Category Archives: Ethics

How Trump can win the presidency

29 Wednesday Jun 2016

Posted by in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Ethics, Jewish Identity, Social Justice, Women's Rights

≈ 8 Comments

Though rabbis have to be very careful when speaking and writing in support of Hillary Clinton, which I have decided to do in this presidential election for the first time since I was ordained a rabbi in 1979 (note: rabbis cannot speak from the bimah to advocate for a particular candidate, nor can we use our institutional stationary to endorse a candidate, nor our synagogue email address, nor any official venue in our synagogues and religious institutions lest we cross a line and violate our synagogue’s non-profit status as a 501C3 entity), as individuals we can speak out as long as we indicate that we are doing so as individuals.

I have not endorsed candidates for any office before (local, state and national), though I have spoken out on moral and ethical issues as related to public policy matters, and will continue to do so.

I have been tutored by rabbis far wiser than me, however, that in the case when a candidate is clearly a bigot and whose policy positions are contrary to most every position the liberal American Jewish community advocates, that we must speak against such a candidate with every fiber of our beings. The American Reform movement through the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) representing 1.5 million Reform Jews, our social justice commission and the Religious Action Center (RAC) in Washington, D.C. (our movement’s social justice arm in the nation’s capital) has passed and advocated for many years through many resolutions on matters effecting economic justice, the environment, civil society, civil rights, embracing the stranger and immigrant, fair criminal justice reform, sensible gun control, condemnation of racism, misogyny, mocking the disabled, homophobia, and advocating on behalf of diversity, religious pluralism, and Israel’s safety and sustenance as a Jewish and democratic state.

In one recent poll, though Hillary Clinton was ahead by 11 points against Donald Trump in a two-party two-person race, when adding the Libertarian Party and the Green Party to the mix she was ahead by only 1 point – a virtual tie. Those other two parties will be on most ballots, and so we who protest everything that Trump is and stands for ought not assume that Hillary Clinton will win the presidency based on polls that consider only the two large political parties.

I am not one of those ‘Bernie or Bust’ folks who hate Hillary Clinton to a degree that is, frankly, confusing to me.

Recognizing that Hillary could well be our next President, a year ago I decided to read as much as I could about her. I read three critical biographies as well as two of her memoirs, and I have come to the conclusion that she is a principled public leader, driven by her faith from childhood and her high school years in a church youth group, and as smart and experienced a public servant as there is or ever has been in our national life. She is no doubt flawed and she has made some mistakes, but so are we all flawed. We are not electing a Pope. We are electing a President.

It is also clear to me that Hillary learns from her mistakes, even if she is not as publicly forthright as I or others would like to see her be when she does so. I do believe that she is decent to her core.

I know and respect people who have been supporting Bernie Sanders, and I understand why and respect them for their passion as I respect Bernie for his larger vision. I have always found him honest and refreshing. I also know people who don’t like Bernie and hate both Hillary and Trump, and have decided in disgust to sit this election out to avoid feeling corrupted themselves in supporting a candidate they do not like. I do not understand the depth of venom with which these folks despise Hillary. It does not seem normal, warranted or healthy to me.

I would urge those who refuse to vote for Hillary Clinton to think again and consider that their sitting this election out or their voting for one of the other third and fourth party candidates in protest could result in the election of a President Donald Trump.

I am particularly worried about millennial voters (ages 18-36) who have flocked to Bernie Sanders in large numbers. Surveys indicate that young people do not vote at the same rate as older people, which is one of the reasons that the Congress and Senate are now run by right-wing Republicans. Had young people voted in state races in 2000 and 2010 when legislatures redistricted according to the national census and according to which parties were in power (gerrymandering is legal but corrupt) and had they voted in the mid-term congressional races (the last time Democrats earned 2 million more votes than Republicans and lost the House of Representatives anyway), policy coming out of Washington, D.C. would be very different today.

This is an election that cannot go to Trump, and it is up to all of us who see him for who and what he is to do everything we can to elect Hillary Clinton as President.

Important disclaimer and note: I speak only for myself and not for my synagogue, its members or any other organization.

The most humble man who ever lived – considered in light of the British decision to leave the EU

24 Friday Jun 2016

Posted by in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Divrei Torah, Ethics, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Stories

≈ 1 Comment

Introductory note: I was planning to post this d’var Torah before the British vote yesterday on whether to remain or leave the European Union, and decided to post it anyway after the fact because I believe that this decision to leave the EU will stoke an added measure of fear and uncertainty in the hearts of millions throughout the world, as is already reflected in the falling financial markets. This decision, for better or worse, will likely bring out the very worst in some people in Great Britain, Europe and the United States, as if we did not already have enough fear and anxiety as expressed in this presidential election campaign.

I know no completely righteous person in the sense that Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi (1745-1812), the founder of Chabad Lubavitch who authored “The Tanya,” meant it. The Alter Rebbe (as he is known) delineates five moral/spiritual categories of people – the completely righteous (tzaddik gamur), the righteous (tzaddik), the completely evil (rasha gamur), the evil (rasha), and the “in-betweeners” (beinonim).

The vast majority of us are beinonim, and though many of us may strive to behave as a tzaddik (and even seem to be a tzaddik from the outside because of our kindness and good deeds), still the yetzer hara (the evil inclination) as opposed to the yetzer tov (good inclination) distracts and confuses us in our struggle to remain moral, kind, generous, empathetic, and spiritually pure.

The tzaddik gamur, the completely righteous person, is different from the ‘simple’ tzaddik in that still in the latter there is the taint of the evil yetzer. The complete tzaddik has successfully subsumed the evil yetzer in his/her heart and soul completely. Such a person is considered to be among the legendary 36 righteous human beings (i.e. lamed vavniks) whose presence in the world enables the world to survive. Such a person “pursues justice, loves compassion and walks humbly before God.” (Micah 6:8)

In this week’s Torah portion B’ha-a-lotecha (Numbers 8:1-12:16) it is written that Moses was “a very humble man, more so than any other man on earth.” (12:3) The Hebrew word for ‘humble’ is anav and appears only one time in the five books of Moses – here. Given Moses’ extraordinary career as prince, shepherd, prophet, liberator, chieftain, military leader, and judge, it’s legitimate to wonder what “humility” meant as it applies to Moses. After all, Moses was hardly a shrinking violet. He was neither self-effacing nor lacking in confidence, nor was he a pacifist. He killed an Egyptian, challenged Pharaoh, crushed a rebellion, killed through the sword 10,000 of his own people after the incident of the golden calf, spoke face to face with God, broke the divinely inscribed tablets, argued with and challenged God.

This passage from Proverbs offers a sense of the meaning of anivut: “The effect of humility is awe of God, wealth, honor, and life.” (22:4)

According to the Biblical and rabbinic traditions, humility is based in an awareness of one’s self that comes about as a function of our awareness of God, that is, our perception of the creative intelligent unifying power in and beyond the universe that transcends human comprehension and inspires awe and wonder, gratitude, generosity and love.

The Talmud and Midrashic literature categorically condemn arrogance and close-mindedness, the opposite of humility. Rabbi Yochanan said in Rabbi Simeon Bar Yochai’s name, “One who is arrogant is as though he worships idols.” (Babylonian Talmud, Sota 4b). Such a person is called a toevah – an abominator, someone who sees only him or herself and leaves no room for the Shekhinah, the Divine Presence.

A story is told of an American professor of religion who wished to meet a particular Buddhist monk. After the westerner’s long and arduous journey, the monk received him on a mountain top where he lived and welcomed him to sit quietly with him on his mat. Tea was brought and placed before the two men. The monk began pouring the tea into a cup – and he kept pouring until the tea overflowed the cup and into the saucer. The monk continued pouring the tea as it spilled onto the mat. At last, the professor could maintain his silence no more and said, “Master – what are you doing? Can’t you see that the cup is full and tea is pouring out everywhere?”

“Aha,” said the wise sage. “So too are you so full of your own ideas that there is no more room for anything new or different.”

Such is the nature of arrogance. It is closed, rigid and intolerant, presumptuous, prejudiced, fearful, and hateful, angry, self-centered, and nasty at its core. It is motivated by the yetzer hara (the evil impulse). The opposite is anivut, humility, which is motivated by the yetzer tov (the good impulse).

Our world and nation are in desperate need of this virtue. May it be nurtured in us all.

Shabbat shalom.

 

Exagoge – The World Premier of an Ancient Play – Review

19 Sunday Jun 2016

Posted by in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Divrei Torah, Ethics, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Social Justice, Stories

≈ 2 Comments

This original, provocative and thoroughly engaging theatrical production, “Exagoge,” is a play written and directed by the award winning playwright Aaron Henne (LA Weekly and SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award) and artistic director of Theatre Dybbuk. It is based on the first-ever recorded Jewish play by “Ezekiel the Poet,” likely written during the 2nd century, BCE. This is a 269-line composition telling the biblical story of the Exodus in the style of a Greek Tragedy.

Seven actors of Theater Dybbuk (Rob Adler, Jenny Gillett, Nick Greene, Julie Lockhart, Rebecca Rasmussen, Diana Tanaka, and Jonathan C.K. Williams) make up the ensemble cast. Ten African American and Hispanic teen-age singers and a percussionist of the Harmony Project’s Leimert Park Choir in South Los Angeles (Musical Director is Ken Anderson whose choirs have performed at the White House, Kennedy Center, in London, and Copenhagen) sing the original score by Michael Skloff, composer, arranger, conductor, and producer of musical theater, stage, film, and television (Michael’s credits include the theme song for Friends, “I’ll Be There for You,” and, with his son Sam the music of the Netflix comedy series, “Grace and Frankie”).

Henne’s script is multi-layered and textured, and the action shifts back and forth from the Biblical era to the contemporary world. Moses is played by all the actors using a mask that they pass between them, and we hear Moses’ inner thoughts, conflicts, challenges, fears, and prophetic visions as well as the feelings, thoughts and perspectives of his Midianite wife Tzipora and father in-law Jethro, Pharaoh, and others from both the ancient and modern worlds including the struggles of Vietnamese, Mexican, Syrian, Holocaust era and Russian Jewish refugees who, though escaping the violence and oppression at home, encounter hardship, quotas, racism and discrimination in the United States.

The pull of nationhood and religion is fraught with tension when the characters consider their familial and tribal bonds and loyalties. The questions “Who am I?” and “Where/what is home?” are ever-present.

After forty years living happily and serenely the shepherd’s life with his wife Tzipora and his adopted Midianite family (the most open hearted and welcoming characters in the play), Moses returns to Egypt on God’s command to free his people. He remembers (memory is a central theme in the play) being pulled from the river, being raised in the Pharaoh’s palace, killing an Egyptian taskmaster, fleeing for his life to Midian, being taken in lovingly by Jethro and his people, becoming a simple shepherd, encountering God out of the burning bush, re-entering Egypt, escaping with his people through the Sea of Reeds, and slaying 10,000 of his own people by the sword for their crime of apostasy after the Golden Calf betrayal.

Moses loses many of his people along the way, as well as former dear ones who no longer are of his immediate world.

Tzipora loves her husband just as Moses loves her, but she resists leaving her tribe, family and children, and she challenges Moses and her father Jethro who together proclaim the virtue of human freedom but are dumb and blind to the  subordination of women in tribal society.

Women play men’s roles along with the men, not the other way around. The identity of every actor shifts on a dime, and for 110 minutes you better be on your toes because the dialogue and exhortations are tightly and well-written, and rapidly delivered.

Exagoge is an intelligent play, one that makes you think and that pierces the heart. When I left, there was much to consider anew about both the ancient story of the Exodus and those same themes as applied to the contemporary world.

Michael Skloff’s music is haunting with no instrumental accompaniment except a rhythmic drum beat and the non-verbal singing of the teen choir. One of the actors suddenly breaks from her monologue and chants the Torah trope from the first chapter of Genesis creation story.

The visual effects and lighting in our Temple Israel’s new chapel, converted into a state-of-the-art theater as designed by Koning-Eisenberg Architects, are stunning, and the sound is strong and clear even for the hard of hearing.

The premier performance of Exagoge at Temple Israel of Hollywood was made possible by The Rosenthal Family Foundation and was produced as part of the Temple Israel of Hollywood Arts Program.

THE ARTS@TIOH

Creativity. Compassion. Connection. Community – These are the qualities with which a handful of entertainment luminaries founded Temple Israel of Hollywood in 1926. For almost a century, writers, actors, directors, artists, musicians, comics, craftsmen, agents, and producers have helped make Temple Israel a center for deep spiritual meaning, mass social activism and unwavering human connection – all infused with the greatest of artistic expression and creative talent. The TIOH Arts Program honors this tradition of service with continued presentation of Jewish arts programs for children in our congregation and across our city.

“Love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love” – and a prayer for the ages

16 Thursday Jun 2016

Posted by in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Divrei Torah, Ethics, Health and Well-Being, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Tributes

≈ 2 Comments

As I watched Lin-Manuel Miranda accept the Tony Award for best musical “Hamilton” in New York on Sunday, I was struck not only by the beauty of his sonnet but by the passionate effect of his eight-time repetition of that simple four-letter word – “LOVE”:

“…When senseless acts of tragedy remind us
That nothing here is promised, not one day.
This show is proof that history remembers
We lived through times when hate and fear seemed stronger;
We rise and fall and light from dying embers,
Remembrances that hope and love last longer
And love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love
cannot be killed or swept aside…
Now fill the world with music, love and pride.”

Love knocked this week reminding us who we are and ought to be.

Thousands lined up to give blood. Restaurants brought food. Hands touched hands and eyes beheld eyes. Hearts melded into one in Orlando and throughout the land.

The destruction of life by the assassin begets mourning and stimulates the resolve of all decent people to resist hate and fear.

The truth is that love eclipses hate every time.

It happens that in this week’s Torah portion Naso, there appears the oldest blessing in Jewish recorded history:

“May God bless you and keep you;
May God’s light shine upon you and be gracious to you;
May God lift up the Divine countenance upon you and grant you shalom – wholeness and peace.” (Numbers 6:24-26)

Known as the Birkat Kohanim, the blessing of the priests, it is at least 3000 years old. The oldest copy of this ancient text was unearthed in the City of David in Jerusalem and is estimated have been written down around 900 BCE.

Rabbinic tradition of later centuries developed a  mythology about the use of this blessing. The midrashim say that these words were invoked by God when contemplating the writing of the Torah and the creation of the universe, when the first humans emerged from the dust and were infused with Divine breath, and when Moses received the Torah on Mount Sinai.

The Kohanim (priests) and many rabbis today raise their hands in the form of the Hebrew letter shin (the first letter of one of God’s names – Shaddai) and bless the congregation on Shabbat and holidays, at a brit milah and the naming of a baby girl, upon b’nai mitzvah, Jews by-choice, and marriage couples under the chuppah at their weddings.

This blessing acknowledges the creation of something new, that never existed before, a blessing of hope and faith, a hedge against cynicism and despair.

Rabbinic tradition requires that the priest (and rabbis today) say these words ONLY when they love the people and the community upon whom they invoke this blessing. If there is even one person present about whom the priest feels no love and/or bears animus, that priest must defer to another priest to say the blessing.

Lin Manuel-Miranda had it exactly right – “And love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love cannot be killed or swept aside.”

Leonard Nimoy internationalized the hands of the priests in an iconic gesture of shalom in his greeting as Mr. Spock in Star Trek with the accompanying phrase “Live long and prosper.”

Leonard fondly remembered going to shul on Shabbos in South Boston as a child with his grandfather who told him to cover his eyes when the Kohanim ascended the bimah and invoked God’s blessing upon the congregation.

Leonard asked me years ago why his grandfather told him to cover his eyes, and I explained that at that moment of blessing tradition says that the “Shekhina” (the feminine Divine presence) enters the congregation. Torah warns that no human can glimpse the Divine presence and remain alive, and so we cover our eyes as does the priest under the tallit when saying the blessing, much as Indiana Jones did when the Ark of the Covenant was opened in Steven Spielberg’s “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”

Leonard, a gifted photographer, was inspired to embark on a project he called “Shekhina” in which he photographed nude women in poses wearing the tallis and t’fillin. I have one of Leonard’s images hanging in my synagogue study, and I’m inspired every time I look at it, and my love for this man is rekindled.

“Love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love cannot be killed or swept aside,” ever!

Shabbat shalom!

Journeys into Judaism – Shavuot Truths in the wake of Terrorist Desecration

13 Monday Jun 2016

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Divrei Torah, Ethics, Holidays, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Life Cycle, Social Justice, Women's Rights

≈ 2 Comments

The Shavuot experience I am about to describe was taking place at precisely the time of the terrorist attack in Orlando. The contrast of our experience against that hate crime is stark and devastating. I am posting this reflection only 24 hours after the carnage as a way to counter spiritually, emotionally, morally, and Jewishly the desecration and destruction of life and community that terrorism and violence represents.

The three speakers, Jews by-Choice, at our Tikun Leil Shavuot celebration told our community that they do not feel that they had left anything behind when they converted to Judaism. Rather, Judaism had become already an essential part of their identity by the time they underwent formal conversion.

Some had been married to a Jewish spouse already for years once they converted, but they were already living a Jewish life at home and in the synagogue and identifying with the Jewish community and people.

Others had met the love of their lives and decided before marriage that they wished to create a Jewish family and convert.

One grew up in Salt Lake City with a Mormon background and roots in America reaching back to the days of the pilgrims.

Another was born and raised in Texas as a Roman Catholic.

A third came from a non-religious home in the Midwest.

Each was attracted to Judaism because of our tradition’s emphasis on critical thinking and openness to questioning our faith tradition’s ideas concerning  ultimate issues of life and death, faith and God. They loved our people’s commitment to family, our tradition’s emphasis on high ethical living and the value we place as a people in performing acts of loving-kindness, on caring for the most vulnerable, on social justice and tikun olam. They are inspired by our people’s great thinkers and activists – Rabbi Akiva, Rambam, Isaac Luria, Martin Buber, Rabbis Heschel, Kaplan, and Cook. They identify with our historic struggle with God, and our aversion to accepting by rote any religious dogma.

They spoke about their feeling fully accepted for who they uniquely are in our liberal Jewish community. They understood, appreciated and identified with our concerns about preserving Jewish particularism and advancing our universal aspirations, that we care for and take responsibility for the character of own Jewish people and the rights and dignity of the “other.”

As we reflected on the meaning of covenant as it manifested at Mt Sinai and throughout the writings of our sages, and expressed in the Book of Ruth, these Jews by-choice understood that at the core of our people’s covenant with God is love, and love, and love, and love, and love some more – and that true religion must bring people together and not tear them apart.

As I sat and listened to these moving personal stories, I was deeply moved and inspired. We broke into chevruta discussion groups of 3 and 4 people to reflect about the transformative and transcendent moments in our lives and about how those experiences changed us and moved us forward on our respective Jewish paths, I heard that these people loved having found a liberal Jewish community that embraces without judgment and with full acceptance who they are as men and women, LGBTQ and straight, the faithful and the atheist and agnostic, the young, middle years and old.

When we reconvened, I observed how very different Jewish identity is today as compared to a century ago, and how much more embracing it has become of the uniqueness of the individual, but also that today Jewish identity is not a given.

Whereas the immigrant generation of our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents felt in their kishkes that they were Jews, many liberal Jews today come to Jewish life not from the shtetls and the pale of European Jewish settlement, nor from tightly bonded Sephardic and Middle Eastern Jewish families and communities, but from outside the tradition altogether. Consequently, every Jew must make the choice to be and do Jewish, and that takes learning and active engagement with Jewish communal life.

The words of Ruth to her mother-in-law Naomi after the death of her husband and two sons, one of whom was married to Ruth, go to the heart of Jewish tradition: “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.’” (Ruth 1:16)

Ruth’s love and commitment to the devastated Naomi healed them both and clarified the nature of the covenant forged between God and Israel at Sinai and between each of us – that we are a people meant to love and embrace each other, to care for each other and about each other, and to create and nurture communities that are worthy to stand in God’s presence.

Note: I am grateful to my colleagues Rabbi Michelle Missaghieh and Rabbi Jocee Hudson who conceived of and promoted this Shavuot experience.

The Wilderness Within – Parashat Bamidbar and Shavuot

10 Friday Jun 2016

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Beauty in Nature, Divrei Torah, Ethics, Health and Well-Being, Holidays, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Quote of the Day

≈ Leave a comment

We celebrate Shavuot on Saturday evening and Sunday this week. In the spirit of this holiday celebrating the giving of Torah, I offer from the literature of our people, ancient and modern, gleanings that consider the meaning of the wilderness as the site of the revelation of God and Torah.

“And God spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, from the tent of Meeting…” Numbers 1:1

“God transferred the Divine presence from Sinai to the Tabernacle, from the Sanctuary (Mishkan) of Adonai which God’s hands had established to the sanctuary which Israel had made. Adonai would henceforth speak to Moses from the tent of Meeting and indicate to Israel by means of the cloud when to journey and when to encamp. The Tabernacle was a mobile Sinai in the midst of them, the heavens and heavens of heavens (the holy place and the most holy place) transplanted and brought down to earth.” Rabbi Benno Jacob (1862-1945) – Reform Rabbi and Biblical Scholar, Germany

“One should be as open as a wilderness to receive the Torah.” Babylonian Talmud, Nedarim 55a

“Torah was given in the wilderness because cities are filled with corruption, luxury, idolatry, and other evils…to be pure and ready to receive the Torah, one must be separated from all the vices of the city.” Philo, On the Decalogue I

“There is a wilderness within each person, a desert where selfish desires rule, where one looks out only for one’s own needs. No person is ever satisfied in the desert. There is constant complaining about lack of food and water, the scorching hot days and bitter cold nights. Anger, frustration, disagreements, and hunger prevail. The Torah is given in the desert to conquer and curb the demonic wilderness within human beings. If human beings do not conquer the desert, it may eventually conquer them. There is no peaceful coexistence between the two…” Rabbi Pinchas Peli – Jerusalem Post, June 1, 1985, p. 17

“To a people whose entire living generation had seen only the level lands of Egypt, the Israelites march into this region of mountain magnificence, with its sharp and splintered peaks and profound valleys, must have been a perpetual source of astonishment and awe. No nobler school could have been conceived for training a nation of slaves into a nation of freemen[women] or weaning a people from the grossness of idolatry to a sense of the grandeur and power of the God alike of Nature and Mind.” Nachman Ran, the Holy Land, p. V-27

“Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav…contrasts the sanctuary offered by wilderness to society’s corruption…in his depiction, in the story the Master of Prayer, societies have sunk one step below evil – into insanity. The story describes a series of countries, each organized around its own made obsession. In one, money is worshiped so totally that it has become the key to human identity: ‘Whoever had more money was a human being, and those who were very wealthy were considered gods.’ The master of prayer subversively penetrates these societies and draws people ‘out of the settled places,’ into the wilderness and a life of prayer and meditation…Prayer is the antidote to society’s obsessions because it alone has the power to lift consciousness out of the web of socially conditioned desires into a new matrix whose center is God.”  Rabbi Micha Odenheimer, The People and the Book – “To the Wilderness” – The Jerusalem Report, May 19, 1994, p. 35

“The wilderness is more than a physical location. B’midbar depicts a social wilderness, a human wasteland. This is the place where everything falls apart. It portrays a people wandering, without a shared vision, shared values, or shared words – leaders attempt to lead, but no one listens. The people of this wilderness, driven by fear and jealousy, moved only by hunger, thirst and lust, have no patience for God’s transcendent vision. This is a book of noise, frustration and pain. B’midbar may be the world’s strongest counterrevolutionary tract. It’s a rebuke to all those who believe in the one cataclysmic event that will forever free humans from their chains. It’s a response to those who foresee that out of the apocalypse of political or economic revolution will emerge the New Man. Here is the people who stood at Sinai, who heard Truth from God’s mouth – unchanged, unrepentant and chained to their fears. The dream is beyond them. God offers them freedom, and they clamor for meat…At the end of the book we arrive in the Promised Land – exhausted, depleted, defeated – B’midbar gives way to D’varim – “words” – shared words, shared values, shared direction. Moses talks; people listen. Moses leads; people follow – now shared vision – now dialogue and consensus – the key word of D’varim is Sh’ma – D’varim is a book of listening. This is the Torah’s message of hope, that nothing worth doing in life can be accomplished without crossing the midbar. But the midbar isn’t the last word. There is a promised land of D’varim.” – Rabbi Eddie Feinstein, “The Wilderness Speaks,”  Modern Men’s Torah Commentary, edited by Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin, pps. 201-2013

Why the Kotel Agreement is so important to Israeli democracy and World Jewry

03 Friday Jun 2016

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Ethics, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Social Justice, Women's Rights

≈ Leave a comment

This past week the leaders of the Israeli and American Reform and Conservative movements and Women of the Wall met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Jewish Agency Director Natan Sharansky to emphasize how frustrated North American and Israeli non-Orthodox Jewry, including Women of the Wall, are with the delay in moving forward on constructing an egalitarian prayer space at the Southern Kotel Plaza following the January government agreement with all parties including the Chief Rabbi of the Wall that this would occur.

As the story below in the Forward indicates, the PM is committed to this plan, but the ultra-Orthodox members of his government want a renegotiation of the agreement they already signed only five months ago.

This is first and foremost a story about free and equal rights for Reform, Conservative, Women of the Wall, and non-Orthodox Jewry at the holiest site in Judaism. But it is more importantly a story about religious liberty in the state of Israel. The Muslim and Christian communities enjoy that freedom, but ironically we Jews do not. To date, all religious rights have been dominated by the ultra-Orthodox. The Orthodox has every right to observe Jewish tradition according to halacha and their interpretations, but they do not have the right in a democratic state to tell other Jews how to practice their Judaism.

The great strength of Jewish religious community in the United States is that each religious stream does what it wishes according to its interpretation of the tradition without government interference. It is not (yet) the case in Israel. And this is what the struggle at the Kotel is really all about.

Reform and Conservative Rabbis still do not have the right to marry and bury Jews in the Jewish state. Our religious streams receive no funds from the government, except for specific projects, as do the Orthodox to the tune of a billion shekels annually. The right of Israelis to marry civilly is also not given, and so hundreds of thousands of Israelis who do not wish to live as Orthodox Jews must leave the state to marry their beloved.

Many in the Knesset understand what is at stake, but they are by and large NOT in the ruling right-wing coalition, and so they do not have the numbers of Knesset members necessary to open Israeli democracy wider to accommodate the religious rights of all Jews there.

The Kotel agreement is symbolic and real at the same time. It is a message to the American Jewish community that we are one people that shares with Israel a strong personal and communal relationship to the people, land and state, and a spiritual and religious connection to our people’s holiest sites.

Prime Minister Netanyahu and JAFI Director Sharansky understand this, and they are to be commended for striving for years to bring about this agreement at the Kotel that would insure the rights of the non-orthodox communities to pray at our holiest site without interference from the ultra-Orthodox rabbis. Now is the time to move forward notwithstanding the threats from the Haredi community. Their political courage, will and understanding of the legitimate needs and desires of world Jewry hang in the balance.

See the Article in the Forward: “Benjamin Netanyahu Says He’ll Keep His Promise, Orders New Prayer Podium for Western Wall” http://forward.com/news/israel/341777/benjamin-netanyahu-says-hell-keep-his-promise-orders-new-prayer-podium-for/#ixzz4ATXvkhJD

The Israeli government will order a permanent bimah , the elevated platform on which a prayer leader stands, to be built in the southern section of the Western Wall holy site as a signal to American and Israeli non-Orthodox movements that it is serious about implementing its plan for an egalitarian prayer space there. The gesture comes at a time when American and Israeli non-Orthodox leaders are fuming over the plan, which was approved by a government cabinet in January, but has stalled amid ultra-Orthodox protest.

Bullshit – In Defense of Israel – The internal threat to the Zionist dream – Adelson in bed with Trump

30 Monday May 2016

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

≈ Leave a comment

I recommend the following articles and videos

“On Bullshit” – A video of Harry Frankfurt – a professor of philosophy at Princeton university who has written extensively on such matters as “bullshit” and “truth.” Here he makes a convincing 5-minute argument that bullshit can be neither true nor false; hence, the bullshitter is someone whose principal aim—when uttering or publishing bullshit—is to impress the listener and the reader with words that communicate an impression that something is being or has been done, words that are neither true nor false, and so obscure the facts of the matter being discussed. In contrast, the liar must know the truth of the matter under discussion, in order to better conceal it from the listener or the reader being deceived with a lie; while the bullshitter’s sole concern is personal advancement and advantage to their own agenda. https://vimeo.com/167796382

“Why We Fight” – A video of Rabbi Ammi Hirsch of the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, in New York of his sermon on May 20, 2016 – “Why We Fight” is an eloquent defense of Israel. Rabbi Hirsch is American born who made aliyah with his family in the 9th grade. He served in the IDF as a tank commander, then became a lawyer at the London School of Economics, and was then ordained a rabbi at HUC-JIR. For a number of years he served as the Executive Director of the Association of Reform Zionists of America. https://vimeo.com/167505737

“The Zionist Dream Is Threatened From Within. Here’s What What Israel Must Do to Save It” – By Ari Shavit- Haaretz, Sunday, May 29, 2016.

“Next year, Israel will mark landmark anniversaries of some of its greatest political, diplomatic and military milestones. It’s time for the reasonable majority to reject the people and forces bringing calamity upon us…. Israel is a land of seemingly limitless human treasures and lodes of goodwill. Israel is a small nation, whose small number of dedicated people can make a real difference, enact real change. If we stand together, shoulder to shoulder, we can save the Jewish democratic state. If we stand together, shoulder to shoulder, we can renew our sense of nationhood, secure our sovereignty – and at long last define our borders. With a loving heart and a common purpose, we can return Israel to its rightful role – an admirable, enlightened nation.” Ari Shavit is a journalist and the writer of the powerful ‘My Promised Land.’” http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.721627

“Adelson’s Money Puts Us All in Bed with Trump” – by Jane Eisner – The Forward, May 19, 2016
Now that Sheldon Adelson, one of the richest Jews on the planet, has endorsed Donald Trump and pledged to spend lots of his considerable fortune to elect the presumed Republican nominee for president, how should the Jewish community react?
http://forward.com/articles/340975/adelsons-money-puts-us-all-in-bed-with-trump/#ixzz4A6u71beM

Donald Trump and the Jews

27 Friday May 2016

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

≈ 1 Comment

We Jews are an intense and nervous people. We feel our politics deeply, this year being no exception.

It’s safe to say, I think, that the vast majority of the American Jewish community has been rattled by the thought of Trump reaching the White House.

I’ve been asking myself for some time (I’ve posted two blogs on this theme in the last week alone, indicative of my anxiety), what does the Trump candidacy mean for us Jews?

First, the positive – yes, there’s a positive.

Not in some time have I sensed Jewish communal solidarity against Trump. From a Jewish values perspective, Trump represents the worst of our people’s values concerning justice, compassion, welcoming the stranger, and concern for the most vulnerable in our community. His is a dog eat dog world of ego and power, of immodesty and braggadocio. Yet, having said all this, it’s possible to feel a measure of gratitude to The Donald for his bringing most of us Republican and Democratic Jews together. And so, as Shabbat falls shortly, let us sing – Hineh mah tov u-ma nayim shevet achim gam yachad!

Now the bad news – In a recent Huffington Post article, it was revealed that American Nazis and the KKK regard Trump as their standard bearer, just as do some right wing Jews and many members of the ultra-Orthodox community.

I don’t know whether Trump is an anti-Semite. One might think that given his roots in New York, his years in real estate, his second home in Palm Beach, a converted daughter and a Jewish son-in-law, that we have nothing to worry about, that he loves the Jews. He said so! Yet, Trump brings up old anti-Semitic canards left and right, such as saying a few months ago to a room full of wealthy Republican Jews that they probably won’t like him because they’re used to buying candidates and he doesn’t need their money.

Then there’s Sheldon Adelson who plopped down $100 million for Trump’s campaign (I guess he needs the money now!) after deciding that Trump will be a right-wing advocate for Israel like himself, and there are also many members of the Republican Jewish Coalition who prefer Trump over Hillary.

I don’t believe that history necessarily repeats itself so much as themes reverberate that are disturbing to the Jewish memory of the rise of Nazism in the 1930s. Times are different. We have a state of Israel today and we aren’t victims nor vulnerable as we were in Germany eighty years ago.

Yet, Trump’s call to indiscriminately bar all Muslims from our country, calling Mexicans rapists and criminals, sending 11 million non-documented Hispanic immigrants out of the country, his uber-testosterone-locker-room misogyny and sexism, his condescension to the disabled, to prisoners of war, and his cavalier and dismissive reductionist assaults on the accomplishments and lives of his opponents calling them Pocahontas, Lyin’ Ted, passive Zeb, little Mario, crazy Bernie, and crooked Hillary, would be ridiculous if it weren’t so insulting and disturbing.

What does Trump’s candidacy mean relative to the state of Israel? He said that he will be a neutral deal maker between Israel and the Palestinians because, after all, he’s a businessman and makes the best deals. Of course, he doesn’t understand the complexities of the Middle East, its history and challenges, being the Grand Marshal of New York’s Israel Day parade notwithstanding.

The Clintons, on the other hand, have proven themselves to be great friends of the people and state of Israel. In critical biographies of Hillary and in her most recent memoir “Hard Choices,” it’s clear that she knows Israel’s leaders well, considers them friends, respects, understands and supports the state of Israel as few American leaders can claim to do.

A nechemta (a word of comfort) – If history is a guide, Hillary will earn upwards of 80 per cent of the Jewish vote in November, and in that sense the election will be good for American Jews, assuming she wins, which I expect. Additionally, our overwhelming support for Hillary Clinton could isolate Adelson and the Republican Jewish Coalition who have revealed themselves to be out of step with the dominant Jewish values held by American Jews and with the vast majority of the American Jewish community.

* The Jewish vote has gone with the Democratic party in all presidential elections in the past 92 years by significant majorities: 1924 (51/29), 1928 (72/28), 1932 (82/18), 1936 (85/13), 1940 (90/10), 1944(90/10), 1948 (75/10), 1952 (64/36), 1956 (60/40), 1960 (82/18), 1964 (90/10), 1968 (81/17), 1972 (65/35), 1976 (71/27), 1980 (45/39), 1984 (67/31), 1988 (64/35), 1992 (80/11), 1996 (78/16), 2000 (79/19), 2004 (76/24), 2008 (78/22), 2012 (69/30)

Note: The views I have expressed here are my own and do not represent the views of my synagogue or any other organization.

Leadership insights from Judaism and the ages

25 Wednesday May 2016

Posted by in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Ethics

≈ 2 Comments

In my last blog “Trump fails every standard of great leadership,” I presented ideas of what I believe makes for great leadership.

Below are passages gleaned from Jewish tradition and from thinkers beyond the Jewish world that address what constitutes great leadership.

Pick from each of your tribes individuals who are wise, discerning, and experienced, and I will appoint them as your heads. -Deuteronomy 1:13

Each [leader] must possess seven characteristic, as follows: wisdom, humility, fear of God, hatred of unjust gain, love of truth, respected, and of upstanding reputation. -Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Sanhedrin 2:7

Anyone who is wise, humble, clear-headed, and fearful of sin…may be made a judge/leader in his/her city. -Tosafot Sanhedrin 7:1

“…  Such a person is guilty of profaning the Divine name, if he, for instance, makes a purchase and does not immediately pay for it, in the case where he has the money and the sellers demand it, but he stalls them; or if he indulges in riotous behavior and in keeping undesirable company; or if he speaks roughly to his fellows and does not receive them courteously but shows his temper and the like…He must endeavor to be scrupulously strict in his behavior and go beyond the letter of the law. If he does this, speaking kindly to his fellows, showing himself sociable and amiable with a welcome for everyone, taking insult but not giving it; respect them, even those who make light of him; honest in his dealings by going beyond the letter of the law in all his actions until all praise and love him, enraptured by his deed – such a person has sanctified the name of God.  ….” Rambam, Yesodei Hatorah 5:11

Who is the leader of all leaders? One who can make an enemy into one’s friend.-Avot d’Rabbi Natan, 23

When a person is able to take abuse with a smile, that person is worthy to become a leader. -Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav

Rabbi Eliezar said: every leader who leads the community with mildness will be privileged to lead them in the next world [too]. -Talmud Bavli, Sanhedrin 92a

According to one opinion, the character of a generation is determined by its leader. According to the other opinion, the character of its leader is determined by its generation. -Talmud Bavli, Arakhin 17a

Show me the leader and I will know his men. Show me the men and I will know their leader. -Arthur W. Newcomb

The servant-leader is servant first … It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. Servant-leadership model is one that promotes such values as collaboration, trust, foresight, listening, and the ethical use of power and empowerment. -Dr. Steven Windmueller, Professor of International Relations

The best test [of a servant-leader] and difficult to administer, is: do those served grow as persons; do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? –Robert K. Greenleaf, founder of modern servant-leadership movement

The true lawgiver ought to have a heart full of sensibility. He ought to love and respect his kind, and to fear himself. -Edmund Burke

Leadership is a passionate activity. It begins with a warm gratitude toward that which you have inherited and a fervent wish to steward it well. It is propelled by an ardent moral imagination, a vision of a good society that can’t be realized in one lifetime. It is informed by seasoned affections, a love of the way certain people concretely are and a desire to give all a chance to live at their highest level. This kind of leader is warm-blooded and leads with full humanity. -David Brooks, NY Times columnist

The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly.”-Emanuel James “Jim” Rohn

A boss creates fear, a leader confidence. A boss fixes blame, a leader corrects mistakes. A boss knows all, a leader asks questions. A boss is interested in himself or herself,  a leader is interested in the group. -Russell H. Ewing

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader. –John Quincy Adams

Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be. -Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory and when nice things occur. You take the front line when there is danger. Then people will appreciate your leadership. -Nelson Mandela

…American leadership is not simply a matter of going it alone and bearing all of the burden ourselves. Real leadership creates the conditions and coalitions for others to step up as well; to work with allies and partners so that they bear their share of the burden and pay their share of the costs; and to see that the principles of justice and human dignity are upheld by all. -President Barack Obama