Korach is one of Biblical tradition’s greatest villains, and when comparing him to today’s national leadership one wonders if the writers of the Biblical tale didn’t have a crystal ball that projected them into this era.

This week’s Torah portion Korach (Numbers 16:1-18:32) tells the story of a major rebellion led by Korach and 250 Israelite leaders.

Korach was the first cousin of Moses and Aaron (Exodus 6:18-21), a member of the priestly class and part of the ruling elite. The leaders around him are described as “Princes of the congregation, the elect men of the assembly, men of renown.” (Numbers 16:2) The Talmud says of them “that they had a name recognized in the whole world.” (Sanhedrin 110a).

Despite his elevated status Korach wasn’t satisfied. He challenged Aaron’s exclusive right to the priesthood, and his cohorts Dathan and Abiram questioned Moses’ leadership. Korach’s goal was to unseat the divinely chosen leaders. He appealed to the people to overthrow them using religious language and espousing the importance of rotating leaders in office, all of whom were equally worthy.

“And they assembled themselves together against Moses and … Aaron, and said [to them], ‘You take too much upon yourself, seeing that all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them.’”

Though they spoke the language of “democrats,” Korach and his minions weren’t democrats at all; they were demagogues who manipulated and incited the masses for their narrow self-interests.

Rabbi Moshe Weiler, the founder of liberal Judaism in South Africa, wrote that “Theirs [i.e. Korach and his cohorts] was the pursuit of kavod, honor and power, in the guise of sanctity and love of the masses.”

Onkolos (2^nd century C.E.), in his Aramaic translation of the two opening words of the portion, Vayikach Korach (“And Korach took”) wrote It’peleg Korach (“And Korach separated himself”) suggesting that he didn’t consider himself to be one with the people nor was he interested in serving their interests. To use a modern analogue, he saw himself as above the law and wanted to have the power of a king.

Korach sought power for power’s sake and he ignited a controversy based on ignoble motivations and nefarious goals leading to the devastation of the community. In the end, the earth swallowed the rebels alive and sent them to Sheol (the netherworld) in a spectacular inferno. (Numbers 16:31-35)

Korach’s eish ha-mach’loket (“fire of controversy”) became an eish o-che-lah (“a devouring fire”) that augured doom.

“The Sayings of the Sages” (Pirkei Avot 5:21) reflects upon Korach’s rebellion and distinguishes between two very different kinds of controversy. The first is healthy and useful and is pursued for the sake of heaven (l’shem shamayim). This kind of an argument brings about blessing and a stronger community. The second is the opposite. It represents a pernicious fight not based on lasting values. Rather, it brings disunity and destruction. In Judaism, Hillel and Shammai (1^st century BCE) embodied the former, and Korach and his legions the latter.

Korach was a cynic. Moses was the opposite, the humble servant-leader.

Who are we? Do we resonate with the voice of Korach or the spirit of Moses?

Who are our leaders? Are they interested in power or the common good?

Turning inward for a moment, Rabbi Rachel Cowan opines that though all of us may aspire to be like Moses, Korach lives within each of our hearts too.

In thinking about ourselves and our leaders, the words of Maimonides remind us of the importance of pursuing higher virtue:

“The ideal public leader is one who holds seven attributes: wisdom, humility, reverence, loathing of money, love of truth, love of humanity, and a good name.” (Hilchot Sanhedrin 2:7)

In our elections, Judaism teaches that we ought to be voting for servant-leaders and not self-centered aspirers to power for power’s sake.

 

 

 

 

 

“Follow the money!” So realized the late and great leader of Mossad, Meir Dagan (1945-2016), who twenty years ago recognized that terrorism against Israelis and Jews in Israel and around the world by Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, and the PLO depends upon a complex and convoluted web of drug money. The drugs come from South America and are shipped to West Africa, then to Lebanon, and sold in Europe. Legitimate banks around the world transfer the money that’s supplied to the above terrorist organizations.

The target are Israelis on buses, at Passover Seders, at the Mount Scopus Hebrew University cafeteria, and Israeli bus stops. The money funded the tens of thousands of missiles launched from Gaza into Sderot and Ashdod, as well as the kidnapping and murder of the three young Israeli hitch-hikers near Hebron that sparked the 2014 Gaza War.

Dagan concluded and showed that the surest way to stop terrorist actions is to dry up the money that sustains it.

The story of money financing terror is told in “Harpoon – Inside the Covert War Against Terrorism’s Money Masters” by Israeli civil rights attorney and activist Nitsana Darshan-Leitner and her co-author Samuel M. Katz (publ. New York: Hatchell Books, 2017).

Ms. Darshan-Leitner is the President of Shurat HaDin, an Israeli law center based in Tel Aviv. She has represented hundreds of terror victims in lawsuits worldwide. Samuel Katz is the co-author of the New York Times bestseller “Under Fire: The Untold Story of the Attack in Benghazi” and the author of “The Ghost Warriors: Inside Israel’s Undercover War Against Terrorism.”

This book (301 pages) is a non-fiction thriller, a page-turner that reads like an action novel. What’s remarkable is that it didn’t take a talented fiction writer to ruminate from the imagination to write this story. It’s all true. Everything reported happened.

For those unaware of the covert intelligence and Israel’s Mossad and Shin Bet response to that intelligence (at times in coordination with the CIA) need to read this volume to understand better the deeper security concerns of Israelis.

“Harpoon” (the name given by Mossad to this clandestine operation) is a must-read for those especially in the middle-left of Israeli politics, who despise the current Israeli government’s policies and attacks on NGOs and democratic norms (i.e. against the authority of the High Court of Justice), the expansion of settlements in the West Bank, and the Trump Administration’s right-wing support of the most right-wing government in the history of the State of Israel.

It’s also a must-read before judging what Israel did in the recent Gaza War, for despite Bernie Sanders’ recent videos attacking Israeli policy and shining a light on the legitimate suffering of Palestinians living in Gaza, his version of events is only part of what is happening. Hamas was very much behind much of the violence at the fence as evidenced by the large number of dead who Hamas admitted were Hamas fighters.

Understanding context in the Middle East is everything. Anyone who claims to “know” what is really happening there and what Israel ought to do in that complex and dangerous part of the world really knows nothing at all.

This book is for everyone, but especially for liberal Jews (I count myself among them) who love Israel, who believe in Israel’s goodness and potential despite its imperfections and its soul-numbing occupation of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, and who want to understand what Israel is really up against in the netherworld of terror.

This book was an eye-opener to me. As I marveled at the brilliance and daring of Meir Dagan, it needs to be noted that Dagan supported a two-states for two peoples resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. His position suggests that one can be highly security conscious and at the same time be for a two-state solution. What’s disheartening is that at the moment there is no one in Israel’s government or in the Palestinian Authority or certainly in Hamas or in the White House that is willing to come to an agreement that assures Israel’s security and sovereignty and the Palestinians yearning for national self-determination.

My wife and I retired the night before our early morning flight to Pittsburgh last week for a family wedding in which I was the rabbinic officiant. We love these two young cousins and were excited to go with our sons and their partners to celebrate their marriage.

I suddenly became aware that two deaths had befallen members of my congregation. My two rabbinic colleagues were unavailable to officiate. What to do? I wanted so much to officiate at the wedding. But who would comfort the two families and officiate over the burial of their loved ones? How was I to be in two places at once – in Los Angeles and Pittsburgh?

I was torn whichever choice I took. I sat up, put my feet on the carpet, and began to walk. Full consciousness came to me. Alas, I realized I was only in a nightmare. No one had died. The wedding was still on.

It was a spectacular wedding. The bride and groom, beloved by family and friends, are comedy writers, as are most of their friends from “The Onion,” The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” and “Saturday Night Live.” The rehearsal dinner the night before the nuptials was a marathon of comedy writing and performance, one hilarious person taking the mic after another keeping us in stitches as each feted the couple.

It was thrilling to stand under the chupah with these two lovebirds. When they broke the glass and kissed for the first time as husband and wife, pandemonium broke out. The party was as joyous as it gets.

Thank goodness it was only two funerals and a wedding in my dreamscape, and my rabbinic nightmare passed.

 

“And there we saw the Nefilim [demi-gods or giants], descendants of Anak of the Nefilim. And we were in our own eyes like grasshoppers, and so we must have appeared to them.”(Numbers 13:33)

Rabbi Menachem Mendl of Kotzk asked: What possible difference could it make for the spies to know or even care how they appeared in the eyes of others?

In his question, the Kotzker shined a light on the spies’ central weakness and sin. Though it appears that the spies performed the holy task Moses commanded them to undertake – to scout the land and bring back a report of what they saw – theirs was more than an objective report. They observed the Nefilim and by comparison thought themselves to be as small as grasshoppers, feelings that are understandable. After all, the spies represented a people that had only known slavery and were not yet constituted as a fighting force. The scouts were surveying the land and people to determine what kind of resistance they would encounter once they entered to conquer the land.

The scout’s weakness and sin are revealed in the last part of the verse “…and so we must have appeared that way to them.”

The Kotzker asked – Why do you care what you appeared like to them? They worried more about how they looked than what they were looking for. And so, their sin wasn’t their low self-image, though low self-esteem prevents people from being their best selves and doing their best work. Rather, their sin was egocentrism and vanity, hypersensitivity to and awareness of how THEY appeared to the Nefilim.

The story, ancient yet ever-so-modern, suggests that it’s really not important how others perceive us. What matters are our intention, motivation and purpose in doing what we do.

 

The Israeli Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism (IMPJ) supported by the Association of Reform Zionists of America (ARZA) offers the following report on the submission of the recommendations of the “Nissim Committee on Conversion” in the State of Israel that was presented to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday (Sunday, June 3) and their immediate rejection by the Ultra-Orthodox Haredi political establishment and the Chief Rabbis of Israel (all ultra-Orthodox).

Background:

On Sunday, June 3 former Israeli Justice Minister Moshe Nissim presented his recommendations on the subject of conversion to Prime Minister Netanyahu after a process that lasted 8 months during which the leadership of the Israeli Reform movement met twice with Mr. Nissim for lengthy working meetings. The recommendations of the former minister were presented after the Israeli government requested from the Supreme Court to delay submitting their decision on the petitions by the Israel Reform and Conservative movements to recognize our conversions, for the purpose of the Law of Return. (In other words, a situation wherein people who are not Israeli citizens and who undergo Reform conversion in the State of Israel to request recognition as new immigrants in the Jewish state – that is, the nation state of the entire Jewish people).

In principal the proposal by Former Minister Nissim has three main parts:

1. That by law in Israel there would be only one authority for conversion and that this would be Orthodox. Private conversion (both Orthodox and non- Orthodox would not be recognized) and therefore could not be done by any non-Orthodox Rabbi in the Jewish State.
2. Israeli law would recognize that (as already decided by the Supreme Court) that conversions by all Jewish communities in the Diaspora (including Reform and Conservative) would be legal and recognized for purposes of the Law of Return and those converts would be allowed to make Aliyah to Israel and be officially registered as Jews in the Population Registry.
3. Supervision of all issues involving conversion including nominating conversion “dayanim”( judges) would be done by a new government authority (not the chief rabbinate). In this new authority there would be representatives of the government, the chief rabbinate, and the Jewish Agency for Israel (with specific representation by JAFI of the Reform and Conservative streams). The chief rabbinate would not have veto power whatsoever.

The recommendations of the Nissim Committee are concerning yet interesting at the same time. Of course, we cannot agree to have Orthodox conversion be the sole basis in Israel for establishing the right to be considered a Jew under the Law of Return. On the other hand, the proposal for the first time calls for legally recognizing non-Orthodox conversions done outside of Israel, and protects the advances we have already made in Israel. Additionally, there is a clear recognition that the chief rabbinate can no longer have a monopoly on the issue of conversion.

As we expected, the Haredi political parties (right-wing ultra-Orthodox) and the Rabbinic establishment in Israel have already begun an attack on the recommendations while at the same time renewing their campaign of vilification of the non-Orthodox religious streams. As our Israeli Reform leadership told Mr. Nissim and the representatives of the government, there is no chance that politically the recommendation for new laws can be passed because of the makeup of the present government coalition. Therefore, as of now our Reform movement’s media strategy in Israel is to relate to the Haredi and Orthodox establishment’s attacks on the proposal and on us as further proof (after the Kotel agreement to have an equal prayer plaza beneath Robinson’s Arch for egalitarian prayer was vilified by the Orthodox political parties and later canceled by Prime Minister Netanyahu) that there is no willingness by the Rabbinic establishment to make progress on any compromise. In this situation there is no reason now to study the Nissim recommendations in depth and decide on our position towards a compromise.

The single danger that we must be aware of is that there may be an attempt to promote a conversion law not on the basis of the Nissim recommendations, and that it would be based on previous versions that give sole power to the monopoly of the chief rabbinate over conversion in Israel. These proposals are not at present on the table but we have to remember that the delicate political situation of the coalition might lead to this. In the event that these proposals are renewed we will need to respond in the strongest possible manner as we did successfully many times in the past.

Below is the official response of Rabbi Gilad Kariv to the Israeli media:

Response to the Conversion recommendations:

Rabbi Gilad Kariv, President and CEO of the Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism, stated in response to the recommendations of the Nissim Committee on the Conversion issue:

“In the recommendations on the issue of conversion there are both worrisome and encouraging aspects, and on the surface a discussion would be appropriate. However it is clear that the Haredi political parties and the [ultra-Orthodox] Rabbinic establishment are already planning to bury the recommendations permanently. This is more proof that they are not interested in reaching a national agreement or compromise. This is exactly why these parties cannot be given sole responsibility for entrance through the “gates of the Jewish people” which belong to all the Jewish people in Israel and the Diaspora, and not to an extreme minority. After the inappropriate and destructive conduct of the Government of Israel following the Western Wall compromise agreement, we are not willing to again enter into new understandings with the government only to later discover that the Prime Minister’s “natural partners” will have thwarted them rudely while carrying on a campaign of insult, slander, and incitement against millions of Reform and Conservative Jews.”

Former Senator George Mitchell brought peace to the Northern Ireland conflict, so President Obama thought Mitchell could work miracles as U.S. Special Envoy for Middle East Peace and bring about a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

This 226-page volume tells that story. In reading these words of this master diplomat who understood the Israeli and Palestinian concerns, aspirations, and arguments and who represented the only super-power in the world, a reasonable person would have expected a positive two-states for two-peoples outcome.

That wasn’t, of course, to happen primarily because each side was unwilling to do what was necessary and make key concessions for the sake of peace and security. In addition, neither side trusted the other and neither was convinced that it really had a true partner in the other for peace.

Opportunities since the 1947 UN Partition Plan (accepted by the Jews and rejected by the Arabs), the Autonomy agreement as part of the Israeli-Egyptian peace agreement of 1979 (never happened), the Oslo Accords (fell apart after the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin), the Clinton Parameters (sat on a shelf despite Israeli PM Barack going further than any Israeli leader in making concessions), the Geneva Accords (never taken seriously), the Olmert-Abbas secret negotiations (Olmert resigned in scandal and went to prison, but it is questionable whether Abbas was serious or strong enough to present the Palestinian public a two-state solution), and the Kerry initiative of 2013-2014 (didn’t happen – again!).

This volume offers an objective and complete accounting of all those efforts (as well as the history to that point) and especially what Mitchell and the Obama Administration offered as a path to a two-state solution, which Senator Mitchell insists is the only destination that can assure long-term security and peace (I agree with him).

This book is a strong and important companion volume to the book I reviewed a couple of weeks ago written by my friend Yossi Klein Halevi called “Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor.”

Read them both and you will find greater clarity about what is necessary for Israel and the Palestinians, with massive American and international support, to solve this seemingly intractable conflict.

Senator Mitchell concludes the book this way:

“We believe there is no such thing as a conflict that cannot be ended. Conflicts are created and conducted by human beings; they can be ended by human beings. We recognize the daunting difficulties that lie ahead. We acknowledge the long litany of failed past efforts. We are especially mindful of the many other conflicts and complexities in the region that work against an early resolution. Yet we firmly and realistically believe that there is a path to peace through a two-state solution and that all of us who care about the region and its people, in particular Israelis and Palestinians, must do whatever we can to advocate and work for an end to the conflict.”

Amen!

What is it about candle light that so draws us, like moths, to its flames? Watching children mesmerized by Shabbat candles, birthday candles and Havdalah candles opens the heart to the experience of awe and wonder as few things do.

In this week’s Torah portion B’ha-a-lo-techa (see Numbers 8:1-4), God told Moses to instruct Aaron to make the seven-branched Menorah that stood in the Tent of meeting, accompanied the people during the years of wandering, rested in Jerusalem, and then for the past two thousand years is symbolically found in every Jewish home.

On Shabbat and the holidays Jews kindle two white candles – one for Zachor (“Remember the Sabbath Day” – Exodus 20:8) and the other for shamor (“Observe the Sabbath day” – Deuteronomy 5:12) – the themes expressed in the Shabbat Kiddush.

In kindling light, a disarmingly simple act, we transform our homes, synagogues and lives with sparks of eternity and the vision of the world redeemed.

Isaiah (45:7) compared light with shalom (wholeness, integrity, and peace): “Yotzeir or u-voreh chosech, oseh shalom u-voreh ra – I fashion light and create darkness; I make peace and create evil.”

We light the Shabbat candles first because “harmony in the home and in our communities – shalom bayit” precedes all else. Judaism teaches that nothing is more important than a home filled with mutual respect, affirmation and integrity.

The Zohar relates: “Rabbi Isaac said, ‘The light created by God in the act of Creation flared from one end of the universe to the other and was hidden away, reserved for the righteous in the world to come, as it is written: ‘Light is sown for the Righteous.’” (Psalm 97:11).  Then the worlds will be fragrant, and all will be one. But until the world that is coming arrives, it is stored and hidden away.’”

“Rabbi Judah said: ‘If the light were completely hidden, the world would not exist for even a moment! Rather, it is hidden and sown like a seed that gives birth to seeds and fruit. Thereby the world is sustained. Every single day, a ray of that light shines into the world, keeping everything alive; with that ray God feeds the world….[whenever Torah is learned] one thread-thin ray appears from that hidden light and flows down upon those absorbed in her. Since the first day, the light has never been fully revealed, but it is vital to the world, renewing each day the act of Creation.” (Danny Matt, The Essential Kabbalah: The Heart of Jewish Mysticism – p. 90)

We kindle light each Shabbat to inspire the hope that there is a better world beyond division and polarization and that we can become activists for the good. Shabbat inspires us with a vision of shalom, harmony and the Oneness of God, and Judaism calls us to make real what we envision.

Shabbat shalom!

 

David Leonhardt, NYTimes Op-Ed Columnist writes:

“Two disturbing stories about immigrants have been getting attention in recent days: one, that the federal government has lost track of almost 1,500 immigrant children; and, two, that the Trump administration has begun separating children from their parents at the United States-Mexico border.”

Last week on MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, he discussed the separation of the children of immigrants coming into America who are seeking political asylum in the United States because of a “well-founded fear of persecution” should they return to their countries of origin. One child was reported to be 53 weeks old. In all, close to 1500 children have been taken away from their parents and housed in a military compound.

I have never seen an MSNBC commentator bow his head in confusion, disgust, and moral outrage as I did Chris Hayes. I felt exactly as he did.

Then he called upon all listeners to write to their congressional representatives and protest this callous and outrageously immoral act of cruelty perpetrated by the Trump Administration.

See – https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?shva=1#inbox/163abc3cdb5d2ba9

A disclaimer – Yossi is a friend and one of the more enlightened, fair-minded, thoughtful, kind, and generous of heart people I have met in many years of engagement with Israel.

He is an oleh (immigrant) from New York where he grew up the child of Holocaust survivors and a follower of Rabbi Meir Kahanah. He is hardly the extremist these days. A writer always worth reading in articles or in his three previous books (all of which I read with a voracious appetite for the truths he expresses so honestly and freely), Yossi does not disappoint in his newest book of letters to his Palestinian neighbors.

He writes with an honesty, candor, and historical and emotional perspective that those in the Jewish community on both the right and the left can hear, and hopefully, fair-minded Palestinians can hear as well (he had the book translated into Arabic with an email address because he invited Palestinians to dialogue with him on anything they wished.

I read Yossi’s 200-page book of letters in two sittings – so will you, and this little volume will occupy an important place on your bookshelf to return to from time to time to remind yourself that though the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians seems hopeless, in the Middle East things can change quickly. Yossi argues that the road to peace is understanding the two conflicting narratives and eventually splitting the land into two states for two peoples. However, he is sober and fearful and he confesses “I remain in limbo, affirming a two-state solution while clinging to the status quo. And yet I cannot accept our current state of seemingly endless conflict as the definitive verdict on our relationship.”

Read it! You’ll be glad you did.

Shmuel Rosner wrote a wonderful review of the book in this week’s LA Jewish Journal, and I recommend you read it too at http://jewishjournal.com/cover_story/234358/visionarys-insight-can-yossi-klein-halevi-bring-us-hope-peace/

 

There are two wars being waged against Israel by Hamas. The first is military and the second is one of public relations. Israel, as the far more powerful army, will always win the first, but Hamas is winning the second.

Headlines around the world called Israel’s action to prevent a massive breach of the fence through which thousands of hostile Palestinians would pour into Israel intent on killing Israelis in southern Israel a “slaughter” and a “massacre” of innocent and unarmed Palestinian civilians. Many Palestinians were indeed unarmed, paid and forced by Hamas to charge the fence. However, Hamas was the primary perpetrator of the violence. Had Israel “slaughtered” or “massacred” Palestinians, far more would have been killed on Monday, the day the American Embassy opened, than the 60 who died. Hamas itself said that nearly 50 of those were Hamas fighters.

Dr. Irwin J. Mansdorph, a fellow of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs who conducts research into the psychological aspects of the Israel-Arab dynamic, published a piece this week worth reading – “Psychological Asymmetry: Understanding the Gaza ‘Return Demonstrations.” see http://jcpa.org/article/psychological-asymmetry-understanding-the-gaza-return-demonstrations/

Dr. Mandsorph’s main points include the following:

• Psychological asymmetry is the relative advantage of the weaker party in a conflict to engage in otherwise immoral and illegal behavior against a militarily stronger opponent.
• Hamas and other groups have used their psychological asymmetry in engaging Israel for years, exploiting and placing civilians in danger to meet strategic goals.
• The current Gaza demonstrations are a prime example of psychological asymmetry being used as a strategic weapon by Hamas against Israel.
• The difference in perception among people who support and those who criticize Israel for civilian casualties in Gaza is not due to “facts” or “logic” of the situation.
• Rather, it is a result of an ideology of intersectionality that sees Gaza civilians as victims and as such immune from any responsibility for their fate.
• Consequently, in this ideological framework, the more powerful party, namely Israel, must assume the responsibility for keeping these civilians safe.
• Violating this responsibility, a difficult if not impossible situation, is what Hamas builds upon in presenting their case.
• The dilemma faced by Israel is exacerbated by media reports, which adopt this subjective view of intersectional ideology and present morally symmetric descriptions in a situation where asymmetry abounds.

Dr. Mandsorph’s perceptions of the intersectional argument is worth reading. I recommend that you read the entire piece.