Torah makes clear what the symbolic gestures of the Seder imply. “You shall not oppress the stranger, for you know the feelings of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Exodus 23). You know what it feels like. That’s the Passover message in a nutshell.
The killing of George Floyd has shaken me. It has awakened in a great many people feelings of empathy, indignation, and despair. We have come to realize we are still not doing better. To be sure I should have been shaken years ago, and even decades ago. And I have spent the past weeks not only reading, and trying to learn more, but also examining my own attitudes and views. A verse in this week’s Torah portion sounds much different than it has in other years. Here is this week’s story that led to this newfound revelation. After returning from scouting the land, ten spies deliver a negative report, and fomented discord among the newly freed Israelites. They say, “We came to the land you sent us to; it does indeed flow with milk and honey… [But] the country that we traversed and scouted is one that devours its settlers.” (Numbers 13). My brethren are being devoured. I watched it on CNN. It unfolded right before my eyes.
Van Jones, a commentator who I find intelligent, insightful and who struggles still to work across party lines, remarked that there has always been a tension between the dreams of our nation’s founders and the reality in which they lived and thrived. Thomas Jefferson, the primary author of our Declaration of Independence, is also the man who owned slaves and fathered children with at least one of these slave women. He is the same person who wrote: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
As I look inward, as I search within my soul, as I peer into the nation that has almost exclusively offered my family and me promise and opportunity, these truths no longer appear as self-evident as they once did. I recall the history lessons of my youth. Growing up in St. Louis I remember studying the Civil War. The teacher opined, “The war was really about secession. It was not about slavery.” And I dutifully regurgitated that opinion on my test so that I might be awarded an A. Yesterday it occurred to me—and I mean literally yesterday, because until these past weeks it never even entered my mind to more closely examine that teaching—that this is like saying, “World War II was really about the invasion of Poland. It was not about the Holocaust.” This makes no sense. This makes no sense, most especially to my Jewish ears.
The Nazi’s murderous and antisemitic ideology drove it to savage Europe and slaughter six million of my people. The ideology that Jews were sub-human animated this regime. Likewise, slavery, and the ideology that Black lives are worth less than White lives, that people of color are less than human, that other human beings, who we believe, and our Jewish teachings loudly declare are created in the image of God, can be bought and sold as property, animated the South. For the soldiers of the Confederacy, the ideology of slavery led them to charge into battle. And the fact that we are still arguing about this, and denying this basic fact, and teaching that the Civil War was not really about slavery, is why we find ourselves in our current situation, a situation in which the lives of our fellow Americans who are people of color, can be killed in broad daylight by the very people who are meant to protect us—and I mean protect all of us, that is protect every single American. The safety, rescue and protection that I feel when the police drive by is not what all law-abiding Americans see. Through his tears, Van Jones, exclaimed this moment in which we now find ourselves might be different. He said, “A black man was killed, and people care.” People care. S’lach li. Forgive me for not paying attention when it was Trayvon Martin or Michael Brown or the countless others. Forgive me for turning away and not doing more to fight racism.
150 years later, after the Emancipation Proclamation, there are still far too many remnants of the racist ideology that almost destroyed our nation and threatens to rip us apart once again. Things must change. And they must change now. No more statues venerating Confederate leaders. No more Confederate flags symbolizing what was supposed to be a defeated ideology. No more military bases named for Confederate generals. Sure, study their tactics in War Colleges and offer praise for their strategies if warranted, but their names do not below in the public squares of a nation that wants to truly live up to its founding dream that all are created equal.
Second, mark today, this day of Juneteenth on your calendars. Mark it as we do Passover. Remember that on this day, on June 19, 1865, two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation, the last remaining slaves were delivered the news that they were free. Allow that lesson, a lesson that I was never taught in all my required American history classes, to sink in. People endured more years of slavery because it took that long for the news to reach Galveston, Texas and the far reaches of the Confederacy. Juneteenth represents the very idea we celebrate on Passover and the very best dreams of this country’s founders. This is not a rewriting of history. It is instead a correcting of how we teach history. This day must come to mark an honest accounting of our nation’s struggle to square its sometimes-tortured realities with its loftiest dreams and visions of itself. Only an honest accounting, and forthright reckoning, will do.
And finally, commit to learning more about the pain and suffering of our fellow Americans. When I speak about antisemitism in general, and the Holocaust in particular, and most especially to non-Jewish groups I ask two things of my listeners: 1) that they acknowledge historical truths, namely the countless antisemitic persecutions our people have endured and regarding the Holocaust, the Nazis’ systematic determination to exterminate our people, and 2) that they understand our pain. #1 must come before #2. I never really expect that they will understand what it really feels like to stand in my shoes, that they might feel this history as I feel it and as a Jew feels it. That would be unrealistic, and even illogical.
And so, I have resolved. I am not going to ask one of my few Black friends (and that small number should in itself stand as an embarrassment and indictment) to explain his or her pain to me. I worry that may only do more to assuage my guilt than to rectify our problems. What then are we going to do in this moment? I can tell you what I am going to do first. And you are welcome to join me. I am going to redo my homework from those high school years. I am going to relearn my history. I am going to read more and learn more. Watch the documentary “13th” with me. It is eye opening. Join me for a discussion of this movie. Bring your middle schoolers and high schoolers to the discussion. Email me if you are interested in joining me on this journey.
The healing begins with a renewed call to learning and listening. The repair could very well start by adding one more holiday to our calendar. Think of all that began not only with our going out from Egypt but with our sustained, and stubborn, remembrance of that historical moment at our Passover Seders. Our fellow Americans may be uplifted by such a day just as we continue to be uplifted, every year on the 15th of Nisan. It is long past time that the pain of our fellow Americans becomes our pain. We know all too well the feelings of the stranger. And no one should be made to feel like a stranger ever again.
We Are Only as Small as We Think We Are
There are days when everything appears as giants. And every problem appears insurmountable.
How will we ever overcome this pandemic? Or its consequent economic downturn? Will life ever return to what it was once like? How will we eradicate racism from our country, from American culture and its institutions? What more can we do to uplift the lives, and livelihoods, of our fellow Americans who are Black?
The questions appear enormous. The problems feel like foreboding giants.
When the spies returned from scouting the land of Israel, they offered this report: “The country that we traversed and scouted is one that devours its settlers. All the people that we saw in it are giants… and we looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and so we must have looked to them.” (Numbers 13)
Why did they see themselves as small grasshoppers? Perhaps it was because they were beaten down by this new experience of wandering in the wilderness? Then again perhaps it was because they still saw themselves as slaves. After hundreds of years of slavery, they could not imagine they would be able to overcome their enemies and achieve any measure of success.
These words are why the Israelites must now wander for forty years. God determines that only a generation born in freedom can build a nation of its own.
Still I wonder. How did they know how they appeared to others? And this is perhaps the ten spies’ most worrisome, and even insidious, claim. They had such poor self-esteem and self-worth that they imagined everyone saw themselves as small as they saw themselves.
In the end, it’s one thing to see mounting problems as gigantic. It’s an added thing to see ourselves as too small, or too unprepared, or even too unwilling, to tackle these immense challenges. It’s an unforgivable thing entirely to imagine that others, in particular our enemies, whether they be viruses or other nations, see us as tiny grasshoppers who can be smashed underfoot.
We can overcome whatever we believe ourselves able to overcome! Much of our challenges can be overcome by faith, by faith in God and belief in our abilities to surmount any and all difficulties.
When King David was just a boy the Israelites’ enemy were the mighty Philistines. They were led by the giant Goliath. Every soldier was afraid to go into battle against Goliath. Even King Saul was frightened. But David was unafraid. Even though he was just a small boy he ventured out into the open field without any armor. He brought only a slingshot. And the legend was born. David killed Goliath, striking him with a small stone between the eyes.
David had faith. He had confidence. He did not seem himself as a small boy despite the fact that every other soldier was taller, and stronger, than him.
There really is only one question. Are we going to be the like the ten spies? Or are we instead going to be like Joshua and Caleb, the two spies who believed that despite immense odds the Israelites would succeed? Joshua and Caleb recognized the realities and threats, but they still had faith their people could succeed. They did not view themselves as small. Are we likewise going to be as confident as David or as cowering as the rest of the Israelite soldiers? Even the best armor, and greatest military might, cannot overcome challenges if people don’t believe they can be overcome.
Of course, it is not a matter of turning on and off a switch. It is not as stark as the stories suggest.
There will be moments in the coming weeks, months and years when we will feel like the ten spies, when we will see ourselves as small as grasshoppers unable to overcome any challenges. And there will be other moments when we will discover the confidence of Joshua and Caleb and the faith of King David, and n we will see ourselves as mighty and able to overcome even the most gigantic challenges.
My prayer is simple. I pray that these latter moments will be more numerous than the former.
How will we ever overcome this pandemic? Or its consequent economic downturn? Will life ever return to what it was once like? How will we eradicate racism from our country, from American culture and its institutions? What more can we do to uplift the lives, and livelihoods, of our fellow Americans who are Black?
The questions appear enormous. The problems feel like foreboding giants.
When the spies returned from scouting the land of Israel, they offered this report: “The country that we traversed and scouted is one that devours its settlers. All the people that we saw in it are giants… and we looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and so we must have looked to them.” (Numbers 13)
Why did they see themselves as small grasshoppers? Perhaps it was because they were beaten down by this new experience of wandering in the wilderness? Then again perhaps it was because they still saw themselves as slaves. After hundreds of years of slavery, they could not imagine they would be able to overcome their enemies and achieve any measure of success.
These words are why the Israelites must now wander for forty years. God determines that only a generation born in freedom can build a nation of its own.
Still I wonder. How did they know how they appeared to others? And this is perhaps the ten spies’ most worrisome, and even insidious, claim. They had such poor self-esteem and self-worth that they imagined everyone saw themselves as small as they saw themselves.
In the end, it’s one thing to see mounting problems as gigantic. It’s an added thing to see ourselves as too small, or too unprepared, or even too unwilling, to tackle these immense challenges. It’s an unforgivable thing entirely to imagine that others, in particular our enemies, whether they be viruses or other nations, see us as tiny grasshoppers who can be smashed underfoot.
We can overcome whatever we believe ourselves able to overcome! Much of our challenges can be overcome by faith, by faith in God and belief in our abilities to surmount any and all difficulties.
When King David was just a boy the Israelites’ enemy were the mighty Philistines. They were led by the giant Goliath. Every soldier was afraid to go into battle against Goliath. Even King Saul was frightened. But David was unafraid. Even though he was just a small boy he ventured out into the open field without any armor. He brought only a slingshot. And the legend was born. David killed Goliath, striking him with a small stone between the eyes.
David had faith. He had confidence. He did not seem himself as a small boy despite the fact that every other soldier was taller, and stronger, than him.
There really is only one question. Are we going to be the like the ten spies? Or are we instead going to be like Joshua and Caleb, the two spies who believed that despite immense odds the Israelites would succeed? Joshua and Caleb recognized the realities and threats, but they still had faith their people could succeed. They did not view themselves as small. Are we likewise going to be as confident as David or as cowering as the rest of the Israelite soldiers? Even the best armor, and greatest military might, cannot overcome challenges if people don’t believe they can be overcome.
Of course, it is not a matter of turning on and off a switch. It is not as stark as the stories suggest.
There will be moments in the coming weeks, months and years when we will feel like the ten spies, when we will see ourselves as small as grasshoppers unable to overcome any challenges. And there will be other moments when we will discover the confidence of Joshua and Caleb and the faith of King David, and n we will see ourselves as mighty and able to overcome even the most gigantic challenges.
My prayer is simple. I pray that these latter moments will be more numerous than the former.