Make the Routine New Again

The editors of the Mishkan T’filah Shabbat prayerbook offer this Lea Goldberg poem on the page facing the tradition’s Chatzi Kaddish.

Teach my lips, a blessing, a hymn of praise,
as each morning and night
You renew Your days,
lest my day be today as the one before;
lest routine set my ways.

Lea Goldberg was one of Israel’s foremost and most beloved poets. “Lamdeini” is among her most well-known poems. It speaks of finding renewal in blessings and songs. It bemoans routinization.

Too often our tradition’s words become habitual. We recite them without thinking about their meaning. We sing them without contemplating their intention. We rush through our prayers, grabbing hold of the familiar landmarks of Barechu, Shema, Mi Chamocha and Shalom Rav. We slow down as we approach the familiar Mourner’s Kaddish.

Every Friday evening the order remains the same. This is the meaning of the Hebrew word for prayerbook, Siddur. It shares the same root as “Seder.” The words suggest it is all about the order. We begin and end our Shabbat prayers with the same formulaic words.

I have often found it curious that Goldberg’s poem lamenting routine stands opposite the Chatzi Kaddish’s words. How can we say the same words every week without making them routine? Isn’t this routine part of the prayer service’s very meaning? We would feel adrift if there was no Shema or Kaddish. We would feel lost if we did not conclude with Adon Olam. These prayers anchor our week. We enter the sanctuary searching for the familiar.

So why highlight this contrast between the Chatzi Kaddish and Goldberg’s Lamdeini? How can we realize Goldberg’s vision and make these familiar prayers new every Friday evening? How can routine offer renewal? This is the prayerbook’s dilemma. We are wedded to the tradition and its words but instructed to make them new.

The Torah affirms, “This day the Lord your God commands you.” (Deuteronomy 26). The medieval commentator, Rashi adds: “This suggests each day God’s commandments should be to you as something new (in other words, not antiquated and something of which you have become tired), as though you had received the commands that very day for the first time.”

This is our task: to make the old new again, to feel as if each recitation of every prayer is the first time we are offering it. Lest routine set our ways!

Every morning is a new day.

But only if we truly make it so.

Banish Hatred, Rewrite History

When it comes to cars, my father is extraordinarily passionate. In addition to teaching me how to change a flat tire and how to properly wash the car (“wax on, wax off”), he raised me on the mantra that I should never buy a Ford. I was taught Henry Ford was an antisemite who believed in the antisemitic canard that Jews used nefarious means to dominate the world. He republished the fabricated antisemitic The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

To this day, I have never driven a Ford.

Among the many lessons I learned was never forget what was done to us.

It therefore came as a surprise to discover that the Torah suggests we should be more forgiving of people’s past sins and the wrongs they committed against us. “You shall not hate an Egyptian, for you were a stranger in that land.” (Deuteronomy 23) What about my father’s teachings? Forgive the Egyptians? They embittered our lives. They enslaved us!

If not for our going out from Egyptian slavery, we would not have learned what it feels like to be a stranger. The meaning of the suffering and pain we recount at our Passover seders is so that we recall how it feels to be an oppressed stranger. “Love the stranger,” the Torah repeats over and over again. Why? So that we never make anyone feel the pain we felt. So that we can help lift others out of their persecution and oppression.

But love even the Egyptians? Forgive our enslavers? Forget our tormentors?

The medieval commentator Rashi explains, “Because they were your hosts in time of need, during Joseph’s reign when the neighboring countries suffered from famine; therefore, although they sinned against you do not hate them.” Even though our years in Egypt ended with bitterness, remember the good that preceded it. Focus on the good, even if it has faded from memory and was long, long ago and even, and perhaps more importantly, if you did not personally experience this good.

Moses Maimonides, the medieval philosopher, adds, “The Torah teaches us how far we have to extend the principle of favoring those who are near to us, and of treating kindly every one with whom we have some relationship, even if they offended or wronged us; even if they are very bad, we must have some consideration for them.” (Guide of the Perplexed III:42). We are not supposed to focus on the negative. We are commanded not to dwell on the terrible things done to us but instead strive to find a measure of good in each and every person.

Is the Torah extending its love of the stranger to love our one time enemy and even oppressor? Is it possible for kindness to be so limitless? Is such unbounded kindness even achievable? At times, especially during times like these, this seems like an impossible, and unachievable, task. When we are threatened, we don’t feel much like be kind and welcoming.

Then again, if we always see ourselves as victims, if we are always intent on righting the wrongs of past injustices, our hearts will be incapable of bringing healing to others. We will be unable to see the good that is also present, albeit sometimes hidden, in the people standing before us.

Glimmers of good are too often obscured by bad. They are shrouded by the evil of prior generations. And yet good can always be discovered.

Perhaps the first step is to banish hatred from our hearts.

And in a surprising turn of events, my brother’s synagogue, Temple Shir Shalom, is now home to a Torah scroll, written in in Spain or Portugal over 500 years ago when it was forbidden to practice Judaism. The Torah was purchased and donated to the synagogue by none other than Benson Ford Jr., the great grandson of Henry Ford.

History can be rewritten by opening our hearts to good.

Addendum: Temple Shir Shalom’s Torah was recently examined by an expert scribe who determined that it is not as old as once thought or from Spain or Portugal but instead from 1860’s Hungary. In addition, my father also corrected me and said it was my grandfather z”l who advised me never to buy a Ford and that I really never mastered how to properly wash a car.

Keep the Arguments Outside the Gates

In ancient times, the court room was the city’s gates. In fact, archeologists have uncovered stone benches attached to gates of biblical cities where judges sat, heard cases, and issued rulings.

It is unfortunate that most contemporary translations render the Hebrew “shaarecha” as “your settlements” rather than the more literal “your gates.” The Torah proclaims: “You shall appoint magistrates and officials for your tribes, in all the settlements (shaarecha) that the Lord your God is giving you, and they shall govern the people with due justice.” (Deuteronomy 16)

The Bible’s intent is clear. Your gates are where justice is established. Why else would the Torah’s V’ahavta also instruct us “To write these words on the doorposts of your house and on your gates?” (Deuteronomy 6) It is because justice begins, and ends, at the threshold of a house or a city. This is why justices sat and ruled at the city’s entrances.

When people debated matters of law, or had difficulties they could not resolve, they are supposed to go to judges who are more expert in the law and more experienced in rendering decisions. People, quite literally, took their disputes to the edge of town where they were resolved.

Disagreements are kept at the borders of the city but not within. The community is kept whole, and differences, are kept at the outskirts. Only justice is allowed to enter through our gates.

It is a wonderful, and enlightening, image. Keep your arguments out there. Maintain your cohesiveness within. Repair to the gates when matters become heated, when it is too difficult for you to solve your problems without the assistance of a professional.

The prophet Amos declares: “Hate evil and love good. And establish justice in the gate.” (Amos 5)

If we establish justice at our gates, then our cities and towns, countries and communities, can indeed remain whole.

Baseball and Acknowledging Our Mistakes

Every sport has a set of somewhat peculiar rules. Soccer has yellow cards. Football a false start. Basketball has a flagrant one and even two. Hockey icing.

Unique among these sports stands baseball. No other sport keeps track of errors and makes a distinction between an earned hit and advancing to a base on an error. At each game the scorer sits in a box and makes the determination: earned or error. At the end of the game there is a tally: runs, hits and errors. In determining the standings all that matters are the number of runs. This, and this alone, determines the winner and loser of the game.

And yet there it stands: the team’s hits and the team’s errors. I know of no other sport that tracks errors and mistakes. A team can lose despite earning many hits. And a team can win despite committing several errors.

Sunday is the first day of the month of Elul. It marks the beginning of the High Holiday period, a time of introspection that culminates in Yom Kippur. It is a forty-day period that mirrors the forty days Moses spent on Mount Sinai communing with God. We are meant to turn inward, examine our deeds and look back on the past year.

We are meant to tally our errors. We are not meant to look at the standings. Our successes are immaterial. Our wins do not count. On these days it is only the error column that matters.

This may seem like a depressing exercise. But the faith of the High Holidays is that you can only get better, you can improve yourself, if you look at your faults. True introspection is about being honest about our flaws and owning our mistakes. It is about tallying our errors.

That is the faith that animates baseball. It is the belief that guides the Jewish tradition. If we acknowledge our mistakes we can improve our lives.

The hope that tempers this sometimes painful and other times awkward exercise of detailing our errors is that in those final minutes of Yom Kippur as the gates of repentance begin to close all can be forgiven.

The steps that begin in the approaching days is recounting our errors.

Remember What It Feels Like

According to rabbinic legend a fetus knows the entire Torah when in the womb. When the fetus is born an angel kisses the baby on the lip, producing the recognized indentation, and the child then forgets everything. Now this child must spend a lifetime learning Torah. It is a curious legend. The rabbis imagined that the womb not only surrounds a child with compassion but instills knowledge.

And then when we emerge into the world, we forget everything.

Once on our own, our inclination is toward forgetfulness. We must spend a lifetime combatting it.

We are commanded over and over again to remember: zakhor. This commandment serves to counter our inclination. 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 God might test you by hardships to learn what was in your hearts.” (Deuteronomy 8) We must remember our history, the successes and failures, but especially the trials.

Why? Because remembering our trials can kindle compassion.

Remembering is not instinctive. Memories must be taught. One can learn from others. But remembrance is best achieved by experience. Each of us remembers our personal joys and perhaps even more our pains. The great historian Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi argues that Judaism believes forgetfulness is terrifying. This is because when we forget we have a tendency to look away from the purpose of our remembrance. We remember our pain so that we might alleviate the suffering of others.

The Torah repeatedly commands, “Love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Deuteronomy 10). And elsewhere, “You shall not oppress the stranger, for you know the feelings of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Exodus 23)

Zakhor, remember, we are commanded. We must always remember the long way we have travelled and the many trials and pains we have endured. To forget these sufferings is to open the possibility that we might do to others what was, and is, done to us. We know the feelings of the stranger!

We are the Jewish people because we remember. Our future is dependent on hearing this command and regaining the terror of forgetting. Perhaps we will then once again reach out to others with the compassion that once surrounded us in the womb. And like that unborn nurtured child we will never again forget.

God Is Found in the Questions

People often ask me questions like “What does Judaism say about this or that?” I am always happy to offer the tradition’s answer as well as sprinklings of my interpretations. But the discussion should not end there. While the tradition may codify an answer, and while I may freely offer advice, the question and the discussion it provokes is what defines us as a people.

It is the search that provides meaning.

The Torah relates, “If you search, you will find Adonai your God, if you only seek with all your heart and soul.” (Deuteronomy 4)

The Hasidic rebbe, Menahem Mendl of Kotzk, adds, “The very act of seeking God, the longing to find God, that in itself is enough.”

Don’t let the answer define us. Allow the question and the ensuing debates—however, heated they may become—to be our defining character.

Ask questions! Discover God.

Answers may very well elude us. Have confidence and faith.

God emerges in the questions.

The Torah’s Message Is for Everyone

The Torah states: “These are the words that Moses addressed to all Israel on the other side of the Jordan.” (Deuteronomy 1)

The rabbis ask: “How did Moshe Rabbeinu, Moses our rabbi, begin to teach?” They answer their own question and say, “Moses began to explain the Torah in the world’s seventy languages.”

Even though there are hundreds of times as many languages, the question remains, didn’t the Israelites all speak the same language? Didn’t they speak Hebrew? Of course they did. So why would Moses need to explain the Torah in every language? It is because the Torah has universal import.

Too often we focus our Jewish learning on the mastery of the Hebrew language. Too often we mistake the Torah’s language for its essence. While Hebrew is of course important it does not always unlock its secrets; it cannot always unravel its mysteries. This is why Moses taught the Torah in many languages.

The lesson is clear. The most important thing about Torah is its teachings. These must be translated into every language. And these teachings must be interpreted according to everyone’s ability.

The Torah may have been given to one people, but it was never meant for one people alone. It was never meant for a privileged few.

The Torah is meant for all. It is meant for the world. It’s that each and every human being is created in the image of God is the world’s inheritance.

And that message must be proclaimed in whichever language we speak.

Gaza’s Hungry Are Now Our Responsibility

At the joint Israeli-Palestinian memorial ceremony, in 2018, the Israeli author and peace activist, David Grossman spoke about the unbearable pain of losing his son Uri in the 2006 Lebanon War. He then asked and answered a question that I have been pondering for some time. He said,

What is a home?

Home is a place whose walls—borders—are clear and accepted; whose existence is stable, solid, and relaxed; whose inhabitants know its intimate codes; whose relations with its neighbors have been settled. It projects a sense of the future.

And we Israelis, even after 70 years no matter how many words dripping with patriotic honey will be uttered in the coming days—we are not yet there. We are not yet home. Israel was established so that the Jewish people, who have nearly never felt at-home-in-the-world, would finally have a home. And now, 70 years later, strong Israel may be a fortress, but it is not yet a home. (“Israel Is a Fortress, but Not Yet a Home”)

When Israel wandered through the wilderness for forty years, they were not as we often suggest constantly on the move. They stopped, and camped, at forty-two stations along the way to the promised land of Israel. “These were the marching-stages of the Israelites who started out from the land of Egypt.” (Numbers 33)

As I watch my beloved Israel lay waste to Gaza and render it uninhabitable, as I witness Palestinians killed while clamoring for food, I am wondering if David Grossman’s intuition was tragically prescient. We are still wandering. We are not yet home! Is the modern state of Israel a mere station on our journey through history?

David Grossman concludes, “If the Palestinians don’t have a home, the Israelis won’t have a home either. The opposite is also true: if Israel will not be a home, then neither will Palestine.”

One can offer all sorts of explanations why Palestinians have not yet achieved sovereignty and why most Israelis reject a Palestinian state as a dangerous threat to their safety, nonetheless Grossman’s insight remains true. We can never arrive home if we deny others their rightful home. We will never feel at home as long as we are destroying other people’s homes.

Zionism was first and foremost about building that elusive home for ourselves. It believed our homelessness left us vulnerable to persecution. We are wanderers no more, Zionism declared. It need not, however, proclaim that this ancient land is only our home. Today’s Israel appears more focused on declaring that this place only provides enough room for us—and no one else. Despite its founding principles, the State of Israel appears to be saying this land can only be the Jewish people’s home. It focuses on buttressing the fortress’s walls and turning a blind eye to what happens outside the locked gates.

Gazans are starving!

All the cries about our security and the dismissing of every critic as an antisemite or a self-hating Jew or alternatively blaming everything on Hamas or denying that multitudes are starving, will never justify that people (infants!) are dying of hunger. Hamas started this war, but Israel now controls Gaza, and its starving people are now Israel’s responsibility. Their deaths are a stain on our collective Jewish soul. Feeding their hungry is now our duty. Has October 7th so hardened our hearts that we have no concern for other human beings? Gaza has become a humanitarian crisis that demands our compassion. (Read David Horowitz, “How Israel Made Itself Responsible for Gaza and All the Death and Destruction There”)

I do not know how Israelis and Palestinians can both feel at home in this same, shared—and shattered—land, but I remain convinced that this is our only hope. Two states for two peoples is the only path to providing a shred of light in this darkness. And while such a Palestinian home remains a far-off possibility, glimmers of Palestinian self-determination might begin to lead us away from today’s destruction and despair.

The State of Israel once imagined itself to be guided by the prophets of Israel when in 1948 David ben Gurion declared: “The state will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel.” Let their words serve as a reminder now.

The prophet Isaiah thunders, “Offer your compassion to the hungry, and satisfy the famished creature—then shall your light shine in darkness, and your gloom shall be like noonday.” (Isaiah 58)

We must lead with compassion rather than callousness.

Only then will this darkness begin to fade.

Immigration Blues, Part II

We wander the wilderness.

This is the defining feature of the Book of Numbers, whose Hebrew name Bamidbar means “in the wilderness.” We look toward the promise, and the promised land of Israel, but reaching this home often eludes us.

I had planned on venturing to Israel on my annual pilgrimage of study and learning at Jerusalem’s Shalom Hartman Institute, but Israel’s bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities and Iran’s missile attacks on Israel’s cities caused Delta to cancel all their summer flights. It was impossible, and some even thought, unwise, to find alternative flights to Israel and so we instead made a trip to visit our son Ari, who is now fashioning a home for himself in Antwerp, Belgium.

The city is known for its bustling port, as well as its amazing chocolate, beer and fries. The port’s significance dates to the twelfth century and helped to make Antwerp an important center of trade. This is why one hundred years ago, it served as the departing city for many immigrants making their way from Europe to America. Some two million people traveled through this city as they wandered toward a new home.

In fact, it is from here that my grandfather boarded a ship to New York. A mere two miles from Ari’s apartment Papa Bill, along with his mother and two siblings, waited in the Red Star Line’s boarding area. There they were examined to make sure they did not have any ailments. If these third-class passengers were turned away by American authorities, they would be sent back to Europe at the shipping company’s expense.

Walking through the Red Star Line Museum, I tried to imagine my then two-year-old grandfather clinging to his mother in the crowded warehouse. It is impossible to imagine the anxiety she must have felt trying to keep her children nearby and hoping everything would work out as she and her husband planned. Would the American authorities allow them into the country after such a long journey? What would she do if she could not be reunited with her husband and other boys in New York? There was no home behind her.

The only promise was ahead of her.

And now it appears that this transit point is a waystation no more. Antwerp is becoming my son’s home.

Perhaps wandering is what has always defined our people. Home is not some place on a map. It is instead what we build for ourselves. (By the way, growing up in St Louis, I never imagined Long Island would become my home or that I would become a New Yorker!)

Wandering is not aimless.

It is not the destination that writes meaning. It is instead the movement from one place to another that define us.

History, and Torah, are written by wandering forward.

The promise always remains ahead of us—wherever that might lead.

Will the World Bless Israel?

After Israel’s resounding defeat of the Amorites the young nation’s surrounding neighbors feared them. The Torah recounts, “Moab was alarmed because that people were so numerous. Moab dreaded the Israelites.” (Numbers 22) And so Balak, the Moabite king, calls his trusted prophet Balaam and insists he curse the Israelites.

Today’s Israel has likewise routed its enemies. Its military might is unrivaled. It has vanquished (although perhaps only temporarily) the strategic threats from Iran and its proxies of Hezbollah, Hamas and despite the sporadic rockets from Yemen, the Houthis. Even though its hostages remain in Gaza’s tunnels Hamas no longer represents a military threat to Israel’s citizens.

And yet Israel’s surrounding nations refuse to accept it. They resist acknowledging Israel’s right to exist. The Zionist dream of becoming a nation like all other nations remains elusive. Israel’s Declaration of Independence envisions that the state will “confer upon the Jewish people the status of a fully privileged member of the comity of nations.”

Israel is roundly criticized on the world stage. It is denied equal standing among the family of nations. Its wrongs are called to witness against its founding. Its rights are belittled and begrudged. In the past two years especially, we have witnessed Israel treated as a pariah state.

Balaam set out to curse the Israelites. In the course of his journey miracles change his heart and his curses turn into blessings. He looks out at the Israelites, and his fear is transformed. He instead offers blessings. “As Balaam looked up and saw Israel encamped tribe by tribe, the spirit of God came upon him. He said, ‘How fair are your tents, O Jacob, Your dwellings, O Israel!’” (Numbers 24)

And it is these words that begin our morning prayer services. “Mah tovu ohaalecha, Yaakov, mishk’notecha. Yisrael!” We sing the words of a Moabite prophet. Every morning, we chant the words of our ancient enemy!

These days I am wondering if these words are not our most heartfelt prayer. We yearn to gain the blessings and praise of our neighbors. The Zionist dream was to be a nation like all other nations. Our longing remains for the Jewish people to no longer be treated as an outcast and to be welcomed into the family of nations.

This prayer continues to elude us.

We long to hear the world shout, “Mah tovu!

For now, the situation will remain what it has always been. These words begin our days. Our ancient prayer will remain unfulfilled.

Immigration Blues

Once we had a country and we thought it fair. Look in the atlas and you'll find it there. We cannot go there now, my dear, we cannot go there now. W H Auden, “Refugee Blues” 1939

On this July 4th I am thinking about my grandparents.

Here is my Papa Bill’s story. He came to this country in 1906 at the age of two. He was accompanied on this journey by his mother Leah and older sister Hannah, age six, and brother Grisha, age four. They traveled by train from Katerinoslav, a city in Ukraine, to the port of Antwerp. There they boarded a ship for the ten-day trip to New York.

I am imagining my grandfather as a toddler. He clutched his mother’s hand for the two-week journey. She chased after him when he started crawling away from her on the train. She held him in her arms when he became seasick. She comforted him when he cried from hunger. I imagine his mother’s fear. Would they be allowed to enter the United States? At the time, our country only allowed able bodied men, and their families, entry, and turned away those showing any signs of illness.

Leah wondered. Would she be turned away before being reunited with her husband, Moses? It remained a possibility. Immigration officials were known to be arbitrary, and sometimes even cruel. She had last seen Moses three years prior when he returned home to see the family and share his plans for their future in America. (If not for that return visit, my grandfather would not have been born and everything I know would not exist.)

Leah longed to see her older boys, Abraham and Saul, who had made the trek by themselves. A few years before her own journey, she had put her thirteen-year-old and fifteen-year-old on a train so they could help Moses earn enough money for the rest of the family to make it to America. They spoke no English. They wore their names in a tag around their necks. They vomited repeatedly in the confines of steerage. I wonder. Did they comfort each other? Did they squabble as brothers so often do? Were they excited? Were they at times terrified?

Moses met them after they were processed in Ellis Island. (Can a human being ever be processed?) It was a full month later when my great grandmother Leah finally received the letter telling her that her boys had made it safely to their new home.

Imagine sending your children on such a journey. Imagine not being able to receive a text message from them after they landed safely in whichever country they are going to gallivant around on their semester abroad. We do not know the sufferings of prior generations. We forget the feelings of the stranger.

I am certain that immigrants only take the extraordinary risks that they take because they believe their current home offers no hope for the future. They do not board a rickety boat in choppy seas or traverse a raging stream or sneak underneath a border fence or put their children on a train by themselves unless they believe that such risks offer the only possible hope. My great grandparents believed in the promise of America. They knew it offered the only hope for their children. Their choice ensured that their children could become my beloved grandparents.

I remain forever grateful for their courage. I am forever indebted for their conviction.

America offered the promise that here you can be free from persecution and that your success would be measured, not by your religion, but by how hard you worked.

They believed in this promise so wholeheartedly that my grandmother, Nana Lee, came to this country without her own grandmother. Her grandmother had an eye infection and so was not allowed to enter the United States. A choice was made. Better that future generations would have the opportunity to build a better life in America. Sarah, for whom I am named, chose a future for Lee and said goodbye to her mother. She never saw her again. Years later, she was informed of her mother’s death by telegram.

After reading the message, she began sitting shiva. That is the custom. You begin your mourning when you learn of the death. Imagine that. Actually, we cannot imagine such hardships. Three generations later, we have forgotten our own stories. We have lost touch with our own history.

You do not make such choices unless you believe you have no other choice.

I am the grandchild of the child who was carried here and the child who never saw her own grandmother ever again.

On Tuesday, I attended an interfaith vigil on mass deportations. I attended this service to honor my grandparents’ memories. There we heard via Zoom from two brothers Jose and Josue Trejo Lopez. Although they are now nineteen and twenty years old and have lived here for ten years, they were recently deported to their birth country of El Salvador. They spoke in perfect, unaccented English and described in harrowing detail the ordeals of their deportation. They were shackled, denied food and water, and regular bathroom breaks during their weeks in detention.

I thought of my grandfather’s brothers. I became teary eyed as I imagined how pained my grandparents would become and how they would invariably shout, “Shanda!” when hearing of such American cruelty. We walked from the church to the street corner where many immigrants are detained by ICE agents.

As I walked, I thought of my tradition’s demands. The Torah repeats over and over again: “There shall be one law for the citizen and for the stranger who dwells among you.” (Exodus 12). We forget the feelings of the stranger. We look away from the demands of our heritage.

The only thing that America ever provided my grandparents was a promise. And they fell in love with that American dream.

The most important thing my grandparents ever gave me was providing me with that same promise and dream.

On this July 4th I pledge to continue fighting for that promise and dream. I will forever honor their memories. I will strive to live up to my tradition's demands.

Nations Are Built on Loving Debate

Korah and his followers gather against Moses shouting, “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)

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 talks with God and that everything is going to turn out ok. He is so full of himself. The land is so beautiful, he keeps saying. But when are we going to arrive? How much longer are we going to wander around this barren wilderness? Day after day we eat this manna. Day after day we keep walking and walking. And then we walk some more. Every day is the same.”

One can be sympathetic to their grumblings. On the surface the criticisms appear legitimate. Judaism believes everyone can speak with God. Our religion requires no intermediary. Moses is no holier than any other human being. Yet Korah and his followers are severely punished. Why?

The Midrash suggests an answer. It imagines Korah asking Moses these questions: “Does a tallit made completely 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 mockingly questions the entire system. Because Korah is so disrespectful he is punished.

We often do the same. We highlight inconsistencies in our religious systems. We point out cracks in our political systems. We seek not to correct but instead to mock. It is of course far easier to make fun of something rather than affirm. It is far simpler to make ad hominem attacks rather than criticizing with love and in the hope to improve.

We 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 offered but by the reactions of 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 our promised land and improve our society, we must stop attacking each other. We must instead debate and argue about ideas that have the potential to change our world.

What Korah failed to understand we as well no longer 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 at each other words of hate.

Of those who left Egypt only two made it to the Promised Land.

I imagine Joshua and Caleb missed their brethren. I also imagine that they understood why they stood alone.

A nation cannot be built in the wilderness. A nation can only be sustained—first by love and then by debate.

It’s Not about Bunkers and Bombs

The Torah begins, “Send men to scout the land of Canaan.” (Numbers 13) Moses instructed the spies to determine if the enemy was strong or weak, few or many. Do they live out in the open or in fortified towns?

According to press reports, prior to Israel’s attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, the Mossad spy agency embedded agents in Iran. These covert operatives helped to take out Iran’s air defenses so that the Israeli air force could take command of the skies and soon declare air superiority.

When it comes to Israel, and Israel’s actions, everything seems to take on biblical proportions. Our worries are likewise magnified. I am concerned for family and friends who are in harm’s way. They have experienced many sleepless nights. When Iran launches its ballistic missiles, they have to run to bomb shelters. My fears have become apocalyptic. What might happen if the United States enters the war?

Although I have confidence in Israel’s military planners (they have been strategizing about these attacks against Iran’s nuclear facilities for twenty years), I worry about the consequences. No military action is decisive. Terms like surgical strikes are misnomers. Collateral damage means innocent civilians are killed. Wars bring unintended consequences. They don’t solve problems with the precision of a surgeon’s knife.

This is not to suggest that Israel should not have attacked. Israel’s leaders have a moral duty to protect its citizens from Iran’s genocidal designs. I have always said that when antisemites rise up and say they want to kill you we must take them at their word. And when antisemites try to build nuclear weapons that can realize these designs Zionism dictates, we must take action.

Israel was founded to safeguard Jewish lives. How can it then allow Iran’s leaders to endanger these lives? It cannot. It must not.

The State of Israel was founded soon after the world learned of the Holocaust. It took to heart important lessons from that cataclysm. Never again will Jewish lives be extinguished without a fight. Its soldiers found meaning in the example of Masada’s Zealots who sacrificed their own lives rather than be taken prisoner by the Roman legion. It seized on the heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising as exemplars.

We likewise laud the soldiers who fought against the Nazi regime. We speak of their heroism on D-Day’s beaches and in the forests of Belgium. We forget that our defeat of Nazism involved far more than military gallantry. The great success, and victory of World War II, can better be found in the mundane intricacies of the Marshall Plan. That’s how we truly defeated Nazism. Hateful, and yes even murderous, ideologies can never be defeated by military means alone.

It’s never just about bunkers and bombs.

To think that it will all be cured by bigger bombs and larger planes is fallacy.

Tell the Eyes What to See

When the Israelites wandered through the wilderness, God provided them with manna. The tradition explains manna was this magic-like food substance that not only provided sustenance but tasted like whatever the Israelites wanted it to taste like. The Torah states, “Now the manna was like coriander seed, and its appearance was like bdellium.” (Numbers 11)

Coriander has an earthy, slightly sweet flavor comparable to cilantro. Its leaves are often used in Middle Eastern dishes. And bdellium is a semi-transparent tree resin that has the fragrance of myrrh. Perhaps its semi-transparent appearance allowed it to take on any taste.

The Hebrew suggests a hidden meaning. The word for “appearance” is “k’ayin.” It comes from the word “eye.”

The Hasidic rebbe, Shlomo Lutzker, expands on the meaning of this word. He teaches about how God created the world with words and says, “God’s word is the animating force that gives everything life, and God’s word is akin to the appearance, taste, smell, and the pleasure within the world. The brilliance of this force is referred to as the ‘eye’ of each thing.”

In other words, the “eye” implies the essence of the physical world. The rabbi concludes, “The divine life force sparkles and glimmers through the world, just as the vitality of your intellect twinkles through your eyes.” Every living thing, everything we see, touch and smell offers glimpses of the divine. The eye must be trained to see these glimmers.

Too often we do not see the positive and focus on the negative. This is especially true when it comes to food. We complain about the cost of dinner. We protest the foods served. We say, What! Hamburgers again! I want sushi!” Imagine if said instead, “How beautiful and tasty is the food I am eating.”

That is the lesson of manna. Its secret ingredient was imagination. It was not about whether the chef seasoned the dish properly or arranged it on the plate for the perfect Instagram post. Manna tasted like we wanted it to taste. It was transparent. Each and every Israelite created their own image of it. Our food was transformed by our mind.

Art Green, a leader in the Jewish Renewal movement, adds, “The manna shows us that the physical world indeed twinkles with divine brilliance, hinting at an all-inclusive illumination just beneath the surface. The deeper truth is that the sights, sounds, and tastes of this world are a colorful representation of divine light refracted through the prism of the physical realm.”

The physical world sparkles with the divine. Even the everyday activity of eating provides an opportunity to glimpse the divine.

It is all about how our eyes choose to see things.

I Will Stand as One

Another week, another attack.

We pray for the speedy recovery of those injured in the Boulder firebombing attack. According to FBI agents the attacker wanted to kill all Zionists and shouted, “Free Palestine” at the marchers.

Although there were stirrings of Zionist thought throughout Jewish history, the political movement of modern Zionism is traced to Theodore Herzl. And Herzl’s passion for this cause began when he stood in a Paris square on January 5, 1895, and came face to face with antisemitism at the public degradation of Alfred Dreyfus.

Captain Dreyfus was a French military officer who was accused of spying for Germany. It was later proven that the charges were fabricated, and Dreyfus was innocent. Nonetheless a military court found him guilty and sentenced him to exile and life imprisonment on the Devil’s Island penal colony in French Guiana.

On that cold winter day, Alfred Dreyfus was marched by armed guards toward a military square. Along the way, crowds shouted at him, cursing and yelling “traitor” and “death to the Jew.” He stood still as he listened to the condemnation from a military officer who said, “Dreyfus, you are unworthy to carry arms. In the name of the people of France, we degrade you.” The officer then took Dreyfus’ sword, broke it in pieces, and removed the buttons and insignia from his uniform.

For a moment Dreyfus hesitated. Then he shouted, “Vive la France! You have degraded an innocent man! I swear that I am innocent!”

Theodor Herzl was shaken by what he witnessed on that January day. He determined that a Jewish state granting Jews protection and passports, finally providing them equal status among the family of nations was the only the answer to such antisemitism. He did not care where that state might be or even what language might be spoken there. For Herzl we just needed a state of our own to protect us from such venomous, and murderous, hate.

When a man thinks that attacking Jews marching seven thousand miles away from the ravages of Israel’s continued war with Hamas can effectuate changes to what is happening in Israel-Palestine, then that is antisemitism. When a shooter thinks that murdering two young people who were attending a conference sponsored by the American Jewish Committee, then that is antisemitism.

It is no different than those crowds shouting at Captain Dreyfus. He was suspect in their eyes because they believed a Jew could not be fully French. He harbors dual loyalties, they believed. Sarah and Yaron were viewed as guilty because of the company they kept. The marchers were targeted because they identify with Israel and Israelis.

There are plenty of criticisms for how Israel is currently conducting the war. The marchers in Boulder believe that the lives of the hostages must take priority and that only a cease fire will bring the remaining, living hostages home. They are in effect marching against Prime Minister Netanyahu and his government’s priorities and its actions. Sarah and Yaron were attending a conference about how to bring aid to Gaza’s innocent. Yet again our attackers and haters cannot make such distinctions.

All Jews are guilty. All Zionists have blood on their hands. And so, they can be shot, burned and their swords broken.

Jews respond I am not the kind of Jew who haters hate. Some renounce Zionism. Others distance themselves from Jews who do not share their commitments. But such internal distinctions or philosophical debates are lost on antisemites. It’s the Jew who antisemites hate not the imagined “those other Jews” or “not my kind of Jew.”

I am going to continue my arguments with my people and my protests for a more just world where every people can have a state they call home. I am going to march for the end of this war so that the hostages might return to their homes and that Gaza’s innocent might rebuild their lives. I continue to pray, may Israelis and Palestinians soon know peace! May Gaza’s children no longer feel hunger!

In the face of yet another attack, here is what I resolve. As long as the haters see us as one, I will stand as one.

Every Person Is Sacred

The tradition prescribes all manner of blessings. There are the familiar blessings for food. Before we drink wine, we say, “Blessed are You Adonai our God Ruler of the universe creator of the fruit of the vine.” Before we eat an apple, “creator of the fruit of the tree.” And before bread, “hamotzi lechem min haaretz.” There are blessings for seeing mountains, the oceans, a rainbow and even lightning.

The most unusual is the blessing one says when seeing 600,000 or more Jews together. At that moment, we say, “Blessed are You Adonai our God Ruler of the universe, knower of secrets.” Why 600,000 or more? This is the approximate number who stood at Sinai to receive the Torah. It is reported that 603,550 were there. (Numbers 1)

Why would the tradition prescribe a blessing that is nearly impossible to realize? It would take a miracle to bring 600,000 Jews together! It would take a miracle for to gather that many Jews willing to stand as one. It’s only been done one time and that was when it all started at Sinai.

The Talmud anticipates this observation and reports that Ben Zoma once saw such a multitude when standing on the stairs of the Temple Mount and so recited the blessing. Still, how did he so quickly count to 600,000? And how did even a great rabbi such as he determine that all 600,000 were Jews? The tradition leaves these questions unanswered.

Later commentators suggest that it need be only a large gathering of Jews. Perhaps it was skeptical that we would ever again find an occasion where 600,000 Jews gathered like they did at Mount Sinai. Then again, why are the blessing’s words “knower of secrets?” Why not, something more literal like the blessing for the oceans, “who made the great sea” or that for mountains, “maker of the works of creation?”

Why not say, “who gathers the multitudes” when seeing so many Jews standing together in one place? Why do we say, “knower of secrets?” The Talmud responds, “The person sees a whole nation whose minds are unlike each other and whose faces are unlike each other. God knows all secrets; God knows what is in each of their hearts.” (Brachot 58a) In every large gathering there exists a multiplicity of ideas and commitments. Every crowd is comprised of individuals. We must never forget that.

Blessings serve to remind us of some truth. Before we enjoy wine, the kiddush reminds to be thankful to God for the vines that provided such exquisite taste. When we see the ocean, and say the blessing, we are reminded that God provided such awesome beauty for us. And when we see a vast multitude of people, we must remember that every individual holds some truth.

Every person offers a measure of sacredness.

The blessing serves to counteract our human tendency to blur over individuality. We tend to see large groups as monolithic. We begin our arguments with phrases like, “All Democrats believe… All Republicans think…. All Muslims…. All Jews…” God reminds us that every soul is unique. Every individual is a blessing.

On the upcoming holiday of Shavuot, we celebrate the giving of the Torah. We remember we once stood together and as one. Let us also recall that each and every individual holds the secret to realizing blessings.

“Blessed are You Adonai our God, Ruler of the universe, knower of secrets.”

May Their Memories Become Blessings

What follows is my sermon memorializing Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lifschinsky.

I want to talk about Sarah and Yaron. I don’t want to talk about the antisemite who murdered them or the antisemitic hate that fed his rage or continues to give license to such brutality.

On this Shabbat, and in this sanctuary, I do not wish to dwell on a simple, but unmistakable truth and it is this. When chants of “Free Palestine” become synonymous with murdering two souls, one a young Jew and the other a young Christian, simply because they were leaving a Jewish event held at a Jewish museum then not only is the murderous act antisemitic but so are those words. I hope and pray with all my heart for an independent and free Palestinian state living peacefully alongside the Jewish state of Israel, but that’s not what “Free Palestine” appears to mean to those who shout it. Instead, it too often provides cover for antisemitism and offers fuel to Wednesday’s murders. “Free Palestine” seems to mean not the freeing of Palestine but the destruction of Israel and to far too many the permission to murder Jews.

That truth is not what I want to dwell on tonight. I would rather focus on these two young souls and what I have gleaned about their life’s work, however brief. I want to speak about their beliefs. I wish to say a few words about who Sarah and Yaron were and meditate on what we have lost.

Listen to their own words taken from their LinkedIn profiles. That is the strange thing about the power of social media. People live on. In the virtual world, Sarah and Yaron still speak in the present tense. So let us allow their words, and their dreams, to speak to this week’s terror. Let them respond to our sorrow.

Here are Yaron’s words. He writes, I am a Research Assistant for Middle East and North African Affairs at the Israeli Embassy's Political Department.

As part of my role, I am responsible for keeping the department up to date on important events and trends happening in the Middle East and North Africa, conducting research on topics of interest to our diplomatic staff, liaison with other diplomatic missions, maintaining relationships with the local think tank community and helping to organize delegation visits from various Israeli ministries.

Yaron continues. I'm an ardent believer in the vision that was outlined in the Abraham Accords and believe that expanding the circle of peace with our Arab neighbors and pursuing regional cooperation is in the best interest of the State of Israel and the Middle East as a whole. To this end, I advocate for interfaith dialogue and intercultural understanding. Beyond the Middle East and North Africa, I closely follow political developments in the United States, Europe, and Asia.

I hold a Master's Degree in Government, Diplomacy and Strategy from Reichman University in Herzliya and a Bachelor's Degree in International Relations and Asian Studies from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. I am fluent in English, Hebrew, and German, and have basic knowledge of reading, writing, and speaking Japanese.

Having made Aliyah from Germany at the age of 16, I have the privilege of calling both Jerusalem and Nuremberg my home.

Yaron was described as bright, curious and engaged. Ron Prosor, Israel’s ambassador to Germany said, “He was a Christian, a true lover of Israel, served in the IDF, and chose to dedicate his life to the State of Israel and the Zionist cause.” Others called him an idealist who was always trying to do good for the country.

Yaron had planned to propose to Sarah when they visited Jerusalem next week for the holiday of Shavuot. Sarah grew up in the Kansas City suburbs. Her LinkedIn profile reads as follows. I am a dynamic professional with a Master's in International Affairs from American University and a Master’s in Natural Resources and Sustainable Development from the United Nation’s University for Peace.

My passion lies at the intersection of peacebuilding, religious engagement, and environmental work. While working with Tech2Peace in Tel Aviv, Israel, I conducted comprehensive research on peacebuilding theory, emphasizing grassroots initiatives in the Israeli-Palestinian communities. My diverse experiences, including facilitating insightful discussions on geopolitics in Israel and Palestine as a Jewish educator, and researching an array of environmental topics in India and Central America, reflect my commitment to fostering understanding between different peoples. With a certification of Religious Engagement in Peacebuilding from the United States Institute of Peace and a skill set spanning policy analysis, religious dialogue, and environmental advocacy, I am eager to contribute to organizations dedicated to bridging divides, promoting religious harmony, and advancing sustainable practices.

Her friends described Sarah as someone who was good at everything she did. Sarah was a gifted student and a devoted friend. She was incredibly funny, witty, sharp and committed to her faith. Another friend added, she was devoted to the mission of bringing peace between Israel and Palestine.

This week’s Torah portion promises a blessing of peace if we but follow God’s commands. The Torah proclaims, “I will grant peace in the land, and you shall lie down untroubled by anyone; I will give the land respite from vicious beasts, and no sword shall cross your land.” (Leviticus 26)

Here is all I am certain about now: we are two steps farther away from realizing this promised blessing of peace.

On this Shabbat let us proclaim, may the memories of Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky become a blessing. May their idealism and their dreams become our reality one day and soon. And let us say, May it be God’s will.

Don’t Look Up for Help

At funerals I often turn to the psalmist’s words: “I lift up my eyes to the mountains, from where will my help come? My help comes from the Lord, maker of heaven and earth.” (Psalm 121)

In this moment of grief for a young couple murdered before their time (may the memories of Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky become a blessing), I am wondering about the psalmist’s promised help. The poet looks up to the mountains seeking answers to this age-old question. And then, seemingly out of nowhere and immediately he offers a response. “Help is not found up there but right here. God will help.”

I wonder if this is an answer to our question or instead an attempt to reassure. The poem continues, “The Lord will guard from all harm. God will guard your life. The Lord will guard your going and coming, now and forever.”

Perhaps the psalmist is offering a prayer. It is a hope. The psalm echoes the answer that thundered from Mount Sinai. “And the Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai.” (Leviticus 25) That mountain once offered help. Perhaps another one, any mountain, will respond again, and now.

The Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai’s words seems more apt for this moment.

On my desk is a stone with “Amen” carved on it, one survivor fragment
of the thousands upon thousands of bits of broken tombstones
in Jewish graveyards. I know all these broken pieces
now fill the great Jewish time bomb
along with the other fragments and shrapnel, broken Tablets of the Law
broken altars broken crosses rusty crucifixion nails
broken houseware and holyware and broken bones
eyeglasses shoes prostheses false teeth
empty cans of lethal poison. All these broken pieces
fill the Jewish time bomb until the end of days. (Open Closed Open)

I wish to run from its explosive force. I wish no longer to say “Amen” to the endless recitation of our woes. I wish to affirm the efforts of those writing a new story, of bringing blessings to the land. The Torah suggests that peace is in our hands. It is dependent on living by God’s demands. That’s all it takes; the Torah reassures us. God thunders, “You shall eat your fill of bread and dwell securely in your land. I will grant peace in the land, and you shall lie down untroubled by anyone.” (Leviticus 26)

Sarah and Yaron were attending an event sponsored by the American Jewish Committee. They heard from members of the Multi Faith Alliance and IsraAid. These two organizations are at the forefront of groups trying to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza. They are working on building Israeli-Palestinian partnerships and regional collaboration to help bring food to Gaza’s hungry.

The blessing of food precedes blessing of peace. Food comes first.

Is the psalmist correct? Any mountain might provide help? Look up for solace and comfort.

And then I realize. The poet’s intention appears clearer. Look up to the mountain.

We are the help.

There Is More to Piety than Praying

Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac, who is known more commonly as Rashi, was one of the most influential and prolific Jewish commentators. He lived in Northern France in the eleventh century. He wrote a line-by-line commentary on the Bible as well as an exhaustive commentary on the Talmud. Rashi not so infrequently turned toward his native French language when seeking a concise explanation for a Hebrew word and so his commentaries serve as the primary source for researchers studying Old French.

So influential were his comments that until the advent of the digital age most editions of the Bible and Talmud included his commentary in the margins. Rashi’s approach is direct and concise. I often turn to his wisdom. When struggling to understand the nuances in our Torah I first check Rashi. This week he offers helpful guidance.

In the middle of a chapter devoted to an exposition of the holidays Shabbat, Passover, Shavuot, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Sukkot, the Torah commands: “And when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap all the way to the edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger: I the Lord am your God.” (Leviticus 23)

The placement of this command has always struck me as curious. It appears as a diversion and tangent from the commands of sounding the shofar and fasting. Rashi suggests an answer to my question:

What reason had Scripture to place the law concerning the corner of the field within those regarding the festival sacrifices — those of Passover and Shavuot on this side of it, and those of Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Sukkot on the side following it? To teach you that they who leave the gleanings, the forgotten sheaf and the corner of the field to the poor ought to be regarded as though they had built the Temple and offered their sacrifices therein.

Providing for the poor is just as important as all the holiday prayers we offer! Ensuring that the poor not only have enough food to eat but are offered the dignity of gathering their own food is equivalent to all our pious rituals. These acts are even equal to building, and decorating, our sanctuaries.

And I am reminded that Rashi was not just a rabbi who preached to a congregation who occasionally heeded his words. He was instead a winemaker who spent much of his hours tending to the family’s vineyards. (Until modern times being a rabbi was not a paid profession.) His livelihood was impacted by his words. The amount of food he gathered was lessened. His piety increased.

If we want to be truly observant, and really celebrate the holidays, we must care for the poor!

Only then can we truly lift the kiddush cup and respond to our prayers with, “Amen. L’Chaim.”

Greet Every Question with Patience

It is told that Rabbi Hillel was open to any question and welcomed people with open arms. He was quite the people person. Rabbi Shammai, on the other hand, focused more on his books and a strict interpretation of the law. He was a legendary scholar. The Talmud tells many stories about these first century leaders.

One time a man approached Shammai and said: “How many Torahs do you have?” He said to him: “Two, the Written Torah and the Oral Torah.” The man said to him: “With regard to the Written Torah, I believe you, but with regard to the Oral Torah and its rabbinic writings, I do not believe you. Convert me on the condition that you teach me only the Written Torah.” Shammai scolded him, casting him out with shouts and reprimands.

The man then went to Hillel, who immediately converted him and began teaching him Torah. On the first day, he showed him the letters of the alphabet and said to him: “Alef, bet, gimmel, dalet.” The next day he reversed the order and told him that an alef is a tav and so on. The man said to him: “But yesterday you told me the exact opposite.” Hillel said to him: “Now you understand. It is impossible to learn what is written without relying on an oral tradition. You relied on me. Therefore, you should also rely on my teaching. You should likewise accept the Oral Torah and the interpretations it contains.”

Nothing can truly be understood without interpretation; nothing can fully be explained without a teacher. This is why we need the Oral Torah and the body of rabbinic works, most especially the Talmud and Midrash. They help us understand our Jewish faith. They help guide our lives with Jewish wisdom.

Another person came before Shammai and said to him: “Convert me on the condition that you teach me the entire Torah while I am standing on one foot.” Shammai pushed him away, swinging at him with a yardstick. The same person then came before Hillel. He converted him and said to him: “What is hateful to you do not do to another; that is the entire Torah, all the rest is commentary. Now go and study.” (Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 31a)

Years later these questioners gathered together and reflected on their experiences. They said, “Shammai’s impatience sought to drive us from the world; Hillel’s patience brought us beneath the wings of the Divine Presence.” We learn that even the most seemingly ridiculous question might lead to greater understanding. If it serves as an entry to more learning, to a life of meaning then it is not demeaning of even the greatest of scholars.

True learning begins with a question. And good teaching starts with patience.

The sages advise: “A person should always be patient like Hillel and not impatient like Shammai.”

I have come to learn. There is a little of Hillel in each of us. There is a little of Shammai in all.

And the Torah continues to demand: “Love your neighbor as yourself!” (Leviticus 19)