Rabbi Bruce Dollin

Everyone Has a Gift

2010-05-28T11:52:00.005-06:00

I have been in the shul business now, coming on 24 years. And over these years, it has been my privilege to work with literally hundreds of committed Jews both lay and professional.

More than once, I have noticed a member of the congregation begin an adult education class, or sit on a committee for the first time, looking nervous and downright insecure.

I speak with them after the class or the meeting and I acknowledge their anxiety and I ask them why? The synagogue of all the places in our lives is a warm and accepting place. We welcome everyone and we welcome everyone just the way they are.

And then they enlighten me and remind me that I have to pay closer attention. They say “ Rabbi, I am nervous because I can barely read Hebrew. My Jewish background is not very extensive. I am sure most people in this class or on this committee know more than me. I am so new at all of this. I am an accomplished adult out in the world but I feel like a child when I walk in these doors.”

“I feel like a child when I walk in these doors. How can I, of all people, contribute and make a difference in this place, in this community?”

I think of these good people as I read the parasha this morning. It begins with a description of the Menorah in the Tabernacle. What is the Menorah? It is very simply a candelabra designed to light an inner chamber of the Tabernacle. And we read in the text, “daber el aharon v’amarta elav, behaalotecha et hanerot el mul p’nai hamemora, ya’eru shivat ha nerot.” “Speak to Aaron and say to him, ‘when you kindle the lamps, toward the face of the Menorah, shall the seven lamps cast light.” The lights shine towards the face of the candelabra itself. This seems to imply that light of the menorah somehow shines back on itself. Rashi says that the three branches on the left of the Menorah shine towards the central branch and the three candles on the right shine back to the center as well and according to the Artscroll Chumash, this focus towards the center concentrates all seven candles into perhaps, an intense single beam. I think, “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” the light of God, blinding, brilliant, shining a laser beam that can burn through things. And there is drama here. Divine light exploding into the ritual lives of human beings.

I like this notion inspired by Rashi. It’s interesting. But I find another understanding of the Menorah even more compelling. It is brought to us from the Sefat Emet, a Chasidic scholar, 19th century Poland. He explains the meaning of the Menorah by bringing a midrash from a collection of midrashim called “B’midbar Rabbah.” Art Green translates the passage for us: “A king asked his loving subject to prepare a meal for him. [The subject] did so gladly, but all in his own ordinary vessels. When the king arrived, accompanied by all his retinue and finery, the subject became embarrassed and put all his own things away. When the king asked where the meal was that he had prepared, the loving subject had to admit that he had been ashamed. But the king immediately insisted that all the royal finery be set aside and that they use only that which this devoted subject had prepared for him.”

Sefat Emet then writes, “We see from the story that it was proper for the subject to prepare the meal as he did, even though he saw all the king’s fancy vessels. Despite everything the king already had, the subject had to do his part....”

So this is a very different way of looking at the Menorah. The Menorah is just a utensil like the subject’s serving dishes for the king. The king didn’t care about the dishes, he didn’t even care about the food. He cared about his subject. God is the king in the midrash and God doesn’t care about the Menorah. Does God need the Menorah’s light in the Tabernacle to see what is going on there? Does God even need the Tabernacle; it was just a tent made of animal skins. Inside was a candle holder with seven candles. God’s light wasn’t in there. This was a simple little structures in which were simple little things. It was all that a wandering people in the desert could offer up to their God. One day there would be a glorious Temple in Jerusalem; one of the construction wonders of the world. That was drama. But the Tabernacle wasn’t drama; it was small, it was simple, it was modest. It was the best the people could do. Let me say this another way, “it was the best, the people could do.

And according to Sefat Emet, God was delighted with the gift of the Tabernacle because it was genuine; it was from the heart and soul of the People of Israel. Small gifts matter. Even a slave people wandering in a wasteland, can give a gift worth giving, accepted and beloved of God.

It doesn’t matter who we are. It doesn’t matter what we know. Every human being has something to contribute, no matter how modest they think that contribution may be. I have witnessed some of the most searching and profound questions coming from a brand new student of Torah. I have witnessed some of the most helpful and meaningful contributions to the shul coming from the least experienced committee member. Everyone brings their own personality, their own ideas, and their own selves to the community and without each of those gifts; the community would be very much impoverished.

God doesn’t seek brilliance, He seeks the heart. When the first sibling, Abel, brought his gift to God, it consisted of one of his best sheep. But it was only a sheep; what does God care about sheep? But the text implies, because it was the best of Abel’s sheep, God was pleased. Cain just brought some wheat --it wasn’t the best wheat; he probably didn’t think too much about his gift, he probably didn’t really care overmuch about it and God rejected it.

Every one of us has a gift to give to the community. Every one of us has a contribution to make that will make a difference. If given with love, with generosity, with a full heart, no matter what it is, it will be accepted and cherished by this community and by God.

I have always imagined that the Menorah wasn’t important because it shined light upon the utensils in the inner chamber of the Tabernacle. Rather, the Menorah was important because it shined light upon the face of the Priest. It was what the Priest as a human being could bring to God that mattered to God. It is the gift of our best selves that we bring to each other and to the community that matters to God. The question, then, that each of us must ask of him or herself? “What will my gift be?”

Shavuot Yizkor and Humility

2010-05-18T16:53:00.000-06:00

Jerusalem has been in the news lately --building or not building in Ramat Shlomo, a neighborhood in the northeastern part of the city. Jerusalem has never been far from our thoughts. Every day, we face Jerusalem and we pray. After Yom Kippur services and at the end of our Pesach Sedarim, we say, “l’shana habaah b’rushalayim,” next year may we be privileged to be in Jerusalem. Events in Jerusalem thousands of miles away from Denver often touch us as if they happened in our back yard.

Since King David founded the city for the Jewish people 3000 years ago, Jerusalem has been our holy city, our center, our spiritual home.

So I ask you a perplexing question. If Jerusalem is so central to our religious and spiritual existence, than why do we read in Torah, that of all the places in the world, the Torah was given to the Jewish people not in Jerusalem, but rather on top of some unknown mountain in the middle of the desert: called Mt. Sinai?

Is there anything more important than our Holy Torah? It is the word of God revealed to his chosen people. It is our guide, our moral anchor; it is what has distinguished us from the other nations of the world. It has given the Jewish people its identity.

The Torah is the central religious text of our people; why wasn’t it given on Mt. Zion? Why didn’t god’s revelation occur in the holy city of Jerusalem?

The rabbis of the Talmud were also perplexed about this. There are Midrashim that say that Mt. Zion in Jerusalem and Mt. Sinai in the desert were once joined together as one and when they split, the one became the site of the revelation and the other the site of the Holy Temple.

But that Midrash just begs the question. Why did they split? Why did the central religious event in our history not take place in the physical center of our religious world?

There is another Midrash that I think is more to the point. Rabbi Yose Hagalili and Rabbi Akiva were discussing just this issue. And they said that when God was about to reveal the torah, all the mountains of the world began to position themselves to receive the law. They argued for their position. Two in particular, Mt. Tabor and Mt. Carmel both called out to God, “ the torah shall be revealed on me,” and the other, “the torah shall be revealed on me.”

God looked at both mountains and said, “indeed, you are both great mountains, high and grand, but on both of you the pagans of the world have practiced idolatry, you are not fit.”

The Midrash goes on with another interpretation. It says in the Proverbs, “a man’s pride will bring him low.” The Midrash attributes this verse to Mt. Tabor and to Mt. Carmel which came from the ends of the earth boastfully proclaiming, “we are high and the Holy One, blessed be He, will give the Torah on us.” But the verse, “he who is of lowly spirit, shall attain great honor,’ and the Rabbis attribute this verse to Sinai which humbled itself by saying, “I am a low mountain, alone in the desert.” So God placed his glory upon Mt. Sinai and the Torah was given thereon so that the mountain was privileged to attain to all that honor.

Now this Midrash teaches us something all together new; that it was irrelevant to God, where exactly His revelation would take place. The mountain top where God and Moses met did not need to be the highest or the grandest. In fact, God chose a lowly mountain which sat in a wasteland. Nothing could have been less grand, or more remote.

And I think that that is the specific point the Torah is trying to make. There is nothing grand in appearance about the Torah. It is a book. It’s words on a scroll. It was given in a desert, on a lowly mountain. No one but the people of Israel saw this happen, not the Egyptians or the Amalekites or the Moabites or the Babylonians. Sinai was hidden away in a place that was uninhabitable. Nobody cared about Mt. Sinai or the Sinai desert: it was a wasteland.

From outer appearances, there wasn’t much to see on top of Mt Sinai. There was some thunder and lightning at the time of revelation, nothing terribly miraculous, though. Cecil B. Demille had to make up a whole dramatic scene for this event because there is precious little drama described in the Torah.

God was simply not concerned here with outer appearances. The Egyptians made big deal pyramids, great buildings to show their greatness to the world. Not the Jews. Their formative religious event happened in the desert, the drama kept to a minimum and no one saw what was happening in any case.

To look at the Torah, a person is not so impressed. To be impressed, you must look within the Torah. For what is within, changed the course of human history.

The Jews have always been the smallest, the least dramatic, and from outer appearances, the least impressive people in the history of mankind. But we have survived and thrived longer than any other people in the history of mankind.

For what is great about the Jewish people cannot be seen with the naked eye: what is great about our people is our inner character, our souls, our commitment to a God that also cannot be seen.

I bring all this up today, in particular, because today, the second day of Shavuot, we not only recall the revelation of the Torah at Sinai, but we also remember during Yizkor, those who we loved who are no longer with us.

And if you are like me, what we remember of our loved ones was not their public persona, it wasn’t their appearance: how they looked to other people. What we remember of them what was most important about them to us: was the person they were; their inner character, their souls.

One of my wisest teachers in rabbinical school once said to me: it isn’t what you know, it isn’t how you look, that ultimately counts in this life. But rather, it is who you are. Who you really are. It isn’t the physical appearance that everyone sees, or the talk and the persona that you present to the world. It is the soul.

There is a wonderful Hasidic story about the great village rabbi who knew the whole Talmud by heart. He was revered for his teaching, his piety, and his commanding presence. Over the years, legends arose about this rabbi, one in particular that piqued the interest of one of his students. Since this rabbi was mysteriously absent from shul every Yom Kippur mourning, the legend arose that the rabbi would actually ascend to heaven on this morning, and bow at the foot of God to pray for the welfare of the congregation.

But his student, was a skeptic, and he just didn’t believe the legend, so on Kol Nidre, the student hid under the rabbis’s bed to see what would happen to the rabbi in morning.
The morning came, the rabbi arose and put on work clothes and walked into the forest with his axe. The student followed him. . The rabbi walked out into the woods and cut down a tree and began to split the logs into fire wood. He then carried the wood to an old woman’s cottage and brought the wood into her home. The woman cried, “Oh, woodcutter, I have no money to pay you for the logs. And the rabbi said, “you pay me later; you need the wood to stay warm for the coming winter.

Then the rabbi returned home, put on his good cloths and went to shul.

The student was amazed, and never again doubted that the great rabbi, indeed, went to heaven each year on the morning of Yom Kippur.

There is often great beauty that rests deep within the soul and I have no doubt that it is that inner beauty, it is what lies within that makes the difference in a person’s life.

And that is the lesson of Mt. Sinai. Mt. Tabor, Mt. Hermon, Mt. Zion: certainly greater mountains than Sinai. Revelation on these mountains would have been a great show, a wonderful drama, truly impressive for the people of Israel and for the world. But God chose otherwise, because for His people, He knew that their greatness would never be in their numbers, or in their outer appearance, nor in the face they presented to the world. But rather, their greatness would always lie within. Like the Torah, the words and traditions written within, on the soul of our people, is what has transformed the world.

That is true lesson of God’s revelation. And a true lesson of life.

Netzach of Malchut: A Thought for Day 46 of the Counting of the Omer

2010-05-14T12:20:00.000-06:00

You may have been following the counting of the Omer: we do so for 49 days between the second day of Pesach and the first night of Shavuot. The omer connects the two holidays, one to the other. It is as if the two holidays are really one and this is why. Pesach is a holiday of freedom. The Israelites leave the slavery of Egypt to enter the freedom of the desert. But this is not freedom from all obligation, but rather freedom to serve God with all that that entails. On Shavuot, our people received the Torah with its 613 commandments. On Pesach, we celebrate our freedom, on Shavuot, we learn of our responsibilities to God and to each other. Freedom and responsibility: you cannot have one without the other.

During this connecting period of the counting of the Omer, the Jewish mystics envisioned a connection between the seven weeks of counting and the seven lower sefirot which are emanations of God’s holy light that created the world. They would attach two sefirot to each of the forty nine days which gives us insight into the qualities and characteristics of each day from which we can learn something about ourselves.

So tonight begins the forty sixth day of the counting of the omer and the two sefirot attached to this day are called Netzach and Malchut. Netzach is the quality of endurance. Malchut is the quality of dignity. Endurance means never giving up. We cannot achieve anything in life without a dogged can-do attitude. We make mistakes, we change course, but to achieve anything that is important, we need endurance; we have to stay with it, until we get it done. How does this connect with Malchut, human dignity?. Human beings are unique in the animal kingdom because they can imagine a better future and work to make it a reality in the present. Human dignity comes from doing that which is good. And goodness only comes from our patient, consistent and persistent actions. Endurance and dignity flow one from the other.

Tonight and tomorrow as we observe Shabbat we rest, which gives us the time and space to consider how we will make next week better than the last. May God give us the strength to go out and make a positive difference in the world in the week to come.

Bamidbar: Making it Count

2010-05-14T11:09:00.004-06:00

Tammy related to me the following story about her father. As many of you know, her father Rabbi Herbert Morris of blessed memory, served the Jewish community of San Francisco for 43 years. She told me of his daily practice in the morning, looking in the mirror, he’d say to himself, “Nu, Chayim, how will you be a blessing to others today?” Being a blessing to others --and being so every day; a worthy aspiration. Important to think about. I will come back to this in a moment.

We begin the reading of the fourth book of the Torah this morning, the Book of Numbers. The name comes from the first major theme of the book, numbering the people of Israel, that is, taking a census. We read God’s command to Moses, “Take a census of the entire assembly of the Children of Israel according to their families, according to their fathers’ households, by number of names, every male according to their head count…from twenty years of age up” (Num 1:1-3).

Now, men over the age of twenty were of the age fit to go out to war. Moses knows that war is inevitable in the desert; he needed to count the people to know the strength of his troops. It was a matter of life and death. In the second book of Samuel, King David does the same thing as we read there, “David counted the people who were with him and appointed over them officers of thousands and officers of hundreds” (II Sam 18:1). The Talmud, however, has issues with the taking of the census and counting Jews in general. In Masechet Yoma (22b), it proves the prohibition against counting by citing this verse in the Prophet Hosea: “And the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which will neither be measured or counted.” Already in Exodus, we learn of the “sin” of counting Jews from the following verse in chapter 30: “When you take the sum of the children of Israel according to their counting, then each man will give atonement for his soul when you count them; then there will be no plague as you count them” (v.12). If you count, you have to ask to be forgiven for your sin. So don’t count if you don’t have to.

The commentators claim that the counting of the Israelites in the Torah always happened indirectly. For example, they’d count the half shekel tax levied on all Israelites and from that, they’d come up with the total number of adults among the people. Counting Jews was a serious business that brought plague and disaster if done improperly; if done for a reason other than to fulfill God’s direct command. For example, King David was punished for taking a second census of the people later on in the book of Samuel (II Samuel 24:2). God didn’t command this census, rather, David wanted numbers to satisfy his curiosity as he says, “[take the census] so that I may know [the numbers of my warriors].” For this sin, God took the lives of 70,000 of his men and almost destroyed David’s city, Jerusalem.

Those of you who are minyan-goers have probably witnessed our angst as we wait for the tenth person to join us to make up the minyan. As we have seen, Jewish tradition discourages our counting so we use a trick to count: we recite a 10 word verse from Psalms 28 (v.9), hoshia et amecha, u’vareach nachalatecha, ur’em v’nasem ad olam.” This verse has nothing to do with minyan: it just has ten words: if we have one person for each word, we daven.

So we don’t count Jews, or if we do, we do so carefully and only for Divine purposes. And although no reason is given for this prohibition, we can imagine its rationale. Counting people is risky from a spiritual perspective. It can be dehumanizing. We have seen the numbered forearms of concentration camp survivors: the Nazis took away the names and identities of their victims and referred to them by number. You can kill a number; numbers hide personalities, personal histories, and personhood. We have some 300 people in the sanctuary today –but that number tells us very little about what is actually going on here. . Each person in this room is a world onto him/herself. Our tradition teaches us that he who saves a single human being is as if he has saved the whole world. This is looking at the individual from God’s perspective. If each human soul is made in the image of God, then each individual is as important to us as God. We are not defined by the collective: we are defined by the quality of each individual soul.

On the other hand, and this is a very Jewish thing,there is always an “other hand,” we do count Jews, we just do it cleverly. Whether it is by the half shekel tax or reciting verses or demographic studies: we are still counting individual Jews to know who comprises what we call, Jewish community. But I think there is a lesson in that, as well. When we count the ten of the minyan, we are saying, in effect, that each person in the room makes a difference; each individual “counts,” if you will; there is no community without each and every one of them. It is amusing in the minyan when the tenth person walks into the room. We are so grateful that we give that person a position of honor for the morning. But then we all think to ourselves that once the tenth person walks in, everyone suddenly becomes the tenth person. All become equal, all become important, in fact, all become indispensable in making a single unified whole: a minyan, that can now begin the morning prayers.

We count, when we as individuals make a difference for the benefit of the whole community. This week, we have all been reading about President Obama’s recent nomination to the US Supreme Court, Elena Kagan. Whether you are in support or not of Ms. Kagan’s judicial proclivities, I suspect most of you have taken note that Ms. Kagan had a Bat Mitzvah when she was 13 years old. If she is confirmed by the Senate, she will make the third Jewish Supreme Court Justice in an august body of nine. One third of the Supreme Court coming from a people making up less than 2% of the population in this country.

For American Jews, their small numbers do not adequately reflect the out sized contribution they make to our country. One justice among nine, one minyanaire among ten, one mother or father or sibling in a family; one worker in a corporation, on senator among 100. Contributions are made by individuals; individuals make the difference, but they make a difference in community.

So we are uncomfortable counting Jews but we do so all the time. We do so every time our tradition encourages us as individuals, to, as the saying goes, “stand up and be counted;” to go out into the world and do some good. So my father-in -law would say every morning in front of the mirror: "Nu, Chayim, how can you make a difference today in touching other human beings?" We should all ask ourselves the same question every day.

Food and Behar/Bechukotai

2010-05-07T12:51:00.004-06:00

Do you know where your food comes from? I heard a clever discussion by a chabad rabbi once as he pulled out an apple from his bag.

He asked: “why do we say a blessing before we eat this apple? “ Because,” he said, “we need to become conscious of where this piece of fruit comes from.” He then went on to trace the journey of the piece of fruit back to its origins.

He bought the apple at the local super market. But to get it to that market, the grocer had to purchase it from a wholesaler, who had to buy it from the grower. For each of these steps, the apple had to be loaded onto a truck and shipped. Trucks need gasoline and that starts a whole other progression which starts from the oil well, refinery, shipped to the gas station into the truck etc.

But back to the apple. The grower had to harvest the apple; the apple had to be picked by machine or by worker. The tree that produced the apple had to be watered by rain or some form of irrigation, which required pipes and ditches that has its own progression back to the source of water. So this tree is watered, grown on the property of the grower; probably fertilized (often with fertilizer that itself is derived from petroleum, believe it or not) and sprayed with some kind of pesticide (made from chemicals; another progression). But the tree, of course, comes from a seed, but first the ground is plowed and then the seed is planted. Where does the land and the seed come from, asked the rabbi? Land and seed are the miracles; they come from God. Hence, the blessing.

Every piece of fruit in the grocery store has this progression. Sometimes the progressions are even more complicated because summer fruit, in our winter, has to be shipped from the places it grows; delivered by ship or plane, then by truck to the store. But the whole progession begins with the land and a seed and to say the blessing is to acknowledge these God given gifts of land and seed and hence, for all of our food.

In the Birchat Hamazon, the blessing after the meals, we recite: “’and you shall eat and be satisfied and bless the Lord your God for the good land God gave you.’ Blessed are You, God, for the land and for the food.”

In the parasha today, the Israelites are to make an adjustment in their relationship to the land. We read, “For six years you may sow your field and for six years you may prune your vineyard; and you my gather in your crop. But the seventh year shall be a complete rest for the land, a Sabbath for God; your field you shall not sow and your vineyard you shall not prune.” Notice the phrase, the seventh year will be a rest for the land and a Sabbath for God. The land and God are intimately related: in our tradition, you can’t have one without the other. The land (meaning here, the Land of Israel) is a representation of God. The land is alive; within it and from it comes Divine blessing. The land needs to be treated with reverence as we treat God with reverence. God is the source of all life; land is the source of all sustenance for all that is alive.

And there are serious consequences in the Torah for abusing the land and ignoring its blessing. In the second parasha of our combined Torah reading today, we read: “if you will follow My decrees and observe my commandments and perform them; then I will provide your rains in their time, and the land will give its produce and the tree of the field will give its fruit. Your threshing will last until the vintage, and the vintage will last until the sowing; you will eat your bread to satiety and you will dwell securely in your land…..but if you will not listen…your land will not give produce and the tree of the land will not give its fruit.”

If all is good, the Israelites will enjoy wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives and dates. Seven species of food: sufficient to support human life in the holy land. If all is not good: no rain, no harvest… famine. From the land flows either life or death.

If land and food is a matter of life and death, shouldn’t we spend some time thinking about it? What is our relationship to the food we eat and the land from which that food is produced? How does what we eat define who we are and the values and traditions we pass down to the next generation? Consider the Passover Seder? Rosh Hashana dinner? Pot roast, gefilte fish, chopped liver or matzah. Your grandmother’s kugel, latkes and kishke and corn beef on rye? Kosher, or not Kosher? How much do we eat? Is it healthful or not? With whom do we eat?

Jews are thinking about food, today, in deeper ways than before. You may not be aware that there is a growing food movement in the Jewish community today especially among the younger members of our community. Much to my surprise, I have caught my own kids watching shows on the various food channels: Iron Chef and the like. They find it fascinating as do millions of people who watch these shows. Cooking and baking and trying new tastes. More so than ever before, children of our congregation are entering schools like Johnson and Wales to become chefs. The Young Judea year program in Israel has a specialty tract on culinary arts, learning to cook and bake using ingredients grown in Israel. There is a Jewish food movement, spearheaded by a new organization called “Hazon,” which as they say seeks “An American Jewish community that’s measurably healthier and more sustainable and an American Jewish community that’s demonstrably playing a role in making the world healthier and more sustainable for all.” One the programs they support is called, “CSA’s” which is an acronym for Community Sustaining Agriculture. CSA’s provide a relationship with a local farmer to grow and sell to us organic vegetables. We pay ahead of time to support the farmer, and the farmer grows and delivers the vegetables in their season, native to local soils. We get a basket of vegetables each week and we take them home, cook them and eat them We support the local farmer; we eat vegetables that don’t need to be transported long distances (using less gasoline, less dependence on foreign oil, less support for tyrannical regimes in the Middle East, less pollution, global warming, less pesticides, fertilizer run off into streams, rivers and oceans…. the whole deal). We are also presented with vegetables we have never heard of nor ever seen before, and that makes things interesting in and of itself. We have a CSA program at the Alliance; the Dollin family signed up and we should be receiving our vegetables soon. I will let you know how they are. I am still learning what okra, bochchoi, chard, kohlrabi, collard greens and kale are. I am a cucumber and lettuce kind of guy but it is never too late to try new things.

We have also prepared a garden here at the synagogue. We designed 6 plots in which different families can grow organic vegetables. You have no idea all the issues that are involved. Fertilizer must come from the manure of animals that have never received hormones or antibiotics. The soil must come from land that has never been subjected to pesticides and/or unnatural fertilizer. Even the two- by- fours we use to mark off the plots and into which goes the soil and manure must be of untreated wood (wood from lumber yards is often treated with arsenic and copper and other unpronounceable chemicals; who knew?). We will have classes on how to create a garden, grow vegetables and then cooking classes to learn how to prepare them for our dinner tables. The idea is to get Jews back in touch with the earth, at least in some way, just as our ancestors were in touch with the fields of the holy land of Israel.

Lots to think about and lots to learn. This garden and our CSA are designed to be fun and designed, more importantly, for us to learn. We invite participation in any or all of it. Keep an eye on our website to find out more.

If God expects us to treat the land with respect and reverence and even awe, we need to learn, in a very personal way, what it takes to bring forth food from land. We have to trace our food back to its source of seed and soil. And perhaps even use our own hands to plant and harvest and cook and eat. And then we can for once recite the prayer with complete kavanah, with intention, "to bless the Lord for the good land He has given us, for the land and for the food."

Highlights Message June 2010

2010-05-04T12:30:00.001-06:00

Food

One’s mercy must extend to all the oppressed. One must not embarrass or destroy them, for the higher wisdom is spread over all that was created: inanimate, vegetable, animal, and human. For this reason were we warned against desecrating food stuffs ... and in the same way, one must not desecrate anything, for all was created by His wisdom—nor should one uproot a plant, unless there is a need, or kill an animal unless there is a need. (Rav Kook; First Chief Rabbi of the State of Israel)

And I will bring again the captivity of my people of Israel, and they shall rebuild the ruined cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink their wine; they shall also make gardens, and eat their fruit (Amos 11; a messianic vision of Jews returning to their land to plant, grow and harvest their own food).
In the messianic era when the world will be perfected, Jews will return to the land and grow their own food. Today, we are so distant from our food sources that few of us really know where our food comes from, how it is grown, harvested and transported to a city grocery store for us to buy. For the most part, we are unaware of how the animals we eat are raised, transported and slaughtered. There is a growing concern about and interest in food and what we might do to encourage the food industry to provide healthier, more ecologically sound and humane sources of food to feed the 7 billion people in this world, 800 million of whom are undernourished. Jewish tradition demands that we be mindful of food and not abuse the earth from which it comes. In light of these concerns, I thought it might be helpful for us to spend some time thinking about these issues from a Jewish perspective.

We will start our exploration with the creation of a synagogue garden which we will call “Gan Kehilati” (the community garden). Fred Karp, Bob Goldman, Kim Turnbow, Miriam Greenberg and others are heading up a project to create a learning garden just south of the synagogue kitchen. We are providing garden plots for people to rent (for a nominal fee). One plot is reserved as a “teaching plot” for classes and demonstrations. After we grow and harvest the organic vegetables, we will provide cooking classes to teach delicious, healthful (and kosher) ways to prepare them. Much more information will follow. If you are interested in the gardening classes or in helping with the garden, please contact Naomi Kirshner nkirshner@headenver.org or Fred Karp fredkarp@earthlink.net. Keep an eye on our website under “Community/Community Garden,” for up-to-the- minute information about this project. You might also consider reading Michael Pollan’s book Omnivore’s Dilemma for background information.

JCC Maccabi Games

In August 2010, Denver will celebrate the JCC Maccabi Games®, welcoming over 1,500 Jewish athletes ages 12-16 with their families and friends, and more than 1,000 volunteers and 600 host families. This Olympic-style sports competition provides a unique combination of sports, cultural and social activities. From August 1st – 6th, delegates from all over the United States, Canada, Mexico, Israel, and Europe will test their skills in sporting events and experience a journey far beyond athletic competition- inspired with the values of community involvement, teamwork, integrity and pride.

By using sports as the vehicle, the ultimate mission of the games is to cultivate a deeper understanding and appreciation of Jewish values within Jewish teens by enriching their Jewish identity in an informal setting and encouraging their identification with Israel at the same time.
Would you like to get involved in this wonderful event sponsored by our community? Call Naomi Kirshner nkirshner@headenver.org or visit the JCC Maccabi Games website http://www.jccdenver.org/maccabi/.

Have a great summer and see you at the games!

Works in Progress; Acharei Mot/Kedoshim

2010-04-29T18:10:00.002-06:00

I asked a member of the congregation once, “So, how are you doing?” What I was expecting to hear, of course, was “I’m fine, how are you?” But this person said something I hadn’t heard before. He said, "How am I doing? Well, I’m a work in progress.”
A work in progress. When I was younger, I had a sense that we learn through our college years and then we go to work and the learning stops. We might take some management courses or something related to our work, but the bulk of what we know, we learned before age 21 and then we simply go out and live our lives. Perhaps that was why I was surprised when I first learned about “elder hostels.” These are programs that provide adult education classes for seniors on virtually any subject including Jewish studies. I wondered what seniors still wanted to learn that they hadn’t already learned through simply living their lives?

I shouldn’t have been surprised: there is a lot to learn at any age --as long as the mind and soul are active, it changes and develops and grows. Just like anything else that is alive, as soon as we stop growing, we start dying.

We are all works in progress: it doesn’t matter one’s age, our place in life, married, single, parents or grandparents. We are not yet what we need to be and that is true up until the time that we take our very last breath.

Last week’s Torah portion focuses on disease. If an Israelite were found to be leprous, the priest would declare him impure and the leper would be forced outside the camp. The Rabbis understood leprosy as a punishment for the sin of lashon harah; they compared the word: metzorah which means leprosy, to the phrase, motzi shem rah; which means slander. When you demean someone else in speech to a third party, you create a kind of disease in the community that can spread out of control. Lashon harah attacks the very fabric of the community like leprosy attacks the body. Speech can be used in beautiful and constructive ways: poetry, kindness, expressions of love and appreciation. Or it can be used to destroy reputations, sow the seeds of discord, envy, pettiness. Last week’s parasha focuses on what can go wrong in the hearts of people in the community, how Israelites can push God away and give in to their baser instincts.

But then we come to this week’s parasha: Acharei Mot/Kedoshim. Here we see just the opposite. We read of the Yom Kippur service in the Tabernacle. This service represents the human spirit reaching out to God, renouncing sin and using our power of speech for prayer seeking atonement. We read also about our obligation to care for the poor, respect one’s parents, observe the Sabbath, be honest in weights and measure, love one’s neighbor. Here again we see the human spirit aspiring to the good, to the Godly, to what the Torah calls, “kedusha,” holiness.

The question then is raised for each and every Jew, in fact, for every member of the human family: will we stay mired in the diseases of the spirit, to what in us is lowly and petty and driven by our baser instincts? Or will we reach out to God, to all that is the best in us, to what makes us distinctively human, and to what makes us good?

Jewish tradition understands this question to apply, essentially, to every decision we make, every day of our lives. Here is the question in other words: will I move towards God or away from God with what I am about to do right now? Works in progress.

From the second night of Passover to the first night of Shavuot, we count the Omer, 49 days in all. We are today counting the 25th day of the Omer. The Omer is a measure of grain, harvested from the new barley crop and brought to the Temple on the second day of Pesach. The Israelites would then counts 49 days at the end of which, they would bring another measure of grain for sacrifice, but this time from the newly harvested wheat crop. Why 49 days and why barley at the beginning of the period and wheat at the end?

The Rabbis understood Pesach as the time the Israelites left the degradation of Egypt. After 49 days of purification in the desert, they came to Mt Sinai and on the festival of Shavuot, they received the Torah. According to tradition, there were 49 levels of Egyptian impurity that the people had to shake off, one level each day, until they were sufficiently pure to receive the Torah.

Now the first omer offering was of barley which is a coarse grain that was used to feed animals. At the end of the seven weeks, they offered up wheat which is a smoother, softer and a more easily refined grain that was used to make bread eaten by human beings.

Can we not say then that at the beginning of the 49 days, just after the people left Egyptian slavery, they were a courser lot, robbed of their humanity, treated like animals and perhaps, even acting more like animals, baser, more instinctual, more violent and cruel? And that the seven week period was really a period of spiritual and emotional refinement: a gradual control of their baser instincts, a turning towards their better selves; from violence to compassion, from hatred to love, from treating each other like objects to respect, from cowardice to courage, from pettiness and jealousy to loyalty?

That, by the way, is why the Kabbalists attached their notion of the 7 lower sefirot to the 49 days of sefirat ha omer. Each of the seven sefirot represents human qualities to which we aspire: love, respect, compassion, courage, loyalty and so on. Contemplating these sefirot each day encourages us to refine the self. Each day we count, each day we get better. In our tradition, the number 7 represents wholeness: 7x7 or 49, complete wholeness. We don’t just refine ourselves between Pesach and Shavuot, we refine ourselves, throughout our entire life, our whole life long.

So you see, we are all works in progress. There is not a person among us who can’t improve him or herself in some meaningful way every day. It takes the simplest act of self-reflection to see where one needs the most work. God doesn’t expect of us, perfection. But He does expect of us a slow, thoughtful, life-long process of developing our better selves. So what will you work on today? Shavuot is fast approaching; we have no time to waste.

Yom Hazikaron Commemoration

2010-04-18T18:07:00.000-06:00

On behalf of the Hebrew Educational Alliance and the Jewish Community, I welcome you to this Yom Hazikaron commemoration.
We read in Genesis of God’s promise to Abraham and his descendents, “and he said to him, I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur Kasdim to give you this land to inherit it.” Throughout Jewish history, enormous sacrifice was required to realize this promise.
Since 1948, almost 23,000 men and women of the Israel Defense Forces have lost their lives defending the State against Arab aggression. Almost 2,000 Israelis have lost their lives in senseless and cruel acts of terrorism. We in the Diaspora must recognize that our brothers and sisters in Israel are on the front lines in defense of not just their own families and communities, but our families and communities as well. I am convinced that the fate of Jews worldwide is directly tied to the fate of Jews in Israel. As they go, so we go. To my mind, there is no world Jewry without the state of Israel.
So we commend and remember and pray for the souls of those who have fallen in Israel in the past 62 years. And we will pray for the welfare of those who stand in its defense today. God’s promise to our ancestors has been made real in our day. We must not forget the sacrifice of those who have made it so.

2010-04-13T13:11:00.001-06:00

Thank you all for being here. This is perhaps the most important program of the year for the Alliance. The Yom Hashoah committee works for an entire year to present this commemoration for the community. They work so hard with one clear vision in mind; to make sure that the young people in our community remember how human beings, if not checked by people of good will, can become beasts, violent and murderous. We call upon our young people to remember because there is great and enduring power in memory. To remember evil is to work tirelessly to prevent it from happening again. To forget the past is to invite the horrors of the past into the present yet again. You and I and our children after us, must continue to stand strong against evil as we remember. That is our job tonight and throughout the year and throughout our lives. Zachor, lo tishkach: remember, do not forget.

Our Yom Hashoah committee today feels a sense of urgency not felt so much in previous years. The urgency is that we are slowly losing the generation of the survivors who have given us first hand reports about the Shoah. That truth has been brought home to us with great poignancy this past year as we lost our teacher and friend, Jack Goldman. Jack was the inspiration for the Yom Hashoah Committee at the HEA since its founding. He worked with the committee every year sharing his personal experience in the Shoah. For those who didn’t know Jack well, I would like to say just a few words about his life. Jack Goldman was born in Mannheim, Germany: on Erev Yom Kippur, 1923. He spent his early years in Mannheim growing up with his sisters, Terry and Debby. When the Nazis came, his sisters were able to escape on the Kindertransport. They found their way to America to survive the war.

But Jack was arrested by the Nazis in 1938.

He was first brought to a prison in Berlin and then transferred to Sachsenhausen. He then went to Dachau and later to Auschwitz. In 1945, he was forced into a death march out of Auschwitz and he collapsed from typhoid just before reaching Dachau for a second time. His clothing was in tatters, no shoes on his feet. He somehow survived and lived to see the American army liberate the camp.

Jack was good with languages and knew English. When he regained his strength, he began to work for the American army: he was just 22 years old. After the war, he was able to start his life again. He married Margot in 1952 and they were married 57 years. Together they raised four loving children: and received endless naches from their 8 grandchildren. What was so remarkable about Jack is that he picked his life again, after great tragedy and strife, and went on to live a good life and become a leader in our community: teaching us all and our children and grandchildren, in the Jewish community as well as in the general community about the Shoah. He taught us all about our responsibility to ourselves, to the State of Israel and to the world to never let it happen again. We dedicate this evening’s program and all the work that we do to teach the Shoah, to our friend, teacher and mentor, Jack Goldman.

We thank all the people on the Shoah committee that have worked so hard to make this presentation to us tonight. We thank all the participants in the program, as well, for their involvement in this important work. And in particular, we thank DU Hillel for supporting our program tonight from a grant provided by Hedy Mantel (Tessler) in memory of her parents.

Welcome to you all again and may we to continue to focus our attention on the lessons of the Shoah; zachor, lo tishcach: remember and never forget.

Zealotry and Its Cure

2010-04-13T13:07:00.000-06:00

I wrote my senior sermon on this parasah, Shemini. The senior sermon in Rabbinical School is a really big deal. All your classmates are there as well as your professors. You have studied sacred text for 6 years and now it was the time to show what you learned in a 20 minutes talk. I prepared for this 20 minutes for months. I gave the sermon and got good reviews from my professors: renowned historians, Biblicists and Talmudists. So now I was supposedly ready to go out into the world of the pulpit and get reviews of my sermons from Jews in the pews. I fondly remember how gentle my professors were in comparison.
So Parashat Shemini. There is drama in this parasha which is rare in the Book of Leviticus which speaks mostly about the list of animal sacrifices made by the priests in the Tabernacle. But in our parasha there is much more; there is malfeasance, there is sin, there is destruction and death.

This is what happened. Two of Aaron’s sons, Nadav and Avihu, themselves priests, as the text says, “took up their fire pan, and they put fire in them and placed incense upon it and they brought before God, an alien fire that He [God] had not commanded them [to bring]. [Then,] a fire came forth from before God and consumed them and they died before God.” This is an incredible story. Here are two priests who bring a strange fire: an extra sacrifice that God had not commanded them to bring, and they died for it. Now, they didn’t kill anybody. They didn’t commit adultery. They were not worshipping idols. They just brought an extra sacrifice that wasn’t on the list of required sacrifices. In a sense, they just did a little more than was asked of them. Why did they have to die, as if a little more incense offered up in the Tabernacle was some kind of religious catastrophe?
There is a lot of rabbinic commentary on this episode as you might imagine. Some say that the essence of their sin was that they offered up this sacrifice in the inner sanctum of the Tabernacle that was reserved only for the Kohen Gadol (they weren’t) and only on Yom Kippur (it wasn’t). Some say that they should have used fire that had come from the alter but instead used fire that came from elsewhere (thus, the phrase, alien fire), so that was their sin. Some say that it was an appropriate sacrifice but it had not yet become a part of the regular sacrificial system; it was premature, in other words; and thus forbidden.

All interesting, I think, but not as interesting as the commentary of the Sifre, the legal commentary on the Book of Leviticus. It says there that Nadav and Avihu brought their additional sacrifice out of an extreme love of God. The sons of Aaron had already witnessed the eight day celebration of the inauguration of the Tabernacle and the elevation of the priestly tribe (the descendents of Aaron). Nadav and Avihu suddenly became two of the most important young men in Israel. They were excited. They were overwhelmed, they were, in fact, ecstatic.

So, implies the Sifre, they got carried away. They did more than they should have. They took it upon themselves to make up their own ritual, their own sacrifice, their own tradition. And God saw this as dangerous for the People so He took their lives with fire (just as they had committed their sin, with fire).

Judaism doesn’t like ecstatic displays of religious fervor. In the Talmud, Masechet Chagigah, there is the story of 4 rabbis who entered “the garden,” perhaps a metaphor for an ecstatic mystical spiritual experience. The four rabbis were, Ben Azzai, Ben Zoma, Aher (a derogatory name for Elisha ben Abuya who became an apostate) and R. Akiba. The text then reads: “Ben ‘Azzai cast a look and died.” Perhaps he looked into the face of God. It was too much for him and he perished. “Ben Zoma looked and went insane.” Alisha ben Abuya looked and left Judaism. Only Rabbi Akiva, the greatest legal mind among the four, departed from the garden, unharmed.

What happened in that garden? No one knows but it clearly was overwhelmingly powerful. It was certainly religious fervor; these rabbis went to a spiritual place to which they had no business going. They got carried away, literally. One just dropped dead, one went crazy, one had to leave the faith all together and only Rabbi Akiva made it out of there in one peace.

Why Rabbi Akiva? Rabbi Akiva was religiously and spiritually the most mature. He was steeped in tradition. He had an overwhelming experience yet was able to fall back on Jewish law and tradition to keep him sane and grounded in this world. Few of us are like Rabbi Akiva. There are places in our spiritual lives we should not go. Ecstatic religious fervor should not be part of our religious experience. It causes problems, it hurts us and it harms our community.

Examples? I don’t think too many of us are at risk of flying off into some ecstatic trance from which we will never return. But I do think there is risk today. Perhaps not from a spiritual extremism, but there is risk from religious extremism and zealotry. Religious extremists go beyond what their tradition teaches. These people look at isolated religious texts, mostly out of context, and take them too far. They can easily become zealots for some cause or ideology that they come to believe God requires of them. Religious zealots have caused a lot of suffering in Jewish history. Jewish zealots fought each other in the first century CE, convinced that their understanding of Judaism was correct. Their infighting made the community weak, susceptible to the Roman conquest which ultimately destroyed the Temple and created a Jewish dispersion that lasted two thousand years. In the second century CE, Jewish zealots believing the messiah had come, antagonized the Romans which led to the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Jews and the destruction of some 50 Jewish towns and 1000 Jewish villages.
Zealotry. A dangerous problem in Judaism and in all religion, really, in all cultures both religious and secular.

I believe we all have, perhaps what we can call, “zealous tendencies.” How do you know whether that is true for you?

Here is a test for zealotry which I made up. You can make your own test.

First: zealots never think they are zealots; they just think they are passionate in their cause.
Second: zealots think their reasoning is impeccable and can’t believe how ridiculous the other guy’s reasoning is.
Third: zealots look to leaders for guidance and affirmation and those leaders can easily manipulate their zealot followers. Zealots never question or challenge their leaders.
Fourth: zealots believe that they already know everything they need to know. They do not listen to anyone who disagrees with them or are different from them in any significant way. Zealots rarely learn anything new.
Fifth: zealots don’t see the real people who are in front of them; people are only important if they validate the zealot’s worldview. And that worldview is usually distorted.
Sixth: zealots always have enemies who are often imaginary. Zealots believe other people are dangerous.
Seventh: zealots believe that people who don’t agree with them, are … zealots.

We all have some zealotry in us: we all at times enter that same crazy garden of the four rabbis, where we can get over-excited and self- righteous in our religious experience and/or in our ideology. The cure for zealotry and religious extremism? Moderation. There are a lot of ways to understand Jewish tradition and practice today, but I require of my approach to Jewish life –moderation. My Judaism cares less about ideology and more about practice. It encourages calm, caring, compassionate, reasonable behavior. My Judaism accepts and encourages differences of opinion (read any page of Talmud, to see what I mean). My Judaism is tolerant of Jews who practices differently than I do and does not believe that those Jews who do things differently that I do are “doing it wrong.” My Judaism respects Jewish leaders but realizes that Jewish leaders are flawed human beings like anyone else. My Judaism abhors violence and understands all human beings to be made in the image of God. My Judaism is a Judaism of moderation. I believe my Judaism and other religions and ideologies like it, control our natural tendencies to zealotry and extremism.

So I say, let’s stay out of the garden that the four rabbis entered. Instead, let’s keep our feet firmly planted in this world and do what it right for our community and our world.

Jerusalem

2010-04-02T17:23:00.001-06:00

When the Dollin family finished their Seder last Sunday night, together with Jews throughout the world and throughout history, we sang: L’shana HaBaah, Birushalayim: next year in Jerusalem. We say the same thing as our last prayer on Yom Kippur. In the Bible, the word Jerusalem appears 667 times. In the Talmud, the word appears over 1,000 times. Jerusalem appears in our prayer liturgy dozens of times. When we pray, we face Jerusalem. When not in Jerusalem, Jews throughout history have yearned to be in Jerusalem. Jerusalem has been a part of the Jewish personality for 3010 years since David founded the city in the year 1000 BCE.

I thought I would take us on a quick historical tour this morning to give both ancient Jerusalem and modern Jerusalem some context as the holy city has been in the news lately --particularly regarding the plan by the municipality of Jerusalem to build an additional 1600 apartments in a Jewish suburb called Ramat Shlomo. It has created a bit of a stir internationally and has strained the US-Israel relationship. We will hear much more about Jerusalem in the news in the weeks and months ahead so I thought I would speak about it a bit today.

The Jerusalem story begins with King David who captured a small fortified hill in the Judean Hills from a Canaanite tribe called the Jebusites. The hill was steep and easy to protect. It also had water from a small spring adjacent to the hill.

David’s son Solomon expanded the city by building a temple just to the North. For the next 1000 years, give or take a few years, that temple, destroyed once and rebuilt, was the central focus of the Jewish people. In King Herod’s day, the Temple was expanded into an enormous complex that struck awe in the hearts of Israelites that would visit it from all over the land -three times annually. One of those times was Pesach when each Israelite family would offer up a lamb to be sacrificed by the Priests and eaten in Jerusalem by the family.

The second Temple was destroyed in 70CE by the Romans to the horror of the Jewish people. For the next 2000 years, Jews would yearn for the Temple to one day be rebuilt ---the laws of the Temple sacrifices were studied in every bet midrash in every country in the world where Jews lived. Jewish prayer would speak of the Temple. To this day on Shabbat and the Holidays, a special section of the service is reserved for commemorating the ritual that took place in the Temple. We will chant that very service today in a few moments.

Over time, most Jews came to believe the Temple would only be rebuilt when the messiah comes. Never the less, Jerusalem the city, retained a mystical holiness and its memory would always remain in the mind of Jews. As we read in the Psalms, “If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember you, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy."

After Jerusalem fell to the Romans, the Romans created a classic Roman city on its ruins they called Aelia Capotolina in which they worshiped pagan gods. When the Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in the fourth century, Jerusalem became a Christian city with little attention paid to the Temple Mount but a lot of focus on the development of what became the Church Middle East, and Caliph Umar captured Jerusalem from the Byzantine overlords. He cleaned up the Temple Mount that had been used as a garbage dump and built a mosque on it. That began a uncomfortable sharing of the Holy City between Christians, Muslims and Jews that exists to the present day.

In 688, work began to create a dome around a protruding rock on the Temple Mount that was believed to be the rock upon which Abraham offered up Isaac for sacrifice. Muslims also believe it was from this rock that Mohammed ascended to heaven. The Al Aksa Mosque was first built in the year 705.

Crusaders sacked Jerusalem in 1099 killing everyone in sight and made Jerusalem Christian again, creating churches on the Temple Mount. The Muslims recaptured the city under Saladin, about a hundred years later and it became a Muslim city once again. Mamluks from the Eurasian Steppes, converts to Islam, were the next to invade and they took Jerusalem in the 13th century and held it until 1516 when Jerusalem was taken over by the Ottoman Turks. The Ottoman empire held the city for the next 400 years. Then came the British. General Allenby entered the Jaffa Gate in December of 1917.

Zionism was well under way by then. The first Zionist Congress in Basel was in 1897. Jews had always lived in Jerusalem but now, many more came. Already by 1850, Jews were a majority. By 1922, there were 34,000 Jews in Jerusalem, 15,000 Christians and 13,500 Muslims. By the mid 1800’s, neighborhoods began to sprout up outside the city walls to the west. By 1880, there were 9 Jewish neighborhoods in the new city. Arabs and Christians built outside the city walls as well. Building in Jerusalem, both on the west side and the east side, continues to the present day.

There was conflict in the Holy Land between Arabs and the growing Jewish presence during the British Mandate. The British turned the problem over to the newly created United Nations. In 1947, the UN approved a partition plan: separate Arab and Jewish territories with a non-binding resolution to keep Jerusalem under international auspices, what they called a “corpus seperatum.” The Jews accepted the partition plan. The Palestinian Arabs and the surrounding Arab countries rejected it. Israel was attacked, the Jewish population of Jerusalem was under seize, the Israeli army broke the seize and captured West Jerusalem. They signed an armistice with Jordan who had annexed the Old City and East Jerusalem. The city was divided between Israel and Jordan for the next 19 years. During this time, Jordan destroyed over 50 synagogues in the Jewish quarter, one of them the Hurvah synagogue built in 1864. That synagogue was just rebuilt and rededicated last month, on March 16th. Fatah official, Khatem Abd el-Khader, called the recent renovation and dedication of the Hurva synagogue a "provocation", warned Israel that it was "playing with fire" and called on Palestinians to "converge on Al-Aksa to save it.” Violence erupted and one might ask just who provoked whom?

The Jordanians after 1948 according to the terms of the armistice agreement, were obligated to let Jews visit the Western Wall, the Kotel. They did not allow it. The Christian population in Jordanian Jerusalem fell from 25,000 to 11,000 as restrictive laws were imposed on Christian institutions as well. The Holy Sites in the Old City were completely cut off to the Jewish people. The ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives was compromised and cut off from the Jewish people. At the same time, the Knesset, government offices, offices of foreign affairs and police as well as the president’s residence were built in West Jerusalem.

In 1967, Israel begged the Jordanians to stay out of the inevitable war with Syria and Egypt. Never the less, on May 30th, King Hussein signed an military pact with Nasser who had blockaded the Straits of Tiran, put 100,000 Egyptian troops into the Sinai and vowed to drive the Jews into the sea. Israel attacked on June 5th, surrounded the Old City and captured it on June 7th. Jerusalem was now in sovereign Jewish hands. Prime Minister Levi Eshkol announced that Jerusalem was “the eternal capital of Israel.” On June 27th, 1967, the Knesset annexed all of Jerusalem, east and west. In 1965, Teddy Kollek had become mayor of Jewish Jerusalem. After the '67 war, Jerusalem city boundaries were drawn up and Kollek began building a unified city with full access to all holy sites guaranteed by law.

Some international bodies claim that Israel’s annexation of West Jerusalem after 1948 was illegal according to international law. They also claim that the 1967 annexation of East Jerusalem was illegal. There is considerable debate on this subject. Israel claims it is not illegal and that Israel and the Jewish people have a historic right to Jerusalem that goes back 3 millennia. I, for one, agree with that position.

From 1967 until the Oslo process in the 90’s, no Israeli administration, Labor or Likkud, right or left, even considered re-dividing Jerusalem. Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin did put Jerusalem theoretically on the negotiating table but even he held firm for Jewish sovereignty over the entire city saying, “if they told us that the price of peace is giving up on a united Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty, my reply would be ‘let’s do without peace’.” In 2000, Prime Minister Barak considered offering some sections of East Jerusalem as a Palestinian capital along the lines of a rather tortured division of the city proposed by President Clinton. But PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat rejected the whole deal and a second Intifada broke out. At a post summit conference, Chairman Arafat revealed his designs on a united Jerusalem under Palestinian sovereignty as he said: “not only [over] the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and the Temple Mount mosques, and the Armenian quarter, but it is Jerusalem in its entirety, entirety, entirety.” So, after a 3000 year journey, we come to the present. At a ill-timed moment in history, a mid level Israeli bureaucrat announced stage four of a seven stage process in the construction of 1600 apartments in the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood in a northeastern suburb of Jerusalem. Construction in this part of Jerusalem has been going on for years with nary a complaint by Jew or Palestinian. This neighborhood itself is a large Jewish religious neighborhood surrounded to each side by even larger Jewish neighborhoods. This neighborhood would never be a part of any peace plan. The residents of this neighborhood as well as most residents of Jerusalem are scratching their heads perplexed that Ramat Shlomo became the source of an international incident. No one in Israel would consider “Ramat Shlomo” a settlement like you might find on some hill top in the West Bank. In fact, no part of Jerusalem, east or west can be considered a settlement as it is has been annexed Israeli territory since ‘67 which means all residents of Jerusalem, Arab and Jew, are full citizens of the State of Israel. This is not the case in the West Bank and that is why the West Bank has always been in play in peace negotiations.

The ill-will expressed publicly two weeks ago between the US administration and Israel has pretty much blown over. I suspect, however, that the issue of Jerusalem will come up again if any kind of peace process actually begins again. But perhaps the conflict of the past few weeks is an important one. It brings to light that re-dividing Jerusalem in any meaningful way would meet severe resistance by the overwhelming majority of Israelis. That would make it unlikely that an Israeli administration would be able to offer it up again at the peace table.

So that’s Jerusalem. The name means city of peace but it has engendered conflict throughout its 3000 year history. We can only pray that one day, Jerusalem, as the capital city of the State of Israel, will be able to live up to its name.

2010-03-25T12:18:00.000-06:00

D’VAR TORAH
BAT MITZVAH OF AVIVA ORIT DOLLIN
MARCH 20, 2010
5 NISSAN 5770
FIRST DAY OF SPRING
PARASHAT VAYIKRA

Wake up! Wake up to this moment. And what an exquisite moment it is! Our fourth child, our only daughter, one of two Dollin natives born here during our (what is now 16 year) tenure at the Hebrew Education Alliance in Denver, CO (Rose Hospital), becoming a bat mitzvah. Thank you all (family and friends) for being here to celebrate with us.

I have been patiently waiting all my years as a mother for this moment…the moment my only daughter celebrates her coming of age as a Jewish woman. I’ve written this speech a dozen times in my head. In it, I share with all of you what I have finally figured out…how to be a modern, and religious Jewish woman; how to reconcile tradition and modernity; how to make your voice heard while maintaining tzni’ut, modesty; how to infuse old rituals and traditional woman’s roles with new meaning (significance); How to be fluent in deciphering passages of Torah and Talmud, while adding one’s own distinct voice to the conversation of our patriarchs; how to care for others when they need help, while knowing how to make a good brisket for Shabbat. How to be a ‘mother in Israel’ without being subservient and relegated to a supporting role in history.

Needless to say, it’s been a humbling experience. Because I realized that I haven’t yet figured it all out! In many ways, I find being a woman in religious Judaism as challenging to me personally as it was 20 years ago. Actually, more so, as twenty years ago, at least I knew I was right! Now, I’m not so sure. Women in Judaism have come really far…the fact that you, Aviva, attend a school that unapologetically teaches Talmud to girls is proof of that. At the Denver Academy of Torah, a modern orthodox school, you have been taught Torah, Jewish law, Hebrew, prophets, and Talmud alongside your male classmates.

The question I have for myself, for Vivi and for you today, is ‘what will your role be in the history of our people’?

I have been privileged this year to be the teacher for an extraordinary group of women. This minyan of women, including many female leaders of our Jewish community, and I have been studying leadership and looking at our biblical foremothers as models. What do we learn from them? How do we learn it? When we look at women who came before us, what lessons of leadership do we glean? How have we exercised leadership differently than the men in our world? What are the different ways we make our voices heard? We found we could learn quite a lot from our biblical foremothers. And we were a bit surprised…while the techniques and strategies they employed were different than the patriarchs, their actions often led directly to redemption: of the Jewish people, and even of humanity. I’d like to introduce you to some of the women we have studied.

Sarah is our most ‘traditional’ woman. We don’t learn much about her from the biblical text, but the midrash (rabbinic commentary on torah) fills out her personality. The grammatical nuance in her name change, from ‘Sarai’ to ‘Sarah’ takes her from Abraham’s wife to the princess of a nation. And it is in her tent (her home) that God’s female presence (Shechina) dwells.

At the same lesson, I introduced two other Sarah’s of Jewish history: Sarah Schenirer, a fervently Orthodox woman, recognized that women needed to be Jewishly educated so their commitment to traditional observance stayed strong. With the blessing of the Belzer Rebbe, she founded the first Beis Yaakov school for girls. Agudat Israel adopted the Beis Yaakov model as its educational arm for women. Absolutely revolutionary in her time.

Sarah Aaronsohn forged a new role for women in the resettlement and regeneration of Palestine as a Jewish homeland. Born in Zichron Yaakov in 1890 to a prominent family, she never completed her formal education, yet spoke Hebrew, Yiddish, Turkish and French, some Arabic and taught herself English. She learned agronomy and botany, widely traveled the land of Israel (Palestine). Around the time Sarah Schnirer was organizing Beis Yaakov in Poland, Sarah Aaronsohn, a secular Jew, joined ‘Nili’, a pro-British underground movement of Jews in Palestine, determined to create a new Middle East by liberating the country from corrupt Turkish rule. She worked in intelligence and espionage, was captured and tortured by Turkish authorities, and committed suicide rather than divulge further information. She was called a “Jewish Joan of Arc”, and her martyrdom shattered many myths about Jewish women.

I asked my ladies to share the Sarah they most identified with; the maternal, pious, home-based biblical Sarah, the fervently religious Sarah who believed the perpetuation of Judaism depended on Jewishly educated women, or the brave, Zionist Sarah who forged new paths for women engaged in the enterprise of creating a Jewish homeland? We learned from each other as each of us chose the Sarah with whom we most identified: some of us choosing a quiet, home based life of devotion to faith and family, some pushing religious boundaries from within, and some shattering established norms of femininity.

Judges 4:5; “Devorah the prophetess, wife of Lapidot (Barak)…would sit under the date palm, between Ramah and Bet El on Mt. Ephraim, and the children of Israel would go up to her for judgement.” Devorah is history’s first female prophetess and judge; highly unusual, considering traditional Jewish law does not allow women to be valid witnesses. Her placement between two cities teaches us she had an innate sense of fairness, not favoring one over the other. She prophecies that the general Barak will be victorious, but that his success will come through the hand of a woman, which in fact happened. God had plenty of men around to choose as prophets. Why did God choose Devorah? She apparently, had something to bring to the table that a man did not. She referred to herself a ‘mother in Israel’. It is her maternal faith in the people, similar to what a parent feels for a child, that is needed at this moment in Jewish history. Devorah reignites the peoples’ sense of value as God’s chosen.

From Devorah, we studied the question “In a man’s world, how have you exercised leadership differently than a man?” We learned about empowerment rather than imposition, invigorate rather than force, cultivate rather than command. The skills Devorah used as judge and prophet in Israel were very different than the skills men brought to the job. At that time in Jewish history, patience, insight, and the ability to inspire and nurture were required, and God purposefully chose a woman to lead the people in that way.

We just celebrated the holiday of Purim, where we read the book of Esther. God’s name is absent in the book of Esther – God is not mentioned in the whole book. Yet by the end, God’s presence is felt. We learn from this that even when things appear hopeless, miracles can and do happen; and they can happen through the hand of man (OR, as in this case, through the hand of a woman). We further learn about the role of a woman. Esther, like other Persian maidens in the king’s palace, spends a great deal of effort and time focused on her beauty. As the Jewish people are threatened with extinction, her uncle Mordechai admonishes her, “Who knows but for this very moment you were destined to be in this place…in a position to save your people?” And in a transformative moment of clarity, showing exemplary courage, Esther accepts the challenge, saying “I will go to the king on behalf of my people, and if I should perish, I will perish.” Esther leads us to the question, do any of us experience such moments of clarity? Would we realize it, or would we need someone to point it out to us?

In just over a week, we will celebrate the holiday of Pesach. We will recount the story of the exodus from slavery in Egypt. We will recognize the sorrow of the Egyptians as they suffered through the plagues. We will feel the fear of uncertainty, doubt about our future as we rapidly bake our matzah and prepare for our leaving. We will joyously recognize the miracle of the parting of the Red Sea. And as we arrive safely on the other side, and our enemies are vanquished, Moses will sing a song of deliverance, and we will celebrate the crossing of the Red Sea, following Miriam’s lead, where she takes her timbrel and leads the women in song and dance. Miriam teaches us that God chooses women also as prophets; and that their way of prophecy may be different than a man’s. Miriam added the element of spirituality to our lives. We learn from her that God is not only served through the mind and through deeds, but also through the heart…the spirit. Miriam’s reward is no less than to be the progenitor of the Messiah.

Sarah, Devorah, Esther, Miriam, each exercising leadership of the Jewish people, yet in so many different ways. I used to think there was one way…lead like a man…out in front, bold, charismatic. But now I feel differently. Getting a bit older, learning from biblical and historical role models, engaging with modern women and their leadership choices, I am not so sure about the one way…the right way. So I ask Vivi today, and all Jewish women here, ‘what will your role be in the history of our people’?

Many of you don’t know that this is Vivi’s second bat mitzvah. Her first took place last year, as she turned twelve, quietly, among her girl friends and some family members and congregants present to hear her deliver a d’var Torah at mincha, followed by a gathering where we made blankets for Newborns in Need… and ate ice cream sundaes. This is what Vivi wanted. And to respect her as a young Jewish woman coming of age, this is how we honored her.

And this morning, is how she honors her father. As the rabbi’s daughter, he expected her to do what other 13 year olds did at our congregation, lead the service, read torah and haftorah, and speak before the kahal. And she did, beautifully, dutifully and happily. Through her actions, she taught me a lesson in humility. She was not so strident to think that there is only one way to behave in the world; she recognized that she was faced with competing priorities, each of critical importance in her life. She didn’t agonize, criticize or complain. She was not grouchy or resistant or mean. She accepted her world the way it was. She made peace with her place in it. She is a model to me of a righteous Jewish woman.

To wear a hat in shul or not? To accept an aliyah to the Torah or not? To speak out in front of others or to lead the way through subtle modeling? To cook a good brisket or to fight for our homeland? Who knows what is the ‘right’ way? In the words of your favorite country music song, (written by a man) “the only thing for certain is uncertainty.” So it is with humility, and uncertainty that I move forward. Perhaps I will be able to look back on my life and see clearly what my place was in the history of our people.

What I wish for you is not certainty, but security in knowing that before you came many, many Jewish women who all made their place in the history of our people in a different way. Know that all around you are amazing Jewish women, adding their unique spirit to our people. Know that this moment is precious, and will not ever be repeated. Don’t wait until you have it all figured out…you may never…but accept each moment for what it is. My wish for you is that you find your way, you add your unique voice to the history of our people, and I think, you are well on the way to doing just that.

Shabbat Shalom.
Tamra Dollin

Jewish Unity

2010-03-05T12:23:00.002-07:00

There is a great story about an embarrassed guest at the Shabbat table of a famous rabbi. The Shabbat table was meticulously set: a beautiful white table cloth that was used only to celebrate the holiness and joy of the family Sabbath. The guests were talking and enjoying when one of them accidently hits his wine glass with his hand and out spills the wine, soiling and staining the table cloth and everyone gasps in horror. With barely a moment passing, the rabbi takes his hand and intentionally hits his wine glass spilling the wine and making an even bigger mess.
To the rabbi, the table cloth was unimportant. How his guest felt was paramount. At the moment of the first spill, the guest was singled out: the center of negative attention; he felt alone and embarrassed and in a sense, alienated from the others around the table. The rabbi would not allow it; he spilled his wine to bring his guest back into the fold --people spill wine; you are one of us, we are all together despite our clumsiness, despite our flaws, despite our superficial differences.

Something similar happens in our parasha this morning. Moses is atop Mount Sinai, the people of Israel are down below. Seeing that Moses is delayed in coming down from the mountain, the people panic and insist that Aaron build them a Golden Calf. God is angry and tells Moses that He will destroy the people for their sin and make Moses and his descendants, God’s people. As Moses descends the mountain seeing the Golden Calf, he too is angered and throws down the tablets, breaking them as the base of the calf.

On the surface of the text, it looks like Moses throws down the tablets because he’s angry. But a midrash takes this passage in another direction. For the Midrash, Moses throws the tablets as an intentional sinful act. After all, God will not be pleased with Moses smashing His holy tablets. In effect, Moses is saying to God: the people sinned, but I too have sinned. If you are going to destroy them, then you will have to destroy me too. Moses will not let God separate his fate from the fate of his people. They are one, they are unified; leader and people and God spares them both.

I mentioned in my sermon last week about Esther, reticent to approach the king to advocate for her people. And Mordechai comes to her and tells her explicitly: do not think that you are somehow different and separate from your people. Their fate is your fate; if the Jews are destroyed, so will you be. And, of course, Esther does approach the king and in the end, saves her people, saves her crown, saves her own life.

In World War One, many German Jews distinguished themselves as officers and soldiers in the German Army. They were war heroes and the German government decorated them and honored them as loyal and courageous citizens of the German reich.

With the rise of the Nazi government, these war heroes assumed they and their families were safe –they had risked their lives for Germany; they were more German than Jewish. In fact, most German Jews as the Nazis were amassing power, believed that ultimately, in the end, the German people would not allow Nazi anti-Semitism to prevail; Jews had lived in Germany for generations. They lived, worked, had friends, were integrated and assimilated into German culture and society. But they were wrong for most all of them were murdered –the war heroes, their families, their children and grandchildren. If you had a Jewish grandmother, you were a Jew and you would die. Jews in Nazi Germany all suffered the same fate: as Mordechai said to Esther two and a half millennia before Hitler –do not think that you of all Jews will escape with your life by being in the King’s palace.” You won’t, we didn’t and we never will. History has shown us that the fate of world Jewry is our fate whether we like it or not; whether we are assimilated or not; whether we practice our Judaism or not.

If we are all in the same boat, than we had better figure out a way to get along and present a united front to what has always been a hostile world. It was for good reason that the original motto for United Jewish Appeal was “We are One.” We weren’t at that time, nor have we really ever been –but the motto stood because we knew then that internal division in the Jewish community threatened Jewish lives. In the second Temple period, the rabbis attributed the destruction of the Temple not to Roman invasion, but to divisiveness in our own community. They called it “sinat chinam,” senseless hatred among Jews. Their divisiveness made them weak so that the Romans had an easy time of it wiping them all out and leveling our Holy Temple.

There is dissension in the Jewish community today. Between those who understand their Judaism differently. Between Jewish Democrats and Jewish Republicans. Between Jewish hawks and Jewish doves. And of most concern to me now: diverse approaches to the support of the State of Israel. It has been since 1967 already, that the demonization of the Israel by many in the world, has grown and prevailed. We see it coming out of the Arab world, which we expect, but now we see it throughout Europe and in many quarters in America: particularly on college campuses and growing among some American Protestant denominations.

We are not immune to these characterizations and our children are even less immune. Most young Jews don’t know all that much about Israel so they are all the more likely to fall under the sway of Israel’s enemies. Israel, as a Jewish state is under attack. In the last several years, the notion of a bi-national state has been proffered as a solution to the problem. A bi-national state means that Israel would annex the territories, Palestinian refugees return, everyone gets a vote, and suddenly, Jews become a minority and Israel in no more. The greatest Jewish experiment in modern times is over. And make no mistake, the fate of Israel is the fate of world Jewry. If Israel were to fail, I am convinced, world Jewry would follow.
In the Jewish community, we can debate the merits of this Israeli government verses that one, this policy or that: that debate happens publically in Israel every single day. But to my mind, the American Jewish community must present a unified front to the world --American Jews support Israel as a Jewish State, today, tomorrow, forever. Divisions between younger Jews and older, between liberal Jews and conservative must not pull us apart for we have one message that only we can and must make: we support Israel as a Jewish state and will do whatever we can to protect it for the safety and security of Israelis and the for the future of our Jewish communities all over the world.

The rabbi spilled his wine all over his table cloth to let his guest know that no matter how clumsy, no matter how different on the surface, really, no matter what: we are the same. We are one family, one community, one people and as such, we will accept each other unconditionally and we will stand together so we don’t fall apart. When we have forgotten this lesson in the past, Jews perished. The fate of the Jewish people has been placed in our hands. It’s our responsibility now and soon we will hand it down to our kids. We have to be ready and we must equip our kids to do the same. We are called upon today to step forward to do our part. We really have no choice but to do so. Shabbat Shalom

Role Models, Priests and Queens

2010-02-26T16:30:00.000-07:00

I ain’t no role model, I am a basketball player!. I suspect that just about everyone in the sanctuary this morning has heard of this comment by Basketball power forward, Charles Barkley who played for Philadelphia, Phoenix and Houston and retired in 1999. He was one of the best players ever in the NBA and in fact, he wasn’t such a great role model: spitting, fighting and gambling; he didn’t show the greatest of sportsmanship and was no stranger to indiscreet commentary on basketball and life. To be fair, his point about basketball players and role models, in context, meant that he didn’t think basketball players should be considered role models: most kids aren’t going to the NBA --great fame and tens of millions of dollars are unrealistic and inappropriate goals for children.

But Barkley said it and it got a lot of people thinking about the role models we have in this society. Barkley may have denied it, but he was a role model whether or not he was comfortable with the role. So much so that kids began going around saying, “I aint no role model either, just like Charles.”

Well, if sports figures are role models, then they have a huge responsibility to which many of them are ill equipped to manage. Tiger Woods learned a painful lesson as we watched his mea culpa on television just a few weeks ago. His behavior off the golf course does matter to us ---and especially to the companies that use him in their ads. Tiger Woods admitted in an interview to what many politicians and leaders of industry have admitted to: they thought that all the love, adulation, money and fame somehow made them exempt from the moral norms that applied to everyone else in society. And of course, they all learned in a painful and humiliating way that this is generally not the case. We love and admire our role models --but we also expect them to be people whose behavior we can respect in and out of the spotlight.

I think a part of what we enjoy so much about the Olympics is that the athletes, perhaps with a lot of coaching, act on camera in a sportsmanlike way. It makes us feel good. The skier Bode Miller embarrassed himself and all of us when he acted poorly in Torino where he won no medals, and made us all the more proud of him in showing some humility this year in games at which he won several medals. Those in the limelight are role models: there is no escaping it. They can do a lot of good if they come to realize this early in their careers.

We see an indication of this in the parasha this morning. Most of the parasha deals with what the Cohanim, the Priests are supposed to wear. The description of the priestly vestments is in excruciating detail; as if Priestly holiness is dependent on appearance. Yet one cannot imagine God concerned about clothing: the vestments aren’t for God, they are for the people. Priests must appear to the people in a certain way; they are role models --they show the people of Israel what it means to be distinct, dignified, respectful in a way that is worthy of approaching God in His sanctuary. Both what they wear and who they are watched carefully by the people; their behavior will determine the integrity and vitality of their religious community. Needless to say, the Priests have a big responsibility in their role as Israelite leaders.

We come upon another figure head and leader of the Jewish people, this weekend, as we read the Book of Esther. The Megillah is a funny book, but it has a side to it that we might consider deadly serious. The central figure in this story is most certainly Esther. All the other characters in the book are unidimensional; King Achashverosh is a simpleton, Haman is wicked, Mordechai is clever. But Esther, she is more complex; she is beautiful, assimilated (she becomes a Persian King’s wife), and perhaps even seductive. But when we first meet her, we don’t really know what to make of her. She becomes the queen and you suspect from the text, that the Jews of the land must be proud that one of their own could reach such heights in the Persian court. Then comes chapter 4 and now we learn what this lady is made of. Haman has declared the death of all the Jews and Mordechai sends Esther a message asking her to intervene with the King. She refuses saying that the King hasn’t summoned her and if one approaches the King without being summoned, that person will die. And she doesn’t want to die.

Then Mordechai teaches her a lesson in loyalty. He writes to her: “Do not imagine that you, of all the Jews, will escape with your life by being in the King’s palace. On the contrary, if you keep silent in this crisis, relief and deliverance will come to the Jews from another quarter, while you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows, perhaps you have attained to royal position for just such a crises.” Now Esther has a decision to make. Does she step up for her people or take care of herself? We wait in anticipation; we wait for her to realize that her high position is not one of entitlement but one of responsibility. She is in the public eye; she is the queen; she has the power, will she do what is right? And then she says: “then I shall go to the king, though it is contrary to the law; and if I am to perish, I shall perish.” The queen becomes a hero that day.

Esther becomes a true Jewish leader in this chapter as soon as she realizes that her life is not as important as the life of her people. Charles Barkley didn’t see this. Back then, he never asked himself the question, “perhaps I have attained success and fame for some deeper purpose.” To help inner city kids, to fund a youth sports league, to contribute to education or to promote exercise and good health. He, like every other leader, every other role model, has the power and influence to do good in ways most of us simply can’t do. You may have noted that Canadian Olympians Jennifer Heil who won a silver in women’s moguls and Alexandre Bilodeau who won the gold in men’s moguls pledged $25,000 each to charity and challenged the other medal winners in the games to do the same. Very impressive, I think, for a 26 and 22 year old. Everyone is watching them; everyone admires and respects them: everyone wants to be just like them. And this is precisely the time for them to be gracious and generous and do something that has lasting meaning. We all might believe that we “ain’t no role model,” but we are. Someone is always watching us; our kids, our students, our friends, our co-workers and we can’t let them down. We are all role models so let’s be role models for the good.
Shabbat Shalom

2010-02-19T12:40:00.000-07:00

Adar and Joy

Mishe’nichnas Adar Marbim B’simcha. We read in the Talmud: when the month of Adar arrives, simcha, joy, increases. We announced the coming of the month of Adar in our service this morning, and according to tradition, this brings with it a sense of excitement and anticipation to celebrate, act silly and very simply, have a lot of fun.

Purim comes on the 14th day of this month. The celebration is based on the book of Esther, the careful reading of which cries out “farce.” The story is silly, filled with exaggeration: a six month feast, a 7 day drinking bacchanalia; a beauty contest in which the women primp and powder for a full year for their single night with the king. And of course, there is the pledge by a Persian official to annihilate all the Jews in the kingdom because a single Jew didn’t bow down to him in the street. The bad guy gets tricked and his evil plan foiled and the Jews celebrate their salvation without a single reference to God, a bit odd for a Biblical book but perhaps not so odd for this type of story.

We read the Book of Esther because it’s fun. We dress up in costumes, we gragger enthusiastically with mention of the name of Haman, we eat sweets, we feast and drink and joke and put on silly plays. It’s all about joy: mishenichnas Adar, marbim b’simcha: when Adar arrives, joy increases.

We use the word “simcha,” all the time in Judaism. It is a Hebrew word that almost every Jew knows: we are celebrating a simcha today, with the Bar Mitzvah of Spencer Soicher. Last week, we had three “simchas” on the bema: anniversaries and birthdays. We sing siman tov and mazal tov: we celebrate. The birth of a child, a Bar Mitzvah, a wedding. Every chance we get in Judaism, we smile and have a good time. With a history of persecution and stress, we don’t want to miss even a single opportunity to feel and express joy.

Purim has four mitzvoth: four observances that we are obligated to perform. Each of them legislates, in a sense, the enhancement of simcha. The first is the reading of the Megillat Esther itself. We can’t do this alone: we have to be together with other Jews to read the Megillah --the more the better. In the text, Haman says to the king regarding the Jews, “there is a certain people who are scattered and dispersed amongst the people in the states of your rule.” The commentators seize on this statement ---the people are scattered, which means that they are distant from one another, there is no sense of community with them, no unity. So the Rabbis require that the community in the present, now, does the opposite; we come together for the reading of the Megillah: and create a celebration together. There is a sense of power and a sense of belonging to something greater than the self, when the community assembles. Unity and connection to others feels good. The Rabbis in the Talmud knew this; when we come together, we experience joy.

The second mitzvah: matanot l’evyonim: giving to the poor. Here again, the enhancement of joy: certainly in the life of the needy recipient of tzedakah whose burdens are eased, at least for the moment. But joy also in the life of the giver as well. Nothing feels better than giving to those in need. To help another gives one’s life a sense of meaning and purpose. If you want to feel better about yourself, give of yourself. Giving tzedakah, increases joy.

The third mitzvah: mishloach manot. This is giving gifts to your friends. One of the plagues of our society is alienation from others. If we so desired, we would never have to leave our homes. Most everything in our lives need not be personal --we can shop, bank, work and be entertained, with virtually no human interaction. But there is a much better way, of course and that is to reach out and connect with others, to enhance friendships. In our community, there are couples that meet each other at a program called Baby University: which is a prenatal Jewish lamaze, of sorts. It is Jewish education and planning for the coming of a new baby. Couples in this program, perhaps most importantly, meet at the class and make friends at this formative experience in their lives and many of them remain friends for decades. They celebrate the bris or baby naming together; they send their kids off to preschool together; they join synagogues together; they celebrate holidays, and life cycle events, together, and so on through their lives. And it makes them happy! Friendships are the lifeblood of community and it brings joy to our lives. Mishloach manot: at Purim time, we increase joy by sending gifts to our friends.

And finally: the seudat Purim: the Purim feast. During Purim: we eat together. Purim is the story that defines the joke: at Jewish holidays, “the bad guy wants to kills us, we win and then we eat.” This Purim, the synagogue is sponsoring a community dinner: we will all come together to feast on great food, to watch a Purim speil, to laugh and joke and have a lot of fun. Jewish eating has never been about nourishment; it’s about building relationships and transmitting our culture and our values. The Purim feast does just that in an atmosphere of simcha: of joy.

With all of that in mind, I have to confess that I am uncomfortable with the phrase: mishenichnas adar, marbim b’simcha: when Adar arrives, joy increases. And I am uncomfortable with it because it implies that joy is somehow unique to Adar, only one of the twelve months of the year. But it’s not. We read in one of the zemirot, one of the songs traditionally sung at Shabbat dinner on Friday night: menucha v’simcha, or l’yehudim: “the rest and joy of Shabbat, illuminate the Jewish people. The deep spiritual rest of the Sabbath brings joy, perhaps an even deeper and more abiding joy than the celebrations which come in Adar. Shabbat is the foundation for the spiritual existence of all Jews who observe it.

There are about 350 of us here in our synagogue community that understand this; we are here every Shabbat morning for a spirited service and we remain, sometimes for hours, at our kiddush: connecting with friends and building our community. It’s very simply, fun and people do it each week. But we have a little over 2000 adults in our congregation and we are concerned about them too. We want to bring to at least some of them the deep joy that comes from Shabbat prayer, services and community.

As most of you know, the Cantor and I went to New York this past Shabbes to see some shuls that are doing innovative Shabbat services that attract hundreds of worshippers of all ages on Friday nights. In particular, we went to a congregation called B’nai Yeshurun, on the upper west side of Manhattan, to see what they do on Friday nights. They have a very soft and soulful service with voices accompanied by a variety of instruments that bring a full and joyous sound to the traditional prayers. Everybody in the congregation sings and sings loudly. The congregation has come to know the prayers and the melodies by coming often and their voices fill up the sanctuary: as do ours here at the Alliance on Shabbat morning. I had the sense as I sat there at B’nai Yeshuran, at this Friday night service, that my prayers were carried heavenward with the power and presence of the whole community singing as one. If one were to use just one word to describe the service, that word would be “joyful.”

As you might imagine, we were impressed. We want to bring that sense of joy to our Friday night experience, for all of you to come and for those in the congregation who might not feel that the Shabbat morning service is accessible to them, but are searching none the less for a deeper connection to the shul and to Shabbat. Perhaps what makes this service accessible to many is not only the great music and spirit in the sanctuary, but also the fact that Friday night services last just one hour.

We will call our service, “Nashira,” which means, “let us sing.” We will use instruments to accompany our voices for Kabbalat Shabbat until we come to the prayers that begin Shabbat proper and then we will put our instruments aside and chant the prayers together a cappella. The first service will be on April 9th and more information about “Nashira,” can be found in the March Highlights.

“Mi shenichnas adar, marbim b’simcha: Adar is upon us and we focus on the joy of living as a Jew. We will enjoy Adar and Purim this year, but we will continue with on simcha on Shabbat as well. We invite you all to this new service so that joy in our community will increase for us on Shabbat and indeed, all year round.

Shabbat Shalom.

Vaera 2010

2010-02-18T12:44:00.000-07:00

This past Shabbat at Musaf, I taught a class about Moses Maimonidies’ principles of faith. The Rambam, living in the 12th century, created the ideal of a religious Jew; one who believes in God, the Torah, reward and punishment, the coming of the messiah, with what he called, perfect faith. The students in the class, along with their teacher, had significant problems with the concept of perfect faith: we all have doubts --we live in a modern world where religious belief is often seen as irrational: as an emotional crutch, in some cases, just plain silly.

There is science, today, that threatens the truth claims of religion. There is even the science of religion.

Biblical archeologists, for example, have searched for clues to the historicity of the Bible. After decades of exploration, most of them contend that the characters in the Bible from King |Solomon on, that is, from about 930 BCE forward, definitely existed as historical figures. But before King Solomon, there is little archeological proof of the Bible’s stories: and that leaves the existence of our main character today, for example, Moses, in doubt. Apparently, there is no real proof of the Israelite’s enslavement in Egypt, no proof of the plagues, no proof of the crossing of the sea of reeds, or of a people wandering in the desert for 40 years, or of the existence of a person named Moses.

For the faithful, the claims of the archeologists can be very distressing. For fundamentalists who believe that every word of the Bible is literally and historically true, it can be devastating.

How do we deal with the Biblical archeologists? Here is my approach: I believe with a perfect faith, that all the stories in the Bible are true, but some are true both spiritually and historically; and some are true, only spiritually, which I believe, is more than good enough.

So we come to the miracles of the ten plagues that begin in our Torah portion this morning. Blood, frogs, lice, boils and so on. Did they happen just this way in Egypt? Were there Jews suffering from the yoke of a evil Egyptian king who made them build pyramids? To me, that really isn’t important; what is important is the moral lesson we learn from the story, and here, I think, is that e lesson.
God told Moses to go the people and tell them about God and tell them about freedom. But the people didn’t get it.

We read in the text, “v’lo sham’u el moshe mikotzer ruach v’avodah kasha” the people of Israel did not listen to Moses because of impatience of spirit caused by hard servitude. (Exodus 6:9).

The people didn’t listen to Moses and they could not hear God because their lives were filled with spiritual darkness. They had been enslaved: they were victims of tyranny, they were victims of fear. The evil ways of Egypt had enslaved them both physically and spiritually: God had become too remote: their false god had become the Pharaoh: who was also the false god to all the Egyptians. The one true God heard the cry of His people, but the people could not hear God crying for them.
So God decided to intercede in human history and create dramatic and miraculous displays of physical power to get the Israelites’ attention. Most people think that the plagues were to impress Pharoah and the Egyptians. Not so. God could have leveled the Egyptians with the blink of an eye. God was not concerned with the spiritual state of the pagan Egyptians because they would eventually come to disappear from history leaving nothing to western civilization but a few pyramids and some hieroglyphics. God didn’t create the plagues for the Egyptians, He created them for the Israelites because God was desperate to connect with his suffering people. For God had a plan for the Jewish People. According to God’s plan, the Jews would make an everlasting contribution to the world; they would be God’s partners in bringing light, and goodness and justice and righteousness to the people of the world.

So we have the plagues. The plagues themselves are very interesting: they were created to educate. As any good parent knows, a parent displays parental power and discipline not to overwhelm their children which just leads their children to one day rebel. Rather, parents discipline with power to educate and teach their children the proper path of behavior.

So it was with God. The slave people could not help but be impressed with Egyptian power, so God would bring the plagues upon Egypt to show the Israelites that Egyptian power was all facade. For the Egyptians, the river Nile was the source of life: it flooded each year leaving silt on the earth which fertilized the ground from which the Egyptians grew their crops. The Egyptians worshipped the Nile: it’s power, beauty and grandeur. The Nile no doubt impressed the Israelites too. So God turned the water to blood. In a single stroke, He killed the Nile. Human beings are not to worship rivers. Water and crops and sustenance come from the grace of God, not from the grace of pagan river gods. So God killed the river to teach this lesson.

Similarly, the second plague of frogs. The Egyptians saw their pagan rites, their temples, their dwellings, as clean and pure. Despite the tyranny, the slavery, the lack of concern for human life, the Egyptians saw themselves as righteous and clean. So God showed the Israelites the truth about the Egyptians. They were not clean and pure; their culture was morally corrupt, rancid, and spiritually filthy despite the wondrous dwellings they lived in. So God brought the frogs with mud and muck on their feet to fill the dwellings of the Egyptians with filth. The frogs covered everything. The houses, the people, the beds. Through this plague, God showed in external form, the internal truth about the moral decay of Egyptian society.

And each plague showed something similar. The gnats, the beetles, the boils, the hail: every aspect of so called Egyptian greatness was attacked and revealed to the Israelites for the facade that it was. The Egyptians were nothing without God. Their grandeur rested on a foundation of straw. With the mildest of divine winds blowing upon it, the whole wondrous Egyptian structure began to teeter on the brink of total destruction. And hence, the Israelites were impressed with how truly unimpressive the Egyptians really were.

Then we come to the ninth plague, the plague of darkness. Here was the penultimate lesson for the Israelites. We read in the morning prayers, psalm 30: “histarta panecha, hayiti nivhal,” when you hide your face from me, oh God, I am terrified.” The ninth plague of absolute darkness revealed the whole truth about the spiritual state of the Egyptians. There was no divine light in their society. God’s presence did not penetrate the evil and corruption of a culture that would enslave and debase human life. And the darkness was terrifying. Life without God’s light is a living hell of randomness, evil, meaninglessness, and emptiness. When the Egyptians saw the truth in the ninth plague, even they were terrified. God’s light does not shine into the lives of people who are unwilling to receive it. Evil keeps God away: goodness and justice bring God in. The Israelite dwellings had light during the ninth plague. And the light that they had allowed them to prepare to leave: to leave the evil, to leave the spiritual slavery, to find their way to freedom. Even in the midst of great evil, God’s light can penetrate to those whose eyes are open to see. And that light can redeem them. That light can guide them to freedom.

It took a great deal of effort, but God finally impressed the Israelites. He reached them, finally, and they ultimately saw the greatness of God.

So what can we say to the biblical archeologists who cannot find the historical proof for the exodus from Egypt? From my perspective, I say to them, so what? The historicity of Moses and the exodus is of little importance to the Jewish people and to the people of the world. What is important to us is what the Torah is telling us from the story; what the Torah is telling us about the nature of the world, and our place in it; what the torah is telling us about good and evil, about tyranny and freedom. The truth of the story is in its powerful moral lesson. And once we grasp the lesson, despite what the archeologists say, the story can transform our lives and indeed, change the world. And from my perspective, that is whole point; it’s what we are doing here; it’s why we are a people of faith.

Shabbat shalom.

Shmot 2010; Moses and Leadership

2010-02-18T12:20:00.002-07:00

Shmot; Birth of Moses and Leadership

Our Torah reading this morning deals with the towering character of Moses. It is an unusual story, akin perhaps to the stories of Joseph. As a narrative, it stretches the bounds of plausibility: for Joseph, a slave in Potiphar’s household becomes a viceroy of Egypt. And in the case of Moses, a slave baby becomes a prince of Egypt. Clearly, both texts are implying that the hand of God is involved. It is God that makes sure that the people have just the leaders they need at just the right time.

Moses in particular. For the Torah, Moses is the quintessential leader; the most important, the most central: the savior and the law giver, from military leader to wilderness guide. Moses takes on the Pharoah, deals with a cranky stiff- necked people, stands down a dangerous rebellion, brings God’s rebuke to the people and delivers their salvation. In the case of Moses, God is directing history, as He does in all the other stories of the Bible.

But Moses is unique. There is something more to Moses; something different from all the other characters in the Bible. For Moses has a distinct personality: we can learn from his central place in the history of our nation, but we can also learn from his well defined and compelling character. Moses, as a man, can teach us how to be leader. And ultimately, Moses, as a man, can teach us how to be a complete human being. Let’s take a look.

We learn the most about the young Moses in his first interaction with God. God says to this one time prince and now simple shepherd: “I have seen the affliction of My people in Egypt…and now go, I will dispatch you to Pharaoh and you shall take My People, the Children of Israel, out of Egypt.” And Moses’ famous reply, “Who am I to go to Pharaoh and that I should take the Children of Israel out of Egypt.” Rashi paraphrases Moses, “ma ani chashuv ledaber im melachim,” Moses asks God, “ am I important enough to speak with Kings?”

Moses, of course, grew up as the son of a King --why wouldn’t he think himself important enough? The text tells us why in the Book of Numbers: “v’ha ish Moshe anav meod mikol ha adam asher al p’nai ha adamah.” The man Moses was the humblest man on the face of the earth.

Humility, the first and most important character trait in a leader. The great Musar master Rabbi Bachya Ibn Pekuda, 12th century Spain, wrote in his work, “Duties of the Heart,” that “All virtues and duties begin with humility.” Proverbs 18: “Before destruction the heart of man is haughty, and before honor goes humility.” Moses seemed more than comfortable with his lot as a shepherd: sheep don’t rebel, for the most part, they don’t whine and complain. For Moses, even growing up as a prince of Egypt ---he did not see himself as the savior of God’s chosen people; in fact, he did not see himself special at all.

Humility requires that a person take an accurate assessment of the self. Moses knew himself quite well, Chapter 4, verse 10 “Please my Lord, I am not a man of words….for I am heavy of mouth and heavy of speech.” Moses argues with God about his ability to fulfill this Divine mission; Moses is not engaging in self-abasement, here; he challenges God’s choice in him because of a recognized lack of skills. God is not deterred; God will be with him, Aaron will be with him: God essentially says, “ you don’t have to be perfect to be a perfect leader.” But you do have to be humble.

Humility leads into the next essential quality of leadership. The Pharaohs of Egypt built great monuments to themselves. Go to Cairo and visit the great Pyramids which cost thousands of lives to build in order to entomb one, single Pharaoh after he dies. The Pharaoh’s looked out at the world and saw them. Their concern was their honor, their glory, in fact, what they considered to be their divinity. Moses grew up in the Pharaoh’s household but was different. And this is how he was different. The text says, “it happened in those days that Moses grew up and went out to his brethren and observed their burdens; and he saw an Egyptian man striking a Hebrew man of his brethren. He turned this way and that and saw that there was no man, so he struck down the Egyptian… “
What I find important about this verse is the phrase, “observed their burdens.” After he grew up --matured, became an adult, he went out and observed the burdens of his people. There is a saying: “if you want to truly know me, you have to see and understand what it is that causes me pain.” The Pharaoh looked out over his kingdom and saw no one but himself; his own needs and desires. Moses looked out over the kingdom and saw the injustice: saw human beings with heavy burdens; he saw his brethren in pain. A true leader focuses away from the self and witnesses and responds to the pain of those he presumes to lead.

And finally, a leader must honor incertitude. Moses was unsure how the people of Israel would respond to his mission to lead them out of Egypt. He asked God, “behold when I come to the Children of Israel…..and they say to me, what is [this God’s]Name? What shall I tell them?” “ And God answers Moses, I shall be what I shall be. And[God] said, “so shall you say to the Children of Israel, “I Shall Be has sent you.” Well, one might rightly ask: what kind of name is that? It doesn’t sound like a name; it doesn’t make sense. Moses is launched into his mission with uncertainty. He doesn’t understand how he is going to achieve his goal. He is unsure about the Pharaoh, he doesn’t trust his own people and now, the God who sends him is incomprehensible. Moses begins his prophesy with more questions than answers and must tolerate that uncertainty. Here is the ugly truth about leadership. No leader knows exactly what he is doing. No leader can predict the future and know what will happen as a result of any decision that is made. A true leader must fully understand that and share that with those he leads and yet remain focused on his goal. A leader or anyone else who purports to know the whole truth regarding anything is a deceiver. And if he believes it himself, he is naïve and even worse, dangerous. Leadership is a messy business. Moses understands that, shares that with his people and yet succeeds despite the uncertainty.

When I speak about Moses as a model for leadership, I am really speaking about all of us. We are all leaders in some part of our lives. At work, in the shul, as parents. We all must stand before others at some time or another and express our ideals, our vision, our goals. So the character traits of Moses: humility, a concern for others even at the expense of our own needs and accepting the fact that we don’t know everything --these characteristics are important for us in our everyday lives. They are the necessary characteristics of leadership, but they are also the necessary characteristics for being an adult; for being a mentch.

Shabbat Shalom

Power and the Maccabbees

2009-12-19T21:58:00.004-07:00

Power and how to use it. The Jewish people’s relationship to power is ambivalent. We see that clearly from the sacred texts we access during the holiday of Hanukah: the last day of which we celebrate today.

We light candles, exchange some presents; we have parties during Hanukah, seeing this time of year as focused mainly on children. As the sun goes down early in December, we use the Hanukiah to light our homes and bring a bit of holiday cheer to our lives.

Interesting to note, however, that this holiday is based on a deadly serious historical event and since this event, the Jewish people, particularly the Rabbis in the Talmud, have not known what to make of it.

What was the event? It happened in the second century BCE. The Syrian Greeks, led by Antiochus Epiphanes IV, trying to shore up control over his kingdom which included the Land of Israel, sacked the Temple in Jerusalem, desecrated it with pagan idols and outlawed Jewish practices. He thought by doing so, he would break the will of the Jews, pacifying them. Just the opposite happened. The Jews of that time were furious and led by a rebel of the Hasmonean household, named Judah Maccabbee, a small band of soldiers, took on the Greek army and by virtue of their prowess, and a lot of luck, beat the army of Antiochus and regained control of the Temple. Many died in this battle and most of the Hasmonean household including Judah Maccabbee would die in subsequent battles. As for the Temple, the Maccabbees cleaned it up and rededicated it on the 25th of Kislev in the year 165 BCE. The Hasmoneans would have sovereign control over the land of Israel for the next 100 years.

The first book of Maccabbees, written more than likely by a court reporter of the Hasmonean household, focuses almost entirely on the military successes of the family. If there was a miracle that happened there, it was that a small group of soldiers beat a large foreign regular army. No mention of oil. No miracle with the Temple Menorah.

So then came the Rabbis of the Talmud writing more than 200 years later, during a time of an iron-fisted occupation by the Roman Empire. They looked at the military victory of the Maccabbees and it caused them anxiety. They had seen the results of Jewish rebellion in their era, the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE and the disastrous Bar Kochba revolt of 132 CE. The last thing the Rabbis wanted to see were more Jewish rebellions, leading to more slaughter, so they played down, even ignored the Maccabbean battles. In the Talmudic tractate Shabbat we read a passage about the meaning of Hanukah which discusses the of oil that should have lasted one day but ended up miraculously lasting eight. The miracle wasn’t military, it was ritual. And in the Haftorah of Shabbat Hanukah, again, selected by the Rabbis, we read the verse “Not by might and not by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord.” Military might is not necessary, implies the Talmud. God will fight for us and send us the messiah and perfect the world and our job is to believe and wait.

And this has been the Jewish way up until the 20th century. Jews lived in other countries, Jews kept to themselves, Jews did not rebel but followed the laws and the will of their host countries. There was almost 2000 years of Jews keeping a low profile and hoping for the best.

Of course, the best rarely happened in the Diaspora. Crusades, Inquisition, isolation, persecutions, massacres, expulsions and genocide. But the Jews waited none the less, as directed by the Talmud. It was just too dangerous, they thought, to fight back.

The last time, before 1948, that the Jews were in sovereign control of the Land of Israel was in the second century BCE, during the time of the Maccabbees. The last time before Zionism, with just a few exceptions, that Jews fought back to defend themselves to save their own lives, was in antiquity. How long would it be before Jews took their own fate into their own hands?

In 1980, I spent a year in Israel, taking classes at Hebrew University. Interestingly enough, our history teachers would cancel classes around Hanukah as they were all called up for reserve duty in the army. Why were they called up during Hanukah? Because during Hanukah, they would lecture to the Israeli army troops about the Maccabbees and what happened when Jews fought back. In Israel, there is a different ethic regarding the military which has influenced Jews around the world. Since 1948 and especially since the Six Day War in 1967, Jews have felt differently about themselves. We still wait for the messiah, but when necessary, we deploy an army to protect ourselves. Jews in this country become political activists to protect the interests of our people. Jews act in the world now, like the Macabbees did in their time. We are no longer passive in the face of our enemies. It is a different world now for the Jewish people.

President Obama gave what I believe to be the most important speech of his presidency thus far. When he received the Nobel Peace Prize, he did not hesitate to mention the irony of a war time president receiving a prize for peace. And he said the following, “we must begin by acknowledging the hard truth that we will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations –acting individually or in concert –will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.” He said, “make no mistake, evil does exist in the world.”
I believe this speech is so important because it goes to the anxiety felt by the Rabbis in the Talmud and by Israel and the world Jewish community today. There is evil in this world and our people and all people must protect themselves from it consuming them. It has happened before and we must never let it happen again. Israel, as do all Democratic nations, wishes to be able to lay down their arms, dismantle their missiles, and send their soldiers home to their families. But to do so today would be an act of unforgivable naiveté and national suicide. As the President implied in his speech, this dream of world peace will probably not come true in our lifetimes.

The Rabbis in the Talmud knew that Jewish rebellion during the times of Roman occupation and repression was a lost cause. But Jews had no power then and remaining passive was good policy. That is not the case today nor must it ever be the case again. The world is very harsh on the State of Israel when it seeks to defend itself from its enemies. Perhaps the world is more comfortable with the idea that Jews are victims; they were victims for two millennia and so it should remain today.

And to that, we say no. The Maccabbees, not the rabbis, should be our model in modern times. Sometimes the careful, moral use of power is necessary and indeed, according to Jewish law, obligatory to defend one’s life. I think that is clear to our President and it is certainly clear to the State of Israel and the Jewish people. As it should be.

Shabbat Shalom and Happy Hanukah

Vayetze 5770; Jacob and Personal Growth

2009-11-27T14:10:00.001-07:00

One of the most famous dreams in all of Jewish history is described in this week’s Torah portion. If you remember from last week, Jacob and Esau had a terrible falling out. Jacob tricked his brother out of his father’s birthright and blessing and Jacob just assumed now that Esau wanted to kill him. So Jacob takes off by himself. He is headed towards Haran to take refuge with his mother’s family.

As he approaches the border of Israel, he makes camp. And he lies down presumably to sleep. He has a dream of a ladder with angels of God descending and ascending the ladder and when he wakes up, he is surprised and says, “God is in this place and I did not know it.”

The language of this story has the rabbis of the Midrash perplexed. The text says that Jacob, “v’yishkav b’makom ha hu,” he laid down in that place, and then he dreams the dream. He laid down, but it doesn’t say whether or not he actually fell asleep. Perhaps this dream was more like a vision, a waking dream.

In verse 16, the text says, “v’yikatz yaakov mi’shenato,” that Jacob arose from his slumber” to be astonished by the dream and the holiness of the place. But the Rabbis even challenge this verse as they question how Jacob could have even slepthel at all with all that was happening in his life.

Rabbi Yochanan in the Midrash says “me shenato” does not mean, from his slumber. Because even though the Hebrew word “shana” means sleep, the Aramaic word “shana” means something else. Shana in Aramaic is similar to the word mishna which means to study or to teach. So for Rabbi Yochanan, Jacob was studying Torah all night when he suddenly realized that he was in a holy place and that God was speaking to him directly.

The great Hasidic master, Rav Nachman of Bratzlav played on the words “me shenato” as well by saying that it means an “awakening” as it relates to the heart and soul. Jacob had been asleep spiritually up to that point in his life and suddenly, as he is about to lose his home and family, he wakes up to the presence of God and realizes that God is in this place; that God was with him all along and he simply did not know it.

Jacob is my favorite character in all the Bible because through the stories of the Torah, we watch him grow up. We watch him change over the course of his life. He improves himself; he grows both emotionally and spiritually. It is gradual growth; it is painful growth, but it is a genuine and lasting growth that we can all relate to and learn from.

My colleague Rabbi Michael Graetz makes a wonderful point in his writings. He says that rabbi Yochanan’s statement in the Talmud reveals a profound truth. Jacob was aroused from his studies. He was so immersed in study that he failed to see God’s presence. Even if we assume that he was studying torah, his total immersion in God’s word almost caused him to miss the presence of God Himself.

In the Talmud, we read, “ha omer, ein lie eleh torah, afilu torah ein lo” “the one who says all there is to me is Torah, misses the point of Torah and is a risk of losing the Torah all together” (Yevamot. 109b). The point of Jewish study is to tease out the will of God from sacred texts. If there is no God in one’s study, then one’s study is pointless, an intellectual exercise that bears no fruit.

And I think there is one more point one can make from this. The text says that Jacob was aroused, “mishnato,” which could also be translated that Jacob was aroused from that which he had learned, from all that he had come to believe, from his sense of certainty.
One of the great misconceptions of adulthood is that when a person becomes an adult, he or she should already knows everything there is to know. Adults hate to admit that they are unsure about something, that they have their doubts, that they just don’t know something, for certain.. And the more insecure the adult, the more that person is likely to cling desperately to claims of certainty, to, in fact, claim that he or she knows the truth and will not hear arguments to the contrary.

How many people do we know like this? Perhaps we ourselves are like this. When I started at the Alliance, a member of the congregation came up to me and said, “I have to tell you the truth rabbi. I just don’t believe any of this stuff. I know my own mind and I think Judaism is fine and all, but the religious stuff, I don’t believe in it and that is just who I am and hope you can accept me for who I am.”

I remember feeling a bit surprised by this declaration. The man was in his 40’s. He sounded to me as though he had never changed his mind or learned anything new in 20 years. How could he be so certain about Judaism? How could he be so certain about his own mind? How could he be so certain that he wouldn’t learn something new about his faith and actually change?

Jacob was a crafty fellow as a young man. He had incredible chutzpah and probably thought of himself as very clever. But his cleverness caused his family to break apart and it caused him to flee into exile. And in our parasha this morning, he suddenly wakes up. He learns something new about himself. He learns something new about God and he is astonished. God was in this place and he just never realized it.

We are all Jacob. The young men and women among us and the seniors among us, we are all Jacob. We all have more to learn and understand about God and our relationship to God. We are all asleep to God’s presence in some way. Our eyes are closed. Our minds are made up.

But the Torah knows better. We are human beings and human beings can learn at any age. We can wake up to God’s presence at any time, in any stage of our lives. We often open our eyes to God’s presence at the most astonishing times, the birth of a child, an insight during Torah studies, feeling well again after an illness, our child’s wedding, holding a grandchild for the first time. These are occasions that give us windows into God’s presence. They are times that make us certain of one thing, that we don’t know everything, that life is mysterious and will always continue to surprise us.

This is what Jacob learns as he arises from his slumber. He opens his eyes for the first time and sees God and it changes him forever.

The Torah this morning urges us not to be so sure. Don’t be so certain. There is always more to learn, always more to grow, astonishing things to see, if we would only awaken from our slumber.

Toldot 5770

2009-11-20T13:07:00.005-07:00

There is a certain satisfaction in having a good guy and a bad guy. Those of us who grew up watching television know this quite well. Think of the westerns we watched when we were kids: you had the sherrif of the town and you had the bank robbers. The sherrif was good, the bank robbers were bad and more often than not, the sheriff would catch the robbers, put them in the local jail and then more bad guys would come to break them out of the jail and so it went, western after western. Bonanza, The Rifleman, even the Lone Ranger; good and bad, clear as a gun fight at high noon.

You might think that the stories of the Torah, written almost three thousand years before the first western ever hit the big screen would portray its characters in a clear good and bad guy format. But this is not so. Our parasha this week is a good example of just that.

We have a struggle going on between Jacob and Esav , twins in the womb of their mother. Rebecca conceives and carries these twins who are causing her great pain and strife in utero as they struggle with one another to be born first. We find the rabbinic commentary on this story trying to make it into a western. Esav is portrayed as the evil one and Jacob can do no wrong. The midrash imagines that when Rebecca passes the yeshiva of shem and aver, Jacob struggles to emerge, from the womb, presumably to study some Torah. When Rebecca walks by a pagan idol, Esav tries to emerge, to worship the false gods. The midrash continues in this vein throughout the story. Jacob good and Esav bad.

But I’m not sure the rabbinic approach to this story is so accurate. These characters are both good and bad and I contend that these characters are symbolic of two sides to the human personality. And in order to be a complete human being, we need to allow expression to both aspects of who we are.

Let’s take a look at Jacob and Esav. Esav is born first “admoni kulo k’aderet se’ar,” he was earthy and hairy, “ish yodea tzayid, ish sadeah, “a man who knows how to hunt, a man of the field.” Now this immediately makes us feel ambivalent about Esav. A hunter? A man’s man; a guy who camps out in the woods and lives close to the earth as his description indicates “admoni,” a man of the earth. And Yitzchak loves him more because he enjoyed eating the meat Esav brought home to him.
And then there is Yaakov; born clinging to the heal of Esav, presumably trying to pull Esav back into the womb so he can be born first. His name Yaakov means heal; even in the womb, he tries to get the advantage over his brother. He is called, “ish tam, yoshev ohalim,” a smooth skinned man, who sat around the tents,” presumably with his mother.

When I think of these two characters, I think of Esav as Daniel Boon or Hoss Cartwright. Jacob, I see as, well, Woody Alan.

Now the story in our parasha goes on. Esav comes out from hunting in the field, famished, and Jacob, true to form, is cooking. Esav is consumed with his hunger and believes he is going to die without something to eat and sells his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of red lentil soup: again, red, like the earth. So the text then says: “v’yochal, v’yesht, v’yakom, v’yelech, v’yivez” These are five action verbs in a row: he ate, drank, arose, walked away and spurned his birthright. Esav is a man of action. He’s out in the world doing things. Conventional niceties are of no concern to him. He does was he feels is right; he is a man full of passion.
Then as the story goes, Jacob, in cahoots with his mother, tricks Yitzchak into giving Jacob the blessing of the first born that should have gone to Esav. And in a heartbreaking scene, Esav approaches his father and “cried out an exceedingly great and bitter cry, and said to his father,’Bless me too, Father” And then Yitzchak says, “Your brother came deceitfully and took your blessing.” . And Esav says, “have you but one blessing, father. Bless me too father” and Esav rasied his voice and wept.”

A man of action, a tough guy, a hunter and a man of the earth, pouring out his heart to his father whom he loves and who loves him, asking for a simple blessing. Esav is out in the world, but he cares deeply about his family.

To my mind, Esav gets a bad rap by the rabbis. What is there in the story to criticize in Esav’s behavior. He is who he is, and if any character is behaving poorly in this story, it is Jacob who is a sly trickster, deceiving both his brother and his father. And we know that Jacob is the one with questionable moral character as Jacob receives his punishment in the next parasha. He tricked his father as his father was blind and could not see. And in the next parasha, Laban tricks Jacob into marrying Leah instead of Rachel by sending Leah into Jacobs dark tent. Jacob is blind in the tent and is tricked by Lavan, just as Jacob tricked his father.

So what can we make of this story? As I see it, Jacob and Esav are two sides of one personality. All of us have both characteristics in us; we are like Jacob, smooth, sensitive, intellectual,people who create homes and use our wits to get by. But we are also like Esav: people of action; strong, passionate, trying to make a difference out in the world.

The rabbis of the Talmud favored Yaakov because they were, at the time, under the thumb of the Romans (who they attributed as descendents of Esav). The rabbis knew from experience that rebelling against the Romans would bring upon themselves, certain death and destruction. They wanted the Jews to be pacifists and live by their wits, not their brawn. And it is this Rabbinic preference which characterized the Jews throughout history; even to a certain extent, to this very day.

But I believe we need to rehabilitate Esav and express this aspect of our people’s personality, as well. Since the Six Day War in 1967, we regained our confidence as a People that we could physically protect ourselves from our enemies. No longer would we depend on others: emperors, kings, czars or the like. We created an army in Israel and for the first time since the Maccabees two thousand years earlier, we took our physical destiny into our own hands. Alan Dershowitz calls this “chutzpah.” We need no longer cower and keep quiet lest our enemies see us and persecute us. In Israel and in this country, Jews can and must act like Jacob and Esav. We can think and plan and work towards peace in our homeland and in our lives. But if it comes to self defense, particularly in the State of Israel, we must protect ourselves in whatever way is necessary.

We, as a people, are Jacob and Esav: the thoughtful and the physical. For Jews to live in this world with meaning and in safety, we need both. Shabbat Shalom.

A Serious Man

2009-11-11T16:44:00.006-07:00

I just saw the movie by the Coen brothers called “A Serious Man.” In the movie, a nice but nebbishe Jewish guy from Minneapolis, has bad things happen to him.” I will talk about the movie in a minute but first, a little theology.

The question here is “why do bad things happen to good people?” Our parasha today has a very succinct answer to the question and it is how most of the Bible answers this question, “bad things don’t happen to good people, only to bad people.”

Take a quick look at our parasha today. God comes to Abraham and says, “I am going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah because of their wickedness.” Abraham says, using good Biblical theology, “how can You (God) destroy the good people in the cities along with the wicked?” And here is the theology: “chalilah lach, ha shofet kol haaretz lo yaaseh mishpat?” God forbid, says Abraham to God, the judge of all the earth, Himself, will not do justice? And God agrees with Abraham. He will not sweep away the good people with the bad. He will not bring bad things upon good people. This is the theology of just about the entire Bible.

But then comes the Biblical Book of Job which stands Biblical theology on its head. Job is a completely righteous man who enjoys God’s blessings: good health, wealth, love, children. Satan says to God, “of course Job is righteous. Look at all the blessings you have given him. Take those blessings away; afflict Job with tzuris and just watch how fast he curses God.” So God takes it all away and Job does not curse God but he does ask a pretty poignant question, “why me?” Three friends come to Job, one after the other, and repeat to Job Biblical theology saying: “maybe, Job, you just don’t remember. But you must have done something to deserve the evil that has befallen you.” But Job, in fact, didn’t do anything wrong. The friends are wrong. At the end of the book, God comes to Job from within a whirlwind and says to him, “who are you who gives dubious counsel without knowledge?” This essentially means that Job, you cannot possibly understand the ways of God. Deal with what you have, the good as well as the bad.” Conversation over. This is the revolutionary theology of Job.

So the movie, “A Serious Man. ” a comedy. The movie was made by the Coen brothers who brought us “No Country for Old Men,” “Fargo,” and my favorite, “The Big Lebowski.” The serious man in the movies Larry Gobnick, a Jewish physics professor up for tenure. He’s a good man, who resists the temptations to do evil. Yet, his wife is leaving him for Cy Ableman, who is an obnoxious family friend. And if that isn’t humiliation enough, his wife and Cy convince Larry that it would be best for everybody if Larry moved out of the house and into this cheesy motel. Larry moves out. Then it gets worse. Cy dies in a car crash and his wife convinces Larry that it would be best for everybody if Larry paid for Cy’s funeral, which he does. More problems. Larry’s daughter is stealing money to save up for a nose job. Larry’s son is stealing money to buy marijuana from his Hebrew school classmate. In fact, his son likes marijuana so much that he smokes it the morning of his Bar Mitzvah and has some trouble, understandably, reading the Torah in front of the congregation.

Things are bad for Larry all around and everyone he talks to tells him to go talk to the rabbi. He can help. There are three rabbis in his shul, the assistant, the senior rabbi and the wise and mysterious Rabbi Emeritus whose name is simply, Marshak.

The first two rabbis are like Job’s friends who are of no help to the suffering Gobnick. The third Rabbi, Marshak, doesn’t have time to see him because, as his secretary says to Gobnick, the rabbi is busy “thinking.”
God finally takes Larry’s health away from him and a whirlwind comes in the final scene threatening to whisk away his son and his classmates. The movie ends abruptly here without God saying anything and the rest of us asking, what the heck is going on here? In the credits, the Coen brothers reassure us, “No Jews were injured in the making of this film.”

Good stuff for a sermon. A very funny movie but I think a serious movie as well.
It asks: Why is there evil in the world? Why does God allow the innocent to suffer? What does life mean, why are we here?

When Larry seeks out help from his religious tradition, he is frustrated as the rabbis he talks to come off as foolish. The junior rabbi seems to be facing his own religious crises and the senior rabbi tells Larry a silly story that doesn’t have anything to do with Larry’s problems. And he can’t even get in to see the emeritus. In other words, Judaism doesn’t help Larry in the existential crises that he faces.

But not so fast. The Coen brothers do seem to have some answers for us in the film if one looks closely. And these answers are very Jewish answers.
The first answer is right out of Job. We are human beings and we must live in this world with a sense of humility. We cannot know the mind of God. We cannot fully understand the good or the bad that happens to us. Gobnick is a physics teacher and in one scene, he illustrates the mathematical formula for Werner Heisenberg’s “Uncertainty Principle.” He says to his students after writing the formula all over the board that the formula basically says we can’t know anything for sure. Then he says to his students:, “you are responsible to know this formula on the midterm.” Even the physics teacher teaching math using a precise equation concludes that we can’t know anything for sure. Even so, we are responsible to live our lives the best way we can. We have to live this way in a state of simply not knowing.
Secondly, again, from Job. The world can baffle us and even break our hearts but we can still turn to God. Here were Jews in a Minneapolis suburb, bad things are happening; the Jewish community looks shallow, the clergy silly. But the Coen brothers’ characters, interestingly enough, never question the existence of God. Disagree with God. Be angry with God. Perhaps even curse God, just don’t turn your back on God. The funny characters in the movie never turn their back on God. This is a very Jewish response to the problem of evil.

And finally. The Jewish approach to the problem of why bad things happen to good people. This is put in the mouth of the elderly rabbi emeritus, Marshak. Unlike his father, Larry’s son, the stoned Bar Mitzvah boy, does get a single brief audience with Rabbi Marshak who has been listening to the boy’s transistor radio. When the radio was confiscated a week before by the Hebrew school teacher, it had been playing Jefferson Airplane’s song: “Don’t You Want Somebody to Love.” We hear this song playing throughout the movie as its theme song. So now Marshak, in a thick Yiddish accent repeats the song’s first words to the boy. And here are the words: when the truth is found to be lies and all the joy within you dies.” And then the great rabbi gives the radio back to the boy and says, “be a good boy.” And that is it from Marshak, the wise one, but that is enough.
Our lives don’t always make sense as the song says; when the truth is found to be lies. And sometimes, life breaks our hearts, as the song says: and all the joy within us, dies. And, of course, we finish the song in our minds, “you’d better find somebody to love.” This is the first answer from Marshak via Jefferson Airplane. “You’d better find somebody to love” Loving others, perhaps, is all that is true and meaningful in our lives. It is the balm for the broken heart.
And then Marshak says finally to Larry’s son, “be a good boy.” This comes right out of Ecclesiastes when King Solomon, failing to make sense of his world, in exasperation, says: “the sum of the matter, when all has been considered, fear God and keep His commandments, for that is man’s whole duty.” In other words, be a good boy.

What does the wise rabbi teach us in the film? What pearls of wisdom do the Coen Brothers leave us with? Despite the pain and confusion we experience in our lives: do good, as best you can. Love others, the best you can. And leave the rest up to God.

Another Coen Brothers triumph. A very Jewish movie, a funny movie, but serious as well. Indeed, no Jews were hurt in the making of this film. None hurt, but most likely, enlightened.

Yom Kippur: Kol Nidre: Love your Neighbor as Yourself

2009-09-27T13:51:00.002-06:00

To show you what a forward thinking,and hip kind of guy I am, I want you to know that I just starting using Facebook. I can hear my kids saying now "Abba, that’s been around for 6 years now; there are only 23 million people who have already figured this one out." Well ok, but its cutting edge for me. And by the way, I need more friends. If you are on Facebook, please be my friend. Rabbi Katzan back in New York has 1700 friends and I have about 50. So you Facebook people: you know what to do.

So what is Facebook about, anyway? It’s a computer program that enables you to keep in touch with friends whether they live in your neighborhood or across the country. Seeing a friendly face, even on a computer, who says hi, what’s going on, happy birthday. People like it; it’s kind of comforting; it’s affirming. And I think, most importantly, it serves as a temporary antidote to the stress we feel when we look at what else is going on in our world.

It takes an act of courage to open the morning paper. Reported in the New York Times two weeks ago: the Iranians now have enough fissile material to fast track a nuclear bomb. Hundreds of thousands could die in a single strike. Pakistan already has nuclear weapons and an unstable government. Egypt could explode at any time. The poverty and degradation there is astounding. It was reported that Egyptians were killing their pigs because they thought they carried swine flu. But then the garbage piled up on the streets because the pigs eat the garbage!

And then you have the real disaster states: Somalia, Sudan, Kenya; in which there is violence, drought, starvation with their corrupt governments doing nothing.

Thomas Hobbes in the 17th century said “The life of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” And you know what, it is like that still, for millions of people around the world: poverty, homelessness, illiteracy, disease: and early death. That’s their daily experience, and that is despite the fact that we have the power and knowledge to prevent the worst of it. Why are people still suffering so?
My grandmother would have said, “it’s a shanda.”

These are big problems. None of us can solve them alone. Many must be solved by governments doing the right thing. But governments won’t do the right thing unless their people demand it of them. And for that to happen, the people have to believe the right things.

Perhaps Thomas Hobbes describes the world as it is. But Judaism tries to focus us on what the world ought to be and must become. And it starts, of course, with you and me.

Here is the Biblical corrective to a Hobbesian worldview: Leviticus 19:18 "V’ahavta L’re acha kamocha." Three simple Hebrew words that can change the world: "v’ahavta l’reecha kamocha, "and you shall love your neighbor as yourself."

This is arguably the best known phrase in the entire Bible. It sounds so reasonable and right and obvious, and yet I propose to you tonight that it is a mitzvah that is summarily ignored by almost all of us. I am not even sure most of us know what it means. Does it mean I should be nice to others? You should be, but it doesn’t mean that. Does it mean I should be a good person? You should be, but it doesn’t mean that either. Love your neighbor as yourself is a very big concept; it is a difficult concept and it places enormous demands on how we live our lives.

Rabbi Akiva in the Talmud says that this commandment is the fundamental principle in the Torah; everything else in Judaism follows from it. If you understand this mitzvah, you will understand how we must remake ourselves in order to remake the world.

Let’s take a closer look at it by breaking it down.

Love your neighbor as yourself. What do we mean by love?

This has been a topic of debate in Western Civilization for 4000 years. No one has determined what it is, definitively. It is an elusive concept which virtually every culture has tried to define for itself.

Well, there is one thing that most cultures, including Judaism agree love is not. Love is not feelings. I always think of that song when I am on this topic by the group “Gemini:” “Feelings, nothing more than feelings, trying to forget my feelings of love.” This is a great song: not love. Anyone who has been married more than a month knows that feelings for one’s spouse are not the bases of love because feelings change over time. In fact, feelings can change several times a day. One can feel angry or frustrated or charmed or passionate or feel nothing at all at any given time. But the love remains because love is a fundamental commitment to the other. It is a focus away from the self and onto someone else.

The Jewish psychologist Eric Fromm wrote a great little book called "The Art of Loving." I read it in high school and I still remember three of his fundamental characteristics necessary for genuine love: care, responsibility, and respect. Care means an active concern for the life and the growth of whom we love. It is a focus on the needs of the other. Marriage counselors often cite the typical change in attitude of lovers who date and then get married. When you are dating, it is all about the other person; every little need, every desire, you jump right on, you do whatever you can to satisfy the other. But then you get married and all of a sudden, it’s your own concerns that take precedence and everybody is surprised. Caring is a focus on what the other one needs.

Responsibility. For Fromm, responsibility means, responsiveness. You care about another’s needs and you stand ready to respond to them. Their growth, challenges, troubles, stresses, triumphs, dreams and pursuits: in love, those become your concerns as well. In this sense, the one who is loved is never alone. There is always a partner there to help carry his or her life’s burdens.

Respect. This means appreciating all that is good and noble in the other’s life. The character flaws and deficiencies of another person are always quite readily apparent. We must look beyond them. We read in Pirke Avot, "dan l’chaf zechut,"judge everyone favorably. Find and appreciate the decency and humanity and the good in all people; that is respect.

So what does it mean to “love” your neighbor? It means to see the best in them, to be aware of their needs and to stand ready to respond to them when they need you.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

Your neighbor. It is hard to be concerned about one’s neighbor if you don’t know who they are. Robert Putnam in his book Bowling Alone,” writes that there has been a breakdown in civic society. There are less people on the PTA’s, Fraternal Organizations, neighborhood councils. When I was a kid, we used to have “block parties.” The police would close down the street and we would eat together, play games and have fun. I have often heard the stories of the old West Side of Denver on the High Holidays; hundreds of people out in the neighborhood. Kids playing ball, walking in and out of each other’s homes to find the best treats. These affairs gave us the opportunity to know our neighbors and understand their needs and help them where we could. Today, most of us don’t even know the names of our neighbor’s two doors down.

Our world has become impersonal. We tend to isolate ourselves perhaps to keep a rather frightening world at bay. And I think this isolation gives us an excuse not to care. We can’t love the neighbor who we don’t know. We can’t love the neighbor to whom we pay no attention.

The term for neighbor in Hebrew is “rae’eh, which we can understand in broad terms. It can mean one’s fellow who is close to you, who may be very much like you,or it can mean people who are not close and who may be quite different from you.

We read in the Midrash, “when a human being creates coins from the same mint, they all come out the same. But God makes every human being in the same image, His image, and yet each is different.” Difference is the human condition. There are thousands of cultures in the world, close to 8,000 living languages. However, the first phrase of the Midrash is the key, here. Even though every human being is different from the next, each is made in God’s image, each is equal, precious, of infinite value. And each, according to the Torah, is deserving of our love. Loving one’s neighbor really means loving all humanity by finding in them the Divinity that we all share.

Of course, it is hard enough to love the neighbor next door. How are we supposed to love all of humanity?

There was a great Peanuts cartoon. In it Linus says: “I love humanity, it’s people I can’t stand.”

We don’t start with humanity, we start by loving people; the people in our own lives. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi of Britain, writes, “the universality of moral concern is not something we learn by being universal but by being particular. Because we know what it is like to be a parent, loving our children, we come to understand what it is like for someone, somewhere else, to be a parent, loving his or her children. By coming to know what it means to be a child, a parent, a neighbor, a friend [we understand the lives of others in our community and even around the world who are children, parents, neighbors and friends]. We learn to love humanity by loving [the] specific human beings [in our lives].” We come to understand and care for our neighbors, near and far, because we see ourselves in them.

You shall love your neighbor by showing concern and being responsive to the people in your own life and then to the people in your community and then to the people around the world.

Now if the commandment stopped there, “love you neighbor,” it would be hard enough to fulfill. But the commandment includes one more word: "kamocha." The commandment reads: "v’ahavta l’rea'acha kamocha," you shall love your neighbor, “as yourself.”

We have to get a little more personal at this point, and quite a bit more specific. What is it in our lives that we cannot do without? What needs do we have in our lives that we insist must be fulfilled? Loving your neighbor as yourself means that what you insist on for yourself and your family, you must seek to provide for others who cannot provide it for themselves.

The psychologist Abraham Maslow once did a chart on the hierarchy of basic human needs. These are needs that must be satisfied for any single human being to flourish in this world. Here they are.

Maslow’s first level consists of basic biological needs: food and water. Simple isn’t it? Would we not do everything humanly possible to secure basic sustenance for ourselves and every member of our family?

There have been times in history when Jews suffered from starvation, in the pale of settlement, in the ghetto, in the camps. But today, thank God, we live in a Jewish community that enjoys a level of prosperity our ancestors could never have imagined. Yet as we thrive today, there are a billion people in the world that don’t have enough to eat to stay healthy. Every six seconds, according to U.N. statistics, a child dies somewhere in the world from malnutrition. In the United States, the most advanced country in the world, it is estimated that over 36 million citizens including 12 million children, suffer from what they now call “food insecurity,” which means a family that can’t afford to get enough food on the table to satisfy a normal diet. Some 7 million Americans avail themselves of emergency food services each week. A Jewish organization called Mazon raises about 5 million dollars a year from the Jewish community and disburses it to soup kitchens, food pantries, food banks, and a host of other anti-hunger agencies throughout the United States. Our own Jewish Family Service runs a food pantry right over here at Tamarac which was created by our members Bobbie Carr and Jerry Carr,of blessed memory. Jerry just passed away this week. Jerry and Bobbie’s food pantry disburses hundreds of pounds of food each month. There are 2,000 of us here tonight. We are all fasting for the next 24 hours. If we were to donate the cost of the food we would have eaten today to one of these agencies, hundreds of people’s lives would be improved in the weeks to come. As we would insist on sufficient nutrition for ourselves and our families, we must insist on it for others as well. "kol dichpin yatev v’yechul. We say this Passover but it is a mitzvah all year round, “all who are hungry, let them come and eat.”

Maslow’s next level of human need. To flourish, says Maslow, a person needs safety and security. No person can live in chaos. Everyone needs a roof over his head and structure in his life. There are between 1 and 2 million people in this country without adequate housing, many are children. The HEA is partners with other churches and synagogues in Denver, together with Habitat for Humanity. We have built 7 houses so far here in Denver and we are working on our 8th. We raise money then we go out and work on the housing site. We can all participate in this. We insist on adequate housing for ourselves and our families. Must we not insist on doing what we can to provide it for others?

Maslow’s next level of need. Every human being has a need for love, affection and self respect. We all need a place to be where we are known, a place where we are cherished and paid attention to.

There are many in our community who are alone. They are mostly elderly with children who live far away. Many are shut-into their homes or into nursing facilities. Our staff and clergy try to visit them when we learn about them. We visit them as often as we can but it’s never enough. These people need our regular attention; they need affection and they need to know that they belong here, that they are valued and a part of our community. We have a chesed society here at the shul that pairs our members with those who need visitors. The Jewish Family Service has something similar called ‘para-chaplains.” It’s good satisfying work. Tell us if you know of someone who needs a friend. Let us set you up as a friend. We would not allow for our mother or father or child to be alone. We say tonight: "al tashlicheni l’et ziknah," do not cast me away, oh Lord,in my old age. We must not cast anyone away when we have the power to do something about it.

And Maslow’s final level of need, the need for self-actualization. Maslow explains this as being able to do what one was born to do, to make full use of one’s potential, to go as far in life as our skills can take us. This requires the opportunity for a decent education. It takes good parenting, mentoring, tutoring, support in the home, correct values. These are all things that we would never think to deny our children but are denied to children all over our community. We have in Denver a program called Jewish Coalition for Literacy, run by the Synagogue Council, which sends volunteers into some of the Denver Public Schools to read with kids and help them with their homework; perhaps instill in them a love of learning. No child will thrive in this society without a good education and the correct values to succeed. Our tradition says that if you save a single life, it is as if you have saved the entire world. Save one child and you have saved the whole world.

Here is what I recommend. Make a "chesed circle." Chesed means performing acts of kindness and concern for people in need. Find 5 or 6 other people that you can work with, friends or those with whom you would like to become friends. Meet a few times and decide as a group what the group might like to do to make a difference in our community. Support each other in selecting where to put your efforts and then help each other follow through. You might speak to some of the members of our synagogue community who are already heavily involved in this work, like the Toltz family at Dependable Cleaners who distribute thousands of winter coats each year to the poor. They call it “Coats for Colorado.” Or Kim Turnbow who together with her friends deliver homemade knitted blankets and other items to the poor on Native American reservations in South Dakota. She calls her organization“Warm Woolies.” Or Sara Kornfeld who works to provide money to and information about those suffering in Darfur. She calls her group; “It only takes Sense.” Or speak to us at the shul; we can help your "chesed circle" find meaningful work. Let your goals be modest ones. Make life easier for even one other human being in this world and you will have done a great mitzvah in the eyes of God. Emily Dickenson: “ If I can stop one heart from breaking; I shall not live in vain. If I can ease one life the aching or cool one pain or help one fainting robin unto his nest again, I shall not live in vain.”

Loving your neighbor as yourself. Love: we love others when we are responsible for and responsive to the needs. Your neighbor: no matter how different they might be from us we recognize in others God’s image and our common humanity. As yourself: what we demand for ourselves in our own lives, we must seek to provide for others in need.

There is the story of a wise woman who was traveling in the mountains. She found a precious stone in a stream. The next day she met another traveler who was hungry and the wise woman opened his bag to share her food. The hungry traveler saw the precious stone in the wise woman's bag, admired it, and asked the wise woman to give it to him. The wise man did so without hesitation.

The traveler left, rejoicing in his good fortune. He knew the jewel was worth enough to give him security for the rest of his life.

But a few days later, he came back, searching for the wise woman. When he found her, he returned the stone and said, “I have been thinking. I know how valuable this stone is, but I give it back to you in the hope that you will give me something much more precious in return. If you can, give me what you have within you that enabled you to give me this stone” (Chicken Soup for the Woman's Soul).

We pray tonight that God should give us the wisdom and the desire to truly “love our neighbors as ourselves.” Then we shall be truly blessed.

Shana tova tikatevu v’techatemu. A good and healthy new year to all.

Rosh Hashana 5770: Happiness

2009-09-19T11:00:00.002-06:00

OK, sometimes I am a little bit grouchy. I am a serious guy and I probably don’t smile enough. So last summer, a member of the congregation came up to me, noticing the lack of expression on my face and asked me, “Rabbi, are you happy?”

Wow! What was I to make of a question like that? Happy? I am not sure I ever gave that one much thought. I have asked myself many questions in my life: Am I good? Am I satisfied? Do I give enough? All kinds of questions-never that one.

You might agree with me here: it has been a lousy year: the economy has put everyone on edge there are people out of work: everyone is making do with less --there is not a person, business, or institution (and I include the Alliance in this) which hasn’t been hurt. This is a tough year to talk about happiness because so many people today seem so unhappy. But one might say: it is this year, perhaps more so than at any other time in the recent past: that we should talk about what it means for a person, to be happy.

My Dad, who was a beautiful soul: and was himself: once or twice accused of being a grouch, used to say to me: Bruce, it doesn’t matter what you do in life as long as you are happy. I dismissed that one liner as a teenager; and never gave it much thought until now: because this past summer at a difficult time, in a difficult year: someone asked me: “Rabbi, are you happy?”

I typically need George Burns at a time like this. His take on take on happiness: “happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close knit family… in another city.”

So let me ask all of you the same question: Are you happy? And what does that even mean?

I didn’t actually answer the question straight away. I wanted to think about it. I thought I’d study the issue and see what our tradition had to say about it.

And as with most things: Judaism has quite a lot to say about happiness. Our tradition says that not only is happiness a good thing; but every Jew has a moral obligation to be happy. It’s a commandment! Here it is in the Torah: Deuteronomy 26: “you shall rejoice with all the good that the Almighty has given you.” And the Rambam codified this law in his Mishna Torah which reads: “Be neither frivolous nor sad. Be consistently happy, and carry a pleasant facial expression.”
Kashrut, Shabbes, Tzedakah ---Jews pay attention to all these commandments: yet how many of us ever learned from our Jewish studies that we have an obligation to be happy?

Here are what some other Jews have to say about this: Baruch Spinoza: “what everyone wants from life is continuous and genuine happiness.” Anne Frank wrote in her diary: “we all live with the objective of being happy.” And not just Jews expressed this desire: Listen to Aristotle: 4th century BCE: “happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human experience.”

Happiness is what we all want! Judaism insists that we acquire it. We should probably then come to some agreement about what it is!

Well, let’s start with what it is not.

There are actually people who study happiness scientifically: they use interviews, longitudinal studies, attitude surveys: the whole thing. And in these studies they have determined that what most people believe about happiness is wrong.

Myth # 1: Happiness is out there somewhere, perhaps just beyond our reach. If only certain things were to come to pass, I’d be happy: like marrying my true love, securing a dream job, living in the perfect city. Not true. Studies show that people, who are fortunate enough to have these things, do not report any more happiness on a happiness scale than those who do not.

Myth # 2: If only I were beautiful, I’d be happy. Again, not true. The American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons found that after surgery, those who reported that they were most satisfied with their post surgery appearance, felt happy, but only for a short period of time. There was a happiness boost right after the surgery, but it eventually just faded away.

Myth #3: If only I had a lot of great things, I’d be happy. Great car, flat screen TV, big house: I’d be happy then. Nope. In the 1940’s, a third of American homes did not have running water, indoor toilets, bathtubs, or showers: more than half of those households had no central heating. Today most Americans have all of these things and more. Yet the percentage of people today who say they are happy? A few percentage points lower than the percentage of people reporting happiness in 1940.

So what if I was famous: a great athlete, movie star, and musician? Wouldn’t I be happy then? This isn’t scientific but read People Magazine: most famous people are a mess: broken marriages, problem children, addiction, depression and sometimes early death: I am thinking of Jimmy Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain, and this past summer; Michael Jackson. My sense and probably yours as well: famous people do not score very high on a general happiness scale.
One last myth: and the most common. Wouldn’t I be happy if only I were rich? The studies say not necessarily: No correlation was found between wealth and happiness. People in extreme poverty who don’t have basic needs met report lower levels of happiness than others: but once basic needs are met: there is no difference in reported levels of happiness between the rich and everyone else.
So if happiness is not wealth, it’s not fame. What is it?
The problem here is it is not so easy to define. It is like the Supreme Court’s ruling on obscenity: “you [kind of] know it, when you see it.” But there is a dictionary definition which we will just have to use. You can find it in the Merriam-Webster dictionary: “happiness is a state of well-being and contentment.”
Notice the definition says a state: it does not say a feeling of well being and contentment. Feelings come and go: they are fleeting. We know happy people: they have good moods and bad but that doesn’t seem to change their overall positive and optimistic attitude towards their life. We read in the Psalms: a happy person is like “a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season; its leaf shall not wither…” Happiness is a resilient state of well-being and contentment: resilient like a tree beside a river. Whatever winds and storms come to blow it down: it weathers them all: Life is very difficult; it breaks your heart; there is suffering and there is loss and there is disappointment. But somehow, the happy soul retains its footing: it has deep roots: it finds nourishment and remains stable and strong and giving, despite all that comes its way. There is profound power in the soul of a person who is genuinely happy.

To my mind, there are three necessary components to happiness. The first: count your blessings. The second: cherish people. The third: live meaningfully. Let’s take a look at each of these.

Count your blessings. The Psalmist says: “Teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.” And what this means is that our days are numbered. Life is short and it is fragile. Every day must be savored as any day could be our last.
Now I use the word "savor" intentionally. Savor, in Hebrew is "taam" which means to taste but it also means to discern with all of one’s senses. Taam means to recognize and appreciate with one’s whole being those blessings that are right in front of us.

Even the simplest of blessings: even something as simple as our food. How fast do you eat? Do you appreciate the taste of each bite of your food?. I have to admit, I don’t. I can wait ten minutes before members of my family start eating and still finish before everyone else. While Tammy sits and enjoys her food, I am already stacking the dishwasher.

And wine. There are people here that enjoy fine wines. God bless them. But my recommendation to all of them: don’t drink it with me, because I tend to drink wine like most people drink beer, you know, "down the hatch." Wine people are horrified at me. They tip the glass to look at it, smell it, and sip it. Who’s got time for all that? For me, wine’s ok, never loved it. And it is no wonder why. I don’t enjoy wine because I never slow down enough to taste it.

And vacations. My kids have been trying for years to teach me how to go on vacation. I am a slow earner, but that is all that is slow about me. We went camping this summer. I wanted to get up to the camp site fast, no stops in the car. We had ground to cover. Once we got to the camp site, we got that car unloaded, the tents up, sleeping bags, mattresses, we had to move it because as I told my brood: "we were burning day light, here." So quickly and efficiently, and….. quickly, we were off for the first hike.

The next camp site over, the dad was sitting on a chair drawing circles in the sand with a stick. The mom was fiddling with the flap of the tent, kids were playing hide-and- seek or something.

I went speeding by them, in the zone, time to hike --and I looked over at them and thought, "hey, what’s wrong with them?”

A couple of years back, one of my kids wrote this poem. It read: “Interesting, the life of a bee: work, work, work, fly, fly, fly. Eat, sleep, fly, work. Busy, busy, busy, busy.” Where did he get all that from?

The Chasidim do this right. They say that when you pray, you do one word at a time, with kavannah, with intention. Say the word "shema" and make that word you whole prayer. Then say "yisrael" and make that word your whole prayer. Slowly, thoughtfully: savoring each word.

After we eat, we say grace: "birchat ha mazon." We say: "achalta, v’savata, u’verachta et adonai elohecha," eat, yes. Be satisfied, yes, and then wait. Don’t go anywhere. Don’t rush off for the next thing. Bless God. Remember God. Recognize the miracle that we have food to eat. Take a little time to enjoy it and then be grateful.

There is a story about a man who goes to heaven and stands in judgment before the throne of the King of Kings: the Creator of All Things. He makes his argument before God: "I was righteous, I performed good deeds. I was learned and productive and giving." But God waved his hand and dismissed his argument saying, "you were indeed a good man. But I condemn you. I condemn you for all the pleasures and joys that I created for you in the world that you passed them up."

There is no happiness without appreciating the pleasures and the blessings in one’s life every single day.

The second component to happiness: cherish people.

The car I drive came with a GPS. You may have heard that men hate asking for directions; so the women of the world created the GPS. You plug in the address and then a deep, sultry, woman’s voice begins to tell you, “make a right at the light, go straight, your destination is on the left.” Now men appreciate this and they kind of get attached to their new lady friend because this is a woman who can read a map! Do you remember the commercial. The driver wants to take his relationship with the GPS lady to the next level and she just continues to give directions and he says to her,“ok, you’re right we’ll keep this strictly business.”

We are meant to be with people; the real kind: the ones with flesh and blood. Our happiness is dependent on being with people.

We learn in the Mishna: "al tifrosh min hatziboor," do not separate oneself from the community. Community exists for one fundamental reason: to bring people together in a way that makes relationships possible. Those of you who come to services on Shabbat morning have probably noticed something interesting. Most people spend about two hours in the service, which is a good amount of time. But they spend at least that long and often longer at the kiddush. And do you know what? We set the day up this way intentionally. Now don’t go telling people I said this, because I will deny it. But listen, here is the truth: the Kiddush is as important as the service. It is as important as the service and this is why. It is at the Kiddush where we build this community. It is where people get to know each other so that they can share their lives with one another. Our relationship with God is important. Our relationship with each other is every bit as important.

"Lo tov hayot ha’adam, levado, it isn’t good for man to be alone.

There is no happiness without genuine relationships. There is no happiness unless we truly cherish the people in our lives.

Meaning. The third necessary component of happiness is living a meaningful life.

Victor Frank was a Holocaust survivor who spent time in Theresienstadt and Auschwitz. He wrote in his book, “Man’s Search for Meaning” that the concentration camp inmates who still retained some sense of purpose in their lives, whether it was to survive to be a witness to the horror or to be reunited with loved ones, these were the inmates more likely to survive the camp. Frankl wrote that “striving for meaning in one’s life is the primary motivational force in man.”

Dennis Prager remarks in his book, "Happiness is a Serious Problem," that there are two kinds of meaning in one’s life that we must consider which are both necessary to living a satisfying, and happy life. The first is a sense that one’s own life is meaningful.

I saw the movie, “The Matrix” again this summer. People in the movie from birth are plugged into this machine that simulates life for them in their minds. They just lie there in this goop thinking that they are living. But, of course, they are not living. Their lives are a lie because they are not out in the real world making a difference. Their life is not worth living because their life means nothing.

A happy life, a life of satisfaction requires that we make some kind of impact in the real world.

I too often sit with families who have suffered a loss. We sit and they talk to me about their loved one: they tell me a little about where the person was born: what schools he or she went to and what he did in his work. But then the members of the family begin to relax a little; and sometimes they even smile, as they begin to tell me what this person was really like. : The special moments shared with spouses or children or friends. They mention humor and kindness and charity. They mention involvement in the community. And they mention what their loved one did to help others less fortunate. That is the real information I receive about someone who has passed away: not what they had, or where they lived, but what they did in the world that made a difference in people’s lives. That is what a life means.

The psychologist Martin Seligman did an experiment with college students. He set one group out to have fun: hang out with friends, go see a movie: get some ice cream. He then set another group out to participate in a service project that directly helped others in need. The next day, both groups wrote a paper on their experiences throughout the day of the project. The results were interesting. The group that went out and had fun said their day was ok. But the group that did the service project reported that their day was great: they felt satisfied and good about themselves. They said they were friendlier during the day, that they were better listeners and more appreciative for what they had in their lives. In fact, they reported, that at least for that one day, they were… happier. Happiness and contentment come when we can make a positive impact on others.

Prager says that the second kind of meaning in life is the sense that not only is one’s own life meaningful, but that life itself is meaningful. For the Bible, the world makes sense. The world is moving on a particular course: a course that gets better with each successive generation. In fact, the world is moving towards perfection: towards a messianic era in which there will be no hunger or disease: an era in which there will be world peace and every person on earth will have their needs met and feel complete satisfaction.

Now this is the Bible’s view. But then come the Rabbis of the Talmud to add something critically important. The world will get better, yes, and God will do His part to make this happen, yes. But for the Rabbis, the real work of perfecting the world falls upon human beings: l’taken olam b’malchut shadai, tikkun olam.”: We are obligated to fix this world, to keep it on its course. God created the world unfinished and made us partners with Him in moving it towards perfection. That is why we are here on this earth. That is our purpose: that is what our lives mean and what all life means.

George Bernard Shaw wrote the following: “this is the true joy of life, [a life] being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one.”

So what is happiness? It’s not fame, beauty, or riches. It is not a life without illness or loss or suffering as these are inevitable in every person’s life. Rather, happiness is an approach to life. An approach that recognizes and savors the blessings we have in life however many or few. It is engaging fully with others in our families and communities creating strong and abiding relationships. And it is living with a purpose and a cause, to make this world into a place worthy of God’s creation.

I recently read a story about an elderly man and his daughter who enter a senior housing facility. His wife of over half a century recently died and he was no longer able to take care of himself. As they approached his new room, the daughter says to her father, "I have arranged all the furniture for you; I think you’ll be happy with it. “I love it," said the old man. "Dad, how can you love it; you haven’t even seen it yet? "My dear," said the father. "I have lived a long life; I was married to your mother for 56 years and I loved her every day of it. Together we raised you and you became a kind, and decent human being. I worked hard all my life. I had a little and I gave a lot away. I decided long ago that I would be happy with this room, as I decided long ago that I was happy with my life. Thank you for arranging the furniture in the room. But my happiness comes from how I arranged the furniture of my life."

So are you happy? I don’t know about you, but I still have some work to do in this regard. God says “you shall rejoice with all the good that the Almighty has given you.” Happiness is a mitzvah that we must continually try to fulfill.

So let me wish you all a shana tova: a good year, a year of good health and a year of…….happiness. Shana tova tikatevu.

Rabbi Bruce Dollin; Rosh Hashana 5770