Parasha VaYishlakh

Is prayer a waste of time? According to Reverend Tim Keller, many people do not pray because they feel that they are not being “productive”. I heard Reverend Keller as he was promoting his new book,  Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with G-d on a morning television interview show.  Reverend Keller said that people feel good when they feel productive, but “when you are praying, you are not ‘doing’ anything. Prayer confronts the need we all feel to be productive, he said. Yet, he maintains, the solitude of prayer and the practice of prayer are crucial if you are to know yourself in relation to G-d. The interviewer, with a twinkle in her eye, asked, “Given the need to be alone with G-d in order to get to know yourself – would it be OK if I made the case that this is productive?” Reverend Keller responded, “In the short run prayer makes you feel less productive; but in the long run, absolutely, it makes you more productive”.

I was struck by the fact that when speaking of prayer in this interview, Reverend Keller, a Presbyterian minister, spoke primarily about praying in solitude. The emphasis in Judaism tends to be on public prayer. Yet the practice of solitary prayer is also deeply rooted in Judaism. The Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Chassidism, told this story from his childhood. "I was drawn to walk the fields and the great, deep forest near our village. Often I would spend the night in the field or forest. One morning in the forest I heard a human voice- a Jew in tallit and tefillin, praying with a passion I had never heard...'Aren't you afraid to be alone in the forest?' the man asked me. I answered him: 'I like the field and the forest, because there are no people...'" Chassidism teaches that aloneness can help us to explore the mysteries within and above us, much like Reverend Keller teaches from a Christian perspective in his new book.

In our Torah reading for this week, we may have an instance of this kind of solitude and encounter. Jacob is returning to meet his brother Esau after a twenty year absence. The last time they saw one another, they were both living at home.  Jacob impersonated his brother Esau and stole his blessing from their blind father, Isaac. Enraged, Esau threatened to kill Jacob. Jacob fled to Haran, with only the shirt on his back -- Haran, the city in Mesopotamia where his parents had family. After marriage, children, and acquiring great wealth it was time to return to the Land of Canaan. Jacob is afraid of how he might be greeted by Esau. He sends Esau gifts to try to appease him. He prepares for war, in case Esau wants to fight. He prays to G-d, to help him.

The night before his meeting with Esau, Jacob separates himself from his family, his servants, and all that he owns and crosses the river Jabbok to sleep alone. He encounters a stranger, with whom he wrestles throughout the night. Who is this stranger? Some think it is Esau himself. One commentator [Rashbam] thinks that Jacob separated himself from his family that night because he planned to run away before dawn.  G-d sends an angel to wrestle with Jacob and force him to stay. Others think it is Jacob, who is wrestling with himself, with his conscience. Jacob’s tendency throughout his life was to meet life’s challenges with trickery, deceit and evasion. Here he decides to meet a challenge directly, with honesty. He decides to face a difficult situation head on. It is not easy, and Jacob engages in solitary prayer throughout the long night. “G-d answers a person’s prayers if the person prays by searching himself, becoming his own opponent,” according to Rabbi Benno Jacob.

One does not have to worship alone to have a life altering experience through prayer. G-d can choose other ways to send an angel. I am thinking specifically about a visit Middy and I made to the Sons of Zion synagogue in Holyoke, Massachusetts, last Monday to lead their morning services. I had been their rabbi for three years. I was anxious to return and see people I had not seen in ten years. Congregation Sons of Zion was at one time a thriving place. Due to the economy and demographics, the synagogue had fallen on hard times, and when I arrived in 2001 it had under a hundred, mostly elderly members. One of our regular worshippers was Bill. He was 82 years old when I met him, and had lost his beloved wife three years prior to my coming to the synagogue. Bill went to the cemetery every day to visit the grave of his wife. Now, our tradition discourages excessive mourning, but Bill didn’t seem to be in mourning. His was cheerful, energetic, open to new ideas and not at all depressed. He just liked to visit his wife’s grave. In fact, I like Bill so much I did something I never did before and never did since. I tried to fix him up with my mother!  He graciously declined, which was fine.

A year after I arrived at the synagogue, Mollie moved from Florida to be closer to her daughter, who taught at a local college. Mollie had been very happily married for over fifty years and had lost her husband recently. One day she appeared at the synagogue wanting to talk to the Rabbi about her loss and the transition she was going through. She was now 84 years old. After hearing her story I encouraged her to come to services as a way of connecting to our community and rebuilding her life. She began to attend regularly during the weekday and on Shabbat. Lo and behold, Mollie and Bill fell in love!

When I left the synagogue in 2004, the office manager, Nancy, who had been there for 20 years, retired. Mollie and Bill volunteered to take over the office duties. The President of the synagogue, Steve, loved the idea, because it would save the temple money. The office manager was also responsible for compiling the monthly newsletter, so Mollie and Bill would take over that task as well. I argued against the idea. How are Mollie and Bill, 87 and 85 years old, going to fulfill the responsibilities of the office manager? Steve just smiled. They can do it, he said.

As I said, I have not been to the Sons of Zion synagogue in the ten years since I left. Mollie and Bill are now 97 and 95 years old. They are still going to services on weekdays and Sabbath, still running the office, still putting out the monthly newsletter. They have even taken on more responsibilities. Since the synagogue has been having difficulty getting a minyan on Monday and Thursdays, Mollie and Bill took it upon themselves to set up a breakfast twice a week in the social hall to encourage people to attend on weekdays. They get up on Mondays and Thursdays at 5:45 in the morning so they can get to Temple by 8 am and have breakfast ready by nine!  So, Middy and I joined the congregation for breakfast following services, and got to visit with people over coffee and bagels prepared by Bill and Mollie.

Jacob encountered himself in his solitary prayer the night before he met his brother.  Mollie and Bill encountered one another as they each prayed with a minyan in a small chapel in a small town in Massachusetts. Who said that prayer was a waste of time?  The moral of these stories for me is that prayer has the capacity to change one’s life. However, one never knows how exactly that is going to happen or what that change will be. One never knows how prayer will affect one.  Jacob was planning to run away, but, through the power of prayer, he stayed and faced his brother. Mollie and Bill were certainly not planning to find partners in their lives when they joined with others in prayer.  But through prayer they found partners, and it enriched each of their lives, and ours, immeasurably.

As Bill says, if you don’t take the time, you miss out on the spiritual side of life.

Shabbat Shalom

 

 

Shabbat Parasha Toldot

A Tale of Two Cities

It happened in Jerusalem this week, in a religious neighborhood called Har Nof. It could easily have happened here – but did not.

What happened at Har Nof, of course, was the murder of four Jews in the midst of their morning prayers and one Druze policeman who tried to stop the attack. The two terrorists, armed with axes and pistols, were killed at the scene. The attackers were Palestinians with Israeli identity cards who lived in Jerusalem. One of them worked at a grocery store down the street from the synagogue.  

What did not happen, but what could have, occurred at Congregation Etz Chaim in Lombard. On October 21 we ourselves were quite shaken by our own local expression of hatred towards the Jewish people. That evening police arrived at the scene after their custodian reported a disturbance on the synagogue grounds. A man had broken seven windows at the synagogue and scrawled anti-Semitic graffiti on the front door. When police arrived they found him driving recklessly over the synagogue’s grounds, destroying the grass and uprooting bushes. He had left a hatchet, a machete, a knife and an ax at the synagogue’s front door.  When police searched his home they found thousands of rounds of ammunition, a rifle, shotgun and four handguns.

The attack in Jerusalem succeeded in taking five lives. Thankfully, nobody was injured or killed in the Etz Chaim attack. This is an important difference. Both were terror attacks nonetheless born by hatred and bigotry. Another difference between these attacks was the public reaction to the attack by neighbors. The Arab press basically applauded the Jerusalem attack, justified it, and blamed Israel for it. In applauding the attack, one Qatari newspaper columnist cited the killing of the Palestinian boy by Jewish vigilantes following the murder of the three Jewish teens by Hamas operatives last July. “Terror can only be fought by terror,” he writes. An article in the Jordanian government daily likened the Netanyahu government to the Nazis and saw it as a legitimate act of vengeance. A Saudi newspaper called the Israel Defense Forces a neo-Nazi organization and accused Jews of fabricating our ties to our homeland in these words:  "[Calling Al-Aqsa] the 'Temple Mount' is a despicable innovation, a legend or a lie. There are no archeological remains [of this temple anywhere] in our land, and the Jewish [ancient] prophets and kings are just like this temple: they exist only in fairytales written in order to steal a homeland from its owners...”  And these are three examples from the so-called “moderate” Arab camp.

The reaction of our neighbors in DuPage County could not have been more different. Calls and emails of support and outrage came pouring into Etz Chaim as soon as the news of the attack emerged. Hundreds of people from forty different faith communities came together on Saturday night, November 8, to express solidarity with the Jewish community. Reverend Jay Moses of the First Presbyterian Church of Wheaton, Shoaib Khadri of the Islamic Center of Naperville, Dr. Jill Baumgaetner, the Dean of Wheaton College, Reverend Jim Honig of the Faith Evangelical Lutheran Church, Reverend H. Scott, Matheney, the Chaplain of Elmhurst College, Father Jim Dvorschak of the Roman Catholic Church and Rabbi Michael Balinsky of the Chicago Board of Rabbis all offered inspirational messages from the pulpit that buoyed our spirits and re-assured us that we do not stand alone when hatred is expressed against Jews. The fact that this solidarity meeting came on the anniversary of Kristalnacht was lost on nobody. Perhaps the most poignant moment came at the conclusion of the service. Rabbi Bob invited all clergy to stand together on the bima. He told a story. A couple of years ago he saw a picture in the Chicago Tribune of a Reform rabbi pointing to a swastika that had been sprayed on the side of his synagogue in Chicago. Rabbi Bob called his colleague. “What you should have done,” Rabbi Bob advised, “was to have a picture of clergy from different religions pointing at the swastika on your building.” “We don’t know anybody,” his colleague replied. Then, pointing to the fifty or sixty assembled clergy that filled the bima, Rabbi Bob said, “Well, we do.”

The Talmud and other rabbinic sources teach that there are two different kinds of evil that are committed in this world. The first kind is called le-tey-a-von. In Hebrew, “Beh-tay-ah-von” means “Bon Appétit”. This type of violence is called “le-tay-a-von” because it emerges when a person cannot control their appetite.  It includes the kind of evil that occurs when someone hurts another person because he is drunk.  I believe that this is the kind of evil that was perpetrated at Congregation Etz Chaim. This person acted, in part, because of a mental illness.  Our tradition states that there is hope for the person who acts “le-tay-a-von”, because he may come to regret what he has done. There is room for repentance afterward. The second kind of evil is called le-ha-khis. It is related to the word, kah-ahs – anger. The person who acts le-hakhis acts out of a spirit of defiance.  He acts deliberately and wantonly. He is motivated by pure anger and spite. This was the motivation of the killers in Jerusalem. For them, there is no redemption.

What can be done about this violence? Is it true, as the Qatari newspaper columnist claimed, that “terror can only be fought by terror”? This is a chilling thought, and can only lead to an unending cycle of violence. That question – how do we stop terror – was asked of Moshe Yaalon, currently Israel’s Defense Minister and a man known for his hawkish views.   How do you think Moshe Yaalon, a general, a military man, responded to this question? I will tell you what he did not say. He did not say that terror can be fought with terror. He did not say that terror needs to be fought with guns, or tanks or better intelligence. He responded that terror can only be combated with education. It will only stop when people teach their children not to hate.

The reason so many Christians clergy stood in solidarity with Jews against the anti-Semitic attack against the synagogue in Lombard is because for the past fifty years the Church has stopped demonizing Jews. They have educated their clergy; they have educated their parishioners and congregants that their past practice of teaching hatred toward the Jewish people was wrong.  This has led to their being receptive when we Jews reach out and seek to join in solidarity. This has led to them reaching out when the Jewish community has been attacked.  As we know, thousands of years of anti-Jewish teaching in the Church contributed mightily to the Holocaust. Likewise, there will not be true peace until Arabs teach their children the truth about Jewish history. There will not be true peace until the Arab people stop denying the facts about our historical ties to the Land of Israel.  There will not be true peace until our Arab neighbors teach their children not to hate.

I conclude by sharing with you a poem read by Dr. Jill Baumgaetner of Wheaton College at the Etz Chaim Solidarity Rally. It was written by Wislawa Szymbor-ska, a Polish poet.

HATRED  

See how efficient it still is,
how it keeps itself in shape—
our century’s hatred.
How easily it vaults the tallest obstacles.
How rapidly it pounces, tracks us down.

It’s not like other feelings.
At once both older and younger.
It gives birth itself to the reasons
that give it life.
When it sleeps, it’s never eternal rest.
And sleeplessness won’t sap its strength; it feeds it.

One religion or another -
whatever gets it ready, in position.
One fatherland or another -
whatever helps it get a running start.
Justice also works well at the outset
until hate gets its own momentum going.
Hatred. Hatred.
Its face twisted in a grimace
of erotic ecstasy.

Oh these other feelings,
listless weaklings.
Since when does brotherhood
draw crowds?
Has compassion
ever finished first?
Does doubt ever really rouse the rabble?
Only hatred has just what it takes.

Gifted, diligent, hard-working.
Need we mention all the songs it has composed?
All the pages it has added to our history books?
All the human carpets it has spread
over countless city squares and football fields?

Let’s face it:
it knows how to make beauty.
The splendid fire-glow in midnight skies.
Magnificent bursting bombs in rosy dawns.
You can’t deny the inspiring pathos of ruins
and a certain bawdy humor to be found
in the sturdy column jutting from their midst……

It’s always ready for new challenges.
If it has to wait awhile, it will.
They say it’s blind. Blind?
It has a sniper’s keen sight
and gazes unflinchingly at the future
as only it can.

Parasha Chayei Sarah

To Choose to Be Jewish

This evening I am going to talk about two people. One of these people chose Judaism. The other person did not choose Judaism, but wished he had.

In my experience, people come to Judaism for a variety of reasons. Sometimes they fall in love with a Jewish person and want to establish a Jewish home. They believe that the best way to do this is to join the Jewish people through conversion. Other people are married or partnered to a Jewish person for a long time before they decide to convert to Judaism. These individuals eventually fall in love with Judaism, through participation with their partner or spouse in holiday celebrations, synagogue life, life cycle rituals or through living the rhythms of the Jewish year. I’ve also had more than a few people who seek to convert because they know Jewish people and admire them.  They admire the kindness of their Jewish friends, their strong sense of community, their intellectual curiosity, their warm family relationships, and their commitment to making the world a better place. These people come to Judaism seeking to integrate those values into their lives and the lives of those they love. 

In this week’s parasha, we have an example of the latter.  Abraham sends his servant back to the place of Abraham’s birth in order to find a wife for his son, Isaac. This is a long journey across a harsh landscape. The servant finds the right woman for Isaac --Rebecca. Abraham’s servant is attracted to her kindness, as she offers him water by a well and then offers to water his camels as well.   Based on these attributes the servant  concludes Rebecca would make a good wife for Isaac. But why does Rebecca agree to marry a man who she has never met? Why does she agree to leave her home and her family and her gods to undertake the arduous journey to the land of Canaan? Once there, she will not be able to return home.

The rabbis of the Talmud noted that Torah is unusually lengthy when telling the story of Rebecca at the well. It first tells the story in a third person narrative form. When the servant later meets Rebecca’s family, he tells them the story of what happened at the well in the first person, following the narrative version almost word for word. Why doesn’t the Torah just say, “The servant told them what had happened.” Why the repetition?

My teacher and colleague Rabbi Isaac Mann offers the following thoughts on the matter. In repeating the narrative word for word, the Torah wants to hint at the reason for Rebecca’s decision to leave her family and join the Jewish people. The Torah is demonstrating the servant’s humility and sincerity and his ability to pierce the heart of this family.  His pious words and simple faith in G-d make an enormous impression on one and all. It convinced Rebecca to join the family of Abraham, and allowed her parents to let her go. Not unlike some people who talk with me wanting to join the Jewish people, Rebecca is influenced by her friendship with a man she has come to admire and who represents what Judaism has to offer.

Rebecca chose Judaism. She is the world’s first convert to our religion. I will now share the story of a man who would have chosen Judaism, but he could not. His name is Louis Brandeis. Brandeis served on the United States Supreme Court from 1916 to 1939. He was the first Jew appointed to the Supreme Court. Brandeis graduated from Harvard Law School at the age of 20 with the highest grade point average in the school’s history. His fellow students recognized his brilliance. They also realized that one thing was holding him back. He was Jewish. At that time in our American history, there was a great deal of prejudice against Jews in our country. Louis Brandeis’ Christian friends urged him to convert. If he were Christian, they said, he might well be appointed to the Supreme Court some day! Brandeis never responded to their suggestion.

In his final year of school, Brandeis was inducted into the honor society. Brandeis’ name was called, and he went to the podium to speak. Slowly, he looked around the room. “I am sorry,” he said, “that I was born a Jew”.

The room erupted in applause. “Finally, we convinced him,” members of the audience said to one another. “He has finally seen our point”.

Brandeis waited until the applause subsided. Then he continued, “I am sorry I was born a Jew --but only because I wish I had the privilege of choosing Judaism on my own.”

This time there was no applause. The room was silent. Then members of this exclusive honor society began to stand. But they did not walk out. Instead, awed by Louis Brandeis’ conviction and strength of character, they gave him a standing ovation.

Of course, in many ways, Louis Brandeis did choose Judaism. Just like Rebecca did thousands of years ago, at the beginning of our history.  Just like we all must.  To live a Jewish life means making a conscious decision to make a deliberate effort to live a Jewish life. To be a Jew by choice is the most fulfilling kind of Judaism of all.

Shabbat Shalom

 

 

Parasha Va-Yera

“For I have chosen him so that he will instruct his children and his household after him that they may keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just.”

I was perusing the newspaper a few months ago when my eye caught the obituary of a man named Leo Bretholz. The name was not familiar to me, but the title of the article caught my attention, “Age 93, Escaped from Train to Auschwitz”. Mr. Bretholz, however, did not get his obituary written up in the New York Times for simply escaping from a train to Auschwitz. True, toward the end of the war he became a member of La Sexieme, a Jewish resistance group that operated in France. La Sixieme was originally a network for rescuing Jewish children and youth. It later developed into a fighting unit that helped to liberate Southwestern France. La Sexieme was credited with rescuing several thousand Jews. But it wasn’t for that that Mr. Bretholz got his obituary published in the New York Times.

On November 5, 1942, fifty two years to the day that I write this, Mr. Bertholz was being transported on a train from France to Auschwitz. He and another man pried the bars from the windows of a train car and, when the train slowed around a bend, they jumped out. They had to avoid the surveillance floodlights that the guards aimed over the entire curvature of the train as it slowed. It was a daring escape that he detailed in his 1998 memoir, Leap into Darkness, Seven Years on the Run in Wartime Europe.

But Mr. Bertholz was not given a prominent obituary in the New York Times because he wrote a Holocaust memoir. Mr. Bertholz was given an obituary in the New York Times because he was a prominent eyewitness in a class action suit brought against the French Railroad that transported him to Auschwitz. The suit sought to recover damages from the railroad company, S.N.C. F. for the part it played in the murder of Jews deported from France to the gas chambers of Poland. Between 1941 and 1944 this railroad company transported 76,000 European Jews to the Franco-German border in 76 cattle cars. From there, German trains took them to the death camps. The suit died when the US Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s ruling that the suit was outside of American jurisdiction. 

The company formally apologized to Holocaust survivors and victims in 2011 a few months after American lawmakers, Holocaust survivors, and their descendents tried to block the company from participating in bidding on American high speed rail systems. They sought to prevent the company from getting these lucrative contracts before acknowledging their role in shipping tens of thousands of Jews to their death in Germany.  The company offered a formal apology but refused to pay reparations. It portrayed itself as a victim of German occupation itself.

Mr. Bretholz was a star witness before Congress and the Maryland legislature as he testified in the attempt to pass legislation that would bar the company from bidding on contracts until it paid reparations to its victims. The company, claimed Mr. Berholz, was actively complicit in the deportations. The rail operators packed people into cattle cars, he said. They failed to provide adequate food and water, he said. They provided the guards that prevented people from escaping, he said. “Wartime France,” he said, was “the most important and very venal cog in the wheel of Hitler’s Holocaust co-conspirators.”

The Jewish People have rightly been called a “justice intoxicated people”.  In our parasha this week, Abraham challenges G-d over G-d’s plans to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. ‘Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked?” Abraham impudently says to G-d. “Far be it from You – Will not the Judge of all the earth act justly?” We have here the very first instance of that “fanatical love of Justice” that Albert Einstein spoke about when he expressed his gratefulness that he was part of the Jewish people.  That love of justice is beautifully expressed in Psalm  94

“Rise up, O G-d, Judge of the earth/ repay the arrogant with what they deserve…….   They crush Your people; they oppress Your heritage                                                The widow and the stranger -- they kill / the orphan -- they murder.                            They say, “G-d does not see” / The Divine One of Israel does not take notice.”

Abraham was chosen by G-d, says scriptures, so that he could teach the world what it “right” and “just”.  Abraham was chosen so he could teach the world to have a conscience.  Hitler knew this. He wrote that conscience was a Jewish invention. Like circumcision, he said, it is a blemish on humanity. By seeking to destroy the Jewish people, Hitler sought to banish G-d from our world.

The contemporary Israeli writer Yossi Klein Ha Levi puts it this way:

“A photograph taken in Poland offered confirmation that the Holocaust was a spiritual war. It is a well known image: A Jew, wearing tallis and tefillin, is about to be shot by the jeering Nazi soldiers who surround him. The ultimate disputation:  The Jew insists on the existence of the Creator and the primacy of soul over body, while the Nazis, by exposing Jewish helplessness and the absence of an invisible Protector, insist on an empty cosmos.”

Companies that collaborated with the Nazis and benefited financially from that cooperation ought to pay reparations to their victims and their descendents. People like Mr. Bertholz are doing G-d’s work on earth when they stubbornly pursue those reparations in the name of justice. They are bearing witness to the presence of G-d in history, carrying out the Jewish mission long entrusted to Abraham and his descendents.

Shabbat Shalom

Parasha Lech Lecha

We Are All Immigrants

One of the great pleasures of being a rabbi in Chicagoland is the opportunity to hear scholars from all parts of the world who come to our area to speak. That pleasure is only surpassed by sharing what I have learned with you, my congregation. This past Thursday I had the privilege of attending a rabbinic institute featuring the new President of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Rabbi Aaron Panken. Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion is North America’s first Jewish seminary and is responsible for teaching and ordaining all of the Reform rabbis in the United States. Rabbi Panken is a true “Renaissance man”. In addition to his Rabbinic Ordination and Doctorate in Hebrew and Judaic Studies, he has a Bachelors of Science in Electrical Engineering from Johns Hopkins and is a certified commercial pilot and sailor. How a person who is 50 years old has the time and energy to accomplish all of that and be married with two children is truly a remarkable accomplishment.

Rabbi Panken’s talk was based on the first two verses of this week’s Torah portion. “G-d said to Avram, ‘Go forth from your land, from your birth place, and from the home of your father to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great people, and I will bless you, and I will magnify your name, and you will be a blessing.’” Rabbi Panken asked us to consider, “What was it like for Abraham to go into the future, and not know what it looks like?” He then asked us to consider this question from the perspective of an American Jewish community that metaphorically is moving into a new place, an unknown future where things will be very different from what we have known.  We are all immigrants to a new land, he said.

What does it feel like to move to a new place? First, one experiences a sense of loss. One misses the comfort of being in a place where one is familiar. There is an initial sense of disorientation. Then there is the anxiety. Where are we going? G-d tells Abraham that he is going “to a place that I will show you.” It is not a place of Abraham’s own choosing. It is to a place with an uncertain future, of unknown challenges. This is also the situation of the American Jewish community, says Rabbi Panken. We are heading somewhere that will be very different from where we are today. That place is certainly not one of our own choosing!

G-d promises Abraham many blessings. These blessings are good, and big, but they are not specific. The future is promising, but Abraham has no idea what it will look like. This is true of the American Jewish community as well. We too can look forward to many blessings. What will they be? How do we work toward them?

We know things are changing in the country as a whole. We know that these changes will affect the Jewish community in profound ways. And, we know that the Jewish community is changing as well. Our own community reflects the changes happening in society as a whole.  On Tuesday I attended a meeting of the Naperville Interfaith Leadership Association. We met with Dan Bridges, Superintendent of District 203 and Dr. Karen Sullivan, Superintendent of District 204. The presented some interesting statistics. Since 2000, the student population of each District has decreased by five percent. Experts forecast that over the next several years it will continue to decrease slightly, before it levels out. District 204 will become a majority minority school district within two years. In other words, District 204’s racial and ethnic minorities will make up over half of the student population. By 2043 it is projected that the United States will be a majority minority country, with over half the population composed of ethnic and racial minorities.

Given the overall decrease in student population in our community, it is not surprising that Congregation Beth Shalom’s student population is lower than it was a number of years ago. Our youth numbers are tracking the numbers of the overall population of our area. The community in general is aging. Add to this an American Jewish birth rate that is below replacement level, and we can begin to see some of the challenges our community, and the American Jewish community as a whole, faces in the not too distant future.

Like Abraham, we have some idea where we are going, but we know exactly how it will look when we get there.  What will Israel-Diaspora relations look like in the future? How will declining Jewish birthrate and declining rates of affiliation affect synagogue membership?  Will the Jewish community need to organize itself differently?  How will Jews maintain a sense of community and cohesiveness as we cease to live in specifically Jewish neighborhoods and spread out across metropolitan areas and across the country?

Rabbi Panken laid out some of the challenges of the future for us. How do we educate our children in the future? Are after school religious schools, the model we have been following since the 1920’s, capable of educating the youth of the twenty first century?  The demands on children and families are so different now from when I was growing up, yet the model of Jewish education has remained essentially the same. How far can synagogues stretch in order to attract and keep members?  Is a membership model of affiliation the way that communities should be organized?  How does the role of rabbi need to change in the American Jewish community of the future? Change is inevitable, and we will need to work together to meet its challenges. It will take innovation and experimentation to address the needs of the American Jewish community of the future.

As a cautionary note about change, Rabbi Panken taught us the following passage from the Talmud:  The Rabbis decreed that ten cups of wine should be consumed at a house of mourning : Three before the meal to increase the appetite; three during the meal to aid digestion; one each for the four blessings of the grace after meals.

To these ten, later rabbis added four more: one to honor those who did the burial, one to honor those who helped pay for the burial, one in honor of the Temple, and one in honor of Rabban Gamliel. They began to observe that they were drinking and becoming intoxicated. So, they returned to their prior practice of drinking only ten cups of wine.

The moral of the story is that sometimes innovations can have unintended consequences. Along with innovation should come assessment. We should never be afraid to admit we made a mistake. After all, when you are an immigrant in a new land, you are bound to take a wrong turn or two! 

Shabbat Shalom.

Parasha Noach

"Reputation is what men and women think of us; character is what G-d and angels know of us." Thomas Paine

Speaking Up

Monica Lewinsky was back in the news this week. She spoke at a forum, hosted by Forbes Magazine, to a group of a thousand entrepreneurs under the age of thirty. She spoke eloquently about her experience of being the first person humiliated and shamed publicly and globally via the internet. You can read the entire transcript of her speech online at Forbes.com .  She was 22 years old back in 1998 when her two year affair with President Bill Clinton became public. Monica Lewinsky became the center of a media frenzy that took her overnight from being an unknown private person to a publically humiliated and ridiculed one. Her name became the object of salacious lyrics from the likes of rap artists like Beyonce and Eminem, of Nicki Minaj and Kid Cudi and Lil B and Lil Wayne.  There were two Monica Lewinskys, she said, the private one who was loved by her family and friends; and the public one, who was whatever political factions or the media wanted her to be.  She  described to  her audience  the shame that she has lived with  for the last sixteen years – the personal shame, the shame for what she put her family through, and the shame that befell our country. There was the name calling she had to endure – tart, floozy, bimbo, tramp. The New York Post took to calling her “The Portly Pepperpot” almost daily. Could you imagine what that does to the self-esteem of a 22 year old young woman who did nothing wrong other than fall in love with a man – her boss --  who should have known far better than to encourage her affections? She said, “The experience of shame and humiliation online is different than offline. There is no way to wrap your mind around where the humiliation ends — there are no borders. It honestly feels like the whole world is laughing at you. I know. I lived it.”

No wonder she felt suicidal. No wonder she wanted to die. No wonder she was almost humiliated to death, yet, she survived. Tyler Clementi, and others who have had their reputations sullied in the same manner did not. You may remember Tyler Clementi. He was an 18 year old freshman at Rutgers University in 2010 when his roommate surreptitiously videotaped him via Webcam kissing another man. Tyler was ridiculed and mercilessly humiliated online. Several days later, full of shame and self-loathing, Tyler jumped to his death off the George Washington Bridge.

        So, good for you, Monica Lewinsky for speaking up! I admire and respect your courage, your grace and your sincerity.  Good for you that you want to use your experience to help change the culture of bullying that has grown up around our social media on the internet.   Good for you that you have let us in by personally testifying to the harm done to people by having their reputations shattered and destroyed by online cyberbullying.

Our Parasha this week contains the verse, “One who sheds the blood of another human being, by another human being his blood shall be shed, for G-d creates humankind in the image of G-d.” The Chofetz Chaim relates this verse to public humiliation. When one is humiliated publicly, he says, ones face “turns white” – the blood rushes from ones face – and this is the “shedding” of blood that this verse refers to. To publically humiliate a person, to destroy their reputation, is, according to the Chofetz Chayim, to metaphorically kill them. Or, perhaps it is not so metaphorically. Monica Lewinsky concludes her talk with a quotation from Oscar Wilde, “I have said that behind sorrow there is always sorrow. It were wiser still to say that behind sorrow there is always a soul.  And to mock at a soul in pain is a dreadful thing.” Some people, as we have seen, are literally driven to death by public mockery. Others somehow survive, but something inside of them, a little bit of the soul, perhaps, has died. That is no way to treat a fellow human being who is created in the image of G-d.

The story is told of Samuel the Prince, the eleventh century Spanish-Jewish poet who was Prime Minister to the King of Granada. He was once insulted by an enemy in the presence of the King. The King was so angered that he ordered Samuel the Prince, his Prime Minister, to punish the offender by cutting out his tongue.

Contrary to the King’s mandate, Samuel treated his enemy with the utmost kindness. When the king learned that his order had not been carried out, he was greatly astonished.

Samuel was ready with a profound answer. He said: “I have carried out your order, Your Majesty.  I have cut out his evil tongue and have given him instead a kindly tongue” (B. Raskas, Heart of Wisdom).

Monica Lewinsky’s life could have gone in many different directions following her ordeal. She could have been literally destroyed by the public humiliation she went through. She could have decided to change her name and assume a new identity to escape her reputation.  She could have cashed in on her notoriety by selling her story to the highest bidder. She probably could have gotten her own television show on cable and become an entertainer. She could have spent her life trying to even the score with her detractors. She could have simply kept quiet, and shielded the rest of us from remembering that painful period in our communal history as Americans. Surely many powerful people and even some of us would have preferred that. Instead, she has reclaimed her dignity; she has reclaimed her own voice and her own story.  She has taken the path of Samuel the Prince. She has dedicated herself to working toward making our world a kinder place.

Shabbat Shalom

 

 

 

 

 

Yom Kippur Day 5775/2014

Our Promised Land

Yitzchak Epstein was the first to understand the challenge. Back in 1907, Epstein, a writer, linguist and pioneer in the instruction of Modern Hebrew, published an essay entitled “The Hidden Question.” Epstein was a Zionist. He supported the settlement of Jews in Palestine.  He noticed that one issue had been completely ignored in the quest to reclaim Palestine as a home for the Jewish people. The “hidden question” concerned the relationship of the Jewish settlers to their Arab neighbors in Palestine. He noted that of the 600,000 inhabitants of Palestine in 1907, 80,000 were Jews and over a half a million were Arabs. Arab peasants were living on the land and cultivating it, though not very productively.  Jews were buying this land, often from absentee landlords, and evicting the tenants to make room for new Jewish communities.  Naturally the Arab peasant had a strong attachment to the land, though he had never owned it legally. In being forced off the land, the Arab peasant was leaving behind the graves of his venerated ancestors. Epstein witnessed the day that Arab families left the village of Ja’una, now Rosh Pina, to make way for Jewish agricultural settlers who had purchased the land.  The now uprooted Arab men rode their donkeys and their women and children walked behind them on their way to their new home east of the Jordan River. As they walked the women wept bitterly, the valley filled with their wailing. From time to time, he writes, they stopped to bend down to kiss the stones of the earth.

In the mid 19^th century, Christian Zionists wrote about Palestine as a “land without a people and a people without a land.” In 1914, Chaim Weizman, later to be the first President of Israel, wrote that the understanding of the early Zionists went something like this: “there is a country which happens to be called Palestine, a country without a people, and, on the other hand, there exists the Jewish people, and it has no country. What else is necessary, then, than to fit the gem into the ring, to unite this people with this country?” 

In his recently published book, My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel , Israeli journalist Ari Shavit does not shy away from exploring this premise. The book is a searing, introspective, and discomforting book on Israel as seen through Shavit’s eyes.  Shavit begins his book recounting the trip to Palestine that his great grandfather, Herbert Bentwich, made with a group of English Zionists in 1897. Bentwich is an English Jewish aristocrat. He and his party travel to Palestine to see whether it is a suitable place to help settle the masses of oppressed, deprived Jews of Eastern Europe. From a tower overlooking the town of Ramleh, Bentwich sees a quiet, empty land. Shavit writes, “Here is the stage upon which the drama will play out, all that was and all that shall be: the carpets of wildflowers, the groves of ancient olive trees, the light purple silhouette of the Judean hills.”  What Shavit’s great grandfather fails to see, he writes, is the land is already occupied by more than a half a million Arabs, Druze and Bedouin.

Shavit lovingly describes the miracle of modern Israel – the industry and inventiveness of the early settlers, the innovation of contemporary Israel, the monumental feat of the ingathering of Jewish refugees from post-war Europe, the Middle East and the Former Soviet Union.  Clearly, there is much to be proud of in the story of Israel. But there is a darker side to that story, and Shavit is unsparing in telling that side as well. That darker side is about Israel’s role in the fate of the Arab population, many of whom were forcibly expelled from their homes to make room for the Jewish state. That darker side includes the policies and procedures employed by Israel to keep a restive Palestinian population from undermining the state.  Shavit’s recounting of his experience in a Gaza prison camp as a soldier was particularly unsettling. Frankly, at times this was so painful and difficult to read that it made me want to close the book and turn away.

In mid August I turned to you, my congregation, via our CBS Facebook page for topics our congregants wanted to hear about on the High Holidays. One of our members, Eric Forster, suggested I talk about how it feels to be politically progressive and a supporter of Israel at this time. In fact, Shavit addresses Eric’s question through his book. Shavit is both politically progressive and an ardent Zionist. He too struggles with this dilemma of being both.  Shavit puts it this way: “I see the choice is stark – either reject Zionism because of…[ its darker side] or accept Zionism along with …. [its darker side].  Shavit chooses to accept and love Israel, warts and all. Israel is far from perfect. All things considered, Israel has “performed miracles” and has “done the unimaginable”, he writes. Shavit describes Israel as “a truly free society that is alive and kicking and fascinating.”

On these High Holidays rabbis around the world are giving sermons on Israel. Some of my colleagues will suggest that Israel is not being tough enough on her enemies. Some will state that we simply flatten Gaza and teach the Palestinians a lesson about shooting missiles into Israel. Others will opine that if Israel concedes to the humanitarian concerns of Hamas, allows them to build an airport and lifts the blockade that they will govern more responsibly. Some of my rabbinic colleagues will be calling on the Netanyahu government to make the concessions necessary to implement a two state solution.  They will be telling their congregations that Israel ought to dismantle settlements, remove more checkpoints, and empower Abbas by releasing Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. Israel, they will preach, needs to put the two state solution on the fast track, so that Israel can remain a Jewish and democratic state.  Others will be preaching the opposite – that the two state solution threatens Israel’s very existence.  Some will preach that American Jews need to support Israel’s policies in the halls of Congress more than ever. Another group of rabbis will preach that more than ever Israel needs outside influence to make concessions for peace, and that it is up to American Jews to advocate that our government apply pressure on Israel to do so.

Now, I am no politician. I am no military strategist. I am simply a rabbi. I love Israel. I want Israel to be a Jewish and democratic state.  I want Israel to exemplify the highest values of Judaism and of humanity – which, I believe, are one and the same. I have traveled to Israel many times. I have dear friends and family there. I have read a great deal, I have heard the experts speak, I have studied the issues myself. Yet, I can honestly say, I do not know what is in the best long term interest of Israel. I don’t know what Israel should do. I will tell you one thing, though. I am proud of Israel. I think the existence of Israel as a Jewish state is both moral and necessary. I am proud that a son of Israel, Ari Shavit, could write a book which questions the morality of some of the things Israel has done in the past. I am proud of a Jewish tradition that allows someone to ask thorny questions, that allows someone to face unvarnished facts that are at times unsettling and troubling.  I am proud that Israel is a country that doesn’t censor a book, or prevent its publication, because the book does not present Israel in only a positive light. I am proud of being part of a tradition that can acknowledge the injustices that were perpetrated on the Arabs, and that can allow room for empathy for the suffering of the “other side”.  

I don’t think there will be true peace until the Arabs have an Ari Shavit of their own. I don’t think there will be true peace until there is an Arab leader willing to state to his people that Jews have a legitimate right to have a sovereign Jewish State in the Middle East. I don’t think there will be true peace until an Arab leader can acknowledge that it was wrong for the Arab states to invade Israel in 1948 and try to destroy the just declared Jewish State. I don’t think there will be true peace in the Middle East until Arabs can acknowledge the part they have played in the ongoing tragedy of this part of the world. I don’t think there will be true peace until the Palestinians become more invested in building their own society than in destroying Israel’s.

This summer was indeed a difficult one for Israel and for Israel’s reputation around the world. Yet two qualities of Israel and of the Jewish community around the world shone brightly through this crisis. These qualities demonstrate the “triumph” of Israel in the title of Ari Shavit’s book. These are the qualities of ACHAVA and ACHDUT. 

ACHAVA refers to the warmth and sense of caring that Israelis have for one another. The war brought to the fore the exceptional qualities of personal relationships in Israel. The crisis brought people together like one big family – albeit a strange, loud and very diverse one to be sure. Here is a story that shows that family-like quality you find among Israelis. I don’t think it is like this any other place in the world. Do you know what at “lone soldier” is in Israel? A “lone soldier” is a person, usually a young man or woman, whose family lives outside of Israel and who chooses to come to Israel to serve in the army.  At any given time there are 2,800 lone soldiers serving in the Israeli army. They often choose to serve in combat positions, and therefore are vulnerable in times of war. In this latest war, two lone soldiers from America fell in battle.

The first American soldier who fell was Sean Carmeli, a native of Texas. His funeral was held in Haifa. Before the funeral, the army was concerned that there would not be enough people at the funeral to make a minyan. Without a minyan, mourners kaddish could not be recited at the grave.  The call went out via Facebook and other social media to attend the funeral. Do you know how many Israelis showed up for the funeral of this lone soldier? What is your guess? Four hundred? A thousand? Four thousand? Twenty thousand! Twenty thousand Israelis showed up for the funeral of Sean Carmeli. The following day, the second American, Max Steinberg, a lone soldier from Los Angeles, was buried at Mount Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem. His family flew in from California to attend the funeral. The call went out via social media. Thirty thousand Israelis came out for the funeral. That is ACHAVA -- that is love for ones brother.

That sense of caring – ACHAVA – created a sense of ACHDUT – a feeling of unity, among Israelis and between Israeli and Diaspora Jews. When the three teenage boys -- Eyal Yifrach, 19, Naftali Frankel, 16, and Gil-ad Shaar, 16, were kidnapped and killed in June, Israelis mourned as if each family had lost their own child. Perhaps that is why eighty six percent of Israelis supported the war in Gaza. Israel is a famously diverse nation – you can’t get 86% of people to agree on what day of the week it is in Israel! Yet, Israelis were united in the need to go to war to defend herself. The war also illustrated the enduring bonds between Israeli and Diaspora Jews. From Chicago alone four solidarity missions went to Israel during the war this summer. Our own Shelly Fagel went on a separate ORT solidarity mission during the war. Israelis, whose tourist industry collapsed during the war, were extremely grateful for the visitors. The mission members clarified for the hotel clerks and restaurant waiters who thanked them for coming to Israel. They said, “We are not tourists -- we are here to be with you, in solidarity. We are here to tell you – you are not alone. We represent the millions of Jews who stand with you in your time of trouble.” You know why we do it?  -- Because a Jew should never have to feel alone in time of trouble.

That feeling of unity – ACHDUT – led Jews around the world to contribute generously to the Israel Emergency Funds set up by Federations across the United States. Of the 154 Jewish Federations in this country, the Jewish United Fund of Chicago was first in contributions! The money that we contributed went toward taking children from the hardest hit areas in Israel for a day of respite – to a water park, to a zoo, to the Safari Park in Ramat Gan. Our monies supplied toys and games for children who had to spend time inside of bomb shelters. We supplied clowns, musicians and entertainers in the shelters to help take their minds off of the danger they were facing. Monies from the Israel Emergency Fund went to supply psychological care for children and adults. Sixty six percent of children suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result of the thousands of missiles and mortars that rained down on Israel from Gaza.

Think about this: Those same feelings of ACHAVA and ACHDUT, love and unity, were the very impulses that brought Herbert Bentwich, Ari Shavit’s great grandfather, from England to Palestine over a century ago. Why should this English gentleman give a care about the huddled Jewish masses of Eastern Europe? He was living the good life in England. He was well educated, comfortable, and free. He escaped the Jewish fate of suffering and oppression. Yet, just like you and me, he felt an obligation to help his fellow Jews who were in need. These were fellow Jews who were strangers to him, who lived half a world away. It did not stop with him. Twenty five years after his visit to Palestine, his children left their comfortable life in England to take up the hard life of the pioneer in the Land of Israel. This is one of the most remarkable and enduring characteristics of our people. In the Talmud it is written, “Kol Yisrael Arevim Zeh la Zeh” – all Jews are responsible for each other.  That sense of mutual responsibility is certainly a major factor in the survival of Judaism and the Jewish people to our time.

I hope you take away from this sermon the sense of strength, resilience, creativity, love, and unity that is part of the miracle that is the State of Israel and the glory of the Jewish people. Nevertheless, let us celebrate the triumph without denying the tragedy.  We should not have to pretend that Israel was built without great cost to both Jews and to Arabs. We don’t have to deny another people’s narrative, or sweep their pain under the rug. We do not have to deny the other, make them invisible to us. We can accept that nation building can at times compromise our values. Unsavory things are done – need to be done. Israel is, after all, a western country in the Middle East, a Jewish state in an Islamic world, a democracy in an area where tyranny reigns. It is not easy to survive in that neighborhood.  Yossi Klein Halevi, an Israeli writer wrote this week in the Times of Israel sentiments I’m sure we can all relate to. I am grieving for the ongoing tragedy of the Palestinian people. For all my anger against Palestinian leaders for poisoning their people with hatred,… [these holidays] I ask God’s forgiveness for what we have done to contribute our share to maintaining the conflict and the suffering. In public, in a political context, my contrition requires Palestinian reciprocity. In prayer, before God, I am required only to face myself.”

Yes, we have transgressed. We pray that we can be honest enough, dear G-d, to recognize our transgressions, big enough to admit them, strong enough to forsake them!  Forsake our transgressions, yes, but let us not forsake ourselves.

Shana Tova

 [ Thank you to Ari Shavit, Daniel Gordis, and Ofer Bavli for inspiration for this sermon]

Kol Nidre 5775

Forgiving our Worst Selves

Had I been a rabbi in the Middle Ages, charged with the task of choosing a prayer that would open the services of the holiest day of the Jewish year for the next thousand years, I might not have chosen the Kol Nidre.  The Kol Nidre is not even a prayer – it is a statement, a declaration! The Kol Nidre has little connection to the themes of Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur focuses on atonement for our sins, of return to G-d, of confession, of reflection, of introspection. The Kol Nidre? – it focuses on renouncing the promises that we make to G-d!  What, I ask you, does THAT have to do with the Day of Atonement?

I am certainly not the first rabbi to raise objections to this pronouncement that notifies G-d that we hereby repudiate our vows made to Him.  This prayer was opposed by many of the greatest rabbis throughout the generations. Rabbi Hai Gaon, the pre-eminent scholar of the 8^th century, called it a “minhag shut” – a stupid custom.  The Reform movement excised it from their prayer books for many years before re-instating it in recent times. As a matter of fact, our sages of old discouraged people from taking vows in the first place. According to the Shulchan Arukh, the most important Code of Law in Jewish life, even pledges for charitable purposes are not desirable. “If one has the money, let him give it straightway without a vow; and if not, let him defer the vow until he has it.” Yet people continued to take vows, sometimes quite rash ones which they later regretted. Because of this, the rabbis developed a way to annul vows made to G-d. This consisted of coming before a Bet Din, a Court of Law comprised of three Rabbis.  After careful investigation by the Bet Din, the vow could be annulled. I say “could be” --not all vows would be annulled. For example, if a person took a vow to better himself there was little chance the Bet Din would annul the vow.  I want to illustrate this point with a humorous story that I found buried deep within the Talmud. Yes, the Talmud has its humorous stories!

Rabbi Chiyya related a story that Rabbi Asi told him that his teacher Rabbi Yehoshua passed down from Rabbi Mordechai (and some say it was Rabbi Shlomo) his grand-father( and some say it was his great-uncle):  One afternoon in the month of Cheshvan a young man named Shimon was watching the Chicago Bears game at Soldier Field.  Jay Cutler had the Bears on the Packers fifteen yard line.  Shimon prayed, “Ribono shel Olam, it is well known and revealed in Your Celestial Court that I have not been exactly punctilious in keeping Kosher. If the Bears score a touchdown, I vow to give up ham and cheese sandwiches for the rest of the year”. Shimon’s prayer came before the Throne of Glory, and lo, a miracle occurred, the Bears scored a touchdown.  That turned around the game, and the season, and the Bears went on to win the Super Bowl. (Around here we call that “Fantasy Football”)   Then Shimon began to regret his vow. He began to yearn for that ham and cheese sandwich. So, he came before the Bet Din.  Shimon said, “I plea before this Bet Din to annul my vow, since I made it rashly, in a moment of desperation.” Rabbi Yochanan on behalf of the bet din refused to annul the vow. What was their reasoning? Some say since they deemed that it was an improvement that Shimon would forgo ham and cheese sandwiches for the year. Others say that they feared if they annulled the vow, the Bears would have a losing season the following year. [Come to think of it, I’m not sure WHERE I got that story]

Hopefully, now you understand how the process works for an individual who seeks to annul a vow!  But how did it come to be that an entire congregation stands together to annul vows without any type of investigation at all?

There are various conjectures as to how the Kol Nidre service came to be. Some trace it to Jewish persecutions by West Goths when they conquered Spain in the seventh century. Entire Jewish communities were doomed to extinction if they did not, by the most horrible oaths and vows, promise to give up their Judaism and convert to the religion of the conquerors. Let us put ourselves in their place for a moment! They had before them a stark choice to make – leave Judaism or die. They had learned that the heroes of old had given up their lives rather than give up their G-d. They knew of the story of Hannah’s seven sons, who were commanded to prove their allegiance to a pagan king by eating the flesh of swine. Encouraged by their mother, one by one they refused to eat of it, and one by one they were put to death. They also knew the story of the ten martyrs, put to death by the Romans because they refused to give up on Judaism. Yet, filled with shame and self-loathing, members of these unfortunate communities, one by one, gave up their Judaism rather than give up their lives. They were not able to live up to the ideal of martyrdom that our tradition held out for them.  Some of them went on to live double lives, practicing Judaism in private while professing the faith of their oppressors in public. Some left Judaism altogether, embracing whole-heartedly their new faith in order to curry favor with their overlords. When the bad times passed, when the oppression abated, the remnants of this community sought a way to openly return to Judaism. But how could they, having demonstrated their disloyalty to G-d? How could they, having sworn an oath before G-d to forgo Judaism forever?  How could they, no longer feeling even worthy of calling themselves Jews? It was out of this desire to return that the Kol Nidre prayer was written. “All vows, all oaths, all promises, all declarations that we have made are hereby annulled” they cried out, thereby releasing themselves from the disgrace, the loss of dignity, the profound humiliation and shame that they experienced in leaving their faith of their ancestors.

Although we live in far different times, the underlying motives for the Kol Nidre remain. We, too, long for a clear conscience, a release from feelings of guilt. We, too, desire to be forgiven when we have not lived up to our ideals. Many of us here tonight feel that we have not been successful, as parents, as children, as friends, as members of the Jewish community.  Many of us here tonight struggle with feelings of embarrassment and dishonor over our shortcomings in life.  Many of us have failed ourselves, disappointed loved ones, turned a deaf ear to people in need. Many of us have strayed from the straight path, have betrayed our hopes and aspirations.  Many of us have something to hide, some secret that we dare not reveal. Many of us have troubled consciences from which we seek relief. You know what G-d says to all this? G-d says, “Nu? Tell Me something I don’t know!  G-d says, “You feel these things because you are human beings, just like everyone else around you.” G-d says, “You are sitting among a congregation made up of imperfect beings. Everybody around you feels like a failure one way or another.” That’s what G-d says. That’s why we recite at the beginning of the Kol Nidre, “Anu Matirim leHitpalel im Ha-Avaryanim – We have permission to worship among the sinners – because we are all sinners, there would be nobody here if we only invited perfect people to our services!  We all long for the welcome, the acceptance, the forgiveness from our family, our friends our community -- from ourselves, and from G-d

Many of us carry around heavy burdens which weigh us down. One very public example of that is Senator Bob Kerry. He had a distinguished career in public service, serving as a governor, a senator and a university president.  Yet, despite his accomplishments, Senator Kerry harbored a dark secret. As many of you may be aware, he served as a US Navy Seal Officer during the Vietnam War. He was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for heroism in combat. Kerry lost the lower part of his leg during the war, which put an end to his military career.  In 2001, Senator Kerry admitted that as a 25 year old lieutenant he had led a raid at Than Phang, a hamlet in Vietnam that resulted in a war atrocity -- the deaths of 13 unarmed women and children. Reflecting on this horror, Kerry said, “It’s far more than guilt. It’s the shame. You can never, can never get away from it. It darkens your day. We are not the worst thing that we have ever done in our lives, and there is a tendency to think that we are.”

The Torah highlights the fact that the Holy Ark that was constructed in the wilderness was gilded on the outside and gilded on the inside. We can understand why the Ark was gilded on the outside – it was gilded to make it appear beautiful. But why was the ark gilded on the inside? It teaches us a lesson: A person should strive to be same on the outside as they are on the inside. Ones behavior in public should match ones behavior in private. Yet, this is frequently not the case. Some of us here tonight are patient when we are in public, but we easily lose our tempers in the privacy of our homes. Some of us are patient and loving with our families, but tyrants with our subordinates at work. Many of us here tonight are generous with our time when it comes to our communities, but less generous with our time when it comes to our spouses and our children. 

 Senator Kerry is an American hero to us, but deep inside himself he has wrestled with a question that many of us do too. Who am I? What kind of person is capable of doing what I did? What would people think of me if they knew?  Some of us here this evening may feel like imposters, like frauds. Many wonder what people would think of us if they really knew us.  Our identities are split. What people see is merely a façade. We have a public self and a private self that do not match. We too have demons to fight.

The creation of the Kol Nidre was the result of those same feelings of shame, the realization we are often estranged from ourselves. In their desire to return to the Jewish people our ancestors developed a ritual which dis-avowed the very actions that they had taken to leave the Jewish people. We have betrayed our ideal of ourselves, they said. We have lived a double life. Tonight, we declare our past behavior to be null and void, to be as if it never existed.  We hereby put it behind us, it shall not be held against us, neither by us, nor by others, nor by G-d. We leave it in the past. Yes, we have stumbled, yes, we have wandered, yes, we have strayed far from the path that we set out to travel -- but this evening we declare – none of that matters any more. We are starting over. We have a fresh slate on which to write the rest of the story of our lives. We are giving ourselves, and others, a second chance. We are doing Teshuva. Let us all declare that the future begins this evening, a future which we will face with vision, with fortitude, and with hope!  And do you know what G-d says? “Salachti Kid-vah-rekha“ --I have forgiven according to your word!’ Begin again!” That’s what G-d says!

Had I been a rabbi in the Middle Ages, charged with the task of choosing a prayer that would open the services of the holiest day of the Jewish year for the next thousand years, I might not have chosen the Kol Nidre. I am glad that some rabbis did.  Those rabbis understood that at its root the Kol Nidre is not about annulling vows made to G-d. At its core, the Kol Nidre is about starting over.  It is not easy to face others when we are ashamed of what we have done, when we fear that what we have done defines who we are. It is not easy to be with others when we feel different, when we feel singled out, when we feel judged.  On this night of Kol Nidre, on this night of cleansing of the soul, we ask for G-d’s help in putting behind us our petty jealousies and our deeper hatreds. On this night of Kol Nidre we ask for G-d’s help in burying our grudges and finding in our hearts a way to forgive the wrongs that others have done to us. On this night of Kol Nidre we ask G-d for help in recognizing the prejudices that keep us from judging others fairly. On this night of Kol Nidre we ask G-d for help in finding ways to forgive ourselves for our failure to live up to our ideals. On this night of Kol Nidre we ask G-d for help to remove the clouds that hover above us, to ease the burdens of fear and of loneliness that threaten to consume us.

And so we pray on this evening, “Turn us, dear G-d, so that we may be at peace with ourselves, with our loved ones, with our fellow human beings. Cast away, Blessed Holy One, our wrongdoing and our transgressions and make us a new heart and a new spirit. Give us, O G-d, the strength and self-respect, the vision and the courage to grow to become better.”
And let us say, “AMEN”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rosh Hashannah Day 5775/2014

Finding Spirituality in the Most “Unlikely” Places

I used to wear my yarmulke on airplanes but I stopped a few years ago. Wearing my yarmulke would guarantee meeting some very interesting people. There was the Afro American minister who went on a Jewish Federation mission to Israel and returned with a greater understanding of what that “small, brave country is confronting”.  There was the Chinese doctoral student studying at the University of Wisconsin who was fascinated with Judaism. I spent the entire flight answering her questions and continued to do so via email exchanges which she initiated. Eventually I put her in touch with a Rabbi in Madison with whom she was able to study.

Then there were the conversations that I grew to dread. These were conversations with fellow Jews who, when they found out that I was the rabbi of a congregation, reassured me that although they had not put foot inside a synagogue in years, they were in fact, very spiritual. Typically, they would stress that they did not need a Jewish community to find G-d. They find God on the top of a mountain, on a walk on the beach, in the setting of the sun, on a hike through the prairies.  As they are talking, I am wondering to myself, “Why are you telling ME this?” Of course, we all agree that these wonderful experiences might elicit spiritual feelings.  Yet, sincerely, I don’t know what to say to these folks.  I would listen and smile politely. To tell you the truth not wearing my yarmulke spares me from these sorts of conversations.

Undoubtedly we all can relate to this. We are keenly aware that those Jews who are “spiritual” Jews but exempt themselves from “organized” religion are a growing proportion of the Jewish population in the United States. According to the recent Pew Survey of American Jewry, almost all Jewish the members of “The Greatest Generation”, those who were children during the Great Depression and went on to fight World War II, identified themselves as “Jews by religion.” On the other hand, in the same survey, a full one third of adults Jews born after 1965 describe themselves as “Jews without religion”.  Remarkably, half of those who describe themselves as “Jews without religion” say they believe in G-d or a “universal spirit”. This group is so large that researchers have given it their own name – the “Spiritual but not Religious”.

Who are the “spiritual but not religious?” One writer notes that they worship whenever and wherever the spirit moves them. They have no need of a synagogue to practice their spirituality. They do not need formal religious services. They don’t need a rabbi to guide them. Their spiritual setting is a forest, a beach, or a mountaintop. Spiritual without religious Jews try to cultivate the qualities of optimism, empathy, gratitude, humility, happiness and contentment, according to various writers on the subject.  Of course, these are most worthy attributes to develop in oneself!

I am reminded of the man who told the rabbi that he was opposed to organized religion. The rabbi responded, “Then you should come to my synagogue. It’s the most disorganized of all!”  I believe that those Jews who are spiritual but who have dropped out of organized religion have some daunting challenges to overcome. As we know, if one wants to become a highly skilled tennis player, one cannot practice whenever the spirit moves you. If one wants to become a great doctor, an accomplished scientist, a gifted actor, a skilled musician, an exceptional teacher, a master carpenter, one cannot accomplish this by studying or practicing “whenever the spirit moves you.” One cannot accomplish much at all without motivation, discipline, structure, teachers and hard work. One cannot accomplish much without dedication. As I said earlier, the qualities that the “spiritual without religious” Jew seeks to cultivate in themselves -- optimism, empathy, gratitude, humility, happiness and contentment – are worthy in and of themselves. Where, however, is the discipline, the structure, the instruction, the dedication, the hard work?                       

There is a wonderful story, perhaps apocryphal, about an astrophysicist and a rabbi who are seated next to one another on a flight to Los Angeles. The rabbi was looking forward to just relaxing on the flight and did not encourage any conversation but that is not how it worked out. When the flight attendant delivered the rabbi’s kosher meal, the scientist took the opportunity to pepper the rabbi with questions. After a few minutes of introduction, the man said, “Rabbi, I really know very little about religion or theology, but doesn’t it all boil down to ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you?’” Without missing a beat the rabbi responded. “You know, I’ve never studied astrophysics or astronomy, but doesn’t it all boil down to, ‘Twinkle, twinkle little star?’”

How many times have we heard people say the following: “My religion is the Golden Rule; I believe in G-d, but that’s where it ends; Judaism basically teaches ethical living; All religions are basically the same….”  These statements may be true, but they tell only part of the story.[1] I believe that one of the greatest dangers facing Judaism in the United States today is the reluctance of many of us to do the hard work of maintaining a Jewish life, to settle for a “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” version of Judaism. Nothing of value comes without hard work, and Judaism is no exception. In discussing this very issue, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks of Yeshiva University turns our attention to the so called “wicked child” who we read about at our seders. “What is this Avodah to you?” the wicked son asks. Now, the word “Avodah” can mean “service” or “worship” and so perhaps the child is challenging his father about the ritual and prayers of the Passover Seder.  But the Talmud understands the question of the wicked son differently. The word “Avodah” can also mean “work”. It is the word used to describe the harsh labor that our ancestors endured under Pharaoh.  The Talmud understands the child to be asking, “What is all this work that you do in putting together this Passover Seder? What is all this bother that you go through in order to maintain your traditions? You once were a slave to Pharaoh, and now you are slaving away to be Jewish!” In this reading, the wicked child challenges his family for how much trouble they have to go through in maintaining a Jewish life.  He wants not “Freedom of Religion” but “Freedom FROM Religion”!

The wicked son is pointing out all of the effort and all of the planning, that our religion demands.  Praying three times a day, putting on tallis and tefillin, keeping kosher, Sabbath observance, holiday attendance, lighting candles, preparing a Seder, fasting on Yom Kippur, building a Succah, and that doesn’t even scratch the surface!  Not to mention the financial responsibilities of Jewish life -- synagogue dues, building fund contributions, JCC membership, religious school tuition, bar and bat mitzvah preparation, summer camp payments, trips to and support of Israel.  There have been articles written in Jewish journals about the high cost of being Jewish, a cost that has begun to stress the abilities of many people of moderate incomes. Then there is synagogue membership itself.  Many people don’t feel particularly connected to fellow congregants in the synagogue, even after years of belonging. Some people never find “their group” or their niche.  Then there is the gossip, the disagreements, the people we can’t stand, the services we can’t relate to, the rabbis who are not always responsive to our needs, the cantors who don’t always sing the melodies of our childhood, the politics, the crying babies, the unruly children – In other words, the aggravation of community life!  Isn’t it more peaceful, less expensive, less a headache, to find G-d on a mountaintop, on a beach at sunset, in a cool woodlands forest, than to belong to a complex community—filled with – PEOPLE!  

As I said earlier, nothing of value comes without hard work. There is a flip side to that. When we don’t work hard for something, we tend not to value it. To prove the point, I ask you – What rituals bring us the greatest rewards, which holidays invite the highest participation? They are those rituals and holidays that ask the most of us, that we work hardest for. Shavuot is probably the major holiday in the Jewish cycle that requires the least of us. It is also probably the least celebrated and observed Jewish holiday among American Jewry. Do you know what the most observed holidays are among American Jews? They are the holidays that demand the most of us – Passover and Yom Kippur.  Another example:  As you recall, this past year our synagogue has been participating in a survey program called “Measuring Success”. It rates our synagogue in a number of areas and compares it to synagogues of similar size and religious observance. Do you know where our synagogue rates the highest compared to other synagogues? Do you know what program our members were most satisfied with, rated the highest, among us? It is our Bar and Bat Mitzvah program. Our Bar and Bat Mitzvah program is more demanding than most. It is this program -- the one we work hardest at, the one that parents and students are most invested in -- that brings the most satisfaction to our members, that we get the most out of! This is true of Judaism as a whole. Judaism is a gift, passed down to us through the generations. If we do not use that gift, we are unlikely to realize its true value.

The path to greater spirituality, I believe, is found not primarily on mountaintops but in the hard work of being a part of a community. Spirituality comes through our engagement with one another in synagogue life through study, through prayer, through observance, and through helping one another. Spirituality comes from the sacrifices we make in time and effort and money to live a Jewish life and maintain a Jewish community.  I believe the path to spirituality lies not only in the verdant forest but in the ordinary challenges and daily rituals of everyday life.  Spirituality grows when we confront human weakness and try to overcome it. It flourishes when we confront the torments of ordinary living and try to transcend them. Spirituality is found in our struggle to love and be loved, to make a living and provide for our families. Spirituality is found, yes, in the occasionally frustrating experience of trying to get along with one another!

The synagogue is the place we come together to wrestle with the big questions of human existence: Where do I come from? Why am I here? What meaning does my life have? How should I live? Why do I suffer? How do I deal with my guilt? What happens when I die? Who are our prophets today? What if I cannot forgive? How can I be a Zionist when some of Israel’s policies perturb me?  When one is a member of a synagogue, one isn’t alone in struggling with these questions. To some of these questions there may be satisfying answers. To many of them, we can only come up with a best answer, not the definitive one. Others may have no answers at all. Yet we have our traditions, our collective wisdom accumulated throughout the generations, and each other, to help support us as we find ways to live with our questions, our doubts, our uncertainties – not to resolve them, but to bear them, to struggle with them, perhaps never with a final resolution.

I conclude with the thoughts of Rabbi Sidney Greenberg, of Blessed Memory. It goes to the heart of finding spirituality in community. He writes “The act of giving is simultaneously the act of receiving. The benefactor is also the beneficiary. To give is to become enriched.

“As we feed, we are fed. As we give, we receive. As we lift, we are raised. As we go out of ourselves into something bigger than ourselves, we become bigger in the process. We provide the most nourishing sustenance our hearts can crave.

“Help your fellow’s boat across the river and lo, your own has reached the shore.”

Shana Tovah

 

 

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[1] I am grateful to Rabbi Morris Halpern for this formulation 

Rosh HaShannah Eve

Take Off Our Shoes

Leon Wieseltier, the literary editor of the New Republic, wrote a book a number of years ago called Kaddish. It is a meditation on the year that he spent attending synagogue reciting Mourners Kaddish for his father.  He writes, “It occurred to me today that I might spend a whole year in shul, morning prayers, afternoon prayers and evening prayers, and never have a religious experience. A discouraging notion. Yet, I must not ask for what cannot be given. Shul was not invented for a religious experience. In shul, a religious experience is an experience of religion. The rest is up to me.”               

Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are called “Yamim Noraim” in Hebrew, the “Days of Awe”. The word “Noraim” in Hebrew has multiple meanings – fear and trembling and wonder and amazement – all of these are contained in the word “Noraim”.  My niece Esty, back home after spending a year in Israel, reminded me that in Modern Hebrew the word “Noraim” can also refer to the notion of “terrible”.  Will we allow ourselves to be moved these High Holidays? Will our worship bring us into contact with feelings of gratitude, wonder, and amazement?  Will we find it meaningful? Will we have a religious experience, or merely an experience of religion?  Will we leave uplifted or discouraged? Will these Holidays be awesome or terrible? Our services can provide the experience of religion. The rest is up to us.

In English we call these days the “High Holidays”. Ever wonder why they are called “High Holidays”? Perhaps it is because they stand out from all our other holy days of the year. According to one poet these days are “like lighthouses on the shores of eternity, flashing their messages of holiness”. Perhaps “High Holidays” refers to the exalted character or style of our worship – a choir, musical instruments, special melodies and chants that stir ours souls.  Or, perhaps it is we who are summoned to work harder, to raise ourselves to loftier heights, to pray more intensely, more fervently. These holidays may also find us in high spirits, as we gather together with friends and family to eat and celebrate and worship together.  By doing Teshuvah – repentance -- we certainly hope to cleanse ourselves of our misdeeds of the past year. We hope to do better this year, to raise ourselves to a higher moral level in the next. We seek to grow, to overcome, to change, to move closer to our best selves. Thomas Henry Huxley, the 19th century English biologist wrote, “The rung of the ladder was never meant to rest upon, but only to hold a person’s foot long enough to enable him to put the other somewhat higher.” 

 

Did you know that Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are the only major Jewish holidays that are not connected to a historical event? Did you know that Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are the only major Jewish holidays not connected to an agricultural festival? The Torah simply says to celebrate them. Only later on in the development of the Jewish religion did both Holidays become associated with events in history. Yom Kippur became associated with Moses bringing down the second set of Ten Commandments. Rosh Hashanah became associated with the Birthday of the World – Creation itself.

It is Creation itself that I want to explore with you this evening.  I received a thought provoking question from a young congregant several months ago. Eleven year old Brooke Covas was studying the Book of Genesis with her grandmother.  “God made everything,” Brooke asked me, “But before God created everything there was nothing. What does nothing refer to?  In other words what does nothing look like and what would it look like if there was nothing?”

My immediate thought was – Ask your grandfather, he’s a physicist!  If anyone knows what “nothing” looks like, surely a physicist would!  When I did my kind of research into Brooke’s question, I discovered that the rabbis of ancient times had much to offer in terms of an answer.

The Torah says that in the beginning the earth was unformed and void  -- "tohu vah-vohu" in the Hebrew. That seems to be saying that G-d did not create the world out of "nothing", but rather, something -- "tohu vah-vohu". Early rabbis spoke of "treasuries of snow beneath G-d's throne of glory" to describe this “tohu vah-vohu”, this primordial “stuff”. Other rabbis worried that this image might give people the wrong idea. They might compare G-d's creation of the universe out of “tohu-va-vohu” to a king who built a palace out of material in a garbage dump. If it was thought that the King had built his palace out of rubies and sapphires and gold and diamonds, his subjects would be duly impressed.  They would think the palace had great value, and the King would be esteemed in their eyes.  But if it were thought that the King built his palace out of garbage then they would be much less impressed. They might not value the world, and the King, and his creatures, as they should. So the Rabbis searched for another metaphor to describe the creation of the world.

Other rabbis concluded, therefore, that G-d must have created the world out of nothing.  Just by G-d speaking, that is, through words alone, the entire universe came into being.

Returning to Brooke’s question, if the world was created out of "nothing" then what does "nothing" look like? The Kabbalists -- Jewish mystics-- called the "nothingness" out of which G-d created the world "ayin".  Ayin is “no-thing”. They claim that this "no-thingness" was in fact G-d's own soul. They claim that the “no-thing” that G-d created the world out of was in fact G-d’s very essence, G-d’s core being, G-d’s innermost self. The rabbis wanted to communicate to us that the world and everything in it was of infinite value -- that everything that came from this no-thing partakes of divinity itself and is intrinsically holy.

How should we relate to a world where everything has in it the spark of holiness? Our grandson Lian, who is three and a half, showed me how on an outing we took this summer.  Middy and I took him and his older brother Danny to the Connecticut Science Center in Hartford.  We pulled into a non-descript parking garage and walked across the dark concrete parking deck to the elevators that would take us to the main building. When we got off the elevator we found ourselves in a brand new, shiny, resplendent, six story atrium. Our three and a half year old Lian took a few steps, took in this gleaming structure filled with light, looked around, looked up, spread his arms wide and with his raspy voice proclaimed aloud to no one in particular, “THIS IS AWESOME”.  Now THAT’s a religious experience!                                                                                                                                                                           

“Affn /lung/iz /affn/ tzung,” we say in Yiddish. What’s inside comes flying out! Wouldn’t it be something if we could re-capture that boundless sense of wonderment of a three year old when viewing our world -- if each day we opened our eyes in the morning and looked out the window at our world and would say, because we couldn’t contain ourselves, “This is AWESOME”!?                                                           

There are many different definitions of what it means to be religious. Lian’s reaction reminds me of one of my favorites: “To be religious means to live your life with open eyes.”  The English poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning writes:

Earth’s crammed with heaven/and every common bush afire with G-d/ But only he who sees/ takes off his shoes/ The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.

 

To be religious means that you take the time to notice the miracles of life, large and small, that occur daily. To be religious means that you give thanks to God for the privilege of being alive to witness life in all its splendor and glory.

To be religious means to appreciate life in all of its holiness. Judaism teaches that we have within us the breath of G-d, that we were created through G-d speaking.  Therefore we must aspire to more than just a good university education, a prestigious job, membership in the right club. Our ambitions must take us beyond money, status, and appearance. That is not enough for creatures that contain, as the rabbis say, the spark of the divine. Our reach must extend beyond the mundane, the material, and the worldly. Rather, let us take off our shoes and see and hear.  Let’s reach for the stars – even though we may not grasp them – and cultivate the religious ideals of kindness, compassion, awe, appreciation which our religious thought and practice seek to instill in us.

In the eyes of a three year old, in the questions of an eleven year old, we address the most profound questions of our existence. The psalmist writes: When I see Your Heavens/ The work of Your fingers/the moon and the stars You fixed firm/ “What is man that you should note him/the human creature, that You pay him heed? You make him little less than the angels/with glory and grandeur You crown him.”

We are human beings. We are all subject to temptations, to jealousy, to passions, to anger, to frustrations.  We stumble, we fall. Yet, we are noble creatures, little lower than the angels. We can overcome. We can rise again. We can elevate ourselves!  This High Holidays, let us commit to climbing higher, to raising ourselves, to reaching beyond our grasp, and to expanding the breath of the divine that is within each and every one of us.

Shana Tova