Loving our enemies

26 Thursday Apr 2018

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in American Jewish Life, Divrei Torah, Ethics, Jewish Identity, Jewish-Christian Relations, Jewish-Islamic Relations, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Social Justice

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Rabbi Akiva called the central verse in this week’s Torah portion Kedoshim: “Klal gadol baTorah – a great rule of the Torah.”

This verse is among the most famous in the Hebrew Bible and the most misunderstood – “V’ahavta l’reiacha kamocha… You shall love your fellow/neighbor as yourself….” (Leviticus 19:18)

The verse raises at least three questions.

First – how can we be commanded to feel love or, for that matter, anything else? We can’t, which means that the mitzvah to “love” must involve something other than feelings.

The spiritual teacher David Steindl-Rast writes that there’s one thing that characterizes “love” in all its forms – erotic, romantic, familial, tribal, national, spiritual, religious, and even love we feel for our pets. That one thing is found in our yearning to belong to and be connected with something greater than ourselves.

“Love,” he says “is a wholehearted [and willful] ‘yes’ to belonging” (Essential Writings, p. 73) with all the implications that attachment to, responsibility for and accountability with others bring.

Our yearning to belong inspires greater understanding of who we are and what is our role in the world. That yearning links us heart to heart and soul to soul with others, with creatures large and small, with nature, the universe, the cosmos, and God.

Jewish mystics taught a central truth; that we are physically and spiritually part of a vast Oneness. We share common origins and a common destiny with each other and with every people and nation. Consequently, we’re responsible for one another and accountable for how we behave with family, friend, foe, and stranger.

Too often our idea of “self” (as suggested in “You shall love your fellow as yourself”) is limited to our little egos. If that verse, however, is to mean something then we need to think about “love” differently; not as a feeling but as an attitude of the heart.

V’ahavta understood this way enables us to fulfill the commandment “to love our fellows” because our response to them isn’t based in a feeling but as an act of will when we take responsibility for others because we belong to each other as part of the great Oneness of humankind.

Second – What does it mean to “love” someone as we love ourselves?

Maimonides taught that if it’s ever a toss-up between saving our own lives and saving another, we’re obligated to save our own lives first.

Nachmanides added that what we wish for ourselves we must wish for others whether we know them or not, like them or hate them.

Third – Does this commandment demand that we “love” our enemies in some way?

No. Indeed, there are some people we can’t wish well as we wish for ourselves because their deeds are too heinous to tolerate or forgive.

That being said, I’ll never forget Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin’s words on the White House lawn at the signing of the Camp David Peace Accords with Egypt in 1978.

Begin told the world that the Jewish people considers it amongst the greatest of mitzvot to make of a “ra” ( an “evil” person – an enemy) into a “rea” (“a fellow” – a friend).

Though Egypt and Israel are hardly “friends” as we understand friendship between nations, since that day (September 17, 1978) there has not been one day of war between Israel and Egypt.

Though Judaism doesn’t command us to “love” our enemies, tradition requires us to give a penitent person a chance at reconciliation.

As a people we’re required always to act ethically towards everyone, including our enemies. In doing so we leave open the possibility of transformation should circumstances warrant (see Exodus 23:4).

It’s difficult to imagine peace given the hatred and mistrust that animates the current relationship between Israel and the Palestinians, but we ought to remember that once Germany was our people’s greatest enemy. Today Germany is the least anti-Semitic country in Europe.

Germany and Japan were America’s bitter foes seventy-five years ago. Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland were once killing each other. Today, these former enemies have laid down their guns and established peace.

The mitzvah of loving one’s fellows requires at the very least that we keep open our hearts to the possibilities of change in our relationships with our enemies for in the end, we are all related and we share a common destiny.

Shabbat shalom!

“Mr. Prime Minister – I am ashamed of you” – Rabbi Donniel Hartman

09 Monday Apr 2018

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in Ethics, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Social Justice

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Note: The following is a blog posted today on the Times of Israel site. Rabbi Donniel Hartman is the Director of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. His integrity is beyond reproach and never takes partisan positions. Rather, he speaks from the heart of Jewish tradition and always with thoughtfulness and a moral sensibility. Rabbi Hartman’s letter is written in the spirit of the Biblical prophet who criticizes power when leaders of our people’s morality goes awry.

April 9, 2018, 3:19 pm

Dear Mr. Prime Minister:

It’s not easy to be both proud and ashamed at the same time. As a politician, it is particularly difficult, as protecting yourself from constant criticism is a prerequisite of the job.

As prime minister, you have much to be proud of, both personally and nationally. You have navigated our country through perilous times and circumstances. As we approach our 70^th birthday, we do so with confidence and joy, for Israel is strong and secure, prosperous and successful. The source of your political success and longevity is that so many Israelis feel indebted to you and feel secure because of your leadership.

However, together with your well-deserved pride, you should also feel a measure of shame. It seems like a lifetime, but it was less than a week ago, that you forged a new low. Instead of embracing the moral high ground on the issue of the African refugees in Israel and following through on what was your negotiated agreement with the United Nations, you chose the path of moral obtuseness, while making sure to lay the blame on others. Such actions, although common in our world, are not worthy of Israel and the Jewish people.

Shame on you for turning human rights discourse in Israel into a political football, dividing the Left and the Right. Shame on you for peddling fear to buttress your political standing. Shame on you for singling out false enemies for vilification to galvanize national loyalty and self-righteousness.

Your morally bankrupt rhetoric, branding all asylum seekers as “infiltrators,” instead of allowing that, at the very least, some are refugees, and supporting the false claims that they pose a danger to the Jewishness of Israel and the well-being of southern Tel Aviv, caught up with you. Or more correctly, infected us all.

When you propagate fear and hatred of so many different “others,” and employ fake enemies to encourage phony nationalist sentiments, it is indeed difficult to turn around and admit that the strong and vibrant Israel you helped to produce has nothing to fear from 16,000, 26,000, or even 36,000 refugees. It is difficult, even during Pesach last week, to speak of our people’s responsibility to remember that we were slaves in the land of Egypt.

Fear and hatred are cancerous, and once introduced into the national discourse, have a destructive life of their own. While you have mastered their political use, as we saw last week, they have become your masters.

For the sake of a short-term high as the proclaimed “protector of Israel,” “lover of Jews,” and “the one who cares about the disadvantaged neighborhoods,” you were willing to throw the lives of tens of thousands of human beings into chaos and turmoil and yet again divide the Jewish people. You know that the Supreme Court will challenge any policy of forced expulsion, further weakening it, and will also lead to extensive divisiveness, both within Israel and among the Jewish people.

Tomorrow’s problems, however, are not allowed by you to outweigh a bump in the polls, today. This is doubly true, when tomorrow you, or your coalition partners, can transform the Supreme Court itself into the enemy du jour of Israel and Zionism, and blame all of poor Government of Israel’s problems on all-powerful foreign conspirators, such as the New Israel Fund.

The Bibi of just a few years ago would be ashamed. It was you who in your previous terms served as the ultimate protector of the Supreme Court, the rule of law, and the unity of the Jewish people. In the past, these were values that you held as central to Israel. Today, outside of national security and preserving your coalition, it is difficult to identify anything that you hold as holy.

When you withdrew your support for your resolution, you knew that Friday was but a few days away, and that you could count on Hamas and Gaza to change the focus of our national discourse. You knew that the next car-ramming in Europe or gas attack on innocent civilians in Syria were but a few news cycles away. Who could reasonably criticize you for deporting a few Africans, when our country and soldiers are facing a new threat from Gaza? Who can criticize you as morally wanting, when such moral depravity surrounds us? Only an anti-Semite or an anti-Zionist, of course.

As Israelis we live in a macabre reality. Together with our well-deserved sense of strength, prosperity, and success, we know that danger and instability constantly threaten us. Be it Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iranians in Syria, or lone wolf Palestinian terrorists, we live with the ever-present sense that somebody wants to kill us. Someone sees our destruction as their principal mission. I don’t know of any other Western democracy whose citizens have to live with this consciousness, daily. Most Israelis trust you, Mr. Prime Minister, above all others, to help navigate us through this treacherous reality. In truth, much of that trust has been earned and well-deserved.

Israel, however, does not merely have to learn how to survive in the Middle East, but also survive the Middle East itself. Remaining a liberal democracy and a Jewish and democratic state and upholding our commitments to human rights and the Jewish values of peace, justice, freedom, and equality, as outlined in Israel’s Declaration of Independence, is a challenging task in today’s Middle East. It is difficult to achieve and even more difficult to continue to care. However, after survival, doing precisely that is Israel’s greatest challenge and responsibility.

Israel needs a leader and not merely a politician. A leader provides vision and challenges the people to expend resources for the sake of their values. A leader inspires sacrifice for a greater cause. A leader also experiences shame when they fail in their responsibilities.

There are voices in Israel and in the Jewish world who, after your debacle last week, expressed shame in Israel. I am not ashamed of Israel. Israel and Zionism transcend our political leaders and are not defined even by the current will of the majority. Israel embodies the mission to build a safe and secure homeland for the Jewish people which is committed to the noblest of Jewish, moral, and democratic principles. I am not ashamed of Israel, because we are in the middle of Zionism’s journey, a journey undertaken under the most challenging of circumstances.

Mr. Prime Minister, I am not ashamed of Israel. I am ashamed of you.

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/mr-prime-minister-i-am-ashamed-of-you/?utm_source=The+Times+of+Israel+Daily+Edition&utm_campaign=cea6605211-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_04_08&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_adb46cec92-cea6605211-55741261

The Prime Minister’s Attack on the New Israel Fund

04 Wednesday Apr 2018

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in Israel/Zionism, Jewish Identity, Social Justice, Women's Rights

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Rabbi Gilad Kariv, the CEO of the Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism, echoes my concerns and the concerns of anyone who values democracy and human rights and who is well-aware of the enormous good that the New Israel Fund has done on behalf of those in need in Israel. I am printing his statement in full:

“The Prime Minister’s attack on the New Israel Fund is a crossing of a line that we cannot remain silent about and is a critical test for Government of Israel coalition members who are truly committed to democratic values and to the need for solidarity in Israeli society. The call to form a parliamentary investigative committee instills a sense of witch hunt and McCarthyism into Israeli dialogue, akin to that of crippled democracies and those that lose their way. The discourse and discussion regarding the NIF’s activity is legitimate. Marking the NIF as a subversive organization and the attempt to threaten it, its supporters and its activists – is dangerous and disgraceful. The fact that these acts were done by the Prime Minister, in large part in order to cover up his embarrassing conduct in regards to the annulment of the agreement on the matter of asylum seekers, is a disgrace to the government and its coalition parties. We call upon the heads of all coalition parties and the Members of Knesset of these parties who are committed to the freedom of activity of Israel’s civic society to sound a clear voice of objection to the Prime Minister’s statements.

The New Israel Fund is a loyal partner of the Israel Reform Movement in efforts to promote freedom of religion and conscience among Israeli citizens, in fortifying human rights and promoting social justice. We will not hide this partnership and we will stand by our friends as they become a target for the lowest level of shaming and incitement. The attack on the NIF is a direct attack on Israeli civil society and on the majority of social change organizations in Israel. Now is the time to stand together in a wide coalition and make clear that there are red lines. A dialogue and argument – yes. Incitement and shaming – no. Israeli history will judge the elected officials who choose to remain silent during this time. We are not part of them. We do not hesitate to say to the Prime Minister: there is a limit to incitement! Enough of turning Israelis against one another! Enough of sacrificing Israeli solidarity for political interests! This is not what we expect of you on the eve of Israel’s 70^th year of independence!”

Believing in Miracles

27 Tuesday Mar 2018

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in American Jewish Life, Ethics, Holidays, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Jewish Identity, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Social Justice

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When I think about God splitting of the sea I’m reminded of the story of Joey who when asked by his father what he learned in Sunday school explained that Israeli engineers laid pontoons across the sea so that the Israelis could cross over safely, attack the Egyptian army and win the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Then Joey told his father that the same Israelis snuck back and laid charges under the bridges so that as the Egyptians crossed the bridges, they exploded and the Egyptians drowned.

Joey’s father said: “You didn’t learn that in Sunday school?”

Joey confessed: “No Dad, but you wouldn’t believe me if I told you what my teacher really told us.”

To children and adults alike, the parting of the Sea of Reeds in the Exodus story is incredulous. What to make of it as it defies reason? Wouldn’t a more relevant liberation story be Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, Kings “I Have a Dream” speech, Natan Sharansky’s address to the sentencing Soviet court, or Israel’s Declaration of Independence?

The Kotzker Rebbe said: “Whoever believes in miracles is a fool; and whoever does not believe in miracles is an atheist.” Is there no middle ground?

How ought we to read the Exodus text?

Here’s another way.

Nachshon ben Aminadav, a little known figure in the Exodus story, took matters into his own hands and as the Egyptians advanced and Moses prayed Nachshon jumped into the waters and started swimming. The Midrash says that Moses’ faith and Nachshon’s activism persuaded God to split the sea.

I’m reminded of the story of the man caught in a flood. While standing on his roof he prayed that God would save him. In the next hour 3 helicopters and 3 boats arrived but he refused them all claiming that he’d rather wait for God to save him. When the flood waters engulfed him he complained bitterly to the Almighty: “I’ve been a good man my whole life, but when I prayed to You to save me, you ignored my plea!”

“Nebesh!” God screamed, “I sent you 3 helicopters and 3 boats. Next time, help yourself?”

So – what’s a miracle? Philosophers answer the question in the negative; what isn’t a miracle? Judaism teaches that a miracle isn’t the radical transformation of the natural world. Divine wisdom and goodness lie not in rupturing God’s reign of universal law, but in the reliability of the steady order of the world.

Rabbi Harold Schulweis put it this way: “Faith isn’t dependent on miracles….miracles depend on faith. And faith, far from blind, sees life’s deeper truths.”

However defined, no miracle without faith is possible. Rabbi Abraham Heschel noted that a miracle has less to do with great historical peak events as it does in our consciousness of what lies before us at all times: “To pray is to take notice of the wonder, to regain a sense of the mystery that animates all beings, the Divine margin in all attainments.”

Rabbi Akiba was challenged by the pagan Tineus Rufus: “Whose deeds are greater, those of God or humankind?”

Akiba replied: “Greater are human deeds.”

The pagan asked how he could make such a claim.

Akiba brought sheaves of wheat and loaves of cakes and asked, “Which are superior?” The great sage answered his own question: the loaves of cakes excel because they required a human being to take the wheat and make something life-sustaining.

The lesson of the Sea of Reeds isn’t in the splitting of the Sea. It’s in our conscientious capacity to take action and transform the world.

As we prepare Pesach this week, our nation’s teens marching for reasonable gun control this past week is a great example of how we humans can transform ourselves and our world.

THAT is a miracle.

Chag Pesach Sameach!

Pesach is coming – It’s time to ask the big questions!

25 Sunday Mar 2018

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Ethics, Health and Well-Being, Holidays, Jewish Identity, Social Justice

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To be curious is the first quality of the wise. Wise people know that they do not know and they learn something from everyone they meet (Avot 5:1).

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

I have compiled a list of questions that might be sent in advance to your Seder participants or asked around the table during the Seder itself. These aren’t exhaustive. Add your own questions.

As no marathon runner would show up at the starting line without preparation and training, neither should we show up at our Seder tables without thinking seriously in advance about the themes and truths of this season. Now is the time to begin the questioning and probing.

Afikoman – When we break the Matzah

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

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

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

Ha-Chacham – The Wise Child

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

Ha-Rasha – The Evil Child

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

Cheirut – Thoughts about Freedom

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

Tzafun – The Hidden Matzah

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

Sh’fach et chamat’cha – Pour out your Wrath

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

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

Questions: What are your hopes and dreams for yourself, our community, country, the Jewish people, the State of Israel, and the world? What are you prepared to do in the next year to make real your hopes and dreams?

Campaign for Religious Equality in Israel

21 Wednesday Mar 2018

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in American Jewish Life, Israel/Zionism, Jewish Identity, Social Justice, Women's Rights

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“We are doing great things at Kehilat Mevaseret Zion with families, adults, social justice work, and building community, but we receive no funding from the Israeli government, as opposed to orthodox synagogues one of which is just down the street from us and is fully funded because it is orthodox.” So said Rabbi Alona Nir Keren of Kehilat Mevaseret Tzion, a Reform synagogue community in the Judean Hills just down the road from Jerusalem.

Rabbi Nir Keren joined with four other Israeli Reform Rabbis on a stage on Monday night at the 129^th annual meeting of the Central Conference of American Rabbis in Long Beach, CA. She was part of a panel discussing the vitality and challenges of the Israeli Reform movement.

She was joined by Rabbi Chen Or Tsfoni of Kehilat Raanana, Rabbi Yoki Amir, Professor of Jewish History and Philosophy at the Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem, Rabbi Nava Hefetz, the Director of Education for Rabbis for Human Rights-Israel, and Rabbi Gilad Kariv, the CEO and President of the Israel Movement for Progressive and Reform Judaism.

Rabbi Kariv spoke about the growing influence of Israel’s Reform movement in Israel as a whole. He noted that 800,000 Israelis have attended in recent years weddings, b’nai mitzvah celebrations, britot milah, baby namings, and funerals conducted by our 100 Israeli Reform Rabbis. Israelis are not only taking notice of the Israeli Reform movement, they are joining Reform synagogues. Taken together (according to a recent poll), the Reform and Conservative movements attract 11% of the Israeli population, equal to the 11% of the Israeli population that are ultra-Orthodox Haredim.

Rabbi David Stern, President of the CCAR, questioned these rabbis on a wide range of issues including human rights, religious pluralism in the state, the impact of Reform Judaism on Israeli culture, the spiritual and educational needs of Israelis young and old, liberal religious practice in Israel, and the reasons so many secular Israelis are attracted to the Reform movement.

Rabbi Hefetz told of her work in human rights with the Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers. Rabbi Or Tsafoni, the daughter of Iraqi immigrants, shared her experience growing up in Israel as a child of immigrants from a Muslim country. Rabbi Kariv reviewed the wide range of issues that the Reform movement’s Israel Religious Action Center is actively confronting on a daily basis in the Knesset and in courts of law.

The evening was sponsored by the Association of Reform Zionists of America (ARZA), and as the Chair of the national Board, I had an opportunity to thank our Israeli colleagues for the important work they are doing and to present the “Campaign for Religious Equality” that ARZA and the Union for Reform Judaism began several months ago at the URJ Biennial Convention in Boston attended by 5000 delegates from Reform synagogues around the world.

We are asking every Reform synagogue in North America (now numbering more than 900 communities) to contribute $3600 each as we prepare to celebrate Israel’s 70^th anniversary in May. The money we raise will go directly to our Israeli Reform movement to support our Israeli synagogue communities (which receive no financial support from the Israeli government), our legal and lobbying efforts on behalf of religious pluralism, democracy, women’s rights, human rights, against racism and bigotry, and to conduct a massive public relations campaign to promote Reform Judaism in Israel with the intent to draw more Israelis to liberal progressive Judaism.

For North American congregations that would like to contribute $3600, please see ARZA’s website – www.arza.org .