Have Faith in the Jewish Spirit

The other day I was picking what will probably be the last of my garden’s cherry tomatoes. It was a rather inconsequential harvest. Ten tomatoes. My mind wandered away from what I had hoped to be the restorative power of gardening to a more bountiful harvest in another place and time. I recalled traipsing through the tomato fields of a kibbutz near the Gaza border. Their cherry tomatoes were the best I had ever tasted.

Today, I can no longer savor their sweetness. Kibbutzniks are murdered. On Kibbutz Beeri alone one out of every ten members are dead. Field workers from Thailand and students from Nepal killed as well. In all 1,300 were murdered. 3000 injured. 150 taken hostage. We grieve for the dead. We pray for those injured—and the countless more traumatized. We hope for the hostages’ safe return.

The sheer inhumanity of Hamas is difficult to comprehend. The terrorists’ barbarity is indescribable…

This post continues on The Times of Israel.  

Dancing Heals the Soul

This Friday evening, we will celebrate the joyous holiday of Simhat Torah when we mark the conclusion of the Torah reading cycle and then its immediate beginning. We chant the last verses of Deuteronomy and the first verses of Genesis.

The cycle never stops. As soon as we conclude the reading, we begin it again. Torah defines our lives. It encircles our year.

And so, it is our custom to unroll the entire scroll around the sanctuary. It is an extraordinary site and one not to be missed. We are reminded that Torah defines us. We behold how Torah encircles us.

This holiday is also marked by additional music and song, celebration and dancing. Allow me to focus on dancing.

Everyone can grab the opportunity to dance on Simhat Torah. Everyone can grab hold of the Torah and start moving their feet. The hakafah, the circling of the sanctuary and dancing with the scrolls, can offer us much needed strength for the year ahead.

And yet, I wonder why people are often reticent to dance. We should take to heart the words of the Hasidic master, Rebbe Nachman of Bratslav. He said: “Get into the habit of dancing. It will displace depression and hardship.”

This is certainly what I believe. I admit. Sometimes it might appear that I have shpilkes on the bima. But my feet are moved by our tradition’s prayers. The music and songs overtake my legs. This is why I can often be found on the dance floor at the many simchas I am privileged to attend.

The joy overtakes me. It commands my feet to move. Rejoicing overwhelms my being.

Take this to heart. Dancing cures most ailments of the soul.

Get into the habit of dancing!

This Beautiful, Fragile Earth

The Hebrew month of Tishrei offers a flurry of holidays that come one right after another. It begins with Rosh Hashanah. This is soon followed by Yom Kippur. Tomorrow evening begins Sukkot and then a week later Simhat Torah. There is no rest from our celebrations.

On the High Holidays we spend our days in synagogue recounting our wrongs, apologizing to friends and family, and seeking to better ourselves. The faith that we can correct our failings is paramount to these days. It may not be easy, but it is possible.

This effort of bettering ourselves does not conclude with Yom Kippur. It is ongoing. And yet these holidays restore our hope that change is possible, and repair can be achieved. We leave these services with our faith in God not only restored but also in ourselves. We can do better.

And then, a few days later, we enter the sukkah. Whereas Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are inner directed, Sukkot turns our hearts outward. We are commanded to spend as much time as possible in these temporary booths unless of course it is raining. The joy of the holiday takes precedence over “dwelling in the sukkah” and so if the weather becomes intolerable, we eat dinner in our homes.

The High Holidays helps to restore our faith that we can control some aspects of our lives, that how we behave towards others is within our grasp. Sukkot, on the other hand, reminds us that life can be as fragile, and unpredictable, as the weather and these temporary booths in which we are directed to live.

Whether or not our sukkah will withstand the winds and rains is always a question. Whether we will be able to eat every dinner, or spend any late night, in the sukkah is anyone’s guess. (The weather app is not always right!) Life can be as unsettling as the weather. Life can be as delicate as this flimsy booth.

Sukkot is a reminder of life’s fragility. It is also a reminder that we are dependent on the earth. On Yom Kippur we spent hours and hours praying and singing, learning and celebrating in the comfort of our synagogue, and homes, that keeps the rain out (most of the time!), now our Sukkot holiday celebration is entirely dependent on the earth.

We do not know what is in store for us in the coming week.

And so, what are we to do?

Celebrate the gift of this holiday. Rejoice with family and friends. Take in the beautiful, full moon that will peer through the sukkah’s flimsy roof. And try as hard as we can to give thanks for the rain that nurtures the earth.

Rejoice in the gift, and fragility, of our beautiful earth.

Grieving for Friends

What follows is my meditation from the Yom Kippur Yizkor memorial service and the lessons I am learning from grieving for my friend Todd.

The Jewish tradition obligates us to mourn for these relations: parent, spouse, sibling and child. It demands that we recite Kaddish when we lose our mother or father, husband or wife, sister or brother, son or daughter. This is not a statement about how one feels. Whether we talk to our parent every day, or the relationship is fraught with tension Judaism says, “Mourn. Recite Kaddish.”

Obligation is the path our tradition offers us through the valley of the shadow of death. It is as if to say, when you feel lost, when you don’t know what else to do, hold on to these well-worn rungs to lift you forward. This sentiment is so strongly felt that some refuse to attend this Yizkor service if they are not obligated to mourn.

In January, I lost my friend. His death at the age of fifty-two remains a shock with which I still struggle. Todd and I shared many hours together, riding our bikes, running the trails or swimming in the sound. And so, when he died, I discovered that I did not know what to do. The mitzvah was gone. The road that I had offered others, the path that I explained to so many as offering a ladder to which to hold, was absent. I have spent the better part of these months contemplating the gap between these overwhelming and bewildering feelings of loss and the succinct and clear obligation to mourn. I grieve, but the path belongs to others.

I know many have lost loved ones this past year. I have seen your grief. I know as well that many have likewise lost friends. I have seen your tears at these funerals. I have seen you cry, and your nods, when the obligated child stands to mourn the parent who is the friend with whom you shared so many occasions. I have witnessed you struggle to hold the mourners in your arms even though your tears burn your cheeks. The tradition does not command us, “Say Kaddish.” Of course, we can. Of course, we can choose to obligate ourselves. I do not make much of the superstitions that suggest otherwise.

And yet I am left wondering. What if the obligation offers rescue? What if that path of commandment and observance offers at least guideposts along this long, tortured journey. They do not heal the pain. They do not explain the loss. They offer instructions when it is so unclear what to do.

Judaism organizes our lives around obligation. My heart is wrapped up in feelings.

And yet I know of no way forward but the prescribed path. I understand no journey without lengthy to do lists. “Leave a stone. Say Kaddish.” The heart will be assuaged. The hurt continues. At least now the hand and the mouth have their instructions. And they might serve as a balm to the grieving heart.

Say Kaddish. Leave a stone.

Standing with Israeli Protestors

What follows is my Yom Kippur morning sermon.

Fifty years ago, the armies of Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack on Israeli forces in the Sinai desert and Golan Heights. It was on this very day of Yom Kippur in 1973. Israel suffered terrible losses especially in those initial days. American Jews awakened to war. Rabbis hurriedly adjusted their Yom Kippur messages. Israeli soldiers on the front lines were ordered to break their fasts. Reservists’ names were read from the pulpit. In one synagogue, a young man stood when his name was called. His father embraced him and refused to let go. The rabbi descended from the bima and quietly said, “My friend, your son’s place is not here on this holy day.”

I recall my parents’ worry. I did not share their concern. At the age of nine I had already imbibed the legends of Israel’s bravado and its Six Day War success. I did not understand their fear. From day one I had confidence that Israel would be victorious in the face of even unimaginable odds. It was led by Golda Meir and Moshe Dayan after all. I believed Israel would prevail—quickly and decisively. The war lasted for nearly three terrible weeks. In the end, and in part because of an American airlift of supplies, Israel pushed the Egyptians beyond the Suez Canal and the Syrians from the Golan. Nearly 2700 Israelis were killed and over 7000 injured. The Egyptian and Syrian war dead were estimated in the tens of thousands. Our enemies attacked us on the holiest day of the year. We, however, persevered.

Or this is how we like to tell the story. This is how we like to hear the tale…

This post continues on The Times of Israel.

Gates Are Meant To Be Opened

What follows is my Yom Kippur evening sermon.

One of the highlights of visiting Israel is visiting Jerusalem. And one of the highlights of visiting Jerusalem is visiting the Old City. It never gets old, so to speak. There you can walk through the thin alleys of the Arab shuk, squeeze past Christian pilgrims going to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher or run ahead of Moslem worshippers rushing to afternoon prayers at the Al Aqsa Mosque. You can grab a fresh squeezed orange juice from a vendor or argue over the price of T-shirts with a hawker. You can wait in line for a falafel, explore the archaeological remains below the city’s streets and along with thousands and thousands of other Jews touch the stones of what remains of the ancient Temple. There, you can place your hands on the Kotel, the Western Wall.

To get to these sites one typically enters the city through Zion Gate. Other times we walk through the busy Jaffa Gate or even through the Dung Gate depending on where the tour bus finds parking. There are actually eight such gates. Dung sits adjacent to the Arab town of Silwan and is where the trash was taken out from the city in ancient times. The path to Jaffee Gate that before 1967 was no man’s land is now lined with a shopping mall. And Zion is still pockmarked with bullet holes from the fierce fighting that occurred there during the 1948 war. I am particularly fond of this gate. It retains its ancient bend so that you cannot walk straight through, and I often have to jockey for position with a car that wants to make its way out.

Long ago this bend served as an added defense against invaders. Just as the cars cannot speed through the gate so too foot soldiers had difficulties running straight through. This bend is also reminiscent of the judicial benches built into the gates in ancient times. It is where people took their cases and judges sat, rendering judgements. It is a common biblical motif and one that is taken up by many of our prophets. Amos shouts: “Hate evil and love good,/ And establish justice in the gate.” (Amos 5) He meant this literally. Judgement sits at the edges. Justice stands at the periphery.

I have been thinking about gates and the space they occupy in our lives. They are the boundary between us and them, between our perceptions of safety and danger. They are the liminal passageway through which we render daily judgments about what is ok and what is not. We organize our lives around such gates.

In the St Louis of my youth, I grew up in a subdivision called Lac du Bois, a fancy sounding French name for Lake of the Woods. Recall that it is not as we say St Louis but “Saint Louis.” Or that the small town in which Lac du Bois is located is not pronounced as we do Creve Coeur, but the French “Creve Coeur.” Later I can tell you the story about the Native American princess and her broken heart for which the town is named, but these days I am thinking about how intimidating those subdivision gates might appear to others. And how all these names, and all this language, makes some insiders and others, outsiders.

There is judgment in a name. There is exclusion in language. Even though the subdivision’s gates were always opened they remained locked to some.

This evening I wish to meditate on the inadvertent gates we too often construct. This is the Yom Kippur confession I offer.

In Jerusalem’s Old City the gates are obvious. In our lives they are hidden to those who sit inside. We need to shine a light on these gates and acknowledge them. Let us dwell on these gates and most especially on those that provide us with unknowing reassurance but to others exclusion.

This all became glaringly apparent to me as I prepared for a wedding this past June. Every wedding is of course different. Every couple is unique and every ceremony joyous, but David and Max’s wedding was unlike any I had officiated at in my thirty plus years of rabbi-ing. David and Max are gay. They are two grooms. It is not that I refused to officiate at gay or lesbian weddings years ago, but no one had asked. No congregant had invited me to do so. I was grateful for the invitation.

We studied the ceremony together. I pored over the tradition’s language that I have nearly memorized. “Mi adir al hakol, mi baruch al hakol… hu y’varech chatan v’kalah—who blesses the groom and bride.” I may have unlatched the gate, but Max and David threw it open. The ceremony’s gates are everywhere. “Hattan v’kalah. Bride and groom.” They appear on nearly every page. Should I say, “reim ha-ahuvim—loving companions” in its place or “hattan v’hattan—groom and groom?” We spoke openly about their meanings. We decided to interchange both terms. What about the vows? The list appeared lengthy. They forgave my gaffe when I, in one of our preparatory meetings, asked, “How many people are in the bridal party?” The language of yesterday is carved in our brains. It does not, however, have to be etched in our hearts. I rejoice in their love. It was a splendid and joyous occasion. Mazel tov David and Max! Thank you for the teachings.

I am left wondering how many locked gates are arrayed before us. How many does our inheritance arrange while we sit unknowing and unaware within its walls? Our language and how we idealize relationships can be doorways to openness or locked gates turning people away. In our traditions’ efforts to make us feel like insiders it may make more people than we realize feel like outsiders.

I am holding on to the symbolism of the huppah. It is open on all sides. We usually explain it this way. The huppah is open to symbolize that a couple’s home should be welcoming to others. It should include not just friends but family. It should most especially be open to the new family each partner is joining. The couple is now one family and no longer two. But perhaps we should see the huppah’s openness in a different manner. It is open to all who wish to sanctify their commitment and love. It has no gates. It offers no judgments!

Reverend Victoria Safford, an author and minister, writes: “Our mission is to plant ourselves at the gates of Hope—not the prudent gates of Optimism, which are somewhat narrower; nor the stalwart, boring gates of Common Sense; nor the strident gates of Self-Righteousness…. nor the cheerful, flimsy garden gate of ‘Everything Is Gonna Be All Right.’ But a different, sometimes lonely place… the piece of ground from which you see the world both as it is and as it could be, as it will be….” Open the gates of hope. Every loving relationship offers promise. Place your faith in hope. Too often we say things like, “That’s not really marriage.” Or “That’s not what God wants.” But how can we be so sure? We shut others out to our own demise. When we close those gates, we banish hope from our own souls.

Back to neighborhoods. Recently I installed a ring doorbell. It’s awesome. I can see when packages are delivered. I can get notified when someone is at my door, even when I am not home. I did not know about another one of its features called “Neighbor,” but it confirmed my love-hate relationship with technology. Before I figured out how to turn these Neighbor notifications off, I was receiving frequent alerts that said for example, “Man carrying plastic bag and when I didn’t answer he tried to enter my backyard. He lurked around my house for about 45 minutes.” Or the following, “Man carrying green bag and smoking and walking into yards and snooping around property.” Everyone is suspect.

Keep the doors locked. Scan the property for anyone who does not look like us. Don’t get me wrong. I am not trying to critique the need for us to have security or ignore the frightening increase in antisemitism, or the daily occurrences of violent gun attacks in our country, or to suggest if you are home alone that you should fling the door open to a stranger, but not everyone on the other side of the camera or the other side of the gate is dangerous. We are so worried about letting the wrong people in that we may be keeping the right people out. Just because they are on the outside does not mean they do not belong on the inside. Just because they are on the other side of our gates does not mean they are a threat, and that we should not welcome them in. The Torah is clear: “Love the stranger. V’ahvtem et ha-ger.” (Deuteronomy 10) And who is the stranger? It is the person who we feel is distant but stands right nearby. It is the person who sits just outside those gates. That is why judges sat at the edges of the city. We echo the prophets and affirm their message. How we respond to those on the periphery is a measure of our righteousness.

We have erected filters, whether they are the tradition’s eyes or technology’s cameras, through which we look out into the world. Take down those gates. We should caricature less. We should judge far less frequently. If we would take the time to sit across the table from others who are not yet friends, we might fill our hearts with hopefulness. And I am certain our souls will respond with gratitude. They will shout words of thanks.

A story. A few years ago, when traveling with Ari in Laos (I know not your typical rabbinic field trip), Ari convinced me not only to meet him in Laos but I also that we should sign up for a hike through the jungle. The destination for the hike was a remote Hmong village. I was quite trepidatious. I offered up many roadblocks before saying yes to the hike. I had a multitude of worries, chief among them the availability of gluten free food in the jungle. Ari opened the gate, and we walked through. Soon after the start of the hike, another traveler heard Ari’s unmistakable Long Island accent and asked, “Where on Long Island are you from?” We answered, “Huntington.” Turns out Rob grew up in Huntington and had just moved to of all places, Missouri. A friendship with Rob and his partner Melissa was born. Nowhere in our planning did we imagine the following, “Go to Laos, hike the jungle, discover a fellow Long Islander and become longtime friends.” I almost did not go! The gate is opened. Serendipity walks through. The soul is renewed.

When we open those gates, venture beyond their edges, and push past our fears, we encounter the unexpected. We welcome renewal. Too often fear stands in our way. It need not rule our souls. We forget. Gates are meant to be opened!

On this Yom Kippur let us open the gates. On this day when we seek to better ourselves, and when we recount most especially our frequent misuse of words, let us acknowledge those hurtful comments and inopportune phrases we too often utter. Let us work to throw these gates of “You don’t belong here” and “That’s not what marriage is meant to be” open. These gates exclude some we are meant to include. These bolted doors offer judgment where understanding and compassion will better serve not only others but us as well. We are very good at using these gates to keep others out. We are very good at using language to exclude people. We say things like, “That’s forbidden. This is not your place.” Or “Get off my property. They make me uncomfortable.”

Too often we think gates are only meant to be closed. We think they are all about protecting us. They are meant to be opened. They are intended to be invitations for welcome. Open the gates to the unexpected. Serendipity restores the soul. Hope is burnished by compassion.

A community is a hodgepodge of differences. Let’s sit like the judges of yesteryear at the periphery. Rather than offer their judgements let’s wave people in. Let us embrace others even if they don’t always look like us, or talk like us, or think like us, or act like us.

Soon we will be celebrating the holiday of Sukkot when we are supposed to welcome everyone into these temporary booths. The sukkah has no doors. Its walls, and its flimsy roof through which we must be able to see the stars, must all have a temporary quality. This temporariness enhances the sukkah’s openness. Its feel is akin to a tent. The sukkah cannot be so strong so as to be able to withstand a storm. When it rains, we are commanded to leave the sukkah and go inside to our house. The sukkah is too open to stand up against bad weather. Without doors and sturdy walls, without a roof that keeps the rain out, things do feel flimsy. Openness feels threatening. And so, what do we do? We bolt our doors. We erect formidable defenses, some in plain sight and others not even seen by ourselves.

We turn our focus on these locks and these gates. We soon forget how to open them. We forget even how to unlock them. We lose sight of how to invite others in. We look only within and only without through lenses and peep holes. Our vision narrows. We lose sight of those who sit on the edges. How do we now unlock the gates? How can we embrace the openness of the sukkah and not lose faith because of its apparent flimsiness?

Back to Jerusalem. “Rabbi Elazar said: Since the day the Temple was destroyed the gates of prayer are locked and prayer is not accepted as it once was. Yet even though these gates of prayer are locked, the gates of tears are never locked. One who cries before God may rest assured that these prayers will always be answered.” (Babylonian Talmud Brachot 32b) Tears open the gates if only we can hear them, if only we can see the pain that sits nearby.

Hear the cry of our forefather. I imagine that when Abraham was about to sacrifice his son Isaac on Mount Moriah, on the very spot where the Temple once stood and below which we can now touch the Western Wall’s stones, Isaac shed tears as he looked up at his father who was clutching the knife, lifted up above his neck ready to sacrifice him. Abraham was so zealous in his pursuit of what he believed to be God’s command that the angel had to shout his name twice to stay his hand. “Avraham! Avraham!—Abraham! Abraham!” Finally, Abraham looks up from his son and saw the ram which he then sacrificed in place of Isaac. Perhaps this was God’s intention from the very beginning. Isaac represents the hope and promise of the future. How could God want Abraham to sacrifice his son? If you don’t look, if you don’t open the gates of hope, you cannot really see. After slaughtering the ram, Abraham names the place, “Adonai yay-ra-eh—God sees.” (Genesis 22) Too often we are like that zealous Abraham slamming those gates shut, unwilling to see the person standing nearby and unable to see the tears before us. We close the door to hope.

If we do not see the person standing on the periphery, then we too are likewise blinded by what we believe. If we do not see the gates that bar others from feeling welcome, then we are just as zealous. How do we help to make these gates more visible so that we can unlock them? How can we no longer be blinded by zealousness? There is only one answer. And that is to sit with others and listen. It is to learn how others feel. It is to imagine how our words might sound to their ears. It is to open with compassion and invitation rather than exclusion and judgment.

According to tradition when the messiah comes to rescue the world the mashiach will come first to Jerusalem and begin the messianic redemption in the Old City. And through which of Jerusalem’s eight gates will the messiah enter the city? Shaar HaRachamim—the gate of compassion. Here is the funny thing about that gate. Today that gate is literally blocked up. It is filled with stones from floor to ceiling, all cemented together. The gate of compassion is sealed shut.

That seems the perfect metaphor for our age. We spend so much time erecting gates in our effort to keep others out, or to say people don’t belong, rather than the few moments it takes to unlatch them. Gates are meant to be opened.

The one gate that can unlock hope is blocked. The gate of compassion beckons if we but unlatch it. We are called not to judge. We are asked to welcome and invite. Only then will the messiah enter. Only then will redemption occur. Only then will hope return to our hearts.

Be Honest with Yourself

A story about Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev, the eighteen century Hasidic master.

Rabbi Levi Yitchak was once walking down the street on his way to Yom Kippur services. On this day we are commanded to fast and seek repentance. He happened upon an acquaintance who was enjoying a hearty morning breakfast.

“My son,” the rabbi said softly, “Have you forgotten that today is the Yom Kippur fast?” The man shook his head, smiled, and said, “No. I have not forgotten at all.” Levi Yitzchak hesitated for a moment and responded, “I see. And I assume then that you have a weak heart or must be worried your fasting will be harmful to your health.”

The acquaintance quickly assured the rabbi that this was far from the case and said, “I am in excellent health. My heart is strong.” Hearing this response, Levi Yitzchak didn’t shout or rebuke his friend or even storm away in anger. He did not even show disappointment.

Instead, the rabbi beamed with joy and shouted toward heaven. “Master of the universe! Look how righteous are your people! This Jew here, even though he is not fasting, is so good at heart that he refuses to lie about it.”

Rabbi Levi Yitzhak saw the good instead of the bad. Rather than focusing on the negative, he saw the positive. Let us likewise see the positive in others.

And let us likewise take an honest accounting of our own souls. The Yom Kippur fast is a means to an end. It points us in the direction of bettering ourselves and improving our relationships.

This begins with an honest accounting of our own lives.

Rebalancing Our Lives

What follows is my Rosh Hashanah morning sermon.

Let me begin with two personal stories.

This August Susie and I celebrated our thirty-fifth wedding anniversary. And I share this not so that you can offer us mazel tovs and congratulations—although, thank you very much—but instead as an illustration. We celebrated not with gifts—despite last year’s sermon, but with the loving embrace of family and of course with the requisite Facebook and Instagram posts. Given that I am married to Susie—and of course tagged her in these photos—my posts received hundreds and hundreds of likes and comments. For a very brief moment, I felt like the center of the universe and as if the world revolved around us.

I am thinking of Simcha Bunim, the Hasidic legend, who said, “Carry in one pocket the saying, ‘For my sake was the world created.’”

Story number two. In June, a friend invited me to sail from Bermuda to New York after he raced his boat to the island in the biannual Marion-Bermuda race. I admit. I provided far more conversational know-how than sailing expertise to Robert and his fellow sailors. I also admit I had little notion of what I had signed up for. Until a few weeks before I never even looked at a map to discover that Bermuda sits all by itself way out there in the Atlantic over 700 miles from home. As we left Bermuda the experienced sailors went over the safety procedures: how to wear the safety harness, how to clip yourself to the deck, how to inflate the life raft (make sure it is tied to the boat before pulling the inflation cord) and other such details. After a few minutes of this talk, I said, “Worst case scenario the Coast Guard will come and rescue us.” And they responded, “Those Coast Guard helicopters can only go 150 miles from the coast—hence the name Coast Guard. We are on our own out here. It is just us and this big ocean. If we have to abandon ship,” they said, “we are on that raft until another boat responds to our distress call, changes course and picks us up.”

As the sun set, Bermuda faded in the distance. In the course of five days, there were moments of sheer terror when in the middle of the night twelve-foot waves crashed over the boat, rain pelted us from every direction and lightning struck all around us. And there were other moments of pure delight when the boat seemed to sail almost effortlessly. I thought then of ancient voyagers for whom this was the only mode of travel. I imagined my hero Yehudah Halevi’s journey from his native Spain to the land of Israel in 1140. He writes: “The sea is the color of the sky—they are two seas bound together. And between these two, my heart is a third sea, as the new waves of my praise surge on high.” (The Poet Imagines His Voyage) As my heart, as well as my stomach, surged, I gained a newfound appreciation for our ancestors who endured untold difficulties to reach the promised land or for my grandparents who suffered in steerage to reach our country’s shores.

And finally, there were moments of absolute wonderment and awe. We were alone and at one with the sea. We saw two other boats, and they were cargo ships, until sighting Montauk. Even though the ocean is ferocious it is also so vast and oh, so extraordinarily beautiful. It was just ocean and sky. The waves give voice to more poems. Pablo Neruda, the 1971 Nobel Prize winner, writes: “I need the sea because it teaches me./ I don’t know if I learn music or awareness,/ if it’s a single wave or its vast existence,/ or only its harsh voice or its shining suggestion of fishes and ships./ The fact is that until I fall asleep,/ in some magnetic way I move in/ the university of the waves.” (The Sea)

Simcha Bunim again. He says, “Carry in the other pocket the saying, ‘I am only dust and ashes.’” And it is this pocket about which I want to dwell this morning for that is the feelings I discovered on that sailboat.

My question is how do we inculcate such feelings of wonderment and awe without going to sea? How do we instill in our hearts an appreciation of the vastness and grandeur of this world? How do we train our souls to feel that our earth is beautiful and precious, fragile and majestic? How do we create these feelings of awe? In terms of the balancing act between the two pockets of which Simcha Bunim speaks I think we are doing a really, really good job of creating this feeling that the world was created for me and not such a good job of teaching I am only dust and ashes. You don’t have to be married to Susie to garner hundreds of likes. Anyone can do it. Just ask my students. You should not have to go on a sailing adventure, and throw up over the rail, to figure out that the world is awesomely vast, and I am so very, very small. (That’s not a height joke.)

So here are the lessons I learned from the university of the waves. I offer three simple suggestions for how to rebalance our lives and rediscover I am only dust and ashes. #1. Go explore the natural world. Get out there. Find your path to nature. It’s simple. Join us on our synagogue’s seasonal hikes at Sagamore Hill. These are not challenging hikes, but they are nearby and there’s plenty there to take in. There is the beautiful Long Island Sound. It is different every season. No matter how many times I walk that sandy trail to the water’s edge it is never the same. It could be high tide or low. The water can reach the bottom of the wooden bridge or not. Teddy Roosevelt loved the natural world and left us this gift right here in our own backyard.

Go and visit any one of our country’s extraordinary national parks. They are an unbelievable treasure, and they are indescribably awesome. This summer I ventured to Utah and went to Zion and Arches national parks. At Zion it is as if God painted different hues of red, orange, yellow and gold on the canyons’ walls and at Arches chiseled perfect stone canopies under which to find shade. I was flabbergasted by these parks’ beauty and grandeur. Take your children there. Nature offers a new discovery every single day if we but open our eyes to it. Or if we open our ears to it. Open your windows. Listen to the sounds of insects after the sun just sets, how the night comes alive with noise. Take in the chirping of birds as the sun begins to rise and a new day begins.

Too often we view nature as something to be conquered or tamed. Think about the language we use. If you love to mountain bike, then it is high praise to say, shredding the trail. If you are skier, then it is positive to say that you are tearing up the slope. Even our language does violence to the earth. Don’t get me wrong. I love my sports. I love your sports. (And apologies to the many golfers among us, but those poor little birdies you keep hitting.) I think such sports are great, especially those that bring us out into our world. But let’s pause and think about how we interact with the world. Too often our words are about how we control nature and how we successfully use it for our enjoyment and our accomplishments. We say things such as, “You crushed it. I killed it.” That’s not how we should be thinking about the earth.

Back to the university. The thing about sailing is that the wind often determines the path. We cannot always carve it the way we want. I exclaim with the Psalmist: “Let the heavens rejoice and the earth exult; let the sea and all within it thunder, the fields and everything in them exult; then shall all the trees of the forest shout for joy.” (Psalm 96) The earth shouts for joy each and every day if we but listen, if we but stop and look. Go, explore the natural world. It is teeming with life. It is overflowing with joy. It is waiting to be discovered. Slow down. Listen. Look. Tear up less. Take in more. Find your path to nature.

Suggestion #2. Reclaim Shabbat as a moment to be at one with nature. Too often we think that Shabbat is only what we do here in the synagogue. It is the prayers that we sing. It is about the services. Or it is about the foods that we eat. Love that hallah. And especially love that wine. Shabbat is more importantly about our connection with nature. According to the Torah it is the day that God rested from making everything. Listen to the Bible’s words. “The heaven and the earth were finished, and all their array. On the seventh day God finished the work that had been undertaken: God ceased on the seventh day from doing any of the work.” Vayakhulu hashamayim v’haaretz. (Genesis 2) There is a sense that God not only rested on that first Shabbat but looked back at the work of the prior six days. Shabbat is an opportunity to take in God’s artistry—not ours. We are to breathe in the majesty of this day. We are to be at one with nature. We need to reclaim Shabbat for Reform Jews. Let us not think of it as a litany of forbidden don’ts but instead as an affirmation of nature.

Speaking of those don’ts the best part of the tradition’s prohibition against driving is the insistence on walking. I know it is impractical and I am not planning on walking from Huntington to our synagogue, but there is something about walking as opposed to driving. When we walk, we become better aware of our surroundings. The drive is about getting from point A to point B in the quickest and most efficient way. It is about not getting stuck in traffic or delayed at a light. The drive is harried and rushed. There is so much to do, so many tasks to squeeze into a Saturday. I have to get to the market, get this child to soccer practice and then another to the bat mitzvah party. There’s no time.

The walk is slow and refreshing. Even on my runs I am plagued by monitoring my pace and bettering my effort from my previous attempts. The walk is the antidote to this plague. Think about this. That Hannah Senesh song that our cantor sings so beautifully, “Eli Eli—my God, my God, I pray that these things never end. The sand and the sea. The rush of the waters. The crash of the heavens. The prayer of humanity.” is not really called “Eli, Eli,” but instead “Halichah L’Kasariya—A Walk to Caesarea.” It is not about so much about God but instead about discovering God in nature and in particular on the beach when going for a walk heading to a destination. It is about the unintended discovery of God when setting out for somewhere else. The intention of her walk appears to be to get somewhere. And then the serendipity of a poem appears. And there Senesh found not just God but the intimate “my God—Eli.”

Carve out a moment on Shabbat. It is impossible to imagine that we can do this every day in our busy lives. But at least one day a week, go for a walk—with family or by yourself. Leave the phone at home or if you must because you view it as a necessary safety device, turn it on airplane mode.

And this brings me to suggestion #3. Not so long-ago airplane mode actually meant a respite from emails, text messages and the incessant notifications on our phones but now there is Wi-Fi at 30,000 feet and it’s free on many flights. And this was perhaps the greatest lesson from my sailing adventure and the university I attended for those five days. In the middle of the ocean there is no cell service. It is kind of like that spot on Northern Boulevard at the bottom of the hill in Laurel Hollow except much bigger and lasting not minutes but days. Guess what. The synagogue managed without my constant communication. My family survived without my daily “I love you’s.” and I without theirs. My friends organized bike rides without me.

And more importantly, I survived and managed without knowing up to date news alerts about Israel or Ukraine, the White House or Mar-a Lago. I survived without seeing Shira’s or Ari’s latest Instagram posts or without knowing which East African country Ari was in at that moment. I managed—and my home managed—without being able to check the many Wi-Fi enabled devices I have installed. Of course, we had a satellite phone for emergencies, but thankfully there was no such need. The funny thing is that when you are hundreds of miles out of cellphone range, a lot less seems like an emergency. Our phones make everything appear like an emergency. A friend looks up from her phone and exclaims, “Did you know that Bonnie is on a cruise?” I look up from my phone in the middle of dinner and shout, “Oh my God, they’re forecasting heavy rains for tomorrow.”

On the sailboat, it was only the big, blue ocean and us. It was only the wind and the waves, the sun or the clouds, the moon or the stars and six small human beings on a boat that appeared ever smaller as the days progressed. Technology is pushing us away from nature just when the world desperately needs us to get more acquainted with it. There are many answers to this summer’s climate shocks and what we might do to lessen climate change, but they all begin in the same place. Become more attuned to the natural world. And that starts in the simplest of places, disconnecting from our phones and unplugging from technology. Very little of what we think is an emergency is really an emergency.

People believe the internet expands our horizons but in actuality it shrinks our circle down to the self. I have seen my students sit around a table in silence as they all stare into their screens. They are present but not really. One day this past year my students were hanging out before class started and taking pictures of themselves and I thought they were taking so many pictures. And so, I asked, “Is there ever a day when you don’t take a picture of yourself.” The look I received in response told it all. They thought it was the strangest question they have ever heard. In unison, and while still swiping through their pictures to see which was the most flattering of themselves, they responded, “No.” This struck me as a revelation. I was dumfounded. They take hundreds of pictures of themselves every day! I remain bewildered.

Again, we are doing a really good job at “For my sake was the world created” and a poor job, if any job at all, of teaching “I am only dust and ashes. Thus suggestion #3. Disconnect from technology even if only for an hour-long walk. Let me be honest. I am preaching to myself just as much as to others. This is a plea to own soul as well as to others. I am attached to my phone. It lives by my side. It connects me to a son who lives in a far-off country, to parents who live in a distant city, a brother who lives a plane ride away and every one of you. And yet it also interferes with becoming attuned with the natural world. It is a distraction when we should become more immersed with the outdoors. Mary Oliver, the incomparable poet of the natural world, who died only a few years ago, teaches that attention is the beginning of devotion. She writes: “Teach the children. We don’t matter so much but the children do… Give them the fields and the woods and the possibility of the world salvaged from the lords of profit. Stand them in the stream, head them upstream, rejoice as they learn to love this green space they live in, its sticks and leaves and then the silent, beautiful blossoms. Attention is the beginning of devotion.” (Upstream)

We think we can master our lives. We devote ourselves to establishing routines. We organize our days around detailed schedules. We believe nature can be controlled or perhaps harnessed or that technology will rescue us from the damage we are inflicting on our planet. Instead, we need to take a step back and start at square one. We need to become attuned to the natural world. I should not have had to go to sea to figure this all out. I should not have to travel to the West’s national parks to discover this. Beauty and grandeur are right here in our backyards. Attention is the beginning of devotion.

I don’t have it all figured out, but I can say that this summer has been clarifying. I did not set sail expecting these discoveries. I did not hike the trails of Zion and Arches National Parks expecting to gain an even greater appreciation of my own backyard garden. This summer blessed me with these adventures. I sailed. I walked. I have changed. We need to let go of technology a little more. We need to reclaim Shabbat if but momentarily. We need explore the natural world and become attentive to its rhythms. I am but a tiny speck in our vast and embattled world.

Rabbi Simcha Bunim teaches: Every person should have two pockets. In one pocket should be a piece of paper saying: "For my sake was the world created.” When one is feeling disheartened and lowly, reach into this pocket and take out this paper and read it. In the other pocket should be a piece of paper saying: "I am only dust and ashes." When one is feeling too proud, reach into this pocket and take out this paper and read it. (Martin Buber, Tales of the Hasidim Later Masters)

For years I thought this teaching was about achieving the proper balance between it’s all about me and it’s all about the world. These days I am thinking we are out of whack, and we need to rebalance ourselves. While I am all for self-confidence and building up self-esteem, we have to expand our horizon of concern to the very trees that give us life and the ocean that nurtures us. The answer is to get out there and experience this world. Let us instill in our hearts a love for the natural world.

Say less “For my sake was the world created” and more often “I am only dust and ashes.” Our soul depends on it. Our world depends on it.

New Beginnings

Jimmy Buffett once said, “I’m not the best singer.  I’m not the best guitarist.  But I’m the best Jimmy Buffett.”

On the High Holidays we reflect on the memories of those we mourn.  We not only dwell on the lessons they offered us but on working to become the best versions of ourselves.  We improve our lives by refining our character.   How can we do better?   

We begin by approaching others. We offer apologies to those we have wronged.  We grant forgiveness to those who have slighted us.

No one is completely righteous.  And no one is wholly evil.  Most of us spend are days hovering around the middle ground, struggling to accumulate more good deeds than bad. 

We say, “I am in such a rush!  I am not letting another car in front of me.”  Other times, we wave another driver on to the busy road.  There are times when we embrace family we have not seen in years.  And then moments when we get angry with loved ones.   There are times when we are short tempered.  And then others when we offer a kind word to a stranger. 

Our days are filled with countless ordinary acts.  Some are generous.  Others, we realize upon reflection, are short sighted and ill advised.  To be human is a gift and a struggle.  We exist in companionship with others.  Sometimes we are kind.  Other times we cannot summon the strength that kindness seems to demand.

Rosh Hashanah is the corrective to this demand.  It does not wipe the slate clean, but it does offer an opportunity to reflect and ask, “How can I do better?  Where have I failed?  How might I realize my God-given potential?  How might I bring an extra measure of happiness and joy, kindness and generosity to this world of ours?” 

Rosh Hashanah offers an opportunity to change. 

Everyone can do better.

These High Holidays celebrate the potential for new beginnings.

Jimmy Buffett again.   “Don't try to explain it, just bow your head/ Breathe in, breathe out, move on.”

Hidden Goodness

There is a legend about thirty-six righteous individuals who are so extraordinarily good and noble that the world is sustained by their deeds and by their deeds alone. They are called the Lamed Vavniks (the Hebrew letters lamed and vav add up to thirty-six). Crucial to this legend is the fact that their identities must always remain obscured. If but one of their names is revealed, another must take his (or her) place. Otherwise, the world might teeter and even collapse.

It is fascinating to contemplate that our well-being is placed in the hands of a few righteous individuals. Even more significant is the fact that their identities must remain concealed. Why is it so important that the Lamed Vavniks’ names remain hidden? Why is it so crucial that no one can know who they are?

It is because the world requires hidden sparks of goodness.

Doing good should not be predicated on recognition or reward but instead on the needs of others, on the requirements of the world at large. That is the message of the Lamed Vavniks. They do good for one reason and one reason alone. The world needs it. Their recognition is insignificant. Their reward remains in God’s hands. The Torah teaches: “The secret things belong to the Lord our God.” (Deuteronomy 29)

The Hasidic rebbe, Menahem Mendle of Kotzk opines: “The world thinks that a tzaddik nistar—a hidden righteous person—is a person who conceals his (or her) righteousness and his (or her) good deeds from others. The truth, however, is that a tzaddik nistar is one whose righteousness is hidden and concealed from him (or herself), and who has no idea whatsoever that he (or she) is righteous.”

How different the world might be if good was so ordinary that even the doer remained unaware of its goodness.

How extraordinary the world might become if recognition and reward were not part of our motivation or calculus but instead doing righteous deeds.

Ancient Guidance for Today’s Challenges

President Trump has now been indicted four times, twice in federal court and twice in state courts. This unprecedented occurrence will occupy the news for some time. The divisions among Americans will grow. The controversies will simmer. And so, I am thinking not about these events but instead about the Torah’s words.

As soon as the Israelites enter the land, they are instructed to build an altar on which to give thanks. They are to acknowledge their history of wandering. “My father was a wandering Aramean.” (Deuteronomy 26) And then they are to give voice to the land’s bounty. “I now bring the first fruits of the soil which You, Adonai, have given me.”

The first task is to recall our history and then to give thanks. We acknowledge God’s beneficence.

The second is to build a reminder to the laws that will govern our lives.

We are instructed as follows: “As soon as you have crossed the Jordan into the land that Adonai your God is giving you, you shall set up large stones. Coat them with plaster and inscribe upon them all the words of this Torah.” (Deuteronomy 27)

I have difficulty imagining stones large enough to contain all the Torah’s words, but the intention seems clear. Don’t ever forget the laws. Let them be inscribed before your eyes. The Torah makes its philosophy crystal clear. It is these laws which enable you to live on the land.

Even the king is subject to these laws. When God acquiesces to the people’s demand for a king, God exacts one condition. The ruler must not only be bound by these laws but have these always before him. “When the king is seated on his royal throne, he shall have a copy of this Torah written for him... Let it remain with him and let him read in it all his life, so that he may learn to revere Adonai his God, to observe faithfully every word of this Torah as well as these laws.” (Deuteronomy 17)

Remember the laws. Everyone is beholden to the law.

Never forget your history. Recall you were once homeless wanderers. Now you are blessed to have a home.

Always give thanks. Everything begins with gratitude.

The words of Torah offer solace.

The Torah continues to offer guidance.

Look Away from the Bad

The Torah admonishes us to wipe out our enemies, most especially the Amalekites who attacked our ancestors, killing the Israelite children, weak and infirm. So despised were their actions that even the Amalekites’ memory is to be expunged from the annals of history. How one blots out their memory while remembering their infamy is a mystery, but the command remains clear. “You shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!” (Deuteronomy 25)

And so, it comes as surprise that the Egyptians who enslaved us and embittered our ancestors’ lives and whose ruthlessness is the stuff of our Passover tale, are treated quite differently. The Torah commands: “You shall not abhor an Egyptian, for you were a stranger in that land.” (Deuteronomy 23)

The medieval commentators are likewise perplexed. Rashi (1040-1105) adds, “Even though they cast your children into the river!” And then he responds to his own bewilderment. Our years in Egypt ended with oppression and slavery. They began, however, hundreds of years earlier when Joseph and his brothers were rescued from famine. Rashi concludes: “They were your hosts in time of need. Although they sinned against you do not abhor them.”

Is this the Torah’s counsel? Remember the good and forget the bad?

During this season of repentance when we wish to turn our hearts toward others, when our most earnest prayer is to forgive and be forgiven, I am wondering if we heed this advice. Recall the good done in years past. Forgive the more recent slights—however numerable they may appear.

Moses Maimonides (1138-1204) adds: “If we find a person in trouble, whose assistance we once enjoyed, or from whom we once received some benefit, even if that person has subsequently done evil to us, we must bear in mind their previous good conduct.” (Guide of the Perplexed III:42)

Herein lies the Torah’s wisdom. If we are commanded to look past the wrongs done by the Egyptians, how much the more so those nearer to us and those who were perhaps once most dear to us?

Look past recent wrongs. Let grudges float away.

Hold on to the good once done for you—even if it seems like lifetimes ago.

Lean into Maimonides’ counsel: “The Torah has taught us how far we must extend this principle of favoring those who are near to us, and of treating kindly everyone with whom we have some relationship, even if they have offended or wronged us; even if they are very bad, we must have some consideration for them.”

Fill your heart with the good. Blot out the wrongs.

Measuring Our Legacy

Many are familiar with legend of Rip Van Winkle who sleeps through a generation of historic changes, falling asleep with the American colonies subject to English rule and waking to discover a free United States of America. Thousands of years earlier, the Talmud offers a similar story. It is the story of Honi, the Circle Maker. Here is his tale.

One day, Honi the Circle Maker, was walking along the road. He saw a man planting a carob tree. Honi said to him, “How many years does it take for a carob tree to bear fruit?” The man responded, “Seventy years.”

Honi then asked him, “How do you know if you will live another seventy years and taste the tree’s fruit?” The man said to him, “I found a world full of carob trees. Just as my ancestors planted for me, so I plant for my children.” Honi then sat down and ate a plentiful dinner.

As often happens after a big meal, drowsiness overcame him, and Honi fell asleep. Miraculously, a rock formation rose around him, and he became hidden. He slept for seventy years. When he awakened, he crawled from the rocks and went for a walk. He saw a man picking fruit from the carob tree.

Honi said to him, “Are you the one who planted this tree?” The man responded and said to him, “No. I am his grandson.” Honi was startled and exclaimed, “I must have slept for seventy years.” (Babylonian Talmud, Taanit 23a)

Today is the first day of the month of Elul. This day begins the forty-day period of introspection that culminates with the closing of Yom Kippur’s gates of repentance. During this time, we are instructed to look within and ask, “Who I have wronged? How might I do things differently?”

We are also urged to ponder, “What have I done for future generations?” How have my actions guaranteed our people’s future, the prospering of humanity and the earth’s very survival? What might we do so that our grandchildren might prosper?

The imagery of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is clear. No one is innocent of wrongdoing. No one is perfectly righteous. Everyone can change. Everyone can correct their failings. The tradition further teaches We are rescued by our good deeds.

On the High Holidays, we are awakened from our slumber by the piercing sound of the shofar. On these days, we are intended to look ahead by looking back. How can we change? How can we do better?

What have we planted for future generations? What can we plant for others?

Do Your Own Laundry!

Parents often tell their young children, “One day you are going to have to do your own laundry and I will no longer do it for you.” Or “One day I am not going to pick you up at your friend’s house and you are going to have to get home on your own.” Or “One day you are going to have to learn how to cook for yourself (and then you can complain to yourself about dinner).”

Hidden in such statements is the notion that as children grow older, they need to gain more independence and assume even greater responsibility. Parents are not intended to keep doing things for them. Rather, our children are supposed to learn how to do more and more things for themselves.

Likewise, God instructs the Israelites: “You shall not act at all as we now act here, each of us as we please, because you have not yet come to the allotted haven that Adonai your God is giving you.” (Deuteronomy 12)

The wilderness experience in the Sinai desert is akin to childhood. The Israelites had to learn how to do things for themselves so that when they finally arrive in the Promised Land, they will be able to build a nation for themselves. And yet, the Bible is a record of the Israelites’ failure to live up to this promise. The people get to the land, but do not in a sense ever grow up. In fact, almost as soon as they arrive and achieve victory over the land’s inhabitants, they are defeated.

Read the Book of Judges as but one example. “Then the Israelites did what was offensive to God and God delivered them into the hands of the Midianites for seven years.” (Judges 6). And the parent retorts, “I told you I was not going to do that for you anymore. That is why you don’t have any clean underwear. You are going to have to do the laundry yourself!”

The question remains. How do we teach responsibility? Gaining a driver’s license is not the same as being a capable driver. Reading the owner’s manual (or watching the YouTube video) is not the same as doing the laundry yourself. Ordering from Door Dash is not the same as knowing how to cook.

Responsibility is taught bit by bit. So, start at a young age.

The parent offers, “Help me prepare dinner tonight. Wash the lettuce. Peel the carrots.” Help me do the laundry. “Separate the whites from the colors.”

Teaching independence and responsibility is a long, arduous, and perhaps never-ending, process. The Bible suggests this task is never completed. The lesson is never fully realized. Our sacred text is a record of the people learning, and forgetting, and then relearning responsibility.

We may arrive at the Promised Land, but we never fully learn how to do it all for ourselves. Then again, as soon as we learn how to do it ourselves, we often become blinded by our successes, and forget how to do things on our own.

Parents, take comfort in the Bible’s stories. Even God is an imperfect parent.

Gain strength from God’s example.

Keep at it. Bit by bit.

Never lose faith in the lesson’s importance.

Walk the Walk

We are familiar with the command to love God. We recite these words every time we gather for services. The Shema states: “You shall love Adonai your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.”

The Torah also commands us to hold fast to God. (Deuteronomy 11) The mystics spin mountains of interpretation about this concept of devekut—literally clinging to God. They believe that we should grow so close to God that we become one with God. We should lose ourselves in the Almighty.

Look at the words of the popular prayer, Lecha Dodi, composed by the kabbalist Shlomo Halevi Alkebetz in sixteenth century Safed: “Enter in peace, O crown of your husband; enter in gladness, enter in joy. Come to the people that keeps its faith. Enter, O bride! Enter, O bride! (Bo-i challah! Bo-i challah!)”. Shabbat is the bride and Israel is her husband.

The imagery is clear. Our love for Shabbat is consummated as the sun sets on Friday evening. There is a mystical union. We cling to God.

And while I understand this concept and appreciate the tradition, I pause before this mysticism. Lose the self? Cling to God? It appears too ethereal and not of this world. It seems, and you will forgive me, too clingy. The Baal Shem Tov, the founder of the Hasidic movement, rescues the mysticism of his Kabbalistic forebears. He brings their mysticism down to earth and suggests a teaching that resonates.

The Baal Shem Tov asks: “Is it possible to cling to God? Is God not a consuming fire? As Torah writes elsewhere, ‘For the Lord your God, is a consuming fire.’” He answers his own question. “Rather, adhere to God’s attributes. Just as God is compassionate, so too, you should be compassionate etc.”

He notes that getting too close to God is dangerous. In fact, history is filled with examples of mystics whose zeal consume not only themselves but their followers. (Sabbatai Zvi!) Instead, the Baal Shem Tov teaches us to cling to God’s example. God visits Abraham when he is recovering from illness. Visit the sick. God buries Moses. Attend funerals. Make sure couples dance at their weddings.

When we dance, when we mourn, when we offer comfort, we cling to God’s attributes. Our actions become Godly. Our behavior can become Godly.

Imitate God. Follow God’s example.

The Torah makes this point clear. It urges us to walk in God’s ways. Spend time here, not up there. Devote yourselves to this earth and this moment.

Walk the walk.

The Zionist Dream Is Endangered

Today is the saddest day in the Jewish calendar. Tisha B’Av marks the destruction of the Temple. In 70 CE the Romans destroyed the Temple, leveled Jerusalem, and exiled our people from the land of Israel. Our hopes for a restoration of Jewish sovereignty became the stuff of messianic hopes, heartfelt prayers, and far off dreams.

That is until the nineteenth century when Zionists began arguing that we should no longer wait for a messiah but take matters into our own hands. We began to return to the land of Israel first in small numbers and then in great waves of immigration. And a mere seventy-five years ago, our dream was realized. The State of Israel was born. Our sovereignty restored.

This week is filled with sadness for the Jewish people. The Zionist dream is in peril. Our sovereignty corrupted. A Jewish and democratic State of Israel is in danger.

For months (29 weeks and counting!) countless Israelis have protested against the government’s proposal to overhaul the judicial system. The majority agree that the system is in need of reform, but they oppose the government’s proposals. The coalition’s recent vote to eliminate the “reasonableness” doctrine and its future proposals to exert even more control over the Supreme Court will erode Israel’s democratic character.

A democracy requires an independent judiciary. Absent a constitution, Israel’s judges serve as the only check against government officials’ power. This is why a majority of Israelis oppose Prime Minister Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul. In essence they trust the justices more than they have faith in Netanyahu and his coalition partners.

Rabbi Daniel Gordis notes, “The political crisis in Israel is no longer about being in favor of the judicial reform the Netanyahu government pledged to enact, or about opposing it. It is no longer about law; it is about the almost complete erosion of any trust millions of citizens have in the government.” (The Atlantic)

Too many in Netanyahu’s ruling coalition, most especially the ultra-Orthodox partners and the zealous settler radicals (what else should one call someone like Itamar Ben-Gvir who the Israeli army rejected because of his racist extremism?) care little for Israel’s founding democratic principles. Make no mistake, their actions are not about putting forward a slightly controversial bill, but instead about changing how Israel is governed. They think little about guaranteeing the rights of minorities.

Democracies are not so much about majority rule but instead about ensuring the rights of all citizens. They are about protecting dissenters with as much vigor as rulers. Listen to the words of Menachem Begin, the founder of Netanyahu’s own Likud party, “We have learned that an elected parliamentary majority can be an instrument in the hands of a group of rulers and act as camouflage for their tyranny.” (The Israel Democracy Institute)

This is why air force pilots have been heard saying they will not serve a dictatorship. The government’s actions threaten Israel’s security. Its security is built first and foremost on unity, most especially between the government’s leaders and the IDF’s commanders.

When the Temple was destroyed the rabbis turned inward. They did not blame the Romans as much as they castigated themselves for their own demise. They told a fanciful story about how the wrong person received a party invitation and showed up to the festivities only to discover that he was unwanted. The host had him forcibly removed. The other party goers, including the rabbis in attendance, stood by and did nothing. (Babylonian Talmud, Gittin 55b)

In his anger the unwanted guest went straight to the Roman authorities, spinning tales of how the Jews conspired against them. He set a trap for his fellow Jews to convince the Romans of the Jews’ disloyalty. The trap hinged on a matter of Jewish law. Unable to see beyond the strictures of their tradition, Jewish leaders chose to offend the authorities rather than compromise their halachah. The Romans became enraged when the offense was uncovered. And they did what Romans did.

Jerusalem was destroyed.

What was the name of the unwanted party goer? Bar Kamza. And the name of the friend who was supposed to get the invite? Kamza. The differences between a Kamza and Bar Kamza, between a friend and enemy are small indeed. The tale makes clear. There were so many opportunities for compromise. There were so many missed opportunities to avoid disaster.

This can be a moment for introspection and repair. The rabbis understood that we are one people. They taught that when we fight among ourselves, we leave the door open for our destruction. They believed that our tragedy was sown by sinat chinam, baseless hatred between Jews.

The enemy can be us.

“Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!” (Psalm 122)

The Longer the Journey, the Better the Blues

To travel from Mount Sinai to the edge of the Promised Land takes eleven days. (Deuteronomy 1)

Why did the Israelites take nearly 40 years? Because they doubted God. If they had faith, their journey from slavery to freedom, from subjugation by Pharaoh to ruling their own lives, would have been a brief trip.

Instead, it was a lengthy journey filled with struggle and loss. No one who left Egypt entered the land of Israel, save Joshua and Caleb.

It is not the direct path that writes history. It is the unplanned, and circuitous routes that provide us with the stories, and turns, and meaning that comprise our Torah.

Rebecca Solnit writes in her beautiful book, A Field Guide to Getting Lost:

People look into the future and expect that the forces of the present will unfold in a coherent and predictable way, but any examination of the past reveals that circuitous routes of change are unimaginably strange…. The music called the blues is as good an example as any of the unlikely, the evolution of African music in the southeastern American landscape, inflected by slavery and exposure to the English language, European instruments and perhaps Scottish, and English ballads—the passionate melancholy of murder ballads and songs about abandoned maidens and bloody revenges.

Had the journey only taken eleven days, had the Israelites not spent so much time losing faith and getting lost, there would be no Torah.

Willie Dixon adds, and as Howlin’ Wolf made famous:

It could be a spoonful of diamond
It could be a spoonful of gold
Just a little spoon of your precious love
Satisfy my soul

From every struggle comes some great Torah—and some wonderful music.

It Starts with Our Leaders

“Moses spoke to the heads of the Israelite tribes.” (Numbers 30)

This is an unusual formulation. In most instances the Torah states, “Moses spoke to the people.” (Numbers 31) Why does Moses speak to the tribal heads rather than the people?

Perhaps the answer can be discerned in this portion’s details about making vows. The Hatam Sofer, a leading rabbi in nineteenth century Germany, asks this very same question. He suggests the law is directed to leaders because people in public office are often tempted to make promises that they cannot keep. It is as if to say, “Be on guard of the words and promises you make—most especially if you are a leader.”

In a few weeks we will mark Tisha B’Av, the day in which we commemorate the destruction of Jerusalem’s Temple. Until the modern period and its Holocaust, this fast day marked the Jewish people’s greatest tragedy. The loss of the Temple, the destruction of Jerusalem and the slaughter of so many Jews is still remembered at Jewish weddings by the breaking of the glass.

The rabbis asked why this tragedy happened to us. It was of course the Romans, and prior to that the Babylonians, who destroyed the first and second Temples. Still the rabbis engaged in wrenching introspection to uncover how the Jewish people might be at fault for their own demise. They suggest that it was because of baseless hatred of one Jew for another. The seeds of our destruction were sown by how we screamed and yelled at each other.

The rabbis believed in argument and especially passionate debate. They taught that truth can only emerge when we openly argue and debate with one another. We read: “Any debate that is for the sake of heaven, its end will continue; but that which is not for the sake of heaven, its end will not continue. What is a debate for the sake of heaven? The debate between Rabbis Hillel and Shammai. And a debate that is not for the sake of heaven? The debate of Korah and his entire band of rebels.” (Avot 5)

There is a fine line between a positive and negative argument. It rests in how we approach those with whom we disagree. The rabbis offer us an important insight. While we might be strengthened by debate, we are weakened by tribal divisions. When we debate, we must ask, are we arguing so that truth might emerge? Or are we arguing instead to draw divisions between us?

This is why Moses speaks to the tribal heads.

Our nation is a confederation of different tribes and disparate identities. Our destruction is sown when we see our own tribal identity as the whole.

Our very survival depends on how our leaders argue and debate. It rests on how leaders speak to one another. It is secured in seeing beyond a single tribe.

Yearning to Breathe Free

I am thinking about Emma Lazarus. She is the American Jewish poet whose words are etched on the Statue of Liberty. “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.” Her words remain a powerful statement of American’s promise.

Emma Lazarus was raised in privilege. She descended from America’s first Jewish settlers and belonged to New York’s fabled Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue. Her father owned sugar refineries and was among this country’s early Sephardic elite. He counted among his friends the Vanderbilts and Astors. She learned with private tutors and studied German and French so that she could better assimilate into cultured society.

The rise of antisemitism in the 1880’s convinced her that she needed to do more. She ventured away from her society friends and worked with Russian refugees fleeing pogroms. She volunteered with the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. She struggled with how her circumstances differed so dramatically from others’ experiences, most especially her fellow Jews.

She believed that America’s foundation is built on welcome.

We are a nation of immigrants.140 years ago Emma Lazarus penned “The New Colossus” reaffirming our our country’s founding principles.

This week we celebrated July 4th. 247 years ago our nation’s founders signed the Declaration of Independence. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

And yet these rights are not as self-evident as our founders proclaimed. The Declaration’s signers only imagined these rights for men, and not women, for Whites, and not enslaved Blacks.

If we wish these rights to become evident for all then every generation must take up the struggle again, and again, and again. They must renew the declaration’s promise. They must recommit to making these rights more apparent and even more clear.

There are those who wish to march our nation backward rather than forward. There are those who wish to obscure the promise hidden between the Declaration of Independence’s lines.

This week our portion is named for a man who wishes to pull the Israelites backward. Pinchas is a zealot who killed his fellow Jews because they strayed from his exacting vision. The portion’s import, however, is found later. It is discovered in five women: Mahlon, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah and Tirzah. They are the daughters of Zelophahad who argue that their inheritance should be equal to a man’s.

They declare, “Give us a holding among our father’s kinsmen!” (Numbers 27)

It is not zealotry that wins the day but reason and logic. The zealot wishes to turn the clock back. The thinker looks forward. She uses reason. Where others see only white spaces between the lines, she sees opportunity for the promise to become even more fulfilled.

It may not have been imagined in their own day, but it is there. Emma Lazarus saw it. We must do so as well. She understood that our nation’s promise is not about about holding on to privilege. It is instead found in welcome.

What made Emma Lazarus walk from her storied Union Square apartment to the teeming slums of Ward’s Island? We will never know what caused her to see America’s hope not in her family’s success but instead in those immigrants’ misery. We can know this.

It began with leaving her apartment.

Let all breathe free!

A Leader’s Empathy

This week it is Moses’ turn. His frustration reaches a boiling point. The people are complaining again. This time it is about the lack of water. God offers a miracle and instructs Moses to stand before the people and command the rock to bring forth water. Instead, Moses hits the rock and shouts, “Listen, you rebels, shall we get water for you out of this rock?” (Numbers 20)

Because of this Moses is punished. He will now not be allowed to enter the promised land. He will only take the people to the edge of the land. It will be up to Joshua to lead them across the border. There is great debate among Jewish commentators about Moses’ sin. They argue about what he did to deserve such a punishment.

Some suggest it was because he hit the rock. Others say it was because he did not listen to God’s command. A few believe it was because he castigated the people and distanced himself from them when calling them rebels. The Torah remains indecisive. It is clear that Moses will not lead the people into the land. The why remains a mystery.

And that mystery leads me to wonder. Perhaps Moses’ actions were not about anger but instead about guilt. Korah and his band of rebels were Levites. They were from Moses’ tribe and in essence were family. And now they are dead. Does Moses feel guilty that his leadership has cost people their lives? Is he distraught that the promises he made to the Israelites will not come to pass? Is he frustrated with the God who chose him?

Of course, he can blame the Israelites who are deserving of blame. They never stop complaining! They lose faith in God. They question Moses at what must seem like every turn. But Moses is no ordinary leader. He is a prophet and not the typical person.

Their failures become his own. Moses blames himself. He is overcome by guilt. He is filled with empathy for the people he leads. It is as if he says to God, “If they cannot go into the land, then I do not deserve to go into the land as well. Let their fate be mine.”

Janus Korczak was a well-known physician and educator living in Poland when Nazi Germany invaded. Eventually he, and his colleague, Stefa Wilczyńska, were forced to move their children’s school to the Warsaw Ghetto. Before the ghetto was liquidated, friends offered to help save Janus and Stefa, but they and their staff decided to stay with the children and not save themselves. They and the children were murdered at Treblinka in the summer of 1942.

The children’s fate became the teachers’ destiny.

The leader, and most especially the prophet, shares, and feels, the pain of the people. Moses hits the rock because he is so aggrieved about his people’s pain. (This is the is the same man who years earlier killed a taskmaster when he was beating an Israelite slave.) He is once again pained by their sufferings. His heart is overwhelmed by their lamentations.

His sin is not an act of anger. It is not even a sin. It is instead an expression of pain.

Empathy for others overwhelms him.

Janus Korczak teaches: “I exist not to be loved and admired, but to love and act. It is not the duty of those around me to love me. Rather, it is my duty to be concerned about the world, about man.”

Empathy for others is all consuming.

The people’s fate becomes the leader’s destiny.