Shabbat Shalom

Welcoming Shabbat with a beautiful rendition of Shir HaMa’alot, Psalm 126,* by Joey Weisenberg and the Hadar Ensemble, featuring Deborah Sacks Mintz.

Shabbat Shalom

Psalm 126

A pilgrim song. When God restored the exiles to Zion it seemed like a dream. Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with joyful song. Then they said among the nations: “God has done great things for them.” Yes, God is doing great things for us, and we are joyful. Restore our fortunes, O God, as streams revive the desert. Then those who have sown in tears shall reap in joy. Those who go forth weeping, carrying bags of seeds, shall come home with shouts of joy, bearing their sheaves.

A Thanksgiving message from Toldot

So, it turns out that maybe mine is not the only family described as dysfunctional.  Family dynamics have always been difficult.  Toldot shares unique stories of the tensions that can exist, based on things like sibling rivalries, deception, favoritism, and selfishness.

We can see ourselves and our own family of origin in Toldot, even if not quite as extreme as portrayed here or in other cultural storytelling such as Game of Thrones, Succession, and an almost countless list of movies and literature.  Any story involving family draws on the deep well of our own experiences creating drama that imagination alone could never rival.

I am blessed to have a special brother.  We have found each other again after too much time apart.  He is a person I admire and respect as well as love, but it took a while for me to mature enough to put the sibling rivalry in its proper place and embrace him.  Families are complicated.

The members of a family are individuals, each with distinct personalities and gifts.  Each of us is different.  But, we can still be united in the bond that is family.  It is said that Blood is thicker than water (a saying traced back to 13th century Germany)[1]. I always knew that my brother would be there if I needed him, as I would for him, regardless of where we were.

Isaac, Rachel, Esau, and Jacob all had parts to play in the strange stories we recount in Toldot.  The drama played out in ways that left indelible stains, scarring people like blood on cloth.  Overcoming bad actions or even bad actors is a great challenge. This is a crucial message of this week’s Torah portion.   Although we are unable to control things happen to us,  we can control how we respond to them.   Events and life experiences can shape our view of the world and our relationships.  How we understand those lessons will determine our course.

This Thanksgiving, I am grateful for the blessing in my life. Today is not the day to dwell on past disappointments (unless your football team loses perhaps).  We can approach today with an open heart.  Although my brother and I will be at different tables, he and his family are present in my heart.   I hope that we all find ways to come together united in friendship, fellowship, and love.

Happy Thanksgiving!

[1]           https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_is_thicker_than_water

 

Chayei Sarah-Life lessons for us all

“And the life of Sarah was 100 years and twenty years and seven years, the years of the life of Sarah”.

It would be easier to say she died at the age of 127.  But we would miss an important message.  The text seems to ask us to examine Sarah’s life, not that it was over, but that it was lived- there were distinct phases to her life, each of which is worth examining and celebrating and using as a guide for us to navigate our lives.

Parshah Chayei Sarah goes on to share the story of her death and burial.  But the opening is a peek into the life of an extraordinary person, our Matriarch.

We also have distinct phases in our lives.  For example, each of us has a childhood, young adulthood, and that period known as middle-age.  But each of us is unique.  Sarah’s three phases are written at the end of her life.  So, we look back and see how her story unfolded and the legacy she leaves for the generations to come.  There is another implication to this as well; we can start a new chapter in our lives.  It takes courage to change course midstream deliberately, but it can be done.  We are not bound to follow a path. We can make changes that will bring more profound meaning and connection.  Some changes are subtle, some are more radical, perhaps not as drastic as Sarah giving birth at 90, but radical none-the-less.

We can look forward to what might be rather than only looking back at what was.  Sarah scoffed at the idea of becoming a mother at her age.  But she was a protective nurturer of the next leader of our people, her son Isaac.  The future possibilities seemed incredible when they were presented, but it became her reality.  So too, with us.  May we have the courage to reach beyond what is easily within our grasp, and perhaps we also will realize what had only been a dream and make it real.

Vayera – What did Abraham hear when God spoke?

I, like so many others, have struggled with Abraham’s responses to God in the stories of Vayera.  Why was our Patriarch eager to confront God and bargain to save Sodom and Gomorrah and then be so passively accepting of God’s command to kill Isaac?  Abraham responds to what he heard, a message filtered by his own biases and his perception of God, the other in this relationship.

In the Akedah, God instructs Abraham in painful detail, “Take your son, your only son, the one that you love, Isaac, go to Moriah and offer him as a burnt offering.”  God is carefully staking out Abraham’s test of faithfulness.  There is no room for a conversation. The Akedah is so intense; it is almost impossible for Abraham to catch his breath, let alone say something in response.   Although there is no conversation, the ensuing language makes it clear that the next three days, Abraham is thoroughly deliberate traveling to Mt. Moriah.  Abraham cannot deliberate with God, but it is clear he is consumed in his mind by what is to come.

Sodom and Gomorrah were decidedly different.  God deliberates about telling Abraham His plan, which included assessing the situation on the ground, framing an invitation to a conversation. Abraham joins in, and God encourages it by continuing to engage  Despite the trepidation of arguing with the God of Justice about acting justly, Abraham bargains to lower the number of righteous needed to spare the city until he reaches what he perceives as the best he can do, 10-  a minyan.  The negotiating ends with the best deal Abraham believes he can achieve.

How we hear and understand something sets the table for how we respond to it.  Why Abraham feels he has license to argue in one case and not in the other remains one of the mysteries of our text.  But it is all too familiar territory for all of us.  Each of us responds to what we think we have heard, rendering very different responses, even to the same person, based on the facts and our emotional and situation, among other factors.

What do we hear when another speaks?  Have they spoken undeniable truth, or is it an invitation to engage to achieve a better understanding of each other? Knowing when to speak and when to be silent is among the more difficult decisions we make.  Grappling with this issue is as hard for us as it was for Abraham.  Our tradition encourages us to confront it.

The practice of Mussar works hard at getting us to understand the virtues, or middot, that drive both the person with whom we are in relationship and us.  We learn that the successful relationship requires that we appreciate the middot are working on both of us so that it can be complicated.  We often do not get it right, but we stand a better chance of engaging in meaningful dialogue when we try. Abraham’s inconsistent reactions to God is a lesson with a timeless message, certainly one that is pertinent to today.  Torah is a profound understanding of the human condition.  The issues Abraham and all the characters of our tradition confront are genuinely human issues, as relevant today as they were when first written down.  Let’s try harder to listen better to understand each other.

Shabbat Shalom

 

Remembering Pittsburgh- Stronger than Hate

The tragic murder of 11 people one year ago in Pittsburgh is a harsh reminder that hatred is real and we are not always in control of events.  Things often happen to us.   As painful, hurtful, or even devastating as something can be, how we react is in our control.  What is the life-lesson that we learn and how do we actively embrace that life lesson going forward?

Do we react cynically or with an open, albeit wounded, heart?  Can we forgive? Will this event haunt us holding us back, or compel us to move onward? What is the vision of the future we see that is shaped by what happened, what is the world we want to see, and how will we get there?

I struggle with an anger and pain that could be overwhelming, especially as one of the Rabbis initially deploying to Pittsburgh with the Red Cross in the immediate aftermath of the shooting.  Our Jewish tradition helps me re-center myself.  Here I can embrace the timeless values that understand the human condition and provide a framework for a just society where we all might live in peace, based on the idea that we should treat our neighbors as ourselves.   But it is a hard climb up to that mountaintop.

This is the challenge of Pittsburgh.  Our hearts ache for those lost as a result of violent Anti-Semitism.  We take solace in the love of our neighbors and find strength standing shoulder to shoulder with other people of goodwill to continue to strive for the kind of just society we want America to be.

Our tradition is one of deeds.  Our response to this tragedy needs to be more than a feeling.  There are many ways to respond through civic involvement and community activism.  Judaism requires that we belong to a community committed to promoting our values be it a synagogue, philanthropy, or civil rights group.  The important thing is that you are compelled to respond with actions to live the values of our tradition and to build a better world.   What will you do?

Zichronam Livracha and Shabbat Shalom.

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.