Tag: Jew

On a mission to Israel

I am excited to share the news that I am heading to Israel with my colleagues from the Central Conference of American Rabbis.  We are going to show our support and solidarity with the State of Israel and its people.  We will visit and be briefed and I am sure we will ask many questions in order to more fully understand the situation.

I look forward to this upcoming trip and to sharing what I learn when I return.

Anguish and Hope

Like so many others, I find myself in a place of anguish.  The violence perpetrated upon both Israelis and Palestinians is overwhelmingly sad and tragic.  I struggle with the hatred and resultant terror, death and destruction.  Whether the cause is righteous or even justifiable, the price that the innocents pay is too great.  And in the end, we all have blood on our hands, forever changed by war.

 Today, many of us observe a fast.  The 17th of Tammuz is traditionally a fast day for the Jewish people, marking catastrophes and heartbreaks in our history.  It coincides with the fast of Ramadan.  We join together praying that our sadness might transform into hope, that the killing might end, that the hatred might cease, that the opportunity for peace might appear as rays of light shining through the cracks in the broken vessel in which we find ourselves.

 To learn more about this event, look to the website:

https://www.facebook.com/JewsAndArabsChooselife?hc_location=timeline

 I share the following poem written by two religious leaders from Jerusalem,  Sheikh Ibtisam Mahamid and Rabbi Tamar Elad-Appelbaum, shared with me by my colleague, Rabbi David Ackerman.

 God of Life

Who heals the broken-hearted and binds up their wounds

 May it be your will to hear the prayer of mothers

For you did not create us to kill each other

Nor to live in fear, anger or hatred in your world

But rather you have created us so we can grant permission to one another to sanctify Your name of Life, your name of Peace in this world.

For these things I weep, my eye, my eye runs down with water

For our children crying at nights,

For parents holding their children with despair and darkness in their hearts

For a gate that is closing and who will open it while day has not yet dawned.

And with my tears and prayers which I pray

And with the tears of all women who deeply feel the pain of these difficult days

I raise my hands to you please God have mercy on us

Hear our voice that we shall not despair

That we shall see life in each other,

That we shall have mercy for each other,

That we shall have pity on each other,

That we shall hope for each other

And we shall write our lives in the book of Life

For your sake God of Life

Let us choose Life.

For you are Peace, your world is Peace and all that is yours is Peace,

And so shall be your will and let us say

 Amen

Where do we go from here?

In the aftermath of four dead children, we need to carefully assess who we are, not who we believe ourselves to be.  It is hard to be self-critical, but it is critically important.  The tragedies of the four slain boys is deeply shocking and painful.   What it can tell us about ourselves is a step toward understanding those we currently consider adversaries on so many levels and how we might find a way to live together.  The horrible reality is that we have been sacrificing our children for way too long.  Our tradition compels us to continue to seek another way.  It will be hard and fraught with obstacles and disappointments.

Israel is a nation of laws.  Once, the aspiration was that Israel would be a nation like all other nations.  But in fact, we hold Israel to a higher standard of ethics and morality.  Although inevitably she will fall short of our ideal, it is the aspiration that makes her the land of hope for all Jews.  We support and love her and commit ourselves to striving to reach the ideal where all children might live in peace and security.  We have much work to do.  Let everyone use the tragedy that has befallen all of us to dedicate ourselves to the possibility of achieving peace someday

May we find peace this Shabbat

May we find peace and solace this Shabbat.

We include the name of Mohammed Abu Khdeir to the names of Naftali Frankel, Gilad Shaar and Eyal Yifrach this evening as we recite Kaddish Yatom.  We ask of the Divine One:

May the One who makes peace in the high heavens
make peace for us, for all Israel and all who inhabit the earth.

Amen.

עֹשֶׂה שָׁלוֹם בִּמְרוֹמָיו הוּא יַעֲשֶׂה
שָׁלוֹם עָלֵינוּ וְעַל כָּל יִשְׂרָאֵל, וְעַל
כָּל יושבֵי תבל, וְאִמְרוּ אָמֵן

Oseh shalom bimromav,  hu yaaseh shalom aleinu, 

v’al kol Yisrael, v’al kol yoshvei teiveil,v’imru.

Amen.

A Quest for Meaning

 In Naso, we are introduced to the Nazir. A Nazir is one who purposefully separates himself or herself of the community by abstaining from certain luxuries or conventions, taking a vow as part of a spiritual search. This is the issue of the individual’s quest for meaning.

 We see the idea of a vow as a chance to be in closer communion with God. It is an extraordinary commitment as the individual, man or woman, commits to refraining from some basic of things. This particular vow seems to contradict the idea that we are in community; the Nazir does things that by their nature separates him/her from societal norms: The Nazir does not drink, does not cut his/her hair, not to be near the dead, even including those for whom even a Kohen would. At the end of the vow’s timeframe, the Nazir brings a sacrifice as a Sin offering and a second as an offering of well-being signaling the vow is now concluded and fulfilled.

 Once the Nazir has made the appropriate sacrifices, Aaron blesses the people with the Priestly blessing. This is as though through the process the Nazir endures in the sacred separating and the sacred re-joining, the whole people become worthy of God’s blessings.

 Like the Nazir we too try to find meaning in our lives. We reflect and act to give life purpose. The path we walk in that process can be difficult and often lonesome. We might find a need to separate ourselves from those we love or things that are familiar in order learn and grapple with the hard questions we confront in our lives. We do things that set us apart, not unlike the Nazir. However, our tradition teaches are not hermits or ascetics.   Parashah Naso teaches that our path needs to lead us back to the community. When we return, we are changed and, we pray, better off for the journey. When we return and again become a participant in our community, we enrich our community as well.

 We see this understanding of the Nazir play itself out all the time in our modern lives as well. Our young people for example, venture out from the family in their quest to find their paths, to challenge the paradigms they have learned in their youth and as they seek wisdom and growth. We call this going off to college. Our children leave us as adolescents and hopefully return as thoughtful young adults. In other even more noble pursuits, many of our best and brightest make a vow in the form of enlisting in the military to serve their country. The ideals they embrace they are willing to defend with their lives.

 We give our young the best we can. And then they leave. We pray that they will be safe on the journey and return to us whole. Then we know that indeed The Eternal has blessed us and protected us and caused The Divine Countenance to shine upon us.

My father was God

A beautiful poem I shared for Yizkor Shavuot by Yehuda Amichai-

My father was God and did not know it.

He gave me
The Ten Commandments
neither in thunder nor in fury; neither in fire nor in cloud
But rather in gentleness and love. And he added caresses and kind words
and he added “I beg You,” and “please.”And he sang “keep” and “remember” the Shabbat         In a single melody and he pleaded and

cried quietly between one utterance and the next ,“Do not take the name of God in vain,”       do not take it, not in vain,I beg you, “do not bear false witness against your neighbor.”           And he hugged me tightly and whispered in my ear“
Do not steal. Do not commit adultery. Do not murder.”

And he put the palms of his open hands
On my head with the Yom Kippur blessing.“Honor, love, that your days might be long On the earth.”  And my father’s voice was white like the hair on his head.
Later on he turned his face to me one last time
Like on the day when he died in my arms and said
I want to add Two to the Ten Commandments:
The eleventh commandment – “Thou shall not change.”
And the twelfth commandment – “Thou must surely change.”
So said my father and then he turned from me and walked off
Disappearing into his strange distances.

אבי היה אלוהים / יהודה עמיחי

אבי היה אלוהים ולא ידע.הוא נתן לי את עשרת הדיברות לא ברעם ולא בזעם, לא באש ולא בענן אלא ברכות ובאהבה. והוסיף לטופים והוסיף מילים טובות, והוסיף “אנא” והוסיף “בבקשה”. וזמר זכור ושמור בניגון אחד והתחנן ובכה בשקט בין דבר לדבר, לא תשא שם אלוהיך לשוא, לא תשא, לא לשוא, אנא, אל תענה ברעך עד שקר.וחבק אותי חזק ולחש באוזני, לא תגנב, לא תנאף, לא תרצח. ושם את כפות ידיו הפתוחות על ראשי בברכת יום כפור. כבד, אהב, למען יאריכון ימיך על פני האדמה. וקול אבי לבן כמו שער ראשו. אחר כך הפנה את פניו אלי בפעם האחרונה כמו ביום שבו מת בזרועותיי, ואמר:”אני רוצה להוסיף שנים לעשרת הדברות:הדבר האחד-עשר, “לא תשתנה”והדבר השנים-עשר,”השתנה, תשתנה”כך אמר אבי ופנה ממני והלך ונעלם במרחקיו המוזרים.

—Yehuda Amichai

The Give and Take of Torah

Our sages impress on us that Shavuot is the time of the Giving of Torah.  Giving and Receiving are seen as two separate acts.  The Giving is important because it is a one-time event and it is in the Receiving of Torah that we experience ongoing revelation. However, I think it is more complicated than that.  Both the Giving and the Receiving are inextricably bound together, two sides of the same coin. Both come with their own set of expectations and obligations.

Giving

A true gift is given freely and without strings attached.  Like so many of us, I have commented in the aftermath of the giving of a gift, with the gift box open and wrapping paper strewn, that “If you don’t like it, you can always bring it back.”  And that is true.  I do not want a gift to be kept merely to keep from offending me.  But whenever I give a gift, I select it thoughtfully and with care.  I want the gift I am giving to convey the meaning and love with which it was given. And I also want it to be loved and enjoyed.   So I rarely shop for Jewelry for my wife, unless I find something truly extraordinary that I know will fit her aesthetic sense.

Similarly, I believe the Gift of Torah is given with a similar intention.  It is given as an extraordinary expression of love that God has for his people.  And, if you will permit the anthropomorphism, I cannot help but think the Almighty would be crestfallen if we asked whether the receipt was still in the box somewhere.  Torah was not given just as a something for us to have.  It is to be a prized possession.  It is the greatest gift of all, short of life itself arguably.  There is an expectation and hope that we will embrace it fully and use it to guide our lives.

 Matan Torateinu, the Giving of our Torah, is more than something given in love.  This extraordinary act of Giving requires an equally extraordinary act of Receiving.  Sadly Torah can be rejected and “returned” as it were. It can be ignored, or possibly worse, misused as a means to exert power or personal gain at the expense of others.  All of us are diminished when one rejects Torah. Instead we hope to we turn it and turn it delving into its beauty and depth, revealing wisdom and ways for us to make meaning both in our relationship with God and in our relationships with each other.

Receiving

The Receiving of a gift is another matter.  I recall my mom teaching me as a boy, that it was proper to receive gifts with graciousness and gratitude.  The value of a gift lies in the intention with which it was given, not the price paid.  So understanding how a gift is given is very important to the receiver.  But what we actually do with the gift is up to us.

We determine how a gift is to be used.  A gift can be placed on a shelf.  It can be an object to be admired and appreciated.  But without interaction, it often does little more than collect dust.  Our willingness to engage it will determine how much it will mean to us.  But we must decide how to do this.  Even when the giver advises us how to use our gift, it is ultimately up to us.

And certainly when we do interact with it, the way we do it is also under our control, even when the gift is Torah.  We can return to it regularly or sporadically, we can be ready to engage fully or we could be more nonchalant, ready to pick up where we left off or to start afresh, we can be literal or figurative in interpretation.   We can plumb its depth and seek ways that it speaks to us and guides us.  It is said that when a piece of art or great literature leaves its creator, it becomes that which the recipient decides it will become.  All the more so Torah; for Torah is the supreme such work and yet still can only have as much meaning as we are willing to impart to it.

 I recall a Midrash spinning a story about the moment the people received Torah.  God lifts the mountain and suspends it over B’nei Yisrael by a thread.  The people are told they have a choice to accept or reject Torah.  But if they reject Torah, God will let go.  I actually prefer to understand the story another way.  The gift of Torah is the thread itself.  The world, as the mountain, can be harsh and cruel and the weight of the world can be crushing.  Torah gives us the ability to live under the reality that is our world and keep it from destroying us, instead giving us the opportunity for a full and meaningful existence.  Torah is the ultimate lifeline.

 In this case, both the receiving and the giving are dynamic.  We are always in the process of receiving, and arguably God is also always in the process of giving.  The Torah writ large is a living work, continuing to expand and evolve.  Both giver and receiver are actively involved in the process.  Both are intimately involved in the give and take.

 So how do we do justice to the gift of Torah?

For one thing, it is to embrace it with vigor to engage it and find how it speaks to us in ways that can affect our lives.  How do we grapple and test and probe with a sense of reverence and gratitude that comes from knowing Torah is given in love and the giver hopes that this priceless gift will be used for all its worth.