“To dwell is to make peace where we dwell!” Parashat Vayeshev – Thoughts following the UN Palestinian Resolution

02 Sunday Dec 2012

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

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I am grateful to my colleague Rabbi Victor Reinstein for the central idea of this d’var Torah. When he was a senior rabbinic student at HUC in New York, he offered a drash on the first two words of the Genesis 37:1 – Vayeishev Yaakov “And Jacob dwelled,” and suggested a midrash: Ein omrim vayeishev Yaakov (“Do not say ‘And Jacob dwelled;”) Ele vayasheiv Yaakov (“Rather, and Jacob made peace.”)

If we re-vocalize the verb yod-shin-vet from the paal construction to the piel construction, yashav can be understood in the sense of lashevet (“to dwell”), as it is usually translated in our portion. Or it can be used as l’yasheiv (“to settle a dispute”), as in yishev sikh’sukh.

The same Hebrew root means, based on verbal form, “to dwell” and “to make peace!” The close relationship between them suggests the deeper purpose of dwelling – that when we dwell in a place we are meant to make peace in that place.

Each of us simultaneously dwells in at least two places – in our own “place” (i.e. lives) and in the world. The greater challenge of va-yashev/va-yeishev is for us to seek to make peace in both.

In the Talmud “Rabbi Yochanan said, ‘Every place where it says va-yeishev, this is in the language of pain; ‘And Jacob dwelled in the land of his father’s sojourning – it’s written after that, ‘and Joseph brought evil report of his brothers unto his father.”” (Talmud, Sanhedrin 106a)

Jacob (and Joseph in his early years) dwelled, but they each failed to make peace where they dwelled. Jacob allowed his family to be torn apart by jealousy and hatred resulting in much pain and despair. However, when we unite through peacemaking, we create a new language of hope.

“Ein omrim va-yeishev Yaakov, ele va-yasheiv Yaakov”

“Do not say ‘and he dwelled.’ Rather say, ‘and he made peace.”

This teaching challenges us to think and act responsibly in the wake of the successful UN General Assembly Resolution vote raising Palestinian status to that of a non-member state. There are those in our community and in Israel, led by the Israeli government, that want to punish the PA by building more settlements in E1 thereby closing off any possibility for a contiguous Palestinian state in an eventual two-state solution, to withhold taxes collected by Israel and intended for the PA from a cash starved Palestinian Authority, and in Washington, to close down the Palestinian Authority Mission should negotiations become stalled for any reason.

Not only are these actions reactive, they are strategically foolish. After all, the PA used diplomacy, not terror and war, to advance its cause at the UN. Regardless of what we might think of the UN, they had the legal right to do so.

We American Jews who love Israel and recognize that she must remain both Jewish and democratic and fulfill her own Declaration of Independence, should be doing everything we can to encourage the President of the United States and our Congressional leaders to not “punish’ the PA for taking the diplomatic route. To do so is to give up hope for a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Further, it is tantamount to giving the nod to the terrorist organization Hamas and to endless war.

We American Jews should be doing everything possible to encourage President Obama, the Quartet, and the international community to bring a viable plan based on passed negotiations and agreements to the Israelis and Palestinians so they can negotiate an end-of-conflict two-state solution before it is too late.

“The Hour of Sunlight: One Palestinian’s Journey from Prisoner to Peacemaker” by Sami Al Jundi and Jen Marlow

26 Monday Nov 2012

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in Book Recommendations, Ethics, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Social Justice

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Sami Al Jundi’s story is the most remarkable memoir I have read coming out of the Palestinian experience. For those who care about ending the violence, enmity, occupation, and repression that characterize the Israeli-Palestinian context, I recommend this book highly.

The book is not, however, for the faint of heart. There are passages difficult to stomach including a detailed description of Sami’s torture by both Israeli security officials and Palestinian Authority police (yes – he was abused by both). Indeed, Sami spares no one, Israelis, Palestinians and “do-good” Americans who he believed did not fully understand the depth of enmity between the peoples and what is necessary to transform the relationship if peace is to be realized.

Sami was born into a loving family in the old city of Jerusalem in 1961. As a child, like many Palestinian children living under occupation, he became radicalized and participated in rock throwing against Israeli soldiers. When he was 17, he was arrested after a bomb he and two friends were making and planning to detonate in an Israeli vegetable market blew up in their faces. One friend was killed and Sami was wounded. He was arrested at the hospital, interrogated and tortured by Israeli security police, tried, found guilty, and sentenced to 10 years in an Israeli prison.

Once in prison he discovered that his fellow Palestinian political prisoners (as opposed to common criminals) had created a democratic system that included a highly sophisticated and intensive educational program. Sami read 300 pages a day for 10 years in world history, philosophy, psychology, French and Arabic literature, and poetry, as well as the Torah, New Testament and Qur’an. As a result he began to rethink relations between individuals and peoples.

Despite his violent past, Sami was drawn to the non-violent thought of Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King. Upon release from prison, Sami was committed to non-violence and became involved with the “Palestinian Center for Non-Violence in Jerusalem.” The Center’s purpose was:

“Throw flowers, not stones, at soldiers at demonstrations. Force them to see our humanity…be stronger than your opponent – do not respond to their violence with your own….the occupation must end and there must be equal rights for both peoples living in this land. The message will be stronger if it is delivered using nonviolent methods.”

Noting the influence of two Persian dualist philosophers, Mani (3^rd century CE) and Mazdak (6^th century CE), Sami wrote:

“Everyone … has light and darkness inside them. Even the darkest heart always has some small point of light. We have to help them find their light also. And then it will grow. This is the essence of nonviolence. Not to fight the person, but to fight the darkness in his heart. The only way to do this is through growing his light… The only way to change their behavior is if we’re willing to talk to each other, to build respect for each other as human beings.” (p. 210)

Sami was disgusted by violence of all kinds, be it perpetrated by Palestinian suicide bombers, Israeli settlers, the Israeli Defense Forces, and the Palestinian Authority police.

Soon after its founding in 1993 by the American journalist John Wallach (who was my congregant when I served at the Washington Hebrew Congregation in DC), Sami became the supervisor of the “Seeds of Peace Center for Coexistence in East Jerusalem.” The program was founded upon the idea that when young people from enemy communities have an opportunity to meet each other on neutral ground as equals, talk, argue, listen, and spend time together, they develop empathy for the other and consequently become friends, which Seeds of Peace affirms is the basis for the peaceful resolution of conflict between individuals and peoples.

It was at the Center that Sami met the American author/documentary filmmaker/playwright Jen Marlowe, who was on staff, with whom he co-authored this book.

Though Sami eventually would leave Seeds of Peace, the reasons for which he describes in detail, the Seeds program has expanded over the 20 years of its existence to include 5000 alumni from 27 nations. (See http://www.seedsofpeace.org/about)

The resolution to the memoir is as unfinished as is the lack of a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Though I do not know Sami or Jen personally, I would imagine that they would both affirm that now, especially in the wake of the violence in Gaza, is not the time to desist from efforts for Israelis and the Palestinians to make peace.

As they have stated, our two peoples are destined to live together side by side on the land we each claim as our national home. Programs such as Seeds of Peace and the Palestinian Center for Non-Violence represent among the few shining lights remaining in the darkness of the human heart within the Israeli-Palestinian context and thus are our greatest hope.

“The Good Girls Revolt” – by Lynn Povich – Recommended Reading

04 Sunday Nov 2012

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in American Politics and Life, Book Recommendations, Ethics, Social Justice

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“The Good Girls Revolt – How The Women of Newsweek Sued Their Bosses and Changed the Work Place,” by Lynn Povich, is a painstakingly researched story of one of the seminal events affecting the rights of women in the American work place in the early years of the women’s movement.

In March, 1970, 46 Newsweek women sued Newsweek Magazine for sexual discrimination in hiring and promotion. Charging that “there seems to be a gentlemen’s agreement at Newsweek that men are writers and women are researchers, and the exceptions are few and far between,” carefully and with resolve these women set out to do something that had never been done before – bring a class action civil rights suit against one of the publishing world’s juggernauts.

Katherine Graham, then the publisher of The Washington Post and President of the Washington Post Company (the parent company of Newsweek), when told of the lawsuit asked, “Which side am I supposed to be on?”

The 46 Newsweek women enlisted the legal counsel of the young firebrand attorney Eleanor Norton Holmes who successfully guided the suit to victory and opened not just the publishing business, but the workplace generally, to greater fairness and opportunities for women.

Lynn Povich was one of the ringleaders.

A disclaimer, Lynn is a friend. However, even if she were not, I would recommend this volume especially to young women who were born long after the struggles fought by their mothers and grandmothers. It is too easy to take for granted the opportunities available to women today even with the inequities without pausing to consider the scope of the suppression, humiliation and injustice suffered in the past (AMC’s “Mad Men” well describes the world in which Lynn and her colleagues struggled). For anyone 60 years and older, we remember those years pre-Feminine Mystique, pre-Newsweek women, pre-Roe v Wade. Much, thanks to Lynn, her colleagues and many others, has changed in the last 40 years, and this book enables us to take stock and be grateful to those women who stuck their necks out.

Lynn began as a secretary at Newsweek and within 5 years (after the lawsuit itself, revealing the good will of its top management) became the magazine’s first woman senior editor. In 1991 she left Newsweek to become editor-in-chief of Working Woman Magazine and managing editor/senior executive producer for MSNBC.com.

Lynn explains how these 46 women came to sue Newsweek and how they “conspired” in the Ladies Room out of fear of being fired.

Neither Lynn nor her colleagues were the stereotypical hard-edged, bra-burning, hard, man-hating women so often dismissed by Rush Limbaugh and company. To the contrary, Lynn and her colleagues were humble and self-effacing, often smarter and more talented than their male counterparts, who wanted Newsweek to be the progressive magazine it prided itself even then on being so they, based on hard work and talent, could progress.

Lynn told this story not only because the case the Newsweek women brought was historic (i.e. the first class action suit filed and won on behalf of women in the American workplace), but because still today there are inequities that need to be addressed, including equal pay for equal work and discrimination against women who choose to become mothers and work.

Lynn writes about the women’s lives (with their permission) who were at the center of this story and what happened to them since. She is candid about herself as well.

Lynn’s is a success story, but not all the 46 were successful despite their intelligence and talent. Plagued by prejudice and personal pressures, some became casualties after the struggle.

Lynn shows how changes in the law did not change everything, and she reflects on what needs still to be addressed if justice and fairness are to prevail.

Torah Can Come to Us From Anywhere – Even a Barber’s Chair

07 Sunday Oct 2012

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in American Jewish Life, Divrei Torah, Ethics, Health and Well-Being, Holidays, Jewish History, Jewish-Christian Relations, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Social Justice, Stories

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It isn’t often that the Torah portion of the week and my getting a haircut coincide, but it did last week.

For years Susie Polin has cut my hair. She has a huge heart, is a artist who cuts hair for a living and a Sephardic Jew whose family origins are from Greece.

Last week’s Shabbat Torah portion included Exodus 34:6-7 (for Chol Hamoed Sukkot):

“Adonai, Adonai, El rachum v’chanun, erech apayim, v’rav chesed v’emet: notzeir chesed la-alaphim nose avon vafesha, v’chataah v’nakeh”

“Adonai! Adonai! A God compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kindness and faithfulness, extending kindness to the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin…”

Susie has lived in the Pico-Fairfax neighborhood of Los Angeles for many years. Once a Jewish neighborhood, by the time she moved there it was African-American and she was “the only white Jewish girl” in the neighborhood. Nevertheless, she became close to her neighbors, especially the people next door. Five months ago the elderly woman who lived there died leaving her husband Johnny alone. Johnny had worked for many years for the LA Unified School District and had come into contact with asbestos, which sealed his fate.

After his wife died, Susie asked if she could do anything for him as he too was infirm. “Thanks Susie – I’m alright!”

“Do you have enough food in the house,” she asked.

“I’m good every day except Tuesday.”

“You can count on me, Johnny, to bring you dinner each Tuesday,” she generously offered.

So every Tuesday for the past four months Susie brought Johnny dinner that she bought at the local Gelsons take-out stand. When she explained to the Gelsons’ workers that she’d be back every week to buy dinner for Johnny, they gave her double the food at the same price, food that lasted Johnny for days.

One day, Johnny asked, “Susie – is ‘Jew’ and ‘Jewish’ the same?”

“Yes!” she said.

“What’s Jewish?”

Susie explained that to be Jewish means to follow the Bible’s commandments and to do deeds of loving-kindness for others. It’s all about love,” she explained, “because God wants us to love each other.”

“I love you, Susie.”

“I love you too, Johnny!”

Johnny died two weeks ago. When the day of his funeral arrived, Susie drove to the black church in South LA and was the first to arrive. She entered the church and sat down. As his family, many friends and care-takers arrived, those who knew her greeted her like a she was a member of their family. Soon everyone heard what Susie had done for Johnny, and that she was a Jew.

When she told me about her experience I was reminded of the famous story in the Midrash (D’varim Rabba 3:3):

“Rabbi Shimon ben Shetach one day commissioned his disciples to buy him a camel from an Arab. When they brought him the animal, they gleefully announced that they had found a precious stone in its collar. ‘Did the seller know of this gem?’ asked the Master. On being answered in the negative, he called out angrily, ‘Do you think me a barbarian that I should take advantage of the letter of the law by which the gem is mine together with the camel? Return the gem to the Arab immediately.’ When the Arab received it back, he exclaimed: ‘Blessed be the God of Shimon ben Shetach! Blessed be the God of Israel.”

I told this story about Susie and Johnny on Friday night to my congregation. There were many children present including our 6^th grade Day School students and their Israeli exchange student friends from the Tzahalah Elementary School in north Tel Aviv.

I explained to them that we are all more than just individuals. We are part of a family, a people and a religious tradition, and what we say and do outside our homes and immediate communities not only reflect back on us, but also on our families and the Jewish people.

The way we treat others, whoever they are, Jews, Christians, Muslims, blacks, Latinos, Asians, Palestinians, immigrants, the poor, the powerless, strangers, the people with whom we work, the people who work for us, tells more about who we are and what we value than anything we say we believe.

Susie Polin is a special woman who gives of her heart and soul continually to others. Through her loving deeds the good name of the Jewish people and the God of Israel was enhanced in Johnny’s community, for Susie may have been the only Jew that Johnny and many in his community ever knew up close.

Torah can come to us at any time and in any place, even the barber’s chair.

Chag Sameach!

Jealousy of the Superior Man

01 Monday Oct 2012

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in American Politics and Life, Quote of the Day, Social Justice

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As we enter the last weeks of the presidential election campaign I confess to being confounded by the intensity of hatred felt and expressed by many Republicans towards President Obama.

Yes, there are policy differences between Democrats and Republicans.

Yes, people blame (wrongly!) this President for the nation’s economic woes.

Yes, millions actually believe the “Birther” claims that Obama is “foreign,” Muslim and “other.”

And yes, there is racism.

Here is yet another possibility originally noted by H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) more than fifty years ago: “Jealousy of the superior man is a constant corrosive element in society.”

What else except jealousy joined with ignorance, stupidity, fear, anger, bigotry, selfishness, myopic thinking, and God knows what else could account for the depth of animus directed at this President?

Obama, truth to tell, is far more centrist than left. He is not an ideologue. Rather, he is pragmatic and conciliatory as an analysis clearly shows in Sunday’s New York Times of the ways in which The Affordable Care Act (i.e. “Obamacare”) is based on conservative values (see “The Conservative Case for Obamacare” by J.D. Kelinke, September 30, 2012, “Sunday Review,” p.4). http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/30/opinion/sunday/why-obamacare-is-a-conservatives-dream.html?pagewanted=all

After reading the article, no reasonable person can come to any conclusion except that Republican haters of Obama and Obamacare (fed by Republican Senate and Congressional leadership) have gone off the deep end, cannot analyze policy options without a serious overlay of emotional/political bias, could actually care less about policy and are consumed with the need for self-aggrandizement and moral self-justification. Many of these same folks hated Bill Clinton with equal intensity when he was President and, I assume, will spare nothing against Hilary should she toss her hat in the ring for the 2016 presidential race.

What do Obama and Clinton have in common (other than being male and Democratic Presidents) that inspires such hatred?

Mencken put it deftly; “Jealousy of the superior man.”

Though not without their flaws few politicians are as smart, clear-thinking, knowledgeable, thick-skinned, eloquent, skilled, and talented as are Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

Their charisma and excellence must drive the Republicans to distraction as they have no one of equal talent in this race or on the horizon!

I pray that the haters don’t succeed in corroding the inner moral character of this country further and are turned back handsomely on November 6 in the presidential race and Congress.

Governor Romney’s Failure Of Character And Ours

19 Wednesday Sep 2012

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in American Politics and Life, Ethics, Health and Well-Being, Holidays, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Quote of the Day, Social Justice

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As Governor Mitt Romney’s campaign for President collapses as a consequence of his flawed character, the following quotations help shed light on what plagues him and far too many in this country. They also offer decent people within both the Republican and Democratic parties insight into what is necessary to understand in order for us to transcend Romney’s callousness, self-centeredness, ignorance, and stupidity. Too much is at stake for this country, for peace between Israel and the Palestinians (both of whom yearn for peace!), for wise American leadership vis a vis the Iranian nuclear threat, and for the international credibility and good standing of the United States for us not to do so.

During these 10 Days of Repentance, Jews are called upon to look within themselves and judge harshly where we are flawed as Mr. Romney seems to be. The tragedy is his case is that he has deep religious faith and has been personally generous to many near him, but his open-heartedness does not extend beyond his narrow religious, social and economic circles, nor does it translate into a political philosophy that can help the most people with the least.

Having said this, we need to be careful as we judge him, for none of us is immune to the failures of character that afflict him. If we are honest with ourselves, our flaws are likely significant as well.

The following statements are apt relative to Mr. Romney and important as we gauge who is most fit for our national political leadership:

“To blame the poor for subsisting on welfare has no justice unless we are also willing to judge every rich member of society by how productive he or she is. Taken individual by individual, it is likely that there’s more idleness and abuse of government favors among the economically privileged than among the ranks of the disadvantaged.” (Norman Mailer, 1923-2007)

“Ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.” (James Baldwin, 1924-1987)

“Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” (Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 1929-1968)

“A man is called selfish, not for pursuing his own good but for neglecting his neighbor’s.” (British Archbishop Richard Whately, 1787-1863)

“It is difficult to get a person to understand something when his salary [i.e. income] depends upon his not understanding it.” (Upton Sinclair, 1878-1968)

“The way to overcome the angry person is with gentleness, the evil person with goodness, the miser with generosity, and the liar with truth.” (Indian Proverb)

“The three are really one, for when justice is done, truth prevails and peace is established.” (Talmud Yerushalmi, Taanit 4:2, circa 450 C.E.)

My hopes for each of you and your dear ones:

G’mar chatimah tovah v’t’chateivu b’sefer chayim, l’shanah tovah u-m’tukah, b’ri-ut, asiyah, tikun, uv’chol maaglei chayeinu ha-ishi, hamishpachti, hamiktzo-i, v’hatzibori.

May you be sealed for goodness and written in the book of life for a good and sweet New Year, for health, activism, and restoration in all spheres of our lives, the personal, familial, professional, and public.

Shame at the Holiest Site in Judaism

20 Monday Aug 2012

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

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For those who do not receive emails from the Israeli Reform Movement’s Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC), I refer the following to you for your information and for action. Anat Hoffman, the Executive Director of IRAC sent this notice out this morning and it is self-explanatory and a shocking display of intolerance and misogyny by the Ultra-Orthodox rabbinate that grown in unprecedented influence within the government of the State of Israel, in the affairs of the Jewish state and in the every day lives of Israeli citizens. Please sign this petition and send it along to your friends.

August 20, 2012

Help us collect signatures

Dear Rabbi John,

Yesterday four women were detained at the Western Wall, each for wearing a tallit. The authorities say they were disturbing the public peace according to regulation 201 A4 of the Israeli legal code. The punishment for this crime is six months in prison. They also broke regulation 287A by performing a religious act that “offends the feelings of others.” The punishment for this crime is up to two years in prison.

When these four women wore their tallitot they challenged the division at the Western Wall. This is a place where men pray, dance, sing, sound the Sofar, read Torah, celebrate b’nei mitzvah, wave the lulov, and express their Judaism in any way they wish. Women, on the other side of the partition, stand silently in the little space that remains.

IRAC fights all layers of gender segregation in Israel, and I believe that the Kotel is ground-zero in the fight against gender exclusion. As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. taught us, one of the main strategies of non-violent struggle is to “dramatize” the injustice. There is a real need for drama to actualize how far the situation of women in the public sphere in Israel today is from the dream of the State’s founders. Israel’s founding document, our Declaration of Independence, had a vision of full equality for all the citizens of Israel irrespective of religion, race, or gender.

According to that vision, we are working to create a reality that is currently hard for Israelis to even imagine. In this we mean a Kotel where Israeli families will be able to pray together as a family, a Kotel where families can celebrate a bat mitzvah, a Kotel where egalitarian services can be held proudly, instead of hidden out of view from the Western Wall Plaza. I want to live to see it and for that I need your help.

The key to changing the status quo is in the hands of the authoritative that run the Kotel, the Western Wall Heritage Foundation. This is why IRAC and the IMPJ are about to go to Israel’s Supreme Court to demand a change in the make-up of the Western Wall Heritage Council, which is currently made up completely of Orthodox Jews. We want this body to resemble the real diversity of the Jewish people in Israel and the Diaspora.

Thank you for already signing the petition. Please help us collect signatures by forwarding this email, using our special tell-a-friend link, or by clicking here and then forwarding that link to as many of your friends as you can. We have over 10,000 names already, and we will reach our goal of 50,000 if everyone helps us get five more names. With that kind of support, the Israeli Government will see that we cannot be ignored. Days like yesterday must stop.

L’shalom,
Anat Hoffman
Executive Director, IRAC

Action Alert: Help the petition grow

Please help us collect signatures for this petition. You can do it by forwarding this link to your friends, forwarding this email, or click here to use our special Tell a Friend link.

Walking and Listening – Parashat Ekev

09 Thursday Aug 2012

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in Beauty in Nature, Divrei Torah, Ethics, Health and Well-Being, Holidays, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Social Justice

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A word can link worlds, as the name of our portion, Ekev, does this week.

V’haya ekev tishm’un – “And if you listen/hear/heed/obey these statutes, observe and do them” (Deuteronomy 7:12) then you will enjoy bounty, security and progeny.

The word ekev here is translated “if,” and it appears instead of the more common Hebrew word im. The word ekev also appears in the stories of the Binding of Isaac (Genesis 22:18) and in the times of famine when our forebears were forced to leave the land of Israel (Genesis 26:1).

Why? What is the significance of this little word?

Ekev has the same Hebrew three-letter root that is in Jacob’s name Yaakov. As Jacob was being born he held the “heel” (an alternative meaning of ekev) of his brother Esau.

Rashi says that ekev in our verse refers to “light mitzvot” that a person “tramples with his heels.” Rabbi Robert Rhodes has written that “The promise of divine bounty depends on how we use the underside of the foot and what we crush underneath. God is listening to the noise our feet make as they step on the little things that seem unimportant but are the real stuff of life – commandments that appear to be of little value and principles of ethics [that] people [commonly] violate.”

Rabbi Michael Curasik noted this very week on his on-line “Torah Talk” that the heel (ekev) relates to “turning” because the heel turns 90 degrees from the leg, pointing us towards t’shuvah (“turn”, “return”), the Jewish pre-occupation during the High Holiday season that is fast approaching.

Also, in this first verse of our Parashat Ekev appears another key word – tishm’un (meaning, “listen/hear/heed/or obey”).

What is the significance of ekev and tishm’un appearing together?

Of all the five senses, the closest one to revelation is hearing. The people heard God’s voice at Mount Sinai (Exodus 19:16, 18-19). Elijah heard the kol d’mamah dakah (“the still small voice” – 1 K 19:12) on Mount Carmel. We are commanded to “hear” (tishm’un) the statutes (Deuteronomy 7:12).

My wife Barbara and I recently returned from 5 days at Lake Tahoe. Each day we took long walks along mountain paths and through forests. It was at times so very quiet and serene, and through this quiet we heard so very clearly the singing birds, scampering chipmunks, rustling wind, running streams, and buzzing hornets. We felt physically alive and spiritually high, an easy melding of body and soul, blending the magnificent environment with the unifying metaphysical world.

Rebbe Nachman of Bratslav emphasized the principle of hak’balah (i.e. “parallelism” or “correspondence.” See Anatomy of the Soul, translator Chaim Kramer, publ. Breslov, p. 15); “as above, so below; as below, so above.” In truth all is one – echad! There is no distinction between body and soul.

Making pilgrimage and listening are keys to religious quest. The prophet heard the call and walked in God’s ways. Mystics wandered through forests and intuited the longings of plants and brush, of trees and flowers, mountains and rocks all reaching out towards their heavenly source.

Not only in such serene settings is spiritual/physical oneness possible. Rabbi Heschel famously prayed with his feet when he marched with Dr. King from Selma to Montgomery. Many of us too have marched for peace and to raise awareness of HIV/AIDS, breast and uterine cancers, and genocide in Rwanda, Darfur, Sudan, and the Congo.

Communion with God happens in many ways, here, in the mountains and in the city streets.

The month of Elul commences in 8 days on Saturday evening, August 18. At that time, ekev, we Jews are called to begin our turning and returning to our true selves, to family and community, to tradition, Torah, faith and God, all for the purpose of infusing holiness into our lives and the world, that we might become, one and all, Godly Jews.

That is the Jewish business! Nothing more and nothing less.

Let our feet walk and let us listen.

Shabbat shalom.