Judaism Commands Joy

Judaism commands joy.  It insists joy should always take precedence, even over sadness.

The Shulhan Arukh, the compendium of Jewish law written by Joseph Caro in the sixteenth century, rules: “If a funeral procession and a wedding procession meet each other on the road, the funeral procession must yield to the wedding procession.  Likewise, if there is not sufficient people in the community to attend both the funeral and wedding, the wedding comes first and then the community attends to the funeral.” (Yoreh Deah 360)

It is a mitzvah, commandment, to comfort the mourner.  It is also a mitzvah to dance with the wedding couple.  You cannot do both at the same time.  The tradition therefore says, first you dance then you bury the dead.

Often, our impulse, is to delay what we call fun.  We say things like, “There will always be time to celebrate.  There will always be another occasion to dance.”  Such statements see the wedding celebration as an opportunity for us to rejoice.  It removes the focus away from the needs of the wedding couple.

We rightly feel the obligation to mourn with others.  We do not feel the same weight of insistence when it comes to rejoicing.   We need joy.  Our hearts are swept up by rejoicing.  At celebrations, we not only help the wedding couple rejoice, but also add sparks of joy to our own hearts.  We are uplifted when we wrap our arms around others in the hora. 

We feel the pull of others, we feel the weight of our friends’ needs.  When we hear about a funeral, we say things like, “My friend needs me now.”  And we rush to help carry them through their sadness.  Why do we think our friends need us any less at their wedding?  These obligations should be equally felt.  In fact, the tradition rules the wedding comes first.

You cannot dance the hora with alone!  A couple can’t dance the hora if there are too few people there.  The couple needs their community to hoist them in chairs! 

Our first priority is to rejoice.  Judaism commands us to celebrate.  It insists that we cannot rejoice alone.  We are uplifted by our community.  Our hearts rejoice in the swirl of people dancing around us.  A wedding can only become a simcha with others. 

Simhat Torah arrives tomorrow evening.  It is the day when we rejoice in the Torah.  Its very name is synonymous with joy.  This too cannot be done alone.  We must celebrate together.

Judaism commands us to rejoice!  Let us rejoice in the gift of Torah and the opportunity another year offers us to pore over the scroll’s words.

Judaism commands joy.

It Is a Joy to be Jewish

How do you celebrate sukkot in the pouring rain?

The Talmud answers, “Go inside!”

Tomorrow evening begins the holiday of Sukkot when we are instructed to live in flimsy booths for seven days.  These sukkot are what the Israelites lived in when wandering through the wilderness.  They were also what our ancestors slept in while harvesting the fall crops.  And so, we live in sukkot to recall how our ancestors lived. 

It is joyous to recall what our ancestors did and live in these temporary shelters.  The Torah commands, “You shall rejoice in your festival!”  But who wants to sleep in a sukkah during a Nor’easter?  That would not be joyous! 

Long ago the rabbis were worried that people might be inclined to brave such storms so that they could fulfill the mitzvah of dwelling in the sukkah.

Thousands of years ago they posed today’s question, “If it is raining how do you know when it is time to leave the sukkah?”  Being rabbis, they answered their own question and said, “When the rain is heavy enough to spoil the food or cause discomfort.” 

Sukkot will be celebrated inside this weekend. 

Our tradition is supposed to be enjoyed.

It is a joy to be Jewish!

My Beating Heart’s Lessons

What follows is my Yom Kippur evening sermon about the lessons I learned from my heart’s arrhythmias.

For those who missed last year’s dramatic Kol Nidre, let me fill you in.  Let’s just say that I did not make it this far into the service.  By this time, I was at Huntington hospital’s emergency room with Bruce by my side.  Truth be told, I had not been feeling well for nearly two weeks and unbeknownst to me had been walking around with my heart in atrial fibrillation.  When the heart does not beat properly, especially over such a prolonged period of time, the body does not get enough oxygen.  After ignoring symptoms such as being short of breath, my body finally said, “I am going to make you pay attention to me.  You are going to lie down right now and right here.”

I would have really preferred to have passed out at home rather than here in front of hundreds of people, but you have to admit, I stole the show.  Now, one year later, and after a number of medical procedures to correct these arrythmias, I have had time to reflect about what I have learned.  Crises often offer unintended teachings.  And it is these lessons I would like to elaborate on this Yom Kippur.

Lesson number one. If you are getting out of breath, let’s say for example, when reading a ketubah at a wedding, then don’t delay calling your doctor.  Don’t say, “I will call him after Yom Kippur.” Or “I have to get through the next couple of days and then I will call her.”  Or “I Just have to get through this big work thing and then I will call.”  Look how that worked out for me!  We tend to think about our responsibilities, to our work, to our families, to others, especially those of us in helping professions, before we think about our own needs, but as Yom Kippur reminded me you can’t take care of others if you don’t take care of yourself.  The flight attendants’ reminder to put on your own oxygen mask before your child’s is correct.  My instincts were wrong.

I have regrets about that mistake.  I am called to care for you.  I am asked to lessen your burdens.  Instead, I caused you pain.  Instead, I added to your worries.  Over the course of the year, I offered many apologies and to every single person to whom I said “I’m sorry” it was always, “That doesn’t matter.  Don’t worry about it.  As long as you’re ok.  That’s all that matters.”  It is a blessing to be so loved and cared for.  But to be honest, it has taken me the better part of the year to accept my own apology and forgive myself. 

I think when we are faced with any health crisis, we first dwell on what we might have done wrong, what we think we should have done differently.  “If only I had not drunk so much at those weddings or if only I had eaten less red meat or eaten more vegetables or if only I had not been in such a rush.  If only I had not…” Fill in the blank.  Whatever condition or ailment or disease or accident each of us faces, we first ask, “What did I do wrong?”  And the answer is “Nothing.”  Forgiving yourself helps to heal the body.  You have to start there.  

At first the doctors told me, “Cut out caffeine.”  Done!  “Eliminate alcohol.”  As everyone knows I take the mitzvah of celebrating your weddings a little too seriously, (I love tequila!) but I heeded this advice as well.  I have not had a drink in a year.  I followed the doctors’ directions religiously.  But still, after several months of following these instructions, I had another AFib episode. 

Lesson number two. Life is not in our hands.  Sure, we have some control, but ultimately, well that’s why I have a job.  I am the guy you call when things don’t make sense, when life seems so random and unfair.  I have always responded to these queries of “Why me?” with “I don’t know.”  I am searching for answers just like you.  I don’t know why some people are blessed with many years and others less, why some are racked with health challenges and others face none.  I just forgot to heed my own teachings.  Nothing like passing out on Yom Kippur to remind me of who is really in control. 

I have long believed that I can train my heart physically and spiritually to do anything and everything.  To be very candid, I never imagined I would be facing heart issues.  I can push my heart to its upper limits when swimming, cycling or running.  I can command my heart not to be afraid.  But guess what?  I discovered I cannot control it.  I cannot command my autonomic nervous system.  No matter how many times I work out or how disciplined I am at avoiding every known AFib trigger, I cannot control everything.  For that I needed a medical assist. 

Ablations are a curious medical procedure.  Basically, the doctors scar your heart to heal your heart.  This blocks the errant nerve signals.  Five months after having an ablation, it seems to be working.  These arryhthmias are in the rearview mirror or as the doctor reminded me, he expects they should be.  There are no guarantees.  There is no 100%.  There never is.  There never was.  I have to learn to live with a chronic condition that is not entirely in my hands.  You can do everything right and still… You never know.  You can get the best doctor.  You can visit the most prestigious hospital.  You can do everything you are told; you can follow every bit of advice; you can take every medicine the doctors prescribe; you can be religiously disciplined—work out more or in my case a little less, but you never know.  Of course, I will follow all the doctors’ recommendations but there is no exact prescription.   Medicine is not an exact science.  No pill is perfect.  No procedure is fool proof. 

And so, the larger question becomes how do we live with these doubts and imperfections?  How do we embrace this mysterious thing called life? 

I found a few answers this past year.  And this brings me to lesson number three. Friends.  Friendship is one of those things that we often take for granted, but when there is a crisis, it is really needed.  It is so important to feel loved and cared for especially during times like this past year.  I did not ask Bruce to come to the hospital with me.  I did not ask the cantor to give me a hug when I was on the stretcher.  I did not ask Ben to make a joke when I was lying on the floor.  I did not ask Donna to hold my head.  Or… This what friends do.  They stand up for you.  The list is endless.  I did not ask for all the texts and phone calls and emails.  I did not ask for any of the kindness and concern that so many people extended to me.  Some said, “You have cared for us for so long, let us care for you.”  And so here is what you taught me.  It is good to feel loved and cared for.  And it is necessary for healing.  I am grateful for your friendship.  I am thankful for your love.  Healing is aided by the love and concern of others.

That was only made possible because I could not keep my condition a secret.  Lest we forget.  I passed out publicly.  My impulse would have been to not burden you with what I was facing.  My inclination would have been not to share what I was going through with anyone except Susie and my family whose love and support I am certain.  That choice was made for me.  There was no hiding getting wheeled out on a stretcher on Kol Nidre.  And that offered an additional teaching.  We are not supposed to carry our burdens alone.  We are not supposed to face illness or crises without the support of others.  This is why the Mi Shebeirach prayer for healing is done out loud.  This is why we share the names of those who need healing publicly.  We need the community to carry us.  We need others.  We are not supposed to travel through life alone.  Friends carry us—or in my case catch us when we are falling.  The community lifts us up.

So next time you are faced with a health crisis, no matter how big or how small, remember sharing it with others is not a burden with which you are saddling them.  Instead, it is part of the blessing of friendship.  It is an opportunity for them to show you how much you are loved.  And everyone needs to be loved.  Everyone needs to be cared for.  Healing is impossible on your own. It can only be done with others.  And you have helped my healing.  I could not have done it without you.  

Lesson number four.  Our community.   One of our congregation’s greatest moments was in my absence.  You observed Yom Kippur without your rabbi.  And that still makes me proud.  That aided my healing as well.  Why?  Because you communicated what matters so much to me matters to you.  I did not want to spend Yom Kippur in the hospital, but I did.  But I did so with the confidence and joy you were observing the holiday without me.  That was a balm as well. 

When all those questions like “Why me?” or “How I can I live without him or her?” seem insurmountable, we take solace in the community.  Each of us enters this place with different burdens and needs.  The community lifts us up.  This is why concerts are so powerful.  I love going to concerts.  There we revel in the joy that everyone else loves Springsteen as much as we do or knows the words to Kacey’s (Musgraves) songs as well as we do.  The best moment at such concerts—for the concertgoers but especially I believe for the performer—is when Bruce, David (Byrne), Kacey or Marcus (Mumford) stop singing and the crowd takes over.  That is how I felt on Yom Kippur.  I am not suggesting I am like any of those superstars but that is how you made me feel.  Like a superstar.  That is how powerful it was for me to know that you observed Yom Kippur without me. 

That is how each of us should feel every time we come to Shabbat services or at today’s Yom Kippur.  Perhaps we do not have the strength to sing our prayers on one Shabbat, or we do not have the stamina to sit here on the High Holidays for all these hours, but the music and songs and prayers carry us forward.  The strength of the person sitting next to you can lift you when it feels too heavy to carry on your own.  This is what it means to be part of a congregation.  This is what it means to be part of a community. 

It does not all depend on me or even you.  Instead, it depends on all of us. There will always be someone strong enough to carry us through when we are too weak to do so on our own.  We are not supposed to do any of this alone.  We need each other, most especially when we are weakened by illness or beaten up by the work week or distraught by grief.  Of course we can pray alone.  But the best praying is when we pray together.  Here, there are others to lean on.  This is what we built here.  This is what we have here.  We should never take our community for granted. 

The first time I had the physical strength to join the congregation for prayer was a few weeks after Yom Kippur.  I read the prayers I have read countless times.  I prayed the words “Baruch Ata Adonai Eloheinu Melech haolam, asher yatzar et haadam b’chomchah…. Praised are You, Adonai our God, Sovereign of the universe who formed the human body with skill, creating the body’s many pathways and openings.” I breathed in its words.  The prayer continues, “It is well known that if one of them be wrongly opened or closed, it would be impossible to endure and stand before You.”  I hesitated on these last words, “It would be impossible to stand before You.”  For years I thought the prayer was metaphorical.  Now it’s meaning became clearer.  It is literal.  There was a time when I could not stand.  And now I can once again.  I can stand before God.  My body is working once again.  And I say, “Thank God!  Praised are You, Adonai our God.”

And this brings me to my fifth and final lesson.  And that is gratitude.  To be honest, arriving at such feelings of thankfulness did not come so quickly.  I cannot put a date on it exactly, but I do remember this moment.  I was in one of my cardiologist’s offices (I have three now!) for the umpteen time waiting for the doctor to come in.  You know that moment after the nurse has taken your pulse, pulse ox, blood pressure, asked you your weight and height (one time I said 6 feet just to mix things up) and quizzed you about all the medicines you are taking.  Now you are sitting there all alone in that cold room wearing that ridiculous paper gown, and you start feeling sorry for yourself. 

It is a natural feeling this sense of “I can’t believe this is happening to me.”  There were times during this past year when I had this overwhelming feeling that I will never be the same again.  I imagine everyone facing disease or a medical crisis or recovering from an accident or grieving a death confronts these feelings.  But then, in that exam room, I spied this detailed picture of the heart with its four chambers, and arteries and veins with those receiving blood from the lungs colored in blue and those sending oxygenated blood to the body in red, and all the blood vessels that give this muscle its strength and the nerves that most of the time, and for most of us, command it to beat so rhythmically, and I was filled with awe and wonder.  How miraculous!

Isn’t it remarkable that the vast majority of time the body works without fanfare or praise?  I don’t understand all the Latin names or all the intricacies of the nerves that have been giving me so many problems, but my heart has been beating rhythmically for 60 years without fail.  And that’s a miracle.  In its 61st year it needs a medical assist to do so.  And perhaps that ablation is a miracle as well.  That scarring healed my heart.  I have now a permanent mark on my heart.  All of us carry scars.  We don’t get to choose the challenges we confront.  We do not get to choose the scars we are given.  We only get to choose how we respond.  We will not be the same.  But we can still be whole.  One can be whole with scars. 

The tradition’s blessings offer us a path toward wholeness.  This is why we are instructed to say them all the time—in good days and bad.  For years I thought this blessing for the body was about standing up after waking in the morning.  I did not think it was about having the strength to stand before God.  But now when I said it once again with renewed strength, I realized its import is literal.  You can’t bless God if you are too weak to stand.  You cannot give thanks if you are lying on the sanctuary floor. 

We need the body’s health before we can pray and offer thanks.  This Asher Yatzar prayer that now means so much to me precedes the prayer for the soul.  The body’s needs come before the soul’s.  The physical precedes the spiritual.  The Elohai Neshama prayer states, “As long as my soul is within me, I will offer thanks to You, Adonai my God.  Kol z’man shehan’shamah b’kirbi, modeh ani l’fanecha.”  We need strength to offer thanks.  To say it bluntly, you must be conscious to offer praise.  I thank You O God that I can stand.  I thank You for my life, for my body and for my soul.  I thank You that once again I can be whole. 

I have gained many lessons from this year’s journey.  Here they are.  Healing first begins with forgiving yourself for the missteps you might have made, for the choices that you regret, for the heartache you might have caused others. 

And healing cannot be done alone.  You need others.  You require friends.  You need to be surrounded by a community that can carry you when you cannot carry yourself. 

Finally, healing is magnified by gratitude. A soul filled with thanks can never be defeated.  Know this.  Gratitude does not arrive immediately.  It takes time.  Doubts still longer, the sense of loss still creeps in.  This path is a long, convoluted journey.  When gratitude does arrive—even if only momentarily, it is more powerful than all the medicines and procedures combined.         

The prayer for the body concludes, “Baruch Ata Adonai rofei chol basar u’mafli laasot.  Blessed are You Adonai who heals all flesh, working wondrously.”

We can never know how many years we will be granted.  I do know this.  I will greet every morning with renewed purpose.  I will bring words of thanks and praise to my lips. 

I thank You for my life, body and soul!

Loyalty Means Love Not Agreement

What follows is my Yom Kippur morning sermon in which I suggest love should precede agreement. We should cultivate Ahavat Yisrael, love of the Jewish people, as a foundational value that transcends disagreement and prevents divisions.

A favorite Jewish joke.  Here it is.  A Jew was once shipwrecked on a deserted island all by himself.  Somehow he managed to survive for many, many years.  Remarkably he found food and water and even managed to build a shelter offering protection from the weather and storms.  Then one day he was miraculously spotted by a passing ship and rescued.  The rescuers were very impressed with his survival skills.  One asked, “Moshe, I noticed there were several shelters on your small island.  It is unbelievable you were able to build a home for yourself.  But what are the other buildings?”  The man answered, “The second one is my synagogue.  Everyone needs a place to pray and so I built one for myself.”  “Then what, Moshe, is the third building?”  “Well, that is obviously the synagogue I would never set foot in.”

We are a strange and passionate people.  There are so few of us. There are just under 16 million Jews in the world.  We are but 0.2% of the world’s population.  And yet we have so many divisions.  As the other joke goes.  Two Jews, three opinions.  There are Sephardi and Ashkenazi and that special group Long Island Jews.  There are the Satmar and Lubavitch, Likudniks and Bundists, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice and the Zionist Organization of America.  There are Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, Reconstructionist and Renewal Jews.  There are more synagogues, and organizations, that we won’t set foot in than those we will.  Have you ever gone to a bookstore before Passover to see how many haggadahs there are?  There is one for every type of Jew.  There is the Haggadah of Contemporary Voices, the Haggadah for the Liberated Lamb for vegetarians, the Human Rights Haggadah, Sammy Spider’s First Haggadah and of course the Maxwell House haggadah to name but a few of the hundreds available.

We are so few, and yet we are so divided.  On Rosh Hashanah I spoke about our fear of antisemitism.  This morning I want to speak about another danger: our divisions.  This is also a threat.  To be sure these divisions have accompanied us since ancient times.  Back then there were the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Essenes and of course the Zealots of Masada fame.  They battled each other ferociously.  In rabbinic times there was the House of Hillel and the House of Shammai.  They did not really like each other very much.  Today, family seders are divided.  Thanksgiving dinners have become shouting matches or occasions where families broker an agreed upon truce.  No politics this year.  No talking about Israel.   

There is no doubt that today’s fault line runs through Israel. There is AIPAC on one side.  And JStreet on the other.  There is IfNotNow accusing Israel of apartheid and Zioness working to call Abdul El-Sayad to account.  There are devout Zionists in one corner and the growing and equally devout anti-Zionists on the other—and every shade in between.  As much as I am afraid about this resurgent antisemitism, I also fear our divisions.  And so, this morning I wish to speak about this other fear and even more importantly what we can do about it.  I feel like our community is fraying.  I am struggling to find a path through these disagreements that will not lead to divisions.  I am working through this too. This sermon is a challenge to me as well.  I want to dwell on this question.  How can we prevent our divisions from ripping us apart?

Truces that declare no talking about politics or no talking about Israel are the wrong approach.  They stifle our Jewish creativity and Jewish genius.  They will not work.  We have never had one response to historical traumas.  We have always embraced disagreements while working to shun divisions.  We must work harder at keeping everyone at the table.  We must avoid the temptation of pushing people away by saying things like “He is not really a Zionist.”  Or “They are destroying the Jewish people.”  We need to embrace all kinds of Jews.  I know it’s exhausting and maddening but we have to keep at it.  We have to learn how to embrace the disagreements while not allowing them to become divisions. 

The tradition provides us with a solution.  It is called Ahavat Yisrael—love of the Jewish people.  These days love is what is demanded of us.  We must not allow our disagreements to create divisions.  Our tradition loves disagreements.  It rejects divisions. 

Do you know why we have Elijah’s cup at the seder table?  It’s because the rabbis kept arguing about whether there should be four or five cups at the table.  Some said there should be four because there are four verses that point to the redemption.  Others said there should be five.  And so, the rabbis said in essence, let’s compromise.  We will make it four and a half.  We will fill Elijah’s cup with wine, but we won’t drink from it.  When Elijah comes to announce the messianic time, he will tell us who is right.  For now, we can all sit at the same table.  Otherwise, we will have seders for four cuppers and another set of seders for five cuppers.  To put it in today’s language.  We should not have Zionist seders on the one side and anti-Zionists at the other.  When we construct our tables around agreement, when we only welcome those whose opinions do not offend our feelings, then we are throwing away the very essence of what makes us Jews.  We all belong at the same table.  And that means everyone’s sensibilities will be offended at one point or another.  If we only surround ourselves with like-minded Jews, we will lose the bonds of peoplehood. 

Our ancient rabbis were afraid of division.  They were not afraid of disagreement.  The rabbis were masters at compromise.  They were terrified of certainty.  They believed certainty divides families.  It fractures communities. Sure, each rabbi was certain of his, or today her, opinions, (do I come off as uncertain?) but when we are together, we shun collective certainty.  Instead, we debate with each other.  We listen to each other.  We broker compromises that allow all opinions to remain. 

The rabbis modeled Ahavat Yisrael—love of the Jewish people, love of all those who are part of the Jewish community.  They also provided countless warnings about writing people out.  Here is the Talmud’s most famous story illustrating this point.  It begins with a disagreement about an ordinary item and ends up in a tragedy that shatters family and divides community.

One time the rabbis were arguing about whether an oven was kosher or not.  (Babylonian Talmud, Bava Metzia 59b) The majority ruled it was unkosher.  One rabbi, Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, disagreed and ruled it kosher.  He gave all sorts of reasons why, but the majority still rejected his opinion. 

He became enraged and started performing miracles to prove his point.  He made a stream run backwards and started to bring the walls of the yeshivah down on all of them.  The majority held their ground and said miracles don’t matter; this is an earthly debate.  A heavenly voice then said Eliezer is right.  The rabbis rebuked heaven by quoting this morning’s Torah portion that says, “Lo bashamayim hee.  It is not in heaven!”  The majority was not persuaded by miracles.  Reason is how arguments are made.  Eliezer the miracle worker became even angrier.  The majority then ruled that he had to be kicked out of the rabbi club.  He had broken the rules of how we are supposed to argue.  He had tried to bring heaven down on his side.  They excommunicated him. 

And here is where this fanciful tale offers us a warning for our own day.  Eliezer was so saddened that his colleagues had ostracized him that a third of the world’s crops were destroyed.  Then because of Eliezer’s miraculous powers Rabban Gamliel, the head of the rabbinic court, almost drowned in the ocean, but at the last minute he saved himself by shouting, “Master of the universe I took this action for Your sake so that disputes would not proliferate among the Jewish people.”  The leader’s attempt to squelch disagreements appeased the ocean’s fury.  Leadership is indeed a noble calling.  Keeping the people on the same page is an admirable goal.  It requires difficult decisions.  Sometimes it means deciding who gets to stay and who must leave, who is in and who is out.  But at what cost?  What is the cost of squelching disagreements?  What is the cost of kicking someone out?  What is the cost of creating divisions?  The Talmud continues.

Ima Shalom, the wife of Eliezer and the brother of Gamliel, appears.  This was a family squabble.  These rabbis sat at the same Passover table!  She instructed her husband Eliezer not to be so depressed.  He should take pride in his learning and lift his head.  “Don’t be so downcast,” she advised him.  But that did not last too long.  After some time passed, he began to dwell on how his colleagues mistreated him.  His sadness consumed his prayers.  The ocean’s waves grew larger.  Gamliel’s boat capsized.  Ima Shalom shouts, “My brother has drowned.  Eliezer, you killed my brother.”  End of story. 

Apparently, Eliezer had one more miracle left up his sleeve.  His prayers were so strong that they made the waves crash down on Gamliel’s ship.  The Talmud suggests his prayers were so powerful not only because he could bend heaven to his will but because they contained his pain and heartache.  His brother-in-law is killed.  And now their family seder table holds an empty chair. 

They cast one person out and ended up casting another out.  It is a terribly tragic legend.  The Talmud’s story offers an important message.  It is a warning.  Even when your reasons might be sound, be careful before throwing someone out.  Once someone is kicked out or banished, everything begins to unravel.  There might be unintended consequences.  Then more people will end up being absent from our tables.  Today, there are many, most especially our young people, who have misgivings about Zionism and profound doubts about Israel’s actions.  Rather than dismiss them as misguided we should welcome them to the conversation.  Rather than allow Jewish leaders to cast them out we should live up to the value of Ahavat Yisrael, loving others.

The Talmud does not give us advice for how we are supposed to resolve the challenge of those who hold views contrary to the majority.  It does not tell us how to handle the lone dissenter who becomes defiant and belligerent.  It says instead, “Beware.  You may be tempted to throw him or her out, but if you do you will unleash terrible forces that will grow way beyond your control.”  I hear their ancient warning.  I heed their counsel.  We must insist love comes first.  Better we keep him or her at the table. 

How many times have we wanted to walk away from an argument?  How many times have we lobbed social media posts at one another in furious text message exchanges?  How many times have we been tempted to unfollow someone or remove someone from a group chat or silence one of those text messages?  We think to ourselves, “Oh my God.  Will they just stop already.  Will they just go away.”  I know it’s hard.  I know it’s maddening, especially when you think they are so terribly wrong or misguided or even dangerous.  All we want to do is throw them out. 

But when we do, we end up arguing only with ourselves.  When we argue with ourselves, we only affirm our own opinions.  We do not learn.  We do not grow.  We don’t win any arguments by throwing someone out.  We learn nothing new by cancelling someone.  We should always meet with others even with those whose ideas we find contrary to our most sacred principles.  You can’t learn anything new if you refuse to sit down face to face.  When we refuse such sit downs each side hardens their positions and becomes even more convinced of the rightness of their cause, and the righteousness of their ideologies.  The bonds of peoplehood soften disagreements.  Ahavat Yisrael, love, counters divisions.    

The rabbis teach that Jerusalem’s Temple was destroyed not because of the Roman army’s overwhelming might but instead because of sinat chinam, baseless hatred between Jews.  We stopped sitting at the same table.  We banished one another.  We said things like, “He is not really a Jew.  She hates Israel.”  People spend so much time accusing other Jews of being inauthentic or disloyal rather than trying to listen to one another.  Can we stop feeling threatened by our fellow Jews?  Can we try to be more loving of one another?  Can we try to be loyal to our Jewish people? 

This is a difficult time for the Jewish people.  We need each other more than ever.  Rather than surrounding ourselves with agreement, I want us to do one very important thing.  Be loyal to the Jewish people. Despite our differences, and our disagreements which are profound, we need to hold on to each other.  We need to double down on the Jewish people and our attachment to peoplehood.  We need to work on loving the people Israel.  Ahavat Yisrael.  We need to love the Jewish people fiercely.  This does not mean we agree with each other.  That is never going to happen. 

This never happened throughout our history.  We are a people who has made arguing a central value.  Do you think I agree with the Haredi rabbi who shouted obscenities at me when I joined a protest demanding women’s right to read Torah at the Western Wall?  Of course not.  But he is my people.  Do you think I agree with anti-Zionists who shout that Israel’s very existence is immoral?  No way.  But they are all welcome at my table.  They are my people.  Love precedes agreement.

I think these days we have it reversed.  We think agreement must come first, that if we don’t agree we cannot love each other.  This is false.  Remember Ima Shalom, the wife of Eliezer and the sister of Gamliel.  She understood this.  Her name means the mother of peace.  Her husband and brother could not see it.  They were too stubborn.  They were so fixated on their interpretations and their opinions and their commitments that they could not see this essential truth.  Love must come first. 

I am terrified about our growing divisions.  Of course, I am afraid about antisemitism and the threats Israel faces, and I have profound disagreements with how some Jews are navigating these challenges, and with whom some are allying themselves, but I am just as afraid about our divisions.  Our fears of external threats sometimes get misdirected and focused inward at our fellow Jews.  We attack each other when we should be looking outward.  When facing external enemies, we need to be strong, and we need to be unified.  We can be unified while still disagreeing with each other. 

Let our conversations be more expansive and more inclusive.  When it comes to family and people, we should never view each other as a threat or an enemy.  Unity does not demand agreement.  People are going to formulate different answers to today’s challenges.  Some people’s answers drive me nuts.  But vitriol rips us apart.  Ahavat Yisrael.  Love is what is demanded.

Criticism yes, absolutely.  Antagonism, no.  Disagreement, yes.  Division, no.  Ahavat Yisrael.  Love of the Jewish people first. 

Peoplehood demands love—and that means across disagreements.  Ahavat Yisrael is really hard, but it is necessary and required even more so these days.  It starts with our own families. It begins with those closest and extends outward.  And that means sometimes I am going to be triggered at my own table.  But my feelings of discomfort are not the arbiters of right and wrong.  Feelings are important but they are not always helpful when arguing about ideas.  What is so bad about being made to feel uncomfortable and unsettled at times?  Feeling threatened is not always the same as being threatened. 

Focus on one feeling instead.  Love.  But the rest of them: upset, disgust or anger let’s not spend all our time trying to avoid them.  Feeling them are part of what makes us human.  If love is there, you can handle those feelings, you can handle the feelings that come with profound disagreement.  You can sit at the same table with someone who makes you angry.   Hold on to our people even when they drive you crazy.  I know how hard it is for families as they fight over whether this leader is an antisemite or not.  I understand how trying it is to balance each and every person’s differing metric about what constitutes a threat.  I know how painful it is as they wrestle over Israel’s actions and decisions.  But it all works if we start with love, if we begin with Ahavat Yisrael.  Love must be the opening assumption. 

Our learning is dependent on love.  Our strength is magnified by inviting everyone in.  We invite all to debate every and any idea.  This has always been our core principle.  The welcoming table is what keeps our people alive. It is built on a foundation of love.  We are strengthened by disagreement.  The table must be wide enough to include all manners of opinions.  And it must be open enough to include all disagreements.

We need to be attached to the Jewish people.  We need more Ahavat Yisrael, love of the Jewish people.   As long as we stay in the argument, we will remain one family.  As soon as we throw someone out, we lose the ties that bind us to one another.  I heed the rabbis’ warnings. 

I desperately want to keep everyone at the table.  And this means unity over vitriol.  Not agreement.  We’ve never had that. We never will.  What these days require is love. 

Disagreement yes, always.  Division, no, never.

Ahavat Yisrael.  We must love the Jewish people.

Love must precede all else.

Loyalty does not mean agreement.  Loyalty means love.

They’re Just a Phone Call Away

What follows is my meditation from Yom Kippur afternoon’s Yizkor service. You can watch this service on our congregation’s YouTube Channel.

People often share that months, and even years, after their loved one’s death, they still reach for their phone and start calling their parent or sibling.  For husbands and wives, it is more often that they find themselves whispering to their loved one while lying in bed.  These are natural reactions.  They are reflexive actions, learned after years of living with someone or after decades of calling them on a regular basis.  We reach for the phone when there is a happy occasion or a child’s achievement.  And midway through the unanswered rings the realization occurs, they are not answering.  The tears begin to flow again.

And so it may come as a surprise or perhaps a logical extension of these one-way phone calls that after years of officiating at the funerals of people who were my friends and congregants—and your friends and relatives, I find myself unable to delete their contacts from my iPhone.  Every once in a while, while searching for another contact, I come across the names of Todd or Richard, Bettina or Harry, Judy or Annie or countless others.  I do not know why I cannot bear to delete their names.  It seems to represent some kind of fear.  It is a fear that I might forget them if I delete their contact.  It is a fear that I will blot out their name from my memories if I press delete. 

Then it occurs to me perhaps it is almost as if I am waiting for them to call me.  I am longing for another conversation.  Let me have just one more phone call with them.

And so, on this Yizkor I would like us to imagine, and perhaps even have, that conversation.  I would like to speak with Todd again.  I would like to speak with him about a recent swim or with my cousin Richard about the new drummer for Rush or with Harry I would like to argue about the mess of our politics or with Bettina I would like to remind her how much her friends miss her and how she bound them together. 

On this Yom Kippur I would like us to imagine what your husband or wife, mother or father, sister or brother, son or daughter is saying on the other end of the phone line.  We know what we long to say to them.  We know how many times we caught ourselves reaching for the phone to tell them about a child’s engagement or a grandchild’s birth or even something as mundane as the restaurant we just dined at or the Broadway show we just saw or the deal we just closed at work or the fantastic dinner we just prepared or…. The list is endless.

But what are we waiting for them to say on the other end of the line?  Perhaps it is as simple as, “Well done!”  Or “That’s amazing.”  Or just “I love you.”  I think in the end that is all we want to hear from them one more time, “I love you.”

Imagine they are calling.  What more do you long to hear?

Our Deeds Are Recorded

Valcav Havel, the playwright, poet and dissident who became president of Czechoslovakia after the fall of communism, often spoke about his goals in loftier terms than most politicians.  Speaking before the Polish Parliament in 1990 he suggested that leaders should “bring spirituality, moral responsibility, humanness, and humility into politics, and, in that way, make clear that there is something higher above us, that our deeds do not disappear in the black hole of time but are recorded somewhere and judged.”

Too often we think our actions don’t matter or that they have little consequence.  But they do.  They matter very much.  They matter to our families.  They matter to our friends.  They matter to the world. 

Other times we think that because we are not world leaders our actions will not be recorded in any history books.  They will not be remembered.  We believe once we are gone, and those who knew us are gone, our deeds will be forgotten.

On Yom Kippur we refute these beliefs.  We proclaim, God notices our deeds.  They are remembered.  They are judged.  God takes note!  This is the essence of our prayers on Yom Kippur.

The Untaneh Tokef prayer proclaims,

In truth,
You are judge and plaintiff, counselor and witness. 
You inscribe and seal.  You record and recount. 
You remember all that we have forgotten. 
And when you open the Book of Memories,
it speaks for itself—
for every human hand leaves its mark,
an imprint like no other.

Our actions leave an imprint.  They are recorded for all time.  No matter how big or how small we are, everyone’s actions matter.

And so, on this Yom Kippur we will look at our sins.  We will recount them together.  We will examine our past.  We will make amends.  We will seek to do better.

We will affirm even if no one else notices, God takes note.  Yom Kippur restores our faith in the weight of our actions, in the worthiness of our deeds. 

We enter these days striving to leave an even better imprint—for all time.

Fighting Antisemitism Again and Again

What follows is my Rosh Hashanah morning sermon about the resurgence of antisemitism. We must be on guard against the populist rage on the right and especially the left that is making the world more dangerous for Jews.

Ed was a longtime member of our synagogue.  He died four years ago at the age of eighty-five.  I still remember the stories he told me about his childhood in Baghdad.  He lived a privilege life there until his bar mitzvah year.  Then his parents sent him to England to continue his studies and escape the growing threat of antisemitism.  Eventually he made his way to Israel where he served in the 1967 Six-Day war and more importantly as far as he was concerned married Margeurite.  From there they made their way to Long Island where I continue to have the privilege of serving as her rabbi.  Ed was more traditional and so after the merger when the combined synagogue became Reform it required some adjusting. I expected his difficulties would be about something technical like we sometimes we light Shabbat candles after sunset or we don’t sing every verse of Lecha Dodi, but I was surprised to discover it was more basic, or perhaps primal.

“In Baghdad,” I can still hear him telling me, “We never went outside at night.  We were afraid we might be beaten up or worse yet, killed.  And so, we only went to synagogue on Shabbat morning and never for Friday evening Shabbat services.  On Friday night, we made Shabbat at home quietly.  Now that our services are only on Friday nights and not Saturday mornings it’s really hard for me.”  I did not know what to say.  How could I respond to his fears?  How could I make him more comfortable?  How could I convince him that New York of 2016 is not Baghdad of the 1950’s?  How could I help him let go of his childhood traumas?  I realized I could not assuage his feelings?  I can’t undo anyone’s fears.  I offered him a hug and said, “I hope to see you at Shabbat services sometime soon.”

I have been thinking about Ed a lot this past year.  I wish he was here so I could ask him more.  I wish I could learn from him again… 

This post continues on The Times of Israel.

On Being Human

At Rosh Hashanah evening services my congregants and I discussed these texts searching for responses to why people do unspeakable evil to one another and how to encourage them to do more good.

Genesis Rabbah 8:5 (Compiled early 5th century)
Rabbi Simon said: When the Holy Blessed One came to create Adam, the ministering angels divided into various factions and various groups.  Some of them said, “Let him not be created,” and some of them said, “Let him be created.  That is what is written: “Kindness and truth met; righteousness and peace touched.” (Psalms 85:11)

Kindness said, “Let him be created, as he performs acts of kindness.”  Truth said, “Let him not be created, as he is full of lies.”  Righteousness said, “Let him be created, as he performs acts of righteousness.”  Peace said, “Let him not be created, as he is full of discord.”

What did the Holy Blessed One do?  God took Truth and cast it down to earth.  That is what is written: “You cast truth earthward.” (Daniel 8:12) The ministering angels said before the Holy Blessed One, “Master of the universe, why are You demeaning your very seal?  Let Truth ascend from the earth.”  That is what is written: “Truth will spring from the earth.” (Psalms 85:12)


Nachmanides, Commentary on Deuteronomy 22:6 (Written 1270)
In my opinion, however, they intended something else: namely, that the benefit of the commandment regarding the bird’s nest does not accrue to the Holy Blessed One but rather to human beings themselves—to protect them from harm, false beliefs, from corrupt character traits, or to remind them of the Creator’s miracles and wonders and thereby to know the Name. 

This is the meaning of the expression “to refine them through the commandments” (le-tsaref bahen): that they should become like refined silver.  For the silversmith does not refine silver without purpose, but in order to remove all its dross.  Likewise, the commandments remove every false belief from our hearts, make the truth known to us, and keep us continually mindful of the Blessed One. 

Rather, the reason for this prohibition is to teach us the virtue of compassion and to prevent us from becoming cruel, for cruelty spreads and takes root within the human soul.


Lea Goldberg, “What Does a Human Being Need?”
What, after all, does a human being need?
At least one other human being
to mirror back their eyes,
to echo back their voice,
to break through existential loneliness,
the transparent walls
between the inner and the other and the inner;
One who would hold, in trembling hands
the naked, fragile soul
and treat it with gentleness.
A human being, in the end,
needs only another human being.

People Can Change

Rosh Hashanah’s greatest faith statement is not that God is supreme ruler who writes us into the book of life but instead that people can change.  The Unetanah Tokef prayer concludes by proclaiming, “Repentance, prayer and tzedakah can overcome the harshness of the decree.” In a world where people have become increasingly fatalistic, Judaism insists that we can change.  Rosh Hashanah reminds us that there is still time to correct our wrongs.

That is this holiday’s core belief.  It restores our hope. 

Sometimes as we are reading the paper, or watching the news, or scrolling through Instagram stories we can become depressed and think, “All is lost.  They all hate us.  The planet is heating up.  The oceans are rising.  The price of gasoline is skyrocketing.”   We start believing that there is no way we can correct these problems.  They appear insurmountable.  We forget that all problems can be repaired by us, they can be addressed by human beings.

All we have to do is change course.  And that is what Rosh Hashanah offers. 

It reminds us that we can change.  It also promises us that others can change.  This is the essence of teshuvah, repentance.  Human beings can turn.  They can change and make a difference.  They can correct their wrongs.  This is what we believe.  Truth be told it may be harder to affirm that others can change.  It is one thing to say that we can change—as hard as that sometimes is—but it is another thing entirely to affirm that others can change.

This is what Rosh Hashanah gives us.  It insists that human beings are capable of change.  And we must take this affirmation to heart and allow it to carry us forward through the coming year.   

Rather than spending a day doom scrolling through the latest catastrophes, rather than reading about the most recent mistakes world leaders have made, we spend the day in synagogue affirming our belief that people can change.  There is still time to repair ourselves and our world.  We wrap our arms around each other, we embrace our community, and we emerge with our hope our restored.

The larger task is making sure this hope carries us through the new year.

Reading Out Loud Matters

Why do we read the Torah aloud at Shabbat morning services?  Why not read it quietly to oneself?   

It is because of history.  The custom of reading the Torah publicly hearkens back to biblical times.  

The Torah reports as Moses’ death nears, he offers the people advice.  He instructs Israel’s leaders as follows: “Every seventh year, the year set for remission, at Sukkot, when all Israel comes to appear before the Lord your God in the place that God will choose, you shall read this Torah aloud in the presence of all Israel.” (Deuteronomy 31)

This seven-year cycle was not the weekly ritual we now observe.  That practice was instituted by Ezra in the fifth century BCE.  After the Jewish people returned to Jerusalem following the Babylonian exile, he believed this was the best way to keep the people together and to remind them of their commitments.

The Torah confirms this reasoning when it proclaims, “They may hear this Torah and so learn to revere the Lord your God and to observe faithfully every word of this Torah.”  The practice served to remind the Israelites of God’s word.  Ezra did not believe the people would read it on their own, so he insisted that it be read to them. 

What does reading the Torah aloud accomplish that reading it quietly cannot achieve?

Perhaps it is the same reason why we read books to young children.  I still recall Max’s words in Where the Wild Things Are.  “Let the wild rumpus start!” Or, how my child’s mind could relate to the dialogue between the Man with the Yellow Hat and Curious George.  “George promised to be good.  But it is easy for little monkeys to forget.”  Or, how I continue to find inspiration from The Little Engine that Could.  “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.”  And how I can still hear my father’s voice in my head repeating that mantra as I race up a hill.

“I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.” 

Of course, my parents began reading to me because I could not read.  But that is how I learned to read.  That is also how I fell in love with storytelling.  It was because my parents shared their love of books with me.  They shared their enthusiasm with the written word by helping to bring it to life. 

And so, for thousands of years, we have chanted the words of Torah so that future generations will fall in love with its words and unpack its stories and debate its lessons.  When we read out loud and in public, we instantly communicate that these words matter.

Our history continues.  The words continue to gain renewed life.

Recognizing the Good All Around Us

Dolly Parton sings, “‘Cause I can see the light of a clear blue morning/I can see the light of a brand new day/ I can see the light of a clear blue morning/ Everything’s gonna be all right.”

Everything is going to be all right!  Why?  Because we are surrounded by so much good.  We just have to work on recognizing it. 

The nineteenth century Mussar movement sought to place ethics and character development at the center of Jewish religious practice.  It speaks of middot, virtues, that we must work on developing, such as patience and silence, truthfulness and generosity.  Among my favorite middot is hakarat hatov, recognizing the good.

We must seek to recognize the good.  It is not about fashioning it but acknowledging the good that is already there.

The Torah commands us to bring the first fruits to the priest and recite these words, “My father was a fugitive Aramean.  He went down to Egypt with meager numbers and sojourned there; but there he became a great and very populous nation…  And so, I now bring the first fruits of the soil that You, O Lord, have given me.”  We are then instructed to leave the basket of fruit at the altar and bow low before God. (Deuteronomy 26)

In this recitation there is no acknowledgment of the work of our hands.  We do not proclaim how hard we worked to farm the land.  The toil and sweat of the farmer is ignored.  Instead, we celebrate the bounty that God’s earth provides.  We acknowledge the blessings of God’s hands.

Alan Morinis remarks, “When gratitude is a living reality well established in our hearts, we constantly refresh our vision so that we make accurate note of the good that surrounds us.”  Realizing that most of us are not farmers, he then offers this counsel: “Imagine a prayer of thanks springing to your lips when the driver in the next car lets you merge without protest, or when there is electricity to light your room, or the food is adequate. Giving thanks can become a flow that waters the fields of life.” (Everyday Holiness: The Jewish Spiritual Power of Mussar)

Giving thanks to others, giving thanks to God is what nourishes our souls.

There is a story about the founder of the Musar movement, Rabbi Yisrael Salanter.  He once learned the true meaning of hakarat hatov from a barista.  The great sage complained to him about the price of his expensive cup of coffee and exclaimed, “Why does the coffee cost so much when it is only coffee grounds and water?”  The barista explained that not only is the cup of coffee expertly pulled from carefully roasted beans, but it is served in handmade porcelain cups.  The shop also offers soothing music, an exquisite décor and of course a barista who occasionally offers sage advice.  It was then that Rabbi Salanter realized the true meaning of hakarat hatov.

There is so much good hidden in everyday moments.

Imagine how many thousands of miles those coffee beans traveled and how many people made that journey possible and how the farmers tended those coffee plants in the hilly tropics so we can smell the wonderful scent of fresh roasted beans and savor the taste of our morning coffee. Sure, it’s often way too expensive but there is so much good in that seemingly ordinary and everyday cup of coffee.

Our job is to recognize the good and acknowledge it.  Our task is to find these moments each and every day.

Let’s begin with the day’s first taste.

Everything’s gonna be all right!

Look Towards the World!

Elie Wiesel once said,

Indifference is more dangerous than anger and hatred. Anger can at times be creative. One writes a great poem, a great symphony, one does something special for the sake of humanity because one is angry at the injustice one witnesses.  But indifference is never creative. Even hatred at times may elicit a response. You fight it. You denounce it. You disarm it. Indifference elicits no response. Indifference is not a response.  Indifference is not a beginning; it is an end. And, therefore, indifference is always the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the aggressor—never his victim, whose pain is magnified when he or she feels forgotten.

In Hebrew indifference is l’hitalem. It is a reflexive verb.  The root of the Hebrew word for indifference is olam, the world.  The Hebrew suggests that the root of indifference is making oneself into the world.  It is about making the world hidden and allowing the self to obscure our vision of others.  When we only see our own problems, our own struggles, the world shrinks and we become indifferent to other people’s pains. 

Social media pushes us into a never-ending loop of self-congratulation and self-affirmation.  We inhabit worlds of agreement.  We no longer read anything that is antithetical to our views, or associate with those who differ from ourselves.  We leave group chats that offend us. 

The world shrinks ever smaller until the self becomes the world.  And we become increasingly indifferent to other people’s troubles and the world’s travails.  Every pain, every suffering even those that occur on our own streets appear worlds away.

This week we read, “If you see your fellow’s ox or sheep go astray, do not ignore it; you must take it back to your peer.  If your fellow does not live near you or you do not know who the owner is, you shall bring it home and it shall remain with you until your peer claims it; then you shall give it back.  You must not remain indifferent.” (Deuteronomy 22)

The Torah constantly reminds us that we must not ignore the stranger.  We cannot ignore someone crying out in pain.  We should not walk past the homeless person sleeping on the street.  The entire world is our neighbor.  We must not allow our neighbors’ needs from becoming hidden.  Even our neighbor’s belongings become our responsibility.  How much more so their pains!

The cause of indifference is to make ourselves into the whole world.  The Torah’s demands serve as an antidote to indifference. 

We must look away from the self and look towards the world.  We must look into other people’s eyes.  We must be attentive to their pain.  Indifference is the greatest enemy. 

Look away from the self.  Look towards the world.

Other People Help Us Find Our Way

We live in an age when we rarely if ever experience being lost.  Because of the ubiquity of Google Maps and Waze we believe that we can always find our way. 

A favorite Hasidic story.  It is told of Reb Chaim Halberstam of Zanz.

Once a woman became lost in a dense forest (where there was no cellphone reception).  She wandered this way and that in the hope of stumbling on a way out, but she only became more lost as the hours went by.  Then she happened upon another person walking in the woods.  Hoping that he might know the way out, she asked, “Can you tell me which path leads out of this forest?”

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

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

And yet we continue to think finding our way is akin to locating a blue dot on a cellphone’s digital screen.  Just because our cellphones can determine our map coordinates, does not mean we have found the way.  For that we require others.

Reb Chaim concluded, “What is true of these lost wanderers is true of us as well.  We may not know the way out, but let us share with each other the ways that have led us back in.”

Today marks the first day of the month of Elul and the beginning of the days when we are instructed to prepare ourselves for the upcoming High Holidays.  Rosh Hashanah is a month away.  The conclusion of Yom Kippur is forty days from now.

We are granted these days to reach out to others, to repair what we have done wrong, to ask forgiveness from those we have caused pain.  We remind ourselves that no one is perfect.  Everyone has made mistakes.  Each of us has lost our way during the past year.   All of us are last wanderers who need others to help find the way.

When we come together on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, we are reminded that together we can find our way.  We cannot do it alone.  We need each other.  Our community leads our way to repair. 

Giving Hands Bring Justice

Tzedakah is about giving to those in need.  Its root meaning comes from the word justice.  Our giving is about restoring justice.  It is not about the giver’s feelings but the recipient’s needs.  Charity, on the other hand, rests more on the motivation of the giver.  Tzedekah is a commandment.  It begins with obligation.

We read “If, however, there is a needy person among you, do not harden your heart and shut your hand against your needy kin.  Rather, you must open your hand and lend whatever is sufficient to meet the need.” (Deuteronomy 15).  We must give what the recipient needs not what we are motivated to give.

So important is the giving of tzedakah that even the recipient is required to give.  Why?  Because Judaism believes the act of giving shapes the heart.  One does not wait for the heart to motivate the hands.  One does not give when a charitable spirit wells up within.  Instead, one gives.  The heart follows the hands.  This is why even one who is dependent on tzedakah must give tzedakah.   Their heart is shaped by reaching toward others.

The Torah continues, “For there will never cease to be needy ones in your land, which is why I command you: open your hand to the poor and needy kin in your land.”  I wonder.  If God is all powerful why not eliminate such need?  Why will there never cease to be needy ones?  God could eradicate hunger.  God could do away with injustice. 

God leaves the world unfinished. God leaves it to us to repair.  God knows that our hearts can only be shaped by our hands. 

God leaves it to us to shape a more just world.  The power to do so rests in our hands.

It begins with one person in need.  It starts with the gift of tzedakah.

Stop Running After Things

Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev, the great eighteenth century Hasidic master, once saw a man running in a great hurry.  He asked him: “Why are you running?”  The man answered: “I am running because I have to earn a living.”  Rabbi Levi Yitzhak asked him: “How do you know you have to run after it and try to catch this earning living?  Maybe it is behind you, in which case you are fleeing from it.”

We chase after many things.  We pursue career advancement.  We run after bonuses and jostle for raises.  Perhaps instead our livelihoods are behind us.  What gives us life might already be present.  We may have already gained everything.  We may have already achieved that which animates our souls.  All we need to do is slow down and look at what is right before our eyes.  

The Torah concurs: “God subjected you to the hardship of hunger and then gave you manna to eat, which neither you nor your ancestors had ever known, in order to teach you that a person does not live on bread alone, but that human beings may live on anything that the Lord decrees.” (Deuteronomy 8)

We are sustained by more than bread.  We are nourished by more than the food we eat.  We gain sustenance by whatever God gives us.  The lesson of manna is that food is a gift from God.  Whatever God dishes out, we must take.  We can live on anything.  This is what we learned in the wilderness. 

Everything is a gift from God.  And all we should do is say “Thank you.”  The Torah reminds us, “When you eat and are satisfied you shall give thanks to God.”  We need to slow down and fill our hearts with gratitude.

This is why the rabbis of old counseled that we should never say the blessing for food while standing.  Never say a blessing when rushing.  Instead, we are instructed to sit.  Why?  Because when we sit down, we transform the food our bodies require into a meal.  It is the company of family and friends that changes eating into a meal.  The necessity of food is transformed into a sacred occasion by blessings and by the gift of family and friends.      

It is the people who surround us that nourishes us. 

When you sit, it is impossible to rush.  And then it is much easier to look behind you.  It is much easier to give thanks.  

Stop chasing after things.   Look in the rearview mirror.  Look all around you.

All the sustenance you require is sitting there right before you. 

Teach Your Children to Swim

I love swimming.

Recently I discovered that the first medalist in Olympic swimming was Alfred Hajos-Guttmann.  And who was Hajos-Guttman?  A Hungarian Jew.  He earned two gold medals at the 1896 games in Athens.  He won the 100-meter and 1200-meter Freestyle.  His time for the 100-meter was 1:22.2.  (It gives me some satisfaction that I could have medaled in the 19th century!)

Of course, Hajos-Guttman did not swim in a 50-meter state of the art pool but instead in the cool waters of the Mediterranean in which there were the occasional 12-foot swells.  There is a big difference between swimming in a pool and an ocean!  Even more noteworthy Hajos-Guttman also earned titles in Hungary’s national competitions in running, hurdles, discus and soccer.  Later he coached Hungary’s national soccer team. 

And when he returned to the 1924 Olympics, he competed not in sports but the arts.  Apparently back then it was not just about sports, and sportsmanship, but other disciplines.  Hajos-Guttman earned top honors in architecture. 

And why did Hajos-Guttman take up swimming?  At the age of thirteen his father drowned in the Danube.  It was not so much about the medals but instead about saving life.  In fact, he changed his name to Hajos, which means sailor in Hungarian.

The Talmud teaches that parents are obligated to teach their children many things.  Parents are required to teach their children Torah and a craft.  Why the Jewish tradition requires parents to teach Torah is expected and obvious.  But why a craft?  The rabbis answer their own question and say that if parents don’t teach them a craft it is likened to teaching them to steal.

And then some add, parents must teach their children to swim.  Why?  Because their lives might depend on it. (Babylonian Talmud Sukkah 56b) And I would add, to teach them to ride a bike.  Why?  Because their enjoyment might depend on it.  And one day, getting from one place to another might depend on it.

The Torah reminds us: “And you shall teach them to your children. (Deuteronomy 6)

It all begins with swimming—and maybe riding a bike.

Standing in Israel

What follows are my reflections from the past week of learning at Jerusalem’s Shalom Hartman Institute.

I never get lost in Jerusalem.  Perhaps it is because here I only walk and do not drive.  Or perhaps it is because I started walking these streets forty years ago and have learned my way around.  And now I am thankful to be here once again.

On Shabbat morning I woke up early and walked from the apartment we are renting to the Old City.  I made my way past the King David Hotel and the campus where I first learned about Israel’s landscape, became enthralled with Zionist thinkers and acquainted with Hebrew’s nuances.  The shops that lined the Mamilla mall were closed.  The apartments nearby were quiet.  Forty years ago, this area was dilapidated and filled with abandoned buildings.  It was no man’s land prior to the 1967 war because it marked the division between East and West Jerusalem, between Israel’s and Jordan’s borders.

It was a cool morning and the sky a picturesque blue.  The sun illuminated the stones of the city’s walls.  I approached Jaffa Gate and made my way through the Arab shuk.  A few stores were open.  Their owners sipped Turkish coffee waiting for the afternoon’s tourists.  Hasidic men and their sons raced past me.  I offered the occasional Shabbat shalom and received greetings in return.  The Western Wall plaza was filled with a sea of white tallises.  I made my way through the large throng and touched the stones, offering a quiet prayer.  I turned and climbed the steps toward the Jewish Quarter, past the newly rebuilt Hurva synagogue.

I walked through Zion gate, where Israel’s soldiers entered the Old City in 1967.  Outside the gate one has an extraordinary view of Yemin Moshe, the first Jewish neighborhood built outside the Old City and below of Sultan’s Pool where Susie and I saw Santana perform years ago and of Gey Hinnom, where according to the ancient prophets, people sacrificed children to their false gods.  I reminded myself to walk in the present and not through history.  Jerusalem’s stones can be intoxicating.  They can deceive one into thinking that we are living in a mythic reimagined past.

On Shabbat afternoon we went to a new coffee shop, Cafe Basimta.  A large group of ultra-Orthodox young men and boys gathered there to protest the shop being open on Shabbat.  We made our way through their shouts and screams of “Shabbes” and stood in line for forty-five minutes to order our coffees.  They had run out of pastries and juice because so many had ventured there to protest the protest.  I doubt our purchases will mend the painful rift between Israel’s secular majority and its powerful ultra-Orthodox minority, but it reminded us of where we stand. 

At home, we spend our days talking about, and arguing about, Israel.  We measure our friends and neighbors asking ourselves whether they are sufficiently pro-Israel.  We rightfully become agitated with those who think Israel does not have a right to exist.  We shout and protest, “Stand with Israel.”  As I walk through Jerusalem’s streets, these maddening arguments appear trivial.  Those far away words appear distant from these streets. 

The reality of these streets filled with people walking hurriedly and those strolling casually, the cafes and shops, the cars and buses, the endless construction projects and their noise is my retort.  These debates may very well be of significance back home.  And I certainly worry about the dangerous consequences of the hateful rhetoric leveled against Israel, but here they appear small in comparison to the freedom of my Shabbat walk.  My steps are my response.  Israel’s existence is unshakeable.  It is a privilege to be here and visit Jerusalem on a regular basis.  I belong to a blessed Jewish generation.  Here we are writing a new Jewish story in our ancient land.  I must contribute to this story.    

On another day we visited Mukhmas, a Palestinian community in the West Bank.  We accompanied Israelis who are active in Protective Presence, protecting Palestinian villagers and farmers against settler violence.  We watched as a settler grazed his sheep through the Palestinian’s farmland.  We looked at the newly built settlements ringing the hilltops surrounding the village.  Prior to October 7th there were no such settlements.  Life has become unbearably difficult for Palestinians since that day and we wanted to hear their stories.  Some Israelis are fighting against these injustices.  We wanted to stand with them.

My days are filled learning with Hartman’s master teachers and debating the meaning of ancient and contemporary texts with colleagues.  Together we traveled to Tzur Hadassah, a suburb of Jerusalem.  There we met with Ilana whose son Yannai was killed on October 7th.  He died defending the Zakim base and protecting the recruits and trainees who were under his command.  She continued, “But I do not want to speak about how he died.  I want to speak about how my twenty-year-old son lived.”  She taught us that he believed that we must work on developing the muscle to see and hear others.  Love, he exemplified, is like a muscle that we must train. 

After many tears she offered us some Turkish coffee in his honor.  Ilana then accompanied us on the bus to visit her friend.  Laila is a Palestinian mother whose six-month-old son Qussay was killed by tear gas during the second intifada.  Her son died because soldiers did not allow her and her husband to rush their son to the hospital.  We had planned to travel to her office in Beit Jala to hear her story, but Israeli soldiers did not allow us to travel there because we would have to traverse the small area of the West Bank controlled by the Palestinian authority.  Instead, Laila walked to our bus and spoke to us there. 

She arrived exhausted.  She gathered her strength and shared her story.  She spoke about how she refused to speak about her son’s death for sixteen years.  She only began to speak about her pain when a friend brought her to a meeting of the Parents Circle-Families Forum.  There she met one of the soldiers who stopped her years ago.  When he heard her story, he began sobbing.  His tears aided her healing. 

The Parents Circle-Families Forum is an organization that brings together Israelis and Palestinians who have lost a close family member to the conflict.  Their common bond is their bereavement.  We asked Laila about the protests back home wondering aloud if they gave her strength.  She admitted that at first she welcomed the solidarity from afar but then said, “I realized I don’t care if you are pro-Palestine or pro-Israel.  I only care if you are pro-peace.”  Ilana added, “I don’t want another parent to bury their son or daughter.”

And I realized.  Here, in Jerusalem I am never lost.  I know where I stand.

I stand on Jerusalem’s streets.  I stand in Israel.

Prayer Is a Refuge

Etty Hillesum lived in German occupied Amsterdam.  In June 1943 she chose to be transferred to the transit camp, Westerbork, from where she and her family were deported to Auschwitz and there murdered.  She was twenty-nine years old.  Before leaving Amsterdam, she gave her diary to a friend for safe keeping.  Her words are beautiful and haunting.  She writes,

Sometimes I want to flee with everything I possess into a few words, seek refuge in them. But there are still no words to shelter me.  I am in search of a haven, yet I must first build it for myself, stone by stone. Everyone seeks a home, a refuge. And I am always in search of a few words.  (An Interrupted Life: The Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941-43)

Perhaps Hillesum is right.  A refuge is not a physical space but a spiritual one.  We can fashion it with our words.

The Torah reports that the Israelites are to set aside six cities of refuge.  “These six cities shall serve the Israelites and the resident aliens among them for refuge, so that any person who slays a person unintentionally may flee there.”  (Numbers 35) Punishment must be adjudicated by dispassionate courts.  These cities helped to guarantee this by preventing family members from exacting revenge.   

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel of Opatov, affectionately called the Apter Rav, sought to spiritualize the meaning of these cities.  He taught that these six cities correspond to the six words of the Shema.   The word is our refuge.  We escape in prayer.

The Torah relates that there were forty-two stations where the Israelites stayed during their forty years in the wilderness.  (Numbers 33) They camped at these oases on their long and arduous journey.  There they found refuge.

And these forty-two places correspond to the number of words in the V’Ahavta.  Combining these teachings, we discover that our central prayer offers us forty-eight words.  They can serve as our refuge. We can escape to them.  No matter a person’s faith one can always find shelter and protection by loving God.  One can always find refuge in the words of our prayers.

I continue the search for few words.

And there I will build my home.

Catastrophe Stands Nearby

Today marks the seventeenth of Tammuz, a fast day that commemorates the moment the Romans breached Jerusalem’s walls nearly two thousand years ago.  It culminates three weeks later in the full fast day of Tisha B’Av, the ninth of Av, that marks the destruction of the city, the Temple and our exile from our ancestral land.  Like 9-11 and October 7th these days are so painful to recount that their names are the dates history seared into our collective memories. 

The first century historian, Josephus, notes that Jerusalem’s streets were littered with dead.  The Romans were ruthless.  One million were killed.  One hundred thousand were carted off to Rome as slaves.  Jerusalem was leveled.  One might imagine that the rabbinic tales about these days would focus on these horrors and the Romans’ evil ways. 

Instead, the rabbis turn inward.  In answer to the question of how this calamity befell us they looked away from Rome’s misdeeds.  And in typical rabbinic fashion, they asked, “What did we do wrong?”  They ignore history and look within for explanations.  Their answer is contained in a famous Talmudic story.  Here it is.

A certain man had a friend named Kamza and an enemy named Bar Kamza. The man once threw a party and said to his servant: “Go and invite Kamza.”  The servant went and instead invited Bar Kamza. When the man saw Bar Kamza at his party he said to him: “You gossip about me; what are you doing here?  Get out!” 

Bar Kamza replied: “Since I am already here, let me stay, and I will pay you for whatever I eat and drink.”  The man said: “No!”  Bar Kamza said: “Then let me give you half the cost of the party.”  The man again said, “No!”  Bar Kamza said: “Then let me pay for the whole party.  The man still said, “No.”  And he took Bar Kamza by the hand and threw him out.

Bar Kamza then said: “Since the Rabbis were sitting there and did not stop the man this shows that they agreed with what he did.”  And he said to himself: “I will go and inform against them to the government.”

He went and said to the emperor: “The Jews are rebelling against you.”  The emperor said: “How can I be sure?”  Bar Kamza said to him: “Send them an offering and see whether they will sacrifice it.”  So the emperor sent him with a fine calf.  On the way he made a blemish in a place where the Jews count it as a blemish, but the Romans do not.

The Rabbis were inclined to sacrifice the offering in order not to offend the government. Said Rabbi Zechariah ben Abkulas to them: “But people will then say that we offer blemished animals on the altar.”  They then proposed to kill Bar Kamza so that he would not go and inform against them again.  But Rabbi Zechariah ben Abkulas said to them: “Is one who makes a blemish on consecrated animals to be put to death?”

Rabbi Yohanan thereupon remarked: “Because of the scrupulousness of Rabbi Zechariah ben Abkulas our House was destroyed, our Temple burned and we were exiled from our land.  (Babylonian Talmud, Gittin 55b)

What began with an angry exchange at a party spiraled out of control.  Eventually it brought the wrath of our enemies down upon us.  What began with Bar Kamza’s pain led to the suffering of each and every Jew.

The lesson is clear.  Catastrophe always stands nearby. It can begin with the smallest of acts.

We Are Not Monsters!

Last week, at a campaign appearance, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani referred to AIPAC as monsters and accused the Israel advocacy organization of spending millions in dark money.  And last month, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Yechiel Leiter, called JStreet, a left-wing Israel advocacy group, a cancer within the Jewish community. 

The demonization of one’s political opponents is not befitting of our leaders.  Moreover, Mamdani only appears in public with those Jews with whom he agrees.  He is pictured with either those on the progressive left or those on the ultra-Orthodox right, who for very different reasons shun the Zionism the majority of New York’s Jews embrace.  He is entitled to his views about Israel, but Mamdani is the mayor now and has a duty to stand with all New Yorkers even those with whom he passionately disagrees. 

Given the dangerous rise of antisemitism the mayor has a profound responsibility to turn the temperature down and not provide any fuel to antisemites.  There have been two instances in the past weeks in which gunmen were apprehended planning mass shootings against AIPAC affiliated legislators and the organization’s offices.   When we use language that dehumanizes our political opponents it opens the door to violence against them and their associates. 

I expect more from our leaders. 

Although Yechiel Leiter’s first duty is to represent Israel’s current government in the United States, he need not disparage the growing number of Jews, and Americans for that matter, who believe that Israel is best served by some political accommodation with Palestinians and that Palestinians’ humanity is deserving of the same concern as Israelis’.  To dismiss such views as cancerous rather than engaging with them is not how leaders are supposed to lead. 

This is what populists do.  They argue that there are sinister forces arrayed against us.  They captivate their followers by saying the only answer is to band together under their banner and eradicate these menacing forces.  True leadership is about bringing people together, not in opposition to a mythic bogeyman but instead around efforts to do the laborious work of fashioning something better.

There are legitimate criticisms of AIPAC and JStreet.  There are reasoned debates to be had about AIPAC’s tactics and its views.  There are likewise debates we should have about JStreet’s methods and opinions.  We must not resort to the demonization of these organizations and the dehumanization of the people who support them.  People are increasingly avoiding doing the hard work of debating with those with whom they disagree, and even with those who they believe hold abhorrent views.

There is a growing movement to fashion circles of like-mindedness and expel differing opinions from our midst.  Last week Brooklyn’s Poetica coffee shop refunded Representative Dan Goldman’s $9.82 and posted, “We don’t serve racists, fascists, homophobes, genocide enablers.  Too bad we didn’t recognize you right away, or we would have turned you away.  We don’t need your money (it’s probably coming from AIPAC anyways).”  How are we going to ever solve the world’s problems if we refuse to engage with those with whom we passionately disagree?

We must not boycott people.  We must not expel our neighbors.  The way our system is supposed to work is people can vote for Goldman’s opponent—as the majority did—or even work on Brad Lander’s campaign, if they so passionately disagree with Goldman.  Stay in the discussion.  Invite opponents over for coffee.  Engage in the debate. 

There is a famous Talmudic story about a rabbinic debate that was similar.  The rabbis were arguing about whether a specific oven could be rendered unkosher.  The majority ruled it could.  Rabbi Eliezer vehemently disagreed.  He would not accept the majority’s ruling and so he brought miracles to prove his point.  The rabbis were so aghast at his methods that they excommunicated him.  This reminds us that we must adhere to the will of the majority even when we think they are misguided.

The story does not end there, however.  The Talmud goes on to say that after Rabbi Eliezer was excommunicated the entire world suffered.  It reports that a third of the world’s olives, wheat and barley were destroyed.  (Babylonian Talmud, Bava Metzia 59b) Everyone suffers when we ostracize someone and banish their ideas.  Even the earth feels the pain of the community’s divisions.  The world’s well-being hinges on including everyone at the table.

I understand people’s passion.  I hear how many are captivated by Palestinian suffering.  I appreciate Mamdani’s anger that organizations such as AIPAC appear indifferent to this pain.  I also understand Leiter’s anger.   JStreet advocates against the very government he supports.  But Mamdani should be mindful of the pain, and fears, of all his constituents.  And Leiter should be more sensitive to the terrible fracturing American Jews are experiencing over Israel’s actions.

Leaders can unite us or they can divide us. 

This week Moses also fails a leadership test.  The people are again complaining.  This time they complain that there is not enough water.  This seems like an understandable and legitimate complaint.  They are wandering in the desert.  We can be sympathetic to their words.  And yet Moses loses his temper with the people and strikes a rock in anger, saying, “Listen, you rebels, shall we get water for you out of this rock?” (Numbers 20) Because of this Moses is punished.  He is not allowed to enter the land and lead the people into the Promised Land.

Commentators struggle with this passage and wonder why Moses is punished so severely.  Why is he denied the promise after forty years of faithful leadership?  Most rabbis believe it is because he did not follow God’s instructions to the letter.  Moses Maimonides, however, suggests that it is because more is expected of leaders.  They are role models.  They prod us to do better.  They do not get angry with their followers.  They do not sow division and label us as rebels.  This is why Moses is punished.  He failed as a leader.  Maimonides writes, “The greater the person, the more exacting the standards God sets.”  (Shemoneh Perakim, Chapter 4)

Leaders are meant to unite us.

Read “An Open Letter from American Rabbis: Mayor Mamdani Must Apologize” that I signed, along with over 700 of my rabbinic colleagues.