Shabbat Shekalim -- Little Boxes

This week’s prophetic portion is NOT about mystical visions of G-d experienced by the prophets. It is not about dire warnings of prophets for the people of Israel to repent or face punishment from G-d. This week’s prophetic portion is NOT about a prophet bring hope and comfort to the oppressed Jewish people. No, this week’s Haftorah portion is much more prosaic than those lofty subjects. This week’s Haftorah portion is about building maintenance. It is about fixing a leaky roof and a crumbling foundation, about repairing drafty windows and plastering cracked porticos.

The year is 813 BCE. Solomon’s Temple is about 140 years old, and is showing some wear and tear. King Jehoash, who was only seven years old when he ascended to the throne in Jerusalem, wants to raise money to repair the Temple. So he tells the priests who run the Temple that they should make the repairs out of donations that they receive from their benefactors – those who give contributions to the priests. Apparently this idea does not go over so well with the priests, because several years later when the King inspects the Temple, he finds that no repairs have been made at all!  The King then tries another tactic. He instructs craftsmen to make a chest and bore a hole in its lid. He places the chest at the entrance of the Temple, and stations guards at it. Whenever a person coming into the Temple wants to make a donation, that person would hand it to the guards, and the guards would place it through the hole in the lid and into the chest. When the guards see that there is a lot of money in the chest, the High Priest and the royal scribe would empty the chest, count the money, and deliver it directly to the general contractor in charge of the Temple repairs. He, in turn would pay the carpenters, masons, stonecutters and other laborers for their work in repairing the Temple.

Behold,  the first written account of a Tzedaka Box!  No longer chests with holes bored in the lids, these small boxes have been a feature in Jewish life ever since. In many Jewish homes it is the custom to put money into a Tzedaka box before the lighting of the Shabbat and holiday candles. It is certainly a wonderful way of teaching children the value of the mitzvah of giving Tzedaka. In keeping with the idea of Hiddur Mitzvah, or adorning or beautifying a mitzvah, many Tzedakah boxes are themselves works of art. I can’t think of a better way of reinforcing the value of giving to our children than making this part of a family’s Friday night ritual.

Perhaps the most well-known Tzedaka box is the Jewish National Fund’s “Blue Box”. Blue boxes were once found in every home and Jewish classroom from the United States to Russia. The idea to collect money for Israel through a Tzedaka box came soon after the establishment of the Jewish National Fund by the 5^th Zionist conference in 1901. A bank clerk, Haim Kleinman from Galicia placed a box in a prominent place in his office with the words, “Eretz Yisrael” – for the Land of Israel – on it. He wrote a letter to the Zionist newspaper in Vienna, Die Welt, saying that he had raised a remarkable sum through donations to the Zionist cause in this way. He further suggested that the Jewish National Fund follow suit and distribute Tzedaka boxes in homes and offices. The blue box has become not only a way to collect money for Israel, but it serves as a powerful symbol of the connection between Israel and the Jewish people worldwide.

Since that time other good causes have taken it upon themselves to distribute Tzedaka boxes with their own names written on the box. I want to conclude tonight’s sermon by sharing a true story by Rabbi Dov Peretz Elkins. He writes that a prominent rabbi in Boston was attending a housewarming of a wealthy couple in his congregation. People were oohing and aaahing at the unusual pieces of furniture in the living room, the original pieces of artwork that were placed throughout the house, even the gold-plated bathroom tissue dispenser in the restroom. The homeowners noted that they had paid top-dollar to the best interior decorator in the Boston area, but it had been well worth it.

After about an hour, the elderly mother of the hostess, who lived with her daughter, motioned to the rabbi to come with her. They left their posh surroundings and climbed the steps to the second floor, where she had her bedroom. As they entered the bedroom, the woman pointed her finger toward the windowsill. The rabbi was astonished by what he saw.

The woman did not point to a rare piece of furniture or to a valuable antique. Arrayed on the windowsill were two rows of tin Tzedakah boxes – “pushkes” in Yiddish – for every imaginable charitable cause. There were boxes for hospitals, for orphanages, for yeshivahs, for women’s shelters, for children who were blind, for the deaf – for every single Jewish institution she could find that distributed boxes for charity.  

“Now this”, said the woman proudly, “THIS is interior decorating”.

Shabbat Shalom

Parasha Yitro -- Women and Leadership

It is wonderful to be back with all of my congregants after my month long Sabbatical from CBS. So much has happened since I was last here in December. The last time we met the Jewish people were enslaved in Egypt, the Egyptians endured ten plagues, Moses led the Israelites through the Red Sea.  AND I just learned that new scholarship has shown that when the Israelites reached the other side safely Miriam led them in the songs of Leonard Cohen!!!  AND this week we receive the Ten Commandments. Yes, a lot indeed has happened since we last met a month ago.

In our Torah portion for this week, Jethro, Moses’ father in law, visits him as he and the Israelites are camped around Mt. Sinai, waiting to receive the Ten Commandments. Jethro is shocked when he first sees Moses. Moses looks worn out. He is bearing the entire burden of leadership on his own shoulders.  Jethro counsels Moses to appoint others who will help him lead the people. Jethro tells him to appoint, “Men of accomplishment, men who love truth, men who hate evil, men who will be immune from bribery” to positions of authority. We cannot help but notice what Jethro leaves out – the appointment of women to positions of leadership and authority!

On my trip to Israel a few weeks ago, one of the issues just breaking in the news that caused quite a stir  was the controversy over the appointment of the first woman in the Israel Defense Forces to head an aviation squad at an Israel Air Force base.  The promotion of Lieutenant Colonel “Tet” as she is known – for security reasons Israeli pilots are publically identified only by Hebrew letters and not by their name – was just the latest in a series of  promotions of women to command posts in the Israel Defense Forces.  Israel was the first country in the world to mandate that all women serve in the armed forces. There were women pilots who flew in the War of Independence in 1948 and the Sinai War of 1956. However, women in Israel were eventually barred from becoming fighter pilots in particular and from combat roles in general.  It was only in 2001, following a Supreme Court decision that mandated that the Israeli Air Force allow women to apply for pilot training, that Roni Zuckerman became Israel’s first female jet fighter pilot. Since that time, the General Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces have been working to integrate women into combat units and to promote more women in the Air Force, infantry, and armored divisions of the IDF.  

This has brought a backlash from certain rabbis of the National Religious community, a sector of Israeli society that is deeply traditional but, unlike the ultra-Orthodox in Israel, encourages military service and sends many young men to serve as officers in the Israeli military. These rabbis object to the incorporation of women into the military on religious grounds –essentially, that women must protect their modesty around men and be shielded from secular influences that they may encounter when serving in the armed forces. They also believe that women should not be taking roles in the army that G-d and the Torah designate for men.  Fortunately, Prime Minister Netanyahu has supported the appointment of women in leadership positions, has expanded women’s roles in the armed forces, and has welcomed the changes the Israel Defense Forces are instituting.

This is just one aspect of the debate in Israel over the role of women in society and in the armed forces. As likely some of you know, choice to serve in the armed forces of Israel is particularly daunting for women brought up in religious households. Religious women who want to enter the armed forces of Israel must overcome two obstacles. First, like her secular sisters, the religious woman finds herself a woman in what is essentially a man’s world. Second, she finds herself as a religious person in what is essentially a secular world. In addition, religious women often attend post-secondary schools that are for women only. Coming from a very sheltered, homogeneous environment, religious women may be ill-equipped to deal with the diversity of opinions, lifestyles and backgrounds that they will find in the armed forces. Because of these challenges, many religious women apply for and receive an exemption from their obligatory military service.  This group of women instead fulfills their obligation through Sherut Le-umi, or “alternative national service”. Through Sherut Le-umi they will work for two years in hospitals, schools, nursing homes, health clinics or with disadvantaged communities or teens at risk as an alternative to military service.

This of course, represents a significant loss of talented young women to the armed forces of Israel. Moreover, these women often segregate themselves from society at large, depriving themselves, and Israel society, of the potential contribution they may make toward a healthier, more productive and more equal nation. On my recent mission to Israel with the Rabbinic Action Committee, we visited with teachers in a program that helps religious women enter and succeed in the armed forces. This program, Tzahali, prepares young religious women both physically and mentally to enter the armed services. Through classroom study and field trips that expose them to the diversity of Israeli society, the program helps strengthen their religious identities, empowers them as women, and makes them more aware and open to the mosaic that is Israeli society. In the thirteen years of this program’s existence, over 450 women have had meaningful army service, with a quarter of them becoming officers and a good number of them having made the army a career choice. The program has empowered women to be able to make the choice to serve in the IDF, knowing that they can both serve and maintain their religious commitment.

When we at Congregation Beth Shalom contribute to the Jewish United Fund of Chicago, we help support these efforts to increase the number of women in the Israeli army and help them to achieve positions of authority -- because the Jewish United Fund of Chicago helps to fund this program in Israel. It is just one way our dollars help in Israel, Chicago and around the world. So the next time an advisor tells a Jewish leader to appoint people to positions of authority, that advisor will be able to tell him to appoint “men and women of accomplishment, men and women who love truth, men and women who hate evil, men and women who will be immune from bribery.”

And to that let us say – AMEN!

Parasha VaYechi: Words to Keep In Mind When Your Kids Drive You Nuts!

There is a verse from the Psalms (62:12) which states, “One thing G-d has spoken, two things I have heard”. The Talmud explains that this refers to the fact that a Biblical verse can have more than one meaning. This statement itself was expanded upon by later rabbis who declared that each verse of Torah to have seventy meanings – “shivim panim la-Torah”. Each verse of the Torah can contain multiple, and even contrary meanings, and all of them could be true.

Last week I spoke of how Joseph was “too – perfect” a character in the Torah for us to identify with. Joseph succeeds in everything he does. He is his father’s favorite child and has no obvious flaws. Although he is grievously wronged by his brothers who sell him into slavery, he forgives them, protects them, and sustains them for the rest of their adult lives in Egypt. In fact, the sages refer to Joseph as “Yosef HaTsadik” – Joseph the righteous, for his exemplary behavior throughout his life. That at least, is how Joseph has been traditionally portrayed by the rabbis.

Of course, there have been dissenters. The great sage Rashi tells us that Joseph would spend his days before a mirror, making certain every hair on his head was perfect.  Other sages came along to interpret Rashi’s remark.  Rashi, they said, was not implying that Joseph was, heaven forbid, a vain adolescent. Rashi’s words, they contend, were intended to convey the idea that Joseph spent his time correcting his minor moral imperfections.  Looking at himself in the mirror was in fact a metaphor for his recognition that he was not perfect and was concerned with improving himself morally.  Others point to the verse in the Torah that says that Joseph brought bad reports of his brothers to his father.  “How could such a righteous person such as Joseph be a tattletale?” ask Joseph’s defenders.  They answer:  Realizing that his righteous brothers had not reached the level of moral perfection that he had achieved, Joseph only wanted his father to instruct them on how to become better individuals. He did not want to embarrass his brothers by correcting them himself!

In a recent teaching, the contemporary Rabbi Jack Riemer offers another of the seventy faces of this story. Rabbi Riemer maintains that Joseph was far from perfect. Joseph is, in fact, from his description in the Torah, a troubled adolescent. Joseph has an exaggerated sense of self - importance and feelings of grandeur, as evidenced by his dreams of his family bowing down to him. Joseph is preoccupied with his appearance. He not only primps himself before a mirror, but wears his best clothes – that “coat of many colors” – even when going out into the fields to search for his brothers. Who wears their best suit to tend to the sheep? Furthermore Joseph lacks empathy toward his brothers. He relates his dreams to all of his brothers without any sense about how these dreams would make them feel.  He brings bad reports of his brothers to his father, and then, when they won’t even speak to him anymore, he keeps it up! An exaggerated sense of self-importance, dreams of power and domination, lack of empathy toward others -- all point to a diagnosis of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, declares Rabbi Riemer.

So, asks Rabbi Riemer, how did this crass, self-involved seventeen year old --who would have had a serious psychiatric diagnosis were he to live today -- develop into the caring, compassionate and forgiving man and the wise leader we come to know at the end of the Book of Genesis?

Before I answer the question, I want to tell you a personal story. One of our congregants grew up in the same city, Scranton, Pennsylvania, as I did. This congregant’s cousin was at an appointment with her physician in Pittsburgh and the physician mentioned that he was from Scranton. The patient told the physician that her cousin’s rabbi in Naperville was also from Scranton. “What’s his name?” Dr. Steckel asked. “Rabbi Marc Rudolph,” the patient answered.

The physician’s eyes widened. “He’s a rabbi?” he asked in disbelief. Of course, when I was told the story and I heard the name of the physician, I immediately recognized him as someone with whom I went through school with – “He’s a doctor?” I marveled.

The point is that neither I, nor Dr. Steckel, nor Joseph remained our 17 year old selves – thank goodness! It might have been astounding to someone who knew us at 17 that I would someday become a rabbi, and he a doctor, but we both developed and grew beyond our 17 year old selves.

That’s how Joseph developed from a spoiled and self-involved child into a caring and compassionate brother and son as an adult. Joseph’s father, Jacob, and his mother, Rachel, were able to implant within him seeds of kindness, compassion, and forgiveness when he was growing up – qualities that were hardly apparent when he was a child and adolescent. That should be a source of solace to all of us who are teachers or parents and despair sometimes about whether our students or children have learned anything at all from us. We try to teach them values and provide them with ideals, but sometimes it seems that we are not getting through to them. We wonder whether they have any interest at all in what we have to offer! The most any of us can do, writes Rabbi Riemer, is to plant seeds within them which may sprout and blossom sometime in the future. We can strive to give our children positive experiences which they can remember and draw upon as they grow older. Of course there are no guarantees, and some children reject the gifts that they are given. Some even grow in an opposite direction from which we hope.  But sometimes, not always, but sometimes, those seeds that we plant germinate and develop.

So if there was hope for me, and there was hope for Dr. Steckel, and there was hope for Joseph – there is hope for our children and grandchildren as well. Think about that, next time they drive you crazy!

Shabbat Shalom

Parasha VaYigash: "Jewish American -- Or American Jew?"

Are you an American Jew – or a Jewish American?

In a recent op-ed piece in the New York Times, the writer Mark Oppenheimer notes that Presidents from Reagan to Trump have assiduously avoided the use of the noun “Jew” and instead have used the adjective, “Jewish” when referring to members of our community. In his last Passover message, for example, President Obama referred to “Jewish families” twice, but never once used the word “Jew”. In closing his joint message for Passover and Easter this year, President Trump said he prayed for the day when “good people of all faiths, Christians and Muslims and Jewish and Hindu, can follow their hearts and worship according to their conscience.” A worthy  sentiment.  But notice that “Christians”, “Muslims” and “Hindus” are all nouns used to describe people – “Jewish” is the only adjective. To be grammatically correct, he should have referred to “Christians, Muslims, Jews and Hindus”.  But, like his predecessors in the Oval Office, he chose to use the word “Jewish” and avoided the word “Jew”.

When I was growing up, we referred to ourselves as “American Jews”. I have noticed that this has changed in the passing years. We more often now refer to ourselves as “Jewish Americans”. I think the change reflects the fact that being a Jew has become less central to our identity. Referring to ourselves as “American Jews” sets us apart from other Americans.  Understanding  ourselves as “Jewish Americans” feels more inclusive, less starkly different.  An “American Jew” is a Jewish person who happens to be American. A “Jewish American” is an American who happens to be Jewish too.  In preferring the term “Jewish American” we assert that we are just as American as our Catholic or Protestant neighbor.  We are just a different flavor of “American”, so to speak.  In the op-ed I cited above, Mark Oppenheimer advocates for the return of the word “Jew” to our vocabulary. He notes that there is something prouder, more confident and more assertive in describing oneself as “a Jew” than there is in describing oneself as “Jewish”.    Think “I am a Jew” versus “I am Jewish”.

It may come as a surprise to many of us that the Hebrew word for “Jew” – “Yehudi” -- is not found in the Torah. We are called Hebrews, we are called “Bnai Israel”, we are called “Yeshurun”, we are called “Yaakov”, and we are called “Ephraim” when the Bible refers to the Jewish people. The first use of the word “Yehudi” in Hebrew Scriptures comes rather late in our history. In the Scroll of Esther, Mordechai is referred to as an “ish yehudi” – which means either “a Jewish man” or “a man from Yehud”—“Yehud” being the Persian word for the Jewish homeland.  That means it took over a thousand years between Abraham and Mordechai for the term “Yehudi” to appear in writing. Still, we do not know whether this refers to a place or to a religion. It wasn’t until 1275 CE that the word “Jew” makes its appearance in English. It is spelled “G-Y-U”. It isn’t until 1775 that we find its first English spelling as “J-E-W”. Perhaps this explains why the letter written by the “Hebrew Congregation of Newport Rhode Island” (pointedly, not the “Jewish Congregation of RI”) to George Washington, only 15 years later in 1790, refers to the members of that community as “the stock of Abraham”.  President George Washington uses the same phrase in his letter in response.

Think:  “I am of the stock of Abraham” versus “I am Jewish”.

The word “Jew” has its origins in the Tribe of Judah, the largest of the tribes of ancient Israel. This tribe is named after Judah, the fourth son of Jacob by his wife Leah. The Torah itself says that this means “to give thanks”. Thus, a Jew is one who gives thanks to G-d. The Talmud derives the name Yehudah from the word “Hoda’ah” which means “to acknowledge”. Thus a Jew is someone who affirms that G-d is One and who submits to G-d’s authority through the practice of mitzvoth.

Judah, the person, figures prominently in our Torah portion this week, and indeed, throughout the story of Joseph. So much so that Rabbi Meir Soloveitchik has proposed that the story of Joseph might better be called the story of Judah. For although we may admire Joseph, writes Rabbi Soloveitchik, he is too flawless to serve as a model for us. He succeeds in everything he does. He never falters. He resists the temptations of Potiphar’s wife and forgives his brothers who have wronged him. Joseph survives every situation he encounters and comes out smelling like roses.

Judah, on the other hand, betrays Joseph by selling him into slavery, then redeems himself through his offer to go into slavery in place of his brother Benjamin. Judah gets angry at his daughter-in-law, but has the courage to admit that he has wronged her. Judah gives in to temptation, then acknowledges that he did wrong. Judah sins, and Judah shows remorse and Judah asks forgiveness.

Judaism, writes Rabbi Soloveitchik, is really “Judah-ism”. In our faith we are asked to put ourselves in Judah’s place. Joseph is a static figure, perfect and pure from the beginning of the story to the end. Judah is flawed, like we all are, but Judah grows, like we are asked to do. Judah struggles to do the right thing, as our religion, Judaism, teaches us to do. In the end, Judah overcomes his limitations. Judah is an imperfect namesake who can serve as an inspiration to us all.

That is what it means to be a Jew.

Shabbat Shalom

Parasha Miketz: The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow

I began this sermon by playing the song below:

The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow from the play "Annie"

According to the Talmud, whether the sun would come out tomorrow was a real concern of the very first human being.  "When Adam, on the day of his creation, saw the setting of the sun he said, 'Alas, it is because I have sinned that the world around me is becoming dark; the universe will now become again void and without form - this then is the death to which I have been sentenced from Heaven for eating of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil'. So Adam sat up all night fasting and weeping and Eve was weeping opposite him.  When however dawn broke, he said, `I understand, “This is the usual course of the world.'"  (Avodah Zarah 8a)  

It is no coincidence that Chanukah is celebrated at the darkest time of the year.  It also is always celebrated around the time we read Parasah Miketz in our synagogues. In Parasha  Miketz we find Joseph in prison in Egypt for 12 long years. He was sold by his brothers into slavery when he was 17 years old – he is now a young man of 30. He dwells in the darkness of a prison cell. But Joseph never gives up hope. Placing his trust in G-d, he is suddenly freed and is thrust from darkness to light.

Perhaps the words left on another prison wall, of sorts, on a cellar wall in Cologne, Germany by Jews in hiding during the Holocaust, best expresses the thought.  "I believe in the sun even when it is not shining, I believe in love even when I am alone, I believe in God even when He is hiding."  When everything is dark, we can rely on our faith in G-d that the sun will shine again.  

The person who penned those words on the cellar wall would perhaps not be surprised to read that a few days ago  Berlin Mayor Michael Müller, German Justice Minister Heiko Maas and Israeli Ambassador to Germany Jeremy Issacharoff stood together to light the first candle of Europe's largest Hanukkah menorah at The Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. The Brandenburg Gate, which had once been used as a symbol by the Nazi party. The Brandenburg Gate, where West Germans had once gathered to protest the Soviet building of the Berlin Wall, the symbol of the iron curtain behind which millions were deprived of their freedom. The Brandenburg Gate, where President Reagan addressed these words in 1987 to the General Secretary of the Soviet Union, Mikhael Gorbachev, “If you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” Is there a more fitting place for the Menorah, the symbol of freedom, to be lit than at the Brandenburg Gate in Germany?

Each night of Chanukah we light one more candle on our Menorahs. Each night, the light grows and the darkness diminishes.  Chanukah is a holiday of hope – lighting the Menorah an expression of our faith that even in the darkest of times, the sun will come out tomorrow.

Parasha VaYeshev: O' Jerusalem!

Our parasha for this week continues the story of Jacob. Of all of our Biblical ancestors, with the exception of David, Jacob leads the most tumultuous life. He struggles with his brother in the womb, deceives his father, steals the blessing reserved for the first born and must flee his home to escape the anger of his brother who has threatened to kill him. He is in turn deceived by his father-in-law, Laban, into working three times longer for his wife Rachel as he had agreed. He marries two sisters who are rivals with one another for his affection, takes their maidservants as wives as well, and sires 12 sons and a daughter. His daughter is kidnapped and raped and his sons’ violent response to that event make him fear for his own life and the lives of his loved ones.

Our Torah reading opens with the words, “Jacob settled in the land”. From the use of the word, “settled” the rabbis deduce that Jacob finally believed that, after all his troubles, he had finally found peace and tranquility in his life. The midrash has G-d criticizing Jacob for asking for too much.  “Isn’t it enough to know that the righteous will have tranquility in Messianic times? You expect peace and tranquility in this world as well?”   In fact, no sooner does Jacob “settle down” than his favorite son Joseph is sold into slavery and his much sought after tranquility is shattered.

Peace and tranquility is what the Jewish people have pursued for the longest of times. Israel was founded in 1948 with the hope that having a Jewish state for the Jewish people would normalize our condition and allow us to take our place among the family of nations.   We would abandon our status as “guests” in other people’s homelands and “settle down” in a home of our own – Israel. But like Jacob, our hoped for peace and tranquility has not materialized. In many parts of the world anti-Semitism – the irrational hatred of Jews – has simply been transformed into anti-Zionism – the irrational hatred of Israel.

That is not to say that there has not been progress made toward peace. In 1978 Israel signed a peace agreement with Anwar Sadat of Egypt. That peace turned out colder than had been hoped, but it constituted peace nonetheless, and it has held. In 1993 the Oslo accords were signed. Although the hoped for peace failed to fully materialize, the Oslo accords did lead to mutual recognition between Israel and the PLO. This constituted another historically important step.  A year later Jordan and Israel signed a peace treaty and each country opened its borders to the other. There were other serious efforts toward peace in 2000 and 2006, but the parties failed to reach an agreement.

One of the most contentious issues that is left “unsettled” is the status of Jerusalem. The UN partition plan of 1947 envisioned Jerusalem being a “corpus separatum”, Latin for “separated body”. This meant that Jerusalem would be placed under UN sovereignty as an international city. Ben Gurion and the provisional Jewish government accepted the plan – the Arabs, who rejected the idea of partitioning the land between a Jewish and an Arab state altogether – rejected the idea. After the War for Independence in 1948, Jordan ended up holding the Old City of Jerusalem. Israel ended up with the Western part of the city, which they declared their capital, with a “no-man’s land” dividing the Jordanian held side from the Israeli held side. Under Jordanian rule the Jewish population of the Old City, which at the time constituted a majority was expelled, synagogues in the Old City were blown up, Jewish sites desecrated, and Jews forbidden from entering.

Although the State of Israel declared the Western part of the city as their capital, the world never accepted it, holding to the UN Resolution that this area should be under international jurisdiction. That sentiment did not change when Israel captured the Old City in the 1967 war and declared the city as a united Jerusalem.

Still, in 1980 there were 13 countries with embassies in Jerusalem. They all fled Jerusalem for Tel Aviv when the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament, passed what is called a Basic Law which is equivalent in our country to a Constitutional Amendment.  The Basic Law stated that the city of Jerusalem would be the “complete and united capital of Israel”.  Today there are no foreign embassies in Jerusalem. The international consensus now is that the future status of Jerusalem needs to be decided upon by Israel and the Palestinians.

This is precisely why President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital is so controversial. The United States has broken with precedent by seeming to decide on the status of Jerusalem outside of the framework of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. And while it may be emotionally satisfying for some to see the United States ratify Israel’s position on the status of Jerusalem, it is unclear how this in and of itself contributes to peace in the region. At best it has no effect in that it offers no blueprint as to how we may proceed along the long road towards peace.  At worst it inflames the passions of Muslims around the world and makes that road all the more difficult. It makes it more difficult for the United States to appear like an honest broker for peace.  It is also hard to understand how it promotes our country’s interests in the region or around the world.

A few hours after the President’s announcement American rabbis, including myself, received an Anti-Defamation League Security Warning saying that the announcement “is engendering strong reaction in the Middle East and there is potential for extreme reaction on the ground in the United States as well.” How does this enhance our security here in the United States?  In many ways it seems that the announcement has a very small “upside” and a very big “downside”.

Many early Zionists, most of whom were secular Jews, were ambivalent about having the capital of a modern Israel in Jerusalem. Herzl envisioned building a capital in the area of Haifa. A young David Ben Gurion was uneasy about Jerusalem and the city’s fraught religious history. Many of us today are discomfited by the lack of separation of “Church and State” in Israel. This intertwining of religion and politics is mirrored in Jerusalem, which is both the political capital of Israel and the religious capital of Jews around the world. That makes things very, very complicated. Like Jacob of yore, we hope that someday things will “settle down” and Israel can live in peace, tranquility and security with her neighbors –not only in Messianic times, but in this world of ours as well.

Shabbat Shalom

Parasha Vayishlakh: When Men Behave Badly

I knew what I would speak about this evening when I emerged from my office at noon on Wednesday and was greeted by Dorothy with the following words, “The rest of my day has been ruined.” At first I wondered If my presence had elicited that response, but she quickly followed her remark  that Garrison Keeler  of Prairie Home Companion had been accused of sexually harassing a co-worker and had been fired from his position at American Public Radio.  I am sure that those feelings were shared by many in our country. If Garrison Keeler, who has portrayed himself as the most wholesome man in America , now is  facing serious accusations of sexual harassment,  no wonder our faith in people  we look up to is been severely shaken.   By now a very long list of journalists, actors and politicians, of both parties, have been accused of sexual misconduct.                

I know this is a difficult subject for all of us to talk about.  The multiplicity of issues raised are ones many of us would not even want to hear, let alone talk about. But silence is not an option, silence is not conducive to healing, and silence is precisely one of the ways in which we collude in keeping these insidious actions occurring and reoccurring in all spheres of our lives, public and private. These accusations bring up difficult moral questions for us. When we read about the behavior of these men we feel, disgusted, we feel revolted, we feel repelled. Their behavior is rightly condemned.  But   I have no doubt that many of us are confused, many of us have contradictory feelings.  What if I our political positions are close to Al Franken’s?  What if we feel torn because we vehemently condemn his inappropriate behaviors but value his experience and record as a Senator?   Or, let’s place ourselves in the position of an Alabama voter who now needs to make an important decision about voting for a man against whom serious accusations have been leveled by multiple people. Do they vote for Roy Moore, about whom they may now have serious reservations, or do they vote for a Democrat and thereby make it almost impossible to pass the Conservative agenda in the Senate?

   

Do we I now watch “House of Cards” with a clear conscience with the  now disgraced Kevin Spacey in the lead role? How do we  now feel about watching television or movies starring the disgraced comedian Louis C.K.? Does Leon Wieseltier’s appalling behavior with women detract from his insightful writing or brilliant analysis? And what, in heavens name, do we do with the accusation of the woman who claims that Elie Wiesel, of blessed memory, groped her when she was 19 years old? To add to the complexities, we know that even among those who engage in what is broadly defined as inappropriate behavior with women, there are different grades of inappropriateness. Do we treat everyone the same?  

Before the internet it was well known in certain circles that the great Rabbi and song writer, Shlomo Carlebach, sexually abused women over the 40 years of his rabbinate. In the Spring of 1998 Lillith, a Jewish, feminist magazine, published an article entitled “Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach’s Shadow Side” which revealed to the public what only a few knew had been happening in private. We can condemn him—but should we still sing his melodies that he set to our prayers at our services?

This type of moral confusion, this ethical disorientation is also found in our parasha for this week. Dinah, the daughter of Jacob and Leah, is kidnapped and raped by a local Canaanite prince. He claims he loves her, and sends word to Jacob, her father, that he wants to marry her. The family agrees, on the condition that all the men of the town the prince rules circumcise themselves. The men agree and circumcise themselves. After they do so Dinah’s brothers Simeon and Levi steal into town, kill all of the men who are now too weakened to fight back, kill the prince and rescue Dinah. The other brothers descend on the town, plunder it, and take all the women and children as war booty.

What is Jacob’s reaction to this episode of cunning and brutality? Does he reprimand his sons for breaking their word to the Prince, for violating an agreement that was entered into in good faith? Does he scold them for their excessive violence? Jacob says none of this. Jacob only worries about the effect of his sons’ actions on his own reputation. He worries that when the other Canaanites in the land hear about what happened, they will unite and destroy him. To which his sons respond, “Should our sister be treated like a harlot?” And Jacob is silent. Notice how silence here points to an alarming component of the abusive dynamic since Biblical times.

Only years later, when Jacob is lying on his deathbed, does he unambiguously condemn the violence of his sons Levi and Simeon. This, perhaps, speaks to the years that it may take to sort out the sordid revelations about some of our beloved cultural and important political figures. The world is by and large not black and white, but many shades of grey. These revelations about sexual abuse in the workplace raise moral and ethical issues that we will struggle with for many years to come as a nation, as communities, as individuals. A major part of the struggle is to voice it, to name it, is to discuss it.  Above all, we must not be silent.

Shabbat Shalom