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.
Friday, May 14, 2010
Friday, May 7, 2010
Food and Behar/Bechukotai
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."
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."
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Highlights Message June 2010
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!
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!
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Works in Progress; Acharei Mot/Kedoshim
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.
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.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Yom Hazikaron Commemoration
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.
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.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
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.
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
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.
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.
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