Category: Relationships

Whose side would you be on?

by Yoram Raanan

As I engaged with Parshat Korach this time around, I found myself asking an interesting question:  If I were there, which side would I have been on?

With the benefits of Torah and hindsight, it is clear that Moses’ was the winning side of the argument.  Moses did more than actually prevail, God had Korach and his followers swallowed by the earth.  But up until the final moment, Korach was making a persuasive argument about the appropriate leaders of B’nai Israel.  Would I have been swayed?

Korach makes a compelling case.   He charges that Moses and Aaron have usurped power that rightfully does not belong to them.  Now that the Hebrews are free, they should have right leaders,  the Levites for the priestly matters and the descendants of Reuven as the true political leaders of the people.  We believe that Korach had ulterior motives and saw the opportunity for personal power, but he made a cogent argument, on the surface at least, and many people were likely swayed.  As uncomfortable as it might appear, initially there were likely good people on both sides.    But just because an argument sounds good on the surface, does not mean it is acceptable without first digging deeper.

The return of leadership to Reuven is in keeping with the concept of primogeniture.  And the return of the Levites is consistent with their status as the priestly class.  But even before God stepped in placing Moses and Aaron as the leaders, we have seen primogeniture is not automatic and leadership is based on character and deeds before anointing takes place.  Before anyone could ultimately align with Korach, a deeper understanding of Korach’s motives and the relationship to the Divine had to be probed.  It was not enough that Korach was persuasive.  It was not enough that Korach’s agenda aligned with our own.  We are also obligated to think in terms larger than our own self-interest.  In other words, we are responsible for determining what is right for ourselves and for the greater good and taking a stand toward making that possible.

The people were fearful.  Moses ascended the mountain and the anxiety of a slave people feeling abandoned when he did not return was overwhelming.  The mob mentality took over and Korach exploited that.  Unfortunately, the people went astray.  But that could not absolve them of the responsibility to return to rationality and make thoughtful correct choices.  I too might have been swept up in the initial emotions in the moment, but then it would be incumbent on me to soberly reflect on whether I was indeed pursuing the right course.  This is the burden of freedom.

But there is more to this story, and it gets even more interesting.  There is actually a third side to the situation.  What about the people who did not take sides?  Usually, in arguments, there are the traditional two camps, but there is also a third group.  This group remains uncommitted to either side, preferring instead to wait on the sidelines to see who actually wins.  And then they throw in with the winning side, never losing and also never risking.  These people are more insidious than the losing or wrong side  Doing nothing is feckless at best, or likely even more conniving than Korach himself.  Nechama Leibowitz’s commentary on Korach references our Sages condemning this kind of opportunistic behavior  (Korach 3, Studies in BaMidbar).

Driven not by a belief in something but instead a desire to be on the winning side, to survive and thrive without ever risking anything.  These people are more than rootless, they are not to be counted upon for loyalty or sacrifice for a greater good.  These opportunists undermine any cause that requires a measure of devotion, as they are devoted only to themselves.  They would be the voices that would undermine the report of the spies, they might be among the spies themselves, not appreciating the opportunity offered by Joshua and Caleb, only seeing the personal risk involved.  In many ways, this group is the more dangerous one.  Focused only on themselves, they fight for nothing.  Sometimes it is apathy, sometimes it is selfishness, but it always keeps us from moving forward towards what could be, mired instead in the safety of being nameless in the crowd.  Hoping to land on their feet, they are little more than mercenaries, fair weather friends who ultimately cannot be trusted to do anything other than enjoy the fruits of someone else’s labors.

At the end of the day, there was only one side-to align with Moses in service to the Divine.  Today these issues confront us in sometimes subtle but often blatant ways.  Determining who we are as a people and nation require taking an active and bold stand, championing our values, speaking truth to power and speaking truth to those desirous of power.

Which side are you on?

 

Rabbi David Levin is a second career rabbi.  Trained at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Rabbi Levin’s rabbinate focuses on outreach to seekers of meaning, bringing Jewish Wisdom to their life journey.  Rabbi Levin’s work is trans-denominational, embracing and drawing knowledge from all aspects of Judaism. He is a member of the CCAR (Reform Rabbinical Association), OHALA (Renewal Rabbinical Association), NAJC (Neshama, Association of Jewish Chaplains), a Fellow of Rabbis Without Borders, serves on the regional board of NIF (New Israel Fund), and is a volunteer on the Disaster Spiritual Care Team of the American Red Cross.

Rabbi Levin currently teaches subjects including Ethical Wills Re-imagined, Mussar at the Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy, Introduction to Judaism for the URJ, “Kavod v’Nichum, Understanding Jewish end-of-life rituals”, and the acclaimed series “L’Chaim, Jewish Wisdom for the End of Life Journey” with two esteemed rabbinic colleagues. Rabbi Levin officiates in complex lifecycle events including non-traditional burial and works with interfaith couples.   Rabbi David leads interfaith trips to Israel through the CLAL Stand and See project.  Rabbi Levin is the organizer of Death Café of Greater Philadelphia

 

Rabbi Levin is a teacher and speaker appearing nationally and is available to be with your congregation.

BaMidbar-In the Desert and Everywhere, Everyone counts

As social beings we seek relationships as a way of making meaning. We need to connect to other people’s lives, believing we have something to contribute, and through this validating our own self. We want to count. Each of us is busy, absorbed in our own world with scarce time to think of others. We often find ourselves shunted aside, neglected or forgotten, not because of anything malicious, but because each of us become so focused on the day to day challenges, we forget to reach out and are often left feeling alone. This can be discouraging and even make us doubt our own value. This week’s Torah portion BaMidbar reminds us however, that indeed we are important.

This first chapter of the book of Numbers has the Israelites out wandering in the desert, in the Midbar. But translating the word as desert is deceptive. We picture a desert as a vast place, devoid of life, empty, and forbidding. But the desert is actually a place teeming with life, a place of overwhelming beauty, and an awesome night sky filled with countless stars. It is the place where the children descended from Israel/Jacob become the People/nation of Israel. The Children of Israel are forged in this harsh climate, and preparing to enter the Promised Land. It is a time of growing where everyone is needed to build the nation. Everyone counts.

The idea that everyone counts is so important that God instructs Moses to conduct a census. God appoints leaders of each clan to do help in this important work of accounting for everyone so the greater task of building the nation can occur. As it says in Numbers 1:19, “As the Lord commanded Moses, so did he count them in the Sinai desert.” The desert is a place of accounting, revelation and building, and revealing that each of us has a critical role to play. At this time, nothing is of greater importance.

Even the word BaMidbar speaks to our significance and meaning. The word shares the same letters as the word for speaking or speaker, Midaber. The word BaMidbar that we translate as “in the desert,” could be, “ in the speaking”, or “in the speaker.” Each person has an important contribution to make to the whole. It was true in the Sinai, also it is also true now. The desert is far more than what it might seem on the surface. The Torah portion shares that the Midbar is an extraordinary place of discovery- finding our place, finding our purpose, and finding our connection to things greater than ourselves, our family and our people. BaMidbar teaches that I am worthy of being counted- that I do count!

Each of us counts. Each of us has something worthwhile to say and something important to give. Our life experiences have created a wealth of knowledge and wisdom. We are teachers and caregivers, learning, practicing, educating, and demonstrating what it means to be human, what it means to make meaning in the lives of others and in our own lives as well. That makes each of us significant.

Each of us counts.

Blaspheming in the Name of the Sacred- The warning of Parshat Tzav

We have seen the enemy and he is us.  So were the immortal words of the great American philosopher Pogo, the satirical cartoon creation of Walt Kelly.  That droll quip speaks to a dark sinister reality about what is happening in the Jewish world, in direct contrast to the warning offered by Parshat Tzav.

God directs Moses to command the priests on what to do and how to do it as they fulfill their sacred responsibilities on behalf of the people Israel.  It is clear that the sacred tasks require special ways of acting.  There is too much at stake; for these are the priest making offerings to God on behalf of God’s people.  The priest learn the strict code to which they must adhere.  Deviating is not acceptable, and the consequences can be severe, as Nadav and Abihu will learn. 

Later on, we learn that the nation itself is a nation of priests.  That we as a nation are similarly charged with a series of behaviors that are required of us to fulfill our responsibilities.  These laws are put forward in Torah and then developed by the rabbis  and shared in the Oral Torah and the great works that expound upon these laws.  Like our priestly class, the nation of Israel is bound to the laws of Torah on how to act in order to fulfil our sacred responsibilities of being a light to the nations. 

That light has been dimming as a result of a move away from our role as faithful servants to  something that embodies a hubris endangering and attacking our core values as a people.  We have moved from the sacred work of Sanctifying God’s name to profaning God’s name, from Kiddush ha-Shem to Hillul ha-Shem. 

At the most recent Rosh Chodesh at the Kotel we witnessed a brutal and tragic display of violence against the Women of the Wall.  We do not agree on how we should engage in ritual.  I respect other approaches to Judaism, even though I do not practice them.  Likewise, there are many who would see my religious practice as unacceptable.  However deep the disagreements may be, there is no justification for the violence perpetrated on the Women at the Kotel.  I would argue that the shouting is an undermining of the special space that is the Kotel and place.  But physical battery is blasphemy, plain and simple.    It curses God’s name and everything that Judaism is supposed to represent.  In the name of the sacred, everything sacred has been trashed, God’s great name was trampled in the mud.  The violent encounter was in violation of all of Jewish Law and culture.  This moment is a tipping point for us as a people. And this is not the only arena where our behavior needs to be critically examined. Tzav, commanded behaviors, require adherence to standards of decency and ethics.  Are we acting as God has directed? 

There is a rise in racism in Israel is an insidious cancer eating away at the very soul of the State.  This racism dehumanizes the non-Jew, whether they be citizens of Israel or Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza.  The inability to see the other as one with fundament human and civil rights, entitled to dignity and respect, undermines the ideals of both the Jewish State and the Jewish religion. 

The violent racist Kahanists, Otzmah Yehudit, have a new-found acceptance in Israeli politics.  The inclusion of these group dedicated to an extreme racist view, enforced by thuggery, should be unthinkable, but instead of repudiating them and everything they stand for, they are legitimized and welcomed.  There are appeals to the courts seeking redress, but ultimately the Israeli people must speak out unequivocally against this base and baseless hatred.

This issue also confronts American Jewry.  As anti-Semitism is on the rise, American Jews must respond.  The manner in which we move forward will determine if we are no better than those who hate us.  Can we be strong and resolute without resorting to similar tactics as those whose ideas we find dangerous and contemptible? Can we find sufficient security in this extraordinary place and time in our history to battle anti-Semitism and not feel disenfranchised by those contemptible people on the margins of society who seek to do us harm?

The second temple was destroyed, our sages say, due to Sinat Chinam, the baseless internecine warfare that existed within the Jewish people.  Instead of a tolerant society with many different interpretations of Judaism, the People of Israel became a fractious group of competing sects intent on imposing their particular view on everyone, ultimately sacrificing everything.  Can we reclaim the ideals of Klal Yisrael, or is history repeating itself?

Our leaders from across the breadth of our tradition including  Rabbi Nachman the Hasidic master, Rav Kook the founder of religious Zionism, and Rabbi Abraham Heschel an American Prophetic voice,  to name only three, all warned against hatred against others,  no matter how deeply offensive we might find certain practices.  They encouraged us to embrace the best of our tradition so that we may bring forward our values in the world.   Tzav as part of the book of Leviticus, as part of Torah,  lays out the rules for how to act as a  people in sacred service to God.  These rules are based on core values that are central to every expression of Judaism, religious, ethnic, and cultural.  When we violate the values that are at our core, we betray the sacred aspirations of  our tradition. Tzav reminds us of our duties and sacred obligations and admonishes us not to stray.   Tzav demands more of us, we need to take heed and act better. 

Stand and See

I am excited to share that I am co-leading a group of emerging Christian leaders on a trip to Israel as part of the Stand and See Fellowship. This unique initiative sponsored by CLAL brings seminarians to the Holy Land with a rabbi, a Christian scholar, and a local guide. Although our threesome might sound like the beginning of an amusing joke, this is a serious enterprise designed to connect these future faith leaders emotionally, spiritually and intellectually to Israel and promote a nuanced understanding of contemporary Palestinian life. 
Learn more at: https://standandsee.org/

Here is the press release from CLAL:

CLAL is excited, honored and proud to announce our Stand and See Fellowship trip being conducted with Minneapolis’ Luther Seminary. The trip will be co-lead by our colleague and RWB alum, Rabbi David Levin, and Luther Professor, Rev. Matt Skinner Ph.D. Both bring deep experience and intellectual depth to this work — Matt as a professor of New Testament Studies and David with years of congregational, communal and educational leadership — and each is a genuine thought partner whose contributions to Stand and See will be felt far beyond this particular journey.

This Christmas, Let’s enjoy what we have

Each year I hear the following:

~Put Christ back into Christmas

~Get materialism out of Christmas

~Don’t Mix Hanukkah and Christmas

Do this, don’t do that; lots of proscriptions  and prescriptions.  But maybe we might pause and  appreciate it precisely as it is.

Christmas is more than the birthday of Jesus.  Indeed, as we all know, it is not the day of his birth. That Christmas is more than the  marking of Jesus’ birth is not new.  The idea that we may universalize the message of the holiday has been at the heart of a Christian message, softly spreading of the values at its core.  I have always been taken by the beauty of the idea expressed in John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son…”  It is a message of love and light and our world does not have enough of either.  The message is enlightening and one I can deeply appreciate even if I do not embrace the theology.

To those who attend mass or use this as a moment of sacred holiness,  I stand respectfully quiet.  To those who decorate homes with all kinds of festive lights, I drive by like a tourist taking in the spectacle, even grading for taste, presentation, originality, and use of the secret ingredient (with deference to Iron Chef).  For those who gather the family to share a meal and time together, I only wish we had more reasons to do that.  For those who give gifts, no matter how big or small, I hope that each gift is an expression of love and caring for both the giver and the receiver, bringing both close together.

Christmas in America is beautiful, even those parts some of us just don’t get.  But that is okay.  So, to everyone,  a very Merry Christmas (and a Happy New Year)!

 

What now?

With the marking of Sheloshim for the victims in Pittsburgh and the passage of time, an important question is now being raised, where do we go from here?  Or more simply put, What Now? 

In the aftermath of tragedy, it is important to rebuild and move forward.  In response to a natural disaster, the need to rebuild is clear.  Houses, infrastructure, all of the things physicallydamaged or destroyed need to be put back into place, often rebuilt from scratch.  But with a disaster of this nature, the rebuilding is not so clearly defined.  What is the enduring message we want our rebuilding to carry?  

How do we honor the legacy of those taken from us, the outpouring of support from the greater community, the lastingJewish values that have kept our people and our tradition and will continue to do so?  Other difficult but important questions to consider include these:  Anti-violence training prompted someone to ask how can she run to safety, when saving herself means she leaves behind the more vulnerable?  Another question, how do we practice hospitality and welcome people into our Jewish homes (synagogues), when the front door is locked or attended by an armed guard?  How can we feel safe when anti-Semitic incidents are not only on the rise, but  finding new levels of public acceptance?

There is an urge to rebuild the physical structures quickly, to return to normal and stand up to the hatred with defiance.   But there was an important lesson learned from rebuilding lower Manhattan post 9/11.  The deliberate but protracted process achieved amazing results.  What was no longer is and recreating something from before does not acknowledge the event that has irrevocably changed us.  The memorials honor the event and the human tragedy as well as the spirit of courage, hope and love.  So too, the Shanksville memorial that I visited on my return from Pittsburgh is a moving and thoughtful tribute to the brave men and women on that fateful flight, United #93.  It is prudent to resist the temptation to act too quickly, opting instead for aslower and deliberative process.  The result will hopefully become an enduring symbol of strength, courage, hope and love, the best aspirations of our tradition.  

The process of recovery will take time.  It is a natural desire to try to shorten, if not deny, the grieving process.  But our tradition clearly understands the importance of this special time.  We grieve and then slowly begin the process of reintegrating ourselves into life with the experience and pain of loss a new part of us.  Only then might we gain a new perspective.  And from this perspective, we can create something honoring those we have lost and promoting our values for the sake of the generations to come.