Kol Nidre 5776: sanctifying digital communication

Kol Nidre 5776 sanctifying digital communication


On Rosh Hashanah, we discussed some of the opportunities and challenges of our technological society. One of the amazing things that has happened is the advent of email. When I was at Dartmouth, in the 90’s, it was the early days of email; all students had an account, and it was something of a novelty. I never dreamed I would be asking my wife to email me the shopping list on my way home, so I could use my cell phone at the store. In Brooklyn, we could not find a single time all the members of the young family programming committee could meet, so we just met vie email thread. Some people could participate at lunch at work, at 3 am in their jammies.
Judaism has always recognized that communication is one of the places we are most likely to hurt each other. Language is the primary way we relate to each other, and according to the mystics and the literal sense of the torah, divine speech underlies and even forms the substance of creation.
There is a halachic term, lashon hara, evil speech. Lashon hara is more than just gossip. Lashon hara is any time I hurt another person with my words. They can be true or false, they can be an insinuation, a hint, even a non-verbal gesture. And there is an extensive body of literature exploring the details of what constitutes lashon hara.
We are still in an exploratory phase when it comes to texting and email, both as a society and as jews. The language of texting is evolving daily, now with innumerable emoticons. The Japanese site 2channel has literally hundreds of emoticons! I am inviting us to explore how this body of wisdom applies to email.
One of the basic challenges of email is the fact that there is no face to face interaction. There’s an enigmatic reference in Bereshit to eight kings who "reigned in the land of Edom before any king ruled over the Israelites" (Gen. 36:31). Isaac Luria, the founder of Lurianic kabbalah, taught that they died because they didn’t look panim bepanim, face to face. For Luria, these 10 kings were an early model for the spiritual substructure of the universe; they did not survive, and were replaced by a universe in which spiritual elements do look in each other’s faces. A universe of non-relation, of parallel play without true interaction, cannot survive; our universe is built on face to face relation. Babies know this; newborns are designed to focus on faces. It is one of our first instincts.
What happens when we lose the face?
When we communicate electronically, we cannot convey a tone of voice or body language, leading the other person to guess at our affect. So a well intentioned, calmed “why did you do that” can come across as an accusatory “why did you do that?” I have heard that 90% of communication is body language [I think my other 90% rule applies here]. The Talmud says when we smile, the white of our teeth is like the white of mother’s milk. Smiling is like giving someone mother’s milk. So, the Talmud, teaches, we should have a generally friendly, smiling demeanor. We can’t do that with emails. We can’t smile, unless we put in an emoticon and look like it’s written by a teenager. That’s a problem.
We also lose the other person’s facial gesture, body language. It is so easy to hurt another person in conversation; the Talmud says embarrassing someone is like shedding blood. If I see that I have upset you, and we are in person, I can modify what I’ve said, “oh, I don’t mean it that way,” or, “I’m sorry, that came out harsher than I meant.” I can tend to your feelings. If you’re not in the room, though, your feelings tend to fester, they don’t get tended to.
We tend to correct ourselves in communication—it is a living dialogue which shifts in response to the other person’s reactions. But when we email, which often happens very quickly, there is a permanent record, and if we try to change what we say, the person can point back and say, “look what you wrote.” We need to be able to take back our words. It is said that god tried to create the world based on emet, on truth, but he realized it wouldn’t work, so he cast it underground. Life requires kapparah, covering over, forgetting. Our relationships could not survive the glaring light of constantly scrutinizing what has been said in the past.
Another challenge of email is that we tend to forget how many people we are talking to. There’s a big difference between a small private conversation, and talking in front of 100 people. A few weeks ago, I was in the woods on my day off, so what do I do in the woods on my day off but check my email. Pam Saeks had relayed some of foundation’s questions about the synagogue to the members of the group that requested the grant. I whipped off a quick email on my cell phone, giving the names of the cutting edge places we are modelling our approach on. The next day, Brian Jaffee, the CEO of federation says to me “great email.” Apparently I wasn’t able to see every name that was in the cc field!
Several years ago, CNN reported the story of Jamie Diamond, an employee at a public relations firm, who emailed his boss about how to deal with a client. His boss wrote back about the clients' incompetence and how they hindered the team's ability to get anything done. But, oops -- the clients received the email as well. They yanked their $5 million account immediately
Fortunately, in my case, it worked to our benefit. But we often forget how many people we are talking to, and often include people who really don’t need to be included. According to Forbes, this is actually one of the biggest time wasters right now; many managers spend 20 hours per week on emails, many of which are just forwarded conversations they are being let in on.
The central example of lashon hara in the Torah is specifically about bringing a 3rd party into the conversation, who really should not have been included. The Jews are out in the desert, after Mt Sinai, and Moses decides that since he’s always on call for god, he is going to live a celibate life, and separates from his wife tzippora. Miriam, Moses’ sister, feels bad for tzippora, and goes to talk to aaron, her brother, instead of moses. For this, she is struck with leprosy, symbolic of lashon hara.
The central idea is that if we have something critical to say, we go directly to the person with whom we have a problem. This is the mitzvah of tochecha, loving rebuke done in a way which helps a person improve without hurting their feelings. Complaining to a 3rd party, even if they already know, is lashon hara.
Why is it human nature to complain to a 3rd party instead of the person themselves? Why was it totally natural for Miriam to go to aaron instead of directly to moses?
Perhaps because we are scared of telling the person, so it’s just easier to tell someone else. Miriam was scared Moses might be upset, or she was scared she would hurt his feelings
Perhaps because we don’t believe the person will hear us—Miriam wanted aaron to go together with her to moses, to make sure he’d listen
Sometimes complaining to a 3rd party is actually a form of revenge: You hurt me, I just want to hurt you back by telling other people about you. We get angry and naturally want to lash out.
The guldeline for rebuke is that we need to go directly to the person, and only bring in other people if the party proves recalcitrant. Miriam should have gone straight to moses, and if he wouldn’t listen, ask aaron to talk to him too.
We also need to be sure of our motives: that we are doing it to help the person improve, and to repair our relationship, not to get revenge. Miriam talking to aaron is just venting—it’s not actually helpful
Let’s imagine Miriam and aaron had smart phones in the desert. There is such a temptation for Miriam to cc aaron; maybe she’s thinking that otherwise he might ignore it; maybe she really is friends with tzippora and wants to embarrass him, or just lash out as much as she can. cc’ing is such an incredibly easy way to do lashon hara! I have noticed that the more upset people are, the more people they cc; really, the more upset we are the fewer people we should cc.

I’d like to offer some guidelines for us, both as individuals and as a community. I'd like to empower all of us to enforce these guidelines.

1. Notice when an email needs to be an in person discussion
If there might be substantive disagreement, we need to talk in person.
If somebody might be upset, it needs to be handled in person.
If you are upset, it should be handled in person.
If you are complaining about what someone did, it needs to be done in person.

2. Once we’ve had the in person meeting, don’t go and kvetch about it on email afterward.
According to Halacha, once a court has made a decision, a member can’t say ‘I didn’t agree’. Once the decision is made, you’re not allowed to kvetch. It’s pretty good advice.

3. Avoid Lashon hara by cc
Halachically, we are supposed to communicate negative information to the minimal number of people necessary to accomplish the result. If we have a problem with something someone did, we go to them directly. My advice is if it’s negative, there shouldn’t be anybody in the cc field. We need to question our motives very carefully when we add that cc.

4. Don’t forward a private email
There’s a halachic presumption that private conversations—things told to one or two people--are private. We need to be extremely careful forwarding someone’s private email.

5. Cc for nice reasons too

a. take the time to copy someone’s boss when they do something great
b. what a world it would be if everyone did something like that even once a month... or once a year.
Chofetz chayim’s prayer:
Master of the Universe, may it be Your will, Compassionate and Gracious G-d, that You grant me the merit today and every day to guard my mouth and tongue from loshon hora and rechilus.
And may I be zealous not to speak ill even of an individual, and certainly not of the entire Jewish people or a portion of it; and even more so, may I be zealous not to complain about the ways of the Holy One, Blessed is He.
May I be zealous not to speak words of falsehood, flattery, strife, anger, arrogance, hurt, embarrassment, mockery, and all other forbidden forms of speech.
Grant me the merit to speak only that which is necessary for my physical and spiritual well-being, and may all my deeds and words be for the sake of Heaven

I would add:
May we as a community and as individuals use our mouths, mouses, and cell phones only for helping each other, lifting each other up, and bringing holiness to the world through our kind and loving interactions

Yom Kippur 5776: The Limits of Empathy

Yom Kippur 5776: Whose life matters?

For a lot of us, yom kippur is about introspection—taking stock of my life, what I’ve accomplished. What I haven’t accomplished. Taking stock of my relationships, what’s new and wonderful, what’s broken and needs my attention. And of course we have Yizkor, where we remember our loved ones who are no longer with us, and our grief tinged memories of their presence in our life.
But Yom Kippur is not just about looking in. It is about taking stock of where I stand in the world, how I have impacted the world, what’s wrong with the world even if it’s not my fault, and how I can heal it. The priest’s 3 confessions moved out in concentric circles: first we take account of our personal lives, our families, what happens in the private sphere, and take responsibility for what I’ve broken. Then we move out to our tribe, and then the whole nation. What have our nation done wrong? What are the sins of our nation even if I have not caused them? The Talmud teaches that the high priest, especially, bears everything on his shoulder because at least he could have davened harder, for peace, for safety. It was a huge weight to carry.
How much of a weight do we have to carry on our shoulders? Do we have to bear moral responsibility for the whole nation, for the world?
How far must our empathy extend?
If empathy is a zero sum game, if having concern for one person means I neglect another, then it cannot possibly extend to the entire nation. I must pick winners, and in doing so, pick losers. I only have limited attention. If I pay attention to the black community, I neglect the police who are getting shot at trying to keep the peace. If I pay attention to what’s going on here, I neglect the millions of syrians fleeing the atrocities of Assad, and the horrors going on in ISIL, in Iran, all over the arab middle east.
When I pick up Aliza, to feed her, Daniel wants to sit on my lap, which is okay because I have two legs. When I kiss Daniel, Hannah thinks it means I don’t love her, and of course, my legs are already allocated. We have a basic assumption that love is a limited resource,
But What if loving one person, having empathy for one, actually extends my compassion, makes me more capable of loving of loving others? What if empathy is not a zero sum game, but rather like the ocean, where you may take a cup but it is still full? Or better yet, what if it is like a candle, where if I take the heat to light another candle, I actually increase the light in the room? What if by having empathy even for the people hardest to have empathy for, I actually extend my ability to empathize with the entire world?
Some people scratched their heads when pope francis washed the feet of juvenile offenders. Did these people deserve his concern? And as jews, we are tempted to say, yeah, that’s catholic meshugas; we know better.
There is a very interesting Mishnah in Sanhedrin, about what the shechina (the divine presence) says when a murderer is executed. This is a murderer we are talking about—someone who was convicted with absolute certainty, by witnesses who warned them and saw them commit the act. When such a person is executed, the shechina complains, “my head hurts.” The divine presence in the world is an empathy that feels the pain of all human beings, even a murderer.
Having empathy for a murderer does not mean we’ve taken sides, that we don’t have empathy for the victim. It means our soul has become so expansive that we even feel the pain of such a person.
The haftarah for today, from the book of Isaiah, tells us not to be overly introspective today. It tells us to take stock of the world, and take responsibility for it, to feed the hungry, take the needy into our homes and have them at our table.
Why the needy?
The mystics tell us that actually, the needy are an embodiment of the shechina, of the divine presence in the world who is eternally dependent on the divine, and has no light of her own, much like the moon is in need of light from the sun.
What about the needy who are caught up in drugs, in violence? Are they too an embodiment of the shechina? As we all know, poverty is intertwined with gangs, drugs, violence. Is Isaiah telling us to focus on such people, on Yom Kippur?
Two weeks ago, we had a selichot program that I found heart opening. We were visited by 3 students at cincinnatti cooks, Kye, David, and Rachel.
Little David, who isn’t so little, looks like a gang member. He is a strong young man, black, he wore a baseball cap, and dressed like a gang member. He actually was, previously. He grew up in a poor, violent neighborhood, where you had to be tough to get by on the street. As he said, you couldn’t show any signs of feelings, of softness. He had to miss school regularly to take home his family’s WIC food baskets. I don’t know if he finished high school, but he got caught up in drugs and gangs, and was convicted on a gun conviction. Many of the students grew up with abusive parent figures, going hungry, being beaten and insulted as children.
Little dave is in the Cincinnatti Cooks program now, and almost finished. He has interviewed for a job as a dishwasher at a chain restaurant, which he is excited to take. I worked as a dishwasher in high school—it was miserable, underpaid, hard work. This is Little Dave’s path out of the criminal system.
Listening to dave’s story, and Kye’s, and Ruth’s, I was struck by just how hard their lives are, how hard they have to work just to stay out of criminal trouble. At the dessert reception, Little david was piling up desserts. At first I figured, okay, he’s not worried about seeming appropriate, but then it dawned on me, he hasn’t had dinner. I offered him dinner, and he gave me a look of “that would be terrific.” The students in the program do not make an income; they get to take home one portion for their families. Some of them are homeless, or living in a recovery center.
Ruth was laid off from her job at a day care, because she is restricted for working with children for 10 years from her date of conviction; she lost her house, and at age 66, she is just beginning a career as a food service worker. She described the temptation of wanting to cash a forged check, just to have basic necessities. What an incredibly hard row to hoe.
I want to challenge us with the possibility that david, Ruth, Kye are included among the people Isaiah is saying we should be thinking about today. Isaiah calls us to think about the stain of poverty on our nation, a stain which has only spread, not gotten better. Perhaps, too, we should even think about people like Little david who chose gangs and drugs because it was the only viable career path they could see, and hurt people along the way. Can we, like god, be poshet yad leshavim, extending our hand out to those who wish to return, and have empathy for Little David, Kye, and Ruth?
I think we can. That night after selichot, and the next morning, many of us reacted strongly realizing that we had hungry, homeless people here, and hadn’t done more for them. One person poignantly asked, did they just come to serve our own spiritual needs, for us to feel good? What were we doing for them? It was a very good question.
This past year, riots have erupted under the banner of black lives matter. It is a truism, of course, that black lives matter; but the challenge has been that it seems to negate other peoples’ lives from mattering. What about white lives, like Zachary Hammond, a teenager in south Carolina who was shot while he was out on a date, who had 10 grams of marijuana on him? What about cops, like sonny kim, who was just a wonderful human being? What about the innocent children in sex slavery, and slaves on fishing boats, don’t they matter too?
And what about the fact that many of these young black men who have been shot really were often up to criminal activity, or that they didn’t follow police orders? Shouldn’t we focus our attention instead on people who really are just the innocent bystanders, people who chose not to go down the path of criminal activity?
Every life matters. The Mishnah teaches that when a human king stamps coins, they all look the same—they have the image of the king. When god stamnps coins we all look different, but we still have the image of the king. We are all unique manifestations of the divine image. Can we understand that all lives matter, that there’s no such thing as a lowlife?
The window into this, for me, is Little David. We could write him off as a gangster, a criminal. Our system does exactly that, by making it so hard to return to society, by leaving drug trafficking as the only viable career option open to him. Little david could easily be shot by a cop, and nobody would blink. Can we see the divine image in him?
I think once we do this, we develop our empathy, our ability to see the divine in everybody. We challenge ourselves, we ask ourselves: is everybody in our country given the opportunity to lead a life in which they really matter, where they are not the dregs of society?
I am challenging us, as a community, to look at the poor neighborhoods in Cincinnati, black neighborhoods with 74% childhood poverty rate, and ask how we can help. The black community has 8x the level of gun violence as non-black; 1 in 6 black men will be incarcerated in their lifetime. Isaiah is talking about these communities. Isaiah challenges us: what would happen if we take them into our homes, feed them, clothe them, help them?
Isaiah calls us to unlock the fetters of wickedness around the world:
To speak out about slavery—in the sex industry, fishing, chocolate
To speak out about oppression of religious minorities happening right now in the middle east

Isaiah calls us, too, to reach out to our own communities, to places like the new prospect Baptist Church, in the old JCC, and ask how we can help. To reach out to Cincinnatti cooks, which is helping people like david rebuild their lives, giving them a second chance, and ask how we can help. To join with AMOS, which I am a member of, and pursue policies which create equal opportunities. And to take a deep look at our society, and not accept the status quo, to ask what we can finally do to untangle the terribly tangled web of poverty, drugs, and violence that traps people like Little david, to help them live lives that matter, that honor the divine image in them.

Rosh Hashanah 5776: Community in the digital era

What is community now?
Are any of us members of a community?
In the age of the internet, is there such a thing as community?
Do we even need it?
The internet has connected us in ways we never imagined. I have 982 facebook friends, including high school acquaintances, college classmates, relatives, current & former congregants, and some woman named sheila.
When a local congregant broke her ankle and needed her dog walked, I saw it on a listserv; ten years ago, that would not have happened.
Last month, I read a profile in the New Yorker about a pilot named Mark VanHoeniker, who I realized was a childhood friend. I cyberstalked him, and indeed, he was from Pittsfield, so I friended him.
We are so connected now—and what an opportunity!
Tanya, as some of you know, is a psychologist. She recently conducted an evaluation a client in Thailand. These evaluations require a face to face meeting. How could that person have been seen before? We are now connected in ways we could not have imagined. Amazing possibilities are opening before our eyes.
a few years back, when Hannah was 3 and we were living in Philadelphia. I skyped my parents in Cleveland, 500 miles away, and put the laptop on the kitchen table. Hannah played charades with her grandfather for an hour, separated by 500 miles, but in the same room.
There’s someone here with a child in Israel, who will just connect by skype with the laptop on the kitchen counter and the two of them will cook in the same room. That’s a lot better than a phone call, and a whole heck of a lot better than a letter. That’s actually being together.
we need to use digital connectivity to create human connectivity,
But we must never think that digital connectivity replaces human contact.
We need to use technology to enrich, not replace, human interaction.
The Talmud understands the focus of Jewish spirituality as creating sacred energy in the world, through shared sacred action.
And how do you know that if ten people pray together the Divine presence is with them? For it is said: ‘God standeth in the congregation of God (BT Sanhedrin 2b).
That means god is standing here, right here, in this room
The Talmud goes on to discuss doing this through forming a jewish court, and also through studying torah together.
spirituality is not about some trip where we feel close to god;
It’s not about an individual feeling good, feeling high, feeling spiritual.
The Talmud insists that no human has ever ascended to god.
Spirituality is manifesting the presence of the divine, the schechinah, through sacred community, through davenning together, through applying jewish law together, through studying together.
I might be able to meditate better alone, but I can’t bring the presence of the divine into the world that way.
This principle is expressed well by a story about Rebbe Nathan of Nemirov, a hassidic rebbe. During the ten days of repentace, reb Nathan would disappear during the early morning selichot prayers; nobody knew where he went to. His followers believed that he would ascend to heaven each morning to plead on their behalf. A skeptical Lithuanian jew –a misnogged-set out to disprove the followers’ superstitious beliefs. He follows him before dawn, and watches in disbelief as he dons peasant clothes, chops some firewood, and carries the load to a broken down shack. An elderly, homebound woman opens the door, and he carries the wood in and lights the fire in her wood stove, while whispering the selichot prayers. The skeptic becomes a follower, and years later when asked if it was true that his rebbe ascended to heaven, he replied, “even higher.”
Jewish spirituality is not about getting high, not about a great personal spiritual experience. It is about bringing the presence of god, bringing sacred energy, in between. It is about bringing god’s presence to the world, sanctifying the world, through caring relationships, through sacred community.
The question that arises is, how close do we need to be to light that fire? How intimate must our relationships be in order to manifest the presence of the divine? Stated as a practical question, can we join in a minyan, in the required 10 people to form a prayer quorum, if we can’t hear each other, or can’t see each other?
Scarf waving shul—sukkot 51b
It has been taught, R. Judah stated, He who has not seen the double colonnade of Alexandria in Egypt has never seen the glory of Israel. It was said that it was like a huge basilica, one colonnade within the other, and it sometimes held twice the number of people that went forth from Egypt. …there was a wooden platform in the middle upon which the shamash of the Synagogue stood with a scarf in his hand. When the time came to answer Amen, he waved his scarf and all the congregation duly responded .

We don’t create sacred community just by being in the same room
We need to be aware of each other
And we need to be aware of each others’ needs—continuation:
They moreover did not sit willy nilly, but goldsmiths sat separately, silversmiths separately, blacksmiths separately, metalworkers separately and weavers separately, so that when a poor man entered the place he recognized the members of his craft and on joining them, obtained a livelihood for himself and for the members of his family

even though room was huge, they were present for each other in very practical way—they helped each other get jobs
can we form community in the same way online?
Jan Saltzman, a renewal rabbi, wrote a paper asking whether people living spread out, such is in the west, should be able to form a virtual minyan, in which only the internet connects them. Although most orthodox poskim argue that this doesn’t work, she writes,
In today’s world, the virtual world is no longer virtual; it has become a comfortable and accepted part of the inter-netted world community, and is a mode of inter-subjectivity amongst those who participate.
In other words, although it’s not the same as physically being together, we can create the sacred in-between even at a distance. We can be together, even if the internet brings us together.
This form of connecting has its dangers. When we replace lived community with digital community, we lose a significant element inherent in lived human interactions.
According to Emmanual levinas, the face of the other calls us into responsibility for the other. When I know you’re suffering I can ignore it; when I see you face to face, I can’t. There is a distance when we connect with technology, and there can be a lowered sense of responsibility.
I mentioned that my wife does internet based psychology. She has a second contract with a service called “doctors on demand,” where people sign up via internet for therapy over the internet. It’s a brilliant idea. But perhaps half of her patients never show up. When I know I can just pull the plug, when you’re just a screen shot, I feel the distance, there can be a lowered sense of responsibility to the other.
Amother fundamental challenge is the lack of accidental interaction. Everything is intentional, there is no serendipity. In lived community, we encounter each other accidentally. I walk by you and see that you look down. An elderly person shows up for minyan, but then gets lost outside the building confused. Someone doesn’t show up for shul; what’s wrong? What’s going on for them? When we choose how and whether to connect, we may actually never connect, we may never see what’s going on for each other.
In America, most places we gather are transient and low-commitment: fairs, ball games, concerts, restaurants. We live disconnected lives. Last year I mentioned the book “bowling alone,” about the shift toward individual pursuits and disconnectedness in America. So the internet is not a hiddush, it is just a step further in this direction. At the same time that it allows us to connect with more people, it allows us to remain disconnected.
We may not even know we are disconnected. There is an illusion of connectedness, a feeling of being connected even though there’s no lived encounter. I know of people who will go on facebook late at night to feel connected, reading their distant friends’ posts. Maybe they will ‘like’ a status. Do these friends know they have been visited? No. It’s an illusion. There’s no connection. It’s knowing about each other, remembering each other, but it’s not an interaction.
We need use technology to enrich, not replace, living human community

Jewish learning
We all know about the Shift in universities and even public schools, toward online learning. This shift is happening with jewish learning, too.
On the positive side, the internet creates amazing opportunities: you can study torah anywhere, anytime. There are now hundreds of Jewish websites; I get about 20 divrey torah every week, many of them written this week and relating to what’s going on now. You simply couldn’t do that 20 years ago.
But online learning has its challenges
[this from a NYTimes article] Jack London was the subject in Daterrius Hamilton’s online English 3 course. In a high school classroom packed with computers, he read a brief biography of London with single-paragraph excerpts from the author’s works. But the curriculum did not require him, as it had generations of English students, to wade through a tattered copy of “Call of the Wild” or “To Build a Fire.”
Mr. Hamilton, who had failed English 3 in a conventional classroom and was hoping to earn credit online to graduate, was asked a question about the meaning of social Darwinism. He pasted the question into Google and read a summary of a Wikipedia entry. He copied the language, spell-checked it and e-mailed it to his teacher
The loss of human interaction results in a loss of accountability, a loss of responsibility to the Other, in Levinas’ terms
The Talmud tells the story of a famous hevruta, learning pair, yohanan and resh lakish, a former highway robber. Their debate about the kashrut of a knife got overheated, and R Yohanan said to resh lakish, “a bandit knows his trade.” In the ensuing argument, Resh Lakish and R Yohanan both became hurt and angry, and somehow R Yohanan’s harsh prayers ended up killing Resh Lakish.
Rabbi Yochanan was very pained by his passing. The Rabbis said: "Who will go and help calm Rabbi Yochanan? Let Rabbi Elazar ben Pedat go, for he is sharp in learning."
He went and sat in from of Rabbi Yochanan. Every time Rabbi Yochanan said something, Rabbi Elazar said, “a tanna supports you”
Rabbi Yochanan said: "Are you like the son of Lakish? When I said something, the son of Lakish would ask me twenty-four questions, and I would respond with twenty-four answers. As a result, learning increased. And you tell me a Tannaitic support. Don’t I know that my ideas are good?"
He walked, and tore his garment, and wept.
He said: "Where are you, son of Lakish? Where are you, son of Lakish?" He was crying out until he lost his mind. The Rabbis asked for mercy on him and he passed away. (Bava Metzia 84a)

Education is not about transfer of information from an expert to a student
It’s About challenging each other, growing from interaction
Massive amounts of online information can never replace human interaction, studying together, growing together

The great irony of Technology is that while it hyperconnects us, it also takes us away from each other

We can always be called, and if it is late, we can text or email. My phone buzzes when I get a text; it used to buzz when I got an email, which was driving me crazy. it’s such a temptation to pick it up, see who’s emailed me, and if it’s a quick question, just reply.
All of this time that we are plugged in, we are not really present for each other. In one cartoon, a couple sits at a candle-lit restaurant table. The man, at his laptop, types “after all our online chats, I’m finally happy to meet you in person,” and the woman texts back on her cell phone, “me too.” It’s hard, when someone calls during dinner, not to at least glance and see who it is. We constantly have these little interruptions from being present, we constantly watch the phone in the corner of our eye to see who’s emailing us now.
When I first switched over to a smart phone, I had been using a palm pilot and was in the market for a blackberry, which was already obsolete. The sales clerk at staples tried to talk me into a smart phone by telling me it would make me more efficient. I couldn’t figure out how that would work—a sermon is a sermon, a call is a call. How would having a camera and a data plan make me more efficient?
So I bought it
Am I more efficient?
I find myself whipping off emails while I’m making dinner, or while the kids eat their peas. These are not emergency emails, they could wait until tomorrow, but once I know about them, they nag at my consciousness until I respond. If someone emails me, I like to just respond.
Is this really being more efficient, or just more available for work, and unavailable for family?
A study by Pixmania in 2012 found that use of a smart phone for worked increased 2 hours to the workday, checking their email as much as 20 times a day. Technology hasn’t made us more efficient, it’s turned us into workaholics, and taken away from our availability for the people who matter most.
Tiffany shlane: father was dying of brain cancer technology Shabbat
Her family instituted Technology Shabbat: no screens
She realized Emails: distracted by so many things that feels like being a pinball machine
Technology takes us away from being present
Technology overloads us with too much info
Shabbat is a great opportunity to unplug.
Halachically, the issue with texting and email is minimal:
led’s aren’t really fire,
so texting does not violate any of the 39 melachot (one of which is extinguishing a fire to make charcoal).
But if you think of Shabbat as creating space for that which matters most—family, community, deep prayer & contemplation-then in general, technology takes us away from those things,
Technology Takes us away from being present for each other
Your technology Shabbat may be Friday night. It may be dinner time every night. It may be 25 hours, from sunset Friday until 3 stars appear on Saturday. Whatever time you feel you can carve out, make a time when you put down your cell phones, unplug, and focus on being present for those around you.
Conclusion
Technology offers amazing new possibilities, both access to vast amounts of information, and opportunities to create real connections with those who are distant. Take advantage of it. Read listserv posts and offer to help. Read facebook posts and call people who seem unhappy, stressed out. Find out about events and offer to volunteer. Skype with parents, children.
Take advantage of the vast world of online jewish learning. I find the best way is to choose a column to have delivered to your inbox, so you don’t even need to surf the web to find it. Read one commentary on the parsha each week.
And when we don’t need technology to connect, to put down the phone, close the laptop, unplug, and experience being together, totally focused and present with all our heart.



Online Resources for Jewish Learning
List compiled by Jonathan Kligler

http://rabbishefagold.com/Torah1.html
Rabbi Shefa Gold is the author of Torah Journeys. Her approach is summarized by the subtitle of her book: “The Torah is the map. You are the territory.” The Torah is the map we follow for our own spiritual and personal development.

http://www.reclaimingjudaism.org/
Rabbi Goldie Milgram has created a website with weekly Torah commentaries and with excellent guidance on how to create your own D’var Torah. When you open the home page, click on “Torah Commentary & Guides to Writing Your Own”.

http://jrf.org/recon-dt
The Reconstructionist Movement’s site for Divrei Torah.

http://urj.org/torah/
The Reform Movement’s site for Divrei Torah.

http://www.uscj.org/Torah_Sparks__Weekly5467.html
The Conservative Movement’s site for Divrei Torah

http://www.ou.org/torah/index
The Orthodox Union’s site for Divrei Torah

http://www.myjewishlearning.com/texts/Bible/Torah/Commentaries.shtml?TSBI
A brief overview on the nature of Torah commentary.

http://www.myjewishlearning.com/texts/Bible/Weekly_Torah_Portion.shtml
Excellent, extensive library of Divrei Torah from all over the Jewish world.

http://www.chabad.org/parshah/otherparshas_cdo/aid/9175/jewish/All-Parshas.htm
The Chabad website offers Hasidic commentaries, as well as an excellent sampling of commentaries and midrashim from throughout the ages. Make sure in particular to click on “In-Depth Parshah Overview with Selected Commentaries”. Also includes a “library of classical texts” with translations of several classics.

http://torah.org/
Orthodox website with extensive and well-organized commentaries on the weekly Torah portion.

http://www.shamash.org/tanach/dvar.shtml#shamash
Massive index and links of Divrei Torah from across the Jewish spectrum. Don’t get overwhelmed!

http://www.ravkooktorah.org/ind_bami.htm
Torah commentary based on the writings of Rav A. I. Kook, the first Chief Rabbi of Palestine in the early 20th century and a much-loved mystical teacher.

http://www.azamra.org/parshah.shtml
Torah commentary based on the teachings of the Hassidic master Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav.

http://www.chassidus.net/
Chassidic teachings on the weekly portion. Useful entry-point into the Chassidic approach.

http://inner.org/
Jewish mysticism and thought, based on the teachings of HaRav Yitzchak Ginsburgh. Very thorough, hold on to your hat!

http://www.meaningfullife.com/torah/parsha/
Rabbi Simon Jacobson presents teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe

http://kolel.org/pages/lobby.html
The “Adult Centre for Liberal Jewish Learning” in Toronto, Canada. Click on the link for “Weekly Parasha”.

http://g-dcast.com
Animated and sometimes musical Torah interpretations!

Some more recommendations from Rabbi Siff:

Responsafortoday.com
Answers to practical questions by David Golinkin, of the Schechter Institute in Jerusalem

http://www.jewishbusiness.com/torah.html
Articles on Jewish Business ethics from an orthodox perspective

Aish.com
Orthodox, great resource on contemporary topics, archived classes, & divrey torah at a range of ability levels

Jlaw.com
In-depth articles on contemporary halachic issues

Rosh Hashanah 5776: why is it so hard to talk about Israel?

Shanah tovah and welcome. It’s so wonderful to be together again for the holidays.
I wanted to talk this morning about Israel, but I need to tell you, I’m scared. I’m scared because any time you talk about Israel, hackles raise, blood pressure rises, people scrutinize everything you say.
Why is it so hard for us to have an honest conversation about Israel?
I believe it is because the anti-zionist and anti-semitic camp, especially the entire arab world, jumps on every little fault, even sometimes making up completely false accusations, and broadcasts it to the world as vindication of their cause. So if we admit that Israel has flaws, if we admit that they aren’t always right, we are lending help to the enemy.
How do we speak openly about Israel, in a way which trusts that really we are all on the same page? Can we criticize her actions without unwittingly becoming agents of the anti-zionist, anti-semitic movement which is rampant in the middle east, and, increasingly, Europe?
It is sad to me that it has become such a polarizing issue, in the pressure cooker of contemporary anti-semitism. I want to invite us today to think about how we can open up an honest conversation without becoming polarized, without letting the pressure of antisemitism divide us, because we are so small we can’t afford to become divided.
The relevant metaphor in English is the pot calling the kettle black. In the English expression, the implication is that the pot has no right to call the kettle black. How can Iran, Syria, Hamas, possibly criticize Israeli human rights violations, when these regimes systematically oppress political and religious enemies? Why should the kettle listen to the pot? The kettle says to the pot, who do you think you are to criticize us?
So what does Judaism say the kettle should do?
My take on the jewish tradition is that the kettle should say to the pot, yes, you are right, I have gotten pretty sooty. I will take responsibility for that. But now let’s look at you. You have some cleaning to do yourself.
I think of the teaching from from pirke avot:

Who is wise? Someone who can learn from any person
This isn’t telling us to learn from teachers, parents, friends. When it says to learn from all people, I assume it really means all people. Think about people you are not inclined not to learn from. We all have such people.
• People who are rude telling you to be more polite,
• people who are impatient telling you to be patient,
• people who are loud telling you to be soft spoken.
• People who criticize you in an obnoxious way,
• People who really just want to see you fail, and are giving you a good kick on your way down.
Pirke Avot is saying, you need to be able to learn from any person, even them. Can I learn even from their criticism, can I hear them and grow? Can I, the kettle, learn from the black, sooty, grimy pot, that you are right, I’m not so shiny?
This plays out on the personal and political level.
Personally, can I grow from being criticized by people I don’t like? Can I take in criticism which is not given nicely? Can I see someone attacking me, take a step back, and ask what I could have done better?
Politically, this means that when the world tries to hold Israel up to a ridiculously high standard, we take it as a moral challenge to meet that standard. And this is something that to a large extent we do: I have not heard of any other country which sends dummy missiles to warn residents of an incoming missile, the famous “roof knocks.” But it also means we need to read reports from detractors, and be willing to accept some culpability. It means that when we read about Israel planning to demolish a Bedouin village to replace it with a jewish one, we need to be able to say, ‘wait, this doesn’t sound kosher to me.’
One of the dynamics I have witnessed this year is that when a fellow jew criticizes Israel on a particular topic, they get labelled as anti-Zionist, and people assume they belong to JStreet. Anti-semitism has so stressed us that our community is fragmenting. We need to be able to engage in this process with love, hearing each other, and not labelling each other.
We are 2 days into the high holiday cycle, which actually ends not with yom kippur, but with sukkot, the time of our joy, and simhat torah, celebrating receiving the torah. Really, it began 31 days ago with the month of elul, a 30 day process of heshbon nefesh, soul searching. Elul and Rosh haShanah are about soul searching, figuring out how our life could be better. Yom Kippur is about making amends, apologizing, giving tzedakah to create ripples of positivity to counterbalance any negativity we have brought into the universe. And Sukkot is about celebrating, hanging out with family and with the divine presence embodied by the permeable roof of the sukkah. Sukkot itself is divided into 2 parts: the public celebration of the 1st 7 days, which will in the future be an intercultural day of universal worship, when all the nations are invited to the Temple. This is followed by shmini atzeret and simhat torah, a uniquely jewish holiday when we have alone time as a people with the divine, and celebrate the torah, which is our people’s unique bind with the divine.
First Soul Searching, then Apologizing, then Celebrating Publically and then celebrating privately.
This pattern is teaching us how to mend our relationships. If our spouse, or child, or friend, has been complaining, first we do some soul searching: what have I done wrong? How can I do better?
When I really figure that out, and mend my ways, then I apologize. The truth is, though, I also want the other person to apologize. So I say, I’m sorry I was mean; I’d like you to know, you were also mean, so I’d like you to apologize as well. It’s an earnest apology, not an excuse, but it’s also saying, I shouldn’t be the only one apologizing.
And then we need to celebrate, to say sorry, to hug, to go out for dinner. Sometimes we forget this part: we apologize, but we don’t make sure to have quality time at the end. We need to always be sure to fill our emotional bank accounts.
In terms of Israel, I think we can use the same pattern: soul searching, apologizing, celebrating publically, and celebrating privately:
1. Soul Searching
As I mentioned, the period up to Rosh Hashanah is about soul searching, taking an honest look at my life.
I was once asked what my stance on Israel is. That’s like asking your stance on America, or maybe American government policy. There’s no such thing as a stance on Israel. Every issue is local and also has a long history to it. If you seriously investigate every allegation of misconduct, it may turn out that some allegations are true. We do not so Israel a favor when we pretend that they are perfect. We need to admit and own our own failures.
But we also need to learn enough to realize when we are not in the wrong. Israel was often accused last summer of responding disproportionately to the missiles from Gaza, and of killing large numbers of civilians. In fact, Israel carefully targeted locations from which rockets were launched, and some of the alleged attacks on civilians may actually have been their own rockets misfiring. Do you remember the Palestinian boys killed on a beach in Gaza? They were killed by Hamas rockets, not Israeli rockets. And in fact, even though the Gaza health ministry claimed that 70% of casualties were civilians, the casualties were disproportionately men of fighting age. Hamas cooked the books. We need to be very reluctant to accept at face value criticisms of Israel.
Each of us needs to know our stuff. I hope everyone here knows the difference between the west bank and gaza. Did you know that when Hamas talks about “occupation,” they mean the presence of jews in the land of Israel, and that in fact gaza is not occupied. Israel pulled out of Gaza 10 years ago. When hamas says “liberating palestine” they mean getting rid of israel entirely. They cannot tolerate a jeqwish government on what they believe to be haram, muslim soil. This is why they have put so much emphasis on building attack tunnels and training future martyrs. I have friends, American jews, who were sympathetic partly because “occupation” sounds really bad. We need to become educated, and educate others Da ma lehashiv leapikorus—know how to respond to the heretic. Understand the details, not just the slogans.
2. Apologizing
The second phase is yom kippur, apologizing
I think the army does a fairly good job investigating, and apologizing when it is in the wrong, admitting if a soldier has been abusive, admitting if a missile went off course.
The government is not as good at admitting when it has been in the wrong, and this creates a dilemma. Problematic home demolitions, fences blocking arab farmers’ access to their fields, documented abuses none of us here would condone, do happen. When these happen, we need to take responsibility as a people: Israel stands for us, Israel is our country. It is scary admitting guilt, because the anti-semites jump on it to prove that Israel is the evil racist, etc. It takes a lot of courage, ego strength, to admit guilt. We need to be able to admit when Israel is in the wrong.
After honestly & compassionately apologizing, though, I believe we can confront other people with their own behavior. If apologizing is about repairing a relationship, then the flip side, gentle confrontation, is also part of repairing that relationship.
We have the right to hold our critics’ feet to the fire. After the kettle owns up to its soot, I believe it’s totally appropriate for the kettle to say to the pot, okay, I’ve apologized, now let’s talk about you.
The PA and Hamas have been fanning the fires of hatred, inflexibility, and unrealistic hopes, instead of building a strong nation. They call Israel racist, okay, maybe sometimes it is, and we need to do better; now let’s look the arab world:
• Let’s look at the racism in places like Iraq, where Jews were persecuted and murdered after 1948
• let’s talk about the entire Middle East not having any minority religious legislators,
• let’s talk about persecution based on religion, gender, sexual orientation, gays and lesbians getting executed.
• Let’s talk about why Jews fled the rest of the middle east, including the west bank, and thus why Israel needs to exist.
• Let’s talk about hamas building terror tunnels instead of schools.
• Let’s talk about UN schools teaching children that they have the right to the entire land of Israel, and feeding them on hopes of reconquering it through jihad.
We also need to call out those who hate and seek to destroy Israel. The Iran treaty that President Obama is forcing through congress would provide a $50-150 billion cash infusion to a terrorist regime which sponsors Hamas, Hizbullah, and Assad, which denies the Holocaust, and which consistently announces its intention to destroy Israel. Once they have the cash, there is little reason for them not to cheat, and impossible to take back the cash by “rolling back” sanctions. The treaty lifts the arms embargo on Iran in 5 years, allowing them to go on a shopping spree for weapons which, though not nuclear, will intensify the militarization of the middle east. If they buy a nuclear bomb from, say, north korea, the inspection regimen cannot detect it. And in 15 years, there is nothing blocking this enriched regime, with ramped up weapons and ramped up defense, from building a nuclear bomb under far more favorable conditions than now. This treaty strengthens Iran, and I implore all of us to speak out vocally about it.
Celebrating
The third phase is sukkot, celebrating.
I believe all of us need to become strong spokespeople for Israel. We need to speak out:
When we read a newspaper article which is unfair or biased, write in the comments, write a letter to the editor
When we see a comment on facebook, by a friend or even by a friend of a friend, challenge it with facts. Share newspaper articles about Israel and about her enemies. Don’t let antizionism and antisemitism go unchecked.
We need to develop our presence in the local schools and universities. A student here in mason was told by a teacher that if Israel just gave the Palestinians a little land, our troubles would go away. We need to teach our children, and the children in the community, a balanced perspective.
We need to call our senators, congressmen, and the white house about any issue facing Israel. We need to be speaking out.
And we need to speak out not only on contentious issues, but also to fight the negative PR by celebrating Israel.
• Did you know that Israel is the only country still helping Nepal in the aftermath of the earthquake?
• Did you know that Israel is a leader on global warming, and uses solar water heaters (dud shemesh) on 95% of homes, and has installed solar panels on the Knesset building?
• Did you know that Israel is the only truly pluralistic government in the middle east? Israel has always had arap mp’s, and currently has 16 including 5 muslims; Tunisia and Iran, by comparison, are the only arab countries with jewish mp’s-they each have 1.
• Did you know Israel is the 3rd country in the world to elect a female to lead its government,
• Did you know that Israel is the only country in the middle east to sign the 2011 un resolution affirming equal rights for members of the LGBT community?
Part of Celebrating is spending quality time. I invite you to join us, and have some quality time with Israel. We’re going to Israel! Come along!
Next July, we are part of the community trip to Israel. We have a great itinerary, combining some of the places to help us understand biblical events, with some of the best culture & food contemporary Israel has to offer. It will be a unique opportunity for us to spend time together as a Kehilla kedosha, and also to reinvigorate your ties to our spiritual homeland.