tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-47372469379216580432024-03-13T04:49:20.128-07:00Between the LinesRabbi David Siff's blog; getting to the deep Torah for today's world. Rabbi David Siffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11350682393490310539noreply@blogger.comBlogger80125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4737246937921658043.post-2250968738503141752020-08-28T08:46:00.001-07:002020-08-28T08:46:27.214-07:00What do workers deserve?<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0y3QVWWG6EU/X0kmxk-ch_I/AAAAAAAAL98/rJf3DYBpJlgw1nHAEvvmnrJXQk75qbeygCLcBGAsYHQ/s940/selichot%2B5781.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="788" data-original-width="940" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0y3QVWWG6EU/X0kmxk-ch_I/AAAAAAAAL98/rJf3DYBpJlgw1nHAEvvmnrJXQk75qbeygCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/selichot%2B5781.png"/></a></div>Our parsha this week challenges us to have deep compassion for all beings: workers, who are allowed to eat food as they reap it, as well as animals, who also have the right to eat as they work (we can't muzzle an ox as it works). We are even told not to yoke an ox with a donkey, as they will both be frustrated by the mismatch in abilities!
Reading this parsha, I was thinking about the recent coronavirus outbreak in Immokalee, an agricultural center of Florida. Sadly, Immokalee has become a coronavirus hotspot, with 2,000 confirmed cases. Many of these cases are hispanic migrant workers, who sometimes keep working because of slow test results as well as perceived economic necessity. I was struck by the words of Sylvia Perez, a former migrant worker: “For the governor, it’s easy to say they’re field workers; they’re infecting each other because they all live together in their homes. But the workers have a reason why they live like that. It’s because they’re poor.” I invite us to consider how we can take care of these workers, who produce the very food on our table, to learn more about their conditions and struggles, and to create conditions where they can take care of their families, and maybe even thrive, without risking their lives.
Huge thanks to Bryan Rudnick & the team at Alliance Strategies Group for the beautiful new website, https://kolhalevpbc.org. I also wanted to thank all of you who have sent contributions for the school in the past few weeks. Kol HaLev only exists because of your generosity.
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Rabbi David SiffRabbi David Siffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11350682393490310539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4737246937921658043.post-64466022915584873682019-06-18T07:34:00.001-07:002019-06-18T07:36:02.324-07:00Naso 5779: Individuality and AuthenticityReading Parshat Naso, one wonders how the Princes of each tribe felt when they realized they each brought the same gift. Imagine a bridal shower, they lovely young couple gets a lovely crystal vase. Very pretty. The 2nd gift, the same vase, the 3rd, the 4th, the tenth, maybe by now they are not so excited.<br />
In life, we have a lot of repetitive patterns of how we dress, of work responsibility, of chores. When I buy clothes for the kids, I can get blue for Daniel, or pink for the girls; it used to be that my own shirt options were basically white and light blue. It can be hard to find ways to express ourselves.<br />
In Payless last week, Hannah found a pair of shoes that were labelled “You be you.” For $7, you can buy authenticity, you can actually buy being yourself!<br />
Obviously, authenticity is much deeper. You can’t rely on rainbow shoes for authenticity. The fact that they can sell “being you” speaks to our deep, unmet need for self-expression. I can’t pull of wearing rainbow shoes. Am I really able to express my deepest self?<br />
I want to share a Talmudic sugiya that speaks to a Jewish view of authenticity. The sugiya is speaking specifically about prayer, but I invite you to read it as a statement about authenticity in general:<br />
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Mishnah Berachot 4:4<br />
Rabbi Eliezer said: He who makes his prayer fixed (keva), his prayer is not supplication.<br />
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Gemara: Brachot 29b<br />
What is the meaning of “fixed”?<br />
R. Yaakov bar Idi said in the name of R. Oshaya: Anyone whose prayer is like a burden on him. <br />
And the Rabbis say: Anyone who does not recite [his prayer] in a supplicatory manner.<br />
Rabbah and Rav Yosef both say: [This refers to] anyone who is unable to innovate something [in his prayer]. <br />
R. Zeira said: I am able to innovate something in [my prayer], but I am afraid to do so lest I become confused.<br />
Abaya bar Avin and R. Chanina bar Avin both say: Anyone who does not pray during the redness of the sun.<br />
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I invite us to think about this as a general statement of authenticity. I see in this text 4 approaches:<br />
1. Attitude: Yes, I do the same thing, but it’s about bringing an emotionally engaged attitude<br />
2. Interpretation: I can conform but have an individualized mindset—what kavannah do I bring to a repetitive task?<br />
3. addition: I have to find a way to express myself—add to what is given me <br />
4. response: I have to live in response to outside—not just me expressing myself, but world making impression on me<br />
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Expression through interpretation, <br />
For Yaakov and the rabbis, repetition is a fact of life. The question is, what attitude do we bring to bear? How do we interpret the task?<br />
In our parsha, the chiefs of each tribe bring the same gift. The midrash, however, sees each of them having different symbolism. For Issachar, for example, the gifts represented Torah study, something with which Issachar dedicated themselves to. My favorite interpretation in that midrash is for Dan, the tribe which the nazirite Sampson belonged to: the silver bowl represents the shaved head of the nazirite.<br />
When we talk about kavannah in prayer, we are adding through interpretation: yes, I say “you are holy,” but how can I be holy like God today?<br />
I heard about a janitor in a hospital who loved his job. I would have a hard time: spend 20 minutes cleaning a roomn, then go to another dirty room. What is transformed? The place is the same at the end of the day—there’s not much to show for my work. I would find the repetition depressing. This janitor, hgowever, had a positive attitude: she was helping people heal. How we see our situation can make it deeply meaningful<br />
This approach sometimes doesn’t feel enough. My personal challenge is Wednesday’s song of the day: “Arise, god of retribution & judge the earth”-that’s kind of a scary thought. I think our world needs less retribution, more healing. Also, we read “when will you simpletons listen”-not a phrase I use much. I davven it in Hebrew & ignore the English. That’s not a very authentic solution.<br />
Sometimes interpretation doesn’t get you quite far enough<br />
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Expression <br />
<br />
According to Ravvah & Yosef, we have to add content. Authentic expression is a deep need. The Talmud says “the seal of god is truth,” something we echo by saying at the end of the Shema “adonay eloheychem emet,” The Lord your God is truth.—if we aren’t speaking the truth, we are not saying anything holy<br />
I once went on pilgrimage over Rosh Hashanah to Rebbe Nahman’s grave, in Uman, near Kiev. There were tens of thousands of Jews, like us, not Hassidim, Israelies, Americans and others, davenning, celebrating Rosh Hashanah. Most Hassidic sects they all dress the same, but this was a beautiful variety of Jews. I attended a class where a leader of the movement told us that they do not encourage 1 form of dress, because then it wouldn’t be lev basar, a heart of flesh (lev basar has the same letters as Breslav, Rebbe Nahman’s birthplace). Here was the annual gathering of an international Hassidic movement saying that in principle, we should all express ourselves differently.<br />
About 9 years ago, Tanya and I were visited by Rabbi Jack Gabriel, who taught us a unique way of doing the blessing before the meal. We hold hands, and say what we are grateful for. When Aliza was 3, she would always say “Thank you for the pool, thank you playground;” she eventually matured to superman. It was real—that’s what she was grateful to God for, so it was holy.<br />
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3rd opinion:<br />
The last approach in the sugiya is that authenticity is not just about expressing myself. It’s sbout noticing what’s going on around me, internalizing it, allowing it to impact me, and responding. I could say “it’s 8:30, time to davven.” Or I could say, “wow, look at the sun rise, Blessed are you God who makes lights!” On this approach, we should focus less on self-expression, and more on letting the world make an impression on us. We need to observe the world around us, the people around us, celebrate great things, and respond to the needs we see<br />
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You can buy “you be you” rainbow shoes on sale for $7 at payless). But, obviously, you can’t buy real authenticity. Living truly authrntic lives means connecting to our hearts, trusting that bthere is some truth and value to what is there, and also letting our hearts be impacted by the world around us.<br />
Rabbi David Siffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11350682393490310539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4737246937921658043.post-76558753338767620502019-01-29T06:58:00.000-08:002019-01-29T06:58:34.889-08:00Yitro 5779: Shame and Murder We read this Shabbat about the 10 commandments. We tend to think these are ingrained in the fabric of our society—just look at people trying to plaster them on the sides of courthouses—we think they are the basis for Western morality. But the fact is, many of them are flouted. <br />
The first commandment, which Rambam says is to know there is a God: many people nowadays say they are atheists. The truth is, the God they don’t believe in, is a God I don’t believe in and in fact the overwhelming history of Jewish thought rejects. There is no invisible guy way up high in an invisible castle. Believing in God means believing in goodness, in right, that there is something toward which I personally strive that is greater than myself, and toward which we try to move the world.<br />
Sadly, murder seems to be becoming more common—most recently, the bank shooting up the road in Sebring, where a gunman pointlessly murdered 5 victims on cold blood. I do not believe our society is adequately teaching the sanctity of life.<br />
The Talmud says that there is more than one way to murder somebody. According to the Talmud, public shaming—halbanat panim—is a form of murder. Why is shaming a type of murder? On a literal level, halbanat panim means to make one’s face white—if I shame you and make your face pale, I have shed the blood from your face.<br />
On a more figurative level, we are social animals. My livelihood, my experience in society, depends on what others think of me. Destroying someone’s reputation is destroying the life they built<br />
I have been thinking this week about the video of the student from Covington, who smirked at older native American drumming. A picture of this was put on twitter with a very judgmental caption claiming the student was harassing the native American. The tweet went viral, was even re-tweeted by the congresswoman from Minnesota. This led to threats of expulsion from the school, and even a death threat against student.<br />
It turns out the student was not harassing anybody. The elderly Native American had approached their protest, and was drumming in their faces. They just stood their ground. Should they have smirked and been silly? No, they were disrespectful, but they did not deserve to be dragged over the coals in front of millions of people.<br />
We cannot let ourselves be recruited by the forces of judgment, into believing shameful things about others. The Jewish tradition teaches us to give the benefit of the doubt, and this will take the ammunition away from the forces of judging and embarrassing. Pictures can always be interpreted multiple ways. Giving the benefit of the doubt means to question the caption, and assume the best—they were kids, thought it was funny, and were singing along. Nothing about the video suggested anything more.<br />
We live in a society where people are judged & shamed, and lives & livelihoods are ruined. To not kill, is to not participate in killing, in ruining another’s life, by believing in the positive, giving the benefit of the doubt, and helping build, create life rather than destroy<br />
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Rabbi David Siffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11350682393490310539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4737246937921658043.post-89948545095015481202019-01-06T09:15:00.000-08:002019-01-06T09:15:04.790-08:00Vaera 5779: Hardening our Hearts and Gun ViolenceVaera 5779<br />
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In our parsha, we read about the first seven of the ten plagues, and Pharoah's famous reaction, his heart hardening over and over. <br />
What does it mean to have a hard heart? To say “I don't care.” Balls of fire & ice destroying the trees? I don't care. Cattle dying? I don't care. Nobody has anything to drink, to eat? I don't care. I don't care what happens to other people—it doesn't affect me. Pharoah only cares at the tenth plague, when his own firstborn son dies. <br />
All of us have the experience of our hearts hardening, of becoming desensitized to suffering. Shootings are not news, they need to be mass shootings. There are so many shocking things going on in the world—starvation in Yemen, oppression in Saudi Arabia, you name it-that we are just used to it.<br />
When we no longer cry, really we are like Pharoah, our hearts have turned to stone. It happens to all of us, myself included. My chaplaincy supervisor, Joe Leggieri, once said that when you no longer cry, you're not fit to be a chaplain anymore. But the truth is, it's the only way we survive. I had a friend worked in hospice chaplaincy, and who used to joke he was friends with the angel of death; when he had terminal cancer, he made the same comment. When we see suffering on such a regular way, we get used to it, even befriend it.<br />
I have to wonder whether we have become desensitized to gun violence. When shootings fade into the background, and we just shake our heads and accept them as a fact of life, our hearts have become hardened. There was a shooting in the Wellington Mall Christmas eve—how crazy is that? Today, the final draft of the Stoneman Douglas report was released. On the one hand, it is a great sign that people are not letting this issue die, fade into memory like Columbine and Sandy Hook. I am so impressed by the students of MSDHS, who took it to the streets of Tallahassee, Orlando (Disney's Main Street), DC, and even ran for office to keep this issue alive. They refused to let it become a memory, to fade into the history books.<br />
One of the primary recommendations of the report was that teachers should be allowed to carry guns. I am not going to weigh in on the merits of whether teachers should pack; we have an armed security guard here, and thank God for that. The problem is, if a shooter comes around, they will go somewhere else instead. We have not solved the underlying issue, we have come to accept it<br />
We cannot afford to accept as a society the idea that deranged individuals, students who torture animals and classmates, should have access to weapons. We cannot simply accept that deranged individuals will act in hostile ways and not be held accountable. If we do, if we simply accept that the bad guys will have guns, then our hearts have become hardened. Yes, we do need to protect ourselves, to have an armed guard, but we also need to keep questioning how we have become such a violent country.<br />
This week's parsha challenges all of us to maintain a heart of flesh, a heart which feels the pain of others, not to become complacent. Rebbe Nahman says that if we find our heart becoming desensitized, we should bang our head against the wall of our heart, we should tell ourselves to wake up, to remember this is painful, this is not right.<br />
Torah challenges all of us to keep our hearts sensitive to everyone around us, to feel even minor sufferings of the individuals around us, and through this to create a humane society & world.<br />
Shabbat Shalom.Rabbi David Siffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11350682393490310539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4737246937921658043.post-37771498461926280792018-12-04T09:09:00.003-08:002018-12-04T09:09:50.567-08:00Vayashev 5779 Sermon: Hanukkah and Bullying<br />
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In our prayers celebrating Hanukkah, we say that “you delivered the mighty into the hands of the weak.” Hanukkah celebrates the victory of faith over might. Might doesn’t make right; in the long run, we win through faith, not by might. <br />
This is true on a historical level-look at the collapse of Russian communism. It did not happen because of the cold war, because we built larger weapons. It happened because of economic pressures, and because democracy and freedom are right. At times, we do backslide, but ultimately “the arc of history tends toward justice.”<br />
On an interpersonal level, too, we “win” not by vanquishing our foe, not by being more powerful, but by interacting with compassion and openness, and not always getting our way. There are people who always need to get their way, and will use every tool at their disposal to get it. They may force their will, but the other person is not happy, and ultimately it is a pyrrhic victory: they have won the battle but lost the war. By getting their way through force, they have already sown the seeds of their own undoing.<br />
Bullying is very real. I believe the word is so overused now that kids don’t know what it means. Saying something mean online is not cyberbullying. Bullies are people who have power and enjoy using it. When I was a child, I was beaten up on the walk home by a group of children, for no reason other than to gratify their desire to be powerful.<br />
The Greeks were bullies. They had a lot of power: they used elephants to build was essentially a tank, unstoppable by foot soldiers. They had massive phalanxes, which were clouds of lances killing anything in their way. <br />
The Antiochus approach to relationships, which is basically bullying, is to try to use whatever tool I can to get my way. It is a game of mercy, bending the other person’s hand backward painfully until they give in. I can use threats, volume (yelling), insults. There’s no dynamic interchange of ideas, and ultimately, it kills the relationship: if the other person says yes, they only do so out of fear, but their heart wants to go the other way. We all do this at times; sometimes I do it with my own children. It is a challenge to do it differently.<br />
American culture is built on this kind of relationship. As a father of small children, I watch a lot of Disney. Think about Sleeping Beauty: the prince defeats the evil witch by force. So many movies have the following dialogue, or some version:<br />
“Ha ha ha”<br />
“Oh no you don’t”<br />
“I’ll get you next time”<br />
We still teach our children that force solves problems; really, it only causes more problems.<br />
And we see these problems in our synagogue culture. So often, somebody wants something, and uses all sorts of power plays to try to get it. Imagine someone who wants to paint the shul pink: It’s Florida, so pink is appropriate, and it would make us stick out. They may yell at volunteers and staff, insult them, badmouth them, threaten to resign. These kinds of interactions, sadly, happen all the time. They are really forms of bullying. We need to find a different way.<br />
The Jewish approach is very different. At the end of the Amida, we read a prayer that says “may my soul be as dust to all, and may I be silent to those who curse me.” Can I be non-reactive, absorb insults without needing to strike back? We are taught to be flexible, and that it is good to compromise even if we are right, for the sake of peace.<br />
What is a victory of faith?<br />
Avoiding anger: the Talmud says our words should all be calm<br />
Avoiding lashon hara: not badmouthing the person we are speaking with <br />
Giving the benefit of the doubt to the person we are speaking with: they have the best intentions, and have a different experience than myself<br />
Being flexible—The Talmud says we should bend like a reed, and not be stiff like a cedar. It is okay not to get my way 100%, even if I still know im right<br />
Finding solutions cooperatively, which means listening to the person opposite me<br />
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The real victory is not winning every conflict. It is not being sure we beat the Greeks, or the Romans, or the neo-Nazis. It is making sure we retain our integrity, that we stand for a different way of being in the world. The victory happens when we model and teach that way of being to the world, increasing the radiance of holy light in the world<br />
Rabbi David Siffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11350682393490310539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4737246937921658043.post-20863570169058639272017-09-13T12:48:00.002-07:002017-09-13T12:48:35.611-07:00<br />
This weekend, we will read about Moses' warning that at some point in the future, the Jews would be exiled, and later rteturn to our homeland. Driving in a sea of 7 million Floridians who left and returned, I was struck by this experience of rootlessness, of putting our lives on hold; for those of us who were here as well, I sensed that life was on hold-schools are closed for a week, and to quote a text one of you wrote, "nothing to do but cook and catch up on reading." <br />
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In some ways it has been like a Shabbat, like a week where instead of "doing" we have been engaged in "being." But it has also been distinctly abnormal, whether because our windows are boarded, our power is out, the library is closed, or we are not in our homes at all. <br />
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This weekend, as we read the parsha, I invite us to consider what the Torah is inviting us to feel as our "home," and in what ways even when we return to our houses are we still experiencing "exile.Rabbi David Siffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11350682393490310539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4737246937921658043.post-32132102756282322722016-04-20T10:17:00.004-07:002016-04-20T10:25:04.985-07:00Passover: Speaking our way out of shameAccording to a recent article in the Atlantic, “the secret shame of middle class americans,” many more Americans are cash-stapped than we are accustomed to believe. For example, 47% of Americans can’t round up $400 for an emergency. Most can’t afford the accoutrements of middle class lifestyle: house, cars, health, vacation—which costs an average family $130,000, double the median family income. You’d never think—those who have these things talk about them, we hear about all sorts of family vacations, but those who don’t have don’t talk about it-it’s too shameful.<br />
How many Americans are living in this kind of shame, unable to speak about the pain they experience?<br />
The Haggadah instructs us to start the narrative with shame (gnut), and end with praise (shevah). The Talmud (Pes 116a) reports a debate about what shameful situation is meant. Rav says “shame” refers to idolatry, so he starts the Maggid narrative with terach’s idolatrous family. Shmuel, on the other hand, starts in Egypt with avadim hayyinu, “we were slaves in egypt.” What’s the difference?<br />
Maybe for Rav, shame is when we do something truly bad, so he reaches back to idolatrous days. For Shmuel, on the other hand, shame has nothing to do with whether it is our fault; it is being in an embarrassingly low situation<br />
What’s the shame in that? Why do we feel bad about ourselves when we are down & out? Why do people feel ashamed of not having money, live in silence?<br />
Maybe the shame is really like Rav: fear that others will see it as a moral failure. The OED defines shame as “a painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behavior.” Jeremy Seabrook, in the Guardian, recently argued that we used to blame poverty on God, but now we blame it on the people.<br />
Or perhaps Shmuel feels that even if it’s not my fault, I still experience it as shameful. I know others will look down on me. Also, I can’t see myself as being needy, weak, etc. None of us wants to see ourselves as poor, vulnerable, down and out. We certainly don’t want others to see us that way. So we suffer in silence.<br />
Just like when we were slaves in egypt, We are shamed into silence. Shame is a contemporary Mitzrayim<br />
What truths do we have that we are not speaking?<br />
What truths are those around us suffering but too ashamed to speak up?<br />
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There is a classic midrash on the word “pesah,” that interprets it as peh sah, a mouth telling. On a simple level, the ‘mouth telling’ is reading the Haggadah, telling the story of the Exodus. On a deeper level, however, the mouth is gaining the ability to speak through the process of the exodus. Gaining the ability to speak is itself yetziat mitzrayim, leaving egypt.<br />
Now we get a little technical:<br />
The Zohar distinguishes kol, inner truth that we need to speak, the voice of our heart, from dibbur, the words that actually leave our lips. If the universe is divine speech, self-expression, then kol is the voice of the divine heart, and dibbur is the actual expression of the divine into the physical universe.<br />
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Exile is a rupture between kol and dibbur. On an individual level, this means that my inner voice is not articulated into speech. On a divine level, this same rupture happens to God. <br />
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The Zohar says that the Jews were constricted like the embryo of a donkey in its mother’s womb. They could not move. Redemption started when they cried out: They cried out, and god heard their cry.<br />
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Really embryos do move, so not a great metaphor; maybe donkey embryos move less than human embryos, or maybe the point was that an embryo can’t talk. But the idea was that egypt is a constriction that prevents the dibbur, the articulation of deep truth—they were not not speaking their truth. Only when they cried out, in an unarticulated cry, did the redemption start<br />
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The invitation: speak our way out of our personal mitzrayim,<br />
To speak our way out of shame<br />
Rabbi David Siffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11350682393490310539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4737246937921658043.post-3656478283230520782016-03-23T08:57:00.000-07:002016-03-23T08:59:48.378-07:00Bernie's boycott of AIPACI was deeply saddened and disappointed by Bernie Sanders not addressing the AIPAC convention. It was sad to me, for one, to see the only Jewish candidate skipping a major Jewish convention. It was also disappointing to me since, just by virtue of being the only Independent in Congress, Bernie is something of a hero to me. But I was also deeply saddened by what it suggests for the possibility of conversation around Israel, and conversation in general over difficult topics.<br />
For me, this raises some central questions: What’s the best way to deal with someone if I disagree vehemently? What does boycotting accomplish, and what does it destroy? <br />
It is easy to engage in a “conversation” if I have enough things to say that you will agree with; this was the direction Hillary and Trump both went. It’s much harder to have a meaningful conversation if I assume you disagree with me if I walk in assuming there’s a conflict. The belief that there’s a conflict itself creates conflict.<br />
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I can think of two important ways to keep converations both real and productive, both of which 9I think) have a basis in Jewish tradition.<br />
1. find common ground<br />
In the classic debate between Shammai and Hillel (over a person sitting in a sukkah, but the table is in their house), Hillel wins the argument, not because of their superior reasoning, but because they were humble. What’s the proof they were humble? They quoted Shammai first. I imagine: they tried to fully understand his position first, and were even happy to explain his reasoning to others. I imagine they were even open to his arguments, even if (as in this case) they ultimately disagreed.<br />
What would this have looked like? If you ever are a candidate for president who feels AIPAC is too easy on Israel, what could you do? You could first meet privately with AIPAC leaders, try to understand their position, try to learn if there are any facts that you may not have considered. try to understand whether there really are substantive differences.<br />
I am not convinced the difference is really so far—maybe a difference in emphasis. Everyone at AIPAC already believes in a “2-state solution”-that’s not really a question. Could Bernie agree that Palestinians need to renounce violence before negotiating boundaries? Probably—he did say so in his speech. Could AIPAC agree that once Palestinians renounce violence, we would talk about a freeze of settlements? Probably.<br />
What often strikes me in these conversations is that there’s much less substantive disagreement than the rhetoric leads us to believe. <br />
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2. engage personally, <br />
In the debate between Hillel and Shammai, which was inherited by their followers (Bet Hillel and Bet Shammai), there were differences in their understanding of marriage laws that could have split the community. But nevertheless, their kids married each other. They were still friends. They didn’t<br />
let it result in a breakdown of their relationships.<br />
By boycotting, the conversation is automatically shut down. Once I boycott, I announce, I disagree with you no matter what, and there’s no conversation.<br />
I would like to think that if Bernie had taken his proposed speech to AIPACleaders, and asked what they thought, he might have toned down what he said. I would like to believe he would have backed down from criticizing alleged Israeli bombing of hospitals in Gaza, if he realized they were being used as weapons bases (which he said are legitimate targets). I would like to believe he would not have criticized the alleged economic blockade of Gaza to the same extent, if he was educated about the military nature of the blockade, the challenges of allowing economic borders to remain open while trying to prevent weapons from entering, and the material support Israel does allow through.<br />
When we shut down conversations, we prevent ourselves from growing, from learning our own blindspots. It’s easy to stay locked in my position, to think I’m right and build barriers against the world. It’s harder to engage in a meaningful conversation, where I learn and grow, and where I run the risk of actually changing my opinion.<br />
The Talmud says that Torah scrolls should be written with a reed (rather than something stiffer) because reeds are flexible. May we all be flexible like reeds, growing in wisdom and understanding from deep conversation with each other.<br />
<br />
<br />
Rabbi David Siffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11350682393490310539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4737246937921658043.post-38066052429610701602016-01-20T02:44:00.000-08:002016-01-20T02:45:17.237-08:00Jewish Civil Disobedience, part 1: when do we cross the line?Shifra and puah are my heroes<br />
Transform course of history radically, through basic decency<br />
Model for jewish civil disobedience, the faith that people being good, standing up to tyrants, can overpower them<br />
<br />
Gandhi: He who resorts to civil disobedience obeys the laws of the state to which he belongs, not out of fear of sanctions, but because he considers them to be good for the welfare of society. But there come occasions, generally rare, when he considers certain laws to be so unjust as to render obedience to them a dishonor. He then openly and civilly breaks them and quietly suffers the penalty for their breach<br />
Reading about shifra and puah in light of recent events makes me wonder:<br />
Where is the line between non-violence/not committing crimes, and complacency? <br />
Where is the line between speaking up and resisting, and criminality?<br />
<br />
Danger of Criminality<br />
The line to criminality has been crossed, recently, by BLM protesters destroying stores—ironlically, black owned stores-in race riots. <br />
<br />
On Thursday evening, Nov. 12, a large demonstration by members of the Dartmouth and Upper Valley communities culminated in a moment of silence in front of Dartmouth Hall,” Mr. Hanlon wrote in an email sent to the Dartmouth community on Monday, The Tab Dartmouth reported. “This demonstration was a powerful expression of unity in support of social justice — Dartmouth at its strongest. I cannot say the same about events that transpired in Baker Library immediately afterward. I have heard reports of vulgar epithets, personal insults, and intimidating actions used both by students who entered the library and students who were already in the library. <br />
Apparently: white students were pushed and shoved by the group during their Nov. 12 demonstration. some students studying in the Baker-Berry Library were yelled at, insulted and driven to tears.<br />
<br />
In rockdale temple here in cincinnati, black rioters smashed the luchot during the race riots of the 60's; you can see the broken tablets in their lobby. <br />
<br />
Halacha: law of the land is the law<br />
-follow law and even pray for the governing authority<br />
-only applies to just civil laws, <br />
by proper authorities-i.e. the ones who mint the coine, <br />
-only applies to laws which do not violate torah<br />
What’s left?<br />
Rambam: taxation & currency regulation<br />
In general: halachic obligation to follow laws<br />
Pay taxes, follow speed limit, don’t counterfeit money<br />
<br />
Greatest danger: in protesting something unethical, I become unethical<br />
Tzedek tzedek tirdof<br />
never allowed to harm another person, even during a protest<br />
While it is clear that Jewish law and tradition have a positive attitude towards protest and civil disobedience, it is equally clear that such activities must be non-violent in nature. This is because one Jew is not allowed to strike or injure another Jew. When Moses sees one Jew striking another in Egypt (Exodus 1:13), he says "Rasha, why do you hit your fellow!" and the Midrash comments: "Rabbi Yitzhak said: from this you learn that whoever hits his fellowman is called a wicked." <br />
- Ginzey Schechter, Vol. I, p. 114. <br />
<br />
Arthur waskow: the only violent protest is done by god (10 commandments). Most active jews get is going house to house requesting reparations<br />
<br />
Palestinians try to justify suicide bombiongs: “it’s your fault for pushing us into a corner, that’s why we have to resort to unethical means<br />
Unethical means always ruin the justice of one’s cause<br />
<br />
But there are Situations when Obligated to break the law<br />
Kiddush hashem: don’t break 3 biggies<br />
In public: don’t break any halachot<br />
<br />
So if a law requires us to violate halacha, we don’t simply say it’s the law of the land-<br />
<br />
Midwives: not only did not comply, went directly against pharoah’s order<br />
Ibn Ezra on 1:12-jews broke law by continuing to have children (nb midrash on amram)<br />
V 17: tichiyena-rashi: fed them; sforno: gave them medical advice<br />
V 19-20-lied to pharaoh; hizkuni-he apparently believed them<br />
Willing to pay the price: v 12 batim<br />
Rashi: lineage of levites, cohanim & kings; Hizkuni: house arrest<br />
<br />
interesting cases in Israel: noncompliance with oppressive orthodoxy:<br />
Article about illegal marriages <br />
Also women of the wall smuggling a torah?<br />
Does “law of the land is the law” apply here?—no-unjust, oppressive laws<br />
<br />
Israeli army: built into code: <br />
Purity of Arms – The IDF servicemen and women will use their weapons and force only for the purpose of their mission, only to the necessary extent and will maintain their humanity even during combat. IDF soldiers will not use their weapons and force to harm human beings who are not combatants or prisoners of war, and will do all in their power to avoid causing harm to their lives, bodies, dignity and property.<br />
<br />
Discipline: IDF soldiers will be meticulous in giving only lawful orders, and shall refrain from obeying blatantly illegal orders.<br />
Descent into chaos? (cf kim davis-wedding registrar in ky)<br />
Reservists who refused to serve in west bank<br />
Better to have that level of chaos than a tyrannical system with evil results<br />
Perhaps a certain amount of chaos is good for the moral fabric of the world<br />
<br />
Rabbi David Siffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11350682393490310539noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4737246937921658043.post-33429338930354381482016-01-15T12:49:00.000-08:002016-01-20T02:49:33.078-08:00Jewish Civil Disobedience Part 2: the obligation to speak uppete seeger was followed by FBI for over 30 yrs, letters opened, blacklisted & called in 1953 before house committee on un-American activities and cited for contempt of congress, didn’t know why<br />
Why?<br />
In July 1942, Seeger, 23, was drafted into the Army. He was training as an aviation mechanic at Keesler Field in Mississippi. in the fall of 1942, Seeger, wrote a letter of protest to the California chapter of the American Legion. It was to the point:<br />
Dear Sirs -<br />
I felt shocked, outraged, and disgusted to read that the California American Legion voted to 1) deport all Japanese after the war, citizen or not, 2) Bar all Japanese descendants from citizenship!!<br />
We, who may have to give our lives in this great struggle—we're fighting precisely to free the world of such Hitlerism, such narrow jingoism.<br />
If you deport Japanese, why not Germans, Italians, Rumanians, Hungarians, and Bulgarians?<br />
If you bar from citizenship descendants of Japanese, why not descendants of English? After all, we once fought with them too.<br />
America is great and strong as she is because we have so far been a haven to all oppressed.<br />
I felt sick at heart to read of this matter.<br />
Yours truly,<br />
Pvt. Peter Seeger<br />
I am writing also to the Los Angeles Times<br />
<br />
"How did the American Legion respond? It forwarded Seeger's note to the FBI in San Francisco. And somehow this matter was brought to the attention of the Military Intelligence Service of the War Department. Within weeks, military intelligence was investigating Seeger—and soon updating the FBI on its effort. The official "reason for investigation," as numerous military reports forwarded to the FBI noted, was that "Subject wrote letter protesting and criticizing the California American Legion's resolution advocating deportation of all Japanese, citizens or not, after the war, and barring all Japanese descendants from citizenship.""<br />
<br />
<br />
Banal, something many of us would have done<br />
Irony: now we all see that the government acted in an un-American way<br />
<br />
Perhaps there are times when we must speak up<br />
Whoever can protest to his household [for committing a sin] but does not, is seized for [the sins of] his household. If he could protest to his fellow citizens, he is seized for the sins of his fellow citizens; if the whole world, he is seized for the sins of the whole world. Rab Papa observed, the members of the Resh Galuta's household are seized for the whole world. Even as Rabbi Hanina said, “Why is it written, ‘The Lord will enter into judgment with the elders of his people, and the princes thereof” (Isaiah 52:14) If the princes sinned, how did the elders sin? But say, [He will bring punishment] upon the elders because they did not forbid the princes. - BT Shabbat 54b <br />
Latin saying: Qui tacet consentire videtur “silence is consent”<br />
<br />
Another explanation: Yocheved was called Shiphrah because through her the people of Israel increased <br />
(sh’paru) and were fertile. Miriam was called Puah because she lifted (hophiah) up Israel to God. Yocheved <br />
was called Shiphrah because her deeds were beautiful (sh’iphra) before God. Miriam was called Puah because <br />
she defied (hophiah) Pharaoh, all but thumbing her nose at him, saying, “Woe to this man when God comes <br />
to settle with him." Pharaoh, filled with rage, was about to have her put to death. But Yocheved, who was <br />
called Shiphrah because she used to smooth over (meshapperet) her daughter's impudence, conciliated Pharaoh <br />
by saying, "Need you pay attention to her? She is only a child and doesn't know a thing." <br />
- Sh’mot Rabbah 1:13 <br />
<br />
Miriam and Yocheved were the balance of wisdom and courage, speaking and knowing when to be silent.<br />
<br />
Tradition gives a major caveat on obligation to speak up: Only when we actually have power to stop something<br />
But in a democracy, a vocal majority has power to stop anything<br />
Argument that ‘nobody is listening’ swiftly becomes an argument for mass silence<br />
<br />
Tyranny thrives on secrecy, and the implicit consent of the masses<br />
Ramban on 1:10-pharoah’s plot to manipulate public so he would not be identified as bad guy<br />
"Let us scheme against them" Pharaoh and his advisers did not decide to smite them with the sword, because that would be a great betrayal, to smite a nation that has come to the land on the command of the first king. Even the common people wouldn't give consent to the king to do such a crime, for he advises with them, and additionally the nation of Israel was numerous and mighty and would fight back in a great war. Rather he advised that they should act cleverly so that Israel should not feel that he is acting out of hate, and therefore he levied a tax on them, for it is common for foreigners to pay a tax to the king, as is seen by Solomon (Kings 1, 9:21)<br />
In other words: found ways to oppress them that wouldn’t raise eyebrows<br />
People would stay silent, allow their conscience to be subtly violated<br />
<br />
2003: Iraqi war and duct taping windows<br />
I was going to participate in anti-war rally, before Bush invaded Iraq<br />
Government warned of impending biological attacks, told us to duct tape our windows<br />
I didn’t go to the march—I was scared into silence<br />
<br />
Silence is very dangerous because it empowers those who use it to support oppression, tyranny & abuse<br />
<br />
Buchenwald-just outside city<br />
Allied forces came in, forced locals to walk through in Sunday garments<br />
And yet, when they talk about Nazis, some foreign element that came, did bad things, and disappeared<br />
People don’t realize how much they themselves are complicit through complacency<br />
<br />
I am very disturbed by peoples silence over Radzinger’s involvement in nazi youth<br />
—“I had to do it”—what if nobody had complied?<br />
<br />
On a personal level, Sometimes we are silent because we do not find the right words to speak up<br />
Or do not feel anybody is listening<br />
Art: honesty without hurting feelings<br />
<br />
My experience recently:<br />
Somebody laughing at me in demeaning way<br />
I was upset, didn’t know how to respond, fell silent,<br />
Finally told them: really hurt me that they were laughing at me<br />
They claimed laughing because it was funny<br />
I stood my ground, told them: still hurt my feelings<br />
<br />
We need to find ways to speak up <br />
For ourselves, in hurtful relationships<br />
For what is right, in a world that often seems to be going in the wrong direction<br />
Rabbi David Siffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11350682393490310539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4737246937921658043.post-44759155945216689922015-09-24T09:54:00.000-07:002015-09-24T09:54:37.413-07:00Kol Nidre 5776: sanctifying digital communicationKol Nidre 5776 sanctifying digital communication<br />
<br />
<br />
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.<br />
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. <br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
What happens when we lose the face?<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
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. <br />
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! <br />
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<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
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. <br />
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?<br />
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<br />
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<br />
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.<br />
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. <br />
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<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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. <br />
<br />
1. Notice when an email needs to be an in person discussion<br />
If there might be substantive disagreement, we need to talk in person. <br />
If somebody might be upset, it needs to be handled in person. <br />
If you are upset, it should be handled in person. <br />
If you are complaining about what someone did, it needs to be done in person.<br />
<br />
2. Once we’ve had the in person meeting, don’t go and kvetch about it on email afterward. <br />
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.<br />
<br />
3. Avoid Lashon hara by cc<br />
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.<br />
<br />
4. Don’t forward a private email<br />
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.<br />
<br />
5. Cc for nice reasons too<br />
<br />
a. take the time to copy someone’s boss when they do something great <br />
b. what a world it would be if everyone did something like that even once a month... or once a year.<br />
Chofetz chayim’s prayer:<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
May I be zealous not to speak words of falsehood, flattery, strife, anger, arrogance, hurt, embarrassment, mockery, and all other forbidden forms of speech.<br />
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<br />
<br />
I would add:<br />
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<br />
Rabbi David Siffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11350682393490310539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4737246937921658043.post-23636452119782455332015-09-24T09:51:00.000-07:002015-09-24T10:25:43.512-07:00Yom Kippur 5776: The Limits of EmpathyYom Kippur 5776: Whose life matters?<br />
<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
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?<br />
How far must our empathy extend? <br />
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.<br />
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, <br />
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?<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
Why the needy?<br />
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. <br />
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?<br />
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. <br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
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. <br />
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.<br />
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?<br />
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.<br />
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? <br />
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?<br />
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? <br />
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? <br />
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? <br />
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?<br />
Isaiah calls us to unlock the fetters of wickedness around the world:<br />
To speak out about slavery—in the sex industry, fishing, chocolate<br />
To speak out about oppression of religious minorities happening right now in the middle east<br />
<br />
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.<br />
Rabbi David Siffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11350682393490310539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4737246937921658043.post-8990725727745061012015-09-16T12:27:00.002-07:002015-09-16T12:28:34.459-07:00Rosh Hashanah 5776: Community in the digital era <br />
<br />
What is community now? <br />
Are any of us members of a community?<br />
In the age of the internet, is there such a thing as community? <br />
Do we even need it?<br />
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. <br />
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. <br />
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. <br />
We are so connected now—and what an opportunity!<br />
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.<br />
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. <br />
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.<br />
we need to use digital connectivity to create human connectivity, <br />
But we must never think that digital connectivity replaces human contact. <br />
We need to use technology to enrich, not replace, human interaction.<br />
The Talmud understands the focus of Jewish spirituality as creating sacred energy in the world, through shared sacred action. <br />
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). <br />
That means god is standing here, right here, in this room<br />
The Talmud goes on to discuss doing this through forming a jewish court, and also through studying torah together.<br />
spirituality is not about some trip where we feel close to god; <br />
It’s not about an individual feeling good, feeling high, feeling spiritual. <br />
The Talmud insists that no human has ever ascended to god. <br />
Spirituality is manifesting the presence of the divine, the schechinah, through sacred community, through davenning together, through applying jewish law together, through studying together. <br />
I might be able to meditate better alone, but I can’t bring the presence of the divine into the world that way.<br />
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.” <br />
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.<br />
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?<br />
Scarf waving shul—sukkot 51b<br />
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 .<br />
<br />
We don’t create sacred community just by being in the same room<br />
We need to be aware of each other<br />
And we need to be aware of each others’ needs—continuation:<br />
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<br />
<br />
even though room was huge, they were present for each other in very practical way—they helped each other get jobs<br />
can we form community in the same way online?<br />
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,<br />
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. <br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
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. <br />
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. <br />
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. <br />
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. <br />
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.<br />
We need use technology to enrich, not replace, living human community<br />
<br />
Jewish learning<br />
We all know about the Shift in universities and even public schools, toward online learning. This shift is happening with jewish learning, too.<br />
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.<br />
But online learning has its challenges<br />
[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.”<br />
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 <br />
The loss of human interaction results in a loss of accountability, a loss of responsibility to the Other, in Levinas’ terms<br />
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. <br />
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."<br />
He went and sat in from of Rabbi Yochanan. Every time Rabbi Yochanan said something, Rabbi Elazar said, “a tanna supports you” <br />
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?"<br />
He walked, and tore his garment, and wept. <br />
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) <br />
<br />
Education is not about transfer of information from an expert to a student<br />
It’s About challenging each other, growing from interaction<br />
Massive amounts of online information can never replace human interaction, studying together, growing together<br />
<br />
The great irony of Technology is that while it hyperconnects us, it also takes us away from each other<br />
<br />
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. <br />
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. <br />
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?<br />
So I bought it<br />
Am I more efficient?<br />
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.<br />
Is this really being more efficient, or just more available for work, and unavailable for family? <br />
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.<br />
Tiffany shlane: father was dying of brain cancer technology Shabbat<br />
Her family instituted Technology Shabbat: no screens<br />
She realized Emails: distracted by so many things that feels like being a pinball machine<br />
Technology takes us away from being present<br />
Technology overloads us with too much info<br />
Shabbat is a great opportunity to unplug.<br />
Halachically, the issue with texting and email is minimal: <br />
led’s aren’t really fire, <br />
so texting does not violate any of the 39 melachot (one of which is extinguishing a fire to make charcoal). <br />
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, <br />
Technology Takes us away from being present for each other<br />
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.<br />
Conclusion<br />
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. <br />
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. <br />
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.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Online Resources for Jewish Learning <br />
List compiled by Jonathan Kligler<br />
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http://rabbishefagold.com/Torah1.html<br />
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.<br />
<br />
http://www.reclaimingjudaism.org/<br />
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”.<br />
<br />
http://jrf.org/recon-dt<br />
The Reconstructionist Movement’s site for Divrei Torah.<br />
<br />
http://urj.org/torah/<br />
The Reform Movement’s site for Divrei Torah.<br />
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http://www.uscj.org/Torah_Sparks__Weekly5467.html<br />
The Conservative Movement’s site for Divrei Torah<br />
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http://www.ou.org/torah/index<br />
The Orthodox Union’s site for Divrei Torah<br />
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http://www.myjewishlearning.com/texts/Bible/Torah/Commentaries.shtml?TSBI<br />
A brief overview on the nature of Torah commentary.<br />
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http://www.myjewishlearning.com/texts/Bible/Weekly_Torah_Portion.shtml<br />
Excellent, extensive library of Divrei Torah from all over the Jewish world.<br />
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http://www.chabad.org/parshah/otherparshas_cdo/aid/9175/jewish/All-Parshas.htm<br />
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.<br />
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http://torah.org/<br />
Orthodox website with extensive and well-organized commentaries on the weekly Torah portion.<br />
<br />
http://www.shamash.org/tanach/dvar.shtml#shamash<br />
Massive index and links of Divrei Torah from across the Jewish spectrum. Don’t get overwhelmed!<br />
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http://www.ravkooktorah.org/ind_bami.htm<br />
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.<br />
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http://www.azamra.org/parshah.shtml<br />
Torah commentary based on the teachings of the Hassidic master Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav.<br />
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http://www.chassidus.net/<br />
Chassidic teachings on the weekly portion. Useful entry-point into the Chassidic approach.<br />
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http://inner.org/<br />
Jewish mysticism and thought, based on the teachings of HaRav Yitzchak Ginsburgh. Very thorough, hold on to your hat!<br />
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http://www.meaningfullife.com/torah/parsha/<br />
Rabbi Simon Jacobson presents teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe<br />
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http://kolel.org/pages/lobby.html<br />
The “Adult Centre for Liberal Jewish Learning” in Toronto, Canada. Click on the link for “Weekly Parasha”.<br />
<br />
http://g-dcast.com<br />
Animated and sometimes musical Torah interpretations!<br />
<br />
Some more recommendations from Rabbi Siff:<br />
<br />
Responsafortoday.com<br />
Answers to practical questions by David Golinkin, of the Schechter Institute in Jerusalem<br />
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http://www.jewishbusiness.com/torah.html<br />
Articles on Jewish Business ethics from an orthodox perspective<br />
<br />
Aish.com<br />
Orthodox, great resource on contemporary topics, archived classes, & divrey torah at a range of ability levels<br />
<br />
Jlaw.com<br />
In-depth articles on contemporary halachic issues<br />
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Rabbi David Siffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11350682393490310539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4737246937921658043.post-59884646765363522362015-09-16T12:26:00.001-07:002015-09-18T06:22:16.517-07:00Rosh Hashanah 5776: why is it so hard to talk about Israel?<br />
Shanah tovah and welcome. It’s so wonderful to be together again for the holidays.<br />
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. <br />
Why is it so hard for us to have an honest conversation about Israel?<br />
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.<br />
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?<br />
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.<br />
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?<br />
So what does Judaism say the kettle should do?<br />
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.<br />
I think of the teaching from from pirke avot:<br />
<br />
Who is wise? Someone who can learn from any person<br />
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. <br />
• People who are rude telling you to be more polite, <br />
• people who are impatient telling you to be patient, <br />
• people who are loud telling you to be soft spoken. <br />
• People who criticize you in an obnoxious way, <br />
• People who really just want to see you fail, and are giving you a good kick on your way down. <br />
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?<br />
This plays out on the personal and political level.<br />
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?<br />
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.’<br />
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. <br />
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. <br />
First Soul Searching, then Apologizing, then Celebrating Publically and then celebrating privately.<br />
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?<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
In terms of Israel, I think we can use the same pattern: soul searching, apologizing, celebrating publically, and celebrating privately:<br />
1. Soul Searching<br />
As I mentioned, the period up to Rosh Hashanah is about soul searching, taking an honest look at my life.<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
2. Apologizing<br />
The second phase is yom kippur, apologizing<br />
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. <br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
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. <br />
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:<br />
• Let’s look at the racism in places like Iraq, where Jews were persecuted and murdered after 1948 <br />
• let’s talk about the entire Middle East not having any minority religious legislators,<br />
• let’s talk about persecution based on religion, gender, sexual orientation, gays and lesbians getting executed. <br />
• Let’s talk about why Jews fled the rest of the middle east, including the west bank, and thus why Israel needs to exist. <br />
• Let’s talk about hamas building terror tunnels instead of schools. <br />
• 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.<br />
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.<br />
Celebrating <br />
The third phase is sukkot, celebrating.<br />
I believe all of us need to become strong spokespeople for Israel. We need to speak out:<br />
When we read a newspaper article which is unfair or biased, write in the comments, write a letter to the editor<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
We need to call our senators, congressmen, and the white house about any issue facing Israel. We need to be speaking out.<br />
And we need to speak out not only on contentious issues, but also to fight the negative PR by celebrating Israel. <br />
• Did you know that Israel is the only country still helping Nepal in the aftermath of the earthquake? <br />
• 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? <br />
• 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.<br />
• Did you know Israel is the 3rd country in the world to elect a female to lead its government, <br />
• 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?<br />
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! <br />
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. <br />
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Rabbi David Siffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11350682393490310539noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4737246937921658043.post-81383776818685283982014-12-12T06:34:00.000-08:002014-12-12T06:34:00.713-08:00Ferguson and Torah<br />
Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice..We are hopefully at the tail end of a terrible barrage of police shootings against young black men. It’s really nothing new; for the African American community, it just is a sad reminder that nothing has really changed. But it is an important wake-up call that people are hearing. We need to listen to this call.<br />
At a recent gathering of AMOS, a group of local clergy, Damon Lynch III pointed out the radically different reactions of European Americans vs African Americans to these racially charged situations. When, for example, OJ Simpson was cleared of murder charges, the black community cheered even though many of them thought he was guilty: it was one brother finally standing up against a system that so often (in their perception) persecutes them. White children are taught if they are lost, find a policeman; black children are taught, if they see the police, go the other way fast. And at that meetings, my black colleagues shared that they experience a shocking number of unnecessary police stops & frisks, and are often treated roughly—as criminals-- by police.<br />
As Jews, we are a little on the outside of this dynamic. For the Nazis, we were not white. In America, it was only since civil rights that we succeeded in becoming white, while the African American community largely didn’t (and not just because of skin tone). So especially as a Jew, I hate to use the terms white and black, since that really is not a kind of person but just a simplified description of skin tone (which is truly a spectrum). But in this case it really is about skin color. How should we as Jews view the situation & respond?<br />
We live in a culture of fear, and fear causes violence. Why would a white policeman drive up, and shoot a black kid through his window? Why would a white cop describe a young man as an animal? They saw a black man with a gun, they were afraid, and fear leads to violence.<br />
On the other hand, the white cop (and maybe some black cops too) will argue: we can’t trust black men when black crime is a reality. We try to impose equity through laws against racial profiling, but police departments argue: most criminals really are black, just like most terrorists really are Muslim. This fact puts them in a terrible bind.<br />
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Are African Americans more criminal than whites? <br />
Here are some facts: <br />
• 1 in 3 black males today will go to prison in lifetime, compared to 1 in 17 non-latino whites. There are more black men in prison than in college. Keep in mind that returning citizens face incredible challenges finding employment as “ex-felons.”<br />
• Drug crimes are an area where there may be a real enforcement disparity: 5x as many whites use drugs as blacks, but 10x as many blacks go to jail (and often are sentenced to longer jail times than their white equivalents). Perhaps the kinds of drugs they use tend to be higher profile, perhaps they tend to use & sell them in public areas, and perhaps there is some selective enforcement. <br />
• Gun violence affects the black community, and is perpetuated by blacks, more than the white community: blacks are 6x as likely to be shot, and 8x as likely to be shooters. Most of that violence is intraracial—black on black or white on white. Hence the statistic Guliani cited: 93 % of black victims are shot by blacks (he didn’t mention that 80% of white victims are shot by whites). There is simply more gun violence in the black community than in the white community.<br />
• One study reported that 80% of muggings in high-crime areas of London are black; these high crime areas are also high poverty areas. I personally have been mugged twice, once in a predominantly black area, once in a white area. All 3 criminals involved were black. <br />
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But there’s another issue here: it’s not just that blacks are criminals. It’s that they are largely mired in a cycle of poverty & crime. The Black unemployment rate is more than twice that of whites, and their household income is $20k less. There’s lots of possible causes:<br />
• Is this a remnant of slavery, and the fact that black released from slavery weren’t given any way to rebuild their lives? Probably.<br />
• Is it created by racism, an unwillingness to hire qualified blacks? Maybe<br />
• Is it contributed to by a bad education system underfunded by local property taxes, high cost of good day care, and minimum wage jobs that force parents to work overtime and prevent them from being available for children? For sure.<br />
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We can’t solve violence without solving poverty.<br />
My first job out of college was on a peacekeeping mission in Washington DC. We wanted to reduce inner city violence. Who was shooting whom? Gang members shooting other gang members over turf issues. The gangs sold drugs, mainly to white customers who drove in from the suburbs. Pretty much all the young black men in the neighborhood joined gangs, because it was the only good job available; all of them ended up doing jail time. They didn’t want to be criminals—the guys I met were good people, with no other good options. Crime is a byproduct of poverty<br />
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What should we do?<br />
Advocate against police violence—btzedek tishpot et amitecha—Torah calls us to ‘judge each other fairly,’ and to give the benefit of the doubt. Police need to assume that everyone they encounter is a law-abiding citizen, while also protecting themselves with the least force necessary.<br />
Advocate for federal prosecutors in situations of police violence. Prosecutors who normally work together with policemen cannot be put in the position of prosecuting them.<br />
Advocate for & help bring an end to cycle of black poverty & crime. The black community needs economic development, and better education. Many of us are in a position to help, either personally or professionally.<br />
Help returning citizens be able to find good employment without turning back to crime, both personally and at the ballot box. There is a movement now in Ohio to require state employers to only ask whether someone is an ex-offender after they make a hiring decision, and if they choose not to employ based on that, they need to justify their decision; this would be a great step in opening doors for this population. We can also help ex-offenders with job training, and by employing them in our businesses.<br />
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Let’s all work together to help address this cycle of criminality & violence, until “justice rolls down as the water, and righteousness as a mighty stream.”<br />
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Shabbat Shalom.<br />
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Rabbi David Siffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11350682393490310539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4737246937921658043.post-72904001063023813802014-10-08T08:01:00.001-07:002014-10-08T08:02:54.610-07:00Fragility and InterdependenceThis past Tuesday, when I came into work, somebody commented that he needed to go back and repair his sukkah, because it had been blown over. I smugly thought about how lovely my own sukkah was, and visualized it in my back yard, erected the prior evening, standing beautifully. Very late that evening, as I came home, I thought to look out back just to see how it was doing. It wasn’t good.<br />
I was surprised: I thought I had done a good job. But the truth is, this is how sukkahs are by necessity. As we studied over the past 2 mornings, the sukkah has to be impermanent, and anything impermanent is inherently fragile. According to the Talmud, anything that looks permanent (like by being too high) is treyf. For a week we surround ourselves with the experience of impermanence, fragility.<br />
What’s so great about fragility?<br />
The truth is, that which is most important in life is the most fragile. We davenned on Yom Kippur a prayer about our extreme fragility: we wither like grass, vanish like smoke, like a dream. People, god forbid, have heart attacks, get hit by cars, and are gone in an instant. There we say, “atah hu meleck el hay vekayam.” God is the eternal king, somehow if we can root ourselves in transcendent values, we can transcend our own fragility, our own mortality.<br />
Today we read in kohelet (4:7-8):<br />
There is one [person], and there is no second [with him]; yea, he has neither son nor brother, and there is no end to all his toil; neither is his eye sated from wealth. Now for whom do I toil and deprive my soul of pleasure? This too is vanity and an unhappy affair.” <br />
Yes, my bank account seems pretty stable: it’s insured, I could leave it there forever. We insure our possessions, and can replace them if anything happens. But what good are possessions if you don’t have anyone to leave them to? <br />
There was an excellent movie on this theme, “Up in the Air.” The protagonist has as his ambition amassing one million miles in the sky, has no home, no base, no true friends. His job is to go around firing people, making them rootless, destroying their lives. By the time he finally reaches the goal, he realizes his life is completely empty. There is no family there to congratulate him, just a flight attendant and a legendary pilot, and a glass of champagne he doesn’t enjoy.<br />
I have worked in nursing homes around Philadelphia, especially the Philadelphia geriatric center. I will tell you that on their walls, people didn’t have pictures of their cars or homes. They didn’t save the letter telling them they’d paid off their mortgage, or their student loans. They had pictures of their grandchildren and greatgrandchildren. And the ones with no pictures, no visitors, were the most depressed. <br />
The Earth for ages was thought of as the image of permanence: think of the ad slogan, solid as a rock. Kohelet says: dor ba, vedor holech, veha’aretz leolam omed—a generation comes, a generation goes, but the earth stands forever. The earth was used as a counterpoint to highlight our own fragility. But now we see that the earth itself is deeply vulnerable. Because of deforestation, pollution, unsustainable agriculture & climate change, the world’s species are disappearing 1,000 times faster than the rate at which species naturally go extinct. By the year 2100, researchers say that 1/3 to ½ of earth’s species could be wiped out. Nahmanides says we are prohibited from making one species go extinct. This is a mass tragedy.<br />
The physical earth, too, is fragile, and changing. Many of you may have read about the massive sink hole, 330 feet across, in Siberia, which may have been caused by methane released from the permafrost. The black panther is coming back, but an estimated quarter of its habitat will likely be lost to rising oceans. The earth is changing.<br />
Zalman shachter shalomi, who died last year, said one of the major shifts in consciousness was when we went to space and could see the earth as a whole. He called this gaia consciousness: earth is a living organism that we are ethically responsible to, that we are limbs of. The earth is finite, just a big spaceship, and there’s not really anywhere else to go. Maybe Mars, but it’s not much of a life. The earth, like us, is a beautiful and fragile divine creation.<br />
If life is so fragile, if we are so vulnerable, how do we respond?<br />
Kohelet posits at least 2 parts of the response:<br />
1. don’t try for safety—enjoy that which is fragile. Enjoy your limited time here. Enjoy those things which are most meaningful in life, and also most fleeting.<br />
2. find safety in Healthy interdependence: <br />
It is amazing to me how pathetic babies are. When they are born, the only thing they can do is cry, suck, and move their eyes. They can’t use their limbs effectively, they flop over, they can’t hold their heads up, they fall off furniture if you let them. They are completely vulnerable, completely fragile. So how have humans survived for millions of years? By being carried by their mothers, and in the days before slings and strollers, carried in their mothers arms, around the world, for millions of years. Parental love that has kept babies safe, has kept the human species and all mammals alive for millions of years. We cannot survive alone<br />
Kohelet 4:9-12: Two are better than one, since they have good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his friend, but woe to the one who falls and has no second one to lift him up. Moreover, if two lie down, they will have warmth, but how will one have warmth? And if a man prevails against the one, the two will stand against him, and a three- stranded cord will not quickly be broken <br />
In America, and perhaps this is human nature, we prize independence. I know of Iraqi vets who couldn’t go to bathroom by themselves, and felt deep shame for it. I have met many seniors scared of aging because they don’t want to be “a burden,” and who prefer to live alone in a nursing home where they are lonely and depressed rather than impose on their children. <br />
My college years: only felt successful if I could accomplish a task by myself. At Dartmouth, there was a legendary challenge, “the moose.” I had a goal of hiking all the 50 miles of trails on mt mousilauk in one day—a sign of individual strength & endurance. I never did it. The person who did, my friend, Tom Marlowe, had other people stationed around, ferrying him, giving him food, maybe a massage. Now he’s a doctor, helping people walking their way through the world.<br />
The truth is, every minute of our lives we are amazingly interdependent. Sitting in this building, with concrete made by one person, poured by another. Wearing clothes, cotton picked, transported, processed, woven, shipped, sold. Our bread, planted, harvested, the grain ground, shipped, baked. The electric company that powered the lights in the store where we bought the bread. And just think about our iPhones!<br />
Back to the sukkah which was blown down, I had 2 people helping me, and for part of the time I was taking care of the baby; the other 2 people told me, I think you are needed inside. You can only imagine what would have happened if I had tried to put it up alone.<br />
It is no coincident that sukkot, and festivals and Shabbat in general, are celebrated with family. The Talmud gives us advice: guys, eat red meat and wine, buy toys and candy for the kids, and jewelry for your wives. Not bad advice. Joy is celebrating together. Hold each other up. Two is better than one, and three is even better.<br />
Judaism institutionalizes interdependence, forces it on us, by making it a mitzvah to get married. You can’t have a celibate clergy in Judaism because it’s not an ideal—lo tov heyot ha’adam levado—it is not good for a person to be alone. We studied this last week in our discussion of solitary confinement, and the detrimental psychological effects it has. People need human contact, and literally go crazy without it. I have often heard it said that we need to know who we are before we can love someone else. I don’t agree- we can’t know ourselves until we are in relationships. And we never finish knowing who we are- we grow, are challenged, are kept on our toes by having a partner. we grow through love, through relationships, through realizing our mutual dependence.<br />
In the sukkah, we surround ourselves with that which is truly important, truly valuable, irreplaceable, and completely fragile: our family, our friends, our planet. Enjoy it.<br />
Hag sameach, a festival of joy, togetherness & celebration<br />
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Rabbi David Siffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11350682393490310539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4737246937921658043.post-80540856620843802662014-09-04T08:14:00.000-07:002014-09-04T08:31:04.263-07:00Handing back the Polish Torah through the back door.Can we correct past behaviors in gentle, heart opening ways? Do our hearts really have to be broken?<br />
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The Polish family who yesterday handed their Torah beck to the jews provides an interesting illustration of how hard it is to get out of a long established pattern, and how we can help each other do that.<br />
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Recently found polish torah: <br />
Two University of Warsaw students, Joanna Kopacka and Bartek Krzyżewski are coordinators of the Matzeva Project. As part of the team’s tactics, they go door-to-door asking residents if they have or know where there are gravestones in small Polish towns such as this northern village called Filipów.<br />
There, an elderly couple in its late 70s was approached. The husband, Kazimierz Wróblewski, a retired shepherd, denied knowledge. But his wife suggested he show the students the Jewish item they did have.<br />
Wróblewski lifted cushions from a couch and revealed a brown-paper wrapped Torah scroll that had been hidden there since 1939 when the Jewish population of approximately 280 was deported and murdered.<br />
The next door neighbors of the Wróblewski family were religious Jews who before deportation had asked his father to keep the Torah scroll safe, for them until they returned home – but that if they did not, to transfer it to another Jew. The couple did not come across many Jews in post-war Poland, and it was only now, in 2014, that they found the right party to transfer the scroll to - Mi'amakim Director Johnny Daniels, who brought the scroll to Israel this week<br />
Wróblewski was ashamed of keeping the scroll and only allowed Daniels’ organization to enter and remove it under wraps, through the back door. His wife, upon learning it would be taken to Israel, said she strongly supports the country and asked the organization to send her earth from the Holy Land.<br />
The scroll’s condition is dire: Half of the Torah was used by the family over the past 70 years as rags, including as insoles for shoes. The Wroblewski family denied knowing that it was a sacred book. (Adapted from the Times of Israel)<br />
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I have a hard time believing they really didn’t know it was a sacred book. Why were they ashamed of keeping the scroll, asked organization to take it out through the back door? Why didn’t they find somewhere to donate the scroll after the war, write a letter? If they had this scroll in their couch for 70 years, did it never occur to them to contact someone?<br />
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My guess is: They were probably ashamed that they had not done anything with it, and the longer they kept it, the stronger their shame, and the harder it was to overcome that shame and do anything about it.<br />
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We become sunk in our patterns, and the deeper we become sunk, the harder to extricate ourselves. <br />
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Rambam writes about Pharoah (Hilchot Teshuvah 6:3) that:<br />
“it is possible for someone to commit so heinous a sin or so many sins of his own volition and free will that the True Judge would rule that the only fitting punishment would be to withhold teshuvah from him, and not to grant him permission to do teshuvah”<br />
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The way I understand this is that our patterns can get so ingrained, it becomes impossible to get out of them, like a gutterball in a bowling alley: when you roll a bowling ball, it can wobble from side to side, but once the bowling ball is in the gutter, it just can’t get out.<br />
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There’s another story from the Ba’al Shem Tov, also about doing escaping a deeply engrained habit.<br />
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“The storytelling yid” (shlomo’s stories 3-11)<br />
When Baal Shem tov died, assigned jobs to students<br />
Reb Yankele: go around world telling stories about BeSht. <br />
How long do I need to leave home?<br />
You will know when your job is done<br />
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Sienna Italy: heard of rich man who paid 50 lira for every story about BeSht!<br />
Yankele: great! I know thousands! This is it, now I’ll be able to retire<br />
Goes to the yid, yid pleased, invites him for shabbes<br />
Every meal: yankele can’t remember any stories<br />
Havdalah: yankele apologizes, yid gives him a few hundred liras & says goodbye<br />
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Sunday morning, on his way out, yankele remembers a story, writes it down<br />
Goes to yid, tells him the story<br />
Story: besht travelled to city with terribly despotic bishop who had a plan to incite everyone to kill the jews<br />
Before bishop’s speech, besht summons bishop[ to an audience<br />
Bishop spends a few hours with besht, buishop leaves in tears, doesn’t give the speech<br />
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Yid: do you recognize me?<br />
I was the bishop, <br />
I was a poor jew, converted to Christianity to improve my lot<br />
had to prove myself as a Christian by being as murderous as possible<br />
I asked teshuvah to davven for me in heaven<br />
Besht told me: teshuvah accepted when someone comes & tells you today’s story<br />
Shabbes: you forgot stories—I realized my teshuvah hadn’t been accepted!<br />
All last night I cried, totally broken hearted<br />
Now I know my teshuvah has been accepted <br />
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How do we do teshuvah for such profoundly ingrained sin?<br />
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Baal Shem tov: regret must be as deep as the pain we caused<br />
“there is one key that opens all locks: a hammer. A broken heart opens all the gates of heaven.”<br />
Rambam HT 1:5: publically declare your teshuvah: “Anybody who is too proud and doesn’t publicize his sin but covers up their sin has not completely repented”<br />
This is why pharaoh couldn’t do teshuvah—never really regretted<br />
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But the polish torah situation offers a different model of teshuvah<br />
Teshuvah by sweeping things under the rug, or ushering them out the back door<br />
They were too embarrassed to come out & do the right thing with the torah<br />
Not so bad to open the door to teshuvah, letting them come right by taking it out through the back door,<br />
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I think this isn’t such a bad model: do we have to have our past rubbed in our faces? Can’t that hurt rather than help? It seems to me that we don’t respond well to having our past rubbed in our faces; it can be more effective as a gentle process. It also seems to me that perhaps the need to have a broken heart becomes an impediment to teshuvah.<br />
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Can we make teshuvah easier on ourselves?<br />
Can we correct patterns that are so ingrained, we don’t see a way out?<br />
Can we correct patterns of hurting others, that if we admitted it would be so overwhelmingly embarrassing, we can’t admit it to ourselves.<br />
Can we put aside our pride and admit where we have hurt others.<br />
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Can we make teshuvah easier on each other?<br />
When somebody hurts us, do we demand a broken heart, or can we let them make it better, can we help them make it better?<br />
Rabbi David Siffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11350682393490310539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4737246937921658043.post-11321801240820259682014-08-29T08:16:00.002-07:002014-08-31T17:19:20.935-07:00Uzis and 9 year olds Hearing about Charles Vacca, the firing range instructor in Arizona who put an uzzi into the hands of a nine year old girl (who had never held one before) and set it to automatic, with predictable results, I wonder what a nine year old was doing firing a gun in the first place. In some parts of our society, guns are approached as toys: and if you don’t get to fire one off you’ve missed out on one of life’s great experiences. Yes, gun safety is taken seriously (in general), but there really is no reason for a child to be firing a gun. The 2nd amendment, which gun rights advocates always quote, has to do with the necessity of having a militia: what is now the Reserves, or the equivalent of volunteer firefighters, especially when there isn’t much of a standing army. <br />
The glorification of guns and violence also is in our movies and videogames. Is it really okay for children to play with toy guns? Are we sure that doesn’t send them a message about the acceptability of violence, and of using power to resolve conflicts? Why is it okay for a child, or even adult, to engage in the fantasy of killing and murdering, in a video game? How can this not be harmful to our neshamas, our souls?<br />
The Talmud has a discussion about carrying swords on Shabbat. Apparently, at the time of the discussion, people liked to wear ceremonial swords. If they can be considered a garment or ornament, then you are wearing, not carrying, so you can go out with it on Shabbat. If it is something you carry, an implement that is not part of an outfit, then you can’t carry it oon Shabbat. The gemara concludes that it is not an ornament, but rather a disgraceful thing (Shabbat 63a).<br />
We need to teach this distaste for guns and violence to our children. Yes, sometimes they are necessary, sometimes we do have to put on uniforms and defend ourselves, but even then we are saddened by being turned into killers. Guns are never glorious.<br />
May Mr. Vacca's family, as well as the little girl who he gave the uzzi to, and the families of all those who have lost loved ones to gun violence, be comforted.<br />
Rabbi David Siffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11350682393490310539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4737246937921658043.post-86442121693353989022014-08-15T10:58:00.003-07:002014-08-15T11:04:20.966-07:00Jewish Wisdom and DepressionRobin Williams & depression<br />
<br />
Shocked to learn of robin william’s death<br />
Brought so much joy<br />
I think of “mrs doubtfire,” a truly harmless character,<br />
father who just wanted to see his children<br />
he was a father, and also a giving person, who once spent the day with a girl dying of cancer<br />
hard to believe he was depressed<br />
<br />
turns out: manic depressive,<br />
alcohol, which people often use to self-medicate mental illness<br />
he was an overworker, which can also be a way of avoiding the perceived pain of one’s life<br />
perhaps even comedy was a way of coping with depression—<br />
comics often have mental illness<br />
Robin Williams himself said comedy was a depress against fears.<br />
reminiscent of the greek god Dionysus, who had 2 faces, one crying and one laughing<br />
Dionysus was the god of wine, which can bring both laughter and tragedy<br />
Reflects also the two extremes of human experience<br />
<br />
It turns out: there are scientific studies claiming that religion can help with depression<br />
Not talking about extreme depression, which may be a different ballgame<br />
One study out of Columbia u followed a group for 10 years, and divided them between children of depressed and non-depressed parents. It turned out that the students who reported that “religion or spirituality was highly important to them had about one-fourth the risk of experiencing major depression between years 10 and 20 compared with other participants.” But [I have to be totally honest here] it Bible-thumping church goers who had this reduced risk. Neither the amount of attendance to religious services, nor the specific religious identity, predicted the outcome. The protection against depression was strongest in children of depressed parents.<br />
Another study out of Wayne State University has demonstrated that even people suffering from traumatic brain injuries have been helped specifically by their faith. A definite correlation exists between those who are self-reported as having religious beliefs or seeing themselves as Spiritual (a connection to a Higher Power) and better emotional and physical rehabilitation outcomes!<br />
A third study out of Columbia and published in JAMA Psychiatry claimed that regular spiritual practice thickens the brain cortex!<br />
Admittedly, there are also studies claiming it does not help. A british study in “psychological medicine” actually claims that being religious predisposes people toward major depression!<br />
Why might religion help?<br />
Michael Govan has suggested:<br />
God is seen as a power to get us out of depression when we can’t<br />
Religion brings us into community, so we are no longer isolated<br />
People are inspired by sacred texts about heroes overcoming obstacles<br />
<br />
This morning: is there specific jewish wisdom that can help us when we’re depressed?<br />
1. Positive sense of who I am, which the daily prayers are designed to reinforce<br />
a. The belief that I am perfect exactly how god has made me, I am a pure soul <br />
b. I have a mission<br />
i. To face challenges I encounter. Every day is a spiritual test. <br />
c. Gratitude for exactly what I have been given, belief I have been given the right things to accomplish that task, and a sense of pride in that task<br />
Tanya ch 31: Paradoxically then, depression contains the key to its own demise. It can be fought in Kung Fu fashion, using its own power against it. Depression argues that you’re a worthless, hopeless scum in whom nobody would ever take interest. So agree with it. Tell it back, “You’re absolutely right. I’m even less than that. I was created with a purpose that I have not lived up to. I’ve messed up again and again. And yet, nevertheless, I have a G d who has put up with me despite all my failures, who continues to ask me to be His agent in His world, eagerly awaiting my mitzvahs, looking forward to me sharing my concerns with Him three times a day. My purpose still lies before me, and whatever of it I can fulfill, even for a moment, is worth more than all the pleasures of the Garden of Eden.”<br />
There is a tale about the Chabad rebbe:<br />
The Rebbe looked at the young man standing before him and said, “A Jew has to serve G d with happiness!”<br />
The young man replied, “Rebbe, what is there for me to be celebrate?”<br />
“Celebrate about the mitzvahs that you do!”<br />
The young man paused. “Rebbe, I haven’t done any mitzvahs for a long time.”<br />
“Then celebrate that you have a G d who waits every moment for your mitzvahs!”<br />
Against such an argument, depression has nothing left to say. We call this “transforming darkness to light.” When light pushes away darkness, darkness only waits in the corners for its time to return. But when the darkness itself is transformed to light, it is a light that no darkness can oppose.<br />
d. Daily prayer reinforces this identity<br />
i. Elohai neshamah: my soul is pure, I can feel good about myself. I am beautiful and holy at my core<br />
ii. Birkot hashachar: gratitude for everything I’ve been given<br />
iii. Shema: reminds me that I work for god, and my task today is to find the opportunities to “love god when I walk on the way and when I sit at home”—i.e. to bring holiness and repair into every moment<br />
iv. Amida & aleynu remind me that my mission is to bring repair to the world. <br />
1. “rebuild Jerusalem”-may I be instrumental in bringing messianic repair<br />
2. Aleynu: letaken olam<br />
v. In the amida: we pray honen hada’at—may every encounter teach me how to serve you<br />
vi. The very act of davenning is starting my day serving god, and feeling good about serving god<br />
<br />
<br />
Conclusion: As a practice, always be enthusiastic. <br />
1st line of shulchan aruch: yitgaber c’ari; value of zerizut-enthusiasm. <br />
talmud: ein omdim- we can’t serve god out of sadness, <br />
so we try to do every mitzvah with enthusiasm<br />
from the moment we get up until we go to bed, we should be enthusiastic about fulfilling our mission for the day<br />
<br />
I knew a shaliach tzibbur, who sometimes when there was no minyan would start davenning by saying “we have no choice, we must davven”. <br />
What a depressing way to approach god! <br />
Zerizut, enthusiasm, is to say, great, now we can commune with our maker!<br />
<br />
Hasidim: depression is a bad yetzer taking me away from serving god—<br />
Sefer Tanya ch 26: “ every mitzvah must be done with joy, every prayer with song and every word of Torah studied with enthusiasm—not just because without that joyful enthusiasm, you are simply not there within that mitzvah, but because without joy, the Jew lives in a precarious state. “Because you didn’t serve G d your G d with joy and a good heart…and so you will serve your enemies.” Meaning: When a Jew acts as a Jew but with a heavy heart, he is fair game for the enemy within—the urges and passions of his animal soul.”<br />
We need to ignore it<br />
<br />
Rebbe Nahman (who some claim was bipolar)): Mitzvah gedolah lihyot besimha tamid<br />
use niggunim, jokes, anything, even pretending to be happy<br />
so we have the energy to bring healing into the world and to serve those around us.<br />
<br />
Rabbi David Siffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11350682393490310539noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4737246937921658043.post-79315338563613771882014-08-07T09:03:00.000-07:002014-08-07T09:10:26.612-07:00Va'etchanan: Loving God in today's worldEverybody knows that the heilige Rav Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev and Rav Baruch of Medzhibozh were the very opposites of each other. Reb Baruch was very civilized. When he davened, he barely moved. When he sat with his family at the Shabbes table, he was so regal he was the king of the world. <br />
But when Rav Levi Yitzhak prayed, he jumped from one end of the room to another. He would dance, turn around, fall to the ground. At his table, one had to be very careful. You never knew what to expect. In the middle of kiddush, he could go absolutely wild, take the wine bottle, pour it up, pour it down, throw the cup into the air. <br />
Reb Levi Yitzhak wanted so much to spend a Shabbes with Rav Baruch, the Baal Shem Tov's grandson, that he finally invited himself. <br />
Rav Baruch said: "You can come, but you have to behave my way. Especially at the table, with my family, you must be very proper." <br />
Reb Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev thought about it. "The only way I can behave is if I don't open my mouth. I won't even pray, except to say 'Amen,' because the minute I daven, I'm no longer myself." <br />
So he said to Reb Baruch: "When we're making kiddush, don't ask me to say a blessing. Let me be absolutely silent, because it's the only way I can control myself." <br />
The two rebbes agreed. Reb Levi Yitzhak came for Shabbes. They davened and he only answered "Amen." The praying went beautifully. Everybody was sure that by kiddush, Reb Levi Yitzhak would start jumping on the table. But, no, Reb Baruch made kiddush and Rav Levi Yitzhak only said "Amen." <br />
Everybody knows that it's a minhag, a custom on Friday night, to eat sweet fish and sour fish. The deepest question in the world, and a big controversy among the rebbes, was which fish to eat first. Some said sweet fish, because then you have the strength to bear the sour. Others said: "Let's get the sour fish out of the way, so that the end will be sweet." <br />
But both ways are holy. <br />
Rav Baruch was civilized. He had a little hasid, like a waiter, bring the fish on a platter and ask each person which he preferred to eat first - sour fish or sweet. So the waiter came, sadly enough, to Reb Levi Yitzhak and asked, "Do you like sweet fish? Hostu lieb zisseh fisch" <br />
That's all the poor hasid had to ask. Rav Levi Yitzhak said: "Hob ich lieb fisch? Do I love sweet fish? Ich hob lieb nor hashem! I love only God!" <br />
And he took the whole platter of fish and threw it up to the ceiling. And the fish began to drip onto Rav Baruch's tallit, because in those days the big rebbes always wore their prayer shawls for the feast on Friday night. <br />
Everyone was aghast. Everyone, that is, except Rav Baruch who, for all his civilized behavior, would never wash his tallit after that feast because, he said, the stains were very holy. "These stains are caused by a Jew who really loves God. How can I wash them out?" <br />
After Rav Baruch's death, the tallit was passed from one rebbe to another to wear on Shabbes, but never washed. During this century it became so precious that the rebbes only wore it for Yom Kippur. The holy Munkatcher Rebbe, the last to possess it, wore it only for Neilah, the final prayer of Yom Kippur. He must have foreseen the destruction that would be coming into the world with the Holocaust. For the holy Munkatcher's last will was to be buried in Rav Baruch's tallit, covered with the stains caused by one who loved only God. (as told by R Shlomo Carlebach)<br />
<br />
What does love of god look like for us?<br />
Are we really commanded “veahafta et adonai,” to love god, to have a particular emotion?<br />
What is we don’t feel it?<br />
Do we even want to feel it?<br />
<br />
“loving god” as an ideal is very challenging<br />
In a world where fanatics claim to be focused on divine<br />
But use this as an excuse for killing and hatred<br />
<br />
So Many of us don’t think of God as a person we would be in love with<br />
And if god is a person, we think of god as a parent or ruler<br />
<br />
One way many people tone it down: “love” as service<br />
If I love you, do nice things for you<br />
Veahafta leads into “vehaya im shamoa”—leads to action<br />
Useless to love god is we don’t serve god<br />
<br />
If I love someone, always thinking about making them happy<br />
Most important value in my life<br />
<br />
This is very dry<br />
Is this really loving god?<br />
<br />
But what can loving god be for us in today’s world?<br />
<br />
One aspect: yearning to experience divine, spiritual core of everything<br />
we can yearn to see the divine, <br />
to taste god, <br />
to bring god’s presence into our life in a palpable way<br />
<br />
<br />
Story: blessing over apple <br />
Once a man brought his ten year old son to visit R' Aharon HaGadol of Karlin. As they were sitting and talking, Reb Aharon asked for a bowl of apples to be brought in. Reb Aharon and his guests each took an apple, with great intention recited the blessing, ". . .Borei Pri HaEtz. . ", and began to eat.<br />
The boy thought to himself, "What is the difference between me and the Rebbe. He eats apples and also I eat apples. He makes a blessing and so do I. Even I could be the Rebbe someday."<br />
Reb Aharon, attuned as he was to the thoughts of others, felt what the youngster was thinking. "Oh, there is a real difference between us my friend", divulged Reb Aharon. "When you wake up in the morning and look out the window, you see that there is a beautiful apple tree in your yard. You see the juicy, red apples growing on it and right away you can think of nothing else but those apples. You run to wash your hands, get dressed as quickly as possible, bolt out the door and scamper up the tree. You quickly decide which apple is to be your breakfast and open your mouth for the first delicious bite. You almost take that bite until you remember, just in time, that you must make a blessing before eating an apple. So you make the blessing in order to eat."<br />
"When I wake up in the morning", continued Reb Aharon, "it is a different story." "When I wake up and look out the window I see a beautiful apple tree. I think about the wonder of Hashem's creation. I contemplate how this apple tree began as a small seed in the ground, and how it slowly grew year by year until one year it flowered and then apples appeared. I remember to wash my hands before I run outside to take a closer look at this amazing creation. In awe of Hashem and His Creation I want to make a blessing on the apple tree and its fruits. I begin to say the blessing, but then I remember, in order to make a blessing, I need an apple. . .!" (retold at Nishmas.org)<br />
<br />
<br />
Loving god, yearning for god, is to yearn to experience divine energy<br />
What the kabbalists call sheaf, divine abundance which flows through every molecule of the universe<br />
<br />
Also: yearn for a world where that divine energy is palpable<br />
Mishnah: ever since shekhinah exiled, sky changed color, fruit lost its flavor<br />
We can no longer simply taste the divine<br />
We have to look for it, yearn for it<br />
<br />
Love of God also comes from appreciating the way god loves us love in our lives<br />
The blessings of food, water, shelter<br />
The love from our family, their presence in our life<br />
The love from our critics, the way they help us grow<br />
All of these are expressions of divine love<br />
<br />
And of course loving god is an action as well, of pouring our energy into taking care of each other & of the world<br />
Mother Theresa: In loving one another through our works we bring an increase of grace and a growth in divine love<br />
<br />
May we discover divine love in our lives<br />
May we become fountains of divine love<br />
<br />
<br />
Rabbi David Siffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11350682393490310539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4737246937921658043.post-81466486903268058732014-08-06T04:59:00.000-07:002014-08-06T04:59:05.097-07:00Tisha B'Av: Holding ourselves up to a higher standardHolding ourselves up to a higher standard<br />
Talmud: he who doesn't see temple rebuilt, as if destroyed in his lifetime<br />
we are meant to spend tisha b'av asking: what are we doing to delay the redemption?<br />
what do we do now that causes temple not to be rebuilt<br />
<br />
Opposite of blame game: always blame ourselves<br />
Is this blaming the victim?<br />
No: more productive to always grow<br />
<br />
This year, with the war in Israel, Eicha resonates deeply with the destruction happening there<br />
Thank God, not as many civilian casualties as when the romans destroyed jerusalem<br />
But the fire of the rockets reminds me of the fire in the temple in roman times<br />
fires now all across Israel<br />
<br />
It is easy to point the finger at hamas and at the civilian population in Gaza<br />
a terrorist organization dedicated to destroying Israel<br />
spent on order of millions of dollars each tunnel instead of building infrastructure<br />
sacrificed 160 children building them<br />
civilians too:<br />
gazans teach children right of return instead of building gaza<br />
elected Hamas & happy to martyr civilians for its jihad<br />
and publically we need to do this—to speak up for Israel<br />
<br />
It's easy to say, we already hold ourself to too high a standard<br />
roof knocks & leaflets when there are civilians in the way<br />
actually investigate whether a target was accidental, fesses up when it makes a mistake<br />
providing electricity to Gaza<br />
Offering to provide blood to injured citizens (which Gaza turned down)--whether jewish or palestinian blood<br />
<br />
Painful that the world holds Israel up to a higher standard<br />
to a standard apparently: shouldn't fight back when threatened<br />
and our response to the world is to say that we need to protect ourselves<br />
<br />
The challenge of this teaching: what more can we do to promote peace in Israel?<br />
What more can we do to promote peace between jews and palestinians, and all muslims?<br />
What more can we do to help the palestinians build a viable state?<br />
What more can we do to protect and save the lives of civilians?<br />
What ways can we treat each other better, erase traces of sinat hinam, create jewish unity?<br />
Can we reach out here to muslims we know, to create understanding, friendship, the seeds of peace?<br />
Never to blame, only to constantly improve ourselves<br />
Rabbi David Siffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11350682393490310539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4737246937921658043.post-34338326240346596522014-08-05T07:23:00.002-07:002014-08-05T07:23:10.625-07:00Devarim: what is our vision for the third temple?It’s been quite a week<br />
uncovered Hamas plans to send 200 miltants into Israel on Rosh hashanah<br />
to kill/kidnap civilians<br />
we collectively have been saved from a contemporary Haman<br />
<br />
ninth day of the month of Av (“Tisha B’Av”) coming up Monday night<br />
Both the first Temple (833–423 BCE) and the second Temple (349 BCE–69 CE) were destroyed on this date.<br />
How sadly apt now that we are in this terrible war<br />
Shabbat preceding tisha b'av: “Shabbat of Vision,” for on this Shabbat we read a chapter from the Prophets (Isaiah 1:1–27) that begins, “The vision of Isaiah .”<br />
Isaiah's vision but also our own.<br />
Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev: the vision is our own. <br />
each and every one of us is granted a vision of the third and final Temple<br />
paraphrases the Talmud, “though we do not ourselves see, our souls see.”<br />
even if we are not consciously aware of the cause of our sudden inspiration.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Our souls behold a vision of a world at peace with itself and its Creator, a world suffused with the knowledge and awareness of G d, a world that has realized its divine potential for goodness and perfection.<br />
a vision that inspires us to correct our behavior and hasten the day when the spiritual vision becomes physical reality. <br />
<br />
Now, with such violence in Israel<br />
hard to imagine such a vision<br />
of peace in israel, between Jews and Arabs,<br />
a peace which inspires the world to live in peace<br />
<br />
Reb Arthur Waskow's vision:<br />
our sages teach us that when Mashiach comes, he will rebuild the Holy Temple in the twinkling of an eye. But often have I wondered: How can this be? Mashiach will be extraordinary, yet still a human being merely …<br />
<br />
“But now! I have seen … Well, let me tell you: At the foot of the Western Wall, the Wall where God’s Own Presence weeps and hides in exile, I have seen hundreds of thousands of Jews gathered, singing.<br />
<br />
“Mashiach has come! — — and they are singing, dancing, as the Great Day dawns. Women, men, together — — I could not believe it! I was not even sure” — — he glanced apologetic at his Chassid — “whether Mashiach was a wo … well, forget it.<br />
<br />
“I can see from the sun, the heat, it is late afternoon. Yet the crowd are wearing t’fillin. The only time in all the year when Jews wear t’fillin in the afternoon is Tisha B’Av, so I can see that it is the day of mourning for our beloved Temple. But there are no signs of mourning — — except perhaps the way, the wistful way, Mashiach reaches out to touch the Wall, to tuck one last petition between the great carved stones.<br />
<br />
“I see Mashiach speak a sentence to the crowds. I cannot hear the words, but I can see that from this voice there stirs a river. Like water from the ancient stones of Wall, I see a stream of Jews flow up the stairway that rises to the Temple Mount.<br />
<br />
“The river of people pauses on the steps. They cluster ‘round a wrinkled, tattered piece of paper, posted above the stairway. I see it is signed by the rabbis of that day. It warns all Jews to go no further, lest by accident they walk — — God forbid! — — into the space set aside as the Holy of Holies.<br />
<br />
“Mashiach reads. And laughs. And tears the sign to shreds. The stream of people shudders — — higher, higher.<br />
<br />
“The crowd cascades from the stairway onto the great stone pavement of the Temple Mount. Their singing turns to the thunder of a great waterfall. They look toward the other end of the Mount — toward the great golden Dome of the Rock where Abraham bound his son for sacrifice.<br />
<br />
“Surrounding the Dome are thousands of these children of Ishmael, these Muslims. They are not singing. They are shouting, furious, stubborn. ‘Not here!’ they shout in unison, ‘Not here!’<br />
<br />
“ ‘You will not tear down our Holy Mosque to build your Jewish Temple!’<br />
<br />
“But I can hear the crowd of Jews — — muttering, whispering, ‘Right there, yes! — — That is the place… No doubt, no doubt, the ancient studies tell us that it is the place.’<br />
<br />
“Mashiach is quiet. The sea of Jews falls to a murmuring, falls silent. They turn to watch. Mashiach looks, gazes, embraces with fond eyes the Holy Space. Mashiach’s eyes move across the Dome, its golden glow, the greens and blues and ivories of the walls beneath it.<br />
<br />
I hear a whisper from Mashiach’s lips: ‘So beautiful!’<br />
<br />
“The Muslims too are silent now. The stillness here, the stillness there — — so total that they split the Holy Mount in two.<br />
<br />
“Mashiach raises one arrn, slowly, slowly. The Muslims tense, lift knives and clubs and shake them in the stillness. The Jews tense, ready to leap forward with their picks and shovels.<br />
<br />
“Mashiach points straight at the Dome.<br />
<br />
“The peoples vibrate: two separate phantom ram’s horns in the silent air, wailing forth a silent sob to Heaven.<br />
<br />
“Mashiach speaks quietly into the utter quiet:<br />
<br />
‘This green, this blue, this gold, this Dome — — This is the Holy Temple!’<br />
<br />
“I blink.<br />
<br />
“For seconds, minutes, there is not a sound.<br />
<br />
“Then I hear a Muslim shout, see him raise a knife: ‘No! No! You will not steal our Holy Mosque to make your Jewish Temple!”<br />
<br />
“He throws the knife. It falls far short. No one stirs. The other Muslims turn to look at him. They look with steadfast eyes: no joy, no anger. They just keep looking. He wilts into the crowd; I can no longer see what he is doing.<br />
<br />
”Mashiach steps forward, one step. Everyone, Jew and Muslim. breathes a breath. One Jew calls out: ‘You must not do this. You must not use their dirty place to be our Holy Temple. Tear it down! — — We need our own, the Prophets teach how wide and tall it is to be. It is not this thing of theirs, this thing of curves and circles.<br />
<br />
“He takes a step toward Mashiach, lifts an axe to brandish it.<br />
<br />
“The man beside him reaches out a hand and takes the axe. Just takes it. There is a murmur. but the murmur dies. The man holds the axe level in both hands, walks out with it into the no- man’s land between the crowds. He lays it on the pavement next to the Muslim knife, he backs away.<br />
<br />
“There is another time of quiet. Two Muslims reach out from the crowd, toss their knives to land next to the axe. The pause is shorter this time. Then on every side weapons come flying through the air to land beside the axe, beside the knives. There is a pile. Somehow — I could not see how — there lights a fire. The pile begins to burn. The flames reach up and up and up - — to Heaven.<br />
<br />
The weapons are the burnt offering<br />
<br />
the beit hamikdash, holy temple<br />
is not a building<br />
but the space between them, sanctified by the flames of their burnt offering<br />
Rabbi David Siffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11350682393490310539noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4737246937921658043.post-53083642710712583212014-07-15T08:57:00.002-07:002014-07-15T08:57:33.580-07:00Praying for Peace in jerusalem on the 17th of TammuzDear Friends,<br />
<br />
I am excited to be preparing to start at Northern Hills Synagogue as the rabbi. I am in town, and am looking forward to getting to know all of you.<br />
<br />
I am writing because today is the 17th of Tammuz, an ancient fast day dating back over two thousand years. Mentioned by the prophet Zecharayah around 518 BCE, it commemorates numerous tragedies, including the breach of the walls of Jerusalem by the Romans which led to the destruction of the Temple on the 9th of Av. Today is thus the beginning of the “three week” period.<br />
<br />
According to the Talmud, the 17th of Tammuz is a minor fast day, and will in fact be abrogated when Jerusalem is at peace:<br />
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Rav Hanna bar Bizna said in the name of Rabbi Shimon Hasida: What is meant by the verse (Zekhariah 8:19): "Thus said the Lord of Hosts: The fast of the fourth month, and the fast of the fifth month, the fast of the seventh month, and the fast of the tenth month shall become occasions for joy and gladness for the House of Judah." - It is called "fast" and it is called "joy and gladness" - when there is peace, they shall be days of "joy and gladness", when there is no peace, they shall be a "fast" (Rosh Hashanah 18b)<br />
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This year, as Jerusalem and the rest of Israel face constant bombardment from rockets (over 500 so far), and 40,000 reservists have been called up for a looming ground war, the passage is particularly poignant and can add meaning to our observance of the day. <br />
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Please join with me in praying for peace in Jerusalem, Israel, and on earth on this day, and considering how we can contribute to peace in our sacred homeland and in our own lives.<br />
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B’shalom,<br />
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Rabbi David B. Siff<br />
Rabbi David Siffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11350682393490310539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4737246937921658043.post-15045357122928070622014-03-24T03:04:00.000-07:002014-03-24T03:04:19.004-07:00Aaron's silent screamAaron’s silence<br />
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This week, I think we all were stunned by the disappearance of a Boeing 777 with 269 passengers onboard. After the pilots turned off their location radar, and saying goodnight, the plane flew off in silence through the night. It is an eerie silence, an absent cry, a mystery begging to be solved.<br />
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Scene: aaron’s silence<br />
In this week’s Torah portion, Shemini, Aaron’s silence too confounds us. The Tabernacle just inaugurated, divine fire had miraculously issued from inside the Tent of Meeting to consume Aaron's burnt offering on the altar, and then Nadav and Avihu, Aaron's two elder sons, mess up. Maybe they were disrespectful, maybe they were drunk, it is unclear.<br />
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This time the fire came from the tent and burned them, turning triumph to tragedy. Moses’ response was sharp, and it’s unclear what he meant: “that’s what God said he’d do”—was he trying to be comforting? Waqs he being an “I told you so?” Aaron's response was silence: "VaYidom Aaharon"—one of the only instances where Torah says someone stayed silent. <br />
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Did he stop crying?<br />
Did he stop himself from replying?<br />
What did he want to say?<br />
Why the silence? Why no scream?<br />
Aaron’s response is striking. Personally, I find it troubling: is it really better to be stoic in the face of tragedy, to swallow my sorrow and put on a cheerful face, not to make even a whimper?<br />
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When David's vain and rebellious son, Absalom, who rebelled against his own father, was killed in flight, his father fully vented his grief: "My son Absalom! O my son, my son Absalom. If only I had died instead of you!" (2 Samuel 19:1). <br />
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We are taught in Leviticus, that we shall not stand by while our neighbor bleeds. While we might be inclined to respond to someone else’s suffering with silence, we are commanded to expose, to speak out and not be indifferent to unjust suffering. <br />
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In fact, the Zohar blames Noah for the flood, because when he was told about the divine decree to wipe out everyone else, he didn’t argue with God. As a result, the flood is called mei Noah, the waters of Noah, because when I keep silent, when I do not protest, I am responsible for what happens. I am accountable for keeping silent.<br />
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Abraham Joshua Heschel describes the prophet’s job as follows:<br />
The prophet faces a coalition of callousness and established authority, and undertakes to stop a mighty stream with mere words. Had the purpose been to express great ideas, prophecy would have had to be acclaimed as a triumph. Yet the purpose of prophecy was to conquer callousness, to change the inner heart as well as to revolutionize history.<br />
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Sometimes our voices must be raised like the prophets’, to speak out against injustice, to take out from anonymity the falsehoods and crimes perpetrated in our society. <br />
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And psychologically it is extremely dangerous not to speak out after tragedy, to let grief fester inside of us. When we speak we process feelings, we make extreme intolerable feelings more tolerable, we can integrate our experience and move on. This is I think why we have a tradition of shiva, of a mourner sitting for a week surrounded by friends and family who allow the mourner to speak. It is by talking about our loved ones, processing our loss, that we can move on. <br />
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We see this now with many returning veterans, who cannot talk openly about the horrors they have witnessed, and who constantly relive those war experiences in their imagination, in their dreams. And the treatment for them is to make their memories more tolerable to enable them to speak about their experiences without reliving the trauma. In this case, that which is silent must be articulated, or it will destroy us.<br />
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Silence as positive<br />
I have talked up to now about the power, the value, of us speaking out, and our need for the world to speak out for God to speak out. But in our parsha, Aaron is silent, which I find very troubling. <br />
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The midrash sees Aaron’s silence as a positive thing. God speaks to Aaron after his silence directly, rather than through or with Moses, as a reward for that silence. <br />
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3 types of silence<br />
1. There is the silence of the unknown, of the absent voice<br />
This is the silence of the missing flight 370, a boeing 777 with 269 people<br />
Where are they?<br />
How can their families grieve and move on not knowing what’s happened to them?<br />
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This kind of silence begs to be articulated, it points to a mystery begging to be solved, of unspoken suffering begging to be recognized<br />
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Elie Wiesel, who broke the silence of Holocaust survivors and his own 10-year vow of silence, when he wrote Night, said: <br />
I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.<br />
The original version of Night was a 900-page memoir entitled Un die welt hot geshvign (And the world kept silent). This is a silence begging to be given voice.<br />
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2. Silence of the unspeakable<br />
There are also times when we hold ourselves back because what we say would be hurtful, or because we know we wouldn’t be heard<br />
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Shimon & Levi’s massacre in shechem<br />
Jacob confronts them: 'You have brought trouble on me by making me odious to the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites and the Perizzites; my numbers are few, and if they gather themselves against me and attack me, I shall be destroyed, both I and my household.' <br />
But they said (Genesis 34:31), 'Should he treat our sister as a harlot?<br />
Jacob was silent—but not because he agreed with them<br />
On his deathbed, finally speaks up: <br />
Simeon and Levi are brothers; <br />
Instruments of cruelty are in their dwelling place.<br />
Let not my soul enter their council; <br />
Let not my honor be united to their assembly; <br />
For in their anger they slew a man, <br />
And in their self-will they hamstrung an ox.<br />
Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce; <br />
And their wrath, for it is cruel! <br />
I will divide them in Jacob <br />
And scatter them in Israel<br />
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When Jacob was silent, it was because he knew they wouldn’t listen. His words would have fallen on deaf ears, so he wisely didn’t bother.<br />
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Sometimes: to speak would be hurtful<br />
Maybe aaron wanted to say “you jerk, what an insensitive thing to say”<br />
Moses’ mistake: speaking first, offering explanation<br />
When we visit a mourner, let them do the talking, we do the listening<br />
Never say things like “it’s for the best,” which true or not are insensitive and unhelpful<br />
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3. The silent scream<br />
3rd type: Silence of the awesome, of that which is beyond language, which defies language<br />
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Ismar Schorsch compared Aaron’s silence to Edvard Munch's painting of 1893, "The Scream.” <br />
“A gaunt figure on a bridge with his face contorted in horror and hands clasped to his ears trembles in the midst of a cosmic scream, suggested by a wavy landscape in deep colors. Munch wrote of the experience that lay behind the art: I walked one evening on a road—on the one side was the town and the fjord below me. I was tired and ill — I stood looking out across the fjord — the sun was setting — the clouds were colored red — like blood — I felt as though a scream went through nature — I thought I heard a scream. I painted this picture — painted the clouds like real blood. The colors were screaming.” (JTS Commentary on Shemini, 5762)<br />
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These silences are not really silences at—they just speak a truth too massive, too powerful to be articulated in human language. <br />
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White fire<br />
One can think of this kind of audible silence as the mystics did of the white fire with which Torah was written. What we naturally see when we peer inside of a Torah scroll is the black forms of letters that form words, and give the meaning of the Torah in human language.<br />
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The midrash says that torah was written with black fire on white fire. Right now when we read torah, we only read from the black. But in the messianic era, the white fire, too, the apparently empty spaces, the silence, will be revealed as Torah. We will encounter the inexpressible, silent torah, embodying a higher level of consciousness, a deeper mode of feeling & experiencing reality. As David Wolpe (In Speech and In Silence) has written, “Even in the silence, there is a message of faith. The paradox is listening for that which cannot be heard.” Psalms says, “to you silence is praise.” There is a type of silence which expresses that which is above expression, that which is awesome—being awe struck, being flooded by the white spaces in reality.<br />
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Perhaps Moses tried to relate to Aaron in words, and fell short, because words could not express what he felt. Perhaps Aaron was so overwhelmed by his emotions that only silence could express the depth of his feelings. And perhaps Moses and the community held him lovingly as he went through that experience.<br />
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Rabbi David Siffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11350682393490310539noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4737246937921658043.post-49627914796792902362014-03-11T03:10:00.000-07:002014-03-11T03:10:13.688-07:00Tetzaveh: The Absence of MosesTetzaveh starts with the word “v’atah,” spoken directly to Moses, the entire parshah is about Moses’ role in appointing the cohanim, and yet Moses is never named. Why is he simply called “you”? Is there something unique about Moses this points to, potentially which we can emulate?<br />
Taanit 9a<br />
R. Johanan further said: Rain may fall even for the sake of an individual but sustenance [is granted] only for the sake of the many…. <br />
An objection was raised: R. Jose the son of R. Judah says: Three good leaders had arisen for Israel, namely. Moses, Aaron and Miriam, and for their sake three good things were conferred [upon Israel], namely, the Well, the Pillar of Cloud and the Manna…the Manna for the merit of Moses…Thus we find that sustenance may be granted for the sake of one individual! — The case of Moses is exceptional; as he prayed on behalf of the many, he himself is regarded as a multitude.<br />
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In other words, Moses developed his sense of self to empathize not only with his narrow personal needs, or his family, but of the entire world. He felt the pain of the world, he davenned on behalf of the world. His sense of self transcended “Moses,” and became a broader consciousness, a shechina consciousness. The Talmud says that when a criminal is executed the Schechinah says “my head hurts”—the divine heart feels, draws together all human pain. Moses identified with this divine heart.<br />
In fact, this is something we are all called to do. The Baal Shem Tov taught that when we davven and say adonai sefatai tiftach, “God, open my lips,” that we allow the shechinah to speak through us. We become a clear vessel for this divine perspective, our concern broadens to encompass all humanity, all the world.<br />
You can compare this to the Buddhist notion of anatman, ‘no-self.’ The idea in buddhism is that since we are always evolving, and we are interdependent, there is no fixed, separate self. I wake up each morning and decide what kind of person to become—mechadesh bechol yom tamid—like God renews each day, I renew myself. And interdependence is the idea that my soul isn’t fully separate from yours—we impact each other, we are shaped by each other. <br />
In Hassidic thought, our souls are like different branches on the same tree—they are intermingled. Kol Yisrael arevim zeh bazeh. There never was really a Moses.<br />
The priestly clothing, too, points to a similar removal of the self. A few interesting facts about the priestly garments:<br />
The cohen without them was considered a “zar” (stranger—non-priest) and could not offer a sacrifice. (Sanh 83a-b) The clothing made the man.<br />
The cohen could not wear his own clothes, only the priestly garments<br />
The high priest did not dress himself (there’s a debate about the pants)<br />
In other words, in his official role, the cohen’s individual self is absent—they are a vessel, helping Jews reach the divine, so they cannot bring their baggage into that function. The clothes also atoned for their sins (Zev 88b):<br />
The Breeches atoned for lewdness, as it is said, "And you shall make them linen breeches to cover the flesh of their nakedness" (Exodus 28:42). The Turban made atonement for arrogance---let an article placed high up come and atone for an offence of hauteur. The Sash atoned for [impure] meditations of the heart, beneath which it was placed. The Breastplate atoned for neglect of civil laws, as it is said, "And you shall make a breastplate of judgment" (Exodus 28:15). The Efod atoned for idolatry, as it is said, "Without efod or teraphim" (Hoseah 3:4). The Cloak atoned for slander---let an article of sound (i.e., the bells on the Cloak's hem) atone for an offence of sound. The Crown, worn on the forehead, atoned for brazenness... as it is written, "Yet you have a harlot's forehead" (Jeremiah 3:3).<br />
We acknowledge these are human beings, serving as leaders, they are imperfect, so we find a way to put their issues to the side, to function selflessly.<br />
The truth is, our sense of who we are is far less important than how we operate in the world—can I put my self aside, and be a vessel for the divine? Like the turkey prince, who is cured by functioning as a prince despite knowing he’s still a turkey (http://breslov.org/rebbe-nachmans-story-the-turkey-prince/), we serve God by putting aside our individual neuroses, our individual desires, and becoming vessels for divine love and divine healing, and in that process finding our truest and deepest Self.<br />
Rabbi David Siffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11350682393490310539noreply@blogger.com0