Category: ethics

And He Lived- Thoughts on Parsha Vayechi

And He lived…

Vayechi is a misnomer.  The chapter that opens with And He Lived is actually the final moments of Jacob’s life.  Jacob is on his deathbed, surrounded by his sons.  He offers frank assessments of them and blessings of a kind as he prepares to die. Indeed, our tradition looks to this chapter as the essence of the Jewish Ethical Will.  It is a centerpiece for me when teaching the Ethical Legacy Will.  What we bequeath as our legacy is genuinely profound; what we offer as our final thoughts, spoken and unspoken, will resonate in the hearts and minds of those we leave behind, framing their understandings of their place in the world and how they forge relationships of their own.  One of the most striking examples lies outside the text. Nowhere is Jacob’s daughter Dinah to be found.

We can surmise that Dinah’s relationship with her father, Jacob, was not close. In the story of her rape, she is identified as the daughter of Leah.               We never hear her voice telling the story, and Jacob’s concern for his sons’ vengeance focuses on how it will complicate things with other clans.  He seems unconcerned about whether she was harmed.  It is disappointing that Dinah is not at her father’s bed to say goodbye. Every son was there, and even sons not held in particular esteem were present to at least hear their father’s final words.

What is said and what is unspoken, who is in the room, and who is excluded.  We learn so much by being aware of these things.  We hold an extraordinary power as parents.  We are exemplars of behavior and also models of misconduct.  Both have a profound impact.  We need to exercise caution.  For what we say and to whom will last far beyond our mortality.

Did Dinah grieve for Jacob?  Did she feel excluded from the intimate space, witness to his passing? Did she harbor resentment about being treated so differently from her brothers?  These are only some of the questions the text begs but leaves unanswered.  Some may chalk this up to Jacob’s milieu and the age in which he lived. It is unfair to judge a character from the past by current acceptability standards, particularly one with such eminence in our grounding myths.

I am disappointed, however.  Jacob’s life trajectory has been extraordinary. At the start, he is a stealthy, guileful, and conniving person who grows and evolves to become rightfully someone worthy of the title Patriarch.  His encounters with the Angel at Beth El and his brother Esau exhibit his remarkable growth.  His reunion with his son Joseph and his treatment of Manasseh and Ephriam show that he is loving and caring.  So, the time here at his bed seems a bit off.  I would have thought his compassion and empathy could have extended to all his family.  I expected that his harsh words for Reuven, Shimon, and Levi would have been tempered by the knowledge they already knew the consequences of their actions, and leaving them instead with something positive to remember him would serve these sons better.  And, of course, there is Dinah, or more precisely, there is not.

This was a final moment to offer some reconciliation.  To offer her heartfelt words that might heal wounds that likely could not do so.  Some Midrashim suggested that perhaps she was not even around, but she remained in Shechem.  The rabbis struggled with her story, offering several alternative ideas about what became of her.  There is so much we do not know, and it makes the heart ache to wonder about the pain of being excluded or without a voice.

What we leave behind endures—both the good and the bad. Our legacy is taught in our lives and the examples we set. The Ethical Will offers a chance to leave final words behind, maybe to explain poorly understood behavior, and indeed to provide enduring words of connection.  What we say and to whom will be lasting.  We need to exercise care for our own sake and on behalf of the hearts of others.

And he lived…

 

Rabbi Info:

Rabbi David Levin is dedicated to creating a meaningful life journey with Jewish wisdom. He teaches on these subjects, including the Ethical Legacy Will, and can be found at RabbiDavidLevin.com and EthicalLegacyWill.com.

Light One Candle

Peter Yarrow’s death has us saying goodbye, but his legacy is complicated. We’ve been engaged in the conversation regarding him and his song, Light One Candle, which is the Hanukkah song embraced by many Jews as a profoundly emotional iconic expression of our tradition. At about the same time that Yarrow entered hospice, many learned that he was accused of sexual misconduct. This reignited a debate about how we might separate the artist from his creation. Can his extraordinary music and activism be decoupled from his egregious behavior, or must we sacrifice his beautiful music because of his actions?

We’ve had this difficult conversation before, and many people have weighed the pros and cons of Yarrow, Carlebach, and others who have disappointed us as human beings yet created extraordinary artistic works.

I do not have an answer to the question. Do we stop singing Yarrow’s music? It’s more than just the songs he’s written, but also the songs he’s performed, most notably as part of the famous trio Peter, Paul, and Mary. It’s a thorny question that must be addressed, but I don’t think a blanket statement suffices; that is the easy way out. Instead, each of us needs to take responsibility for considering whether or not we are comfortable and where we may draw lines that we are unwilling to cross. Perhaps it’s with some footnote when we sing a song, or maybe it’s part of a community decision about whether the music is acceptable. But the conversation needs to occur. We must confront the ugliness and beauty and figure out how to weave them in a way that might work for us and the people we serve.

So, I’m not prepared to cancel him, but I must talk about him entirely. I am unwilling to discard all of the music he brought into our lives, yet that music cannot be heard without the more discomforting voice of his actions and the ethical dilemmas they present.

It’s messy and complicated, but we must consider, deliberate, and decide for ourselves and our respective communities how best to proceed.

A Prayer for Our Country Before Election Day 2024

Our God and God of our ancestors, with hope and humility we approach Election Day, the day on which We the People will choose the individuals who will govern our nation, our states, and our communities.

You have abundantly blessed the United States of America with freedom, security, prosperity, and the right to democratic self-government.  You made it possible for the founders of our country to fulfill the command of Your Torah, to “proclaim liberty throughout the land, and unto all the inhabitants thereof.”

Daily we pray to You to restore our leaders as in former times.  On this Election Day, help us to remember that in America we are responsible for choosing our own leaders, and that the survival of our democracy, and the well-being of generations of Americans to come, depend upon the care we take in those choices.

Daily we pray to You for knowledge, discernment and wisdom.  On this Election Day grant us those blessings in full, so that we may consider our choices with knowledge and vote with discernment and wisdom, with the best interests of our country and our communities in mind.

Daily we pray to You to subdue the arrogant in our time.  On Election Day, and every day, help us to subdue the arrogance within ourselves.  Open our hearts and minds to consider the opinions of our fellow citizens, as we call upon them to consider ours.

Strengthen our will to fulfill our duties to our country and to one another.  To exercise our precious right to vote.  And to do all we can to ensure that every legal vote is counted, regardless of the candidate or party for whom it is cast.

May it be Your will that our decisions this Election Day preserve this country as a wellspring of liberty and a beacon of tolerance and democracy for the entire world.

And let us say Amen.

Klal Yisrael

 

The Destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem by Francesco Hayez

We spend a lot of time talking about Clal Yisrael or Am Israel, the unity of the Jewish people, the fantastic idea that we are all one. However, it’s never seemed to be the case that everyone who claims Jewish identity considers themselves part of this group. We seem to be very easily swayed into looking at denominations and other forms of Jewish practice as false or authentic and often just plain old wrong.

We don’t have a creed; we have something called Halacha. We practice and interpret the law very differently. This is, historically, a source of strength, allowing our tradition to evolve and be organic, but it’s also been the source of a lot of fighting. It creates a very fractious “people.” Indeed, I wonder if Clal Yisrael is a misnomer. However, from the outside, it is a different story.

When others on the outside look, they see Jews. They do not make distinctions between religious Jews, secular Jews, Zionist Jews, orthodox Jews, and the like; to them, it’s just Jews. We’ve seen that mainly through the world’s antisemitism, the Jew-hatred that unites us from the outside.

This brings me to the idea of Sinat Chinam, the concept of “baseless hatred” that we often use as the reason for the internal friction leading to the downfalls of the first and the second temple. It sounds lofty, radical, and extreme.  It’s easy for most of us to talk about it as a foreign object and disclaim any connection to it.  We believe we are not so strident while at the same time criticizing those who do not practice Judaism as we do. But that is precisely what our sages were talking about when discussing the concept. It’s not some deeply ingrained hatred of another denomination but our inability to accept that your Judaism is as authentic and valid as my Judaism. Your practice is a true expression of your understanding of our faith tradition. As is mine.

So it’s about the annoyance. It’s about the intolerance. It’s about the inflexibility. It’s about the idea that because I am right, you must be wrong. This concept was developed by a teacher and friend, Rabbi Brad Hirshfield, in his book “You Don’t Have to Be Wrong for Me to Be Right.” It’s the idea that we can look at each other with understanding and appreciation, even if it’s not how we practice Judaism.

We must find a way to move past our judgment of each other and our intolerance of what we see when it doesn’t comport with what we believe is our tradition’s “proper” practice. The Jewish tent is broad enough to encompass us all.

 

Juneteenth

JUNE 14, 2024

JUNETEENTH STATEMENT FROM PASTOR CARL DAY AND RABBI DAVID LEVIN OF THE NEW GOLDEN AGE

We acknowledge and mark Juneteenth, the 19th of June, to celebrate the day the United States fully recognized the Emancipation Proclamation.

This significant day, Juneteenth, was not the day of the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared the end of Slavery in the United States. Instead, it was the day when news of Lincoln’s historic decree reached the enslaved people of Galveston, Texas. Carried by 2,000 Union Troops, this news brought the long-awaited freedom to these individuals. Juneteenth stands as a pivotal moment in the journey towards realizing the ideals of the Declaration of Independence, that “All men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.“ The journey towards freedom began on January 1, 1863, when Lincoln proclaimed that all enslaved people within the rebellious states were to be free. However, this news took two more years to reach Galveston, Texas, in 1865. The word of freedom has since spread across the nation, but the task of turning the dream encapsulated in those words into a reality is an ongoing one.

The New Golden Age, the convening of a Black-Jewish alliance sponsored by Culture Changing Christians and the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia is a testament to the enduring significance of Juneteenth. This occasion, which celebrates the date and renews our commitment to the American vision of freedom and equality for all, underscores the ongoing relevance of Juneteenth. It serves as a reminder that the work towards realizing this vision is not yet complete, but together, we strive to fulfill that dream.

This statement was drafted by Pastor Carl Day and Rabbi David Levin of the New Golden Age.

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The New Golden Age is a joint partnership between the Jewish and Black communities in Philadelphia focused on combating hate, enhancing security, and strengthening the local community’s social safety net. This initiative was started by The Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia and the Culture Changing Christians.

Canary in the Coal Mine

Jews are using the phrase “we are the canary in the coal mine” as a warning that anti-Semitism signals growing hatred of all groups in our nation. This idea is profoundly flawed, ironically counterproductive, and requires immediate redress.

The phrase is a desperate appeal to others that they must fight anti-Semitism as it inevitably will lead to hatred against them—that tactic won’t work. People will stand against anti-Semitism because it is wrong. And if they can rationalize anti-Semitism, they won’t care about Jews, canaries, or anyone else. Besides, there is another group that already experiences an institutional brand of hatred: black people and others of color.

People of color have been experiencing hatred and systemic racism for as long as any of us have come to these shores. When we think of Jews as the ones on the front line, we negate the experience of the black community. That is egotistical and shameful and ironically belies the idea embodied in the Canary Phrase. We should be aware of this hatred and align with those others who experience it.

I am not a canary, and I am not in a coal mine. Despite the alarming sharp increase in public displays of anti-Semitism, we live well, thoroughly enjoying so many blessings of this place. We have the power and the means to defend ourselves. And we are. Others do not, and we must help them.

Let us stand against hatred in all its forms besides every one of goodwill.   We denounce hatred of any group and work together to fight it on the streets, in the courts, and our hearts. So our country may live up to its aspirations.

We are not birds; we are American Jews standing tall for the values we believe in, and together, we will prevail.