Acharei Mot -- Kedoshim

Faith in the Face of Terror in Boston

Once again our nation, our world, witnessed an act of unspeakable violence, cruelty and cowardice on Monday, April 15th. Amidst the celebration of the 117th running of the Boston Marathon, tragedy and horror was experienced by our American community. An eight year old boy, waiting to cheer on his runner dad with his mother and siblings, has his life ended suddenly. A 29 year old graduate student from Medford, Massachusetts is cut down in her prime. A young woman from China, studying at Boston University, comes to get the best education in the world and embraces American culture. She too is immediately killed by the bomb blast. Many suffer horrendous injuries. Their lives are changed forever by this senseless act. We will all remember this day of terror on every future Boston Marathon. 

 

As a Rabbi I am often asked the question, "Where was G-d?" I can only answer: G-d is found in all of those people running toward the explosions to help the wounded; G-d is found in the countless gestures of heroism from law enforcement, firefighters, physicians, nurses, first responders, runners, spectators, all of whom lent a helping hand; G-d is found in the consolation to the survivors and to those who lost loved ones; G-d is found in our nation's  outpouring of generosity and kindness; God is found in our prayers;   G-d is found in our outrage and in our determination to bring those responsible to justice. 

 Most important, G-d is found in our hope. Our Parasha for this weekend begins with the words "Kedoshim Te-he-yu" -- You shall be holy because, I, G-d, am holy." We can never give in to despair. We can never throw up our hands and say,"What difference does it make, in the world in which we live, that we should try to be holy? In an unholy world, a world where any manner of evil could and does happen, why should we even bother to follow G-d's laws?" No. We must never throw up our hands and say that life has no meaning, that human existence has no purpose, that it makes no difference whether one acts in a good way or whether one acts in an evil way. 

 This evening I want to share with you a letter that was first published in Israel in 1956. The author of the letter identifies himself as Yossel Rakover. He is writing from Warsaw in 1943. He too finds himself in circumstances that test his faith. He has been through the most horrible experience. His wife and children have been killed in the Warsaw uprising, and he has found refuge in one of the last remaining buildings in the ghetto, which, as he writes his final testament, in being bombarded by Nazi artillery. He knows he does not have long to live. He writes a letter and buries it, hoping that it will be found sometime in the future.

The letter begins:

"God, You have done everything to make me stop believing in You.  Now, lest it occur to You that by imposing these tribulations You will succeed in driving me from the right path, I notify You, my God and the God of my father, that it will not avail you in the least.  You may insult me, You may strike me, You may take away all that I cherish and hold dear in the world, You may torture me to death – I will always believe in You, I will always love You! Yea, even in spite of You!"

  You have done everything to make me renounce You, to make me lose faith in You, but I die exactly as I have lived, an unshakable believer!

 Praised forever be the God of death, the God of vengeance, truth, and law, who will soon show His face to the world again and shake its foundations with His almighty voice.

   Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.

   Into your hands, O Lord, I commit my soul."

 The author of this letter is perplexed by G-d's absence. He is confused as to why G-d seems to have abandoned him at his greatest moment of need -- confused, and angry. Yet he refuses to abandon G-d, even as he fears that G-d has abandoned him. He refuses to abandon the idea that there is a moral order in the universe. He holds fast to the belief that this moral order, G-d's governance of the world, now hidden from sight, will soon become apparent to all and shake every one of us to the foundations of our very being. 

 We too are perplexed by G-d's absence whenever there is a Boston, a Sandy Hook, an Aurora, a 9/11, a Columbine, an Oklahoma City. We wonder how G-d can allow a gunman kill six people worshiping at a Sikh Temple in Wisconsin, or thirty two people at Virginia Tech. Our response to these horrors must never be to abandon G-d. Our response must be to redouble our efforts to be holy, to be like G-d. We must open our hearts to the Torah so that G-d can work through us. I close with the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, words brought to my attention by one of our students in our religious school, Jacob Baron. King says, "When evil men plot, good men must plan. When evil men burn and bomb, good men must build and bind. When evil men shout ugly words of hatred, good men must commit themselves to the glories of love." Keoshim Te-he-yoo -- Then --"You shall be holy." 

 

 

 

 

Parasha Shemini (April 5, 2013)

The Spectrum of Kashrut

As many of you are aware, I have been leading a conversion class this year. That course will conclude its twentieth and final session on April 25. On May 8, members of that group and their families will travel to Wilmette where they will go before a Bet Din and immerse themselves in the mikvah. Prior to the mikvah the men in the group will make a side visit to a mohel to draw a drop of blood. At services on Friday night, May 10, we will welcome our newest Jewish members into the congregation. I hope you will all be there to welcome them as well.

One of the most challenging aspects of teaching this group, for me, is how to guide them in terms of following Jewish dietary laws. In Orthodox circles, the expectation of the convert is that he or she will keep a strictly kosher kitchen and only eat out at kosher restaurants. In Conservative circles, the expectation would be that the convert would keep a kosher kitchen and only eat kosher fish in restaurants. These are non-negotiable requirements of the Jew, according to these movements. After all, does not G-d command adherence to dietary laws in our parasha this week? But how do the Reform and Reconstructionist rabbis guide their converts? What guidance do I, a rabbi from a pluralistic, unaffiliated seminary give to my students of a pluralistic, unaffiliated synagogue?

Reform Judaism, at its inception in the United States, was initially indifferent or even hostile to traditionally dietary laws. The insistence on observance of dietary laws, according to this view was a relic of the past. It was alienating modern Jews from their religion and erecting barriers between Jews and their non-Jewish neighbors. One Reform rabbi, speaking on a panel on the subject at a rabbinic convention, joked that her synagogue in New Orleans was "glatt treyf" when she was growing up. Living in New Orleans, a synagogue meal was not really complete without shellfish! This has changed in our times. Now, Reform Judaism encourages both its congregations and its adherents to study the dietary laws and consider whether in adopting some or all of them as a community or as individuals it would add kedushah, sanctity, to their homes and to their lives.

The history of kashrut in Reconstructionist Judaism is different. Mordechai Kaplan, the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism, was punctilious in his observance of Jewish law, including kashrut.  But Reconstructionist Jews do not follow Kashrut for the same reason as Conservative or Orthodox Jews. Reconstructionist Jews do not believe that G-d commanded us to follow specific dietary laws. Reconstructionist Jews believe that dietary laws are folk customs, developed by the Jewish people as a way of expressing holiness and commitment to the Divine.  In other words the laws of keeping kosher don't come from G-d, despite the fact that their origins are depicted that way in this week's Torah portion. According to this view, they developed from the Jewish people as a cultural expression of their religious life. Therefore, Reconstructionist Jews do not feel bound to a specific kosher regimen. Individuals and communities develop their own kosher guidelines free from the imperatives of a Divine Commander and in accordance with their own will and conscience.

So, where does that leave us? I recently came upon an unsigned article that I had saved entitled "Steps up the Ladder of Commitment". I do not like the idea of a "ladder" as it implies a hierarchy, one step being "higher" spiritually than another. I think we should think of it as a spectrum of choice. Let me do a survey. If you were to advise someone who was interested in observing one, basic, important Jewish dietary law, what would be the very first thing you would advise them to do?

Abstain from pork products, right?  That's interesting, because the rabbis of ancient times thought of the pig as the worst of animals. The Torah portion for this week states that only if an animal has a cloven hoof and chews its cud is it a kosher animal. There is only one animal that has a cloven hoof but does not chew its cud, and that is the pig. So, they tell a story. The pig lies on its back and shows its hooves, and says, "You see, look how kosher I am." But it hides the fact that it does not chew its cud. It claims it is kosher when it really is not. For this deception, the pig is especially reviled in Jewish life.

So, abstention from pork products may be the first place on the kosher spectrum. The next spot might be occupied by those who also abstain from shellfish. This could even mean abstaining from shellfish at home, but not in restaurants. The third place on the spectrum might be separating milk from meat. The rabbis derived this rule from the commandment in the Torah that we should not boil a kid in its mother's milk. To cook the offspring of an animal in the very milk of its own mother was considered ethically insensitive. So, not eating milk and meat together, and waiting a specific period of time after eating meat to have a dairy product, is a way of sensitizing ourselves ethically to the taking of a life for food.

Another place on the spectrum of kashrut is to look for Kosher labels on food products. These Kosher symbols are called "hekshers".  These products are not difficult to find in your local supermarket – there are 125,000 kosher products in American markets today.

If you have decided to abstain from pork products, you are probably only eating meat and poultry from animals that are biblically permitted. An adjacent spot on the spectrum would then be to eat only kosher meats. For meats to be kosher, they must be ritually slaughtered and salted to remove the remaining blood. When I was growing up my mother had to go to the kosher butcher shop to buy kosher meats. Then she had to salt them herself. Today, one could go to Trader Joes here in Naperville and get fresh packaged certified a kosher meat, pre-salted and ready to pop in the oven.

Another place on the spectrum would be to have a kosher kitchen in your home. For this you would have to have two sets of dishes, one for dairy and one for meat. You would need two sets of silverware, and two sets of pots and pans.

Want to skip the hassle? You and your family could become vegetarians! There are rabbis who believe that the dietary laws of the Torah are mean to lead us gently into the practice of vegetarianism.

Following Jewish dietary laws has been an integral part of Jewish identity since Biblical times. In modern times, many Jews have found these laws inconvenient or unnecessarily restricting. I think, as Jews, we have some obligation to explore these laws and whether and to what extent they can add sanctity to our lives. These laws and customs have served our people well for many years, and we may find meaning in them as well.

 

 

 

 

 

Hol Ha-Moed Pesah

Freedom to .....

This is the season of freedom. This week, hundreds of thousands of college students will unloosen the fetters of the chains of their college classes and head for the warm climates of Florida, Texas and Mexico for the annual rite of "Spring Break". These young people are continuing a cultural tradition that began several thousand years ago in ancient Greece, when a festival called "Anthestreria" began to become popular with young people. This festival was dedicated to Dionysius, the god of wine. For three days young people of ancient Greece would dance, sing and deck themselves with flowers. Young men would compete to see who could drain a cup of wine the fastest. As one writer put it, their goals was to achieve "an altered consciousness, open to the irrational calls of the god of earthly pleasures." They were celebrating the re-awakening of spring and the season of fertility.  In our country, Fort Lauderdale became the center of Spring Break activity. Yet by 1985, the combination of uncontrolled drinking, drug use, sexually risky behaviors and increased crime led Fort Lauderdale to institute laws that pulled the welcome mat from the entrance to that city to college students during Spring Break. Since, other cities in Florida have welcomed the revelers.

It is also, for us, the season of Passover. Interestingly, the drinking of wine plays an important role in Passover as well. The goal of this drinking, however, is not to achieve an "altered state of consciousness" so we can indulge ourselves.  It is quite the opposite – it is to help to sanctify the moment and imbue it with spiritual significance. We drink the four cups of wine because of the four expressions of redemption that are used in the Torah for the Exodus in Egypt --  I will bring you out from Egypt; I will save you from their oppression; I will redeem you with wonders; I will take you for me as a people. The verse then concludes, "And you shall know that I am the Lord your G-d….."

These concluding words make the point that freedom was not simply the removal of suffering, the loosening of the fetters of bondage. Freedom points to a higher purpose. The ultimate goal of freedom from slavery to Pharaoh was that the Jewish people should know G-d, that the Jewish people should bring the knowledge of G-d into the world -- that we should act in ways that make the world a better place. We were freed from Egyptian bondage so that we are able to accept, as the rabbis taught, "the yoke of the Torah".

Thus, Passover not only celebrates freedom from the slavery of the past, but also the freedom to worship God in a manner that they had not been able to do in Egypt. As in the Ten Commandments, the opening statement declares that God took the Jewish people out from Egypt  but only in order to lead to the other commandments. Freedom that devolves into self-indulgence is not freedom at all. Freedom without a noble purpose is of little value.

Fortunately, over the last several decades in our country college students have been able to use the freedom offered by their spring breaks in constructive ways.  These are called "alternative spring breaks." These are structured programs set up to give purpose to the freedom that our students enjoy while away from their classroom work. For example, Hillels on many campuses organize trips in the United States and around the world for college students to engage in social service projects while studying Jewish values. Their day starts each morning with discussing a Jewish value that is relevant to the purpose of the student being there. In one recent trip to Buenos Aires, students worked at a local school for underprivileged children, packed shelves at a food bank and helped distribute medicine at a medical clinic. Our Jewish Federation office in Chicago subsidizes these trips for students attending Illinois colleges and universities. Students from Illinois schools have also traveled to New Orleans, Cuba, and Uruguay, as well as Argentina, to do social service work over spring break.

What is freedom?  The pagan festival of Dionysius and the traditional spring break point to one answer – freedom is the liberation from all restraint. But our experience of liberation from Egypt, and the alternative spring breaks, point to a different answer – freedom is the ability to choose to serve G-d with all our heart, with all our soul and with all our might.

Shabbat Shalom