Bernie Madoff -- Placing a Stumbling Block Before the Blind

 

Who is he anyhow, an actor?" "No." "A dentist?"

"...No, he's a gambler." Gatsby hesitated, then added cooly:

"He's the man who fixed the World Series back in 1919."

"Fixed the World Series?" I repeated. The idea staggered me.

I remembered, of course, that the World Series had been fixed in 1919, but if I had thought of it at all I would have thought of it as something that merely happened, the end of an inevitable chain. It never occurred to me that one man could start to play with the faith of fifty million people--with the single-mindedness of a burglar blowing a safe.

"How did he happen to do that?" I asked after a minute.

"He just saw the opportunity."

 

This passage, from F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby aptly describes the Bernie Madoff scandal.  Madoff stole $50 billion dollars from investors, most of them Jewish, in the largest Ponzi scam ever uncovered.  The numbers are staggering.  Yeshiva University, where Madoff served as a trustee reportedly  lost $110 million dollars; Haddassah, the women's Zionist organization, $90 million; The American Technion Society, which aids Israel's Institute of Technology in Haifa, $72 million; the American Jewish Congress, The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, family foundations, individual investors who were befriended by Mr. Madoff, banks – the list goes on and on.  The non-profits that rely on these philanthropies are also feeling the effects of the scandal. The Gift of Life Bone Marrow Foundation, which was supported by the Madoff family foundation itself, will be unable to expand its registry of bone-marrow donors in the coming year.   Many others believed they could rely on their most generous donors to continue their good work in these hard economic times.  Madoff's  fraud and the cascading losses have dashed those hopes, increasing their vulnerability and limiting their options as the economic slide continues.

 

The current economic world crisis is the "end of an inevitable chain of events" as Fitzgerald wrote above, part of an economic cycle that has no one person or group of people at its center.   People make foolish decisions because we are part of a free society and we are free to do so;  we grasp higher than we can reach because we are ambitious, and that's a good thing, and we suffer when we fall short; we take risks that sometimes work out spectacularly well and sometimes don't and we fall on our faces.  But in America we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and start over again.  But Bernie Madoff played with the faith of those closest to him – with the single mindedness of one blowing a safe!   Why did he do it?  We might be tempted to put Madoff on the couch to understand his motivations, but "he just saw the opportunity" may be as close as we can get to understand this colossal betrayal of trust.

On Thursdays from 11-12 a group of us gather to study Maimonides list of the 613 commandments that are found in the Torah.  We wondered how many of these commandments Madoff had broken.  Thou shall not steal?  Thou shall not murder?  There has already been at least one suicide as a direct result of the financial losses that he caused.  How many will die indirectly as a result of this stolen money not getting to its intended recipients?  My personal vote goes to a commandment found in Leviticus:  "You shall not curse the deaf nor place a stumbling block before the blind; you shall fear your God - I am your Lord."  The rabbis asked what it meant to put a "stumbling block before the blind".  They concluded that this meant that one is prohibited from taking advantage of any person or group who is are unaware, unsuspecting, ignorant, or morally blind.  The irony is that we usually think of "the blind" as being the naïve, uneducated, unsophisticated, and poorest members of society who are most likely to be preyed upon by the unscrupulous.  But the "blind" in this case turned out to come from the most sophisticated, best educated, most powerful and most successful strata of our society! 

 

 

The verse from Leviticus concludes with the words "You shall fear your G-d – I am the Lord."  The rabbis wondered why these words were there.  Wasn't it enough to just say "do not put a stumbling block before the blind."  Turns out, G-d is warning us against the very kind of fraud that Madoff perpetuated – affinity fraud.  These words are there, says the midrash, because human beings do not know whether advice proffered to them by friends is good or bad. Often, advice is given with an ulterior motive. Only God knows the true motive of the advice giver.

Rabbi Elliot Dorf, who has written on ethics and Jewish law, noted that it was both illegal and immoral for Madoff to have stolen from individual investors.  "But", he said, "To do it to Jewish federations representing the Jewish community is just unconscionable. What happened to Kol Yisrael Areivim Zeh BaZe—all Jews are responsible for each other?"

I get worried about how young people will be affected by scandals when they involve respected members of the Jewish community.  We have had several quite recently – The prime minister of Israel, Ehud Olmert, is leaving office under a cloud a suspicion regarding his business dealings, the Agriprocessor debacle, where the leading provider of kosher meat is arrested for labor and immigration violations, and now this.  If accomplishments of prominent Jews in our society can make our young people proud to be Jews and make them more committed to the Jewish community, can the misbehavior and crimes of prominent Jews make them ashamed of their religion and heritage and push them away?  I was reassured by the email I received last week from a representative of our confirmation class.  Speaking of their concern for the workers who had lost their jobs when the Agriproccesor plant closed, they wrote:

"We, the confirmation class, feel partially responsible for the horrifying ways the workers were treated. These workers did not have the right to due process or the right to a fair trial. As Jews, we're taught to

 

believe that the treatment the workers received is unprincipled. We want to do something to help, something to make a difference."

How can a group of upper middle class 10^th graders in Naperville feel even partially responsible for the crimes of a Lubavitch family in New York City?  The fact that they do feel partially responsible is an indication that we have done something right in our education.  "Kol yisrael arevim zeh l bazeh" -- all Jews are responsible for each other, say the sages.  The very principal that Madoff so egregiously violated in his crime against Jewish communal institutions is the principal that motivates our children to want to right the wrongs perpetrated by other Jews. 

Of this, we can all be proud.

Shabbat Shalom

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Parting of the Sea

 

In Parashat Beshallach we come to the climax of the story of the exodus from Egypt.  Pharaoh has once again changed his mind about letting the people of Israel go, and is now in hot pursuit of the Israelites with his chariots and armor.  Ahead of the Israelites lies and impassable sea -- behind them the enemy approaches.

 

In May of 1940, the British Expeditionary Force, as well as the French and Belgian forces, found themselves in much the same situation vis–a-vis Germany.  The allies had underestimated the firepower and mobility of the German forces and had retreated to the harbor of Dunkirk, France.  300,000 soldiers were trapped against the sea.  Vice Admiral Ramsey, in charge of the evacuation, had sent enough destroyers and transport ships to rescue 30,000 troops. But the harbor soon became clogged with ships sunk by enemy aircraft.  It became necessary to take the soldiers off of nearby beaches as well. But the waters were too shallow to allow the naval ships to come to shore to get them.

 

This is when the little ships came to play their part. A variety of motor boats, fishing smacks, trawlers, lifeboats, paddle steamers and many other types of craft came over the channel to assist in the escape. They mainly ferried the troops from the beaches to the destroyers lying offshore - but thousands of troops came all the way back to England in some of these boats. The 300,000 trapped soldiers returned to England to fight another day. Churchill called the day "a miracle of deliverance."

 

If Dunkirk was a miracle of deliverance, how much more so was the Israelite escape from the

 

Egyptian troops?  G-d was our only ally -- there was no homeland across the sea to send help to rescue us.  No wonder the Israelites proclaimed in the Song of the Sea -- "Adonai is a warrior -- Adonai is His name!"

 

We have all felt trapped or stuck at one point or another in our lives.  When one feels trapped or stuck, one really has three possible responses to the situation.

 

The first is to give up hope.  The Israelites could have simply decided throw their hands up and await their fate.  Had our ancestors stood still and done nothing, a portion of them would have been massacred and a portion returned to Egypt, from where they would have been sold off and dispersed to other parts of the ancient world, and that would have been the end of the Jewish people. Had the British not acted creatively and heroically, their army would have been destroyed and the history of the world would have been very different.  Individuals who give up hope in the face of hardship may conclude that life is meaningless, senseless, worthless, and futile.  Some can isolate themselves from our friends and family.  Others begin to harbor resentment in their hearts and become incapable of enjoying life or tolerating other people's enjoyment of life.  Some turn to alcoholism or drug abuse. The ultimate expression of loss of hope is suicide.

 

The second response is to go back.  We read about this response in today's Torah portion.   "It is better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness."  After the ten plagues, after all that has transpired, do they really think they can go back to the way things were?  There is no

 

past to retreat to.  On an individual level, we sometimes want to live in the past as well, to want things like they used to be.  We refuse to accept the current realities of our lives, and try to live -- unsuccessfully -- like we used to.  We fail to adapt to the new realities in our lives.

 

The third response is to move forward.  According to a midrash, the Red Sea did not split until Nachshon ben Aminadov of the tribe of Judah had the courage to walk upright into the water.   The psychiatrist Rollo May said: Courage is not the absence of despair; it is the capacity to move ahead, despite despair.

 

Sure the Israelites despaired at the Red Sea, just as the British despaired at the English Channel some 3200 years later.  But they neither gave up nor retreated into the past.  Rather, they faced their situation with courage and resourcefulness, and, with the help of G-d, lived to see another day.  For that, we who live in a world shaped by their actions, give our thanks.

 

Shabbat Shalom

 

 

 

Martin Luther King and the Prophetic Tradition

 Martin Luther King and the Prophetic Tradition

This week's parasha begins the Book of Exodus.  Tomorrow we will read in the Torah about the enslavement of the Israelites in Egypt and G-d's call to Moses to lead the Israelites out of bondage.  Monday is Martin Luther King Day, a celebration of the birthday of that great civil rights leader.  On Tuesday, we will witness Barak Obama take the oath of office as the first African-American president in our nation's history.  . 

There was yet another important date in January that went un-marked by most of us.  January 14 was the yahrzeit of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel.  Rabbi Heschel was born into a Hassidic dynasty in Warsaw and escaped from Berlin in to the United States 1940.  Heschel was a professor of Ethics and Mystical thought at the Jewish Theological Seminary, and he wrote many important books on a range of subjects.  But he was not content to stay within the ivory tower of the University setting. Heschel took an active role in the civil rights and peace movements in the 1960's and was active in Jewish-Christian dialogue as well.  Many of us have seen the famous picture of Heschel and Martin Luther King walking together at a Civil Rights March in Selma, Alabama in 1965.  Heschel later said, "When I marched in Selma, my feet were praying." Racism, Heschel said, is "man's gravest threat to man - the maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason."

Martin Luther King himself identified with the figure of Moses and understood that a special relationship existed between the African- American and Jewish people.  According to Congressman John Lewis, who knew King well and worked with him in the civil rights movement:

He knew that both peoples were uprooted involuntarily from their homelands. He knew that both peoples were shaped by the tragic experience of slavery. He knew that both peoples were forced to live in ghettos, victims of segregation. He knew that both peoples were subject to laws passed with the particular intent of oppressing them simply because they were Jewish or black. He knew that both peoples have been subjected to oppression and genocide on a level unprecedented in history.

King also understood Israel's need to defend itself and its right to live in security.  On March 25, 1968, less than two weeks prior to his assassination, King spoke clearly and directly on this subject. "Peace for Israel," he said, "means security, and we must stand with all our might to protect its right to exist, its territorial integrity. I see Israel as one of the great outposts of democracy in the world, and a marvelous example of what can be done, how desert land can be transformed into an oasis of brotherhood and democracy. Peace for Israel means security and that security must be a reality."

The Torah tells us that Moses was rescued from the Nile river by Pharaoh's daughter and raised as her son in the palace.  One day, he went out to witness the suffering of his kinsmen, the Hebrews.  He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew.  He struck the Egyptian and buried him in the sand.  The next day he went out and found two Hebrews fighting.  He asked the aggressor, "Why did you strike your fellow?"  The Hebrew replied, "Who made you chief and ruler over us?  Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?" Fearing that the murder of the Egyptian would be found out by Pharaoh, Moses flees to Midian. He rests at a well. Seven daughters of a priest of Midian come to the well to draw water for their father's flock.  But shepherds came and drove the daughters off.  Moses rose to their defense, and he watered their flock.

This man Moses cannot mind his own business. Wherever he sees an injustice, he appears to be compelled to intervene.  It was the same with Dr. Martin Luther King.  Long before the plight of the Jews in the Soviet Union was on the front pages, he raised his voice. "I cannot stand idly by, even though I happen to live in the United States and even though I happen to be an American Negro and not be concerned about what happens to the Jews in Soviet Russia. For what happens to them happens to me and you, and we must be concerned."[1]

Indeed, King saw himself as a leader in the mold of the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures.  Just like Moses, King was seen as a person who stuck his nose into business that wasn't his.  He was criticized by fellow clergymen for going to Birmingham, Alabama in 1964.  He was an "outsider" they said, from Altanta, and it should be up to the locals to deal with the injustices there.  King wrote the following in what became known as "The Letter from the Birmingham Jail."

                      "I am in Birmingham because injustice is here.
                        Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C.[E.]
                        left their villages and carried their "thus saith the Lord"
                        far beyond the boundaries of their home towns  . . .
                        so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom
                        beyond my own home town."  For "Injustice anywhere
                        is a threat to justice everywhere."

 

The same compulsion to stick his nose where others thought it did not belong led to King's public opposition to the war in Vietnam.  In a speech delivered to a private audience of clergy and laity at Riverside Church in New York City, King explained his desire to speak out on this issue. "A time comes when silence is betrayal.  That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam."

Were it not for leaders like Martin Luther King, like John Lewis, like Abraham Joshua Heschel, and countless others who stood for justice throughout American history, Barak Obama would not have been even able to vote, let alone have been elected President of the United States.  May they all be an inspiration to us as we struggle for a more just society.  Our sages taught, "On three things the world stands – on justice, on truth, and on peace."  Know then, that if you pervert justice, you shake the world, for justice is one of its pillars." 

Shabbat Shalom

 

 

 

 

 

---

[1] Monday, January 21, 2002 (San Francisco Chronicle)

"I have a dream" for peace in the Middle East

King's Special Bond with Israel

by John Lewis

Terror in Mumbai

A week ago we were witness, via our televisions, to the horror that unfolded in Mumbai, India, over a period of several days, as Muslim radical terrorists attacked Western targets throughout the city of 19 million people.  It was a coordinated attack unlike any other we have seen, capturing the world's attention for four or five days as it played itself out.  Westerners were kidnapped and held not in an attempt to extort some concessions from authorities, but to maintain the world's attention on the grievances of the terrorists.  In the city of Mumbai there are more people than there are Jews in the entire world, yet, even here, Jews were singled out, as terrorist took over the Jewish Center that was established by Chabad.  Rabbi Gavriel and Rivkah Holtzberg, directors of Chabad-Lubavitch of Mumbai, were killed at the Chabad House along with kosher supervisors Rabbi Leibish Teitelbaum of New York and American-Israeli Bentzion Chroman.  A fifth victim was Israeli Yocheved Orpaz.  At least one other hostage was reportedly killed.  Rabbi Gavriel and Rivkah's son, two year old Moshe, was saved from certain death by the heroic actions of his Nanny, who spirited him out of the Chabad Center.   The Associated Press reported that the boy - whose birthday was Saturday - was unharmed, but was wearing blood-soaked pants.

Here is an email from a colleague describing the work of Rabbi Holzberg and his wife Rivkah:

"I was in Mumbai this year on business. A city from Dante's hell, filthy and crowded beyond a westerners nightmares. There is no kosher food or minyan in Mumbai, so I went to the Chabad house. They have 3 minyanim a day and after every meal the shaliach and his wife serve meals. There are 20 to 50 people eating there per meal, mostly traveling Israelis and businessmen, many frei. I asked Rabbi Holtzberg "where do you get the food from?" He replied "I shecht 100 chickens a week to serve 400 fleishig meals, and my wife cleans them. Since there's no pas yisroel here my wife bakes bread . (for about 800 people per week) every bit of food is home made." They ask for no money and charge nothing. By every meal he says a dvar torah, to inspire the orchim. Avraham Avinu would be proud of Rabbi Holtzberg."

Who were these terrorists, and what did they want.  According to the web site of the group most likely responsible for this atrocity, they have eight  goals:

1) to eliminate evil and facilitate conversion to and practice of Islam;

2) to ensure the ascendancy of Islam;

3) to force non-Muslims to pay jizya (poll tax, paid by non-Muslims for protection from a Muslim ruler);

4) to assist the weak and powerless;

5) to avenge the blood of Muslims killed by unbelievers;

6) to punish enemies for breaking promises and treaties;

7) to defend a Muslim state; and

8 ) to liberate Muslim territories under non-Muslim occupation

There are some who say that the way to eliminate terrorism is to address its root causes:  oppression, occupation, poverty and humiliation.  But the goals of the terrorists of Mumbai seem to go far beyond the worthy goal of eliminating oppression – they seek to establish dominance over others through the exercise of raw power.  Perhaps they seek to do to the West what they experience the West as doing to them.   In that case, they are merely seeking to exchange one form of oppression for another.

Other peoples have been oppressed without having resorted to terrorism.   Ghandi and Martin Luther King led non-violent protests against their people's oppressors.  Why have Muslims resorted to suicide bombings and other forms of terror?  In the opinion of Alan Dershowitz, terrorism is caused by the "incitement by certain religious and political leaders who are creating a culture of death and exploiting the ambiguous teachings of an important religion."  He gives as an example Sheikh Muhammad Sayed Tantawi, the leading Islamic scholar at the elite al-Azhar University in Cairo, who has declared that martyrdom operations are the highest form of jihad. 

"Yet many important Muslims have condemned the attacks in Mumbai, and it is important to take note of that.  Mumbai's top Islamic clerics have refused to bury the nine Islamist militants killed during the three-day siege in the city. Declaring the rampage proved they could not have been true Muslims, they declared that no Muslim cemetery in India would accept them. A debate has broken out about what to do with the bodies, which according to Muslim custom should have been buried within a few hours of death."   (Reuters news story)

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, CAIR, is America's largest Islamic civil liberties group.  It put out this statement:

"We condemn these cowardly attacks and demand that all hostages taken by the attackers be released immediately and unconditionally. We offer sincere condolences to the loved ones of those killed or injured in these senseless and inexcusable acts of violence against innocent civilians. American Muslims stand with our fellow citizens of all faiths in repudiating acts of terror wherever they take place and whomever they target."

Founded in 1988, the Muslim Public Affairs Council is an American institution which informs and shapes public opinion and policy by serving as a trusted resource to decision makers in government, media and policy institutions.

We at MPAC extend our heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims and the Indian people. As Americans, we are familiar with the imminent and the long-term repercussions of terrorism," said Executive Director Salam Al-Marayati. "Here at home, we remain committed to combating, rejecting and effectively countering the scourge of terrorism in all forms."

Indian Muslim Council-USA (IMC-USA: http://www.imc-usa.org), an advocacy group dedicated towards safeguarding India's pluralist and tolerant ethos, denounces in strongest possible terms the terror attacks in Mumbai, the financial capital of India. IMC-USA empathizes with the families of victims, hostages and police officers killed in the attacks and hopes for the safe release of the hostages.

 Rasheed Ahmed, President of IMC-USA said: "The perpetrators of these crimes against humanity should be captured and punished to the maximum extent of the law."

It is important that we understand that there are voices of moderation in the Muslim world that denounce violence and seek peaceful means to settle differences.  Unfortunately the belligerent and violent often claim the most press and attention and drown out the voices of peace and reconciliation.  May we speedily see the day when we will resolve our differences, in the words of the prophet Zechariah which are chanted in the synagogue on Chanukah, "not by might, nor by power, but by my Holy spirit."

Shabbat Shalom

 

 

 

 

Open My Lips So I May Speak Your Praise

 

Open My Lips So I May Speak Your Praise

Adonai Sefatai Tiftach ufi yagid tehilatecha   

There is a story behind the words that precede our amidah.  First, one has to understand that the Amidah, said three times a day by traditional Jews, is a substitute for the sacrifices in the Temple that can no longer be performed.  Just as the priests offered sacrifices to G-d morning and afternoon, through the evening, so we offer our standing prayers—our Amidah -- three times a day. 

But these words are not a part of that standing prayer.  They were added later by a third century sage named Rabi Yochanan.  The Talmud tells us that he would place these words before his prayer – God, open my lips so that my mouth can tell of your praises, and place the words, "May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable to You, my Rock and my redeemer."  Thus he would bracket, as it were, this central prayer with two verses from psalms – the first, from psalm 51, the second from psalm 19.  This innovation was accepted by the rabbis, and for the following seventeen centuries we have followed the practice of Rabbi Yochanan.

But there is a story behind this – none other than the story of David and Bathsheba.  One evening, King David went to his rooftop and saw this beautiful woman, Bathsheba, bathing.  He asked about her, and was told she was the wife of Uriah the Hittite, who was away at war with David's general, Joab.  Despite knowing that she was married, David sent for her, had relations with her and she conceived a child. 

This conception had to be covered up.  It would not do for the people to know that David had abused his power in this way.  So David sent for Uriah, Batsheba's husband, who was at the front.  He encouraged him to visit with his wife.  But Uriah refused.  He would not sleep with his wife when his comrades in arms were living in huts and roughing it in the fields, preparing for war.  This was the code of honor of the soldier at the time, and Uriah showed himself to be an honorable man.  But his honorable behavior presented a problem for King David, who needed Uriah to think that he was the father of the child that Bathsheba was carrying.

The next morning, David sent General Joab, a note, carried by none other than Uriah.  The note said, "Place Uriah directly in front of the fierce fighting, then withdraw from behind him so that he shall be struck and die." This is how Uriah the Hittite, husband of Bathsheba, died on the field of battle.  After the mourning period, David married Bathsheba.

These words – My G-d, open my lips so my mouth may sing your praise – come from a psalm, a prayer, attributed to King David following the episode I just described.  In it, David acknowledges the gravity of his sins, but is uncertain how he might atone for them.  He knows that he has not only wronged Uriah, but he has sinned against G-d by committing adultery and conspiring to murder.  He begs G-d for forgiveness.  The psalm continues:

Adonai, open my lips that my mouth might tell of your praise

For You do not desire sacrifices –although I would certainly offer them if your did – neither do you care about burnt offerings.

The real sacrifice to G-d is a broken spirit

God will never despise the gift of a broken heart, suffused with melancholy.

 

So here we have this ritual – this three- fold daily repetition of the Amidah – and a verse before it that reminds us that G-d doesn't really care about our rituals!  It is a daily reminder that our ritual of sacrifice, or what replaced it, prayer, is meaningless to G-d without an inner longing to be close to G-d, without a sincere desire to be forgiven by G-d for our wrong-doings and short-comings.  These words represent an assurance to us that if we come before G-d with true contrition, there will be forgiveness for us, no matter how severe the sin.  That forgiveness does not mean, however, that we will escape the punishment or consequences of our behavior.  The child that David and Bathsheba conceived in their illicit union died shortly after childbirth. 

When we say these words, we are asking G-d to help us to pray.  Not to find the words, which are in front of us in the prayer book, but to find the ability to recite the words with sincerity, to help us to find the proper frame of mind to offer these "sacrifices of our lips."  Although we know King David to have been and brave and valiant warrior, perhaps the bravest thing he did was to confront the evil that was within his own heart. 

 

 

 

 

Parashat Haazinu:Finding Your Passion

Finding Your Passion

Parashat Haazinu

October 10, 2008

Rabbi Marc D. Rudolph

What does it mean, to love "with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might"?  We know love when we feel it, but love is often difficult to express in words.  Fortunately, for that we have the poet.  Consider this well known expression of love:

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, --- I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! --- and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

This poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning expresses well the all-consuming passion that two human beings can have when they are in love.  That sense of passionate love is also given voice in the Hebrew Scriptures, when the prophets write about the love of G-d and Israel. 

In the poem that we read tomorrow in parasha Haazinu, it says -

G-d found you in the desert

In a desolate wasteland

A howling wilderness.

He encircled you, protected you,

Guarded you like the apple of His eye.

 

"I found you in the desert?"  Didn't G-d "find" the Israelites in Egypt, when they were enslaved there?  Perhaps another verse, this from the prophet Jeremiah that appears in our Rosh Hashannah service, can help clarify the matter:

"I remember in thy favor,

the devotion of my youth,

thy love as a bride,

when you went after me in the desert,

in a land that was not sown."

 

How passionate. Here, Israel is compared to a bride who falls in love with her groom in the wilderness of Sinai.  Israel and G-d are like a young couple, passionately in love, having nothing but one another -- in a desert that was not sown.  It is as if G-d's encounter with Israel in Egypt was like an arranged marriage, with each side dutifully contracting with each other out of a sense of family obligation. The love ignites in the desert.  That is where Israel and G-d truly "found" one another, recognized the true beauty of one another – fell in love.  As with many great loves, there are stormy times as well as loving ones. But G-d is saying, for the first time I fell in love with the Jewish people, and I knew they would return that love forever.

 

This love between G-d and Israel in this metaphor is not like the love between a parent and child.  Not like the love between friends.  Not like the love between a King and his subjects.  This love is an erotic love.  This story is told in the Babylonian Talmud:

 

R. Kattinna said: Whenever Israel came up to a Festival, the priests would roll up the curtain before the ark and they would show them the Cherubim, whose bodies were intertwined with one another, and the priests would say to Israel, "Look! You are beloved before G-d as the love between a man and a woman!"

R. Lakish said: When the heathen conquerors entered the Temple and saw the Cherubim whose bodies were intwined one with another, they carried them out and said: These Israelites, whose blessing is a blessing and whose curse is a curse, occupy themselves with such things?  And immediately they despised them……

 

The heathen could not understand. To them, the holy cherubim looked like pornography, and they lost all respect for the Jewish religion.  Of course they failed to understand what this symbolized to us -- the passion by which Israel and G-d loved one another.

 

This is why a book of erotic poetry, Shir Hashirim, The Song of Songs, was included by the rabbis into the cannon of the Bible.  Rabbi Akiba, famously, argued for its inclusion. This was no love story between a man and a woman, he argued. It was a metaphor for the love between G-d and Israel.  Rabbi  Akiva said that if all of scriptures was holy, Shir HaShirim was the holy of holies.

Shir HaShirm imagines a young woman, Israel, seeking G-d as she wanders in the city late at night:

The watchmen who patrol the city found me.

Have you seen the One I love?

The watchmen who patrol the city found me

They struck me, they bruised me.

The guards of the wall stripped me of my mantle.

Swear to me, O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved

That you tell him that love sick am I.

Im tim-tse-oo  et do-di mah ta-gi-du lo she holat ahava ani

 

In 1534, at the age of 31, , Eliezer Azkiri, who is the author of Yedid Nefesh, recorded this poem in his diary.

To be lit up in your light always

Talking with Him and walking with Him

In silence with Him and sleeping with Him and waking with Him

Sitting with Him and standing with Him and lying with Him

All of my movements are for Him.

 

What do you have in your Jewish life that you are passionate about?  Music … Torah Study… Worship…. The Hebrew Language ….. Israel…. G-d… Social Action……Jewish Travel.  Resolve this New Year to explore what you might be passionate about in Jewish life.  Fall in love with Judaism.  It is what G-d wants of us.

 

 

 

Kol Nidre : The Four Questions

Kol Nidre

The Four Questions

October 9, 2008

Rabbi Marc D. Rudolph

 

Although an honest judicial system is essential for the proper functioning of a society, nobody ever wants to go to court. If you must go to court, of course you want the best attorney, and the best preparation, that you can properly have. If this is true for a court composed of men and woman of flesh and blood, how much more so is it true of the Heavenly Court. And although we stand a chance of avoiding going to court in our lifetimes, according to our tradition, each year, on Yom Kippur, this Yom HaDin, this Day of Judgement we come before G-d to be judged.

"You truly judge and admonish, You know our motives, you witness our actions," says the prayer Unetaneh Tokef. "You write, you seal, you count, you measure. You remember all that has been forgotten. Everyone passes before you. You review every living being. You decree the destiny of every living creature." What questions will we be asked when our case comes before G-d? If we knew the questions beforehand, we could prepare ourselves with answers that would vindicate us before the heavenly court. In fact, the Talmud offers us speculation on how G-d evaluates our lives. These are the Four Questions. Not the four questions of the Passover seder -- a different set of questions.

The questions don't concern the performance of ritual tasks, like the Seder questions. Nor do they concern the belief in G-d. It is not about whether you fasted on Yom Kippur, or even how often you attended services. The Four questions are interesting because they shed light on important Jewish values that should guide our lives.

The first question is, "Did you carry out your business affairs honestly?" Given the state of our country's current economic affairs, there may be a lot of answering for that has to be done today. Conducting ourselves with monetary integrity with Jews and non-Jews alike -- is more impressive to our neighbors than any ritual undertaking, any belief, that we might have. The 13^th century French legal scholar Rabbi Moses of Coucy ruled that Jews must be particularly honest in their dealings with gentiles lest a Jew cheat a non-Jew and the latter then resolve never to convert to Judaism. Indeed, it is agonizing when a Jewish businessman or woman is accused or convicted of cheating . You may recall the story of Jack Abramoff, who was sentenced last year to 5-10 years in prison for fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy in a the Washington Lobby scandal. Abramoff was raised as a conservative Jew, attended Brandeis in part because he heard that it had a kosher kitchen, and led a committed Jewish life. He said of his legal problems: "I had lost a sense of proportion and judgment. God sent me 1,000 hints that He didn't want me to keep doing what I was doing. But I didn't listen until He sent this catastrophe."

The second question one will be asked by the Heavenly Court is: Did you set aside time for Torah study?" A favorite saying of Hillel's was:

"Do not say, 'When I have leisure, I will study, for you may never have leisure.'" There are many opportunities to study right here at Congregation Beth Shalom. Every Thursday around lunchtime we gather in our library to study the 613 commandments as the Rambam understood them. On Saturday morning before services we have a text study of the weekly parasha. Yesterday our cantor started her adult bar and bat mitzvah class this year. You can learn about knitting and about the tallit by attending a workshop on October 23 on "How to knit a Tallit." I will be teaching a course on business ethics and professional relationships in the Talmud. If you want to learn how to read Hebrew, we have an adult beginners course, "Read Hebrew America" starting on November 6.

We are living in a golden age of adult education in English. Thousands of volumes, heretofore only accessible to scholars who understood Hebrew, have been translated into English. The internet is a vast and convenient resource for study. Perhaps you are embarrassed to study. Perhaps you feel you don't have the proper background. Our sages compare the Torah to water. Just as water descends drop by drop and eventually carves a river, so one who learns a little each day becomes a flowing fountain.

The third question you will be asked according to the rabbis is, "Did you work at raising children?" When the Roman historian Tacitus wanted to describe the strange customs of the Jewish subjects of the Roman empire, he pointed to their strong desire to have children, which, he wrote, "made it a crime among the Jews to kill any child." Among Greeks and Romans, exposing unwanted infants to the elements so they would die was a common practice. The also Torah warns us many times against giving our children to :Molech" -- the practice of Israel's neighbors to sacrifice their children to their gods. Some may say that they do not want to bring children into this world of violence, global warming and scarce resources. Raising children is an act of hope

Even in the dark days of World War II, in the Warsaw Ghetto, Jewish women expressed their hope in the future through giving birth. One unknown diarist commented, on seeing two pregnant Jewish women, "If in today's dark and pitiless times a Jewish woman can gather enough courage to bring a new Jewish being into the world and rear him, this is great heroism and daring. . . . At least symbolically these nameless Jewish heroines do not allow the total extinction of the Jews and of Jewry."

We are not going to finish our task of mending the world in our generation, so we need to raise children who will carry our work forward into the future.

The fourth question is: Did you hope for the world's redemption? If Judaism was only concerned with the individual, then the first three questions would be sufficient --

But Judaism is also concerned with greater issues -- have you concerned yourself with bringing the end of suffering and oppression to the world? Sometimes the problems of the world are so overwhelming we turn away. We feel impotent to change anything. Here it is wise to remember the words of our sages: "It is not up to you to finish the work, but neither are you free to neglect it."

These, then, are the Four Questions of Yom Kippur

Why is this day different from all other days?

On all other days we engage in earning a living. On this day we are judged by how honest we have been in our dealing with others.

On all other days we pay some attention to the needs of the soul.

On this day we are evaluated on how well we have set priorities in our lives.

On all other days we engage in the nuts and bolts of raising our families.

On this day we are evaluated on how well we are doing in passing our values on to our children and grandchildren.

On all other days we hope for the redemption of the world.

On this day we hope for the redemption of ourselves.