Category: violence

Chag Pesach Sameach and Shabbat Shalom

 

Ha Lachma Anya

The bread of the Poor

Buses unloaded their precious cargo at the intake center, women and children from Lviv and Kyiv.  Bewildered, they started the process of finding refuge after escaping terror but leaving husbands and fathers behind to fight for Ukraine. We reached across the language barrier and handed the children lollipops. Like our children, they delighted in this unexpected treat. The smiles and laughter strengthened moms, and together they tentatively walked forward toward the refugee center (I cannot show faces to protect the identities of families left behind).

 

This is the poor person’s bread- a bread of hope and compassion. HaLachma Anya is the simple but profound gesture of giving something to those who have less, even when we do not have much to share. Together, we are one step closer to redemption.

Do not stand idly by


Do not stand idly by while your neighbor’s blood is being shed- Lev 19:16

There is something we can do; Contribute to the organizations on the ground aiding the victims of war.  Choose from among many humanitarian groups trying to ease the suffering.  Consider a donation to Doctors without Borders; HIAS, JDC, World Central Kitchen.  Everything helps, no amount is too small.  Thank you.

 

The School Maus Ban

With Maus, the McMinn County Tennessee school board has highlighted issues beyond Anti-Semitism.

With the extraordinary rise in documented Anti-semitism, we rightly are sensitive to it. However, if we merely write off the TN School board as Anti-Semites, we miss some crucial things worthy of discussion. We must ask a fundamental question: Is this a matter of teaching about the Holocaust, or is this the right book to do so? Let us set aside the charge of anti-semitism and consider other reasons why Maus would be banned.

Let me give two examples from my own Jewish experience to help frame the matter:

I have regularly seen people ushering children from the sanctuary before the Yizkor liturgy in our services. And often, well-intended adults keep their children from funerals and unveilings.

The rationale common to these is that the adults thought it best for the welfare of the children to shield them from issues surrounding death. They deemed such experiences as emotionally unhealthy. Perhaps the people of Tennessee thought similarly.

Maus is an explicit graphic novel. The author, Art Spiegelman, does not hold back from exposing the horrors of the Holocaust. The scenes are brutal and sear themselves into the mind’s eye. Once seen, it is impossible to un-see it. Arguably, that was part of Maus’ intended purpose. Maus has been a challenging and controversial book on almost every level.   Bringing it to children should be careful, deliberate, and age-appropriate.

Parents try to shield their children, to protect them from the world’s harshness. The question for us to consider is whether such an approach serves a purpose?

Arguably, exposing our children to the world’s harsh realities is essential in helping them develop their understanding of the world in which we are preparing them to live.

We must also consider children’s developmental issues. We know that both the way we present materials to children and their capacity to absorb the lessons are critical components. Balancing these two is delicate, but ignoring them risks doing more harm to the psyche than good.

I understand the desire to protect children, particularly from the gruesomeness of evil. And the Holocaust is unspeakably, unimaginably evil. But if we pretend the horror did not happen, or if we sanitize it, erasing the brutality, we have likely made the case against evil no more compelling than the choice of school lunch.

We need to be vigilant in the fight against anti-semitism, and it would not be surprising to learn that anti-semitism motivated some people in the discussion surrounding Maus. But even with that, we cannot turn away from the critical conversation about what we teach our children, not as facts, but as values and how we do it without inflicting harm or destroying the humanity we are trying to nurture.

Gun Violence- We’re okay with it

The harsh reality of gun violence is that we are okay with it.  In the aftermath of a shooting, we feel something for a while, but three weeks later, the immediacy of a particular event has passed and we go about our daily routine.   Our culture seems to say that it is acceptable to kill people.  Ironically, we can use the death penalty to punish people who commit these crimes, but we are unwilling to take preemptive action.  In other words, it is okay if we are unwilling to take back our power to change this and let the status quo and carnage remain in place.

We protest such a view responding that we support government action such as enhanced background checks, assault weapon bans, magazine limits, robust mental health services, training, and other measures. All of these are both legitimate and important, but we are still part of the problem if we do not demand these changes from our politicians!  If stores like Walmart can hear us and limit ammunition sales and eliminating automatic weapons from the shelves, then why are the politicians deaf to us?  Perhaps it is because we tacitly permit them to be so.

Our politicians are unwilling to engage in the debate on the issues, both root causes and how to effectively counteract them. The red flag laws and the Toomey-Manchin Bill have died ignominious deaths due to feckless politicians. The power is ours and we can demand action using this issue as a litmus test.  But that is not enough.  Keeping ourselves safer also requires that we act now until such time as we get that comprehensive and thoughtful action from our government officials.  There are things we can do immediately that can substantially reduce gun violence right now.

The sad facts are that most gun deaths are caused by suicide, inner-city warfare, and crimes of passion and accidents.  Curtailing these require enforcement of laws and providing the resources to make that possible.  We need to demand our politicians are responsive but also more closely watch the debate and how our tax dollars are spent.  We need to thoughtfully spend more to do the things we want to be done.

Public shootings would be substantially reduced by creating substantive security measures in public places.  Detectors and security guards at the entry points of schools, malls, hotels, and all other places where people congregate.  Israel had great success controlling terror through employing such measures.  The only thing keeping us from similar success is an unwillingness to pay for it as well as the perceived discomfort these checkpoints might create. And we also need to remember that despite every effort, some incidents cannot be prevented. But we must try in order to protect our people.

It is up to us.  We have the power to change this if we have the courage to do the things that need to be done.  The polls say we are a substantial majority.  Let’s use the power we the people have.

 

 

 

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. 

The somber and painful message of Adult Purim

A person should drink on Purim until the point where he can’t tell the difference between “Blessed is Mordechai” and “Cursed is Haman. (Talmud – Megillah 7b) “Ad d’lo yada…”

Why do we drink so that we can no longer distinguish between the “Blessed” Mordechai and the “Cursed” Haman?  Perhaps because in this world of Purim where things are turned  upside down, the two men had changed places and toward the end of this story, it is impossible to distinguish between them.  And this serves as a warning for us to take great care in how we act.  The rabbis are admonishing us that underneath this story of triumph and joy lies an ominous message. 

Towards the end of the Megillah, the story takes a dark turn.  Briefly, the Jews are saved, Haman is hanged.  The King grants the Jews permission to annihilate anyone that poses a threat to them, including women and children and to plunder their possessions. Mordechai methodically plans the Jew’s revenge;  and the oppressor becomes the victim as the Jews dominate their enemies.  First in Shushan, the Jews killed 500 men and Haman’s 10 sons, then another 300 were killed, and then across the kingdom the Jews proceeded to kill seventy-five thousand more.  The death and destruction recounted is dreadful.  Jews slaughtering in retribution are as horrible as those actions Haman had planned.  Mordechai accomplishes what Haman had plotted. 

We are admonished to destroy the Amalekite, and Haman is a descendant of Amalek himself. But if we annihilate the enemy, even one who planned to annihilate us, aren’t we just as guilty of murder and bloodshed? It is not only the Amalek who lives as another that should concern us; A piece of Amalek lives inside all of us, call it the yetzer hara, or inclination toward evil.  Our yetzer tov, or inclination toward good, is always in competition with it.  Purim asks which of these will prevail in our lives?  At its core, the destruction of Amalek and the story of Purim are existential questions of our humanity.

And perhaps that is why we drink to oblivion.  Usually, we drink wine as a symbol of our joy.  But drinking to excess is something else entirely.  Heavy drinking is a form of self-medicating.  Drinking until losing rational senses is drinking to forget.  We drink heavily to escape the brutal reality.  Although our people were saved, we committed atrocities- not as a crime of passion,  but a deliberate plot to methodically exterminate tens of thousands of people.  We drink to forget our shame and horror at what we had done. 

To underscore this grave situation, the Gemara on Megillah 7b continues with the bizarre story of Rabba and Rabbi Zeira, where in a drunken stupor, Rabba slaughtered his dear friend Rabbi Zeira.  Otherwise good people can do profoundly terrible things.  This is what can happen when you lose control, when you lose sight of what is right, betray your core and operate in the absence of God (it is noteworthy that Megillat Esther does not mention God). And it is precisely here that the rabbis insert God back into the discussion as Zeira is resurrected after Rabba beseeches God to intervene and set right what Rabba had destroyed. 

When we arise from our stupor, we have a hangover; a brutal headache from the excesses of the night before.  We know that a hangover is an indication of dehydration, a lack of water , which further intensifies the message.  Water is a metaphor for Torah, and maybe it is the lack of Torah that permitted the carnage. 

Megillah Esther warns us to be very careful.  The Megillah  cautions us to not become “like them” and react to extract revenge, sacrificing both them and our humanity.  Megillat Esther challenges us instead to rise up with dignity and respect, embracing the values that have made Judaism the extraordinary gift to the world that it is.  

Purim is a layered complicated story filled with cause for celebration and sorrow and an profound admonitory note to soberly review who we are. 

Shabbat Shalom on this Shabbat HaGadol

We celebrate the Great Shabbat, which immediately precedes Pesach.  On this day, our children will march, leading us toward a vision of a better safer America. Let us join them to make this dream a reality.

I offer Debbie Friedman’s A Traveler’s Prayer as the song to usher in Shabbat HaGadol.

Shabbat Shalom

 

WE gotta start hearing one another

by Yoram Raanan

Ki Tisa is so timely coming in the wake of the Parkland tragedy. The giving of the Law, the singular seminal moment in the Jewish people’s experience, is juxtaposed against the story of the Golden Calf and revolt, the nadir of the Jewish experience.   In the immediate aftermath of Parkland, our conversation has devolved into diatribe and intransigence. Seventeen dead barely buried and already we hear polarizing voices condemning and chastising those who do not share the same viewpoint.

Everyone has an idea about how to approach the problem that we have in America. And everyone has an opinion on what the problem is. And sadly, no one is willing to listen to anyone else, particularly when it comes from “the other side.” Whether you think the idea is good or bad, President Trump’s suggestion to arm trained teachers to carry concealed weapons into the schools should be part of the conversation. But the left would rather attack the idea and vilify the person rather than consider the merits of the argument as part of a broader conversation. The NRA would rather demonize those who do not embrace its views instigating people attending the CPAC conference to entrench against the subversive left instead of becoming part of a national discourse.

We need to create a safer more secure society and work towards solutions that address violence. There is no single fix, there is not even a single problem. The issues are deep and multi-layered. I suggest two things to start:

First, we charge the CDC with doing a deep and full study of gun violence in America. All comprehensive analysis has been thwarted by the Dickey amendment since the CDC’s  last investigation in 1993.   We need to have an intelligent conversation about gun violence and that starts with knowledge.

Second, we need to listen more and talk less. Everyone needs to try to appreciate the position of the other side. You may believe that a gun has absolutely no place in our society at all. There are those who are diametrically opposed to that viewpoint. Both sides have something important to contribute to the national conversation. Until we can stop characterizing the other as “enemy” there is no room for constructive discussion.

Reach out to your congressman and senator to demand the CDC does the important investigative work to provide insight and analysis. Then as a nation, we can move toward finding solutions to the problems we all face. There are solutions to the problem that can make for a better and healthier society. We must find them together.

Do we Deserve our Kids?

Our tradition speaks at great lengths about filial obligations, the responsibilities of children to honor and revere their parents. Likewise, much is written about our obligations as parents to raise children properly, to teach them, and to prepare them for the world. But do we teach them Torah when we do not live it our selves? We do not teach them to build a better world but instead how to selfishly survive in it.

We offer them a world based on material gain, our nation withdrawing from its predominant place in the world, communal strife, a political system challenging the legitimacy of its fundamental institutions, and an economy that will burden them with almost intolerable crushing debt. We have not built a better world for them. And yet, these young people have galvanized in the wake of the Parkland horror. And that gives me hope. For even though we have not done right by them, they seek changes that will benefit us all.

Do we deserve our kids? That remains an open question until we begin to act as though they truly are the most prized things in our lives. We can start by supporting them in their efforts to address gun violence, this grievous wrong in our society that has murdered so many of them. Support them as they raise their voices, join them as they march in March. Help make the world they inherit better than what we have now.