Category Archives: Stories

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

24 Friday Jun 2016

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Shabbat shalom.

 

Exagoge – The World Premier of an Ancient Play – Review

19 Sunday Jun 2016

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE ARTS@TIOH

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

The Orchard of Abraham’s Children – Towards the Creation of a Shared Society

29 Monday Feb 2016

Posted by in Ethics, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish-Islamic Relations, Stories

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There are at least three nursery schools in that have Jewish and Muslim children enrolled together. One is in Jaffa, a mixed Arab-Jewish town, alongside Tel Aviv.

One day this past week, I went to visit along with 30 American and Canadian Reform Rabbis as part of our CCAR annual meeting in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. We gathered in the school’s backyard garden and playground near a chicken coop with very raucous roosters. The school is aptly called “The Orchard of Abraham’s Children.”

Ihab Balha is the school manager, and he greeted us warmly. He’s in his early 40s, is tall with cascading long black-gray hair framing his handsome olive-colored face. He wore the long white robe of a Sufi mystic. He speaks beautiful Hebrew and he told us his unusual story about how this school came to be created.

Ihab grew up in the house in which the school welcomes the children each day. He is one of four or five children of a loving Palestinian Arab Muslim family. However, his father’s love only went so far. He hated Jews with an uncommon passion, and he taught his children to hate Jews as well.

When Ihab was 16, he attempted to fire-bomb a synagogue. When he was 20, he encountered Jews for the first time with a group of Palestinian friends. Each side took the opportunity to release their pent-up venom and rage toward the other. Something strange happened, however, in the verbal assaults. Ihab and the others (Jews and Arabs both) wanted more opportunities to be heard and to listen. Soon, they realized that their bigotry was not rationally based, that there was humanity in the other and that they shared far more than they had ever imagined. That realization launched them into a dialogue series that transformed them.

Ihab didn’t initially confide with his parents that he was participating in these conversations nor that his attitudes about Jews were changing. At long last he told his parents, but there was a serious fall-out with his father. They did not speak nor see one another for the next five years, a painful time for the entire family. For comfort and wisdom, Ihab turned to Islam and the Quran, and he became a Sufi mystic.

After the 2nd Intifada in 2002, Ihab attended a discussion between an Imam and a Rabbi, both of whom had lost children because of the violence. In 2006, Ihab helped to organize a conference of Muslims and Jews that was attended by 5000 Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews at Latrun on the road between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, the site of an historic battle in the War of Independence. Around that time, Ihab reconciled with his parents. In 2008, his family made pilgrimage to Mecca.

At the age of 35, Ihab met and fell madly in love with Ora, an Israeli Jewish woman. They married two days after they met, and he struggled with how to tell his parents. Because Jaffa is a small town and his family is well known, everyone knew that he had married but no one knew who was his bride.

Ihab and Ora decided to introduce her to the family without revealing that they were, in truth, married. He brought her home along with a group of Jewish and Palestinian Arab “friends,” the first time Jews had ever set foot in the Balha home. Ihab’s father told Ora and the other Jews how he hated and resented Jews who he believed had stolen so much from the Palestinians during the 1948 War. He did like Ora – a lot.

His parents kept asking Ihab why they had not yet met his bride and when that would happen. At last, when cousins came to visit from Holland, using them as a buffer, one of the cousins told his parents: “You have met Ihab’s wife. She is  there (pointing at Ora)!”

Ihab’s father exploded: “You Jews have stolen everything from us, and now you steal from me my son!?”

Ora said, “I love your son.”

Ora was soon pregnant with their first child, and she and Ihab decided that they wanted to raise their son with Israeli Jews and Palestinian Muslim Arabs. They envisioned starting a nursery school but needed a building. Ihab’s parents volunteered their house. Today, the school has 200 children who come every day . They call the school “The Orchard Of Abraham’s Children.” Ora is the Director and Ihab is the Manager. Ihab’s father visits the kids each day and is a loving “grandfather” to them all, Arab and Jew.

This story is remarkable in so many ways, most especially because it shows the transformation that can be experienced by enemies, and about what happens when we listen and seek to understand the “other.” It’s about learning the other’s narrative, and how empathy and compassion are critical in the building of friendship, community and a shared society.

After Ihab shared his remarkable story, I said to him: “Ihab – Your have experienced  great pain!”

“Yes,” he said, “but also great joy!”

FORGIVENESS – Joseph and His Brothers

04 Friday Dec 2015

Posted by in Divrei Torah, Poetry, Stories

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I can’t stop dreams coming in the night
Even while awake I gaze towards light
My mother died my father sighed
And wondered about my dreams

Trusting a man along the way
I found my brothers lying in wait
To banish me from family and home
And send me far away

They could not utter even my name
They cast me down and spat me away
They broke my father’s heart
As they claimed I passed away

My name was written already in stars
But I became a slave and scarred
As flesh in a woman’s lustful heart
Who also cast me away

Her master incensed sent me to Sheol
But still a seer I glimpsed a glow
And blessings bubbled into my dreams
As I wondered about my way

Alas I was given a royal reprieve
And brought to a place beside the King
I served him long and faithfully
But continued to dream my dreams

My heart shut down over twenty odd years
My love poured into cold desert tears
I amassed great power and instilled such fear
While serving at the pleasure of the King

My brothers came their faces forlorn
Begging for bread before the throne
Thinking me Viceroy with scepter in hand
Not Joseph of their family clan

As my father re-dug his father’s wells
Seeing my brothers the waters swelled
Into my steeped-up and hardened heart
I opened to love again

I forgave them all and brought them near
Saved them from their desert fears
Settled them safely amongst their peers
As God intended all those years

  • Composed by Rabbi John Rosove

Pearl Harbor – A Journal of a Wartime Physician Serving Wounded Soldiers in the Pacific

02 Wednesday Dec 2015

Posted by in American Politics and Life, Stories, Tributes

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On December 8, 1941, a day after Japanese forces attacked the American military base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, my father, a physician, re-enlisted with the US Navy department. Within a few weeks he was sailing on the U.S.S. President Hayes bound for Hawaii where he would serve for the next year followed by another year on Midway Island.

Between December 11, 1941 and January 25, 1944 he wrote 45 letters to cousins in Philadelphia (who saved the letters) and he kept a journal until the Navy prohibited its personnel to write diaries. His letters and writings are a remarkable record of a wartime physician serving wounded soldiers in the Pacific theater. They reveal his instinctual call to duty, his loyalty to country and his ready compliance to orders, all of which are virtues that Tom Brokaw characterized as emblematic of the “greatest generation of Americans.”

Recently, my brother painstakingly transcribed and annotated our father’s journal entries and letters after having found them in a box at the back of a closet in our mother’s apartment when we moved her to assisted living three years ago. These writings are far more than a series of personal anecdotes of our father’s years in the service. They offer a moving historic account of one of the most traumatic events in 20th century American history.

For my generation, the two Kennedy and King assassinations were transformative. For my sons’ generation, 9/11 was the historic turning point. For my parents, it was the Great Depression, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and World War II that changed their lives.

As the 74th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor approaches next week, I offer my father’s words as a memorial to those who died in World War II.

Journal Entry –– Monday, February 2, 1942 

“We started into … Pearl Harbor at noon. Before leaving San Diego we had heard of the damage done…but the sight of the wreckage of part of our fleet left us all in a very sad and solemn mood… We have heard many stories first hand from the men who were actually here and went through the dreadful blitz of Dec 7, 1941. These men, most of them quiet, reserved, humble in their narrations are the first great and unsung heroes of our second world war…”

What follows is part of a summary of what our father had heard directly from these witnesses:

“The Oklahoma was hit first. Four torpedoes tore into her sides and in a few moments, before her men had time to man her guns or get onto the deck she heaved and turned completely over on her top with her bare hull just showing above water. Practically all the men aboard were drowned – and many of the bodies are still there. … [Immediately] the Arizona, California, and New Mexico were attacked. [On] The Nevada…a torpedo hit her amid ship on the port side and she started to list. The engine crew stayed on their jobs, every man hadn’t any thought apparently of getting out or saving his own life…the Japs flew low…and dropped a torpedo on the fore-deck, ripping a hole clear through to the hold of the ship…and machine-gunned the men. One man I talked to was thrown from the deck by the explosion, fell into the thick oil water and started to swim, saw the Arizona…reached the anchor chain of another ship, started to climb, only to see airplanes diving in his direction, machine-gunning — he fell back into the water, finally climbed ashore, and continued to fight on the Nevada until it was all over. The ships were ablaze, the water, covered with oil soon caught fire burning many struggling sailors….

…There was a chap [below] on the great aircraft carrier Saratoga, who when the ship was hit by a torpedo…water [was] pouring in. He ran to close the water tight doors to his compartment, then ran to the next and closed it, found the next compartment already closed so [he] couldn’t get out. He called the officer, “Sir, I have closed the water tight doors to two compartments, the water is coming in her pretty fast but I think there is still time for me to get out of here if you will open the next compartment and let me out; …the reply came back, “I’m sorry, son, you know the rules, the safety of this ship depends upon those doors remaining closed. We probably couldn’t close them after you.” “Yes, sir, I understand, sir, but could you please put someone on the phone to keep talking to me. I’d appreciate it very much, sir.” His request was granted, the lad kept talking while the water roared in from the outside – 3 minutes later his voice died away…”

This was, of course, just the beginning. Between 1941 and 1945, 405,399 Americans died in battle in the Pacific and Europe. In total, in addition to the 6 million Jews murdered by the Nazis and their henchmen, over 60 million people died in that war making it the deadliest military conflict in history.

On this 74th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack, it is upon us to pause in reverence of those who gave their lives in defense of the United States and the innocent of all nations, and we remember the horrors that are always unleashed in war.

Note: The above quotations are taken from “An American Physician in the World War II Pacific: The Correspondence and Diary of Leon Rosove, MD” edited and annotated by Michael H. Rosove. Privately issued. Santa Monica, CA. 2015.

Jacob’s Dream and His Emergence into a Man of Faith

19 Thursday Nov 2015

Posted by in Divrei Torah, Ethics, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Stories

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Jacob’s destiny was set from birth and would come at a price. As his mother Rebekah’s troubled twin pregnancy came to an end and the babies were born, Jacob holding Esau’s heel suggesting a strong pre-natal desire to be born first and become the future leader of the tribe. In a clever commentary, Rashi (11th century, France) says that the scene reflects a primogeniture truth, that Jacob was actually conceived first, though he came out second, much as a pebble dropped into a tube first will come out second when the tube is inverted.

Despite being second-born, tradition asserts that Jacob’s spiritual potential merited his assuming first-born rights, and it also suggests that Rebecca knew that Esau, a hunter, lacked the requisite sensitivity, gentility, vision, and prophetic capacity to lead the tribe, whereas Jacob possessed all those virtues.

Jacob’s dream event that opens this week’s portion Vayetze (Genesis 28:10-22) signals the beginning of a new stage in Jacob’s life. He had just fled in fear from an enraged Esau, was alone in the mountains, unsure of himself and exhausted. He fell asleep and dreamed of ladders and angels.

This dream sequence is filled with powerful religious imagery, suggestion and mythic archetypes. The stones Jacob placed under his head are symbolic of what Carl Jung called the Ego, the limited “I” of Jacob, a man still unaware of the implicate order linking the material and metaphysical worlds. The top of the ladder represents what Jung called the integrated Self which unifies the conscious and unconscious into a non-dualistic cosmos.

When Jacob went to sleep using stones as a kind of pillow, we suspect that something unusual is about to happen, that he is on the cusp of new self-consciousness. Lo and behold, he sees angels ascending (representing his yearning for something greater than himself) and angels descending (representing God’s outreach towards him), Rabbi Heschel’s idea of God’s pathos and the Prophet’s empathy.

When Jacob awoke from the dream and opened his eyes, he was astonished: “Surely God is in this place, va’anochi lo yadati, and I did not know it! … How awesome is this place! This is none other than the abode of God, and this is the gateway to heaven.” (28:16-17)

The beginning of any religious experience requires us to understand that we know nothing at all. In Hebrew “I” is ani (anochi is a variant form), and when we rearrange the letters – aleph, nun, yod – we spell ain, (meaning “nothing”). The religious person must transform the “I” of the  ego into a great Self in which the individual becomes part of God’s Oneness. Jacob’s sudden awareness results in his newfound humility and is a prerequisite to the development of his faith.

Despite the spiritual potency of this experience, Jacob remains unaware (i.e. he lacks access to his full unconscious – that is, the integrated Jungian Self) and his faith is conditional. He says, “If God remains with me, if God protects me…, and gives me bread to eat and clothing to wear, and if I return safe … the Eternal shall be my God.” (28:20-21)

One of the consistent themes throughout the Genesis narratives is that in order for Biblical figures to grow in faith they had to suffer trials. As a protected child of his mother, Jacob had been pampered. However, in being forced to flee for his life from the brother he wronged, Jacob became aware of the shadow (Jung’s term denoting that part of the unconscious consisting of repressed weaknesses, shortcomings and instincts) in which he lived and which would envelop him for the next twenty years. Then he met a being divine and human at the river Jabbok and emerged with a new name, Yisrael – the one who perseveres with God.

From Jacob’s birth to next week’s encounter at the river we witness the patriarch’s evolution from the unconsciousness of his childhood to greater awareness, from a self-centered trickster to the bearer of the covenant. As he progressed he learned to view the world through the eyes of faith as he stood at heaven’s gate.

Shabbat Shalom!

Note: This is an edited version of my 2011 blog.

Terezin – a poem by Hanus Hachenburg z’l

15 Wednesday Apr 2015

Posted by in Holidays, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Poetry, Stories

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Tonight and tomorrow is Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Memorial Day.

This past October, I was with a group from my synagogue that visited Terezin. We were led by a survivor of Terezin, Auschwitz and a death march back to Terezin, Pavel Stansky – now 93 years old. Pavel was a teacher then, and devoted his time with the children to try and bring them some happiness in those dark days, weeks and months.

A total of 15,000 children under the age of 15 passed through Terezin. Of these, about 100 came back.

This poem was written in 1943 by Hanus Hachenburg, z’l.

“That bit of filth in dirty walls,
And all around barbed wire,
And 30,000 souls who sleep
Who once will wake
And once will see
Their own blood spilled.

I was once a little child,
Three years ago.
That child who longed for other worlds.
But now I am no more a child
For I have learned to hate.
I am a grown-up person now,
I have known fear.

Bloody words and a dead day then,
That’s something different than bogie men!

But anyway, I still believe I only sleep today,
That I’ll wake up, a child again, and start to laugh and play.
I’ll go back to childhood sweet like a briar rose,
Like a bell which wakes us from a dream,
Like a mother with an ailing child
Loves him with woman’s love.
How tragic, then, is youth which lives
With enemies, with gallows ropes,
How tragic, then, for children on your lap
To say: this for the good, that for the bad.

Somewhere, far away out there, childhood sweetly sleeps,
Along that path among the trees,
There o’er that house
Which was once my pride and joy.
There my mother gave me birth into this world
So I could weep . . .

In the flame of candles by my bed, I sleep
And once perhaps I’ll understand
That I was such a little thing,
As little as this song.

These 30,000 souls who sleep
Among the trees will wake,
Open an eye
And because they see
A lot

They’ll fall asleep again. . .”

Notes: This poem is preserved in a typewritten copy. In the right corner, “IX. 1944” is written in and on the right side, the following is written in pencil: “Written by children from the ages of 10 to 16, living in homes L 318 and L 4176.” The poem is unsigned, but the author was identified by O. Klein, a former teacher at Terezin, as Hanus Hachenberg. He was born in Prague on July 12, 1929, and deported to Terezin on October 24, 1942. He died on December 18, 1943 at the age of 14 in Oswiecim (i.e. Auschwitz). The copy is likely from a later date.

The above notes and the poem are taken from “I never saw another butterfly… Children’s Drawings and Poems from Terezin Concentration Camp 1942-1944.” McGraw-Hill. New York. Printed in Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic). 1971. Pages 22-23 and 78.

“We Don’t Want You Here!” – Bereaved Palestinian and Israeli Parents Speak to J Street

26 Thursday Mar 2015

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

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“Anachnu lo rotzim etchem po — Ma bidnaash an takuunu hone! — We don’t want you here!”

30 Israeli and Palestinian men, women, and children spoke these words alternately in Hebrew and Arabic in a short film shown to 3000 delegates of the J Street National Convention in Washington, D.C. this past week. Each person had lost a close family member to Palestinian or Israeli violence, and they wanted no more to join them in grief.

At the film’s conclusion, Robi Damelin and Bassam Aramin walked arm-in-arm onto the stage.

Robi is an Israeli mother whose 28 year-old son David, a student who was working on his masters in the Philosophy of Education at Tel Aviv University, was murdered by a Palestinian sniper a few years ago. The murderer had witnessed the killing of his uncle when he was a child, and when he was grown stepped onto a path of revenge and took David’s and 9 other Israeli lives.

Bassam is a Palestinian father whose 10 year-old daughter, Abir, was shot dead by an Israeli border policemen in 2007 as she walked down the street with her sister and two friends after buying sweets in a shop across the road from her school in the West Bank village of Anata at the end of a math exam.

When David was murdered, the first words his devastated mother spoke were: “Do not take revenge in the name of my son…get out of the occupied territories.”

Robi and Bassam are the Israeli and Palestinian Spokespersons for The Parents Circle, a group of bereaved Israeli and Palestinian parents who have lost children to violence (see http://www.theparentscircle.com/). They say, “There is no military solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict… More war creates more victims on both sides … The power of Israel and the resistance of the Palestinians doesn’t work. We need to sit down and negotiate.”

J Street is a pro-Israel pro-peace American organization based in Washington, D.C. that advocates before Congress and the President the necessity of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. J Street has 180,000 members, a college division of thousands of students on 125 American campuses, 60 chapters in cities around the country, and a rabbinic cabinet, that I co-chair, of 850 rabbis from across the religious streams of American Jewish life.

J Street represents, however, the opinions of far more American Jews (and many thousands of Israelis) than its membership numbers reflect. J Street’s positions are held by roughly 70% of the American Jewish community who believe that a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict is in Israel’s best long-term interests. J Street has endorsed more than 90 members of Congress (its endorsees are growing by roughly 15-20% in each Congressional cycle) who agree with J Street’s principles and who have welcomed J Street as a pro-Israel organization that does not necessarily agree with every policy position taken by any particular Israeli government or Prime Minister.

Like Robi and Bassam, J Street recognizes that there is no military solution to this conflict, that the only way Israel will remain secure, Jewish and democratic is in a negotiated two-state end-of-conflict agreement.

Specifically, J Street agrees with the broad consensus of the international community of what a two-state solution will look like. The border will be drawn roughly along the 1967 Green Line with land swaps that would include within Israel 75% of all Israelis living in the large settlements blocks in the West Bank and around Jerusalem. Jerusalem will be the shared capital of Israel and Palestine. Palestine will be demilitarized except for necessary police forces. There will be firm security arrangements in place for the benefit of both Israel and Palestine. Palestinian refugees will have the right of return to the new state of Palestine and not to Israel. Appropriate compensation for refugees will be given.

My purpose here is not to get into the weeds of this conflict which are long, deep and complicated, but rather to communicate the human costs of this conflict as embodied by the pain and suffering of only two families, that of Robi Damelin and Bassam Aramin, and to articulate what I believe is ultimately at stake for the Jewish people and state of Israel if a two-state resolution to this conflict is not reached soon.

Without a negotiated settlement, in a short amount of time Israel will cease either to be a democracy or a Jewish state. Settlement building by Israelis and population growth among Arabs in the West Bank, Gaza and within the Green Line of Israel, all taken together, ultimately will doom the Zionist enterprise, arguably the most important historical event in the life of the Jewish people in the last two thousand years.

Yes – there is still time for a two-state solution, but time is running out.

For the sake of the future of Israel and the Palestinians, the status quo is unsustainable. “Managing the conflict,” as many in Israel believe is their only option, is unsustainable. Only a two-state solution can, as J Street’s communication Vice President and journalist Alan Elsner recently wrote, “complete the Zionist dream” of Israel being Jewish, democratic and an “or lagoyim – a light to the nations.”

There are risks no matter what Israel chooses to do, but the risks are far greater in doing nothing.

Perhaps the insights of one of Israel’s greatest poets, Yehuda Amichai, will inspire clarity and hope:

“From the place where we are right
flowers will never grow
in the spring.

The place where we are right
is hard and trampled
like a yard.

But doubts and loves
dig up the world
like a mole, a plough.

And a whisper will be heard in the place
where the ruined
house once stood.”

 

 

The Fox and the Fish – Jews and Torah Today

02 Monday Feb 2015

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Divrei Torah, Ethics, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Stories

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This week’s Torah portion is Yitro in which God reveals the divine Self at Mount Sinai and the Torah is given to Moses and the Israelites.

A well-known tale from the Talmud (B’rachot 61b) tells the story of the great Rabbi Akiva (circa 40-137 CE) who in defiance of the Romans continued to teach and practice Torah.

One day Pappus bar Judah found Rabbi Akiva sitting in a public place teaching and studying Torah to a group of students. Fearing for the great Rabbi Akiva’s life, Pappas asked the master, “Are you not afraid of the Roman government?”

Rabbi Akiva replied with a parable:

‘Once, a fox was walking hungrily alongside a river looking for his next meal when he saw a group of beautifully fat fish swimming in schools just out of his reach.

The fox called out to the fish, ‘What are you fleeing from?’

The fish answered, ‘We’re trying to avoid the nets that fishermen cast out to catch us.’

Slyly, the fox said, ‘I know of another stream across the woods where there are no fishermen, and I would gladly carry you there so you can continue safely on your way.’

The fish weren’t fooled by the sky fox and replied, ‘Aren’t you the one known as the cleverest of all the animals? You aren’t so clever after all! If we’re in danger here in the water, which is our home, how much more so would be in danger on your back and out of the water!’

‘So it is with us,’ Rabbi Akiva explained. ‘If we’re in danger when we sit and learn, teach and practice Torah, of which it is written “For that is your life and the length of your days,” (Deuteronomy 30:20), how much worse off we will be if we neglect the Torah!’

Rabbi Akiva returned to his studies and teaching.

The story ends tragically. Akiva, among Judaism’s greatest leaders, was arrested and tortured to his death. He was asked by his students how he could continue to teach Torah even though it meant his death. He answered, ‘All my life I have wanted to understand the commandment “You shall love God with all your heart, soul and might” (Deuteronomy 6:5), and now I understand.

The life waters in which the Jewish people swim is Torah. Without Torah we are as if alienated from ourselves, a people without spiritual and moral moorings, without memory, and without transcendent purpose.

Torah is the central reason that the Jewish people is the longest continuous surviving people anywhere on earth. Though our numbers, between 15 and 17 million world-wide, is small, we are a force for holiness, decency, goodness, and high ethical standards.

The Talmud (Shabbat 127a) teaches: “Talmud Torah k’neged kulam – The Torah opposite all” (i.e. The learning of Torah is equal to all the other commandments because in learning, we perform the mitzvot and shape a way of life that enables us to be worthy to stand before God).

I often ask b’nai mitzvah students when explaining how they are the latest link in the chain of Jewish tradition (sharsheret hakabalah), reaching back to Abraham and Sarah, whether there will be others in the next generation after them that will understand what it means for them to be Jews and what they will do throughout their lives to assure the Jewish identity of the next generation?

I explain that Torah learning is the key and that the Jew’s life-long learning will determine the nature of our people, our values and concerns, and will assure our people’s continuity from one generation to the next.

Whenever we read Torah we return to Sinai again, as we will do this week in reading the 10 Words (i.e. the 10 Commandments).

Hanukah – A Major Battleground for the Heart and Soul of the Jewish People

18 Thursday Dec 2014

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Holidays, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Stories

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Last week I was invited to speak at Campbell Hall, a large private school in Studio City, Los Angeles, before two hundred and fifty 7th and 8th grade students about the story of Hanukah.

I began by saying that without the success of the Maccabean Revolt in 165 BCE, there would be no Judaism, no Christianity and no Islam today. I then reviewed the traditional story of Hanukah as it comes down to us through Jewish tradition, telling about the heroic battle of the Maccabean family against the Greeks, the Greek desecration of the Temple Mount, the miracle of the oil lasting eight days instead of one, the lighting of the Hanukiah, latkes, and dreidls, and then I said, “Truth to tell, this isn’t the history of this holiday at all. Most of that is story-telling. The real history is far more interesting and important for us today, Jews and peoples of other faith traditions alike.”
Then, as now, the Maccabean Revolt was a battle for the heart and soul of Judaism and the Jewish people. Applied more generally, its themes affirming self-identity and survival are applicable to every ethnicity, religion and nation.

A few years ago Dr. Noam Zion, of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, spoke to the Board of Rabbis of Southern California on the theme: “The Reinvention of Hanukkah in the 20th Century as A Jewish Cultural Civil War between Zionists, Liberal American Judaism and Chabad.”

He offered a comprehensive view of Hanukah from its beginnings 2200 years ago, and how it is understood and celebrated today by Israelis, American liberal non-Hareidi Jews and Chabad Lubatich. Based on Hanukah’s history and the vast corpus of sermons written by rabbis through the centuries, Dr. Zion noted that three questions have been asked consistently through the ages:

‘Who are the children of light and darkness?’

‘Who are our people’s earliest heroes and what made them heroic?’

‘What relevance can we find in Hanukah today?’

Jewish tradition considers Hanukah a “minor holyday,” but Hanukah occupies an important place in the ideologies of the State of Israel, American liberal Judaism and Chabad.

Before and after the establishment of Israel, the Maccabees served as a potent symbol for “Political Zionism” for those laboring to create a modern Jewish state. The early Zionists rejected God’s role in bringing about the miracle of Jewish victory during Hasmonean times. Rather, they emphasized that Jews themselves are the central actors in our people’s restoration of Jewish sovereignty on the ancient land, and not God.

For 20th century liberal American Jews Hanukah came to represent Judaism’s aspirations for religious freedom consistent with the First Amendment of the US Constitution. Even as Hanukah reflects universal aspirations, the Hanukiah remains a particular symbol of Jewish pride and identity for American Jews living in a dominant Christian culture.

For Chabad, Hanukah embodies the essence of religious identity on the one hand, and the mission of Jews on the other. Each Hassid is to be “a streetlamp lighter” who ventures into the public square and kindles the nearly extinguished flame of individual Jewish souls, one soul at a time (per Rebbe Sholom Dov-Ber). This is why Chabad strives to place a Hanukiah in public places. Every fulfilled mitzvah kindles the flame of a soul and restores it to God.

Dr. Zion concluded his talk by noting that the cultural war being played out in contemporary Jewish life is based in the different responses to the central and historic question that has always given context to Hanukah – ‘Which Jews are destroying Jewish life and threatening Judaism itself?’

The Maccabean war was not a war between the Jews and the Greeks, but rather it was a violent civil war between the established radically Hellenized Jews and the besieged village priests outside major urban centers in the land of Israel. The Maccabees won that war only because moderately Hellenized Jews recognized that they would lose their Jewish identity if the radical Hellenizers were victorious. They joined in coalition with the village priests and together retook the Temple and dedicated it. That historic struggle has a parallel today in a raging cultural civil war for the heart and soul of the Jewish people and for the nature of Judaism itself in the state of Israel.

The take-away? There is something of the zealot in each one of us, regardless of our Jewish camp. If we hope to avoid the sin of sinat chinam (baseless hatred between one Jew and another) that the Talmud teaches was the cause of the destruction of the 2nd Temple in 70 C.E., we need to prepare ourselves to be candles without knives, to bring the love of God and our love for the Jewish people back into our homes and communities. To be successful will take much courage, compassion, knowledge, understanding, faith, and grit. The stakes are high – the future of Israel and the Jewish people.

Is it any wonder that Hanukah, though defined by Judaism as a “minor holiday,” is, in truth, a major battle-ground for the heart and soul of Judaism and the Jewish people?