A Message to our Politicians from Rashi and Genesis – from Parashat Noach

26 Wednesday Oct 2011

Posted by in American Politics and Life, Divrei Torah, Israel and Palestine

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In viewing the behavior of some politicians and government officials in the United States, particularly those running for president in the Republican party, as well as the government of Israel, Rashi’s commentary (11th century France) on Avram towards the very end of the Torah portion Noach this week is relevant. His comments appear relative to Genesis 11:26-28, as follows:

“When Terach had lived seventy years, he begot Avram, Nahor, and Haran. Now these are the begettings of Terah: Terah begot Avram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begot Lot. Haran died in the living presence of Terah his father (al p’nei Terach aviv) in the land of his kindred, in Ur of the Chaldeans.”

Here is Rashi’s commentary on the above passage: “Al p’nei Terach aviv -The words al p’nei denote “during the lifetime of his father.” And the aggadic intepretation says: The words al p’nei denote that “on account of his father did he die.” For Terach complained against Avram his son before King Nimrod because Avram had crushed his [Terach] idols; and King Nimrod cast him [Avram] into a fiery furnace, while Haran sat and said to himself, “If Avram wins I shall be on his side, and if Nimrod wins I shall be on his side.” And when Avram was saved they said to Haran, ‘On whose side are you?’ Then Haran said to them, ‘I am on Avram’s side.’ Whereupon they cast him into the fiery furnace and he was burned. And that is the significance of Ur Chaldees [lit, “The fire of the Chaldees” – B’reishit Rabba]…”

What is the lesson? To our political candidates here and in Israel, stop pandering to the most extreme elements or to the winds of popular sentiment for the sake of your holding onto or winning office. Find your true voice and speak it based on reason, the facts, heart, soul, and the interest of the common good and avoid being thrown into the furnaces of whim, stupidity and short-sighted gain!

When We or Our Loved Ones are Ill

26 Wednesday Oct 2011

Posted by in Ethics, Life Cycle

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This past year I wrote a series of eight life cycle booklets that will soon be posted on Temple Israel’s web-site. I wrote them because I have noticed how ill-equipped so many of us are when confronting joyous and stressful life events. Among the most challenging is illness. Below are a few of the frequently asked questions and responses that are included in the “Illness and Healing Guide.”

What should we do when our dear ones become ill? Depending on the seriousness of the illness, there are times when it is best for the ill person not to receive visitors except the closest relatives and friends. No one should visit the hospital, rehabilitation center, or home without checking first with either the ill person or a close relative.

When you visit, what should you do? When visiting, stay briefly, sit down, and allow the ill person to determine the nature and tone of the conversation. The visitor should be as non-intrusive as possible and not speak about themselves unless directly asked by the sick person, and then only briefly. The focus should be on the patient, first and foremost. Extreme displays of emotion are out of place and tend to not benefit the patient.

When visiting how long should you stay? Visitors should stay no more than 10 or 15 minutes even if the ill person welcomes the visit. The energy necessary to receive and “entertain” guests should be directed rather towards healing.

Who should visit whom? Only close relatives and friends should visit a person who is seriously ill or recovering from surgery. Though tradition requires everyone to visit the sick, there are other ways to offer one’s love, support and good wishes than actual visitation. Sending get-well cards and email messages are usually welcome because the sick can read them according to their own schedule. Phone calls to the hospital room or home may be a disturbance and should be handled by the closest relatives and friends. Unfortunately, some people avoid visiting or making contact with the sick as much as they can because of their own discomfort. This can isolate the ill. Those who are chronically ill often suffer from feelings of isolation and depression. Attention from relatives and friends can mitigate loneliness and despair.

Should you offer a healing blessing when you visit? Yes. Judaism affirms that a visitor should end a visit by offering a healing prayer. In addition to the traditional longer mi shebeirach healing blessing, there is a short five-word healing blessing first recited by Moses for his ailing sister, Miriam, when she was afflicted with leprosy: El na r’fa na la (for a female); El na r’fa na lo (for a male) – “Please God heal her/him!”

What should visitors say and not say? All conversation should be determined according to the wishes and interests of the ill person. If the ill person wishes to discuss his/her condition, the visitor should listen and, if warranted, ask leading questions, but not give false hope or cause the sick to despair as a result of his/her condition. The visitor should avoid self-referencing comments (i.e. turn the conversation around to him/herself).

Should you take a gift for the ill when you visit? If you are visiting a very ill person in the hospital, bringing gifts is probably not a good idea. If you are visiting someone in their home, a gift of healthy food or flowers, magazines or books is welcome. Sending flowers and notes to the hospital can usually be counted on to be well received.

What do you say to and what do you do for the family of a very ill person? When a loved one is very ill, members of the family are often depressed and fear the worst. What they need is the loving support of family and friends, offers to taken them for a quick meal away from the hospital or home, magazines to distract their attention while they sit with their dear ones. There is, however, no set prescription that fits everyone’s needs. Friends need to be sensitive to what will help and never impose themselves.

 

Al Kol Eleh – Naomi Shemer

23 Sunday Oct 2011

Posted by in Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Poetry, Quote of the Day

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In these days of joy and uncertainty following the release of Gilad Shalit, I am reminded of Naomi Shemer’s beautiful song Al Kol Eleh (“For all these things”) written after the Yom Kippur War.

“Every bee that brings the honey / Needs a sting to be complete / And we all must learn to taste the bitter with the sweet.

Keep, oh Lord, the fire burning / Through the night and through the day /
For the man who is returning / from so far away.

Don’t uproot what has been planted / So our bounty may increase / Let our dearest wish be granted: / Bring us peace, oh bring us peace.

For the sake of all these things, Lord, / Let your mercy be complete
Bless the sting and bless the honey / Bless the bitter and the sweet.

Save the houses that we live in / The small fences and the wall / From the sudden war-like thunder / May you save them all.

Guard what little I’ve been given / Guard the hill my child might climb / Let the fruit that’s yet to ripen / Not be plucked before its time.

As the wind makes rustling night sounds / And a star falls in its arc / All my dreams and my desires  / Form crystal shapes out of the dark.

Guard for me, oh Lord, these treasures / All my friends keep safe and strong,
Guard the stillness, guard the weeping, / And above all, guard this song.”

NOTE: In 2018, 12,000 Israelis sang Al Kol Eleh in a Tel Aviv stadium with the then President of the State, Ruvi Rivlin, singing his heart out. See my later blog and a link to that spectacularly wonderful event here: https://rabbijohnrosove.blog/2020/02/09/naomi-shemers-al-ha-eleh-sung-by-12000-israelis/

The Serpent(s) of Our Dreams – D’var Torah – Parashat B’reishit

21 Friday Oct 2011

Posted by in Divrei Torah, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life

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13] And the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done!” The woman replied, “The serpent duped me, and I ate.” 14] Then the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you did this / More cursed shall you be / than all cattle / and all the wild beasts: On your belly shall you crawl / and dirt shall you eat / all the days of your life. 15] I will put enmity / between you and the woman, / and between your offspring and hers; They shall strike at your head, and you shall strike at their heel.” (Genesis 3:13-15)

Who is this serpent? In the broadest sense, Rabbi Bachya ben Asher (15th century, Spain) explained that the serpent foretells the future moral and spiritual calamity of humankind. In the more limited sense in the Garden of Eden, the serpent, seemed initially to have held an exalted position as the ‘Lord of the Central Two Trees’. He was among the most intelligent of creatures, so much so that God gave him the ability to speak. However, he was so jealous of the human’s special gifts and status with God, that with deceit and cunning he sought to cause a breach between them by instigating the first sin in the Bible, resulting in Adam and Eve’s expulsion from paradise. The serpent would pay dearly for his lies, deceit and deception. He lost his legs and speech, was forced to eat dirt, and became the enemy for all time with humankind.

The Chatam Sofer (19th century, Slovakia) noted that the serpent’s greatest sin was that he sought deliberately to undermine God’s uniqueness as the Creator and Sovereign of the Garden by referring to the Holy One only by the name Elohim, whereas throughout the Eden narrative God is referred to always as Adonai Elohim. In doing this the serpent demoted God by comparing him with lesser entities, such as angels and judges, and he planted doubt about God’s Ineffable power in the minds of the first humans.

The Zohar identifies the serpent’s soul with God’s and Israel’s greatest enemy Amalek who attacked the Israelites from behind as they left Egypt where the most vulnerable people were marching. Amalek’s attack was timed in the period before the people had a chance to meet God at Mount Sinai and receive Torah thus enabling Israel to represent holiness in the world. This is why Amalek came to represent all of Israel’s and God’s most vicious enemies (i.e. Rome, the Inquisitors, the Nazis, etc.). Amalek’s name equals 240 the same as is the Hebrew word safek (doubt).

The mystical tradition adds complexity to the meaning of the serpent by suggesting that there are not one but two serpents – a holy serpent and an evil one. As evidence, Kabbalah points to the numerical value of nachash (serpent) as 358, just as is the numerical value of mashiach (messiah). This suggests that the only path to redemption lies through a battle between good and evil, between the yetzer tov and yetzer ha-ra. In this final battle the Zohar says that the “holy serpent” will kill the evil one and merit marrying the Divine princess, thus uniting with the origin of the souls of Israel and bringing about redemption to the world.

This remarkable myth explains much about human nature and our complex and often difficult relationship with God. The serpent is a potent symbol of the attractions of the physical world, of temptation and particularly sexual temptation, which was uncovered when Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden tree, recognized their nakedness, and covered themselves out of shame.

In a conversation with Bill Moyers towards the end of his life, Joseph Campbell explained that this story represents duality in the world, the world of physicality on the one hand and the eternal nature of the soul on the other. For many commentators the story is about the nature of the afterlife. Campbell, however, retells the story by explaining that “the ability to throw off life and to continue to survive is represented by the snake who sheds its skin [and is renewed]… just as the moon sheds its shadow [and a new moon emerges]. The snake isn’t good or bad,” he said. “It’s necessary.”

He continued: “I don’t think [this story is about] seeking meaning for life [in the hereafter, as has been suggested by many]. Rather, I think what we are seeking is the experience of being alive [in the here and now], so that the experiences we have on purely the physical plane will have resonances within our innermost being and reality…[affording us] the rapturous experience of being alive… [Life’s meaning doesn’t come when you] peak your head under a rock or [consider a new] philosophy…. Rather, the meaning of life is about the experience of realizing that your dreams have come true, that your make-believe world has become reality.” And he concluded that we should all “envision our dreams and embrace them.”

Shabbat Shalom.

 

 

 

“A Rebbi’s Proverb (From the Yiddish)” – a poem by Danny Siegel

18 Tuesday Oct 2011

Posted by in Holidays, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Poetry, Quote of the Day

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In the time of the Messiah, Sukkot will still be observed. It is the quintessential messianic holiday of Judaism. The poet Danny Siegel expressed the Messianic thrust so very well with this beautiful poem.

“If you always assume / the man sitting next to you / is the Messiah / waiting for some simple human kindness–
You will soon come to weigh your words /and watch your hands.
And if he so chooses / Not to reveal himself / In your time–
It will not matter.
Danny Siegel  “And God Braided Eve’s Hair” (1976); “Unlocked Doors” (1983)

When God First Said – a poem by Natan Zach

17 Monday Oct 2011

Posted by in Divrei Torah, Poetry, Quote of the Day

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Simchat Torah comes this week and with it on Shabbat the Torah cycle begins anew with the reading of Parashat B’reishit (Genesis 1-6:8).

This first parashah of the year is so rich, so multi-layered, so provocative in symbolism, metaphor, and myth about the nature of origins, God’s purpose for us humans, and the nature of the human being that it is always an exciting challenge to choose a theme for a D’var Torah. I am working on something now about the meaning of the snake (nachash) in the Garden of Eden, and will post that later in the week.

In the meantime, Natan Zach, one of Israel’s greatest poets, offers this provocative poem about God’s first intentions when contemplating creation. Born in Berlin in 1930, Zach was taken to Palestine by his family in 1935. He fought in the War of Independence and is regarded today as one of Israel’s greatest citizens. He is not alone among Israel’s poets. What other country in the world lifts its poets to the exalted status of greatness as does Israel? None!

“When God first said Let there be light/ He meant it would not be dark for Him./ In that moment He didn’t think about the sky,/ but the trees already were filling with water,/ the birds receiving air and body./ Then the first wind touched God’s eyes/ and He saw it in all His glory/ and thought It is good. He didn’t think then/ about people, people in their multitude,/ but they already were standing apart from the fig leaves,/ unraveling in their hearts/ a scheme about pain./ When God first thought of night/ He didn’t think about sleep./ So be it, God said, I will be happy./ But they were multitudes.”

Translated from the Hebrew by Peter Everwine and Shulamit Yasny-Starman, Modern Poems on the Bible – an Anthology, Edited with an Introduction by David Curzon, 1994, pages 31-32

My High Holiday Sermons – 5772

16 Sunday Oct 2011

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

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The three sermons I delivered during the High Holidays this year can be accessed by clicking to your right on Temple Israel of Hollywood or going directly to the sermons by clicking http://www.tioh.org/about-us/clergy/aboutus-clergy-clergystudy. If you go through the Temple Israel website, you will see the link to the holiday sermons alongside my colleagues’ and my photos on the Temple’s home page. My three sermons are:

Thirty-two Pathways in the Heart – Kol Nidre 2011 (I consider 32 life-lessons I have learned in my nearly 62 years. These are means I have found to a healthier, wiser and more sacred way of living.)

Beyond Crisis: The Case for Aspirational Zionism – Rosh Hashanah Shacharit 2011 – (I make the case that Israel and the Jewish people need to expand our crisis-mode way of thinking and responding to legitimate and real threats as the only means of assuring Israel’s and the Jewish people’s survival. I embrace what Dr. Tal Becker has characterized as “Aspirational Zionism.” Aspirational Zionism emphasizes Jewish values and Jewish heritage as co-equal with concerns about Israeli and Jewish security, specifically focusing on the prophetic and rabbinic values of tzedek chevrati – social justice).

Doing a Congregational Cheshbon Hanefesh – Erev Rosh Hashanah 2011 (I ask fundamental questions about both the nature of our synagogue community at Temple Israel of Hollywood and about us individually as Jews in this 2nd decade of the 21st century: Who are we as a liberal Jewish community? What is necessary for our synagogue community to be ‘visionary’ as opposed to ‘functional’? And what might we as individual Jews do to enhance our Jewish literacy and our spiritual/religious lives?)

I welcome your comments to any of the ideas I present in these sermons, whether you agree with me or not.

Moadim l’simcha!

 

 

 

Z’man Simchateinu – The Messianic Thrust of Sukkot

14 Friday Oct 2011

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

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The Kotzker rebbe was asked once if he had the power to revive the dead. He answered: “Reviving the dead isn’t the problem; reviving the living is far more difficult.”

On Sukkot we are told to build temporary dwellings in which to reside for 7 days to remind us of life’s frailty and our dependence on God for physical and spiritual sustenance. As we build these flimsy dwellings, the festival reminds us of our duty to take action, rebuild our lives and not default to passivity nor fail to work to heal a shattered world. In this sense Sukkot is a messianic holiday, and the four species of plants in the lulav-etrog bundle present a messianic ideal.

The tradition of the Lulav and Etrog is based on a verse from Leviticus (23:40); “On the first day you shall take the product of Hadar trees (the etrog), branches of palm trees (lulav), boughs of leafy trees (myrtle – hadas), and the willows of the brook (aravah) and you shall rejoice before Adonai your God seven days.”

The Midrash (Vayikra Rabba 30:12-13) to Leviticus compares each plant to a different kind of Jew:

“THE FRUIT OF THE HADAR TREE symbolizes Israel; just as the etrog has taste as well as fragrance, so Israel have among them those with learning and good deeds. BRANCHES OF PALM TREES, too applies to Israel; as the palm-tree (lulav) has taste [i.e. the dates of the palm] but no fragrance, so Israel has among them such as possess learning but not good deeds. AND BOUGHS OF THICK TREES I likewise apply to Israel; just as the myrtle (hadas) has fragrance but no taste, so Israel have among them such as possess good deeds but not learning. AND WILLOWS OF THE BROOK also applies to Israel; just as the willow (aravah) has no taste and no fragrance, so Israel have among them people who possess neither learning nor good deeds. What then does the Holy One, blessed be God, do to them? … says God, let them all be tied together in one band … If you have done so [says God], then at that instant I am exalted…”

The Jewish messianic ideal requires that the Jewish community as a whole be united. The four species bundled together symbolize a unity not yet achieved, but inclusive of every kind of Jew, regardless of knowledge, ethical and ritual behavior.

The four species represent Jews from the most learned and diligent in the performance of the mitzvot to the most unlettered and negligent. The lesson of the lulav and etrog lies in the fact that as long as all four are part of the whole, even Jews with little knowledge of Judaism and little observance of the mitzvot, have a role to play in our community. When we exclude anyone from the fabric of Jewish society, we are essentially incomplete. The message is clear. We need everyone, and though we are so often at odds with each other, Sukkot reminds us that enmity and alienation from one another cannot be allowed to stand.

At the same time, Rabbi Yitzhak Arama (15th century Spain) teaches that Sukkot is far more than a holyday only for Jews. It is also universal in scope and vision embracing all of humankind. When we look at the “four species,” he taught, we are reminded of the four types of existence in the universe:

[1] The etrog is held apart from the other three and is not bound up with it. We hold it in the left hand opposite the heart. The etrog represents the highest form of existence, that which is perfect in all its aspects – namely, God;

[2] The lulav/palm branch represents purely spiritual creatures, the angels (mal’a-chim), and is the most honored of the remaining three species of plants and the tallest;

[3] The hadas/myrtle represents the stars and planets, luminary bodies of an enduring nature;

[4] The aravah/willow represents the world of humankind replete with all our inadequacies and imperfections.

The prophet Zechariah, which is read on the first day of Sukkot, tells of the nations coming to Jerusalem to celebrate Sukkot, for it is more universally messianic than any other holiday in the Jewish calendar year uniting the Jewish people, humankind, nature, the heavenly bodies, the angels, and God.

We call this festival of Sukkot – Z’man Sim’cha-tei-nu – the Season of our Joy – and when considering the universal and messianic nature of the chag is it any wonder why? This kind of joy is our response to the vision of a perfected world in the image of the dominion of God.

May that vision be our hope and our blessing. Chag Sukkot Sameach!

 

 

Gilad Shalit, Rabbi Meir of Rothenburg, and the Cost of this Deal

12 Wednesday Oct 2011

Posted by in Ethics, Israel and Palestine

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We have to be thrilled for Gilad Shalit and his family that he will be released from a Hamas jail soon. However, in our joy, we have to ask (as Israelis have been asking for five years) at what cost has this deal been made?

This is not the first time Jews have been confronted with the unjust imprisonment of one of its own. Consequently, much has been written in the legal literature about it. Maimonides (12th century) wrote that the duty to ransom captives (pidyon sh’vu-im) supersedes the duty to give charity (tz’dakah) to the poor. Others have compared this mitzvah with the saving of human life (pikuach nefesh).

The rabbis placed limits, however, on how much an individual or community should pay when ransoming a captive. To avoid extracting an exorbitant ransom payment or repeated kidnappings, the majority of legal authorities ruled that a captive could only be redeemed at what his or her ‘market value’ was as a slave, thus avoiding outrageous demands. (Rabbi Josef Karo, Shulchan Arukh, Yoreh Deah 252:4). Though the idea of paying blackmail to gain the release of an unjustifiably imprisoned person is repugnant, tradition clearly favored doing so if it meant saving life.

The most famous Jewish hostage in history was the leader of world Jewry at the end of the 13th century, Rabbi Meir of Rothenburg (the MAHARAM), and his experience set the moral and legal standard for Jewish communities for centuries when confronting the issue of paying a ransom for captives.

The MAHARAM lived at a time of great political upheaval that resulted from the election of Rudolf I of Hapsburg to be the German Emperor. Once in power, Rudolf taxed the Jewish community and reduced them to the status of servi camerai (serfs of the treasury), a euphemism for enslavement.

News of Rabbi Meir’s arrest spread across Europe, Spain and North Africa, and in response the Jewish community raised a huge sum of 23,000 pounds of silver to buy his freedom. However, on Rabbi Meir’s instructions it was stipulated that the silver was to be regarded as a ransom only, and not as the tax the Emperor had imposed on the Jewish community. Rudolf refused to accept the silver on this basis, and Rabbi Meir remained in prison until the end of his life at the age of 78.

Israel once had an iron-clad policy regarding hostage-taking: ‘No discussion! No negotiation! No lending of legitimacy to criminals and murderers.’ When PM Netanyahu was Israel’s Ambassador to the UN (1984-88) he articulated this view in a book he wrote on terror and how to deal with it (Terror – How the West Can Win, 1986). After its publication he was asked how he would respond if a member of his own family was taken hostage. Recalling the death of his own brother Yonaton in the Entebbe Rescue Mission on July 4, 1976, Bibi said that all of us must be prepared to accept loss, even if it means losing a beloved member of our own family.

I can only imagine the intense pressure Bibi has been under to find a way to bring Gilad Shalit home. Gilad’s family has camped outside the Prime Minister’s residence for the past five years, and Gilad has essentially been adopted as every Israeli’s son. Further, the IDF holds as a sacred trust the principle that the people and State of Israel will never leave a soldier on the battlefield or in an enemy prison.

All this being said, the price Israel is paying for Gilad Shalit may prove to be against Israel’s own best interests. Hamas knows that Israel and Jews value life above death and that this is not the first time Israel has traded Palestinians for Israelis (sometimes Israel has traded hundreds of Palestinians for one or two bodies of dead Israelis).

In light of all this we have to ask at what cost has this deal for Gilad been made? Deals like this in the past have encouraged terrorists to fear Israel less, for they figure that even if they do get caught, they most likely will be freed eventually in a prisoner exchange deal. Many released terrorists have returned to their terrorist activities, murdering more Israelis.

Is Israel right to have made this deal? I would not want to be in Bibi’s position, but I fear the worst.

A Simple Thought in this New Year

10 Monday Oct 2011

Posted by in Holidays, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Quote of the Day

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We have just come through the most intense and introspective 10 days of the Jewish calendar year. For us rabbis, cantors and synagogue staff, we are bone weary. Nevertheless, in these initial days following Yom Kippur and before Sukkot commences I feel not only renewal but simple gratitude for the blessings of my life, my wife Barbara, my sons Daniel and David, my dearest friends and colleagues, our community, and the tradition, faith and people of Israel.

Here is a thought from outside Jewish tradition, yet reflective of who we are as a people.

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.
–Cicero, Roman philosopher (106 BC – 43 BC)

L’shanah tovah u-m’tukah and beginning on Wednesday evening, chag Sukkot sameach!