Emor

I just started reading Jack Kornfield’s After the Ecstasy, the Laundry.  Here is the observation that informs his book: “We all know that after the honeymoon comes the marriage, after the election comes the hard task of governance.  In spiritual life it is the same: after the ecstasy comes the laundry.  Most spiritual accounts end with illumination or enlightenment.  But what if we ask what happens after that?”

It occurs to me that the Book of Leviticus is all about the laundry.  After the ecstasy detailed in Exodus, the liberation from Egypt and the revelation at Sinai, we confront the details of how to lead a Jewish life.  “These are the set times of the Lord, the sacred occasions, which you shall celebrate each at its appointed time…” (Leviticus 23:4)  What follows is a list of our major holidays.  It is an exhausting list of chores.

People often think that religion is about ecstasy.  It is about returning to Sinai.  It is instead about the laundry.  It is about order.  The Jewish prayerbook is called of course a siddur.  This name comes from the same Hebrew root as seder and means order.  Our prayers are not about ecstatic moments but instead about following a prescribed order. 

People pine after what today we might call a spiritual awakening.  They run after euphoria.  Everything must be inspiring.  All must produce an ecstatic high.  Perhaps this is one explanation as to why people commit adultery or experiment with drugs.  They want to rediscover that ecstatic moment they imagine once was.  They go to extraordinary, and sometimes even destructive, ends to recapture a mythic past.

Life is instead about the laundry, not the ecstasy.  Religion in general and Judaism in particular orders ecstasy.  It seeks to frame the ecstatic.  Why?  We cannot exist for too long in these ecstatic moments.  One need only look to the prophets for evidence of these inherent dangers.  We read their words for inspiration, chanting the Haftarah every Shabbat morning, but look away from their lives as models for our own.  They were intimate with God but distant from people, often painfully standing apart from their very own families.   The everyday stuff of life will not get done if we spend our days as if we were also ecstatic prophets.  The meals will never get cooked.

Too much ecstasy is a dangerous thing.  After the people experience God at Mount Sinai they cry to Moses, “All the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the blare of the horn and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they fell back and stood at a distance.  ‘You speak to us,’ they said to Moses, ‘and we will obey; but let not God speak to us, lest we die.’” (Exodus 20:15-16)  Too often people think that Sinai is our religious ideal.  The ecstatic is the religious goal.  Instead it is the Shabbat table.

There we find order.  We discover joy.

Leviticus gives us the holidays.  It offers us brief days of ordered illumination, rejoicing and celebration, punctuating the year.  Leviticus introduces us to the laws of kashrut.  These are at their best moments of religious awareness discovered at each and every meal.  We discover these not on some lofty mountaintop but instead in our homes, at our tables, in our kitchens.

Religiosity is found doing the laundry.  Piety can be discovered in everyday chores.

Recently I was kibitzing with our students as they enjoyed their pizza before the start of class.  I am not sure how the discussion started, but I found myself talking to them about taking responsibility for their own actions and doing things for themselves.  That is of course the underlying meaning of the bar/bat mitzvah celebration.  So I told them that they should learn to do their own laundry.  They stared at me as if I was from outer space, then laughed and looked knowingly to each other affirming that it was I who really did not understand the ways of the world.

Still I stubbornly believe.  I continue to teach that life is not only about what is fun and enjoyable.  It is not all Sinai.  It may be as simple as if you cannot fold your own clothes how can you order a life of meaning?  The exhausting details of the Book of Leviticus are actually where life is lived.  Exodus inspires.  It can provide meaning.  But it is the chores of Leviticus where we live.

That one moment of ecstasy must often last a lifetime.  The remainder is doing the laundry. 

Achrei Mot-Kedoshim

The Israeli author David Grossman writes in his recent collection of essays, Writing in the Dark, of his worries that Israel is letting go of its dream for peace, that decades of war have eroded its most cherished vision.  He writes:

If we ever achieve a state in which we have no enemies, perhaps we will be able to break free from the all-too-familiar Israeli tendency to approach reality with the mind-set of a sworn survivor, who is practically programmed—condemned—to define the situations he encounters primarily in terms of threat, danger, and entrapment, or daring rescue from all these….  The survivor thereby all but dooms himself to exist forever within this partial, distorted, suspicious, and frightened picture of reality, and is therefore tragically fated to make his anxieties and nightmares come true time and time again.

The most insidious danger of terrorism is that it erodes our dreams.  In its randomness it can never kill millions of people, but it can destroy a million souls.  It can prevent us from doing the ordinary things of life, a morning jog, catching a flight to see relatives, frequenting the movie theatre or a favorite outdoor café.

One of the most remarkable things about our tradition is that it was magnified under duress.  While the Romans oppressed us we authored the Mishnah, while the Crusaders persecuted us we penned some of our most remarkable prayers and while the Arab armies attacked us we built a vibrant Jewish democracy.  We fought to maintain our most cherished beliefs and values despite the fact that we were attacked or tortured, persecuted or terrorized.

In this week’s Torah portion we are given a number of ethical mandates.  Only three times does the Torah command us to love.  In the Shema, appearing in Deuteronomy, we are commanded to love God.  The other two mitzvot appear this week.  Here in the Book of Leviticus we are commanded to love the neighbor and love the stranger.  “When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not wrong him.  The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt…”  (Leviticus 19:33-34)

Here, in the Torah, we discover a people who recently escaped from 400 years of slavery.  It would have been understandable had they codified a law that said, “Never allow yourselves to become victimized or enslaved.”  Instead the Torah says that because we had such intimate knowledge of suffering we must be on guard never to allow others to be cast aside as other. 

In our new reality, where tests of endurance become instead testimonies to survival, many will be labeled stranger.  Foreigners will be pointed.  Others will be blamed.  In fact, only a small few are guilty.  In this country stranger and citizen are one.  And that belief is our best response to terror.  No one is ever cast outside.  That is the vision we must protect.

Since Monday’s bombing I have received a number of emails about security briefings.  I am certain that soon we will see new security protocols for marathons.  We might even see restrictions placed on the purchase of pressure cookers, as we have to come know the all too familiar removing of our shoes following the shoe bomber.  Some of these changes will be welcome.  Others not.  Some might provide a brief measure of comfort.  Others will soon become an annoyance.  No amount of additional security measures will prevent all future terrorist attacks.

There is only one response.  That is to focus on our values and beliefs.  Our answer is to forever hold on to our visions and dreams.

At morning services we sing a prayer authored millennia ago, and penned amidst the pains of sufferings and destructions.

Grant peace, goodness, and blessing to the world; grace, kindness, and mercy to us and to all Your people Israel.  Bless us all, O our Creator, with the Divine light of Your presence.  For by that Divine light You have revealed to us Your life-giving Torah, and taught us lovingkindness, righteousness, mercy and peace.  May it please You to bless Your people Israel, in every season and at every hour, with Your peace.  Praised are You, O Lord, Bestower of peace upon Your people Israel.

Such is the Sim Shalom prayer that we sing each and every morning, in each and every generation.  We began praying this prayer when peace was but a distant hope.  We sang its words not only to reach upward begging God for peace but also to reach inward so that our souls would never be hardened by the violence and terror our bodies experienced.

I believe it is possible to be vigilant about life while holding on to the dreams that nurture our souls.  In truth, we must come to recognize that we can never fully protect ourselves.   We can however guard our souls.  We can preserve our values.  I will not have it any other way.

Boston Marathon

Our hearts our joined in sorrow and outrage with our neighbors and friends of Boston.  Again an American city has been struck by terror.  We pray that those injured may find healing and the families of those murdered will find a measure of consolation.

As in Israel, the joy and celebration of today’s Yom Haatzmaut, Israel Independence Day, is tempered by yesterday’s Yom HaZikaron, Memorial Day.  My rejoicing is diminished.  And so I turn to Israel’s poetry.  I find myself once again pulled toward Yehuda Amichai’s poems. 

What follows is the poem Amichai read at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony when Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Yasir Arafat were awarded the 1994 prize and although that peace agreement is fractured I continue to cling to its dream. The poem seemed fitting for the hope of that occasion.  It gains poignancy with each passing year.  The urgent dream of peace is renewed with even greater force after yesterday. 

Not the peace of a cease-fire
not even the vision of the wolf and the lamb,
but rather
as in the heart when the excitement is over
and you can talk only about a great weariness.
I know that I know how to kill,

that makes me an adult.
And my son plays with a toy gun that knows
how to open and close its eyes and say Mama.
A peace
without the big noise of beating swords into ploughshares,
without words, without
the thud of the heavy rubber stamp: let it be
light, floating, like lazy white foam.
A little rest for the wounds—

who speaks of healing?
(And the howl of the orphans is passed from one generation
to the next, as in a relay race:
the baton never falls.)

Let it come
like wildflowers,  

suddenly, because the field
must have it: wildpeace.

Peace remains my prayer—for Israel, for America, for the world.  I vow.  I will never allow terrorism to diminish my choices.  I will not allow it to destroy my dreams.  May our children, and our children’s children be granted a world free from terror.  And may peace come soon—because we must have it.  

Yom Haatzmaut & Tazria-Metzora

Today, five women were arrested at the Kotel, the Western Wall.  Why?  They were praying at their monthly Rosh Hodesh service and were arrested for wearing tallism and singing out loud.  In a ground breaking decision the judge dismissed the charges and the request of the ultra Orthodox rabbis who control the Kotel that the women be barred from praying at the Wall for the next three monthly services.  The judge stated that the women are not in fact disturbing the public order with their praying.  Instead she argued that the disturbance is created by those publicly opposing the women’s prayers.

In Israel today there is a struggle over the control of Judaism’s holiest site.  At the Wall the prayer area is divided between a men’s section and a women’s.  Over the years the women’s section has grown increasingly smaller.  For the past twenty five years Women of theWall has gathered on the first of the Hebrew month to offer prayers at the Kotel.  They are often arrested and frequently harassed.  Their argument is mine.  All Jews should be allowed to pray as they see wish at the Western Wall, the last remnant of the ancient Temple, the place that has served as a source inspiration for countless generations.    

This week’s Torah portion begins with a discussion about childbirth and concludes with leprosy.  (When I was in rabbinical school I never imagined discussing such topics with 13 year old boys and girls!)  The ancients were terrified of blood, as well as diseases about which they understood little, and therefore prescribed rituals to overcome what they believed to be their defiling nature.  Curiously after giving birth, a woman had to wait two weeks before performing these rituals if it was a girl rather than one for a boy.  After my students overcome their disgust with the Torah’s details and their embarrassment talking about these matters with their rabbi, they often object to this discrepancy.  Both boys and girls ask, “Why do you have to wait two weeks for a girl and only one week for a boy?  That is not fair!”

Although Yom Haatzmaut is a day deserving of great celebration, I would like to dwell on this continuing discrepancy.   I agree with my students’ evaluation.  Unfortunately the Torah’s ancient perspective still holds sway over many Jews’ hearts and minds.  I appreciate the opinion of Jewish tradition that men and women are given different obligations.  Men are obligated to pray; women are not, the tradition reasons.   Furthermore a woman’s singing might distract a man from his prayer obligations.  Such are not my beliefs.  If a man finds himself distracted then he should look within rather than out.  He alone is responsible.  Each of us is responsible for our own actions. Yet my commitment to pluralism must allow for other Jewish beliefs to coexist with my own. 

In fact, Natan Sharansky, the Soviet Jewish dissident, recently proposed the building of a third prayer area at the Kotel.  There egalitarian praying would be permitted.  There men and women could join in prayer together.  I would welcome such a change.  For too long the ultra Orthodox perspective has been allowed to define the customs and traditions of the Wall.  For too long the Wall has divided the Jewish people rather than uniting.  My dream for this place is that at the Kotel we can become again one Jewish people, while holding on to different Jewish traditions.

What is lacking in the modern State of Israel is this commitment to Jewish pluralism.  This is something that American Jewry can offer to our Israeli friends.  It is desperately required.  We should not be shy about advocating this teaching to the state we so dearly love.  Otherwise the Jewish state will also become a source of division rather than unity. 

There is much to celebrate about the modern State of Israel.  We have returned to our ancient land, resuscitated an unspoken language and restored the Jewish people to being masters of their own fate. Despite enemies who continue to attack the State of Israel, the Jewish nation thrives and prospers.  Still there is much to be done. 

I remain hopeful.  If we can do this much in the span of three generations, then I have faith that we can also one day soon restore to the Jewish state a desperately needed commitment to pluralism.

The Synagogue

What follows are my remarks from our congregation's annual fundraiser and some tentative thoughts about the meaning of the synagogue for our new age.

...Many of us attend countless charity events throughout the year, especially during these Spring months.  We are often beseeched to support these worthy charities with dire warnings.  Our gifts are equated with saving lives.  Our monies go to important research that could in fact save someone from cancer or protect an Israeli city from Hamas rockets.  Please don’t misunderstand.  I am not at all suggesting that these charities are unimportant.  They do extraordinarily important work.  For those of us privileged enough to have attended the recent AIPAC conference we came to understand this significant work.

Yet more often than not these charities appeal to our fears and worries.  They ask for our donations in terms of life and death.  The synagogue cannot appeal to such sentiments.  It was once, in the not too distant past that we could ask for donations to a synagogue by saying “The Jewish people will die without the synagogue.   Give for our survival.  Give so that we can guarantee your grandchildren will be Jewish.”

Despite the fact that I continue to believe in this mantra, that the synagogue is the only institution that can best guarantee Jewish survival, I recognize that such appeals no longer work.  We must appeal to something else and perhaps even more significant, for survival must be wedded to meaning.  In our world most, if not all, believe that you can live without the synagogue.  You can even have a bar/bat mitzvah without a synagogue, not a good one of course, but the valued ceremony nonetheless.  I remain perplexed by the belief of far too many that one can become a bar/bat mitzvah in the absence of community.  Yet we recognize that such is the sentiment of our age.

And that is why I remain even more grateful for your support this evening.  It is more that just I am really happy to see you.  It is because your attendance lends meaning to our synagogue.  It is where we can best find community.  It is where anyone can be welcomed regardless of station or circumstance, means or knowledge, commitment or understanding. 

Thus the only argument that might work for our institution is that here one can find meaning and community.  In an age when a group of people can be standing together but each texting someone else on their cell phones, we need community more than ever.

Here we can find a circle of community. Here we might become better, our children might become the menschen we dare to dream they can be.  Here we can learn to love our Jewish traditions and become attached to the Jewish people.  Here our children might come to love Jewish life.  Here, at the JCB, we can rediscover the joy of Jewish living.  Those arguments can perhaps become the compelling arguments for our age and in them we can discover our new trope.

So tonight I thank you for helping to affirm that the synagogue is vital and that our JCB community unique.  May we go from strength to strength, m’chayil l’chayil.     

Yom HaShoah & Shemini

Decades ago the olah, the burnt offering sacrifice, described in this week’s portion, was translated as the holocaust offering. For obvious reasons this translation is no longer used.   The olah offering was entirely consumed by fire on the sacrificial altar.  The Hebrew is derived from the word “to go up” because the sacrifice’s smoke ascended to heaven.  The ancients believed that such sacrifices kept the world finely balanced.  

The Holocaust is referred to by the Hebrew term Shoah.   This is usually translated as “catastrophe or ruin.”  Unlike the biblical reference that refers to a sacrifice we offer, the term Shoah suggests the destruction it indeed was.  It is a term however that appears infrequently in the Bible, but fittingly is found in the Book of Job. 

There, the word appears in one of Job’s laments.  “Of what use to me is the strength of their hands?  All their vigor is gone. Wasted from and want and starvation, they flee to a parched land, to the gloom of desolate wasteland.” (Job 30:2-3)  Raymond Scheindlin in his landmark translation of Job renders this verse as: “…in dearth and famine, barren, fleeing to wilderness, a horror-night of ruin.”

This captures the import of the catastrophic events of 1933-1945.  It was indeed a “horror-night of ruin.”  In addition the lamenting of the biblical hero of Job is far more fitting of our understanding of these events.   The biblical book concludes with Job’s question of “Why me?” unanswered.  God does respond to our hero, but offers little by way of explanation.  Job discovers little justification for the suffering he endures.  The Holocaust leaves us as well with these unanswered questions.

Recently Rabbi Herschel Schacter died.  He was one of the first Jewish chaplains, serving with US armed forces, to enter the concentration camp of Buchenwald.  According to The New York Times obituary (March 26, 2013), he ran from barracks to barracks shouting, “Jews, you are free!”  He also met a seven year old boy there. 

The Times describes the encounter: “With tears streaming down his face, Rabbi Schacter picked the boy up. ‘What’s your name, my child?’ he asked in Yiddish.  ‘Lulek,’ the child replied.  ‘How old are you?’ the rabbi asked.  ‘What difference does it make?  I’m older than you, anyway.’  ‘Why do you think you’re older?’ Rabbi Schacter asked, smiling.  ‘Because you cry and laugh like a child,’ Lulek replied.   ‘I haven’t laughed in a long time, and I don’t even cry anymore. So which one of us is older?’”

When a child loses the innocence and joy of childhood our world has been upended, when he teaches a rabbi the import of suffering, we might lose faith.

The holocaust offering described in the Book of Leviticus suggests a world where good and evil, reward and punishment are perfectly balanced, in a neat and tidy fashion.  Offer a sacrifice.  God will respond.  Such is not the world that emerged from the Shoah.  It was a catastrophe that we struggle still to understand—and even name.

The child survived the war.  He is now Rabbi Yisrael Lau, the chief rabbi of Tel Aviv. 

Chol Hamoed Pesach

People often ask me why some celebrate seven days of Passover and others eight.  Should we eat matzah for seven days or eight, celebrate one seder or two?  The Torah specifies that Passover be celebrated for seven days.  “Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread…” (Exodus 12:15)  In Israel the holiday is observed for seven days.  In diaspora communities such as our own it is celebrated for eight days with two seders.  Why the difference?

Millennia ago when the rabbis were establishing the calendar they insisted the new month be attested to by witnesses.  Despite the fact that they had already developed mathematical calculations to make this determination, they asked for witnesses to come before the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem.  “Where did you see the new moon?” they asked a witness.  (Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 2:6)  Once they were satisfied by the testimony they declared the next day Rosh Hodesh, the first of the Hebrew month.  Beacon fires were set on hilltops to declare the news throughout the Jewish diaspora, which at this time stretched throughout the Middle East.

But even then the Jewish people did not get along with each other and the Samaritan sect for example began to light the signal fires at the wrong time in order to sow confusion.  So the rabbis resorted to sending messengers to even such far away Jewish communities as those in Egypt and Babylonia.  But obviously a messenger takes much longer to deliver this message of a new month. 

Thus the rabbis established “yom tov sheni shel galuyot—a second holiday day for the diaspora.”  Those living outside of the land of Israel were told to observe two days of holidays. In essence this ruling was a safety measure to ensure that people were observing the holiday on its proper day.  This custom persisted even after the calendar became fixed and was no longer dependent on the testimony of witnesses or a declaration from Jerusalem. 

Centuries later the Reform movement argued that two days of the holiday no longer made sense.  Especially in an age of computers when we can determine with extraordinary accuracy and speed the dates for holidays this custom should be cast aside as a relic of the past. 

And yet the Jewish tradition has always viewed the land of Israel and the city of Jerusalem as the ideal place for a Jew to live.  These were always the places associated with our Jewish dreams.  Despite one’s judgments about present realities there in Israel this dream has remained unchanged.  It was from Jerusalem that our holidays were proclaimed.  It is the land of Israel’s seasons that continue to dictate our prayers for rain or for that matter the logic of a new year for trees in the middle of our New York winter.

About this as well the early Reform rabbis argued that America is our new Zion.  They sought to replace the ancient Jewish dream with a new one that revolved around where they presently found themselves.  But for all my love of America I am hesitant to let go of the age-old Jewish dream.  Too often we seek to change our dreams and ideals so that they match with our current practices and lives.  Why?  In order to better achieve self-fulfillment we let go of past dreams.  We are advised to adjust our goals so that we can find satisfaction and contentment.

I prefer instead to hold on to my dreams, even those I suspect I will never achieve.  I observe Passover for eight days if for no other reason that it reminds me that my dreams should never remain mine alone.  My Jewish dreams must always be tied to others.  The ideal place is the land of Israel.  The city of our dreams is Jerusalem.  This is my people’s dream. 

As much as I love living here in New York, in the United States, my Jewish dream is elsewhere.  Our Jewish dream is in another land.  That is how we concluded our seders on Monday, and Tuesday, nights.  L’shanah haba-ah beyurashalayim.  Next year in Jerusalem!

Passover

Some thoughts about Passover.  Let me begin by offering an apology.  I told many of your children that they can recline at the Seder table.   I know that you probably spend a good deal of time telling them to sit up at the table, or not to slouch or perhaps even not to put their elbows on the table, so I am sorry for undermining your authority, but at the Passover Seder all are permitted.  At the Seder we are supposed to express our freedom, even if it appears ill mannered by contemporary standards.

The fourth question asks: “Why is this night different from all other nights?  On all other nights we can sit upright or recline, on this night all of us recline.”  The rabbis modeled their Seder after the Greco-Roman banquets of antiquity.  This was how the free ate their meals, they reasoned.  Free people reclined.  Others served them.  It is also customary to serve those sitting next to you at the Seder table, most especially pouring wine for them.  Make sure their glass is never empty!

The Seder is replete with symbols.  I explained to our Religious School students that all the symbols and prayers seek to accomplish the teaching of one of two ideas.  Each point to one of these messages: 1. We were slaves in Egypt.  Or 2. Now we are free.  If you take in these messages then you have understood the purpose of the Seder.  Its goal is to teach these lessons.  The food, the words and the songs are not ends in themselves.  They seek to have us reach beyond ourselves.  Each and every year we must take to heart our freedom.  We must re-learn that it can never be taken for granted. 

This morning I delivered 100 lunch bags, packed by our seventh graders, to a local soup kitchen where they were immediately distributed to day laborers who were found huddling at street corners in the cold (spring!) air.  On Monday evening we will read: “Let all who are hungry come and eat.  Let all who are in need, come and share the Pesach meal.  This year we are still here—next year, in the land of Israel.  This we are still slaves—next year, free people.”  For Jews, freedom was never about eating as much of whatever we want.  All of the food arrayed on our Seder tables might suggest otherwise, but the point of the bitter herbs and charoset are, for example, to remember the taste of slavery, the message of the delicious brisket and wine is to remind us of the sweetness of freedom.

It was never about the taste.  It was always about the message.

So how remarkable indeed to be reminded of our holiday’s import by the President of the United States! There in Jerusalem, President Obama said: “[Passover] is a story of centuries of slavery and years of wandering in the desert; a story of perseverance amidst persecution and faith in God and the Torah. It’s a story about finding freedom in your own land. And for the Jewish people, this story is central to who you’ve become. But it’s also a story that holds within it the universal human experience, with all of its suffering but also all of its salvation.”

Tzav

Mark Twain once quipped: “The clothes make the man.  Naked people have little or no influence on society.”

This week’s Torah portion describes the priests’ vestments.  The priests were required to wear four garments: linen shorts, a tunic, sash and turban.  The High Priest wore an additional four adornments: a robe, an embroidered vest, a breastplate, and a golden jewel inscribed with the words “Holy to Adonai” affixed to the turban.

If he did not wear even one of these garments he could not serve as a priest.  The Talmud reports: “Rabbi Abbahu said in Rabbi Yohanan’s name: ‘When wearing their appointed garments, the priests are invested with their priesthood; when not wearing their garments, they are not invested with their priesthood.’” (Zevahim 17b)

To serve as a priest one must first be born to a priestly family.  This week we also learn that in order to perform the sacrificial rituals the priest must wear the appropriate attire. Today we adorn the Torah scroll as we once dressed the priests.  A book becomes our High Priest.  The Torah assumes the priest’s mantle of authority. 

Let’s reflect on the theory of dressing for authority.  As contemporary culture becomes more and more casual will there come a day when professions will no longer be identified by their attire?  Will doctors no longer wear white coats or scrubs?  Could rabbis be seen leading services in jeans and not wearing a tallis and kippah?

During the early years of the Reform movement, its rabbis argued that Jews should not wear clothes distinguishing themselves from gentile society.  Tallis and kippah were viewed as from a different age.  The 1885 Pittsburgh Platform declares: “We hold that all such Mosaic and rabbinical laws as regulate diet, priestly purity, and dress originated in ages and under the influence of ideas entirely foreign to our present mental and spiritual state. They fail to impress the modern Jew with a spirit of priestly holiness; their observance in our days is apt rather to obstruct than to further modern spiritual elevation.”  Rabbis wore robes and in some instances even top hats and tails. 

The question remains: how does clothing convey authority?  For the priests of old it was apparently synonymous with their leadership.  The High Priest’s robe conveyed to all that this was the person invested with the requisite authority to offer sacrifices in the people’s behalf.  From where does that authority emanate?  Does it come from contemporary society or from our ancient traditions?  The early Reform rabbis argued that it must come from contemporary society.  Thus rabbis dressed in the style of their age.  People appeared to think, if clergy of other faiths are wearing robes or tails then our rabbi should wear similar garb.   

Still the authority to lead our prayers also hearkens to the past.  We recite ancient words, in an ancient language.  Must we then not only dress, if only partially, in an ancient garb?  In what other area of life do we wear the garments dictated by ancient traditions? 

Contemporary fashions come and go.  Now very short skirts are in, even though they should not be.  The tallis and the kippah remain.  They are not a fashion dictated by designers or styles.  And that alone offers us a measure of spiritual power.  

Vayikra

The guilt offering, asham, concludes this week’s Torah portion of Vayikra, the first reading in the Book of Leviticus.  It follows the details for the burnt, meal and well-being offerings, regular sacrifices that were offered on a daily basis.  The sin and guilt offerings, by contrast, were only performed when the need arose.

They were offered when there was a wrongdoing to correct.  It should be noted that, despite popular belief, such rituals never offered remedies for intentional wrongs.  One can never say, “I will steal this or that and then bring some really beautiful turtledoves or pigeons, sheep or goats, to the Temple to mend my ways.” 

The asham sacrifice was therefore about remedying unintended wrongs.  When people realized their wrongdoing they would then bring this guilt offering.  The chapter offers a litany of wrongs for which the guilt offering helps to make amends.  Each concludes with the refrain: “…though he has known it, the fact has escaped him, but later he realizes his guilt.”  In other words the wrong was originally overlooked or perhaps forgotten, but then later recalled.  The Torah offers a corrective, the asham, the guilt offering.

Yet such situations occur far more frequently than the portion suggests.  How often do we lie awake at night and say, “I really should not have said that.”?  We awake and discover ourselves plagued by guilt feelings.  If only there was an asham sacrifice to offer come morning.  Contemporary culture however suggests that we disavow and distance ourselves from these guilty feelings.  Guilt prevents us from realizing our potential; it stands in the way of personal fulfillment.

How many unintended wrongs remain then lingering to be remedied?  Perhaps this was the purpose of the asham sacrifice.  To be sure it often sought to make amends for ritual wrongs. “When a person touches any impure thing…”  Then again it could serve as a goad to action, a prompt that we seek out those we have wronged.  The animal is brought before the altar and the sin is confessed.  The Hebrew hints at the offering’s greater purpose.  The verb to confess is reflexive.  It is as if to say, “One shall admit to oneself.”

Our feelings of guilt lead to such an admission.  Rather than burying these feelings, ignoring them or even viewing them as the root cause of psychological crisis, we should look instead at this angst as our contemporary offering.  We should allow it to motivate and move us to greater good.  Freeing ourselves of guilt could perhaps lead to greater personal fulfillment.  But there is always a cost. 

The price is our relationship with others. 

The Hebrew for sacrifice is korban.  It derives from the word to draw near.  To the ancient mind the purpose of the sacrifices was to draw nearer to God.  Perhaps the lesson of the sacrifice is that they can also help us draw near to others.

Guilt feelings are sometimes the beginning of repair.  And repair is often all that relationships require.

This could be our greatest of offerings—in any age.

Vayakhel-Pekudei Sermon

In Friday’s New York Times David Brooks writes about the resurgence of Orthodoxy.  “All of us navigate certain tensions, between community and mobility, autonomy and moral order. Mainstream Americans have gravitated toward one set of solutions. The families stuffing their groceries into their Honda Odyssey minivans in the Pomegranate parking lot represent a challenging counterculture. Mostly, I notice how incredibly self-confident they are. Once dismissed as relics, they now feel that they are the future.”  Brooks suggests that the Orthodox are indeed the future.

He writes of their numerical significance.  “Nationwide, only 21 percent of non-Orthodox Jews between the ages of 18 and 29 are married. But an astounding 71 percent of Orthodox Jews are married at that age. And they are having four and five kids per couple. In the New York City area, for example, the Orthodox make up 32 percent of Jews over all. But the Orthodox make up 61 percent of Jewish children. Because the Orthodox are so fertile, in a few years, they will be the dominant group in New York Jewry.”

Part of their secret is Shabbat about which we read in this week’s portion.  “These are the things that the Lord has commanded you to do.  On six days work may be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a Sabbath of complete rest, holy to the Lord; whoever does any work on it shall be put death.  You shall kindle no fire throughout your settlements on the Sabbath day.”  There is listed here one positive command: rest, and two negative: no work and no fire.  The tradition spends much time discussing the definition of work.  About fire it is easier to detail. You can’t light a fire.  That is why many Shabbat recipes are for foods that are slow cooked.  You can keep a fire burning, but you can’t light it.

Work is more complicated to define.  The rabbis reason that there are 39 labors.  There are major categories of work.  They base these on the labors detailed for the building of the tabernacle that follows the commandment to observe Shabbat.  So for example one cannot carry on Shabbat.  In particular one cannot carry outside of one’s home, one’s private domain.  This is why an eruv is required.  It in essence widens the limits of the private domain.  Of course the eruv is also a source of controversy because it defines an area as Orthodox. 

There is another category of work called muktzeh.  This would be an illustration of a fence around the law.  So for example even though you can technically lift up a hammer in your home you would not do so because it is usually used for forbidden work.  The list goes on and on and the details are unending.  I am sure many of us think such details are ridiculous.

A story.  One Shabbat, some years ago, I spent in Ashkelon at my friend’s daughter’s bat mitzvah.  I was the only Reform Jew among a sea of Conservative Jews and rabbis.  It was a beautiful Shabbat.  We walked everywhere.  My friend and I roomed together.  He is shomrei Shabbat and I was the kid who kept asking when can I watch TV?  “Look out at the sea; there are three stars.”  One measure for havdalah is seeing three stars in the sky.  “Steve, those are a ship’s lights…”

Still I have a certain admiration for living by the law.  For the tradition, Shabbat is likened to a building that we construct out of a myriad of laws; it is in Heschel’s words a palace in time.  “The meaning of the Sabbath is to celebrate time rather than space. Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things of space, on the Shabbat we try to become attuned to holiness in time.  It is a day on which we are called upon to share in what is eternal in time, to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation; from the world of creation to the creation of the world.”  For the Orthodox Jew one’s own ego is sublimated to the demands of the law.

Reform Judaism offers a critique.  It asks, where is the personal meaning and fulfillment?  Where are the individual’s wants and desires?  It looks at the mountain of laws and proclaims that the intention and meaning of Shabbat can no longer be seen because of the details of an eruv, carrying and a hammer.  So much time is spent debating about what is permitted and what is prohibited that the beauty and luxury of Shabbat is obscured.

I believe in the Reform critique.  How can you see Shabbat through the thicket of so many laws?  But the more important question and critique is what have lost by asserting the individual over the community?  In our liberal world, we have so elevated personal choice that we have lost much of the meaning of obligation.  Can we ever say, I am sorry you can’t do that, but your family comes first, your congregation comes first, your people, your country?  Can we ever just say anymore, you have to do that?  Perhaps we have given up too much in our quest for personal fulfillment and meaning.

Sometimes the greatest meaning can be found in what others want us to do, what the tradition asks of us rather than what we want to do.  The Talmud argues that it is best to do a mitzvah solely out of sense of being commanded rather than for an ulterior motive such as personal fulfillment.  Why?  Because a commandment is always more reliable than that fleeting goal of spiritual meaning.  When you no longer find the action fulfilling, you might no longer do the mitzvah.  And for the Talmud the goal is to get us to do what is asked of us by God. 

In the traditional world, obligation and community precede personal choice and individual fulfillment; rootedness and meaning are found in obligation and community.  I don’t want to give up my personal choice and my quest for spiritual nourishment.  But we need to consider that we may have lost something in the process.

David Brooks writes: “The laws, in this view, make for a decent society. They give structure to everyday life. They infuse everyday acts with spiritual significance. They build community. They regulate desires. They moderate religious zeal, making religion an everyday practical reality.”

Perhaps we would gain more meaning by adopting at least a measure of this approach.  Then we might make our faith an everyday reality and no longer just an infrequent desire.

Vayakhel-Pekudei

In this week’s portion we read: “Moses then gathered (vayakhel) the whole Israelite community…  This is what the Lord has commanded: Take from among you gifts to the Lord, everyone whose heart so moves him shall bring them…” (Exodus 35:1-5)

In last week’s we read: “When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, the people gathered (vayikahel) against Aaron and said to him, ‘Come, make us a god who shall go before us…’” (Exodus 32:1)

In one instance the people gathered for good, the other for bad.  This week they gathered to build the tabernacle, in last week’s the golden calf.  The Hebrew root of “gathered” indicates how close the positive can sometimes be to the negative.

I just returned from the AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington DC.  It was an extraordinary experience to sit with 12,000 people who share my passion and commitment for the modern State of Israel.  I am proud that seven from our congregation joined me at this convention.  Two thirds of United States senators and representatives attended as well.  There were many interesting speakers including Vice President Joe Biden, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer and Senator John McCain.  All shared their unequivocal support for Israel.  All spoke of the looming threat from a nuclear Iran and the dangers of Syrian arms falling into the hands of Hezbollah.

One afternoon I took a break from the intensity of the sessions and walked around Washington’s beautiful National Mall.  The Jefferson and Lincoln Memorials, the Reflecting Pool and Tidal Basin, the US Capital and White House are breathtaking.  I made my way to the new World War II memorial.  Its Freedom Wall is decorated with 4,048 stars, each representing the 100 US service personnel killed or missing in the war, amounting to 405,089 dead.  At the Vietnam War memorial the loss is more personal.  Each of the 58,272 names is etched on its black granite wall.

Such losses are staggering.  Even when war is justified and necessary it is never without loss.  War brings with it destruction.  War sacrifices a nation’s youth.  In an age of drone wars, we too often forget that it also devastates those who call its battlegrounds home.

During the convention I lost count how many times we applauded speakers for their strong statements about Iran.  I certainly agree that Iran represents a threat to Israel and the United States, as well as the Middle East and the Western World.  Nonetheless the applause and standing ovations for calls to attack Iran gave me pause.  I wonder if we are guilty of worshipping our military prestige. I worry about an over confidence that military means can solve our problems and overcome hatreds.  War can perhaps offer temporary defenses but rarely long term solutions.  Our defense forces should most certainly protect us.  To live in safety and security is our right.  Too often in the modern age it must be vigorously defended.   

When antisemites stand up, as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has done, to say that they want to annihilate the Jewish people and destroy the Jewish state, we should believe them.   I have often said, and continue to believe, that history has taught us that we should take antisemites at their word.  The import of Jewish history is that we no longer have the luxury to dismiss such claims.  The meaning of the Jewish state is that we now have the power to defend ourselves, to protect our Jewish home.

That is the difference in Israel’s war memorials. They are interspersed within neighborhoods.  One walks along the streets of Jerusalem and happens upon a memorial to ten who fell in the 1967 war near, or even at, the very spot one stands.  One of the ferocious battle sites of that war, Ammunition Hill, sits near Jerusalem’s trendy neighborhood of French Hill.  There it is clear, and then it was apparent, that war was about defending one’s home.   

Sitting with like minded delegates it is more difficult to discern.  The applause gathers to a chorus. 

One lecturer suggested that the United States and Israel come to the threat of Iran with different traumas.  Israel is traumatized by the Holocaust and the resolve that it must never happen again.  The United States is traumatized by the two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, by the innumerable sacrifices we have made over there for the sake of freedom here.  Sometimes thousands of miles of ocean make it more difficult to give meaning to these distant sacrifices.  Nonetheless, we dismiss both traumas to our peril.  I wonder, perhaps only a leader traumatized by war should make the decision to go to war.

I am left uneasy applauding war’s use.  I am left reeling.  What is the meaning of my cheers? 

Last week we read: “When Joshua heard the sound of the people in its boisterousness, he said to Moses, ‘There is a cry of war in the camp.’”  (Exodus 32:17)

And this week, “So the whole community of the Israelites left Moses’ presence.  And everyone who excelled in ability and everyone whose spirit moved him came, bringing to the Lord his offering for the work of the Tent of Meeting…” (Exodus 35:20)

Ki Tissa Sermon

Let me offer some words of Torah before turning to our concluding prayers... This week’s Torah portion is Ki Tissa. It contains the story of the golden calf, considered the greatest sin in the Torah, when the Israelites rebelled against the Torah’s laws, Moses’ leadership and of course God. Idolatry, its definitions and prohibitions, occupy many laws in the Torah. It is of course expressly forbidden and this is repeated quite often. Anything that even approaches an idol is not allowed. So for example we don’t have any images of people in our sanctuaries. The question still haunts us today. What is an idol?

There are those in the Jewish world who believe that anything which is foreign is an idol. If it is not written about or talked about in our tradition, if it is not mentioned in the Torah, Talmud or traditional literature then it must be rejected. Then it is forbidden and labeled an idol. It must even be destroyed. It has no place in the Jewish world.

I do not however believe the lines are so clear. Anything can be turned into an idol. Anything that is worshiped as an end unto itself can become an idol. Even our holy Torah can become objectified. If it is not about the values taught and pointed to in its words then it is an idol. If the mezuzah becomes not a reminder but a protective amulet it veers toward an idol.

On this Shabbat we have modern instruments accompanying our services. Some would say that such instruments and music steer people away from Judaism. I of course reject this view. They elevate and enhance our prayers. Instead they can pull us in and towards our traditions. They can help us reclaim and renew our Jewish lives.

There are those who believe in stark lines. Their world is black and white. There is only what they call holy. And everything else that is foreign is deemed an idol.

But the world is changing. In Israel there is a resurgence of Jewish music. Contemporary musicians are taking traditional prayers and poems and reclaiming them as their own; they are using the tools of modernity to enhance the tradition. But there are also the values of modernity with which we must contend. Not all is foreign and should be forbidden. This battle is being waged in Israel more than here. In fact the coalition talks are now stalled because of this very question.

It is possible that soon the ultra-Orthodox will be required to contribute to the state. For years they have treated the state as an idol. Its values, its institutions must be shunned, they argued. But Zionism is about fusing the modern with the ancient. Now the ultra Orthodox may in fact be conscripted into some form of national service. It is this very question that has impeded Netanyahu’s ability to build a coalition.

The stark, black and white lines of yesterday are fading. It is not religious or secular, foreign or mine, idol or holy but instead a fusion. There are no clear lines; they are all grey.

Here is a fascinating, recent development. Every new Member of Knesset gives a speech. Ruth Calderon, number 13 on Yesh Atid’s list, instead taught Talmud. Here is a secular Israeli, a PhD in Talmud, teaching Talmud to Israelis of every stripe, to rabbis and Israeli Arabs. She, by the way, is also a student of David Hartman.

Ruth Calderone concluded her speech with the words:

I am convinced that studying the great works of Hebrew and Jewish culture are crucial to construct a new Hebrew culture for Israel. It is impossible to stride toward the future without knowing where we came from and who we are, without knowing, intimately and in every particular, the sublime as well as the outrageous and the ridiculous. The Torah is not the property of one movement or another. It is a gift that every one of us received, and we have all been granted the opportunity to meditate upon it as we create the realities of our lives. Nobody took the Talmud and rabbinic literature from us. We gave it away, with our own hands, when it seemed that another task was more important and urgent: building a state, raising an army, developing agriculture and industry, etc. The time has come to reappropriate what is ours, to delight in the cultural riches that wait for us, for our eyes, our imaginations, our creativity.

I believe things are changing. The lines of what is an idol and what is not, of what is holy and what is profane, of what is religious and what is secular, are no longer so clear. In fact they never were. It is all grey. And that is good. And that is a blessing. And that is the greatest and most lasting lesson of the golden calf.

Ki Tissa

This week’s Torah portion, Ki Tissa, begins with the instructions for building the mishkan, the portable tabernacle.  It concludes with the first of many rebellions, the building of the golden calf.  Why was the building of one a transgression and the other a holy task?  The first and most obvious answer is that the mishkan was commanded by God and the golden calf was not.  Yet we read that the chief architect of the tabernacle was a man named Betzalel who “God endowed with a divine spirit of skill, ability, and knowledge of every kind of craft…” (Exodus 31: 3)

Often when we use the similar phrase “divinely inspired” it suggests that a person is remarkably creative.  I wonder, what are the limits of creativity?  When does a human creation become idolatry?  The people were afraid.  They wondered why Moses was taking so long to come down from the mountaintop.  They only did what they knew how to do.  They built a golden calf.  Was it beautiful?  Undoubtedly.  Was it expertly crafted?  Certainly.  Still it was an idol.  And the people were severely punished.  The intention is secondary to the action.

Since the destruction of the Temple the rabbis argued that all construction projects are flawed.  Even the best are imperfect.  The worst are idols.  And so Abraham Joshua Heschel suggests that it is better to build not a tabernacle in space but in time.  We build a day.  Shabbat and its observances is our holy temple.  It and it alone, is called a sign for all time between God and the people of Israel.  “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He ceased from work and was refreshed.” (Exodus 31:17)

In fact this entire Torah portion is about our imperfect attempts to approach the divine.  First there is the tabernacle, next the golden calf and finally Moses meets God face to face.  Yet even Moses cannot see God.  The Torah reports: “And I will take away My hand, and you will see My back; but My face will not be seen. (Exodus 33:23) 

The Hatam Sofer, a 19^th century Jewish thinker, comments: “One is only able to recognize God’s ways and God’s actions after the fact.  Only after time has passed is it possible to link together all the facts, can one understand a little of the way God acts.  At the time itself we cannot understand God’s deeds and we stand amazed.  Thus, ‘you will see My back’ – after some time has passed you will understand My actions, ‘but My face will not be seen’ – at the time of the events themselves, you will not see Me.”

No matter what we build, no matter what we behold, it is still only a glimmer.  It is only when looking back, through the arc of our lives, that we are able to glimpse God’s handiwork.

Purim

Purim is of course all about fun.  It is a holiday unlike all other holidays.  All normal rules are suspended.  Costumes are worn.  Drinking is not only encouraged but required.   We laugh and sing, celebrate and feast.  As we read the Purim story we drown out the evil Haman’s name with noisemakers.  The story is almost farcical.

Curiously God is not even mentioned in the story.  Imagine that.  Here is the biblical book of Esther and the Bible’s greatest hero is absent.  Is it possible that our Bible is satirizing our history and traditions?  That is certainly one perspective that Purim offers.  Don’t take yourself so seriously—at least one day a year.  Even our holiest of books is treated with a certain irreverence.

I have been thinking about the proper place of irreverence in our lives.  I just saw “The Book of Mormon” on Broadway.  I have to admit that the last time I laughed this much was when I say “Avenue Q.”  In both instances what was so extraordinarily funny was that which we hold most sacred was subjected to withering ridicule.  To see the puppets that so many of us watched as a child perform all manner of adult behaviors was hilarious.  To view religious tenets mercilessly satirized makes us laugh as well. 

Can there be a place for such sentiments within our religious lives?  Purim suggests that the answer is yes.  Even our most cherished beliefs must be held up and ridiculed, if only briefly.  For those who are secure in their faith, there is no worry that such parodies will undermine belief.  It is the weak of spirit who worry about such things.  A Mormon leader was for example quoted as saying, “Of course, parody isn't reality, and it's the very distortion that makes it appealing and often funny. The danger is not when people laugh but when they take it seriously..."

Satire, and even irreverence, can serve to strengthen faith.  That is Purim’s greatest lesson.

Tetzaveh Sermon

This week’s Torah portion, Tetzaveh, is filled with exquisite detail about the priests’ clothes.   Today we no longer have priests so we don’t have need for their vestments.  Instead we lavish such finery upon the Torah that is adorned with a crown and breast piece for example.  Rather than a man we dress up a book as a king.

The portion also speaks about the ner tamid, which is often translated as the “eternal light” but it would be better to understand it as “always light” because it always had to be tended to.  The Hebrew suggests this meaning rather than the more familiar eternal light.  The ner tamid is the only commandment associated with the ancient tabernacle that we still do today almost exactly as it is commanded in the Torah.

Here is our question for this evening.  Why is light the most common symbol for God?

One answer, suggested in the Etz Hayim Commentary, is because light itself cannot be seen.  We become aware of its presence when see other things that it illuminates.

So too with God.  We become aware of God’s presence when we behold the beauty of the world, or the love of others, or the goodness of others.  It is only in light’s reflection that we discern its reality. 

Rabbi Harold Schulweis once wrote a beautiful poem entitled “Touch My Heart” that beautifully expresses this idea.  The entire poem can be found here.  The poem concludes:

Not where is love

            not where is God

But when is love

            when is God

Recall the meeting

            the moment, the time.

The analogy to light and fire points to Schulweis’ insight and understanding.  Fire is also not an object.  We become aware of its presence when we feel it.  Fire is also a process of liberating energy from something combustible.  Fire requires our efforts to tend it.  That is why the ner tamid must be the “always light.”  Thus God becomes real in our lives when we liberate the potential energy within ourselves for good.

People often ask where is God?  I admit that the light and fire of God can too often be obscured.  But the helpful message of these metaphors is that we have to look very hard to discern their reality.  Light and fire are often perceived by the glow or warmth they create rather than in their own realities. 

What is the Bible’s most familiar image for God?  It is the burning bush.  When Moses stands before the bush he is amazed that it is not consumed by the fire.  You have to stare a great while before discovering that the bush was not consumed.  Miracles are discerned over time not immediately.  Making God a reality requires effort.  It is a matter of looking carefully.  It is a matter of always tending the fire.  It is not a matter of magic.  It is instead a matter of recognizing when and searching for the glimmer and reflection of light.

Tetzaveh

In ancient times olive oil was the primary fuel.  We read in this week’s portion: “You shall further instruct the Israelites to bring you clear oil of beaten olives for kindling the eternal light.” (Exodus 27:20)

Why olive oil?  The first answer is because it was ubiquitous in the ancient Middle East.  The midrash suggests additional answers.  The olive branch was a sign of peace.  One reason it is such a sign is because it takes five years before the olive tree produces olives.  There must be a time of peace in order for farmers to tend to their olive grove.  Thus one cannot cultivate such a crop during times of war.

In addition the oil must be pure.  The Etz Hayim commentary points out that the fuel for the ner tamid must be uncontaminated by jealousy, selfishness, pride or greed.  Given the care and nurturing, peace and tranquility, required to produce olive oil this is why it was the most prized fuel for lighting fire the eternal light.  In fact an olive tree can live for 500 years! 

The meaning of olive oil and the olive tree is that it requires our hands to nurture and sustain it.  It requires relative peace and quiet in order to grow.  This is why it was so valued.  It is interesting to reflect on these qualities in an age when we are overly dependent on crude oil.  It is inarguable that our need for oil leads to conflict.  Do I need to recite examples?   Moreover, our use of oil causes the despoliation of the environment.  Is this still a debatable point?

Imagine a world dependent instead on the produce of our own hands.  I understand that my life might be denied its many conveniences.  Nonetheless if the fuel I required depended on my caring for a tree I might become more cognizant of my overuse and over-dependence on fuel.  And then the olive tree would become not only the symbol of peace it has been since antiquity but the cause of peace. 

Rabbi David Hartman z"l

On Sunday my teacher, Rabbi David Hartman, died. It was he who founded Jerusalem’s Shalom Hartman Institute where I study every summer. In the room where I have spent countless hours studying our sacred texts and debating with my colleagues, his body lay shrouded in a tallit at Monday’s funeral service.

On Sunday we also welcomed the Hebrew month of Adar, the month in which the holiday of Purim is celebrated. We are told that when Adar begins, joy begins. On this day my joy is of course diminished. Nonetheless my heart continues to rejoice for the years I was blessed to spend with my teacher. I am grateful for his teachings.

Rabbi Hartman was eulogized by many, including Israel Knohl, a renowned scholar of the Hebrew Bible. He reminded us that David lived by three alefs. Emet. Ometz. Ahavah. Truth. Courage. Love.

It was these qualities more than any others that made him my rabbi. He loved his students like few teachers do. He welcomed our questions. He invited disagreement. He encouraged debate. It was as if he believed he could only learn more if we asked more. The love for us was unconditional. It was not dependent on agreement. It was not tied to like-mindedness. It was divorced from our praise and accolades. He simply loved students.

He was also courageous. Years ago he dreamed of a place where rabbis of all denominations, Reform, Orthodox, Conservative, Reconstructionist and Renewal, would come to study. He imagined it would be a place not of ideology but about love of Judaism, Israel and the Jewish people. It would be a place that could deepen our commitments and challenge us to think in new ways. Come to Jerusalem to learn more Torah, he envisioned. And I discovered, be prepared to be shaken by new revelations.

He was most of all unafraid of truth. He studied everything. He did not just pour over the Talmud and the texts of our tradition, but any wisdom. He, for example, insisted we read Erich Fromm. He discussed with us Aristotle. Although deeply rooted in the Jewish tradition, he modeled a learning that could be garnered from all sources. It was a remarkable example. Here was an Orthodox rabbi, a graduate of Yeshiva University, who taught us that the spiritual pursuit is to run after truth. At times it was filled with anger and even curses. Often it was tinged with the Yiddish of his youth. Nonetheless, no matter how it emerged we were admonished to never turn away from it or deny it.

On Shabbat we will read of the mishkan, the tabernacle that the Israelites constructed in the wilderness. As they wandered through the midbar this mishkan offered them strength and courage. It was this tabernacle that assured the Israelites that God was present in their midst. During the summer it was as if God peered through the windows of Rabbi Hartman’s Institute. There it was possible to glimpse the divine, to behold God shimmering from our debates. Every summer our Torah was renewed.

It leapt from the walls, amidst shouts and screams, smiles and laughs, from within the pages of our sacred texts and between colleagues of every Jewish denomination, but most of all from the loving hand of my teacher extended to my cheek for a question worth pondering. With David the challenge was welcomed. Jewish life is imperfect. It must be reinvigorated. We must not be afraid. I must summon courage. I always left Jerusalem with more questions than when I arrived. There were now more uncertainties. Still it was comforting that the greatest of my teachers appeared even more uncertain. His lesson was instead to embrace the uncertainty.

Some thirty years ago Rabbi David Hartman dreamed of the place that many of us now call our spiritual home. Yet he died unsatisfied. Despite the countless rabbis who call him their rabbi, there was always a restlessness in his soul that at times could be disquieting. He was never content. Jewish life, the world, is imperfect and only we can repair it. There was a rage over the imperfections in the Jewish present, but also an unrivaled faith that we, and we alone, can mend them.

He continued to believe that the perfecting and completing was within our grasp. That was the vision that he re-ignited within my soul and that he re-instilled in my heart each and every summer. For that inspiration, for the innumerable teachings, I will always be grateful.

Yitgadal, vayitkadash…

My joy is restored.

Mishpatim

Remember when the pooper-scooper law was introduced? I still recall when Mayor Koch z”l advocated for it. He said, “If you’ve ever stepped in dog doo, you know how important it is to enforce the canine waste law.” No one thought then that people would willingly clean up their dog’s poop or that it would be commonplace to see dog walkers carry plastic bags with them. New York led the way for the rest of the country.

Sometimes laws can change the way people behave. Governments can in fact legislate change. That of course is the philosophy that gives rise to the current mayor’s attempt to forbid big gulps.

Although these examples seem trivial, there is a direct line from these laws to those in this week’s Parashat Mishpatim. Long ago the Torah revolutionized the thinking about laws. It taught that it is possible not only to forbid wrongs but also to legislate good. In this week’s portion we read for example, “When you encounter your enemy’s ox or ass wandering, you must take it back to him. When you see the ass of your enemy lying under its burden and would refrain from raising it, you must nevertheless raise it with him.” (Exodus 23:4-5)

Can there be a better example of the attempt to use legislation to raise our humanity and make us do good? In certain circumstances, namely when an animal is suffering, you must put aside the differences even with your enemy and lend a hand. The Torah does not say that we must love our enemies, but we are sometimes obligated to transcend these differences and together relieve suffering.

Mayor Koch had his failures, most notably what hindsight suggests was too slow a response to then emerging AIDS crisis, but he certainly believed that government can change us, can lead us, can create laws that will make us better, that can make our society more just. Mayor Bloomberg agrees with this as well. Democrat and Republican philosophies believe this. Libertarian thinking does not. And Judaism holds that premise to be false. Our tradition believes that we require laws to lead us to change—not always, but often. And we are therefore better for it. And even more important, our community is better for it.

It is of course true that laws can be coercive and at times, as in the case of Bloomberg’s recent attempts, patronizing. But we should not reject the entire enterprise simply because of these negative feelings. As a counterbalance to these downsides we must foster open critique and perhaps even skepticism in the face of governments’ laws. Nonetheless we should also remind ourselves that more people doing more good is our shared goal and a just society our dream. And legislation can help us realize that vision.

Can laws answer all our problems and compel people only to do good and not bad? Of course not. But I reject the conclusion that we should therefore do nothing. However imperfect I affirm the attempt, if for no other reason than this is also the attempt of my tradition.

This is what I learn from our Torah portion. This is what I glean from Ed Koch’s legacy.

Ed Koch z"l

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

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

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

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

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

Words sometimes belie the legacy.

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