OWHC SynaBlog

Getting Real with the Rabbi --Eternal (and Internal) Vigilance

2012-03-01T19:00:00.001-08:00

Getting Real with the Rabbi --Eternal (and Internal) Vigilance

There was a huge uproar this past week when it was disclosed that the NYPD was secretly monitoring Muslim groups, Mosques and even the online postings of some Muslim university students. Several local politicians, most notably Corey Booker, the Mayor of Newark, and Chris Christie, the Governor of New Jersey, promised to look into the matter. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly was adamant, however, that these precautions were necessary, saying that “people have short memories as to what happened here in 2001.” Now clearly there are issues when the NYPD is employed to monitor and conduct secret investigations of a specific group of people who live not only outside of the New York City, but even outside of our state. However, it seems to me that the eternal paradox (or perhaps irony if you want to look at it that way) is that in order to live in a free, open and secure society you must be eternally vigilant. While all the talk of surveillance conjures up images of “Big Brother” or even smacks of racial profiling, I feel there is an argument to be made for Commissioner Kelly’s stance that the Police Department needs to do “what we believe has to be done to protect our city.”

This week is a special Shabbat, Zachor, in which we read of how the Amalekites attacked the fledgling Israelite nation after we crossed the Sea of Reeds, picking off the stragglers in the rear (Deut 26:17-19)–the first recorded terrorist attack in history –and as a result we were commanded to remember what Amalek did to us –to be eternally vigilant against them --and never forget –which the Rabbis interpreted as not only recording what Amalek did and reading it publicly every year in the Shabbat before Purim, but to remember internally, never forgetting in our hearts that there are evil people out there who which us harm and against whom we must be on guard. Clearly the majority of Muslim Americans are law abiding citizens who have no intention of every committing a terrorist attack, yet I also wonder if we have to look out for the greater good, and be proactive in averting any potential attack that could occur again on our soil. Either way, in answering this question as to how and best combat terrorism today, it requires us to be eternally and internally vigilant –looking not just around us, but within us, as to what is necessary and what is practical, and what is fair. What would you recommend?

Getting Real with the Rabbi --This is so Lintense!

2012-02-24T09:29:00.002-08:00

Getting Real with the Rabbi –this is so Lintense! It seems that everywhere I go, people have a new topic: Jeremy Lin! It makes sense when you think about it –the presidential elections are still far enough away that there does not seem to be a real showdown yet between the Republicans and Democrats, people are tired of talking about the economy, and the Middle East is too depressing –so why not talk about this Harvard grad, god-fearing Asian lad, who made the Knicks this year after coming off injuries and has so far managed to capture our hearts, inspire his team and send them on a winning spree (Save for last night!) After all, it is a veritable Cinderella story –or C-Lin-derella story as a recent placard posted by a fan at a Knicks game attested to! And think about all the adjectives that people now employ on his behalf –his play is Linsane! He is Lincredible! He has proven himself Linvaluable to the Knicks! Everyone from Sports Illustrated to the op-ed of the New York Times has donated cover stories and commentary to his play. Unlike other high priced stars of his era who take the ball and attempt to light up the scoreboard while their teammates simply watch, Lin is a point guard who knows how to both pass and handle the ball, he has proven himself as effective in making assists as he has in sinking baskets –a true playmaker is he –and is that not what you would want from a professional athlete after all? To me the most valuable player is one who simply makes his (or her) team better by playing with and for them –not playing for themselves. It is not simply about the numbers you can put up –it is about how you can help make your team better –a lesson for all of us, at a time when we seem to put far too much stock in sheer numbers, percentages and points, and perhaps not enough weight on the intangibles –like how a team can simply play better with a better player amongst them –that is an immeasurable stat (although recently Major League Baseball has tried computing that factor with something called “Wins Above Replacements” –or WAR –something I still don’t entirely understand –anyone out there want to explain it to me?) In any regards, young Jeremy is an exciting young man to watch and has rekindled my interest in the Knicks and the NBA after their ill-timed strike. He seems smart, respectful, does not talk trash, and clearly has a spiritual side to him –in truth, a powerful role model. So here is to the Knicks this season, and to Jeremy Lin –and to his keen play, which will hopefully only continue now that Carmelo Anthony is back (along with Amare Stoudemire –of whom I am also a fan –for obvious reasons!) and to hopes that they prevail against Miami in the end–and that he makes the U.S. Olympic team –what can I say –I have a Linsatiable appetite for this guy!

Getting Real with the Rabbi --Irate about Iran

2012-02-17T07:36:00.001-08:00

Getting Real with the Rabbi–Irate about Iran
There have been recent (fortunately foiled) attacks on Israeli diplomats entering the embassies in India and Georgia. Some say Iran is behind these attacks, payback for the Iranian nuclear engineers we have killed in the past few years and the setbacks we have caused their nuclear programs. Some in government, and political pundits throughout Israel and the United States have wondered if it would be best for Israel to attack Iran with an aerial assault and bombardment (they did something similar to Iraq in ’81 and to Syria just a few years ago which halted the two countries’ nuclear ambitions) that could potentially stop Iran from producing nuclear weapons, before it is too late. The question is, would Israel even be able to target all the potential facilities where the weapons-grade plutonium is being manufactured? According to some estimates these sites are spread throughout the country and are buried under heavily fortified underground bunkers –how could an aerial assault even prove effective, even with the most sophisticated of bunker buster missiles? At least the Iraqi and Syrian reactors were above ground and proved to be isolated, vulnerable targets. Unfortunately this is not the case with Iran - Ahmedinejad and the Mullahs are taking no precautions. So what is the answer? Do we do nothing and wait for nuclear weapons to be manufactured? Do we strike first, knowing that we would at least have the tacit (although perhaps not public) support of the United States and most of the Middle East? Would an Israeli strike in the next few months prove effective enough and cripple them permanently –or only set them back in their efforts? So what is the answer –and perhaps like many questions we struggle with on a personal level there is none –perhaps only God knows what will, or should happen in the future. All I know is that this concerns me greatly –nuclear weapons are dangerous enough, and not every country is capable or responsible enough to use them in the right way. What would you suggest? Is there any practical solution, or hopeful resolution to the predicament we may soon find ourselves in?

Getting Real with the Rabbi --Getting Serious about Syria

2012-02-10T09:19:00.000-08:00

Getting Real with the Rabbi –Getting Serious about Syria
It occurred to me just recently that this is the one year anniversary of my blog. A year ago the economy was stalled, Egypt was in the midst of a revolution, and the winds of change were blowing in places such as Libya, Yemen and even Syria. Today Egypt, Libya, Yemen have all succeeded in toppling their repressive regimes, and the economy is still stagnating, but it remains to be seen exactly what will happen in Syria. In recent history, it seems that every time a long running, totalitarian ruler is finally overthrown, a fundamentalist Islamic regime rises up to take its place –just consider Iran, and look at who currently who holds the most political influence in Egypt! We may not like Bashir Assad very much, he is brutal, he is oppressive, and very much like his father before him, he has been openly hostile to Israel, in both word and deed. Personally, I would love to see him go, I don’t think he is a fit leader and only took over as ruler of Syria by the sheer fact that he inherited the country from his father who had controlled the country since 1972. Rather than modernize Syria, introduce democratic reforms that might help his people and make overtures to Israel that might help the region and emblazoned him in history as a political trailblazer (like Sadat and King Hussein before him), he has continued on the same old party line as his father Hafez had before him, ruling his country somewhere between socialism and a military police state and unleashing Hamas on Israel and Hezbollah on Iran, fomenting only violence, discord and terrorism. The question is however, what happens when he is toppled? Who replaces him? The Assad family comes from a religious clan known as “Alawites” they are a minority in Syria, which is dominated by a Sunni Muslim majority. If Bashir Assad falls and his followers with him, will Syria become a religious theocracy like Iran did under the Shah in ’79? Will a group not unlike the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt, or the Salafisits, who later inspired Al Qaeda, suddenly take power? What if Hamas and Hezbollah come into the mix and can now exert their influence over a country that flanks all of Israel’s northeast border?
There is an old expression: the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t” –the only problem with that saying is that in both cases you are dealing with devils –both Assad, and in all likelihood whoever replaces him. I don’t know what the future holds or what will prove better off for Israel in the long term. All I know is that now more than ever we should look east to our homeland, in fact to the entire region with concern and bated breath. We have to hope for the best, but either way, and whether we like it or not, history is being made, but at what cost? I hope and pray that in the end some good will come out of this, Syria and the Arab world will slowly democratize, Iran will be even more isolated. Who is to say? And what are your thoughts?

Getting Real with the Rabbi --"Don't blame, don't complain!"

2012-02-03T07:13:00.000-08:00

Getting Real with the Rabbi –“Don’t blame, don’t complain!” This week is Shabbat Shira –literally, the “Sabbath of Song” called so because we read from parashatB’Shalach, which deals with the dramatic splitting of the Sea of Reeds and the Israelites crossing through it, receiving salvation in the process. Most importantly, when they come out on the other side, and the pursuant Egyptian army is drowned, they sing a song of deliverance which is chanted from the Torah every year in a most beautiful and evocative melody. Likewise the Haftarah reading, from Judges 4:4-5:31 also contains a song of gratitude, sung by the Israelites after a decisive battle against the Canaanites.
There is a midrash (a rabbinic legend) which always amazed me: supposedly, when the Israelites crossed the Sea of Reeds, not all of them were amazed and awestruck by this miraculous sight of rolling waves being split in two! Certain Israelites actually grumbled and complained when they were rushing through the salt spray and sea foam that had Divinely parted for them, because there was too much mud and water all around! That was all that they could appreciate, and apparently take in! One of the most famous stories in history, that could never even receive justice when filmmakers would attempt to depict it on the silver screen, and all some of our ancient ancestors could do was see the disadvantage and nuisance of a little mud and sand!! And there is every reason to believe that this Midrash had some basis of fact –just think of how much the Israelites are seen complaining before the Sea is split (even after they had seen God inflict the plagues on Egypt) and even after (they whine about food, water, how much better off they were as slaves!) Ingratitude can be infectious, perhaps we as a people never got over our sense of self as we marched sunburned, in the desert, all those years. That is why we take so much for granted. Sure, life is not perfect, but it could be a heck of a lot worse –hey, we could all be slaves!
I heard a great expression recently: “Don’t blame, and don’t complain!” I know it is easy to do, but rather than finding blame, or kvetching, why not try and find a solution, or be constructive somehow, find a way to improve any given situation. And sometimes remembering all that you do have to be grateful for, and how much worse off you can be, can make any situation improve. As I do every Shabbat, I will have dinner with my family and we will go around the table and share with one another what was the best part of our week, and the best part of our day. I ask you this, with all the problems in the world: the economy, Iran, etc, what are the five things you are still most grateful for? And more importantly why? We may not be able to solve all the world’s problems, but we can start by making our own world just a bit more peaceful.

Getting Real with the Rabbi --Who is Behind Us?

2012-01-26T12:54:00.000-08:00

Getting Real with the Rabbi –Who is behind us?
I had the fortunate opportunity to meet briefly with our Junior Senator, Kirstin Gillibrand this past Sunday, (BTW, you can look at my a Face Book page and see the picture I snapped with her!) and listen as she addressed a room full of Rabbis, lay leaders and Jewish professionals. One of the issues that Senator Gillibrand, who is a Democrat, mentioned, is that Washington (both the Executive and Congressional Branches) have an deep and committed bond to the State of Israel. And that was reassuring –albeit it, something I heard several times before, regardless of who was in office –but it is always nice to hear. On the other hand, why does it even need to be said? Do American politicians visit Canada and tell their northern neighbors “hey, don’t worry –we have your back!” Or to put it more comparatively, would an elected official visit a Greek Orthodox Church here and tell the parishioners “ We are behind the country of Greece, whatever tensions they face vis a vis Turkey or the surrounding area, we have their back militarily…” There is something about Israel that is such a hot button issue in our country, especially heading into an election year. But maybe it is that as American Jews we want to know that Washington will support our homeland, that in a sea of hostility there is at least one rational country that has our back. So it helps to know that we have support in Washington, and that we are not alone. In a recent Time Magazine interview, former President Jimmy Carter was quoted as stating that Israel “oppresses the Palestinians terribly” –without even mentioning the Palestinian predilection for violence, terrorism, and their refusal of a Peace Settlement back in 2001 that would have ended their current predicament and given them something they still seek at the present –a Palestinian state! So it still means a lot to me when I hear my representatives in Congress, my elected officials talk about their support and commitment to Israel, there are domestic issues I care about as well, but Israel is still, and always will be, very close to home for me!
And the Hebrew word for this coming week is: Shir

Getting Real with the Rabbi --what should we allow the outside world to see of us?

2012-01-19T11:26:00.000-08:00

Getting Real with the Rabbi – What should we allow the outside world to see of us?
There has been much controversy within the Jewish community and particularly Israel regarding the issue of Tsniut (modesty) as of late. Just think of the altercation that occurred in Beit Shemesh as of last month whereby a young Modern Orthodox girl was spit on by a Haredi (Ultra Orthodox man) because she was not dressed modestly enough to satisfy his standards! Or on the front page of the New York Times just this past week was the issue of an Israeli female doctor who was not allowed to accept a prize at a medical awards ceremony because the Ministry of Health is run by an Ultra Orthodox party. Clearly everyone has a right to practice religion as they see fit, but does that right extend to foisting your beliefs, positions, behavior and even mode of dress onto others? Sometimes I wonder as Jews, should we not be more concerned with what we portray to the outside world vis a vis a kind expression, a friendly smile or basic eye contact as opposed to trying to keep all parts of our flesh concealed? I gave brief mention of the following story last Shabbat in my sermon, if you have a moment, please peruse it:

By William Kolbrener

Published January 11, 2012, issue of January 20, 2012.
• Not long ago, on my way down three flights of stairs from the improvised nursery school where I used to take my youngest son every morning, I saw a woman struggling with several shopping bags filled with groceries. I asked her if she needed help, and when she nodded — though somewhat reluctantly — I carried the bags back up the three flights to her apartment. I tell this story not because I am vying for my neighborhood ‘Tzadik of the Month’ award, but because as I was going back down the steps the second time, I realized that something was missing: She did not say thank you.
I am sure this woman, whom I had never met and only rarely see, has excellent manners. But she refrained from acknowledging the small favor I did for her — nothing so little as to raise her eyes to mine — because in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood in Jerusalem where I live, men do not talk to women, and women certainly not to men, not even to say thank you. It is because, as seminary girls will tell you (they hear it all day as a mantra), “It is not tznius!” meaning that this behavior is considered immodest.
Read Debra Nussbaum-Cohen on How Modesty Turns Women Into Sex Objects in The Sisterhood blog.
Amid the polemical rhetoric that has taken over what has now become a full-fledged culture war about gender discrimination on Israel’s public buses, there is another, quieter story. To be sure, the attack on Tanya Rosenblit for not ceding her place on a gender-separated bus is appalling, and the general encroachment of religious values into the public sphere is an alarming development, but beyond the proclamations, the more everyday story — an equally disturbing one — has not been fully told.
That story includes that of the woman on the stairwell. She was certainly grateful. But since she is so concerned about the public perception that both men and women may have of her, she acts in a manner that she knows — she must — to be wrong. Better to be perceived to be impolite than immodest. A few grateful words, even the wrong gesture, might be negatively construed by someone watching, betraying the fear that someone must be watching, and all the time.
Related
• American Enclave Stands Up to Extremists
• Thousands Protest Gender Segregation
• Sex-Segregation Spreads Among Orthodox
Common sense civility in the public sphere has yielded to the establishing and policing of boundaries. My 16-year-old daughter, naturally modest — not just tznius in the sociological sense — told me that when a man got on a local Jerusalem bus, finding her and a friend sitting in the men’s section (the very language sounds like it belongs in the private sphere of a synagogue and not on a public bus), he pointed at them. He clicked his tongue a few times, then, with a waive of his hand, signaled them to the back of the bus.
The Shulchan Aruch, the Code of Jewish Law, affirms, “All of our women are important,” including, without doubt, my 16-year-old and her friend, yet that was certainly not reflected in the peremptory and entitled arrogance she met on the bus. True, some complain these days that the old language of chivalry objectifies women; but that chivalrous behavior is to be preferred to the dismissive treatment of women as objects who should move at the behest and slightest gesture — even approach — of a man. Without even taking into account the extreme behavior of harassment, assaults and public sphere violence, this is the other question that comes to mind: What happened to the respect for women for which Jewish men have been known for centuries?
But the answer is simple: Chivalry is dead in some parts of the Jewish world.
Walking in the neighborhood where I live, I used to, in my ignorance, greet on the street women whom I know. After all, I thought to myself, I am friends with their husbands, have watched their children grow up with mine and have sat in their homes for Sabbath afternoon meals. But most of the women — I have learned over the years, to modify my behavior — will not return my greeting. At first I wondered if there was something wrong with me. I still talk to my 16-year-old daughter’s friends. They look at me sometimes with surprise, or perhaps amusement. “He’s an American,” they probably say to one another. “He does not understand.” And the truth is, I do not understand. I am waiting to see at what age they will also stop talking to me.
As Freud underlines, relationships between men and women are always fraught, but the ultra-Orthodox treatment of the public sphere renders every gesture potentially and dangerously sexual. A sign, for a recent example, went up in many neighborhoods, forbidding the purchase of expensive foreign-made baby carriages, deemed possibly too enticing for some men to resist, their intrigued gazes in the end resting on the woman pushing them along. In a paradoxical and surprising way, ultra-Orthodox Jews — who mostly dismiss Freud’s thought — are more Freudian than Freud himself. As a result of this hyper-consciousness, they create a repressive culture of silence.
I do not want my girls constantly policing themselves, nor do I want to be surrounded by men who, in autocratic and arbitrary fashion, justify their discriminatory attitudes. I do want women, including my four daughters, to participate in the public sphere — without fear.
Chivalry may be dead, but our women are important. I want to hear — and I don’t think I am the only one — what they have to say.
William Kolbrener, professor of English literature at Bar-Ilan University, is the author of, most recently,“Open Minded Torah, of Irony, Fundamentalism and Love” (Continuum, 2011).”

Getting Real with the Rabbi --"Word of the Week"

2012-01-06T05:43:00.001-08:00

Getting Real with the Rabbi -“Word of the Week”
Sometimes as a Rabbi you hear about a really great idea, and think –why not try that in my community? Last weekend I had a rare Shabbat off (quite fitting that it was the last one of the secular year) and spending time with my sister who attends a Conservative synagogue in Connecticut, she told me about a practice her Rabbi has at the end of certain services: He introduces a “Hebrew word of the week” and then does a brief exposition on the etymology of the word, what it means, how it can be employed in Hebrew literature, liturgy, tradition, etc. And I thought: “What a great idea! I have to try that in my community!” After all, as it alludes to in rabbinic literature: (Pirkei Avot 6:3) even one who teaches a single verse, of a single letter, has taught Torah. I will introduce the very first word this Shabbat on the bimah –so stay tuned, and join us if you can, but I think moving forward for most weeks I will then offer a short discourse on the new word of the week every Sunday morning after minyan. And just for clarification, the new word may not always be Hebrew, sometimes I may employ a Yiddish, or even Farsi word –anything to illicit a brief discussion and offer a little Torah learning on the side. I look forward, to once again, learning all with you in the year 2012!
And on another note, as we head full force into Football playoff season (Go Giants!) I am just curious, what are people’s thoughts on Tim Tebow and the personal prayer he offers up on the grid iron? Are you uncomfortable with it? Why or why not? Maybe as a Jew it gives you a pareve feeling (you can go either way, not feeling too strong about it one way or the other) or does it perhaps inspire you to be more in touch with your own Judaism? Write back on this blog your thoughts –I am interested in hearing them! And of course…
Shabbat Shalom!!

Getting Real with the Rabbi --How to Stay Truly Warm Inside When Winter is Upon Us!

2011-12-28T20:05:00.000-08:00

Celebrated the last night of Chanukah with my family last night, where did those eight days go??!! So sad! Lit the candles in shul this morning as per custom, and they stayed lit till the end of services, then slowly extinguished themselves..a fine metaphor for the departure of the festival, all those colored little candles will never be arranged with such precision, dedication and care again for quite some time as the sun has now set, completing the cycle. Chanukah is officially over and will not appear again for another year, we have only winter upon us...at least, since the advent of lighting all those candles, we can take satisfaction in knowing that the days are now once again growing longer...we have dispelled some of the natural darkness, for now, if only we could find a way to vanquish that external, man made darkness, or even the internal darkness which sometimes envelopes our souls. On that note, each one of us has our work cut out for us in the coming year. And then I wonder, wast it with this purpose that our ancient Rabbis stipulated in the first place we should light candles at this time of year? As it starts to get most cold, as winter, uninvited invades our atmosphere, perhaps the notion was to try and vanquish it as best as we can by lighting those candles in the home, for eight straight nights --and as we conclude, we take comfort in the knowledge that the days are going to slowly grow longer, the sun fights its setting, a little bit, each day. We barely notice it at first, but little by little, the minutes add up over the weeks until we eventually realize it is hours that the sun hangs in the sky and night is kept at bay --and that natural reality starts with the candle lighting during the nights of Chanukah. And it is this hope, that things can improve, that we have the power to change any given situation, even the very world around us, not just with a simple act, but even a simple thought, in how we perceive things, how we perceive the world around us --staying light a little bit longer, each and every day, even as it increasingly grows colder --because we know that that cold will not last, weather is simply quite fickle, but the light will be there, either in how we choose to light our own homes, or how the world around us is lit more and more by the powerful sun, or how we ignite the flame, and warmth of our inner soul. May 2012 be a most positive year for us all!

Getting Real with the Rabbi --What does Kim Jong Il have to do with Chanukah?

2011-12-22T20:40:00.000-08:00

Getting Real with the Rabbi –What does a Kim Jong Il have to do with Chanukah?
Like many people this week I read with great interest about the death of Kim Jong Il, the man who ruled North Korea with an iron grip and inspired a cult of personality in his country since he first took power back in 1994. What a strange, and somewhat scary individual –under his tyranny, all North Korean households were to hang portraits of their “dear leader” and were awakened by a gong every morning in their households. A huge movie buff, he was said to have kidnapped a top South Korean actress and her movie director husband, keeping them prisoner in his country for eight years in hopes of enhancing the North Korean movie industry. He was also purported to be a sports fan, enjoying the NBA, International Soccer, bowling and golf. It was claimed that he once shot 38 under par, that in his very first golf outing he sunk his first 11 holes (hello Tiger Woods!) and that he scored a perfect 300 the first time he went bowling! It was also under his leadership that North Korea conducted two separate nuclear tests and is believed to now possess up to eight nuclear devices –they even tried to supply Syria with a reactor, which was bombed by Israel in 2007. There is of course an old Yiddish expression: besser mitn taivel vos m’ken eider mitn taivel vos, ‘ken im nit (better the devil you know than the devil you don’t). So no one knows what to expect with his son, the heir apparent and immediate successor, Kim Jung Un, but the world watches with bated breath –can things get better? After all, who really knows what will happen? As recent events unfold so violently in Cairo in reaction to the “Arab spring” we all realize that change is never easy; and in the political world, it is rarely smooth.
Also, like many of us right now in the Jewish community, I am in the midst of celebrating one of my most favorite holidays, Chanukah –the “dedication” or festival of lights! Now in kindling those lights we are all reminded of the miracle of the oil that lasted for eight nights in the Temple’s Menorah, and the military conquest of the Maccabees over the better equipped and seemingly more powerful Syrian Greeks, but sometimes we forget why our ancient ancestors had to fight in the first place. Unlike the Exodus story from centuries earlier when we were oppressed as slaves, or the Holocaust two millennia later when we were nearly annihilated, the story of Chanukah deals with a fight against religious persecution, as King Antiochus IV sought to completely forbid Jewish practice –and had he succeeded, we would all not be here to this day as our ancestors would have assimilated long ago and our culture, our religion would have disappeared in history –we could all be speaking Greek today! And in truth Antiochus IV may not have been as evil a despot as say a Haman, or Hitler, or even a Pharaoh, but his actions would have had the same consequences as all those evil men. So we light candles, as the sun has set, and we are in the midst of the coldest, shortest days of the year, and we are reminded to hope, and that the light and warmth of our people cannot and should not be extinguished. Any ruler who oppresses and denies religious freedom to his people is not fit to rule, and we are fortunate that some of the greatest threats to the Jewish people throughout history have failed in the end and we have managed to survive, grow and prosper as a people. We don’t know what will happen with North Korea in the near future, or any of the countries that form the “Axis of Evil” defined by George Bush a decade ago, but we continue to hope, to light the candles this time of year, to remember that just as we descend into darkness, light will come once again as the days will slowly get longer, and that for thousands of years now, as despots, dictators, rulers and tyrants have come and gone, we have survived, shining a light unto the nations --an “or l’goyim” and offering one another a beacon of hope in a sometimes unstable, and even irrational world.

Getting Real with the Rabbi -"The Future's Not Ours to See"

2011-12-15T14:04:00.001-08:00

Getting Real with the Rabbi –“The Futures Not Ours to See”
There is a statement in the Talmud –“a dream left interpreted is like an unopened letter” –meaning there is information out there that can very well pertain to you –that is meant for you, and you should try your best and decipher it, otherwise you might be missing a valuable opportunity to learn something about yourself. That concept is all the more important given this week’s parasha, in which the protagonist Joseph has not just one, but two dreams which portend his future greatness, and is furthermore able to successfully interpret the dreams of two of Pharaoh’s servants –an important analytical skill that will eventually win him an audience with the Pharaoh himself (Parashat VaYeshev, Gen: 37:1-40:22). Furthermore in the case of Joseph’s own personal dreams, and the dreams he interprets for the Pharaoh’s servants, both sets of dreams come true, so in a sense they were not just personal fears, hopes or desires, as we might interpret our own dreams today, or hints of revelation as the dream his father Jacob had when he left Canaan (Gen 28:12-15) As it also states in the Talmud concerning dreams –“they represent a fraction of prophecy!”
Here is the question I put out to you: if you could know the future –it was revealed to you say in a dream sequence, or a type of vision –and you could see where you would be, what you would be doing, what kind of person you would be five, or even twenty years into the future –would you want that? I mean really, truly want that for yourself? I wonder, because I am not so sure I would want that for myself. As one congregant said to me the other day when I queried her on this point “I would want to know my future if it were all good” but alas, it is never that simple! Joseph’s dreams at the outset of this parasha symbolized he would be greater than his brothers, they would literally bow down to him –and that did eventually happen, however it would take 22 years for that vision to be realized –and in the meantime Joseph would be sold into slavery and find himself languishing in prison! You see, a glimpse of the future does not offer us context –whether the future looks bright, or dark –it does not show us what it took to get there, the vicissitudes of life that we rode along the way, that can only be gleaned by looking at the present, what we experience and undergo on a daily basis, in short, the life we lead, the life we live, and every day we have an opportunity to shape our future by being fully engaged and living in the present. As Doris Day sang years ago,: “whatever will be, will be, the futures not ours to see” –and that is true, but how we live for today helps determine how we will live in the future. In truth, would you want to know your fate, or would you rather be surprised? Either way, the present day not only helps shape that context, it is the context!

Getting Real with the Rabbi --Looking forward to the Future

2011-12-08T18:56:00.000-08:00

Getting Real with the Rabbi –Looking forward to the Future

I had the distinct pleasure of visiting the new Times Square Discover exhibit the other night with a congregant, it contained several of the artifacts and archeological finds from the Dead Sea community that were being displayed for the very first time outside of Israel. We viewed ancient coins and necklaces, altars, earrings that looked as if they could have been fashioned last week, and of course the ancient fragments known as the “Dead Sea Scrolls” –these are actual parchments of scriptural writings in Hebrew and Aramaic detailing life for the ancient community that lived in and around the Dead Sea area (known as Qumran) about two thousand years ago, who lived an aesthetic, celibate lifestyle and who also composed what is probably the oldest known existent sections of the Hebrew Scriptures. Gazing upon these treasures I felt like some specter from the future, glimpsing a way of life that was at times so simple and yet so severe (the Dead Sea community had broken with mainstream Judaism, represented by the Pharisees in Jerusalem and the Temple practices as too corrupt)I could only imagine what the Dead Sea community would have thought about Judaism in the diaspora, and even modern Israel today.
To be sure the exhibit also highlighted non Jewish and non Israelite artifacts from ancient times. There were early Muslim and Christian religious symbols as well as Canaanite cult objects going back to the 7th and 8th centuries B.C.E –imagine –in America you would never find pieces going back that long ago! And perhaps because I am reciting Kaddish now on a daily basis for my father and I am struggling a great deal with memory it made me wonder –what are the things in our life we feel we treasure –that we feel represent us, offer a glimpse as to who we are, how we lived, and offer a brief perspective of our lifestyle. I was honored to inherit my father’s tallit and tefillin after he passed away (as well as my grandfather’s –these are ritual objects I hope to now pass unto my children for their b’nai mitzvah) what are the physical objects that might symbolically define you, your household, your family? Is it a mezuzah? A piece of artwork? A Wide screen plasma TV? What might be the one piece of information, the one physical shard of evidence, the one hint at a legacy, that you would leave behind that could help tell your story to future generations, centuries from now? What would be that piece of your past that could reveal a part of you in the future, and why? Think about what tells your story.

Getting Real with the Rabbi --"Stairway to Heaven"

2011-12-01T20:17:00.001-08:00

Getting Real with the Rabbi –“Stairway to Heaven”
In the opening of this week’s parasha, the patriarch Jacob, running away from home, lies down for the night and has a dream/vision in which he sees a ladder (Hebrew “Sulam”) extending to heaven, with God alongside Jacob, speaking words of reassurance, and angels ascending up and down the ladder. I have always loved that scene, for the magic, mystery and mysticism it invokes. In Seminary I learned that the heavenly structure Jacob envisions, so often termed “ladder,” was actually more like an ancient pyramid with steps (picture what the Mayans, Aztecs or Incas built in South America)known as a “Ziggurat.” Angels may have been able to levitate up and down that heavenly staircase, but we, being humans, would naturally walk up, or climb the steps.
One can “ascend” in many ways. You can do it physically, like climbing the rungs of a ladder, or spiritually, through prayer and mitzvoth. In fact there is a Hebrew word for it, “aliyah” which can mean to both make a physical move to the land of Israel, or a spiritual ascent, like when you go up to the Torah for an honor. As a Rabbi, I am of course a regular attendee at services, and while I may not think of myself as quite the “Cal Ripken” of minyan attendance, since losing my father I have tried to be there as often as possible, and one reason in particular is to recite kaddish, the sanctification prayer. During Shiva I had a few different opportunities and experiences with reciting kaddish. I recited it for the first time at the graveside, in the rain, when my mourning period officially began, and I can remember thinking “God, am I ready for this” –I mean I had recited kaddish a myriad of times before, while leading services, or at special commemorations and events, I have watched countless congregants do it before, but now it was my turn –and what a responsibility –now I was saying it because I had to say it –and for someone else, my father! During that week I experienced kaddish in different ways. While at my parents’ home in Brooklyn my mom, sisters, and assorted friends and family recited it a couple of evenings in a row on our front porch as the sun set and neighbors walked along the sidewalk and cars drove by on the street –that was a powerful experience. One night an old friend from high school (who was not Jewish) came up the walkway with his entire family as we were halfway through the service –he stood so attentively and was respectful so as not to disturb us, and I am sure it was an awkward moment for him, but for me it was a combination of so many different things --my Judaism and the outside world, my old life and my new life, my friends and family, coming together to show their support. I also very much enjoyed being in Brooklyn and going in the mornings to my old synagogue, the East Midwood Jewish Center. They had a nice, heimische morning minyan (I dragged my sister with me both mornings we were there, and she was the only female in the room) and the regulars were happy to have us –and they even had a nice custom of ending the service by passing around some sponge cake and shots of schnapps and vodka, toasting l’chaim in the same room we had just prayed in! But by far the minyan I enjoyed most was davening evening and morning services in my own living room here in Old Westbury, with friends and family, in my very own home –to me that was the definition of a true community!
So here I am now, a week after Shiva has concluded, still plugging away, chanting kaddish wherever and whenever I am able, and on the upshot I have a nice group of congregants, a chevra, who are reciting it with me, all having recently lost a parent. I think my dad would really be pleased about that last point; I can picture him looking down from heaven going “good, good, you have a nice group of friends to do this with you.” Every time I recite the kaddish now during services I must confess that I do feel elevated –and it does lift my spirit, as much as it does my father, he ascends to heaven, and I feel I can help him get there. In the coming weeks and months, please continue to read my blog, as I will make continued references to the power and majesty of kaddish, its origins, why we recite it and how we experience it in different ways. Please respond to my blog with your own experiences or questions about kaddish –I would love to keep this conversation going.

"A Real Reason to be Thankful this Year"

2011-11-23T18:46:00.000-08:00

Getting Real with the Rabbi –A real reason to be thankful this year
My Shiva has officially ended –it was nearly a week of visits from assorted friends, family, fraternity brothers, congregants, classmates and colleagues who came to support my family and me through the loss of my father, a most significant person and presence in our lives. We davened together, we hugged, we spoke, we had drinks together and attempted to consume a never ending supply of cookies, cakes, babka, bagels and cold cuts (deli platters, better word?). To be quite honest Shiva was at times emotionally exhausting, but it was also spiritually uplifting and in the end I felt completely inspired –and yes, comforted. Comforted by a community that really came out and made their presence, and their feelings known when they extended themselves to me, my mother and sisters. I must say, as someone who is going through this type of loss for the very first time, it is not easy being on the other side of things –I am the one used to finding the right words and attempting to make theological sense of things, but sometimes the greatest gift you can extend a person in their time of need is simply being there –your presence, not presents –letting them know that there is not always an answer to what happened or why, but that you are there to listen if they want to talk, and able to offer a shoulder to lean on if they need to cry.
I loved my father very much, as was evident from the eulogy that I gave. Many well-wishers in their attempt to comfort me said “I’m so sorry” and as I already explained, in my case there is no reason to say that, my father accomplished everything in his life that he wished to, and he was proud of all three of his children (as well as his spouse and grandchildren) and their accomplishments, and of course we were proud of him as well –he truly left this world feeling fulfilled, and without any regrets. Still, I know the people who simply stated “I’m so sorry for your loss” where merely trying to help, and I appreciate that, but just having you there was comfort enough. In this week’s parasha, Toldot or “Generations” as we might translate it in English, we read about a different type of family dynamic that existed between Isaac and his wife and sons –the twin boys Jacob and Esau. Isaac barely seems to have any relationship with Jacob, the younger twin and the one son clearly earmarked to be the next patriarch of Israel, and Rebecca for her part seems to favor Jacob at the expense of her relationship with both Esau and Isaac –in truth there does not seem to be a whole lot of familial bonding or conversation that takes place amongst the family members, just plotting and behind the scenes machinations. One can only wonder that if father and son (or “sons” in this case) had sat down together and had a heart to heart about proper conduct and behavior, what is best for the family and the future nation of Israel, if things would have turned out differently and Jacob would not have been forced to flee from the homestead while incurring the vengeful wrath of his brother Esau. In short, if only they had been more of a family to one another! If there is one things this entire experience has taught me it is that one should never wait too long to tell the people they love how much, and why they love them –and never take their mere presence here on this earth for granted –it will not last forever!
It will be Thanksgiving soon, and most of us celebrate with some sort of combination of Turkey and Football, but however you celebrate Thanksgiving, and whomever you celebrate it with, think about what it is that you are truly thankful for, what is it you have that you would not want taken away from you, that you would truly feel at loss if it was suddenly lost to you, and how you can now better appreciate those things now that you are more aware or cognizant of their very existence. After all, if we don’t take time out once in a while to be truly thankful for certain things, how much meaning do they really have to us –how deserving we truly are of them?
So once again, thanks to all of you - you helped me get through this past week, which was a whirlwind of feelings and food, prayer and pain. And to all the professional staff who worked with me and came out to support me in my time of need, to the many congregants who at one time or another showed their face or sent letters, cards, notes and emails of condolences, to the friends I had not seen in years, and the ones I saw just the other day, to both the laity and clergy, those whom I knew for years and those whom I met only recently, to those who came from close by and those who came from hours away, from the bottom of my heart I want to know how much your support meant to me, and how much I learned from all of you, about what it means to be a good colleague and friend. You all may notice certain changes in me, I will not be shaving over the next month as is a custom when you lose a close relative, and I will avoiding most parties and celebrations over the next year as is the custom when you mourn for a parent. The point of Shiva is not simply to distract the person from their loss by having an endless parade of guests to wish them well, or to make sure others prepare the meals and basic chores so they do not have to work in their time of mourning. I think one of the goals of Shiva is to have you sit home for close to a week, sequestered from the outside world, the point I know believe of Shiva is to have you sit at home and have the world come to you, so that you can dwell in familiar surroundings, and confront your loss, but simultaneously know that you are not alone –thank you all, for bringing a piece of your world to me, and opening up my mind and heart a little, in to all I have to truly be thankful for!

Getting Real with the Rabbi --A Study in Contrasts

2011-11-10T07:03:00.000-08:00

Getting Real with the Rabbi –A Study in Contrasts
I was coming out of the movie theatre the other day with my family and my children pointed out how beautiful the sun looked, setting in the sky, a huge orange ball seen through the vantage of bare tree branches. I thought “how strange” here it is barely 4:30 and the sun has fully begun its descent in the sky, but then I was reminded of day light savings which had just ended, and how the sun is now setting (and will continue to set) earlier and earlier over the next several weeks. What was even stranger was turning around and looking directly due east and seeing the moon (nearly full) hanging in the sky –the rising moon and the setting sun, both standing out in the sky, a study in contrasts!
And here it is, we are at that time of year when fall slowly “bleeds” into winter, and yet it has been a beautiful, warm and sunny week –the perfect Indian summer if ever there was one! After all, “Indian Summer” is defined by the first warm spell after the first frost has appeared in the fall –and since we had actual snow last week, now it is Indian Summer!) So it should be cold, and in all likely hood soon it will be, but now we still have an unseasonal warmth for this time of year –that is a study in contrasts!
Contrasts are so significant because they make you notice things you may not normally –like a beautiful sunset, simultaneous with a moon rising, over a warm autumn afternoon. There is a beautiful Midrash (rabbinic legend) about the Patriarch Abraham when he was still a very young child. While walking alone on the edge of a valley he noticed the sun sank and replaced by stars, and he thus proclaimed “these are the Gods!” However, when the dawn came and the sun rose with it he assumed the sun must be God as it had vanquished the night. Of course the sun set again, night fell and he beheld the moon glimmering in the dark sky in all its luminescent beauty, and he now thought the moon was certainly God, as it had overtaken the mighty sun, but when the moon became momentarily obscured, he realized how faulty his logic was and thought to himself “This too is no God! There is One who sets them all in motion.” And thus was born the concept of monotheism ( Baba Batra 10a)
So as we have the opportunity to see the beautiful autumn leaves change color into blazing hues of orange and gold, while some green still remains on the branches, that is a study in contrasts. It reminds us that nature is out in full force, and that perhaps God is somewhere in the background, turning the dial, painting a canvas, causing the effect of the change of seasons. They say that the spirit of the Divine is in the details, and if anything makes us notice the details it is being stunned by the contrasts all around us. Even as we face the onset of winter with a most foreboding feeling, ask yourself why is it you can sometimes feel so cold outside, yet so warm on the inside –that is a study in contrasts, it makes you appreciate what might go otherwise unnoticed in the day to day, and ultimately we don’t want to lose too much sight of things because that is how life passes us by, and besides, occasionally noticing the wonders of nature in this big, beautiful and bountiful world reminds us there is something else out there aside from ourselves, and a bigger picture in the midst of it all. And that in of itself is contrast

Getting Real with the Rabbi --The World is Not Your Waste Basket

2011-11-03T10:26:00.001-07:00

Getting Real with the Rabbi –The World is Not Your Waste Basket
There is a great scene from the second season of my favorite television show, Mad Men, in which the entitled Draper family, after finishing the perfect picnic meal in a picturesque park setting, has to suddenly rid themselves of the refuse. And how do they do this? The Patriarch Don proudly hurls a Beer can well into the field with all the bravado of a high school quarterback, and his beautiful wife Betty so casually empties the contents of the picnic table cloth unto the grassy field you almost wonder what she could possibly be thinking –or if she is even thinking at all! And then with utter abandon and unconcern for the mess they have left the family simply gets into Don’s brand new Cadillac and drives away as the camera freezes on the paper cups, plates and napkins that now litter this once serene and natural setting --it is easy to hate these people.
But wait! The scene takes place in June of 1962, long before concern for the environment was a basic concept and recycling was the law –anyone remember the “crying Indian” and how guilty he made us feel about littering –well that commercial did not start playing until the ‘70’s (no b’nai mitzvah students I have ever worked with have even heard of it!) If we are more environmentally aware today than were previous generations it’s because we have learned from the mistakes of previous generations! After all, who wants green water, smog, and dead animals everywhere? That might be all right for China, but not our country, not now! Clean air, drinkable water and occasional signs of wildlife seem the way to go, especially if we want to live on this planet well into the future.
However, disregard for the immediate world around us does not just go back to the recent past, like the hip early ‘60’s Mad Men genre! In this week’s Torah reading, Lech Lecha, we encounter a family squabble between the first patriarch Abram’s servants, and those of his nephew Lot (Gen 13:5-8). In the Torah reading we encounter a strange scene in which Abram and Lot, after returning from Egypt with a tremendous bounty, are attempting to traverse the land of Canaan together, with all their servants and possessions, only “the land could not support them staying together, for their possessions were so great that they could not remain together. And there was quarreling between the herdsmen of Abram’s cattle and those of Lot’s cattle. –the Canaanites and Perizzites were then dwelling in the land.- (Gen 13:6-8) Anyone who has tried traveling (on foot no less) with another party, especially when there are children, lots of luggage and baggage, knows how frustrating it can be. Clearly there was enmity between Abram’s servants and Lot’s (not to mention quite possibly enmity between Abram and Lot) as regard to the responsibility over their livestock, accountability of their resources, and maybe an overall rivalry affected the two groups, but what could be the meaning, of “the Canaanites and Perizzites were then dwelling in the land” –don’t we already assume that? After all, the land is still called “Canaan” at this point –why would the Torah need to tack on the seemingly obvious? Perhaps the Canaanite population was involved in this quarreling as well, but then why would the Torah not explicitly state that? Maybe the Torah means to simply illustrate that if Abram and Lot, who were blood relatives, were having trouble sharing the land because their possessions were so numerous, how much more so would the situation be exacerbated by the native inhabitants whom they were more than likely to encounter in the fields and valleys as they pastured their livestock. After all, if the land is not big enough for two groups, how can it be big enough for several different groups? The Medieval French Rabbinic commentator Rashi takes it one step further and adds that Abram’s men, who learned by example, went so far as to muzzle their charges so that they would not eat the grass of the pasturelands they passed through and thereby not risk upsetting their neighbors, while Lot’s shepherds felt no duty to do the same, assuming that their master Lot would inherit the land eventually through Abram anyway, so it was not really stealing to graze on someone else’s property, and for this reason the Torah mentions that the Canaanite tribes still dwelt in the land, to illustrate the point that Abram had not yet merited inheriting the land!
It is a lesson for us because we should always think about what steps we can take to ensure that we leave the world, or even the immediate area around us, in better shape than we left it. Every time we carelessly toss a napkin on the ground, or don’t bother to recycle, or leave a light burning unnecessarily, or even leave our car running while we are parked, these incremental steps can add up to a huge cost for our environment, and it only desensitizes us to the responsibility we constantly have for the world around us. We would never tolerate litter on our front lawn, why is it okay elsewhere? We would never encourage donating money to oil rich regimes who hate us, so why support them by wasting our fuel and electricity? It is the little things we can do and the little steps we can take to start making the world around us a better place, a more beautiful, picturesque place, and thereby truly earn our right, as it states in the outset of the Torah to “fill the earth and master it” (Genesis 1:28) with that injunction comes not just responsibility as to how we conduct ourselves on this planet, but the assumption that there must be things left on this earth worth overseeing.

And speaking of responsibility that we all have and share in this world, please join us this Saturday for Social Action Shabbat and Sunday morning for Mitzvah Day!
Shabbat Shalom!

Getting Real with the Rabbi --Sunny days are here again!

2011-10-27T13:52:00.000-07:00

Getting Real with the Rabbi –“Sunny days are here again!”

What a lousy, wet, depressing day –I even woke up this morning and it was dark! And then I thought, “hey, that is what the fall is all about” except that idea got me more depressed –cold, wet weather, more dark days, no improvement, at least for another five months!
Then I decided to distract myself with some Torah study –after all, we began the entire Torah anew this past Shabbat –Beresheit –in the Beginning –Genesis! And it is a fascinating parasha –but it is also a little depressing –it starts out with order from chaos –God creates –light from darkness, earth from heavens, land from sea, etc –and it culminates with the creation of higher organisms on our planet, animals, both domesticated and wild, and of course humanity –man and woman, placed in a beautiful Garden known as Eden –but then the picture in this idyllic paradise darkens, man and woman sin, eat of the forbidden fruit and are exiled forever. If that were not enough their son Abel is killed by their son Cain –so now you have the first murder in history! And by the end of the parasha Angels have even come down to earth and begun cohabiting with women, creating some sort of superhero like offspring, and giants abound on our planet, and God is so incensed He decides to wipe out all of creation! (Gen 7:1-8)
In this week’s parasha things don’t seem to be much better, we all know the story of Noah and the flood, the earth is destroyed because of this mighty divinely brought on deluge, only Noah and his family, and the animals they have brought on the Ark survive. However, even after the flood waters subside, and Noah and his family descends from the Ark, and a rainbow appears, things don’t seem to remain calm for long. In a most bizarre and possibly disturbing scene a drunken, passed out Noah is disrespected by his son Ham (Gen 9:20-27) and it is his descendants that attempt to build the Tower of Babel (in what today would be considered modern day Iraq) and instead are suddenly scattered amongst the earth speaking multiple languages, and no immediate way to communicate(11:1-10)
And so the stories itself are a bit, well, if not quite depressing, let’s just say they currently match the mood of the weather we are experiencing right now –they are not particularly uplifting, rather there is an almost harsh quality to them. And then I think about what is going on in the world today; with the chilling affect we are now experiencing from the Arab spring, and the impending threat of a nuclear Iran drawing closer by the day (going back to the Tower of Babel, we see that very region was always a troublesome spot!) And our own nation is not much better what with the sluggish economy and the Wall Street protestors reminding us on a daily basis how chaotic things seem in our very own backyard! It as if the world is headed towards a state of entropy –things seem to be spinning out of control, and breaking down, and the question is, when, if ever will things get better, or even stabilize?
It is hard to say for sure, will there be a rainbow today, that we can spot amongst the rain clouds, as Noah did, to offer us a glimmer of hope? And are we ready for the sun to set sooner, and to welcome the day in darkness (as is starting to happen) sometimes all we can do, when things seem bleak, is to look for that ray of light breaking through the clouds, signifying that little bit of hope. Gilad Shalit was recently freed, brought forth from darkness to light, imprisonment to freedom, tyranny to democracy, and that is reason to be happy, for him and his entire family! The days will grow colder, and shorter, but we have a month to enjoy the beautiful change of seasons, relish in the autumnal hue of the fall leaves, and look forward to Thanksgiving with our family, and of course Chanukah. Maybe we like to ski, and the winter is the time to plan those trips to a resort –maybe we hate to ski (like me) and want warm weather, in a beach atmosphere, so the winter is the time to plan those trips to a resort! And we know that one day, spring will eventually arrive, even if it means waiting till Pesach –it is just one more thing to look forward to! The point being, I don’t believe God created the world only to have it slide downward, into a state of entropy –the world is cyclical, and like the earth rotating on its axis, things go around and around. Like riding a carousel, sometimes we like the things we see, sometimes we don’t, the important thing is to hang on (sometimes for dear life!) and not get off the ride before its time. And ask yourself, in times of trouble and challenges, what is it that gives you hope, that reminds you of that shimmer of light through the clouds or that rainbow in the sky after a storm? In a spinning world, that sometimes makes you feel disoriented, what helps ground you and make it all seem worthwhile?

Yom Kippur sermon

2011-10-09T20:34:00.000-07:00

Gamar Hatima Tova! Tsom Kal, hope your fast is going well –and you are not too hungry, because on that exact note, I want to open with an interesting story I read several weeks ago in the New York Times Magazine dealing with how we are influenced in our decision making process. In the opening of the article, an Israel parole board had to decide which prisoners were to be granted parole. The Board consisted of a judge, a criminologist and a social worker, and of the three men brought before the board, two were Arab Israelis serving time for fraud and one was a Jewish Israeli jailed for assault. Which one do you think ended up receiving parole that day? It was one of the Arab Israelis, in this case the prisoner who was fortunate enough to have his hearing take place first thing in the morning, just after the three person panel had eaten breakfast –but maybe that was a coincidence. However, a further study of that case and others similar to it revealed that glucose levels in a person’s body affect their ability to make concrete and determined decisions –after all, we are not only in better moods once we have eaten something, but often able to think better. As the old adage goes –food for thought! Now interestingly enough, in the case of the Israeli parole board this study found overwhelmingly that prisoners brought before the board, regardless of the nature of their crime, or their religious, political or ethnic background, were at least 60% more likely to be granted parole if there cases were heard after the board had eaten a meal or been served a snack! (ask) Any lawyers in the room? So if you ever happen to find yourself before a judge, or even a prison tribunal, better hope they have had something to eat before they rule on your case –you never know the difference that might make in determining your client’s fate!!
Yom Kippur of course is about judgment of another kind, and we hope that our one true, eternal judge, sitting on the heavenly throne could never be so fickle as to judge us unfavorably because He is in a bad mood, or has not been fed enough. After all, it is we who are commanded to fast on this one entire day, perhaps to understand what it feels like to suffer just a bit, to deny ourselves, restrict and punish ourselves and to make up for a year of which in part was marked by some degree of selfish, self indulgent behavior when we did not challenge our decisions but instead rationalized our actions and coddled our very beings. We spend the day in prayer and fasting, and God in turn feeds off of our spiritual penitence, and we hope –we hope and pray that we will not be found lacking and that God will be satisfied with all we have to offer. Perhaps on some level that seems like nonsense to our modern sensibilities, but there is something that keeps us coming back here year after year, and it cannot be simply out of a sense of guilt or tradition, after all, it is not easy and far from enjoyable to pray and fast all day long. There must be a sense that we are obligated to do this, something calls out to us and reminds us that we need to try and set the record straight. Yom Kippur is about Reckoning with the decisions we made all this past year and hoping that this one day is enough to be forgiven, the spiritual labor though prayer and physical cleansing through fasting will be enough to simply reboot our system and completely start over. And yet is that ever really possible? In truth, our very lives hang in the balance on this day for we may not be forgiven, it may not be so simple to achieve that second chance at life, that pardon, that sense of forgiveness. If God controls all, if there is a one true judge sitting on the heavenly throne, then our fate is now in His hands, and we literally pray for the best. That’s what we do! But maybe it is not that simple –maybe we have control over own lives, maybe the future is for us to determine –all that occurs or befalls us externally is a chance sequence of events, as random as whether or not someone who is in a position of authority over us is in a good mood or not, because they have just eaten a meal. After all, if we decided how we lived and acted in this past year, if we had ownership over our actions, maybe it is as much our choice then as to what happens in the year ahead –is it going to be a good year or not? Will we bless or curse ourselves? Will we take more risks or not, ensuring our chance for survival? Any psychologist will tell you that people are often the architects of their own fate, if we have already determined our past, and are engaged in the present, then why can we not map out our future? Maybe life quite simply is what we make of it?
And yet, in truth, how many of us can honestly say that we can truly control things? I am not just talking about how much work we get through in a particular day, ensuring that the project is almost finished in time for the deadline, or reconnect with that old friend after deciding we have put it off long enough. We can control the particulars in most cases, what we want to do or have done for ourselves, but we have a much harder time controlling external forces. We cannot control what others might do or say. A co worker or supervisor derails our chance to finish the project on time, the friend we wanted to finally connect with after too much procrastination is not at home when we reached out, or has changed their number. We can never really control others, not even our spouse or children, and in truth we should not really want to, for that flies in the face of what it means to be an individual. But in reality so much of our life can at times be out of our control. There is a great Yiddish expression: people plan, and God laughs Man plahnt un Gott Lacht… We cannot dictate everything we would like to and our lives are not an architectural project whose infrastructure can be planned and conceived to the very last detail. Part of that of course is because so much of our life involves interaction with others and is intertwined in the outside world, we do not live in a vacuum. It was once posited that the flapping of a butterflies wings in Brazil might bring about a Tornado in Texas. So in one sense, any seeming semblance of control is merely an illusion –or is it?
A rabbinic belief is that everything is in the hands of heaven –except for the fear of heaven! In other words, people determine for themselves what they believe, and feel internally. We can control our own, immediate world, how we react on the inside to all that occurs externally. Are we going to allow the frustrations and negative emotions weigh us down, and make poor decisions and react negatively towards others as a result? Eastern wisdom posits that if you can solve a problem, what is the need of worrying? And if you cannot solve it, what is the use of worrying? But oftentimes we want to feel more in control, and I recognize that at times even the best, most well balanced of us feels angry, or sad, or scared at some point and that is inevitable –those feelings are what make us human. But the point is we cannot allow ourselves to become perpetually laden down with those types of feelings because they can lead to an emotional paralysis that keeps us from growing. In the 19th century there was a stream of Jewish practice known as Mussar which dealt with intense emotional and spiritual introspection, the goal being to try and better the practitioners behavior, on an ethical and personal level. One of the key concepts of this movement was perfecting the trait of savlanut, or patience as it is translated in modern Hebrew. Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Satanov defines the trait of savlanut as not only patience, but “when something bad happens to you and you did not have the power to avoid it, do not aggravate the situation even more through wasted grief.” A lesson we should all take to heart during this new year penitential period and on this day of forgiveness. Or, as the former cell biologist and Buddhist Monk Matthieu Ricard stated concerning negative emotions: “if you witness someone beating a child or an injustice, anger can motivate you to do something. But all the studies have shown that people who systematically vent their anger just reinforce their tendency to be angry. (and) You don’t want to suppress it or you’ll be like a time bomb. Instead, you look at your anger and let it vanish. When you cease to fuel a fire, it slowly dies.” That is the ultimate in self control. I was once told by a friend when he gets mad at another person, or a certain situation, he pictures himself rising above it –literally! He visualizes himself floating upwards, over the earth, into the atmosphere, looking down on our planet from the far reaches of the universe and seeing how all expansive everything is, and how insignificant he is by comparison, that is the art of “truly letting go. “ We can never fully control what happens to us, but we can control how we react, and sometimes we simply have to recognize those negative emotions for the moment and then release them as soon as possible. It is an inspirational concept, and if it seems simple enough yet impossible to achieve at the same time, remember that the New Year is about change and growth, and sometimes all we can do is try. If we fall short in the end, that is why we make amends on Yom Kippur, and a big part of Jewish tradition is based on kavanah –the very intention of trying to do something.
However, keep in mind, the very definition of kavanah is the intention to try and do what is right, complete a task, a mitzvah opportunity, is not an excuse to make mistakes and show error in our judgment. In the early part of this past summer we read about the poor judgment displayed by two very powerful and previously respected men: Dominique Strauss Kahn and Anthony Weiner People who are in a position of power should exercise more restraint on what they do and even say –not less restraint! And as a result, the inappropriate behavior that they exercised and the poor choices they made will now upend at least one of their political careers. Now the sad reality is that you can probably and unfortunately fill an entire Senate with those that abused the power and trust they were given while serving in elected positions or political appointments, it’s an offense that transcends both time and party affiliation. But in truth there is no excuse. The reality is that people in a position of power or influence should be held to a higher standard –if you want the responsibility, then you act responsibly! We should not allow our elected officials to get away with something that a public school teacher wouldn’t. Why be in a position of power and influence if you cannot even control your own libido! However, keep in mind that holding others to a higher standard does not absolve us of our own responsibilities or behavior. Remember that just because we can get away with something does not make it ok to do! Acting ethically in part is defined by the actions you take and the decision that you make even when no is watching! And in Jewish belief, there is the public sphere, and then there is the private sphere, but they are both under God’s sphere. We are all held accountable for our actions during the New Year, and the verdict is sealed today on Yom Kippur. The trial may not be publicized or televised, but is personal to each one of us here. We are under the spotlight, we have been judged by God in the heavens and God will decide by sundown tonight what our fate will be for this coming year. It is truly the Day of Atonement for us –the Day of At-One-Ment, nothing stands between us and God –even that which we may have kept hidden from others, God knows. So on one level how much control do we have over things if it is for God to determine our ultimate fate: not much! On the other hand, we can change God’s mind, we can influence the decision, by what we do and say, for better or for worse, so on another level we do exercise a certain amount of control. Everything we did this past year was deposited into the scales of justice, the good, the bad, and the in between –it can tip it one way or another –we brought about our fate. On the other hand everything we do today can help tip the balance. God listens to our prayers when we ask Him for forgiveness, and when we ask others for forgiveness as well, and that can make the difference. Judaism is not fatalistic in that way. It is true that all is in God’s hands, but who puts it there? As one of my favorite rabbinic teachings goes: All is predetermined, yet free will is granted. And the world is judged favorably, yet the outcome depends on the preponderance of good deeds. (Avot 3:19) We pray to a God of mercy and compassion and we have to believe that as a result we would be judged that same way, even if we fall short on occasion God takes note of our intentions and every positive action is added toward the big picture. And if we have control over our daily actions, then we also have the capacity to change. And we should never allow our mistakes to define us or undo us even as we have to recognize them and perform penitence for them. Part of the concept of Tshuvah is about change –you may have to change something about yourself in order to be forgiven –you may not be able to be the same person you were, or hold the same position in life you once did, but it does not mean you cannot eventually move forward. God forgives and so should we –forgive others and forgive ourselves.
Herbert Bayard Swope, a journalist who won three Pulitzer Prizes once stated: I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure –which is: try to please everybody. Doing the right thing is certainly never a guarantee of popularity, it is also never easy, for ourselves, even for others, and in truth personal success is not so easily quantified. Just because you do not always succeed, it does not make you a failure. Sometimes we have to stick to our convictions to the best of our ability, it is then we see what we are made of, we learn who we truly are on the inside. Steve Jobs, the legendary founder of Apple Computers, who just passed away, insisted in a recent Wall Street Journal Article that his entire success was built on what he learned from all his failures, yet he is best known for revolutionizing the information age in the past decade and practically connecting the world, not for all his near misses. Sometimes you hit it out of the park, sometimes you simply reach base, and sometimes you strike out, but you play to win, and that is life. Cy Young won 511 games in his career, more than any other pitcher in history –they named a trophy after him which is still awarded this day to the top major league pitcher in either league –and yet he lost 316 games, which is also a life time record, but nobody ever quotes that statistic. Moses made more mistakes with the children of Israel and had more near mutinies on his hand while he led the children of Israel through the desert than we would tolerate from any so called leader. A trek that should have taken a mere few weeks lasted forty years, and in the end Moses could not even succeed in getting himself into the promised land, probably most business models today would consider his style of leadership an ultimate failure, yet he is considered the greatest prophet in our tradition, and with good reason. He never gave up. He could not always control the people yet he never gave up on himself, and turning to God when necessary. Perhaps we as Jews have been so successful because of our oppression, our difficulties, it has only made us more resilient, and stronger in the process. That is a message for the High Holy Days. We can influence others, but we cannot control them, and we cannot control the world at large, what happens externally, but we can control what is internal. How we think and feel, and how we react as a result. And Judaism gives us a period like the Yamim Norai’im, these Days of Awe from the Jewish New Year to the Day of Atonement to meditate on that fact. As the liturgy sings: “penitence, prayer and charity can assuage the severity of the decree” –it cannot cancel it out entirely, there are things out of our hand in this world and in this life, but how we respond to it is, penitence: admitting our mistakes, prayer: reaching out to God, and charity: reaching out to help others puts us in a positive state of mind, makes the world around us better, reinforces the concept that it is not all just about us, and will no doubt have God view us differently as well.
In end, the irony is that we hope and pray we will be back here next year, same time and place, to pray once again for forgiveness. It means we realize that even in the midst of our true and sincere penitence and acts of contrition, fasting, apologizing to others, we know that we are going to make more mistakes, errors in judgments, and show inconsideration to others. We are human, that is what makes us humans. The Spanish philosopher and poet George Santayana stated: “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” and in a lighter vein, that is part of the timeless quality of being Jewish, year after year we come together again and ask God to pardon us, we read the same cycle of stories in the Torah, admit the mistakes and lapses in judgment. And we want God, we expect God to forgive us, because there is a bigger picture out there, as limitless as the stars in the universe, because some things are out of our control, and our fate is to be determined not only by us, but by a Being we hope and pray will judge us for the many successes, and not simply the failures we are all guilty of throughout the year and our collective lifetime. I want to confess before I finish that most years I think long and hard about a topic to preach and teach about on Yom Kippur, but in this case I feel the topic chose me. In difficult and challenging times such as these, when so many of us struggle on a personal level, and the world around us seems so uncertain, we strive for some semblance of control, of order from chaos and hope from gloom. The difference that can be made in our lives starts with us and our own actions and feelings. We can do our best to influence the world around us, but we can control the world within us. At the very least I hope that 5772 is a year of life, health, happiness and fullness for all of us here, and that I see you all again, this time next year. And as we want God to judge us favorably, and leniently, so we must remember to earn that right, and show the same mercy and consideration towards others. And maybe try not to make too many heavy decisions on an empty stomach. At the very least, when we do break the fast tonight, on bagels, lox, cream cheese or whatever food it is we choose to taste first after so long without eating, maybe we shouldn’t so soon forget how important this day was from a theological perspective and be ever mindful of the year at hand and what may still transpire. We have to be thankful for this past year, how far we have come, and hope for more in the year ahead. Some things are within our control, and some things simply aren’t.

Kol Nidrei Sermon

2011-10-09T20:30:00.001-07:00

Erev Tov, good evening. (and Shabbat Shalom!) I want you to take a moment to look at the cards we handed out at the start of service. On one side it states a simple truth: it is never too late. However, on the flip side it states a somewhat divergent opinion: it’s later than you think. Which statement rings true for you? To many it depends on the context –after all, in one sense we have to believe it never is too late, we must be positive and feel that we can always accomplish any goal, or repair any relationship, what can be accomplished by us from this sunset to the next sunset is limitless in possibility –that is a lesson of Yom Kippur. But on the other hand we must remember that we cannot wait until too much time has gone by and we risk missing an opportunity –time will not stand still for us and people will not always wait for us, time does not work around our schedules, it marches forward, quickly, despite us –that is another lesson for Yom Kippur. Eventually the sun does set on this golden day. It is never too late, but it is later than you think. Two sides of the same coin (or in this case card!) We must take both lessons to heart as a mantra –it is never too late, we should always try and attempt that which intimidates or scares us in a spiritual or emotional scope, there is always enough time to be Jewish, and yet we should also not delay or look for excuses –because too much time may have elapsed already. Why waste time in making ourselves more fuller, complete people? It is later than you think!
I came across an appealing human interest story this summer. It was about the former Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Ralph Branca. Branca is most famous for surrendering a home run to Bobby Thompson in the 1951 pennant and effectively ending the season for the Dodgers at that fateful moment and costing them their chance to play in the World Series. But what interested me was the discovery that Branca had Jewish roots! Branca was raised Catholic, but it turns out his mother, Kati Berger, an immigrant from Hungary in 1901 who lost most of her relatives in the Holocaust, was Jewish. Now she did convert when she married and raised her children, Ralph included, as strict Catholics, but there has always been a legal ruling in the Jewish codes that a person who converts out of Judaism is still legally considered Jewish because they can always recant on their deathbed! And if a Jew who converts is still considered Jewish, and a child born of a Jewish woman is always considered Jewish, then Ralph Branca, the famous Dodgers pitcher can still technically be called Jewish. In his case, is it never too late? Even if he does not spring to mind the way great former Jewish ball players like Hank Greenberg or say Ike Davis might. Maybe we might not think to call him if we need a tenth for minyan –but I guarantee you, like his Hungarian relatives who perished in the Holocaust, the Nazis would have considered him Jewish! Or, flip that card. Is it later than you think in the case of Ralph Branca? When asked for his opinion after the story broke, Brooklyn born and Harvard educated law professor Alan Dershowitz stated definitively “Ralph Branca is not a Jew, whatever the definition, it doesn’t include someone who willingly accepted a different religion. He didn’t stay home on Yom Kippur like Koufax.” And maybe he is right, but what is the true definition of being Jewish, for all of us –and exactly how does Yom Kippur attendance fit into the picture?
We all know by now that this holiest day of the year begins with Kol Nidrei, but why have such a dramatic intro to a day that is already infused with such solemnity? Some say that the origins of the Kol Nidrei service date back to the Middle Ages where Jews of the Iberian Peninsula were forced to convert under pain of death, and once a year, on the holiest night of the year, wished to return and pray with their fellow Jews, asking forgiveness for the oaths and vows they made in the past year –perhaps the pledge they made to honor the God of another religion. After all, we just recited at the inception of the Kol Nidrei prayer: Ani Matirin l’hitpalel im ha’Avar’yanim –asking permission to pray with those who have transgressed. We all have transgressed on one level or another, that is why we are here, but Kol Nidrei, a special service nowhere mentioned in the Torah or Talmud, is all about petitioning to be released from vows we made between ourselves and God –not actions, but words, for there is tremendous power in words, and words which challenged who we are as Jews, our spiritual essence, needs to be addressed and confessed to on Kol Nidrei. For even being a Jew in secret, a Marrano, still meant you were a Jew –especially in matters between you and God. It is never too late.
Yet how many of us today don’t make our Judaism about us and God –God does not even enter into the picture: We say we are Jewish, and we feel Jewish, and in truth we are Jewish but it simply has no great external consequence for us. We can take it or leave it. Like the Marrano, we are Jewish tonight, on Kol Nidrei, but it matters less so the rest of the year. We don’t need to hide the fact, and in truth we see no reason to –it is easy to be Jewish here, comfortable even –convenient, our friends and family are Jewish, most of our community, there is thankfully no danger to being Jewish –we take it for granted –because we can! And unlike Ralph Branca, who at least had the excuse that he never knew, it was hidden from him and he was raised content and with conviction in Catholicism, we have known all along we are Jewish, and we assume our kids will be Jewish (although in this day and age, you can never assume, there is danger in that) but we don’t take it to heart, and in truth we may not risk our lives for it. Some say familiarity breeds contempt. I am not saying we scorn our Judaism in America –that is unfair and a too harsh assessment. We can all be there when the community calls us in times of need, or when there is a crisis in Israel –but how about being there even when the community does not call to us, or there is no crisis regarding Israel? We are here on Yom Kippur when our life hangs in the balance, and it all feels serious and somber, but what about when we celebrate in a few days with Sukkot and Simchat Torah? Where are we then? God still wants to see us, still needs us! But maybe we don’t feel the need. When something seems too easy, it often gets overlooked. Jews hundreds of years ago prayed on Kol Nidrei to be accepted by God and their fellow Jews –tonight it affords us an opportunity once again to realize what it means to be Jewish, to commune with God, and to stand shoulder to shoulder with our family, friends and neighbors. Yom Kippur also informs us that God has already decreed a ruling in the great Book of Life concerning our fate for the coming year, and based on our actions from this past year. And twenty four hours from now, at Ne’ilah, when the Shofar sounds that Book is officially closed and our fate is sealed. Only one day left to potentially change our destiny, so yes, it is later than you think.
Being Jewish is of course more than just a momentary sensation, a one night stand so to speak. It is a commitment, it is a lifestyle choice. We were born Jewish, we had no choice in that, but we did choose to remain Jewish –something has kept us linked to our heritage throughout our life, and kept us coming back here year after year, for the longest service in our tradition. But it is not only about tonight, and in truth it was never meant to be. Our religion is far more profound than that, however compelling is the liturgy and evocative are the tunes. Back in the eighties, America was experiencing something known as the “Cola Wars” between Coke and Pepsi, remember that? Pepsi was so confident that it could overtake Coke, long America’s most popular brand that it introduced something known as the “Pepsi Challenge” whereby blind taste tests were administered throughout the country between Coke and Pepsi and astonishingly participants overwhelmingly chose Pepsi as the preferred choice. Coke could not understand it, they thought perhaps Pepsi was skewing the results, so they conducted their own test tastes and surprisingly the results were the same –people seemed to prefer Pepsi! Careful research showed them that Pepsi had a very sweet taste on the palate that consumers seemed to love, so what did the people at Coke a Cola turn around and do? They completely changed the formula of Coke in the spring of ’85, introducing a concoction called “New Coke” that had a very sweet taste to it similar to the saccharine sensation of Pepsi. And what happened, was this “New Coke” a success? No, quite the opposite it was a marketing disaster. People hated the “New Coke” –they spilled it out in droves! Eventually the company was forced to switch back to its old formula. And why, what had they done wrong? It turns out that the initial market research was correct, people overwhelmingly chose Pepsi in blind taste tests because a sugary kick is very appealing initially to the palate, but that sensation can also get old fast. Most people, when polled while shopping still preferred to buy Coke off the shelf because it possessed the type of taste you would want to experience over the long haul. Sweetness eventually wears off and in the long run more people wanted to consume an entire bottle of Coke with its time worn flavor as opposed to the quick fix sensation that Pepsi offered. That is the thing about Judaism –it is not about a quick fix or easy answers. It doesn’t always go down easy –it can ask a lot of us, and even one entire day engaged in prayer and fasting is not meant to spiritually fulfill us for the entire year. We make amends with God on Kol Nidrei and Yom Kippur, and it reminds us to reach out and do the same with our fellow person, but I believe that a service like Kol Nidrei was specifically put in place by our people hundreds of years ago to illustrate how much the community needs one another, how much it requires of one another and wants to be together. Any religion, including movements within Judaism that peddle easy answers or quick fixes have missed the mark. It is not supposed to be easy or simplistic and in truth as much as it takes a year to get us to the point where we stand now, Judaism is a lifetime experience, meant to be felt, observed, encountered over an entire life time, not only when it feels right or is convenient for us. However, if it seems all too daunting or that too much time has elapsed, understand that you can still jump in at any time –you don’t lose any points for starting now. As the Carpenters liked to sing “We’ve only just begun.” It is never too late. We all know the ways to get involved and lead a more Jewish life. It is not rocket science –we give you the answers --it is right here in front of you –this community. You can learn Torah. You can come to services. You can volunteer in our activities. Would you only visit your parent once a year? (I know, don’t answer that!) but God wants to hear from you far more often than that! And believe me –God is always on line! Things happen, I know, work, sports, life gets in the way. The great thing about our religion is that EVERY day there is a new opportunity to be Jewish, but we just can’t expect that it will happen to us –we have to make it happen. Rabbi Akiva, who was one of the most respected rabbinic figures in our history was an illiterate Shepherd until age 40 and then one day he noticed how dripping water had hallowed out the mouth of a stone well, and the epiphany hit him “is my head harder than a rock?” why can’t I learn Torah? And he sat in his 6 year old son’s class to learn how to read, and so he actually held one end of a writing tablet, his son the other, until he mastered the entire aleph bet –and he would eventually become one of the greatest rabbis of all times, even starting as late as he did. Do any of you actually think you would have more to feel humble about than that man? No more excuses! It is later than you think.
In our secular society people love to make New Year’s resolutions –they will eat better, work out more, spend more time with the family. Good –those are all admirable goals. We just celebrated our Jewish New Year last week. Tonight is about making resolutions as well –or rather, renouncing them! Kol Nidrei in Hebrew means “all our vows” –it is a release from the vows, oaths, promises, resolutions we made that we could not keep –not between ourselves and one another, but between ourselves and God –for not being the best Jews we could have been –yes, in truth the Jews of a thousand years ago had the same short comings you or I did, and that is why they created this service, as a way of making amends. Not living up to our promise and promises. Kol Nidrei resonates with us today because we can identify with that reality, even if the archaic Aramaic and complex Hebrew is lost on us, we grasp the spiritual meaning. Our ancient ancestors may have been coerced to worship another God, we felt compelled to honor the God of consumerism, a secular lifestyle, convenience over ritual and sports over spirituality. But this night and day gives us an out, a chance to reset our computers and reconnect with our supreme creator and our core values – a system hardwired into us from the creation of the world. We resolve to eat healthy in the New Year, start by fasting on this day and trying to nourish ourselves more spiritually with the words of our tradition. We resolve to work out more in the New Year, we can start by engaging our spiritual self in prayer and Torah study. We resolve to spend more time with the family in the New Year, and well we should, we can have Friday night dinners together and spend time in this community. Children learn most of all from what we do, not just by what we say we, or they, should do. We have a unique opportunity today as Jews. WE can practice it fully and freely, without any fear. A reality not known to those who originally recited and composed the ethereal Kol Nidrei service and its haunting melody. Why would we not take pride, comfort and advantage of this fact? Do we want to raise a generation of Ralph Brancas, who are so far removed from their roots they don’t even know they have them? Hold unto this card through the year, tape it to your mirror or carry it with you in your wallet as spiritual reminder. Make a pledge to yourself, before the sun sets on this most Holy Day, what is the one thing Jewish you are going to add into your life and family for the coming year? Shabbat dinner with the family? Attending services at least once a week? Learning Hebrew or volunteering more? We can start here and now, in shul, in 5772, and make this the year of living Jewishly. It is never too late, but it is later than you think.

Rosh HaShanah sermon, Day 2

2011-10-09T20:28:00.001-07:00

Shana tova and Boker Tov! A good year and a good morning! I first visited Israel in the summer of 1981 when I was not yet ten, and Israel was a very different, and in many respects much younger country. The boardwalk in Tel Aviv consisted of a few beach front hotels, some restaurants and discos. All the Burger Kings, McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, Ben&Jerry’s that are there today were still a dozen years away from infiltrating the country and its landscape. Cell phones had yet to be invented, very few people (if indeed any) had home computers and Israeli television consisted of exactly two stations. My father, who was fluent in Yiddish, could navigate the country quite well and openly converse with the average Israeli on the street using the mama lashon, today I think that would be a rare occurrence. Somehow, even to my young eyes and small stature Israel did not seem all that grand or imposing, it seemed familiar somehow, heimische, if you will, like the whole country was interconnected, if land could be family, then that is how Israel felt at the time.
And one other event remains with me which I will never forget from that trip. We visited the Western Wall and my father led me to the men’s side, then instructed me to go forward alone, touch the concave stones in the wall with the clumps of moss growing out of them, and I did so, as if I was supposed to feel something, meant to have a reaction, trying so hard to avoid knocking any of the tightly rolled up wads of paper out of the crevices of any of the stones. I then turned and looked over my shoulder to see if my dad was ready to continue on, maybe I could convince him to buy me a coke, and I encountered something I had never before seen in my life: my father was crying! What had happened, had someone said something to him? Had sand gotten in his eyes? Had he suddenly remembered a painful experience from his past for whatever reason that now brought tears to his eyes? For any child, seeing a parent cry, not tears of joy or pride, but tears that suddenly come out of nowhere, without any context, or warning, can be quite disconcerting! I asked my father what was wrong –I honestly had no idea, had never seen him with tears in his eyes, and I will never forget what he responded to me “so many people throughout the years have tried to destroy us, ruin us, trample our holy sites and crush our spirits, this is all that is left of the holiest site in the history of our religion” and I gazed back at that wall that until that moment had merely been just that, a free standing wall, albeit with clumps of moss and wads of paper jammed into every nook and cranny. Back then the Western Wall was often referred to as the “Wailing Wall” a name that now suddenly seemed quite apropos.
A place might feel “holy” or “spiritual” to you for different reasons: it is peaceful –it is beautiful, it has a setting that feels natural. Jerusalem is a city whose very stones breathe more history than we could ever fathom. Visiting there should be on everyone’s Bucket List, it is older than Rome and at least in my estimation more lovely than Paris. The spiritual significance of the holy city of Jerusalem goes back thousands of years in our tradition and in fact has its origins in the very Torah reading we read this morning. Har Ha Moriyah, or Mt Moriah, where our patriarch Abraham nearly sacrificed his son Isaac was the future site of the Holy Temple. According to the rabbis the actual stone that Abraham stood on as he bound his son Isaac upon a sacrificial altar was the even Shtiyah, or foundation stone that the Ark of the Covenant would come to rest on in the Holy of Holies, the inner sanctum of the Jerusalem Temple, the Holiest place ever in our religion, so sacred that only one person was ever allowed to enter it, and only once a year, the High Priest, on Yom Kippur. Tal Becher, the Chief Israeli negotiator with the Palestinians stated that the lesson of the Akedah, the binding and near sacrifice of Isaac, is that it is the first sign of seeing something bigger than ourselves –the notion of sacrifice, and potential loss of something important. And of course that story and furthermore the site on which it took place has inspired not just our people, but all three of what we now term the “Abrahamic Faiths” and each of the three monotheistic religious groups would attach different spiritual meaning to the holy site and vie for its control. Interestingly enough the city of Jerusalem was not always under Jewish control or influence. So bear with me for a few minutes while I recap the religious and cultural history of this most holy city, because context is vital. Thousands of years ago, before the conquest of Canaan by Moses’ disciple Joshua, Jerusalem was a Jebusite city, one of the many Semitic tribes that loosely comprised the Canaanite people, and the city, which sat atop a small mountain and had a steady supply of water, mostly from rainwater run off, was of some strategic and military interest. Eventually Jerusalem, this Jebusite stronghold would be conquered by the tribe of Judah –the ancestors of most of the people in this room –if you are a Jew, and you are not a Cohen or Levi, it is more than likely you are descended from the tribe of Judah –a Judean (which by the way is the origin of the term “Jew”) and speaking of members of that particular tribe, who was one of the most important figures in Jewish history and a man more than any other responsible for establishing the impressive boundaries that would define biblical Israel in its heyday and put our nation on the map of history? King David. He would fortify the city, establish it as his political seat of power, making it his personal kingdom from which he would rule all of Israel and from which all future kings of his blood line would reign, so in a sense of every Jew in this room, every Jew everywhere has a profound and personal connection with the holy city of Jerusalem, more than Brooklyn or Queens or Cracow or Warsaw, it is where our ancestors descended from, it is where we came from. It would also be where David’s son, King Solomon the master builder and the wise monarch would build the First Temple, the most significant religious site in the history of our people and a structure that in sheer holiness has never been equaled.
It is said that Solomon chose the site of the First Temple, atop Mt Moriah, for a very interesting reason. You see there were two brothers who worked a field there that they had inherited from their father. They split the proceeds of the field equally, sharing everything 50/50. Only one brother lived alone, without any wife and children, while the other brother was married with several kids. And the bachelor brother thought that his married brother who had far more mouths to feed should get more of the grain, whereas the married brother felt his bachelor brother who lived alone deserved more. Well, each brother feared that if they raised the possibility about not splitting the field equally and taking less of the yield as a result, the very suggestion would be rejected out of pure pride. So therefore each brother every night would sneak into the other brother’s silo and surreptitiously deposit some excess grain there. Only one fateful night, under a full moon the two brothers bumped into one another crisscrossing their field and realized what each was up to, and laughing they fell into one another’s arms. When King Solomon heard of this act of brotherly love he paid a handsome price for the field, determining that in all of Jerusalem, this was the one spot meant for the Holy Temple –and so there it would be built, a spot that in one generation almost saw a child sacrificed by his father and yet in another would bear witness to fraternal harmony, and this dichotomy would underscore the potential that exists within our religious and political historical capital, for centuries to come.
However, like the nation in which it resides, Jerusalem would unfortunately never know peace for very long. The Temple Solomon constructed would eventually be destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE and all the citizens of Judea would be taken into exile, as we read about in our haftorah this morning. Although returning exiles would later rebuild the Temple 70 years later, the Romans would see to its destruction in 70 C.E. and while they ruled our homeland, they would never allow a single Jew to set foot in the holy city again, fearing that the sight of the ruins would incite the Jews to revolt. The Romans renamed the city Aelia Capitolina, constituting it as a holy city for their God Jupiter, and renamed all of Israel Palestinia, a name that would carry political connotations to the very present. Incidentally, it is the Western Wall we now pray at, as well as the recently excavated columns and fallen cornerstones that surround it that are the only existing tangible remains of that anceint Second Temple, everything from Solomon’s First Temple is lost, including the Ark of the Covenant. Eventually the Roman Empire would turn from pagan to Christian, becoming the Holy Roman Empire in the fourth century and Queen Helena would decree that Jews would be allowed to return to Jerusalem, now viewed as the holy city of Jesus, but only once a year –when? Not today, or on Yom Kippur, but on Tisha B’Av, to mourn the destruction of their magnificent Temple, wail in the remains of its ruins, and revel in the churches that had been built and now cast a shadow over the entire area, signifying the rise of a new religion and uncertain future for our people.
By the seventh century a new religion would gain prominence in the area, Islam, and a new people, the Arabs, would conquer the entire Middle East and with it Israel and Jerusalem. It was decreed that on the spot of the Temple Mount, on the stone where Abraham nearly sacrificed his son Isaac, and where the Ark of the Covenant rested, their greatest prophet Mohammed had ascended to heaven on a winged stallion and both the Haram al Sharif –the Noble Sanctuary, and nearby it Al Aksa Mosque would be built, comprising the third holiest site in Islam next to Mecca and Medina. Throughout a good portion of the Middle Ages Jerusalem would be wrested back and forth between Christian Crusaders and battle ready Muslims as both groups vied for control of this most Holy Site, eventually Jerusalem would fall under control of the Ottoman Empire, then briefly the British, and finally the Old City would be held by the Jordanians, who were preparing to build an amusement park on the area now known as the Western Wall Plaza until Israel finally took control of our Holiest city in the final battle of the Six Day War. Jerusalem, now unified, East and West, old and new, has been part of the State of Israel ever since, but of course not without contention. The Palestinians still lay claim to the Old City, which sits in the Eastern part of the Jerusalem, and with it the Temple Mount which is now under the control of the Saudi religious authority. Any possible peace treaty would seem to have to contain some sort of compromise regarding this much fought over piece of territory and it is not clear how that might be accomplished. Yitzhak Rabin, of blessed memory once stated: you don’t make peace with your friends, you make peace with your enemies, and Israel may not have any choice in light of recent events foisted upon it by the Palestinians and their manipulation of UN politics but to make certain concessions and land swaps with their belligerent neighbors, the Palestinians. Whether it means being able to function as a continual, true democracy and simultaneously being able to rid itself of internal threats within its geographic borders, giving up land for a promise of peace might be our only option in the end, the status quo as we currently have it, cannot continue indefinitely. Throughout most of history peace often comes upon the heels of a most difficult price. However the question of Jerusalem, specifically the Old City, is another matter, there is more than just symbolic value attached to the Jerusalem stone that constitutes this ancient, golden city. It is our historical, religious and political focal point, the center of our religious belief. When we pray we face east to be in line with Jerusalem. For years our prayers consisted of pleas to rebuild this most special city: “Have mercy and return to Jerusalem. Your city. May Your presence dwell there as You have promised. Build it now, in our days and for all time. Reestablish there the majesty of David. Your servant. Praised are You Adonai, who builds Jerusalem. “ V’Yirushalayim Ircha b’Rachamim Tashuv, v’Tishkon B’Tocha Ca’asher Dibarta, u’v’Nay Otah b’Karov b’Yamenu banyan olam, v’Khisay david m’haera l’tocha Takhin. Baruch Atah Adonai Boneh Yerushalayim.” Jerusalem is not just part of our history, it is our history! A professor of mine in Seminary once put it this way: all of Israel is holy, but it is as if Jerusalem has the very best connection to God –almost like a giant spiritual cell tower is located there! It is said that Neil Armstrong, whose footprint still lasts on the moon’s surface to this very day, was once given a tour around the Temple Mt. and is said to have remarked that walking there meant more to him than having been the first man to set foot on the moon. There is something about that city that has inspired kings, conquerors, poets and politicians. All of Israel matters, all of Israel is our homeland, but giving up on Jerusalem is like losing a piece of our spiritual core. What is our future without it, and yet what will be our future with it?
And that is one of the main problems, along with several others, concerning the Palestinian Authorities push for statehood within the U.N. Clearly there are still so many variables to be worked out, not the least of which is the issues of permanent borders and their claim to the right of return for all refugees living outside of Israel, and you still have the lighting rod issue of Jerusalem –how can the issue of a Palestinian state be so quickly rubberstamped when that obstacle has never been resolved? We could never relinquish our hold on Jerusalem, and the Palestinians are likely never to accept a state without it, so what could be accomplished by forcing anyone’s hand? As the noted statesman and diplomat Abba Eban once remarked: the Palestinians never miss an opportunity, to miss an opportunity.” There is a story about a scorpion that coerced a camel to carry him across a river. The camel was of course reluctant, fearing the scorpion would sting him once they were not more than half way across the river. “That would make no sense” reasoned the scorpion “for if I were to do that we would both drown.” Feeling that the logic was sound, the camel invited the scorpion to ride atop its hump as it forged through the river, sure enough, half way across the scorpion stung the camel and as they both began to go under, the camel stammered “I don’t understand what you were thinking –now we will both drown” “naturally” snapped the scorpion “but that’s the Middle East for you.”
There is no clear answer as to what could or should be done. The prophet Isaiah spoke of an international Jerusalem where all the nations of the earth came to worship the one true God of Israel –and that may have been a promising vision for the future, but is it realistic here and now? Would it even work? We traded land for peace with Egypt and the Sinai, we gave up oil wells and a buffer zone for a secure relationship with our southern neighbors, and it seemed to work, until recently –now who is to say what will happen in the new and independent Egypt? We gave up the Gaza and got back rocket fire. But the Sinai and Gaza had no spiritual or historical significance for us. Jerusalem is another story entirely. Even if we were to offer back 98% of the West Bank, with parts of East Jerusalem, but insisted on holding unto the Old City and Temple Mount that might never be enough for the Palestinians, and we are going to have to make a calculated decision about where we should draw the line. I can remember when Professor Benjamin Gampell was our Scholar in Residence a few years back. Being an expert in medieval Jewry Gampell lectured on the changing history of Jerusalem, first under us, then the Christians, then the Muslims, the Turks, and how each group added a layer of meaning and influence on this sought after city. I queried him then if it was his opinion that we should be willing to divide Jerusalem, after all, it had changed hands so many times in the past regardless, everyone seemed to be able to lay claim to it at some point, and I will never forget his emphatic reply “no, it is ours now –they all had their chance, their time –now it is our time!” Would that he would be right –would that it should be so easy, but in the Middle East we see nothing is ever easy, and no situation seems to rest easy for too long.
We recall the story of the brothers who shared the field wiled to them by their father equally and amicably, a case point in fraternal harmony, and we romanticize that it could be that easy with our neighbors –our half brothers, descendants of Ishmael. In truth the origins of Jerusalem date to Abraham’s near slaughter of his son Isaac on that spot thousands of years ago, and the tension and struggle that once existed on that site seems to frame that entire area to this very day. A close rabbinic reading has it that Ishmael, Abraham’s first son and Isaac’s half brother waited at the foothills below, eager to inherit from his father as much as possible now that he believed Isaac and the rival heir to his inheritance was about to be slain. Is that what is playing out today? Is that our fate? Ishmael at least recognized the legacy he was part of in being Abraham’s son, the Arab world today seems to share no allegiance to Abraham’s other descendants through Isaac’s line –if we are truly brothers than they show no acknowledgment of that fact! Quite the contrary: they scorn us, they condemn us, they will not let us have a moment of peace living in the smallest strip of a place, when there are eighteen Arab nations that surround us and forty five Muslim nations! And when our forefather Abraham did eventually pass away he made sure to lavish gifts on all his children, Ishmael included –perhaps in the West we should extend no more aid packages or military assistance to the Arab world until they remember they debt they owe us: Before there was Ishmael there was Abraham, before there was Mohammed there was Moses, before there was Islam there was Judaism, and before there was a Mosque on the Temple Mount there was a Temple –but the Arab recollection of historical events often includes some room for creative interpretation and selective memory!
The name Israel –Yisrael in Hebrew, means to struggle, to contend with God –and it is our entire history, our entire existence that has been a struggle. It has never been easy, and perhaps it was never meant to be easy –we are the product of a difficult beginning –our forefather was a wanderer, expelled from his own home because he refused to conform to pagan worship, he nearly sacrificed his own son under orders from God, and had he gone through with it our very existence would have been extinguished as we would have never evolved and descended from Isaac and in turn Jacob. What Abraham underwent was a test –abort his future as demanded by God, or deny God an illogical yet nevertheless divinely ordained command? We read of this traumatic test on the second day of Rosh HaShanah to recall that as we head into the New Year we are all being tested –our life hangs in the balance and our fate for the future year at hand is as of yet undetermined. We are being tested today –we cannot know what will await us, the future of our homeland, it does not seem hopeful at the present, yet think of what Abraham went through thousands of years ago on that hot, dusty hilltop, only to be given a last minute reprieve by God All Mighty. Life can be a struggle, so can being Jewish. We must not give up hope, we have not for two thousand years and we cannot now. I dream of taking my own son one day to touch the stones of the Western Wall. We also must ensure that the ruins we worship at the Western Wall speak for a very particular time and place, it is our past, and the time for tears has past. We have to contemplate the future, and securing it. Our holy sites should not be laid to waste again, nor should our cities and industries, Israel is a living, breathing, modern and dynamic nation and we must keep her that way, at whatever expense! May the sound of the Shofar remind us that help and salvation always comes from unexpected sources, in necessary times and in inexplicable ways.

Rosh HaShanah sermon, Day one

2011-10-09T20:23:00.000-07:00

I will never forget the most difficult thing that I ever had to do as a Rabbi. It was while I was serving as the Assistant in my last congregation, and I was called upon to officiate at the funeral of an infant. It of course had to be a dreary, rainy day, and I will never forget the vision of the little wooden coffin that was carried forward and the distraught cries and anguish of the mother as her innocent and all too young child was laid to rest in the muddy ground. That whole scene haunts me to this day. As a rabbi you want to help people, only sometimes you feel helpless yourself. I had no immediate words of comfort for the grieving parents, the loss of a child is a wound that never fully closes, the pain only dulls, and we can merely seek comfort with one another, some solace that the life we have created here on this earth, and the love we have nurtured, will help soften the heavy blow that is felt. In the end, as Jews we are taught not to allow perpetual mourning to overtake us, but to celebrate life, and as parents, grandparents, even children, we must remember that we always have that potential within us. I went home that dark afternoon and hugged my infant daughter –it was all I could do to cope.
The mitzvah and the miracle
I want to talk to you on this new year about the miracle and mitzvah of human life. As parents and grandparents, God gave us the gift of children, and today more than any other is a day to reflect on the blessings and responsibilities we have towards them. I also want to talk about the judgment we exercise in raising our kids, and the consequences of our actions –our kids learn a great deal not just from what we teach and preach, but by what we do. And finally I want to talk about what it means to celebrate the value and humanity of our child –as parents we should never take that for granted. Now to begin with: the miracle and mitzvah of having children: There is no question that children are of vital importance in our tradition. After all, what is the very first commandment in all of the Torah? It’s not Shabbat or the High Holy Days but “peru u’revu…” Adam and Eve, where commanded in the Garden of Eden, on this very day of Rosh HaShanah, peru u’revu –be fruitful and multiply –increase your seed –ensure that there is a future, create life. In fact, since the rabbis calculated that Rosh HaShanah was the day in which humanity, the pinnacle of God’s creations were brought into this world, (Hayom Harat Olam as we sing in the liturgy) in a way today is the birthday of everyone in this room –so happy birthday everyone –you are all 5772 years old –and you look great for your age! On a serious note, all of us here remember if not our very first birthday, our early development and childhood, and what we learned, what we remember, how we were influenced. And many of us here are parents or grandparents, and can remember that initial thrill of what it was like to be pregnant, an expectant parent for the first time, and to be responsible for bringing a fresh new life into the world with all the potential for love and life that it held, and all the influence and experiences you as an excited, well meaning and proud parent wanted to bestow upon that bundle of joy. And that is the point, because having kids is more than just a mitzvah for us, it is one thing to have a child, to fulfill that first commandment, and another thing entirely to raise that life, nurture it, develop it, educate it, watch it grow. After all, children have a commandment to honor their parents –but what in turn is our obligation to them after we have brought them into this world?
Interestingly enough, the rabbis of the Talmudic world tackled this issue in part when they stipulated that a father had five obligations to his son which were as follows: to circumcise his son, to redeem him (pidyon haben) to teach him Torah, to teach him a trade, to find him a bride and some add to teach him how to swim. Now of course in our egalitarian world it goes without saying that mothers and fathers should both have equal obligations upon all their children (sons and daughters) whether it is raising them in Jewish ritual or ethical teachings or standard child rearing practices: feeding them, changing the diaper (my wife made sure in particular those duties were divided equally) and overall assisting them in their cognitive and social development. Being good parents means being involved and watching the milestones of your kids be achieved as their development progresses. And on the face of it, that can seem simple enough, but is there not much, much more to being a parent? When our daughter Arielle was born everyone (and I mean everyone!) gave us advice as to what we should do if she were crying, or not sleeping, how to hold her or how to best change her –and some of the methods that well meaning parents would share with us about how to get our daughter to sleep at night or what have you would work one night, but not the next, and then (after several sleepless nights) it dawned on me: what works one day may not work another, or what works for some kids may not work for others, because raising kids is NOT an exact science!!
Exercising the right judgment
And maybe we should keep that lesson in mind when it comes to educating our children as well. We have to exercise the right judgment: All the top experts fret over what needs to be fixed in order for our kids to compete in the world market place --is it the teachers? Perhaps it is the schools? Class size? Educational resources? Or maybe it is the overall communities themselves? We try and reinvent everything! We are constantly testing them. Thomas Friedman in his recent book the Decline of America reveals a study that shows giving kids more and more homework actually produces kids who…do more and more homework! And some evolutionary biologists feel we should follow the developmental model from ancient times were children had more unsupervised play and were educated informally by their interaction with older children! Most likely there is no one solution to solving the all expansive problem as to what currently ails our educational system and it is probably a combination of all of the above. The point being we cannot always control decisions made on a state or national level, but as parents we can influence what happens in the most important and immediate community to us –our own homes, because as parents we are not just primary caregivers, we are the first and most personal of educators, we can affect our child's learning, growth and development in a way that no school board could ever match! Isidore Rabi, the renowned Nobel Prize winning Physicist told of how every day when coming home from school Jewish mothers in his neighborhood on the Lower East Side would bombard their children and ask “what did you learn today?” (if you ask your own child that question they are likely to respond “nothing!” because the question does not really encourage them to think) but it was specifically his own mother who instead queried him by asking: “Nu, Izzy, did you ask a good question today?” And he stated, that it was that very interaction, being pushed to question, to probe, to explore, that made all the difference and led him down the path of scientific discovery. As parents, how many of us encourage our children to simply ask a good question?
A few months ago I read this book that had caused quite a stir in both the Jewish and educational/parenting community. It was Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother and it is her first hand account of what it was like to raise her two daughters according to the “Chinese method of parenting” as opposed to the “western method of parenting.” According to Chua the Chinese method of parenting involves knowing what is best for your child, pushing them to excel and even take up certain challenges like learning a classical instrument or mastering a foreign language such as French or Mandarin, in addition to maintaining a straight A average in school and winning every academic prize imaginable. And most of all, you never, ever settle for second place with your children. An A- is never good enough, nor is getting the second highest score in your class or not winning first chair in the prestigious community orchestra. Your children will practice and rehearse for several hours a day, even when you go away on vacation, they will never have time for play dates after school or sleepovers and the end goal of course is acceptance into Juliard or Harvard –the promised land for overachieving pushy mothers and their put upon brood. Conversely, according to Chua’s philosophy, western parents who are lax, overindulgent with their children will often have to settle for second place as their kids are constantly outpaced and outperformed academically by the Asian kids in their districts. Interestingly it is Chua’s own mother, who raised Chua according to this rigid “Chinese” method who actually begins to question what is being done to her granddaughters and challenges how they are being pushed. At one point Chua’s mother even tries to reason with her, insisting that “things are different now” you can’t raise your kids according to the exact same standards that were in place a generation ago and enforced by immigrant parents, and what works for one daughter may not work for another, and in the end it turns out the grandmother is right! So for all those parents out there that think there might be something to this “Chinese method” of parenting know that even a parent, academic and published author such as Amy Chua now readily concedes it is not a sure fire way to get your children into an Ivy League, or certainly it does not guarantee raising happy, well adjusted or balanced children! Children need a little breathing room from time to time and they are not mindless computers to be programmed. We can influence them, but not control them.
My father told me when I was graduating college and trying to decide what to do with my life that it was always important to choose a career path that one liked, one felt inspired by, but also, that it should have some socially redeeming quality to it –it should help make the world a better place, in however small an increment that is –we can all do something, but not if all we care about is helping ourselves. Ask yourselves this question: What is one lesson you would wish to teach your children and have them take to heart? Sometimes I wonder how best we guide our children, and I don’t mean pushing our kids –which is a very different thing entirely. WE push them into sports, travel teams that suck up any semblance of free time they should have after school, we push them to get the best grades, and we push them to succeed in ways that we think we did, or couldn’t. And then when we don’t push them, we coddle them. But shouldn’t we want them to learn for themselves, grow and explore and try to succeed or fail on their own? Are we teaching our kids to ask the right questions, or simply telling them what grades they have to get so they can get into a top college? One public school teacher recently lamented to me that teachers today are often powerless against parents who undermine and challenge them every time their children come home upset or with a subpar grade. That is an unfortunate lesson that not only conveys a lack of respect for our educators but additionally does not allow children to work through problems for themselves. Achieving the top grades in school is never an indication of true character development. Wendy Mogel, in her recent book “Blessings of a B Minus” writes that college Deans refer to children who come to university completely unprepared to handle the real world as “tea cups” because they are so fragile and break so easily.
This past summer, in addition to all the world shattering events like the fall of Tripoli, the U.N. vote on Palestine and national news like Hurricane Irene, and even regional stories of interest like the local earthquake, many of us can recall the all too tragic tale of young Leiby Kletzky, the young Chasidic boy who was abducted and brutally murdered by another observant Jew in his neighborhood. It was a most disturbing story for any parent to hear, not the least of which because it hit close to home for many of us –it was not only in our geographic backyard, but both the victim and perpetrator where Jewish, something you don’t often read about. Now undoubtedly there were many who questioned the judgment of the Kletzky parents, allowing their eight year old son to navigate several blocks of Boro Park alone –we all know how tragically the tale ends. If only his parents said no, refused his request to walk home from camp unescorted –he was too young, the streets are too dangerous, we all remember what happened to Eitan Patz and Adam Walsh –but it is always easy to be a Monday morning Quarter Back. The reality is that Leiby pushed and pleaded with his parents to be able to walk home alone like the bigger kids, and they eventually compromised with him, allowing that he could walk halfway and only after first rehearsing the route with him. They never could have imagined that in their worst nightmare that their son would get lost and have to ask directions from the very last person he ever should have approached on the street. Children push boundaries, they test limits –sometimes the consequences can be devastating but more often than not they aren’t, and as parents it is our responsibility to read our kids to the best of our ability and decide when we give in and when we don’t. Sometimes we have to keep our kids close and sometimes we need to push them out of the nest and let them flap their wings, otherwise they never learn to fly solo. There is even a term now which was coined in this very generation to describe many of the suburban parents of our time –“Helicopter parents” –these are parents that hover around their kids in the playgrounds and schoolyards, trying to constantly protect them and monitor their every interaction. The problem with being a helicopter parent is that eventually helicopters need to be grounded, or they run out of fuel –you cannot hover forever. We see how scary the world is at present and we were traumatized by growing up with the pictures of other kid’s faces on Milk Cartons and so we want to ensure that we keep our kids safe all the time –only that is not realistic, and not beneficial for them. Every child at some point needs to learn to fight their own battles, to make it on their own, and even yes, to experience a certain amount of pain and disappointment –you learn from that, and you grow from it. We can’t feed or indulge our children forever (even if we are Jewish parents) and we can’t always keep them close –sometimes we need to let our kids explore and discover on their own. When we become too dependent on our kids they become too dependent on us, and any therapist will tell you that codependency is never the building block for a healthy relationship. One of the reasons that wildlife cites have signs that read “don’t feed the deer” or “don’t feed the bears” is because if we feed these animals they never learn how to forage for themselves out in the wild. A kid who never learns to do things for themselves eventually becomes an adult who never learns (or wants) to do things for themselves –we all know people like that, and it is no way to live a life.
I want to tell you about a family that was here for a little while this morning, and since they have already left the room, and won’t be back for Yom Kippur I think it is safe, because this family could be considered to our modern sensibilities as a case study in bad parenting! You see, the mother could not conceive for the longest time and actually convinced her husband to take on a surrogate so that he would have a son, which is what happened. And when the wife eventually did conceive on her own several years later, she did not like the influence that the older boy had over his new half brother, and actually had the young man and his mother –the surrogate, expelled from the household. And then if that were not traumatic enough, sometime after the father nearly killed their son because he believed God told him to. Most of you by now know the family I am speaking of! Abraham and Sarah, and their son was Isaac. Our patriarchs and matriarchs, we read of them in the Torah reading this morning. They were flawed and made human errors, and they were the founders of our religion! Point of fact all the patriarchs, Isaac, Jacob, made mistakes with their children. Sometimes I believe that the Torah is as much a guide book in how NOT to act as it is a lesson in how one should act. We revere the heroes of our tradition for their groundbreaking work, but we also learn of the mistakes that they made in their personal lives and how we must adapt and correct for that. Moses, the greatest prophet in our tradition, was known to have ignored his own wife and sons to the point of estrangement –he was a great leader, but a lousy father and husband, sacrificing his family for career. But Moses had to make this sacrifice, he had a duty to lead B’nai Yisrael –the children of Israel, and that’s what they truly were –children, out of the desert. They were children who whined and kvetched, they tested limits, and had to grow and mature, eventually learning how to come into the holy land and survive without Moses, their peerless leader –their parent. Just as our kids need to be changed and coddled, early on in their formative years, and they cry, and kvetch –well into their teen years, but eventually they need to succeed without us –we can’t take them by the hand all the time, much as we might want to, and we cannot lead them forever, eventually they must choose their own path in life, even if it means going in a different direction than the one we may have chosen. In many respects I view God that way as well –the Divine parent of us all. And if it seems that God is far less active in the world today then He was in the pages of the Bible, maybe it is because He wants us to solve problems on our own, win or lose, sink or swim, if God constantly intervenes, it is not the present world we live in, it is paradise, and that is just not reality.
Celebrating life
And because of the instability of the world we live in, that is all the more reason to celebrate life (L’Chayim! as we say) and the sense of humanity we wish to instill in our children –and it is not always easy! William Shakespeare, in his great tragedy King Lear wrote: “how sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is than to have a thankless child” in a way we are all thankless. WE have been thankless children –to our God, to our own parents at one time or another (personally I believe it is every child’s destiny to break their parents heart at least once) kids will do that, they test boundaries, they want and need to be independent but they don’t develop the emotional maturity to do that correctly in the necessary amount of time! However, some of it comes from us as well, because on some level it does translate in the how we raise them and the values we instill upon them! Last year Danny Siegel spent a Shabbat here speaking to our congregation about Tzedakah and mitzvah opportunities and one of the things he mentioned is how you see all these bumper stickers which read –“my kid is an honors student” or “my kid goes to Princeton” or “my kid is captain of the soccer or lacrosse team” –all well and good but how about a simple one that reads “my kid is a mensch” --isn’t that something we should want for all our children –ask yourselves that! Being a member of this community is of course a step in the right direction, so kudos to everyone here, but we have to take advantage of that, and staying active and involved helps give an ethical and religious framework to how your child is raised –don’t send them the message that Judaism is expendable. We should push our kids to be menschs as much as we push them into sports or schoolwork! Being a mensch may not come with a trophy or a letter grade on a transcript, but believe me, it pays dividends for your kid’s future well being.
We all know the world is not perfect, and we don’t have to be perfect parents, and we don’t have to raise perfect children, but are we raising them in the best way that we can? It is a most stressful time in our country today –the economic malaise we find ourselves in causes increased tension on every family and this ongoing national recession can lead to a domestic depression. External events can affect us in internal ways. We transfer this fear and anxiety to our children unwittingly, and while we can’t control the economy we can control what we project to our children, who are very good at reading us and take their cues from how they see us act. Recently when I was on vacation with my family we were at the beach and I tried boogey boarding with my kids in the ocean spray. My son Noah was quite intimidated, especially when some of the rougher waves sent him tumbling over, and he asked me what should he do if a wave knocked him over and I responded simply “Get back up and try again.” That’s sometimes all we can do in life when we get thrown for a loop –it’s to get back up and try again –not threaten the teacher, or transfer our frustration unto our family, or make excuses, or run away, but to try again. You can sometimes learn more from failure than you can from success –like for me, I will probably never be a great surfer, but I simply had fun trying it with my kids. My children may not enjoy the sports I do, or choose to go into the rabbinate, and that will be fine, I just want them to be true to themselves and not give up on trying new things and exploring new opportunities. They should never have to fit into some preconceived notion of what it means to be a successfully functioning suburban child because being an individual is the antithesis of any of that. You succeed at some things and fail at others and you learn to improve as you grow and go along. In a recent New York Times Magazine article centered on education, the Russian educator Vasiliy Bogin put it most succinctly: Life is the best educator! Being a parent is unquestionably one of the most demanding and simultaneously rewarding jobs in the world. We experience pain with our children and shep naches from our children, and that is why the Torah and Haftorah reading for this first day of the year, the creation of the world, the birthday of our humanity deals with the issues of birth and child rearing, it is meant to instill in us the infinite worth and importance of human relationships from their very inception.
Ask any expectant couple what they are having –a boy or girl, invariably, if they don’t want to know or aren’t telling will say: we just want the child to be healthy! True, but that feeling peters out after first few months, then we start looking anxiously for those milestones, crawling, walking, talking, throwing, interacting socially, reading, etc –in end, isn’t that what we should most want for our kids all along –that they develop in a healthy way, physically and spiritually, in body and mind? Instead of fretting what college they are getting into, or how many friends they have, or how many sports they can excel at, why can’t we just thank God that they are healthy? I opened for you with that tragic story about a young couple who had lost their toddler –I have no doubt that the distraught mother who mourned for her baby would have given everything to be able to raise her child, even if it was a child that wasn’t perfect –that didn’t get straight A’s or play multiple sports –just to have and hold her, to enjoy her, to live with her would have been enough. We can’t lose sight of that. We can never lose sight of that! So if you have a chance, hug your children today. Whatever age they are, if they have moved away, call them on the phone later, let them know you love them. How proud you are of them, it is never too late –especially at the onset of a brand new year! We may have given our children the gift of life, but they in turn have bestowed upon us the gift of being parents, caregivers, and creators.
And just because I want to add on a positive note, you should know that the mother I mentioned would know future life as she eventually had and successfully raised other children, I have no doubt she never forgot that first loss, but it did not hold her back from creating new life, and could only have made her appreciate and love her children all the more, being ever mindful of how precious life is. So although our instincts might be to act like helicopter parents, or Chinese parents or maybe backseat grandparents, remember there is no one perfect way to parent, just like there is no perfect way to be a kid, you will feel on top of the world one day and like a perfect failure the next, but that is life, and in truth life is what we have brought into this world. In the end, just striving to raise good Jewish human beings as opposed to perfect children is enough, and loving them, unconditionally in the process, whether they make straight A’s or not, whether they are captain of the team or not, whether they go to an Ivy League school and graduate into a 7 figure profession, or find a cure for cancer, or solve world peace or not, we love them because they are ours, they have our stamp on them, our influences, are connected by blood, DNA, dreams and heritage, and can continue in life and do the things we never even imagined we might do, or want to do, they are, improbably, an extension of us and yet at the same time complete and utter individuals. How can we not love an amazing and contradictory creation such as that!!! Let us not forget to nurture and also respect the world that we have created. Shana Tova –good year, and may it be a great one!

Getting Real with the Rabbi --Transforming our blessings for the New Year

2011-09-16T14:09:00.000-07:00

I was struggling with exactly what to speak about this Shabbat. I felt I had to address the situation in Israel vis a vis the pending UN vote this coming week and even the external threat that now surrounds Israel regarding the deteriorating situation it has with Egypt and Turkey. How can you put a positive, hopeful spin on any of that? Rereading this week's parasha I at least found it somewhat comforting to be reminded that Israel has known traumatic times before --just try and peruse the section known as "the Tochecha" or punishments,Deut 28:15-69, which describe all the horrible things that will befall Israel if it does not adhere to God's laws: exile, slavery, death.
"The life you face shall be precarious; you shall be in terror, night and day, with no assurance of survival!" (28:66)

Is that not what we seem to face now --no assurance for survival? After more than seventy years as a modern, free nation? We must remember that Israel has always faced challanges, from biblical times through today, from ancient Egypt to the unstable Egypt we see now, but NEVER before have we had as strong an army, with as strong a diaspora community supporting it outside the land. This week's parasha is about blessings and curses that Israel will face in its future. Blessings are about transformation, not just praise or giving thanks. We transform what we have in front of us, food, a tallit, a lulav, and take possession of it, thank God for allowing us to requisition it. And we use it appropriately. A curse is what we receive for not utilizing God's possessions in the right way, be it a curse for how we treat the land, or one another. Obviously in the New Year we wish for a transformative experience in which we employ God's properties in the right way and receive abundant blessings, not curses. We want to transform our pessimism and fear into something more positive and hopeful, a call to action perhaps, a new appreciation for Israel. We don't know what will happen with Israel, externally, internally, We have to use our voice and actions in the right way. We have to stand with Israel. We have to lobby on behalf of Israel, we have to pray for Israel. WE can never give up,never lose hope, and in the words I quoted above, never feel that there is "no assurance for survival." Now more than ever, in the year ahead, we need Israel, Israel needs us, and we need one another.

Getting Real with the Rabbi --Reflections from the decade following 9/11. Let us be vigilant but not suspect!

2011-09-10T19:14:00.001-07:00

Just this past Thursday evening I was coming home from a trip to Washington D.C. and after making my connecting train from Penn Station to Mineola, we were inexplicably held at the Jamaica station –first a voice announced over the intercom that it would be a few minutes, “there were trains ahead of us and the police were conducting an investigation” then those five minutes turned into fifteen, then thirty, then forty five (with that same disembodied voice intermittently announcing “we hope to be moving shortly”) finally a live conductor came on board and informed us that a suspicious package had been detected at the Hicksville brake station, which had then led to the station being evacuated, which led to the trains all having to sit on the tracks (because now no signals were coming through from the Hicksville station) and it was not until over a full hour later that a second train finally pulled into Jamaica from Penn Station to take the wearied passengers to the next remaining stops. Now what do you think was the reason for this heightened sense of security and investigative diligence? Certainly suspicious packages are left lying around all the time, we observe them, but more often than not we ignore them, but how often is the bomb squad called in? Of course all of this was related to the upcoming tenth anniversary of 9/11 and the warnings we are all inundated with about what could happen –our enemies, those who hate us, who either sought our destruction on 9/11 or were inspired by what was inflicted upon us to take further action, see this as a great opportunity, and we must be careful, and aware. As signs throughout the train terminal I spent all too much time in read “if you see something, say something.” And don’t get me wrong, I do not mean to complain –a little inconvenience is well worth it, and a little wait is well worth the wait, if it means a possible attack is foiled and we can all be safe, and alive, but isn’t unfortunate that this is the world we now live in?
And on that note, I would like to state that never before can I think of a better example of the Torah reading from our tradition and actual events in the news coinciding with one another! In the closing verses of this week’s parasha we regrettably read of the attack by Amalek, in which just a few crisp verses a most disturbing and brazen assault is recorded: “Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey, after you left Egypt –how undeterred by fear of God, he surprised you on the march, when you were famished and weary, and cut down all the stragglers in your rear!” (Deut 25: 17-19) It is such pivotal story we read it not once but twice during the year (and an earlier account of the attack from the book of Exodus is read during the winter, making it three times a year we read of this affront to our people by a gangly group of desert brigands). And the scene ends with God telling Moses to command the people that Amalek is to be given absolutely no quarter, they are to be utterly annihilated. After all, they attacked the stragglers in the rear, those who were tired and weary from the journey, those who explicitly represented no threat whatsoever! It is truly the first account of a terrorist attack in history –that is what terrorists do, they attack the soft targets, by surprise, the schools, the public institutions, civilians, women and children –that is what makes them terrorists, that is their goal –to inflict and instill terror!
Now that it has been ten years since 9/11, a day like no other, those of us who are post b’nai mitzvah age in this room can all remember what we were doing or what was going on that infamous day, it gives us a glimpse of perspective. What is it like ten years later? In many respects it is a different world, a world in which we have to take off our shoes at airport security checks, where we suddenly hear words that have an all too ominous ring to them, words such as “rendition” “threat alert” and “homeland security” words that never even existed before in our vocabulary and a world in which we have become embroiled fighting an oversees war in two different countries and most of all a world in which we look at the New York city skyline and something is missing, an absence that is very real, and all too painfully felt. We no longer have our beloved Twin Towers, imposing skyscrapers most of us grew up admiring and will now never be able to show our own children, and worse off we have three thousand less American lives because of it!
And some might ask the question are we safer now, after all the threats and security procedures that have been put in place, then we were pre 9/11? And in truth questions like that are always tricky to answer because they are questions of opinions. Some might say yes, after all, Osama Bin Laden is finally dead, the symbol behind 9/11! And Al Qeda has more or less been driven out of Afghanistan and Iraq, the attacks that they led against the United States has ceased. Consider this: in the years leading up to 9/11, and the litany reads quite dramatically: the Attack on the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996 where 19 American servicemen were killed, then the bombings of the American Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed hundreds, followed by the bombing of the USS Cole in October of 2000 that killed 17 American sailors, and it all culminated in 9/11, the most horrific attack to occur on American soil to date –but since then Al Qeda has been unable to launch an attack within our borders or even against US targets abroad, such as our military bases or embassies (instead like Amalek, they go after “soft targets” –unarmored or undefended targets like a hotel or the subway system of our western allies). Clearly we are doing something right! On the other hand, one can argue that Al Qeda is more representative of a many headed Hydra, where if one head is chopped off, two more grow in its place, and in some respects Al Qeda has grown and spread to regions such as the Arabian Peninsula and East Africa, and inspired other vicious and opportunistic terrorist groups in its wake –break away cells than can strike anywhere, anytime, or die trying! Just think of the heightened state of alert we are undergoing today, and all for one reason, 9/11 and the end of our innocence!
But then here is the real question: Were we ever really safe? I mean truly? When have we ever known true peace or ease of mind? When I was a child, around my bar mitzvah, the cold war was still going on, and there was the constant threat of a possible nuclear war –the only thing that assuaged us somewhat was that at the end of the day, to paraphrase Sting, we knew that “the Russians loved their children too” so the threat of an actual nuclear war seemed not so much remote as it did unlikely. Still, there was always cause for concern. After all during the heightened tension of the Cuban Missile Crisis, no one knew what to expect (or so I understand, admittedly I was not alive then). Or how about during the fifties, when I am told school children were drilled in exercises in which they were instructed to “duck and cover” under their desks less the country be bombed while they were in class. And I have no doubt that World War II was a time of great fear and peril, what with the attack and Pearl Harbor, and look at what our own people underwent during the Holocaust, six million lives, it was numerically as if we suffered the cumulative losses of 9/11 everyday! And in truth, our people have always known danger and threat, going back to the pages of this parasha when unprovoked we were attacked by a group of people who hit us where it hurt most –the soft spot, the undefended, the unprotected –it is hitting below the belt, you don’t do that in a fight and you don’t do that in a true war where there are supposed to be rules of conduct –but then again, terrorists don’t abide that way –they are not soldiers, they don’t wear uniforms, as the parasha states, they had no “fear” or “respect” of God –just as they have no respect for God’s creations, they simply want terror, –that is what makes them terrorists.
Maybe the question as to whether or not we are safer, or better off ten years later, as the pundits are playing around with, is not really the right question. After all, how can you ever really know, it is too subjective. We get rid of one terrorist leader, or dictator, another sprouts up in his place, that is why this Arab spring is one of such uncertainty –in truth it is a true spring –spring is warm one day, and cold the next, sunny one day, and rainy and overcast the next –you can never feel comfortable with the weather, and I don’t know what the forecast will call for in the Middle East over the next year -and what this will mean vis a vis Israel or the United States. Some say the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t know –only what is the problem with that saying? In both scenarios, you are dealing with devils –think about that all too sobering fact. However that is my point, there are always going to be devils out there, always have, always will. Whether it is Amalek, or Haman, or Hitler, or Bin Laden, and some would add Sadam Hussein, Momar Qadaffi and Bashar Assad to that list. These are tyrannical murders at best and devils in human skin at their very worst. The question is not so much are we better off, but are we better people –are we more resilient? More supportive of one another? Like Mayor Guiliani said in the aftermath of 9/11 –have we rebuilt? And are we responsible for one another? As Jews, the only reason we have survived, all these years, through think and thin is because we were never alone, we had one another, and we supported each other, even in the darkest times –especially in the darkest times!
Before I close, instead of looking ahead, I would like to look back a bit (especially since I already confessed to you that I cannot predict t the future!) In this case I would like to look at the close of last week’s parasha, Shoftim, in which it describes the ritual of the Egela Arufah (Deut 21) . It is a bizarre rite which is conceived out of a tragedy: in this case an unsolved murder. When a slain corpse is found out in the open, all the magistrates and officials of the neighboring towns shall gather together, and then after determining which town has jurisdiction over the murder, the elders of that town shall bring forth a heifer and break its neck in a wadi, and even the Priests shall come forward to officiate over this ritual –it is an absolution rite, like on Yom Kippur, to determine innocence. If the homicide is unsolved, the murder unknown, people should not automatically be held responsible. The practice is not so much to absolve certain officials from blame, but as I see it to show that we are all in this together –all the neighboring judges of the region come forward and the purpose is not to finger point or lay blame amongst one another, the point is try and clear blame amongst one another. After 9/11 it is very easy to lay blame, to finger point, to suspect our neighbors, people not like us, and to some extent that is understandable in the days, weeks and months that followed that tragic day, but now, ten years down the road, we must also move forward, rebuild the ruined towers, help those who lost loved ones to slowly rebuild their lives, and continue to be an open and supportive society, that is our strength, and that is what the terrorists sought to tear down more than any two towers! We must not constantly suspect yet at the same time remain vigilant and careful –even if it means longer delays at airports or bus terminals. Let us thank God that we are all still here –and to the year, and years ahead, may 5772 be a safe year, and God willing, one of peace!

Getting Real with the Rabbi --Being thankful for simply being!

2011-08-19T13:04:00.000-07:00

In this week’s Torah reading we encounter the origins of Birkat HaMazon, or what our tradition has termed as the Grace After Meals. The actual verse reads: When you have eaten your fill, give thanks to the Lord your God for the good land which He has given you and from that the rabbis would comprise several Hebrew passages that we would recite in order to bless God and show thanks for the meal we have eaten. However, herein lies the question –what if one has not eaten his or her fill –not been satisfied (as the Hebrew word Savata conveys) with the meal they have just consumed –are we still obligated to say a bracha? The answer of course is yes, the rabbis stipulated that even a single slice of bread requires this litany of praise –after all, should we not be willing to show thanks to God for the food we have just consumed –even if it were a small amount, even if we did not like the meal –should we not be reminded to show gratitude on a daily basis?

The truth is most of us don’t often think to simply thank God for all that we have, all that is in front of us and that we take for granted. When we have a day in which things go okay, maybe work was fine, maybe there were some challenges, but we had enough to eat at the end of the day, our children are healthy, the roof is still over our heads, and yet who of us can admit that we stop and literally “thank God” for those seemingly mundane details? We may blame God when things don’t go right –we did not close the deal we should have, our favorite team lost, it rained the one weekend we were planning on going out to the Hamptons, after all –it all seems so unfair!

And in these tough economic times it is easy to question not just our leaders, but the world around us, what matters most, we feel troubled, discontented and unsatisfied –we simply don’t have as much as we used to, when if ever will things get better? But I always feel that we must reverse our emotions in times of trouble and take things in perspective –because yes, even in these challenging times things could always be worse –how? What if you were driving just north of Eilat on Thursday afternoon and become one of those seven Israelis killed or even one of those forty two seriously injured in that heinous terrorist attack? I imagine the loved ones of those killed and the forty two injured Israelis –some of whom may not walk or even see again, would love to be in a place where all they have to fret about is their current monetary standing and the fact that they don’t have as much as they used to! So we should thank God that we are here now, safe with our loved ones, count our blessings not take another day of summer for granted, because we do have what to be thankful for –compared to those killed in that horrific attack we have more than enough –we have our very lives!!

Gettng Real with the Rabbi --it is all a matter of perspective

2011-08-12T13:44:00.000-07:00

This has been a tough week for our nation --the market has gone haywire, the DowJones Industrial average seems to drop tremendously every other day, there seems no quick fix in sight for what ails our economy and yet as bleak as the economic forcast might be I think it is all a matter of perspective. Think of what happened last weekend in Afghanistan with the 31 Navy Seals who lost their lives at the hands of a single Taliban rocket launcher. They died protecting our freedom and way of life, so that thousands of miles away, we could safely eat, sleep, read the newspaper, groan about the market and go on about our daily lives in a way which only in hindsight makes us fully cognizant of how much we truly take for granted. I am sure the parents, siblings, spouses and children of those brave sailor and airmen who risked their lives will not bounce back as quick as the markets will! If only their loses were monetary in nature as well. So as tough as things seem, let us put it all in perspective. Thousands of years ago, during the hot days of this past summer week our ancient ancestors lost their Holy Temple not once, but twice --and their political power, religous freedom and national autonomy as well, some of us were killed, some sold into slavery, the lucky few pushed into exile. So today, we may not love our jobs, or current stock portfolio, or even our elected leaders, but at least we have the power to change and improve our way of life, something not everyone, everywhere can act on. We have a lot to live for, we just need not lose sight over that very simple fact. Shabbat Shalom. Rabbi Michael Stanger

Getting Real with the Rabbi --TGIF!

2011-07-29T09:52:00.001-07:00

Getting Real with the Rabbi -TGIF
I try and enjoy the summer –almost look at it as one long weekend period in which I happen to get a little work done –but we all know that as relaxing and lazy as the summer days can be, the outside world does on occasion intrude and stressful situations can occur. Take what is going on in our own country currently regarding our ever limping economy and the recent brouhaha over the debt ceiling crisis. Now I should state from the outset that I don’t have an easy answer –or any answer for that matter as to how we can and should fix things. Point of fact economics and finance was never my strong suite, ( I even have a hard time figuring out how to calculate a tip in a restaurant) and far be it for me to take sides or to try and postulate what can and should be done. I do know it is scary because if some sort of agreement cannot be reached by August 2nd, the country may be financially paralyzed, a predicament Greece finds itself in, and Ireland and Iceland as well. And even worse, because of our standing in the world, if we go down it could have far broader implications for the world’s economy (if the dollar is worthless, then there is no set monetary standard anymore)!
Again, sorry to spoil the summer –I have no answer as to what can or should be done. I can hope however, and not give into fatalistic despair. I would like to believe that saner heads will prevail on both sides and some accord will be reached that is in the best interest of our country –and the world. What I can tell you is that I am sure glad it is Friday afternoon and that Shabbat is almost here!!! Sometimes you just need a break –a cessation in all the action and stress. If the summer seems a little less mellow than we would like –well, there is always next summer –or at least Columbus Day weekend!! Either way, Shabbat offers a nice “time out” and a peaceful distraction from work, finances, fixed interest rates and debt ceiling talk. I can at least have a nice dinner with my family, catch up on the week, lead services for my congregation, and scan the news Saturday night as to how our nation may have changed while I honored the Sabbath (that and the baseballs scores are worth checking!) In the meantime, I hope you all have a great Shabbat, if you are traveling somewhere, drive carefully and please arrive safely, let the politicians in Washington worry about our economy for the next 48hours or so (after all, they helped get us into this mess) and hey, TGIF! What are you thankful for?

2011-07-22T08:48:00.000-07:00

Getting Real with the Rabbi –Questions of the week
So nu, it is really hot out –what else is new? It is the summer, and not just any part of the summer, but the dog days of summer, when the solar effect of the sun’s rays are felt most intensely. It is a good time to stay indoors with the air conditioner on –one may not even mind being at work so much if it means escaping from the oppressive heat in a cool office setting.
But I digress. Anybody can make small talk about the weather. For me, it is not just a hot summer day, but erev Shabbat, and I look forward to having Friday night dinner with my family tonight! Now everyone has heard me extoll the merits of Shabbat before, but I want to talk about our dinner table for a moment. My family and I have this tradition that after we have recited the blessings and eaten our fill we go around the table and answer two very personal questions: What was the best part of your week? And What was the best part of your day? That can be a challenge for all of us to think about and attempt to answer. Maybe we are all having dinner in different places in different ways –we are escaping to the shore for the weekend, or we are currently vacationing in a different part of the country, maybe even in a different country, or visiting our children in sleep away camp for the weekend, but we are likely to still sit down for dinner at some point this evening, correct? Why not ask yourselves, and one another those questions? Maybe you had a tough week, maybe you hate the weather, but these questions force us to put things in perspective and appreciate the good in any given situation.
Everyone complains that the summer is too short, it just breezes by too quickly –well no argument there, but if we begin by taking account of the best parts of our week, that helps us appreciate time all the more and may keep the days from blending together all too quickly. After all, time can slow down a bit when you are able to categorize it better and remember what it is you like so much about the summer, and why time seems to simply fly when you are having fun. So nu, this Shabbat, this summer evening over the dinner table and a glass of wine, ask yourself: what was the best part of your week and what was the best part of your day –and let me know, I myself am curious after all as to what you have been up to!

2011-06-16T13:03:00.001-07:00

Getting Real with the Rabbi –So nu, Is the glass half empty, or full?
Ever prepare yourself for a stressful meeting, or some sort of professional event, and you were so anxious that you could barely sleep the night before, and then it all goes off without a hitch, or what you thought would be so difficult actually ends up being not as bad as you imagined because what your mind anticipated was far worse than the actual event? Feels kind of nice, doesn’t it?
Likewise there are times when you walk into a meeting thinking that it is not going to be any big deal, it is a casual gathering so to speak, and you walk out feeling as you have just been fed through a paper shredder, or you were ambushed by your colleagues and coworkers. And that can be a most disconcerting feeling.
I would say that those people who are eternal optimists, who always see the glass as half full, are very positive individuals, they often seem to be outwardly happy and content, and can have an effect on those around them, making them feel more positive as well. Yet what happens when things don’t go their way? Were they ill prepared or being unduly naïve? And how does that affect their outward perception of the world now, or even worse, their inward perception of themselves? On the other hand, pessimists, those who always complain that the glass is half empty can come off as negative and dark, adversely affecting those around them, yet they often prepare themselves for the worst and would seem to be able to better cope with life’s challenges and difficulties, and maybe when a situation does turn out better than expected, as a result they come out of it delightfully surprised.
In this week’s Torah reading, Shelach Lecha, we read of the ill fated mission of the twelve spies who were sent to reconnoiter the land and bring back a twofold report to Moses and the people: what is the topography like and what are the inhabitants like, are their cities well fortified? As for the first part, the spies respond that the land is exceedingly prosperous, literally flowing with “milk and honey” yet on the intelligence front ten of the spies report that the cities are well fortified and the people are most physically imposing, descendants of giants, and the spies even go so far as to report “we were like grasshoppers in our eyes and so must we have looked in their eyes as well!” (Numbers 13:33) Then they throw the Israelite nation into despair concerning the land, all is hopeless! Now that is pessimistic!
It is only through the intervention of Moses, as well as Joshua and Caleb, two of the spies that break with their brethren and give a contrary report about the feasibility of conquering the land that the Lord does not wipe them out amiss the desert dunes although He does strike down the ten spies that gave a negative report about taking the land (these of the “glass is half empty” stock) and punishes the Israelite nation with forty more years of camping out in the wilderness –if only we had had more faith, our fate could have been far different!
Perhaps the spies were merely trying to be realistic and prepare the rest of the nation for how difficult a task lay at hand, and certainly they saw themselves as being honest. On the other hand, when a person is too pessimistic, they negate themselves, and everything around them, that is the problem about seeing the glass as constantly half empty, you miss out on the water that is there, all you concentrate on is the air space! After all, the spies are so insecure that they perceive themselves as grasshoppers in comparison to the NBA like Canaanite tribesmen, and insist that those same giants must have seen them as grasshoppers as well, but how did they even know how the Canaanites would view them? But that it what it means to be overly pessimistic, you often make negative assumptions about yourself and your place in the world around you, it can affect your outlook, your ability, and how others will view you. Sure it is good to prepare yourself for the worst, and to be on your ties, but sometimes you also have to have confidence in yourself, and faith in others.
Maybe that is the trick in the end, it is not always a matter of the glass being half full, or half empty, but simply being a realist. There is a glass that’s only half full, but it is enough to quench my thirst for now, let me take a drink. May we always be prepared for the worst in the world, while managing to hold unto our sense of hope, and as a result come out delightfully surprised as a result. That is the challenge for all of us.

2011-06-03T09:55:00.001-07:00

Getting Real with the Rabbi –“Is it the End or Just the Beginning?”
There is a song by Led Zeppelin titled “All of My Love” which has a verse that cries out “Is it the End or Just the Beginning? I often heard that line blasting out of my stereo throughout my college experience. I think about the lyric right now as technically we are heading into what many consider the end of the year –the end of the academic year that is, and as for our synagogue community it is the close of our fiscal year and programmatic calendar. The weather is noticeably warmer (in fact it just occurred to me sometime last week I am actually at the point where I can go outside without needing a jacket –on a consistent basis!)
However, as someone once pointed out to me, the end of one thing is the beginning of something else, whenever something comes to a close you are transitioning into a new reality, situation, period or event. The ballgame is over, so you head out of the stadium onto the street, find your car and prepare for the long ride home in traffic, and having dinner later with your family. The school year comes to a close so you prepare for a summer job, or camp. You leave one job and prepare to transition into another, maybe a new career, maybe even retirement. All these are representative of new beginnings, new starts, even as you are ending something that you were previously engaged in, either long term or short term, either out of a sense of love and devotion or a sense of obligation.
There is a Hebrew expression which reads “Kol Hatlachot kashot” –all beginnings are hard –and it is true, it can take time to get used to a new surrounding, a new school, a new job, even a new home or community. In part the acclimation takes time because we are emotionally tied to our previous situation and we mourn for what we no longer have, but we should not forget to celebrate, or at least investigate all the potential positives of the new situation that lies ahead of us. As we head full force into the summer we revel in all the sunshine and warm weather that surrounds us, but the thing about seasons is that they are subject to the laws of nature, they change, and before you know it fall will come, the leaves will turn color, the sun will set sooner and the kids are back in school. We may lament the summer that passed us by so quickly (as it so often seems to) but we know that autumn is fleeting as well –it is a prelude to winter, for some the harshest of seasons, and then of course the promise of spring, regrowth and once again the hint of warm weather. The seasons all end –or rather transition into new seasons, and our life is cyclical in that same way. The end of one thing is the beginning of another –we just have to remember that, and not lose sight of the new possibilities that await us and all the potential that exists in the change. Don Drapper, on my favorite show Mad Men once opined: “Change is neither good nor bad, it just is.” With all due respect I would disagree with one of my most favorite fictional characters, to me, change is what we make of it.

2011-05-27T08:58:00.001-07:00

Getting Real with the Rabbi –A Jew’s worst enemy
I recently returned from the annual AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington D.C. Several congregants from OWHC attended with me, and I must say, it was quite an inspirational event. Not only did the President address AIPAC this year, but so did several Senators and members of Congress, as did our Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu (the night before he spoke in front of Congress) as well as assorted rabbis, reverends, politicians, foreign dignitaries and policy experts. Ten thousand people attended this year, the most ever, and to look out at a sea of people, of all races, ages, and religions, one almost leaves with the mistaken impression that the whole world supports Israel!
That is until one leaves the D.C. Convention Center and sees that just across the street large groups of protestors are gathered, some are from pro -Palestinian political groups, some are from leftist organizations that have a decidedly anti-Israel bias, (one man carried a sandwich board which read “Recovering Zionist!”) but some of the most noticeable protestors were Ultra Orthodox bearded Jews in black hats! That was the part that was most disconcerting to my wife (who attended with me for the first time) The fact that you would have Jews who were so anti Israel that they would have signs and placards made protesting the State of Israel announcing that “Jews are not Zionists” and the like –who are they to speak for me and all Jews out there who strive for and require a homeland for the Jewish people? Seeing something like that in full view of the AIPAC Conference where Jews and non Jews alike had gathered to lobby on behalf of Israel was not only a major contrast, it was practically disheartening.
The wonderful thing about living in a democracy is that everyone has an opportunity to present their view (something Netanyahu expressed when he was heckled by protestors who snuck in both at the AIPAC Gala dinner and his address to congress) but still, I wonder as Jews, why we cannot seem to work together more in support of our only homeland. Clearly Jews are made up of all political stripes and beliefs, and we do not have to all be on the same page about everything Israel does, all the time, but what good does it do to show the world such a divisive stance? After all, if even we as Jews, who are such a small minority cannot seem to support the very existence of a Jewish state, how can we ever expect the world to side with us? All it does in the end is feed fuel to the fire of those who say that the Jewish state is an anathema, since not even all Jews seem to want it, so why is it so necessary in the first place?
One thing is for certain on this earth, and based on historical facts, whatever your political leaning, we must have a Jewish state, a home for all Jews, at all times. To be without a home when almost every other religious or ethnic group has one is to be lost in this world. We were without a home for two thousand years and look at what a disaster that was, we can never go back to that reality. So yes, there may be different views and opinions as to what a Jewish home should constitute, or what should be the physical parameters of the country, but to say outwardly that there should be no Jewish state is to essentially say “come view me, I hate myself and cloak it in a masque of religious superiority” Why promote this misguided attitude, and display it to the world as if it is a legitimate Jewish belief? There will always be groups such as the ultra-orthodox and irrationally anti- Israel Nuteri Karta and Satmar, we see them protest at the Israel Day Parade, I saw them in front of Capital Hill, and yes, at the AIPAC Conference. Unfortunately the length of a person’s beard is never a true measure of their actual wisdom. However, with all the problems that Israel has and faces, and with all the difficulties that we as Jews have in the world today, why cannot we at least be united in the simple fact that a State of Israel, a home for the Jewish people, eternal and secure, simply needs to exist? Certainly the people that hate us are not as split on this issue. After all, as it states in Proverbs 11:29: He who makes trouble for his own home shall inherit the wind. When we turn on one another, we hasten the work of our enemies and that in itself is the greatest injustice.

2011-05-19T11:58:00.001-07:00

Getting Real with the Rabbi –Intentions matter
Intentions in Judaism (that is your Kavanah, you mindful direction when you attempt a particular act) matter a great deal. I had to remind myself of that the other day. It was just a week ago, a beautiful spring Thursday much like today, I was driving on the road approaching the synagogue when I noticed something trying to cross the road –looking very much like a rock but clearly not a rock –it was moving! Within a split second I realized it was a turtle and swerved my car to avoid hitting it, then the crazy thought occurred to me that the poor turtle needed to be rescued. As quickly as I could I pulled over to the side of the road, turned on my blinkers and slowly got out of the car. I would unfortunately be about 60 seconds to late.
As I began to approach the road, an SUV barreled down the same path I had just pulled over from only seconds before and without hesitation drove straight over the unsuspecting turtle who could do no more than momentarily duck inside its shell when it felt the noise and vibrations of the giant car wheels bear down upon it –a futile gesture if ever there was one! After the crushing car lumbered on its way, completely unaware of what had transpired, I approached with trepidation, hoping with the utmost sincerity that somehow the turtle had managed to survive, that it had retreated into its shell and that it somehow had managed to withstand the force of the giant vehicle or that the wheel of the SUV had miraculously missed the poor creature. Alas, that was not to be, my wishing the turtle had survived was as futile as its attempt to hide in its shell. I will spare you the gory details of what remained of the turtle, needless to say, it was as upsetting a sight as ever there was one. In this roadside encounter of man verse nature, nature came out the loser (as is sadly often the case).
I felt horrible afterwards, like somehow I was to blame. What if I had stopped sooner? What if instead of pulling over to the side of the road I had stopped traffic in the middle of the road, put on my blinkers and quickly scooped the turtle from the road into my car? (as one congregant had suggested). In the end I will never know, there is no use being a Monday morning quarterback. The late, great Sparky Anderson is said to have remarked “I don’t live in the past, there is no future in it!” I do know that for the whole rest of that day I felt horrible. I also know I tried to save the turtle, which is why I kept reminding myself that intentions matter in Jewish tradition. It is better to try and do the right thing than to do nothing at all. Let that be a lesson for us all, especially in how we interact with the natural world around us!

2011-05-12T07:29:00.000-07:00

Getting Real with the Rabbi –Everything in Moderation
Almost two weeks ago I did something I never thought I would be able to do (or at least last fall when I informally began my training) I ran a half marathon!!! Now my goal, I should admit, since I finished college, was to run a marathon by the time I turned 40 (well, I have to confess I am turning forty by the end of this summer but I almost reached that goal, I got half way there –I view that as a success!)
Now it was not easy to complete the race, I was hot, sweaty, tired and briefly praying for an instant death as I ran unto the hot asphalt of the Wantagh Parkway somewhere around mile 9, and it was a bit disconcerting to see people far older than I pass me as they ran, but then again this was my first half marathon, and I finished! In record time no less, (well, no, not really, but I finished!) Last year I had successfully run a 10 K (about 6.25 miles) my longest ran at that point, and a congregant I ran with said I should set a goal and a year later attempt the Long Island Half Marathon. At the time I did not think it possible, and throughout the long winter as I struggled to find time to run outdoors (I hate training indoors!) with the constant snow and ice, and fell behind on my own goals, I never thought I would be ready. However, I have come to believe that if you set a goal for yourself, and you work at it, and are sincere in your efforts and practices, and if you physically and mentally want it bad enough, you can succeed! Certainly that is what I tell my b’nai mitzvah students when it comes to learning their haftorah! And maybe each one of us should think of a goal that we can set for ourselves, something that is within reach but would challenge us a bit, and see if we cannot achieve this goal, by the end of the summer, or our next birthday, or even next year. Maybe we want to learn Hebrew or another foreign language, we want gain proficiency in the prayer service, or see Israel. What might that goal be for you?
I also have to confess something, since that half marathon I completed on May 1st, I have been a bit lazy with my running and a bit indulgent with my snacking. Don’t get me wrong now, I still run too keep in shape (physically and mentally for me it is the best kind of work out!) and I plan on running tomorrow morning (nothing like a pre-Shabbos run) but I also find when not in training it is important to unwind a bit and take it easy –after all, as the late, great sage Rambam who lived nearly a century ago, promulgated the ancient belief known as the golden mean: everything in moderation. We cannot constantly practice for races and contests because working to achieve certain set goals sometimes robs us for simply living in the moment. Likewise, we cannot simply lay around and not have any ambition or structure, because in the end we may not accomplish anything or feel any sense of achievement, in order to progress we need to engage in progress.
In the Torah reading this week, b’har, we read of how every seventh year the land was to lie fallow and remain untouched. For the ancient Israelite farmer this must have proven a huge challenge , to have to simply force oneself to live off the produce that the land, and most of all God would provide. However, maybe that is the point, we work and labor over the land for six long years (just as we work our bodies for six days a week) and then we spend a seventh year allowing the land to rest, observing it in all its natural beauty and serenity, and sustaining ourselves on what we have previously planted that is now growing free and wild. Sometimes you work hard at a given task or endeavor, sometimes you simply sit back, watch, and let it be. Sometimes you are active, sometimes you are idle. The trick is allowing the two to balance one another, a little intensity mixed with a little relaxation can be the perfect combination, everything in moderation. What do you think?

2011-05-05T13:40:00.001-07:00

Getting Real with the Rabbi –A Time for Crying and a Time for Laughing, a Time for Mourning and a Time for Dancing

I was just starting to fall asleep Sunday night when my wife rushed in with the unexpected news that Osama Bin Laden had been killed! Like most people, I imagine, I was glued to the television set for the next hour as I awaited the official word from President Obama. I have to admit that (also, I imagine like many other people) I received a certain amount of satisfaction in hearing that he was dead, that he had been killed by U.S. Navy Seals, and that they even had his body as confirmation. I just kept thinking back to that awful Tuesday morning of September 11, 2001 and the tense and frightening days and weeks that followed –the sense that our soil had been violated, and that our sense of national security (and our sense of self) had been deeply compromised. Lives were lost, property irrevocably destroyed, sickness from the soot and ashes at Ground Zero would poison countless more victims, and the United States and its allies would end up entering into two wars. In short, despite all the individual successes and accomplishments many of us would know, it has been a tough decade for our country overall!
Now I do not mean to be naïve, I have no doubt that killing Osama Bin Laden will not end the threat of world terrorism or Islamic fanaticism as we know it –if anything the immediate news of his death at the hands of U.S. forces makes us a bit less safe as some of his misguided followers will no doubt attempt to launch retaliatory attacks in response to the news that a leader for their cause has been martyred. And still others have remarked to me the unease that they feel seeing crowds cheering in the streets –something about it seemed perhaps too hubristic, as if we were tempting fate or playing into the hands of our enemies, who themselves celebrated on September 11. After all, as it states in Proverbs : "If your enemy falls, do not exult; If he trips, let your heart not rejoice, Lest the Lord see it and be displeased, And avert His wrath from him." (24:17-18) And as Jews are we not supposed to be better than that?
Still, if people wanted to take a little time off to exult because the killing of such a wicked, evil man will bring a modicum of relief, release and even a certain amount of satisfaction, I wholeheartedly concur. Even if Bin Laden’s death –Yimach Shemo (may his name be erased!) will not make us truly safer on a very real level, it no doubt has tremendous symbolic value. I also must admit for that reason alone I would disagree with President Obama’s recent decision not to publish at least one photograph of the slain terrorist criminal. Perhaps seeing that Bin Laden was truly dead would help bring a bit of final closure to the family members and relatives who lost loved ones on 9/11, and at the very least it may quiet the conspiracy theorists and critics in the Middle East who claim that Bin Laden was never killed. But then again, maybe all of that is just my conjecture, after all, seeing Bin Laden with a bloody bullet hole in his head may not make a surviving family member feel any better at all, and those who doubt America and what really transpired on 9/11 and its aftermath will no doubt assert that a photograph can be faked, and all it may accomplish in the end is fanning the flame of Muslim fanaticism in the Middle East –as I am not the President I do not thankfully have to make these decisions. What would you do about publicizing the photograph?
There is one final note that I thought was of interest and that is the way in which our government chose to dispose of the body. It is true that just as in Jewish law, a burial at sea is contrary to Muslim law, but Bin Laden’s body was washed and prepared according to Islamic burial rites (another ironic twist in that Jews and Muslims seem to have similar preparation techniques for a dead body), with a Navy Chaplain standing on hand (we do not know of which denomination) who made some remarks that where then translated into Arabic and the corpse was apparently “eased into the sea.” I know there are some that take issue with the fact that he was laid to rest in such a respectful manner with certain Islamic traditions being afforded to him, a practice that he and his followers never would have extended to the victims that they kidnapped, captured and killed, but then again that is what makes us better and truly more religious people in the end. Certainly we could not have buried him in the ground, assuming any country would have taken him, as his burial site would have become a shrine and eventual rallying point for his followers, people would have planted flowers and plants, woman would have visited and prayed for health and fertility and the truly uneducated would then have declared it a holy site. For now we should simply take solace in the fact that he is dead, some of the mystery and frustration surrounding this evil being who inspired the most tragic terrorist attacks that our nation has ever suffered is finally gone and in that we should receive some momentary comfort and satisfaction –he does not get another day of life and we no longer have to worry what ever happened to him, he has gone the way of Arafat, Hitler and Haman, Yimach Sh’mom and he can lead and inspire no more to attacks of murder. Though he was a giant in physical stature, he was a midget in mind and spirit, and that is why he targeted the Twin Towers in the first place, he wanted to topple structures of freedom and enterprise, buildings he would never have had the creativity and ingenuity to create in the first place, because he, and people like him live for terror and destruction, and revel in death far more than they do life –and in the end, that is why they are our enemies, our ideologies and theirs are simply incompatible. May we know no others like him, and with his death may peace be just a bit closer.

One more reason to appreciate this time of year!

2011-04-27T11:34:00.000-07:00

Finally, the weather is getting nice (after a long winter and recent rain storm of almost biblical proportions!) and one can actually feel that spring is in the air, which is fitting seeing that Nissan (the month in which Pesach falls) is ordained by the Torah to fall in Aviv –or the spring season!
Now there are a lot of good and positive events that occurred during this particular month, starting with our earliest historical source book, the Hebrew Scriptures:
The Exodus of Egypt, the splitting of the Sea of Reeds, the splitting of the Jordan River, the fall of the wall of Jericho, the erection of the Mishkan (Tabernacle) the birth of the second patriarch, Isaac, and the Covenant of the “pieces” (Brith Bein Habetarim) that took place between Abraham and God (Genesis 15)
And vis a vis recent history, there was Napoleon’s proclamation to establish a Jewish state in 1799, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the Liberation of Buchenwald, the Eichman Trial began in Israel in 1961 as well as the Camp David Accord having been enacted in 1978 (please God, may peace continue and may we know no more troubles from Egypt, as we did under Nasser –or Pharaoh!)
Now to be sure Nissan has seen its share of woes as well –Aaron’s sons Nadav and Avihu died during this time period, the Lodz Ghetto was sealed –this would be the first official Ghetto of the Holocaust and would usher in the most destructive period of Jewish history, and even on a more secular note just a few days ago marked the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, probably the most costly war that our adopted homeland would ever fight in terms of casualty rate –as it was Americans fighting other Americans!
In truth during any historical period or time frame you can probably find your share of both positive and negative occurrences, and certainly now, vis a vis this particular time of year, there is a lot to be inspired by –there is the Pesach festival itself which of course is the most prominent, and there is the very season itself which is linked to in both biblical literature and natural imagery –the springtime and changing of the seasons –the sun feels warmer, the grass is greener and has that fresh new, springtime smell, and or course the flowers are blooming, the winter finally feels vanquished and one wants to almost spend time outside!!!
Still, just as at a wedding when we temper joy with a little sad introspection by breaking the glass, even in the midst of our newfound appreciation for life and celebrating with friends and family at the seder meal, we cannot and should not grow too complacent. Not all of us are free, not all of us have been redeemed. Not all of us can step outside and appreciate the fresh new smell of roses –some of us still sit in perpetual darkness –I am speaking of course of Gilad Shalit who was captured nearly five years ago by Palestinian terrorists and is being held somewhere in the Gaza strip. How many seder meals has he missed with his family? How many other holidays, and birthdays, and who knows what else? We may celebrate our redemption out of Egypt, but for him, sadly, redemption is not yet at hand!
When I was growing up with my family in Brooklyn and we employed our own Haggadah at our Seder meals, when reading about the section of the four children my mother always insisted –in recognition of Soviet Jewry that we add a fifth child “the one who cannot ask” because he (or she) does not even possess the right and freedom to do so, being a political prisoner if you will –a refusenik, their life is hanging in virtual limbo. After the collapse of the former Soviet Union that whole addition seemed superfluous –not so any more. I would propose that everyone of us add a fifth child to our Seder meal this year: the child, like young Gilad, who cannot ask –who may not even know what day it is, how much time has passed, and when he will next see the sun shine again. Remember, the seder meal is meant to be a cathartic experience, in which each and every person (as it states in the Hagadah) “sees themselves as if they had gone out of Egypt” –Chayav Adam Lirot et Otsmo K’elu hu yatsa mi’metsrayim --this year, God willing, may Gilad Shalit finally be freed, reunited with friends and family and join his people in their homeland! And in turn, let us not take for granted the very freedom that surrounds us on a daily basis!

A Chag Sameach v’Kasher to all!!!

Getting Real with the Rabbi –Pre Pesach Perspective

2011-04-01T13:19:00.001-07:00

I heard some terribly distressing news this past Tuesday –my day off of all things! My most favorite show ever, Mad Men will not be shown this summer on AMC cable as is usually the case, but instead is being delayed and will not premiere until next March, a whole year away –oh the humanity!!!

Do you ever get really excited about something and then find out the rug has been yanked out from under you? Like say you are going to a concert at Jones Beach and it gets rained out, or you are a NFL fan and the players go on strike (my condolences, should we recite Kaddish yet?)or you get to the Apple Store just after the latest IPad has been sold? Life can be that way, there are times things work out, there are serendipitous pleasures that hit us out of nowhere, and then there are disappointments, when things we are expecting don’t work out the way we hoped or assumed they would!

This Shabbat is a special Shabbat, Shabbat HaChodesh (the Sabbath of the new month) in which we take out an extra scroll of the Torah, and read from Exodus 12: 1-20 about how the Israelites were told that the New moon they were seeing (which heralded the spring month of Nissan) presaged their redemption from Egyptian bondage –in a fortnight’s time they would be free from Egypt and celebrate Pesach and the Seder meal as an eternal holy day, commemorating their liberation! And when they heard Moses’ inspirational promise, and saw that new moon and what it announced, they must have been excited –their years of suffering were coming to a quick end! (Now it would take forty years of wandering before they found a home, but the point being their lot was changing --forever!)

I think of what we commemorate during Pesach, and what our ancient ancestors went through, what they experienced, those who never even made it into the promised land, and I think “hey, my life is not so bad” –after all, I could have been born at a different time, in a different place –I get to celebrate the seder as an actual free person, a legacy to the biblical Israelites we read about in the Torah, not just in anticipation of hopefully being free after centuries of slavery! And I see the news about Japan and Libya, what occurred to that poor family in Itamar, and I think I really have nothing to complain about, it is all relative, and maybe instead of bemoaning what I don’t have in life (like a new season of Mad Men this summer) I should celebrate all that I do have (health, happiness, my family, my freedom, a great Jewish community) and after all, when you get right down to it, there is always baseball to watch come this July!

Getting Real with the Rabbi –spring chill seems to be in the air

2011-03-28T14:55:00.000-07:00

There is an age old expression about this particular month “March goes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb” but personal experience has led me to believe that it is never that simple as the winter slowly dies down and we wait expectantly for the spring thaw and the change in season that will inevitably come about –hopefully sooner than later. Sometimes we are fooled into thinking winter is ending early –the sun comes out, the atmosphere around us feels warm and invigorating (like last Friday for instance) then just when we are fooled into a false sense of security –wham! It snows again, and there is cold and ice (like say, the other day!) never mind that spring was officially to have begun five days ago! Sometimes March comes in like a lamb and goes out like a lion –one big thunderous roar to let us know that winter is holding on for dear life –one last ice cold grip before it surrenders to the change of seasons.

And in the world around us, the news is somewhat grim and troubling (the horrific earthquake and Tsunami Japan suffered a fortnight ago) and the revolutions sweeping the Arab world –we may have no love for the dictators who ruthlessly clung to power for decades but what of the people who will replace them in places like Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain and Libya –is the devil you know better than the devil you don’t? And who is better for the Jews and Israel in the end? And speaking of that last point, the heinous crimes that struck the Fogel family in Itamar just recently, in addition to the bomb set off in the Jerusalem bus station the other day which killed at least one and injured dozens of others, plus the scores of rockets rained down on our citizens from the Hamas stronghold in Gaza leaves me with great concern.

What is happening in the world around us –and is there any hope for peace? Historically, the weeks between Purim and Pesach (which should be filled with joyous anticipation amongst all the preparation) were times of peril and fear for the Jews living in Europe throughout the Middle Ages. The blood libel often spread from the pulpit as the Church engaged in increased anti-Semitic rhetoric in advance of Easter, inciting frenzied mob attacks as the Jews were blamed for ritual murder. And now it seems as if our homeland is once again, after a brief winter lull, under attack, from the physical borders that surround it, and from the borderless world that accuses it of being the aggressor and causing all the unrest and perpetual troubles it seems to find itself in. Will things get better? Will there be peace one day? Will the world, hopefully, be a more secure place? What will this new season bring? Time can only tell, but for now the roar of the Lion seems deafening, and terrifying –we can only hope that soon sanity will prevail as sure as the weather will stay warm, the headlines will be filled with less daunting and disheartening news, and in the ever hopeful vision of the prophet Isaiah, the Lion and Lamb will lie down together, and peace will one day, hopefully prevail!

Getting Real with the Rabbi --Purim Preparations

2011-03-17T10:18:00.000-07:00

In Seminary, a classmate once remarked to me that Purim was one of those holidays that just kind of sneaks up on you (appropriately enough he made this observation to me on Purim night after he had just hurriedly returned from a personal week long hiatus from classes --and as I was trying to hear the Megillah chanted) And in some respects that is true, Purim does not have all the attendant and somber fanfare that the High Holy Days do, or require all the busy preparation that Pesach does. Hey, if anything Purim makes us busier for Pesach –what with all the Mishloach Manot that we accumulate and then have to get rid of in the span of a few weeks –anyone interested in trading Hamentaschen for Macaroons? But in essence Purim is a whirlwind of a celebration with all the food, costumes, noisy distractions of the graggers, carnival like atmosphere, and then there are of course the four separate mitzvoth of Purim all to be preformed in a 24 hour period –giving gifts to the poor (matanot l’evyonim), sending gifts to friends (mishloach manot) taking part in a festive meal (the Seudah) and of course most famously, hearing the Megillah chanted (twice!)
But in truth there is a way to spiritually prepare for Purim. As I sit hear writing this, the Thursday prior to Purim (which by an odd coincidence just happens to be St. Patrick’s Day this year) it is also Ta’anit Esther –or the Fast of Esther! For those of you who have never put fasting on the festival of Purim (which does seem to revolve so much around food and drinking) together, let me explain. In the Scroll of Esther it describes how Mordechai, after reading the decree that Haman had sent throughout Persia, whereby the Jews would be slaughtered on the 13th of Adar, pressed upon his cousin Esther that she seek an audience with the King and plead the case of her people. Esther demurred at first, after all, even a queen could not force a meeting with the king uninvited, but Mordechai insisted, stating most famously “do not imagine that you alone will be able to escape in the king’s palace any more than the rest of the Jews! For if you persist and keep silent, help will come to us from some other place, while you and your father’s house will perish! And who knows whether it was just for such a time as this that you attained the royal position!” Esther, realizing he is right, only asks that all the Jews of Shushan fast for three full days in support (Esther 4:12-17)
Now in our day, no one is expected to fast for three full days, but we do encourage a voluntary fast, from sun up to sundown on erev Purim (and in a year like this, when Purim is on a Saturday night, rather than fast on Shabbat or Erev Shabbat we fast on Thursday, so as not to ruin our Shabbat preparations) I know it may seem hard at times, even somewhat disconcerting to fast in the face of a holiday which is so much about enjoyment and indulging oneself, but maybe that is the point. Before we feast we fast, before we celebrate we think of how we were almost wiped off the pages of history, by a villain in the same league as Pharaoh and perhaps even Hitler, Yimach Shemam (may there names be erased!) So on second thought, maybe it is not too much to ask for us to fast for just one day, before we stuff ourselves with candy and humentaschen! And if not for ourselves and our place in history (which was almost erased save for the intervention of Mordechai and Esther) then we should fast in thanks and recognition to Esther herself, who summoned up all her courage (and fasted herself) and presented herself, unannounced, to the king, in a time of desperation and in hopes of soon saving the life of her people. In this day and age, with all the turmoil in the world (Israel, the Middle East, Japan) there is no end to what we can do and how we can get involved –emails, attending rallies, gathering supplies and donations for those in need, and we should stand up for what we believe in –and be proactive, help change the future! But sometimes we can even do something small and silent, in recognition of what transpired in the past. In that note we can fast (even just half a day if it helps), in thanks to the brave Queen Esther and the near tragedy she avoided about 2500 years ago when she intervened on behalf of her people –on behalf of us –and then we can go out and enjoy Purim with a lightened heart. Now if you’ll excuse me, I must sign off now –I have been fasting most of the day –and am feeling just a bit lightheaded!

Your Nursery School Experience...

2011-03-14T10:51:00.000-07:00

I am in the middle of reading a book called, Blessings of a B-, Using Jewish Teachings To Raise Self-Reliant Teenagers, by Wendy Mogel. This book is designed to help parents as we lead our teens towards adulthood. Our job as parents is to set the path and then allow our children to navigate independently with minimal injury to body and spirit. My job as a parent is important, and I take it very seriously, but I must be honest and admit that I depend on my daughter’s teachers to be her compass each and every day when I am not there.

As I watch her blossom into a young woman, I reminisce on her early years as a preschooler. She is strong, confident and independent, and I must give credit to the teachers in her nursery school for recognizing her “weaknesses” as strengths, and believing in her when I was at my wits end!

So, I ask you to think about your own child. Ten years from now, what will you credit your nursery school for? What is the one quality that brings you back to OWHC Preschool each year? How do you believe it will affect your child.

Getting Real with the Rabbi --Be composed, not overexposed!

2011-03-11T10:50:00.000-08:00

During the past week we have witnessed both the overexposure and self-implosion of a few very high profile characters. From Charlie Sheen, to John Galliano (chief designer of Christian Dior) to Julian Assange (he of Wiki-Leaks fame) we have seen men who were not only front and center in the world of home entertainment, fashion and media but who all made inappropriate anti-Jewish comments to a worldwide audience. Unfortunately this is nothing new, as public figures have often made anti-Jewish (and in some cases anti-Israel) remarks and fortunately we live in a world where they are called out on it, but in an ideal world they would not be making such misguided and hateful remarks I the first place.

What is new, however, is to have three such well-known figures make these offhanded comments in the same week, and in such close proximity to Purim! Is there any connection? Think about it for a moment. Purim is a very public holiday in which we read aloud from a historical record of how we were nearly annihilated 2500 years ago, and there is an air of pageantry to the whole affair –we dress in costumes and partake of a lavish feast. Now I would hardly liken those three jokers, Sheen, Galliano and Assange to the diabolical Haman (in fact one can even ascribe Sheen’s remarks to more of a brain malfunction than any deeply rooted anti-Jewish sentiment). Yet these three men were at one time respected within their fields and just as Haman chose to single out the Jews because he perceived them as a threat, likewise these three men, who already had the public enthralled with their exploits, sought to single out our people in their verbal abuse because of some misguided sense of resentment or suspicion.

We may be able to laugh off the self-destructive behavior of Charlie Sheen, and even feel a bit sorry for him. We perhaps breathe a collective sigh of relief that no one takes the remarks of John Galliano seriously and that Christian Dior took the responsible steps of summarily dismissing him from his position. And of course Julian Assange is reviled by all responsible people the world over, yet it is still disconcerting that there are those out there who would seek to vilify the Jews, even at the risk of bringing more attention upon themselves –and perhaps it is precisely because it brings more attention upon themselves! We can only hope and pray that just as God helped and supported us thousands of years ago –and we defeated our enemies by helping and supporting one another, so may we continue on as a people, long after the Charlie Sheens, John Gallianos and Julian Assanges have faded from the airwaves, their sound bytes no longer getting played.

And on that note, and in connection with mutual understanding and support, please join us this Shabbat for a special inclusive program that goes throughout the day. In the morning service we will be addressed by Kathleen Rice, District Attorney of Nassau County. After Kiddush luncheon we will be have a chance to dialogue with Dr. Isma Chaudhry of the Islamic Center of Long Island and in the late afternoon, as part of a twilight service we will hear from Rabbi David Nesenoff who exposed long time White House correspondent Helen Thomas on a vide clip after she made anti Israel remarks. Please join us for some, if not all of the speakers, and also note that baby sitting is available for Saturday morning.
Shabbat Shalom and may it be a good week ahead!
Rabbi Michael Stanger

Rabbi Michael Stanger

Getting Real with the Rabbi --the Ethical Jew

2011-03-04T08:20:00.000-08:00

One of the things I used to love to do most on Saturday morning, before I would leave the house for services, would be to peruse through the pages of the New York Times Magazine while slowly consuming my daily bowl of granola mixed with milk. One of the things I enjoyed most about the New York Times Magazine was a weekly column titled “The Ethicist” written by Randy Cohen. The column itself dates back to 1999 and in it Cohen answers ethical queries and moral dilemmas in letters and emails sent to him by his many readers throughout the nation. The questions could be as seemingly innocuous as: should one stop a pet cat from catching and torturing field mice in the backyard since the pet cat is well fed and provided for at home or allow the cat to exercise its true natural instincts? Or they could be far more alarming in nature - does one have a legal or moral obligation to report to the authorities threatening conversation they may have overheard from a neighbor in the wake of 9/11? I did not always agree with all of Cohen’s observations and assessments, and in truth part of the fun was sometimes imagining how I would have answered a missive differently from him, exploring my perspective as a Rabbi and religious functionary (Cohen was notoriously secular in his writings although not adverse to occasionally consulting with religious authorities).

This Shabbat is a special Shabbat, being one of the four Shabbatot in which we take out an extra Torah, and as such this Shabbat in particular is titled “Shabbat Shekalim” and we read from Exodus 30:11-16 which details how the ancient Israelites were all obligated in contributing a half shekel donation every year in support of the community and all the communal institutions (first the Tabernacle, then the Jerusalem Temple, then still later, the synagogues). These verses are read on this Shabbat as it is the Shabbat directly preceding Rosh Hodesh Adar Bet, which is the month directly preceding Nisan, and since the annual tax was due by the month of Nisan, it was instituted by the Rabbis that we should read about the donation in the Shabbat preceding Adar to remind us to get our funds ready (not unlike the IRS sending out an email reminder around this time of year!)

The importance of the half shekel tax however is not its monetary amount itself so much as that it was incumbent on all - rich and poor alike all had an obligation to contribute in support of the community. What is also interesting about the phrasing of “half shekel” or Machasit HaShekel in Hebrew is that the term rarely appears in the Torah (it can literally be rendered as “halved shekel”) but if we break down the term letter by letter something interesting happens. Let us take the first and last letter of Machasit which is a Mem and Tav, by putting those two letters together we get the word “Met” which means “dead.” If we then take the very next letter which is a Chet and the penultimate letter which is a Yud and put them together we have a “Chai” which of course means “life” and finally the middle letter is a Tsadi, which is the first letter of Tsedaka, charity, or better yet righteousness. What defines our life? What should be the center of our lifespan? Acts of righteousness, not just monetary contributions (which are always important) but acts of kindness, compassion, consideration –in other words, acting ethically.

I mentioned Randy Cohen at the outset because unfortunately, as I read this past Saturday’s column, this will be his last –someone else is taking over as the “Ethicist” and I will miss the insight and voice that Cohen gave to his column. On the other hand Cohen once outlined his personal beliefs about ethics as being ultimately dependent on a person’s immediate circumstances, while dismissing the notion that personal moral character might influence an individual’s ethics –in other words, people are not inherently good or bad, their ethical conduct is often situational –they can be both good and bad at different points and will act accordingly according to the particular circumstances they find themselves in. In Cohen’s worldview therefore, it is up to society to establish a norm so that ethical dilemmas rarely, if ever, come up, because in a more perfect world people would not be forced to choose good over evil. Again, maybe Cohen is right, maybe he is not, but regardless of that fact, the lesson we can glean both from our tradition (and yes, even columns such as the Ethicist) is that we must strive to act with virtue and ethical conduct in our lives, if we act better, we can make the world around us better as a result, or as Mahatma Gandhi once wrote “you must be the change you wish to see in the world.” May we all endeavor to be better citizens, spouses, parents, colleagues, friends, neighbors and Jews in the world we live in, for our sake, and for the sake of society at large.

"We are our biggest impediments"

2011-02-24T09:45:00.000-08:00

My wife dragged me to a movie the other night –“The King’s Speech” starring Colin Firth and Helena Bonham Carter. I must confess I was a bit hesitant to see this piece of historical drama captured on film –I felt it might be too dry and slow, but in the end I actually found it quite inspirational. King George the VI suffers from a severe speech impediment which he must overcome if he is going to assume the crown from his irresponsible older brother Prince Edward and lead Great Britain during the looming threat and crisis of war. In the end he does battle his severe stammer and deliver a moving speech to the nation on the eve of war, all thanks to the help and perseverance of a most dedicated speech tutor, played by Geoffrey Rush.

I was trying to understand what it was exactly about the film that I liked so much, and perhaps it is the singular message of one man confronting his greatest challenge and rising to the occasion in the end, even if it meant assuming role in history that he never wanted nor was ever intended for him, after all it was William Shakespeare he wrote nearly half a century ago “some men are born into leadership, some men achieve leadership and some men have leadership thrust upon them.” (Twelfth Night) King George VI was certainly of that latter category. But even beyond that feel good type of message (which is so popular amongst film makers and producers, especially during Oscar season) there was something about the movie that I kept identifying with, and then a colleague reminded me “it was like Moses!”

If you remember, Moshe Rebbenu, Moses our Rabbi, our teacher, our leader and our greatest prophet also had a serious speech defect (Exodus 4:10) and when confronted by God atop Mt Sinai, and told it would be he who would lead the Israelites out of bondage in Egypt, demurred several times, finally citing his challenge with public speaking as the one reason he should not be invested with this great responsibility. But God will have no of it, and insists that Moses accept the mantel of leadership, even allowing for the concession that Moses older brother Aaron will accompany him and act as his official spokesperson. Just think, if Moses had allowed his lack of ability with public speaking hold him back, we may not have had the leader that we needed at a time when we most needed him and as a result, we may not have been freed and might not be here to this day –having long ago since died out in Egypt. We take from this the lesson, that just as in the case of Moses (who had his brother Aaron) and King George VI it helps to have someone by your side who can assist you, and stand patiently by and support you in your time of need, but even more so what matters is you, and not shirking from responsibility and leadership when it is most needed and called for. We can never be certain how some things will turn out, but we can never know if we will succeed, or fail, unless we are willing to try, and sometimes not stepping up to the plate when it is most necessary can be the greatest failure of all, it robs us of even the basic ability to say that we at least tried, and did our best under adverse circumstances. May we never hold ourselves back.

Getting Real with the Rabbi- Books

2011-02-16T11:16:00.000-08:00

I love to read –fiction mostly, but occasionally history, or biographies. Mostly I read at night before I go to bed. I find it is a wonderful diversion and a tremendous release. And speaking of books, there is a most dramatic scene in this week’s parasha, whereby Moses has to return to the top of Mt. Sinai and consult with God after the Israelite nation, waiting in the foothills below, has committed the egregious sin of fashioning a golden calf. Moses confronts the people, punishes them with the help of his Levite cousins and then has to go pacify and reason with God, who wants to destroy the fledgling nation altogether. And in a scene which often gets shorted in the storyline (possibly because it so overshadowed by all the dramatic action that preceeded it) Moses announces to God Almighty:

“And now, will You forgive their sin? For if not, erase me from the book which You have been writing!” And God responded to Moses “whoever has sinned against me (personally) I shall erase from my book! Now go and lead the people to where I have told you, and my angel shall go before you and on that day that I make an account, I shall bring their sin to account against them!” And God then struck the people with a plague for having made (through Aaron) that Golden Calf. (Exodus 32:32-35)

Now besides depicting how enraged God is at the people and how He still acts to punish them for their sin (and this is after 3,000 of them were felled by Moses and his Levite cousins) and hold them collectively responsible well into the future (meaning a national sin like the golden calf is something we are indelibly held responsible for) there is an interesting theological paradigm –what does it exactly mean to be “written in a book?” And whose book exactly is it –and who does the writing?

Many of you who are reading this now have probably already jumped to the next conclusion: Moses and God are both referring to “the Book of Life” that we chant about with such authority and respect on the High Holidays (page 284 in our Machzor) and has its origins in the Jerusalem Talmud (Rosh HaShanah 1:3). Obviously it is our compulsion each and every year to be forgiven for our sins and written once again in the Book of Life –that is why we pray with such gusto, like we do at no other time in the year. And the ancient rabbinic belief was that there were three books –the book of the righteous, the book of the wicked, and the book of those somewhere in between (to which most of us belong). Now the names of those inscribed in the book of the wicked were straightaway to be blotted out for the coming year, whereas those who were righteous were to be inscribed in the book of life for the coming year, but those whose names were recorded in the ledger of the “in between” group had the High Holidays to make amends, and depending on their conduct could either be consigned to death or life for the coming year. The decision was signed on the close of Yom Kippur. Obviously in the case of Moses, he wants to take full responsibility for the people whom he has led so far in the desert. Either they are to be forgiven and promised life in the coming year, and if not, Moses wants his name taken out of the “ledger of life” –to suffer the same fate as all the rest!

God’s response is to offer a compromise: only those who took part in the actual sin of the golden calf are to be punished with death (some of them obviously being killed at that very moment). Yet He also implies that the rest of the nation will be held responsible for what happened at a later date (probably when they die and ascend to heaven, or even as their history unfold here on earth)...meaning their record will never be completely spotless. However, that nation, Moses’ people, and our ancestors will be allowed to continue our journey towards the promised land (not unlike how you can continue to drive even with points on your license). And yet it seems that it is God that does the writing of our national and individual history (note Moses’ impassioned plea to that effect in 32:32). But what do we believe today? Can we truly be forgiven for the sins, slights and wrongdoings we have committed, even if we seek a clear and sincere act of contrition? Or are we merely forgiven on this earth, but in the world to come we will have to answer for a full and complete record of all our deeds, commentary and notations about our mistakes included? If so, who is then doing the writing of our own books, our own story? Is it truly us, signed, sealed and delivered with our deeds, or is there an external editorial hand that is unseen and yet guides and controls the entire process from above? If so, how much control do we truly have? Either way, does it even change how aware and vigilant we have to constantly be concerning our daily actions?

Getting Real with the Rabbi- Jewish-American Apparel

2011-02-14T11:45:00.000-08:00

I have never been particularly interested in clothes. Now some people I know are clothes hounds, obsessed with what they wear, what matches, how it looks, what goes together, and of course brand names are a must! And perhaps they have a point; Shakespeare wrote “apparel oft proclaims the man” (Hamlet, Act 1) and certainly there is something to be said for looking presentable and professional at all times. As the saying goes, you never get a second chance to make a first impression (not sure who originally said that, but I am pretty sure it was not Shakespeare!). And clothes, to some extent, can define us. A police uniform puts one in a position of authority, surgical scrubs connotes a picture of cleanliness and responsibility. And take this week’s parasha, Tetzaveh, which goes into tremendous detail about the clothing worn by the Priesthood, how they were to be sewn, woven, and worn. We read about the linen breeches, the sashes, the headdress tied with a special sky blue chord, the decorative breastplate which held 12 stones representing the 12 tribes of Israel, and even the golden bells and pomegranates sewn into the hem of the skirt (I had one professor in Seminary who remarked that the High Priest was clearly the first person in history to have worn bell bottoms!). Not one piece of apparel is left out from this most extensive description, and when the High Priest walked into the room, not to mention his fellow priests, you knew who they were and what they stood for! They had a defining role in ancient Israelite worship and every piece of their clothing and attention to detail mattered! So I think there are certainly times when what you wear, and how you wear it, can speak volumes! And we all must be cognizant of the fact that context can very much shape a person’s perception. For instance, as a Rabbi I could never show up to a funeral in jeans and a t-shirt! However, I was recently asked about Shabbat morning services and dressing less formally, more comfortably—it was just this past Shabbat that we launched our first ever “Jews in Jeans,” quite a successful program! And I do think it is important as one sits in services with the community, attempting to absorb the spirit of Shabbat that one feels comfortable and at ease. After all, the prophet Isaiah insisted thousands of years ago that we should view the Sabbath as an Oneg, a delight! We should enjoy our spiritual experience and feel relaxed and at ease when coming to shul. If being able to wear clothes that are comfortable and less formal and stifling than what you would wear at work is an incentive for you to come to services, then I say do it! After all, I want every person here to feel at home when they are praying in the midst of our community –that is the very meaning of our motto here at OWHC –a house of prayer, a home for all. So may it be this and every Shabbat!

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Michael Stanger

Getting Real with the Rabbi- Egypt

2011-02-09T14:20:00.001-08:00

The news coming out of

Egypt

over the past several days has been quite distressing to say the least. We see footage of riots, people on horse and camel back brandishing sticks and clubs, soldiers everywhere and reports of journalists getting attacked. And of course the questions abound: should the

U.S.

become more involved or not? Should we stand by Mubarak, a long time

U.S.

and Israeli ally, or listen to the will of the people? And what happens if Mubarak is successfully overthrown? Who will take control of the largest Arab nation west of

Israel

? And what will that mean for U.S/Israeli/Egyptian relations?

Unfortunately there are no easy answers to any of these questions, and for now, all we can do is sit back and watch, wait and hope for the best possible outcome –for the people of Egypt, our brothers and sisters in Israel, and the entire middle east region. One thing to keep in mind however, is that whatever the outcome from all these street protests and calls for Mubarak to resign, Egypt may never be the same again, which is to say at least a sobering realization. Keep in mind Egypt was the very first Arab nation to make a peace treaty with

Israel

. Not being a political analyst I have no clear answer for what is best for

Egypt

at the present or what should, or could happen. But we do have to hope that in the end clearer heads prevail and groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood do not seize control.

In this week’s Torah reading, Terumah, we read about our ancient ancestors shortly after they had left –of all places—

Egypt

! The Torah reading goes into great detail about how the Tabernacle –the ancient portable religious structure known as the Mishkan in Hebrew is to be assembled, describing in full the measurements, materials and all the specifications that are to be employed in its design. But God says something very interesting about the construction of this very first national sacred space “V’asu Li Mikdash, V’Shachanti Bitocham” –Make for me a Tabernacle that I may dwell amongst them!” In other words, God does not want the Tabernacle built so that He could dwell there (any more than He needs to consumes the sacrifices we offered up)

No, God wanted us to build this sacred space so that He could then come and dwell amongst us! In essence, the very act of the people coming together, contributing their materials and working together in order to bring about the completion of the Tabernacle was part of God’s goal. Then He could dwell amongst us, once we learned to work together as a people, contributing for good and concretizing our worship together in one place and not in private or scattered individual shrines. That is nation building at its best, something we would need to learn as we traveled the desert, in hopes of establishing a homeland. Whatever the outcome, may the people of

Egypt

soon quell the violence, cease their protests, may both sides draw a compromise and together learn the art of nation building. May some form of democracy be established and allowed to take root so that all feel invested in their government, and are able to interact with the entire middle east region and contribute to world affairs. And may Egypt soon now peace, in their own borders and continued peace with our people, the land of Israel. Perhaps in this way God’s presence will be better felt, and the world will be a better place as a result.

Getting Real with the Rabbi- Scripture

2011-02-02T14:17:00.000-08:00

One of the things I have been doing for years is every time I start a new book I read the last page –just to see how it ends, how things are going to be set up. After all, who knows, maybe I will never get to finish the book, so why be deprived of a possible good ending? (I suspect that this type of foresightedness would somehow not translate the same way were one to use a Nook or a Kindle.) Speaking of books, know what the most widely read book in the world is? The Bible –the Holy Scriptures. Those of you out there in cyberspace land who are reading this also may recall that whenever I present the gift of the Tanakh to the B’nai Mitzvah child on Shabbat morning during services, I make the same statement –but that means paying attention as I deliver the B’nai Mitzvah charge, not an easy thing to do for a non-family member. Regardless of how often, or how many of us actually read the Scriptures cover to cover (or scroll to scroll as the case may be) it is one of the most fascinating books of literature ever composed, and I should know –trust me, I am not only a Rabbi, I was an English major in college!

And speaking of university, my brother in law is a professor of History and about a dozen years ago he and I found ourselves living in

Israel

right at the same time. Impressed by my rabbinical school studies and biblical knowledge he told me he was determined to read the entire Torah cover to cover –a feat of which I was happy to encourage him. Several weeks later, when I ran into him on a sunny Jerusalem street, I inquired as to how the challenge was coming along. And in his strong Canadian accent he confessed how frustrating it had gotten “man, I gotta tell you –I loved the book of Genesis and the first twenty chapters or so of Exodus, but now it has gotten so dry and technical what with all the laws and rituals, the details about building the Tabernacle in the desert. I am having a hard time plowing through it all!” And in truth he is not the first Jew to feel this way, many a B’nai Mitzvah student that I have worked with has become crestfallen when they learn the contents of their Torah reading, be it skin afflictions, menstruation or the intricate details of animal sacrifice –lessons that do not readily translate into juicy sermon material for a seventh grader!

What is interesting however about this week’s parasha, Mishpatim, is not that it marks an end to the traditional narrative style of story telling and begins the more formal and technical aspects of laws, rules and ritual that determine so much of the Torah’s relevance and yet so confounded my future brother in law. It is that midway through the parasha you happen upon the exact halfway point of all of Torah! Now just to clarify for a moment, there are at least three ways to divide the Torah: 1) by verses 2) by words 3) by letters. And in this week’s Torah reading, Exodus 22:27 we come upon that first way, the half way point of all the verses in all five books of Moses. And interestingly enough, what we find is the verse

“(if you take your neighbor’s garment as collateral) you must return it to him before sunset, it may be his only clothing, the sole covering for his skin, in what else shall he sleep? Therefore if he cries out to Me I will respond to him, for I am compassionate! (mid point) You shall not revile God, nor put a curse upon a chieftain among your people”

In the midst of all the laws, the rules and technicalities we are reminded that God has compassion for His people, and that we in turn must have understanding, respect and appreciation not just for God, but for those who today carry out His designated laws, be they Rabbis, teachers or judges. Furthermore God realizes that all laws and rulings are meant to be tempered with a modicum of mercy, otherwise what is the basis for having a legal system? That is focal point of the Torah –God is judgmental, but above all else merciful –Midat Din v’Rachamim. So perhaps wherever we find ourselves in the Torah there are lessons to be learned, about law, ethics and personal conduct, whether we start at the very beginning, or fast forward ahead to the very end, just to be certain how the story line concludes, the Torah is a document for life and has influenced not only our own people, but in many ways western civilization itself to this very day. May we all continue to grow and learn from the Torah, finding new insights, hidden meanings and discoveries. As it states in Pirkei Avot (the Ethics of the Fathers) 5:24 “Hafoch Bah v’Hafocha Bah, Dekula Vah” –Keep turning and turning it, for all is found within it!

Getting Real with the Rabbi- Tu B'Shevat

2011-01-20T10:42:00.000-08:00

Happy Tu’B’Shevat to all my readers, and thank you for taking the time to read what is my very first blog post ever written!!! As I have mentioned several times, it can be awfully hard to celebrate Tu’B’Shevat –the “Birthday of the Trees”– in the midst of winter (all the more so when we seem to be undergoing one of the worst winters on record!). Of course the festival is truly meant to be commemorated in the land of Israel, where presumably they are not experiencing as much snow and ice as we here on the North Shore seem to be inundated with, but still, one cannot escape the fact that it is the middle of the winter season, and spring still seems an insurmountable several weeks away.

But Tu’B’Shevat is not merely a “Jewish Arbor Day” as it has so easily been associated in song and celebration by a generation of school children. It is about being mindful of what you have, of taking stock of your inventory, so to speak. In ancient Israel, all fruit trees that ripened prior to the 15^th day of Shevat were to be ritually “tithed” (a tenth of produce sent to the Temple in Jerusalem that spring), while all fruit trees that ripened after that date were to be calculated for tithing purposes in the following year. A modern equivalent might be Tax Day, April 15^th–all income earned prior to January 1^st is taxable on that date, where any income received after January 1^st in not taxable until next April 15^th.

The fact that we continued to acknowledge Tu’B’Shevat even after the Temple was destroyed in 70 C.E. and our ancestors moved out of Israel heading full force into the diaspora is a testimony to how linked we feel to the land of Israel and the cultural shift of seasons. There may be snow on the grounds now, tons of it, as there was for our ancestors in Poland, Russia, Lithuania and wherever else, but we held on to our hope and belief that the snow would soon melt and the weather would turn warm, just as we would one day reclaim the land of Israel –the land of our people! Thankfully the latter has been answered, as we live in a time where we have our homeland and enjoy religious sovereignty, but it was not always that way. It is easy to complain about the snow and the cold; maybe we should be mindful of what we do have –a warm home to live in here, and a warm climate to visit whenever we want in our eternal homeland, the land of Israel!

A popular children’s song for Tu’B’Shevat begins HaSh’Kediah Porachat –the almond ripens and the sun shines. This is a reference to the almond tree being one of the first trees to blossom in Israel at this time. Surveying the grounds of the shul this morning I did not, unfortunately, notice any almond trees, but I did spot a lone rabbit out foraging for food –a pleasant reminder to me that nature was alive and well, even in the midst of so much snow and such a harsh winter. Let us use this time to appreciate all that we have, ways we can stay warm, remain healthy and beat the cold. We don’t have to forage for our own food or even grow it from the ground...and if we ever want to truly escape the cold air and feel some sun on our face, there is always a chance to visit Israel!
-Rabbi Michael Stanger