Hannah (my 4-yo daughter) was playing with her friend (we'll call her Sarah) and Sarah's brother, Michael, in the yard, when I heard their playful but innocently cruel voices: "Michael's not cute! Michael's not cute!" Sarah's dad, not entirely understanding what the girls had said, acknowledged that Michael was on all four acting like a dog and looking a bit funny.
I did hear what the girls had said, so I called Hannah over, and pointed out that this was lashon hara (hurtful speech). Hannah quickly ran over to Sarah to tell her to stop because it was lashon hara. Sarah's dad gave me a quizzical look--he is Jewish but not observant. I told him that I am pretty strict on lashon hara with my daughter. He said, "I guess if that's your thing, that's fine," which was followed by an awkward but accomodating pause.
Later, after changing the subject and taking the girls for a potty break, I asked him why he didn't use that category with his daughter. He didn't really believe in organized religion, he told me, or see it's necessity in transmitting values. He thought maybe I did all this because I am more spiritual, but I assured him i really haven't been feeling all that spiritual (with all the diapering, feeding, and snack preparation). I just think children need a strong ideological and cultural framework for values as well as specific examples of what it means to be a good person.
This is, I think, the crux of the issue. I don't have much use for "organized religion" as an abstract concept--it's pretty sterile, and who among us really prefers being organized rather than spontaneous? But I truly believe (and this more than anything else is why i stay in the rabbinate) that Judaism has a repository of wisdom and techniques designed to hone our ethical sensitivities. There is a wonderful story about the Chofetz Chayyim, that he once said how you can test a student's knowledge of tractate Nezikim, the incredibly difficult section of Talmud dealing with damages. He said that if someone is visiting your house, and a breeze is coming in the window, and you get up to close the window, then you've studied it properly. Regular Torah study, prayer, kashrut, and much of the regimen of halachah is designed to reinforce this sensitivity. Making us Rahamim, compassion, in the words of the 14th century commentator Nahmanides.
Sadly, it can be applied stupidly or even perversely. The Forward reports the inane prescriptions of fasting imposed on masturbators by Rabbi Batzri (see::) and his generous offer to replace the fast by a fee payable by credit card. Even worse are people who, in the name of religion, are hateful, racist, judgemental, etc. All of this is truly hillul hashem--a "desecration of God's name" which turns people away from religion through banality or even outright evil.
But organized religion (specifically Judaism) gives my daughter a developing sensitivity to how she speaks, which secular culture does not. How will Sarah's father train her not to speak lashon hara? Will he be able to reach the same level of sensitivity and care you get from studying the Hofetz Hayyim? Clearly our own society lacks this sensitivity to lashon hara, to saying anything negative about another person unless absolutely necessary. She gets it not by feeling Jewish, not by learning to chant Hebrew, but by being trained in the serious values at the core of our religion. I study Torah with her regularly (veshinantam levanecha), using especially the amazing childrens' books put out by Mesorah. Will all of this Torah study pay off in terms of her behavior? We will see...
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Yom Kippur 5774: Seeing the Miraculous
NB: this essay is really a collage, incorporting sermons by Alfredo Borodowski, Gerald Zelizer, Ed Farber, & Shraga simmons, as well as some references I added in.
The fire and the altar were ready. The knife was touching Isaac’s throat when the angel of God shouted “Abraham, Abraham, stop!”
“Abraham looked up, [and] saw a ram caught in the thicket by its horns” At that moment, when Abraham needed a sacrifice to substitute for Isaac, the perfect replacement appeared before his eyes: a ram, ready for sacrifice.
So where did the ram come from? Did it just end up in the wrong place at the wrong time?
In typical rabbinic fashion there are two opposite opinions as to the pedigree of this ram.
1) One opinion, strongly maintained by Rabbi Eliezer, is that prior to getting caught in the bush the ram was just grazing nearby in the hills. The specific ram Abraham saw was no different from any other ram.
2) In the opposite corner, Rabbi Joshua, who often debated with Rabbi Eliezer, maintains that this ram was created on the sixth day of creation, on the eve of the first Shabbat, for the very purpose of being ready to replace Isaac. Where was the ram kept since the time of creation? The ram was suspended in time, grazing in the Garden of Eden under the tree of life
What a strange debate! What difference does it really make if the ram was grazing in the hills of Judea or in Paradise, or in a backyard in Brooklyn? What could bring these two distinguished sages to argue about such a seemingly irrelevant question? What really divided these two sages?
Rabbi Joshua’s and Rabbi Eliezer’s positions are diametrically opposed. Rabbi Joshua, who brings the ram all the way from paradise, actually does not believe in miracles. The ram had to be included as part of creation, embedded in the DNA of history, in order to be used at the precise moment that Isaac was saved. For him, there cannot be true spontaneous miracles, changing nature on the spot; only rare spectacular events programmed within the natural order.
On the other hand, Rabbi Eliezer, who believes that the ram was like any other, finds the miraculous in everything. For him God can work miracles at any time either through nature or by breaking the laws of nature.
Let me ask you a question. If I were to give you a choice, whose opinion would you follow? Would you follow Rabbi Eliezer who believes that miracles really exist and present themselves in our lives, sometimes in ordinary ways and other times in extraordinary ways? Or would you follow Rabbi Joshua who believes that God has only a very limited supply of spectacular events, which are programmed within nature?
Each one of us has a slight preference either for Rabbi Joshua or for Rabbi Eliezer. Some of us are more skeptical and see the world mostly through the prism of reason. Others are enchanted by the beauty and mystery of the world and see God’s hand in ordinary events. Some of us see life in a very natural and progressive way. Others wonder about events that seem to be more than mere coincidences. Most of us vacillate between the two schools. Some days we feel that our lives are engulfed in the extraordinary and other days we wake up feeling that all that is around us is ordinary. Sometimes we feel we are victims of chance and randomness, while other times we feel we can glimpse a mysterious force steadily moving us in a certain direction.
Was the ram a miracle, or a coincidence?
Do I see world as miraculous or not?
Last summer, I read the Life of pi, a book which also came out as a movie.
Early on, the main character arranges to meet a friend of his, Mr. Kumar, who is religious, at a zoo, and happens also to run into his teacher, who is also named Mr. Kumar. He takes them both around the zoo, which they experience completely differently. After they all admire the creature, the rolls-royce of equides, Mr Kumar the teacher declares “equus burchelli boehmi.” Mr kumar the baker, on the other hand, just praises God. Mr. Kumar and Mr. Kumar are two different ways of approaching reality.
The main plot of the movie is that Pi, the main character, somehow survives a shipwreck, and survives on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger aboard until they float to mexico. When they arrive, and Pi explains how he got there, the people who found him can’t believe him, and come up with different explanations.
Pi’s argument in favor of his story is not that it’s more plausible than theirs, but that “it’s a better story.” Sometimes seeing a zebra as equus burchelli boehmi is a better story, if I am studying evolution, biology, or medicine. But seeing a zebra as an amazing creation by God is a better story in the way it enriches my life, enables me to lead a life of meaning.
I can see the world scientifically, what heschel called dry facts, or I can see it as a miracle, as divine creation. Heschel calls this radical amazement. I can try to explain reality, describe it with scientific laws, which is very useful, but sometimes it is important to just be amazed that it exists, to be awed by the mystery behind a zebra, behind the sun and moon and stars, behind my own existence.
Celts have term: “think and thin moments”
The idea is that there is a veil between this world and the other world
Thin moments—moments/places where veil lifted
Very thin moments: recognition of miraculous forces itself upon us
Eric Weiner writes travel pieces for the New York Times. Weiner talks of “thin places” in travel. He says “It is admittedly an odd term. One could be forgiven for thinking that thin places describe skinny nations, like Chile; or cities populated by thin people; Los Angeles. No, thin places are much deeper than that. They are locales where the distance between heaven and earth collapse and are able to catch glimpses of the divine or the transcendent or the inscendent whatever. We are jolted out of all the ways of seeing the world.”
Eric Weiner says that a “thin place” is not necessarily a tranquil place or a fun one. Weiner, Disney World is not a “thin place.” Nor is Cancun. Those places may relax us, but they do not transform us. Weiner writes: “In thin places time is not something we feel compelled to parse or hoard. There is plenty of it to go around.
My experience outside of santé fe—seemed like there was a spiritual opening there, among cliffs west of santa fe, bordering a vast open plain leading to the city. I could imagine if I were a native American, wanting to burn incense there to mark the sacredness of the spot. Not incidentally, this was a location which had an unusual number of pictographs. Apparently I was not the first human to notice this place.
I also had the experience of standing on top of mt adams—saw the world spread out under my feet like a carpet, experienced awe at the grandeur of creation
For our people, Jerusalem is that place, where the veil becomes transluscent. This is why creation started there, the energies of divine creativity entered the material world through that nexus. This is why we pray facing Jerusalem.
The Messianic era is a time when the veil will be lifted, the world will be full of knowledge of god. And Shabbat is such a time, me-ein olam haba, a taste of the world to come.
Are there historical events where the veil is lifted?
Are we living in miraculous times?
Most of us would say no, miracles are something from the bible,
Maybe we believe it, maybe not, but that kind of thing doesn’t happen now
In the events of the book of esther, which we commemorate with purim, god doesn’t appear
Just like our time: God’s role in universe is hidden
But we acknowledge that god was behind our success
Splitting Red sea—you could say rare coincidence of tides and winds, shifting sand bard
Many have said exactly this: rambam says a miracle is just a unique natural event—but he still says it’s a miracle.
Why? Because we choose to see the miraculous
Haggadah: increase number of miracles to 50 & beyond
What about the Yom kippur war?
This week marks the 40th anniversary of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when Syrian dictator Hafez al-Assad launched a war of annihilation against Israel. The Jewish state prevailed, but for a time things were in real jeopardy; many northern Israeli towns were evacuated and then overrun by the Syrian army. This was a modern day miracle
Some other recent miracles:
1) The first Jewish State in 2000 years was established and the combined armies of 7 Arab countries were beaten back in the War for Independence.
2) 600,000 Israeli Jews went on to absorb 800,000 Jews from the Arab countries into the new tiny Jewish state of Israel – something no country has ever been able to accomplish in such a short period of time.
3) The Soviet Jewry movement supported by the American Presidents and the Congress of the United States managed to bring down the iron curtain and it culminated in 1 million Soviet Jews moving to Israel. and an interesting anecdote, not only the white house, but even the Kremlin has an annual Hanukkah party!
4) for the first time in human history - white men –went into Africa to take blacks out – not to be slaves – but to take them from persecution to freedom in the land of Israel. Over 90,000 Black Ethiopian Jews were rescued and transferred to Israel –Israelis flew planes into the Sudan to take out Ethiopian Jews and the American Government paid the ransom and the bribes.
What do we expect a miracle to look like?
Do we expect a very large hand, the hand of God, reaching down from heaven?
Lifeboat story: drowning man praying to be saved
Boats come, throw him a rope
Dies; god: “why didn’t you grab on to the rope?”
What do we expect god’s hand to look like?
Look at Israel. Look at our survival. Look at your own life.
This is what a miracle looks like.
Living in the miracle is a choice
A choice to notice
A choice to be amazed by life, to live in awe & wonder
Not that it’s a different explanation, rejecting science
A choice to see the universe through the eyes of amazement
Contemporary debate over Hallel on Yom Ha’atzmaut:
We can choose to see Israel as a miracle, say Hallel,
Or we can choose to see it as just another fact
Heschel calls: a dry fact
If we choose to view life through the eyes of miracle, it transforms my approach to life.
Yehuda halevi: live a richer life—experience the spiritual side of everyday experience. Nourishes me, elads to a richer experience of life.
Realizing divine love inspires us to practice divine love
Today marks the 100 year anniversary Franz Rosenzweig’s non-conversion:
What happened? He was considering converting to Christianity, but he went to shul on yom kippur, and then announced it was unnecessary to convert. He subsequently wrote his magnum opus, the Star of Redemption, a theology defending Judaism.
In that work, Rosenzweig says there is a basic experience of god’s love & God’s command, in which god says: ‘love me’
Choosing to sense the miraculous, choosing to experiencing divine love in the world, inspires us to practice divine love.
We become each others angels,
each others miracles
the answer to each others prayers
As we begin a new year, I invite all of us to strive to fill the world with so many good actions that we will naturally increase the chances for the extraordinary. Like throwing a bottle into the sea of life, we never know the potential far reaching effects of a good simple action. Spread as many acts of goodness as you can, large or small, create moments of holiness, and use your wealth to help those in need. You never know how what is ordinary to you may be miraculous for somebody else.
May this be a year in which each one of us becomes a miracle for somebody else, perhaps without even knowing it.
The fire and the altar were ready. The knife was touching Isaac’s throat when the angel of God shouted “Abraham, Abraham, stop!”
“Abraham looked up, [and] saw a ram caught in the thicket by its horns” At that moment, when Abraham needed a sacrifice to substitute for Isaac, the perfect replacement appeared before his eyes: a ram, ready for sacrifice.
So where did the ram come from? Did it just end up in the wrong place at the wrong time?
In typical rabbinic fashion there are two opposite opinions as to the pedigree of this ram.
1) One opinion, strongly maintained by Rabbi Eliezer, is that prior to getting caught in the bush the ram was just grazing nearby in the hills. The specific ram Abraham saw was no different from any other ram.
2) In the opposite corner, Rabbi Joshua, who often debated with Rabbi Eliezer, maintains that this ram was created on the sixth day of creation, on the eve of the first Shabbat, for the very purpose of being ready to replace Isaac. Where was the ram kept since the time of creation? The ram was suspended in time, grazing in the Garden of Eden under the tree of life
What a strange debate! What difference does it really make if the ram was grazing in the hills of Judea or in Paradise, or in a backyard in Brooklyn? What could bring these two distinguished sages to argue about such a seemingly irrelevant question? What really divided these two sages?
Rabbi Joshua’s and Rabbi Eliezer’s positions are diametrically opposed. Rabbi Joshua, who brings the ram all the way from paradise, actually does not believe in miracles. The ram had to be included as part of creation, embedded in the DNA of history, in order to be used at the precise moment that Isaac was saved. For him, there cannot be true spontaneous miracles, changing nature on the spot; only rare spectacular events programmed within the natural order.
On the other hand, Rabbi Eliezer, who believes that the ram was like any other, finds the miraculous in everything. For him God can work miracles at any time either through nature or by breaking the laws of nature.
Let me ask you a question. If I were to give you a choice, whose opinion would you follow? Would you follow Rabbi Eliezer who believes that miracles really exist and present themselves in our lives, sometimes in ordinary ways and other times in extraordinary ways? Or would you follow Rabbi Joshua who believes that God has only a very limited supply of spectacular events, which are programmed within nature?
Each one of us has a slight preference either for Rabbi Joshua or for Rabbi Eliezer. Some of us are more skeptical and see the world mostly through the prism of reason. Others are enchanted by the beauty and mystery of the world and see God’s hand in ordinary events. Some of us see life in a very natural and progressive way. Others wonder about events that seem to be more than mere coincidences. Most of us vacillate between the two schools. Some days we feel that our lives are engulfed in the extraordinary and other days we wake up feeling that all that is around us is ordinary. Sometimes we feel we are victims of chance and randomness, while other times we feel we can glimpse a mysterious force steadily moving us in a certain direction.
Was the ram a miracle, or a coincidence?
Do I see world as miraculous or not?
Last summer, I read the Life of pi, a book which also came out as a movie.
Early on, the main character arranges to meet a friend of his, Mr. Kumar, who is religious, at a zoo, and happens also to run into his teacher, who is also named Mr. Kumar. He takes them both around the zoo, which they experience completely differently. After they all admire the creature, the rolls-royce of equides, Mr Kumar the teacher declares “equus burchelli boehmi.” Mr kumar the baker, on the other hand, just praises God. Mr. Kumar and Mr. Kumar are two different ways of approaching reality.
The main plot of the movie is that Pi, the main character, somehow survives a shipwreck, and survives on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger aboard until they float to mexico. When they arrive, and Pi explains how he got there, the people who found him can’t believe him, and come up with different explanations.
Pi’s argument in favor of his story is not that it’s more plausible than theirs, but that “it’s a better story.” Sometimes seeing a zebra as equus burchelli boehmi is a better story, if I am studying evolution, biology, or medicine. But seeing a zebra as an amazing creation by God is a better story in the way it enriches my life, enables me to lead a life of meaning.
I can see the world scientifically, what heschel called dry facts, or I can see it as a miracle, as divine creation. Heschel calls this radical amazement. I can try to explain reality, describe it with scientific laws, which is very useful, but sometimes it is important to just be amazed that it exists, to be awed by the mystery behind a zebra, behind the sun and moon and stars, behind my own existence.
Celts have term: “think and thin moments”
The idea is that there is a veil between this world and the other world
Thin moments—moments/places where veil lifted
Very thin moments: recognition of miraculous forces itself upon us
Eric Weiner writes travel pieces for the New York Times. Weiner talks of “thin places” in travel. He says “It is admittedly an odd term. One could be forgiven for thinking that thin places describe skinny nations, like Chile; or cities populated by thin people; Los Angeles. No, thin places are much deeper than that. They are locales where the distance between heaven and earth collapse and are able to catch glimpses of the divine or the transcendent or the inscendent whatever. We are jolted out of all the ways of seeing the world.”
Eric Weiner says that a “thin place” is not necessarily a tranquil place or a fun one. Weiner, Disney World is not a “thin place.” Nor is Cancun. Those places may relax us, but they do not transform us. Weiner writes: “In thin places time is not something we feel compelled to parse or hoard. There is plenty of it to go around.
My experience outside of santé fe—seemed like there was a spiritual opening there, among cliffs west of santa fe, bordering a vast open plain leading to the city. I could imagine if I were a native American, wanting to burn incense there to mark the sacredness of the spot. Not incidentally, this was a location which had an unusual number of pictographs. Apparently I was not the first human to notice this place.
I also had the experience of standing on top of mt adams—saw the world spread out under my feet like a carpet, experienced awe at the grandeur of creation
For our people, Jerusalem is that place, where the veil becomes transluscent. This is why creation started there, the energies of divine creativity entered the material world through that nexus. This is why we pray facing Jerusalem.
The Messianic era is a time when the veil will be lifted, the world will be full of knowledge of god. And Shabbat is such a time, me-ein olam haba, a taste of the world to come.
Are there historical events where the veil is lifted?
Are we living in miraculous times?
Most of us would say no, miracles are something from the bible,
Maybe we believe it, maybe not, but that kind of thing doesn’t happen now
In the events of the book of esther, which we commemorate with purim, god doesn’t appear
Just like our time: God’s role in universe is hidden
But we acknowledge that god was behind our success
Splitting Red sea—you could say rare coincidence of tides and winds, shifting sand bard
Many have said exactly this: rambam says a miracle is just a unique natural event—but he still says it’s a miracle.
Why? Because we choose to see the miraculous
Haggadah: increase number of miracles to 50 & beyond
What about the Yom kippur war?
This week marks the 40th anniversary of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when Syrian dictator Hafez al-Assad launched a war of annihilation against Israel. The Jewish state prevailed, but for a time things were in real jeopardy; many northern Israeli towns were evacuated and then overrun by the Syrian army. This was a modern day miracle
Some other recent miracles:
1) The first Jewish State in 2000 years was established and the combined armies of 7 Arab countries were beaten back in the War for Independence.
2) 600,000 Israeli Jews went on to absorb 800,000 Jews from the Arab countries into the new tiny Jewish state of Israel – something no country has ever been able to accomplish in such a short period of time.
3) The Soviet Jewry movement supported by the American Presidents and the Congress of the United States managed to bring down the iron curtain and it culminated in 1 million Soviet Jews moving to Israel. and an interesting anecdote, not only the white house, but even the Kremlin has an annual Hanukkah party!
4) for the first time in human history - white men –went into Africa to take blacks out – not to be slaves – but to take them from persecution to freedom in the land of Israel. Over 90,000 Black Ethiopian Jews were rescued and transferred to Israel –Israelis flew planes into the Sudan to take out Ethiopian Jews and the American Government paid the ransom and the bribes.
What do we expect a miracle to look like?
Do we expect a very large hand, the hand of God, reaching down from heaven?
Lifeboat story: drowning man praying to be saved
Boats come, throw him a rope
Dies; god: “why didn’t you grab on to the rope?”
What do we expect god’s hand to look like?
Look at Israel. Look at our survival. Look at your own life.
This is what a miracle looks like.
Living in the miracle is a choice
A choice to notice
A choice to be amazed by life, to live in awe & wonder
Not that it’s a different explanation, rejecting science
A choice to see the universe through the eyes of amazement
Contemporary debate over Hallel on Yom Ha’atzmaut:
We can choose to see Israel as a miracle, say Hallel,
Or we can choose to see it as just another fact
Heschel calls: a dry fact
If we choose to view life through the eyes of miracle, it transforms my approach to life.
Yehuda halevi: live a richer life—experience the spiritual side of everyday experience. Nourishes me, elads to a richer experience of life.
Realizing divine love inspires us to practice divine love
Today marks the 100 year anniversary Franz Rosenzweig’s non-conversion:
What happened? He was considering converting to Christianity, but he went to shul on yom kippur, and then announced it was unnecessary to convert. He subsequently wrote his magnum opus, the Star of Redemption, a theology defending Judaism.
In that work, Rosenzweig says there is a basic experience of god’s love & God’s command, in which god says: ‘love me’
Choosing to sense the miraculous, choosing to experiencing divine love in the world, inspires us to practice divine love.
We become each others angels,
each others miracles
the answer to each others prayers
As we begin a new year, I invite all of us to strive to fill the world with so many good actions that we will naturally increase the chances for the extraordinary. Like throwing a bottle into the sea of life, we never know the potential far reaching effects of a good simple action. Spread as many acts of goodness as you can, large or small, create moments of holiness, and use your wealth to help those in need. You never know how what is ordinary to you may be miraculous for somebody else.
May this be a year in which each one of us becomes a miracle for somebody else, perhaps without even knowing it.
Kol Nidre: Taking Back the Past
I want to start tonight with a very odd idea which we find in the megillah of Esther. King Ahashuerous, who has no idea of his own but is led by his advisors to approve wild acts of violence, sends out an order to kill the Jews. When Esther reveals that she is Jewish, the king does not revoke his decree, because the word of the king cannot be revoked, so he instead authorizes the Jews to fight back.
It’s an interesting idea: the decree of the king cannot be taken back. Once the king issues a statement, he can’t back down, he can’t change his mind.
What a terrible policy! How can you run a kingdom if you can never revoke a decree?
It is a problem we also face in our own relationships. We say harsh words which are hard to take back. We take strong positions, and paint ourselves into a corner. How do I take back, “I will never do that,” or “you’d better do this”, “don’t you dare do that?”? How do I take back, “you disgust me?” or “I hate you”? Or “I’m not going to talk to you again.”
Once I have spoken a harsh word, it is hard to take it back, so how do I continue? If I say I absolutely will not go, how can I then compromise without appearing weak? If I say, “I hate it when you do …,” how can I then back down to, “I really love and appreciate you”? How do I kiss and make up when the past is still real.
I want to share some Jewish wisdom on this issue. The three teachings that I am bringing are about peace, flexibility, and the importance of forgetting.
1. Peace
To move on from a fight, we also need to remember that peace, according to Judaism, is valued above everything else. In the Sotah ritual, when a suspected adulteress is put to trial, as part of the ritual a cohen dissolves a parchment with the divine name in a bowl of water. The Talmud tells us, that peace is so valuable that God lets his own name be erased for the sake of peace. Domestic harmony is more important than God’s honor, and certainly more important than my own.
We often forget that peace is so much more important than the content of whatever we’re fighting about. I met a man this summer who was going through a divorce, because (according to him) his wife wouldn’t agree to abide by a household budget. I am sure there was a second side of the story, but the story shocked me: Is getting divorced really better than hammering out a budget? And so many of our arguments are far more trivial: who was supposed to wash the dishes? Did I or didn’t I ask you to put the salt shaker away? We can argue about things that are truly trivial, and ruin our relationship with the argument. We need to remember that our relationship—our marriage, our community—is so much more valuable than the trivial thing we’re arguing over.
So putting my honor aside, putting aside the fact that I may have been right and may still be right, and doing what it takes to create peace. If I have hurt someone’s feelings, even if they were oversensitive or just plain wrong, I dig up my humility and find something I can apologize for, even if just hurting their feelings. I admit they have a point, even if they don’t or even if it’s not a very good one. I place peace above all else.
2. Flexibility
The second way we defuse situations is with flexibility.
One piece of advice the Talmud teaches us is that we should be flexible like a reed and not stiff like a cedar. In fact, the Talmud tells us, the reed is used for writing Torahs because of this feature. Torah observance is not about maintaining an absolute position, being right and making no space for other opinions. It is about flexibility, creating a respectful dialogue with people I disagree with.
Being flexible means when I first say what I think, I should build some flexibility into it. I should never issue ultimatims, draw lines in the sand that I then obligate myself to act on.
Being flexible also means that even if I did issue an ultimatum, I should find a way to back down, to de-escalate.
Baba Metzia starts out: 2 people (they are anonymous, but let’s call them Hymie and Shlomy) are holding on to a tallis, this says “I found it,” and so does the other, this one says “it’s all mine,” and so does the other. So what do they do? They both take an oath “that I own no less than half of it,” and split it.
Interesting oath: each one really believes he owns the whole thing, so the oath is worded very precisely, “I own at least half.” It creates a framework where they can split it, respecting each of their viewpoints. When Hymie says “I own at least half,” he isn’t saying anything he doesn’t believe, but he also isn’t speaking his full truth. He is backing down a little bit, to make room for Shloimy’s claim.
When Hymie backs down, it makes space for Shloimy to say what he believes, at least a little bit. Both of them start to speak their truth.
Like Hymie with his tallis, to get my way a little bit, and also make room for the other person’s position.
We have a lot of compromises here at FJC; some people would say it makes us schizophrenic, like we can’t make up our mind. One day we have a mehitza, one day we don’t; one day women are opening the Torah, the next they are not.
To some people, compromise looks weak, wishy washy. Some people think you shouldn’t back down from your word, once a threat has been made they have to carry it through. And in fact, the Torah talks about vows, and the obligation to carry them through.
There is a horrible episode in the Bible (Judges 11:4-5):
Jepthath is fighting a war against the Ammonites, and he needs God’s help to win it.
So Jepthath makes a bargain with God.
He says, “hey God, if you give me this victory...then I’ll sacrifice to you the first thing that comes out of my house.”
Jepthath wins the victory, goes home to celebrate...and low and behold his daughter comes running out of his house first to greet him.
Jepthath is horrified, but he knows what he has to do...so he sacrifices her to God just like he promised.
Really, this is an example of the terrible consequences of always following your word, even for the bad, of strictly holding the course, of never backing down.
Judaism says the opposite: it says that flexibility is the only way to be a holy vessel.
backing down shows that we can accommodate different people, and keep peace between them. The beauty of the Talmud is that rabbis disagreed, and they never killed each other over their disagreement. By allowing space for other opinions, they opened the door for a different voices, and for dialogue, which only happens when you have more than one voice.
3. Forgetting
Finally, we defuse situations with the human power of forgetting.
The midrash teaches that every human capacity was given to us for us to sanctify it, for us to use for a holy purpose. The feel-good emotions are easy to understand: We can sanctify our love by loving God, loving our spouses and our neighbors. We can sanctify our anger by being angry at evil, and at our own capacity for evil. We can sanctify jealousy by being jealous of other peoples’ learning and mitzvot.
So why do we have the capacity to forget? How can that serve a holy purpose? So we can forget the wrongs done to us by others. Just as God forgets our own sins, we need to forget the things others have done which upset us, in order to continue our relationships.
In fact, this is one meaning of the term kapparah, as in Yom Kippur. Kapporet was the curtain that covered the Holy of Holies, sealing it from any possible contamination. We pray for God to cover and pass over our sins.
There is an interesting mitzvah in the Torah from the time of the camp in the desert. The Jews are told, when they need to attend to their personal needs, they should go outside the camp and dig a hole with a spade. Doing this they keep filth out of the camp, they keep the camp holy.
Jorge Luis Borges tells the story of Funes the Memorius, a man who could remember every single detail of his outer and inner life. “He was able to reconstruct every dream, every daydream he had ever had. Two or three times he reconstructed an entire day…but each reconstruction had itself taken an entire day. ‘I, myself, alone, have more memories than all mankind since the world began’…and also…’my memory, sir, is like a garbage heap.” Funes was crippled by a horseback accident, but metaphorically, he was crippled by his perfect memory, by his inability to forget. Memory is a blessing and a curse. It defines us, helps us understand who we are, where we come from. But it also can paralyze us, make us unable to go forward into the future, to be open to the present. Relationships can survive only if we forget, cover up, move on.
There is value in covering over history, in forgetting and moving on. In fact, this is what we ask God to do today with our own sins, forget, move on, so we can have a fresh new year. And this is what we need to do in our relationships, too: forget what was said, forget what was done, move on, start a fresh new year.
Conclusion
The High Holiday season is about remembering our past year, our mistakes, trying to undo and fix those things we have done wrong.
In the book of jeremiah, God says “I remember the mercy of your youth.” May we remember with mercy, may we forgive, forget, move on, move forward with compassion, love & understanding.
It’s an interesting idea: the decree of the king cannot be taken back. Once the king issues a statement, he can’t back down, he can’t change his mind.
What a terrible policy! How can you run a kingdom if you can never revoke a decree?
It is a problem we also face in our own relationships. We say harsh words which are hard to take back. We take strong positions, and paint ourselves into a corner. How do I take back, “I will never do that,” or “you’d better do this”, “don’t you dare do that?”? How do I take back, “you disgust me?” or “I hate you”? Or “I’m not going to talk to you again.”
Once I have spoken a harsh word, it is hard to take it back, so how do I continue? If I say I absolutely will not go, how can I then compromise without appearing weak? If I say, “I hate it when you do …,” how can I then back down to, “I really love and appreciate you”? How do I kiss and make up when the past is still real.
I want to share some Jewish wisdom on this issue. The three teachings that I am bringing are about peace, flexibility, and the importance of forgetting.
1. Peace
To move on from a fight, we also need to remember that peace, according to Judaism, is valued above everything else. In the Sotah ritual, when a suspected adulteress is put to trial, as part of the ritual a cohen dissolves a parchment with the divine name in a bowl of water. The Talmud tells us, that peace is so valuable that God lets his own name be erased for the sake of peace. Domestic harmony is more important than God’s honor, and certainly more important than my own.
We often forget that peace is so much more important than the content of whatever we’re fighting about. I met a man this summer who was going through a divorce, because (according to him) his wife wouldn’t agree to abide by a household budget. I am sure there was a second side of the story, but the story shocked me: Is getting divorced really better than hammering out a budget? And so many of our arguments are far more trivial: who was supposed to wash the dishes? Did I or didn’t I ask you to put the salt shaker away? We can argue about things that are truly trivial, and ruin our relationship with the argument. We need to remember that our relationship—our marriage, our community—is so much more valuable than the trivial thing we’re arguing over.
So putting my honor aside, putting aside the fact that I may have been right and may still be right, and doing what it takes to create peace. If I have hurt someone’s feelings, even if they were oversensitive or just plain wrong, I dig up my humility and find something I can apologize for, even if just hurting their feelings. I admit they have a point, even if they don’t or even if it’s not a very good one. I place peace above all else.
2. Flexibility
The second way we defuse situations is with flexibility.
One piece of advice the Talmud teaches us is that we should be flexible like a reed and not stiff like a cedar. In fact, the Talmud tells us, the reed is used for writing Torahs because of this feature. Torah observance is not about maintaining an absolute position, being right and making no space for other opinions. It is about flexibility, creating a respectful dialogue with people I disagree with.
Being flexible means when I first say what I think, I should build some flexibility into it. I should never issue ultimatims, draw lines in the sand that I then obligate myself to act on.
Being flexible also means that even if I did issue an ultimatum, I should find a way to back down, to de-escalate.
Baba Metzia starts out: 2 people (they are anonymous, but let’s call them Hymie and Shlomy) are holding on to a tallis, this says “I found it,” and so does the other, this one says “it’s all mine,” and so does the other. So what do they do? They both take an oath “that I own no less than half of it,” and split it.
Interesting oath: each one really believes he owns the whole thing, so the oath is worded very precisely, “I own at least half.” It creates a framework where they can split it, respecting each of their viewpoints. When Hymie says “I own at least half,” he isn’t saying anything he doesn’t believe, but he also isn’t speaking his full truth. He is backing down a little bit, to make room for Shloimy’s claim.
When Hymie backs down, it makes space for Shloimy to say what he believes, at least a little bit. Both of them start to speak their truth.
Like Hymie with his tallis, to get my way a little bit, and also make room for the other person’s position.
We have a lot of compromises here at FJC; some people would say it makes us schizophrenic, like we can’t make up our mind. One day we have a mehitza, one day we don’t; one day women are opening the Torah, the next they are not.
To some people, compromise looks weak, wishy washy. Some people think you shouldn’t back down from your word, once a threat has been made they have to carry it through. And in fact, the Torah talks about vows, and the obligation to carry them through.
There is a horrible episode in the Bible (Judges 11:4-5):
Jepthath is fighting a war against the Ammonites, and he needs God’s help to win it.
So Jepthath makes a bargain with God.
He says, “hey God, if you give me this victory...then I’ll sacrifice to you the first thing that comes out of my house.”
Jepthath wins the victory, goes home to celebrate...and low and behold his daughter comes running out of his house first to greet him.
Jepthath is horrified, but he knows what he has to do...so he sacrifices her to God just like he promised.
Really, this is an example of the terrible consequences of always following your word, even for the bad, of strictly holding the course, of never backing down.
Judaism says the opposite: it says that flexibility is the only way to be a holy vessel.
backing down shows that we can accommodate different people, and keep peace between them. The beauty of the Talmud is that rabbis disagreed, and they never killed each other over their disagreement. By allowing space for other opinions, they opened the door for a different voices, and for dialogue, which only happens when you have more than one voice.
3. Forgetting
Finally, we defuse situations with the human power of forgetting.
The midrash teaches that every human capacity was given to us for us to sanctify it, for us to use for a holy purpose. The feel-good emotions are easy to understand: We can sanctify our love by loving God, loving our spouses and our neighbors. We can sanctify our anger by being angry at evil, and at our own capacity for evil. We can sanctify jealousy by being jealous of other peoples’ learning and mitzvot.
So why do we have the capacity to forget? How can that serve a holy purpose? So we can forget the wrongs done to us by others. Just as God forgets our own sins, we need to forget the things others have done which upset us, in order to continue our relationships.
In fact, this is one meaning of the term kapparah, as in Yom Kippur. Kapporet was the curtain that covered the Holy of Holies, sealing it from any possible contamination. We pray for God to cover and pass over our sins.
There is an interesting mitzvah in the Torah from the time of the camp in the desert. The Jews are told, when they need to attend to their personal needs, they should go outside the camp and dig a hole with a spade. Doing this they keep filth out of the camp, they keep the camp holy.
Jorge Luis Borges tells the story of Funes the Memorius, a man who could remember every single detail of his outer and inner life. “He was able to reconstruct every dream, every daydream he had ever had. Two or three times he reconstructed an entire day…but each reconstruction had itself taken an entire day. ‘I, myself, alone, have more memories than all mankind since the world began’…and also…’my memory, sir, is like a garbage heap.” Funes was crippled by a horseback accident, but metaphorically, he was crippled by his perfect memory, by his inability to forget. Memory is a blessing and a curse. It defines us, helps us understand who we are, where we come from. But it also can paralyze us, make us unable to go forward into the future, to be open to the present. Relationships can survive only if we forget, cover up, move on.
There is value in covering over history, in forgetting and moving on. In fact, this is what we ask God to do today with our own sins, forget, move on, so we can have a fresh new year. And this is what we need to do in our relationships, too: forget what was said, forget what was done, move on, start a fresh new year.
Conclusion
The High Holiday season is about remembering our past year, our mistakes, trying to undo and fix those things we have done wrong.
In the book of jeremiah, God says “I remember the mercy of your youth.” May we remember with mercy, may we forgive, forget, move on, move forward with compassion, love & understanding.
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
Syria: to bomb or not to bomb
The midrash tells us that adam was created alone, to teach that whoever kills one soul kills a whole world.
In Syria over past 2 ½ years, Bashar Assad has killed hundreds of thousands of worlds
100,000 dead in the civil war
Aug 21st: 1,400 dead from gas, including 400 children
Do we have a responsibility to respond?
We have a responsibility to speak out against evil when it can be heard
Talmud: Anytime somebody else does evil and I could have stopped them, if I don’t speak out, I’m responsible
Anytime someone insults another, or even speaks lashon hara about a third party, I am obligated to speak out.
Certainly our politicians have spoken out against Assad, and he hasn’t listened
Law of Rodef: Stop the pursuer—when someone is pursuing another person’s life, I have a responsibility to intervene
Also: Torah says do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor
So yes: we have an obligation to stop a killer like Assad
It’s not just our own obligation
What about the UN, Europe? Why should we get involved when they don’t?
Pirke Avot: bemakom she-ein ish, sham tihye ish
If nobody else steps in, don’t blend in with the wall—
Have to stick your neck out,
can’t say, well they’re not doing it, why should I go out on a limb
BUT:
At what point do we say our resources are stretched too thin? Can we afford to be the world’s policeman?
Remember, federal budget is relying heavily on borrowed money—so we are spending money we don’t really have
Law of saving a life: no limit to the expense
Many people now say: halacha didn’t envision a day when we have such unlimited opportunities for saving lives
Can we afford –financially--to stop Assad?
The law of rodef—I do whatever is required to stop the pursuer
Not just a symbolic action
So what would it take to actually stop Assad, and can we afford that?
Will this just drag us into an endless, incredibly costly war like in Iraq & Afghanistan,
or Vietnam which started in 1964 with the Gulf of Tonkin resolution which was supposedly for limited strikes?
Can we actually accomplish the mission and leave?
That is a question for the military experts & politicians
From a jewish ethical perspective: to the extent that we are able to, we have an obligation to act
Especially if nobody else is willing to step up
If financially we can afford to stand up to Assad
Then from a moral perspective we can’t afford not to stand up to him
May we all have the courage to stand up to evil, to inhumanity,
On a global level,
And to any cruelty we witness in our own dealings,
In Syria over past 2 ½ years, Bashar Assad has killed hundreds of thousands of worlds
100,000 dead in the civil war
Aug 21st: 1,400 dead from gas, including 400 children
Do we have a responsibility to respond?
We have a responsibility to speak out against evil when it can be heard
Talmud: Anytime somebody else does evil and I could have stopped them, if I don’t speak out, I’m responsible
Anytime someone insults another, or even speaks lashon hara about a third party, I am obligated to speak out.
Certainly our politicians have spoken out against Assad, and he hasn’t listened
Law of Rodef: Stop the pursuer—when someone is pursuing another person’s life, I have a responsibility to intervene
Also: Torah says do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor
So yes: we have an obligation to stop a killer like Assad
It’s not just our own obligation
What about the UN, Europe? Why should we get involved when they don’t?
Pirke Avot: bemakom she-ein ish, sham tihye ish
If nobody else steps in, don’t blend in with the wall—
Have to stick your neck out,
can’t say, well they’re not doing it, why should I go out on a limb
BUT:
At what point do we say our resources are stretched too thin? Can we afford to be the world’s policeman?
Remember, federal budget is relying heavily on borrowed money—so we are spending money we don’t really have
Law of saving a life: no limit to the expense
Many people now say: halacha didn’t envision a day when we have such unlimited opportunities for saving lives
Can we afford –financially--to stop Assad?
The law of rodef—I do whatever is required to stop the pursuer
Not just a symbolic action
So what would it take to actually stop Assad, and can we afford that?
Will this just drag us into an endless, incredibly costly war like in Iraq & Afghanistan,
or Vietnam which started in 1964 with the Gulf of Tonkin resolution which was supposedly for limited strikes?
Can we actually accomplish the mission and leave?
That is a question for the military experts & politicians
From a jewish ethical perspective: to the extent that we are able to, we have an obligation to act
Especially if nobody else is willing to step up
If financially we can afford to stand up to Assad
Then from a moral perspective we can’t afford not to stand up to him
May we all have the courage to stand up to evil, to inhumanity,
On a global level,
And to any cruelty we witness in our own dealings,
Rosh Hashanah 5774: Where does this road lead?
Where Does this Road Lead?
I want to share a painful story today, one that strikes home for me. This is about something very mundane: the traffic intersection a block away, at Ocean & church. I cross it a couple times every day. I cross it with my wife, with my daughter, with congregants. As anyone knows who has tried to cross it, it is terribly dangerous: drivers turning from Church Ave are in a rush to get on the expressway, with only you standing in their way.
On June 22, I was crossing Ocean parkway with a congregant, and I asked, in an off-hand remark, does someone have to die before they make intersection safer? She said, probably.
Two days later, a local resident, Ngozi Agbim, was struck & killed crossing Ocean parkway
It turns out, this is not a new issue. Between 1995 and 2008, 4 people were killed and 36 struck. I myself saw a cyclist struck by a car, and helped him get back up; the car that struck him honked and the driver swore at the cyclist while speeding off. Brad Lander’s office received $200,000 a few years ago to work on improving the safety, but nothing happened. The various commissions and citizens groups are at a total impasse.
So why haven’t the politicians resolved it? Because all of the solutions seemed unfeasible. A pedestrian bridge would be tens of millions of dollars, so it’s not happening. Changing the traffic patterns would require traffic engineers, cooperation with different agencies, reprogramming all the lights down Ocean parkway, so it’s not happening.
Why can politicians afford to sit on their hands? Because they are not the ones risking their lives crossing Ocean parkway. They do not cross it on Shabbes with their wife, with their daughter. They are not the ones whose lives are at risk. It is an abstraction to them, and we don’t tend to act strongly on abstractions.
I raise this not to talk specifically about that intersection, but to raise a braoder question: When do we say “enough is enough”? When do we stop enduring the pain of a given situation, and decide to break through the inertia and act? Often we sit on our hands waiting for things to get better, because we feel like doing anything else seems too difficult.
The natural course of things is that we do not change our ways until the situation is absolutely intolerable. We delay until the pain of inaction outweighs the perceived difficulty of acting. It’s not that we don’t know there’s an issue, it’s that we can’t get ourselves to commit to a solution until we really have to. With alcoholics, this is called hitting rock bottom.
The problem is, with many issues, once we get to that point there may be no turning back. The destruction may be permanent.
The approach, that advocated by our tradition, is to try to see the future. No, of course we can’t see the future, but we can ask ourselves what will happen if we continue to lead our life the way we are leading it? The tradition teaches us to make decisions based not on how it feels right now, but on where the path I am walking will end up.
Pirke Avot says “who is wise? He who sees the new moon.” Imagine looking on a moonless night, and knowing the new moon will come. Knowing what’s coming down the road. Pirke Avot is saying, make your decisions based on where your decisions will take you down the road. Change before you actually hit painful, intolerable consequences.
We sometimes talk about teshuvah as repenting, getting past a particular sin. But teshuvah literally means turning—turning, in our life, toward a pathway of righteousness, of mercy. What road am I going to take? I can turn, make sure my path is going in the right direction, even if I haven’t sinned. I can change habits before they become an issue, before I suffer terrible consequences.
I want to talk about two specific areas where I see this phenomenon: the first example is on a global level, and the second is in our homes.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently measured atmospheric levels of CO2 at 400 ppm. This is a first, for recent history. The last time it was at that level was 2.5 million years ago, during the Pleistocene Epoch, when temperatures rose as much as 18 degrees Fahrenheit, and sea levels ranged between 16-131 feet higher than current levels. If we wait until it is really intolerable, until New York gets flooded every few months, it may be too late to reverse it. Sea levels are going to rise, maybe 6 feet, maybe 13, maybe 30, depending who you ask and how far out you extend the predictions.
Why don’t we switch from a carbon based economy? Germany has done it. Meanwhile we pursue other sources of carbon emissions, poisoning our ground to dig for gas. Why don’t we change?
We don’t change because the perceived cost of change is so enormous. We don’t want to give up our cars. We don’t want to invest millions in alternative energy. We don’t want to be bothered. And because any terrible consequences are down the road, around the bend, so they don’t seem real. My car is real, I don’t want to give it up. Global food shortages and flooding are abstract and sound like the ravings of extremists, so I don’t really believe in them. I certainly don’t want to pay more taxes to pay for alternative energy sources—money is real, the environment is quaint. So we sit on our hands, live our lives as usual, and pump more carbon into the atmosphere, making it much harder to fix it down the road.
Another area I see this issue is in our relationships.
“White Men Can’t Jump” is a movie about 2 basketball hustlers, Sydney and Billy. Billy is constantly making wagers and losing money, and Gloria wants Billy to stop losing money on basketball, to stop betting money.
There is a great piece of wisdom in the movie from Sydney, Billy’s teammate and rival. Sydney tells him to “listen to the woman.” Sydney then baits him into a wager that Billy can’t slam dunk, and Billy loses all his money on that wager. He didn’t listen to the woman. In the final scene, we see Gloria rollerskating off into the sunset. Billy should have listened to her.
Typically, when couples come for marriage counseling, it is too late—they are coming on heels of years of miscommunication & resentments. They haven’t been listening to each other for years. I know of one marriage therapist who after years of being unable to help patients fix their relationships, changed strategies. Now, instead of relationship therapy, she helps them with the pain of getting divorced. Because by the time people go to therapy, it is often too late. Resentments, inattention, cruelty have been lingering, festering for years, only increasing the negative feelings.
If I am in a relationship, a friendship, a marriage, I could tolerate okay, and believe things won’t get worse. Or I can work now to make my spouse happy, to shower them with love and attention.
Can we take our spouses requests, complaints seriously? Can we address minor issues before they become major? Can we heal our relationships before they actually deteriorate?
Ezehu ashir, haroeh et hanolad
Who is rich? He who sees what’s coming, who plans a course of action based on the long term results.
May we all have the wisdom to live lives which bring about long term healing, blessing and peace,
To take seriously the dangers facing our planet, and the issues facing our homes, our relationships,
And to be brave and humble in making whatever changes we need, to creating the brightest future we can,
to write ourselves into the book of life for the upcoming year.
Lshanah tovah tchateymu
I want to share a painful story today, one that strikes home for me. This is about something very mundane: the traffic intersection a block away, at Ocean & church. I cross it a couple times every day. I cross it with my wife, with my daughter, with congregants. As anyone knows who has tried to cross it, it is terribly dangerous: drivers turning from Church Ave are in a rush to get on the expressway, with only you standing in their way.
On June 22, I was crossing Ocean parkway with a congregant, and I asked, in an off-hand remark, does someone have to die before they make intersection safer? She said, probably.
Two days later, a local resident, Ngozi Agbim, was struck & killed crossing Ocean parkway
It turns out, this is not a new issue. Between 1995 and 2008, 4 people were killed and 36 struck. I myself saw a cyclist struck by a car, and helped him get back up; the car that struck him honked and the driver swore at the cyclist while speeding off. Brad Lander’s office received $200,000 a few years ago to work on improving the safety, but nothing happened. The various commissions and citizens groups are at a total impasse.
So why haven’t the politicians resolved it? Because all of the solutions seemed unfeasible. A pedestrian bridge would be tens of millions of dollars, so it’s not happening. Changing the traffic patterns would require traffic engineers, cooperation with different agencies, reprogramming all the lights down Ocean parkway, so it’s not happening.
Why can politicians afford to sit on their hands? Because they are not the ones risking their lives crossing Ocean parkway. They do not cross it on Shabbes with their wife, with their daughter. They are not the ones whose lives are at risk. It is an abstraction to them, and we don’t tend to act strongly on abstractions.
I raise this not to talk specifically about that intersection, but to raise a braoder question: When do we say “enough is enough”? When do we stop enduring the pain of a given situation, and decide to break through the inertia and act? Often we sit on our hands waiting for things to get better, because we feel like doing anything else seems too difficult.
The natural course of things is that we do not change our ways until the situation is absolutely intolerable. We delay until the pain of inaction outweighs the perceived difficulty of acting. It’s not that we don’t know there’s an issue, it’s that we can’t get ourselves to commit to a solution until we really have to. With alcoholics, this is called hitting rock bottom.
The problem is, with many issues, once we get to that point there may be no turning back. The destruction may be permanent.
The approach, that advocated by our tradition, is to try to see the future. No, of course we can’t see the future, but we can ask ourselves what will happen if we continue to lead our life the way we are leading it? The tradition teaches us to make decisions based not on how it feels right now, but on where the path I am walking will end up.
Pirke Avot says “who is wise? He who sees the new moon.” Imagine looking on a moonless night, and knowing the new moon will come. Knowing what’s coming down the road. Pirke Avot is saying, make your decisions based on where your decisions will take you down the road. Change before you actually hit painful, intolerable consequences.
We sometimes talk about teshuvah as repenting, getting past a particular sin. But teshuvah literally means turning—turning, in our life, toward a pathway of righteousness, of mercy. What road am I going to take? I can turn, make sure my path is going in the right direction, even if I haven’t sinned. I can change habits before they become an issue, before I suffer terrible consequences.
I want to talk about two specific areas where I see this phenomenon: the first example is on a global level, and the second is in our homes.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently measured atmospheric levels of CO2 at 400 ppm. This is a first, for recent history. The last time it was at that level was 2.5 million years ago, during the Pleistocene Epoch, when temperatures rose as much as 18 degrees Fahrenheit, and sea levels ranged between 16-131 feet higher than current levels. If we wait until it is really intolerable, until New York gets flooded every few months, it may be too late to reverse it. Sea levels are going to rise, maybe 6 feet, maybe 13, maybe 30, depending who you ask and how far out you extend the predictions.
Why don’t we switch from a carbon based economy? Germany has done it. Meanwhile we pursue other sources of carbon emissions, poisoning our ground to dig for gas. Why don’t we change?
We don’t change because the perceived cost of change is so enormous. We don’t want to give up our cars. We don’t want to invest millions in alternative energy. We don’t want to be bothered. And because any terrible consequences are down the road, around the bend, so they don’t seem real. My car is real, I don’t want to give it up. Global food shortages and flooding are abstract and sound like the ravings of extremists, so I don’t really believe in them. I certainly don’t want to pay more taxes to pay for alternative energy sources—money is real, the environment is quaint. So we sit on our hands, live our lives as usual, and pump more carbon into the atmosphere, making it much harder to fix it down the road.
Another area I see this issue is in our relationships.
“White Men Can’t Jump” is a movie about 2 basketball hustlers, Sydney and Billy. Billy is constantly making wagers and losing money, and Gloria wants Billy to stop losing money on basketball, to stop betting money.
There is a great piece of wisdom in the movie from Sydney, Billy’s teammate and rival. Sydney tells him to “listen to the woman.” Sydney then baits him into a wager that Billy can’t slam dunk, and Billy loses all his money on that wager. He didn’t listen to the woman. In the final scene, we see Gloria rollerskating off into the sunset. Billy should have listened to her.
Typically, when couples come for marriage counseling, it is too late—they are coming on heels of years of miscommunication & resentments. They haven’t been listening to each other for years. I know of one marriage therapist who after years of being unable to help patients fix their relationships, changed strategies. Now, instead of relationship therapy, she helps them with the pain of getting divorced. Because by the time people go to therapy, it is often too late. Resentments, inattention, cruelty have been lingering, festering for years, only increasing the negative feelings.
If I am in a relationship, a friendship, a marriage, I could tolerate okay, and believe things won’t get worse. Or I can work now to make my spouse happy, to shower them with love and attention.
Can we take our spouses requests, complaints seriously? Can we address minor issues before they become major? Can we heal our relationships before they actually deteriorate?
Ezehu ashir, haroeh et hanolad
Who is rich? He who sees what’s coming, who plans a course of action based on the long term results.
May we all have the wisdom to live lives which bring about long term healing, blessing and peace,
To take seriously the dangers facing our planet, and the issues facing our homes, our relationships,
And to be brave and humble in making whatever changes we need, to creating the brightest future we can,
to write ourselves into the book of life for the upcoming year.
Lshanah tovah tchateymu
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Teshuvah: from survival to meaning
Shanah Tovah!
High Holidays are just about upon us, and I am looking forward to sharing a joyous and inspiring New Year’s season together. I am looking forward to seeing everyone over the holiday season, as well as at the classes and other programs we are planning after that.
Rav Kook, the first chief rabbi of Israel, taught that teshuvah doesn’t only mean repentance, correcting faults from the past. It a trajectory of “turning” toward God, and can be done even when there is no particular sin or omission we are repenting for. Rabbi Avi Weiss has described this in terms of Zig Ziglar’s description of the human trajectory from survival to success to significance. Teshuvah is the motion from survival to success to significance.
Each of us, in our own lives, starts out trying to get by, trying to make a living. Moving out, we need to pay the rent, we need to make sure we know how to cook, at least how to boil an egg. That’s survival. Then we hopefully try to find a career which fits us well, many of us build a family, develop our lifelong friendships. This is success. After this we have room to ask the big questions: what am I accomplishing with my life? What benefit is my career, my existence, for others? This is leading a significant life, a life that makes an impact on others.
Israel, too, goes through these stages, to some extent simultaneously. Israel’s survival has always been threatened by her neighbors. In 1967 and in 1973, she was threatened and won, creating both a sense of hubris and also a realization of how precarious her existence is. Now Israel’s existence is threatened by Iran’s nuclear weapon program, and destroying Israel would make Iran the hero of the Arab world would. Survival is always an issue.
Israel has also thrived, especially recently in the high-tech boom: Israel has more companies listed on the NYSE than all countries except the US and China. Tel Aviv is a major development center for Microsoft and other high tech companies, trailing only Silicon Valley. Israel is a thriving, innovative success story.
And Israel is also an amazing country from a level of significance, what kind of values she embodies as a country. What other country, after conquering a territory (the West Bank), would let the original residents remain in their homes in peace and relative autonomy? In what other country would an airplane turn back to the gate to pick up a child for summer camp? Inbar Chomsky, a 7-year old child with cancer, missed her flight to the US for summer camp this past August, because she couldn’t find her passport. When another child on the aircraft found it in their own backpack, the airplane turned back to the gate to fetch Inbar. Where else would that happen?
Our synagogue, too, is climbing this ladder. We are surviving, with the hard work of our board, Cantor Schwartz, Menachem Kaisler, and all of our devoted volunteers. We are serving our congregants, offering daily minyan, different options on Shabbat, as well as a wonderfully fun weekly tot Shabbat. But can we become a synagogue of significance, where each of us strives not only to be served, but to serve each other? Can we be a place where our deepest Torah is lived through the way we relate to each other? This is the challenge of teshuvah.
I am looking forward to sharing a joyous and inspirational holiday season with you, and hope you take advantage of all the things we are offering throughout the upcoming year.
High Holiday Observances
Tashlich—at some point during the 10 days, we go to a body of water and symbolically cast in our sins. Bread is not so healthy to geese, so we should probably do it symbolically or with very small amounts. We will be doing Tashlich together on the first day of Rosh Hashanah, at the corner of Prospect park.
Kappores—it is customary to symbolically place one’s sins on a chicken, shecht it, and then donate it to a poor person. Kappores can also be done onto money and given to tzedakah.
Teshuvah—We should use this time to take stock of our personal habits, and identify ways we can improve. We should also try to reach out to people we may have hurt or offended, or who hurt us, or who just drifted away, to repair our relationships. Remember, according to the Ramchal, even such a reaction as not calling somebody because of something in the past is considered a forbidden grudge!
Selichot—we will say special selichot prayers each morning before shacharit.
Tzedakah—it is good to give extra tzedakah during this time. There is a custom to collect tzedakah right at the beginning of Kol Nidre, and I encourage you to bring either cash to deposit in the pushke on your way in.
When Yontiff and Shabbat are next to each other
Sukkot is right before Shabbat this year, which adds some complexity to the observance. We are allowed to cook on yontiff, but technically we should prepare for Shabbat before yontiff. The solution is to prepare an eruv tavshilin, a small amount of cooked food (e.g. an egg and piece of bread) before yontiff. This food is for Shabbat, and shows that we started preparing for Shabbat before yontiff.
Candles--since we are allowed to transfer fire on yontiff but not on Shabbat, and we cannot light fire, we have a 24-hour candle burning during yontiff. On the night starting the 2nd day of yontiff, hadlakat nerot is later to ensure that it is truly the 2nd day. This is done by lighting a match from the existing candle, and lighting the yontiff candles (and a new 24-hour candle) from the existing flame. On Friday evening, however, hadlakat nerot is early to insure that we don’t light fire on Shabbat.
Sukkot Observance
It is a mitzvah to eat 14 meals in the Sukkah—in other words, at least lunch & dinner each day of the week. The more time we spend in it (learning, sleeping, etc.) the better. We also have a mitzvah to bensch lulav each day, so I strongly encourage you to participate in Mr. Kaisler’s lulav/etrog sale.
Sukkot are relatively easy to build; I recommend wood (using a power drill) or PVC (which just snaps together). The wall can be made of anything. The top needs to be made of natural material; cornstalks are ideal. If you do not have anywhere to build a sukkah, feel free to use our own lovely sukkah here at FJC; let me know when you will need it so we can be sure the building is open.
High Holidays are just about upon us, and I am looking forward to sharing a joyous and inspiring New Year’s season together. I am looking forward to seeing everyone over the holiday season, as well as at the classes and other programs we are planning after that.
Rav Kook, the first chief rabbi of Israel, taught that teshuvah doesn’t only mean repentance, correcting faults from the past. It a trajectory of “turning” toward God, and can be done even when there is no particular sin or omission we are repenting for. Rabbi Avi Weiss has described this in terms of Zig Ziglar’s description of the human trajectory from survival to success to significance. Teshuvah is the motion from survival to success to significance.
Each of us, in our own lives, starts out trying to get by, trying to make a living. Moving out, we need to pay the rent, we need to make sure we know how to cook, at least how to boil an egg. That’s survival. Then we hopefully try to find a career which fits us well, many of us build a family, develop our lifelong friendships. This is success. After this we have room to ask the big questions: what am I accomplishing with my life? What benefit is my career, my existence, for others? This is leading a significant life, a life that makes an impact on others.
Israel, too, goes through these stages, to some extent simultaneously. Israel’s survival has always been threatened by her neighbors. In 1967 and in 1973, she was threatened and won, creating both a sense of hubris and also a realization of how precarious her existence is. Now Israel’s existence is threatened by Iran’s nuclear weapon program, and destroying Israel would make Iran the hero of the Arab world would. Survival is always an issue.
Israel has also thrived, especially recently in the high-tech boom: Israel has more companies listed on the NYSE than all countries except the US and China. Tel Aviv is a major development center for Microsoft and other high tech companies, trailing only Silicon Valley. Israel is a thriving, innovative success story.
And Israel is also an amazing country from a level of significance, what kind of values she embodies as a country. What other country, after conquering a territory (the West Bank), would let the original residents remain in their homes in peace and relative autonomy? In what other country would an airplane turn back to the gate to pick up a child for summer camp? Inbar Chomsky, a 7-year old child with cancer, missed her flight to the US for summer camp this past August, because she couldn’t find her passport. When another child on the aircraft found it in their own backpack, the airplane turned back to the gate to fetch Inbar. Where else would that happen?
Our synagogue, too, is climbing this ladder. We are surviving, with the hard work of our board, Cantor Schwartz, Menachem Kaisler, and all of our devoted volunteers. We are serving our congregants, offering daily minyan, different options on Shabbat, as well as a wonderfully fun weekly tot Shabbat. But can we become a synagogue of significance, where each of us strives not only to be served, but to serve each other? Can we be a place where our deepest Torah is lived through the way we relate to each other? This is the challenge of teshuvah.
I am looking forward to sharing a joyous and inspirational holiday season with you, and hope you take advantage of all the things we are offering throughout the upcoming year.
High Holiday Observances
Tashlich—at some point during the 10 days, we go to a body of water and symbolically cast in our sins. Bread is not so healthy to geese, so we should probably do it symbolically or with very small amounts. We will be doing Tashlich together on the first day of Rosh Hashanah, at the corner of Prospect park.
Kappores—it is customary to symbolically place one’s sins on a chicken, shecht it, and then donate it to a poor person. Kappores can also be done onto money and given to tzedakah.
Teshuvah—We should use this time to take stock of our personal habits, and identify ways we can improve. We should also try to reach out to people we may have hurt or offended, or who hurt us, or who just drifted away, to repair our relationships. Remember, according to the Ramchal, even such a reaction as not calling somebody because of something in the past is considered a forbidden grudge!
Selichot—we will say special selichot prayers each morning before shacharit.
Tzedakah—it is good to give extra tzedakah during this time. There is a custom to collect tzedakah right at the beginning of Kol Nidre, and I encourage you to bring either cash to deposit in the pushke on your way in.
When Yontiff and Shabbat are next to each other
Sukkot is right before Shabbat this year, which adds some complexity to the observance. We are allowed to cook on yontiff, but technically we should prepare for Shabbat before yontiff. The solution is to prepare an eruv tavshilin, a small amount of cooked food (e.g. an egg and piece of bread) before yontiff. This food is for Shabbat, and shows that we started preparing for Shabbat before yontiff.
Candles--since we are allowed to transfer fire on yontiff but not on Shabbat, and we cannot light fire, we have a 24-hour candle burning during yontiff. On the night starting the 2nd day of yontiff, hadlakat nerot is later to ensure that it is truly the 2nd day. This is done by lighting a match from the existing candle, and lighting the yontiff candles (and a new 24-hour candle) from the existing flame. On Friday evening, however, hadlakat nerot is early to insure that we don’t light fire on Shabbat.
Sukkot Observance
It is a mitzvah to eat 14 meals in the Sukkah—in other words, at least lunch & dinner each day of the week. The more time we spend in it (learning, sleeping, etc.) the better. We also have a mitzvah to bensch lulav each day, so I strongly encourage you to participate in Mr. Kaisler’s lulav/etrog sale.
Sukkot are relatively easy to build; I recommend wood (using a power drill) or PVC (which just snaps together). The wall can be made of anything. The top needs to be made of natural material; cornstalks are ideal. If you do not have anywhere to build a sukkah, feel free to use our own lovely sukkah here at FJC; let me know when you will need it so we can be sure the building is open.
Friday, July 19, 2013
Judaism and the "right to stand your ground"
The George Zimmerman verdict is
Scary: opens door to vigilantes,
to becoming the wild west all over.
Whether or not jury was right there’s no just result
“right to stand your ground”
If you think about it, any time 2 people believe they have a "right to stand their ground," you end up with escalating conflict. When I imagine what happened that night (and I admit this is my own imaginative reconstruction), I imagine 2 people each thinking they are just standing their ground. Zimmerman, believing he had a right to protect his community against someone he thought seemed suspicious, even if only because of the color of his skin and his clothing style. And Martin, believing he had a right to protect himself against someone who seemed to be stalking him
When 2 people stand their ground, you have a stand off where only 1 person can win
There’s always a loser,
Since nobody wants to lose, so each person raises the stakes--there is a mutual escalation.
In this case, the stakes were raised so high that at least according to zimmerman’s testimony, only 1 of them would come out alive
Nobody felt an obligation to stand down, to de-escalate,
to walk away, which was what the dispatcher had told Zimmerman to do
It was a tragic inability to de-escalate
This is the problem with the whole attitude of "standing your ground."
“Standing your ground” is not a jewish value
Talmud: Jerusalem destroyed because people insisted on their legal rights—
let’s say shimon owed rubin 10 zuz, but shimon only had 9
so rubin insisted on the full 10 zuz
Rubin wouldn’t compromise.
Rubin was right halachically—but he was wrong because he wouldn’t compromise
And for this Jerusalem was destroyed
In jewish court proceedings, too, the court is instructed to try to negotiate a settlement first
And only then to adjudicate
The whole idea of a settlement is that it’s not necessarily what the halacha calls for
It’s about making peace between the two sides
Because the world survives through peace, not through who’s wight or wrong
Any of us who are married or have been know this
How long would a marriage survive if spouses stood their ground
If spouses always insisted on having their way?
Here at FJC, we are trying to build a spiritual community
It’s a lot like a mixed marriage—we’ve got traditionalist and progressive jews
Which creates a beautiful challenge
the rules we davven by, whether we have a mechitza or not,
Are far less important than how we treat each other,
Whether we care for each other, and treat each other respectfully.
Any win-lose struggle is really a lose-lose struggle
Any time we have a conflict and one sides wins, really both sides lose.
May we all learn
To be more gentle, more understanding, and willing to always seek compromise, to find solutions by which everyone comes out feeling good about what we are building together.
Scary: opens door to vigilantes,
to becoming the wild west all over.
Whether or not jury was right there’s no just result
“right to stand your ground”
If you think about it, any time 2 people believe they have a "right to stand their ground," you end up with escalating conflict. When I imagine what happened that night (and I admit this is my own imaginative reconstruction), I imagine 2 people each thinking they are just standing their ground. Zimmerman, believing he had a right to protect his community against someone he thought seemed suspicious, even if only because of the color of his skin and his clothing style. And Martin, believing he had a right to protect himself against someone who seemed to be stalking him
When 2 people stand their ground, you have a stand off where only 1 person can win
There’s always a loser,
Since nobody wants to lose, so each person raises the stakes--there is a mutual escalation.
In this case, the stakes were raised so high that at least according to zimmerman’s testimony, only 1 of them would come out alive
Nobody felt an obligation to stand down, to de-escalate,
to walk away, which was what the dispatcher had told Zimmerman to do
It was a tragic inability to de-escalate
This is the problem with the whole attitude of "standing your ground."
“Standing your ground” is not a jewish value
Talmud: Jerusalem destroyed because people insisted on their legal rights—
let’s say shimon owed rubin 10 zuz, but shimon only had 9
so rubin insisted on the full 10 zuz
Rubin wouldn’t compromise.
Rubin was right halachically—but he was wrong because he wouldn’t compromise
And for this Jerusalem was destroyed
In jewish court proceedings, too, the court is instructed to try to negotiate a settlement first
And only then to adjudicate
The whole idea of a settlement is that it’s not necessarily what the halacha calls for
It’s about making peace between the two sides
Because the world survives through peace, not through who’s wight or wrong
Any of us who are married or have been know this
How long would a marriage survive if spouses stood their ground
If spouses always insisted on having their way?
Here at FJC, we are trying to build a spiritual community
It’s a lot like a mixed marriage—we’ve got traditionalist and progressive jews
Which creates a beautiful challenge
the rules we davven by, whether we have a mechitza or not,
Are far less important than how we treat each other,
Whether we care for each other, and treat each other respectfully.
Any win-lose struggle is really a lose-lose struggle
Any time we have a conflict and one sides wins, really both sides lose.
May we all learn
To be more gentle, more understanding, and willing to always seek compromise, to find solutions by which everyone comes out feeling good about what we are building together.
Monday, July 15, 2013
Zimmerman's acquittal in the eyes of the Talmud
I was shocked by outcome of Zimmerman trial
And signed petitions to eric holder to prosecute Zimmerman for civil rights violation
Shocking that Zimmerman profiled Trayvon Martin for being black in florida
Stalked him in his car, somehow provoked him,
And got away with killing him
It is a scary porecedent.
One wonders: does this open the door to a wild west mentality?
If someone stalks me, and I defend myself, can they then shoot me and claim self defense?
But I want to discuss a jewish perspective on the verdict per se
Even if Zimmerman’s actions were horrible
Which they were
Was the jury right to acquit, from a jewish perspective?
Was justice served?
In its discussion of court procedures for capital crimes, the Talmud institutes very careful procedures to make sure there is absolute proof of the crime. The Torah requires two witnesses, and the Talmud require that they both warn the criminal and unambiguously witness the act.
Sanh 37b:
It has been taught: R. Simeon b. Shatah said: May I never see comfort6 if I did not see a man pursuing his fellow into a ruin, and when I ran after him and saw him, sword in hand with blood dripping from it, and the murdered man writhing, I exclaimed to him: Wicked man, who slew this man? It is either you or I!7 But what can I do, since thy blood [i.e., life] does not rest in my hands, for it is written in the Torah, At the mouth of two witnesses etc., shall he that is to die be put to death?8 May he who knows one's thoughts exact vengeance from him who slew his fellow! It is related that before they moved from the place a serpent came and bit him [the murderer] so that he died.
The court procedure was so biased against false conviction that
Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah states: [Executing more than] one person in 70 years [would be considered a murderous court]. Rabbi Tarfon and Rabbi Akiva state: “If we had been members of the Sanhedrin, no defendant would ever have been executed.” [Makkot 1:10]
To which of course R Shimon b Gamliel responds:
Rabbi Shimon ben Gamaliel responds, “they would have been increasing the murderers in Israel.”
But the halacha is that we are careful about this procedure, because it is better to let someone go than to punish someone who’s innocent
In fact, the judges on a bet din are instructed to look for reasons to acquit.
Pesachim 12a:—cannot convict person if there’s any doubt they are equivalent
Cites Num 35:25: “the congregation shall deliver”
Rashi: we look for a reason to acquit
From a utilitarian perspective: it’s better to convict people even if you’re not 100% sure
This is Shimon ben Gamliel’s argument:
We would be a safer society if courts could convict people like Zimmerman
It would send the message: you can’t be a vigilante
But from a moral perspective, our own moral integrity as a society comes first
The ends don’t justify the means
Courts need to make sure they don’t punish innocent people
Or they themselves are acting immorally
our own moral integrity limits what we can do to protect public safety
The Zimmerman trial shows our society has problems
The possibility that someone could think it’s okay to assault and kill someone for appearing suspicious, based on racial stereotypes
That we have vigilantes driving around on town watch acting without regard for the law
But it also shows our justice system can work
People can be acquitted if there’s just a possibility of being innocent
On a personal level, when we are judging others’ motives
And tempted to condemn them, to judge them negatively,
We should always look for a tzad zechut, a way to view their actions positively
And through this, preserve peace in our communities and families.
And signed petitions to eric holder to prosecute Zimmerman for civil rights violation
Shocking that Zimmerman profiled Trayvon Martin for being black in florida
Stalked him in his car, somehow provoked him,
And got away with killing him
It is a scary porecedent.
One wonders: does this open the door to a wild west mentality?
If someone stalks me, and I defend myself, can they then shoot me and claim self defense?
But I want to discuss a jewish perspective on the verdict per se
Even if Zimmerman’s actions were horrible
Which they were
Was the jury right to acquit, from a jewish perspective?
Was justice served?
In its discussion of court procedures for capital crimes, the Talmud institutes very careful procedures to make sure there is absolute proof of the crime. The Torah requires two witnesses, and the Talmud require that they both warn the criminal and unambiguously witness the act.
Sanh 37b:
It has been taught: R. Simeon b. Shatah said: May I never see comfort6 if I did not see a man pursuing his fellow into a ruin, and when I ran after him and saw him, sword in hand with blood dripping from it, and the murdered man writhing, I exclaimed to him: Wicked man, who slew this man? It is either you or I!7 But what can I do, since thy blood [i.e., life] does not rest in my hands, for it is written in the Torah, At the mouth of two witnesses etc., shall he that is to die be put to death?8 May he who knows one's thoughts exact vengeance from him who slew his fellow! It is related that before they moved from the place a serpent came and bit him [the murderer] so that he died.
The court procedure was so biased against false conviction that
Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah states: [Executing more than] one person in 70 years [would be considered a murderous court]. Rabbi Tarfon and Rabbi Akiva state: “If we had been members of the Sanhedrin, no defendant would ever have been executed.” [Makkot 1:10]
To which of course R Shimon b Gamliel responds:
Rabbi Shimon ben Gamaliel responds, “they would have been increasing the murderers in Israel.”
But the halacha is that we are careful about this procedure, because it is better to let someone go than to punish someone who’s innocent
In fact, the judges on a bet din are instructed to look for reasons to acquit.
Pesachim 12a:—cannot convict person if there’s any doubt they are equivalent
Cites Num 35:25: “the congregation shall deliver”
Rashi: we look for a reason to acquit
From a utilitarian perspective: it’s better to convict people even if you’re not 100% sure
This is Shimon ben Gamliel’s argument:
We would be a safer society if courts could convict people like Zimmerman
It would send the message: you can’t be a vigilante
But from a moral perspective, our own moral integrity as a society comes first
The ends don’t justify the means
Courts need to make sure they don’t punish innocent people
Or they themselves are acting immorally
our own moral integrity limits what we can do to protect public safety
The Zimmerman trial shows our society has problems
The possibility that someone could think it’s okay to assault and kill someone for appearing suspicious, based on racial stereotypes
That we have vigilantes driving around on town watch acting without regard for the law
But it also shows our justice system can work
People can be acquitted if there’s just a possibility of being innocent
On a personal level, when we are judging others’ motives
And tempted to condemn them, to judge them negatively,
We should always look for a tzad zechut, a way to view their actions positively
And through this, preserve peace in our communities and families.
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
Imagine that you are trying to davven, on a beautiful sunny day in Jerusalem, singing the hallel with your full heart. Add to the scene that you are standing next to a restroom and surrounded by ultraorthodox Jews blowing whistles, throwing eggs at you, and calling you "zonah" (whore), "naziyah" (nazi) and "pritzit" (lascivious), and a blaring PA system trying to drown out your voice. I was terribly saddened by what the Women of the Wall went through this month, in their fight to allow pluralistic worship at the kotel, our peoples’ holiest site. Surrounded by crowds of yelling, whistling ultraorthodox Jews, kept in the back of the plaza by the bathrooms by the police.
Isaiah (56:7) says “my house shall be a house of prayer for all people.” That house is the Temple. What will it look like, when Indians and Native Americans and Christians and Muslims come? What prayer will be said there—one prayer, or a beautiful rainbow of prayers and voices, representing the multiplicity of beautiful human approaches to spirituality? Will the third Temple be an ultraorthodox shtibl, or will it be a mansion, allowing for all ethnicities, allowing for chanting and yoga, allowing for people who call God “Allah” or “Brahman” or “Love”?
It is sad that even segments of the Jewish people are unable to access our holiest site. The women of the wall represent most of the Jewish people, since orthodoxy is really a minority worldwide and a majority in Israel only because they are state funded. But this loud minority is keeping the wall hostage, preventing other Jews from davenning there.
This is particularly apropos in this period before Tisha B’Av, a holiday that marks the destruction of the Second Temple due to sinat hinam, causeless hatred among Jews. When one Jews tries to prevent another Jew from davenning, it is a hateful act, it is sinat hinam. When one Jew calls another Jew’s sincere spiritual expression “childish provocation,” as did Hillel Halkin, it is stupidity, judgmentalism, and sinat hinam.
I pray for the day when people will no longer judge each other’s spirituality, but can celebrate each other. I pray for the day when all peoples’ sincere attempts to bring kedusha into the world are honored and celebrated. I pray for the day when the kotel, the western wall, is truly liberated, is truly a house of prayer for all of us. And until that day, “over these I weep.”
Isaiah (56:7) says “my house shall be a house of prayer for all people.” That house is the Temple. What will it look like, when Indians and Native Americans and Christians and Muslims come? What prayer will be said there—one prayer, or a beautiful rainbow of prayers and voices, representing the multiplicity of beautiful human approaches to spirituality? Will the third Temple be an ultraorthodox shtibl, or will it be a mansion, allowing for all ethnicities, allowing for chanting and yoga, allowing for people who call God “Allah” or “Brahman” or “Love”?
It is sad that even segments of the Jewish people are unable to access our holiest site. The women of the wall represent most of the Jewish people, since orthodoxy is really a minority worldwide and a majority in Israel only because they are state funded. But this loud minority is keeping the wall hostage, preventing other Jews from davenning there.
This is particularly apropos in this period before Tisha B’Av, a holiday that marks the destruction of the Second Temple due to sinat hinam, causeless hatred among Jews. When one Jews tries to prevent another Jew from davenning, it is a hateful act, it is sinat hinam. When one Jew calls another Jew’s sincere spiritual expression “childish provocation,” as did Hillel Halkin, it is stupidity, judgmentalism, and sinat hinam.
I pray for the day when people will no longer judge each other’s spirituality, but can celebrate each other. I pray for the day when all peoples’ sincere attempts to bring kedusha into the world are honored and celebrated. I pray for the day when the kotel, the western wall, is truly liberated, is truly a house of prayer for all of us. And until that day, “over these I weep.”
Friday, June 28, 2013
Acting on Impluse
In the beginning of the Parsha, Pinhas is rewarded with “briti shalom”, the covenant of peace.
It is his reward for actions in previous parsha
Israelites were seduced by idolatrous women at Bal peor
Zimri and Cosbi had intercourse in public
People were stunned, couldn’t think straight
Pinhas ran his spear through both of them in the act
Term for Pinhas in Hebrew: kenai—zealot
Someone who throws themselves in, mindlessly
Jumping in feet first, acting on blind impulse
Not thinking about the risk—
Zimri could have legitimately killed him in self defense
Most of us here aren’t zealots in that sense
But there is the temptation to be impulsive in our speech
To say exactly what I think, the moment I think it
I let you know exactly what kind of a person you are.
How horrible a thing you just did
Problem with Zealotry:
Too often bad motives
immaturity, impulsivity,
the thrill of controversy, self-promotion,
or advancing some sort of personal agenda.
Also: not very effective to improve people around you
If you jump on people who are wrong
Even if you’re right, they don’t want to listen
Pinhas’ reward is the covenant of peace—briti shalom
It’s an odd reward: he was hardly peaceful!
The Ntziv, Rav Naftali Tzvi Berlin, says it was a protection from recrimination
So people should know his motives were pure
Because all too often, when people are zealous,
Their motives are not pure
The truth is, we never fully admit our own motives, even to ourselves
And all too often when we act impulsively,
Or when we speak impulsively,
It’s really out of selfishness, vindictiveness,
The thrill of attack
Or other less than stellar motive
So in general we need to be more like aaron, a little more peaceful
When aaron would hear someone sinned
He wouldn’t attack them
He would befriend them
And the person would be so embarrassed to sin, because what would aaron think of that
When we see something we don’t like, and we are tempted to attack,
To jump in and criticize,
We need to act in a way that embodies brit, sacred relationship,
We need to approach all of our fellow humans
Even in the moments where they are doing something we can’t stand
with patience, love and peace
It is his reward for actions in previous parsha
Israelites were seduced by idolatrous women at Bal peor
Zimri and Cosbi had intercourse in public
People were stunned, couldn’t think straight
Pinhas ran his spear through both of them in the act
Term for Pinhas in Hebrew: kenai—zealot
Someone who throws themselves in, mindlessly
Jumping in feet first, acting on blind impulse
Not thinking about the risk—
Zimri could have legitimately killed him in self defense
Most of us here aren’t zealots in that sense
But there is the temptation to be impulsive in our speech
To say exactly what I think, the moment I think it
I let you know exactly what kind of a person you are.
How horrible a thing you just did
Problem with Zealotry:
Too often bad motives
immaturity, impulsivity,
the thrill of controversy, self-promotion,
or advancing some sort of personal agenda.
Also: not very effective to improve people around you
If you jump on people who are wrong
Even if you’re right, they don’t want to listen
Pinhas’ reward is the covenant of peace—briti shalom
It’s an odd reward: he was hardly peaceful!
The Ntziv, Rav Naftali Tzvi Berlin, says it was a protection from recrimination
So people should know his motives were pure
Because all too often, when people are zealous,
Their motives are not pure
The truth is, we never fully admit our own motives, even to ourselves
And all too often when we act impulsively,
Or when we speak impulsively,
It’s really out of selfishness, vindictiveness,
The thrill of attack
Or other less than stellar motive
So in general we need to be more like aaron, a little more peaceful
When aaron would hear someone sinned
He wouldn’t attack them
He would befriend them
And the person would be so embarrassed to sin, because what would aaron think of that
When we see something we don’t like, and we are tempted to attack,
To jump in and criticize,
We need to act in a way that embodies brit, sacred relationship,
We need to approach all of our fellow humans
Even in the moments where they are doing something we can’t stand
with patience, love and peace
Friday, May 24, 2013
God's Voice in the Hurricane
The magnitude of the tornado that hit Oklahoma this week was shocking
A level 5 tornado is a 1 in a thousand event
I saw an aerial photo: 20 blocks flattened
Over 200 mph, 1.3 miles wide, 22 miles on ground
Flattened 13,000 homes, 2 schools and a hospital
24 people killed incl 9 children, 237 injured, tens of thousands homeless
Given magnitude, actually amazing how few casualties
we read Psalm 29 when we take out the torah:
The voice of the LORD is over the waters;
The God of glory thunders;
The LORD is over many waters.
4 The voice of the LORD is powerful;
The voice of the LORD is full of majesty.
5 The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars,
Yes, the LORD splinters the cedars of Lebanon.
6 He makes them also skip like a calf,
Lebanon and Sirion like a young wild ox.
7 The voice of the LORD divides the flames of fire.
8 The voice of the LORD shakes the wilderness;
The LORD shakes the Wilderness of Kadesh.
9 The voice of the LORD makes the deer give birth,
And strips the forests bare;
And in His temple everyone says, “Glory!”
The psalm is describing a major storm moving in—first over the sea, then to Lebanon, and down to Israel. The repetition of the name Lord hammers in the point, of the power of God experience in nature, perhaps trying to mimic thunder.
I have sensed this power on top of Mt Adams, seeing the vastness of the land below me
In Utah, overlooking 2000 foot deep canyons
Sense: there is an immense power in the universe—
Awe is a unique human experience-
Yirah=aware of some\thing immensely greater than myself (not fear)
It is a scary experience, because in the face of such power
We are powerless—
Compared to tornado we are flecks on the surface of the earth
This force does not always bring gifts, it doesn’t seem to know me or care about me personally.
Heschel: awe: opening into something beyond the raw facts of the physical universe
calls on me to respond
Jewish response: Bracha “shecocho ugevurato malei et ha’olam
We notice it
We identify it with word “God,” which sounds like a name for an individual
But really a placeholder for unknowable source of these powers
What do we know about this power?
Massive power—we don’t remember how massive
Benevolent/life producing
Creates
Reveals—source of wisdom
Redeems—can tap into to escape difficult situations
Can tap into in our souls
Is this power benevolent?
At times seems benevolent
What if I say a brocho “shecocho,”
I notice the beauty and immensity—I appreciate it
I have stood with Hannah for an hour in the darkened bedroom
Watching lightning strikes out the window
What if it just so happens that the lightning strike,
the one I said my brocho over,
happened to kill someone?
Massive power, the forces that made for life,
Are massive beyond our individual control
And beyond our sense of what we as tiny humans want
Mishna: Bless on the evil as well as the good
1 approach: it’s all good (talmud, rabbi akiva)
R. Akiba was once going along the road and he came to a certain town and looked for lodgings but was everywhere refused. He said 'Whatever the All-Merciful does is for good', and he went and spent the night in the open field. He had with him a cock, an ass and a lamp. A gust of wind came and blew out the lamp, a weasel came and ate the cock, a lion came and ate the ass. He said: 'Whatever the All-Merciful does is for good'. The same night some brigands came and carried off the inhabitants of the town. He said to them:15 Did I not say to you, 'Whatever the All-Merciful does is all for good?1 (berachot 60b-61a)
It’s a wonderful attitude to have—
Trying to find a blessing in everything
Doing so, we may be able to turn an apparent curse into a blessing
But when 7 children die in a school, it’s not good,
it’s not God’s decree or punishment
those children were not meant to die
The truth is, we say a different brocho for the good or for the bad:
Hatov vehameitiv
Dayan ha’emet—when someone dies, try to accept it
We need to accept it, or we’ll suffer endlessly
Perhaps “true judge”—god was right
Or “judge of truth”—god has the right to give life & take it away
I have to accept it, or else live in perpetual psychic torment
So yes, we do see the hand of the divine,
but we experience it in a different way—we experience God as judge rather than benefactor.
don’t say a brocho on vinegar—not on a curse. There are things which are entirely negative, and beyond seeing God in at all.
Rambam: ultimately, needs to destroy to build—evil is secondary goal, not primary
Rav Kook wrote:
The world appears most advanced and perfected when seen in its developed, built-up state. But upon deeper reflection, it is possible to recognize that there is also a need for destructive forces in the world. If we can perceive the benefits of destructive phenomena — like the positive role played by forest fires in the growth and regeneration of a forest — then we may grasp how also these forces indicate the underlying purpose and Divine wisdom governing the universe.
So this divine power, which creates an amazing world, sadly also creates massive calamities.
But the same divine power can also speak through our souls, through our response.
When Anna Canaday, at Plaza Tower Elementary School, covered 4 kindergarteners with her body to save them, and protected them from a car that fell in the hallway—she survived, and saved the children, by the way—it weas the same power coming from her soul.
Rhonda Crosswhite, a 6th grade teacher, heroically lay down on top of her students to shield them from the rubble. “I was in a bathroom stall with some kids and it just started coming down, so I laid on top of them. I never thought I was going to die. The whole time I just kept screaming to them, ‘We’re going to be fine, we’re going to be fine, I’m protecting you.” All her students are now safe, and their parents credit their children’s survival to their teacher’s amazing courage. This was the same power as in the tornado.
When neighbors rushed to the school to lift rubble from victims, it was the same power.
The end of psalm 29 says:
The LORD sat enthroned at the Flood,
And the LORD sits as King forever.
11 The LORD will give strength to His people;
The LORD will bless His people with peace.
Just as God’s power is in the storm, so too can it be found in our own souls, in our efforts for peace and healing, in our ability to help, our ability to rebuild.
When Elijah went to the desert looking for God, on a visionquest, the Tanakh writes:
“behold, Gd passed by, and a great and powerful wind smashing mountains and braking rocks went before Gd; but Gd was not in the wind. After the wind came an earthquake; but Gd was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire; but Gd was not in the fire. [Gd created nature, but nature is not Gd.] After the fire came a still small voice.” And there he found Gd.
A level 5 tornado is a 1 in a thousand event
I saw an aerial photo: 20 blocks flattened
Over 200 mph, 1.3 miles wide, 22 miles on ground
Flattened 13,000 homes, 2 schools and a hospital
24 people killed incl 9 children, 237 injured, tens of thousands homeless
Given magnitude, actually amazing how few casualties
we read Psalm 29 when we take out the torah:
The voice of the LORD is over the waters;
The God of glory thunders;
The LORD is over many waters.
4 The voice of the LORD is powerful;
The voice of the LORD is full of majesty.
5 The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars,
Yes, the LORD splinters the cedars of Lebanon.
6 He makes them also skip like a calf,
Lebanon and Sirion like a young wild ox.
7 The voice of the LORD divides the flames of fire.
8 The voice of the LORD shakes the wilderness;
The LORD shakes the Wilderness of Kadesh.
9 The voice of the LORD makes the deer give birth,
And strips the forests bare;
And in His temple everyone says, “Glory!”
The psalm is describing a major storm moving in—first over the sea, then to Lebanon, and down to Israel. The repetition of the name Lord hammers in the point, of the power of God experience in nature, perhaps trying to mimic thunder.
I have sensed this power on top of Mt Adams, seeing the vastness of the land below me
In Utah, overlooking 2000 foot deep canyons
Sense: there is an immense power in the universe—
Awe is a unique human experience-
Yirah=aware of some\thing immensely greater than myself (not fear)
It is a scary experience, because in the face of such power
We are powerless—
Compared to tornado we are flecks on the surface of the earth
This force does not always bring gifts, it doesn’t seem to know me or care about me personally.
Heschel: awe: opening into something beyond the raw facts of the physical universe
calls on me to respond
Jewish response: Bracha “shecocho ugevurato malei et ha’olam
We notice it
We identify it with word “God,” which sounds like a name for an individual
But really a placeholder for unknowable source of these powers
What do we know about this power?
Massive power—we don’t remember how massive
Benevolent/life producing
Creates
Reveals—source of wisdom
Redeems—can tap into to escape difficult situations
Can tap into in our souls
Is this power benevolent?
At times seems benevolent
What if I say a brocho “shecocho,”
I notice the beauty and immensity—I appreciate it
I have stood with Hannah for an hour in the darkened bedroom
Watching lightning strikes out the window
What if it just so happens that the lightning strike,
the one I said my brocho over,
happened to kill someone?
Massive power, the forces that made for life,
Are massive beyond our individual control
And beyond our sense of what we as tiny humans want
Mishna: Bless on the evil as well as the good
1 approach: it’s all good (talmud, rabbi akiva)
R. Akiba was once going along the road and he came to a certain town and looked for lodgings but was everywhere refused. He said 'Whatever the All-Merciful does is for good', and he went and spent the night in the open field. He had with him a cock, an ass and a lamp. A gust of wind came and blew out the lamp, a weasel came and ate the cock, a lion came and ate the ass. He said: 'Whatever the All-Merciful does is for good'. The same night some brigands came and carried off the inhabitants of the town. He said to them:15 Did I not say to you, 'Whatever the All-Merciful does is all for good?1 (berachot 60b-61a)
It’s a wonderful attitude to have—
Trying to find a blessing in everything
Doing so, we may be able to turn an apparent curse into a blessing
But when 7 children die in a school, it’s not good,
it’s not God’s decree or punishment
those children were not meant to die
The truth is, we say a different brocho for the good or for the bad:
Hatov vehameitiv
Dayan ha’emet—when someone dies, try to accept it
We need to accept it, or we’ll suffer endlessly
Perhaps “true judge”—god was right
Or “judge of truth”—god has the right to give life & take it away
I have to accept it, or else live in perpetual psychic torment
So yes, we do see the hand of the divine,
but we experience it in a different way—we experience God as judge rather than benefactor.
don’t say a brocho on vinegar—not on a curse. There are things which are entirely negative, and beyond seeing God in at all.
Rambam: ultimately, needs to destroy to build—evil is secondary goal, not primary
Rav Kook wrote:
The world appears most advanced and perfected when seen in its developed, built-up state. But upon deeper reflection, it is possible to recognize that there is also a need for destructive forces in the world. If we can perceive the benefits of destructive phenomena — like the positive role played by forest fires in the growth and regeneration of a forest — then we may grasp how also these forces indicate the underlying purpose and Divine wisdom governing the universe.
So this divine power, which creates an amazing world, sadly also creates massive calamities.
But the same divine power can also speak through our souls, through our response.
When Anna Canaday, at Plaza Tower Elementary School, covered 4 kindergarteners with her body to save them, and protected them from a car that fell in the hallway—she survived, and saved the children, by the way—it weas the same power coming from her soul.
Rhonda Crosswhite, a 6th grade teacher, heroically lay down on top of her students to shield them from the rubble. “I was in a bathroom stall with some kids and it just started coming down, so I laid on top of them. I never thought I was going to die. The whole time I just kept screaming to them, ‘We’re going to be fine, we’re going to be fine, I’m protecting you.” All her students are now safe, and their parents credit their children’s survival to their teacher’s amazing courage. This was the same power as in the tornado.
When neighbors rushed to the school to lift rubble from victims, it was the same power.
The end of psalm 29 says:
The LORD sat enthroned at the Flood,
And the LORD sits as King forever.
11 The LORD will give strength to His people;
The LORD will bless His people with peace.
Just as God’s power is in the storm, so too can it be found in our own souls, in our efforts for peace and healing, in our ability to help, our ability to rebuild.
When Elijah went to the desert looking for God, on a visionquest, the Tanakh writes:
“behold, Gd passed by, and a great and powerful wind smashing mountains and braking rocks went before Gd; but Gd was not in the wind. After the wind came an earthquake; but Gd was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire; but Gd was not in the fire. [Gd created nature, but nature is not Gd.] After the fire came a still small voice.” And there he found Gd.
Thursday, May 9, 2013
Why Charles Ramsey was the hero
What would you do, if you heard a scream from a neighbor’s basement? You’d call the police, for sure. But them what? Would you go over? Would you wait outside until the police come? Would you call your survivalist buddy to come over and storm down the front door?
We were all shocked by what happened in Cleveland, a monster imprisoning and torturing four women, mindbogglingly evil acts.
Rescue after 10 years of enslavement was amazing:
A neighbor, Charles Ramsey was inside his house eating a McDonald’s meal when he heard a woman across the street began kicking at the door and screaming. He goes to the porch, hears her screaming “help, let me out.” Ramsey opened the door helped kick in the aluminum screen door through which Berry and her daughter escaped
“I’ve been there a year, she’s been right there next to me a year.”—this was the first time he had any inkling of anything off-kilter with his neighbor. He said he never had a clue anything was wrong. When he heard the screaming, he said, there is no feeling, you just do what you need to do.
It is an amazing story of heroism.
But there were also missed opportunities
Neighbors had called police over the years about weird things they saw:
three naked young girls crawling on all fours with dog leashes around their necks while three men (likely Castro's brothers) watched,
troubling pounds and screams,
a little girl looking out of an attic window.
3 years ago: neighbors heard a blood curdling shriek from the basement. The neighbors called the police. Nothing happened.
Last year a little girl saw a naked woman crawling out of castro’s house
And Castro was fired from his job as a school bus driver, after abducting a child for a joy ride in the school bus, which might have made police all the more concerned about reports about unusual activity at his house.
The neighbors say cops rarely followed up — once, they briefly knocked on Castro's door but left when he didn't show. The cops say they were never called. Or maybe they chalked it up to domestic disturbance, a couple quarrelling, and didn’t want to get involved.
It’s easy to blame the police for these missed opportunities. This is their job. But really it’s all of our jobs too. But could the neighbors have done more? Could they have been more tenacious?
The Torah says, “do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor, and most of us clearly seeing someone in distress will act to do something about it. Rashi: if we truly love our neighbor as ourself, we will never speak negatively about them, or seek to harm them, or desire for anything but the best for them. Certainly anybody would have called the police.
What if Ramsey had just called the police? Maybe they would have come on time. Or maybe they would have come a little too late, Interviewed Castroi, and found nothing amiss.
What made Ramsey’s response different was that he didn’t just call the police. He went up to the door, and seeing a hand sticking out, battered in the door.
Too often, when we are called to help, we do a half baked job. We offer to help someone, and it doesn’t happen, there’s no follow through. The neighbors tried to help over the ten years, they called the police, and went on with their day. Obviously, nobody wants to be a vigilante, but the question is, how much of a response fulfills my duty?
Judaism tells us that when you take on something, any mitzvah no matter how small, you see it through, and do it beautifully.
You should safeguard the observance of all the commandment(s) that I am commanding you today, so that you will live, multiply, and come to possess the Land that G-d swore to your forefathers.
-- Devarim 8:1
Rashi: The term "all the commandment(s)" is to be taken literally.
[Another interpretation:] According to the Midrash Agadah [the verse is saying]: If you have started a mitzvah, finish it, because only the one who completes it is credited with [the mitzvah]. As the verse states, "And they buried the bones of Yosef, which the Jewish people had brought up from Egypt, in Shechem" (Joshua 24:32). Was it not the case that Moshe alone took care of this [mitzvah of taking the bones, and not the Jewish people]? However, since he did not complete it, it is credited to the Jewish people, who did complete it.
Don’t just start a mitzvah, see it through.
If you were here for the lovely barbeque, you saw the detail with which Alex and his crew not only cooked, but set up tables, and even had a service line with sterno burners. If you’re called to help, you do a great job.
Doing a mitzvah completely, thoroughly—not stopping for another mitzvah, not multitasking. I saw couple a sitting, talking, and one was checkling facebook. If you’re going to be present with your spouse, be totally present, be able to give your full attention. The sources state that if you start a chapter of Talmud, you should finish it—mesayyem—that’s why we have a siyyum. Whenever we do a mitzvah, we should finish it.
Another expression of this is the notion that osek bamitzvah patur min hamitzvah—if I’m busy with one mitzvah, I don’t stop for another. This is why a groom doesn’t have to davven the night of the wedding—he’s busy with the bride. Don’t get torn by even two different things. Don’t move on until you’ve done a really great job at the first thing. Perseverance.
What could perseverance have looked like here? It means just calling the police might not be enough. Asking this neighbor who they were, and asking to talk to them. It means waiting outside until the police come, and making sure they investigate thoroughly, and if they don’t, calling the police station. It means not passing the job off to someone else, not wiping our hands clean and moving on.
What are the mitzvah opportunities in our own life, and how can we do them really well? If someone is sick, not just visiting them once, but visiting them weekly or daily, bringing them meals, not losing steam. If someone is homebound, as a number of our congregants are, it means visiting them, cheering them up, not losing momentum. If someone needs a job, helping them with their resume, their outfit, maybe a mock interview.
Mishna (Kiddushin 39b) teaches us that “whoever performs one mitzvah is well rewarded and his days are prolonged and he inherits the world.” The Jerusalem Talmud, in commenting on this mishna, reads this notion of one mitzvah differently. It argues that "ONE Mitzva" refers to one that a person dedicates him/herself to with particular diligence. The Jerusalem Talmud mentions "Talmud Torah, Bikur Holim, Gemilut Hasadim and other mitzvot that require a high level of perseverance." The Jerusalem Talmud means to say that if one performs one mitzva b’emunah, with real devotion, he’s worthy of having the Divine spirit rest upon him/her. (David Ebstein)
Let us all find our signature mitzvah; maybe something we're good at, or maybe just something where we are needed, and do it well, see it through, bring that one beautiful act, that one diamond of a mitzvah, into the world.
We were all shocked by what happened in Cleveland, a monster imprisoning and torturing four women, mindbogglingly evil acts.
Rescue after 10 years of enslavement was amazing:
A neighbor, Charles Ramsey was inside his house eating a McDonald’s meal when he heard a woman across the street began kicking at the door and screaming. He goes to the porch, hears her screaming “help, let me out.” Ramsey opened the door helped kick in the aluminum screen door through which Berry and her daughter escaped
“I’ve been there a year, she’s been right there next to me a year.”—this was the first time he had any inkling of anything off-kilter with his neighbor. He said he never had a clue anything was wrong. When he heard the screaming, he said, there is no feeling, you just do what you need to do.
It is an amazing story of heroism.
But there were also missed opportunities
Neighbors had called police over the years about weird things they saw:
three naked young girls crawling on all fours with dog leashes around their necks while three men (likely Castro's brothers) watched,
troubling pounds and screams,
a little girl looking out of an attic window.
3 years ago: neighbors heard a blood curdling shriek from the basement. The neighbors called the police. Nothing happened.
Last year a little girl saw a naked woman crawling out of castro’s house
And Castro was fired from his job as a school bus driver, after abducting a child for a joy ride in the school bus, which might have made police all the more concerned about reports about unusual activity at his house.
The neighbors say cops rarely followed up — once, they briefly knocked on Castro's door but left when he didn't show. The cops say they were never called. Or maybe they chalked it up to domestic disturbance, a couple quarrelling, and didn’t want to get involved.
It’s easy to blame the police for these missed opportunities. This is their job. But really it’s all of our jobs too. But could the neighbors have done more? Could they have been more tenacious?
The Torah says, “do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor, and most of us clearly seeing someone in distress will act to do something about it. Rashi: if we truly love our neighbor as ourself, we will never speak negatively about them, or seek to harm them, or desire for anything but the best for them. Certainly anybody would have called the police.
What if Ramsey had just called the police? Maybe they would have come on time. Or maybe they would have come a little too late, Interviewed Castroi, and found nothing amiss.
What made Ramsey’s response different was that he didn’t just call the police. He went up to the door, and seeing a hand sticking out, battered in the door.
Too often, when we are called to help, we do a half baked job. We offer to help someone, and it doesn’t happen, there’s no follow through. The neighbors tried to help over the ten years, they called the police, and went on with their day. Obviously, nobody wants to be a vigilante, but the question is, how much of a response fulfills my duty?
Judaism tells us that when you take on something, any mitzvah no matter how small, you see it through, and do it beautifully.
You should safeguard the observance of all the commandment(s) that I am commanding you today, so that you will live, multiply, and come to possess the Land that G-d swore to your forefathers.
-- Devarim 8:1
Rashi: The term "all the commandment(s)" is to be taken literally.
[Another interpretation:] According to the Midrash Agadah [the verse is saying]: If you have started a mitzvah, finish it, because only the one who completes it is credited with [the mitzvah]. As the verse states, "And they buried the bones of Yosef, which the Jewish people had brought up from Egypt, in Shechem" (Joshua 24:32). Was it not the case that Moshe alone took care of this [mitzvah of taking the bones, and not the Jewish people]? However, since he did not complete it, it is credited to the Jewish people, who did complete it.
Don’t just start a mitzvah, see it through.
If you were here for the lovely barbeque, you saw the detail with which Alex and his crew not only cooked, but set up tables, and even had a service line with sterno burners. If you’re called to help, you do a great job.
Doing a mitzvah completely, thoroughly—not stopping for another mitzvah, not multitasking. I saw couple a sitting, talking, and one was checkling facebook. If you’re going to be present with your spouse, be totally present, be able to give your full attention. The sources state that if you start a chapter of Talmud, you should finish it—mesayyem—that’s why we have a siyyum. Whenever we do a mitzvah, we should finish it.
Another expression of this is the notion that osek bamitzvah patur min hamitzvah—if I’m busy with one mitzvah, I don’t stop for another. This is why a groom doesn’t have to davven the night of the wedding—he’s busy with the bride. Don’t get torn by even two different things. Don’t move on until you’ve done a really great job at the first thing. Perseverance.
What could perseverance have looked like here? It means just calling the police might not be enough. Asking this neighbor who they were, and asking to talk to them. It means waiting outside until the police come, and making sure they investigate thoroughly, and if they don’t, calling the police station. It means not passing the job off to someone else, not wiping our hands clean and moving on.
What are the mitzvah opportunities in our own life, and how can we do them really well? If someone is sick, not just visiting them once, but visiting them weekly or daily, bringing them meals, not losing steam. If someone is homebound, as a number of our congregants are, it means visiting them, cheering them up, not losing momentum. If someone needs a job, helping them with their resume, their outfit, maybe a mock interview.
Mishna (Kiddushin 39b) teaches us that “whoever performs one mitzvah is well rewarded and his days are prolonged and he inherits the world.” The Jerusalem Talmud, in commenting on this mishna, reads this notion of one mitzvah differently. It argues that "ONE Mitzva" refers to one that a person dedicates him/herself to with particular diligence. The Jerusalem Talmud mentions "Talmud Torah, Bikur Holim, Gemilut Hasadim and other mitzvot that require a high level of perseverance." The Jerusalem Talmud means to say that if one performs one mitzva b’emunah, with real devotion, he’s worthy of having the Divine spirit rest upon him/her. (David Ebstein)
Let us all find our signature mitzvah; maybe something we're good at, or maybe just something where we are needed, and do it well, see it through, bring that one beautiful act, that one diamond of a mitzvah, into the world.
Bamidbar 5773: What's in a name?
This parsha is the census of the Jews in the desert, a count which is not only by number, but also by names, and also reports each of these tribes having a flag. The midrash says that the jews saw that the angels had flags, and they were jealous, so God gave them flags too. So this census is not just about one large number—it’s about appreciating every single individual, about calling their name lovingly, just as God lovingly says the name of each star as he puts them in the heaven, as psalms mythically depicts the process.
What’s in a name? Shakespeare said a rose by any other name would still smell so sweet. Claude Levi Strauss said much the same thing but much less poetically when he said that signifiers and signifieds—i.e. names and what they refer to—have an arbitrary relationship. In other words, the name is not the essence, the name is just a placeholder by which I refer to a particular thing. Flowers could have been called anything else.
But there is a sense, in Judaism, that the name goes to the essence of a thing. Isaiah 43:1 says “thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.” In other words, the name is unique, core to who I am, and it is how God relates to me—it gives me an unbreakable relationship with God. There’s no relationship without a name.
Martin Buber, in I and Thou, says we can relate to people as an it or a thou. In an I-thou relationship we open our whole being to the other. He describes an experience sitting on a park bench, and opening up to someone I don’t know, without even speaking. It has always been a troubling example: can I really have a deep relationship with someone I don’t know? Can I truly love you if I don’t know your name, what is important to you, what hurts you and what gives you joy? What kind of a relationship do I have with you if we both sit in shul for hours, go to Kiddush, eat, but never get to know each other? I need to learn your name.
Someone this week asked me, “rabbi, what can I do to help,” a question I always LOVE being asked. My answer was: sit at a different table at Kiddush. Get to know someone else, find out about them, how their week was, what’s on their mind. The truth is, I don’t like it if talking in shul gets disruptive, but I am in favor of jews talking, getting to know each other. That’s real community.
To know someone’s name is to have a relationship, to see them as a person.
The name also goes deeper, to something essential about what I am. In that quote from Isaiah, God knows our name because he formed us—it is at the core of who we are. What is essential about what I am? What about me can’t be boiled down to just a number, a telephone number, or an IP address? Is it just what I like, my hobbies and tastes? What could have been known about me the moment my soul was placed in my body?
The slonimer says that my name refers to my unique mission. Each of us has a unique mission in the world, and this is what makes us unique and also creates this inseparable relationship with god. The mission is some particular mitzvah that we are put on earth to do. He says we can discover this mission by seeing whatever mitzvah meets the most resistance from our own negative inclinations—when do I get lazy, say I’m not going to bother, or it’s too much trouble, or “I’ll leave that one for the more ‘observant’ Jews to worry about.” Another approach I have seen is the opposite—what mitzvah do I do really well, what is my signature mitzvah? This is my true name, by which God knows me, and forms an unbreakable relationship with God.
The flags, too, don’t just identify me, they also identify my relationship with God. The midrash says, that god said to Moses, make the flags for my name, because they are my children and my hosts, so I want flags in my name. The flags had God’s name on them. So the name is how God sees us, what is unique about us, and the flags refer back to God, make the circle complete. And ultimately, this is our name, the fact that we can live as God’s children is our truest name, what can make us most unique and most human.
What’s in a name? Shakespeare said a rose by any other name would still smell so sweet. Claude Levi Strauss said much the same thing but much less poetically when he said that signifiers and signifieds—i.e. names and what they refer to—have an arbitrary relationship. In other words, the name is not the essence, the name is just a placeholder by which I refer to a particular thing. Flowers could have been called anything else.
But there is a sense, in Judaism, that the name goes to the essence of a thing. Isaiah 43:1 says “thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.” In other words, the name is unique, core to who I am, and it is how God relates to me—it gives me an unbreakable relationship with God. There’s no relationship without a name.
Martin Buber, in I and Thou, says we can relate to people as an it or a thou. In an I-thou relationship we open our whole being to the other. He describes an experience sitting on a park bench, and opening up to someone I don’t know, without even speaking. It has always been a troubling example: can I really have a deep relationship with someone I don’t know? Can I truly love you if I don’t know your name, what is important to you, what hurts you and what gives you joy? What kind of a relationship do I have with you if we both sit in shul for hours, go to Kiddush, eat, but never get to know each other? I need to learn your name.
Someone this week asked me, “rabbi, what can I do to help,” a question I always LOVE being asked. My answer was: sit at a different table at Kiddush. Get to know someone else, find out about them, how their week was, what’s on their mind. The truth is, I don’t like it if talking in shul gets disruptive, but I am in favor of jews talking, getting to know each other. That’s real community.
To know someone’s name is to have a relationship, to see them as a person.
The name also goes deeper, to something essential about what I am. In that quote from Isaiah, God knows our name because he formed us—it is at the core of who we are. What is essential about what I am? What about me can’t be boiled down to just a number, a telephone number, or an IP address? Is it just what I like, my hobbies and tastes? What could have been known about me the moment my soul was placed in my body?
The slonimer says that my name refers to my unique mission. Each of us has a unique mission in the world, and this is what makes us unique and also creates this inseparable relationship with god. The mission is some particular mitzvah that we are put on earth to do. He says we can discover this mission by seeing whatever mitzvah meets the most resistance from our own negative inclinations—when do I get lazy, say I’m not going to bother, or it’s too much trouble, or “I’ll leave that one for the more ‘observant’ Jews to worry about.” Another approach I have seen is the opposite—what mitzvah do I do really well, what is my signature mitzvah? This is my true name, by which God knows me, and forms an unbreakable relationship with God.
The flags, too, don’t just identify me, they also identify my relationship with God. The midrash says, that god said to Moses, make the flags for my name, because they are my children and my hosts, so I want flags in my name. The flags had God’s name on them. So the name is how God sees us, what is unique about us, and the flags refer back to God, make the circle complete. And ultimately, this is our name, the fact that we can live as God’s children is our truest name, what can make us most unique and most human.
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Emor: Disabilities, Ugliness, and True Leadership
The priestly regulations in Emor are very difficult to read
Marrying a divorcee seen as a blemish
No Physical blemishes or disabilities
Cohanim can’t get defiled by dead, leading to cohanim not attending funerals, or having portable mechitzas, or even the guy who flew in a plastic bag (which was over the op)
It’s a very difficult parsha for those of us who want such people to have equal access
Why shouldn’t someone who is lame be able to be a cohen?
Are they really a bad representative? Are we worried they’re not photogenic?
And the truth is, we tend to choose leaders on disturbingly superficial grounds
Are they tall? Are they handsome?
Mike Dukakis visited my high school, surprised how short he was
I have seen the claim: shorter candidate only won presidential elections 3 times in last century
George Bush won, but not the popular vote
I am disturbed by this, and I hope you share my feelings.
I would like us to pick leaders on more substantive grounds.
On disability issue, talmud shifts ground:
(Megillah 29a) Rav Ashi deduced from Leviticus 21:20 that arrogance constitutes a blemish; such an imperfection would prevent a Cohen from performing the offerings.
Chagigah 5a teaches: “Over these does G-d weep daily: over the one who is able to study the Torah and does not; over the one who is unable to devote the time to Torah and study it; and over the public leader who is arrogant in his leadership”.
Perfection in leadership for the Talmud is not about looking handsome, having a nice smile, or being tall or convincing. It’s about humility—humility to know your followers have wisdom and need to be heard, and honoring and empowering others; humility to let others speak their mind even if they disagree; humility to know you have your own faults, your own blemishes, and are striving to correct them just like anyone else, and being willing to admit your own character faults, and that you don’t know everything, and shows others by example what it is to be on a constant path of improvement.
Ta’anit 20a-b: completely deconstructs the biblical model of perfection
The bible: seems to say: beauty is physical perfection, with a nice virgin wife on your arm
The following passage questions who is truly beautiful, who is truly ugly
Once Rabbi Elazar son of R. Shimon was coming from Migdal Gedor, from the house of his teacher. He rode along the riverside on his donkey, and was feeling happy and elated because he had studied much Torah.
There chanced to meet him an exceedingly ugly man, who greeted him, "Peace be upon you, my master!" R. Elazar did not return his salutation but instead said to him, "How ugly this person is! Are all the people of your city as ugly as you?"
"I do not know," said the man. "But go to the craftsman who made me, and say to him: How ugly is the vessel which you have made!"
Realizing that he had done wrong, R. Elazar dismounted from his donkey, prostrated himself before the man, and said to him, "You are right. Forgive me!" But the man replied, "I will not forgive you until you go to the craftsman who made me and say to him, 'How ugly is the vessel which you have made.'"
R. Elazar kept on walking after him until he reached his city. The residents of the city came out to greet him, saying, "Peace be upon you, O Teacher! O Master!" Said the man to them, "Whom are you calling 'Master'?" Said they, "The person walking behind you."
Said he to them: "If this is a 'Master,' may there not be any more like him in Israel."
"Why?" asked the people.
Said the man: Such-and-such he has done to me.
"Nevertheless, forgive him," said they, "for he is a man greatly learned in the Torah."
"For your sakes I will forgive him," said the man, "but only if he does not act this way anymore."
Soon after this R. Elazar entered the study hall and taught: "A person should always be pliant as the reed, and let him never be hard as the cedar. And for this reason the reed merited that of it should be made a pen for the writing of the Torah, tefillin and mezuzot."
The ugly man, who was objectively physically ugly—the Talmud says so—wasn’t really the ugly man. I’m nbot sure he was so nice—he wasn’t all that forgiving. But the ugliness—exceeding ugliness-was merely superficial.
Reb Elazar was really ugly. He was arrogant with his learning-- He was so proud of how many daf genorah he had studied. But he was obnoxious, he wasn’t a nice guy.
That, the Talmud is saying, is true ugliness, is the true blemish.
May we all have the humility to honor others, to make space for others opinions, and to see the true beauty within each other.
Marrying a divorcee seen as a blemish
No Physical blemishes or disabilities
Cohanim can’t get defiled by dead, leading to cohanim not attending funerals, or having portable mechitzas, or even the guy who flew in a plastic bag (which was over the op)
It’s a very difficult parsha for those of us who want such people to have equal access
Why shouldn’t someone who is lame be able to be a cohen?
Are they really a bad representative? Are we worried they’re not photogenic?
And the truth is, we tend to choose leaders on disturbingly superficial grounds
Are they tall? Are they handsome?
Mike Dukakis visited my high school, surprised how short he was
I have seen the claim: shorter candidate only won presidential elections 3 times in last century
George Bush won, but not the popular vote
I am disturbed by this, and I hope you share my feelings.
I would like us to pick leaders on more substantive grounds.
On disability issue, talmud shifts ground:
(Megillah 29a) Rav Ashi deduced from Leviticus 21:20 that arrogance constitutes a blemish; such an imperfection would prevent a Cohen from performing the offerings.
Chagigah 5a teaches: “Over these does G-d weep daily: over the one who is able to study the Torah and does not; over the one who is unable to devote the time to Torah and study it; and over the public leader who is arrogant in his leadership”.
Perfection in leadership for the Talmud is not about looking handsome, having a nice smile, or being tall or convincing. It’s about humility—humility to know your followers have wisdom and need to be heard, and honoring and empowering others; humility to let others speak their mind even if they disagree; humility to know you have your own faults, your own blemishes, and are striving to correct them just like anyone else, and being willing to admit your own character faults, and that you don’t know everything, and shows others by example what it is to be on a constant path of improvement.
Ta’anit 20a-b: completely deconstructs the biblical model of perfection
The bible: seems to say: beauty is physical perfection, with a nice virgin wife on your arm
The following passage questions who is truly beautiful, who is truly ugly
Once Rabbi Elazar son of R. Shimon was coming from Migdal Gedor, from the house of his teacher. He rode along the riverside on his donkey, and was feeling happy and elated because he had studied much Torah.
There chanced to meet him an exceedingly ugly man, who greeted him, "Peace be upon you, my master!" R. Elazar did not return his salutation but instead said to him, "How ugly this person is! Are all the people of your city as ugly as you?"
"I do not know," said the man. "But go to the craftsman who made me, and say to him: How ugly is the vessel which you have made!"
Realizing that he had done wrong, R. Elazar dismounted from his donkey, prostrated himself before the man, and said to him, "You are right. Forgive me!" But the man replied, "I will not forgive you until you go to the craftsman who made me and say to him, 'How ugly is the vessel which you have made.'"
R. Elazar kept on walking after him until he reached his city. The residents of the city came out to greet him, saying, "Peace be upon you, O Teacher! O Master!" Said the man to them, "Whom are you calling 'Master'?" Said they, "The person walking behind you."
Said he to them: "If this is a 'Master,' may there not be any more like him in Israel."
"Why?" asked the people.
Said the man: Such-and-such he has done to me.
"Nevertheless, forgive him," said they, "for he is a man greatly learned in the Torah."
"For your sakes I will forgive him," said the man, "but only if he does not act this way anymore."
Soon after this R. Elazar entered the study hall and taught: "A person should always be pliant as the reed, and let him never be hard as the cedar. And for this reason the reed merited that of it should be made a pen for the writing of the Torah, tefillin and mezuzot."
The ugly man, who was objectively physically ugly—the Talmud says so—wasn’t really the ugly man. I’m nbot sure he was so nice—he wasn’t all that forgiving. But the ugliness—exceeding ugliness-was merely superficial.
Reb Elazar was really ugly. He was arrogant with his learning-- He was so proud of how many daf genorah he had studied. But he was obnoxious, he wasn’t a nice guy.
That, the Talmud is saying, is true ugliness, is the true blemish.
May we all have the humility to honor others, to make space for others opinions, and to see the true beauty within each other.
Friday, April 12, 2013
Lashon HaRa and Public Figures
I want to talk today about the laws of lashon hara, and specifically the question of freedom of the press, and whether certain people can be discussed because they are public figures.
In judaism, as in american law, we believe everybody should be free from attacks of lashon hara—of other speaking negatively about you.
OJ Simpson trial
In 1994, football star OJ simpson tried for murder of his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson
In college: sat around living\room with the rest of my dorm watching the police chase him & trial; hired a high profile lawyer who managed to get him acquitted
He was found guilty, but lost a lawsuit in civil court, and most people I know believe he was guilty
Millions of people watched the car chase and trial.
Made front page of LA Times for 300 days..
Fox now developing as a miniseries: “shogun”
It is part of our culture that we want to know what crazy things our celebrities and politicians are up to
And it makes for good entertainment.
But is it ethical?
I want to focus us today on lashon hara as it applies to public figures: politicians, celebrities, and similarly but on a smaller scale,
In Parsha/Summary
Tzara’at similar to leprosy (but curable, so not leprosy); white blisters on the skin
Punishment for lashon hara
Sacrifice they bring is seen as related to lashon hara: (14:4)
Birds—because they twittered like a bird
Cedar—which is tall symbolizes arrogance—whenever we speak lashon hara
Think we’re better than other person
Humble self—scarlet comes from worm; hyssop is small
Q: Can anybody define lashon hara?
Any negative statement—true or false—told about somebody
In their presence or not
Even if you think everyone already knows it
There are exceptions, such when it serves an important purpose,
But need to be very careful when deciding it falls under this exception
Make sure you know the facts
Make sure it’s the most private way to do it.
Issue of Public figures
We often think of public figures as exempt
Politicians, celebrities, synagogue presidents, rabbis
Because they are seen as public, tend to think of anything about them as public
Also: free press is the cornerstone of our open society—serves necessary function of keeping politicians relatively honest
Halacha: must be absolutely true, useful purpose (to prevent people from being harmed; exposing someone as wicked/hypocrite to prevent him from harming or corrupting others), and necessary
1. Truth: am I misjudging a situation? Did I see it myself?
I visited my friend who is a survivalist. Believes Obama is stockpiling weapons for a massive disarming and communist style military control of civilian population by Homeland Security.
He claims he is in a position to know information about this—I dunno, he’s either right or totally crazy
Too often we assume negative motives about people, instead of asking them their real motives
the classic example is from the torah:
Miriam notices Moses separated from wife, decides he did the wrong thing
She says to Aaron: Do you know what Moses did? He separated from his wife—he must think he’s some big shot! It’s not like we’re not prophets, but we manage to stay married.
Anytime we tell a story about someone else, even if we think we know all the facts, ask whether we really know the facts, or whether a more favorable interpretation is possible. If somebody did something that seems like maybe it was underhanded or selfish, maybe we don’t really understand their motives. Maybe we do, maybe we don’t, but the mitzvahdik thing to do is assume the best.
In this case, Miriam assumed Moses was acting out of a feeling of superiority, which was not the case; this is why the Torah in describing his response says he was very humble. She should have given the benefit of the doubt, and assumed he felt he needed to be available for God. We need to give our leaders the benefit of the doubt.
So the first question we need to ask is, am I absolutely sure I have the facts straight, and are there any other possible positive interpretations of the facts?
We have a tendency to assume public figures, especially, are dishonest or unscrupulous, or to question our leaders motives, rather than assuming they are humans doing the best they can.
How can Moses function as a leader, how can anyone function as a politician, a manager, a rabbi, lead any sort of positive energy, with people talking negatively about them behind their back?
2. Toelet: preventing people from harm.
Clinton Impeachment which was for (understandably) not telling prosecutors about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky-- begged the question— does the public really need to know about his private life? Would the public really be harmed if we did not know what improprieties he was up to?
Edwards case—different because he embezzled donors’ money to cover over the situation.
Criticizing president for turning up the a/c—what use is it complaining to someone else, instead of approaching the president himself?
One piece of Toelet is exposing wicked, hypocritical people.
Yoma 86b:
One should expose hypocrites to prevent the profanation of the [divine] Name, as it is said: Again, when a righteous man doth turn from righteousness. and commit iniquity, I will lay a
stumbling-block before him.(Ezek 3:20) [i.e. he will be a stumbling block for others]
This refers to a wicked person who pretends to be righteous; we need to expose him so people don’t imitate his ways, and think they are doing right when in fact they are not—that would be the desecration of the name.
In other words, when people act wickedly and are at risk of people following them and imitating them, they should be exposed publically. If a a public figure is a gossiper, or is cruel, or is otherwise setting a bad example, then we need to speak out publically against them.
Similarly, if I see that Hannah sees somebody acting in a cruel way, or a character on television acting in a cruel way, or speaking lashon hara themselves, I will openly tell her don’t imitate them, they do bad things.
You could argue that one piece is to cut people down to size, so people don’t associate with them too much, or idolize them. So you might argue that showing OJ Simpson to be a brute maybe can help kids focus on real heros, instead of football stars. But then we reach the limit of how much is necessary for that purpose, and how much is entertainment at someone’s expense.
The sources also say that the laws of lashon hara don’t apply to thoroughly wicked people, But the person in question needs to be thoroughly wicked, not just someone who succumbs to their impulses, which all of us do—even Jimmy Carter, if only in his heart. They need to be someone who intentionally, for no good reason, flaunts basic ethical norms.
Clinton case: clearly succumbed to weakness, can’t be labeled wicked.
Edwards situation—succumbed tp weakness, but embezzled as well, and lied to donors. Pretty bad! Still only makes him someone who succumbed to temptation, no worse than any of us—not wicked by halacha.
If we’re honest with ourselves, we’d admit the truth: for viewers it’s entertainment, and for journalists it’s a good way to boost ratings. One estimnate: $40 billion in lost productivity from people watching OJ Simpson case!
3. Necessary: only saying that which is necessary to accomplish goal
We are allowed to relate negative information if it is to prevent someone else from physical or financial harm, but it needs to be a real concern, and we can only relate the minimal amount of information required.
Clinton case: can you seriously argue it cast light on his ability to be the president, necessary to prevent public from harm?
Edwards case (covered his tracks using campaign money solicited from donors): could argue: necessary to prevent donors from financial harm
Example from our community: think I can criticize the synagogue president, because its important, it’s synagogue business
Let’s say, hypothetically, people were criticizing the synagogue president for turning the a/c too high
Did you know how high he turned the air conditioning?
You know his real agenda?
But really, those don’t any necessary purpose.
I can say to someone who’s going to visit our theoretical president,
“you should bring a coat, it may be cold.”
Otherwise, I should go straight to the person I am criticizing.
Miriam should have gone straight to Moses with her concerns; problem was that she went to Aaron instead of moses.
Serious closed-door discussions are sometimes necessary
I am allowed to have a confidante. If I need to consult with you as my confidante as to how to approach the president to ask him to turn down that darn air conditioning, okay
But if I’m just going to you to complain about someone, and then I go to someone else and someone else, it’s just plain old lashon hara.
4. excuse: everybody knows anyway.
Everyone knows about Clinton, or it’s in all the papers
Halachically, this is called “in front of 3”—be’apey tlata. If someone says something about himself in front of 3 people, it’s considered public information and can be repeated.
There is a dispute on this situation in halacha.
According to Maimonides, this means that if it was already said publically, and I repeat it casually but not to malign (because I assume everyone knows it), it’s okay, it’s not lashon hara. But even if it’s known publically, I can’t intentionally malign the person. Also, I can only repeat it if I heard it from the subject. In the case of the movie, if I watched the movie, repeating the information would still be lashon hara, because I didn’t hear it from the person herself.
The Chofetz Hayyim is even stricter. He says the exemption only applies to ambiguous information—information that can be taken positively or negatively, that someone says about themself. Since that person is saying it publically, it is clear the positive interpretation is intended.
So the fact that information is public does not in any way make it permissible to discuss it!
In Melvin v. Reid, a California Supreme court case stemming from the 1930s, Ms. Melvin was a former prostitute who had abandoned her ways and was living a respectable life in a different community. Years later, filmmakers publicized her life story in a movie entitled “The Red Kimono,” thereby ruining her new life and reputation. The appeals court agreed with Ms Melvin, based on the “right to pursue and obtain happiness” citing California’s Constitution, which “by its very nature includes the right to live free from the unwarranted attack of others upon one’s liberty, freedom and happiness.”
In that case, the court said that if the documentary had been based on public record, such as testimony from a trial, she would have had no basis for a lawsuit, because it was already public knowledge. Revealing publically known information, by American law, is fine.
From a Jewish perspective, however, even once the movie is out there, seeing it or discussing may still be lashon hara.
The poskim discuss the following case:
A Jew who lends to another Jew with interest who would certainly have found another Jew willing to borrow under similar terms. Does the borrower violate lifnei iveir for enabling the lender to charge interest or do we argue that the lender could in any case have violated the prohibition without this borrower’s participation.
Many poskim contend that although the lender would indeed have violated anyway, this is only because he would find someone else who also was willing to violate halacha. But if every borrower observed the halacha correctly, the lender would be unable to violate the prohibition. Therefore, whoever actually borrows the money violates livnei iveir
The Hofetz Hayyim applies this argument here: So even though the information is out there, and I am adding no harm, it’s still lashon hara. If everyone followed the laws of lashon hara, it wouldn’t be public knowledge. It’s only public knowledge because of people violating halacha, but I shouldn’t join in that group violating halacha. So even though everyone else is watching “the red kimono,” I shouldn’t be part of that.
In the Melvin case, she wouldn’t have been a public figure were it not for the film, so even once the film is public, repeating the information is still lashon hara.
In the case of Bill Clinton, this was not information he wanted revealed publically, it was extracted under duress, so discussing it was a clear violation of his privacy. But discussing the situation now, without specifics, but using it as an example of lashon hara, does serve a clearly beneficial purpose.
Conclusion
Arachin says: Regarding anyone who speaks lashon hara, God says: “He and I cannot coexist in the same world.” The verse says, “He who slanders his friend in secret … him I cannot bear” [Tehillim 101:5]. Do not read it as “him I cannot bear [pronounced uchal],” but rather “with him I cannot eat [pronounced ochel].” [Arachin 15b]
Rabbi Menachem Shlanger wrote: The meaning of this statement is that the world of the speaker of lashon hara is a contradiction to the world that God has created. To explain: It is axiomatic that the world is imperfect and has deficiencies. The way God guides events in the world is to lead it to its ultimate perfection. This applies to each individual as well. Each person has imperfections and deficiencies, but God, in His compassion sees the good within each person as his true essence, and assists him to reach his own personal perfection. With this perspective there is no place for categorizing someone as lacking because of his inadequacies, because he is, after all, on his way to perfection!… The habitual speaker of lashon hara emphasizes the negative aspects of others, and in so doing gives these weaknesses reality and permanence. By doing this, he removes himself from the world that God has created, a world that is completely directed for moving toward perfection.
May we all help move the world toward perfection by only seeing the best in others, and being careful not to speak or listen to any negative speech.
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Chocolate and Slavery
Fair trade chocolate-why we should care
I found recently a new translation of the first verse of Genesis:
In the beginning, the Lord created chocolate, and he saw that it was good. Then he separated the light from the dark, and it was better.
Geronimo Piperni, quoted by Antonio Lavedán, surgeon in the Spanish army, 1796: Chocolate is a divine, celestial drink, the sweat of the stars, the vital seed, divine nectar, the drink of the gods, panacea and universal medicine.
Greek word for Chocolate: theobroma—food of the gods.
Story
I want to tell you the story of two children:
Maryam—12 yo girl from Segou, mali, whose parents quite poor, sent her to IC to make money to send back home to her family. She was sent by bus 270 miles to the south, to Zegoua, on the border w/Ivory Coast, with an escort. Her escort was really a trafficker, and she had really been sold into slavery without her or her family knowing- the going price is 230 euros, all of which goes to the smugglers. When she showed up there she had open sores on her knees and legs. If she had not been intercepted she would have been handed over to be smuggled by motorcycle, across dirt roads, into Ivory Coast, to work for no pay, never to attend school, in a country whose language she didn’t know.
Another child, Yaya konate: is a 16yo from Mali. He, too, was tricked into what he thought was employment as a cocoa harvester, but he was never paid. When he tried to escape, he was chased & hid, and finally escaped.
Facts about Cocoa
According to the department of Labor, most of the cocoa we consume is produced in countries using child labor: Cameroon ivory coast, ghinea, Ghana, Nigeria. These child workers labor for long, punishing hours, using dangerous tools and facing frequent exposure to dangerous pesticides as they travel great distances in the grueling heat. And of course no education leaving not much hope for a future out of poverty. By International Labor Laws this is illegal.
In Ivory Coast (supplier of 40% of the worlds cocoa), 109,000 child laborers, 10,000 of whom are forced laborers—slaves, who work without pay and are subject to beatings and abuse. All major cocoa companies buy cocoa from farms using children, and reap profits off the backs of these kids.
Torah: Befarech
I wanted to delve a little today into what constitutes oppressive labor conditions.
According to Jewish law, inhumane employment goes beyond slavery, forcing someone to work against their will. It also includes the concept of “farech,” oppressiveness. In Egypt, after Moses asks pharaoh to let the jews go he oppresses them with hard labor, befarech (Shmot 1:13) The haggadah connects this verse to Deuteronomy 26:7, which refers to the Egyptians dealing harshly with us.
1st interpretation: bait & switch
Tanhuma explains Farech as peh rach, a soft mouth: At first asked nicely to work one day only, jews worked hard, then forced them to work at same energy level every day (like baiting children across international border with promise of better future)
4th interpretation: inhumane conditions
Asher meir: 192-193 time off each day and each week
Note that when we mention who rest, we specifically include servants—allowing people to rest and have time to themselves is part of honoring their humanity
Clearly, working someone without rest is inhumane. The midrash says that the Egyptians made the slaves sleep in the fields, not even giving them the time to return home.
2nd interpretation: pointless busywork
According to Rashi & talmud: farech means meaningless work, like asking someone to warm a cup when you don’t need one. One Midrash says that the buildings were crumbling.
Ben ish hai: “doing meaningless work, such as bulding a falling edifice, is the ultimate hard labor. Even a slave in bondage has satisfaction when he sees that his labor results in some purpose. But if he is told to draw water from the river and to pour it back, his labor will be a thousand times more difficult.” (Ben Ish hai haggadah, 128)
This includes asking even an employee for any meaningless busy work- asking someone to sort a closet which is never used, or to shuffle papers until the clock strikes 5. Rabbi Asher Meir, in the Jewish Ethicist, even includes holding a social hour where employees know they should go to if they want a promotion.
The idea is that this kind of work is psychologically demoralizing and demeaning.
3rd interpretation: hopelessness
Rabbi Simha Bunam of Peshiska: farech is bitterness when we realize our bad situation: “We eat matzah first and maror next, though it would seem the reverse order is appropriate, since we first suffered and later were freed. However, as long as there was no prospect of being delivered, Israel didn’t feel the bitterness of the experience keenly. But as soon as Moses spoke to them of freedom, they awoke to the bitterness of their slavery.” (Michael Strassfeld, in Passage to Pesach, 126)
Farech is when we awaken to the bitterness of reality. It sounds like a bad thing—wouldn’t they be better off being happy slaves than dissatisfied slaves? But really, this bitterness is a good thing, because it leads to change. We need to become dissatisfied with the state of things, rather than resigned to them. If we walk out of shul feeling better about the world, yes, we all feel better, but we haven’t made progress toward fixing the worlds problems or our own problems. It is saying that if I walk out of shul really despairing about the world, about my life, about my spiritual progress and about what kind of a person I am, that is the first step toward building a better world, becoming a better human.
Conclusion
Farech goes beyond slavery, to include laboring under inhumane, deceptive, or hopeless conditions. When we protest slavery, we also treatment oppressive employment, even if it is not truly slavery.
Buying fair trade coca and coffee always seemed like a luxury to me, until I watched a documentary on the topic, and realized that fair trade certification would be better called “slave & child free.” The fact is, any chocolate bar we buy that is not certified fair trade, probably was made by children, quite possibly by slaves. There is in fact only one kosher for Passover, fair trade chocolate: Equal Exchange, marked kosher but in fact always kosher for Passover. Any other chocolate we eat on Passover was probably made by children, and possibly by slaves.
Am I going to tell you not to eat chocolate this Passover, or that it’s simply not kosher? That would be a bitter pill to swallow, so you’ll just have to make up your own minds on that one. Personally, I am planning on having a bar of equal exchange chocolate on my seder plate as a symbol of the contemporary struggle against slavery. I also invite everyone to watch this documentary with me at our movie night on April 13. We will have a discussion after as well as a tasting of fair trade chocolate.
As we go through this pesach season, may we all become more aware of the oppression in the world around us, and strengthened in our resolve to stand up for human dignity and freedom.
I found recently a new translation of the first verse of Genesis:
In the beginning, the Lord created chocolate, and he saw that it was good. Then he separated the light from the dark, and it was better.
Geronimo Piperni, quoted by Antonio Lavedán, surgeon in the Spanish army, 1796: Chocolate is a divine, celestial drink, the sweat of the stars, the vital seed, divine nectar, the drink of the gods, panacea and universal medicine.
Greek word for Chocolate: theobroma—food of the gods.
Story
I want to tell you the story of two children:
Maryam—12 yo girl from Segou, mali, whose parents quite poor, sent her to IC to make money to send back home to her family. She was sent by bus 270 miles to the south, to Zegoua, on the border w/Ivory Coast, with an escort. Her escort was really a trafficker, and she had really been sold into slavery without her or her family knowing- the going price is 230 euros, all of which goes to the smugglers. When she showed up there she had open sores on her knees and legs. If she had not been intercepted she would have been handed over to be smuggled by motorcycle, across dirt roads, into Ivory Coast, to work for no pay, never to attend school, in a country whose language she didn’t know.
Another child, Yaya konate: is a 16yo from Mali. He, too, was tricked into what he thought was employment as a cocoa harvester, but he was never paid. When he tried to escape, he was chased & hid, and finally escaped.
Facts about Cocoa
According to the department of Labor, most of the cocoa we consume is produced in countries using child labor: Cameroon ivory coast, ghinea, Ghana, Nigeria. These child workers labor for long, punishing hours, using dangerous tools and facing frequent exposure to dangerous pesticides as they travel great distances in the grueling heat. And of course no education leaving not much hope for a future out of poverty. By International Labor Laws this is illegal.
In Ivory Coast (supplier of 40% of the worlds cocoa), 109,000 child laborers, 10,000 of whom are forced laborers—slaves, who work without pay and are subject to beatings and abuse. All major cocoa companies buy cocoa from farms using children, and reap profits off the backs of these kids.
Torah: Befarech
I wanted to delve a little today into what constitutes oppressive labor conditions.
According to Jewish law, inhumane employment goes beyond slavery, forcing someone to work against their will. It also includes the concept of “farech,” oppressiveness. In Egypt, after Moses asks pharaoh to let the jews go he oppresses them with hard labor, befarech (Shmot 1:13) The haggadah connects this verse to Deuteronomy 26:7, which refers to the Egyptians dealing harshly with us.
1st interpretation: bait & switch
Tanhuma explains Farech as peh rach, a soft mouth: At first asked nicely to work one day only, jews worked hard, then forced them to work at same energy level every day (like baiting children across international border with promise of better future)
4th interpretation: inhumane conditions
Asher meir: 192-193 time off each day and each week
Note that when we mention who rest, we specifically include servants—allowing people to rest and have time to themselves is part of honoring their humanity
Clearly, working someone without rest is inhumane. The midrash says that the Egyptians made the slaves sleep in the fields, not even giving them the time to return home.
2nd interpretation: pointless busywork
According to Rashi & talmud: farech means meaningless work, like asking someone to warm a cup when you don’t need one. One Midrash says that the buildings were crumbling.
Ben ish hai: “doing meaningless work, such as bulding a falling edifice, is the ultimate hard labor. Even a slave in bondage has satisfaction when he sees that his labor results in some purpose. But if he is told to draw water from the river and to pour it back, his labor will be a thousand times more difficult.” (Ben Ish hai haggadah, 128)
This includes asking even an employee for any meaningless busy work- asking someone to sort a closet which is never used, or to shuffle papers until the clock strikes 5. Rabbi Asher Meir, in the Jewish Ethicist, even includes holding a social hour where employees know they should go to if they want a promotion.
The idea is that this kind of work is psychologically demoralizing and demeaning.
3rd interpretation: hopelessness
Rabbi Simha Bunam of Peshiska: farech is bitterness when we realize our bad situation: “We eat matzah first and maror next, though it would seem the reverse order is appropriate, since we first suffered and later were freed. However, as long as there was no prospect of being delivered, Israel didn’t feel the bitterness of the experience keenly. But as soon as Moses spoke to them of freedom, they awoke to the bitterness of their slavery.” (Michael Strassfeld, in Passage to Pesach, 126)
Farech is when we awaken to the bitterness of reality. It sounds like a bad thing—wouldn’t they be better off being happy slaves than dissatisfied slaves? But really, this bitterness is a good thing, because it leads to change. We need to become dissatisfied with the state of things, rather than resigned to them. If we walk out of shul feeling better about the world, yes, we all feel better, but we haven’t made progress toward fixing the worlds problems or our own problems. It is saying that if I walk out of shul really despairing about the world, about my life, about my spiritual progress and about what kind of a person I am, that is the first step toward building a better world, becoming a better human.
Conclusion
Farech goes beyond slavery, to include laboring under inhumane, deceptive, or hopeless conditions. When we protest slavery, we also treatment oppressive employment, even if it is not truly slavery.
Buying fair trade coca and coffee always seemed like a luxury to me, until I watched a documentary on the topic, and realized that fair trade certification would be better called “slave & child free.” The fact is, any chocolate bar we buy that is not certified fair trade, probably was made by children, quite possibly by slaves. There is in fact only one kosher for Passover, fair trade chocolate: Equal Exchange, marked kosher but in fact always kosher for Passover. Any other chocolate we eat on Passover was probably made by children, and possibly by slaves.
Am I going to tell you not to eat chocolate this Passover, or that it’s simply not kosher? That would be a bitter pill to swallow, so you’ll just have to make up your own minds on that one. Personally, I am planning on having a bar of equal exchange chocolate on my seder plate as a symbol of the contemporary struggle against slavery. I also invite everyone to watch this documentary with me at our movie night on April 13. We will have a discussion after as well as a tasting of fair trade chocolate.
As we go through this pesach season, may we all become more aware of the oppression in the world around us, and strengthened in our resolve to stand up for human dignity and freedom.
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