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Wandering, Romantic Love, Transcendence, and Shavuot

09 Thursday May 2013

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

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This week’s portion B’midbar (lit. “In the desert”) always precedes the festival of Shavuot that begins on Tuesday evening. Parashat B’midbar is not just a marker that reminds us when Shavuot occurs each year, its juxtaposition joins the season’s themes of wandering, covenant, transcendence, and love.

These themes are amplified in the Haftarah portion from the prophet Hosea. Betrayed by his wife’s promiscuity as another man’s concubine, the prophet perceives in his own tragic personal biography a parallel to the Israelite’s betrayal of God during the period of wandering.

Hosea was a star-filled romantic. He so wanted to forgive his wife her infidelities and welcome her back into his bosom. He prayed not only for personal reconciliation with her but also that God would forgive His own wayward lover, the people of Israel, and reaffirm with them the Covenant they once forged together at Sinai.

The prophet proclaims: V’e-ras-tich li l’o-lam b’tze-dek, u-v’mish’pat, u-v’che-sed, u-v’ra-cha-mim (Hosea 2:21-22) – “I betroth you to me forever; I betroth you to me with steadfast love and compassion; I betroth you to me in faithfulness…”

Love for God, one man’s yearning for his bride, one woman’s passion for her lover, the longing of the soul for the Ein Sof (God), all are joined in B’midbar, Hosea, and Shavuot. 

In a wonderful volume called “We – Understanding the Psychology of Romantic Love,” the Jungian analyst Dr. Robert A. Johnson explores these themes as they played themselves out in the medieval myth of the hero Tristan and his beloved Iseult the Fair. This is a complicated, moving, beautiful, and tragic tale from 12th century Europe from which “Romeo and Juliet” and other great romantic love tales have sprung.

The story focuses upon the emotional and spiritual journeys of two protagonist lovers, and Dr. Johnson explores what came to be called “Courtly Love:”

“The model of courtly love is the brave knight who worshiped a fair lady as his inspiration, the symbol of all beauty and perfection, the ideal that moved him to be noble, spiritual, refined, and high-minded. In our time we have mixed courtly love into our sexual relationships and marriages, but we still hold the medieval belief that true love has to be the ecstatic adoration of a man or woman who carries, for us, the image of perfection.“

Dr. Johnson explains that when lovers fall “in love” they feel a sense of completion as though a missing part of themselves had been returned to them. They are uplifted as though suddenly raised above the ordinary. They feel spiritualized and transformed into new, better and whole human beings.

The connection of theme in the mythic romantic love tale “Tristan and Isault” and the Revelation at Sinai should now be clear. Dr. Johnson writes:

“Here we are confronted with a paradox that baffles us, yet we should not be surprised to discover that romantic love is connected with spiritual aspiration – even with our religious instinct – for we already know that courtly love, at its very beginning so many centuries ago, was conceived of as a spiritual love, a way of loving that spiritualized the knight and his lady, and raised them above the ordinary and the gross to an experience of another world, an experience of soul and spirit.”

“Tristan and Iseult” is a story describing the yearning of the soul. So too is that great and singular event that Shavuot commemorates. Indeed, the wilderness of Sinai stripped the people of pretense. They were more vulnerable than they had ever known, and in that the expansive uninhabited landscape of quietude they opened their hearts and souls in awe and wonder to God.

It was there that Torah was given and received. It was there that God and the people of Israel, even if but for a moment, were One.

Shabbat shalom and Hag sameach!

Rav Kook – The Shmitta – and Personal Release – Parashat Behar-Behalotecha

02 Thursday May 2013

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“Any life, no matter how long and complex it may be, is made up of a single moment – the moment in which a person finds out once and for all who s/he is.” (Jorge Luis Borges)

So often it is the inner voices (from tradition, society, family, friends, and mentors) and not our own that influence how we think, feel and behave in the world. These voices either lead us to or take us away from realizing our best selves. When the voices do indeed lead us astray, we need to be able to release them, a thought that came to mind as I read a verse in this week’s parashah describing the institutions of the Shmitta (Sabbatical) and Yovel (Jubilee) years: “You shall proclaim a dror (“freedom” or “release”) throughout the land for all its inhabitants…” (Leviticus 25:10)

This dror specifically refers to land, people and debts in the seventh year. The Shmitta year requires that land lie fallow (i.e. no planting, pruning or harvesting) and that slaves, employees and animals are free to eat what is left in the fields. Deuteronomy 15:1-6 adds that creditors must remit debts owed to them by their neighbors and kinsmen.

The deeper purpose of the Shmitta year is to enable the land to rest, to wipe our slates clean from debt and to return the world to its original pristine order.

The rabbis, however, raised two serious questions about the Shmitta year: [1] What happens to the livelihood of the community during Shmitta? and [2] What happens to our willingness to make loans to the needy according to the spirit of a mitzvah in Deuteronomy 15:9: “Beware that there be not a base thought in your heart.”

Noticing that the people were not loaning money to the poor because of the Shmitta’s remission of debt, Hillel the Elder (1st century BCE) instituted a legal formula called the Prozbul, whereby a creditor could still claim his debts after the Shmitta year despite the biblical injunction against doing so. The Prozbul was a document that turned over supervision of the loan to the beit din (Jewish court) which would collect and repay the debt thus encouraging generosity, enabling the poor to borrow and the rich to secure their loans (Babylonian Talmud, Gittin 37a).

Since the laws of both Shmitta and Yovel only apply in the land of Israel, and Yovel applies only when all the Jewish people are living in Israel, until the Zionist movement Shmitta and Yovel mattered little to Diaspora Jewish communities.

However, Zionists complained that if farmers did not work the land the nascent settlement movement’s existence would be threatened. In response, lenient rabbinic authorities justified setting the laws of the Shmitta year aside based on the principle of sha’at hadechak (“undue hardship”).

In 1888-89, a Hetter Mechira (“A Bill of Sale”) was developed to permit Jewish farmers to sell their land to non-Jews (i.e. Arabs), similar to the selling of hametz (leven) to non-Jews during Passover, so that the Jews could continue to work the land and survive even during the Shmitta. After the Shmitta, the land would revert back to the former Jewish owners.

Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, the first Chief Rabbi of Palestine, wrote of another problem in not showing leniency towards the Biblical law:

“Even worse is the potential condemnation of Judaism and widespread rejection of Torah observance that could result from a strict ruling…”

Rav Kook reasoned that a strict ruling would demonstrate that Judaism is incompatible with the modern world and the building of a Jewish state.

The principle of taking into account the impact of Biblical law on individuals and community and the necessity of reinterpreting tradition in the modern era is a core reason that Judaism and the Jewish people have survived 3500 years, longer than any other people anywhere in the world.

On a personal level too, this portion challenges us about the importance of becoming who we really are. In this spirit, I suggest that we consider this question: From what and how will I release myself (dror) this year and thereby find out who I really am?

May this year become a dror (release) for each of us.

The next Shmitta year is 2014-2015 (5775)

 

Why The US Should Not Grant Automatic Visas To Israeli Citizens Unless Israel Grants the Same Privilege to All American Citizens

30 Tuesday Apr 2013

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Senator Barbara Boxer has introduced a bill co-sponsored by 18 Democrats and Republicans that would enable Israel to join a group of 37 other favored nations whose citizens need not carry visas to enter the United States.

Now, any Israeli who wants to travel to the US needs to purchase round-trip plane tickets before being issued a travel visa.

What is the problem? Why do Israelis not have this right already? After all, they are among America’s closest allies in the world?

The answer is – Israelis should, except for one problem. Israel does not grant the same courtesy to all American citizens who enter Israel. Israel, in fact, restricts the travel of Palestinian-American  citizens.

The article below explains more fully the presumed rationale for this restriction as well as the human consequences of Israel’s policy. Though security is always an uppermost Israeli concern, should not all American citizens be treated equally by Israel?

I agree with the view that the United States should not be able to grant Israeli citizens visa-free travel to the US yet exempt Israel from extending that same courtesy to all US citizens. If an individual of any nation seeks entry to Israel and is a specific security risk, Israel (as any other country) should have the right to refuse him/her on concrete security grounds. But to target any individual because he or she is part of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group is contrary both to American principles and Israeli principles as spelled out in the American Constitution and Israel’s Declaration of Independence.

Senator Boxer’s bill should require equivalent rights to American citizens traveling in Israel, regardless of their ethnic, racial, religious, or national ancestry.

http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/middle-east/us-visa-free-travel-plan-for-israelis-angers-some-americans

“To Be Holy!” Simple But Not So Easy – Parashat Emor

25 Thursday Apr 2013

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There is a story told in the Rabbinic literature that “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, expecting their master to share in their joy.

“Did the seller know of this gem?” asked Rabbi Shimon. 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!” (Deuteronomy Rabba 3:3)

When my sons were young, their mother and I told them more than once that what they did, how they behaved, and the way they spoke to and treated others outside the home would reflect not only on them, but on us, their parents and on our family name. We reminded them to be honest, kind, modest, and to reflect those values always.

I often tell the story of Rabbi Shimon to students in my synagogue and remind them that what we do not only says much about who we are, but about our families and the Jewish people.

Until the modern period when communal values began to change broadly, the most respected Jew in the community was not necessarily the wealthiest and most politically influential, nor the celebrity, business maven, professional, or even the largest financial benefactor to community causes, as important as these people have been historically in Jewish communal life. Rather, the highest moral, ethical and religious virtues were expected to be emulated first and foremost by the Torah scholar. However, our sages understood that even the Torah scholar struggled mightily against the dominance of his yetzer hara (“the evil inclination”). [Note that almost all scholars before the modern period were men].

Here is Maimonides’ classic description of what is expected of the great Torah scholar:

“…When a person …is a great scholar, noted for his piety, people will talk about him, even if the deeds that he has committed are not offenses in the strict sense. Such a person is guilty of profaning the divine name (hillul ha-Shem), if he, for instance, makes a purchase and does not immediately pay for it, in the case where he has the money and the sellers demand it, but he stalls them; or if he indulges in riotous behavior and in keeping undesirable company; or if he speaks roughly to his fellows and does not receive them courteously but shows his temper and the like. All is in accordance with his status as a scholar. He must endeavor to be scrupulously strict in his behavior and go beyond the letter of the law. If he does this, speaking kindly to his fellows, showing himself sociable and amiable with the welcome for everyone, taking insult but not giving it; respect them, even those who make light of him; in all his actions until all praise and love him, enraptured by his deed – such a man has sanctified the name of God (Kiddush ha-Shem). Regarding such a person scripture states: ‘You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be gloried.’” (Moses ben Maimon, Yesodei Ha-Torah 5:11)

“Sanctifying God’s Name” (Kiddush Ha-Shem), as RAMBAM teaches, concerns the entirety of life including business ethics, one’s conduct in mundane affairs, one’s refinement of behavior and public demeanor, one’s kindness and humility before one’s fellows and God.

Except for the very rare individual, each of us is a continuing battleground between our two yetzers (i.e. good and evil inclinations) and we must choose between them. For so many of us, base instinct rules. We are driven by need, desire, greed, jealousy, envy, lust, anger, impatience, fear, and hate. Others have an easier time being kind and generous, and struggle less. But we all struggle.

The reason Torah study is determinative for the scholar and is so important for all of us is because we can find ourselves everywhere in the sacred text. Every instinct and virtue is addressed.

My friend, Rabbi Mark Borowitz of Beit T’shuvah in Los Angeles, rightly teaches that anyone who says that the Torah is irrelevant to his/her life is hiding something. To the contrary, it is there that we can discover our deepest selves, a sense of meaning and purpose that will sustain and strengthen us for noble ends.

 

Taglit-Birthright Ignores The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict to Israel’s Detriment

24 Wednesday Apr 2013

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

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The article below is evidence that there are committed and passionate American Jewish college students who love Israel and want Taglit-Birthright to stop ignoring the Israeli-Palestinian conflict when it takes American college students on a 10-day free trip to Israel.

“Birthright Is Co-Opting Our Future” by Hannah Fishman appeared on The Daily Beast and speaks for itself.

It is not the first time I have heard that Taglit-Birthright, for all the good it has done in connecting hundreds of thousands of young Jews to Israel, may be doing Israel a disservice when it neglects to address fairly and comprehensibly the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The writer, Hannah Fishman, is an International Relations student and the former West Coast Representative to J Street U’s National Student Board. She currently studies in Jerusalem and is J Street U’s National Political Advocacy Co-Chair.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/04/23/birthright-is-co-opting-our-future.html

The Way to Holiness – Parashat Acharei Mot/K’doshim – A Poem

18 Thursday Apr 2013

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Exalted One – / You call us to holiness, / To climb the ladder, / Higher and higher, / To reach as far as we might, / But never to rise above the angels.

You call us to purity, / To be as priests, / In this world, / Separate and apart, / As intermediaries  / Between our flawed humanness / And Your Transcendent Oneness.

How do we come near / To You Who dwells on High? / How do we discover / You, enthroned beyond stars? / How can we reach / You, larger than thought? / How can we know / You, Ineffable Truth?

What is the way to holiness / If we be so bound to earth, / And driven by need, / And broken by grief?

You call us to rise up / and bow low to You, / At Your holy footstool, / To be enveloped in Your Glory, / To transcend our senses / Where sapphires glisten, / And angels praise, / And Torah letters shimmer, / And souls sing.

You say that Your teaching is not so distant, / Not across the seas beyond our reach, / Nor in the heavens above / Making it unattainable.

It is rather, close, / So very close, / In our hearts, / In our breath, / And upon our lips.

Almighty One – / You brought us out from Egypt / To renew us, / Redeem, free, heal, and restore us, / To ready us / As Your treasured people.

You led us into the wilderness, / Into silence and nothingness, / Into a blank slate, / And you painted a picture of our lives / And commanded us to be / Like paint upon a landscape, / Parent respecting, / Shabbat observing, / Torah learning, / Vengeance eschewing, / Righteousness doing, / Kindness performing, / Neighbor assisting, / Senior revering, / And stranger loving.

If this is what You intend for us / And if this is the way to be holy, / It is so very hard! / But those who seek You / Will continuously strive, / And we will teach this to our children.

 

 

 

Israel on Her 65th Birthday – Taking Pride In Her Accomplishments

15 Monday Apr 2013

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

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The State of Israel is the 100th smallest country in the world with less than 1/1000th of the world’s population, yet her people have accomplished so very much even as she has struggled in war and been forced to spend more money per capita on her own protection than any other county on earth.

On Israel’s 65th birthday I pause to marvel in all she is and represents to the Jewish people.

I raise my glass to her accomplishments in literature, medicine, agriculture, the arts, science, and technology.

I tip my hat to her courage and survival.

Consider the following:

  1. Israel is the only country in the Middle East that based its principles of government on both democratic liberal values and on the values of the Biblical prophets.
  2. Israel is the largest immigrant-absorbing nation on earth.
  3. Israel has the world’s second highest per capita rate of published books.
  4. Israel is the only nation on earth that resurrected an ancient language, Hebrew, as its national language.
  5. Israeli poets and song writers are regarded as heroes.
  6. Israel is the only country in the world that entered the 21st century with a net gain in its number of trees.
  7. Israel has more museums per capita than any country.
  8. Israel developed the cell phone, Windows NT and XP operating systems, Pentium MMX Chip technology, the Pentium-4 microprocessor, the Centrino Processor, voice mail technology, and AOL Instant Messenger ICQ.
  9. Israel has the highest per capita rate of home computers in the world.
  10. Israel designed the airline industry’s most impenetrable flight security system.
  11. Israel designed and implemented the Iron Dome Defense system.
  12. Israel has the highest ratio of university degrees in the world.
  13. Israel produces more scientific papers per capita than any other nation, and one of the highest per capita rates of patents filed.
  14. Israel has the third highest rate of entrepreneurship in the world.
  15. Israel is second in the world in the number of start-up companies behind only the U.S.
  16. Israel has the world’s largest per capita number of biotech start-ups.
  17. Israel has the third largest number of NASDAQ listed companies, behind the U.S. and Canada, and is ranked second for venture capital funds.
  18. Israel has the highest average living standard in the Middle East.
  19. 24% of Israel’s workforce holds university degrees, ranking third in the industrialized world; 12% hold advanced degrees.
  20. Israel leads the world in the number of scientists and technicians in the workforce.
  21. Israel is a world leader in water renewal, recycling, desalination, and solar heating.
  22. Israel invented the drip irrigation system used around the world.
  23. An Israeli company is developing a toilet that needs no water and generates its own power to turn solid waste into sterile and odorless fertilizer in 30 seconds, thereby affecting 1.1 billion people who do not use a toilet.
  24. An Israeli scientist has developed a way to preserve 50% of every grain and pulse harvest lost to pests and mold in the developing world.
  25. Israel won international praise for the speed and expertise with which it responded to a 7.0-magnitude earthquake in Haiti that killed 300,000 by sending a team of 240  Israeli doctors, nurses, rescue and relief workers to set up an advanced field hospital to work in search-and-rescue missions.
  26. An Israeli company developed a water purification system that delivers safe drinking water from contaminated water, seawater and even urine thereby addressing the tragedy of 1.6 million children under the age of five who die annually from untreated drinking water in developing nations.
  27. Israeli scientists developed the first fully computerized, no-radiation, diagnostic instrumentation for breast cancer.
  28. Hadassah medical researchers found the gene that causes liver disease, thus paving the way for new treatments for alcoholism.
  29. Tel Aviv University Scientists say a nutritional supplement commonly sold in health food stores can delay the advance of degenerative brain disorders such as Parkinson’s disease.
  30. Israel’s Given Imaging developed the first ingestible video camera, so small it fits inside a pill that can view the small intestine from the inside to detect for cancer and digestive disorders.
  31. Israeli researchers developed a device that helps the heart pump blood that is synchronized with a camera that helps doctors diagnose the heart’s mechanical operations through a system of sensors.
  32. An Israeli company developed a computerized system for ensuring proper administration of medications, thus removing human error from medical treatment.

In the spirit of Yom Ha’atzmaut I celebrate her, despite her imperfections and challenges, with enthusiasm and the words of the Psalmist in my heart: “This is the day God has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it!” (Psalm 118:24)

Sources:

http://israel21c.org/technology/israels-top-45-greatest-inventions-of-all-time-2/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Israeli_inventions_and_discoveries

http://israel21c.org/social-action-2/the-top-65-ways-israel-is-saving-our-planet/

Yom HaZikaron – Israel Remembrance Day

14 Sunday Apr 2013

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“We pause in memory of our sons and daughters who gave their lives for the security of our people in our homeland. Not in monuments of stones or trees shall their memories be preserved, but in the reverence and price which will, until the end of time, fill the hearts of our people when their memory is recalled.”

David ben Gurion

Zichronam livracha – May their memories be a blessing.

Women of the Wall Agree To Historic Plan – A Victory for Religious Pluralism and Democracy in Israel

12 Friday Apr 2013

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

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It seems that Natan Sharansky has successfully gained agreement between the Israeli and international Reform movement, the Women of the Wall (WOW) and the Chief Rabbi of the Western Wall (ultra-orthodox) that a section at the southern end of the Kotel beneath Robinson’s Arch will be designated by the government of Israel as being free for egalitarian liberal prayer on a footing equal to the area currently dominated by the ultra-orthodox.

The newly designated section will have its own entrance and will be allowed to host prayer and religious celebrations according to Conservative, Reform, Renewal, and Reconstructionist practice, meaning that women can pray alongside men, lead religious services, read from the Torah, wear tallitot, and sing aloud without concern of offending the ultra-orthodox community. (See complete story in the Jewish Daily Forward. http://forward.com/articles/174588/kotel-egalitarian-prayer-plan-set-in-motion-by-dra/?p=all)

The agreement will end police tolerance of the ugly insults by ultra-orthodox men and women against WOW including the orthodox screaming profanities, spitting on women worshipers, and police arresting women wearing tallitot, carrying Torah scrolls and reading from the sacred literature. Details are still to be worked out, but Natan Sharansky is to be congratulated on his “shuttle diplomacy” between the ultra-orthodox officials and liberal Jewish leaders that resulted in this compromise agreement.

This is a huge victory for religious pluralism and democracy in the State of Israel, but it is arguably only the beginning.

Other outstanding issues affecting non-orthodox Jews are still outstanding and need to be addressed. These include the need for the government to grant equal financial support for non-orthodox synagogues and institutions, equal pay for regional non-orthodox rabbis such as Rabbi Miri Gold (regional rabbi for Kibbutz Gezer who has not been paid despite the Supreme Court order that this occur), marriage equality for all Israeli citizens and the right to marry in the state without orthodox approval, and ending institutionalized preference for Orthodox Judaism.

In meetings yesterday here in Los Angeles with five members of the Knesset who were brought on tour of the Jewish communities of Chicago, Los Angeles and New York by the Jewish Federation of North America and the Jewish Agency of Israel (MK Avi Wortsman of Bayit HaYehudi, MK Yoel Razvozov of Yesh Atid, MK Hilik Bar of Avodah, MK Nachman Shai of Avodah, and MK David Tsur of HaTenuah), all five said they would support this historic compromise and bring their respective political parties, Bayit Hayehudi, Yesh Atid, HaTenuah, and Avodah along with them.

In my next blog I will report on the 90 minute frank, candid, and important conversation that we ten American Reform and Conservative Rabbis had with the five Members of the Knesset.

Shabbat Shalom

When Saying Nothing is Worse Than Saying “No!”

11 Thursday Apr 2013

Posted by in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Ethics, Health and Well-Being, Uncategorized

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I try and return every phone call and email that comes to me within 24 hours. Sometimes it takes a bit longer if my schedule is tight or I have not checked messages. Sometimes, I confess, I deliberately do not return a call or email when I suspect that the incoming message is so nasty that to engage the sender would be pointless and toxic to my well-being. I receive such objectionable messages from time to time, usually in response to public positions I take in my writings. Other than these, I believe that each phone call, email and letter deserves a personal response as soon as I am able to do so.

It astonishes me that so frequently the individual is surprised that I call back so quickly, or even at all. Though most people I know do as I do, there are lots who clearly do not, and this is why I am writing today.

If you know people who habitually and/or selectively ignore calls and emails, please feel free to send them this blog, as it is meant for them.

I was taught from early childhood that when someone calls, you return the call. When someone gives you a gift, you write a thank you note. When someone does something nice for you, you express gratitude. This is simple derech eretz (lit. “the way of the land,” a Hebrew expression connoting common courtesy and mentchlechkite).

I believe that not to answer someone’s email, phone call or letter is rude, insulting and unacceptable, even when I am certain that something will be asked of me (e.g. to accept an invitation, to do someone a favor, to give to a charity or good cause, or to arrange a time to talk or meet). I also believe that saying “No” respectfully is always better than saying nothing at all.

There is an ethical principle involved. Judaism holds that if, for example, a beggar says hello and we ignore him we bear the guilt of inflicting upon him shame (bushah). It may be that the beggar offered us the only thing he has to give – a greeting. To deliberately ignore him is, in effect, an insult because such silence denies his dignity (kavod) and diminishes him as a fellow human being.

A story is told of the Chassidic sage Rabbi Meshulam Zusha of Hanipol (1718–1800) that one night he was staying at an inn. A wealthy guest mistook him for a beggar and treated him disrespectfully. The guest later learned about Zusha’s true identity and asked Zusha for forgiveness.

Zusha said, “Why do you ask me to forgive you? You haven’t done anything to Zusha. You didn’t insult Zusha. You insulted a poor beggar. I suggest you go out and ask beggars everywhere to forgive you.”

Zusha’s story raises the issue of how we should properly treat people we perceive as being “other” than ourselves (i.e. the stranger, or someone of a different socio-economic station, nationality, ethnicity, race, or religion).

It is possible to learn much about a person’s character based solely on the way he or she treats someone who is different. Is such a person’s behavior respectful and kind, open-hearted and generous, or is he/she dismissive, rude, condescending, and withholding?

The Baal Shem Tov taught his disciples to imagine that inscribed on the forehead of every man, woman and child is the sign of the image in which God creates the human being – B’tzelem Elohim (lit. “In the Divine image”).

In practical terms, seeing the divine image in “others” means at the very least acknowledging their presence, and returning phone calls and emails promptly regardless of what we imagine to be the reason for the call. Again, my only exception is when I know that the caller will be abusive and disrespectful.

Not responding is common particularly in Washington, D.C. and Hollywood, places where power and politics define many relationships, and what you do is more important than who you are. It seems to me that this bad habit has become increasingly more common over the years.

Going forward, those of us who are guilty of this kind of behavior might change it, and that all of us should be teaching our children, grandchildren, and students by example that when we receive a communication from another person, the decent thing to do is answer it, even if our answer is respectfully “No!”