Category Archives: American Jewish Life

On Gratitude

25 Wednesday Nov 2015

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Ethics, Health and Well-Being, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Jewish Identity, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Poetry, Quote of the Day, Uncategorized

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Tennessee Williams put it exactly right: “You know we live in light and shadow. That’s what we live in – a world of light and shadow; and it’s confusing.” (Orpheus Descending)

No life is simple, but along comes Thanksgiving and tradition compels us to emphasize gratitude regardless of our circumstances, how we may feel and conditions in the world.

For some, gratitude comes easily. For others gratefulness is challenging. Nurturing gratitude, however, is one of our most effective means to dispel the “shadow” and lift us towards the “light.”

Here are a number of reflections from Jewish tradition and world literature that offer us perspective, insight, wisdom, and hope.

“Hodu l’Adonai ki tov, ki l’olam chasdo – Give thanks to God, for Adonai is good…God’s steadfast love is eternal.” –  Psalm 136 (9th century, B.C.E.)

“When you arise in the morning give thanks for the morning light, for your life and strength. Give thanks for your food and the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies in yourself.” – Native American Prayer, Tecumseh Tribe

“How strange we are in the world, and how presumptuous our doings! Only one response can maintain us: gratefulness for witnessing the wonder, for the gift of our unearned right to serve, to adore, and to fulfill. It is gratefulness which makes the soul great.” – Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972)

“Ingratitude to a human being is ingratitude to God.” – Rabbi Samuel Hanagid (993-1056 CE)

“What have you done for me lately is the ingrate’s question.” – Rabbi Joseph Telushkin

“If you cannot be grateful for what you have received, then be thankful for what you have been spared.” – Yiddish proverb

“Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.” – William Arthur Ward, American scholar, author, pastor and teacher (1921-1997)

“Gratitude, not understanding, is the secret to joy and equanimity.” – Anne Lamott, writer (b. 1954)

“Thank everyone who calls out your faults, your anger, your impatience, your egotism; do this consciously, voluntarily.” – Jean Toomer, poet and novelist (1894-1967)

“We should write an elegy for every day that has slipped through our lives unnoticed and unappreciated. Better still, we should write a song of thanksgiving for all the days that remain.” – Sarah Ban Breathnach, author (b 1948)

“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.” – Cicero, Roman philosopher (106 BC – 43 BC)

“If the only prayer you say in your life is ‘Thank you,’ that would suffice.” – Meister Eckhart, German theologian, philosopher (1260-1328)

“When I started counting my blessings my whole life turned around.” – Willie Nelson

“The highest tribute to the dead is not grief, but gratitude.” – Thorton Wilder

“I can no other answer make but thanks, and thanks, and thanks, and ever thanks.” – William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

What We Need to Hear from our Political Leaders

22 Sunday Nov 2015

Posted by in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Ethics, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Jewish-Islamic Relations, Social Justice

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Much has been written about the politics of fear that has overtaken much of the country since the Paris ISIS attacks and specifically about the House of Representatives vote that would require additional stringent checks on 10,000 Syrian refugees who yearn for safe haven in the United States, even though this group of refugees already is the most vetted and reviewed population of migrants to come into the country.

In the last week we have heard rhetoric stoking the fears of many Americans who are worried that terrorists may slip into the country despite the already stringent reviews of asylum seekers. We have heard some of our political leaders play to racist and Islamophobic feelings directed at Syrian refugees specifically, immigrants generally and the Muslim and Arab communities of the United States as a whole (e.g. Jeb Bush said he would only support the entrance of Christian Syrians; Donald Trump said that all American Muslim citizens should be registered; Chris Christie said that if necessary even Syrian toddler orphans should be excluded from the US; Ted Cruz and Ben Carson have also made equally offensive statements).

In a House vote of 289-137, a new bill drawn hastily after the ISIS Paris attacks will require new FBI background checks and individual sign-offs from three high-ranking U.S. officials before any refugee can come to the U.S. from Iraq or Syria, essentially preventing the entrance of any of the remaining 10,000 Syrian refugees that still need to be admitted under the protection of political asylum. Every Republican representative voted in favor as did 47 Democrats. The new House Speaker Paul Ryan, using the language of reason, said this is simply a matter of “common sense” to protect Americans.

To the contrary, the motivations of those who voted for this bill and more than a third of the nation’s Governors who said that they would not admit Syrian Refugees into their states, isn’t about common sense – it’s about fear.

It isn’t the first time that American political leaders have played effectively to the xenophobic darkness in the human psyche. During World War II, President Roosevelt, the man who told America after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (“We have nothing to fear but fear itself!”) issued Executive Order 9066 that interned 120,000 Japanese Americans, of whom 62% were loyal American citizens, in concentration camps on the West Coast.

Rabbi Fred Guttman of North Carolina, wrote last week on the Reform Judaism website: “What we need from politicians now is not certainty but assurance, not rectitude but sympathetic concern. We need politicians who are willing to say, ‘I understand your fear, but….”  [We need our politicians to explain loudly and clearly that] “the U.S. has an extensive process for vetting refugees who desire to come to the United States.”

Further, we need our political leaders to remind the American people of the terrible cost of human suffering in the five-year Syrian civil war, that four million Syrian refugees have fled to Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, and Europe, that eight million people have been internally displaced, that 200,000 have been killed and countless more injured.

Our political leaders need to remind the American people that we are a nation of immigrants ourselves, that ALL OF US come from someplace else, that so many of us, like the Syrian refugees today, were “the tired and the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” as the Zionist poet Emma Lazarus wrote that grace the Statue of Liberty in the New York harbor.

Our leaders need to say loudly and clearly that it is un-American to reject those legitimately seeking political asylum here.

After the bill came to the floor of Congress, 81 organizations opposed it including the Union for Reform Judaism, the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, the National Council of Jewish Women, J Street, and Ameinu, as did Christian World Relief, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, the National Association of Evangelicals, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, and the Church World Service. The religious community of America, by and large, has affirmed what are supposed to be the higher angels of our spirit as a nation, and those who claim to be religious and have succumbed to xenophobic fears and prejudice, ought to take note.

Among the most challenging of the 613 mitzvot (commandments) in the Hebrew Bible is to “welcome the stranger” with compassion, empathy and human kindness. Thirty-six times does this mitzvah appear in our sacred scripture, according to the rabbis, signifying how difficult it is for us to be able to regard the “other” as like us, created b’tzelem Elohim – in the Divine image.

All three of the great monotheistic faiths demand that we do so, but sadly, too many of our political leaders are failing not only their own religious principles, but our American principles as well.

In this spirit, if you agree with me, I urge you to write or call your Congressional Representative and Senators and either thank them for voting against this bill, or tell them how disappointed you are that they supported it.

A decision that should have been resolved before marriage

14 Tuesday Apr 2015

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Life Cycle

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Nathan’s father died soon after he was born, and before his death he asked his wife to be certain that their son would become bar mitzvah at age 13. His wife Joanne created a warm Jewish home, joined our synagogue, entered Nathan into Religious School, celebrated Shabbat every week bringing an assortment of friends into hers and Nathan’s home, and Nathan became Bar Mitzvah.

I met Nathan when he was six years old. He was, even as a child, smart and thoughtful, kind, talented, and graced with a gentle charisma that drew people to him.

I stayed close to him and his mother, but tragically, Joanne was diagnosed with cancer and died when Nathan was 17. Before her death, she arranged for him to live with dear friends who took Nathan into their home as their own, and I made Nathan pledge to stay in touch with me as I would do with him.

I’ve always believed in Nathan, and once suggested to him during his college years to consider the rabbinate, as he had everything it took to be an effective rabbinic leader. He appreciated the thought and my confidence in him, but explained that since he didn’t believe in God this was a path he could not take honestly.

Nathan went on to become a teacher and worked in the inner city public schools for five years with 4th grade children and their parents trying to help these kids to love learning, to develop strong study habits and to work their way up and out of poverty.

Like many teachers in these circumstances, Nathan burned out. The work was tough and he found himself fighting against a strong current of family illiteracy, gangs and drugs. He wanted to help others, but he had to find a new way. So he applied to law school and now is working as a public defender.

Nathan and I talk infrequently, but we’ve maintained a special bond. He’s now 34 years old and married to a wonderful non-Jewish woman who is generally supportive of his raising their children as Jews, to a point. Three months before the baby would be born he called me to talk about brit milah. He wanted it. His wife didn’t. What to do? I spoke at length with him about this and offered to speak with his wife, but she didn’t want to then. Nothing was resolved.

Four days after Nathan’s son was born, he called me desperately needing to talk. He explained that he was on cloud nine and in the dumps. On the third day of his son’s life, he raised the issue of a brit milah again with his wife, and they had the most alienating fight of their relationship.

He explained that his wife couldn’t imagine taking a knife to her new-born baby. She charged that the circumcision was a form of mutilation, and her maternal instinct wouldn’t permit it.

Once again he explained to her all his reasons why he wanted his son to enter the Covenant of Abraham, saying to her, “I feel deeply Jewish in my guts and I want my son to be Jewish too, that not doing this meant distancing himself even further from the father he’d never known who wanted him to be a Jew, from the mother who raised him as a Jew, and from his Jewish heritage altogether. “

He asked me for wisdom about what to do.

I suggested that he also say the following to her:

“Yes – the bris can be momentarily painful to our child, but mohalim (ritual circumcisers) use wine as a way to calm the baby while the brit occurs. The wound may be sore for a couple of days, but that’s it. Compared to the birth experience, a brit milah is far less traumatic, and it heals quickly. It isn’t mutilation at all. It’s the most fundamental and ancient of Jewish rites going back 3600 years. This is something very deep for me and I am asking you to allow it.”

“Nathan,“ I then said. “Your instincts are right. Those Jewish parents who choose not to bring their sons into the Covenant of Abraham separate themselves and their children from this 3600-year rite of passage and ineffable relationship with God. This is about Jewish identity and continuity. Since you and your wife have agreed to raise your son as a Jew, you must do this.”

We left it there, but I checked back with him a couple of days later. He said: “We had another argument last night with a friend trying to mediate, but she has decided that she can’t abide with the circumcision. I’m very angry, but she’s not changing her mind… I can’t maintain my anger and tarnish what is the happiest moment of my life. I have no choice but to move forward. All of this has reinvigorated my desire to give my son a Jewish education, for him to become Bar Mitzvah. My wife has said that she is supportive of that. She recognizes the huge sacrifice I’m making…I hope my son will some day make a choice to have a brit. Will you perform a naming even without a brit?”

I told Nathan I would. He understands, however, that the naming without the brit milah is half-done.

Nathan’s situation confirms my conviction that this kind of a decision has to be made before marriage even takes place.

I have confidence in Nathan and trust him to do everything he can to raise his son as a Jew. I hope his wife comes around one day on the brit milah, and sooner rather than later. Time will tell.

Pesach is Coming – Time to Ask Ourselves the Big Questions

31 Tuesday Mar 2015

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Ethics, Health and Well-Being, Holidays, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity

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To be curious is the first quality of the wise. Wise people know that they do not know and are open to learn something from everyone.

The Passover Seder will soon be upon us, and there is much about the Seder that is mysterious. Nothing is as it seems. Everything stands for something else. Deeper truths are there for the seeker. Everything in the Seder evokes questions.

I have compiled a list of questions that might be sent in advance to your Seder participants or asked around the table during the Seder itself. You may have questions of your own that you would wish to add.

Afikoman – Breaking the Matzah

Questions: What part of us is broken? What work do we need to do to effect tikun hanefesh – i.e. restoration of our lives? What t’shuvah – i.e. return, realignment of our lives, re-establishment of important relationships – do we need to perform to bring about inner wholeness and reconciliation with others? What is broken in the world – i.e. what remains unfair, unjust, unresolved, in need of our loving care and attention – and what am I/are we going to do about it?

Mah Nishtanah – How is this night different from all other nights?

Questions: How am I different this year from previous years? What has changed in my life this year for better and/or for worse? What ‘silver lining’ can I find even in my disappointments, frustrations, loss, illness, pain, and suffering? What conditions in our communities, nation and world have worsened since last we sat down for the Pesach meal?

Ha-Chacham – The Wise Child

Questions: Who inspired you this past year to learn? Who has been your greatest teacher and why? What are the lessons you have gleaned from others that have affected you most in the year gone by?

Ha-Rasha – The Evil Child

Questions: Since Judaism teaches that the first step leading to evil is taken when we separate ourselves from the Jewish community and refuse to participate in acts that help to redeem the world, have we individually stepped away from activism? Have we become overcome by cynicism and despair? Do we believe that people and society succumb inevitably to the worst qualities in the human condition, or do we retain hope that there can be a more just and compassionate world? Are we optimistic or pessimistic? Do we believe that people and society can change for the better? Are we doing something to further good works, or have we turned away into ourselves alone and given up?

Cheirut – Thoughts of Freedom

Questions: If fear is an impediment to freedom, what frightens me? What frightens the people I love? What frightens the Jewish people? Are our fears justified, or are they remnants of experiences in our individual and/or people’s past? Do they still apply? Are we tied to the horrors of our individual and communal traumas, or have we broken free from them? What are legitimate fears and how must we confront them?

Tzafun – The Hidden Matzah

Questions: What have we kept hidden in our lives from others? Are our deepest secrets left well-enough alone, or should we share them with the people closest to us? To what degree are we willing to be vulnerable? Have we discovered the hidden presence of God? Have we allowed ourselves to be surprised and open to wonder and awe? If so, how have we changed as a result?

Sh’fach et chamat’cha – Pouring Out Our Wrath

Questions: Is there a place for hatred, anger and resentment in our Seder this year? How have these negative emotions affected our relationships to each other, to the Jewish community, the Jewish people, the Palestinians, the State of Israel, to any “other”? Have we become our own worst enemy because we harbor hatred, anger and resentment? Do the Seder themes and symbolism address our deeply seated anger, hatred and resentment?

Ba-shanah Ha-ba-ah Bi-y’ru-shalayim – Next Year in Jerusalem

Questions: What are your hopes and dreams for yourself, our community, country, the Jewish people, the State of Israel, and the world? What are you prepared to do in the next year to make real your hopes and dreams? Have you visited Israel and when do you plan to visit again? Despite disagreements with the policies of the government of Israel, if you have them, how can you demonstrate love for the state and Jewish people in spite of legitimate criticisms you may have?

Rabbi Eric Yoffie, past president of the Union for Reform Judaism, and now a writer, lecturer and teacher, has written an important piece in Haaretz called “Three points to make when fighting over Israel at the Passover Seder – It will be impossible to bridge the gaps between the leftists and rightists, because both will be correct. So, I offer three things worth noting.”

See Haaretz at http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.649565?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter —

or go directly to his blog at https://ericyoffie.com/passover-seder/

Note: Rabbi Yoffie is always worth reading, especially in these times, as he presents a wise, moral, balanced, and pragmatic voice of contemporary Judaism.

“We Don’t Want You Here!” – Bereaved Palestinian and Israeli Parents Speak to J Street

26 Thursday Mar 2015

Posted by in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Divrei Torah, Ethics, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Social Justice, Stories

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“Anachnu lo rotzim etchem po — Ma bidnaash an takuunu hone! — We don’t want you here!”

30 Israeli and Palestinian men, women, and children spoke these words alternately in Hebrew and Arabic in a short film shown to 3000 delegates of the J Street National Convention in Washington, D.C. this past week. Each person had lost a close family member to Palestinian or Israeli violence, and they wanted no more to join them in grief.

At the film’s conclusion, Robi Damelin and Bassam Aramin walked arm-in-arm onto the stage.

Robi is an Israeli mother whose 28 year-old son David, a student who was working on his masters in the Philosophy of Education at Tel Aviv University, was murdered by a Palestinian sniper a few years ago. The murderer had witnessed the killing of his uncle when he was a child, and when he was grown stepped onto a path of revenge and took David’s and 9 other Israeli lives.

Bassam is a Palestinian father whose 10 year-old daughter, Abir, was shot dead by an Israeli border policemen in 2007 as she walked down the street with her sister and two friends after buying sweets in a shop across the road from her school in the West Bank village of Anata at the end of a math exam.

When David was murdered, the first words his devastated mother spoke were: “Do not take revenge in the name of my son…get out of the occupied territories.”

Robi and Bassam are the Israeli and Palestinian Spokespersons for The Parents Circle, a group of bereaved Israeli and Palestinian parents who have lost children to violence (see http://www.theparentscircle.com/). They say, “There is no military solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict… More war creates more victims on both sides … The power of Israel and the resistance of the Palestinians doesn’t work. We need to sit down and negotiate.”

J Street is a pro-Israel pro-peace American organization based in Washington, D.C. that advocates before Congress and the President the necessity of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. J Street has 180,000 members, a college division of thousands of students on 125 American campuses, 60 chapters in cities around the country, and a rabbinic cabinet, that I co-chair, of 850 rabbis from across the religious streams of American Jewish life.

J Street represents, however, the opinions of far more American Jews (and many thousands of Israelis) than its membership numbers reflect. J Street’s positions are held by roughly 70% of the American Jewish community who believe that a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict is in Israel’s best long-term interests. J Street has endorsed more than 90 members of Congress (its endorsees are growing by roughly 15-20% in each Congressional cycle) who agree with J Street’s principles and who have welcomed J Street as a pro-Israel organization that does not necessarily agree with every policy position taken by any particular Israeli government or Prime Minister.

Like Robi and Bassam, J Street recognizes that there is no military solution to this conflict, that the only way Israel will remain secure, Jewish and democratic is in a negotiated two-state end-of-conflict agreement.

Specifically, J Street agrees with the broad consensus of the international community of what a two-state solution will look like. The border will be drawn roughly along the 1967 Green Line with land swaps that would include within Israel 75% of all Israelis living in the large settlements blocks in the West Bank and around Jerusalem. Jerusalem will be the shared capital of Israel and Palestine. Palestine will be demilitarized except for necessary police forces. There will be firm security arrangements in place for the benefit of both Israel and Palestine. Palestinian refugees will have the right of return to the new state of Palestine and not to Israel. Appropriate compensation for refugees will be given.

My purpose here is not to get into the weeds of this conflict which are long, deep and complicated, but rather to communicate the human costs of this conflict as embodied by the pain and suffering of only two families, that of Robi Damelin and Bassam Aramin, and to articulate what I believe is ultimately at stake for the Jewish people and state of Israel if a two-state resolution to this conflict is not reached soon.

Without a negotiated settlement, in a short amount of time Israel will cease either to be a democracy or a Jewish state. Settlement building by Israelis and population growth among Arabs in the West Bank, Gaza and within the Green Line of Israel, all taken together, ultimately will doom the Zionist enterprise, arguably the most important historical event in the life of the Jewish people in the last two thousand years.

Yes – there is still time for a two-state solution, but time is running out.

For the sake of the future of Israel and the Palestinians, the status quo is unsustainable. “Managing the conflict,” as many in Israel believe is their only option, is unsustainable. Only a two-state solution can, as J Street’s communication Vice President and journalist Alan Elsner recently wrote, “complete the Zionist dream” of Israel being Jewish, democratic and an “or lagoyim – a light to the nations.”

There are risks no matter what Israel chooses to do, but the risks are far greater in doing nothing.

Perhaps the insights of one of Israel’s greatest poets, Yehuda Amichai, will inspire clarity and hope:

“From the place where we are right
flowers will never grow
in the spring.

The place where we are right
is hard and trampled
like a yard.

But doubts and loves
dig up the world
like a mole, a plough.

And a whisper will be heard in the place
where the ruined
house once stood.”

 

 

The Back Story of the UCLA Judicial Anti-Semitic Incident

12 Thursday Mar 2015

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Ethics, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Social Justice

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Despite every effort by the four original nay-voters to reverse themselves and clean up the mess they made in the recent vote against the nomination of the Jewish student, Rachel Beyda, to serve on UCLA’s student Judicial Board, and despite the UCLA Administration’s sincere efforts to deal appropriately with this matter, and despite the 12-0 vote of the UCLA Student Government to condemn anti-Semitism in all forms this week (see below), there is a back story that ought to be known.

That back story, published by the “Faculty Lounge: Conversations about Law, Culture and Academia,” shines a light on three of the four initial voters against Ms. Beyda. These three students have been activists in the Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment (BDS) movement against Israel at UCLA.

“For the past year, there has been a concerted effort at UCLA to rid the student government of anyone who might be insufficiently antagonistic toward Israel, which was seen as necessary to the passage of a BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) resolution. And as it turns out, at least three of the four anti-Beyda voters have been closely connected to that campaign. It is often said that the BDS movement is aimed only at Israel and not at Jews, but this incident shows just how easily anti-Zionism can give rise to what might be called Judeophobia – the assumption that Jews are politically suspect until proven otherwise.” http://www.thefacultylounge.org/2015/03/ucla-the-untold-backstory.html

Though it is possible to accept the right of the Jewish people to a nation state of our own and at the same time support limited-BDS in the occupied territories (a position I do not support because I believe it unfairly targets Israel and does nothing to further a negotiated two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians), the fact is that the main proponents of BDS deny the right of the Jewish people to a nation state on any part of our historic homeland. This position is not only anti-Israel and anti-Zionist, it is also anti-Semitic.

Yes, those three students changed their vote and apologized for offending Jews, but I question the sincerity of those apologies given these three students pro-BDS activism.

See story on UCLA Student Government resolution condemning anti-Semitism in all forms: http://www.jewishjournal.com/los_angeles/article/ucla_student_government_passes_resolution_condemning_anti_semitism1

Zionism and Crisis – A Conversation

08 Sunday Mar 2015

Posted by in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Ethics, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Social Justice, Women's Rights

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In late February I was invited to participate in a dialogue on the meaning of Progressive Zionism, Israel’s character as a Jewish homeland and democratic state, why Israel is important for American Jews, our role in US-Israeli politics, and our relationship with each other vis a vis the state of Israel.

I was questioned by Dr. Joshua Holo, Associate Professor of Jewish History and Dean of the Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles, in a 45-minute conversation. Dr. Holo and I covered many of the most critical issues facing American Jewry in relationship to the state of Israel today. Our conversation can be watched at http://huc.edu/academics/learn/zionism-and-crisis.

This program, called “Zionism and Crisis – A Conversation,” is part of an on-going series of discussions led by Dean Holo on a wide variety of themes in a series called “THE COLLEGE COMMONS.” Currently, 20 Reform synagogues throughout the western United States from Seattle to San Diego and throughout the southwest are participating in a live-stream and real-time conversation followed by discussion in each synagogue led by their respective rabbis. Dr. Holo prepares study materials for those synagogue conversations.

There is no charge for synagogue participation. This is not what Josh calls “Pajama Torah,” meaning that you cannot access this conversation in real-time on-line from home. It must be done in community with others, and so synagogues are signing up and gathering congregants to watch, question the speakers and then discuss together these themes.

If you are interested in participating, ask your rabbis and adult learning chairs to contact HUC and schedule these events. They occur on Tuesday evenings and Sunday mornings four times annually. If you live in other communities around the country, you are welcome as well but note the time changes.

For more information see collegecommons@huc.edu. Also see http://huc.edu/campus-life/los-angeles/college-commons and http://huc.edu/academics/learn/theme/458

Upcoming Conversations include (all moderated by Dean Holo):

• DEATH BY SUCCESS? WALKING THE TIGHTROPE OF IDENTITY: with Dr. Kristine Garroway and Rabbi Tali Zelkowicz
• OUR JEWISH FUTURE: THE B’NAI MITZVAH REVOLUTION: with Dr. Isa Aron
• REBIRTH IN GERMANY?: with Dr. Leah Hochman and Dr. Sharon Gillerman
• THE MYSTERY OF THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS: with Rabbi Joshua Garroway, Ph.D
• ARMED WITH SCRIPTURE: QUR’AN AND TORAH AS WEAPONS IN THE WAR OF IDEAS: with Rabbi Tamara Eskenazi, Ph.D

Past Conversations are now available on-line (above) for viewing from home:

• BULLY PULPIT: TORAH WITH A POINT OF VIEW: with Rabbi Richard Levy
• ANTI-SEMITISM: ROOTS AND REALITY: with David Lehrer
• POLITICS AND THE PULPIT: with Rabbi Stephanie Kolin
• HOW JUDAISM IS CHRISTIANITY?: with Rabbi Joshua Garroway
• FROM ARAB SPRING TO ARAB SUMMER – OR WINTER? FAULT LINES IN THE ARAB AND MUSLIM WORLDS: with Rabbi Reuven Firestone, Ph.D
• A FORUM ON THE 2013 PEW STUDY OF JEWISH AMERICANS: with Sr. Sarah Bunin Benor, Dr. Bruce A. Phillips and Dr. Steven Windmueller

This is an exciting new forum for synagogue learning with leading scholars and teachers. My own synagogue will be part of next year’s series.

I wish to express my gratitude to my friend Dr. Josh Holo for conceiving and initiating this forum and thereby bringing scholars and HUC faculty to our communities on a regular basis.

Remembering Leonard Nimoy – Eulogy

01 Sunday Mar 2015

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Art, Ethics, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Tributes

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(What follows is a portion of my eulogy at Leonard’s funeral on Sunday morning, March 1. He was married to my first cousin, Susan)

Leonard shared with me after he and Susan married 26 years ago that he had never met a woman like her, never had he loved anyone so dearly and passionately, that she’d saved his life and lifted him from darkness and unhappiness in ways he never thought possible. His love, appreciation, respect, and gratitude for her transformed him and enabled him to begin his life anew.

Susan – you were a stellar, loving and brilliant life-partner for your Leib. He knew it and in loving you he learned how to love his own children and grandchildren more deeply, and he came to recognize that his family was his greatest treasure and gift.

At the moment Leonard’s soul left him on Friday morning, his family had gathered around him in a ring of love. Leonard smiled, and then he was gone. It was gentle passing, as easy as a “hair being lifted from a cup of milk,” as the Talmud describes the moment of death.

What did Leonard see? We can’t know, but Susan imagines that he beheld his beloved cocker spaniel Molly, an angelic presence in life and now in death.

My wife Barbara and I shared much with Susan and Leonard over the years, in LA and in so many spectacular places around the world – so many joys and not a few challenges, and through it all we grew to love Leonard as a dear member of our family and were honored that he felt towards us as members of his own family.

At his 80th birthday celebration three years ago, I publicly thanked him for all he’d meant to my family and me, for being the love of Susan’s life, and for bringing her so much happiness.

Kind-hearted, gentle, patient, refined, and keenly intelligent was he.

As I listened to NPR’s story of his passing on Friday, I was struck by how uniquely recognizable to the world was his voice, not only because of its innate resonance and gentle tone, but because it emanated who he was as a man and as a mensch.

He was unflappably honest and warm-hearted. He embodied integrity and decency. He was humble and a gentleman. His sensitivity and intuition connected him with the world and offered him keen insight into the human condition. Whatever he said and did was compelling, inspiring and provocative. He strove always for excellence.

Leonard’s Hebrew name was Yehudah Lev, meaning “a Jew with a heart.” His interests and concerns were founded upon his faith and belief in the inherent dignity of every human being, and he treated everyone regardless of station, friend or stranger, with kindness and respect. His world view was enriched by his Jewish spirit and experience.

Leonard was nurtured in the Yiddish-speaking culture of his childhood on the West End of Boston, yet he transcended the particular categories with which he was raised. He cared about the Jews of the former Soviet Union, about Jews everywhere, and he was concerned for all people as well.

Because he grew up as a minority in his neighborhood, even sensing at times that he was an outcast living on the margins (which is what his Spock character was all about), Leonard ventured out from the conservative home and culture of his youth, courageously at a very young age, into the world where he sought greater truth and understanding. He was curious about everything and was a life-long learner.

Leonard appreciated his success, never taking his fame and good fortune for granted. He was generous with family, friends and so many good causes often contributing without being asked, quietly and under the radar, to individuals and causes selflessly, without need of acknowledgment or credit. In his later years, he learned that by fixing his name to some gifts, he could inspire others to give as well.

Over the years, from the time he performed in the Yiddish theater as a young actor, Leonard was particularly drawn to Jewish roles in film, television, stage, and radio. Most enduringly he brought the gesture of the Biblical High Priest to the world’s attention as an iconic symbol of blessing. He was amused that his fans unsuspectingly blessed each other as they held up their hands and said, “Live long and prosper!”

Most recently, Leonard created magnificent mystical images of feminine Godliness in his Shechinah photographs, one of which he gave to me as a gift graces my synagogue study and adds a spiritual dimension for me of everything I do in my life as a rabbi.

One year Leonard asked me what I thought of his accepting an invitation from Germany to speak before thousands of Star Trek fans. He told me that he’d been asked before but always turned the invitation down due to his own discomfort about setting foot in a country that had murdered six million Jews.

I told him that I thought it was time that he went, and that he take the opportunity to inform a new generation of Germans about who he was as a Jew and about the Jewish dimension of Spock’s personality and outlook. He liked the idea, and so on that basis accepted the invitation.

When he returned he told me that he had shared with the audience his own Jewish story and that Spock’s hand gesture was that of the Jewish High Priest blessing the Jewish community, an image he remembered from his early childhood attending shul with his grandfather in West Boston on Shabbes morning and peeking out from under his grandfather’s tallis at the Kohanim-Priests as they raised their hands in blessing over the congregation.

He told me that when he finished his talk he received a sustained standing ovation, an experience that was among the most moving in his public life.

There’s another incident worth recalling.

The Soviet Film Institute had invited Leonard in the mid 1980s to come to Moscow to speak about “Star Trek IV,” which he had directed. Leonard agreed to come on the condition that he be granted free passage to Zaslov, Ukraine to visit Nimoy relatives he’d never met. The Soviet officials refused, so Leonard declined. Then they had a change of heart and caved, and he and Susan visited the Ukrainian Nimoys thus reuniting two branches of his family tree divided eighty years earlier. Who else but Leonard Nimoy could stare down the former Soviet Union and win!?

Over time Leonard became one of the most positive Jewish role models in the world. He cared about all the right things, about promoting the Jewish arts, about peace and reconciliation between people and nations, and about greater justice in our own society.

He and I talked frequently about our love for Israel and its need for peace. He understood that a democratic Jewish state could survive only alongside a peaceful Palestinian state. He was disgusted by terrorism and war, disheartened by Israeli and Palestinian inability and recalcitrance to find compromise and a way forward towards a two-state solution and peace, and he was infuriated by continuing Israeli West Bank settlement construction and by both Islamic and Jewish fundamentalist extremism.

Though keenly aware of, knowledgeable about and savvy when it came to national and world politics and history, Leonard was at his core a humanitarian and an artist, and that was the lens through which he viewed the world.

Among his favorite quotations was that spoken by the 19th century actor Edwin Booth who claimed to have heard the solemn whisper of the god of all arts:

“I shall give you hunger and pain and sleepless nights, also beauty and satisfaction known to few, and glimpses of the heavenly life. None of these shall you have continually, and of their coming and going you shall not be foretold.”

Leonard did indeed glimpse the heavenly life in his artistic pursuits and in his love for his family and friends.

In thinking of him, I am reminded of Shakespeare’s words:

“Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun.”
“Romeo and Juliet,” Act III, Scene 2

I’ve never known anyone like Leonard – he was utterly unique. I loved him and will cherish his memory always.

Zecher tzaddik livracha – May the memory of this righteous man be a blessing.

Anti-Semitism at UCLA and College Campuses Nationwide and the Impact of BDS on Attitudes Towards Jews

26 Thursday Feb 2015

Posted by in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Ethics, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Social Justice

≈ 6 Comments

The LA Jewish Journal this week reported that four of nine members of the UCLA student government’s highest judicial body “raised concern about a candidate for the board, Rachel Beyda, who could present a conflict of interest and make her unfit to serve impartially as a judge in the student government’s judicial branch.”

What was the problem with Ms. Beyda’s candidacy? She is Jewish, involved with UCLA’s campus Jewish community and therefore, they claimed, has a conflict of interest should the board vote on a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) resolution targeting Israel.

Debra Geller, the chief administrative officer for student and campus life who oversaw the hearing, inserted herself after the vote and told these four board members that they did not appear to understand the difference between ‘conflict of interest’ and ‘perceived conflict of interest,’ and that virtually everyone, including them, could be seen to have a perceived conflict. The four then reversed their vote, and apologized – sort of.

They said: “We ask the Jewish community to accept our sincerest apology. Our intentions were never to attack, insult or de-legitimize the identity of an individual or people.”  (Daily Bruin, February 20)

The words sound right, but this incident reflects something deeper, more troubling, insidious, and pervasive not just at UCLA but on college campuses nationwide.

Though these four dissenters showed sincere remorse for their initial vote against Ms. Beyda, I question whether they and the UCLA administration understand adequately the nature of the problem.

I try not to speak with hyperbole. I am not one who sees anti-Semites lurking under every bed. I am not a fear-monger. I do not believe that all criticism of Jews or the state of Israel is necessarily anti-Semitic.

Yet, our inability to use the term anti-Semitism when it concerns Jews, when we don’t have a problem calling other forms of ethnic and religious bigotry what it is, raises disturbing questions about prevalent attitudes towards Jews, Judaism, Zionism, and the state of Israel.

It is likely that the four members of the UCLA board do not regard their initial position as anti-Semitic. But I believe that it was, and we should call it what it really is.

The multicultural agenda in American liberal circles, that I personally support, includes virtually all other minorities but excludes Jews who, it seems, have been reduced to being simply a successful white American religious group. This attitude belies a deeper understanding of what constitute Judaism, Jewish religious history, Jewish peoplehood, Zionism, and the meaning of the state of Israel in contemporary Jewish identity.

This reductionist Jewish definition has the effect of challenging Israel’s legitimacy and feeding the international de-legitimization movement against Israel. It is not only an anti-Israel and anti-Zionist position, but it is anti-Semitic because it is essentially an attack on the right of Jews to define ourselves, and it plays on classic anti-Semitic stereotypes without appreciating how hurtful and offensive these stereo-types are to Jews, and how damaging they are to the fabric of our American multicultural society.

De-legitimizers of Israel have worked very hard over a number of years to promote the belief that the existence of the state of Israel represents a moral injustice to the Palestinians and that even a two-state solution is morally unacceptable. This position is promoted not just at UCLA but on college campuses nationwide, and is having an effect on student attitudes towards Jews and Israel.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported this week that 54% of American Jewish university students have experienced or witnessed at least one anti-Semitic incident during a single year. These experiences “strongly suggests that anti-Semitism is a nationwide problem,” according to the report.

The attitude of the UCLA administration about what is happening there reflects a national attitude as well. One UCLA official wrote: “My impression, when I speak with students, is that there is more ignorance/lack of sensitivity than racism – and I do try to be on the look-out for racism and other forms of bias.”

Perhaps this is the case with many students, but not all. The problem is the successful conflation of anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism fed by the de-legitimization movement as it plays upon unsuspecting and uninformed college students and faculty, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, who believe that the perceived underdog, in this case the Palestinians, must be supported regardless of context, merit and truth.

There is a silver lining in this incident. This may create a space on campuses for students and faculty to learn more about Jews, Judaism, Zionism, and Jewish identity, and thereby come to a more inclusive, compassionate and fair understanding of who we are, what hurts Jews, and what kind of attitudes we need to evolve about each other.

Dr. Martin Luther King put it exactly right when he said: “People don’t get along because they fear each other. People fear each other because they don’t know each other. They don’t know each other because they have not properly communicated with each other.”

Obviously, this need to know each other works both ways. Jews need to understand Islam, Palestinians and other peoples just as they need to understand us. Now is the time for deeper self-understanding and self-knowledge, for better communication and better listening to the “other.”

Haaretz on Anti-Semitism on College Campuses – http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-news/1.644105

LA Jewish Journal – UCLA Judicial Board Questioned on Jewish Background in Apppointment – http://www.jewishjournal.com/los_angeles/article/ucla_judicial_board_nominee_questioned_for_jewish_background_in_appointment

 

Purim Lessons for Jews in 2015

19 Thursday Feb 2015

Posted by in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Divrei Torah, Ethics, Holidays, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Social Justice

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It is Rosh Chodesh Adar and that means Purim is coming in a particularly difficult time for Jews and the state of Israel.

Given the rise in anti-Semitic attacks in Europe, the brutality and threat of Islamic extremists, the Iran nuclear negotiations, the moribund Israeli-Palestinian peace process, the threat of another Palestinian Intifida, the contested Israeli election, the battle for the soul of the state of Israel and the American Jewish community, one can argue that Purim offers us necessary relief on the one hand and intensified angst on the other.

Truth to tell, Purim should make every Jew feel very uncomfortable, despite the joy and care-free spirit of the celebration, the masquerade and sweet hamantaschen. The story of Esther, though celebrating the victory of the Jews of ancient Persia over Haman’s genocidal intentions, has an intensely dark side for us Jews that we ignore at our peril.

The book of Esther is a challenge to liberal Jewish moral values, and it shows that the human being is capable of just about anything:

“…on the thirteenth day of…Adar…the very day on which the enemies of the Jews had expected to get them in their power, the opposite happened and the Jews got their enemies in their power…Throughout the provinces of King Ahashuerus, the Jews mustered in their cities to attack those who sought their hurt…So the Jews struck at their enemies with the sword, slaying and destroying;…. In the fortress Shushan the Jews killed a total of 500 men… [and] they disposed of their enemies, killing seventy-five thousand of their foes….” (Esther 9:6-10, 16)

How do we modern liberal Jews justify Mordecai’s and the Jews of Persia’s blood-revenge? Though the Esther story’s historicity is suspect, this terrifying tale describes what can and has happened to Jews in exile, and it warns what can happen in any society, even Jewish society, when power falls into the hands of one group.

History has shown that our having our own state has not shielded us from committing moral crimes. Pastor Reinhold Niebuhr, one of the great figures of the 20th century, reminds us about the dangers of power:

“All power is a peril to justice…and the pride and self-righteousness of powerful nations are a greater hazard to their success than the machinations of their foes.”

Israel is a great democracy, but Israel’s military administration of the West Bank is not democratic. There are two systems are at work in the West Bank; one for Jewish settlers and another for Palestinian Arabs.

Though the Jewish response to their Persian enemies in the Esther story is not the story of Israel’s military justice in the West Bank, justice there is compromised by the two sets of standards for Jews and Arabs, and we Jews cannot turn a blind eye by justifying the status quo policy of occupation on the basis of divine right, ideology or security. Peter Beinart put it well this week in Haaretz (February 18, 2015):

“Israel is a decent country composed of decent young men and women who, in the West Bank, are obliged to police people who lack basic rights. And in such circumstances, decent people do indecent things. ‘We are making the lives of millions unbearable,’ declares one former Shin Bet head, Carmi Gillon, in the film ‘The Gatekeepers.’ In the West Bank, Israel has become ‘a brutal occupation force,’ notes another, Avraham Shalom. A third, Yuval Diskin, calls the occupation a ‘colonial regime.’ These men don’t hate Israel; they have dedicated their lives to protecting it…they are discussing the real Israel, not the one [others] have constructed in their minds.”

On Purim Jews are called upon to drink so heavily that we can no longer distinguish between the evil Haman and the virtuous Mordecai.

Do we really need alcohol to remind us that we so easily can assume the identity of Haman in the midst of our stupor? We need only to open our eyes and regard the reality of our situation. Yes, actions in our self-defense as a nation are morally justifiable even though mistakes and excess have resulted in suffering, but our gratuitously perpetrating evil as a matter of policy, which the occupation has become, is not justifiable.

Rather than Purim numbing us with hard drink and masquerade to the truth of our situation and human nature, this holiday arrives each year to remind us of the darkness lurking in every human heart and soul, and that our moral and ethical mandate as Jews, who have been graced with power for the first time in two thousand years, is to be exquisitely sensitive to the suffering of the “other,” to avoid becoming hard-hearted as a people, and to cease the infliction of gratuitous suffering.