29 Monday Sep 2014
On Rosh Hashanah morning I spoke to my congregation about the current state of the Jewish people in the aftermath of the Israel-Hamas War, in light of the rise in anti-Semitism in Europe and Scandinavia, the rise in extremism and intolerance in Israel and in the American Jewish community, and how we American Jews are relating to the State of Israel today.
For those interested, the direct link to the sermon
“For Jews Despair is Not An Option” – Shacharit Rosh Hashanah
G’mar chatimah tovah!
28 Sunday Sep 2014
“At Temple Israel of Hollywood, a true Reform congregation, I am blessed to say that a gay, pregnant, female rabbi is no more out of place on the bima than any of my colleagues!”
So declared my colleague, Rabbi Jocee Hudson, on the second day of Rosh Hashanah in a sermon in which she described both the changes that Reform Judaism has undergone that have opened the door to a wider diversity of Jews, and the challenges facing Jewish life anew in the 21st century. Rabbi Hudson noted that going forward the American Jewish community will need to open its doors even wider and be even more inclusive than we have ever been before to welcome Jews and their families, and to continue to rethink how we pray, how we learn and think about Torah, about the meaning of “community”, how we engage with the people and state of Israel, and about how we recommit ourselves to social justice work here and abroad.
Rabbi Hudson was quick to say that despite the need for ongoing change, such “revolutionary challenges” are, truth to tell, nothing really new in Jewish history and tradition.
That being said, our community has, indeed, changed dramatically in the last fifty years of American Jewish history. One of the most significant changes is the leadership role women have taken as rabbis, cantors, scholars, thinkers, and communal leaders. A second significant change involves the ever-emerging presence of LGBT Jews and Jewish leaders in our congregations thus helping us redefine the meaning of “family” in contemporary Jewish life.
Before Rosh Hashanah, I had the privilege to meet with Tyler (Tye) Gregory, a member of the national staff of “A Wider Bridge,” a relatively new pro-Israel organization that builds bridges between LGBT Israelis and LGBT North American Jews. Arthur Slepian, the organization’s founder has written:
“I am a gay man, an American, and a Jew. I am passionate about Israel, devoted to its well-being, and I want to see a resolution to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians that will enable both to live in peace and security. My love for Israel and my commitment to LGBT equality led me to create ‘A Wider Bridge,’ an organization dedicated to strengthening the bonds between the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender communities in Israel and America. I believe LGBT Jews have been a transformative force for good in the Jewish world and that LGBT Israelis have been and will continue to be a vital force in creating a stronger and better Israel.”
“A Wider Bridge” is a non-political movement based in San Francisco with offices forming in other major American cities. It includes Jews of all political positions relative to American and Israeli political life.
Israel is arguably the most open Middle Eastern nation to homosexual men and women. Recent LGBT pride parades in Jerusalem (2000 participants) and Tel Aviv (100,000 participants) were organized by Israeli LGBT organizations such as Jerusalem’s “Open House for Pride and Tolerance,” “The Aguda: The Israeli National LGBT Task Force,” “Israel Gay Youth,” “Havruta Religious Homosexuals in Israel” and “Bat Kol,” among others.
Mr. Slepian also writes:
“Israel is the most important project of the Jewish people. And we believe in K’lal Yisrael …[but] We are struck by how little the American Jewish and LGBT communities know about Israel’s LGBT communities (and vice versa), and we aim to change that….we believe that Israel is a country worthy of more engagement, more dialogue, more exchange of culture and travel, and should not be the object of boycotts and sanctions. Israel has [not] become some kind of gay paradise: no country in the world qualifies for that title. It is still very hard to be gay in many parts of Israel, there are still many rights battles to be fought and won, and there have been some tragic incidents of anti-gay violence….Our aim was to enable Israeli LGBT activists to meet with and exchange ideas with organizations in the United States facing similar challenges. …Among these are the efforts to enact civil marriage, including same-sex marriage, and the recent initiative in the Knesset to bolster protections against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender. And we support those who are working to persuade the government to develop more compassionate policies regarding gay Palestinians who flee the West Bank and seek refuge in Israel because their lives are in imminent danger either from their families or the Palestinian police.”
“A Wider Bridge” has grown dramatically since its founding. Currently, 25,000 people visit regularly its Face Book Page with 1000 daily views. This movement is a great contribution to contemporary American Jewish and Israeli life, and I support them with a full heart.
For more information, visit http://www.awiderbridge.org. Rabbi Hudson’s sermon will be posted in the next two weeks on our synagogue’s website – http://www.tioh.org.
22 Monday Sep 2014
My brother, Michael, is a scientist (i.e. hematologist-oncologist on faculty at UCLA Medical Center). He accepts truth when empirical evidence is clear. However, he also knows that no matter how much we may think we know, we never have all the information necessary to make categorical statements about objective truth.
He recently wrote the following to me:
“I often marvel at how improbable we all are as humans. There had to be the creation of the universe, then the stars and planets. There had to be an Earth with perfect conditions ripe for life, then enough time for natural selection to create the diversity of life we know. As humankind, we are merely one invention of this process. And as individuals, who are so dependent on both nature and nurture for who we are, each of us is the improbable union of one particular egg and one particular sperm raised in a particular environment by two particular parents. How improbable and unique can you get? Mind boggling!”
Henry Miller wrote the following relative to the truth my brother articulated above:
“Let each one turn his gaze inward and regard himself with awe and wonder, with mystery and reverence; let each one work her own influence, her own havoc, her own miracles.”
This is the nature of this High Holiday season. We are dynamic beings, just as the natural world is dynamic, and we are capable of changing and climbing out of and moving from the holes into which we’ve fallen and become stuck, if only we have the will and the clarity of mind, heart, and spirit to do so.
May it be such for each of us in this New Year 5775.
May Israel and the Palestinians strive to find a better way to live side by side in mutual respect, in peace and in security.
May the forces for good destroy ISIS and defeat all those who would destroy innocent human life and thereby save human lives (I pray specifically in these days for the well-being of Kurdish Muslims of Syria).
These are my most fervent New Year’s hopes. To attain them, it will take us all, decent people who regard every human being as the infinite embodiment of God’s creative and loving will.
L’shanah tovah u-m’tu-kah u-v’ri-yah l’chul’chem u-l’mish’patch’chem u-l’chol y’di-dei-chem!
18 Thursday Sep 2014
I am a collector of quotations on every conceivable theme. During the month of Elul each year I revisit my ever-expanding collection with particular focus on the midot, the moral and ethical virtues that are Judaism’s foundational values.
The virtue of loving-kindness (Hebrew – chesed) is one such midah, and one I learned early in my life by example from my father (z’l) who taught my brother and me to “always be kind.” When our father died so long ago, this was a lesson I took deeply to heart not only for its own sake, but because by being kind (I like to think) I become worthy to be his son. I try and emulate his kindness in everyone I encounter.
I have in my collection pages and pages of quotations on the theme of kindness. I offer below a few of them:
When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.
-Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
Three things in human life are important: The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.
-Henry James
A thoughtful act or a kind word may pass in a moment, but the warmth and care behind it stay in the heart forever.
-Marjolein Bastin
Always be kind!
-Leon Rosove
The best portions of a good person’s life are little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love.
-William Wordsworth
You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.
–Ralph Waldo Emerson
Be kind because everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.
-Philo Judaeus
It is a bit embarrassing to have been concerned with the human problem all one’s life and find at the end that one has no more to offer by way of advice than to try to be a little kinder.
-Aldous Huxley
Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.
-Leo Buscaglia
Today I bent the truth to be kind, and I have no regret, for I am far surer of what is kind than I am of what is true.
-Robert Brault
The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the grandest intention.
–Oscar Wilde
Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not.
-Samuel Johnson
I expect to pass through this world but once; any good thing therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now; let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.
-Étienne de Grellet du Mabillier
For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone.
-Audrey Hepburn
14 Sunday Sep 2014
Posted in American Jewish Life, Ethics, Health and Well-Being, Holidays
Too many people think that they have done their duty by apologizing for their insensitive remarks to and about others, wrongs committed against others and acts of omission towards family, friends and co-workers when they say “If I hurt you, I am sorry.”
THAT is NOT an apology. Full apologies are not conditional, especially when it is clear that we have actually hurt another human being deliberately or even by accident.
A full apology sounds like this –
“I hurt you when I did such and such. I know it. I am truly sorry because I should not have done it. Please accept my apology. I hope you can and will forgive me. What else can I do to make it up to you, to wipe the slate clean and to begin again together to restore your trust in me?”
THAT is an apology because it is unconditional, direct, specific, full hearted, and humble.
The often-used “if I hurt you” does not do a number of critically important things. Those who want to fulfill the mitzvah of making amends and going to people they have not hurt, just to cover themselves and seem to be pious, saying, “If I did anything this year to hurt you, I apologize” are acting in a silly and unnecessary manner. I encourage people not to do this.
Second, the above “apology” is not real until full unconditional verbal confession is made.
Third, such “faux-apologies” (i.e. “If I hurt you”) leave in the mind of the recipient an unsatisfied feeling that the apology was never in fact made because it wasn’t. Consequently, there is no possibility from these words of a true reconciliation.
In a true apology, the act itself must be acknowledged and verbalized – such as:
“I did not call you when you were very ill. I know that as family/friend/colleague/co-worker that hurt you. I am sorry and apologize.”
Or – “I spoke ill of you to others, and it got back to you. I should not have succumbed to l’shon ha-ra (evil speech) and I know I did a terrible wrong. I also know that I hurt you and destroyed the trust we had built up together, and I deeply regret it. I want to make this right and I am willing to go to those to whom I said those things and take them back, and when I do I hope you will forgive me so we can restore trust between us.”
Or – “I flirted with another man and I know that I violated our relationship, and that I wounded you. I regret the flirting and I regret hurting you. I want to restore our relationship of trust. Please forgive me and help me do this.”
Those are full hearted and complete apologies because they include acknowledgement of the bad act and its emotional impact on the victim, verbal confession to the individual, a desire to give compensation of some kind, and a willfulness to restore the relationship.
To do all this requires that the doer feel vulnerable and a measure of shame and then demonstrate courage in owning up. Those who have persuaded themselves that they are always in the right have the greatest challenge before them, and those who live with such people are often frustrated because though they know the truth, the person who thinks he/she is always right and always the victim when it is not the case rarely takes responsibility for him/herself. I suggest that such people need effective psychological counseling to help them gain greater self-insight, of which they are sorely lacking.
This is the season for us to pause and examine what we do (cheshbon hanefesh) and how what we do impacts others for better and worse.
Rabbi Moses ben Maimon (i.e. Maimonides; RAMBAM), in the Mishnah Torah (Laws of Repentance) wrote the following:
“What is teshuvah? It is when a wrong-doer abandons his sin and removes it from his thoughts, and resolves in his heart not to do that deed again… And he must confess in words these things that he has resolved in his heart.” (2:2)
“It is very praiseworthy for the penitent to confess publicly and announce her sins, and reveal to others the transgressions she committed against her fellow… Everyone who is arrogant and does not reveal but rather conceals her sins – her teshuvah is not complete…” (2:5)
“Even if one only injured the other in words [and not in deed], he must pacify him and approach him until he forgives him.” (2:9-10)
“What is complete teshuvah? When one comes upon a situation in which she once transgressed, and it is possible to do so again, but she refrains and does not transgress on account of her repentance.” (2:1)
Very few people have mastered their yetzer hara (“the evil inclination”). Jewish legend relates that there are only 36 completely righteous people in the world (the lamed vavniks). Everyone else – i.e. all of us – struggles to do right and to return to those we love and care about, to Torah, to Judaism, and to God.
I wish for everyone well and success this year in your self-examination during the remaining days of Elul and during this coming High Holiday season.
07 Sunday Sep 2014
Now that the fighting has stopped, sober analysis of the most recent war has begun. Here are four articles I believe worth reading, among many.
1. Failure in Gaza, By Assaf Sharon – New York Review of Books
Assaf Sharon is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Tel Aviv University. He is the academic director of Molad: The Center for the Renewal of Israeli Democracy.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/sep/25/failure-gaza/
“Understanding how we got to this point—and, more importantly, how we can move beyond it—calls for an examination of the political events that led up to the operation and the political context in which it took place.”
“False assumptions, miscalculations, and obsolete conceptions robbed Israel of initiative. Lacking clear aims, Israel was dragged, by its own actions, into a confrontation it did not seek and did not control. Israel was merely stumbling along, with no strategy, chasing events instead of dictating them. What emerged as the operative aim was simply “to hit Hamas,” which for the troops translates as a license for extensive and unchecked use of force.”
2. Israel’s Lessons From the Gaza Wars, by Ali Jarbawi – NY Times, September 4, 2014
Ali Jarbawi is a political scientist and a former minister of the Palestinian Authority. This article was translated by Ghenwa Hayek from the Arabic.
“The road to peace is both clearly delineated and short: It is the public acceptance of the legitimate right of the Palestinians to end the occupation and establish a state.”
3. Israel’s land appropriation: Foolish, ill-timed and self-destructive – By Rabbi Eric Yoffie – Haaretz – Sep. 3, 2014
Rabbi Eric Yoffie is the immediate past president of the Union for Reform Judaism, and is now writes frequently in Haaretz and the Jerusalem Post –
http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.613782
“Perhaps there could be a more foolish, ill-timed, and self-destructive decision than the one made by Israel’s cabinet this week, but it is hard to imagine what it might be.
Israel’s enemies in the Middle East and throughout the world are rejoicing. If you really despise the Jewish state, nothing makes you happier than a move by Israeli leaders to expand settlements. The move, in this case, was a decision by the cabinet to appropriate 1000 acres of West Bank land for settlement building in the Etzion settlement bloc, near Bethlehem. The land has been designated as “state land,” even though ownership is claimed by local Palestinians.”
“Nothing unites the world against Israel like settlement building. Even Israel’s staunchest supporters abroad, trying to make Israel’s case to a skeptical public after the Gaza war, are asking: Why undermine us now?
4. Muzzled by the Minority, By Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie, Reform Judaism Magazine, Fall 2013
“Many rabbis don’t express their true views about Israel publicly for fear of clashing with a handful of congregants who might lash out against them. But there are ways to navigate this minefield of divided opinion.”
Rabbi Yoffie worries aloud about the lack of civility in the American Jewish community vis a vis Israel, and offers a five-fold approach to resolving this issue. He confronts, as well, a number of challenges facing American rabbis and American Jews generally in our relationship to the state of Israel, and sites a number of opinion surveys of American Jewish attitudes towards Israel, the occupation, settlements, and the rightful role that American Zionists have in expressing views publicly that may counter the policy positions of the government of Israel. He notes that according to the 2013 Pew Research Center poll, the majority of American Jews remain strongly devoted to Israel without necessarily agreeing with everything Israel’s leaders do, and that the majority opinion in the American Jewish community is dovish, not hawkish, contrary to what many organized American Jewish organizations say and would like us to believe.
04 Thursday Sep 2014
Sometimes light shines unexpectedly from unexpected places. Such was the case this week when I participated in a study seminar with a group of 10 American rabbis and 10 Egyptian imams.
The ten Muslim scholars are visiting the United States from Egypt’s Al Azhar University. They were brought to the United States through a grant from the American Embassy in Cairo as part of a program called “Muslims in America: Community, Democracy and Political Participation.”
Rabbi Reuven Firestone, Professor of Medieval Judaism and Islam at HUC-JIR in Los Angeles, and Rabbi Sarah Bassin, the immediate past Executive Director of the LA-based NewGround, a Muslim-Jewish Partnership for Change, hosted us.
We began our two hours of learning and dialogue by coupling one rabbi with one imam, and introducing ourselves to each other by explaining the origins of our names. Then we studied in chevruta pairs the traditional story of Cain and Abel/Qabil and Habil as it appears in both the Torah (Genesis 4) and the Quran (Sura 5).
I paired with Saudi Arabian-born Sheikh Ahmed Wessam Abbas Khedhr, a scholar in the Department of Shari’ah Law at Al Azhar University, who is also a member of the Council of Egypt’s Fatwa House and an imam (prayer leader) and khateeb (deliverer of Friday sermons) at Al-Rahman Al-Raheem Mosque in Cairo.
Ahmed spoke no English, so a translator simultaneously translated as we spoke to each other. He is a gentle, kind, dignified, and intelligent man about half my age. As we read together the Torah and Quran stories of Cain and Abel/Qabil and Habil, as well as one rabbinic text from Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5 that is based on the story of Cain, we found the following common message: “…anyone who destroys one human soul is considered as if he destroyed an entire world, and anyone who establishes one human soul is as if he has saved an entire world.” (see also Quran – Sura 5:32)
We then focused on the theme of compassion and its central place in each of our religious traditions. I shared with Ahmed the Talmudic statement that “One who shows no compassion, it is known that he is not of the seed of Abraham.” (Bavli, Beitzah 32b) He shared with me that one of Allah’s most significant other names is Rahman (“the Mercificul”) and I was able to share with him that in Jewish tradition the Hebrew cognate Rachamim (“Compassionate One”) is also one of God’s names.
Ahmed raised the issue of terrorism, and wished to emphasize with me that Islam utterly rejects terrorism and violence against innocents. I shared with Ahmed that the same holds true in Judaism.
Very quickly we found that we share many common religious values and that they are central to our respective faith traditions despite vast differences between Judaism and Islam. From there, each of us palpably relaxed and settled into a wonderful exchange of ideas.
Our conversation ended all too quickly as we were drawn back into a larger conversation with the complete group of 10 imams and 10 rabbis. Rabbi Firestone reminded us how important it is for Jews and Muslims to respect each other’s religious faith traditions, not simply to tolerate each other, but to come to understand and then accept each other as exponents of a true expression of God’s revelation.
I had earlier shared with Ahmed the idea that God’s light is so brilliant that it cannot be seen by any human being, and that the Divine light is refracted as if through a prism into many colors of the rainbow each of which represents a particular religious path and tradition. Only when all peoples’ faith traditions are taken together as one can humankind begin to glimpse a small portion of God’s light.
I was exhilarated to be a part of this study session, and we agreed that there is too little of this kind of dialogue taking place here and in the Middle East.
Our ignorance of each other’s traditions is substantial, and that ignorance inevitably leads to distrust, the creation of negative stereotypes and simplistic absolutist thinking about each other.
Reuven concluded by sharing the hope that when our guests return to Cairo they would speak more to the international media on behalf of moderate Islam, because the world needs to hear from them and not Islamic extremists.
As we parted, Imam Ahmed Wessam bid me farewell as “Brother John,” and I returned the compliment saying, “Brother Ahmed – Assalamu Alaikum.”
29 Friday Aug 2014
There are three deferments allowed soldiers going into battle according to this week’s Torah portion, Shoftim (see Deuteronomy 20:5-8).
If a person has built a new house and not yet dedicated it, planted a vineyard and not yet harvested it, or paid the bridal price for a wife and not yet married her, the individual may be excused from fighting a war.
I asked a former Israeli officer in the Navy Seals what deferments or accommodations the IDF allows its soldiers. He explained that even before young Israelis turn 18 years old, from about the age of 16, young people are tested to determine many things, including their intellectual aptitude, emotional disposition and physical capacities so that by the time they reach the draft age, the IDF is able to direct them appropriately, as soldiers destined for battle, as officers, as intelligence specialists, and a myriad of other duties that the IDF needs fulfilled. People with serious physical or emotional disabilities are excused. Religious students are also excused per agreement with the ultra-Orthodox religious parties, but that is beginning to change.
The question for us relative to the Torah portion this week is this – ‘What links the un-dedicated house, the non-harvested vineyard, and the not-yet-married groom? The answer includes both practical and religious concerns.
An effective soldier cannot be distracted while in battle, and both uncontrolled fear (see Deuteronomy 20:1-4) or distractions such as these three deferments were understood to limit the soldier’s effectiveness. Though every soldier, ancient and modern, is frightened when going into battle, Israeli soldiers understand that Israel cannot afford ever to lose a war. If it does, the soldier knows that his/her family and friends are in danger of losing their lives and everything that the Jewish people has worked so hard to build in the state of Israel will be destroyed.
Rabbi Matthew Berkowitz, in a JTS commentary (August 26, 2006), wrote that the religious concern at the basis for these deferments involves ways in which Jews sanctify life. Judaism calls one’s home a mik’dash m’at, a small sanctuary (reflective of the Beit haMik’dash – the Temple in Jerusalem), a sacred space in which God’s presence abides and the inhabitants are inspired to live lives of higher meaning and purpose.
One’s vineyard produces the wine or grape juice used to sanctify Shabbat and the holidays; in other words, the sanctification of time.
And one’s marriage reminds us of the first commandment in Torah, p’ru ur’vu (Genesis 1:28), to be fruitful and multiply; that is, our obligation to bring forward the next generation of Jews and sanctify the future.
Though family is defined in the Bible narrowly, it is important for modern Jews to embrace family in much larger and more expansive ways, that those who may not marry or have children of their own can nevertheless impact the future of our community in many significant ways; as teachers, health care workers, big brothers and sisters, favorite uncles and aunts. They can work on behalf of the elderly, act politically to assure the quality of life for the most vulnerable in our community, use one’s business and financial resources to bring comfort, solace, compassion, and justice into our community affairs.
The sanctification of space – the sanctification of time – the sanctification of the future – all are fundamental Jewish values brought forth through the generations since the earliest stages in Jewish history.
This is the first Shabbat in the Hebrew month of Elul that precedes Rosh Hashanah, and so it is a time for us to begin to ask ourselves questions such as these:
How do we sanctify space, time and the future?
How do we define a life based in meaning and blessing?
In what ways are we sanctifying our lives and the lives of others?
What tasks have we completed that have brought a great sense of holiness into our lives, our families and friends, our community, people and nation?
These are all worth pondering now as we move closer to the High Holidays.
Shabbat shalom.
22 Friday Aug 2014
Despite all the turmoil in the Jewish world, war with Hamas, intensification of anti-Israel feeling in Europe, racism in Missouri, Isis, destabilization in so many places in the Middle East, Africa and Ukraine, the High Holiday season is the time for the Jewish community to return to itself, to God, to family and community, to Torah and the central life of the spirit.
This does not happen by itself. Our effort is necessary.
The month of Elul begins this coming Wednesday evening. It is the “get ready” month before the High Holidays, and the more we do in preparation in advance of the holidays, the more we will personally benefit. We need that focus as individual Jews now more than ever.
Ala David Letterman, I offer ten suggestions in descending order of importance to think about and do starting Wednesday evening, if not before in the spirit of t’shuvah (return).
#10 – Break your daily routine. Identify one bad habit you wish to break. Focus on the good qualities of others and not their bad qualities. Begin to let go of your anger, resentment and hurt. Clean up your language. If you wouldn’t say certain things in front of a child or your mother, then don’t say it at all, ever.
#9 – Take your shoes off. A USA Today study reported years ago that those who habitually kick off their shoes under the dining table, desk or pew tend to live three years longer than the average American. Your feet are like the soul. Feet bound for too long begin to stink, and cloistered souls prevent divine light from shining forth.
#8 – Meditate – The American Institute on Stress reports that 75-90% of all visits to primary care physicians are for stress-related complaints. Meditation is a means to become more aware and conscious. It can be done at any time, when listening to music, looking at fine art, reading a good book or poetry, exercising, or sitting still. Meditation trains us to listen to what is happening within and around us, and consequently to be more present with our loved ones.
#7 – Exercise every day – Walk, swim, ride a bicycle, and keep your body toned. Whenever possible, walk the stairs. Park at the far end of a parking lot. The number of calories we burn this way will result in the loss of pounds over the course of a year, lower your heart rate, reduce your blood pressure, create a healthier physique, and enable us to feel a greater sense of well-being. At the same time, reduce the number of calories we take in, eliminate sugar and salt, and eat well (see #6 for occasional relief!).
#6 – Do one “wild” thing each day, such as:
• Have an ice cream
• Eat chocolate
• Buy a loved one a gift for no good reason at unexpected times
• Laugh whenever possible
• Stretch everywhere
• Sing in the shower
• Say hello to a perfect stranger
• Smile at a attractive woman or good-looking man (as long as you are alone and not with your spouse or partner), and for God’s sake, smile back if you’re smiled at
• Be kind for no reason at all
• Let the guy cut in front of you in traffic
• Pet a dog and look into its eyes – there is more sweetness and love there than you are ever likely to see anywhere else
#5 – Learn to say “No” more often when you are overtaxed and exhausted. And say “Yes” to spending time doing those things that feed your soul, inspire you, infuse you with strength, and draw you closer to the people you love and care most about. Read great literature. Find great teachers. Do mitzvot that accentuate kindness. Give tzedakah every time poor people ask it of you, and don’t question their motives or worthiness. Visit the sick. Call the lonely. Touch, hug and kiss an elderly person who might not have been touched in a very long while.
#4 – Strengthen your friendships – express gratitude to your dear ones more freely. Tell them why they are precious to you.
#3 – Come to worship services more often. Join with others as a community in praise and prayer. Studies indicate that those who worship regularly are less lonely and actually live longer.
#2 – Light candles on Shabbat even if you are alone. Buy or bake challah and fill your cup with good wine to the very top – and then drink it all! Acknowledge God’s presence everywhere. Feel humility before the Creator. Know that all creation is interconnected within the great Oneness of God.
#1 – Learn Torah. Take advantage of adult learning opportunities. Find one verse or more in the Hebrew Bible that speaks to you personally, and let it become your “mantra.” It may be “Vay’hi or – Let there be light!” V’ahavta l’reiacha kamocha – Love your fellow as yourself”, “V’ahavta et Adonai Eloheicha – Love Adonai your God”, Tzedek tzedek tirdof – Justice, justice shall you pursue. “Shiviti Adonai l’negdi – I have set God always opposite me.” “Sh’ma Yisrael – Listen O Israel, Adonai is our God, Adonai alone!” Commit the verse to memory. Make it your own. Say it to yourself frequently and become its words.
These are my 10 suggestions for this Elul. I wish you well in fulfilling one or more of them. May the 30 days from Wednesday to Rosh Hashanah be time well spent. May these days create a pathway filled with sweetness, wisdom, light, and love.
Shabbat shalom!
17 Sunday Aug 2014
Leonard Leibel Fein’s death is a particularly painful loss to the liberal social activist progressive Zionist world. He spoke and wrote always the truth as he understood it, inspired by a deeply Jewish vision, with an eloquence and a precision of language that inspired, opened the heart and renewed a sense of purpose and hope in anyone who was open and receptive enough to resonate with his message.
I first met Leibel 44 years ago when I was a college student at the summer Aliyah of then Brandeis Camp Institute (now Brandeis-Bardin) in Simi Valley, California, where he had come to spend a month with us 70+ young people from all over the country and world. He spoke to us and with us, lecturing about American Jewish life and religion, God, Israel, Zionism, Soviet Jewry, and social justice.
Those were the heady euphoric years after Israel’s lightning victory in the 1967 Six-Days War, yet Leibel (an early scholar of the Israeli enterprise at Brandeis University) understood intuitively that the great victory of three years earlier on the battlefield that resulted in the reunification of Jerusalem and the acquisition of the West Bank, Golan Heights, and Sinai desert, did not address the deeper far more complex moral challenges that confronted the state of Israel and the Jewish people.
He emphasized that there were at least four significant challenges confronting Israel and world Jewry at that time; (1) the 1967 war would not be the last war Israel would be forced to fight; (2) Israel’s Jewish culture, moral and democratic character would be defined in part by how it settled the Arab-Israeli conflict, how it conducted itself as an occupier of more than a two and a half million hostile Palestinian Arabs then living in the West Bank and Gaza, and whether it treated Israeli-Palestinian citizens of the state as equal citizens with Israeli Jews; (3) what would be the fate of the three million Soviet Jews then trapped behind the iron curtain, and (4) looking us in the eye, what we young American and Canadian Jews (and a couple of Israelis), then in our late teens and early twenties, would become as American Jewish leaders.
For some reason, Leibel singled me out all those years ago (he was only 36 at the time), gently but assuredly, and privately challenged me to become engaged seriously with the American Jewish community as a Zionist and a leader. In that way, Leibl became one of my earliest Zionist mentors.
I read nearly everything he would subsequently write, and so often over the decades he focused my thinking and redirected how I considered the great issues facing America and the Jewish people. He never lost his intellectual, moral and compassionate verve. As this last column (link below) that Leibel wrote for The Forward so eloquently and movingly expresses, with its introductory note by the Forward’s editors, what made Leibel Fein’s thought so deeply Jewish was that the prophetic tradition was always his proof text and he led as much from the heart as from the mind.
As Leibel battled his own demons over the years, suffered the tragic loss of his daughter, and finally illness that seemed to plague him for far too long, he never lost what made him that unique and compelling thought leader.
I will miss him, though we only saw each other at J Street conferences in recent years, but he is embedded in my heart as he is in the hearts of so many of us.
Zichrono livracha. May his memory abide as a blessing.
http://forward.com/articles/204190/from-gaza-to-sderot-trauma-marks-the-past-and-t/#ixzz3AcSJiiW2
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