Newsletter Article

I neglected to include my recent newsletter articles.  What follows is my article from our January-February 2011 Newsletter.
Recently Mrs. Bertash, our Religious School principal, began collecting questions for the rabbi. Our students could write down any question that was on their mind and that they wanted me to answer. What follows are a few of their questions and of course my answers.

How was God named?

In the Torah God is called by many names. God’s name is “Y-H-V-H.” But we no longer know how this name was pronounced so we say, Adonai, meaning my lord. There are many names for God in our tradition. I like to think that these many names offer us just as many different ways of approaching God.

How do you become Jewish?

If your parents tell you that you are Jewish then you are Jewish. But sometimes people choose to convert to Judaism because they think being Jewish is so awesome.

Why did you decide to become a Rabbi?

Because I like to talk. And listen. Mostly it is because I like learning and teaching and helping people.

How many times have your read the Torah?

Since I started rabbinical school when I was 22 years old, I have read the Torah once a year every year. So that is about 24 times.

Do you regret being a Rabbi?

No. How could I with these kind of questions and students like you? But if you mean is being a rabbi sometimes hard, then the answer is yes. Sometimes people ask me to stand by their side at really, really difficult times and that occasionally breaks my heart.

Is it considered a sin to be Jewish but not to believe in God?

No. But being Jewish is about trying. You always have to try to be a better person. You have to believe that the world can be better. Believing in God, or trying to believe in God, helps. So believing in God helps us become better people!

What is your favorite Jewish holiday?

Sukkot. I love building and decorating our sukkah and eating and sleeping outside.

What is the Kotel like?

Jerusalem and the Western Wall are awesome. It is wonderful to stand where so many Jews have stood and prayed. The stones are massive, but smooth because so many people touched them and kissed them.

How many letters are in the Torah?

304,805 letters and 79,847 words. I had to ask a scribe for the answer to this question because I am not so good at math.

How many cars long is the Torah?

It depends on what kind of car you are talking about. If it is an SUV then 5. A smart car then a minyan of 10. Mysteriously when we unroll the Torah scroll it fits almost perfectly around the inside of the church sanctuary.

Are Jewish people allowed to celebrate Halloween or Thanksgiving or New Years Eve?

Yes, but don’t have as much fun on these days as you do on Purim, Sukkot and Shabbat!

Is God real?

Yes. Sometimes I admit it does not feel that way, but I believe God is real.

Keep those questions coming!

Passover Thoughts

Eighteen minutes.  That is the difference between matzah and bread.  From the moment the flour is mixed with water to the time this mixture is placed in the oven must be eighteen minutes or less.  If it is longer the mixture is deemed bread.  If less it is matzah. 

Our tradition recognizes that leavening is a naturally occurring process.  It happens any time flour is mixed with water.   And so it is a minute that demarcates the difference between leavened and unleavened bread.  One minute can make all the difference between kosher and not, between matzah and bread, between what is proper and what is not. 

According to the rabbis the leavening agent of yeast symbolizes the yetzer hara, the evil inclination.  The yetzer represents passion and drive, ambition and competition.  Too much of any of these and our lives become ruled by lust and greed.  Too little and we lack motivation.  We require the yetzer hara, never in abundance, but always in the right measure and within the proper framework.  With it in such measure, bounded by holiness, husbands and wives are pulled toward each other.  With it as well the desire to succeed pushes us to create and invent.

Too much yeast and bread becomes sour (and wine becomes spoiled).  And so the rabbis taught that the yetzer hara must be controlled and framed.  On Passover we liberate ourselves from the souring effect of the yetzer hara.  For one week we live without the effects of this leavening agent.

Eighteen minutes.  That is the difference between matzah and bread.  One minute is all the difference between kosher and not, right and wrong.  It is only a matter of minutes.  Nineteen minutes and the matzah is transformed into the ordinary bread of every week and every day.  Eighteen minutes and it remains the kosher bread for this holiday of Passover.

One minute, one word, one action that as well is the difference between right and wrong. It is always a fine line.  It is rarely if ever a matter of hours or days.  In a brief moment we must choose between right and wrong.  That minute is what defines our actions as kosher or not. 

And that is the spiritual lesson of the matzah we eat at this evening’s Seder.  It is never just about food!

Passover Card

Your JCB family wishes you a happy and joyous Passover!

Rebbe Nachman of Bratslav said: Seek the sacred within the ordinary.  Seek the remarkable within the commonplace.

Ahrei Mot

The Talmud reports: “Except for the prohibitions against murder, incest and idolatry, any commandment must be set aside for pikuah nefesh, saving a human life.” (Sanhedrin 74a)

This week’s Torah portion concurs: “v’chai b’hem, you shall live by them” (Leviticus 18: 5)  The commandments are intended to be life affirming.  We are not to die because of them.  Only in extreme examples when faced, for example, with committing murder do we choose martyrdom, preferring death over life.

On Monday evening the holiday of Passover begins.  Passover is given to scrupulous observance.  We are commanded to rid our homes of hametz, leavened products, and eat only matzah and kosher for Passover foods for the holiday's eight days.  One encounters many different levels of observance within the rituals of Passover.  Unfortunately at this time of year one also hears statements that are disparaging of other Jews’ observance.  “That’s not kosher for Passover.  How could you eat corn syrup?  I keep Passover for eight days.” 

On the holiday that marks our freedom from Egypt and our beginnings as a people there should be room for all manners of observance.  Within Judaism there should be room for many different rituals and ways of marking our Jewish identities.

It saddens me that the holiday which celebrates our becoming a people has been transformed into one marked by disparate observances and a fractured community.  Why can’t we be one and enjoy this joyous holiday together?  On this Passover we should pledge to relearn how to better live together.  While the tradition understood the verse “you shall live by them” in individual terms I wish to hear this command as directed to the Jewish people. 

My question is: can we still live together—as one people?  The mitzvah of ahavat Yisrael, love of the Jewish people, is one that should help us to transcend our differences, to look away from our disparate styles and levels of observance, and see instead one people.  Love of the Jewish people is one of the guiding principles of my faith. 

I must love the Jewish people, despite our differences and disagreements.  I must love all the Jewish people.  We are not so numerous (14 million worldwide according to the most optimistic of counts) that we can afford to divide ourselves even further.  Why must we measure how much matzah or how little bread others eat?  Why must we number how many sets of dishes others have?  Why must we count how often others pray? 

Thousands of years ago, on that first Passover night, we became a Jewish people.  This year we must rekindle that oneness.  We must reaffirm our love of all Jews.  That is far more important than what we eat or don’t eat.  That is how the commandments will help us to live again. 

Rabbi Leo Baeck, a great 20^th century German rabbi and survivor of the Holocaust, wrote:  "The Jew knows that the greatest commandment is to live."  I would add: “to live together.”

Beware of Democracy?

This week's Wall Street Journal offers an excellent, if troubling, interview with Bernard Lewis, arguably one of the Western World's foremost experts on the Middle East.  Lewis argues against moving too quickly to elections in the Arab world.  While the protest movement is encouraging, he cautions:

Elections, he argues, should be the culmination—not the beginning—of a gradual political process. Thus "to lay the stress all the time on elections, parliamentary Western-style elections, is a dangerous delusion."

He advocates not the bringing about of a Western style democracy but a more open, tolerant society that incorporates Arab and Muslim traditions.

Bernard Lewis has been studying the Middle East for over sixty years.  We would do well to heed his words.  He offers a number of sobering observations:

First, Tunisia has real potential for democracy, largely because of the role of women there. "Tunisia, as far as I know, is the only Muslim country that has compulsory education for girls from the beginning right through. And in which women are to be found in all the professions," says Mr. Lewis.

"My own feeling is that the greatest defect of Islam and the main reason they fell behind the West is the treatment of women," he says. He makes the powerful point that repressive homes pave the way for repressive governments. "Think of a child that grows up in a Muslim household where the mother has no rights, where she is downtrodden and subservient. That's preparation for a life of despotism and subservience. It prepares the way for an authoritarian society," he says.

Egypt is a more complicated case, Mr. Lewis says. Already the young, liberal protesters who led the revolution in Tahrir Square are being pushed aside by the military-Muslim Brotherhood complex. Hasty elections, which could come as soon as September, might sweep the Muslim Brotherhood into power. That would be "a very dangerous situation," he warns. "We should have no illusions about the Muslim Brotherhood, who they are and what they want."

And yet Western commentators seem determined to harbor such illusions. Take their treatment of Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi. The highly popular, charismatic cleric has said that Hitler "managed to put [the Jews] in their place" and that the Holocaust "was divine punishment for them."

Yet following a sermon Sheikh Qaradawi delivered to more than a million in Cairo following Mubarak's ouster, New York Times reporter David D. Kirkpatrick wrote that the cleric "struck themes of democracy and pluralism, long hallmarks of his writing and preaching." Mr. Kirkpatrick added: "Scholars who have studied his work say Sheik Qaradawi has long argued that Islamic law supports the idea of a pluralistic, multiparty, civil democracy."

Professor Lewis has been here before. As the Iranian revolution was beginning in the late 1970s, the name of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was starting to appear in the Western press. "I was at Princeton and I must confess I never heard of Khomeini. Who had? So I did what one normally does in this world of mine: I went to the university library and looked up Khomeini and, sure enough, it was there."

'It" was a short book called "Islamic Government"—now known as Khomeini's Mein Kampf—available in Persian and Arabic. Mr. Lewis checked out both copies and began reading. "It became perfectly clear who he was and what his aims were. And that all of this talk at the time about [him] being a step forward and a move toward greater freedom was absolute nonsense," recalls Mr. Lewis.

"I tried to bring this to the attention of people here. The New York Times wouldn't touch it. They said 'We don't think this would interest our readers.'

And in other troubling news today's Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported:

The Palestinian Authority has just honored the terrorist mastermind responsible for the Passover Massacre, a terrorist atrocity which claimed the lives of 30 innocent Israeli citizens attending the Seder, the traditional Passover meal, at Netanya's Park Hotel on March 27, 2002.

The Palestinian Authority has chosen a bizarre and troubling way to mark the upcoming Jewish festival of Passover. Despite an often voiced Palestinian commitment to end the glorification of terrorists and incitement to violence, on March 28 Issa Karake, the Palestinian Authority Minister of Prisoners' Affairs, visited the family of Hamas suicide-bomb mastermind Abbas Al-Sayed, awarding them with an official, festive plaque, in celebration of the anniversary of the massacre.

Will democracy bring to power our enemies or friends?  I believe in democracy.  I am afraid however that I cannot always trust it.

Addendum: I failed to note that the author of this interview is Bari Weiss who is an assistant editorial features editor at the Journal.  Her thoughts and opinions are apparently interspersed throughout the interview.

Metzora

Two weeks of leprosy!  This week’s Torah portion also discusses the details of leprosy, including a leprous plague occurring on the walls of a house.  Thankfully the rabbinic sages transformed metzora into a moral lesson.  They spun a midrash from the letters of this Hebrew word for leprosy, expanding metzora into motzi shem ra, the spreading of malicious gossip. 

They reasoned that gossip is morally disfiguring just as leprosy is physically deforming.  Their teachings on gossip continue to resonate today.  When we gossip, repeating something that is unflattering of others, we disfigure ourselves as well as others.  We must recognize that just as words can build worlds, so too can they destroy.  A person’s reputation can be destroyed with the press of a keyboard’s send.  We follow a tradition that is built on the power of words.  We can bless, as well as curse.  We can praise, as well destroy.  Once such negative words have been passed on to others, gathering them up can be an impossible task. 

There are far too many examples from which we can draw to illustrate this point.  This week for instance we read that Judge Goldstone retracted his most damaging claim against Israel.  In his United Nations report on the recent Gaza War he wrote that Israel and its soldiers had purposely targeted civilians.  Now he writes that his previous claim was false.   I always knew that such claims were false, but how can he now gather up these words and undo the damage they have caused to Israel’s image and prestige?   

Judaism counsels us that even if the story is true we should not repeat it.  When speaking of others we must be most cautious.  Our words can cause irreparable harm.  The Chofetz Chaim, and nineteenth century Mussar teacher, offers us nine guidelines for right speech.

1. Do no spread a negative image of someone, even if that image is true.

2. Do not share information that can cause physical, financial, emotional or spiritual harm.

3. Do not embarrass people, even in jest.

4. Do not pretend that writing or body language or innuendo is not speech.

5. Do not speak against a community, race, ethnic group, gender, or age group.

6. Do not gossip, even to your spouse, relatives, or close friends.

7. Do not repeat gossip, even when it is generally known.

8. Do not tell people negative things said about them, for this can lead to needless conflict.

9. Do not listen to gossip.  Give everyone the benefit of the doubt. (Rabbi Rami Shapiro, The Sacred Art of Lovingkindness)

Everyone is guilty of gossiping.  We often speak of others.  I admit, it can be fun and entertaining.  Recounting others’ problems makes us feel better about ourselves.  But in the end gossiping only lessens our stature.  So let us be more cautious when speaking about others.  We should strive to use our words only for healing.  Another Mussar teacher, Rabbi Israel Salanter, added: “Say what you mean.  And do what you say.”  That is an excellent motto by which to live our lives. 

In these ways the rabbis transformed metzora into timeless moral lessons about the power of words. The leprous infections on houses, however, the sages were unable to transform into a moral lesson.  Some even doubted that such an infection could exist.  They questioned its meaning.  And then Hurricane Katrina occurred and I realized the lesson.  Too many were given to declare the Torah’s words, “Something like a plague has appeared on my house.”  (Leviticus 14:35)  Even after the waters receded, the black line remained. 

And that is the moral lesson of gossip as well.  It forever stains us.

And by the way, for more on New Orleans’ black line, listen to the Blues guitarist, Spencer Bohren, sing his song, Long Black Line: “Beautiful New Orleans, oh, she was so fine.  Now everywhere you go, there's just the long black line.”

Johnny Clegg

Ari and I enjoyed a great concert this week at City Winery with Johnny Clegg.  Here is his song "Cruel, Crazy, Beautiful World."



Check out his website for more of his music and songs.  By the way, 46664 was Nelson Mandela's prisoner number and now the name of the humanitarian organization that promotes HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention.

Goldstone Recants

Reconsidering the Goldstone Report on Israel and War Crimes - The Washington Post
In Friday's Washington Post Judge Richard Goldstone withdrew the most damning charge of his report on the Gaza War. In that report he accused Israel of intentionally targeting civilians. In the Post he writes: "While the investigations published by the Israeli military and recognized in the U.N. committee's report have established the validity of some incidents that we investigated in cases involving individual soldiers, they also indicate that civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy." I believed this to be the case then. I never doubted the IDF's integrity or the State of Israel's ethics. The Goldstone report was deeply flawed in large part because its investigation was deeply flawed. "In the end, asking Hamas to investigate may have been a mistaken enterprise." But alas the feathers have been scattered to the winds and Goldstone's belated recognition will not be able to stuff them back into the pillow. Harmful words have been set free, free to create damaging and damning impressions. His words enshrined in the U.N. report have stained Israel. Still I believe as Goldstone concludes. "Simply put, the laws of armed conflict apply no less to non-state actors such as Hamas than they do to national armies. Ensuring that non-state actors respect these principles, and are investigated when they fail to do so, is one of the most significant challenges facing the law of armed conflict. Only if all parties to armed conflicts are held to these standards will we be able to protect civilians who, through no choice of their own, are caught up in war." But the problem remains. Goldstone failed to recognize this challenge when it mattered most. Or perhaps he naively believed that he could singlehandedly overcome this challenge. His failure to do so when it truly mattered has left a stain that no opinion peace can erase.

Tazria Sermon

In this week’s Torah portion we read of leprosy.  In ancient times the priest served as the doctor.  It was he who examined the skin infections to determine if they were leprous or not.  If the person had leprosy he was placed in isolation for seven days.  If he still had leprosy he was moved outside of the camp.

Leviticus is obsessed with ritual purity.  So much so that it pushed those who had leprosy or who were deformed outside of the community.  In a word this is wrong.  It is wrong on two counts.  No one should ever be without his or her community in such a time of need.  To my mind the value of community supersedes that of ritual.  And #2 the obligation to care for the sick extends beyond the professionals, in this case the priest.

Let’s begin with #2.  The mitzvah of bikkur holim is a mitzvah that is required of all.  It is not just for the rabbi, or for the family, or for the doctor.  It is incumbent upon everyone.  I know that it is a very difficult mitzvah to fulfill, but perhaps that is why it is required, that is why it is an obligation.  So here are a few of our wise rabbis’ advice and counsel on visiting the sick.

One should not stay too long.  Then the sick person would in effect become a host.  One can visit frequently, but not during the first three hours of the day.  Why?  The person would more likely be feeling better and not need a visit then.  Conversely don’t visit in the last three hours of the day when the person might feel worse.  Then the visitor might lose hope.  Be careful not to give false hope but also not cause despair when visiting.  This is indeed a tricky balance.  Be truthful, but hopeful.

There are two reasons why we visit the sick—according to the tradition.  To look after the person’s needs.  The tradition likens such visits to a medicine that aids in recovery.  The Talmud says, “Whoever visits a sick person helps him recover.”  The second reason why we visit is to pray for the person.  At the bedside one can recite, “May God have mercy upon you among the other sick of Israel.”  At synagogue we say the familiar Mi Shebeirach prayer.  Praying lifts the spirits of the sick person as well as the visitor.  Or perhaps it offers us a concrete action to perform.  That is why we pray together as a community—with others we pray for those who are sick.

The second reason why we must never push the sick outside of the camp, outside of the community, is because they need community, most especially when they are sick.  We lift each other up.  Too often people think that their illness is their burden and theirs to carry alone.  They keep it private so as not to burden others.  But the meaning of belonging to a holy community is that we are there for each other.

We live in a world where the most trivial and silliest, and most intimate of things are posted by people on the internet.  Yet their struggles and pains are supposed to be kept hidden.  This stoicism is not Judaism.

Judaism is all about the community.  It is all about us.  We believe we must be there for each other.  To visit the sick is a sacred obligation.  No one at his or her greatest hour of need should be alone, should be left alone and be without community.

There is the Jewish belief that visiting the sick is an imitation of God.  It is because God visited Abraham after he was recovering from circumcision.  The highest mitvot, gemilut hasadim, are those where we imitate God.

This teaches an essential truth.  By visiting the sick we bring God’s healing to the world.  We can worry about who is pure and who is impure, as in this week’s portion, or we can get busy doing God’s work here on earth.

I choose to get busy.  I hope and pray that all of us will do the same, that we will each feel the import of this obligation, and help those who are in need of healing.  Together we can always accomplish far more than by ourselves.

Shemini Sermon

This sermon was delivered on Friday, March 25.

We toss the term “acts of God” around far too easily, attaching the label most recently to the Japanese earthquake and tsunami.  I understand that an act of God is a legal term used to describe events, such as natural disasters, that are outside of human control and for which no one can be held responsible. 

Yet as a lover of God I am uncomfortable with the term and bristle at its use.  I wish we were more comfortable ascribing positive events to God rather than the negative and catastrophic.  I choose only to assign good to God.  That is my posture.

In this week’s portion, Shemini, we read of Nadav and Avihu who offer an alien, strange, fire on the altar and were therefore killed.  What was so strange about their sacrifice so as to merit their deaths?  Some suggest that it was the manner in which it was offered.  Others say they were intoxicated.  I believe that were consumed by overzealousness.  They were intoxicated with their own piety.  They came to believe that they could bring about an act of God.  In the end such desires consume the believer—as well as many other victims.

In our world there are far too many people who think they know exactly what God thinks, and what God wants.  People think they can perform acts of God, bringing God to earth. There are people who think that their ideology is most holy.   Actually they think that only their beliefs are holy, and others must be cast aside.  They think that only they have God’s ear. 

Such beliefs only diminish the other.  They lead to terrible acts, such as those we witnessed in Israel these past weeks.  There were the gruesome murders in Itamar and the most recent bus bombing in Jerusalem.  By the way I must offer a correction.  Two of the Fogel children survived the attack not because they were out of the house but because they hid underneath the bed.

It is clear to me what feeds the hatred that leads to these terrorist attacks.  There is a direct line between the campaign to delegitimize the State of Israel and these attacks.  Roger Waters, of Pink Floyd, is the latest to join the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction (BDS) movement.  Israel is not apartheid South Africa.  The blurring of this distinction serves to contribute to the violence.  In the West Bank a square was named this week for the leader of a 1978 terrorist attack.  The celebration of such murders only feeds more violence.  Israel has every right to protect its citizens.  The distinction between purposely targeting civilians and not is most important. 

Ultimately this delegitimization of the State of Israel, whether it be by comparing Israel to apartheid South Africa or severing the historic Jewish connection to the land of Israel, leads to this glorification of murder.  People speak of settlers as less than human beings.  They strip other people of their humanity so that can more easily murder.  That might not be the intention of all, but there is a straight line between the two.

To see Israel’s settlement as problematic is not the same.  To even think it is misguided and bad for Israel is not the source of the problem I am speaking about.  Delegitimizing the state ends up delegitimizing Israelis.   It leads to the dehumanization of others.  This is why the news speaks not of the murder of fellow human beings, but of settlers. 

I don’t understand how someone can murder a baby.  I cannot accept that this is ever justified.  I also don’t understand how someone can speak so confidently about what God wants.  There is a direct line between such zealousness and murder.  These are when God’s fires become alien fires!

I refuse to accept that God brings about such evil, or that God wants such evil.  I recognize that the earth is imperfect and that at times it trembles and quakes—sometimes in violent fashion.  By the way recognizing this fact does not mean we should be so unprepared.  The unfolding nuclear disaster is our doing alone.  But we must shy away from describing these events as acts of God.  That is to suggest that randomness and disorder are God’s.  I only wish to ascribe to God the good.

Most of all I draw from my faith the belief that all human beings are created in God’s image.  Every life is equally precious.  That belief is my fire.  That fire will sustain me and might even better our world.  All other fires consume the world.

Tazria

The Book of Leviticus is a struggle. I am often at odds with its words. It speaks of priests and sacrifices, tabernacles and holy precincts, impurities and defilements. The literal meaning of its words often eludes me. This week we read of leprosy.

“When a person has on the skin of his body a swelling, a rash, or a discoloration, and it develops into a scaly affection on the skin of his body, it shall be reported to Aaron the priest or to one of his sons, the priests.” (Leviticus 13:2) In ancient times the priest was both the religious and medical authority. In this instance he determined whether or not a person was infected with leprosy. If a positive diagnosis was made then the person was placed in isolation for seven days. If the priest still determined that he had chronic leprosy then he was labeled impure. “He shall be impure, he shall dwell apart; his dwelling shall be outside the camp.” (Leviticus 13:46)

Our approach to sickness and disease is in many ways different, but in other significant ways still the same. Today the mitzvah of visiting the sick, bikkur cholim, is incumbent upon all. Yet we still rely on today’s priests, whether they be doctors or rabbis. We have allowed our mitzvah, our duty, to become professionalized. The Talmud offers helpful advice, stating that visiting the sick is considered a religious duty without limit. A person is rewarded both in this world and in the world to come for visiting the sick. (Shabbat 127a)

The difficulty of this mitzvah causes us to shy away from it. “It is better left to professionals.” is a refrain that continues from the portion’s words to our very day. The rabbis struggled to upend our reliance on sacrifices and priests. They argued, who better to lift someone’s spirits and offer words of comfort and encouragement than a friend. This is why, despite its difficulty, they ruled that bikkur cholim is an obligation that all must carry.

We also falsely believe that sickness is a private affair. We live in a highly personalized world where the individual and his or her rights and feelings are most prized. Judaism stands in opposition to this contemporary ethic. Judaism instead chooses the community. Caring for the sick is therefore shouldered by the community. You must never go it alone. To allow someone to be alone at this time of need would be a community’s great failure.

One of my favorite Hasidic stories is the following. Once the Gerer Rebbe decided to question one of his disciples. “How is Moshe Yaakov doing?” he asked. The disciple didn’t know. “What!” shouted the Rebbe, “You don’t know? You pray under the same roof, you study the same texts, you serve the same God, you sing the same songs—and yet you dare tell me that you don’t know whether Moshe Yaakov is in good health, whether he needs help, advice or comforting?”

There will come a day when each of us will face illness or the sickness of a spouse or the disease of a family member. No ritual, no pill, can offer complete protection. Our souls might be capable of achieving perfection. Our bodies can never be made perfect. And so knowing this we must promise each other these vows. We must never allow people to feel that they should stand outside the community, to feel that at their time of greatest need they are most isolated. We furthermore pledge to never allow a friend to keep their illness a private affair and shoulder it alone.

We are always stronger together. No one should ever be alone. Never alone! Always together!

The Thin Line

Below is a clip from last week's "The Daily Show" with Jon Stewart. I can't decide if I should laugh or hide my head in shame.

The Daily Show - The Thin Jew Line
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Shemini

I cannot stop thinking about Hadas Fogel.  Three month old Hadas was murdered along with two of her siblings, Yoav and Elad, and her parents, Udi and Ruth, in a brutal terrorist attack.  They were stabbed on Shabbat evening, March 11, while sleeping and relaxing in their home.  The other three children were not at home.  I don’t understand how someone can think that the murder of an infant is justified.  I cannot fathom how one can justify the murder of another human being. 

Recently our confirmation class visited the Holocaust Museum in Glen Cove.  One of the pictures there haunts my memories.  It is of a soldier from one of the Einsatzgruppen units shooting his rifle at a mother holding an infant child.  The Einsatzgruppen were roving killing units who traveled through German occupied territory murdering over one million Jews, during the early years of the Holocaust prior to the Nazi’s construction of death camps.  This picture haunts me for two reasons.  These soldiers were told that they would not be penalized if they chose not to participate in the killings.  But few, if any, decided not to carry out these gruesome murders.  The other reason is that the photograph could only have been taken by a fellow soldier.  It was taken by someone who was proud of these murders.  It was taken by someone who celebrated the murder of children.

It was reported that in Rafah, in Hamas controlled Gaza, people handed out candy in celebration of the murders of the Fogels.  Palestinian Authority Prime Minister by contrast was quick to condemn the murders.  Still the Western media said little about this terrorist act.  It was of course understandably preoccupied with the tragedy in Japan.  I grieve as well for the people of Japan, yet why so little mention. When newspapers and television news shows did comment about these murders, they often characterized the yet to be apprehended terrorist as an assailant and the victims as settlers. 

But Hadas, Yoav and Eldad, Udi and Ruth are human beings.  The woman and her infant held tight to her breast are human beings.  They are not caricatures.  The notion that they were threats is barbaric.  Stripping them of their humanity gives license to murder.  To have misgivings about Israel’s settlement policy, or even to oppose this policy, must never be used to dehumanize those who live in Itamar or Kedumim, Efrat or even Kiryat Arbah.  Nothing can ever forgive such brutal murders.  Only yesterday a suitcase bomb exploded outside of Jerusalem’s bus station, killing one and injuring 50.  Since Saturday rockets have again been fired from Gaza at Israeli towns. 

Two weeks ago the Palestinian Authority’s TV network broadcast a show celebrating the life of Ahlam Tamimi, the woman who drove the suicide terrorist to the Sbarro pizza restaurant in August 2001. 15 people were murdered in that attack, seven of them children.  Murder is murder.  And last week in Al-Bireh, a West Bank town near Ramallah, a square was named for Dalal Mughrabi who directed the March 11, 1978 hijacking of two Israeli buses in which 38 people were killed, including 13 children.

The intentional taking of another human being’s life must never be condoned.  Most importantly the climate that gives rise to such acts must never be fostered.  Israel’s army, as well as America’s, too often makes tragic mistakes.  Yet they never intentionally target innocent civilians, and when a soldier does so he is condemned and brought to justice.  This distinction is most important.  Every life is equally precious.  I ask again, how can the murder of another human being be legitimized or celebrated?  How can one believe that such acts further a political agenda?   In the end, untempered zealousness and demonic hate consume the believer as well as their many victims.

Today my heart grieves.  Today I hold many pictures in my heart.  They haunt my dreams for a more perfect world.  I still see the terror stricken eyes of a mother holding her baby for the last time.  I cling to the pictures of Japan’s coastline swept away by the ocean’s fury.  And I hold the picture of the smiling and laughing Fogel children now silenced.  I also grieve with Aaron who this week mourns his children, Nadav and Avihu.  According to the portion they were killed because they offered a strange fire.  The Torah reports: “And Aaron fell silent.” (Leviticus 10:3) 

But I refuse to remain silent in the face of such unwarranted death!  The confluence of this week’s portion, the Japanese earthquake and these recent murders teach us a lesson that we appear reticent to learn.   The greatest danger may be when people come to believe that they can bring about acts of God. 

Such fires are intended for God’s hands alone. In our hands they consume all.

The Einsatzgruppen photograph.

The Fogel children: Hadas, Elad and Yoav.

The Worry Begins

Egypt Vote Results Shows Islamists' Rising Sway - WSJ.com
The protest leaders opposed these recently approved amendments to Egypt's constitution, arguing instead that the entire constitution needed to be rewritten and that in particular presidential powers must be curtailed.  Instead religious leaders, in particular the Muslim Brotherhood, pushed for these small changes that established presidential term limits but also expanded the power of independent parties.  In the Journal's own words:

Electoral officials said 77% of Egyptians voted to accept a set of proposed amendments to Egypt's constitution that will, among other changes, limit the presidency to two four-year terms and ease restrictions on independent political participation, according to results announced Sunday.  The proposed changes were opposed by protest leaders and by presidential front-runners Mohammed El Baradei and Amr Moussa. Both men urged Egyptians to reject the amendments, written by lawyers and judges nominated by Egypt's military. Protest leaders and opposition politicians instead pushed for an entirely new constitution that would limit expansive presidential powers.  The results from Saturday's referendum signal a shift in Egypt's continuing revolution. The protest leaders, once celebrated as heroes and martyrs, are no longer the leading voice in Egypt's transition to democracy.  In their place are popular religious leaders, whose strong backing of the amendments held sway.

Were even the protest leaders taken in by democracy's allure only to have it soon trampled by Islamists?  I pray this is not the case.

An Egyptian political analyst, Nabil Abdel Fattah, said (as quoted in the Journal):

This is a nightmare for intellectual Egyptians.  All the youth accepted the results of the referendum as a form of democracy. But at the same time, they felt very deceived by the dangerous role the religious groups played against them. They felt that their revolution is being aborted and there is a huge, huge threat to the unity of the country from using religious campaigns.

Were we also taken in by the youth and their enthusiastic embrace of democracy?  Will democracy again lead to our enemies, and the protestors' enemies, seizing power?  Is it be possible to nurture democracy in lands where far too many see it only as a means to an end, a means to turn their countries into Islamist theocracies?  Please let this not be so.  Where is America's leadership?  Can we help to fashion an Arab democracy?

Dancing Rabbis

How could they ignore my dancing talents and not ask me to compete?

Would you be proud if your rabbi was dancing with the stars? Again, a happy Purim to all!

Tzav Sermon

Finally, back on schedule.  Here is this week's sermon.

In this week’s portion we learn that the altar fire had to be constantly maintained.  I imagine that this was an enormously difficult task for the priests.  The olah sacrifice in particular had to be burned up entirely on the altar.  That is why its root meaning comes from the word to go up.  That is a very powerful fire indeed.

Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook saw in this altar fire an analogy to the Jewish heart.  Just like this ancient fire had to be kept burning, so too must we keep the Jewish flame burning in our hearts.  But today there are no priests to tend to this fire.  With the destruction of the Temple and the resulting democratization of Judaism this task fell to each of us.  It is each of our responsibilities.  Each of us must nurture our own spiritual fire.  I can’t do this for you.  But just because I can’t do this for you, does not mean that you have to do this by yourself.

An analogy to sports.  My two favorite sports are swimming and biking.  I seem to be drawn to the pursuit of going faster and farther.  My new goal, by the way, is open water swims.  Many people mistakenly think that swimming and biking are solitary sports.  They are in the sense that you have to swim yourself and pedal for yourself.  But there is also a community of people who support each other.

When you are doing laps, you cheer each other on during breaks.  When you are biking the sense of community is even stronger.  I have met people on the trail when mountain biking.  You talk for a while and then ride together, and pull each other along.  When road biking you pull each other along even more.

On pro teams there are strategies that are all about the team succeeding and helping the lead rider win the race.  If there is a crosswind, someone rides to block the wind.  If a headwind another rides in front so the lead rider can follow him.  Another is charged with attacking the mountains to tire the opposing teams.  Even competitors help each other out.  A competitor might hold your bike so that you can take off your jacket (or even so that you can go to the bathroom while riding.)

This year’s Tour deFrance controversy was actually not so much about doping or Lance Armstrong’s poor showing, but that Cantador passed Schleck when his bike suffered mechanical problems.  This was breaking with biking etiquette and its strong notion of community.  You are not supposed to take advantage of another rider’s bike failure.

I have to say the most fun thing to do when road biking is drafting.  When you draft and ride within inches of another’s rear wheel, you use 30-40% less energy!  You still have to pedal yourself.  And this is exactly my point, and why I think I love biking and swimming.  You have to do the hard work yourself.  You can only succeed if you work hard yourself.  Others can help you and even support you, but they can’t do the job for you.

Most people seem to like team sports where each person has a specialty.  This one is a keeper, the other a striker.  This one is a shooting guard, another the power forward.  You can be on a winning team but not do any of the hard work.  This is how people start to think about life in general.  I believe that this is the wrong model, especially when thinking about our Jewish lives.  It suggests that Judaism or being Jewishly literate is a specialty.  It suggests that it is the same as it was in the Bible, in the days of the priest.

That is not how it is anymore.  There are no Jewish specialists.  All of us are supposed to be our own Jewish specialists.  We each have to tend to our own fires.  We each have to nurture our own Jewish souls.  Of course you should not start off by riding 100 miles (unless you are on my JCB biking email list).

So here is where you can start nurturing your Jewish souls.  Read a Jewish book.  Say a blessing.  Soon you will be able to thank God for the blooming of flowers.  Use the words of our tradition to thank God for spring.  Do a Jewish act.  Light candles.  Eat hamentashen (food is good for the soul too).  Encourage more people to join us for services—and attend more frequently.  Here we pray together, but separately.  We should note that no one can sing like our cantor, but she is still only the prayer leader.  She does not pray for you.  Our prayers join hers.

Give tzedakah.  Do gemilut hasadim.  Here are a few of those acts of lovingkindness.  Visit the sick.  Comfort the mourners.  Dance with bride and groom.  And promise me this.  Please don’t ever think that doing Jewish things is just about what we are doing here.  It is so much more than prayer.  It is much more than our synagogue.  Our Judaism has to be carried with us from here to every place we visit and touch.

Back to riding.  I can of course ride in front of you and you can even draft off me.  I won’t mind.  It does not make my pedaling any harder, only yours easier.  Besides I will enjoy the company.  Hopefully you will as well.  But you have to, you must, do the pedaling yourself.  You have to do the hard work yourself, each and every minute, of each and every hour, of each and every day.

The nurturing of our own Jewish souls is in our hands. And we have to tend to these fires with our own hands. So finally, Spring is here. Let’s ride!

Vayikra Sermon

This sermon was delivered on Friday, March 11th.

This week a man named Dennis visited our Religious School and spoke with our 7^th graders and their parents.  He was from the Interfaith Assembly on Homelessness and Housing.  Dennis’ story was very powerful.  He was homeless for 14 years.  I wanted our students to hear his story and thereby put a face on homelessness.  I did not want our congregants to speak of “the homeless” but of instead of people also created in God’s image, of human beings who live on the streets.  Now they can think of this remarkable man named Dennis who overcame his demons, in particular drug addiction and numerous arrests to rebuild his life.

One of his refrains was the following. He said over and over again “God is good.”   He spoke of his prayers to God.  Often he tried to make a deal with God.  “If you will get me out of jail then I will fix things.”  None of these prayers worked.  He would soon return to the streets and drugs.

In this week’s Torah portion we read of many sacrifices.  The chattat, sin offering, is the most intriguing.  When you make an inadvertent mistake you bring a female goat to the priest who sacrifices it on the altar. Your sin is then forgiven.  Apparently that was it.  I wonder about the relationship between prayer and correcting our failings.  How can a sacrifice to God bring about change?

But the focus of the sacrificial cult was on God’s forgiveness.  Recently one of my bar mitzvah students suggested that the sacrifice was like buying flowers for his mom when he made a mistake.  It made her more receptive to forgiving him.  I think his insight might be right on.  The sacrifice was more worried about God and God’s forgiveness, than about the person bringing the offering.  The inevitable problem then is that the sacrifice, and today the prayer, can become an end, and not means.  I say my prayer and then I am finished.  I don’t have to change.  I don’t have to fix my mistakes.

Dennis shared with us another insight about prayer.  He said that he did not fix his life and pull himself out of drug addiction and homelessness until he stopped with the deals and only prayed for strength.  He asked God only for the strength to correct his wrongs.  And that is when his life started to turn around, when he stopped asking God to do everything, when he only asked for support and started doing the tough and trying work himself.

Soon we will be reading the Purim story.  Although Esther fasts and prays before beseeching the king in behalf of the Jewish people, God is nowhere mentioned in this biblical book.  Esther only prays in order to summon the courage and resolve to approach the king.  That is part of our lesson for today.

Too often people think that prayer is all that is required.  Granted prayer can bond you to our community and to God.  But prayer can never be the substitute for doing the hard work.  It can never replace correcting our own failings.  A prayer, a sacrifice, serves as a beginning, a start.  It helps us look inward and examine ourselves. 

The true meaning of sacrifice is not so much about the animal—or even God’s forgiveness.  Instead it is about the internal change that is required to make things right.  The hard work can only be in our own hands.

Pekudei Sermon

I always try to post my sermons soon after delivering them.  Here is the sermon from Parshat Pekudei, given on March 4th.  Better late than never.  I hope you agree.

The Torah portion concludes the Tabernacle construction project with the following words:  “When Moses had finished the work, the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the Presence of the Lord filled the Tabernacle….  When the cloud lifted from the Tabernacle, the Israelites would set out, on their various journeys; but if the cloud did not lift, they would not set out until such time as it did lift.  For over the Tabernacle a cloud of the Lord rested by day, and fire would appear in it by night, in the view of all the house of Israel throughout their journeys.”  (Exodus 40:33-38)

The Tabernacle was the vehicle by which God led the people on their journeys.  In fact the Hebrew word for Tabernacle, mishkan, is related to the Hebrew “to dwell” which is connected to the name for God, Shechinah.  This name is the name that we use when we want to suggest God’s presence is felt.  And all of this is tied to the building of the mishkan, Tabernacle.

The Torah also suggests additional meaning by its choice of words for Moses finishing the work. The Hebrew, vay’khal, means to complete or even to perfect.  By this word choice it draws our attention to the creation account when God finished that first work project: “..the heaven and the earth were finished.”  There is of course meaning to be found in this comparison.  When we build and create, as Moses and the people did with the mishkan, we imitate God and God’s creation.

The rabbis took this connection even further, arguing an even more radical idea.  They taught that creation is in fact incomplete.  That of course is obvious, but they taught that God made it purposely so.  Part of our creative efforts must be to complete and perfect creation, to bring a measure of holiness into our lives and a measure of goodness to the world.

We perfect by creating.  Making or dreaming up something new is the greatest of human achievements.  Albert Einstein said, “If at first, the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.”  He also said, “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created these problems.”

And so the synagogue is the place through which God becomes manifest in the world.  The purpose of the synagogue is that it is a means to an end.  Its purpose is to bring holiness to our lives and goodness to the world.  Long ago the rabbis created the idea of the synagogue out of the destruction of the Temple.  They gave us this place in order to help us complete and perfect creation.

It is a place to gather, learn and pray.  It is a place to heal, comfort and uplift our lives.  Today we must recreate this very same place.  For years we operated on the assumption that everyone feels obligated to the synagogue, that people still feel commanded to affirm their Jewish identity, that people still feel a kinship with all Jews and the State of Israel. 

These obligations can no longer be assumed.  Let’s be honest.  Far more of our congregants are probably at Lifetime Fitness than here.  We must reignite these fires of commitment.  We must bring people back to the one place where they have been able to affirm their identity throughout the generations.  It will not be done by preaching or berating.  It can only be done by walking arm in arm to the synagogue.

In ancient times the alter fires had to be kept burning 24 hours a day.  That requires a lot of work and effort.   A fire that is not fed and stoked soon becomes smoldering embers.  We must realize that we have failed to nurture this fire.

Commitment and obligation must be continually nurtured.  Only that is what will recreate the synagogue.  In truth there are no new creations.  It is all recreating.  That is why whenever we finish a book of the Torah as we do on this Shabbat we say, chazak, chazakh v’nitchazeik—strength, and more strength, let us be strengthened.

We have a lot of recreating to do. Let’s get started.

Tzav

Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, the first chief rabbi of pre-State Palestine, wrote: “One is forbidden to extinguish the thirst for God which burns in every heart.  We are told that a person who extinguishes an ember on the altar has violated the prohibition of ‘it will never be put out.’ (Babylonian Talmud, Zevahim 91)  This is all the more true for one who extinguishes an ember of the spiritual fire in the spiritual altar—the Jewish heart.”

In this week’s Torah portion, Tzav, we read that the fire that must be kept burning on the sacrificial altar. “The fire will burn forever upon the altar; it will never be put out.” (Leviticus 6:6)

Have you ever tended to a campfire or even a fire in your fireplace?  They require continuous care.  Wood must often be added to fuel the fire.  Logs must frequently be rearranged in order to keep the coals glowing.  Fall asleep beside the fire for an hour and you might wake up next to smoldering embers.  Fall asleep for several hours and you will awaken to see only white ash.

Imagine therefore the care the sacrificial fire required.  There must have been several priests whose job it was to tend to this fire.  They must have worked in shifts around the clock.  There must have been others as well who had to collect the wood.  To keep a fire going every minute of every hour of every day that was hot enough to turn the sacrificial animals completely into smoke was no easy task and required enormous effort.  Yet in ancient times this was the priests’ chosen task.  This was their holy duty.  And so I also imagine that they did even this menial and demanding labor with love and devotion.  They believed that the world depended on the sacrifices and altar fires they tended.

Today there are no priests to care for our spiritual fires.  This job falls on each of us.  Still the command is the same.  “It will never be put out.”  Tending these fires cannot be left to rabbis or cantors, Hebrew School teachers, or b’nai mitzvah tutors.  Our spiritual fires are in our own hands.  We must tend to them.  We must care for them.  We must nurture them each and every minute, each and every hour, each and every day.

What Rabbi Kook said generations ago holds true today.  Each of our Jewish hearts is in our own hands.  The fire must forever burn upon the altar, on the spiritual altar that is the Jewish heart.

We may not be able to solve all the world’s problems at Shabbat Services when we sing Lecha Dodi, but gathered together we might re-ignite our spiritual fires.  And with those fires burning we may gain strength to go forth and heal our world.  And the world does depend on keeping these fires burning for the world does need our healing strength!

Purim

Purim is celebrated this week.  Here is its story.

Once upon a time in a land called Shushan there lived a king called Ahasuerus and his queen Vashti.  On one of the nights of one of his seven day long parties, the king and his friends were drinking and partying way too much (the Book of Esther actually states: “Royal wine was served in abundance…and the rule for drinking was, ‘No restrictions.’”). 

The king, encouraged by his buddies, thought it would be great if Vashti was paraded before his friends wearing only her crown.   Even though Vashti was also drinking, she wisely said, “No way.  That is not only beneath a queen, it is beneath any woman.”  So our drunken king asked his advisors what to do.  They said, “Get rid of her.”  And so the king kicked his queen out of the palace.

Some time later, after waking up from his drunken stupor the king cried, “Now I have no queen.”  So again he asked his advisors what to do.  They urged him to hold a beauty pageant (upon hearing this, J.Lo immediately started crying).  Meanwhile a beautiful young Jewish woman named Esther, adopted and raised by her uncle, Mordecai, decided to enter the contest. 

Esther spent hours preparing herself for the pageant, having her hair and makeup done.  She put on her most beautiful dress and most expensive sandals.  She walked slowly before the king, making sure their eyes met as she was paraded before him.   (The irony is the Bible’s not mine.)  Lo and behold, Esther won the contest and became queen.  Her uncle advised her to conceal her Jewish identity and so she did. 

This secret remained hidden until her Jewish people were threatened by the genocidal designs of Haman.  At that point our heroine fasted and prayed beseeching her king to spare her life and the lives of her people.  The king was very taken with Esther and so he said, “What is your request?  Even to half the kingdom, it shall be fulfilled.”  She said, “I only wish to live.  I only want that my people shall live.”  “Who means to do you and your family such harm?” the king asked.  “It is Haman!” Esther exclaimed.

Upon hearing this, the king ran out of the room in a fit of rage.  Esther remained, reclining on her royal couch.  Haman was so stricken with terror that he fell on Esther, crying and begging for his life.  At that moment, the king returned to the room and said, “Does he mean to ravish the queen in my own palace?”  The palace guards seized Haman and impaled him on the stake.  Finally the king acted without asking his advisors for counsel.

Ahasuerus wrapped his arms around Esther, professing his undying love for her and saying, “My Queen, my Queen, I love you just the way you are.  It does not matter to me if you have blond hair or grey, if you are Jewish or Persian—or even both.  Let us dance together!”  (Ok, I added that last part.  But rest assured, the remainder is by the Book.  I did add a few tidbits of commentary here and there, but the storyline with all its drunken escapades, sexual allusions and even impaling are in our Bible.)

Still the question for this Purim is about hiding our Jewish identity.  Esther conceals what I believe to be most important, her Jewish identity.  Is that ever wise?   Granted it is nearly always impossible for me.  I can’t say, “Hi, I am Rabbi Moskowitz.  I am not Jewish.” And so I am left wondering about the hinge upon which our story turns. 

Without the benefit of hindsight and history would we be so approving of Esther’s decision to conceal her Jewish identity?  When it is a matter of life and death, hiding one’s identity is clearly justified, but in what other circumstances might it be advisable or even commendable?  Have you ever felt uncomfortable sharing your Jewish identity?  I wonder in what situations hiding one’s Jewish identity is wise.

Chag Purim Samayach!