Nitzavim-Vayelekh Sermon

We are nearing the completion of the Torah.  We read the words also read on Yom Kippur morning in Reform shuls.  “I make this covenant, with its sanctions, not with you alone, but both with those who are standing here with us this day before the Lord our God and with those who are not with us here this day.” (Deuteronomy 29)

This passage is a remarkable statement that Torah is given in every generation.  Torah must be forever renewed.  It was not given only back then.  It is given in each and every day, in each and every generation.  That is what we also celebrate when we mark Simhat Torah.  We renew our commitment to Torah as we begin the reading schedule again.

Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev was asked: Why does every tractate of Talmud begin on the second page?  (The first page is not alef, but instead bet.”  He answered: “However much we learn, we should always remember that we have not even reached the first page.”  The greatest lesson of Torah is that it is never complete.  We are always starting again.

Very soon we will also of course celebrate Rosh Hashanah. This period marks the time of introspection and repentance.  This idea is connected to a verse in this week’s Torah portion. “Hidden acts concern the Lord our God; but revealed acts, it is for us and our children ever to apply all the words of this Torah.” (Deuteronomy 29)

We spend a good deal of time arguing about people’s intentions.  She didn’t mean it…                    He is only being nice because…  Torah reminds us that when it comes to intentions only God can know them.  We instead must focus on actions and deeds.  We can only judge people by what they do or don’t do.  Judaism does not  for example believe that the act of tzedakah is tainted if someone gives for the wrong reason.  Even if a gift is given to gain honor, or to get an end of year tax deduction, the gift is not negated.  It still helps someone, or an institution, in need.  We can only judge the act of tzedakah not the intention with which it is given.

We can only judge ourselves even by what we do or don’t do.  The High Holidays are thus about working to do better.  We can’t just resolve to do better or promise to correct our mistakes.  We have to make the effort to change.

Repentance in Hebrew is teshuvah.  It is about turning.  It is not a matter of the heart, it is a matter of the hands.  Let us use these weeks wisely to turn and better our lives.  To better ourselves.  To correct our failings.  And to repair our relationships.

Ki Tavo Sermon

I have some questions about memorials as vehicles of remembrance.  The root of the word for memorial of course derives from memory.  How effective are these memorials in facilitating our remembering?

We live in a culture cluttered with memorials.  There are roadside memorials.  There are cemeteries.  There are the Gettysburg and Vietnam War memorials.  There is now the 9-11 memorial.

A student shared these feelings about her recent visit to this new memorial.  “The waterfalls are awe-inspiring.  This is kind of odd, especially juxtaposed against the tragedy that occurred there and also when you remember that you're in the middle of such a bustling part of the city.  I found there a sense of peace that is soul-quenching.”  

In Jewish life there are countless memorials to the Holocaust.  In Israel there are memorials to the many battles.  These are scattered throughout the city of Jerusalem.  And there are now a number of memorials to terrorist victims.  I hurry by a number of these as I walk through Jerusalem’s streets.  I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but we are all these memorials helpful?

Our collective response to tragedy and death is to build something.  We build with such frenetic impulse that we appear to fear forgetting.  In ancient times a gravestone was a pile of stones.  And this is the origin of the custom to leave stones on a grave when visiting.

Given this human impulse you would think that the Torah would command that we build a memorial to what Amalek did to the Israelites.  The Amalekites of course attacked the Israelites from the rear, and killed the weakest.  Therefore the Torah is unflinching in its command to wipe out the Amalekites and their memory.  But what of the memory of those who were murdered?

That is not what the Torah tells us to build.  Instead the command is to inscribe all the words of the Torah on a stone.  “As soon as you have crossed the Jordan into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall set up large stones.  Coat them with plaster and inscribe upon them all the words of this Torah.” (Deuteronomy 27:2-3) 

You could argue that all the words include the tragic stories, and certainly the command to remember Amalek and the details of what they did.

I don’t think this is the meaning.  The monument that we are to first build is to the Torah.  We are to inscribe all the teachings—the entire Torah.  God insists that once we cross the Jordan we are not to look back at tragedy.  We are only to look ahead.  We are only to look forward to the laws and obligations of Torah.

It would be as if instead of the 9-11 memorial we there inscribed the words of the Constitution and Bill of Rights.  “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

That of course is what our enemies sought to destroy.  I wish for us to always remember these words of Torah, these sacred words.  I wish instead of beautiful and soothing, and even necessary, memorials we inscribed the words that we will forever be most important to us and our country.  It is those words that we must never forget.  Giving life to these words and our Torah will forever be the greatest and most lasting memorials to those who were murdered.  It will the building that will continue to stand throughout the generations.

Ki Tavo

I have been thinking about memorials. On Sunday we watched as the new 9-11 memorial was dedicated. I of course have not yet visited but I imagine it is a powerful testament to that terrible day. The structure appears appropriate and meaningful. New buildings were not constructed in place of the towers but instead these memorial fountains, etched with the names of those murdered. To build anything else in place of these ruins would be to suggest that we wish to erase memory.

Memorials offer us places to mourn and remember. As the people who experienced the tragedy grow older memorials become instead places to educate future generations. I have visited many memorials. It occurs to me that not one of them commemorates a natural disaster. All are built to memorialize the evils that human beings do to one another. I think in particular of the vast expanse of Gettysburg, the site of the largest battle in the Civil War, where nearly 8,000 were killed in that battle’s three days. The Vietnam War memorial, by contrast, is an endless wall of names rather than Gettysburg’s endless fields of grass and gravestones.

Often when walking through the streets of Jerusalem I stumble upon a simple stone etched with the names of those killed at the spot at which I find myself. At one I find the names of soldiers killed in the Six Day War’s battle for Jerusalem. At another I discover the names of victims murdered by terrorists at a bus stop. And at yet another spot I read the names of those murdered at Café Hillel on Jerusalem’s trendy Emek Refaim street. These stones are part of modern Jerusalem’s landscape. Most of the time I hurry by. I rarely notice the piles of stones, notes and even flowers that friends and loved ones leave. I have noticed that the more recent the event the greater these piles. As the years go by the stones, notes and flowers appear to diminish.

In some ways the Western Wall is also a memorial. It represents the surviving remnant of the destruction of Jerusalem and the murder of thousands upon thousands of its inhabitants. The scale of that destruction 2,000 years ago was a holocaust for its generation, and according to historical records even surpassing the tragedy of 9-11. We of course no longer view it as such. We recognize the stones as the remnant of our ancient Temple. And so there we come to remember the Temple and its glory. We come to connect to our people and our history. Do we also resolve never to forget the evils human beings commit against one another?

In this week’s Torah portion, Ki Tavo, Moses commands the people to build a memorial, but not to the evils that Amalek committed against the Israelites. Instead Moses charges the people with this command: “As soon as you have crossed the Jordan into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall set up large stones. Coat them with plaster and inscribe upon them all the words of this Torah.” (Deuteronomy 27:2-3) The first thing that the people must do upon entering the land is to write the words of the Torah for all to see. It is the words of Torah that serve as testimony. We are also commanded never to forget Amalek and the atrocities his people did as we journeyed through the wilderness. But it is not those evils in particular that are inscribed in stone. It is instead the words of Torah in their entirety.

Abraham Lincoln said at Gettysburg. “…In a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground… It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

This too is the Torah that we must inscribe on each and every stone that we erect as memorials.

September 11 Sermon

I have many feelings and thoughts as we mark this tenth anniversary of 9-11.  They are mostly feelings of pain and loss.  I continue to believe that things will never be the same.  I also carry with me the searing memory of driving my children home from school after having to pick them up early.  As I drove on the LIE I kept looking in the rear view mirror at their faces.  I continue to hear their questions, “Abba, what happened?  I don’t understand.  Someone drove a plane into a building?”  I hear as well my inadequate answers.  Ten years later here are my still, partial answers.

I wish to address three points.  1. About our enemies.  2. The proper response to our enemies.  And 3. Our lingering, incomplete feelings.

1. Let’s say this clearly.  We indeed have enemies.  This truth seems to evade us.  We still appear unwilling to speak these words.  There are people who are bent on our destruction.  And they are Islamic fundamentalists.

We are so afraid of offending or being labeled politically incorrect that we shy away from this awful truth.  I have no quarrel with Islam.  We should have no quarrel with Islam.  We should however have quarrel with the far too many Muslims who stand silent before what their co-religionists do in their name, and the countless Muslims who celebrate these murders committed in their tradition’s name.

We are as well unable to say loudly how many of our so-called allies support these enemies of ours.  Our continued dependence on Mideast oil defames the memory of 9-11.  Say what you will about the science of global warming, although I find the evidence inescapable, but it should be a matter of national security that we wean ourselves of oil.

2. In the course of these past ten years we have also lost our way in fighting our enemies.  We have resorted to torture.  We have shipped suspects to Libya and Syria so that they might be tortured outside of the protections of our democracy.  We have contorted our most cherished laws in the name of security.  We cannot, we must not ever lose our way again.  Terror and fear are insidious.  But they need not make us into cowards who forget what makes us really great.  It is not shopping!  It is democracy.

Terror and fear worm their way into our hearts and souls.  They distort our vision.  We must always see clearly what this country means.  We must always proudly declare the values our country stands for.  Moreover we should celebrate exactly what our enemies most hate because it is these very values that have made this nation great.

We live in a country that revels in difference, that is moreover strengthened by difference.  We are an overwhelmingly religious people, but never a people where one religion must be chosen over another.  The fact that our congregation meets and prays in a church, as frustrating as it might continue to be at times, is cause for celebration on this day.

Our enemies want a world that is only like them, that is absent of Jews and Christians and homosexuals, a world where women are veiled and science is labeled as blasphemy.  I want none of that.  I want a world where science and religion can learn from each other, where differences are celebrated and cause for new learning.  Ten years later my resolve is only stronger.  I pray, let my resolve never grow weaker.  Let terror and fear never find their way into my soul.

And finally 3. For this point let us return to the Torah portion.  I am thinking again about the bird’s nest.  We are commanded to shoo the mother bird away before taking the young.  We cannot have everything.  Even that which is permitted must be regulated.  Our freedoms are always framed by compassion.  That is the plain meaning of the Torah’s command.

But I am thinking as well about the bird’s nest as a metaphor.  Hatchlings are of course blind.  They are hidden and shielded from the dangers of the world by their parents.  It seems obvious but let’s be clear.  Staying in their nest these young birds will never learn to fly.  When they fly they may very well succumb to other, greater dangers.

We have learned from 9-11 that staying in the nest does not shield us from all harm.  Many died, many were murdered, for the simple act of going to work or walking down the street, or going on vacation, or getting a cup of coffee.

Leon Wieseltier writes: “… Shopping is not the highest expression of the will to live. We are fighting wars abroad that show almost no traces at home, except among the limited segment of the population whose children are fighting them, and we have been differently encouraged in this disconnection by George W. Bush and Barack Obama. When the financial cataclysm occurred, and the hardship in America became unconscionably widespread, we redirected our gaze almost entirely upon ourselves. First materialism, and then a crisis of materialism, turned us inward. After we were attacked, we were wearied. I worry that the insularity of America, which is its natural condition, and also its lasting temptation, is gathering a renewed prestige among Americans. Our insularity is a kind of safety and a kind of blindness. The attacks of September 11 punctured that safety and that blindness: we gained—at what cost!—a broader sense of historical possibility and a broader sense of historical agency. But we are listing. We want the safety back, of course, but I fear that we want the blindness back, too.” (The New Republic, September 15, 2011)

So we can choose to be blind like the hatchlings in this bird’s nest.  Or we can choose to fly.  9-11 should have taught us that blindness is no safer than flying.  Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote about the insecurity of freedom in his book of the same name.  He taught that there is an inherent insecurity in the blessing of freedom.  The more freedom, the more insecurity.  The more freedoms, the greater responsibilities.

I continue to believe that the greatest danger of terrorism is not external but internal.  We can let it seep into our hearts or we can shut it out and continue flying.   Insularity will not protect us.  It serves no noble purpose.  And those purposes are all I am really interested in.

The message of this week’s Torah portion is even more true on this tenth anniversary of 9-11.  The concern of our tradition is improving our world.  We begin with the small and seemingly insignificant.  We begin with a bird’s nest.  And from there reach out to the world at large.

No nest is forever safe.  And so my only choice is to reach out to the world, and to struggle to better and improve the world.  My life is made better, and yes more assured and even more secure, by my reaching to the world.  And that is the only response we should focus on.

More on September 11

On Thursday, Leon Wieseltier, Literary Editor of The New Republic, said the following at a 9-11 commemoration at Washington DC's Kennedy Center.

Though we encounter it as suffering, grief is in fact an affirmation. The indifferent do not grieve, the uncommitted do not grieve, the loveless do not grieve. We mourn only the loss of what we have loved and what we have valued, and in this way mourning darkly refreshes our knowledge of the causes of our loves and the reasons for our values. Our sorrow restores us to the splendors of our connectedness to people and to principles. It is the yes of a broken heart. In our bereavement we discover how much was ruptured by death, and also how much was not ruptured. These tears lead directly to introspection.

Here is what we affirmed by our mourning on September 11, 2001, and by the introspection of its aftermath:

that we wish to be known, to ourselves and to the world, by the liberty that we offer, axiomatically, as a matter of right, to the individuals and the groups with whom we live;

that the ordinary lives of ordinary people on an ordinary day of work and play can truthfully exemplify that liberty, and fully represent what we stand for;

that we will defend ourselves, resolutely and even ferociously, because self-defense is also an ethical responsibility, and that our debates about the proper use of our power in our own defense should not be construed as an infirmity in our will;

that the multiplicity of cultures and traditions that we contain peaceably in our society is one of our highest accomplishments, because we are not afraid of difference, and because we do not confuse openness with emptiness, or unity with conformity;

that a country as vast and as various as ours may still be experienced as a community;

that none of our worldviews, with God or without God, should ever become the worldview of the state, and that no sanctity ever attaches to violence;

that the materialism and the self-absorption of the way we live has not extinguished our awareness of a larger purpose, even if sometimes they have obscured it;

that we believe in progress, at home and abroad, in social progress, in moral progress, even when it is fitful and contested and difficult;

that just as we have enemies in the world we have friends, and that our friends are the individuals and the movements and the societies that aspire, often in circumstances of great adversity, to democracy and to decency.

It has been a wounding decade. Our country is frayed, uncertain, inflamed. There is hardship and dread in the land. In significant ways we are a people in need of renovation. But what rouses the mourner from his sorrow is his sense of possibility, his confidence in the intactness of the spirit, his recognition that there is work to be done. What we loved and what we valued has survived the disaster, but it needs to be secured and bettered, and in that secure and better condition transmitted to our children. Our dream of greatness must be accompanied by an understanding of what is required for the maintenance of greatness. The obscenities of September 11, 2001 exposed the difference between builders and destroyers. We are builders. Let us agree, on this anniversary, that it is an honor to be an American and it is an honor to be free.

Little else needs to be said.

Shoftim Sermon

This week’s Torah portion is about appointing judges and establishing courts.  It contains the famous verse: “Justice, justice you shall pursue…”  I have been thinking about how we approach the pursuit of justice.

We are commanded by our tradition to pursue justice and to pursue peace.  We often confuse these two values.  We apply justice when we should apply peace.

Societies of course are to be built on justice.  Families by contrast are built on peace.  Yet we speak about injustice when it comes to family members.  You wouldn’t believe what uncle so and so did.  How many families sever ties over such perceived injustices?

When it comes to families however we should be talking about peace and not justice.  Both notions have to be pursued.  It is an interesting word choice.  To pursue is to run after.  You can’t wait for justice or peace to come to you. 

There is a related value to justice.  In order to pursue justice you must run after truth.  Societies must be built on truth.  Forgive my venture into politics, but our politicians seem unable to speak truths anymore.  Both Democrats and Republicans refuse to speak honestly and forthrightly about the problems we face.  They do not speak truths.  Our problems are not going to fix themselves.  There are the problems of global warming, joblessness, and poverty to name a few.  Yet we appear unable to speak honestly about the problems facing our country.

But when it comes to family and friends there are no shortages of truth.  You can hear all of the sordid details of what this family member did to that or this friend did to another.  Whereas societies must be built on truth and justice families must be built on forgiveness and peace.  You can’t have peace without a lot of forgiveness

I wish we could get it right.  Families could certainly use more forgiveness and even forgetfulness.   Our society requires more truth and even righteous indignation.  We need justice for our country not for our families.  We need to speak loudly about the problems facing our country and turn a blind eye to the mistakes we see in our families.

It is not easy to bring justice or peace. That is why our tradition says we must pursue these values. So let’s get out there and try to fix things in our broken country. And let’s get out there and heal things in our far too judgmental families.

Is it mere coincidence that Friday's sermon touched on the same theme as Tom Friedman's New York Times column?  Yes.  Then again perhaps it is indeed because we need more truth-telling!

September 11

It was a beautiful August morning.  The temperature was a comfortable 70 degrees.  I was riding along Asharoken Avenue towards Eatons Neck.  My legs felt strong and I was setting a fast pace, despite the gusting head wind.  The dune grass blew in the breeze.  The waves on the Sound lapped at the expanse of sand.  I was riding on my favorite flat, a road that extends for miles along the shoreline.  I looked up and saw a blue sky, absent of clouds.  It was a perfect morning.  I could focus on my riding.  I could contemplate the beauty of this moment.

It was almost as if it was an early fall morning.  The blue sky was nearly as deep and blue as that of a September day.  And then it happened.  The perfect blue sky reminded me not of the grandeur of God’s creation but instead of a morning nearly ten years earlier, the morning of September 11.  The perfect moment was stolen.  Memories of that terror stricken day filled my thoughts.  I was taken back to another day, one that began with blue skies and the grandeur of God’s tapestry, but ended in darkness and clouds of smoke and ash.

Ten years ago, on what began as a perfect fall morning, I was driving to my office.  I looked to the sky and thought to myself, what an extraordinary day.  There were no clouds, only the deep blue sky of an early fall day.  I silently offered praise to God for this beautiful creation.  And then I turned on the radio to hear reports of the first plane striking the North Tower.  Soon I would be driving East on the LIE after collecting my children from school, looking at the empty West bound lanes, save the occasional emergency vehicle careening towards the city, as signs flashed “New York City Closed.”

I lost no family member or friend on that day, not even a member of the synagogue I still proudly serve; yet I remain wounded.  Ten years later time moves forward.  Eight year olds become eighteen year olds heading to their first semester in college.  And time moves backward.  Even the sky stands as a silent reminder of that day.  Ten years later moments are too often stolen.  Terror still finds its way into my soul.  A perfect blue sky and a favorite morning bike ride turns into the drive back to our house ten years earlier and my feeble attempts to explain to my then eight year old and five year old what happened to our city.  As I drove my children home I knew that the world they were born into had been forever changed.  Ten years later I still did not know how.

Every sky would be tinged with that day, every moment would be tempered.  Judaism counsels that even at the happiest of occasions, a wedding, we break a glass before adjourning for hours of dancing and celebration.  It is taught that we do this in remembrance of the ancient tragedy of the Temple’s destruction.  In the midst of great happiness we pause, if only briefly, to remember the tragedy that changed our people forever.  With that cataclysmic act we were transformed from a people whose lives revolved around one Temple to a people spread out and oriented towards many temples.  Thousands of years later we know what that destruction fashioned.  It helped to create a people devoted to prayer rather than sacrifices, Torah study rather than pilgrimages, ordinary acts of lovingkindness rather than priestly rites.  Thousands of years later the memory of that searing day is distant, but its import is clear.

Ten years later the memory of September 11 is clear, but its meaning is still unimaginable.  Ten years later we do not know yet if we should, or even can, break a glass.  We have not yet figured out what this day might mean.  But we have come to understand the following.  The best of moments are still unexpectedly stolen and transformed into moments of sadness and pain.  Ten years later even blue skies can become darkened by memories.

Nonetheless on my return, still riding on Asharoken Avenue, the wind was now at my back and the joy of riding into the future found its way back into my heart. 

Shoftim

We live in a world where people often scream about injustice, but rarely take action to correct such failings.  The injustices we most often speak about are those that involve people closest to us.  We complain about this friend or that.  We criticize this family member or another.  Rarely do we seek to make amends and make peace.

This week’s Torah portion focuses on justice.  In addition to legislating how judges should be appointed, it contains the famous verse: “Justice, justice you shall pursue, that you may thrive and occupy the land that the Lord your God is giving you.” (Deuteronomy 16:20)

We hear this call for justice, but we misapply its message to friends and family.  Instead we need to spend more time pursuing justice for our society.  Our country faces many problems.  There is a growing inequity between rich and poor.  On our very own Long Island there are far too many homeless and hungry.  The Interfaith Nutrition Network, for example, serves over 300,000 meals per year.  There are as well far too many without adequate jobs.  We must create more employment opportunities.  We need to work to repair the many problems in our broken society. 

This is the Torah’s demand.  We must pursue justice for the sake of our country.  But rather than working to fix these problems we level the charge of injustice against family members and friends.  With regard to those closest to us we are instead commanded to pursue peace.  According to our tradition Aaron best exemplifies peace making.  Why? The Israelites clamored to build a Golden Calf when their leader Moses was busy on the mountaintop communing with God.  Aaron was left in charge.  He did not as one might expect talk them out of their unholy task.  Instead he appears to have helped them.  Aaron facilitated the building of the calf.  The Torah’s judgment of his actions is harsh. 

The rabbis, however, see in Aaron a model of peace making.  Their suggestion is extraordinary.  Even when family members are straying, or in this case building idols, we are to be like the disciples of Aaron, and make peace.  Thus when it comes to family shalom, peace, is the greatest virtue. When it comes to the larger society the greatest value is tzedek, justice.  We often confuse which value is to lead the way.

Pursue justice for the society.  Pursue peace for family and friends.  As the High Holidays approach I pledge to seek justice for our society, and make peace among my friends and family.

Elul

Today (August 30th) begins the Hebrew month of Elul.  According to Jewish tradition this day begins a forty day period of introspection and repentance that concludes with the beautiful Yom Kippur Neilah service.

We belong to a remarkable tradition. We believe that human beings are capable of change.  We believe that we have the capacity to mend our ways.  No one is perfect.  All have erred.  Let us take these precious days to mend our failures.  This is the grand purpose of the upcoming High Holidays.  Rosh Hashanah begins the evening of September 28^th.

A Hasidic story.  Reb Chaim Halberstam of Zanz once helped his disciples prepare for Elul and its goals of teshuvah (repentance) and tikkun (repair) by sharing the following story.

Once a woman became lost in a dense forest.  She wandered this way and that in the hope of stumbling on a way out, but she only got more lost as the hours went by.  Then she chanced upon another person walking in the woods.  Hoping that he might know the way out, she said, “Can you tell me which path leads out of this forest?”

“I am sorry, but I cannot,” the man said.  “I am quite lost myself.”

“You have wandered in one part of the woods,” the woman said, “while I have been lost in another.  Together we may not know the way out, but we know quite a few paths that lead nowhere.  Let us share what we know of the paths that fail, and then together we may find the one that succeeds.”

“What is true for these lost wanderers,” Reb Chaim said, “is true of us as well.  We may not know the way out, but let us share with each other the way that have only led us back in.”  (Rabbi Rami Shapiro, Hasidic Tales)

Together we are always stronger.  Together we can find ourselves out of any difficulty and surmount any stumbling blocks.

Reeh

Parents tell their teenagers, “You can’t be buried in a Jewish cemetery if you get a tattoo.”  This often repeated tale is meant to dissuade young adults from following the example of their peers and engraving a tattoo on their bodies.  To be honest, the tale is not true.

Tattooing is of course contrary to Jewish tradition, but it would not by itself constitute a reason for the denial of burial rites.  Perhaps people suggest it would do so because it is a visible sign, even following death, that the person was not observant of Jewish law.  But some people observe many Jewish traditions.  Others observe few.  The denial of burial for any person would show a supreme lack of compassion in the face of tragedy.

Interestingly the biblical verses prohibiting tattooing connect tattooing to mourning rituals.  Our Torah portion states: “You are the children of the Lord your God.  You shall not gash yourselves or shave the front of your heads because of the dead.  For you are a people consecrated to the Lord your God; the Lord your God chose you from among all other peoples on earth to be His treasured people.” (Deuteronomy 14:1-2)

Apparently in ancient times tattooing was associated with mourning.  According to biblical scholars removing of hair and gashing the flesh until blood runs were common mourning rituals.  People believed that these acts had an effect on the ghost of the deceased.  Or perhaps these acts were performed as self-punishment to assuage feelings of guilt.  Judaism however counsels that we tear our garment rather than our flesh.  In addition Jewish custom advises men to refrain from shaving when mourning.  We are commanded to do the opposite of what our neighbors do.

I understand that tattooing for the dead is a powerful emotional response to grief.  People inscribe a name or a symbol on their body as a sign of mourning.  It is especially common among soldiers.  It is an understandable impulse.  Mourners promise themselves that they will never forget, that they must never forget.  Inscribing the memory on their bodies fulfills this impulse.  It as if to say, “Now I will always remember.”  Judaism insists however that memories must be built on stories and words.

Again and again the Torah seeks to distinguish its traditions from those of Israel’s neighbors.  Tattooing was viewed as something connected with idolatry.  Moreover the Jewish tradition believes that the human body is created in God’s image.  We are to care for the body because it is a reflection of the divine.  We therefore do not defame the body in any way.  The Talmud rules that we are therefore forbidden to inscribe a permanent tattoo on the body, although there is some debate as to whether or not the prohibition only applies to a tattoo with God’s name.

I often think that in addition to the tradition’s reasons we should give weight to modern Jewish history.  During the Holocaust Jews were of course forcibly tattooed with numbers.  We should therefore not choose to do this to ourselves.  This is what our enemies did to us.  Let us not do the same.

Parents can of course resort to tales of denying burial rites in order to convince children to obey this prohibition, but I prefer making arguments based on modern Jewish history and the Jewish value that the human body is a reflection of the divine.  Of course teenagers being teenagers they may very well not listen to such logic.  Their desire is to be like their peers.  The Torah wants us to be unlike our neighbors. 

Of course in the end the primary job of parents is to love their children.

Ekev

According to rabbinic legend a fetus knows the entire Torah when in the womb.  When the fetus is born, however, an angel kisses the baby on the lip, producing the recognized indentation, and the child forgets everything.  Now this child must spend a lifetime learning Torah.  It is a curious legend.  The rabbis imagined that we begin life knowing everything but then forget.

Years ago as my grandmother withered away in a nursing home, we watched her mind become increasingly vacant.  Her body remained strong years beyond her mind’s forgetfulness.  On the day that we brought her great granddaughter for a visit she attempted to bite her.  The adult had became the infant.  My young daughter looked at me with questioning eyes.  I remember especially the early years of Nana’s dementia.  She understood that she was forgetting more and more.  In fact when she learned that she would soon become a great grandmother she remarked, “What good will that be if I don’t have my mind.”  She knew that her dementia was growing increasingly worse. There grew a terror in her eyes.  And then she forgot everything.

For our Jewish tradition forgetting is a cardinal sin.  We are commanded again and again to remember: zakhor.  In this week’s portion, Ekev, Moses admonishes the people: “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: whether you would keep His commandments or not.”  (Deuteronomy 8:2)      We must remember our history, the successes and failures, but especially the trials.

My son Ari recently returned from a youth trip to Israel, Prague and Poland.  In Poland he visited the Warsaw ghetto and Auschwitz.  I was overwhelmed looking at his pictures.  Only from Ari did I come to appreciate the vast expanse of Auschwitz.  There was photograph after photograph.  There was this angle and yet another.  I had never before appreciated the vastness of the Auschwitz complex, so many buildings built only for the purpose of murder and the destruction of my people.  I have of course read many books and visited many museums.  I have looked at many photographs in these museums and books.  But only through my son’s eyes was able to comprehend that there are miles and miles of Auschwitz-Birkenau.  

Remembering is not instinctive.  Memories must be inculcated.  One can learn from others.  But remembrance is best achieved by experience.  The great historian Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi argues that Judaism believes forgetfulness is terrifying.  Zakhor, remember, we are commanded.  We must always remember the long way we have travelled.  To forget is to be that newborn infant, although touched by an angel, just beginning a lifetime of rediscovering and relearning.

We are the Jewish people because we remember.  Our future is dependent on hearing this command and regaining this terror of forgetting.  Perhaps this feeling will help us to learn more, to experience more.  I forever see it in my grandmother’s  eyes.  May the forgetfulness of her later years be my inspiration.  May my lips never again be touched by an angel.

Vaetchanan

Every year I study a selected text with parents of upcoming b’nai mitzvah.  As many of you know this year I shared a selection from this week’s portion, the V’ahavta.  “And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your might.  Take to heart these instructions which I charge you this day... (Deuteronomy 6:4-9)

In particular I explored the meaning of the line: v’shinantam l’vanecha--and you shall teach them to your children.  On the surface the meaning of this verse seems obvious.  Parents are obligated to teach their children everything, in particular Torah.  They are commanded to teach their children about their Jewish heritage.  They are instructed to teach their children values.

In Hebrew there is a common word for teach, m’lamed.  Here the Torah uses the word, shinantam.  This word derives its meaning from the Hebrew, to repeat.  Why would the Torah use the word, repeat?  I asked parents this question “Why would the Torah command that we repeat these words to our children?”  Are we to say the words of the V’ahavta over and over again to our children, and even grandchildren?

As a parent I am certain that lessons will most certainly go unheard the moment I have to repeat them  over and over again to my children.  I say over and over again, “Do your homework. Clean your room.  Call your grandparents.”  These admonitions are greeted with nonchalance and more often than not go unheeded.   Over the years I have learned that my worst parenting moments are when I resort to repeating myself.  In that moment I am the only one who is listening to my words.

Then what could the Torah intend?  If repetition is the worst teaching method then what could this unusual word choice mean?  The Torah can not be wrong.  An insight must be hidden in its words.  This is what I have determined.  The best lessons are those that our children see us do repeatedly.  Those actions that they see us do are the best Torah we can offer our children.  This is what will prove most lasting.

This is what the Torah means by its words, “Repeat them to your children.”  The best teaching is  what our children see us do, over and over again.  If you want your children to be generous, give tzedakah.  If you want your children to be learned, then let them see you read and even take classes.  If you want your children to be committed to their health then let them see you exercise.  If you want them to find Judaism meaningful then bring Judaism into your own lives.

Over and over, again and again, this is what our children must see us do.  They discern what is most important by observing what we do.  “V’shinantam l’vanecha!”

I look forward to sharing a new text with the upcoming parents of our b’nai mitzvah class of 5772!

Devarim

For some time after the start of text messaging between father and daughter I believed “LOL” meant “Lots Of Love” rather than “Laugh Out Loud.” To my mind “Lots Of Love” made far more sense. And so in this age of abbreviated slang I find myself lost and out of touch with my daughter. Perhaps that is part of the purpose. Youth always develop words and sayings that cast the older generation outside. Parents struggle to understand their children.

This week’s Torah portion is the first portion in the last book of the Torah, Devarim. It opens with the following statement: “These are the words (devarim) that Moses addressed to all Israel on the other side of the Jordan…” (Deuteronomy 1:1) The setting for this final book is Moses’ last speech to the people. Moses is getting old and is about to die. The mantle of leadership will soon be handed over to Joshua. The people are about to enter the land of Israel.

The generation who was enslaved in Egypt has died in the wilderness. Moses’ audience is now the new generation, those people born in freedom. They are the youthful generation who has only known the wilderness and its freedoms. Moses retells the history of their people, the Jewish people. He recounts their successes and failures. He reminds the youth of their obligations and enumerates the laws given in the Torah’s prior books.

Moses reiterates these commandments—at least least that is how Deuteronomy couches his words. Yet of the hundred laws detailed in the Book of Deuteronomy only thirty are found in the Torah’s prior books. Why would Moses frame his words as though they were not new? Why would he think it better to cast new ideas in old garments?

In so doing Moses suggests that this situation in fact requires nothing new. It has been seen and heard before, he believes. But this young generation will live in its own land. They will no longer wander. The generation reared only in freedom, the generation who knew only the vastness of wandering the wilderness, will indeed require many new laws to live their lives in a sovereign land.

Moses believes that the new must be informed by the old. Still Moses struggles to communicate this truth with the youth. In every age we struggle to communicate, to teach, to impart to the younger generation. This very tension exists in our own day, in each of our homes, in each of our lives.

This was part of Larry David’s point in the recent “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” Texting slang is not meant for grown ups. It is meant only for the youth who coin its words. Parents sound like tourists struggling to communicate in the country’s native language. It is as if we are not supposed to speak our children’s language. They of course believe that we can never be informed, native speakers. They think, theirs is the language of the freedoms of wilderness. Ours are the words of enslavement, of obligations and laws.

I am left with more questions. How can we communicate the truths that we learned through our own years of struggle and wandering? How can we beseech our children to abide by what we know to be important? I still believe that even the newest situation and circumstance can be informed by the old. How can the generations speak to each other? In Deuteronomy we witness Moses offering poems, to cajole his followers as well as losing his temper, struggling and stammering, to communicate essential truths with the future generation.

And there the problem of communicating between the generations becomes most apparent. The elders either sound like foreigners in their own native land, stammering to speak the words of a future generation or angry, unheeded outcasts, who appear to stubbornly cling to the past. I wish it were as simple as saying with Moses’ concluding words, “Remember the days of old. Consider the years of ages past. Ask your [parents], they will inform you. Your elders, they will tell you…” (Deuteronomy 32:7)

But the reader forgets. We do not know if the Israelite youth listened. Such is the framework for the Book of Deuteronomy.

This is as well the framework of our lives and our goals as parents and teachers. LYA!

Masei

The news is filled with murder and violence.  Our city recently witnessed the grotesque murder of an eight year old Hasidic boy.  Last week Norway was savaged by mass murder.  Yesterday in Iraq twelve were murdered in a double bombing outside a bank.  Against these painful images we recently watched as Casey Anthony was acquitted of the murder of her baby daughter.

Such killing is not new to society.  The Torah offers great detail about how to approach murder and killing.  In fact this week’s Torah portion, Masei, suggests several important details.  Premeditated murder for example is a capital crime punishable by death. 

Intent is determined by the weapon used.  “Anyone who strikes another with an iron object so that death results is a murderer.”  Anger and hatred as well suggests premeditation.  “So, too, if he pushed him in hate or hurled something at him on purpose and death resulted…” (Numbers 35:16-21)  However two witnesses must publicly testify against the accused in order to exact the punishment of death.  The Torah’s concern is twofold.  Its foremost concern is not first of all punishment but justice.

It is also concerned that the land not become defiled by murder.  The ancients (perhaps we would do well to find meaning in their idea) believed that God’s presence cannot dwell in a land contaminated by murder.  Illustrating this point is the law of cities of refuge.  If a person accidentally killed another he may run to a city of refuge.  There he could find sanctuary preventing the family member of the killed from seeking vengeance.  “You shall provide yourselves with places to serve you as cities of refuge to which a manslayer who has killed a person unintentionally may flee.  The cities shall serve you as a refuge from the avenger, so that the manslayer may not die unless he has stood trial before the assembly.” (Numbers 35-9-12)

It is a fascinating law.  Apparently the establishment of these cities helped to maintain the holiness of the land.  The land would therefore not be defiled twice over, by the spilling of blood in vengeance in addition to the blood of the killed.  Most important the cities of refuge allow justice to be served.  Anger and vengeance must never rule our decisions—even and perhaps especially in the case of murder.  Today, we are understandably angry and desire punishment. 

Yet justice must be given time.  Although murderers act in anger we must not do the same.  There is the danger that in the pursuit of justice we may become as well murderers if we are not careful and deliberate.  Only time can guarantee that we do not also become guilty.  The cities of refuge seek to establish this balance.  They allow for the gathering of information.  They allow for deliberate thought.  They allow for justice to emerge.  

Yet today I feel as if justified anger overwhelms my concern for justice.  The Hasidic Gerrer Rebbe (1799-1866) responds.  “In theory, a person who killed another, even if only through negligence, does not deserve a place anywhere, because a person who killed has no place in God’s world.  That is why special places had to be set aside where killers could remain.”

In theory there should be no place on earth for someone who takes another life.  All human beings are created in the divine image.  The Talmud reminds us: “To destroy a life is to destroy a world.”  Even a city a refuge therefore seems an unjust refuge.

And so I am left with only one simple prayer.  May there come a day, even one day, and then perhaps many days, when we no longer read of violence and murder.

Mattot

This week’s Torah portion is Mattot and begins with a discussion about vows and promises. “If a man makes a vow to the Lord or takes an oath imposing an obligation on himself, he shall not break his pledge; he must carry out all that has crossed his lips.” (Numbers 30:3) It should be noted that the Torah offers different laws about the vows made by women. I, however, read the opening verse as applying to both men and women.

Often we pledge to go on diets, exercise more, perhaps study more Torah, not yell at our children (or parents), or reconnect with friends. We have the best of intentions when we make these vows, yet we often find it difficult to fulfill these promises beyond their initial days or weeks. The summer is filled with the best of intended promises. We hear such words, “I have more time now so I will finally read that book I have sitting on my shelf.”

At the wedding ceremonies that fill the summer months, couples recite ancient vows affirming their newly claimed love. But how do they sustain the passion of that first moment throughout the years? How do we remain true to our words throughout the many trials and challenges that follow?

An eighteenth century Hasidic rabbi, Tzvi Hirsch, the Maggid of Voydislav, responds: “If a man makes a vow he will certainly not break his word, but merely keeping his word is not enough. He is commanded: ‘He must carry out all that has crossed his lips’—that he must fulfill the vow with same fervor as at the time that he took the vow. In most cases, when a person makes a vow he do so in a flush of enthusiasm, whereas the fulfillment of that vow is done without passion, as if he is forced to do so. The Torah therefore stresses: ‘You shall do—as you vowed.’"

This is the critical observation. We passionately affirm, “I promise to…” Yet when we go to fulfill such promises it feels as if our enthusiasm has been drained. It is all about obligation and no longer about celebration. It is easy to make promises—perhaps far too easy. But how do we hold ourselves to the words we speak? How do we guarantee the passion with which we first spoke the words will accompany the fulfillment of the promise? How do we fulfill our vows with enthusiasm and vigor?

Sometimes married couples ask me to perform a renewal of vows. To be honest it is my favorite ceremony at which to officiate. When a husband and wife, after being married for some fifty years, kiss again it confirms the insight of the great Hasidic master. Wedding celebrations are of course beautiful and grand. They are about the future and all its potential. They are about promises for the future.

A renewal of vows by contrast is about the fulfillment of those promises. Such ceremonies are the realization that we can indeed spend years filling our youthful promises with devotion and enthusiasm. May we find the passion to carry our vows through many years. May we discover the commitment to see many of our promises to fruition.

Pinhas

As people ascend to the main exhibition halls in the newly renovated Israel Museum they walk alongside water cascading down a constructed rivulet.  James Snyder, the museum’s director, explained its symbolism to the group of rabbis.  The water cleanses.  We enter the exhibitions with unencumbered souls.  Water washes away whatever we bring in and we enter the museum with open minds.

In ancient times sacrifices were offered on the heights of the Temple.  On Sukkot especially the sacrifices reached their zenith.  This week’s Torah portion offers details of the Sukkot sacrifices.  70 bulls were slaughtered on the altar, in addition to 14 rams, 98 lambs and seven goats.  It was a bloody week long celebration.  At the conclusion of Sukkot was the long since forgotten holiday of Simhat Beit HaShoeva, the water drawing celebration.  Copious amounts of water were poured over the Temple and its altar.

In a land where water is so scarce it is remarkable to reflect on the central ritual of this holiday.  At the conclusion of the dry season and prior to the beginning of the winter rains water is dumped as if it were a plentiful commodity.  My teacher and the chair of Hebrew University’s Bible Department, Yisrael Knohl, offers two possible explanations.  There was the practical and the philosophical.  On the one hand this much water was required to clean the Temple.  After so many sacrifices the Temple required a thorough washing.  On the other hand what could be a better statement of faith than to dump out water before the winter rains (hopefully) began.  It was if our people said, “God, we firmly believe that You will soon provide water for our crops and our rituals.”

It is interesting to ponder the fact that whereas water figured so prominently in ancient times, and in this land of Israel, it is no longer prominent in our rituals, especially in Reform circles.  In traditional homes the mikvah, the ritual bath is still observed as well as netilat yadayim, the ritual washing of hands before eating.  We by contrast only add the prayer for rain to our liturgy, beginning at the conclusion of Sukkot.  This additional line connects us to the seasons of the land of Israel.  Is this single line enough?

This past week I hiked the streets of Jerusalem and the Old City.  In short order I was reminded of the necessity of always bringing plenty of water to withstand Jerusalem’s summer heat.  I longed for abundant water.  It occurred to me that it is no wonder that here water became central to our rituals.  It is unfortunate that we take water for granted and no longer give such prominence to its preciousness.  We drink it, bathe in it, play in it, but no longer pray with it.  Perhaps if we restored the centrality of the land of Israel to our philosophy we would regain the importance of water to our ritual life.  Then again perhaps if we restored the importance of water to our rituals we would rekindle the importance of the land of Israel to our faith.

  

Yet it is hard to appreciate water living in an area where it is sometimes too abundant.  It is true that our tradition assigns no blessing over the drinking of water. It is used in blessings, but we recite no blessing over it as we do with other foods and drinks.  There is no blessing because it is a blessing.  And here in Israel one appreciates better the blessing of mayyim hayyim, living waters.

According to the Talmud one has not experienced true joy until one celebrates Simhat Beit HaShoeva.  What faith it is indeed to pour water over every inch of the Temple precinct at the hoped for onset of the rainy season.  So with our ancestors let us dance and celebrate that God will again provide for us these living waters.  And let us as well regain a better appreciation of mayyim hayyim.  Let us reclaim the centrality of the land of Israel and its city of Jerusalem.

Let us open our minds to the power of water and the beauty of Israel.

The West Bank

Yesterday we boarded buses and set out for a most interesting tour about the landscape and topography of a future peace agreement.

We first met with Danny Siedemann, a lawyer and leading proponent of the Israeli peace camp, who argued that any peace agreement begins and ends where we stood in East Jerusalem's Sheikh Jarrah.  Despite the neighborhood's overwhelmingly Arab character in recent years Jews have moved into a number of homes and established a Jewish enclave there.  They have made the grave of Shimon HaTzaddik into a Jewish pilgrimage site.  In Danny's view if such "settlements" are allowed to continue it will destroy any hope of a two-state solution, by eliminating the possibility of Palestinian contiguity.

A divided land represents the only hope for peace.  It is ugly but it is the reality of this place and promises the best future.  Two nations for two peoples.

From this overlook we traveled to the West Bank community (settlement) of Beit Aryeh.  It is a modest community of Israelis who primarily work in the aircraft industry.  They are not religious ideologues.  They live there because of the settlement's proximity to Ben Gurion airport.  It is like any small town.  It is not a few trailers on a hilltop.  There are street signs and street cleaners.  There are parks and community centers.  There we meet with retired Colonel Danny Terza, the chief architect of the seam zone barrier that was erected during the second intifada to prevent terror attacks.  Something it helped to successfully curtail.  He explained to us the importance of retaining control of the hilltops in order to guarantee Israel's security.  The afternoon offered a hazy sky, but still with little effort, we could make out the runway of Israel's international airport.  How could Israel relinquish security control over all of the West Bank?  When looking at a map it is impossible to appreciate how the land's mountains and valleys come into play.  Standing here, peering at Ben Gurion's runway in the visible distance, we better appreciated the importance of the West Bank in terms of Israel's security.  We continued to travel the roads of the territories.

To the left, the settlement of Halamish, to the right the Palestinian town of Nablus.  Our bus turned off the main road into the West Bank's Area A.  In the Oslo Accords Area A came to enjoy full Palestinian control, as opposed to Area C where Israel maintains complete control.  In Area B Israel maintains control over security and the Palestinians over civilian affairs.  We were escorted by a Palestinian jeep through Arab towns to the site of the future town of Rawabi.  Israelis no longer travel to such places and do not travel in Area A.  Although we were traveling in a bullet proof bus I never once felt unsafe.  There we met with developer Bashar El Masri, a wealthy Palestinian who hopes to transform the current situation from conflict into peace while still making a profit.  He is developing the first Palestinian planned city.  Imagine Columbia, Maryland only in the middle of the West Bank.  He believes that building such a city and addressing the socio-economic issues will help to create the opportunities for peace.

Like the settlers he is also creating facts on the ground.  If he succeeds there will soon be impressive Palestinian facts alongside Jewish facts on this land.  I wonder if the facts are less about reality and more about what you believe.  Here you can deny the others' facts just as easily as you create your own.  Whose language do you speak?  Whose facts do you support?  I was also left pondering this observation.  Many Israelis speak of security and history.  This Palestinian, and his employees, spoke of peace and the future.  In a world that embraces youth and technology speaking of the past will not endear us to the world.  With such eloquent spokesmen who will win over the hearts of the world?  And even more important to this rabbi, who will win over the hearts of our young people?  Their language is as well one of peace and the future.

Balak

“How fair are your tents, O Jacob, Your dwellings, O Israel!  ” (Numbers 24:5)

I arrived in Jerusalem Sunday evening as the sun was setting on the first day of the week.  I found again a city filled with life and vitality.

The rabbis suggest that the world was granted ten measures of beauty, but nine were given to Jerusalem.  I have read this Talmudic text many times.  Often I have found it to be exaggerated.  I have been privileged to see many beautiful cities.  I love San Francisco with its hills and jagged Pacific coastline.  I hear that Paris is an extraordinarily beautiful city and Venice a lover’s paradise.  There are even days when the beauty of our very own Long Island is stunning.

Yet when I am here I feel the rabbis’ sentiment.  I believe that this city of Jerusalem does indeed hold nine measures of beauty.  It is difficult to fathom when we sit in New York reading of Israel’s struggles and Jerusalem’s conflicts.  We see only problems and difficulties.  From afar the city’s beauty is obscured.  From near it is stunning and beautiful.  And so on that day when I returned to my beloved Jerusalem I beheld only nine measures of beauty.

Those who know me well must ask: how could I love a city where I am so far from the ocean and the sea?  Yehuda Amichai responds: “And there are days here when everything is sails and more sails, even though there’s no sea in Jerusalem, not even a river.”  In another poem he even calls Jerusalem the Venice of God, describing it as a “port city on the shore of eternity.”  Even though there is no sea here one nonetheless senses the ocean’s waves.

I have long sought the words to describe my swelling emotions when I visit this city.  I reach to the poet.  I set out upon the city’s streets to find the words.

Soon after arriving, on the second afternoon when I had my first break from classes, I walked the streets of Jerusalem.  I traveled from my rented apartment on trendy Emek Refaim to the Tayelet overlooking the city, through the Old City’s Zion Gate to the Western Wall and through the Arab shuk back to the apartment, by way of Jaffa Gate and King David Street.  Despite the fact that I touched the very stones that generations of Jews had only hoped to feel and that beneath my feet I imagined Abraham walking with his son Isaac and David planning the building of the Temple, the view that took my breath away was that from the Tayelet, the promenade overlooking the Southern walls of the Old City.

There I saw the golden dome of the Dome of the Rock, the top of the Church of Holy Sepulchre peering above the city’s buildings and the Hurva synagogue, destroyed decades ago by the Jordanians but now rebuilt.  I looked to the left of the Old City’s walls and saw the windmill of Yemin Moshe, the first neighborhood built outside the Old City’s walls.  And to the left of this was the expanse of the ever growing new city of West Jerusalem. 

And it is actually this view of the cranes building the new city that always makes my heart swell.  It is not the ancient but in fact the new.  It is that we have returned to this place that for generations we only dreamed of, and spoke about, and sang to, and prayed for.  It is not only the political success of modern Israel or its many achievements here in Jerusalem.  It is instead that here, even on an ordinary bustling street, I see the Torah’s words of this week’s portion: “How fair are your tents, O Jacob, Your dwellings, O Israel!”

Here our dreams have become real.  Here we are not only rebuilding our ancient city.  We are also constructing our very dreams.  No city is perfect of course.  The reality is not yet the ideal.

Still there is always a moment here when I see only nine measures of beauty and believe that I am once again privileged to return to the port city on the shore of eternity.

Hukkat

Often ritual acts are performed in remembrance of long since abandoned, or even forgotten, practices.

We place a shank bone on the Passover seder plate.  We do so in remembrance of the Passover sacrifices offered in the ancient Temple.  The Temple was destroyed 2,000 years ago yet the tradition insists that we continually remember its power and grandeur.  Likewise we salt the Shabbat hallah in order to remember that the sacrifices were salted.   Despite the fact that we continue to observe these customs few people explain these customs with words about the Temple and its sacrifices.

The rituals surrounding death and mourning offer even more examples.  We wash our hands after returning to the shiva house from the cemetery.  Its origins are found in this week’s Torah portion, Hukkat.  “When a person dies in a tent, whoever enters the tent and whoever is in the tent shall be impure for seven days…  A person who is pure shall take hyssop, dip it in water, and sprinkle it on the tent and on all the vessels and people who were there…  The pure person shall sprinkle it upon the impure person on the third day and on the seventh day, thus purifying him by the seventh day.”  (Numbers 19:14-20)

Once the Temple was destroyed we could no longer perform such intricate purification rituals.  Yet we still wash our hands following the funeral.  Often this ritual is given different meaning.  It is explained as a symbolic cleansing.  We wash to move from death towards life.  We no longer believe that death defiles or renders us impure.  Yet its presence requires restorative powers.  We summon our strength.  We rely on our rituals.

In this week’s Torah portion as well Moses buries both his brother Aaron and his sister Miriam.  I imagine that Moses had to summon all his strength in order to persevere after suffering these personal losses.  But how could he perform the rituals that would help him move from death to life?  His brother Aaron was the priest who alone was commanded to perform these purification rituals.

And Miriam as well was associated with water.  According to legend while she was alive wells miraculously appeared wherever the Israelites camped.  When she died the Israelites were without water.  In fact immediately following her death the Torah reports that the community was without water and complained against Moses.  How could Moses then mourn his sister?  How could Moses perform the rituals that would aid in his recovery?

Our situation is similar.  We no longer have a Temple.  Sometimes we no longer even recall why we perform these acts.  Yet they still help us move from death to life.  Water helps restore the soul.

Every time I walk through the doors of a shiva house past the pitcher of water (may such days be infrequent) I do not think of the ancient sacrifices.  I offer instead a silent prayer.  May the waters Miriam brought to her people bring healing to today’s grieving family.  May this family soon arrive to the day when their tears no longer sting their cheeks. 

Korah

This week’s portion, Korah, details the great rebellion against Moses and his authority.  Korah and his followers gathered against Moses saying, “You have gone too far!  For all the community are holy, all of them, and the Lord is in their midst.  Why then do you raise yourselves above the Lord’s congregation?” (Numbers 16:3)

One can understand their complaints.  It is easy to imagine what people might have been saying about Moses.  “Can you believe this guy? He keeps telling us he is talking to God and that everything is going to be wonderful.  The land is so beautiful he keeps promising.  But when are we going to arrive there?  Will we ever get there?  Day after day we eat this manna.  Day after day we schlep.  We keep walking and walking.  Every day is the same.  And then this guy Moses keeps changing the original plan.”

One can be sympathetic to their grumblings.  On the surface the criticisms appear legitimate.  Examine the Torah’s words.  Judaism does indeed believe that everyone can speak to God.  Our religion requires no intermediary.  Moses is not holier than any other human being.  Yet Korah and his followers are severely punished.  Why?

Midrash Tanhuma suggests an answer.  It imagines Korah asking Moses these questions: “Does a tallit all of blue still require blue fringes?  Does a room full of Torah scrolls still require a mezuzah?” In the rabbinic imagination Korah’s questions are brimming with disdain.  His words suggest that he questions the entire system.  It is because he is so disrespectful that he is punished. 

We often do the same.  We highlight inconsistencies in our religious systems, and political systems, not to correct but instead to mock.  It is of course far easier to poke fun and reject rather than affirm and improve. 

We appear to live in an age when too many have become Korah.  We seek to amuse.  We mock those with whom we disagree.  We even call those with whom we disagree: traitors.  Our culture measures an argument’s winner not by the merit of the ideas but by the reactions of the participants.  If someone is made to cry or stammer then they have lost the argument, even better if they are made to do so on TV.  We no longer debate ideas.  Instead we attack others.

We have become Korah.  And for this we should ask forgiveness and mend our ways.  If we are ever going to make it to the promised land and improve our society we must not attack each other.  We must instead debate and argue about the ideas that might change our world. 

What Korah failed to understand we as well fail to grasp.  We are all in this together.  And we are all in the wilderness.   We had better master debating the ideas that matter without seeking to undermine the entire system.  We had better figure out a way to argue with each other while not shouting words of hate.

Of those who left Egypt only two made it to the promised land.  I do not wish to be standing alone in the land.  I do not wish to remain in the wilderness.