Teshuvah – An Ultimate Spiritual Reality at the Core of Jewish Faith

09 Wednesday Sep 2015

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The midrashic tradition teaches that teshuvah (i.e. repentance, turning, returning) is an ultimate spiritual reality at the core of Jewish faith, and was one of the ten phenomena that God created before the creation of humankind thus giving us the capacity to extricate ourselves from the chain of cause and effect.

Teshuvah is a central theme of the High Holiday season – return or turning to one’s core spiritual essence, to family and dear ones with whom we have become alienated, to friends and community, to Torah, the Jewish people, and God.

The following are selections from classic Jewish texts and from some of our people’s most inspired and profound thinkers (ancient and modern) on the meaning, nature and impact of teshuvah on the individual, community, world, and God.

Teshuvah is a manifestation of the divine in each human being…Teshuvah means “turning about,” “turning to,” “response” – return to God, to Judaism, return to community, return to family, return to “self”…Teshuvah reaches beyond personal configurations – it is possible for someone to return who “was never there” – with no memories of a Jewish way of life…Judaism isn’t personal but a historical heritage…Teshuvah is a return to one’s own paradigm, to the prototype of the Jewish person…The act of teshuvah is a severance of the chain of cause and effect in which one wrong follows inevitably upon another…The thrust of teshuvah is to break through the ordinary limits of the self…The significance of the past can only be changed at a higher level of teshuvah – called Tikun – tikun hanefesh – tikun olam…The highest level of teshuvah is reached when the change and correction penetrate the very essence of the sins once committed and create the condition in which a person’s transgressions become his/her merits. – Gleaned from “Repentance” by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, 20th-21st century, Israel

For transgressions committed between an individual and the Omnipresent, the day of Atonement atones.  For transgressions between one individual and another, the Day of Atonement atones only if the one will regain the goodwill of his fellow. – Mishnah, Yoma 8:9, 2nd century CE, Palestine

Even if one only injured the other in words [and not in deed], he must pacify him and approach him until he forgives him. If his fellow does not wish to forgive him, the other person brings a line of three of his friends who [in turn] approach the offended person and request from him [that he grant forgiveness]. If he is not accepting fo them, he brings a second [cadre of friends] and then a third.  If he still does not wish [to grant forgiveness], one leaves him and goes his own way, and the person who would not forgive is himself the sinner. –  Maimonides, Mishnah Torah, Laws of Repentance, 2:9-10, 11th century CE, Spain and Egypt

The primary role of penitence, which at once sheds light on the darkened zone, is for the person to return to himself, to the root of his soul. Then he will at once return to God, to the Soul of all souls…. It is only through the great truth of returning to oneself that the person and the people, the world and all the words, the whole of existence, will return to their Creator, to be illumined by the light of life. – Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, early 20th century, Palestine)

Humility is the root and beginning of repentance. – Bachya ibn Pakuda, 11th century, Spain

Know that you must judge everyone with an eye to their merits.  Even regarding those who are completely wicked, one must search and find some small way in which they are not wicked and with respect to this bit of goodness, judge them with an eye to their merits. In this way, one truly elevates their merit and thereby encourages them to do teshuvah. – Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav, Likutei Moharan 282, 18th century, Ukraine

Rabbi Abbahu said, “In the place where penitents stand, even the wholly righteous cannot stand.” – Talmud Bavli, Berachot 34b, 3rd century, Palestine

L’shanah tovah u-m’tukah

A Good and sweet New Year!

The Challenge of Contemporary Israel – What to do about Asylum Seekers?

07 Monday Sep 2015

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The establishment of the state of Israel fundamentally changed the situation of the Jew in the world, who we had been and who we would become. For most of the past 3000 years Jews lived in exile, subject to the rule of others, without national sovereignty and power of our own, without the enormous challenges that come with ruling a nation.

Today, Syrian refugees are desperate to find safe harbor outside of their tortured land, and many want to come to Israel for asylum.

Israel has been tested already over the last number of years about how to accommodate 50,000 Eritrean and Sudanese Refugees who had crossed the border into Israel from Africa seeking asylum from some of the worst dictators in the world.

Every nation has the right and duty to protect its borders. No nation as small as Israel can be expected to be the home for every suffering human being.  However, as we Jews know only too well what it means to flee persecution and violence, we might expect that the government of the state of Israel, of all nations given our most recent history of being a hunted people, would have in place a compassionate and reasonable policy to welcome refugees and asylum seekers that could enable these stateless people to live with dignity until conditions in their nations of origin change and they can go home without fear.

Rabbi Dow Marmur put the challenge succinctly this week as he reflected upon a new wave of asylum seekers from Syria seeking refuge in Israel:

“We Jews found it easy to preach morality when we had no power to put it into practice. Now with a state of our own and the paramount need to protect it, national interests seem to take precedence. The challenge of contemporary Israel is how to live up to the lofty teachings of Judaism while responding to the challenges of a modern democratic sovereign state surrounded by hostile forces.”

Israeli Left Collapse but the Left’s Policy Positions Still Held by Most Israelis – Says a New Israeli Poll

03 Thursday Sep 2015

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A new poll measuring Israeli attitudes towards that country’s left wing was conducted recently by Molad – The Center for Renewal of Democracy, and its findings are curious, to say the least (Note: this is according to TLV1 The Promised podcast – I have not found reported in the English language this poll, nor does it yet appear on Molad’s website).

The poll found that most Israelis consider the left’s diplomatic and security doctrine to have been a failure. From its peak of power and influence during the Rabin years, the left wing’s influence in the Israeli government has declined consistently since the Prime Minister’s assassination, the collapse of the Barak-Clinton Camp David Summit and the second Intifada, and most recently following the failure of the Kerry negotiations. However, when asked if Israelis still support the Clinton Framework that emerged out of the Oslo Peace Process that proposed a 2-state solution, a border between Israel and a future state of Palestine drawn roughly along the pre-1967 armistice lines with land swaps, Palestinian refugee resettlement only in the to-be-established state of Palestine, demilitarization of the West Bank except for a Palestinian police force, and a shared Jerusalem in which both states have their capitals, 46% of Israelis still support it as opposed to 40% that are opposed.

When Arab-Israeli citizens were removed from the polling sample to measure only the attitudes of Israeli Jews, 45% supported the Clinton Framework with 40% opposed.

When the Clinton Framework was considered in the context of larger multi-lateral agreements including Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, Israelis favorable ratings increased to 50% and 39% opposed.

Other findings, however, suggest another side of the very same Israeli electorate that reveals deep distrust and fear of the Palestinians, which many commentators believe is a direct consequence of years of events accentuated by aggressive fear-mongering by Israel’s right wing:

• 72% of Israelis are somewhat or highly convinced that Hamas will not stop its violence against Israel after a 2-state peace agreement is achieved;

• 70% are afraid that the West Bank will turn into a second Gaza ruled by Hamas;

• 68% believe that Palestinians will always want more and more Israeli land until Israel ceases to exist;

• 67% believe that Israel will be flooded with Palestinian refugees even if the agreement designates that the refugee population can only resettle in the state of Palestine;

• 63% believe that a serious rift in Israeli society will form if settlements are evacuated that are not included in the West Bank’s large settlement blocks;

• 61% do not want Jerusalem divided though they support the Clinton Framework that calls for a shared city.

What does not seem to be reflected in the polls is the strong cooperation that has existed in the last several years between Israel’s security forces and the Palestinian Authority that has resulted in a dramatic reduction of Palestinian terrorist attacks against Israelis; nor does the fact that during the two years prior to the outbreak of last summer’s war against Hamas, Hamas had held to a negotiated cease-fire with Israel; nor do Israeli attitudes seem to reflect President Abbas’ commitment to non-violence, though he has been inconsistent.

In a recent podcast on TLV1 The Promised (“Peace by the Numbers” – August 27, 2015), journalists Noah Efron, Don Futterman and Allison Kaplan Summer debated what these conflicting statistics mean, what opportunities there may be still to advance a peace process leading to a two-state solution and what is to blame for the inconsistencies.

The Molad poll revealed that the issues that have most concerned the Israeli left wing, such as income inequality, peace with the Palestinians, Israel’s relationship with the European Union, and Israel’s diplomatic and economic ties with the West, are not considered particularly important to the right-wing and therefore are not priorities to the current Israeli government, even though these concerns are still of important concern to the majority of Israeli voters.

The TLV1 segment addresses all the related substantive issues and considers what dynamics within Israel and among the Palestinians are contributing to the continuation of the status quo, which likely will lead to ongoing violence and war.

This 15 minute segment is well worth your attention – click on http://tlv1.fm/the-promised-podcast/2015/08/27/peace-by-the-numbers/

Calling Donald Trump Out for the Bigot and Demagogue That He Is

30 Sunday Aug 2015

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Finally, someone is taking Donald Trump seriously and not as “entertainment” in this pre-primary season.

Tom Friedman (“Bonfire of the Assets, With Trump Lighting Matches” – August 26, NY Times) called Donald Trump out as the intolerant bigot that he is.

More than any other political figure since Joe McCarthy, Trump is second to none in his insensitivity and lack of empathy for other human beings.

“You’ve Been Trumped,” is a 2011 documentary by the British filmmaker Anthony Baxter that documents Trump’s construction of a luxury golf course on a beach in Balmedie, Aberdeenshire, Scotland and the ensuing battles Trump provoked between the local residents, legal and governmental authorities. Trump effectively destroyed that community for the people who lived there.

Tom Friedman wrote of Trump’s campaign this week:

“And now we have Trump shamelessly exploiting this issue [illegal immigration]… He’s calling for an end to the 14th Amendment’s birthright principle, which guarantees citizenship to anyone born here, and also for a government program to round up all 11 million illegal immigrants and send them home — an utterly lunatic idea that Trump dismisses as a mere “management” problem. Like lemmings, many of the other G.O.P. presidential hopefuls just followed Trump over that cliff.

This is not funny anymore. This is not entertaining. Donald Trump is not cute. His ugly nativism shamefully plays on people’s fears and ignorance. It ignores bipartisan solutions already on the table, undermines the civic ideals that make our melting pot work in ways no European or Asian country can match (try to become a Japanese) and tampers with the very secret of our sauce — pluralism, that out of many we make one.

Every era spews up a Joe McCarthy type who tries to thrive by dividing and frightening us, and today his name is Donald Trump.”

I have been asking politically savvy people whether they think Trump could become the Republican nominee for President, and everyone believes this to be impossible, that he is so ignorant and ill-informed about policy and substance that it is only a matter of time before the public realizes that there is nothing there there.

I pray they are right, but I confess to being very worried that they are wrong as we watch Trump’s ratings grow (24% now of the Republican primary voters), and his savvy management of his image as a truth-telling take-no-prisoners business guy whose “politically incorrect” statements of “fact” attract more and more angry, bigoted and frustrated people to his campaign. Yes, the boil that is Donald Trump could be lanced and he could exit the political scene at some point in the near future, but I’m not counting on it.

Tom Friedman was right to reference the Joseph McCarthy era in relation to Trump. It can happen again. As a reminder, here is an account from the US Senate History of the McCarthy hearings of June 9, 1954 when the pivotal turning point of the McCarthy hysteria was finally reached after several years of McCarthy’s attack on thousands of Americans:

“…The army hired Boston lawyer Joseph Welch to make its case. At a session on June 9, 1954, McCarthy charged that one of Welch’s attorneys had ties to a Communist organization. As an amazed television audience looked on, Welch responded with the immortal lines that ultimately ended McCarthy’s career: “Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness.” When McCarthy tried to continue his attack, Welch angrily interrupted, “Let us not assassinate this lad further, senator. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency?”

Overnight, McCarthy’s immense national popularity evaporated. Censured by his Senate colleagues, ostracized by his party, and ignored by the press, McCarthy died three years later, 48 years old and a broken man.”

Why is this not happening in the Republican Party at the very least?

I’m reminded of what William Butler Yeats said as a possible explanation:

“Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned; the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”

And so, what ought we to do about this?

Every journalist, every editorial page of every newspaper in the country, every political leader, every decent American ought to be calling Trump out for the bigot and demagogue that he is before he can do any more damage to the American body politic and American democracy itself.

“Memo to U.S. Jews: Defend Israel, Support the Iran Deal” by Carlo Strenger, Haaretz, August 26

26 Wednesday Aug 2015

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I am tired of the sound-bite ads supporting and opposing the Iran Nuclear Agreement, the political hype and the slanderous accusations (mostly but not exclusively coming from the right-wing) against good and honest people who care deeply about both America’s and Israel’s security and well-being.

I am not a scientist, nuclear physicist or a security expert. Israel and the United States have plenty of both and it is these people who I listen to when assessing the strengths and weaknesses of this P5 +1 negotiated Iran Nuclear Agreement.

Israel’s former security chiefs who are no longer bound to silence, as opposed to Israel’s current security chiefs who are (though have talked off the record in support of the agreement), and a number of Israeli and American nuclear scientists support this agreement. That is why I do as well, despite its flaws.

Here is the complete Haaretz op-ed by Carlo Stenger (if you have not called your congressional representative to voice your support for the agreement, now is the time to do so):

Dealing with Tehran is not a matter of ideology but rather carefully balanced probabilities. Israel’s current and former security chiefs know this.

Jewish Americans are going through a harrowing dilemma. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been calling the nuclear deal with Iran a mistake of historical proportions. He has made opposing it the shibboleth of whether you are a good Jew and a true friend of Israel, or whether you let Barack Obama throw Israel under the bus. So Netanyahu keeps repeating it: By cranking up sanctions even more, a better deal with Iran can be reached, but Obama and the P5+1 group have been weak and defeatist.

Netanyahu’s tactic has created enormous problems. He has dealt further blows to Israel’s relations with the United States, created deep rifts in the U.S. Jewish community, and worst of all, he has turned the discussion into whether you are for Israel or against it. He has turned it into good versus evil: Care about the Jewish people or be willing to let them perish in the next Holocaust.

The shrillness of the debate has made many forget that dealing with Iran is not a matter of ideology but rather carefully balanced probabilities. Get the best deal under the given circumstances, and the best deal isn’t a matter of rhetoric but careful calculation.

This is my call to U.S. Jewry. Turning the Iran deal into a partisan issue is about as wrongheaded as checking your doctor’s political convictions rather than credentials and experience. This is why it’s best to listen to top Israeli security officials, who have both the professional competence and dedication to care about what serves Israel best.

U.S. Jews might therefore wonder: Why are there no prominent Israeli voices supporting the Iran deal? Well, the noise has drowned out the fact that a phalanx of security chiefs has publicly supported the deal.

I’ll mention just a few. There’s former Military Intelligence chief Amos Yadlin, who heads a leading Israeli defense think tank — and who was one of the pilots who destroyed Iraq’s Osirak reactor in 1981. There’s Isaac Ben-Israel, a former weapons developments chief and current chairman of Israel’s space program. And there’s Ami Ayalon, a former head of Israel’s naval commandos and the Shin Bet security service, and Efraim Halevy, a former Mossad chief.

These men have spent most of their lives defending Israel; they are more competent than any politician to assess the security implications not only of the Iran deal but of the dire consequences of reneging on it.

Furthermore, as esteemed military analyst Amir Oren has reported in Haaretz, the majority of Israel’s serving military leaders disagree with Netanyahu’s position on the Iran deal. But as befits a democracy, officers in active service don’t take public positions. Senior security officials have expressed the same position to me on condition of anonymity.

The consensus on the Iran deal among security experts is very wide-ranging, and not only in Israel. I have just spent a number of days at the World Federation of Scientists’ annual meeting on planetary emergencies in Erice, Sicily, a group that I have been part of for 11 years. The Iran deal was discussed in depth, but not in the shrill tones of politicians trying to show how tough they are on Tehran. I heard experts who know the details of the deal to the last dot and have the intellectual tools to assess its viability.

Most prominent among them is Prof. Richard Garwin, one of the world’s leading nuclear scientists who with Edward Teller designed the first hydrogen bomb. Garwin, who has been an adviser to eight U.S. presidents on nuclear strategy, gave a presentation on the deal and came to a very clear conclusion: Under the current circumstances, this is as good a deal as we will get.

Let there be no mistake: Garwin has been dealing with situations in which humankind’s survival has been at stake; he by no means trusts the Iranian regime not to try to cheat. He gave very precise assessments on how the monitoring regime and the West’s technological means make it virtually impossible for Iran to surprise the West in the coming decade.

He has given me express permission to quote his speech, and I hope we will soon be able to upload it in its entirety. Let me add that Garwin is by no means a lone voice in this assessment but has been a leader of more than 70 nonproliferation experts who have endorsed the deal.

I have deep empathy for the plight of the U.S. Jewish community, which wants to stand by Israel in these difficult circumstances. Doing so means making up your own mind and not letting Netanyahu define for you what it means to be pro-Israel.

You should not forget that Israel’s security experts have no less an investment in Israel’s safety than Netanyahu, and that their expertise on the matter is superior to his. They have no political axes to grind but simply continue their work of keeping Israel secure. If all of them think the Iran deal is good for Israel, you can safely assume that it is and support it.

http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/strenger-than-fiction/.premium-1.673045?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

 

 

Leonard Nimoy – “You and I” – A Poem for Elul and All Times

25 Tuesday Aug 2015

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It’s been six months since we lost Leonard, and his family misses him dearly, his gentleness and intelligence, his profound interest and concern about the world, his very large heart, curiosity, and penetrating mind, his simple loving presence.

This poem of Leonard’s below came to me from a friend (I am reprinting it here by permission of the Nimoy family). I had not seen it before which points to one of Leonard’s virtues – his modesty and humility. Though he knew what were his strengths and gifts, he didn’t talk about himself that way. He spoke rather about ideas, the creative process, the arts, world events, politics, and his family.

Leonard’s poem is part of a longer work that he published in 1973 that included a blend of poetry with black and white photography.

Given the poem’s theme, it is particularly appropriate for us to read now, during this season of Elul, the Hebrew month preceding the High Holidays. I post it still with a particularly heavy heart.

Zecher tzaddik livracha –
May the memory of this honest, loving and righteous man be a blessing.

I am not immortal.
Whatever I put off for later
May never be.
Whoever doesn’t know now
That I love them
May never know.
I have killed time.
I have squandered it.
I have lost days…weeks…
As a man of unlimited wealth
Might drop coins on the street
And never look back.
I know now, that there will be an end,
A limit.
But there is time
Valuable and precious time
To walk,
talk,
breathe.
Time to touch,
taste,
care.
To warm the child
Who is cold and lonely.
There is time to love
I promise myself…
I will.
I am
I am ready
I am ready to give
I am ready to give and to receive
I am ready to give and to receive love

“Israel and the ‘A’ Word”

21 Friday Aug 2015

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Bradley Burston is a senior editor of the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz in which he writes a regular column he calls “A Special Place in Hell.”

I have known Brad for 45 years. We were part of a Zionist student group at UC Berkeley, and we recently reconnected at a J Street national conference in Washington, D.C. that he was covering for Haaretz. He was a mensch when I knew him, and he still is.

Last week Brad wrote a column he titled “It’s Time to Admit It. Israeli Policy Is What It Is: Apartheid,” and he began this way:

“What I’m about to write will not come easily for me.

I used to be one of those people who took issue with the label of apartheid as applied to Israel. I was one of those people who could be counted on to argue that, while the country’s settlement and occupation policies were anti-democratic and brutal and slow-dose suicidal, the word apartheid did not apply.

I’m not one of those people any more.  Not after the last few weeks….”
http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/a-special-place-in-hell/.premium-1.671538

Brad then detailed the un-democratic and harsh Israeli Military Authority policies in the West Bank, the violent turn the settler movement has taken against Palestinians, and the current Israeli government response. He wrote his article in the wake of the recent bombing by Jewish terrorist settlers (allegedly) of a Palestinian home resulting in the murder of an 18-month old toddler, her father and serious burns suffered by other family members.

I believe the point of Brad’s article is that Israelis are ignoring the inhumane West Bank policies of its government. He wanted to shock people into paying attention.

I cringed. I don’t believe Israel’s West Bank military policy is Apartheid (see below). I’m concerned that the “A” word could serve as a pretext for right-wing Israelis and American Jews to discredit criticism of Israeli policies. I’m worried further still that Brad’s article could become fodder for the guns of the pro-BDS anti-Israel activists in America and around the world who would then claim: “You see – even Israeli journalists believe that Israel is an Apartheid State!”

I emailed the host of TLV1’s “The Promised” podcast, Noah Efron. This weekly hour-long program is among the most thoughtful conversations by Israelis in the English language on Israeli politics, culture and the Jewish world.

Noah Efron is a smart, funny and passionate Israeli, originally from the states, whose day job is being a scientist and Professor at Israel’s Bar Ilan University. His two fellow commentators  originally hail from the US as well and include Don Futterman, the Director of the Moriah Foundation and a writer for Haaretz, and Allison Kaplan Sommer, a journalist who is published in all the world’s leading English language newspapers and periodicals. Listening to these three think out-loud is a weekly pleasure that I eagerly anticipate.

I asked Noah to consider doing a segment on the theme of Brad’s article – Is Israel an Apartheid State? He wrote back within hours to tell me he would. The program was aired this week and was titled “Israel and the ‘A’ Word.” It is a must-listen – 15 minutes only. You can find it  here – http://tlv1.fm/the-promised-podcast/2015/08/20/israel-and-the-a-word/

This segment was exactly what I was looking for – a thoughtful critique of both Israel’s West Bank occupation and whether it is or isn’t Apartheid. All three commentators said it is NOT, but that Israel is on the road to Apartheid.

In my initial email to Noah, I shared with him part of an article I wrote several years ago on the delegitimzation of Israel that appeared in the Journal for Reform Judaism. Here is what I sent him:

In “An open letter to Archbishop Desmond Tutu” by Warren Goldstein, chief rabbi of South Africa, published in the International Jerusalem Post (November 12-18, 2010), Rabbi Goldstein writes, “…Israel has no Population Registration Act, no Group Areas Act, no Mixed Marriages and Immorality act, no Separate Representation of Voters Act, no Separate Amenities Act, no pass laws or any of the myriad apartheid laws. To the contrary, Israel is a vibrant liberal democracy and accords full political, religious and other human rights to all its peoples, including its more than one million Arab citizens, many of whom hold positions of authority including that of cabinet minister, Member of Parliament, and judge at every level, including that of the Supreme Court. All citizens vote on the same roll in regular, multiparty elections. There are Arab parties and Arab members of other parties in Israel’s parliament. Arabs and Jews share all public facilities, including hospitals and malls, buses, cinemas and parks, universities and cultural [venues].”


Palestinian Arabs living in the West Bank, however, are not Israeli citizens as are those living on Israel’s side of the Green Line (i.e. the 1949 armistice lines established after the War of Independence), and they do not enjoy the same protections as do those living in Israel. For them, their fight is and has always been one against occupation. … While the case can be made that Israel’s strong and often harsh security measures imposed on Palestinian Arabs living in the West Bank are a necessary evil in light of terrorism, we cannot ignore the fact that holding this territory for more than 40 years and keeping the residents there under occupation has had a corrupting moral influence on Israeli troops who have served in the West Bank and upon Israel as a whole.”

The Cottage of Candles – As We Begin Elul on Shabbat Shoftim

20 Thursday Aug 2015

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There was once a Jew who went out into the world to fulfill the Biblical command – “Tzedek tzedek tirdof – Justice, justice shall you pursue.” [Deuteronomy. 26:20]

Many years passed before the man had explored the known world, except for one last great forest into which he entered. There in the forest he came upon a cave of thieves who mocked him: “Do you expect to find justice here?”

He then went into a hut of witches who laughed at him as well: “Do you expect to find justice here?”

At last he arrived at a fragile clay hut, and through the window he could see many flickering flames. He wondered why they were burning. He then knocked on the door, but there was no answer. He pushed the door open and stepped inside.

As soon as he entered, the hut appeared much larger than it had from outside. He saw hundreds of shelves, and on every shelf were dozens of oil candles. Some were sitting in holders of gold, silver or marble, and others were in modest clay or tin holders. Some were filled with oil and had straight wicks with brightly burning flames. Others had very little oil remaining and were about to sputter out.

An old man robed in white with a flowing white beard stood before him: “Shalom Aleichem, my son. How can I help you?”

The Jew said: “Aleichem shalom. I have gone everywhere searching for justice, but never have I seen anything like this. Tell me, what are all these candles?”

The old man said: “Each is a person’s soul,” as it says – ‘Ner Adonai nishmat Adam – The candle of God is the human soul.’ [Proverbs 20:27] As long as that person is alive the candle burns; but, when the person’s soul takes leave of this world, the candle burns out.”

The Jew who sought justice said: “Can you show me the candle of my soul?”

The old man beckoned: “Follow me.”

He led the Jew through the labyrinth of the cottage until they reached a low shelf, and there the old man pointed to a candle in a clay holder, “That is the candle of your soul.”

A great fear suddenly enveloped the Jew for the candle’s wick was short with little oil remaining. Was it possible for the end of his life to be so near without his having known it?

He then noticed the candle next to his own that was filled with oil, its wick long and straight, its flame burning brightly.

“Whose candle is that?” he wanted to know.

“I can only reveal each person’s candle to him or herself alone,” the old man said, and he left the Jew there alone.

The Jew stood there staring at his candle, and then heard a sputtering sound. When he looked up he saw smoke rising from another shelf. He knew that somewhere someone was no longer among the living. He looked back at his own candle, turned to the candle next to his own, so filled with oil, and a terrible thought came to him.

He searched for the old man, but didn’t see him. He lifted the candle filled with oil and a long brightly burning wick and he held it up just above his own. At once the old man reappeared and gripped his arm, saying: “Is THIS the kind of justice you seek?”

The Jew closed his eyes because the pain of the old man’s grip on his arm was so very great. When he opened them at last the old man was gone and the cottage and candles had disappeared. He stood there alone in the forest listening to the trees whispering his fate.”

This story, as told by Howard Schwartz, is not really about the objective state of justice in the world. Rather, it is about the commitment to justice each one of us has made. The old man (Was he God, The Angel of Death, The Keeper of Human Souls, one of the Lamed Vavniks – 36 righteous people who permit the world to survive?) became angry when the Jew tried to extend his own life at the expense of another.

The story uncovers a test – to what degree have we internalized Judaism’s moral principles and performed them in the world?

The month of Elul began last Saturday evening and ushered in a 40-day period in which we are called upon to do t’shuvah (turn and return to lives of dignity, integrity and decency) leading to Yom Kippur. We are as if living in our own great forest and God is calling to us: “Ayeka – Where are you?” (Genesis 3:9).

Like the first man and first woman in the Garden of Eden, there is no place for us to hide. What is in our hearts must be a reflection of the deeds we perform and the values we embody.

Shabbat shalom!
The Torah portion for this week is Shoftim in which is the verse – “Tzedek tzedek tirdof – Justice, justice shall you pursue” appears. [Deuteronomy 16:20]

Source of story: Howard Schwartz included this story in his book The Tree of Souls: The Mythology of Judaism. It is based on tale by Zevulon Qort who received it from Ben Zion Asherov of Afghanistan. I have edited the original telling.

“John Kerry on the Risk of Congress ‘Screwing’ the Ayatollah” – Must-Read Interview with Jeffrey Goldberg

16 Sunday Aug 2015

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So much has been written on the Iran Nuclear Agreement already, for and against, that it’s difficult to keep up.

I finally sat down to read Jeffrey Goldberg’s important interview with Secretary Kerry in The Atlantic (August 5). It may be the most important piece I have read thus far and I urge you to read the interview in full.

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/08/john-kerry-interview-iran-nuclear-deal/400457/

Here are a few passages:

Kerry: The ayatollah constantly believed that we are untrustworthy, that you can’t negotiate with us, that we will screw them,” Kerry said. “This”—a congressional rejection—“will be the ultimate screwing.” He went on to argue that “the United States Congress will prove the ayatollah’s suspicion, and there’s no way he’s ever coming back. He will not come back to negotiate. Out of dignity, out of a suspicion that you can’t trust America. America is not going to negotiate in good faith. It didn’t negotiate in good faith now, would be his point.

I operate on the presumption that Iran is a fundamental danger, that they are engaged in negative activities throughout the region, that they’re destabilizing places, and that they consider Israel a fundamental enemy at this moment in time. Everything we have done here, Jeff, is not to overlook anything or to diminish any of that; it is to build a bulwark, build an antidote. If what Bibi says is true, that they are really plotting this destruction, then having the mechanism to get rid of nuclear weapons is a prima facie first place to start, and you’re better off eliminating the nuclear weapon if that’s their plan. Then we can deal with the other things.

Goldberg: Let me posit this analysis: that the deal is actually good, but then it becomes bad 10 years down the road. As a confidence-building measure, you’ve curtailed their ability to get to a bomb, but 10 or 15 years down the road, their breakout time shrinks back down to a month or two.

Kerry: Jeff, I fundamentally, absolutely disagree with this premise. It’s not true; it’s provable that it’s not true. And close analysis of this agreement completely contradicts the notion that there is a 15-year cutoff, for several different reasons. Reason number one: We have a 20-year televised insight into their centrifuge production. In other words, we are watching their centrifuge production with live television, taping the whole deal, 24-7 for 20 years. But even more important, and much more penetrating, much more conclusive, we have 25 years during which all uranium production—from mine to mill to yellowcake to gas to waste—is tracked and traced. The intelligence community will tell you it is not possible for them to have a complete, covert, separate fuel cycle. You can’t do the whole cycle; you can’t do the mining and milling covertly. So it’s not 15, it’s 25, and it’s not even just 25 [years].

The Additional Protocol provides the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] with the right and obligation to apply safeguards on all fissionable material in Iran to be sure that it can’t be diverted to a nuclear weapon. To do that, all non-nuclear-weapons-state parties have to bring into force a comprehensive safeguard agreement with the IAEA. The full safeguard agreement. The safeguard agreement requires them to maintain detailed accounting on all material that is subject to the safeguards and operating records of all the facilities. Now, in a civil nuclear program, all facilities are declared and all facilities are inspectionable. So every facility maintains 24-7 visibility. You can’t crank up—see, the comprehensive safeguards agreement provides for a range of IAEA inspections, including verifying the location, the identity, the quantity, and composition of all nuclear materials subject to the safeguards, and the design of the facility and so forth. So I can go on—there are even requirements about any kind of nuclear research that doesn’t involve nuclear material. There are requirements about undeclared facilities, requirements about inspections. [U.S. Secretary of Energy] Ernie Moniz and our experts tell me that if the Iranians notched up their enrichment half a degree, half a point—and by the way, enrichment for civil purposes is usually about 5 percent—They will not be able to get a bomb.“

Compassionate Annihilation!?

13 Thursday Aug 2015

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Ever since Zionism brought the Jewish people back into history we Jews, and especially the State of Israel, have had a major challenge; how to remain rachmanim b’nai rachmanim (compassionate children of compassionate parents) while at the same time protecting ourselves from real enemies as citizens of the modern State of Israel and as pro-Israel advocates amongst world Jewry.

In this week’s Torah portion, Re’eh, we encounter a passage set down during the time of the reign of the Judean King Josiah (7th century BCE) who was in the process of solidifying his political control over all the land of Israel while the Assyrians were busy fighting on their eastern front. Here is the offending passage:

“Smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and everything in it… gather all the spoils… and burn with fire the city… and it shall be an eternal ruin forever; never again to be rebuilt. Let nothing that has been declared taboo there remain in your hands…God will then grant you mercy and the Almighty will be merciful to you, and multiply you as Adonai has sworn unto your ancestors.” (Deuteronomy 13:16)

The juxtaposition of Israel’s utter annihilation of an enemy on the one hand and the reward of compassion on the other is jarring. Rabbi Akiva (1st-2nd century CE) tried to ameliorate the brutality of the text by saying that the phrase “God will grant you to be merciful” means that you are not to kill the children (Tosefta Sanhedrin 14).

Following the destruction of the 2nd Temple (70 CE) when the Jewish people lost political control over their homeland, Talmudic tradition writing mostly from Galut (Exile) is replete with discussion of mercy and compassion as a principal Jewish trait to be nurtured and developed. One of the most famous of these is found in Yevamot 79a: “It is taught: There are three distinguishing signs of the Jewish nation: mercifulness, humility and loving-kindness. Mercifulness, as it is written, ‘God will then grant you mercy and the Holy One will be merciful to you….’”

Rabbi Chaim ibn Attar (i.e. Ohr HaChayim – 1696-1743 CE) remarked that the killing of another human being, even when done in self-defense, can lead the killer to become accustomed to bloodlust and eventually will corrupt the heart of Jewish civilization itself. Judaism teaches that we cannot become cruel and still call ourselves Jews. It is a tragic consequence that with the establishment of the State of Israel that there have been far too many occasions when Jews have been forced to get our hands dirty. Even so, tradition warns that we Jews can never forget the virtue of mercy. With this value uppermost in mind the Haganah and then the Israel Defense Forces developed a policy called Tohar Haneshek (lit. “Purity of Arms”) that is to this day an essential aspect of the training of every Israeli soldier.

Tohar Haneshek teaches how to fight a war as compassionately as possible, even at the risk of one’s own life, in order to avoid causing harm to innocent civilians. Indeed, no army in the history of the world has done more to avoid such harm to civilians than has Israel. Few know this because the Israel-haters use every opportunity to accuse the Jewish state of inhumanity and war crimes. Nevertheless, despite Israel’s uncommon record, many Israeli soldiers come home from military duty both in times of war and after service in the administered territories scarred and devastated by what they had to endure. Israel’s current government, however, in my view is guilty in a way no other Israeli government in its history has been so guilty of presiding over a hardening of heart, disrespect for Palestinians’ essential human rights, and democratic principles on which the State was founded, that I believe in time Jewish history will judge harshly.

The passage from Deuteronomy above set down 2700 years ago is disturbingly relevant today. Compassionate annihilation!? Please. There is no such thing and we ignore that truth at our own peril.