Before Shabbat -- a Weekly column and commentary

2011-10-15T14:01:00.001-04:00

As Yossi Klein Halevi notes in arecent essay for Tablet, which happens to be a terrific on line journal http://www.tabletmag.com/, everyone inIsrael calls the kidnapped soldier by his first name: Gilad. His last name is Shalit, but no one usesit. That’s because Gilad is not someoneelse’s kid: he belongs to every Israeli family, and thus, by extension, to us,too.

Early on Sunday morning, 25 June2006, Gilad Shalit was captured by Hamas guerillas who infiltrated an Israeliarmy post on the Israeli side of the southern Gaza Strip border. It quickly became clear that Gilad was goingto be used – for what was unclear. Bait for another kidnapping of an Israelisoldier? A bargaining chip forPalestinians imprisoned in Israel? A pawnin a psychological war? Whatever theanswer, it became apparent that there was no imminent release planned.

For over 2000 days, Gilad’svisage has haunted us all. For over 2000days, the case of Gilad Shalit has buffeted the Israeli government’sconscience. For over 2000 days, Hamas’callous disregard for human life has been displayed through their cynical useand abuse of Gilad. For over 2000 days,Israelis and anyone who empathized with Gilad’s plight asked, “What can wedo? How will we free Gilad?”

Very few people know where Giladis being held, other than somewhere in Gaza. While there may have been severalunpublicized military attempts to save Gilad, we know of only one, which didnot succeed. With no real militaryoption available, the question boiled down to this: was the Israeli government willingto swap over a thousand Palestinian criminals for one man.

Over the years, the Israelipublic has flocked to the defense of Gilad, calling for his release in whateverway his safety could be guaranteed. Asodious as it was to free convicted Palestinian terrorists from jail, theinhuman long term capture of Gilad was unbearable, and not just for Gilad’slongsuffering and outspoken parents. Remember that almost everyfamily in Israel sends their sons and daughters to serve in the military. With a majority of Israelis knowing what THATfeels like, imagine the easy to empathize with experience of having one’s ownchild end up where Gilad is right now. The notion that one’s child might be left alone and forgotten in thehands of the enemy is almost too much for any Israeli parent to stand.

Of course there is a small butpassionate number of Israelis strenuously opposed to freeing convicted killersin exchange for anyone or anything. Manyof these Israelis are themselves victims of terrorism or the family of thosekilled by Palestinian terrorists. Theyfear that these terrorists will simply return to their evil ways, committedeven more passionately to the destruction of Israel after their years in jail.

Such horrible questions toanswer; so much pain and anxiety to balance. Schwer zu sein ein yid: It’shard to be a Jew. We clap as we learn of Gilad’s imminent release. We hold our breath as we consider thecost. And we rejoice with Aviva and NoamShalit, Gilad’s parents.

2011-09-30T17:46:00.002-04:00

We’re off, afloat on the ocean of a new year. It feels good to be sailing on calm waters. The weather is beautiful, and bodes well for the days ahead. The opening two days of 5772 have been filled with prayer and song, with thoughtful words and meditations. It’s a veritable cornucopia of blessing.Which is a good thing, because coming around the bend is Yom Kippur, and we will need all the blessings we can get. On Yom Kippur we are, each of us, forced to isolate ourselves, to turn inward and consider just what exactly we are to atone for. It means setting aside the time to do this work, because no one will do it for you.This is an opportunity for truthfulness, for opening locked doors, for looking at the things we have avoided. Of course we’ve avoided looking. Who wants to acknowledge the unsavory dimensions of our characters? Who wants to admit, even, or especially to oneself, that we are impatient or insensitive, or unempathic, or intentionally cruel, or selfish? Who wants to actually say out loud, even in a safe and private space: I’m a liar? Or, I’m a cheater? Or, I have serious anger issues? Or: well, fill in the blank…Yom Kippur is as serious as it gets. It has nothing to do with a fast. No, it’s the radical honesty we are invited to take on. Of course you can focus on the food thing – it’s a great distraction. But the true challenge is, like Jacob wrestling the unknown assailant, to take it on and battle until you arrive at blessing. At the end of Yom Kippur, when we’re all scrunched together on the bimah, havdallah candles lit, ark open, hearts open, we all know that we’ve been deep inside in our own worlds, but are reemerging to common space. In the common space we will also know that we feel renewed, hopeful to have a better year. We do this by identifying the things that diminish us and then wrestling them away from our souls, letting ourselves live freer, glorious lives. Impossible? I don’t think so. “You may say that I’m a dreamer./But I’m not the only one.” Try it. Make Yom Kippur count. It will change your life.Tizku l’shanim rabbot – ne-imot v’tovot.Shabbat Shalomrebhayim

After the Cottage Cheese

2011-09-29T21:42:00.001-04:00

It all started over cottage cheese. Really. You see, Israelis love their cottage cheese. No, I mean they really love it. According to the Wall St Journal, cottage cheese has become a kind of an iconic Israeli food. It's served at practically every breakfast. And its marketing evokes home and family. (http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20110616-712865.html)
I don’t even know how it got to Israel. It’s certainly not a native food. After all, there isn’t even a Hebrew word for cottage cheese. It must have been the British who introduced it because it’s lovingly called: ‘cottage’ with the accent on the second syllable.And so when Itzhak Alrov, a young father from Bnei Brak woke up this past June on a warm summer morning, it was natural for him to contemplate dining on a nice bowl of cottage cheese, maybe with a little melon or peach or more likely with some cut up tomatoes and cukes. He went into the kitchen and opened his refrigerator and discovered that someone had finished the cottage cheese. Disappointed but undeterred, Izhak went to the neighborhood Super Sol, a rough equivalent to Stop and Shop. He walked right to the dairy section, past the yogurt, the pregurt, the leben, the various white cheeses and spreads, to the cottage cheese. He grabbed a container of Tnuva cottage and gasped; it cost 8 shekels! That was a 40% increase. That's about $2.32 for a 250-gram tub which is a little more than a one cup container. In the American equivalent, that’s almost twice as much as the cost of cottage cheese at Stop and shop, and I’m talking Breakstone, the good stuff…
As he waited to pay, Alrov, like most Israelis, mused about the swirling storm clouds around the Middle East. He pondered not only the implications of the Arab Spring on Israeli foreign policy. He also thought about how it was that so many Arabs were mobilized to dare confront various dictators in the streets of Damascus and Tripoli and Tunis and Amman and Cairo.
I've certainly thought about the Arab Spring, too, and how it has spread. Malcom Gladwell wrote in his hugely popular book, The Tipping Point, “Ideas and behavior and messages and products sometimes behave just like outbreaks of infectious disease. They are social epidemics. “It appears that a chief agent of this social epidemic, the Arab Spring, was Facebook. The call to conscience, the plea for freedom, the gatherings at Tahrir Square and other such assembly points all over the Middle East were announced on home pages and in profiles and tweets on Twitter. Waiting in line at the Super Sol, Yitzhak Alrov stopped, looked at his cottage, then went back to the dairy department, put it back in the case and went home. He sat down at his computer, went to Facebook and created a Facebook group page, suggesting others join him in boycotting cottage until the dairy industry, which in Israel is now, after buy outs, only 3 companies, rolls back the price.
In a week, Alrov had 100,000 friends on his Facebook page that pledged to join him in the boycott. Countless other Israelis, either not on Facebook or who didn’t sign up to thumb’s up Alrov’s page supported the boycott as well. And within a week, the dairy industry did indeed roll back the cost of cottage and a whole lot of other products. Alrov got his cottage.But this is not about cottage cheese – that’s just where it started. Part 2 opens in July, when Daphne Leef’s lease on her apartment in Tel Aviv ran out. A 25-year-old video editor, Leef was evicted from her place. She was absolutely furious that she could not find affordable accommodations. Like Alrov, she, too was inspired in part by the Arab Spring: its honesty and its general nonviolence and its bringing together the people. Like Alrov, Daphne Leef used social networking, too. On July 13th she announced on her Facebook homepage that she was going to pitch a tent in protest on the median of Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv. For you who have not been to Israel yet, imagine Rothschild Blvd like Newbury Street with a beautiful large grassy meridian dividing it down the middle.Within hours, dozens of tents bloomed along the affluent tree-lined street. Within days, tent cities sprang up in every major city in the country. Those tent cities began growing, and no matter where they were, all united around a clear rallying cry for tzedek hevrati: social justice.The government ridiculed Daphne Leef and her fellow protesters. Of course such a response from the Israeli government is understandable. No government takes their citizens’ complaints seriously at first. Such protesters are always “troublemakers” and “spoiled” and “unrepresentative”, be they demonstrating at Lincoln Park in Chicago, Tahrir Square in Cairo, Tiananmen Square in Beijing, or Rothschild Blvd in Tel Aviv. It is no surprise that at a meeting of the Likud faction, MKs and mayors mocked the protesters. Deputy Negev and Galilee Development Minister Ayoub Kara called them “sushi-eaters,” and Nesher Mayor David Amar called them “nargila smokers with guitars.” After all, what kinds of complaints could an Israeli citizen have? Don’t these people read the financial sections of the news? In a country dubbed the Start Up Nation, there are 200 Israeli companies on the NASDAQ board, second in number only to the US. There are over 10000 millionaires and 16 billionaires. The unemployment rate is below 6%. Standard and Poors just upgraded Israel to A+ status. An Israeli company, ISCAR Metalworking, was the first foreign company that Warren Buffet decided to invest in. The high concentration of high-tech industries in Israel gave it the nickname "Silicon Wadi", which is considered second in importance only to its Californian counterpart.What do they have to complain about? Gasoline in Israel is twice as expensive as gasoline in the US. It takes 3.5 years of an average salary in America to purchase a home. In England it’s 5 years. In Israel? Over 11 years of a single salary. Tuition for higher education in Israel is among the highest in the world, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. The OECD also reports that Israelis pay a huge price for cellphones. The average price of user packages is the third highest in the world, the price per minute is in the top ten, and the monthly cost for usage is number one in the world. Prices for cable and satellite packages with commitment were 156% more expensive than the average world price. I could keep going: for food, for clothing, for childcare, for furniture, for diapers, Israelis pay more than their counterparts in almost every European nation for almost everything! In fact, when Israelis come to America they buy Israeli tea and cookies and gum and other foods because they cost less at the Butcherie in Brookline!On August 8th, over 300000 Israelis demonstrated in the streets of Tel Aviv and other cities and towns throughout Israel, declaring, like Howard Beale in the movie Network, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!” The Prime Minister began to hear and understand that in those tents were citizens of Israel, not a bunch of spoiled kids. The population in the tents and on the streets included married couples with young children, Sephardim and Ashkenazim, retired workers and Holocaust survivors, conservatives and liberals, Likud and Kadima, students and teachers. After that night’s protests, which attracted nearly 5% of the country’s entire population, Netanyahu hurriedly announced the appointment of a special committee of cabinet ministers and economists to study the protesters’ complaints. The following Monday, the Knesset decided to abandon its summer recess and hold a special emergency session the following Tuesday.By the beginning of September, Tel Aviv’s tent city stretched almost 20 blocks. And at the Tel Aviv tent city and the smaller ones in several cities in Israel, the demand for social justice intensified. They called for a million man march, an admittedly high expectation. On September 3rd, around 450000 Israelis demonstrated, demanding tzedek hevrati. That’s the equivalent percentage wise of 22 million Americans. The cottage cheese boycott unlocked a door that has been bulging from the inside for at least 10 years, a door that, until this summer, no one dared to touch. Well, the tzedek hevrati demonstrators have forced the door open, and I don’t think the door will close anymore. The protest movement has decided to take down their tents, and move to a different phase of negotiation and lobbying to bring their demands to fruition. The fact that the tents will not be visible on the streets any longer does not mean that the protest is not continuing. Whether or not their aims are ultimately achieved, it would be safe to say that Israel will not be the same country after the protests of the summer of 2011. The protests were all – even the night of September 3rd – utterly peaceful. The police were all cooperative, even sympathetic to the protesters. These protestors have forever changed the face of Israeli politics, protest and demonstration. The major player in this drama, the middle class, is the spinal cord of Israel’s society. It provides most of its production power, serves in the Army reserves, pays taxes and builds families. It carries on its back the weaker strata of society. For decades, Israeli families have made huge sacrifices in return for the promise of a better day for their children and their children’s children. But they now see the promises of support and improved lives guttering, fading away. The center will not hold.There will come a time of reckoning and reappraisal. Simply put, with a disenfranchised middle class that truly feels played out and broke, how will the Israeli government justify the continued costs of occupying the West Bank, and the onerous defense budget? Will the Prime Minister continue to proclaim that it is justifiable to continue lavishing millions and millions of shekels to protect and maintain and expand Israeli settlements that are not military in nature but rather bastions of the settler movement? Perhaps so. After all, Prime Minister Netanyahu shows no interest in stopping settlement expansion, nor will he discuss the future of settlements and an established Palestinian state. Will the Prime Minister continue to enable ultra Orthodox men to eschew military service, devoting their lives to Torah study, producing large families who are heavily subsidized by the state? Can that kind of preferential treatment of the ultra Orthodox continue, in which 35% of adult men are not in the workforce? The absence of ultra Orthodox men from the labor force costs nearly 15 billion NIS per year or more. Therefore, “any social justice [change] that the middle class wants must include measures to ensure that ultra-Orthodox society will be integrated into [broader] Israeli society and the economy.” Will Prime Minister Netanyahu take a red marker and do some cutting of the defense budget? Can the people who are tired of not having financial security in their prospering homeland, whose older children come out of the army and rack up huge debts for college, whose younger children are in substandard schools in overcrowded classrooms, will the cry of the people of Israel be acknowledged? These are hard questions. And in the days and weeks and months after the UN vote, these questions will not disappear. They will, in fact, be a major component in what we pray will be a true peace process. If Mahmoud Abbas can organize the people of the West Bank in prolonged non violent demonstrations a la Tahrir Square, if he can tap into the energy and the righteousness of the Arab Spring, if he can restrain the Palestinian people and rebuke violence – which seems utterly unimaginable – but lets just say that if he can, Israel will face an unprecedented challenge. Because it is a truth of history that nations must accommodate a non-violent movement: in Bombay, in Selma, in Johannesburg, in Cairo, in Jerusalem.The stakes today are high for us. A history of duplicitous Palestinians saying one thing in Hebrew and then another in Arabic, the Palestinians’ insistence of still glorifying terrorists even as they supposedly distance themselves from terrorism, and of course the unresolved nature of Hamas and Gaza all lurk close to the surface and cause gut clenching anxiety for Israelis.Additional effulgent Israeli existential angst emanates from the increased isolation of Israel from among those who should be her natural allies. When we have to count on the African nation of Gabon for a vote in the UN, you know we’re up against the wall. Israeli anxiety also emerges out of the utter unknown of a soon to go nuclear Iran, an unstable Egypt, a nihilistic Syria, and a resurgent Turkey looking, in the most cynical way imaginable, to become the new leader of the Middle East in the form of a swaggering bully. I am not so naïve as to suggest that these issues are not fundamental to the future of the Israeli people. Of course it’s terrifying out there. Now – davka, right now – precisely in this unsettled, unsettling moment is when we must dare to take the initiative to make peace. It is exactly now that the Israeli gifts for ingenuity and invention must be applied to statecraft. The policies of the past have yielded no fruit, just frustration. The same old tired excuses for not moving, for not talking are weak and self-defeating. It is now that Israel’s best and brightest must step forward, who must seize the momentum rather than the usual doing nothing and saying it’s something.The best and the brightest will not be generals or politicians. They will not emerge from a think-tank. The peacemakers will be the Israelis unwilling to live with the status quo that has impoverished and isolated them, domestically and internationally. The peacemakers will be the brave men, women and children who lived in those tents, the ones who demonstrated. Their fresh boldness, their frankness, their love of country, their certainty that life in Israel can and must improve, will move mountains. The Social Justice movement has already moved Prime Minister Netanyahu, who cut 3 billion shekels from the defense budget as he left for the UN last week, directing it to social welfare programs. And that’s just the beginning.The peacemakers, these unlikely revolutionaries, demand that Israel live in freedom and equality and dignity. As op-ed writer Carlo Strenger writes, they have reminded Israelis and the world that behind the crust of myopic politics obsessed with dominance, Israel’s human reality is vibrant, vital and capable of renewal. The tent dwellers and the demonstrators from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and Afula and Be’er Sheva and Yerucham and Ashdod, whose lives have been on the line for decades are not going to stop until they achieve the only thing that can bring them freedom and equality and dignity: shalom, salaam, peace.

Are You Ready?

2011-09-23T17:42:00.001-04:00

This is the last Shabbat of 5771. The leaves are beginning to turn. The order forms for a lulav and etrog are in the mail. The chairs are getting set up in the sanctuary. They're here…
So are you ready for the High Holy Days? I've been asked that question about a million times in my life. Am I ready? I don’t even really know what that means.
Have I gone over the machzor – the High Holy Day prayer book? Yes. Have I met with Susan to go over cues and timing and general choreography? Yes. Are my sermons done? Well, they will be… But am I ready?
The deeper implications of readiness before the High Holy Days begin are all about the challenges inherent in this penitential season. That’s about entering into a kind of rarified space of radical, unabridged honesty. In that place I must truly evaluate who and what I've been over this past year. This practice is called heshbon hanefesh, an accounting of the soul.
In the past this practice would involve a person gathering two or three of his/her friends, and asking them to answer the following questions: 1) How have I missed the mark on being your friend? 2) How have I missed the mark on being a good family member? 3) How have I sold myself short? 4) How have I missed the mark as a good Jew? 4) How can I live a better and more productive life?
If this isn’t daunting enough, our tradition further informs us that readying for the New Year includes the obligation to seek out those whom we have wronged and to ask them for forgiveness. This even includes making amends with someone who has already died. To do that, by the way, you gather your friends of the previous paragraph and go to the cemetery where the person with whom you seek amends is buried. In the presence of those friends, you ask forgiveness from the deceased.
The third step in preparation for the New Year is to seek forgiveness from: yourself. How have I deluded myself? How have I sold myself short? How have I been my own worst enemy?
These three steps are not for sissies. They require that we break down our defenses and embrace the scary, bracing experience of truth.
Am I ready for the High Holy Days? Not yet. But I'm trying. God knows I'm trying.

Shape

2011-09-16T17:33:00.002-04:00

I recently came to the conclusion that I don’t really like this belly I’ve developed over the past, oh, I don’t know, maybe 45 years. It’s been around forever, sometimes larger, sometimes not so big. I must confess (and this is the time of year for confessions) that I’ve tended to avoid acknowledging my belly. I've never been a look-in-the-full-length-mirror kind of guy. I’m content with the bathroom mirror as I brush my teeth in the morning: a quick head shot that does not reveal fat of any kind. When I look down at my belly it seems strangely flat (strangely flat because it’s not).

But a month ago on the Cape wearing my baggy swimsuit, I caught a sideways glance at my gut and I thought, “Whoa, pull over for a minute; who does that belong to?” When I poked it I felt a jab of pain leading me to believe it belonged to me. Oh-oh.

If you’re not a food addict like me then you won’t understand why after looking at my overweightedness, my first thought was to go get something to eat. Just to, you know, ease the pain. My second thought was that I had to do something about it.

I suppose the most practical thing to do for a too big belly is to lose weight. But maybe, I thought, there was a short cut, an intermediary step from which I might gain satisfaction. I had read about these t shirts in the New York Times called Shape. To quote the box it says it’s “to shape and fit your mid-section for a slimmer appearance.” I thought, fair enough, I’ll get one of these. It will bolster my morale. And it’ll be easier that losing the weight. I found it on Amazon.com and I one-clicked it.

My Shape came in the mail and I was so excited to try on this new garment that would shape and firm me without my having to go to the gym and without having to stop eating the wrong foods. It looked like a standard men’s V-neck Hanes t shirt. I went to slip it on… well folks, guess what you can’t do with a Shape t shirt: slip it on.

I struggled for about 5 minutes to pull the incredibly tight, stretchy (size xl, to add to the humiliation) straight jacket of a t shirt over my chest and belly. It was like giving birth in reverse. Once on my body, I appeared so freakishly fat that all I could was laugh – or try to laugh. The fabric was so tightly constricting my mid-section that I think my stomach was pressed up against my esophagus, making full throated laughter impossible.

It took me another 5 minutes to peel off the monstrous Shape t shirt. Funny, the model on the outside of the box looked great in his Shape t shirt. Why not me? Probably because I weigh 50 lbs more than he does…

Dear God, there is no short cut to change. There’s no fast lane to losing weight or reining in our evil impulses. To change basic imperfections of our lives is about achieving a kind of regimen and will power that feel so hard to attain. There’s no magic bullet, no pill, no cure, no surgery, no hypnosis that provides a simple solution. It’s slogging through. It’s making the declaration. It’s kale chips instead of Cape Cod Kettle chips. It’s being honest, just like a full length mirror. I’m going to lose this gut! It’s Rosh Hashanah time, time for real resolutions.

I’m keeping my Shape V-neck t shirt that shapes and firms your mid-section. Maybe when I lose 50 lbs I’ll be able to put it on more quickly. Maybe when I lose 50 lbs I won’t feel the need to put it on at all.

Ancient Mariners

2011-09-09T22:06:00.000-04:00

The past few days leading up to the tenth anniversary of 9/11 have been hard. The iconic photos of that day have all reappeared on line. WBUR and WGBH have done extensive reportage interviewing men and women with stories to tell of that day. Newspapers and magazines, on line and in print, have included thoughtful, engaging articles reassessing the damage from 9/11 and the lessons learned. And here I am, I admit, adding to the relentless barrage.
There’s a part of me that truly does not want to deal with any of this. After all, if the stove top is on, do I need to touch it to know that it will burn me? Why should I look, knowing it will upset me?
It is an ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three.
`By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?’
Like Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, the stories of 9/11 demand an audience with me, with all of us. And so we stop and listen. We weep. We shake our heads. We remember. Perhaps it is by listening that we preserve our sanity, even as we risk losing it by getting so close to such pain and loss.
The world is different after 9/11. in the haze after the collapse of the Twin Towers, there seems to have grown a reckless rhetoric that traffics in fear, not in facts, in blame and not in justice. The crazy conspiracy theories persist: it was a plot by Halliburton et al to lead us to war; it was an inside job to get lots of insurance money from the Twin Towers; it was the Mossad who wanted to make the world hate Arabs [if there’s conspiracies hatching, you can bet that at least one will include cunning Jews…]; and many more. It is, in short, a crazier world, filled with suicide bombers, white supremacists, and other hazardous humans.
The trick, of course, is to not succumb to this madness, neither by joining in the extremist ranting, nor by tuning out and going off the grid. The trick is to rise to the occasion and proclaim the essential humanity of the people around us. “The whole world is a narrow bridge. And the whole point is to not be afraid.” We can respond to hate with love. We can perform acts of lovingkindness in the face of unspeakable evil. We can choose the road of civility and courage.
I don't remember anything else like I remember Rosh Hashanah, 2001. I felt lost, scared, unsure of what to do or say. I recall that we were duty bound to keep moving, to seek out God’s presence, the only light at the end of the tunnel. Ten years later, we are here. I am still trying to make sense of that day but cannot. The picture of the falling man http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/09/pictures/110908-about-911-september-9-11-twin-world-trade-center-towers-indelible/#/september-9-11-attacks-anniversary-ground-zero-world-trade-center-pentagon-flight-93-falling-man_39992_600x450.jpg still breaks my heart. And it still inspires me. I look because I have to, because the falling man reminds me if he could confront evil with such deliberate, final bravery, hurtling through space, then I must confront it right here, sitting as still as I can in this crazy post 9/11 world. And so must we all.

Give Me the New Stuff

2011-09-03T18:53:00.002-04:00

These days when you go to a concert featuring baby boomer vintage performers, there seems to be an expectation that the audience will sing along with the featured artist. Whether it’s James Taylor, or the Stones, or Steely Dan, the audience has carte blanche to join in. The artists themselves seem to not just tolerate it but actually invite the participation. They’ll hold a mike out toward to the crowd, nod and wave to the audience or whatever. The message is clear – it’s hootenanny time!

I don’t exactly know when this happened. In the old days (60s-70s), it was not considered cool to sing along with the band if you weren’t on stage. In fact someone singing from his or her seat was considered downright rude and bothersome. If I wanted to sing along with the Eagles, I’d turn up my cassette deck/8-track/radio in the car and sing! I wasn’t buying concert tickets to hear my best friend or the drunk guy in the next row sing along with Loggins and Messina…

Of course I understand the urge to join in. It’s so much fun to sing the songs we sang in our youth. There’s a reason guys in their 60s and 70s are out on tour making money as they sing their greatest hits trying to sound the way they did 40+ years ago. Nostalgia really does pay! And perhaps it’s also a way that baby boomers can feel young. We close our eyes, sing with Carole King and imagine that she’s not really 69 and that we aren’t members of AARP…

With all due respect to the baby boomer bands out there entertaining the crowds with their old stuff, there’s a problem in our culture when the message is to just bring the old stuff and not to bother with the new. It’s similar to the endless movie sequel phenomenon which itself is related to the “let’s keep using the same movie plot with different actors until we lose money.” We are scared to dare to be different, to grow. And without daring to grow, no matter our age, we risk dulled minds and dulled lives, lacking imagination and authenticity.

I saw Bob Dylan a couple weeks ago. He was fantastic, singing songs from his 50 year career. And the crowd wanted to sing along. Only you can’t sing along with Bob Dylan, because you never know what the song is going to sound like. For instance, Dylan ended the evening with Blowin’ in the Wind, the words to which everybody over the age of 30 must surely know – at least the chorus. But the cadence, the rhythm, and even aspects of the melody were all new. And I thought, ‘Good for you, Bobby Z! You're not here to lead a sing-along. You're not here to do the same thing over and over, just phoning it in, collecting the cash and moving along. You're here reminding us in your 70th year of life that we are here now and so are you!’ The music lives and grows like we do. The new stuff is authentic and present and urgent (which is why I love jazz so much…)

God doesn’t want our greatest hits. The world doesn’t need Hangover Part 10. Our partners, our children, our friends – God! – need more from us than the same old same old. God knows all about our big glory moments. But we all still have so much new stuff! So much more to do and to give and to create.

It’s all about pushing the envelope. It’s all about rejecting the quotidian and daring to hear, see, do something new and exciting. Celebrate the new year with the new.

I'm working at summer camp... Again

2011-07-11T22:15:00.002-04:00

For those who don't know, being a young adult on the staff of a summer camp is a fantastic chance to live and love and play and do really exciting things -- and get paid. The salary isn't great, the hours are long, the work is exhausting. But the fun? Huge. The laughs? Enormous. The potential for life long friends? Real and enduring.

I haven't worked at a summer camp in over 30 years. And truth be told I've had opportunities to do so. It's just that I felt like I had had a lot of fun doing my camping thing decades ago. In fact some of the happiest, most exciting moments of my late teens and twenties were had while on the staff of a summer camp in Texas. I figured that I was done.

But when 3 of my 5 children decided to work together at a summer camp in Texas this year (not the same storied place I worked), I wondered if maybe I could get on the faculty and hang out with them and do camp again. Of course doing camp as a married man of 57 with 5 kids is infinitely different than arriving as a hard core single libidinal 20 something. Yet the excitement, the utterly unique universe created by a core of hardworking professionals and a whole lot of counselors remained alluring.

That's why I'm here, volunteering a week of my time in a small Texas town with a big Jewish camp and a daily temperature of over 100 degrees... This bloglet will be a record of my thoughts and experiences.

URJ President Rabbi Rick Jacobs

2011-06-17T18:02:00.002-04:00

As many of you may know, this past Sunday, the Board of Trustees of the Union for Reform Judaism unanimously elected Rabbi Richard Jacobs to serve as its next president. I've written about Rabbi Jacobs before and I want to reiterate what a fine and distinguished congregational rabbi he was, and what a fine and distinguished president he will make for the Reform movement.

Rabbi Jacobs has been at the forefront of the most significant causes of American Jewry. He has nurtured Jewish learning in creative and compelling ways and pursued justice for the disenfranchised throughout the world and in this country as well. He has passionately worked for peace in the Middle East and has a deep love for Israel. His congregation, Westchester Reform, in Scarsdale, bears the profound mark of his leadership in their growth, their evolution in learning, and their commitment to social action.

Rabbi Jacobs’ nomination was not without controversy. Some opposed his nomination because of Rabbi Jacobs’ stands on Israel or domestic social action positions. Rabbi Jacobs responded to this opposition with civility, dignity and respect. As Rabbi Jacobs said in his acceptance speech, he hoped that whenever it is that we disagree and debate, “…it will be a machlochet L’shem shamayim – a dispute for sake of heaven…we will conduct that debate with passion, to be sure. I hope and pray we will always debate with passion—but with civility and a respect for those who hold differing views.”

The Board of Trustees of the URJ is a very diverse group of Jews. That they chose to come together and unanimously elect Rabbi Jacobs is a testimony to their open mindedness and their willingness to give fair consideration to differing points of view. It demonstrates their confidence that there is no one right answer or litmus test for acceptability. The Board of the URJ has set the bar for us. We may disagree on many things, but we share a common love of Israel and the Jewish people. This is the true philosophy of our movement. This is the true philosophy of our congregation.

Shabbat Shalom

rebhayim

The Cut

2011-06-10T19:55:00.000-04:00

Circumcision is a major topic of discussion this week: and I am not talking about the congressman from New York. There is an anti-circumcision movement nationwide – they call themselves ‘intactivists’ – so clever… A group of these folks in San Francisco are seeking to pass a city ordinance in November of this year to ban circumcision altogether. The law would make any attempt to “circumcise, excise, cut, or mutilate the whole or any part of the foreskin, testicles, or penis” of anyone under 18, punishable with a fine of $1,000 and up to one year in jail.

What motivates these people to seek to ban circumcision? After all, if you have sons and you don’t want to circumcise them, well then, that’s your choice. But why then attempt to legislate the behavior and practices of others?

As Jane Eisner, editor of the Jewish Forward wrote recently, “Medical studies have shown a very low rate of complications associated with newborn circumcision; most of those complications were considered mild and not life-threatening. There are, however, well-documented health benefits to the practice, enough to prompt the World Health Organization in 2007 to endorse it as “an important intervention to reduce the risk of heterosexually acquired HIV.” The Mayo Clinic has also noted lower risk of urinary tract infections and penile cancer in circumcised men. And while these benefits were not strong enough to persuade the American Academy of Pediatrics to endorse newborn circumcision for all male babies… AAP didn’t move to ban it, either, and instead said that parents should be able to decide. Right. Parents should decide.

The intactivists say that they oppose male circumcision as a gender issue: boys and girls they say, should be equally protected. But female circumcision is not circumcision at all. It is mutilation, performed to deny any possibility of female sexual pleasure. If women are denied sexual pleasure, the men who order it believe that their women will not stray from their husbands. Female circumcision is a crime. Male circumcision is not.

Then of course there is the antisemitism question. Is it a factor in this debate? Of course it is! How can one discuss circumcision and NOT think of a bris? And then there is the evidence. Matthew Hess, president of the Male Genital Mutilation Bill group, which wants the US government to make circumcision punishable by jail time, has written two issues of a comic book called, yes, for real, Foreskin Man. This is not from the Colbert Report nor is it from The Onion. The stories include characters with names like Monster Mohel and Dr Mutilator and show graphic scenes of terrified babies and brutal doctors covered in blood. The pro-circumcision characters, who are described as monsters by Foreskin Man, are depicted with peyot and a tallit. Their features are right out of Nazi propaganda. When a reporter asked about the antisemitic imagery, Hess said, “"A lot of people have said that, but we're not trying to be anti-Semitic. We're trying to be pro-human rights."” Trying not to be antisemitic? Apparently not too successfully.

Look, I know that a bris is serious business. It’s harsh and primal. It involves pain and blood. But there is something utterly transcendent about the bris. Jewish parents have marked the flesh of our sons for thousands of years, from the most ultra of ultra Orthodox to the most nonobservant among us. We seek to perpetuate a link that extends through time and space, a link of history and ritual. We mark our flesh as a statement about ourselves, about the existential reality of our present lives and the eternity of our people. It is not an easy ritual. It isn’t ‘nice’. It is a way in which we declare, “Heneini! Here I am.” And no one, not even Foreskin Man, will ever take that away.

2011-06-03T17:16:00.000-04:00

Last week I was reminded of the title of a record produced in 1969, by the famous comedy troupe, Firesign Theater: "How can you be in two places at once, when you're not anywhere at all." The name of the record perfectly reflected my rather odd existential predicament.

Two weeks ago I was in Middletown, my old hometown, to watch my son Aaron graduate from college, the same college I attended. We checked into a motel the night before graduation -- and right there was a powerful, upsetting experience of displacement. The house of my childhood that remained my Mother's home, and, I suppose my home, until she died a year and a half ago was recently sold. For the first time in almost 5 decades, I had no home in my hometown.

While I had no particularly nostalgic memories about my house per se, I did feel as if some of my roots had been clipped as i waited to get the key to our motel room. My youth seemed to recede further away from me as I realized that I would never see my old home again. This is what it's like, I ruminated, to grow up -- to REALLY grow up.

This one way ticket I call my life was sharply defined when at the age of 55 I became an orphan, when my place in line moved up -- there's no one in front of me. In Middletown a couple weeks ago, it was emphasized not only by being homeless, but also after visiting my step father in his retirement community. He is stuck in a loop of dementia, preoccupied with about 8 topics/ questions that orbit every attempt at conversation. It's hard to see his world slowly implode, memories going, going, gone.

Ever since Lot's wife turned into salt, it's been bad business to look back. We are who we were, it's true. But we're also becoming someone: someone changed, evolved, and maybe improved. We are moving in one direction only, and it behooves us to keep our eyes on the road and not on the rear view mirror. I'm not denying the power of history; no good Jew, or even not so good Jew, can ignore the past. What I discovered is that the antidote to my anxious vertigo was to fix my eyes on something solid in front of me, i.e., MY home, the one I pay the mortgage on. Because it is this house that contains my current self in this current moment. It is through the portal of my home that I walk, that I experience my life every day. When I focus right here, I realize that sadness of what was and what was lost, is mitigated by the treasure of what is and what will be.

I won't lie -- I was in a bad mood for a few days after my son Aaron's graduation. But adjusting my vision, and giving thanks for the blessings yet to be, soothed the whole no more home feeling: I do have a home: right here.

Shabbat Shalom

rebhayim

A Prayer for Memorial Day

2011-05-28T00:47:00.000-04:00

Memorial Day, formerly known as Decoration Day, commemorates U.S. soldiers who died while in the military service. First enacted to honor soldiers of the American Civil War, It was extended after World War I to honor Americans who have died in all wars.

Wars are vicious. They scar a nation’s soul, leaving bitterness and suspicion behind. In order to wage war, it seems almost necessary to transform the enemy into the “Other”: not human, not worthy to live, not me. If my enemies are not me, when they become abstract objects, then I can do all kinds of things to them. I can kill them. I can viciously and indiscriminately slaughter them: men, women, and children. I can put them in concentration camps. I can fire missiles at their schools. I can pose the enemy in pornographic positions and then take pictures of my comrades laughing at and abusing them.

When such things happen, the poisonous residue from these acts has to be cleansed from the system. That’s why an old concentration camp guard, 60 years after the Holocaust, must be tried for crimes against humanity. That’s why a Serbian, guilty of ethnic cleansing, must be tried for war crimes, no matter how he is feeling physically.

And that’s why we must try, if we can, to acknowledge that so many of the soldiers, the grunt infantry men, fodder for generals who have died throughout history, the good guys and the bad guys, were all men, all humans. While some were ideologically driven, many more were simply swept up in the drama of the time, frequently farmers’ sons or from the working class poor. And they were all men, all created in God’s image.

On this Memorial Day weekend, filled with sales and races and beer, I pray we might all take a moment to remember the huge sacrifices families of soldiers all over the world have made. You might say that I’m a dreamer, but imagine what would happen if we actually looked at the other, and they at us. We might just see that all we are is human, brothers and sisters. If we did that, then how could possibly kill each other? Imagine that…

Thin Places

2011-05-13T17:26:00.000-04:00

Have you had moments in your life when you experienced some kind of unanticipated awareness of something so much bigger than yourself? A sudden transcendent hyperconsciousness? Some mystical moment when you were moved – deeply moved?

What are the words to adequately describe this kind of phenomenon? I could say that the experience is a holy moment, one of meeting God while on the way to something else. Such unexpected experiences can take our breath away, leave us transformed, perhaps in the subtlest of ways, but transformed nonetheless.

But there are certain places where, over the years, we may have had that remarkable experience of unique closeness to God over and over again. Or perhaps that place no longer exists. We may try to get there as often as we are able in order to encounter this visceral sensation of the sacred.

This week I learned a phrase that describes these experiences. I heard it from a podcast of On Being, an NPR program hosted by Krista Tippett that I highly recommend. She described places where heaven and earth meet, where the veil between this world and the eternal world becomes almost sheer, as ‘thin places.’

I love the notion of thin places. It’s a concept from Celtic Christians (ok, not the ones who just lost to the Heat…) who came up with this beautiful phrase. Krista Tippett actually used it to describe Jerusalem in the podcast I mentioned, called Thin Places, Thick Realities. And indeed, there are places in Jerusalem that are truly thin places for me.

But I don’t think a thin place has to be a misty Celtic bog, or the Western Wall, or a beautiful landscape. I have been in thin places, and I am grateful to be there, grateful beyond words. I suppose being a rabbi puts me in closer proximity to thin places. However, I think all of us are much closer than we imagine.

I go to Pilgrim Lake in Orleans, and I sit on the bench with the plaque bearing my brother’s name that looks out on the spot where he drowned 16 years ago. That is a thin place. I get hugged almost every Friday by bunches of preschoolers: that is a thin place. I get to help parents hand their kids a Torah scroll, and that is a thin place. Sometimes I stare out the window on a quiet Friday afternoon and I see the big puddingstone in the growing shadow of the cedar tree towering above it, and that too can be a thin place.

Where are your thin places? Email me and let me know...

The sacred is close, so much closer than we imagine. It’s not about finding just the right spot. It’s about keeping our eyes and our hearts open. The thin places abound.

The Dignity of Silence

2011-05-06T16:44:00.000-04:00

It was around 1030pm last Sunday night when my New York Times instant bulletin applet beeped open on my iPad. It read, “Osama Bin Laden, the mastermind of the most devastating attack on American soil in modern times, and the most hunted man in the world, was killed in a firefight with US forces in Pakistan on May 1, 2011.” I was truly shocked. Over the years I had come to assume that he would never be found, squirreled away in the mountains of Afghanistan or Pakistan by al Qaeda loyalists and Pakistani sympathizers.

I was very gratified to know that this scourge was finally wiped off the face of the earth, that this decade long drama was closed. I was proud to be an American, part of a nation that would not stop pursuing a true enemy. The sense of accomplishment I felt resonated deeply in my heart. Whether or not bin Laden actively resisted, I had no and have no reservation for how he was dispatched. He did not surrender. As the self-confessed mass murderer he was, the swiftest response to finding him and then to avoid American causalities was to take bin Laden out.

I felt grateful for President Obama, who once again showed great leadership and perseverance. As the story developed about the hunt for and execution of bin Laden, our president’s decisiveness and purposeful leadership really impressed me. The mythic dimensions of the SEALS of Team 6 stirred my imagination. Part super soldier, part superhero, they seemed right out of central casting for any number of action flicks.

Did I feel happy? Frankly, no. No sudden urge came upon me to run around waving a flag and shout, “U-S-A!” It did not even cross my mind. When watching the folks who chose to do this, I reflected on the Midrash we include at Passover that comments on the crossing of the Red Sea. The Israelites arrive at the far shore, running from the Pharaohs’ army. Then God makes the walls of water He opened for Moses and the children of Israel collapse, smashing Egyptian man and animal and machine. The Israelites begin to cheer and laugh and sing. But God silences them, saying, "How can you sing when my children are drowning?" bin Laden, who did not surrender, deserved to die. But the taking of a life is serious business. It’s not a video game or a game of human chess. Somehow the public jumping for joy and the beeping horns and the chanting after the bin Laden announcement felt cheap to me. A man is a man. A life is a life.

For this reason I am also relieved to hear that the pictures of bin Laden’s body will not be made public. I don’t need to see the official kill photo. I don’t need to see that picture everywhere for the next 20 years, which would’ve happened, inciting Moslems to violence, children to bad dreams, and chest thumpers to brag about headshots. Once again the president shows great wisdom here.

The president’s wisdom was also evident at Ground Zero yesterday. Why did he go there? I don’t think he believed that bin Laden’s death provided closure for the families and friends of victims of 9/11, or for the entire nation for that matter. bin Laden’s death closes nothing. It is justice, but it doesn’t mean we’re “moving on”, or “over it”. Those who lost loved ones and friends will never be “over it”. They will continue to live their lives as they have over these last 10 years, doing what they can to redefine their existence. There is no sudden turning of a corner, just an ongoing dedication to living. President Obama understood that the wound of 9/11 is still so sore, and that bin Laden’s death and the inevitable pictures of the World Trade Center coming down brought many back to the pain of the day. That’s why he didn’t speak, why he didn’t turn it into a pep rally. He understood that sometimes the only true response to loss is silence, and that the deaths of a thousand bin Ladens could not make up for the death of one innocent person.

There’s no such thing as moving on; there’s only moving with.

Shabbat Shalom

rebhayim

Why I Won't visit Auschwitz

2011-04-29T16:41:00.001-04:00

I've never visited Auschwitz. In fact, I haven’t gone to any concentration camp sites. I know many survivors, children of survivors, and others, who over the years have professed a strong need to go to the scenes of these monstrous crimes. They find deep meaning in this experience. Why?

There are a few common draws to these places of evil. First, a Jew who walks through the gates of Auschwitz after the Holocaust is making a statement. As Hirsch Glick wrote in the Partisan’s Song: Mir Zaynen do! We are here! There is redemption in those words, and for some, there is surely redemptive power in going back to the camps.

Second, going to the camps is an act of remembering those who were murdered there. It is beyond imagination to wonder how many times the Kaddish has been recited at the remaining camps in Poland and Germany. For some whose lives were directly scarred by wrenching losses during the Holocaust, reciting Kaddish at the very site of their loved ones’ and friends’ deaths honors their memories. It also fulfills a sense of obligation to remember those who were murdered in those places.

Third, going to the killing ground in some way provides a spiritual and psychological healing. Particularly for survivors, it may, with the proper preparation, help diminish their Holocaust trauma. It indicates the attributes of fortitude and resilience.

Finally, and I'm sure there are many more possible explanations, people go back to create a sense of closure with the past. So many survivors never said goodbye to the loved ones they lost. That they can do so at the camps provides a sense of closure.

So with all of these reasons for going, why have I chosen not to go? I don’t believe in memorials – for me, anyway. Auschwitz to me is nothing more than a place where once evil was practiced as a twisted religion. The grounds, the barracks, the crematoria, the train tracks, the barbed wire, are all the detritus of the death machine. I can find no sense of the sacred anywhere near Auschwitz. I know that my grandparents, an aunt and several cousins were murdered there. But I do not feel summoned to appear there. The bones of my own family are ground into the dirt at Auschwitz; specks of their ashes are still in the crevasses of the barracks and in the flowerpots of Oswiecim, just down the road. But I cannot consecrate the place with prayers. I cannot bring dignity to a place where it was the first thing stolen.

If it’s the people we are remembering, then it is hardly necessary to be at the site of their deaths. The truth is that I have never made a special trip to the cemetery in Middletown where my parents and my brother are buried. I say kaddish here. I remember them in a whole variety of locales and situations. But I am not compelled to place a rock on their headstones. They are not in that cemetery. They are in my memory.

I certainly have no plan to visit Auschwitz. I want to spend time in places where living is on the agenda.

Seder servings

2011-04-23T18:20:00.001-04:00

Every Passover, Liza builds a tent in one of our big rooms. Every year it looks different.  This one felt open, luxurious and gauzy, made more for Scheherazade than a bunch of fugitive former slaves.  It was beautiful. We sat in the tent on the floor – well, truth be told, I get a leader’s chair.  Older folks rate a chair as well.

As I sat down for my 57th seder ( I don’t really remember many of the first 9), I looked at the folks around me.  Of course my 5 children and my wife, as well as my daughter-in-law to be were all there.  My fathers-in-law and my mother-in-law were present.  And then so many more!  A sister and some brothers and sisters-in-law.  Some nieces.  Friends from my childhood.  Friends from here.  Some people from Liza’s farm.  All in all we had 30 something guests.  Quite the crowd.

Of course I thought about those who were gone: my mom, my brother, my wife’s close friend Amy, and some other dear ones, all departed.  The seder table is an evocative space.  We really know when someone is missing.  The chairs may fill with others, but the missing stand out in our hearts.

My childhood seders were parodies.  No one at the grown ups’ table seemed to care much about the rituals of the holiday beyond embarrassing the youngest child with the obligatory recitation of the Four Questions – one of the meaner traditions, by the way… I remember looking at the stained blue Maxwell House Hagadah, wondering 1. what did the words mean: the Hebrew as well as  the stilted English, and 2. we have this kind of thick blue pamphlet – how come we read only the first 10 pages.  Is the rest narishkeit (foolishness) like the adults say it is?

I came to realize much later that at least a few of the adult participants at my seder were, like the wicked child from the hagadah, disdainful of Jewish ritual and Jewish imagery.  They wanted nothing to do with the whole scene.  These angry Jews were escapees, still fleeing from Orthodox homes and also fleeing Auschwitz.  Like Lot they ran, convinced that if they were to stop and look at the possible blessings in gathering at the seder table, they would turn to salt and die.

Of course I do not judge them.  But I do hold them accountable for the contempt of Judaism and Jewish life that took root in my life like weeds in a garden.  Such contempt does so much damage.  Every smirk, every adult eye roll about Jewish life or going to services or to Hebrew School logs in deeply.  The reason I pulled the weeds of contempt were more a response to the Black Power Movement and finding pride in oneself, than it was about positive reinforcement.

That’s why at our home seder we throw chocolate at each other as the seder begins because it’s sweet to be free, and because we can.  That’s why I throw frogs (plastic ones) at kids at our TBA second seders.  That’s why we laugh and read and sing and eat and drink at our seder.  Because when we look back, we don’t turn to salt and die.  When we look back on Passover, we live.

Freedom

2011-04-15T21:18:00.000-04:00

There’s a famous performance early on in the documentary concert film, Woodstock. Richie Havens gets on stage while the madness of all those performers and people spilling onto Max Yasgur’s farm is still actively unfolding. Havens was and is at age 70, a dynamic performer. His unique blend of music is largely folk, r&b, and even some pop. He’s been playing for decades and is worth listening to on You Tube.

In the documentary footage, Havens starts to play, and has to ask the soundmen to turn up his rhythm guitarist’s mike. He starts strumming his 6 string acoustic guitar and is soon lost in his music. As Roger Ebert described it in his review of the anniversary version of the documentary, Woodstock, “He starts singing, and we don't see his face again, but his thumb on the guitar strings, punishing them. And then (in an unbroken shot) down to his foot in a sandal, pounding with the beat, and then the fingers, and then the foot, and only then the face, and this is a totally transformed Richie Havens, and we are so close to him, we see he doesn't have any upper teeth. No that it matters; but we don't usually get that close to anybody in a movie.” (Havens had a phobia of dentists. Eventually he got some dentures.)

After that hard strumming, he starts to sing, over and over again, “Freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom…”. It’s kind of the black spiritual version but kind of his own invention. And it is utterly captivating, so stirring it can bring tears to your eyes – well, at least it did and does to mine. When Richie Havens sang that on stage at Woodstock, the year was 1969. And 42 years ago, there were places Havens couldn’t safely go in the South. The civil rights movement was in flux, Vietnam was a mess… So when Havens sings the word, ‘freedom’, it’s not some abstract ideology. It’s a statement about a nation’s conscience and the trajectory of that nation’s citizens. It’s a song from a man who is seeking freedom, equally expressing aspiration and frustration. And it is still a rousing song about a task that is still incomplete.

Of course, freedom is not simply a political issue. Even at the seder, freedom is not just about the fact that the Jews were liberated from slavery in Egypt. There are deeper aspects to freedom. It is about opening our hearts to others, to taste the salt water as tears at the same time it commemorates the waters of our liberation. It’s remembering that sometimes we undervalue our own freedom by failing to exercise it by voting, speaking up, making a stand, believing in something.

Richie sings “Sometimes I feel like a motherless child/ a long way from my home”, and he reminds us that being free can be a vertiginous balancing act. To be free means to explore, expand, become independent. And these things may pull us away from the comforts of our home. It happened to Abraham. It happened to Moses. It’s happened to most us along the way – if, that is, you consider yourself to be on the trajectory of freedom.

At your seder table remember the theme of freedom – yours and ours – needs to be told, over and over again. Tell it: in music, in tears, in love.

Shabbat Shalom and hag sameach!

Rebhayim, Liza and the Stern gang

PS Here’s a Passover treat: this is the Woodstock performance: I dare you not to be moved. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tf1B9ktRCkg

Here’s an added benefit: Richie Havens performing “Freedom” 40 years later.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQGFmEbuJOY&feature=related

Don’t Stop Believing

2011-03-20T17:39:00.002-04:00

It’s still light out! And it’s actually warm outside. The Newton overnight street parking ban is only days away from expiration. Purim is coming. The great Purimpalooza of 2011 is around the corner (still tix available by the way…). And of course, it’s close to Shabbat. I want to celebrate, to wrap my arms around the magnificence of the promise of spring fulfilled.

And I will do that; I will rejoice in this beautiful day. But my heart is heavy. The earthquake, the tsunami, the resultant devastation and loss of life, the dreadful possibility of a nuclear meltdown, the stalling revolt in Libya, the killing of demonstrators in Yemen and Bahrain, and more have been heavy burdens to bear. For me another particularly painful and tragic story is the murders in Israel last week of 5 Israeli settlers: the mom and dad, and 3 of their 6 children, the youngest victim being 3 months old.

For the first time in awhile, I avoid the news. I don’t want to know so much. I don’t need to know anything more than I do right now. But then I click on the NY Times website. We’re back…

I know I wrote last week about the power of expressing gratitude for what is in this exact moment for each one of us. This gesture takes away none of the sting of these huge crises. It dries no tears. It’s just a way of remembering that despair is always close at hand. We don’t ever have to work hard to experience despair. But we do have to labor – intensively – to look away from the scene of the crime, the accident on the shoulder of the highway, and keep our eyes on the road. Otherwise we are left with bitterness and tragedy.

A favorite Rabbi Nachman story. One day the king’s trusted vizier comes to him, clearly disturbed. “Your majesty, I have just learned that the kingdom’s winter food supply is contaminated. After eating of it for a week or so, everyone will go mad. However, I happen to know that there is a small portion from last year’s winter harvest, and it is free of contamination. There is just enough for you and me to last out the winter and retain our sanity.” The king nodded, deep in thought. He then put his hand on his vizier’s shoulder and said, “No, we will eat the contaminated harvest like everyone else. Only I will put a mark on my forehead and you will put a mark on your forehead. In that way we will know, every time we speak or look at one another, that we are mad.”

Is it crazy to have gratitude for anything? Is it crazy to hope for anything? Is it crazy to believe in peace? Possibly. But we’re Jews. We keep praying for peace. We believe in the progressive notion that humanity is not insufferably irredeemable. We believe that the fundamental truth of our humanness transcends all that separates us.

Crazy? Maybe. But we’re Jews. You know I’m crazy. I know you’re crazy. In the meantime, keep praying. Keep building. Keep believing.

In this very moment

2011-03-11T17:23:00.001-05:00

I experience times when certain philosophical/theological truths become leitmotifs. Recently, I’m living with an existential gratitude phase. It goes something like this: Life is utterly and completely shifting sands. Everything seems to make sense and follow a specific order – and then, it doesn’t. In a true instant the world can change. An unexpected diagnosis. An accident. A betrayal. And when these things occur, and they do occur, we are left feeling upended. The world quite simply looks different in the aftermath of a sudden change.

This morning I awoke at around 645am to the news of a terrible earthquake in Japan. As I opened my eyes I heard the descriptions of the ensuing tsunami. And then the reporter mentioned that a tsunami was headed for Hawaii and then for the US west coast. As it turns out my twin girls are on spring break: one of them is in Hawaii and the other in California.

All I could picture were those videos from Thailand of the tsunami there. To say that I wanted to hide is an understatement. I felt enormous dread.

We simply cannot prepare for these things. This means, essentially, that we have very little control indeed. Experience belies Jerry Ragavoy’s lyrics (as sung by Mick Jagger and Irma Thomas), “Time is on my side.” Time is on no one’s side. Time is an eternal free agent that plays for no one’s team.

So what’s a person to do who wants to live a present, mindful life? Build a bomb shelter? Take vitamins? Hide under the bed? Keep one’s kids at home? The answer, the one I’ve been thinking about, is this: to stop and in the very moment, that very second that is already slipping away, to express 3 things for which I am grateful. What’s great about that exercise is that there is no right answer. It has to be spontaneous, not practiced to be politically correct. Of course I’m thankful for my family, my wife, my kids, my congregation, my health, etc., and if that’s what I’m feeling in that EXACT moment, then that’s what I’ll say. But if I just went to a great concert, one of my first answers in that moment is to give thanks to God that I have my hearing. If I had a great lunch at On the Ginza, I may give thanks for fresh fish and sushi chefs.

Giving thanks is not complicated. Giving thanks can be deep and spiritually complex. But it doesn’t have to be. It must be a spontaneous realization of the gift of being in this exact moment in order to counter balance some of the dread of living on shifting sands.

So what did I do? What could I do? I gave thanks for the love I have for my girls and the love that they have for me. I gave thanks that they were not alone but with friends and adults. And then I got up and started texting…

Of course by now we all know that the story for them was a blessedly uneventful one. And so it goes… But for others with friends and relatives in Japan, the story has a different trajectory. For so many in Japan, the world will never be the same. And I pray that in the midst of their losses, that they can find, in this exact moment, something – anything – that they can give thanks for.

Giving thanks for this exact moment is the nigun, the melody I’ve been humming. Sing along…

Shabbat Shalom

Transformations

2011-03-04T21:07:00.001-05:00

On the most superficial, ground floor pshat level, the last few chapters of Exodus which we read this Shabbat, otherwise known as Pekudei, are nothing more than a giant, uninspiring punchlist for the Tabernacle construction committee and the contractors. Bezalel ben Uri the chief architect, Oholiab ben Ahisamach, the interior decorator and Ithamar ben Aaron the head contractor review the completed structure and its myriad components with Moses, the client’s chief agent.
“Precious metals?” “Accounted for.”
“Priests robes?” “All here.”
Pegs Check.
Sockets? Check.
Ephod?
Breastplate?
Fancy ephod robe?
Linen turbans?
Linen underwear?
Clasps, planks, bars, posts, screens, lamp stand, incense burners, dolphin skin…

The exhaustive list goes on and on, and we, the loyal umpteenth generation of Torah readers, lainers, and/or Torah aficionados, roll our eyes and stifle a yawn. We can’t wait to arrive at the end where all of us may rise and say, Hazak, hazak, v’nithazek, thank God we made it through another Torah cycle. So repetitive and soporific is Pekudei, that the Torah redactors themselves add on a few last verses from another author just to spice things up for a more fitting finale to Exodus.

But surely there is more to this parasha than a checklist. Why is so much effort expended on detailing all of these objects and materials? I would suggest that this long list reminds us that our lives, too, are immersed in the material world. We are up to our necks in the inert. Our checklists are long and extensive and expensive. Surrounded by so much stuff, we all, lay leaders and rabbonim alike, stay stuck in the world of It.

The gravitational pull of the It, the car, the carpool, the budget, the staff meetings, the book bags, the book orders, the clasps, the lamp stand, even the dolphin skin, is strong. And the only way to reach escape velocity is to get some perspective, to see more clearly, to feel more with an open heart.

The silver sockets that hold the tent flaps of the Tabernacle are in and of themselves meaningless, fancy tchochkes. But what happens when the maker of those sockets or the person who sews them to the flap or the person who admires them understands that there is a purpose, a meaning to that socket? In such a moment, he or she transforms the inert to klei kodesh, vessels of holiness.

We have this enormous power to build meaning, to take the mundane and reframe it, refine it. In fact, I would say that we have a profound responsibility to transform the inert into the holy. After all, holiness is only a concept that remains in potential until we make it real. God creates the category of holiness. But we make things holy when we infuse them with intention and meaning.

And when we take the stuff: the tent peg, the clasp, the budget line for Hebrew magnet letters, and make it holy, we ourselves are transformed. After all, when we drop a siddur and then pick it up and kiss it, we transform the book to a holy object. And the kiss transforms us, puts us, for just a moment, in a new and ancient place of memory and responsibility. When we acknowledge that we can be transformed by transforming, then we truly become messengers of God, subcontractors to the Holy One.

Is Watson Good or Bad for the Jews

2011-02-18T18:14:00.000-05:00

I've been a sci-fi fan since childhood. The works of Ray Bradbury, Issac Asimov, Richard Matheson, Robert Heinlein, and others fascinated and inspired me. These authors didn’t write about unicorns or fantasy animals frolicking with trolls and dodging malevolent forces. No, I liked the sci-fi that focused on hard content and realism – even as it imagined a very different reality.

Sci-fi – or the more respectable term, speculative fiction – has always struggled to imagine the interplay between humans and machines. It’s that old fear/fascination with robots and computers that have artificial intelligence (AI). You know the scenario: machines become not only sentient, but smarter than the humans who created them. Chaos ensues. Whether it’s HAL from 2001 saying no, or Arnold announcing, “I’ll be back,” we have wondered and fretted about this possibility.

There are lots of scientists and engineers, many of them from MIT, who think about machines that talk back, artificial intelligence, robots, and things that sci-fi writers dream about that I cannot imagine. And it’s true that as I near 60, my toys and my tools: iphone, ipod, ipad, laptop, desktop, digital camera, remote printer – none of these extraordinary machines existed in the year of my birth – or decades later for that matter. And that fact alone is breathtaking.

The latest new thing that blows my mind is Watson. In case the story blew by you, Watson is the IBM supercomputer that was programmed to play Jeopardy with 2 humans. And in case you had any doubts, Watson won, and won big.

Watson is pretty much a really souped-up Goggle with a voice and mechanical hand. You could ask Watson questions about art or science or geography – or about any number of topics, the most arcane to the most quotidian – and get an answer. And obviously, the fact that Watson can decode colloquial English and respond correctly makes it a much more sophisticated search/trivia engine. Don’t forget, Google gives you many choices in response to your query, but Watson gets absolutely specific.

Watson is not sci-fi material, nor does he knock on the door of Jewish theology. This is because Watson does not evolve without human programmers. When Watson gets a wrong answer, humans must correct him. If you ask Watson a question about when WWII ended, he’ll give you the day and time. Ask him what it felt like on VE Day, and he’ll have to say that the question does not compute.

But the day will arrive when a machine much smarter and more sophisticated than Watson will learn from its mistakes. It will intellectually evolve. And it may even be able to learn what things feel like, emotionally and even tactilely. When that happens, AI will have led us to the threshold of a new world. When a machine can actually think and learn and perhaps feel, i.e., respond affectively, then we start entering several realms, including the realm of theology. Because if a machine thinks and feels, is it truly still just a machine? I know it’s not human, but what is it? Does it have self-consciousness? If knowledge itself is a way in to God and holiness, is truly“knowing” a means to knowing God? And if a machine, or whatever we will call it comes to know God, does it have a soul? Is God present in the machine?

It occurs to me that one of the reasons I loved the sci-fi tv show, Battlestar Gallactica so much is that it seeks to understand these questions of humanity, machines and the souls of each, in bright and complex ways. The reason talking about all of this is so important is that by exploring the meaning and nature of machines we explore the extent of our own humanness.

All of Me

2011-01-16T03:05:00.001-05:00

I've been brought down low this past week. The double whammy of Debbie Friedman’s death and Gabrielle Giffords’ attempted assassination were truly painful. Add a lot of snow, a rather small snow blower, cold wind, dark skies… well, all of these ingredients for sadness.

Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav, my favorite Hasidic master, used to teach about sadness and despair and the trap that they can be. And God knows I am aware of that trap. But sometimes we have to acknowledge it: there are times when we will be sad. Bad things DO happen to good people; bad things happen to us.

Men in particular, but women, too, have been taught over millennia that it is poor form to share our sadness. The English ‘stiff upper lip’, parodied though it often is, actually serves as the accepted norm for the correct response to sadness and pain and grief and loss and despair and… well, you get the picture. When I prepare a eulogy and discuss the recently deceased with the family, and they tell me, “S/He never complained,” I am not always sure if that’s so terrific.

By not sharing pain and sadness, do we condemn ourselves to walking a lonely road? Do we reinforce the stoic bravado of Paul Simon’s lyrics: I am a rock/I am an island/And a rock feels no pain/ and an island never cries… Can anyone truly live like that?

Of course one can live like that. Many people do. Only, is that really living? Or is that just enduring? Is that just “hanging in there”?

Speak of your sorrow. Sing out your joy. Do not hide in the shadow, sharing the ‘acceptable’ Teflon part of you while hiding your wounds. We say kaddish. We sing Hallelujah. I had a sad week. And yet my kids were home, which means that I also had a good week. There is darkness. There is light.

Confusing? Yes. Also true. We are comprised of beautiful whole and healthy parts and the broken, wounded parts too. And so we face one another as we face God and we say the words made famous as sung by Billie Holliday and written by Jerry Marks and Seymour Simons; we say them with complete seriousness and with a true twinkle in our eye: “All of me. Why not take all of me…”

Mark Madoff

2010-12-19T08:13:00.002-05:00

AshesAshes

I’ve followed the Bernie Madoff story since it broke with a combination of feelings, among them: horror, incredulity and anger. I know people who were hurt, almost ruined, by Madoff. His mendacity brought to my mind and to many others, the ruthless, evil-personified stock trader Gordon Gekko, played by Michael Douglas in Wall Street: “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures, the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge, has marked the upward surge of mankind and greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the U.S.A.”

The utter lack of humanity in those words, the disregard for all of the lives damaged: folded, spindled and mutilated, spit out and left by the side of the road, is enduringly wicked. Bernie Madoff betrayed people, destroyed their lives and reputations, sullied charities and foundations – many of them representing Jewish causes – and all for the sake of greed. One hundred fifty years in prison for Bernie are not enough to do justice. For the many people who lost everything, there is no redemption, no true justice, just the terrible ache of being had.

But this awful Greek tragedy has not ended. Some time between 4 and 730am last Saturday morning, Bernie Madoff’s oldest son, Mark, committed suicide in the room next to his sleeping 2 year old son. What immeasurable quantity of pain might lead a father of four children to hang himself with a dog leash? The betrayal he experienced when his father revealed to him and his brother Andrew that the family fortune was built on lies? The weight of being Bernie’s son? The fact that he was involved with a division of the family business, thus implicated by association with his dad’s whole scheme? The shame of going to court, and possibly prison? Even the ignominy of sharing the same last name as his dad must have felt like an albatross around his neck. It certainly felt like that to his wife, who, was in the process of petitioning to change her name from Madoff to Morgan.

Whether innocent or guilty of having a hand in the Ponzi scheme, the suicide of a man with a family is deeply sad and disturbing. Said his wife Stephanie, "My husband Mark took his own life, and regardless of what you feel about my father-in-law and his monstrous crimes, Mark's children are innocent victims and this is tragic for them. I am devastated and now raising two small children alone."

There will be no funeral for Mark Madoff, just a private memorial for a few people in an undisclosed location. His body was cremated, so there is not even a casket. All that’s left of him is ashes. What a terrible waste.

Greed and its terrible destructive power eclipse the truth of why we were created; not to take advantage of one another, not to scam and steal and betray trust and truth. It is NEVER about what we take or get in this world that matters; it’s what we give. That’s not naïveté; that’s the real truth of our existence. To forget that is to live a life of duplicity and dishonor, without the truth, without the sacred. To live by the philosophy that greed is good is to end up with nothing. Nothing but ashes.

What Hanukkah is Really About

2010-12-05T13:10:00.001-05:00

Hanukkah is of course not officially what our ancestors have called a ‘big deal.’ Sure there are ceremonies and rituals and food, but not a whole lot of hard core religious requirements. So you may ask, if Hanukkah is officially a tier 2 holiday, sharing space with the likes of Lag B’Omer, Shemini Atzeret, and Tu B’Shevat, why does it get all this attention?

Well, for the Scrooges out there, yes, of course it’s a little – ok, a lot – to do with Hanukkah’s proximity to Christmas. Wherever Jewish children are whining about presents, trees, and eggnog, you will find parents desperately doing something, ANYTHING! to make their kids feel ok about not doing what everybody else seems to be doing or getting what everyone else appears to be getting. Jewish parents’ default tends to be the Adam Sandler approach: Don’t fuss, kids; “instead of one day we get eight crazy nights.” And so the decorations come out, along with the gifts and the other stuff as we do our best to compensate for not having Santa in the fold. Bah, humbug…

But there is something else, something about the Hanukkah story that grabs our attention. And here I am not talking about the Hanukkah “oil enough for one day lasts eight days” story. I'm talking about the larger historical story: about how easy it is for the darkness to spread. Our ancestors, beset on all sides by hostile forces, did not surrender. We struggled for freedom until it was finally ours. It was that struggle that reminded our ancestors and us too, even until this very day, that a part of our role in the world is to be a light to the nations. In every place where darkness takes root and threatens to blot out liberty, light will ultimately triumph, because the human spirit is too resilient, the human heart too courageous to be vanquished.

If we will not stand up for the oppressed, then who will? If we don’t get involved in social action, then who will? If we don’t work for peace, then who will? If we don’t demand justice for all people, then who will? Hillel said it so well: “If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, than what am I? And if not now, when?”

As daylight ends and evening falls ever earlier, we get acutely aware of the value of the light. We need it. Always have. Always will. We also recognize in the light the faces of those around us: some are friends and family, while others are total strangers. But if you look at them, you will see the same light reflected in their eyes as it is in your own. We are all the reflectors of God’s great light.

And so, keep lighting those lights. Spread the struggle for justice for us and for everyone. Praise the power of light.

PS And please check out our own Susan Retik and Scott Ger and the 4 children of their tribe all participating at the White House in the second night of Hanukkah candle lighting: http://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/video/2010/12/02/hanukkah-white-house

They are amazing folks. Good choice Mr. President!

Here Comes the Bride

2010-11-05T22:14:00.001-04:00

All this stress we lug around is the real deal. It comes from the dark, incomplete places in our souls, where lock down the feelings we carry from childhood that nag at us about how we’re not good enough, beautiful enough, strong enough, (fill in the blank) enough. But when the Shabbat arrives, we lay that burden down. We simply say that right now, in this space, I am going to live in the holy present, and the holy present is Shabbat.

Shabbat comes just in time. Right on the verge of exhaustion, a long week leaves that familiar residue of angst and incompleteness, so much to still be done! In the midst of such numbing truth, the Shabbat Bride arrives. And everyone who has ever been to a wedding knows that when the bride arrives, everything stops: the music changes, the heads turn. In fact, there is a non-Jewish wedding custom of rising before the bride walks down the aisle. I’m surprised it’s not practiced by Jews, because when we sing the Shabbat bride’s tune, Lecha Dodi, we do in fact rise at the last verse, bowing to the door to welcome her. Drop everything: here comes the bride!!

The precise origin of the Sabbath bride myth is impossible to trace. The Talmud contains very old (1st century CE) references to the conception of Shabbat as a bride. Midrash Leviticus Rabbah (4th/5th century CE) contains an interesting passage that pairs up the days (Sunday with Monday, Tuesday with Wednesday, Thursday with Friday ) leaving Saturday, the Sabbath – alone. God, the rabbis suggest, is the Sabbath’s mate. Finally, in some 8th/9th century CE mystical texts we find an explicit "coronation" of Shabbat as God's bride and Queen. (storahtelling.org)

I have often said, and so let me say it again, that coming to Shabbat services can bring one a kind of peace and equanimity that are very hard to find anywhere else. Don’t believe me? Come greet the Shabbat bride with me and then tell me at the end of Shabbat how you feel in that moment.

Shabbat happens every week. It’s not a cure to pain and sadness and overwhelmedness and stress and that negative stuff that has our names on it. But it is a respite, an island with enough room for you to bask in the light of blessing and community and love.

Shabbat Shalom

rebhayim

Tweeting the Holy One, Not Tweaking

2010-10-29T01:25:00.001-04:00

Some of you know, maybe many of you know what Twitter is, but in case you don’t, allow me to quickly elucidate. Twitter is a free social networking service that allows anyone with a Twitter account to write a message of 144 characters or less, and then send it out over the Internet. Any Twitter subscribers to whom you’ve given permission will receive your message, called a Tweet. That’s the short explanation.

You may ask, “Why would anyone Tweet on Twitter? What do people talk about in 144 characters or less? What they had for dinner? Comments on sports? Critiques of political speeches? Thumb nail movie reviews?” Yes to all of these. But there’s more. I like Twitter because I get Tweets containing links to current interesting articles deemed so by people who have given me permission to receive their Tweets, or in the language of Twitter, they let me “follow” them.

Sometimes in my Twitter wanderings I come across really wonderful stuff – and yes, some straight up garbage, too. Twitter is a 24/7 open portal to information and ideas. You can follow me at rebhayim.

The other day I stumbled upon (yes for those of the cognoscenti, I know what Stumble Upon is… duh!) a young Israeli named Alon Nir. His Twitter account is TheKotel. He also has a website called http://www.tweetyourprayers.info/. I suppose the name gives it away.

Yes, you tweet a 144 character (or less) prayer to Alon via theKotel. He prints your Tweet out, rolls it up and then puts it in the Wall. He does it at no charge. Alon is not a Hasid. He doesn’t wear a kippah. So what’s the deal? Why does he do it?

The answer is that I have no idea. Alon has no tongue planted firmly in cheek near as I can tell. He seems sincere about contemporizing this old custom of writing prayers and placing them in the Wall. Is it for publicity? Maybe, though there’s no sign that he’s selling t shirts or other stuff.

Maybe this is just a manifestation of the ongoing evolution of spiritual expression. By using a 21st century technology, one can connect to a popular Jewish tradition. And, after all, the guy has to put these prayers in the Wall by hand: you can watch him do just that on Youtube!

I am so tempted to be cynical about this. There is a part of me that wants to scoff and have you scoff along with me. But who am I to judge? As I stated earlier, I think the guy’s for real. He seems to genuinely get a thrill out of doing this. Is it so impossible that Alon Nir is just a good, post modern Jew, offering the world a new path to God?

To answer your question (I know you’ve wondered), I’m leading a Beth Avodah trip to Israel December 2011. I’ll put a prayer in the Wall myself. I have NOT Tweeted a prayer to Alon to put in the Wall for me. Yet.

Shabbat Shalom

Poem for a first yahrzeit

2010-10-15T21:19:00.000-04:00

There’s no blessing to say when arriving at a loved one’s first yahrzeit. Sure we recite the silent Yizkor prayer, chant El Maleh Rachamim, say the kaddish. But for us Jews who always have a blessing, a bon mot, at this auspicious moment itself there is a curious muteness. Because this Shabbat is my Mom’s first anniversary Yahrzeit observance, in lieu of a blessing that doesn’t exist, I wrote the following poem. I share it with you to honor my mom’s memory. And I share it with you because I am still acutely thankful for how my temple community stood by me through my loss, and continues to stand by me. For this and so much more, I am eternally grateful

Shabbat Shalom’

rebhayim

A First Yahrzeit Poem

My mom was a very small woman who shrank
As she entered her senior years.
A year after her death
She is tiny
And sometimes I can’t see her at all.
I look for my mother sometimes:
Places like her handwritten brisket recipe
Safely bagged in a zip lock
To protect it from errant ingredients.
At the bottom of the index card she wrote,
“A mechiyah!”
Sometimes I find my mother as I look in the mirror.
My legs (I have great legs – so do my sisters)
Are my mother’s legs
Propelling me forward with purpose.
Sometimes I hear my mother singing
A big, clear, strong soprano
A fearless, resonant voice
Every show tune
Every standard of the 40s and 50s.
When I was no longer embarrassed by her mighty pipes
I could actually listen to her
No more shame
Only admiration and joy.
Anything from I’m Gonna Wash that Man
To Magen Avot.

After all the sturm und drang
All the fears of loss and abandonment
All the terrible truths emerging in tears and terror
After all the pain
Every song I sing is in tribute,
In harmony with her.

Dear Mom
My tiny, incredible shrinking mother
I believe that you do truly rest in peace.
You always did sleep well.
I hope
After everything
That your sweet voice will rock me to sleep.

Happy Columbus Day or not?

2010-10-13T17:37:00.001-04:00

Happy Columbus Day -- or not?

October 12th is the day on which Christopher Columbus and his crew first landed in the New World – or so they say. Of course we know that Columbus did not “discover” the New World as the two continents was the home to aboriginal peoples for thousands of years before Columbus arrived. And we also know that Columbus wasn’t the first European discoverer of the New World. There are lots of records about the Vikings and other European explorers coming to the New World centuries before Columbus boarded the Santa Maria.

So, what exactly did Columbus accomplish? He brought the New World to the attention of the European masses (at least those in a position of influence) at a point in time when Europe was ready to expand her horizons and connect with distant places for trade and colonization. It was Columbus who brought the old and new worlds together in a way that changed history. And that, according to Hubpages.com is why he is remembered and why his achievement was of such significance.

Of course there are revisionist historians, among them Howard Zinn, who wrote,

Because of Columbus’s exaggerated report and promises, his second expedition was given seventeen ships and more than twelve hundred men. The aim was clear: slaves and gold. They went from island to island in the Caribbean, taking Indians as captives. But as word spread of the Europeans’ intent they found more and more empty villages. On Haiti, they found that the sailors left behind at Fort Navidad had been killed in a battle with the Indians, after they had roamed the island in gangs looking for gold, taking women and children as slaves for sex and labor.
Now, from his base on Haiti, Columbus sent expedition after expedition into the interior. They found no gold fields, but had to fill up the ships returning to Spain with some kind of dividend. In the year 1495, they went on a great slave raid, rounded up fifteen hundred Arawak men, women, and children, put them in pens guarded by Spaniards and dogs, then picked the five hundred best specimens to load onto ships. Of those five hundred, two hundred died en route. The rest arrived alive in Spain and were put up for sale by the archdeacon of the town, who reported that, although the slaves were “naked as the day they were born,” they showed “no more embarrassment than animals.” Columbus later wrote: “Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold.”

Ooops. I think we have here a classic case of mythic history colliding with facts on the ground. As a kid, I loved the image of Columbus off the boat in his pantaloons, opening up a brand new world. He seemed so heroic, so much bigger than life. He embodied the belief that there were new vistas to see, new opportunities, all available for the brave and the strong. To read Zinn’s description is to take a big dose of reality.

But here’s the thing. I’m not willing to put away my Christopher Columbus. I still hold onto the mythic dimensions of the story, even while I reluctantly acknowledge that he represented a rapacious king and queen of Spain who expelled the Jews in 1492 as Columbus sailed away (with, by the way, no small number of Conversos, or secretly Jewish Spaniards). Can I have my cake and eat it, too? I think so. After all, though George Washington never cut down a cherry tree, this mythic story of integrity sticks with me. Was there a Moses? Well, there’s no shred of evidence that says he existed. But I can still admire the myths of his great love of God and the inspiring ways his life, as described in Torah. Moses gives me hope and a reason to keep plugging away.

Myths aren’t just some make believe stories. Myths provide the foundational materials for our belief systems. I’ll always recite “In fourteen hundred ninety-two/Columbus sailed the ocean blue. /He had three ships and left from Spain; /He sailed through sunshine, wind and rain. /He sailed by night; he sailed by day; /He used the stars to find his way” etc. happily. And I will never let the real Columbus off the hook. So happy Columbus Day. Oh, and good Shabbes.

rebhayim

Ask!

2010-10-01T19:07:00.001-04:00

Ask!

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life conducted a study of 3,400 Americans this spring. They asked 32 "religious knowledge" questions ranging from "What is the first book in the Bible?" to "Is Ramadan the Islamic holy month, the Hindu festival of lights or a Jewish day of atonement?" The highest-scoring groups? Jews and Mormons essentailly tied for first place along with Atheists and agnostics. White evangelicals scored in the middle; white mainline Protestants and white Catholics were slightly lower, and black Protestants, Hispanic Catholics and those who answered "nothing" in terms of religious practice scored the lowest.

People were surprised at that finding when the study was presented at the annual meeting of the Religion Newswriters Association, a group of about 500 reporters and bloggers for religious and secular outlets. “The Pew officials at the press conference couldn't say why Jews, Mormons and atheists were so much better informed; they rarely give out the "why" on their surveys, they merely try to show a snapshot of the populace and invite you to draw conclusions.” [The Economist] By the way, The Pew Forum’s 2007 U.S. Religious Landscape Survey estimated that Jews and Mormons each make up about 1.7% of the U.S. public, while atheists and agnostics combined account for about 4% of the U.S. population.

I haven't a clue as to why Mormons did so well. And I think probably most of the folks identifying as atheists and agnostics had at least one Jewish parent. But I DO know why Jews scored so well. No, it’s not because Jews are so much smarter than other people. We’re not. Here’s the secret to our greatness. We’re not afraid to ask questions, whether it be in the realm of physics or the deepest aspects of our faith not to mention the faith of others. The greatest Jewish writers like Bellow and Roth and Ozick and Malamud and Chabon among others, are fabulous because they aren’t afraid of asking questions: what motivates people to love, to hate, to kill, to forgive, etc.

It’s our curiosity that drives us. Evangelical Christians aren’t really allowed to question if there’s a God or what God really does in the world. You tell a Southern Baptist preacher that you aren’t sure if Jesus really was resurrected, you shouldn’t expect an invite back to church the following week. You tell a rabbi you're not sure God exists and s/he says, “Yeah, so what else are you struggling with?” We’re not afraid to look inside and examine the tachlis, the fundamentals, and reflect on them. There is no question off limits; everything is open to discussion, examination, and interpretation. It’s no wonder that Freud was a Jew…

Jews ask questions because answers cannot destroy us. Facts and feelings are not to be feared. They provide us with information and insight. Sure, answers can be scary. We hear things we’d rather not know. Better that we share our thoughts and feelings, better we struggle to achieve the truth as best as we can know it. The fact that not everyone is a Jew is not a theological problem for us. For evangelical Christians or fundamentalist Moslems, the Other, the non-Christian or non-Moslem, as the case may be, is a major dilemma.
Isidor I. Rabi, the Nobel laureate in physics once said, ''My mother made me a scientist without ever intending it. 'Izzy,' she would say, 'did you ask a good question today?' That difference - asking good questions -made me become a scientist!'' Rabi, need I say it, was a Jew.

Shabbat Shalom,

rebhayim

My Problem with Noam Chomsky

2010-05-22T17:46:00.001-04:00

My Problem with Noam Chomsky

I don’t like Noam Chomsky. I mean, I REALLY don’t like him. The very mention of his name causes my blood pressure to rise.

That he’s a great linguist is obvious, and I can honor his scholarship. That he has a radical political stance is sometimes provocative and interesting. But his anti-Israel rhetoric is so inflammatory, so intentionally misleading, so outrageous, that I can’t stomach it – or him. I consider Chomsky the epitome, the example extraordinaire, of self-hatred and Jewish antisemitism. He has made it clear throughout his long career in open letters and speeches, that he does not support the state of Israel.

What motivates a man borne to a Hebrew scholar and an immigrant from Belarus, a man who as an adult,lived on a kibbutz for a year, to repeatedly share calumnies about Israel? Together with his lap dog, Norman Finklestein, Chomsky has also dabbled in Holocaust denial – or at least, supporting the rights of those who profess it. Who needs these misguided intellectuals?

Then a few days ago I caught the story that Chomsky was denied entry into Israel and the West Bank on Sunday. “No reason was initially given for the decision, but the Interior Ministry later said immigration officials at the Allenby Bridge border crossing from Jordan had misunderstood Chomsky's intentions thinking initially he was also due to visit Israel. When he asked an Israeli inspector why he had not received permission, he was told that an explanation would be sent in writing to the American embassy. "They apparently didn't like the fact that I was due to lecture at a Palestinian university and not in Israel," Chomsky told Reuters by telephone from Amman.”
Kadima MK Otniel Schneller praised the move. "It's good that Israel did not allow one of its accusers to enter its territory," said Schneller. "I recommend [Chomsky] try one of the tunnels connecting Gaza and Egypt." (Haaretz)
I loved Schneller’s jab and I confess to thinking, “Good! Who does he think he is, anyway?” This to me was Chomsky getting his just deserts. But after I gloated for a while, I read a quote from The Association for Civil Rights in Israel, who on Sunday strongly condemned the decision to deny Chomsky entry from Jordan to the West Bank.
“The decision to prevent an individual from expressing his or her views by denying entry is characteristic of a totalitarian regime,” said ACRI Attorney Oded Feller. “A democratic state, which considers freedom of expression a guiding principle, does not close itself off to criticism or uncomfortable notions, and does not refuse entry to visitors whose views it does not accept, but rather deals with them through public discourse.”
Hard words. But true. To selectively silence people who disagree with who or what we are or do is a deeply held desire that we all share. A democratic state simply doesn’t have that luxury to shut up people we don’t like. And talk about another instance of Israel shooting itself in the foot – again – by behaving in a way guaranteed to “prove” its intolerance.

I can’t stand Chomsky’s smug intellectual double talk. So I need to change the channel, not kick the tv set down the steps. The strength of the Jewish State is not in the ease with which we can stifle dissent, but rather the tolerance to patiently bear it.

Shabbat Shalom

rebhayim

Smoke Stacks

2010-04-09T17:13:00.000-04:00

When you see smoke stacks, what’s the first association that comes to your mind? Air pollution? Antiquated technology? Clean energy? My first association? Auschwitz. I don’t know what to say about that. You might think it’s sad and more than a little bit morbid. You’d be correct.

As a child of a Holocaust survivor, my inheritance includes a close connection to the darkest period in Jewish history. Wondering why I had such a small family. Curious as to why no products made in Germany were allowed into the house. Confused why Hogan’s Heroes was a forbidden tv show, but Combat was permitted. Clueless as to why I had to finish every bit of my dinner every night under threat of punishment. So many little pieces of my life were constructed from the ashes and the losses of the Holocaust.

The trauma of that time and that place still casts a giant pall over humanity. Back when I was growing up there were no books to read about the Holocaust except Anne Frank and then, at last, Elie Wiesel’s Night. Now slated for publication in the next few weeks alone are: Writing the Holocaust (Writing History) by Jean-Marc Dreyfuss and Daniel Langton, Remembering Survival: Inside a Nazi Slave-Labor Camp by Christopher R. Browning, Daviborshch's Cart: Narrating the Holocaust in Australian War Crimes Trials by David Fraser, IBM and the Holocaust by Edwin Black, and The Holocaust Object in Polish and Polish-Jewish Culture by Bozena Shallcross. And this is just a smattering of histories. This doesn’t include fiction or movies or memoirs.

And yet, with all of these books, I remain shocked, appalled, incredulous, and incredulous. The smoke stacks still haunt me. Because all of the facts about the Holocaust, the amazing scholarship that has examined everything from the roots of sadism to the origins of antisemitism to Hitler’s army career and on and on – none of it can crack the basic questions: How? How could the bystanders be so indifferent? How could the Jews be so passive? How could the allies see train tracks leading to the death camps and not bomb them? How could thoughtful loving fathers and mothers kill babies for work every day for months, years? How?

I don’t expect anyone can get to the how. Because the answer is deeply interwoven into the heart of humanity. The capacity for evil is capacious and we wrestle with it. Is it a unique hatred of the Jews? Or was the Holocaust a prolonged spasm of violence that comes from the same twisted place as the lynching of Black people, the intense bullying of a child that drives her to commit suicide, the same place as the killing fields of Cambodia, Darfur, Rwanda, and so on?

I don’t know. But I am aware that as a child of a survivor, thinking about these things is not merely an intellectual exercise. It’s partly exorcism and partly a cry out to God for strength to help us unlock the mysteries of human evil that plague us so. No book has the answer: it’s in every human heart.

At tonight’s Shabbat service, we will include some thoughts for Yom Hashoah that is communally observed in the greater Boston area on Sunday, April 11, 2010 at 10:00am-12:00pm at the Great Hall at Faneuil Hall. Please join us at 615 tonight. It’s still a joyful Shabbat, and it won’t be maudlin. But it’s our duty to ask questions and to remember.

Shabbat Shalom,

rebhayim

Purim, drunkenness, and me

2010-03-01T12:25:00.000-05:00

I remember Purim in the old days. As a kid we’d go and sit in the sanctuary in our costumes. The adults never had on any costumes whatsoever. Oh, maybe a Zorro mask or something, but nothing of any merit.

We’d all sit there and listen to the megillah being read. We hung on every word, kids and adults, with bated breath, for the name ‘Haman’ to be shouted. Man oh man; we’d spin our groggers until our arms hurt – or until the rabbi said, “Shah! Quiet!!” Of course in between the grogger twirling (not like curling), we’d be bored out of our minds, everything being chanted in special trope and all, without translation or explanation.

The additional accoutrement on the bimah, for adults only, was booze. Grown ups would read some megillah and then take a shot or two of schnapps. They would slam the shot glass down and the other grown ups would roar in approval. It really looked like fun. Why were these otherwise respectable men cheering about getting shikker [drunk]? In front of their children and their community?

In practically every chapter of the Megillah, someone is drinking heavily at a drinking party. The Purim story ends with Mordecai's instruction to the entire Jewish people to celebrate these days as "yemei mishteh v'simchah, days of drinking and rejoicing" (Esther 9:22). Based upon this dictum, the rabbis came to believe that it was their duty to get drunk! Or as it is written in the Talmud: "Rava said: It is one's duty levasumei, to make oneself fragrant [with wine] on Purim until one cannot tell the difference between 'arur Haman' (cursed be Haman) and 'barukh Mordekhai' (blessed be Mordecai)" (Babylonian Talmud, Megillah 7b). What degree of drunkenness is meant by this? The word levasumei is sometimes translated as "get mellow;" others simply say "drink." The word levasumei, however, is from the same root as besamim (fragrant spices, like those that are smelled during Havdalah at the conclusion of the Sabbath). Minimally, one must drink so that others would smell it, although if they are also drunk, who would be able to check? Maximally, one must become, to use a technical term, "stinking drunk."

Strange that one day a year – one! – we’re commanded as it were, to lose control, to act wild and crazy. But a lot has happened over the last 30 years in regards to booze and Jews and Purim. The Jews and booze segment is that, in the old days, alcoholism amongst Jews was much less prevalent than the main population. There was a stigma to public drunkenness. If Jews misbehaved in public, what would the Gentiles say? But another part of the story is that Jewish alcoholism and other addictive or violent behaviors, were much underreported. Frankly, we bought our own press, namely the myth that Jews were above becoming alcoholics, or drug abusers, or, for that matter, domestic abusers. The guilt and shame that result from this false and dangerous myth keep many Jews from seeking the help they need and deserve.

The fact is that for many Jewish alcoholics, their first encounter with booze, as kids, is at religious events: Passover seder, Purim revelry, B’nei mitzvah parties, where the attitude towards drunkenness is often lax and indifferent.
Now I am not saying that we should become teetotalers. But there’s a reason that we don’t have a bottle of Canadian Club and shot glasses on the bimah for Purim like we had in my youth. We can’t pretend that Jews are above addictive or violent behaviors. We are not some superior people, immune to the genetics of addiction. We must enjoy ourselves, but not at the expense of others.

Shabbat Shalom

rebhayim

Tiger and Teshuvah

2010-02-19T18:10:00.000-05:00

I am not a golfer, at least, not yet. While I'm sure that Tiger Woods was and is a great athlete, I don’t follow the game. His accomplishments: the eagles, the birdies, the bogies, the double bogies – all mean as much to me as BBC reports about the googlys or the leg slips or the maidens in a game of cricket.

Tiger’s golfing career hasn’t been on my radar. I knew only that the man was a true top golfer – one of the best ever. Of course there is always the buzz about him: his private nature, his rather egocentric manner, his lack of friendliness. But I try not to listen to gossip.

Tiger Woods is certainly on my radar now. As it says in the Bible, “How the mighty have fallen!” (2 Samuel 1:27) Tiger’s ignominious addictive behavior caught up with him and crushed him.

There are those who scoff at the label ‘sex addiction.’ But when one sees the results of his unchecked behavior, his absolute disregard for his family, friends, career, endorsements, and his reputation for fleeting sexual gratification – what else can one call it? This is the definition of addiction: repeating over and over destructive behaviors regardless of the cost: physical, mental, or spiritual.

No one is saying that Tiger Woods is a nice guy. No one is saying because he is a sex addict that all is forgivable. Most importantly, he’s not saying that we should pity him or excuse him.

Today Tiger Woods read an announcement, an extended apology to his family, friends, fans, and well – to anyone who ever cared about him. It was not pro forma. It was not a rote statement. If you heard Tiger’s statement (which was ridiculously counted down on the bottom of the screen on CNBC…), what you heard, what I heard anyway, was a man deeply ashamed of himself. “I know I have bitterly disappointed all of you. I have made you question who I am and how I could have done the things I did. I am embarrassed that I have put you in this position.” Tiger acknowledged that he had wandered into the dark side so deeply that it took whatever it was that happened to him in that weird car accident last Thanksgiving to shake him up enough to see the truth: that he was way out of control.

Tiger said, “I have a lot to atone for.” I appreciated his statement, his blunt confrontation with his behavior. And I appreciate his honesty about returning to treatment, that he still has a long way to go. To confront our basest, most contemptible behavior takes remarkable courage.

Now, I am not saying that Tiger Woods is a hero. I’m not saying don’t be tough on him. I'm not saying let’s give him a group hug. I am saying that he deserves a second chance, a chance to try to surmount the monster of addiction. The man said, “I recognize I have brought this on myself, and I know above all I am the one who needs to change. I owe it to my family to become a better person. I owe it to those closest to me to become a better man. That's where my focus will be.” I’m taking Tiger at his word. He deserves that. We all deserve that.

Shabbat shalom

Happy Tu Beshvat George Carlin!

2010-01-31T11:30:00.002-05:00

Happy Tu Beshvat!
There is a scene in this season’s evocative tv series, Madmen, when the Drapers, a family of four in 1963, go out for a picnic to a beautiful location. After a wonderful lunch they return to their car. As they drive off, the camera pans up to them from where they had eaten their meal. Scattered everywhere is the detritus of their lunch: paper plates, napkins, paper cups, etc.

My generation is the last one that could litter like that. There’s no doubt: we have really made a mess of things. The science is overwhelming. We face a true crisis in regards to the future of this planet.

Or perhaps I should qualify that. George Carlin z``l, one of the darkest, most cynical comics who has ever lived, scoffed at environmentalists that talked about harming this planet. He basically said humanity is a little blip in time for the earth. It was here before humans and it will be here after humans totally destroy themselves. Hmmm… comforting.

As he said, The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through all kinds of things worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles...hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worldwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages...And we think some plastic bags, and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The planet...the planet...the planet isn't going anywhere. WE ARE!

Of course he’s right. The bags and the plastic and the aluminum cans and all the rest of our junk won’t destroy the planet. But what we are destroying, right now, is the human eco-system. The rivers will flow, but they will poison the fish that live in them. The deforested regions of the world will slowly crack through the poured concrete and grow once more, but in the meantime, the erosion will have caused precious soil to blow far from there.

Scientists estimate there are 10 to 30 million plant and animal species on the planet, most of them unidentified. Each year as many as 50,000 species disappear. University of Minnesota ecology professor David Tilman, known around the world for his research showing the effects of human activity on the environment says that most die off because of human activity. "We take natural habitats, convert them to agriculture, to suburbia, to roads, to monoculture forestry. We fish the oceans so heavily we literally have these trolling nets that scrape the bottom of the ocean clean," he says.

Maybe, a la Carlin, this startling statistic is irrelevant. After all, we have museums filled with extinct creatures and vegetation. Life evolves, species evolve, that’s the way it goes.

This is not just a matter for the environmentally conscious: what we’re going to do about it is everyone’s business. It surely is a Jewish issue. After all, God entrusts this planet to us in Genesis. We are the stewards of this earth and as such we’re not doing a great job. But we have to keep trying to do something which is better than doing nothing at all. Beth Avodah has a Green Committee not because it’s politically correct. We have an active Green Committee because it’s morally correct. Because this planet is precious. Because life is precious. Because how we care for the earth and its creatures reflects how we treat each other, and vice versa.

Tu Beshvat is such a little holiday about trees and such. But it reminds us that God needs us to make this earth a place of promise not poison. We can do more. Even a healthy cynic knows that clean water and air are sacred.

Israel in Haiti

2010-01-31T11:30:00.001-05:00

I've been following the sad and desperately harrowing story from Haiti. There’s so much pain and sorrow amongst the Haitian people. So many dead or missing as aftershocks keep rumbling through. The injuries are horrible and devastating. It’s just deep misery.

There’s another part to the anguish of Haiti. For me it’s how close to the edge of chaos that nation seems to be. The conditions in which people had to live in before the earthquake were appalling enough. Now the veneer of civility seems just millimeters thin. What a profound mess.
Into all of this despair ride the rescue workers from all over the world. And as you surely know by now, the most quickly deployed and complete rescue unit that arrived in Haiti is from Israel. Conscripts, officers, career soldiers and reservists fought for the privilege of joining the rescue delegation, and over the past week, the radio frequently broadcast emotional interviews with doctors and members of the team in Port-au -Prince. Even the foreign media outlets were full of admiring reports about the swift, effective action by a small, distant country, which managed to set up Haiti's most sophisticated field hospital. As of Wednesday evening, the team had rescued several people trapped in the ruins, including two brothers, and the hospital had treated hundreds of casualties, performed about 140 life-saving operations and assisted in seven births.
Was I deeply proud of the Israeli rescue team? You bet I was. There have been several disasters over the years when Israel wanted to send rescue teams to help but could not because the country in question was Moslem. Finally we could use our expertise and save lives. It’s the Jewish thing to do.

Ironically the Israeli doctors who were interviewed by Israeli journalists don’t seem to understand their work as the “Jewish thing to do.” As Anshel Pfeffer says in Haaretz, “I have spoken to quite a number of Israeli doctors working now in, or planning to leave soon for Haiti. Without a shred of cynicism, (and some of them can certainly be cynical), they all spoke quite simply of their duty as doctors to serve in the place where they are most needed right now. One of them, for lack of an accurate Hebrew word, even used the English term "a calling."” I could give them a phrase: they’re doing tikkun olam.

Of course, no one expects that the Israeli rescue team will change any minds in the international media about Israel’s heart and soul. Even while CNN does a couple of stories about the superlative work of Israel’s rescue team, it doesn’t inoculate Israel against bad publicity. So be it; that’s not why we’re in Haiti.

Brad Burston wrote this week, “Israelis, and Jews in the wider world, should not be forced to recite a catechism over how terrible, how flawed, how often mistaken they already know Israel to be, just in order to earn the right to feel and express their admiration, their gratitude, and yes, their pride.”

Prayer for Haiti

2010-01-15T20:10:00.001-05:00

A Prayer for the People of Haiti

Dear God,
We look at the pictures of Haiti in the aftermath of a terrible earthquake, and our hearts break. The terror of the landscape: hillsides collapsed, streets cracked like glass, houses flattened, and buildings no more than rubble, this fills us with dread. The magnitude of the loss: dead bodies everywhere, orphans sobbing in the dirt, mothers and fathers weeping over their lost children, families torn asunder, this grieves us.

Some folks look at the catastrophe in Haiti and say that You caused this destruction, because, as one person has said, its people "made a pact with the devil." But we know that You are not a God that deals in punishment and reward in this life. Bad things happen to good people and there’s nothing You or anybody else can do about that. It’s the position and place of tectonic plates, grinding poverty, corruption and greed, not You cursing Haitians – or anybody else.

Dear God, here in our homes, we know that feeling guilty about our comfort and good fortune and is natural. But help us move from that unhelpful place of remorse to the active, energetic place of seeking to bring healing to others. We can’t fly to Port au Prince, but we can direct contributions to Haiti. We can’t set a bone, but we can donate to various medical and emergency charities already working in the disaster zone.

On the one hand, there’s nothing we can do on our own. On the other hand, we truly can take action. We truly can make a difference.

And so on this Shabbat, give us the energy and the insight to do Your will. Help us to find ways to make a difference. Help us to appreciate what we have. Help us appreciate what we can do.

And to the people of Haiti, we send our deepest condolences. We urge them to be strong, to hold on, that help is coming, a little more every day. We pray that anarchy will not fill their despairing hearts. We pray that there is hope and healing awaiting them, awaiting all of us.

Ken y’hi ratzon: May this be Your will.

Amen.

Shabbat Shalom

rebhayim

Jewish Women and Their Struggle to Worship in Israel

2010-01-08T17:28:00.000-05:00

We teach our children not to take things for granted, and to be thankful for that which they receive. Gratitude is a disappearing virtue, and our culture is at risk because of that. Forgetting to give thanks makes us self-centered and unappreciative like the builders of the Tower of Babel who didn’t wince when a worker fell from high atop the scaffolding but who moaned whenever a brick was dropped or broken.

We take for granted all kinds of things: that the United States is a democratic nation, that we are guaranteed religious freedom and equality, and that we have freedom of speech. And when such things become an intrinsic part of everyday life, when they are fundamental truths for us, it feels like a blessing. It’s a blessing that we don’t have to make a big deal about such things every day. I’m not suggesting that we ignore how precious these freedoms are or the sacrifice that has always been necessary to attain and maintain them: it’s just nice to acknowledge that we are lucky to have so much.

Here’s another thing that we can blessedly take for granted: Women have been increasingly involved in Reform Jewish leadership and scholarship over the past 25 years, to the point that our daughters take for granted that they can become rabbis, Jewish scholars, temple presidents, and so forth. Or as one little girl said to her Mom while visiting here for a bat mitzvah from another temple, “I didn’t know that boys could be rabbis, too.”

This blessing of freedom that Jewish women have to daven where and how they want is sadly not taken for granted in Israel, because such a freedom does not exist for them. Earlier this week, Anat Hoffman, director of the Israel Religious Action Center (the public and legal advocacy arm of the Reform Movement in Israel), said that police interrogated her for more than an hour on January 5 about her activities during Women of the Wall’s last monthly service in December. Women of the Wall, or in its more familiar abbreviation, WOW, is a group of mostly religiously observant women who believe that women should be allowed to pray as a group at the Western Wall, read from the Torah and wear a tallit. Currently, Israeli law does not permit women to perform these acts at the Wall, and those who do so anyway are subject to a fine and up to six months in jail. Once a month on Rosh Hodesh, WOW members come together to form a minyan and pray at the Wall. They complete their service in front of the Wall and then move to a nearby archaeological area in order to read from the Torah and there conclude the service.
In the Forward, it says that “Women of the Wall claim to have accommodated themselves to the ruling; instead of donning the black-and-white tallit, traditional for men, they each wear a smaller, multi-colored shawl like a scarf around the neck and under a coat, so as not to offend the strict sensibilities of other men and women at the Wall.”

Hoffman told the Forward that she did nothing differently that day than she had for the 21 years of her group’s existence. But this interrogation followed a recent service at which a Jewish woman was arrested for wearing a tallit. For the record, there is nothing religiously heretical about a woman wearing a tallit. The Ultra-Orthodox say that they oppose women wearing talleisim because a tallit is man’s clothing (cross dressing is forbidden – except on Purim). The Ultra-Orthodox really hate it because it indicates an egalitarian attitude about God and prayer, and for them, it’s all about the patriarchal system.

Anat Hoffman, who was to be our guest in November but had to cancel because of serious throat problems, said about the arrest: "He took me into the next room, dipped my hand in ink, and took my fingerprints. Not a happy day," said Hoffman. "When he asked me if I have anything to add, I said: 'I am sorry for you, for me, and for Israel, where this issue is investigated.'"

The divide between religious and secular in Israel keeps widening, and situations like this one keep making it worse. It reminds me to make mention of this struggle, because while Reform Jewish women have rights here in the US, when they travel to Israel, they – our daughters, wives, sisters and mothers – do not. We can’t afford to take this one for granted.

Shabbat Shalom

rebhayim

So How was Israel?

2010-01-04T08:35:00.001-05:00

check out tbainisrael.wordpress.com

the short answer is, "It was inspiring, memorable, and lots of fun."

Israel! COunting Down

2009-12-19T09:12:00.001-05:00

I've been to Israel a lot – over a dozen visits by my count. Specifically, this is my third time leading a Beth Avodah Israel tour. You might think after all those visits that I’d be, well, if not jaded, at least matter of fact about this upcoming tour. After all, there are a certain number of sites in Israel, and I’ve been to them! I’ve put a prayer in the Wall, floated in the Dead Sea, haggled in the Old City, eaten hummus at Abu Shukri’s, hiked up Masada, and so on.

The truth is, I am utterly psyched! I can’t wait to go back. Let me give you the top ten reasons a la David Letterman, that I’m raring to go

#10. The Weather. It may be rainy in Jerusalem. It might get windy in Tel Aviv. It may be chilly up North. But it won’t be cold like home!

#9. The Music. I am a big fan of new Israeli jazz, world music, and street music. Going to one of the big cd stores and asking what’s new always gets me great new avenues for listening.

#8. Breakfast. Breakfast is my favorite meal. Well along with lunch and dinner… And there’s nothing short of a cruise ship to compare to Israeli hotel breakfasts. Vast stretches of cheeses and yogurts and olives and herring and Israeli salad and all sorts of baked items not to mention eggs to order, etc. (no bacon…).

#7. Changes. As David Bowie reminds us all, “Turn and face the strange.” Israel is a young nation and still morphing in front of our eyes. From visit to visit one can connect certain dots while other dots fall off the page. Strange indeed. In an ancient landscape nothing seems to stay still.

#6. Speaking Hebrew. I love speaking Hebrew. Simple as that.

#5. Looking for the new Thing. There’s always new stuff opening in Israel, and I want to see it. Museums, restaurants, culture centers. It’s fresh and very hip.

#4. The Full Array of Jewish Faces. It is thrilling to be standing in any one spot in any part of Israel and to just look at the crowds. African faces, Scandinavian faces, European faces, Asian faces, Hispanic faces, Indian faces: all Yiddische punim: Jewish faces. It blows my mind every time.

#3. Yad Vashem. It’s a pilgrimage that feels necessary. It’s a rite of passage required when visiting Israel. It’s not that the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC isn’t important, essential, even. But Yad Vashem feels less a museum and more holy ground. Because it’s in Israel? Maybe.

#2. Being the Shepherd. As I accompany members of Beth Avodah visiting Israel for the first time, I see how the experience touches their hearts. I watch it change their sense of being Jewish – I can see it in their eyes: their amazement, their delight, their awe. What a privilege for me to be the shepherd.

#1. The top reason I am thrilled to be going back to Israel? I love Israel. I love the people, the feel, the language, the rhythm, the edge, the sense of home. And I will feel that way every time I go; of this I have no question.

So if you’ve never gone, start saving up for the 2011 trip – we are so there. But before I get ahead of myself: we’re leaving on Tuesday the 22nd and will return on December 31st. To find out what’s happening, go to TBAinisrael.wordpress.com . I’ll be blogging, hopefully every day.

Happy last night of Hanukkah, and stay warm.

Shabbat Shalom

I’ll miss you!

rebhayim

How a keriyah ribbon tears

2009-11-13T17:45:00.000-05:00

It’s Jewish tradition to wear a keriyah ribbon if one is an immediate relative of the deceased: a spouse, sibling, parent, or child. It’s torn by the rabbi just before the funeral begins and worn every day for a week with the exception of Shabbat, when it is removed. The torn ribbon represents so many things: it is a sign of loss worn by the mourner so that the community will respond to that person appropriately. It is also symbolic: the torn ribbon is emblematic of a broken, torn heart.

The ribbon is not a holy object. It has no unique sacred standing. Yet because it symbolizes so much that is so deep about life and death and honoring the dead, this little black ribbon contains a kind of power and meaning.

So here’s the conundrum. I took off the ribbon at the prescribed period: the end of my seventh day of mourning, the end of shivah. What do I do with the keriyah ribbon now? Do I throw it away? Put it in a scrapbook?

I distinctly remember that, in my grandmother’s house, we would drink from old yahrzeit candle holders, thick glass jars perfect for cookies and milk. The idea that we drank from Yahrzeit glasses seems so sweet and meaningful. Solemnly remembering the dead with a candle continued into the realm of feeding and nurturing others. What a Jewish thing to do…

Right now the keriyah ribbon that I put on at my mom’s funeral is in my car cup holder. I look at it every time I get in the car, and I think, “What am I supposed to do with you?” And I suppose because I’m talking to a keriyah button I am reluctant to just get rid of it. This black ribbon clearly means something still, even at the bottom of a slightly dusty coffee stained cup holder.

So I think I’ll let it stay in the car for the time being. I have a feeling that my questions to the ribbon will change. Because frankly the issue here has nothing to do with my keriyah ribbon. It’s all about my mother. And the question (s) is (are), “What am I supposed to do with you, Mom? What zone of my brain contains you? How do I define myself as an adult orphan? What am I supposed to do with myself?”

Such questions give me existential angst. But there you have it: the task of the mourner is to put things back together again that have been blown apart by loss. I’m still picking up the pieces, one of which is a used keriyah ribbon.

After My Mom's Death

2009-11-07T01:21:00.000-05:00

What an odyssey it is to mourn the loss of my mother. There are so many dramatic moments, milestones of a sort, along the route. From her sudden stroke on a Friday to her death, days later on a Monday morning. From the funeral in Middletown and then back to Newton for minyanim and sitting shivah. From the day before her death when as her health care proxy I gave permission to her doctors to refrain from heroic measures to the morning of her death as I drove back to Middletown, again.

My head spins, filled with so many feelings and thoughts, as I walk along this arduous road of grief. I say “walk” very deliberately, because there is no running here. The gravitational pull of mourning is profound. The first few days of shivah felt like life in slow motion, when just to get up and walk down the steps to another room in which to sit took a kind of strength and effort that left me exhausted, spent, emptied out. Even now, days after shivah, I am still just a bit wobbly, prone to pondering the past and the future.

I think about how with the death of my mother, “home” is no longer in Middletown, where I was raised. The house of my childhood is soon to be sold to someone else. With that transfer of property money is earned to pay for my stepfather’s assisted living. But of course something is lost, too. My house in Newton becomes something much more significant. It is truly my one and only home. When I drive to Middletown to visit my son and who knows hopefully another child in college there, I’ll have to stay at a hotel. A hotel! In Middletown!!

I think about how lovely it was to have the funeral for my mother in the synagogue of my youth. Adath Israel was where I learned Hebrew, where I became a Bar Mitzvah, where I went to services. We sat in the social hall, the same social hall from which we said goodbye to my father and my brother. I looked at the faces of those who attended. So many older faces, men and women who I knew as I grew up in this small Jewish community. The mah jong players, the bridge players, the poker players, the shul goers, the circle of friends – so many familiar faces, and so much comfort looking at them and remembering.

And of course the younger faces I saw, mostly folks who drove to Middletown from Beth Avodah to honor my Mom and to bless me and my family with their presence. Those younger faces, my TBA family, helped me to keep my balance the day of the funeral. Even with the end of a huge chapter in my life, the beginning of orphanhood, the end of a home, I looked at my TBA family and knew I would be returning to something vital and alive.

Acknowledging death – and life – can be awful: awfully sad in its casket and endings and loss. Awfully beautiful in its gathering of deep appreciation and love. Awfully simple in its conclusion. Awfully complex in its aftermath.

When people ask me how I am, I say I’m getting stronger every day. I say I am lucky to be loved by family with a fierce and loyal love that holds me up so that I know I will not fall. I say I am the luckiest rabbi – the luckiest man! – to be loved and supported by a deeply empathic, caring congregation. Every letter, email, nod, wave, thumb’s up, shivah meal touched my soul, boosted my morale. You hugged me so many times, and with each hug revived me just a little bit more, with a kind of Jewish Heimlich maneuver. I will never ever forget the love and kindness showered on me and mine by you.

I am in motion, transforming, evolving. I’m still sad, of course, but grateful, so very grateful. My children were the pallbearers at the conclusion of the funeral and actually carried the casket to the hearse. I looked at them carrying my mother to her final resting place and I counted my blessings: 5 X infinity.

A Blessing for Teachers

2009-10-24T01:11:00.000-04:00

This week I had a rare and wonderful opportunity: I was a student in a master teacher’s classroom. Nehemiah Polen is an extraordinary man. He is a brilliant man with a capacious mind, quoting one minute from the Zohar and the next from Barbara Tuchman to Torah and then to a 19th century theology manual. And all the while he is empathic, sensitive, and intuitive to his students: in this case a bunch of rabbis, many of us older seasoned rabbis.
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This 4 session seminar, held at Hebrew College here in Newton, is all about the centrality of blessing in various ancient to modern Jewish texts. The material and the subject are all fascinating, but the truth is, Professor Polen could’ve been teaching electrical engineering and I think I would have been happy. Because, more than the subject, a good teacher teaches him/herself, gives from the heart, believes in his/her words as having power and direction and dimensionality.

It was nice to leave the teaching to someone else, to get a feel for being a sponge and not a sponge filler (or squeezer for that matter…). In fact, I luxuriated in the classroom encounter that morning because it reminded me just how powerful a good teacher can be. I eagerly sopped up Professor Polen’s nourishing brew of Torah – Torah in its broadest sense.

A good teacher is a magician, a shaman, a miracle worker, a person on a sacred mission. While Professor Polen’s lesson was about blessing, the larger lesson was about becoming sacred. I’m not sure how and why it is, but some people are born teachers and others are not.

The encounter in a classroom between teacher and student is a sacred moment, laden with excitement and potential. When the words one speaks to the other raise consciousness; when the exposition of a subject, any subject, brings something utterly brand new into the mind of the other, then that act is just like the Holy One, who also creates with words (“And God said: “Let there be…. And then there was"…).

Maybe that’s the whole point of the Genesis text telling us that we were created in God’s image. We can create just like God does. Maybe we can’t speak a mountain into being, but there are those who can describe a mountain so well so as to create the image that remains in the brain forever.

Fresh from my class, I thought it proper to bless my teacher, and all the teachers I have ever had who honored their work by recognizing its sacred dimensions, no matter the subject. I hope by mentioning the few that all of my sacred teachers will be included in this blessing.

So to Mrs Marshall my 4th and 6th grade elementary school teacher, to Mr Kleiman who taught me how to read Hebrew, to Michael Berenbaum who taught me the expansiveness of Judaism, to Jeremy Zwelling who taught me how to really read, to Mrs Clew who taught me 7th grade geography, to Jason and Donna Rosenberg who taught me about generosity, to my wife who taught me – teaches me – about love, and to Nehemiah Polen, who taught me that blessing is about acknowledging the other.

What Remains

2009-10-17T00:38:00.001-04:00

I looked out the window early this morning. So gray and wintry, a day without mercy and it wasn’t even 730 yet. But the message to move on and tackle the day overcame, if just barely, the preferred act: to climb back into bed, pull the down comforter over my head and wait until the sun came out.

I was drawn back to my bedroom window that overlooks the street. I peered into my new next door neighbor’s yard. I don’t know the new neighbors because they haven’t moved in yet. But they are having extensive work done to their home and so I have watched a prodigious number of trucks pull up, disgorging any number of plumbers, electricians, painters, and other tradesmen, speaking Portuguese, or singing with thick Irish accents, or cursing in Russian and other Slavic languages… I’ve invited them over to my home, suggesting that if they're bored of that house that I have some really hard core repairs for them. They laugh and for some reason don’t take me up on my offer.

As I surveyed the neighbor’s yard I suddenly noticed that landscapers had been there. All the flowers and bushes the previous owners had planted were gone. I was taken up short by that realization. It’s true that the previous tenants were not great gardeners. The plants were pretty pedestrian and underwhelming. But to see that familiar front yard completely changed, emptied of every bush and perennial, was sad to me.

When we’re gone, we want to leave something behind that says, a la WWII, “Kilroy was here.” It’s a kind of graffiti, a tagging that lets others know that we remain, even when, well, even when we don’t. Those bushes and flowers were planted and tended by the people who lived in that house. To rake it all away seems so extreme. “Don’t you know?”, I wanted to say to the landscapers on the phone, “Don’t you know that somebody cared about those rose bushes? The irises? The other stuff?”

Of course I didn’t call. Because it’s none of my business. But more existentially, I have to acknowledge that while we truly want to leave something behind after we’re gone, it’s not up to anyone to accede to this rather sad self-centered wish for some kind of immortality. The landscapers are always out there, always raking away the old stuff and planting the new. God forbid we charge our kids with the obligation to live their lives the way we want them to live after we’re gone as some sort of eternal paean to our best efforts which, let’s face it, are not always so great.

No, if we do things with the expectation that they will outlast us as a sign that we were here, then all we’re left with are looted pyramids and straggly gardens filled with weeds. We plant the flowers we love right now and enjoy them for as long as they live. We are uplifted by our history, and by the promise of the future and the trajectory of our progeny. This world, this moment is all that we have. What is or isn’t there when we are not is the stuff of poetry, not cold October mornings.

Not Tommy Hilfiger Again!!??

2009-10-10T00:27:00.001-04:00

Did You Hear That… And Other Email Hoaxes

My email is a constant stream of stuff. Lots and lots of stuff. I get tons of ads from various stores I’ve shopped in over the years. I get news updates from any number of sources including the New York Times, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, US News and World Report, CNET, and others. Happily I receive only occasional spam. And of course, I get lots of personal emails: from congregants, from friends, from colleagues, from other Jewish institutions, etc.

In the virtual Internet universe, it is inevitable that all of us eventually end up on a friend’s or a friend of a friend’s email list. It comes in with a generally innocuous heading. The message they’re sending is predictably anything from cute animal pictures to puns to inspirational sayings. Now I want to go on record saying that I understand how these long mail lists with gobs and gobs of names in the To: space under my name that I don’t generally recognize are sent by well meaning men and women who love cute animal pictures or puns or inspirational sayings. They want to share the fun. And then others share the fun with their lists until finally thousands of folks are commenting on how cute the little kitty was or how funny that joke was.

I get that there is nothing malicious about the email lists that come to me. So I don’t want a round of emails saying that the rabbi hates getting emails. No I have no problem with that. The problem out there in the virtual world is when well meaning people get emails from a friend of a friend with startling news, warnings about not eating baby carrots because they’re processed in chlorine, or that Lady Gaga is a man, or that the White House is banning Christmas ornaments for the national tree, etc.

None of those statements are true. Yet hundreds, thousand of folks take as gospel. I got an email yesterday, a “rerun” of an old, scurrilous hoax stating how Tommy Hilfiger, the designer, stated on Oprah that had he known blacks and Asians would wear his clothes he never would have designed them. The email suggests that we should all boycott Tommy Hilfiger clothing products. No one knows who started this rumor – it could have been a competitor in the industry, or just a hacker looking to make some trouble. The point is, 7 years after it was pointed out as the lie that it is, someone’s circulating it again.

We have to be so careful with our words, so cautious when we find ourselves passing off information as certain and accurate, when we don’t really know it’s the truth at all. I don’t know Tommy Hilfiger, but I’ve read interviews with him about this falsehood. He says that it’s an attack on his integrity and that there’s nothing he can do about it, but that it breaks his heart. Our tradition teaches that when we gossip, we hurt ourselves, the person we’re gossiping about, and the person with whom we’re sharing the gossip. Imagine what kind of collateral damage is done with an email hoax!

My aitzah, my rabbinic advice is that before forwarding some amazing fact or exposé, check it out on www.snopes.com, a reliable hoaxbusting website. At the very least, look in the New York Times or the Globe for some mention of the story. Hold back until acquiring independent verification. At the beginning of this new year, it’s wise to recalibrate what we say out there in the real world and, for that matter in the virtual world. Those words we say represent us, so let us select carefully so that our words bring no harm to another.

Sukkot thoughts

2009-10-04T00:47:00.000-04:00

The day after Yom Kippur I stay in bed later than usual. I feel drained and slightly fatigued. I am exultant: we made it to the other side, to the day after Yom Kippur. On the other hand, I am a bit post partum. All that work and the recitation and the practices and cue sheets and rewrites and rehearsals and torah rolling and so on – and now it’s over.

So with sore feet and a bellyful of ambivalence I get up to greet the morning, filled with the promise of a clean slate (well as clean as a middle-aged man’s slate can be…) and with a pang of sadness. I down a huge cup of coffee (Rabbi’s Blend, of course), then make my way to the garage where the sukkah awaits me. With the familiarity of a veteran machinist on a GM assembly line, I pull out the pipes first, followed by the pipe joints, the tarp, the wood lattice, the box of elastic bungees, and the slats. I then methodically arrange the pipe joints, connect the pipes to them, grab my ladder and put up my sukkah.

I love this sacred chore. It forces me outside and into the sun rather than nodding off in the house. It gives me the kavod, the honor, of making something that has had enormous meaning to the Jewish people over perhaps at least 3 thousand years. In fulfilling this mitzvah of building a sukkah, I am following in the footsteps of my forefathers. My construction materials are different, but the object of the activity remains the same, and so resonates through history long past where the eye can see…

As I put up this sukkah by myself for my children and my wife and our guests and relatives, it gives me a deep feeling of accomplishment. It’s a primordial experience; it’s how men have always provided for their families. This primal male satisfaction in building is so important, especially for Jewish men who are often characterized as utterly inept with tools. While I’m sure some men did not learn how to use basic tools or to perform simple tasks like fixing mechanical things, a whole lot of us have these skills. And so I suppose I do feel a bit smug as I survey my work with hands on hips, proving to those judgmental women and men who joke about the competency of Jewish men that in fact, yes we can! The Jewish male psyche has taken more of a beating than anyone can imagine.

Here I am, done with the insular Days of Awe. I’m ready now for the wide open celebration of Sukkot. Looking out at my sukkah, I feel such a sense of achievement and meaning.

One of my non-Jewish neighbors came over as I stood before my completed project. I’m not even embarrassed that I probably had that gloating, prideful look made (in)famous by Mussolini. “Every year when you build your booth”, she said, “I know that the Fall is here”. And so it is. Go sit in a sukkah. It’s good for you.

Yom Kippur Sermon: the Blessing of the Second Chance

2009-10-01T18:01:00.003-04:00

Thank God for the blessing of the second chance. Without it, I would not be here today. My first year of rabbinic school, I took my Talmud final exam. It was a hard exam. Really hard. But I assumed that I passed -- not by a lot, but by enough. Why not? I was not an advanced student of the Talmud, but I certainly was no slouch. At least I thought I wasn’t a slouch. However my dear friends, I was quickly disabused of this confident self evaluation of my scholarship when I got to my little mailbox at school the next day and read the memo inside of it. Mr. Stern, it read, you have failed your Talmud final. And then those 2 terrifying words that chill the blood of every student who’s ever lived: “See me”.

Flunking Talmud is not the same as flunking 4th grade penmanship, the only other course I’d ever flunked. I was panicked -- what was I going to do? I felt certain that the Talmud professor, notoriously difficult and contentious, would show no mercy. I mean, we’d make jokes about his gruff manner, his tendency to bully weak students. Well, guess who the weak student was?

I pondered what I could say to persuade the professor to let me retake the test. Upon subtle desperate investigation, every one of my peers had passed. They studied, and they took the test, and they passed. And I didn’t. Why did I deserve to take it again? I had no good answer. I just couldn’t bear failing like this, letting people down. I would be forced to retake the course, not continue with my class, and, in general, experience public humiliation on a grand scale.

I felt so bad, and so lost. I held back my tears and decided to leave school early and go home. After all, what difference did it make? I had failed Talmud. I rounded the corner of the hall toward the main entrance to make my getaway. And there stood my Talmud professor schmoozing with my modern Hebrew Lit teacher. At least I was good in Hebrew lit class; but hey, maybe I had flunked that final, too.

I wanted to run the other way, but I did not. Truthfully I didn’t know where to run. “Mr. Stern,” he said, giving me the come hither signal with his index finger. “In the second Mishnah of masechet Rosh Hashanah, what are the four new years in the correct sequence?” I answered that “On the first day of Nisan is the new year of kings. On the first day of Elul is the new year of animals. On the first day of Tishrei is the new year of the world. And on the first day of Shevat, according to Shammai is the new year of the trees, but according to Hillel it’s the fifteenth of Shevat.” “So why didn’t you write all that on the exam?” “Frankly, Professor, I don’t remember what I wrote.” “Oy, a cholerya!”, he said, grabbing his skull as if he’d just been stricken with a massive migraine. “Go home Stern!” I stood there, not exactly sure what to do. “Go home! You passed… Gevalt…” At which point he pivoted and walked away, while my lit professor, walking off with him, shouted, “Go home before he changes his mind.”

Thank God for the blessing of the second chance. Because we’re human, we desperately need second chances. Because we’re flawed, because we have a dark side and we have done or not done things, said things or left things unsaid, acted out in crazy, self-defeating, self-destructive ways, or remained silent and passive when action was called for. We’ve hurt people, let them down. We’ve blown it. And not just once. We’ve been lost, down on our luck. We’ve stared into the darkness, unable to sleep, wondering what might happen next. And if we were really lucky, someone gave us a second chance. Thank God for the blessing of the second chance, because we all need second chances.

Submitted for your approval, the case of Michael Vick. If you know football, you know about Michael Vick. And chances are, if you love dogs, you know about Michael Vick. So for the 15 of you who fit neither category, let me clue you in.

Imagine an African American child borne 29 years ago to a 16-year-old unwed mom, raised in a God forsaken hellhole nicknamed the Bad News projects in Newport News, VA. The place is filthy, dangerous, drug ridden, as horrible a home in which any child could be stuck. But Michael Vick has something special: he is blessed with extraordinary athletic abilities, superb gifts that would and could free him from the Bad Newz projects and make him a superstar. He was borne to be the quarterback. In high school he once ran for six touchdowns and threw for three touchdowns in a single game.

From 2001 to 2006, Michael Vick was the man. As a quarterback for the Atlantic Falcons, he showed extraordinary skill, dexterity, and smarts on the field. He broke record after record. Michael Vick arguably became the best quarterback to ever play football.
His contract, the highest ever in football, paid him $130 million for 7 years. Additionally, Vick picked up very lucrative endorsements from Coca Cola and Nike and EA Sports, and Air Tran… well, the list goes on and on. At the absolute apex of his fame, Vick earned $25 million dollars a year, more money than any other sports star, second only to Dale Earnhardt, Jr, the reigning NASCAR king.

As Michael Vick’s talents shined ever more brightly on the field, off the field he showed stupendously bad judgment with investments and so-called advisors. He had a leeching, lawless posse of so-called friends and family, and a remarkable inability to handle all the money he made. Vick became the subject par excellence of the classic cautionary tale about the ghetto kid who strikes it rich but deep down remains the desperately poor child with no sense of the world as anything other than a hostile place to hustle. Michael Vick was strong, photogenic, unbelievably talented, and simultaneously, an inept, arrogant gangsta.

Vick’s house of cards came crashing down when it was discovered that he had been bankrolling a dogfighting ring on his 15-acre property in rural Virginia. He admitted providing money for bets on the fights but said he never shared in any winnings.
Gruesome details about the dogfighting enterprise went public. When it came out that he personally helped kill 6 dogs that he and three other partners in crime deemed to be losers, that he actively bet on the dogs, that he crossed state lines with dogs for dogfighting, the other shoe dropped: Michael Vick was arrested. He went from being one of the great American athletes to one of the most despicable, hated men in the USA.

Vick did not end up in a country club prison. He did 2 years in Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary; that’s hard time. He went bankrupt and lost everything: money, homes, cars, everything. He still owes various businesses and lawyers and banks millions of dollars. And most significantly, he lost his job and his reputation. Michael Vick was an utterly discredited failure and disgrace.

When Michael Vick got out of prison, he spoke up in public, expressing deep remorse for his behavior. He acknowledged the heinous nature of his crimes. He wrote, “Sitting in a prison cell didn't make me feel remorse. It was meeting so many animal lovers, speaking with them and looking them in their eyes. Staring at them. Looking so deep into their eyes that I began to feel their pain. Allowing that pain to enter into my body is when I started to understand how bad it really was… My whole life I was disconnected from the suffering of animals. And you might say, "Come on Mike, how could you do those things to those dogs?" And you're right...I ask myself those questions every day. What kind of person does this? How does a human-being treat dogs or any animal with such pain and cruelty? And the hard part for me is the answer to these questions. Because the answer is ME. And I am trying so hard right now to become a better person, because who I was, I am ashamed of.”

The talk of the sports world after Vick was released from prison revolved around one very simple question. Does Michael Vick deserve a second chance?

We get -- or don’t get -- second chances from so many different sources. From those closest to us: our spouses and our children, our siblings and our parents. From associates and colleagues and peers and bankers and police officers and meter readers and judges and coaches and ticket takers and flight attendants.

No one can deny it. At different points in our lives, some critical, some quotidian, someone gave us another shot; someone changed the order and flow of things to let us try it again.

Michael Vick certainly paid his dues, going to prison, setting up a trust fund for the remaining dogs he owned, expressing remorse, speaking publicly about the evils of dogfighting. But does Vick deserve a second chance? What would his teammates say? How would they feel to have a convicted felon on the team? How would the home town of any football team react to Vick wearing the colors of their beloved team?

Who determines whether someone deserves a second chance? In Vick’s case, it was Andy Reid, the head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles. Why did Reid urge the owner and the general manager of the Eagles to take a chance on Vick? Because Reid had rachmones; he had a heart full of empathy. Andy Reid understands what a second chance can mean. Both of his sons have been in trouble with the law for a number of incidents involving illegal firearms and drug related offenses. Both of his sons have done prison time. Reid said, "With the situation my boys went through, they were right around the same time [as Vick’s legal crisis].”
With great frankness Reid said he wasn't sure if he could have given Vick a second chance if his own sons hadn't messed up with drugs. But once you’ve walked in Reid’s shoes, the world is longer the same. Everything looks different. Everything IS different.

Michael Vick played ball before services today. Some fans booed. Some cheered. Most were happy that their team won. The current quarterback of the Eagles, Donovan McNabb said Vick deserved a second chance. And the rest of the team seemed to be in agreement.

Who deserves a second chance? What are the criteria? There’s no rule book that indicates when someone is desperate enough to deserve a second chance, rich enough or poor enough, remorseful enough, pathetic enough, vulnerable enough.

Of course, there really aren’t any criteria at all. As you think about the past year and your good deeds and your sins, the way you’ve treated family and friends and the strangers in your midst, do you deserve a second chance? Can you, with a clear conscience, say without hesitation that you deserve a second chance?

The truth is that whether or not you believe that you are deserving of a second chance is irrelevant. It’s all in the hands and the hearts of those around us to grant us a second chance. It’s all about God’s grace and the openheartedness of the people in our lives.

Andy Reid, the coach of the Philadelphia Eagles did give Michael Vick a second chance. Reid, a father who has watched his own flesh and blood make stupid mistakes, break the law, go to prison, become drug addicts. He has watched his sons fall so far and so hard. Reid has experienced enormous pain and continues to carry it on his shoulders. He and his wife have been ridiculed as terrible parents, blamed for their sons’ behavior. Not a day goes by when Andy Reid doesn’t say to himself, what could I have done differently.

Such pain and sorrow and guilt could have made Reid brittle and angry, distrustful and pitiless and no one would blame him for that. But Reid remembers so well what it meant when someone--anyone -- looked at his boys as anything other than losers. So he has taken a chance, and given Michael Vick a second chance. Rather than turn his back, he has opened his heart. Because he’s willing to put his faith to the test, to believe in this fallen football player, because he knows that a second chance is a blessing.

Reid thinks Vick is ready. He said last week, “It's up to Michael to prove that change has taken place. I think he's there. That's what he wants to do. He knows everybody won't have that trust in him or belief in him. I think he'll prove that to people." From his mouth to God’s ears.

Giving someone a second chance can be risky business. We’ve all been burned, taken advantage of by people who were weak or unscrupulous, people who let us down, betrayed our trust. It’s likely that most if not all of us have given someone or someones several second chances. And sometimes we regret our openheartedness.
Here we are, on Kol Nidre, considering how we’ve done over this past year. We have made bad mistakes, errors in judgment, selfish, ignorant, self indulgent choices. We have messed up our relationships with the most important people in our lives. We have done stupid things. The truth is that there have been times when we did not feel deserving of a second chance. But someone gave us the gift of a second chance. How can we not open our hearts and pay that blessing forward? Isn’t that why we’re here?

I do not know why my Talmud professor gave me the gift of a second chance. I don’t know what I did or did not do to gain his rachmones, his mercy. And in a way it doesn't really matter. The story isn't about me: it’s about him and his decision to open his heart. I have never forgotten his gift and I am grateful for that second chance. I am grateful for every second chance I have ever received.
Dear God, on this Day of Atonement, we all need second chances. Provide us the strength and the wisdom and the open heart to give the blessing of the second chance. As we are healed, so may we heal.

Rosh Hashanah sermon 5770

2009-09-29T00:54:00.001-04:00

I had my first theological crisis on my grandparents’ front porch in Pittsburgh, PA, in Squirrel Hill to be exact. I was 4 years old, rolling a big red fire truck along the poured cement porch floor. I played alone, making suitable siren noises wearing an oversized plastic fireman’s helmet. I wasn’t paying close attention to the porch topography – hey, I had fires to put out – and so I tripped over an electric cord. I fell hard, skinning one of my knees. I wailed loudly, because it hurt and because I was four and because I had drawn blood. All of these facts caught the attention of my cousin, Ilene, who was 8 years older than me. She walked onto the porch and looked at me sprawled on the floor. “You know why you fell?” she asked. She wasn’t asking me some standard sort of question. No, her question had an existential ring to it, not that I knew then what the word meant. But I did realize that I was about to receive a life teaching from my big cousin, Ilene, who knew everything as far as I could tell. “How come I fell down, Cousin Ilene?” “It’s God punishing you for something you did, that’s why. You must have been a bad boy.”
I remember sitting there on the floor of the patio, sniffling, rubbing my sore knee, trying to digest this lesson about God that I had just been taught. I fell down and got hurt because I did something wrong and was getting punished by God. So that means that God thinks I’m a bad boy.
But even at age 4, something in all of this simple made no sense to me. Why would God hurt me? I mean, how bad could a 4 year old be? Especially one who was already terrified of an avenging father? Now I actually recall obsessing over this question for what seemed like hours, which in the life of a four year old may as well be a month.
Later that same day, on that same porch, now filled with various grown ups who were chowing down on deli, I decided to further explore this question. As I rubbed my now bandaged knee, I pondered this conundrum. Was there a connection between my behavior and my physical well-being? Does God watch everything I do, and reward or punish me based on my behavior? Do I deserve to be injured by God? Have I behaved so egregiously as to have it coming?
Perhaps because already at age four I had been physically punished by adults for things I could not prevent or that I flat out knew I didn't do, I had developed a skepticism about the correctness of punishment altogether. I did not deserve to be brutalized by God—or by anyone else. So I asked, “Mommy, is God everywhere?” She looked up at me from amongst the piles of deli meat and Dr. Brown’s sodas, slightly surprised. “Umm, Yes, God is everywhere.” “Is God in the sky?” “Yes, honey, God is in the sky.” “Is God in the floor?” “Honey, God is everywhere, in everything.”
Whereupon I started slapping the cement porch floor. “What are you doing?” various adults exclaimed. It made sense to me; “I’m mad at God for hurting me. I hate God.” The psychological ramifications aside, I was facing my first crisis of faith. And all the adults did was laugh at my childish irreverence. “Don’t say that”, they said, not realizing how deep this moment was for a little boy who was frightened of his father and determined not to be afraid of God, too.
What kind of God causes pain in innocent children? What kind of God allows for the profoundly heartbreaking reality that we can glance 24/7 in every newspaper, website, or tv news show? Who is this God? How can anyone love this God? How can anyone hope to attain even crumbs of compassion from this God with the metaphysical demeanor of the Ayatollah Khomeini: cold, pitiless, unsmiling… Who can really believe in this God?
The answer is, not too many us. No, this wizened, desiccated version of God has about as much relevance to us today as a reel to reel tape: a legitimate historical relic, an honest recording, but unplayable on our contemporary equipment. Or to put it another way, this 2 dimensional sense of God does not compute.
This is the God that made some sense to our ancestors, a God so powerful and strong that He could destroy the most powerful enemy without hesitation, without remorse. For a people struggling to define itself amongst the pagan universe, a muscular and judgmental God was necessary. But now?
The God I confronted on my grandparents’ porch so long ago was the God of my disbelief, the God I could not believe in.
Who is the God that you don’t believe in? As Clark Strand asks in the opening of his fabulous book, How To Believe in God: “Is it the God who separates the saved from the damned, reserving bliss for the blessed, and brimstone for the nonbeliever? Or perhaps the narrow-minded God who resists new ways of thinking, the God who will brook no question and no discourse, the one who prefers the way the world was before feminism or civil rights, before the discovery of evolution and quantum physics?”
Who is the God you don’t believe in? It’s actually an easy question, isn’t it? You could easily whip up a detailed description. But now let me ask you the corollary question: who is the God you DO believe in?
Every year I am inevitably approached by a few loving parents with a look of panic in their eyes. I can usually tell by the level of panic they’re radiating that they have a “God question.” It’s not their question; it’s their child’s question, and they really want to give the right answer, and they feel utterly clueless on how to handle it. “My child asked me who made God?” or, “My kid’s goldfish died and wants to know if fish go to Heaven; and then she wanted to know if there IS a Heaven? So Rabbi, is there?”

These bright, thoughtful parents are seeking to give their progeny a path to God, some sort of cogent direction. And they’re honest enough to come to their rabbi as a God expert, because they simply don’t regularly have God on their minds. They don’t know how to talk about God. Which is understandable, because, really who wants to talk about God?

Recent books by Christopher Hitchens (God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything), Sam Harris (The End of Faith), and Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion), among others, claim that belief in God is nothing other than superstition, cynical thirst for power, willful ignorance, and atavistic, unevolved behavior. Then add to this the recent movie by Bill Maher, titled “Religulous,” a cross between the words ‘religion’, and ‘ridiculous.’ In this film, Maher claims that he doesn’t know enough about God, that he just wants to interview people in hopes of getting some real answers about God. But as anyone who has heard his shtick can tell you, Mahre already made up his mind long before the first interview: there is no God, and anyone who says that there is a God is a buffoon. This is meant to be a laugh a minute. Mahre tracks down whacky, colorful extremists of various religions, asks them a variety of questions, and then smirks as they answer, with an occasional nudge nudge wink wink at the camera. At no point during the film does Mahre talk to a contemporary person of religion about God or faith. At no point does Mahre seek reasonable discourse about God. Religulous is less a documentary and more like Borat. Bill Mahre sets out to prove that religion is absolutely ridiculous and God is a joke.

The young Jewish musician Regina Spektor, while in her teens, came to this country from Russia 10 or 12 years ago. She has written a provocative song about God.

God can be funny,
When told he’ll give you money if you just pray the right way
And when presented like a genie who does magic like Houdini
Or grants wishes like Jiminy Cricket and Santa Claus
God can be so hilarious: ha ha.

Only Regina Spektor does not leave it there in the zone of oversimplification and cynicism. She reminds us that if we’re honest, we have to acknowledge that sometimes God is not so funny.

No one laughs at God in a hospital
No one laughs at God in a war
No one’s laughing at God
When they’re starving or freezing or so very poor

No one laughs at God
When the doctor calls after some routine tests
No one’s laughing at God
When it’s gotten real late
And their kid’s not back from the party yet

No one laughs at God
When their airplane start to uncontrollably shake
No one’s laughing at God
When they see the one they love, hand in hand with someone else
And they hope that they’re mistaken

No one laughs at God
When the cops knock on their door
And they say we got some bad news, sir
No one’s laughing at God
When there’s a famine or fire or flood
No one laughs at God on the day they realize
That the last sight they’ll ever see is a pair of hateful eyes
No one’s laughing at God when they’re saying their goodbyes

No one’s laughing at God.

Spektor’s song electrified me the first time I heard it because she succinctly captures all of our post modern ambivalence about God. I believe that even in our most alienated, jaded moods, turned off from and by the God of our disbelief, there are times that we instinctively desire to reach out for God. In moments of crisis or loss or fear we’re not quoting Bill Mahre or Christopher Hitchens for strength and support. In the scary, lonely places of our lives, we’re not smirking, we’re not laughing at God.

Only we haven't talked about God with anyone, not even with our partners or our parents or our children or our closest friends. So we feel inadequate. We think that there must be some official answers to the hard questions of life and the hard questions our children might ask.

Because we don’t talk about God, we’re not sure how to talk TO God in a genuine way. We feel bereft. All we have is a slight two dimensional cut out of God that we have long since outgrown. In almost every other aspect of our lives we have improved, we have evolved. Our palates have grown more sophisticated, our eyes more discerning, our ears more astute. But for many of us, our concepts of God are so malnourished and meagre. All too often, what we have is the faded God of our disbelief, the cement floor of a porch.

The Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism, once said, “People stand here weeping. They cry, I am lost and in darkness. All they have to do is move their hands. They’re only in darkness because they are holding their hands over their eyes.”
In the movie, Field of Dreams, Ray Kinsella builds a baseball field right in the middle of his cornfield after he hears a voice that tells him, no, commands, “If you build it, he will come.” In time, the souls of various dead ballplayers begin to appear on the field, and they play ball. Kinsella can see them clearly, as can his wife and daughter. He even plays catch with them. But when his well meaning, materialistic brother-in-law, Mark, arrives to foreclose on Ray’s property, all that Mark can see is wasted farmland. He can’t see the ballplayers. He’s so committed to his vision of the world that he can’t acknowledge that there is something more out there. Mark is holding his own hands in front of his eyes and saying, “I can’t see anything so there can’t be anything out there.” He’s unable to see them because he lacks faith in Ray’s vision. When Mark experiences a traumatic moment, when he’s shaken up, he looks up and suddenly he says, “‘Hey who are all those guys out there?’”
They’re only in darkness because they hold their hands over their eyes.

The iconic Hasidic master, Menachem Mendel Morganstern, the Kotzker Rebbe, was sitting with some of his younger disciples, studying Talmud. One of the students looked up and said, “With all due respect, Rebbe, we study day in and day out. Yet at times I feel a great despair. Rebbe, where is God?”
The Kotzker Rebbe stopped and pondered the student’s question. Now, his answer has been incorrectly translated in most English language texts. Most books say that the Kotzker smiles and says, “God is wherever we let God in.” But this is an incorrect translation. Because this implies that God is not present until we determine. But God is present, always present. Not the big, scary God of our disbelief. Not the avenging God of war. Not the bearded God on a cloud or the punishing God of the cement floor. Not the vending machine God with which we put in a prayer and out pops a wish. Not the Bill Maher God caricature, the punchline God. Not the cold cynic’s God of the unevolved human.
The Kotzker smiles and says, “God is whenever we let God in.” God is there, waiting for us, waiting with love and acceptance and the power to heal the soul, to move forward knowing that we’re not alone.
We don’t have to sit in the dark: move your hands from your eyes. God is right here, right now, whenever you let God in.

9/11

2009-09-12T15:25:00.002-04:00

I felt sad and depressed last night. I knew why with just one glance at the date. It’s all about 9/11. Eight years ago, and I still carry around so many images from that day. The television playing over and over again the same footage: a plane smashing into a tower, smoke and fire, people in shock, the collapse of the towers, the dust, the devastation. I remember that deep sense of helplessness while consoling friends and family over the loss of loved ones, not sure what to say or do. And of course there’s that very real sense that I had, that somehow the world was coming to an end.
Memory works in strange ways. I wish I could remember certain moments in my life, moments that lit up my trajectory into the future yet now seem so far away and vague. And then there are other memories I wish I could wash away, sad and painful memories with a half-life of a hundred years.
Whenever I look up and the clock shows 9:11, it makes an impression. Those numbers have a kind of power that even now after all these years, still leave me breathless. My life changed on that day.
There are occasions when journalists and critics will talk about the post 9/11 world. They tend to be referring to various changes in the aesthetics of art and fiction, a tendency towards darker narratives, edgier art, more subtle nihilism. They also may be referring to increased anger and suspicion, a plethora of conspiracy theories about everything from who really perpetrated 9/11 (the Truthers), to the real truth about the plans for the Denver International Airport and the New World Order.
Today is September 11th. We’ve all gotten older, seen lots of things, experienced lots of events. Our lives move on and there’s relief AND regret in that. Relief because, well because of course the loss of life on that day, accompanied by the loss of a kind of innocence, was so painful that to stay in that grief and fear is too much. Thank God for all the things for which we could still give thanks for on September 12th, 2001. And regret, because sometimes I feel like by letting go and allowing healing to begin, we somehow sacrifice the immediacy of that day and it feels slightly disrespectful, and perhaps disloyal. And so we don’t mourn the rest of our lives; we rebuild. And so we never forget and in quiet moments still can feel the loss and the fear.
This grey 9/11 is the last Shabbat of the year. Time to remember and reflect, time to look ahead with new hope and strength. There’s a great future out there, and our task is to find it, to make it real, as individuals, as a community, as a people.
I’ll certainly never forget 9/11. I think those numbers will always bring me up short, will always have a resonance that gives me pause. It cannot be otherwise. It should not be otherwise.
To all of you I offer a blessing of peace and hope for this coming year. A sweet and healthy new year to you and your loved ones. Within these next days you’ll need to be asking their forgiveness for ways you may have hurt them and let them down. But on this 9/11, the last Shabbat of 5769, it seems like the right thing to do is to just reflect on what they mean to you. And then to give thanks for the day after.

This you must listen to

2009-09-12T13:44:00.001-04:00

I will not hide

2009-06-13T11:54:00.000-04:00

It overwhelms me with deep anger and sorrow when I read about incidents like the shooting in Washington DC at the US Holocaust Memorial or at Wesleyan University. Both shooters, James W. von Brunn and Stephen Morgan, were former servicemen. Both were crazy. Both had access to firearms. Both were rabid antisemites. And both were looking to kill Jews.

There are Jew haters out there. There have been Jew haters around since there were Jews. In fact, you can have Jew haters hating Jews in places where there aren’t any Jews around! We are, for a million different reasons, targets of right wing extremism. Sure, black people and Asians and Latinos are targets, too – in fact anyone who is seen as a foreigner, as different, as not fitting in is suspect. But we have been dealing with the longest ongoing virulent hatred, called antisemitism for 2000 years.

The point worth noting here is not to panic and go into DEFCOM 4. Both von Brunn and Morgan were loners, sick, twisted, bitter men who felt wronged. Targeting Jews was an effective way to lock into a long history of conspiracies that blamed someone for the ills of the world – not them; they weren’t responsible for their madness. It was the Jews!

One year while living in Texas, the temple I served there discussed putting the name of the temple on the building. There were actually people who thought it better to keep the building nondescript so as not to identify it as a synagogue. I said then, and I feel now, the following: my father survived the Holocaust. His parents, sister, grandparents, cousins were all murdered. I grew up uncomfortably uncertain whether or how to reveal my being Jewish. But I know this: I will not hide. I will not get double locks for my doors. I will not buy firearms and learn how to shoot to kill. I will put up a hundred signs that all say, “I’m Jewish!”

This is not about being stupid. I’m not saying that caution and vigilance aren’t necessary. Of course they are. Our safety and wellbeing is always worth protecting. But I am not going to hide.

Tonight at Shabbat services during Kaddish, I’ll be mentioning Stephen Tyrone Johns, the African American security guard who was shot and killed by von Brunn at the Holocaust Museum. I know it’s a public building, but it feels like a very Jewish place to me. I mourn his death in the line of duty.

We will remain vigilant, proud, and free. In the face of madness. Because we are Jews we will move forward together. That's our job, our task in the world.

doctor of divinity

2009-06-08T18:09:00.001-04:00

Liza and I are spending this Sunday in Cincinnati, Ohio. No it’s not to see the Reds or anything like that. After 25 years in the congregational rabbinate, we’re each getting an honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity. I love that title: Doctor of Divinity. What does it mean exactly? Am I now an expert on the divine? Well, actually after 25 years I am. At least I can say that I know about the sacred moments in people’s lives. I’ve witnessed many amazing moments graced by the Holy One’s presence. Funerals so sad my heart has broken. B’nai Mitzvah so transformative that I've had to shake my head and look at the child on the bimah and wonder at the power of ritual to lift them up so high. Moments in Israel of discovery and connection so beautiful that the pictures will never fade from my mind. Weddings where there was so much love flowing that singing Siman Tov doesn’t even begin to express it. Class discussions so deep that I was forever transformed.

I am a congregational rabbi. I am the guy with a ferry boat on the river’s edge. My role, my reason to be, is to pilot that boat across the river. And whether the river is smooth or storm-tossed; whether I am feeling in tip top shape or if I am weary; whether my passengers are celebrants or mourners, students or teachers; whether the boat is full to overflowing or graced with just one soul; I am going to pilot this ferry boat across the river. That’s not my job. That’s why God put me in the world.

It may sound arrogant or chutzpadik to say, but I know that I am doing what God wants me to do. I’m doing the right thing for me, to the best of my ability. Thank you for allowing to fulfill this obligation to God and to the Jewish people. It’s not always easy, but it’s always a blessing.

After 25 years – it’s nice to know.

rebhayim

A Little Faith and Humility

2009-06-01T17:46:00.001-04:00

I try to always be receptive to learning. Not just from my books, and the Internet and NPR. I attempt to gain knowledge every day from the people with whom I work, the people I serve, and the random people I come in contact with on an average day. I’m able to keep learning from others as long as I keep my heart open in order to receive the teaching, unimpeded by my own ego, my own expectations, or my own needs. Which is not always so easy.

This Shavuot I learned a lot. I learned that there is a spirit, a neshama-dik heartbeat bubbling under the surface here that brought out around 20 people to erev Shavuot services last night. TWENTY people! There have been times when the congregation numbered 5 for Shavuot. We’ve NEVER had a minyan for erev Shavuot since we ceased holding Confirmation on that night. We had 8 folks study until midnight which is the erev Shavuot tradition. And the learning was deep and vast and the range of ages and backgrounds of the 8 was varied and multi-dimensional. It was very good.

This morning we held a Yizkor service as we always do on Shavuot morning. We have never gotten even close to a minyan for that. There have been years when only 1 other person has shown up. So I didn’t exactly rush to get to temple. I was 7 minutes late, something that never happens with me for services. Ever. I reasoned that there would not be a minyan, so that rushing was unnecessary.

I arrived and here, to my surprise and delight, was a minyan!! I came in and our brief memorial service was beautiful and moving. Now why did we get a minyan? It’s at 845am now instead of 10am. But I’m not sure how much of a difference the time makes… So what is it? Could it be a subtle signal coursing through the collective unconscious of our community that sets off certain behaviors in some of us?

All I know is this: Shavuot celebrates the day the Holy One gave us the Torah. And somehow, through my learning over the past 2 days, I’ve received a heaping helping of Torah. Through the sound of 3 of our TBA kids who go to Schechter singing prayers on the bimah on erev Shavuot. Through the bond of sadness and loss and remembrance that flowed amongst the minyan this morning. Through the many dimensions of text study and good scotch that flowed at the study session last night. And, how could I leave out the preschool graduation after the Yizkor service? You want some Torah? Watch a bunch of our 5 year olds walking with their stuffed Torahs, proud, determined, alive with hope and possibility. That’s some Torah.

In the Modim prayer that’s a part of our liturgy, we say thank you for the joy of human life, its wonders and surprises, its hopes and achievements, the miracles that surround us every day. For Shavuot 5769, for the presence of so many teachers of Torah, for presence of so many caring hearts, I give thanks. I have learned so much.

Pope Benedict and the Road not Taken

2009-05-16T01:34:00.000-04:00

What the Pope Would Not Say

Pope Benedict XVI left Israel today after a strenuous 5 day tour. This is the same Pope Benedict who made many gaffes re: Jews and Judaism and Israel and antisemitism – as well as Islam, by the way – in his first months as the pontiff. This trip was planned a while ago, in fact before the Gaza incursion, in order to assuage the hurt feelings of many Jews and Moslems, too.

Clearly the embarrassing mistakes on subjects sensitive to Jews by a pope who was in the Hitler Youth in Nazi Germany and a soldier in the Wermacht make every word he spoke – and did not speak – meaningful and subject to the closest scrutiny. On his first day in Israel, Pope Benedict said, "I will have the opportunity to honor the memory of the six million Jewish victims of the Shoah. Sadly, anti-Semitism continues to rear its ugly head in many parts of the world. This is totally unacceptable. Every effort must be made to combat anti-Semitism wherever it is found, and to promote respect and esteem for the members of every people, tribe, language and nation across the globe."

Apparently Benedict XVI was not supposed to have gone to Vad Vashem in the initial planning of his trip. Some of his advisors felt that it might be too over-determined. But what a statement of omission that would have been. Every foreign dignitary goes to Yad Vashem; it is a part of the way Israel wants to, needs to, be understood, that the Shoah is still at the very core, the soul of the state of Israel. The Vatican smartly changed their minds.

But here’s the essence of what Benedict said at the Holocaust memorial: “I have come to stand in silence before this monument, erected to honor the memory of the millions of Jews killed in the horrific tragedy of the Shoah. They lost their lives, but they will never lose their names: these are indelibly etched in the hearts of their loved ones, their surviving fellow prisoners, and all those determined never to allow such an atrocity to disgrace mankind again. Most of all, their names are forever fixed in the memory of Almighty God.”

Not very emotional or personal from the pope, THIS German pope. If the Pope had truly stepped up, had declared at the memorial with the eternal light reflecting off the black marble of that mournful space, something that evidenced a moral connection with the failure of the Catholic Church and the death of 6 million Jews, the Heavens may have shaken.

As the editorial in Haaretz stated, “One word unsaid can sometimes be more damaging than thousands of words uttered. This is what happened … during Pope Benedict XVI's speech at Yad Vashem. The thorough preparations for his visit to Israel, the complex traffic and security arrangements, and the millions of shekels that were earmarked for his hospitality evaporated as if they did not exist thanks to a speech that was missing one word - "sorry."

I was not surprised by the Pope’s moral reticence. He has more issues on his plate than we Jews, so scarred by the Catholic Church, over and over and over again for 2 millennia. And yet… If one can take away something personal from this story of clashing histories and conflicted ideologies it is just this: the power of repentance, of honestly declaring what is one’s heart, daring to transcend the shame. Until each of us dares to reveal our dark side, our flawed humanness, we are trapped by it. It all starts with the true, heartfelt, sorry.

Johanna and the Ripples Left Behind

2009-05-08T19:26:00.001-04:00

The ripples from events that start so far away often end up lapping at our doors. We read about events unrelated to us except through an abstract bond of humanity: an earthquake in Honduras, a gang shooting in Roxbury, contaminated baby formula in China, and we respond from a comfortable distance. It doesn’t really touch us.

A few days ago, a young woman was murdered in a college bookstore by a sick, mean, deluded stalker. These things happen, more often than we even know. Several times a year some story comes out about stalkers preying on innocent people. Sometimes the stories end tragically.

The ripples from such a sad, twisted story actually slammed at my door this past Wed. night when I got an emergency email from Michael Roth, president of Wesleyan University, in Middletown, CT. As a long time Middletown resident and as an alum of Wesleyan, the father of a Wesleyan graduate and a current sophomore, and the uncle of a freshman at Wes, I was blown away by the news: a junior co-ed was murdered in cold blood at the campus bookstore. The assailant was still at large.

Of course I immediately feared for my son and niece. Are they ok? Where are they? What are they doing? While I could not reach my niece, my son, Aaron, was far from the scene and in lockdown at his dorm. He was fine, not too worried, but a bit shaken. These things don’t happen at Wesleyan, a little liberal arts school, in a little Connecticut town.

As the story developed, I learned that the victim was a beautiful, bright Jewish girl, Johanna Justin-Jinich. And then came the report that the still at large assailant, whose journal had been recovered from his car, had written threats about Jews. The small Middletown Jewish community mobilized quickly, closing the synagogue, just 2 blocks away from the scene of the crime.

The murderer, Stephen Morgan, surrendered on Thursday night. The siege was over. The kids left their dorms. The synagogue opened this morning. But Johanna is dead, her family mourns, and more than a few college students are devastated.

It’s the 21st century and with all the security and big guns and surveillance in the world, malevolent people still force their nightmares on innocents. Stephen P. Morgan, the deranged killer, had delusions, violent ideation, and dangerously little boundary control. He managed to get a gun somewhere and then take a life, while terrifying an entire town of 48000 people.

We are so vulnerable, we and the people we love. Moments like these come, and we are, of course, unprepared and utterly overwhelmed. It’s all so tenuous.

Ironically, Johanna Justin-Jinich was actually at Temple Beth Avodah at the last Peter Daniel Clark Seder. Debbie Fellman reminded me that she had been here and I actually remembered her. A friend of a friend of a friend, she decided to come while she was in the Boston area. She was smart and vivacious, involved with good causes and committed to doing good.

In such terrible stories there is no positive outcome, no good lesson. It’s all about loss, about pain, about sadness. Pull the people you love closer, call your kids who live far away, email your siblings and say Shabbat Shalom. Make contact. Every day is a winding road. Every day is a blessing when you bless someone else. There’s nothing else to do but love. Mind the ripples.

Shabbat Shalom

rebhayim

Talk radio - Hate radio

2009-05-02T13:16:00.000-04:00

I have a list entitled, “Things I should probably do.” It’s filled with several quotidian entries: “Clean off my office desk before I go home.” “Clean off my home desk before I go to my office.” “Polish my shoes regularly.” “Read more.” “Sleep more.” See what I mean?

But I do have a few that deserve a closer look. Like this one: “Occasionally listen to conservative talk radio.” Why? Well, because conservative radio isn't my cup of tea. Because I rarely agree with the political philosophy expressed therein. Because it’s good to know what some of my “unlike” fellow Americans are thinking

I have a difference of opinion with conservative talk radio over almost every social, political, and economic issue. Stem cell research, abortion rights, gay marriage, separation of church and state, censorship, torture, immigration, are some the issues over which we disagree. And disagreement can create good dialogue that can bring more static, sure. But it can inspire one to look more closely at the issues, and either reassess or double down.

My problem with conservative talk radio, the reason I don’t follow that item on my list of “oughts”, is not really due to the differences of opinion. I don’t listen because I find, in general, that conservative talk radio becomes ugly and vicious. The issues seem secondary to smearing character. There is an attitude that feels incendiary and provocative.

A few days ago, Jay Severin, a talk show host on WTTK of Boston, said the following, as reported in the Globe: http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/05/01/severin_suspended_for_comments_about_mexican_immigrants/

In one of his broadcasts this week, Severin said: "So now, in addition to venereal disease and the other leading exports of Mexico - women with mustaches and VD - now we have swine flu."

Later, he described Mexicans as "the world's lowest of primitives."

"When we are the magnet for primitives around the world - and it's not the primitives' fault by the way, I'm not blaming them for being primitives - I'm merely observing they're primitive," he said.

He added that Mexicans are destroying schools and hospitals in the United States. He also criticized their hygiene.

"It's millions of leeches from a primitive country come here to leech off you and, with it, they are ruining the schools, the hospitals, and a lot of life in America," he said.

He added: "We should be, if anything, surprised that Mexico has not visited upon us poxes of more various and serious types already, considering the number of criminaliens already here."

In a previous broadcast this week, Severin argued that the Obama administration wasn't taking sufficient action to seal the border.

"The usual 5,000 criminaliens that come across the Arizona border will probably be 8,000 tonight, and maybe tomorrow it will be 12,000, because even Mexicans are going to be trying to get out of Mexico at a greater rate."

After this broadcast, Severin was suspended from the station.

Now I am against censorship. Censorship paves the way for fascism. But I am also against language that incites people to hate others. It is utterly irresponsible for anyone to use the public airways in order to deride another ethnic group. This kind of radio just stinks: it is malicious and racist.

Here’s the litmus test: replace the word, ‘Mexican’, with the word ‘Jew’. Jews are criminaliens. Jews are the world’s lowest of primitives. Would you be on the phone to the ADL? Of course you would. I would, too. Because we would call it antisemitism. We would call it the same old antisemitic canards that have been around for centuries. We would demand that Severin get suspended and/or sacked (if not drawn and quartered). And we’d be right to demand that.

These messages of hate have got to go. And so do the hatemongers.

Susan Boyle and Us

2009-04-25T01:29:00.002-04:00

That’s Susan Boyle!

I’m not an American Idol fan. Sometimes I feel like I may be the ONLY person who doesn’t watch it. Clearly there are millions of loyal fans dedicated to following the arc of every show. I know that there are websites, blogs, mailing lists, Facebook pages, etc, all devoted to the minutiae of American Idol, tracking winners, losers, the deserving and undeserving, the behavior of the judges, and the gossip that holds it all together.

I’m not a big pop music guy, which makes the show for me a bit tedious. And I suppose I’m not much for the drama: the weeping contestant who gets cut, the one who comes from behind with a stunning rendition of “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head”, whether Paula Abdul is drunk or stoned or in love with a contestant, how cheeky and critical Simon Cowell can get, etc. None of this really moves me, truth be told.

When someone tweeted me about a YouTube clip of a woman named Susan Boyle singing for a show called Britian’s Got Talent, I thought, yuck, a British version of American Idol. In other words, I ignored the link. But by the next day, Susan Boyle was the talk of the town – of the world, actually. I saw her name mentioned all over Twitter, Facebook, news websites, etc. What was so amazing, so spectacular? Who was this woman? Now I had to know. I clicked.

Now I know. Susan Boyle is a homely, single, middle aged woman with a very lovely voice. Not an earth-shattering voice. Not a knock em dead voice. A beautiful, sweet voice. So what’s the big deal? Clearly, the shrewd producers of Britian’s Got Talent realized that Susan Boyle breaks the stereotype of modern pop music. That is, a female singer must be able to double as a fashion model or actually must have been a model to get a gig. A female singer must live a fairly racy life to get press and attention. Men are a different story altogether, but that’s for another blog moment. Who could guess an unattractive woman can sing?

Today it’s all about the superficial, the look, and not the content. Acts lip-synch and fake playing and as long as the female singer looks sexy, she can synthesize her voice for all the audience cares. Some great singers: Janis Joplin, Aretha Franklin, Carol King, Phoebe Snow: these women could never even get on stage now, no less achieve fame.

There are millions of Susan Boyles in the world. Shy men and women not blessed with looks or style who sit at the back of the room, who don’t raise their hands or volunteer or exude charisma. They have beautiful voices. They play the piano with virtuosic skill. They compose plays. But they are unable to emerge from their own shyness. They are scorned for their lack of good looks. And they are lonely and unsung. But for a good tv scout, Susan Boyle was on her way to being Eleanor Rigby.

I am surely glad for Susan Boyle that her dream came true, that she dared to step so far out of her comfort zone to show the world that she has a gift of song. But I must admit that the incredulous gasps of the judges, including Simon Cowell, and the roaring adulation of the crowd who, moments before Susan Boyle opened her mouth, were mocking her, readying themselves for a good old fashion laugh at a deluded misfit belies a deep cynicism in our culture.

As it says in Pike Avot, Ethics of our Ancestors: “Don’t look at the vessel; look at what’s inside of it”. God knows this aphorism is as trite as it comes. But the more that we can acknowledge the gifts of us all, regardless of age or ugly quotient, waist size or hairline, disabled or limited, the more we can enjoy life. Imagine if our daughters didn’t feel the daily pressure of fitting into a size 2 pair of jeans. Imagine if our sons didn’t think that they had to perform like a pro-athlete in third grade gym class. We wouldn’t be astonished that Susan Boyle could sing; we’d be singing along with her.

The Same Old Thing – And I Love It

2009-04-10T18:27:00.000-04:00

The Same Old Thing – And I Love It

It is the same hagadah, the same seder plate foods and symbols, the same parsley, salt water hard boiled egg, etc., etc. It’s the same brisket or salmon or turkey with the same potatoes or tzimmes or mashed potatoes. It’s the same 4 Questions, 4 Children, 10 Plagues and 2 zuzim. It doesn’t change in so many ways. And I love it.

It’s true, I have graduated from Mogen David wine syrup to truly fine kosher wines, domestic and Israeli. And it’s also true that these days the hagdadot out there are beautiful and varied and unbelievably relevant and readable, much better than the Maxwell House hagadah of my youth (I’m not kidding!). And I do care that everyone is enjoying themselves and that it doesn’t feel like a slow slog through Hell.

But I love that the songs we sing are still the songs we sing. I can’t tell you how thrilled I am, every year, to sing Dayenu. I love chasing that darned kid my father brought home.

The reason more Jews celebrate Passover than any other Jewish ritual is 1) the Exodus is our founding story, the very root of who and what we are. Does it matter that there’s no evidence of a guy named Moses, or of a slave rebellion, or of a mass migration of former slaves? Nope. Because the truth of the story is in our hearts not in the text of an archeologist’s report. And 2) almost every Jew has Passover plans because the seder is a reunion time. Even if you don’t know the people you're sitting with, it’s a family gathering. We resonate to the music, to the salt water, to the sense that we belong right there in that space because we’re related.

Of course if I went to a Yemenite Seder (and I did once; they brought out rice and I almost died!) it would be different because the music and customs all differ. Yet I’d like to believe that somehow, the story would carry us forward together. I mean, I’ve done seders with Christian groups and with African Americans, not to mention a seder with people affected by AIDS, and every time it moved me; it reminded me of just how big a story our Exodus was/is. And it showed me what a sacred place the seder table can be. Just add the love, the open heart, and the haroset.

Shabbat Shalom and Hag Sameach.

rebhayim

Sweeping it Up

2009-04-03T17:24:00.001-04:00

I made a connection this week between 2 events that are scheduled regularly, one happens once a year, the other, twice a year. The first event is the search for hametz. Most of us never did this in our homes, unless you came from an Orthodox background. Bedikat hametz, the search for leavened food, is done before dinner on the day before Passover eve. It is a lengthy process done by candlelight and preceded by a blessing "Who has sanctified us by the commandments and commanded us to remove the leaven." The search, which is conducted in (relative) silence, will always turn up at least ten pieces of bread, placed around the house by pre-arrangement so that the blessing is not said for nothing and the mitzvah--commandment--of burning the last pieces can be observed the next morning. The hametz is swept into a bag with a feather and then the feather, the bag, and its contents are burned the following morning. In Jerusalem on the morning of Passover eve you can smell the smoke of burning hametz everywhere, and every neighborhood has a bonfire into which you can throw your own hametz.

Now here’s the connection: twice a year the Western Wall is completely emptied of every single note written by every person who’s ever squeezed one into the cracks and crevices of the Wall. The process is supervised by the Rabbi of the Holy Sites, Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovich.

The notes are emptied out of the Wall just before Passover and just before Rosh HaShanah. The purpose is to make room so that people can “insert their prayer notes at the Wall without fear that the notes will fall out and be trampled upon,” Rabbi Rabinovich explained.

The notes, many of which contain the full names of family members, as well as requests for health, sustenance, a spouse, solutions for personal problems, and more, are treated with great respect by the workers. The workers even immerse themselves in a mikveh (ritual bath) before beginning the holy work of removing the notes.

The notes are removed without the use of metal bars or utensils – which stand for warfare and the taking of life (see Exodus 20,22) - but rather with wooden rods. Following their removal, the notes are taken to the nearby ancient Mt. of Olives cemetery for burial.

I love it! Even the Wall has to be cleansed! And like the Wall,

When we get rid of the hametz, we can get rid of the spiritual hametz, that tendency we all have to inflate our egos on the backs of others. Sure each of us is important. But not too important. None of us are irreplaceable. Life goes on and we’re fools to believe that the river will slow down for us because we’re smart or wealthy or beautiful or popular.

As beautiful and as filled with longing as those notes in the Wall may be, we’ve got to make room for the next batch. Just like that. Sure it’s a sacred task, but no one is in mourning. There’s too many new notes already coming in.

So get to work on that hametz, inside and out. There’s no rabbi supervising your search, but you’ve got a lot of love and support to help you out.

Liza and I wish you a zissen Pesach, a Passover filled with light and blessing. Now go start sweeping – I am…

Shabbat Shalom

rebhayim

PS: Tonight is a terrific adult ed presentation. Albert Barry will tell us all about his search for the supposedly destroyed wooden synagogues of Eastern Europe.

PPS Please please come to the community organizing super sized house meetings this Sunday. There are 2 sessions and you may attend either one, regardless of when your kids are in Sunday School or, for that matter, if you don’t have any kids in Sunday School. It’s not about the kids this tiem: it’s about you. BTW, check out www.bethavodah.org for my 60 seconds of airtime about Sunday…

Sweeping out Everything

2009-04-01T17:07:00.001-04:00

This is a photo from the Holocaust Torah; look at the calligraphy and look at the other photo below. We're going to be looking more closely at this Czech Torah in the coming year. Any thoughts about what you see??

2009-04-01T17:06:00.000-04:00

Oliphant and his antisemitic cartoon

2009-03-28T02:52:00.002-04:00

As many of you know from various pieces I have written over the years, I am a true Libertarian when it comes to First Amendment issues. I am dead set against censorship, opposed to any attempt to allow the government or, for that matter, any private organization, left or right, to shape the cultural, moral direction of this country.

Censorship carries a cudgel that smashes artistic and intellectual freedom to pieces. Censorship smacks of narrow self-interest and paranoia. Censors have political agendas, chief among them the mission to stifle any form of art, any expression in any form that casts a critical light on those in power. Censorship is the first wave of fascism.

What I watch and what I read, that is my choice and my business. If you think a tv show is inappropriate, don’t watch. If Fifty Cent offends you, don’t listen. If Robert Mapplethorpe’s photos shock you, then don’t go to the gallery. If Howard Stern sickens you, then change the station. Obviously there are strict laws against exploiting children and those laws must always be strictly obeyed. And no one should ever be exploited, actress or athlete.

And so I would never suggest censoring this horrible political cartoon of Pat Oliphant’s. It reflects a truly hateful heart. It is despicably propagandistic. When I look at this cartoon (I find it offensive to even use the word ‘cartoon’ in reference to this defamatory image), I am deeply, deeply offended. Pat Oliphant is either a fool or an antisemite.

There’s been some debate about this image as to whether it is anti-Israel as opposed to antisemitic. And there is a difference. One can be harshly critical of Israeli political and/or domestic policy. One can be deeply troubled by Israeli policy and complain, demonstrate, remonstrate, and jump up and down. One can do all of this and not hate Jews.

But: the moment one uses imagery like Oliphant's, the line is crossed. Look at it: the headless, jackbooted, goose-stepping figure on the left is monstrous, evocative of Nazis. He is bearing down on Gaza, depicted here as an utterly defenseless, innocent woman holding a baby. With one hand he wields a sword. With the other he closes in with a magen david on a wheel with the maw of a shark.

Not antisemitic? The magen david with teeth is an old pre-Holocaust image; just replace defenseless Gaza with the world and it’s right out of Der Sturmer…

So what’s a Jew to do? As opposed to angry Moslems who, in February of 2006, actually rampaged and killed innocent people over what they interpreted as anti-Islamic cartoons, I’m not suggesting torches and effigies. I am saying that when we see this kind of trash that we speak up and send letters to the editor decrying this kind of imagery and demanding an apology.

I don’t know Pat Oliphant. I don’t care how he feels about Jews or Israel. I do care that he knows, along with those for whom he comments, that this cartoon is cruel, stupid and antisemitic.

The Sea and Me

2009-03-20T20:00:00.000-04:00

You’ve all seen the end caps in the local supermarkets. Matzah meal, matzah ball mix, whole wheat matzah, spelt matzah, egg matzah, chocolate covered matzah, canned macaroons, jellied fruit slices, and on and on… Yes, it’s Passover time. In our home we’ve begun to nervously glance at our pantry, and the enormous poundage of hametz. From today until the end of Passover there is an embargo on anything that even looks like hametz. I’m serious.

Passover is highly anticipated in our home and here at the temple. It is joyful, fun, and even raucous. But along with the anticipation of the food and the fellowship, I feel especially duty-bound this year to enunciate the themes of Passover. Because it feels a bit like we are all wandering in a wilderness, looking to alleviate our sense of exile and alienation.

This is a tough time. Not simply because of the economy; I mean, if it were the economy alone, dayenu: it would be enough. The economy is the presenting crisis, but it only serves to awaken us to the notion that much change is bearing down upon us.

We’ve reached a stage in the problem of global warming and wanton pollution. We can’t pretend it away or blame it on pine trees or methane from cows. We have squandered the riches of the planet and now we have to fix things. There’s a slick on the Pacific Ocean between Japan and America the size of the continental United States made up exclusively of plastic: yellow Chevron oil bottles, tampon applicators, plastic bags, old fishing lines, shampoo bottles and Japanese traffic cones. Something’s got to give.

The Exodus story reminds us that, lots of times, our ancestors wanted to go back to the way things were. Maybe it was bad, but it was “our” bad. We recognized it, we knew how to deal with it. But over and over, Moses told our people that there was no going back. It can’t ever be the way it was, because now, this is the way that it is.

When the economy heals, it won’t be like it used to be. The environment will look different. Newspapers as we know them will be gone. Public education will be transformed. Banks will not function like they did. Automobiles will have morphed into something else altogether. And on and on…

So, my beloved congregation and friends, as we get ready for matzah and joyous mayhem at the seder table, don’t forget that Passover is about pushing on. It’s about faith in God and each other. It’s knowing that there’s a light shining out there for us to follow. It’s being clear that there is work to do along the way. We remember Lot’s wife, and therefore we remember that we need to keep our eyes on the horizon, not on the past. There is a Promised Land.

Shabbat Shalom

rebhayim

Arguing over Words

2009-03-13T19:19:00.000-04:00

Jews love a good argument. I don’t know why. Maybe because after countless generations spent as a defenseless minority in the Diaspora, we discovered the power of words over swords. Or perhaps because we are a text based culture, we intuited the paradoxes and ambiguities of the written word and the necessity to clarify textual meanings and contexts. Or maybe it’s because we felt compelled to understand every word of Torah: after all, every word, every letter was considered by our ancestors to be divine, each one a gift from God. To truly understand Torah was to understand the truth of God’s mitzvot which could enable us to fulfill God’s word. And maybe it’s our sense that words contain a mystic, hidden meaning. To really understand words is to attain mastery over their power; after all, what does God use to create the Universe? Words. “And God said, ‘Let there be light’, and there was light.”
Maybe it’s for all the above reasons or still other ones that we seem so argumentative. Politics, art, culture, religion, it doesn’t matter. Jews will argue. In the Knesset, in the press, in academia, at the dinner table, planning a wedding,
There is a debate raging; not simmering, bubbling, or even roiling. About what? A collection of ancient texts and who wrote them, when. The Dead Sea Scrolls, a collection of texts from the second century BCE to the first century CE, have been a huge topic of interest, to Jews and Christians alike. And they have been passionately argued over and about since they were discovered in eleven caves along the northwest shore of the Dead Sea between the years 1947 and 1956. The mostly fragmented texts, are numbered according to the cave from which they came out. Some of the original translators of the scrolls were Christian antisemites. Some refused to allow any other scholars access to them. So people snuck around to find out what they said and secretly purloined photos of the texts for others to view. [Wikipedia]
The Dead Sea Scrolls are traditionally divided into three groups: "Biblical" manuscripts (copies of texts from the Hebrew Bible), which comprise roughly 40% of the identified scrolls; "Apocryphal" or "Pseudepigraphical" manuscripts (known documents from the Second Temple Period like Enoch, Jubilees, Tobit, Sirach, non-canonical psalms, etc., that were not ultimately canonized in the Hebrew Bible), which comprise roughly 30% of the identified scrolls; and "Sectarian" manuscripts (previously unknown documents that speak to the rules and beliefs of a particular group or groups within greater Judaism) like the Community Rule, War Scroll, Pesher (Hebrew pesher פשר = "Commentary") on Habakkuk, and the Rule of the Blessing, which comprise roughly 30% of the identified scrolls.
Who were the scribes who calligraphed the Bible? Who composed the Sectarian texts? Who hid the scrolls and why? These are the hot questions STILL raging about the Dead Sea Scrolls. The prevailing theory is that these ancient documents, which include texts from the Hebrew Bible, were written over the three centuries before 100 CE by a Jewish sect known as the Essenes, who were based in Qumran, a settlement at the northwest shore of the Dead Sea near the caves where the scrolls were found between 1947 and 1956.
An alternative theory, passionately proffered by Norman Golb, a University of Chicago professor, is that the scrolls’ authors were not Essenes, and that the scrolls themselves were kept in various libraries in Jerusalem until they were hidden in the caves around Qumran for safekeeping during the Roman war of 67 to 73CE. Qumran, he has said, was not an Essene monastery but a fortress, one of several armed defensive bastions around Jerusalem. The professor has stood behind his theory despite significant criticism. His son, Raphael Haim Golb, has been one of his greatest allies.
But his son opened an e-mail account in the name of Lawrence H. Schiffman, a New York University professor who disagrees with Mr. Golb’s father. He sent messages in Professor Schiffman’s name to various people at N.Y.U. and to others involved in the Dead Sea Scrolls debate, fabricating an admission by Professor Schiffman that he had plagiarized some of Professor Golb’s work. Schiffman contacted the FBI, and Raffi spent the night in jail for identity theft. [NY Times]

Now, just to be clear, this is all about some 2000 year old scrolls.

We love to argue, to derive the right answer, to strike our claim for true meaning. As this brouhaha proves, the passion around some words is particularly extraordinary. Our words have power that extends over time: in this case, over centuries. Study them, pore over them, embrace them. We love to argue because we love words.

Jewish Funk

2009-03-06T19:21:00.001-05:00

Jewish Funk

I've been blogging like crazy about Israel and my 10 day sojourn there during the Central Conference of American Rabbis convention. We Reform rabbis gather every year and meet in Israel once every 7 years. It’s a wonderful tradition that brings us rabbis together reunion style. This 7 year cycle also reintroduces us to Israel as Reform leaders.

There is not much subtlety to life in Israel. People tend to be loud and opinionated. The pace of life is jacked up on terrible coffee (they still think that instant coffee is acceptable and potable!) and the sense that everyone has a fire truck’s worth of right of way: from young men in black hats to old women with umbrellas and sharp elbows.

And the overwhelming dichotomies! The yin/yang of everything! The endless clash of opposites! It does feel like living inside of a pinball machine: steel bearings rolling by like the boulder in the first Indiana Jones movie, bells ringing, lights flashing – welcome to Israel.

In the midst of this madness there is something amazing taking place. Being born in this chalice of stress and pressure and anxiety is a big muscular juggernaut of new Israeli culture. Let me give you an example.

At the opening night of the CCAR we gathered for cocktails and conversation before dinner when a 17 piece band of saxophones, trumpets, trombones, percussion, and a tuba came marching in. And they played astonishing music. The first response of the unenlightened was, “Oh, if it’s Jews playing brass and sax it must be klezmer.” Wrong! This ensemble, called Marsh Dondurma (I have no idea either…), played post-modern Israeli-Middle Eastern ancient avant-garde music. They played everything from a Duke Ellington piece to an Arab love song to a Yemenite prayer. What was it? That’s the point. It was new, hip, smart, fun, and current. It was like a snowball hurtled from Mt. Hermon in the north, gathering a big ball of Balkans, Russians, Arabs, Israelis, Americans, Ethiopians, and others, and out came: Marsh Dondurma.

That’s the thing about this new wave of culture. It no longer seeks to look or sound American, though there are plenty of folks artistically and commercially who only want to emulate America. This new wave is authentic, raw, and exciting. Dance, music, cinema, fiction: it doesn’t get much better. The art is eclectic. The restaurants are eclectic. And of course, the people are eclectic.

So with all the angst and fear, there is this dynamic force that one feels in Tel Aviv and Haifa and even Jerusalem: new voices, new forms of connection, a new generation expressing this ever-changing, ever-morphing scene called Israel. Even in the midst of the darkness, a new light shines from Zion on the coolest beat you could ever imagine: Jewish funk.

Shabbat Shalom

rebhayim

Abu Shukrie and Me

2009-02-25T09:20:00.000-05:00

A short blog today. I ended up hitting the running road early this morning. It was so warm and beautiful that I looked for a million different reasons to keep going, and now, a few hours later, after a seminar on the future of Jerusalem, my thighs are complaining mightily, and walking up stairs is a slow, torturous ordeal.

But I don’t care. After running through the Jaffa Gate, I kept walking down into the bowels of the Old City, navigating around tour groups, mostly from Germany and Nigeria, Arab boys with large wheelbarrows, Arab men carrying trays of pita on their heads, and assorted shoppers, soldiers and others. I remembered an old working class restaurant I used to frequent, called Abu Shukrie’s. It was right off the Via Delorosa and on the main Damascus Gate road. So I aimed in that direction and trusted with memory and common sense, I would find it – if it still existed.

As I walked, I got deeper and deeper into the Old City. Shops thinned out and slowly I became the only American and probably only Jew in the vicinity. Should I be nervous, I wondered… It was only a few years ago that I wouldn’t have gone near this part of the city alone or with a body guard for that matter. During the second Intifada, we hesitated going even to the Jewish Quarter of the Old City. But there I was, in the same place almost 9 years later: the same stones, the same streets, the same smells, the same signs.

And the same Abu Shukrie’s. There it was, the same hole in the wall, redolent with the smells of French fries and felafel. There’s no menu: just humus, pita, French fries, and felafel, and a bowl of pickles and freshly sliced tomato. A full meal is less than $7. The humus was as fabulous as I remembered from over 20 years ago. The service quick. The clientele a study in Old City demography. Various Arabs, mostly workmen and shopkeepers. A few Israelis. A few young college students from Europe somewhere. And me.

I get the shifting politics that allow me in one moment to partake of the good food at a funky old restaurant in the Old City, and in the next to forbid my being less than a mile from here. But from another perspective it’s so crazy: we are the same peoples we were then that we are now. Why can’t we make this work? Is it as ludicrous for me to ask this as it was for Rodney King to ask why can’t we all just get along?

Something big is broken out here. How do we fix it? The felafel and humus are that good, good enough to make peace.

Friends and Redemption

2009-02-24T16:38:00.002-05:00

Today got off to a warm enough start for me to go running outside (I checked to make sure no one famous would be in the gym…). I haven’t run outdoors for a very long time. I must say that it was exciting and invigorating to go out for a run and be able to keep up my pace – a very slow pace mind you, but still, at least I’m moving.

My running path took me up the hill from the David Citadel to the windmill, around the windmill, then past the Inbal Hotel, up the hill to loop back to King David St. I then went past my hotel towards the Jaffa Gate, up the very steep steps to the Mamilla Mall and back at the hotel. The sun was out and I was actually happy as I ran!

I did some great Torah study next that I will elaborate on when I have more time back home. Suffice to say that I think about the offering of sacrifice in a whole new way. After that, Liza and I went to visit our friend and former (and future) Israel guide, Laura. Laura, an American who made aliyah decades ago, really made an impression on me and all the folks on her bus during the last TBA Israel trip. She’s smart, astute, well read, curious, patient, and very funny. These qualities are helpful for a tour guide to have. It helps that she is the mother of 6 and the sister of Aaron Nelson, of our very own temple family.

Getting to know and admire Laura, her husband, Seth, and her whole family was a very special treat for me and Liza and Molly and Zoë while I was on sabbatical last summer. So when we found out that her oldest son had been seriously injured in a deadly crash while traveling through Africa, we especially felt compelled to check in.

The good news is that her son, Yochanan, while facing a very long recovery, will mend well. He’s a tough dude, for sure. And Laura is tough. But when we got to her place, she looked like a prizefighter who was still standing after 15 rounds, but not sure how. Her son was at Hadassah Hospital for tests with Seth. We talked and heard the remarkable details of this epoch struggle to get Yochanan from Malawi to South Africa and finally back to Israel. It was a story filled with miracles and stupidity and boundless courage and numbing bureaucracy and solace and pain. Ultimately it is a story about love and loyalty.

Liza and I staggered out, overwhelmed by the fear and the pain and a terrible moment that we pray has ended well. I have no doubt that in time, Laura will regain the eye of the tiger. Until then I pray that she gets some rest and comes to fully know that through family love and tenacity, a redemptive moment occurred in their lives, and I think, in ours, too.

2009-02-22T04:52:00.002-05:00

True story. Because I am now a macho kind of guy, I look for the exercise room at the hotel. Most hotels have horrible exercise facilities, and the David Citadel is no exception. It’s small, loud, with scattered second tier equipment, slightly redolent of sweat, and cramped. The locker room is likewise cramped and slightly less than immaculately clean. In other words, it’s a typical hotel exercise room.

But I’m a macho guy and I rise above the grade C layout. I need a workout and it’s too chilly to run outside. So I enter the area and I see 2 security guards. I don’t mean young Ethiopian guys trying to make a living. I mean, young skinny guys in suits with earpieces and scowls. Oh, I say to myself, there’s some politician in this space; who could it be?

I mount the treadmill and start that slow run to nowhere, headphones in, jazz on loud. I get to my first level of running and glance to my left; a cute blonde from anywhere. I look to my right, and there, with headphones on, listening to CNN International is, yes: Bibi Netanyahu.

I don’t know what to do or say. He’s wearing his headphones and I’m wearing mine. Do I mime that we take them off so that we can have a dialogue and I can invite him to TBA? Do I tell him I’d have voted for Meretz and not for him? Do I tell him that I called him inept in a blog last week and that 2 congregants came to his defense in a determined way? Do I beg him to keep Lieberman out of the coalition as he has done up to now?

Of course while I’m a macho guy I am not going to harass this former and probably future prime minister of Israel. So I just keep truckin’. I glance over at his treadmill controls to see how fast he’s going. Heck, I can catch up with Bibi. We’re about the same age with similarly perfect physiques. So I bump up my speed. A few minutes later I see that Bibi is surreptitiously looking at my speed. He cranks his up a couple notches. Hmm, I wonder, is Bibi Netanyahu competing with me for macho points?

I crank up my speed so that I am now aware of a shift from late middle-aged treadmill walking to actual sweat inducing exercise. Bibi looks down at my speed, and we lock eyes for a second; I caught him looking at mine! He smiles and cranks his up. It’s on!

For the next 10 minutes Bibi and I are in this desperate race, the winner I suppose being the guy who doesn’t drop dead first. The treadmills, cheap and not heavily built, are getting pounded! Neither of us is smiling at this point; we’re both aware that on some level we are locked in a testosterone-induced competition that has no finish line or judge; the sole means of judging this event is who will stop first. By the way, this race is exactly why the primitive male brain gets the world in trouble. How many world conflicts are exactly like this race? It’s about saving face, about exhibiting strength, even as both competitors are about to collapse…

I decide that I should respect Bibi and not cause him to die, thus creating another Israeli political crisis – plus, by this point, I aint feeling so hot, either. I extend my hand to the controls to bring the speed way down. As I reach over to my control, I see Bibi simultaneously doing the same thing. We look at each other. We smile, both of us shvitzing our brains out. Bibi nods at me and says, “Todah [Thanks]”. I nod back and say, “B’hatzlacha [Good luck].”

What a workout.

blogging Israel in the rain

2009-02-21T17:31:00.001-05:00

Today Liza and I borrowed a car to go visit Molly and Zoe. They and their cohorts are at the Dead Sea, having climbed Masada yesterday. We looked at the map and saw that from Jerusalem, it’s about 45 minutes to an hour’s drive. No problem. As we got into the car my cell phone rang. Our friend who lent us the car asked, “Have you checked to see if the highway is open? We heard on the news this morning that the road is closed due to flash flooding.” Oy. It’s true that since we arrived in Israel, it’s been pouring, but we had no idea it was raining so hard.

We investigated, and to make a long story slightly shorter, we discovered that lo and behold, Route 90 was closed. The only way to get to the Dead Sea was to take an extended detour through Arad. Which is like driving from Connecticut to Providence in order to get to Boston.

SO, a bit disappointed about adding an hour and a half to the trip, we nonetheless saddled up and hit the road. It was teeming rain. Ok, I am not a lightweight when it comes to driving in weather. I mean, navigating through hailstorms in Oklahoma, thunderstorms in Dallas, blizzards in Boston, hairpin turns in the Alps, the other side of the road in England, what the heck? I can drive in a Jerusalem rainstorm. Only my driving isn’t the issue. It’s all those Israelis not used to driving in rain who can be unnerving. Zooming by, hitting deep puddles, slamming on the brakes, like that.

To add more excitement to the experience, as we’re driving up and down the precipitous hills of Jerusalem it turns from pouring rain to an ice storm. Now the ante rises, and I am genuinely freaked out. “We’ve got to scrub this adventure,” I murmured to Liza as the traffic slowed to a crawl and the roadway slowly turned white with freshly fallen ice. Liza actually agrees with me (she’s a heartier soul than I and more willing to soldier on). The only problem is that there really isn’t anywhere to immediately turn around. And who wants to go back up the hills in this weather?

We plot our move. When we get through the Jerusalem hills we’ll continue on to Tel Aviv and drop off the car. As we get to the bottom and as the highway leads to the north/south divide, a strange thing happens: the sun comes out. Not like a full sunny day, but enough to put on my sunglasses. And so, ready 10 minutes before to give up on the big visit to my girls, we turn south instead of north and motor down to the Dead Sea. And by the way, for readers who went on the temple trip 3 years ago, we passed the Golden Tulip on the way to see Molly and Zoe. It brought back memories of chlorine and hairy Russian men.

It’s too obvious a lesson, really. The sun coming out after the storm, luck changing, life straightening out. But these things happen. And I was lucky enough to be in the right place to be reminded.

And how are my girls? They are great and this EIE program they’re on is fabulous.

agriprocessors redux

2008-11-23T01:02:00.000-05:00

I've been following the Agriprocessors debacle with keen interest. Now in case you aren’t breathlessly keeping up with this story, let me remind you of the highlights – or should I say, the low lights… Agriprocessors is a big time kosher slaughter house in Postville, Iowa. [For more info, check my earlier blog at http://beforeshabbat.blogspot.com/2008/09/kosher-i-dont-think-so.html]. The abattoir management was accused of cruel and unethical treatment of the animals they slaughtered and processed. The Rubashkin Family, who owned Agriprocessors, curtly cried foul and invited a group of rabbis to inspect, which they did. The rabbis declined to lower the boom on the operations because they saw no wholesale cases of mistreatment, though they did have some suggestions for improved treatment of animals. In other words, the team of inspectors was flimflammed.

Some months later, a few folks bravely working undercover, filmed the slaughtering of cows. The video is online at the PETA website. And it is as gory and cruel as one could imagine. If you want a rationale to become a vegetarian, find it on YouTube. http://www.petatv.com/tvpopup/video.asp?video=agri_long&Player=wm

But Agriprocessors unethical treatment of animals didn’t get them closed for business. The attention on the company brought about some investigations. And now? Read this from yesterday’s www.NYTimes.com:

A former executive of a slaughterhouse that was the site of one of the nation’s largest immigration raids was arrested on a bank fraud charge and ordered jailed until at least next week. The former executive, Sholom Rubashkin, was arrested at his home in Postville, also home to the Agriprocessors plant where he once worked, and driven to Cedar Rapids for his appearance in Federal District Court. This is the second time in less than a month that Mr. Rubashkin has been arrested on federal charges related to his operation of the plant, site of a May 12 immigration raid in which 389 people were arrested. The latest arrest was related to the depositing of checks from customers and the alleged diversion of money. Last week, Agriprocessors filed for bankruptcy protection.

If you keep kosher, you know that beef is harder and harder to find and that the price is rising. I didn’t call the Butchery, Greater Boston’s kosher meat market, to ask about the availability of beef, but I bet they’re having problems stocking it in any quantity. With Agriprocessors in bankruptcy, there’s all kinds of movement in the kosher world as to who might buy the company. The name of the company is so sullied that I’m sure we’ll see a name change.

But will a name change do anything to get at the roots of the cynical attitude that as long as the animal is slaughtered in accordance with Jewish Law, how they are treated is irrelevant? It will if Rabbi Morris Allen, a Conservative rabbi from Minnesota, gets his way. Rabbi Allen is a leader in the hechsher tzedek movement, a grassroots effort that seeks to change the way Jews think about kashrut. He recently said, It would be great… if we could be assured that food products that met the standards of kashrut also met the standards of the ethical mitzvot that are incumbent upon us. We need to think in terms of mitzvot bein adam l'chavero [between one human and another] as well as bein adam l'makom [between a person and the Creator]. We should not be eating food that has been produced in a way that has denied the dignity of the labor! We should not be more concerned about the smoothness of a cow's lung than we are about the safety of a worker's hand.

Why do I write about this, when I know that most of TBA does not keep kosher? Aren't there more important things to be following? I find this case fascinating because it brings up a couple of serious issues for all Jews. First, it underscores the notion that even the most piously dressed men can be heartless deceivers and law breakers. Buyer beware.

Second, it challenges us to reflect on our own role in ethical consumption. That is, do we consider the environmental impact on the planet and thus on every one of us, of buying organic vs conventional fruits and veggies? Of eating meat? Of what cheap fast food has done to the health of this country’s young people? If this interests you, please read
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/magazine/12policy-t.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=open%20letter%20food&st=cse,
an amazing and deeply disturbing essay by food guru Michael Pollan.

Third, how does this sad story of a Jewish family using highly unsavory and unethical practices toward undocumented workers and underage employees impact our worldview altogether? It forces me to think about what it means to do a mitzvah. It forces me to consider what happens when I am not thoughtful about the people who prepare my food, who clean my clothes, who make my world more comfortable. Keeping kosher seems pretty insignificant on the scale of mitzvot if it is not accompanied by behaving in a kosher, ie, moral way.

Shabbat Shalom

rebhayim

Same Holidays Different Messages

2008-10-24T18:25:00.000-04:00

Here we are on the other side! Another High Holy Day season is over. The fog slowly lifts and, well, look, here is the new year waiting to be tended… And there, in my back yard, is the sukkah, ready to be broken down and lugged back into the garage.

It’s so cyclical, so utterly predictable and reliable. But just because the holiday cycle never changes doesn’t mean that in my consciousness, the holidays themselves stay the same.

In the old days, when I had 5 children at home and in the younger grades, Hanukkah was it. I mean, our house was buzzing for weeks before the first candle lighting with decorations, menorahs, wish lists, etc. Liza and I would send homemade shortbread to our closest friends and family. It was truly a happening. And then, the first night, I remember with deep pangs in my heart, even as I write this now, all of my children standing in front of the menorahs. Look at them, I’d think. What a celebration of being alive and free and Jewish and I get to see it in their eyes.

I still love Hanukkah, don’t get me wrong. And so do my kids. But of course it’s not the same anymore. Some of my kids don’t live at home anymore. Others are home, but less mesmerized by the candles and more interested in getting back to the homework or the texting (or both simultaneously…). Maybe I have to wait for grandkids to find that holy spark within the spark again. But it will be different.

After the High Holy Days, I think of the refrain from services, who shall live and who shall die. The first time I led High Holy Day services, 31 years ago as a student, the only fear of death that came to my mind was dying of embarrassment on the bimah if I did something wrong. But now, it’s different. Now, in my middle age, the son of a man who died 40 years ago and a mother with a progressive degenerative brain disease that will kill her some day, a rabbi who’s buried over 250 people, some strangers, others, beloved friends, who shall live and who shall die has the stark sound of unvarnished truth.

What does it all mean? That the High Holy Days set a different tone for me now. A sobering, powerful tone, like a Coltrane tenor sax solo or a Yo Yo Ma cello solo or a Eugene Wong Kol Nidre. And what does the tone seek to tell me? That I don’t have as much time to do what I want to do or say what I want to say as I did last year. That now more than ever, honesty, integrity, and openheartedness are the most important qualities of heart and mind to develop. That every day truly is precious and dear.

So as it all recedes, and as we approach Heshvan, the only Jewish month without a single special observance, I put away my sukkah. Only in this year, 5769, I’m thinking from a new place of vulnerability – and love – and appreciation. Same old holidays, same old ritual tasks, new thoughts and concerns emerging. And that’s the holy part of it all.

Shabbat Shalom,

rebhayim

The Jews Get Smart

2008-10-24T11:26:00.002-04:00

Finally. As we near the election, just days away, more and more Jews are getting wise to the anti-Obama smear stuff that's been circulating for almost 2 years in the Jewish press, emails, robocalls, etc. It's about time!

Look, I am a huge Obama supporter. But that's not the point here. As I have always said, if you favor McCain/Pallin, if you are a Republican, if you approve of McCain's vision, vote for him. But don't vote for McCain because Obama is a friend of terrorists. Or because he went to a midrasa. Because he's secretly a Moslem. Because those are all the foulest of lies.

And American Jews at last acknowledge that it stinks. How do I know? Look at the latest Gallup poll:A new poll released by the Gallup organization on Thursday shows Jewish voters favor Barack Obama over John McCain by more than 3 to 1, with 74% saying they will vote for Obama over 22% for McCain.

The poll, which has interviewed over 650 Jewish registered voters each month since June, shows American Jews growing increasingly comfortable with Obama since July, when the Illinois Senator tied up the Democratic Party nomination. The poll shows support for McCain among Jews stood at a high of 34% in June, before beginning its downward turn in July after Obama's nomination.

The poll's findings show that in spite of a certain measure of trepidation among some Jewish voters towards Obama early in his campaign, he is set to receive the same percentage of the Jewish vote (74%) as John Kerry in 2004, and only slightly less than the 80% of the Jewish vote that Al Gore received in 2000 when he had a Jewish running mate in Joe Lieberman.

Earlier in October, a poll commissioned by researchers at New York University revealed that American Jews favor Obama over McCain by a 67 - 33 percent margin.

What does this mean? I think it means that the Jews have largely come back to their senses, the ones who were gullible or had questions about the unmentionable, namely electing a black man to the presidency. It means that once again, American Jewry comes to support a progressive agenda that seeks to ameliorate suffering, that understands that we are a part of a larger world, a world in which we must participate, not as the good guys versus the bad guys, though that's sometimes what must be, but as players with a stake in the suffering of the Third World, a stake in the poor of Boston, a stake in making tikkun olam something more than a bumper sticker.

Go Obama, go!

Ignorance and Jewish Voters

2008-10-15T11:13:00.003-04:00

I've been getting the most offensive emails from Jews who seem to think that I am stupid. I mean, how else am I to understand an email that suggests I shouldn't vote for Obama because his middle name is Hussein. Or this amazing article:Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) Executive Director Matt Brooks issued the following statement today on remarks made by Rev. Jesse Jackson:

"Jesse Jackson confirmed the Jewish communities long-standing concerns with Barack Obama's policies on Israel and the Middle East," said Brooks.

Since when do we care what Jesse Jackson says? Surely Matt Brooks is thinking that the enemy of his enemy is his friend. Which, in 5th grade, makes sense. But in this case with adults, it is funny. The head of the RJC wants me to listen to the sage Jesse Jackson? What, is it Purim?

Or this extraordinary drivel:While Obama has no control over who endorses him, the nature of those who express affinity with him provides insight into who he is and what his agenda could be. Obama�s endorsers and supporters range from admitted terrorist William Ayers and Weatherman Underground leader Bernardine Dohrn to Jane Fonda, Tom Hayden, the New Black Panthers, the New SDS, and a host of other radical organizations and individuals.

"What his agenda could be" Amazing that this author, Ron Kessler, can intuit what his agenda COULD be. Of course, it's something deeply hidden away, along with the other preposterous tales about Obama's Muslim agenda, and secret cash coming in from Saudi families, and Rev Wright and God knows what else.

Enough!
PS This just out from JTA. Mr Brooks certainly knows how to pick them!

Published: 10/15/2008

The Rev. Jesse Jackson said that his views were distorted in an article that quoted him as saying "Zionists" would lose their influence under an Obama administration.

A report in Tuesday's New York Post by Amir Taheri, a writer who has in the past been charged with making exaggerated claims, said Jackson told the first World Policy Forum last week in Evian, France, that "Zionists who have controlled American policy for decades" would lose influence under Obama.

According Taheri, Jackson told the forum that Obama promised "fundamental changes" in United States foreign policy, and said that the most important changes would take place in the Middle East where a President Obama would end "decades of putting Israel's interests first."

"The recent column in the New York Post by Amir Taheri in no way represents my views on Middle East peace and security," Jackson said in a statement released by his Rainbow Push coalition.

"The writer is selectively imposing his own point of view, and distorting mine.I have a long held position of a two state solution to achieve peace in the Middle East. I stand forthrightly for the security and stability of Israel, its protection from any form of hostility, and a peaceful, non-violent resolution to co-existing with its Palestinian neighbors."

Jackson also accused Taheri of seeking to "incite fear and division."

Sources close to Jackson said some of the quotes in Taheri's article were fabricated - Jackson never used the term "Zionists," for instance, they said.

It was not clear if Taheri claimed to be in the room when Jackson made his remarks, or if others had reported the remarks to Taheri.

Taheri has a controversial past. Some of his writings on his native Iran have been debunked by experts as based on fabrications and distortions. Canada's National Post apologized for his 2006 report that Iran's leaders planned to force Jews to wear yellow insignia after the claim was proved unfounded.

In a separate interview, Jackson, himself a U.S. presidential candidate in 1984 and 1988, told Taheri that he was not an Obama adviser, but called himself a "supporter" and a "neighbor" and called Obama "a member of the family."

Obama, the U.S. senator from Illinois and this year's Democratic candidate for U.S. president, has had acrid clashes with Jackson during the campaign over policy, although Jackson's son, a U.S. congressman, is a campaign co-chairman.

According to Taheri's report, Jackson said that if the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is not resolved, the Middle East will "remain a source of danger to us all."

"Barack is determined to repair our relations with the world of Islam and Muslims," Jackson added. "Thanks to his background and ecumenical approach, he knows how Muslims feel while remaining committed to his own faith."

The statement from the Rainbow Push coalition said: "Reverend Jackson is not a representative of Senator Obama. He has never had a conversation with Senator Obama about Israel or the Middle East, and was not characterizing Senator Obama’s views on these issues.

The Obama campaign responded to the remarks. “Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. is not an adviser to the Obama campaign and is therefore in no position to interpret or share Barack Obama’s views on Israel and foreign policy,” Obama national security spokeswoman Wendy Morigi said in a statement.

"As he has made clear throughout his career and throughout this campaign, Barack Obama has a fundamental commitment to a strong U.S.-Israel relationship, and he is advised by people like Dennis Ross, Daniel Kurtzer, Rep. Robert Wexler, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and Senator Joe Biden who share that commitment," Morigi said. "As President, he will ensure that Israel can defend itself from every threat it faces, stand with Israel in its quest for a secure peace with its neighbors, and use all elements of American power to end Iran's illicit nuclear program. No false charges can change Barack Obama's unshakeable commitment to Israel's security."

One Shabbat A Month

2008-10-15T11:12:00.000-04:00

Shanah Tova! A sweet new year to everyone! I am a bit tired today – ok, so I’m exhausted. So I got up late and moved very slowly today. Liza was just as busy as I was yesterday, only she got up this morning and played center for her ice hockey team. What do they say? Vive la difference!

I fear I may not see too many of you tonight. Between exhaustion and a playoff game, the attrition rate may be high. But I’ll be here!

Someday I’d like to mount a temple campaign that would ask every family to commit to coming to temple one Shabbat a month. Not because I like the sanctuary so full – though I DO love a packed house – but rather, because a monthly checking in to a service is a means to more closely experience the zeitgeist, i.e., the spirit or the heart of the temple. The more one attends services, the more tuned in one becomes, and not just to the temple.

If you come to Shabbat services, just once a month, you will actually feel better about who and what you are. Your will attain a better grasp of your spirituality. And you will be able to answer that question, “What is the Meaning of my life?” with more authority and confidence.

Look, make it a new year’s resolution for 5769. Put it on your calendar weeks in advance, like you do for the symphony or New Rep or the Celtics or the Sox or the Bruins… It’s worth it. I promise.

So let me again wish you a healthy and sweet new year. I look forward to a wonderful and joyous year. Seeing you any time, any where is a mechiyah [a thrill]. But I really truly hope to see you again in our gorgeous sanctuary before September 18th, 2009 (erev Rosh Hashanah).

Shabbat Shalom,

rebhayim

Obama and the Jews

2008-09-26T17:51:00.002-04:00

I'm going to write this as an Independent who's a Jew. So if you think that John McCain is your man, if you think his experience and past performance and military service all make him a better presidential candidate, then by all means, vote for the man.

But when I hear Jews discussing not voting for Obama, it's not because they think McCain is a better candidate. In fact, McCain's name hardly turns up in conversation amongst Jews who won't vote for Obama. When they speak against Obama, it's not about his campaign or his ideas as presented all over this country. It's about ugly, slanderous lies.

To my great shame and dismay, Jewish voters are succumbing to and spreading sleazy and malicious lies about Obama. Nick Kristoff, in his op/ed piece last Sunday in the New York Times called it "otherizing Obama" . Kristoff reports that a Pew Research Center survey released a few days ago found that only half of Americans correctly know that Mr. Obama is a Christian." What's mindboggling isnt that there are ignorant Americans. Heck, how many Americans to this day persist in believing that Saddam trained al Qeida insurgents and had a hand in 9/11? What stuns me is the extent to which Jews believe this canard about Obama being a secret Muslim.

I fear this attitude is deep cover for a terrible truth: there are more Jews than we care to acknowledge who in their heart of hearts don't want a Black man in the White House. Quoting Kristoff: "What is happening, I think, is this: religious prejudice is becoming a proxy for racial prejudice. In public at least, it’s not acceptable to express reservations about a candidate’s skin color, so discomfort about race is sublimated into concerns about whether Mr. Obama is sufficiently Christian." Or for Jews, insert sufficiently pro-Israel. (this is the Kristoff piece:) [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/opinion/21kristof.html?ref=opinion

You see, Obama's record on Israel, like McCain's, is right down the line in step pro Israel. He harbors no anti-Israel, pro-Muslim agenda. He is not secretly funded by a dark and sinister underground Muslim treasury. He does not have a secret pact to launch a jihad should he become president.

In the past, Jewish voters have responsibly read the facts about their candidates and have not become sycophants of right wing talk radio trash. What else but a deep seated, perhaps even unconscious racism is at work. It is a sad comment when the very lowest common denominator of American

life -- racism -- enters Jewish life. We should know better, we who were slaves in the land of Egypt, we who know a thing or two about racism and being "otherized". This is not about who Jews are voting for. This is about Jews willing to acknowledge that they have problems electing a black man to the presidency instead of indulging in the worst aspects of American behaviors, which is to sign on to Josef Goebbels famous Nazi dictum: The bigger the lie, the more people will believe it.

Barak Obama is a Christian. He is not a secret Muslim. He has no Muslim agenda. He fully supports Israel. He is not funded by Muslims in a secret cabal to destroy America. And I can't believe there are Jews who entertain this talk.

High Holy Days: not for sissies

2008-09-26T17:49:00.002-04:00

The High Holy Days are so big, so truly filled with awe! As the day rapidly approaches (Monday night, by the way), I get into my New Year mindset. I hear "Avinu Malkenu" playing in my head all the time, like Christmas music after Thanksgiving. "V'Al Kulam" plays a lot, too. It's the melodies that touch the softest places of memory, holy days of the past, memories of friends and loved ones who are gone.

These thoughts and melodies inevitably open gates of contemplation that lead me to various significant High Holy Day concepts. The ones that always rattle my cage are all from the prayer known as U'Netaneh Tokef. I call them the Big Three: Tshuvah, tefillah, and tzedakah. They are. The various Hebrew pronunciations using the 'T' sound (I do not have a speech pathology background; what DO you call the 'tsh' sound vs. the 'tz' sound?), is not an accident. It really affects me. It's like God calling: "Pssssssssst! Hey you! Yeah you, the big bald guy with the beard! Pay Attention! Have you been taking care of business? How's the asking forgiveness thing going? [That's tshuvah.] And what about spiritual intentionality in your prayer life? [That's tefillah.] And what's the quality of your giving of your time and your cash? [That's tzedakah.]"

Well I hope you can imagine my response, which is flustered. First I get defensive. I reach for my catalogue of good deeds, thinking, "I'll show you God! Look at the size of this catalogue!" I'm thinking, man oh man, I have done lots of good things. Then I lift my book of good deeds and it's light as a feather, paltry, embarrassing And then it's back to the Three Ts.

There's no room for hubris and ego on the threshold of a new year. It has to be about honesty and vulnerability to ourselves, to God, and to each other. As much as we've accomplished, there's still more to do. How we do it, how we choose to be honest and forthright, right now! reflects our willingness to take these next days seriously or not.

I beseech you, as your rabbi and fellow traveler on the great road of repentance, to lay down your defensiveness, to consider responding to the Big Three. I know this is not easy to consider, really I do. And if you don't do it, if you completely blow off the High Holy Days, if you don't come to services, or if you do come but you don't bother taking it any of it to heart, nothing bad will happen to you. No religious police will hunt you down. You are free! And I certainly won't lay a guilt trip down on your head, that's for sure.

But here's what you lose. You lose a chance to find yourself. You miss a chance to gain courage to confront the terrible problem you've carried on your back until your shoulders ache. You miss the chance to feel nurtured and listened to that you need to be strong with your children. You miss the chance to ask forgiveness from someone you really hurt. You miss the chance to spiritually grow in the light of God's presence that shines on you through the eyes of every person in the sanctuary.

I know it's hard to believe. But it's all right here, waiting. Open your heart. Open your mind. As Ram Dass nee Richard Alpert, a nice Jewish boy from Newton, once said, "Be here now." I couldn't agree more.

kosher; i don't think so

2008-09-26T17:49:00.001-04:00

Postville, Iowa is a very important town to the American Jewish community, particularly to Orthodox Jews. It is neither the home of any famous rabbis, nor to a famous yeshiva. No, Postville is home to Agriprocessors, the largest kosher slaughterhouse in America. The company claims itself to be law abiding and upstanding. On their website they say that they

"approach our business in the context of a deep religious tradition. The nine rabbinic authorities that use Agriprocessors to serve the needs to their congregations define the requirements for kosher meat production at our plant, and train and supervise the rabbis who conduct the religious rituals. The values expressed in the kosher rituals and requirements are a part of the values shared by our employees, regardless of their religious beliefs. They include a commitment to:

· Cleanliness and health

· The safety and welfare of our employees, colleagues and neighbors

· Stewardship of the environment

· The humane treatment of our animals

· The success of our community

These values and commitments are reflected in everything that Agriprocessors does."

But Agriprocessors behavior over the past years reflects a cynical lack of concern for the rights and health of their employees as well as the animals they slaughter. Their treatment of the largely Hispanic workers is reprehensible. The pay stinks, the conditions are unsafe, they hire illegal immigrants and under aged children, they lie about plant conditions. Mark Grey, a professor at a local university who studies immigrant labor at slaughterhouses, said that even after five years of coming to talk with workers at AgriProcessors, he is still caught off-guard by the severity with which workers are treated.

"I'm continually surprised at how poorly they treat these people because they're not Jews and because they happen to be immigrants," said Grey, director of the Iowa Center for Immigrant Leadership and Integration. The center is based at the University of Northern Iowa, in Cedar Falls.

"The bottom line here is that I'm not sure these devout Jews are using Jewish ethics to treat their workers," he added. (Jewish Forward May 6, 2006 http://www.forward.com/articles/1006/).

Many Orthodox rabbis, when first asked about the Postville problem, claimed that as long as the kosher rituals were properly supervised by Orthodox rabbis, the workers treatment didn't have a thing to do with the product. Which quite frankly, is a shocking thing to say. To divorce fundamental Jewish ethics from the performance of any mitzvah, including the kashrut process, separates something that is indivisible. How can one market kosher meat processed by workers who are abused, underpaid, and afraid and still consider the meat kosher?

Finally, a few days ago, after years of lying to fact finding rabbis touring the factory, Agriprocessors and its owners, Aaron and Sholom Rubashkin, were charged with more than 9,000 counts of child labor violations by the Iowa Attorney General. The company has struggled since an immigration raid at its Postville, Iowa, plant in May in which nearly 400 of its employees were arrested.

Immediately after the criminal charges were announced on September 9, the leading certifier of kosher food in the United States, the Orthodox Union, announced that it would withdraw certification of Agriprocessors food within a few weeks unless new management takes over operation of the Postville plant. The CEO of O.U. Kosher, Rabbi Menachem Genack, said that he is helping the company look for new management and is also talking with the Rubashkins and a labor union about allowing the workers at the plant to unionize. (Forward http://www.forward.com/articles/14169/).

We are obligated to see more than just our own immediate needs as Jews. How those workers in Postville are treated is as important as a kosher brisket, to say the least… I am sorry if my friends that buy kosher meat are inconvenienced for awhile. But I am relieved to see that after all the bold faced lies cleared, even the OU had to respond. Kosher meat processed in the shadow of abuse and deception is worse than pork.

before shabbat

2008-07-18T02:00:00.000-04:00

Almost every Israeli knew, in their heart of hearts, that Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser were dead, and had been dead for a long time. Rumors about the fire fight that night, about who was where during the battle, all hinted that Regev and Goldwasser were never alive in captivity. And yet, up to the last moment, almost every Israeli waited with their hearts in their mouths, hoping that somehow, even one of the two would get out of a jeep and walk across the bridge. Instead, reality crashed down on our heads. Two coffins emerged. Goldwasser and Regev.

Hezbollah to the last minute taunted and abused every Israeli and every lover of Zion with hints of their survival. Their misleading announcements and statements were all designed to further twist the knife of Hezbollah’s position of power in this tragic drama. And Hezbollah’s lies really hurt, particularly the families, friends, and comrades of Regev and Goldwasser.

The two fallen soldiers were laid to rest yesterday. The sadness of the day and the unwelcome memories of the 2006 Lebanon War really created lots of talk and argument: on the streets, on the radio, on the buses, etc. But the state did not go into mourning. There’s simply too much life to live here. In fact, walking through Mahane Yehudah yesterday, it occurred to me that Israel is hyperactive! No one stops for anything.

The vitality and the strength of this land are immeasurable. That’s just one compelling reason to make peace. Because when all of that energy is freed up, it will change the world.

Liza and I along with Molly and Zoe are having Shabbat dinner with Laura Nelson, Margaret O’Connor’s and Aaron Nelson’s sister-in-law, and one of our 2 illustrious tour guides from last December. We are thrilled!

And, as our first week in Israel draws to a close, I am more inspired, more committed than ever to this place, this crazy, impossible, rude, noisy, dynamic, loving, holy place.

Shabbat Shalom,

rebhayim

first Israel thoughts

2008-07-14T04:43:00.002-04:00

Ok, I’ll admit it right up front: there’s something vaguely sinful and blasphemous about flying to Israel over Shabbat. But the ticket prices simply could not be beat, so I grabbed them after making a slightly shady deal with God that I cannot divulge here but will hint has something to do with Tzedakah and exercise. We took off on time, flying Continental direct to Tel Aviv via Newark.

Arriving at Ben Gurion on Shabbat was actually a calm, quiet experience. Ours was the only flight coming in at 930 Sat. morning, so it was nice and easy and dare I say it, pleasant. Our friends Leah and Yoni met us as we cleared Customs, and off we went.

Looking out the window as we drove from B-G to Jerusalem, our friends apologized for the view. “It’s so brown!”, Leah said mournfully. And even while I have to acknowledge that there is a water crisis in Israel, that Leah is right, I can’t help but be thrilled to be looking out at the fields. I take in this vista I never grow tired of surveying: the oaks and olive trees, the rocky hills, the drama of this ancient land still sustaining our people.

We arrive at our apartment in a Jerusalem suburb. It’s in a beautiful, quiet area overlooking the Givat Ram campus. We’re swapping homes with an Israeli scientist and his family who arrived last week and are with friends in Needham until we go. We’ve walked through our house with them a few days ago, and they are happy if not a bit overwhelmed by the big old drafty house we live in. Their 2 older kids, 16 and 14, are still here in Israel, and the day before they head to the States, they give us instructions on the intricacies of the apartment infrastructure. And thank God they are here, because as good as I am with technical stuff, there is no way in hell that I could figure out how to use the German dishwasher, the French oven, the jerry-rigged toaster oven, the Israeli washing machine (no clothes dryer…), etc.

The first night of our arrival we drive (yes, I’m driving in Israel for the first time, and I must say that Boston driving for the past 11 years makes it a bit less harrowing), to the center of Jerusalem and walk down Emek Refaim to find a favorite restaurant, Joy (some of our TBA travelers will remember Joy). En route, we bump into Wendy Siegal, the woman who gracefully filled in on cantorial duties after Felicia left and before Susan came aboard. The truth is that if you wander around Jerusalem long enough, you’ll find your mother…

On the way back to our apartment (12 minutes from town center), we got a bit lost. We ended up cutting through Meah Shaarim, the ultra-Orthodox section of town on a Saturday night, mind you, after Shabbat. And the sight was awesome: thousands, and I mean THOUSANDS of Hasidim dressed in their Shabbat finest. No time for changing back into regular clothes. Sunday is a work day, no time for vacationing. And so, lined up for miles along the main Orthodox drag, waiting for the private buses that brought them to Jerusalem for Shabbat to bring them back to wherever they live, from Eilat to the Golan, no doubt, . I have never seen so many shtreimels, so many payes, so many ultra Orthodox Yidn.

I looked at them all as we drove by and I wondered, just how much do we share in common? What could we talk about agreeably? Neither God, Torah or Israel, that’s for sure. Politics? Hah! Maybe only the best cell phone and the weather. For how many of them am I the implacable foe? The interloper? The destroyer of Israel? And for me, are they sometimes no more than arcane sectarians, dressed in 18th century Polish nobleman's garb, devotees of extremism in all political, social, theological and cultural ideologies? Are there answers?

I’m looking.

The Gift of Being there 3.28.8

2008-04-01T12:56:00.000-04:00

I went to the mikveh (the ritual bath) this morning, not to take a dip, but to witness a conversion. Prior to the conversion candidate’s immersion was a bet din, a rabbinic panel of 3 rabbis: Rabbi Lisa Eiduson, Rabbi Andy Vogel (of Temple Sinai of Brookline), and me. The task of a bet din is essentially to serve as a rabbinic court. In this case our task was to interview the candidate and ascertain his readiness and his sincerity. By the end of the interview, we three rabbis felt uniquely blessed on this Shabbat for bringing in someone to Judaism of such regard and integrity.

Every once in a while, you’re doing your job, just doing what you're supposed to do – nothing extraordinary or awesome, just doing your job. A doctor says, “I’m not sure about the spot on the fibula here. I think we need to examine this further.” No special medical intuition, just a good call in the line of duty. And it ends up the doctor’s detected the first sign of a tumor and helps that person kill the cancer early. A lawyer that says, “Let’s get another eyewitness on the stand.” No Perry Mason intuition here, just being thorough. And that testimony swings the jury, saving an innocent person from prison. Or the guy at the gas station who says, “Your tire’s low. You want me to give it some air?” And that air in that tire saves the driver from a blow out and a catastrophe. Just doing their jobs.

That’s what it felt like today. Three rabbis, doing our rabbinic duty, not truly realizing the extent of our act, but changing one man’s personal, spiritual trajectory forever. And maybe ours’ too. It can be the greatest blessing just to be in the right place, just doing what one is supposed to be doing.

Come acknowledge this conversion tonight at the same service where our guest Francis Bok will be speaking… not to mention where over 100 Jewish teens will be joining us for a weekend of prayer, study, socializing and fun.

Amen for just being there.

Shabbat Shalom,

rebhayim

Responsa and Ask the Rabbi

2008-03-31T11:55:00.001-04:00

Responsa: Then and Now

In the old days, and I’m talking way back there in the 8^th century if not before, people would sometimes get stumped by difficult questions regarding proper observance of Jewish Law. Jews who lived in Diaspora backwater communities often suffered from a lack of rabbinic leadership and needed important questions answered about anything from proper divorce procedure to observing Shabbat at sea to how to make matzah, etc. In larger communities, when leading rabbis disagreed about vital issues such as the nature of the eruv (the boundary around a Jewish neighborhood that allows for carrying things on Shabbat), or how to judge the bona fides of a kosher butcher, they needed a final arbiter. Since we don’t have a Pope (though I know a few rabbis would like the job…), who you gonna call?

In the old days – and today – it’s not Ghostbusters who get the call. Rather, it is a rabbi whose erudition is unimpeachable. For centuries, our ancestors, lay and clergy, wrote to heads of various rabbinic academies (yeshivot or batai Midrash). Those scholars who answered Responsa came from the French School, the Spanish School, the German School, the Constantinople School, etc. Each school had different strengths based and specialties. A Sephardic rabbi wouldn’t necessarily send a question to the German school, but rather to the Spanish school, ie, to a rabbinic scholar with expertise in the customs of Sephardic Jews.

Fast forward now to the past two hundred years. What happens when Reform rabbis have questions about intermarriage, transgender blessings, abortion, etc? We wrote – and write – to our own illustrious rabbis. There are volumes of Responsa from all denominations, including our own. Some of the answers they give are dated; others, timeless.

So it occurred to me that perhaps we could do a little Responsa right here at Beth Avodah. Now I am NOT suggesting that my erudtion runs even vaguely deep enough to say that I am a worthy successor to the great teachers of yore. Al I can do is try my best to answer your questions and research the hard ones. I’ll be answering the letters I receive periodically. I will print questions (anonymously) and try answering them in the Kadima. I will also start a tradition tonight of an evening called, “Ask the Rabbi.” Every 6 to 8 weeks, I will provide a live opportunity for dialogue on anything that may be on your mind. Don’t forget: it’s Ask the Rabbi, not Stump the Rabbi. Bring a question tonight or send me/email me.

Shabbat Shalom

rebhayim

Inspiration as Soul Fuel 3.14.8

2008-03-31T11:52:00.001-04:00

Inspiration is a kind of necessary fuel for me. Without it, I begin to wear down. Without it, I start to get sad. The news seems only negative and dark. My efforts to make a difference begin to feel bogged down, like I’m stuck in the Roach Motel…

Lucky for me that I am surrounded by lots of people – by YOU! – who provide your extraordinary stories of effort and change and commitment and sacrifice. Your stories are so very inspiring. I am lifted up by what you teach me in your stories.

Sometimes the stories are intimate and personal. Sometimes the stories are through your work. Other times, it’s a story you’ve heard from a friend of a friend and you tell others: you pay it forward, as it were.

A couple months ago, I heard from Linda Matchan, whose professional life as a Boston Globe journalist is all about stories. I’ve read them over the years, and she is a really fine writer. So Linda tells me that she did a story about someone and that it was a moving story and that maybe I might be interested in reading the story and then, perhaps inviting the subject of the story to speak here at the temple. She sends me the link to her story.

I read it. I pick myself up off the ground and I say thank you to God for guiding Linda to Tina Chery (it feels theological to me...). Thirteen years ago in Dorchester her 15-year-old son got caught in the middle of a gang-related shooting and was murdered. He was on his way to a Christmas party sponsored by Teens Against Gang Violence. How does a mother survive such a horrible, tragic loss?

Well, here’s a large part of the inspiration. With a small staff -- three full-time, one part-time -- and a tight $207,000 budget dependent on donations and grants, Tina created the Louis Brown Peace Institute. “The Institute has a big agenda that includes violence prevention education, peace activism, and family support. It has developed a nonviolence curriculum for schools and a "Leadership Academy" to help survivors of homicide victims navigate the criminal justice system. It sponsors Massachusetts' Mothers on the Move , a program to bring together women who have lost children to murder, prison , or deportation. It organizes the annual "Mother's Day Walk for Peace" in Dorchester, a fund-raiser to increase awareness of homicide in Boston which will be held this year on May 13.”

But even more moving, Linda writes that “Chéry offers practical guidance to families in the harrowing hours after a murder as they prepare for a burial no one could ever imagine, where teenagers are buried with teddy bears, small children mourn their siblings, and eulogies are pleas for peace as much as they are tributes to those who died. She offers support, later, too, with the myriad complicated issues relating to a murder in the family -- everything from how to contact elected officials advising friends and relatives on how best to console the family.”

Our community has little to do with Dorchester and the folks who live there. It’s just not on our radar. It’s not that we lack empathy, we just don’t really have a connection to them and their world. We worry about our kids like they do, but we aren’t telling our children to look out for gang fights. Because we don’t have to. We aren’t worried that our kids will get shot on their way to the temple, caught in a drive by.

It seems to me we could learn something from Tina about that world, which, in the end, is our world, too. Come hear her at services on Friday night, April 11^th. Prepare to be inspired. Below is the link to Linda’s great take on Tina and her work. And check out the video link, too. It will break your heart. And it will, I hope inspire you to love a little more and bless a little more and give thanks.

Shabbat Shalom

rebhayim

http://www.boston.com/yourlife/articles/2007/03/13/an_angel_in_disguise?p1=email_to_a_friend

thinking About the Yeshiva Murders 3.8

2008-03-31T11:47:00.002-04:00

I just read Brad Burston's blog in Haaretz, and part of the sentiments therein emerge in this posting. This Friday night I’m reflecting on the murder of Yochai Lipschitz, 18, of Jerusalem; Yonatan Yitzchak Eldar, 16, of Shiloh; Yonadav Chaim Hirschfeld, 19, of Kochav Hashahar; Neriah Cohen, 15, of Jerusalem; Roey Roth, 18, of Elkana; and Segev Pniel Avihayil, 15, of Neveh Daniel. Doron Maharata, 26, of Jerusalem, and Avraham David Moses, 16, from the United States, at the hands of the terrorist, Ala Abu Dhaim, 25 . I am heartsick over this terrible loss of life.

I am filled with a desperate concern for whether or not we can ever come close to any form of peace when there is such hatred, such blind and unspeakable hatred. I am sure that Ala Abu Dhaim was filled with rage and despair over the detainment of his family members. I am certain that, as a driver, he must have been stopped at many a roadblock. I have no doubt that Ala Abu Dhaim felt enormous pain over the deaths of innocent children in Gaza during the recent Israeli bombings.

But none of this anger can justify the twisted behavior of Ala Abu Dhaim. Terrorism is the impotent rage of extremists living by a nihilistic code that eschews the value of life in favor of some narcissistic vision of the future. Everyone who doesn’t look like me, act like me, believe like me, deserves to die.

But this movement of hate and rage has a supporting theology. It has a god who demands the blood of all who do not believe. It encourages young men and women to blow themselves up for the glory of their god. It encourages the murder of young men studying Torah.

What these fools fail to understand is that the world is sick of their hate, fed up with their pathology. No one has done more to torpedo the world’s sympathy for the Palestinian cause than the Palestinians. When will they ever learn?

On this Shabbat, God help us all.

rebhayim

new birth

2007-01-14T11:38:00.000-05:00

I think that I will try to put the most recent Before Shabbat missives here on a regular basis. But I do want to use this space to say things that I believe in strongly that may not be appropriate to share in an email I send to the entire congregation. So if you want to voluntarily come to this blog to read my views and see some spleen vented (ughh... what a vision...), as well as dialogue on line, please do join me.
For instance, I find the fact that President Clinton was brought up for impeachment because he lied about his sexual habits ridiculous and absurd. Was he a jerk? Yes. Was Senator J Lieberman right in chastising him on the Senate floor? You betchca. This may be the last thing about which I agree with Lieberman, who I've grown to disdain... too bad... Was Clinton's stupidity impeachable? Comon!
And now we have a president who lied to the American people about WMD, committed us to a war without a cogent battle plan? Who even now against the advice of folks as diverse as Sam Brownback, Chuck Hegel, and Ted Kennedy, is committing a surge of 20,000 more American soldiers? And this president is NOT guilty of crimes that are impeachable? I don't get it.
All I know is that like Sam Cooke once sang, "A change is gonna come." I just hope it's in time to save American and Iraqi lives.

Katrina -- and Hooters

2006-06-18T18:14:00.000-04:00

Where does altruism come from? How does a sense of the Universe develop which includes an ethical center? What does it mean to live a moral life, a life filled with honesty and integrity? Was Anne Frank right, that people are really good at heart? Or is John Locke right when he said, "Good and evil, reward and punishment, are the only motives to a rational creature: these are the spur and reins whereby all mankind are set on work, and guided."

Is it all about our education, the way our minds are sharpened and sensitized that make us into menschen? Or is it a genetic proclivity, something we're borne with – or not. Biochemistry or Bible?

This whole battle to identify the root of goodness came to mind as I read how FEMA was defrauded after Katrina and Rita. Actually, I should say that we, the tax payers of America, were defrauded.

The GAO said it was 95 percent confident that improper and potentially fraudulent payments were between $600 million and $1.4 billion.

The investigative agency said it found people lodged in hotels often were paid twice. FEMA paid an individual $2,358 in rental assistance, while at the same time paying about $8,000 for the same person to stay 70 nights at more than $100 per night in a Hawaii hotel.

FEMA also could not establish that 750 debit cards worth $1.5 million even went to Katrina victims, the auditors said.

FEMA paid millions of dollars to more than 1,000 registrants who used names and Social Security numbers belonging to state and federal prisoners for expedited housing assistance. The inmates were in Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, Georgia and Florida. [from the clarion ledger MS]

Who is the great American hero: the guy who 'stuck it to the man' with his FEMA emergency credit card, using it to purchase hot wings and a $200 bottle of champagne at Hooters? Or the CEO of Hooters who is, out of his own pocket, sending a check for $200 to reimburse the US Government? Or is it neither?

The temptation to get away with it, the notion that 'no one is watching', is, I think, the basis for all crime, 'victimless' or not. People cheat and defraud by the thousands, every day, all over the world. It all comes from a fundamental selfishness and entitlement to get whatever one can beg, borrow or steal.

But this impulse is not without a very dark side. It is the indifference of the bystander and the cynicism about the inherent worthlessness of others' lives and needs and rights that allowed Kitty Genovese to be slowly and loudly murdered on the streets of New York, the innocent residents of Haditha to be slaughtered, the Jews of Germany to marched off to Dachau in 1933.

Am I too dramatic here? I think not. It's why following the rules makes sense. And it's why we praise those men and women who dare to tell it like it is, and then work to stop the crime of indifference and selfishness and callousness. So does the fraud depress you? As an antidote, read this article from the Israeli daily Yediot. This is the family that Harvey Weiner brought to our temple last month. And whether it's biochemistry or a good ethics class or a loving parent or just luck, I'm sticking with the good guys. Shabbat Shalom

Rebhayim

Americans to be honored at Yad Vashem

Martha Sharp Joukowsky to participate in Righteous Among Nations ceremony on behalf of her late parents
A ceremony posthumously honoring Martha and Waitstill Sharp from the United States as Righteous Among the Nations is set to be held in the Garden of the Righteous at Yad Vashem this coming Tuesday. The Sharps are the second and third Americans, after Varian Fry, to receive the Yad Vashem recognition.

The couple frequently placed their lives in jeopardy during the Holocaust to assist persecuted Jews. Martha and Waitstill's daughter, Mrs. Martha Sharp Joukowsky, will receive the certificate and medal on her parents' behalf.

The ceremony will be conducted in English in the presence of US Ambassador to Israel Richard H. Jones. Also present will be Mrs. Eva Esther Feigl, whom the Sharps helped escape Europe, Mrs. Martha Sharp Joukowsky, daughter of the late Waitstill and Martha Sharp, and family and friends including some 40 people who flew in from New York.

From Massachusetts to Prague

Waitstill Sharp, a minister in the Unitarian church in Wellesley, Massachusetts, and his wife Martha, a noted social worker, accepted an invitation by the Unitarian Service Committee to aid members of the Unitarian church in Czechoslovakia in 1939.

Arriving in Prague in February 1939, the Sharps helped a number of Jews leave the country, which had come under Nazi control. The Sharps continued their charitable work until August 1939, when they left Prague following warnings of their possible arrest by the Gestapo.

On June 20, 1940, they landed in Lisbon, Portugal, on a mission to help refugees from war-torn France. Making their way to Vichy controlled France, which had allied itself with Nazi Germany, they sought ways to help fugitives from Nazi terror.

Saving Jewish writer

While in France they helped Lion Feuchtwanger, a world famous German-Jewish author of historical fiction, escape France. The Nazi regime had listed him number 6 on a list of persons whose German citizenship was annulled for their anti-Nazi stance.

Learning of Feuchtwanger's plight, Waitstill and Martha decided to organize Feuchtwanger's escape. At great risk, they organized forged identity cards, rented rooms, bribed French border guards, purchased first-class tickets, and Martha Sharp disguised as a native peasant woman, to accompany the Feuchtwangers by train to Cerbere, on the Franco-Spanish border, where Waitstill Sharp was waiting for them.
Eventually, the Sharps arranged for the Feuchtwangers to board a ship heading for New York, and they sailed in September 1940.

Having accomplished this, Martha Sharp returned to France, and journeyed to Vichy to plead for permits for a group of children, among them nine Jews, to leave the country, which after many efforts she received.

On November 26, 1940 this group - which included Eva Esther Feigl - left France, armed with US visas thanks to Martha Sharp's efforts. After the war, Martha Sharp was involved in many efforts to assist Israel and Jews around the world. She died in 1999. Waitstill had passed away in 1984.

Fleeing Genocide to Israel... to jail?

2006-06-09T17:42:00.000-04:00

There are at present about 200 refugees from the Darfur genocide in Israel. They got there along the same route Moses took: across the Sinai Desert. Their parlous journey took them from Sudan into Egypt. In Egypt they hooked up with various Bedouin tribes who then smuggled them into Israel.

One would think that for a person fleeing from genocide, Israel would be the obvious sanctuary. And it is – sort of. The bad news is that these genocide survivors are sitting in Maasiyahu Prison, a low-security lockup in central Israel. The less bad news is that the "Sudanese are being held in a section for foreign workers where conditions are said to be better than in criminal wards. They are allowed to use cellphones and are free to move around the prison wing. The detainees spend their days playing chess, watching television and napping. Huge industrial fans provide some relief from the heat." [www.NYTimes.com].

But why are these victims in prison? Sure it's not a bad facility, but it IS prison and they cannot leave. The irony, or should I say, one of several ironies, is that they are in jail because they escaped from Sudan, a country considered to be an enemy of Israel. Thus all who come from Sudan are legally considered hostiles and therefore potential threats to the Jewish State who are not eligible for asylum. Of course, they are fleeing their country because it is hostile to them. Sound like a Kafka story? It does to me.

This is a bad scene on any number of counts. First, the PR could not be worse for Israel. Second, this detention flies in the face of so much of the work being done to stop the genocide. Third, it is a genuine shanda, a shameful situation that must be rectified for the sake of those survivors. Fourth, these Sudanese have suffered beyond belief. We cannot stand idly by.

Already, some of the most respected Jews in Israel and abroad have spoken out. Yad Vashem director, Avner Shalev, Amnon Rubinstein, a former justice minister and prominent jurist, historian Yehuda Bauer, one of Israel's leading experts on the Holocaust, are just a few who are calling for the Israeli government to rectify this situation.

This is not Israel bashing or partisan politics at work. This call is simply for the just treatment of refugees from Darfur. It is all about doing the right thing. Silence in the face of human suffering is never permitted. Who knows that better then we do? "We as Jews are obliged to help not only Jews," Mr. Wiesel said in an interview published in the daily Haaretz. "History constantly chooses a capital of human suffering, and Darfur is today the capital of human suffering. Israel should absorb refugees from Darfur, even a symbolic number."

I'll keep you apprised of the situation. All I can say after Elie Wiesel is, Amen.

Click here for a cogent essay

2006-06-04T16:58:00.000-04:00

I am a fiercely loyal Zionist with a strong opinion about the politics and the politicians of Israel (not to mention of our own country). Yes, I am a proud, card carrying liberal progressive. Of course, being a proud, card carrying liberal progressive Zionist is fraught with all sorts of hazards. And certainly, there have been some terrible setbacks and some serious cases of reality testing.

For instance, when the security wall began to go up, I was absolutely opposed to it as a costly, ineffective example of realpolitik. But I was wrong. That wall works, and I have to support that which saves lives. But I remain opposed to using the fence as a land grab for Palestinian farm land.

Anyway, I think that the best and most interesting, articulate liberal progressive Israeli voice is that of Brad Burston of the great Israeli newspaper, Haaretz. His latest posting presents a brilliant if dark analysis of the future of Israel-Palestine relations. i hope it gets you thinking. It is not a simple political piece, but rather a complex reading of a convoluted nightmare. What do you think?

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/722274.html

It's Your Torah... 6.2.6

2006-06-02T23:57:00.000-04:00

In our central foundational story, we received the Torah a few thousand years ago today on what is now called, Shavuot. Ever since, we've struggled to understand what it means. Why is this ancient scroll so vital to us, so necessary?

We worry about dropping the Torah (actually, there is no true legal ruling on what to do if a Torah scroll falls; the idea of fasting for 40 days seems to have been a suggestion from a 17 th century rabbi. Maybe it was just to scare some Bar Mitzvah student to be careful…). We worry about chanting it correctly (and there's LOTS of Jewish law on that issue). We ritualize the reading of Torah to coincide with the rite of passage for our Jewish children from naïveté to knowing.

But really, how much Torah do we inject into our lives? What do we do to bring ourselves closer to the center? Maimonides writes (Mishneh Torah, Laws of Torah Study 1:8-9): Every Jew is obligated to study Torah, whether he is poor or rich, healthy or ill, young or old. Even if he is a pauper who derives his livelihood from charity, or if he has family obligations to his wife and children, he must still establish fixed times for Torah study -- both day and night, as it says (Joshua 1:8), "You shall think about it day and night."

I wouldn't want to run the percentages, but my general take on the subject is that few Jews create the time and opportunity to follow the Maimonidean missive. And this is a sad and perhaps scary truth.

Does it matter that less than 50% of our congregation could list the names of the Five Books of Moses? I really don't know. Maybe it only matters if asked the question on a trivia contest. [BTW, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy]

But I'd be lying if I told you it didn't matter to me. Because it does matter. A lot. It would be like an American not knowing the Star Spangled Banner (in English or Spanish is fine by me…), or the Pledge of Allegiance.

Once I worked with an interfaith family in Texas . They could not decide how to raise their 3 daughters religiously, so gave them no religious training. As one of their children neared high school graduation she came to visit me to ask some questions related to her Jewish roots. I told her, "Look, your Mom is Jewish and that means that, should you ever decide to become involved in Jewish life, it already belongs to you. There is a big gift wrapped in expensive paper sitting on your kitchen table. And it's yours to open whenever you want. But you have to open it. And if you don't, it will be such a waste of the blood and sweat and tears that were spilled to put it on your table."

It's there waiting for us. It comes in many colors and forms and shapes. And there's more than enough Torah for all of us. So open the gift. It has your name on it.

the end of the dream is the beginning 12.23.5

2006-05-31T11:50:00.000-04:00

I'm in Jerusalem today for Shabbat. What a thrilling thing to say…
It's chilly tonight and there's a chance of snow in the morning. Not
much, but enough for the Jerusalemites to get a big thrill. And while
I am no stranger to snow, the idea of seeing a white Hanukkah in the
holiest of holy cities does not upset me at all.

There's not much to be upset about, I have to admit. The Israel trip
has been a glorious experience and you can follow the exploits of the
group at: www.holylandlive.blogspot.com
It will give you some sense of where we're at.

• This week's Torah portion deals with Joseph and his dreams and how
his fate is tied to his dreams. That is, Joseph is almost killed by
his brothers after he tells them an aggrandizing dream that, to put it
in modern parlance, disses them. It is his ability to interpret
dreams that gets him out of the dungeon. And it is through a dream
that he ends up saving his brothers – the very guys who wanted him
dead to begin with.

So this means that dreams are tricky. When they come true they cause
us to confront reality – whether we want to or not. Israel was just a
dream for so many centuries. Our not so distant ancestors could never
imagine that we would end up here in 2005 for a Shabbat service: free,
powerful, entitled Jews. But with the dream come true we are faced
with the reality of Israel: internecine vituperation, recrimination,
high taxes, terrorists… so much for the dream state…

But I guess that's the point: the end of the dream is the beginning of
the story.

Where are the Men? 1.13.6

2006-05-31T11:47:00.000-04:00

I've been doing a lot of thinking about what I call the 'feminization' of American Jewry. By this I mean the increasingly front and center roles that women are playing in synagogue and civic Jewish life. The presence and power of women in Jewish life is such a relatively new phenomenon that it represents what they call a sea change. All of the categories and dimensions of American Jewish life are rapidly morphing because of this dramatic gender shift.

I am not making a value judgment here. Women have yearned for an equal place on the bimah as well as the board room, in the seminary as well as the corner office. And God knows, they have been discriminated against and persecuted and just plain left out. So the fact that women deserve an equal role is not in dispute. That they are achieving what they want is something to celebrate.

But that is not the issue. I am instead looking at the diminution of Jewish men in synagogue and civic leadership, in Jewish learning and Jewish professions altogether. The Reform movement is ordaining more women than men now. The editor of the new Reform siddur is a woman. Jewish education has become an almost exclusively female world.

After moving over and making the room for their Jewish sisters, where are the men?

Burying Edith 1.20.6

2006-05-31T11:46:00.000-04:00

Sorry about my late start today. It's been one of those races with the clock to get too many essential things done at once.

So I have a brief story. On Thursday I performed a funeral for a woman I'd never met. Edith was 99 when she died. She had never been married, outlived her brother, and refused to have anything to do with her nephew and niece (it seems they suggested that she turn over power of attorney to them – bad mistake). One of her aides described her to me.

Edith was stubborn and ornery and cantankerous. She lived alone all her life for a good reason. She had no hobbies or interests except the stock market. And she was GOOD at the stock market. She kept charts and graphs of all her holdings and of course never used a computer.

As she aged, even Edith knew she couldn't survive without assistance. So she hired some local folks to help around the house, run errands, clean up, etc. She was not the easiest person to work for. Demanding and supercilious, Edith was hard to please.

Then, two years ago, she had a stroke. She recovered fairly well. But something happened that is not so unusual. After the stroke Edith began making herself emotionally available in ways she never had before. She hugged. She told her staff how she loved them. It was as if she'd been bit by the mensch bug.

There were 8 people, including me and the guy from Levines, at the funeral. The six guests were all non-Jews who had worked for Edith. I doubt they'd ever met a rabbi before. They certainly had never been to a Jewish funeral, not to mention Jewish funeral home. They were quiet and very respectful and I think grateful that we had a way to respectfully say goodbye to this woman who loomed so large in their lives.

I thanked them for their righteous service to Edith, who, by the way, refused to entertain the thought that she might die… I felt some enormous sense of hope and goodness that a group of working class Catholics from New Hampshire would have the dignity and the dedication to find a Jewish funeral home.

Edith may have died a single woman, but she didn't alone. I never knew her, but I'm not going to forget her or her friends.

a Million Little Lies 1.27.6

2006-05-31T11:44:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I worry that by the time I finish my piece for the Kadima, whatever I am reacting to as I compose my article will have passed from the main stage to the trash heap of "I thought it was a decent idea at the time". Such is not the case this week.

In a move at once laudable and suspect, Oprah publicly rebuked James Frey for abusing the reading public with bold faced lies that appear in his supposed memoir, A Million Little Pieces. Oprah loved it and chose it as her book of the month for her reading group, which made Frey an even bigger millionaire than he was before she picked the book (it had already done very well…).

I know why she chose the book. No one has ever described addiction so well. No one had ever spoke with such authority on the pain and degradation someone can feel in rehab. No one had told a story quite as compelling as this one. It's just not non-fiction.

Initially she defended the book when the website, www.thesmokinggun.com published an expose questioning the veracity of key components of A Million Little Pieces. But Oprah changed her mind as the truth emerged. The truth being that, in large part, the story is a fabrication built upon a flimsy scaffolding in Frey's imagination.

All of which is to say that I am glad that Oprah saw the light.

Spielberg's Munich 2.3.6

2006-05-31T11:41:00.000-04:00

Going to a Steven Spielberg movie is like getting on an emotional roller coaster. Thrills and chills. Ups and downs. Laughter and terror. Certainty and ambiguity. Sin and redemption. Good and evil. Spielberg's genius throws you ever forward on the surprising curves of the story he's chosen to tell. I have wept all 25 times I've seen Saving Private Ryan. The same goes for my multiple viewings of Schindler's List, ET, The Color Purple, A.I., Close Encounters, and so on. I just tune into his wavelength.

So I went to see Munich not really knowing what to expect. Certainly the reviews have been more than a bit mixed. As a reader of the New Republic, I was particularly ready to dislike Munich because Leon Wieseltier, the dyspeptic literary editor of TNR, trashed the movie. As he recently wrote online:

Spielberg's problem is that he wishes to provoke, but not to offend… he insists in Newsweek that " Munich never once attacks Israel," which is correct, but also that it "barely criticizes Israel's policy of counterviolence against violence." The latter claim is preposterous, as anybody who has seen Munich knows: The film's very subject is the dubious moral legitimacy, and the dubious practical efficacy, of counterterrorism. If Munich is not about that, it is not about anything. And then Spielberg delivers himself of the oldest weasel words in Hollywood : "It simply asks a plethora of questions." An innocent Socratic exercise, for the consideration of the Academy. No answers, just questions--as if certain kinds of questions are not themselves certain kinds of answers. But Munich asks its questions in ways that make its preferred answers perfectly clear. Spielberg will not own up to any of this. He wants the glamour of seriousness without the responsibility of seriousness. People should not engage the perplexities of morality and history if they are prepared only to be loved.

What a crisis! Pulled between my emotional connection to Spielberg's oeuvre, and the desire to be intellectually honest, I entered Showcase Cinema. Instantly, I remembered why I hate that theater: tiny screen, horrible sound system, bad snack bar, awful video games. But I was committed to hunker down and watch.

I saw a moving, suspenseful film with some hard hitting violence and some very serious questions about the use of violence and the dimensions of justice and revenge. These questions must be asked, and I don't agree with Wieseltier that the questions are tendentious. In the end they are exactly the sort of questions that we must be asking about the future of Israel and the Palestinians.

That said, was it a great movie? No. Too long, and too dependent on the violence. In the end, it is less about ideas and moral character and more a classic thriller. But that's the shorter version of the review. If enough people are interested we should get together one evening and talk about it. What do you think?

My Friend, Hesh 3.3.6

2006-05-31T11:36:00.000-04:00

v My jetlag is at last dissipated. It is so hard to get the body clock functioning when returning home across time zones.

v This Shabbat I am partaking in an unusual experience. Instead of the standard doing of a Bar Mitzvah, I am attending a Bar, or in this case, Bat Mitzvah. It's surely not often that I am in any other synagogue on Shabbat. My work, my life is here at Beth Avodah. But this Shabbat marks the coming of age of my oldest friend's daughter, Sabina. And I am delighted to be attending the service.

When I met Hesh in 10th grade, his name was Harold. Harold was what they call unchurched and had no connection to Christianity at all, apart from the annual family gatherings for big dinners at Christmas and Easter. He was a spiritual person, but had no address to bring that particular yearning.

We started regularly hanging out along with another guy, also unchurched, as it turned out. Kerry and Harold spent lots of time at my house, where Judaism was always close to the surface, if not right on (and at) the table. In short order those 2 friends of mine became like brothers, so much so that, in a chutzpadik moment I said to Harold, "You know, you're just not a Harold. You're a Hesh."

From that moment on, he was Hesh: on school papers, posters, credits, everything. It wasn't as if I had really given him a name. Rather, I found it and said, "Here, you must have dropped this."

Hesh married a Jewish girl and prior to nuptials, converted to Judaism. Our friend, Kerry, did likewise, and now our children together celebrate this remarkable journey of Jewish life. Again, I take no credit for doing anything other than just sharing the Jewish glasses through which I have viewed my – and all life. Hesh and Kerry happened to like the view, so got their own glasses. What a joy! What a miracle that we have come to this place.

When I am in shul tomorrow morning, I will be saying a shehecheyanu because I feel nothing but blessed to be at the Bat Mitzvah of Sabina, daughter of Evie and Hesh. I am thankful for how the generations play themselves out, how surprises illumine our lives, and how we can be God's messengers.

Can You Hear Me? Can You Hear Me Now?? 3.17.6

2006-05-31T11:34:00.000-04:00

My cell phone rings yesterday afternoon. I glance at the caller i.d.
and do a double take. It's my wife calling -- from Israel. I
eagerly answer. I want to hear about our son, Aaron, and all that
he's doing. Except I know how he's doing because I've been speaking
regularly with him via his rental cell phone (why is his voice clearer
from Jerusalem than from Newton Centre??). But eyewitness accounts –
especially from his Mom – will reveal an accurate assessment of his
true condition.

I hold the phone to my ear, and as I shout 'Hello' over and over I
realize that my wife's phone has called me from her bag. She has no
idea I'm on the line. I first begin to do cost calculations. This
little accident will cost about $1.50 or so. Then I fantasize that
her phone, so far away, so used to connecting with me, actually misses
me…

These phones, these crazy, ever shrinking cell phones, seem to be
appendages on almost every ear. And I am so aware of the
inappropriate and impolite manners in which they are used and abused…
I have performed weddings, B'nai Mitzvah, funerals, for God's sake,
taught classes, when someone's phone with one of those ring tones to
make your flesh crawl, goes off. Sometimes the recipient of the call
has the unbelievable chutzpah to answer it as they leave the
sanctuary, or for that matter the theatre or the museum hall. "Hello!
Yeah, hold on…' THEY SAY LOUD ENOUGH FOR EVERYONE TO HEAR.

When another totally oblivious driver, phone plastered to ear, has
almost smacked into me on Commonwealth Ave., I interpret such cell
phone experiences as the earliest signs of the end of the world. But
perhaps I shouldn't be so dark and cynical about it. Maybe cell phone
use is just about the need to connect, the absolute ongoing drive to
be known, to be heard, to be listened to.

Aren't the biggest problems in our lives, the worst misunderstandings,
all about feeling disconnected, alone, out of the loop? In Ki Tisa,
this week's Torah portion, our ancestors actually made a golden calf
when they felt disconnected from Moses and abandoned. They needed to
replace the Holy One with an object they could see and trust in. They
hadn't yet learned that nothing replaces true connection. They hadn't
developed the faith necessary for survival. If only Moses had had a
Treo…

A good cell phone is a fine thing. I'm glad they exist. Because it's
all about connection and faith. And being polite…

Battling Jewishly Absurd Extremism 3.24.6

2006-05-31T11:32:00.000-04:00

I read this article in the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, which is a great source of Israeli news and political commenaries.

Rabbi Yitzhak Batzri said the outbreak of bird flu in Israel is God's punishment for calls in election ads to legalize gay marriages.

"The Bible says that God punishes depravity first through plagues against animals and then in people," Batzri said in a religious edict quoted by his son, Rabbi David Batzri.

Batzri said he hoped the deaths of hundreds of thousands of turkeys and chickens would help atone for what he called the sins of left-wing political parties, Rabbi Yitzhak Batzri told Reuters a week before the Knesset election.

The bird flu outbreak stemmed from far-left political parties "strengthening and encouraging homosexuality," Batzri's son quoted him as saying.

Strange, but true: there are rabbis in the world who spout such inflamatory nonsense. They believe in an animated Universe where their darkest fantasies of revenge and retribution find form through the use, or should I say, the abuse of Torah. Look at Meir Kahane who gave hatred an official rabbinic seal of approval.

I am always surprised when I find a Jewish person actively engaging in racist or sexist behaviors. Somehow they seem to find a way around the injunction to treat the stranger with kindness and dignity, for once we were strangers in a strange land.

The good news is that the Rabbis Batzri are under investigation by the state prosecutor. They are suspected of racist incitement after saying, and I quote from Haaretz again:

"The establishment of a bilingual school for Jewish and Arab students is a despicable and sinful act. An Arab cannot contaminate what is pure. It is forbidden to blend darkness and light. The nation of Israel is pure and the Arabs are a nation of donkeys. They are an evil disaster, an evil devil, and a nasty affliction."

Rabbi Yitzhak Batzri said, "The Arabs are donkeys and beasts. They want to take our girls. They are endowed with true filthiness. There is pure and there is impure and they are impure."

What else can I say? I am proud to report that the impetus for the criminal investigation came from the Reform movement's Jerusalem office.