Category Archives: Ethics

On The J Street Summit in San Francisco

13 Friday Jun 2014

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

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Last week, my wife Barbara and I attended the West Coast Summit meeting of J Street in San Francisco. I was honored to be asked, as the co-chair of the national Rabbinic Cabinet of J Street that includes 800 rabbis and cantors from across the religious streams, to be part of the opening night program in which former Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, former United Nations Ambassador from Israel Gabriella Shalev, and former United States Ambassador to Egypt and Israel Daniel Kurtzer were featured.

I was asked to question PM Fayyad after each of the speakers presented opening statements. The conversation was hard-hitting and candid from each of three former major players in American, Israeli and Palestinian leadership about what is necessary for the sake of peace in light of the recent failure of the Kerry Middle East peace talks.

You can access all of the sessions here – https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4CViXUNRkO6zMLr6JrSKT8nQXGbXEEJW –

The opening night’s program can be found here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaXLYv9Hxt0&index=2&list=PL4CViXUNRkO6zMLr6JrSKT8nQXGbXEEJW

On a related matter, a friend asked me this week if I have seen “The J Street Challenge,” a pseudo-documentary that attacks J Street as an anti-Israel political organization.

I have not seen it, as I know it to be a propaganda piece that systematically distorts J Street’s message and accuses the 185,000 supporters of J Street and the 800 rabbis and cantors of being anti-Israel and even anti-Semitic. By extension, it must cast aspersion on the 84 pro-Israel members of Congress who support Israel and have accepted J Street’s support. This hateful propaganda piece is being shown in cities around the country.

If people wish to know the truth about J Street, all you need to do is to go to the J Street website (http://www.jstreet.org) and read our position papers, or watch sessions of this most recent conference.

We are pro-Israel and pro-two state solution advocates. We love Israel and are proud of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people and her manifold accomplishments over the course of the last century of Jewish history. Many Israeli members of Knesset have attended our conferences. The great Israeli writer Amos Oz told us a couple of years ago in Washington, D.C. “I have been waiting for J Street my entire adult life.”

At a time when the Jewish people needs to come together, regardless of our differing opinions, in common cause for the sake of the peace, security and the democratic character of the state of Israel, why some American Jews are spending a fortune to cast unfair and inaccurate aspersions against J Street is, frankly, baffling to me and, I believe, a source of shame that should be checked.

As Rav Shmuel once said – Eilu v’Eilu divrei Elohim chayim – “This and that are words of the living God.” Intolerance, hatred and falsehood do not belong between Jews who love the people and state of Israel.

Hearing God’s Voice and the Importance of a Dot! – D’var Torah Naso

29 Thursday May 2014

Posted by in Divrei Torah, Ethics, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life

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“Va-y’hi b’yom kalot Moshe l’hakim et ha-mish’kan – On the day that Moses finished setting up the Tabernacle, he anointed and consecrated it and all its furnishings ….” (Numbers 7:1)

This final chapter of Parashat Naso then lists in detail the names of the tribes and their offerings, concluding in verse 89:

“When Moses went into the Tent of Meeting to speak with Him, he [Moses] would hear the Voice addressing him from above the cover that was on top of the Ark of the Pact between the two cherubim; thus He (God) spoke to him (Moses).”

All seems straightforward enough, but there’s an odd grammatical irregularity involving a single “dot” (called a dagesh) in one of the letters in one of the words in this final verse that doesn’t seem to belong.

The verb l’dabeir (Hebrew root – daled-bet-resh – “to speak”) appears three times in this verse:

“When Moses went into the Tent of Meeting to speak (L’da-beir) with Him [God], he [Moses] would hear the Voice addressing him (m’da-beir) from above the cover that was on top of the Ark of the Pact between the two cherubim [winged angels]; thus He (God) spoke (va-y’da-beir) to him (Moses).”

Grammarians teach that the verb “l’da-beir – to speak” is a piel construction. Every piel verb includes a dagesh (a dot) in the middle letter of the three-letter Hebrew root sometimes changing the sound of the letter and sometimes not – in this case the dagesh changes the vet to a bet. However, the verb m’da-beir as it appears here has two dageshim, one where we expect it (in the middle letter bet) and the other in the first letter of the three-letter root, daled, where we do NOT expect to see it.

A little thing; an insignificant thing not worth worrying about! Right!?

Not so fast. There are twenty such occurrences in the Hebrew Bible of a dagesh appearing in the first letter where it doesn’t normally belong, and in six of those times the dagesh is in this particular verb – daled-bet-resh. (Genesis 32:29, Exodus 34:33, 1 Samuel 25:17, 2 Samuel 14:13, and Psalms 34:14; 52:5. I am grateful to Rabbi Michael Curasick who pointed this out.)

What does this dagesh-dot indicate in our verse – m’da-beir? That’s the question, and as you will soon see, that little dot changes the meaning of the verse itself and shines a theological light on what might have really taken place between God and Moses in the Tent of Meeting.

Abraham ibn Ezra (11th century Spain) and Rashi (11th century France) both conclude that this verb m’da-beir is not in the piel verbal construction at all, but rather is a hit’pa-el verb, and so the dagesh in the first letter daled isn’t an emphasis mark but rather stands in for a missing letter – tav – making the original word not m’da-beir, but mit’da-beir.

Piel verbs tend to be active and intensive verbs – hit’pa-el verbs tend to be reflexive. If Ibn Ezra and Rashi are right, and it makes sense that they are given the twenty other occasions where this occurs and the special relationship between God and Moses, our verse doesn’t mean that “[God’s] voice spoke (m’da-beir) to Moses …” but rather “God was speaking to Himself and Moses overheard.” (Rashi)

Rabbi Bachya ben Asher (13th century Spain) explains further that God intended that the words He spoke in the tent of meeting were meant only for Moses to overhear, and that no one else, not Aaron, not any of the tribal chieftains could do so, thus demonstrating “the enormous spiritual stature of Moses compared to all other subsequent prophets…that Moses had attained the ultimate level of spirituality that is possible for a human being to attain while alive on earth.” (Rabbeinu Bachya, translated by Eliahu Munk, vol. 6, p. 1955)

Everett Fox (The Five Books of Moses – The Schocken Bible, Volume 1, p. 695) translates m’da-beir as a “voice continually-speaking,” as though Moses walked into the Tent and the radio was on all day long.

There are several lessons here for us?

First, none of us is a Moses, and whether or not we can hear God’s voice or not is irrelevant to the truth that God is “continually-speaking” not only in the Tent of Meeting, but everywhere.

Second, it is consequently upon us to strive always to evolve spiritually, to attune ourselves intently to every sound around us, however slight, to listen carefully for God’s voice in the multiplicity of ways that are possible, as well as to our own inner voice and to the voices of others.

And finally, hearing ourselves and hearing each other more acutely may be the path for us to be able to hear God’s voice too. After all, does not God’s voice speak through each one of us?

Shabbat shalom!

 

 

 

 

“People’s Park” – An Enduring Memory After 45 Years

25 Sunday May 2014

Posted by in American Politics and Life, Ethics, Stories

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May 22 and 23, 1969 are days that I will always remember. I was a sophomore at UC Berkeley. The Vietnam War was raging. A third world college strike against the university had shut down classes earlier that year. Tension could be cut with a knife on the Berkeley campus and on campuses across the nation at the end of a tumultuous decade.

Several blocks south of the Berkeley campus and one block east of Telegraph Avenue an empty block of land owned by the University had been taken over by community folks who had created what is still known as “People’s Park.” It was a peaceful place. There was a vegetable garden, and play equipment and swings had been donated. Communal meals were cooked and shared. Some slept on the grounds.

A week earlier, on May 15 just before sunrise, however, University of California police had been ordered to evacuate the park and erect a fence. Word spread quickly and the community erupted. The Berkeley police department called for assistance from the Alameda Sheriff’s department, and Governor Ronald Reagan called up the National Guard. Overnight Berkeley became an occupied city.

Amidst the tumult that day, UC Student Body President Dan Siegel exhorted the crowd in Sproul Plaza to go “take back the park.”

The combined police forces responded by dropping tear-gas from a helicopter over the campus in violation of international law and by firing bird-shot and buckshot into the crowd killing one man, James Rector, who was innocently observing the march from a rooftop, and injuring dozens.

The over-reaction and death enraged the Berkeley community. A week later, on Thursday, May 22, a peaceful march was called and I decided to join it. Our purpose was to politely ask shop-owners in downtown Berkeley to close their stores for the afternoon in memory of the killed man and in protest of the police over-reaction.

As hundreds of UC students and faculty walked quietly and legally on sidewalks, we were directed by police from one street to another and finally into an open parking lot adjacent to the Bank of America. There, 482 students, faculty and (as it happened) one member of the media were surrounded. The police informed us that we were under arrest.

We were loaded into police buses to carry us one hour southeast to the Santa Rita Rehabilitation Center, a minimum security prison, in Pleasanton, California. Once we arrived inside the prison gates, the bus stopped and the door opened. A guard entered and screamed orders at us. He threatened physical harm to anyone who did not do exactly as he commanded. I descended dutifully into a fenced compound where I saw 150 others lying belly-down next to one another, much like a Vietnam War body count, in neat rows. Everyone’s faces were turned to the left and guards were slapping their Billy clubs into their hands while cursing us and screaming threats that should anyone move or lift his head he would be beaten. Some were.

I assumed my place in the body formation and, terrified, dutifully did not move for eight hours, the gravel digging into my face, my bladder bursting, the inmates surrounding the compound taunting us for hours (I would learn much later that the prisoners were promised time off for good behavior if they harassed us), and the guards always screaming threats. No guard ever spoke to us in a normal speaking voice. They screamed incessantly like drill sergeants.

I was booked and finger-printed at one in the morning and was led into a barracks as part of a group that included a reporter from the San Francisco Chronicle who had discarded his press identification when we were herded into the Bank of America parking lot. He was the first to be bailed out, and Saturday morning the Chronicle’s bold-lettered headline read – “I WAS A PRISONER AT SANTA RITA.” He described in detail everything that had happened in my particular barracks.

I was bailed out at two PM on Friday. Charges were eventually dropped for lack of evidence.

The intended impact of the experience, however, had registered. I had never before or since felt as frightened as I did on that day. One guard came within inches of my face and screamed that he was going to kill me. I learned that fear can lead us to feel and behave irrationally and against our own best interests.

Some regard fear as the most effective organizing principle in the building of community. This is a false belief. Rather, kindness, empathy and compassion are the virtues that not only distinguish us as human beings but are the essential building blocks for a community that values each individual as endowed with infinite value and worth by virtue of being created b’tzelem Elohim, in the Divine image.

David Suissa Wrong on the Facts About J Street

20 Tuesday May 2014

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

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In last week’s edition of the Los Angeles Jewish Journal, David Suissa wrote a scathing attack against J Street that was not only filled with factual errors, but was an unwarranted attack on the values that J Street represents that are held by the majority of American Jews according to all polls, but also accusing 800 rabbis and cantors, 185,000 supporters and thousands of University and College students of a lack of humility when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

I write today sadly as a friend. At my invitation David publicly debated J Street’s President and Founder Jeremy Ben Ami at my synagogue, Temple Israel of Hollywood. After they met, Jeremy invited David to speak at the J Street National Convention in Washington, D.C. It is curious, therefore, how David could be so wrong factually about J Street and so ill-informed about J Street’s actual positions on a broad base of policy decisions J Street has made and published for all to see. That he would not check the facts before writing this attack column was disappointing, to say the least.

It is not a secret that David disagrees with J Street’s approach to pro-Israel activism among American Jews in the United States. He has that right. We are not the sole possessors of the truth. No one is. Truth to tell, in the past, David has often raised important challenges for American Jews when thinking about Israel. However, his own passion and support for Israel should not be license to misrepresent J Street’s positions and pass his misrepresentations off as the truth, as he does in his column – http://www.jewishjournal.com/david_suissa/article/j_streets_real_failure

The following is a letter to the Editor of The Jewish Journal that I co-signed with four other rabbis in the Southern California who believe in the mission of J Street as a legitimate and authentic Jewish voice in support of Israel and in the the need for a two-states for two peoples resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Dear Editor:

David Suissa’s article “J Street’s Real Failure” was full of factual errors and falsehoods, and he was also wrong in his overall argument.

As Mr. Suissa should know because he spoke at the J Street National Conference, J Street opposes BDS and has helped defeat BDS resolutions on college campuses and within church groups. We believe, however, that the way to defeat BDS is not to ban its supporters from conversation, rather to debate them.

In addition, J Street did not endorse the Goldstone Report and has consistently criticized one-sided and biased activity at the UN against Israel. If the UN Security Council had considered action based on the Goldstone Report, J Street stated clearly and publicly that it would have urged the US to veto such action.

Furthermore, following the Fatah-Hamas reconciliation announcement, J Street stated that any Palestinian government must abide by its international commitments, including recognition of Israel and a renunciation of violence, in order to play a constructive role in working toward a two-state solution.

As members of J Street’s Rabbinic Cabinet, we believe there is nothing “boring” (per Mr. Suissa) about advocating for peace and a just end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The fact remains that Israel’s future as a secure, Jewish and democratic homeland depends on a two-state solution. We recognize, as well, that the Palestinians and Israelis together must find the means to a just and end-of-conflict solution.

J Street does not, and indeed cannot put pressure on Israel to do anything. However, as American Jews who love Israel we can urge our government to exercise leadership to advance a peace agreement.

We do not apologize for devoting ourselves to these ideals on which the future of our people and the State of Israel depend.

Rabbi Lisa Edwards, J Street LA Rabbinic Cabinet Co-Chair
Rabbi Joshua Levine Grater, J Street LA Rabbinic Cabinet Co-Chair
Rabbi Susan Laemmle, J Street LA Rabbinic Cabinet Co-Chair
Rabbi John Rosove, J Street National Rabbinic Co-Chair

 

Setting the Record Straight about J Street – Jeremy Ben Ami

14 Wednesday May 2014

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

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As a follow-up to my blog yesterday entitled “The Truth About J Street,” I include a longer letter written by J Street’s President Jeremy Ben Ami in “Times of Israel” yesterday called “Setting the Record Straight about J Street” in which he responds to many of the false charges against J Street’s positions.

Setting the record straight, Times of Israel – J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami hit back at smears against J Street. http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/setting-the-record-straight-2/

I refer you as well to the J Street website and particularly to its section “Myths and Facts” – http://jstreet.org/page/mythsandfacts/home

Between these two pieces, one should have all the information necessary to make a reasonable and fair judgment about both the truth of the negative campaign against J Street by right-wing Jewish and Israeli groups, as well as the true positions of J Street on all the issues that we in J Street understand to be important for the security, Jewish character and well-being of the democratic state of Israel.

 

 

The Truth About J Street

12 Monday May 2014

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

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At a recently convened Los Angeles J Street meeting with one of the leading candidates running for Congressman Henry Waxman’s 33rd Congressional District seat, the candidate asked us “Why does J Street support BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) against Israel?” He was repeating a charge he had heard from leadership in the Jewish community.

We explained that this charge was wholly untrue and was being spread in order to discredit J Street’s pro-Israel bona fides and to limit debate within the American Jewish community about Israel’s settlement policies and the need for a two-states for two peoples resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The candidate was interested to know, as well, what the difference in approach is between J Street and AIPAC, the two leading pro-Israel lobbying organizations in the nation’s capital. He said he heard that J Street saw itself as the “anti-AIPAC lobby.”

We explained that J Street has never characterized itself as “anti-AIPAC.” That characterization comes from the media that seeks a simplified message in an essentially complex and nuanced Middle East policy debate. To the contrary, we at J Street respect AIPAC’s historically critical role in advocating for Israel’s security interests and have said so publicly.

We told him that J Street was created six years ago to address a significant void in Israel advocacy in Washington, D.C. Whereas AIPAC historically has advocated for whatever the current Israeli government’s policy positions have been, J Street advocates that the American administration do everything possible to bring the Israelis and Palestinians to the negotiating table and reach an agreement on a two-states for two peoples resolution of their conflict. J Street recognizes that the status quo is unsustainable, and that only by means of a two-state solution will Israel maintain its security, democracy and Jewish character. Consequently, J Street is at times openly critical of specific policy decisions taken by Israel’s government, arguably among the most right-wing governments in the history of the state of Israel.

We told the candidate as well that J Street’s positions and policy statements resonate with 70% of the American Jewish community and have inspired hundreds of thousands of pro-Israel American Jews and Jewish college students to get involved for the first time in Israel advocacy work. Hardly outside the mainstream of both American and Israeli opinion, J Street’s positions reflect those of Israeli middle-left political parties including Yesh Atid, Kadima, Avodah, and Meretz.

For the truth about J Street, we recommended that the candidate visit the J Street website and read its policy positions (www.jstreet.org) and in particular, to visit the “Myths and Facts” page where all the charges and criticisms of J Street are addressed fully. http://jstreet.org/page/mythsandfacts/home#policies .

The following includes organizational statements in support of J Street and in opposition to the Conference of Presidents’ vote issued after the vote. https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?shva=1#inbox/145f15de01a4bfb1?projector=1

Here are eleven excellent and thoughtful news reports and opinion pieces published in the United States and Israel on the role of J Street in the American Jewish community and the vote of the Conference on Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations:

Who Speaks for Pro-Israel Americans? – NY Times, by Carol Giacomo, April 28, 2014 – http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/28/who-speaks-for-pro-israel-americans/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=1&

Jewish Organization Acts in an Un-Jewish Fashion, Time Magazine, by Joe Klein, May 2, 2014 –  http://time.com/85684/jewish-organization-acts-in-an-un-jewish-fashion/

American Jewry Is Doomed If It Can’t Embrace J Street, New Republic, by Yochai Benkler, May 2, 2014 – http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117628/j-streets-rejection-reveals-israels-dangerous-path

J Street’s Rejection Is a Scandal, New Republic, by Leon Weiseltier, May 7, 2014 – http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117680/presidents-conference-j-street-rejection-disgrace

Jewish Americans ask: What does it mean to be ‘pro-Israel’? – Religion News, by Lauren Markoe, May 7, 2013 – http://www.religionnews.com/2014/05/07/jewish-americans-ask-mean-pro-israel/

Pull Back the Curtain – and Let J Street In – Editorial, The Forward, April 29, 2014 – http://forward.com/articles/197284/pull-back-the-curtain-and-let-j-street-in/

Those Who Reject J Street Are Blind – ‘They Still Don’t Hear Us,’ Says the Next Generation, The Forward, by Leonard Fein, May 3, 2014 – http://forward.com/articles/197545/those-who-reject-j-street-are-blind/

Blackballing J Street: Who Voted How, The Forward, by J.J. Goldberg, May 4, 2014 – http://blogs.forward.com/jj-goldberg/197563/blackballing-j-street-who-voted-how/

J Street is part of the American Jewish family, Haaretz, by Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie, April 28, 2014 – http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.587822

J Street’s rejection is a milestone in the growing polarization of American Jews, Haaretz, by Chemi Shalev, May 1, 2014 – http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/west-of-eden/.premium-1.588326

When Jews hate leftists for loving Israel – Haaretz, by Bradley Burston, May 7, 2014 – http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/a-special-place-in-hell/.premium-1.589381

On Humility and Kindness

11 Sunday May 2014

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Ethics, Poetry, Tributes

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In the next several weeks I will have the privilege of praising publicly two dear friends and colleagues on the occasion of significant milestones in their lives and the lives of their synagogue communities.

The first is Rabbi Ammi Hirsch, the Senior Rabbi of the Stephen S. Wise Free Synagogue in Manhattan, on his tenth anniversary as that community’s spiritual leader.

Ammi is brilliant, eloquent, thoughtful, visionary, and dynamic, and is among our nation’s finest congregational rabbis. His greatest virtues, despite all these undeniable strengths, are his modesty, humility and kindness.

Ammi did not wish to be honored on this occasion, though he is without question well-deserving, but allowed his community to do so on the condition that the synagogue raise substantial funds to expand their synagogue’s youth programming. His intent is to engage and inspire the youngest generation of Jews to become our future Jewish leaders imbued with serious Jewish learning, strong ethical impulses, and a proud identification with the people and state of Israel.

The other is Emeritus Rabbi Martin Weiner, who is being honored by his congregation, Sherith Israel of San Francisco, on the 50th anniversary of his ordination.

I spent the first seven years of my rabbinate as Marty’s assistant. He is a rabbi’s rabbi, a wonderful teacher who models integrity, wisdom, humility, kindness, and a commitment to people. Marty has inspired many young women and men, including his own son Daniel, to become rabbis themselves. Always gentle and wise, Marty is beloved by so many because he gives of himself so selflessly.

As I reflect upon the virtues that distinguish both Ammi and Marty, humility, modesty and simple human kindness immediately come to mind.

As servant-leaders, they are worthy recipients of the gratitude and praise of their communities.

The following are reflections first on humility and then on kindness because the latter naturally springs from the former:

Know before Whom you stand. -Talmud, Berachot 28b

Humility is a river fed by two streams – a sense of limitation and a sense of awe. -Rabbi Norman Hirsch

Teach your tongue to say ‘I don’t know.’ – Talmud, B’rachot 4a

The most important scientific revolutions all include, as their only common feature, the dethronement of human arrogance from one pedestal after another of previous convictions about our centrality in the cosmos. -Stephen J Gould, paleontologist

For all our conceits about being the center of the universe, we live in a routine planet of a humdrum star stuck away in an obscure corner…on an unexceptional galaxy which is one of about 100 billion galaxies…That is the fundamental fact of the universe we inhabit, and it is very good for us to understand that. -Carl Sagan, astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist, author

Why was the human being created on the last day? So that if such a person is overcome by pride it might be said: ‘In the creation of the world, the mosquito came before you.’ -B’reishit Rabba

When a person comes into the world his hands are closed as if to say, ‘The whole world is mine, I want to possess it.’ When he leaves the world his hands are spread wide as if to say, ‘I possessed nothing of what is in the present world.’ -Kohelet Rabba

When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people. -Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

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, artist

The best portion of a good man’s life: his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love. -William Wordsworth, poet

Kindness is more important than wisdom, and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom.-Dr. Theodore Isaac Rubin, writer

Kindness is loving people more than they deserve. -Joseph Jourbert, moralist and essayist

Show me the man [woman] you honor, and I will know what kind of man [woman] you are. -Thomas Carlyle, Scottish philosopher

 

Israel at 66

04 Sunday May 2014

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

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Israel and the Palestinians are in what US Secretary of State John Kerry calls a “pause,” and it is anyone’s guess what the future holds. At the moment polls suggest that most Israelis and Palestinians are pessimistic that a two-states for two peoples agreement will come any time soon. Yet, history is witness to formerly bitter enemies making peace and even becoming allies (e.g. Germany and Japan with the United States; Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland with each other), so anything is possible.

I believe that eventually (hopefully, sooner rather than later) there will be a resolution to this historic conflict in two states for two peoples because the alternative is too awful for either side to bear.

This week Israelis honor the memories of their fallen soldiers on Yom HaZikaron. The next day the Jewish people celebrates Yom Ha-Atzmaoot, the sixty-sixth year of Israel’s independence.

This is a week to reflect and marvel at what the Jewish people has accomplished in our national home. Indeed, who could have imagined sixty-six years ago that Israel would become as economically viable, politically and militarily strong, technologically advanced, and creatively cutting-edge as it has?

Who would have dreamed that Israel’s Jewish population of six hundred thousand souls in 1948 would grow to have more than six million Jews along with one and a half million Israeli Arabs in 2014?

Who would have thought that after having had to fight seven wars, endure two Intifadas and bear-up against ongoing terrorist threats that the state of Israel would remain democratic, free and willing to help the people of other nations with humanitarian support whenever a crisis occurs, even the people of Syria, a nation at war with Israel, by setting up field hospitals in the Golan Heights to care for Syrian refugees fleeing their devastating civil war who are in dire need of medical attention?

Even with her imperfections, and even with a lack of resolution of the conflict with the Palestinians, we cannot forget that Israel is a singularly remarkable nation, testimony to the spirit, will, ingenuity, aspiration, creativity, humanity, and sacrifice of generations of its citizens.

Truth to tell, Israel is like no other nation in the world. It is more culturally, linguistically and religiously diverse, more intellectually and academically productive, and more dynamically Jewish than at any time in 3600 years of our people’s long history.

On the occasion of Israel’s sixty-sixth Independence Day, it is incumbent upon Jews the world-over to seize this opportunity to celebrate our nation-state’s accomplishments, mourn and honor her dead, and affirm the unique place Israel holds in the heart, mind and soul of the Jewish people.

This is no easy task, for Israel is more than the refuge envisioned by political Zionists, and it is more than the flowering of the Jewish spirit as contemplated by cultural Zionists.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote:

“Israel reborn is an answer to the Lord of history who demands hope as well as action, who expects tenacity as well as imagination…The inspiration that goes out of Zion today is the repudiation of despair and the example of renewal.” (Israel – An Echo of Eternity, p. 118, 134)

Zionism sought to inspire the fashioning of a new kind of a Jew, at home in the land, self-activated and self-realized, independent, creative and free. Israel’s founders understood, however, that there are inherent limitations in their state-building endeavor.

“The State of Israel is not the fulfillment of the Messianic promise,” Heschel reminds us, “but it makes the Messianic promise plausible.” (Ibid. p. 223)

In other words, the political state is not and cannot be regarded as an end in itself. Rather, Israel represents a challenge and a promise that will rise or fall based on how our people and her government use the power that comes with national sovereignty.

On this sixty-sixth anniversary of her founding, I pray that Jews everywhere celebrate Yom Ha-Atzmaoot with enthusiasm, gratitude and pride with the words of the Psalmist on our lips:

“Zeh hayom asah Adonai nagilah v’nism’cha bo – This is the day God has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it!” (Psalm 118:24)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why Money Given to Charity by Donald Sterling Can Be Accepted with Conditions

30 Wednesday Apr 2014

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

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The sullied moral character of Donald Sterling is clear to anyone with eyes and a conscience.

In the days since his now infamous tapes were leaked we have learned that Sterling has been charitable to Jewish organizations and other groups, such as the NAACP. Why he has given money away, who knows? (PR? Tax deductions? Moments of generosity that remind him of what his mother may have once wished for him?)

In recent days leaders of the Los Angeles Jewish community have sought to distance themselves and their organizations from Sterling’s past gifts and have pledged not to accept anything more from him going forward.

Not so fast!

What does Jewish tradition say about receiving financial gifts from someone of Sterling’s character?

There is much discussion in Halachic literature (Jewish legal literature) concerning the bringing of donations to the synagogue. The Hebrew Bible rules that a sacred object cannot be brought to the Temple in Jerusalem that has immoral origins (Deuteronomy 23:19). Later commentaries come to a consensus that a donation from an individual who acquired the object through immoral or criminal means can be given to the Jewish community.

The 17th century Polish Commentator Rabbi Abraham Abele Gombiner (known as Magen Avraham) refers to a comment of Rabbi Moses Isserles (Shulchan Aruch, Orah Hayyim 153:12) and notes that if the object is first converted into money, and then that money is exchanged for other money, the second set of cash can be given to the synagogue.

Rabbi Solomon Freehoff in his Responsum “Synagogue Contribution from a Criminal” (Contemporary Reform Responsa, CCAR Press, 1969, pp. 52-55) concludes:

“In my judgment you should accept the gift, because it is his [the sinner’s] obligation (a mitzvah) to support the synagogue and we have no right to prevent a sinner from performing a righteous act.”

Tradition, however, conditions the giving of such a gift to its anonymity. No plaque or public mention may be noted about the origin of the gift in order to prevent the donor from enjoying the honor (kavod) of giving the gift. Rabbi Freehoff, however, says that if the sinner/criminal wishes to honor his/her parents, then acknowledgment of his parents may be publicized.

A related matter concerning the public role of a sinner is raised in a Responsum cited in The Holocaust and Halakhah (by Irving J Rosenbaum, Ktav, 1976, p. 154). In this case a particularly brutal and despised Kapo (Jewish policeman) in the Kovno ghetto claimed after the Shoah to have suffered great remorse for the evil he perpetrated on the Jews in the ghetto, and to have sincerely repented from his crimes. He approached the leadership of the Jewish community and requested to act as shaliach tzibur (prayer leader) in the synagogue.

Though acknowledging the great power of repentance, Rabbi Efraim Oshry (a survivor himself) ruled that

“A She’liah tzibur must be fitting; ‘fitting’ means that he must be free from sin and not have had an evil reputation even in his youth.”

This Kapo’s evil reputation, regardless of the t’shuvah he may have undergone that wiped clean his sin, permanently kept him from assuming any public leadership role in the Jewish community.

From these two Responsa, we can draw the following conclusions:

First, Donald Sterling ought to be excluded from any public leadership role in the community (as the NBA has properly done) regardless of whether he ever does t’shuvah in the way, for example, that the former racist Alabama Governor and presidential candidate George Wallace did before his death (Wallace publicly repented of his racism and apologized personally to Reverend Jesse Jackson, representing the African American community), Sterling’s current bad reputation would continue to exclude him.

Second, should Sterling wish to donate money to Jewish causes or other non-profit charitable organizations anonymously, his money need not be rejected. Not only could his donation serve greater community interests, but one day they may be part of the means by which he does sincere t’shuvah.

In this regard, I hope he gives generously and anonymously to all kinds of good causes. While doing so, he ought also to sincerely apologize to and makes amends with all the apartment dwellers he has victimized, to the African American community, to Latinos and peoples of color he has insulted, to women he has exploited, to the Jewish community who by association he has demeaned, and, of course, to the Los Angeles Clippers organization and the NBA.

I wish him courage, the strength and decency to do so.

Gratitude to Reform Movement Institutions That Support J Street’s Inclusion in The President’s Conference

29 Tuesday Apr 2014

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

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As a co-chair of the J Street Rabbinic Cabinet (representing 800 rabbis from across the religious streams and hundreds of American Reform rabbis), as member of the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR – the Reform Rabbinical association) for the past 34 years, as congregational Rabbi serving a Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) synagogue (part of a total of 1.4 million American Reform Jews), I am proud of the  CCAR, the URJ, the Association of Reform Zionists of America (ARZA), and the Women of Reform Judaism (WRJ) for their support of including J Street as a member of the Presidents Conference of Major American Jewish Organizations to take place this week.

The vote by any of these Reform organizations in favor does NOT mean that each of these groups endorses the viewpoint of J Street. It does signify, however, that our Reform movement organizations understand the importance of being as inclusive as possible of diverse points of view in the American Jewish community vis a vis Israel and American Jewish life.

J Street has earned clear bona fides as a pro-Israel American Zionist organization supporting two-states for two peoples in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and is committed to the two-state solution despite the discontinued negotiations.

I want to thank most especially my friend and colleague, Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the President of the Union for Reform Judaism, who led the way early on in advocating for inclusion of J Street in the Presidents Conference.

The immediate past-President of the URJ, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, has written a compelling rationale for J Street being included in his Haaretz op-ed “J Street is Part of the American Jewish Family.” (http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.587822)

I can only hope that other Presidents of Major Organizations will read Rabbi Yoffie’s piece and vote for inclusion whether or not they agree with J Street’s positions.