Tag Archives: Divrei Torah

Does the Command to “Love Our Fellows” Include “Loving Our Enemies Too?”

25 Friday Apr 2014

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In this week’s Torah portion Kedoshim a verse appears in the very center of the portion that Rabbi Akiva called “Klal gadol baTorah – a great rule of the Torah.”

The verse is among the most famous in the Bible, and I believe among the most misunderstood – “V’ahavta l’reiacha kamocha… You shall love your fellow/neighbor as yourself….” (Leviticus 19:18)

There are at least three questions this verse raises. The first is how a human being can be commanded to feel love?

Actually, we can’t, which means that the mitzvah to “love” must be understood as involving something other than feelings.

The spiritual teacher David Steindl-Rast writes that there’s one thing that characterizes “love” in all its forms – erotic, romantic, familial, tribal, national, spiritual, religious, even love we feel for our pets – and it is found in our yearning to belong to and be connected with something greater than ourselves.

“Love,” he says “is a wholehearted [and willful] ‘yes’ to belonging” (Essential Writings, p. 73) with all the implications that attachment to, responsibility for and accountability with others bring.

Our yearning to belong opens us to greater understanding of who we really are and what our role is in the world. That yearning links us heart to heart with others, with creatures large and small, with nature, the universe, the cosmos, and God.

Jewish mystics have taught for centuries a central truth, just as scientists today have concluded, that we are physically and spiritually part of a vast Oneness. We share common origins and a common destiny with each other, with every people and nation, and because of this we’re responsible for one another and accountable for how we behave with friend, foe and stranger alike.

Too often our idea of “self” as suggested in “You shall love your fellow as yourself,” is limited to our little egos. If that verse, however, is to mean something, then we need to think about “love” differently; not as a feeling alone, but as an attitude of the heart.

V’ahavta understood this way enables us to fulfill the commandment because our response is not based in a feeling but as an act of will that we exercise when we take responsibility for others because we belong to each other as part of the great Oneness of humankind.

What does it mean then to “love” someone as we love ourselves?

Rambam taught that if it’s ever a toss-up between saving our own lives and saving another, we’re obligated to save our own lives first.

Ramban (a century later) interprets the mitzvah as meaning that what we wish for ourselves we must also wish for others whether we know them or not.

The third question is perhaps the most challenging. Does this commandment call upon us actually to “love” our enemies in some way?

No. Indeed, there are some people we cannot wish well as we wish for ourselves because their deeds have been too heinous to tolerate or forgive.

That being said, I’ll never forget a speech delivered nearly thirty-six years ago on the White House lawn by Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin on the occasion of the signing of the Camp David Peace Accords with Egypt.

Begin told the world that day that the Jewish people considers it amongst the greatest of mitzvot to make of a “ra” ( an “evil” person –an enemy) into a “rea” (“a fellow” – a friend).

Though Egypt and Israel are hardly “friends” as we understand friendship between nations, it’s a fact that since that day, September 17, 1978, there has not been one day of war between Israel and Egypt.

There are many examples in which enemies have been transformed into “fellows” by sincere t’shuvah (penitence) and s’lichah (forgiveness) on the part of one or both parties.

Though Judaism doesn’t command us to “love” our enemies, tradition does require us to give a penitent person a chance at reconciliation.

As a people we’re only required to act ethically towards our enemies thereby leaving open the possibility of transformation should circumstances warrant it (see Exodus 23:4).

This week negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians verge on derailment, but we need to remember that once Germany was the Jewish people’s greatest enemy and today Germany is the least anti-Semitic country in Europe.

Germany and Japan were bitter foes of America seventy years ago, and Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland were killing each other. Today, these former enemies have laid down their guns and established peace.

My Israeli friend, Yaron Shavit, likes to say – “B’Yisrael ye-ush lo optsia! – In Israel, despair is not an option!”

That is an important attitude to remember as we keep open our hearts that we may now or in the future fulfill the mitzvah “V’ahavta l’reiacha kamocha!”

Shabbat shalom!

 

 

 

Erotic Poem, Intra-Divine Allegory – or Both?

18 Friday Apr 2014

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

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“The world is not as worthy as the day on which the Song of Songs was given to Israel, for all the writings are holy, but the Song of Songs is the Holy of Holies.”

So said Rabbi Akiva (2nd century Palestine), who believed that The Song of Songs, traditionally attributed to King Solomon as a young man, is an allegory between two lovers, God and Israel.

According to Moshe Idel, Professor of Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Kabbalah – New Perspectives, 1990), the 12th century Spanish mystic, Rabbi Ezra ben Solomon of Gerona, the 13th century Castilian mystic, Rabbi Isaac ibn Avi Sahula, and others focus on what are called the theosophical processes taking place between the two lower Sefirot of Tiferet (symbolized by the bridegroom) and Malchut (symbolized by the bride). According to these Kabbalists, both the biblical description and human love itself reflect or symbolize higher events within the metaphysical structure of God. (p. 206)

In other accounts, such as that of the 13th century Spanish Kabbalist, Avraham ben Shmuel Abulafia, The Song of Songs is an allegory of the intellect and its union with God.

These allegorical interpretations of The Song of Songs, beginning with Rabbi Akiva, are the basis upon which The Song of Songs is read each year on the Shabbat during Pesach, for it is then that we celebrate our people’s redemption on the one hand and the hoped-for-redemption of God within God’s Divine Self on the other.

All that being said, this extraordinarily enriched poetry seems at first glance to be a purely secular poem (God’s Name is never mentioned) celebrating young, sensuous and erotic love, the passionate draw of two lovers yearning for relief from their existential loneliness:

“For Love is strong as death / Harsh as the grave. / Its tongues are flames, a fierce / And holy blaze” (8:6 – Translation by Marcia Falk)

Taking the Songs as a secular poem, an allegory, or both, the emotional and spiritual longing can be sated only by one’s human and/or Divine lover.

The great Rav Avraham Isaac Kook wrote of the higher love this way (Translation by Ben Zion Bokser):

“Expanses divine my soul craves. / Confine me not in cages, / of substance or of spirit.

I am love-sick / I thirst, / I thirst for God, / as a deer for water brooks.

Alas, who can describe my pain? / Who will be a violin / to express the songs of my grief?

I am bound to the world, / all creatures, / all people are my friends.

Many parts of my soul / are intertwined with them, / But how can I share with them my light.”

          Shabbat shalom and Moadim L’simchah!

 

 

 

 

Israeli MKs Need a Course in Anger Management – D’var Torah Ki Tisa

12 Wednesday Feb 2014

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

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Last week I was stuck in a traffic jam and one driver’s road rage was so intense that I feared a physical attack. It didn’t happen, but I got to thinking about how anger plagues so many of us and how badly it disturbs our relationships, our character and civil discourse.

This week’s Torah portion, Ki Tisa, pulls the veil off Moses’ rage. It is a famous scene. Moses is carrying the tablets of the law down from Mount Sinai when Joshua tells him of the people’s celebration around the golden calf. As Moses approaches the camp he hears for himself the revelry, his anger is kindled, and with righteous indignation he confronts the people, smashes the tablets, burns the golden calf, grinds it to powder, mixes the pulverized idol with water, and force-feeds the substance into the gullets of the guilty Israelites. (Exodus 32:15-20).

His rage still boiling over, in the next chapter we read, “Now Moses took the tent and pitched outside the camp.” (Exodus 33:7).

The Jerusalem Talmud (B’chorim 3:3) explains why he pitched the Tent of Meeting so far away from the camp:

“…because he was tired of the people’s constant complaining and criticism. As he would walk around the camp some would say ‘look at his thick neck, his fat legs, he must eat up all our money.’”

Moses moved the tent of meeting out of sight so that those who desired truly to come close to God would have to make the effort to do so.

God, however, appealed to Moses (Midrash Rabbah 45:2):

“I want you to change your mind, go back to the camp, and deal with the people face to face, as it says ‘The Eternal would speak to Moses face to face as one person speaks to another.’” (Exodus 33:11)

We can’t blame Moses for his impatience with the people. He had lived with their obstinacy, distrust and faithlessness since leaving Egypt. However, tradition reminds us that magnanimity of mind, heart and soul, compassion and patience are critical virtues in a leader and that once the leader loses control due to anger or despair, so too do the leader’s moral credibility and authority evaporate.

As a congregational rabbi and leader of a large religious institution, I have learned over more than 35 years of service that the very worst thing I could do is to respond to anyone impatiently and in anger, because when I would do so my credibility is compromised and my moral authority diminished. I believe this is true about leadership in religious institutions, in all kinds of business, in non-profit organizations, in the arts, education, government, politics, and diplomacy.

With this in mind, I have been shocked by the angry, intemperate and hostile accusations leveled against Secretary of State John Kerry by Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz, Likud MK and Deputy Minister Ofir Akunis, and especially by Economics Minister and Jewish Home party chairman Naftali Bennett who recently called Secretary Kerry an anti-Semite. US National Security Advisor Susan Rice was quick to respond, and properly so, by defending Secretary Kerry’s integrity, friendship to the state of Israel, and sincere motivations in his peace efforts, as did Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli President Shimon Peres.

As if these extremist and intemperate remarks weren’t enough, at the same time an orthodox Israeli Knesset member David Rotem, who serves as the chairman of the Knesset Law, Constitution and Justice Committee, said that the Reform movement “is not Jewish. It is another religion.” In response Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the President of the North American Union for Reform Judaism, and Rabbi Gilad Kariv, Executive Director of the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism, called on the Israeli government to censure MK Rotem and remove him from his leadership roles.

At the very least, full and sincere apologies from these leaders are in order.

It is my position that a leader of the state of Israel who continuously insults United States officials and dismisses the legitimacy of a major religious movement of the Jewish people should be dismissed from his/her leadership duties.

Tradition says that Moses ultimately lost his dream to enter the Promised Land because in anger at the people he struck a rock with a stick instead of speaking to it as God had commanded him.

The Talmud reminds us that “When a person loses his temper – If he is originally wise, he loses his wisdom, and if he is a prophet, he loses his prophecy.” (Babylonian Talmud, Pesachim 66b).

If Moses could be so diminished by his anger that God would deny him his most cherished dream then so too should leaders of the Israeli government lose their positions when their words are insulting and intemperate.

The Yin-Yang of Prophetic and Priestly Leadership – D’var Torah Tetzaveh

07 Friday Feb 2014

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Thirty times does Aaron’s name appear in this week’s Torah portion, while the name Moses is completely absent, except by inference three times using the second person pronoun “You.” Moses’ absence is explained by commentators in a number of ways, and this one (my favorite) is found in a famous midrash emphasizing Moses’ selflessness in defense of the people at the sin of the golden calf.

As God prepared to destroy the people, Moses told the Almighty that he ought to be destroyed too and that God should remove him from his “Book” because he, Moses, could not live without his people.

God appealed to his prophet, “Could you really stand to have your name taken out of this Book?”

“Yes, if it would save my people.”

So God took the name of Moses out of this one sidra to test whether Moses could stand it or not. Moses passed the test, continued working, and God, seeing that his prophet was resolute, selfless and sincere, relented and forgave the people of their greatest sin.

Regardless of the actual reason that Moses’ name is missing completely in this parashah, the emphasis this week is on Aaron as High Priest and not on Moses as prophetic leader, thus giving us an opportunity to reflect on the unique nature of Aaron’s exalted role.

The brothers represent, in truth, two distinct and different kinds of leadership; one as charismatic prophet and the other as an institution-bound High Priest.

Moses needs no special clothing or external signs to establish himself as leader. Aaron wears the “sacral vestments” thereby defining him in his priestly dignity.

Though loved by the people, Aaron’s leadership is encumbered by institutional constraints. Contained, measured, conservative, conventional, and non-reactive, Aaron’s priestly world changes slowly, if at all. Ritual defines time and occasion. Disorder is shunned, chaos anathema, the breaking of rules unacceptable.

Moses, despite his role as lawgiver and chief magistrate, is by nature and temperament Aaron’s opposite. Windswept and inspirational, the prophet reaches for the stars and communes with God. Consumed in divine light, he is a dreamer who establishes a new world order by smashing the past’s idols. He ventures alone into the desert, his hair and beard turned white and he transcends human convention.

Society needs both a Moses and an Aaron, prophet and priest, the yin and yang of ancient Biblical life. Without Aaron there would be little stability and societal order, and public life would succumb to the worst excesses in the human condition. Without Moses’ prophetic zeal, there would be little vision and hope for change towards a more inspired and just social order.

One important lesson for us as we reflect on how Moses and Aaron complemented one another is that shared leadership and multiple leadership styles are preferable over the leadership of the one. A division of power not only prevents the principle leader from experiencing burn-out, as Jethro taught his son-in law in Exodus 18, but decentralization of responsibility creates a system of checks and balances that can contain zealotry, prevent rigidity and enable progress.

The three times in this portion when God actually addresses Moses with the pronoun “you” we glimpse three specific modes in which the wise leader ought to respond to the needs of the community.

The first comes at the beginning of the portion; “V’atah t’zaveh et b’nai Yisrael… – You shall command the children of Israel…” (Exodus 27:20)

Here we see that a strong leader must be confident enough to command (i.e. take control) when  necessary. However, if he does so constantly and in every instance he runs the risk of straining his authority and losing his followers.

The second time God addresses Moses is in the next chapter – “V’atah hakrev eleicha et Aharon achicha v’et banav ito mitoch bnei Ysirael l’chahano li…  – You shall bring close to you Aaron your brother and his sons with you into the midst of the children of Israel…”. (Exodus 28:1)

In this instance we see that the leader ought to undergo a selfless act of tzimzum (contraction) and delegate responsibilities to others. Even as the leader contracts, however, he enables by contraction to draw others closer to him thus maintaining authority.

And the final instance in which God addresses Moses is “V’atah t’dabeir et kol chochmei lev asher mileitiv ruach chocham… – And you shall speak to all those wise in heart and filled with the spirit of wisdom…” (Exodus 28:3).

The leader has to presume wisdom in others, and that dialogue and persuasion are necessary in bringing everyone along to desired ends.

Moses’ and Aaron’s examples suggest that great leadership requires not just vision and moral rectitude, but love of truth, love of humanity, wisdom, humility, respect for the dignity of every individual, and a commitment to enhance the common good.

Shabbat shalom!

 

 

 

Creating Tabernacles of the Heart and Community – D’var Torah T’rumah

31 Friday Jan 2014

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Three of our greatest Jewish philosophers and scholars of early 20th century German life were Martin Buber, Franz Rozenzweig and Benno Jacob, and all noticed the parallel between the story of the Creation in the Book of Genesis and the building of the Tabernacle in the Book of Exodus, the latter of which is the focus of this week’s Torah portion, Trumah. Here are some of those parallels:

“Thus the heaven and earth were finished and all the host of them.” (Genesis) – “Thus was finished all the work of the Tabernacle at the tent of meeting.” (Exodus)

“And God finished on the seventh day all the work of divine creation.” (Genesis) – “And Moses finished the work.” (Exodus)

“And God made the firmament.” (Genesis) – “And let them make Me a sanctuary.” (Exodus)

“And God rested on the seventh day.” (Genesis) – “And the seventh day God called unto Moses out of the midst of the cloud and Moses entered into the midst of the cloud.” (Exodus)

“And God saw everything that God had made.” (Genesis) – “And Moses saw all the work.” (Exodus)

“And God blessed the seventh day.” (Genesis) – “And Moses blessed them.” (Exodus)

Comparing verses from the narratives shines a light on the co-relation between Creation and the structure that would house the tablets of the law during the period of wandering, the Tabernacle. We soon learn the purpose of this sacred structure: “V’asu li mikdash v’shachanti b’tocham – Make for me a Sanctuary and I will dwell amongst them – lit. in them.”(Exodus 25:8)

The Kabbalah sees hints of deeper truths about the Mishkan (the in-dwelling Place of God amongst the people) using number symbolism. For example, the verb “asah – makes” appears ten times in the Genesis creation narrative, and twenty-two times in the story of the building of the Sanctuary (Exodus 25).

The number ten is commonly associated with the Ten Commandments, but also it points to the Ten Emanations (S’firot) of God in the Kabbalistic picture of the universe.

The number twenty-two are the number of letters of the Hebrew aleph bet that rabbinic tradition teaches are the basic building blocks of language and of the created world.

Adding ten and twenty-two brings us to thirty-two, (Lamed-bet – or “Lev”), meaning “heart”. In Jewish mystical literature, the “heart” is the place of intuitive wisdom, and Kaballah teaches that there are 32 pathways to wisdom, that is, to God’s own heart.

Heady stuff all! So, what does it mean for us in real-world terms?

The purpose of the Mishkan isn’t just to house God’s Name. The greater purpose is tikun (the healing of a human life – tikun hanefesh – and the restoration of the world – tikun haolam).

During the period of wandering the Mishkan became a traveling Mt. Sinai. Eventually the structure was carried to the City of David and eventually rested above in the new Temple of Solomon. Following the destruction of both Temples, the Mishkan, holding the sacred scroll of the law, was carried into exile so that whenever Jews read Torah publicly they would be spiritually transported to Sinai again, as at the beginning when God first appeared on the mountain.

The Mishkan, therefore is the Place of God and the community’s place, of transcendence and engagement, of vision and ethical responsibility, of love, compassion, justice, truth, and peace.

Synagogues today are our Mishkenot. Each human life is a Mishkan. Our purpose, is to become a holy vessel, as Rebbe Nachman of Bratzlav explains:

“The Divine presence is always flowing into the world, but we need an inner vessel to receive it. That’s created through the act of giving (t’rumah), because when the heart opens to give freely….a vessel is made.”

The act of giving not only sustains a community, it creates a community of like-minded people bonded together who care about the greater purposes for which we as Jews live. Building sanctuaries for the Jewish people, sustaining our fellows (Jews and everyone else as well) in all the ways that they need, supporting causes that advocate for peace, promote knowledge, education, medical care, and and basic human decency, all are included in this greatest of all commandments – “V’asu li mikdash v’shachanti b’tocham – Make for me a Sanctuary and I will dwell amongst them – lit. in them.”(Exodus 25:8)

Shabbat shalom!

The Connecting Vav of Mount Sinai and Our Lives – D’var Torah Mishpatim

24 Friday Jan 2014

Posted by in Book Recommendations, Divrei Torah, Health and Well-Being, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life

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Last week’s Torah portion, Yitro, presented the Biblical equivalent of “shock and awe” like nothing that had happened to the Israelites before or since. Among the narrative’s highlights are descriptions of fire and clouds over the mountain, the descent of the physical manifestation of God upon Sinai, and the giving of Ten commandments.

This week, in Parashat Mishpatim, we shift from divine revelation to foundations in law. Fifty-three mitzvot are enumerated as part of “The Covenant Code” of Exodus, one of three law codes in the Hebrew Bible.

The parashah opens with the letter Vav – “And these are the judgments/laws/rules that you shall place before them…” thus connecting what came before with what will come.

As noted, the infinite God met the people personally at Mount Sinai – “N’vuah sh’mag’shima et otz’mah – What was spoken to Moses became manifest.” Rabbi Meir Leibush ben Yehiel Michel Wisser (the Malbim – 1809-1879) described that moment; “The people saw what could be heard and heard what could be seen, because of the inner awareness granted them at that time.”

That great event at Sinai opened the people’s consciousness to the non-rational realm of soul, spirit, metaphysics, and higher universes. Mystics of later generations experienced it, and in modern times we have many testimonies by those who have had “Near Death Experiences.” Among the most recent and remarkable is told by Dr. Eben Alexander in his book Proof of Heaven – A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife.

Dr. Alexander suddenly and unexpectedly was attacked by e. coli meningitis. For seven days he was into a coma during which time his brain’s pre-frontal cortex, the seat of consciousness, awareness and knowledge, shut down. His doctors and family expected him to die, but he survived and wrote this book telling of his experience.

He had been an atheist before, but this experience turned him into a God-believer. He was a trained scientist who valued reason above all else, but now he told of the existence of universes far greater than the mind. He wrote:

“Seeing and hearing were not separate in this place…. I could hear the visual beauty of the silvery bodies of … scintillating beings above, and I could see the surging, joyful perfection of what they sang. … you could not look at or listen to anything in this world without becoming a part of it … you couldn’t look at anything in that world at all, for the word at itself implies a separation that did not exist there.”

“I saw the abundance of life throughout … countless universes, including some whose intelligence was advanced far beyond that of humanity. I saw … countless higher dimensions, but … the only way to know these dimensions is to enter and experience them directly. They cannot be known, or understood, from lower dimensional space.”

[What I learned is that] “You are loved and cherished…[with] nothing to fear. …Love is the basis of everything. … the kind of love we feel when we look at our spouse and our children, or even our animals. In its purest and most powerful form, this love is not jealous or selfish, but unconditional. This is the reality of realities, the incomprehensibly inglorious truth of truths that lives and breathes at the core of everything that exists or that ever will exist, and no remotely accurate understanding of who and what we are can be achieved by anyone who does not know it, and embody it in all of their actions.”

Dr. Alexander articulated what can only be described as divine revelation, available always, but hindered to most of us by the constraints of our physicality and the strengths of our reason.

This week’s Torah portion turns us towards the material world we inhabit and establishes just and compassionate rules to perfect our public and private behavior and to refine our sense of moral responsibility and accountability.

The world the mystic sees of divine unity and the one in which we live of disjointedness and brokenness are, in truth, of the same continuum. The God of revelation is the God of commandment. Mitzvot grow out of a metaphysical vision of oneness experienced at Sinai and by Dr. Alexander. That is why our tradition evolves into law, not as an end but as the means of repair (tikkun) and return to unity (achdut).

What is above is below. The mitzvot make God the center of our lives from the moment of birth to the moment of death and beyond. The Aleinu says it succinctly, “L’taken ha-olam b’malchut Shaddai – [that our purpose is] To restore the world in the image of the dominion of God.”

Shabbat Shalom.

Before and After Sinai – A Poem/Drash for B’shalach

10 Friday Jan 2014

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Almighty One: / Was not Moses Your most intimate friend / With whom you spoke face to face / Who You sent to confront Pharaoh / To diminish his name / That Yours might be established / As The Creator and Redeemer of heaven and earth?

Was not Moses Your most cherished shepherd / Who stood strong before the despot / Spoke with broken and heavy speech / Words You placed in his mouth?

Was not Moses Your voice, / And extended hand, / And fingers touching / Water, earth, wind, / And fire, / The all of the all / And beyond?

This friend, shepherd, and prophet / Tended Your people / Through salt-water walls, / Mud and muck / To birth them / And lead them / To You on the mountain / To be Your treasured and cherished people.

But You used Moses / And worked against him / By stiffening Pharaoh’s heart / To demonstrate Your power.

He was Your proxy / And it was You / Who polluted the waters, / And destroyed the crops, / And killed the cattle, / And the first-born.

Moses deserved better / For all he did / On Your behalf / For the sake of Your Name / Than to die alone / And forsaken / In a wilderness grave?

Yes – We can understand / That justice needed a strong fist / Against Pharaoh’s tyranny. / Small minds needed to cower / Before the shock and awe of Your power.

Yes – We can understand  / That You did what You had to do / And used Your prophet / As a means to a greater end.

Before Sinai You commanded Moses / To take his stick and hit a rock / When the people complained of thirst – / And he did as You told him to do.

Moses brought them to You at Sinai / To see Your clouds of fire, / And he taught that in place of the fist / Words are stronger / The spirit sharper than swords / And all must live peacefully / Under their vines and their fig trees / With none to terrorize them.

That was Your dream / Carried by Your prophets / And Moses was the most beloved of all.

Yet, after Sinai / Little changed in the human heart. / Your people are still small-minded / And constricted by need and jealousy / Anger and hate. / They were not ready to live by Your Word alone; / And as the days passed, / And the years rolled by,

Miriam died, / And her waters dried too / And the people complained again / Having forgotten Your dream / And the shock and awe of You.

Now Moses became old / And he lost patience / For the bickering and complaining.

He had restrained You once / At the Golden Calf – / Or have You forgotten? / You sought the destruction of the world / But Moses stayed Your Hand / Quelled Your rage / Because he cared more / About the innocent among his people / Than honoring You.

After Sinai You commanded Moses / To speak – this time – to the rock / That water would flow / And quench their thirst; / But he took the stick / And beat the rock / As he had done before.

This time You punished him / And took from him his cherished dream / To glimpse the Promised Land.

He did everything you asked of him, / Except this once. / In spite You made him die alone / Amid bare thorns and weeds / Without the angels knowing / The Place from which his soul left him.

Moses disappointed You / As we have disappointed You / As You have disappointed us!

 

 

 

 

O Purest of Souls – D’var Torah Sh’mot

19 Thursday Dec 2013

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The Book of Exodus is essentially a story about God’s saving love for the oppressed Israelites. It begins with the birth of Moses and follows him as a young prince and then as he turned into a rebel and outlaw, then a shepherd, and finally THE prophet of God.

Why Moses? What was so unique about him that God chose him to be his most intimate prophet?

Moses was a complex man; passionate, pure, just, humble, at home nowhere, carrying always his people’s burdens while hearing God’s words.

Moses was absolutely unique, the only prophet to speak panim el panim (“face to face”) with God, and that is what my drash-poem is about. Moses is the most important Jew in our history and our gold standard of a religious, moral and political leader.

In our own time the world has benefited from great leaders including Mahatma Gandhi, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, Dr. Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama, and President Nelson Mandela. Nevertheless, Moses stands alone.

So often we walk in a daze, / Eyes sunk into creviced faces / Fettered to worldly tasks / And blind to rainbows.

I imagine Moses, in Midian, like that, / Brooding in exile,  / Burdened by the people’s suffering, / Knowing each day / Their screaming in stopped-up hearts / And their shedding of silent tears.

A simple shepherd he was, / Staff in hand counting sheep / Until one day / Weaving through rocks /Among bramble bushes he heard / Thorns popping. / Turning his head / His eyes opened  / As if for the first time.

God had long before / taken note of him,  / From his birth,  / But waited until this moment  / To choose him as Prophet.

Dodi dofek pit’chi li  / A-choti ra-yati  / yo-nati ta-mati. / “Open to me, my dove, / my twin,  / my undefiled one.” (Song of Songs 5:2)

Moses heard God’s voice / and beheld angels,  / His soul flowing in sacred rivers / Of Shechinah light.

‘Why me?  / Why am I so privileged / To behold such wonder?  / Unworthy as I am!’

God said, / ‘Moses – I have chosen you  / Because your heart is burdened / and worried,  / Because you know the world’s cruelty,  / and you have not become cruel. / Nor do you stand by idly / when others bleed.

You are a tender of sheep,  / And you will lead my people  / With the shepherd’s staff  / And inspire them / To open their stopped-up hearts / without fear.’

Trembling, Moses looked again  / Into the bush-flames,  / Free from smoke and ash.

His eyes opened as in a dream  / And he heard a soft-murmuring-sound  / The same that breath makes / As it passes through lips.

MOSHE MOSHE!—HINEINI!

Two voices—One utterance!  / He hid his face  / For the more Moses heard  / The brighter was the light  / And he knew he must turn away / Or die.

The prophet’s thoughts were free  / Soaring beyond form / No longer of self. / To this very day there has not been a purer soul / Than his.

God said, / ‘Come no closer, Moses! / Remove your shoes,  / Stand barefoot;  /  I want your soul.

I am here with you  / And in you –  / I am every thing  / And no thing –  / And you are Me. / I see that which is  / And which is not  / And I hear it all.

Take heed shepherd-prince / For My people‘s blood / Calls to Me from the ground, / And the living suffer / A thousand deaths.

You must take them out!  / Every crying child – / Every lashed man – / Every woman screaming.

And Moses, know this / “With weeping they will come, / And with compassion will I guide them.” (Jeremiah 31:8)

The people’s exile began with tears  / And it will end with tears.

I have recorded their story in a Book – / Black fire on white fire – / Letters on parchment  / Telling of slaves  / Seeing light  / And turning to Me  / To become a nation.

The Book is My spirit,  / The letters are My heart, / They are near to you  / That you might do them  / And teach them  / And redeem My world  / And free every human being –  / My cherished children all –  / That the world might not be consumed / In flames.

That book I give to you / O purest of souls.

Jewish Survival is NOT a Given – Miketz Meets Hanukah

29 Friday Nov 2013

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Divrei Torah, Holidays, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Stories, Uncategorized

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This week Joseph finds himself imprisoned on the false charge of trying to seduce Potifar’s wife. Already known as a dream interpreter, Joseph is called from the dungeons to interpret Pharaoh’s seemingly inscrutable dreams, and convinces Pharaoh that God has blessed him with far-sighted wisdom and the grace of success. Consequently, Pharaoh elevates Joseph to the position of the kingdom’s chief overseer, second in power only to Pharaoh himself.

In his position Joseph deftly manages the realm, and when the years of famine arrive as predicted, word spreads that Egypt has stockpiled an overabundance of grain, and that surrounding peoples can seek sustenance from the throne.

Suffering the effects of the famine along with everyone else, Jacob instructs his surviving older sons to procure food for the family, lest they all die, and they appear before Joseph.

In the dramatic conclusion in next week’s parasha, Joseph will reveal his true identity to his brothers and explain that their sale of him served his life’s purpose, that God had sent him ahead into Egypt as a slave to save his family.

Joseph is a key transitional figure between the patriarchal era in Genesis and the birth of the spiritual nation of Israel in Exodus. As such, he was the first court Jew in history. He understood Egyptian culture and society. He spoke the language, dressed as a native, took an Egyptian name, married an Egyptian woman, and sired children, the very first Hebrew children to be born in Diaspora.

Despite his acculturation, Joseph did not become an Egyptian, nor did he forsake his ancestral faith. Indeed, he is the prototype of a politically powerful leader who assures Jewish survival.

Fast forward to the second century B.C.E. For 200 years Greek culture had been spreading throughout the lands of the Mediterranean. Jews were attracted to Greek population centers, to the abstract sciences, humanism, philosophy, and commerce.

By the time of the Maccabees (165 B.C.E.), Jews living in the land of Israel had divided into three distinct groups; traditionalists living in villages who followed the priests and observed Jewish law; radical Hellenists living in the cities who saw no advantage in remaining Jewish, who named their children using Greek names, spoke Greek, stopped circumcising their sons, ceased celebrating Shabbat and the Hagim, and rejected kashrut; and the moderately Hellenized Jews who lived as Greeks but maintained their Jewish cultural identity.

When finally the radical Hellenizers conspired with the Greek King Antiochus IV to introduce a pantheon of gods into the Jerusalem Temple, including the sacrifice of the detested pig, moderate Jews were shocked and rose up to fight alongside the traditionalists and save Judaism and the Jewish people from destruction.

For Joseph, Jewish survival meant remembering who he was as an Israelite living in exile. For the Maccabees and their moderate Jewish allies, it meant war in the ancestral homeland.

In these opening years of the 21st century, we liberal American Jews are confronted with a serious challenge. Of the 5.5 million American Jews, 2 million identify with the liberal non-orthodox religious streams, 600,000 with the orthodox and the rest as “just Jewish” and marginal at best.

The recently published Pew Study of the American Jewish community makes it clear that if current trends continue, 30 years from now liberal Jews will diminish by 30% to 1.4 million total, assuming that our current 1.7 children per family birthrate continues and we do not reverse the loss of 75% of the children born to intermarriages who do not identify as Jews. The current intermarriage rate is upwards of 60%. The orthodox community’s birthrate is a shy less than 5 children per family, meaning that in 30 years orthodox Jews will double their numbers.

The declining birthrate in liberal American Jewry is a real threat to our survival. We will need to increase our birthrate, create a more compelling liberal faith that attracts more converts, more intermarried families, more LGBT Jews, and retains all who struggle with faith and claim to be atheists but who feel culturally, ethically and ancestrally Jewish. And we will have to educate everyone better than we do in Jewish history, literature, tradition, and thought.

The core of the challenge is as old as Joseph, and is as Ari Shavit writes in “My Promised Land – The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel”:

“…how to maintain Jewish identity in an open world not shielded by the walls of a ghetto,…[with] secularization and emancipation eroding the old formula of Jewish survival…”

and, I would add for those who have faith, that places God in the center of our people’s daily life and identity.

Hanukah and Miketz remind us that Jewish survival is not a given, that the State of Israel and American Jewry, especially now, need each other to thrive and depend upon each other to survive.

Shabbat shalom and Hag Hanukah sameach!

A Poem on Forgiveness – For Parashat Vayeshev

23 Saturday Nov 2013

Posted by in Divrei Torah, Poetry, Uncategorized

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I can’t stop the dreams / That come in the night, / For even while awake / I’m gazing towards light.

My mother died, / My father sighed, / And he wondered / What might become of me / And my dreams?

Trusting a man along the way / I found my brothers lying in wait / To banish me from the clan, / And send me away.

They could not utter aloud / Even my name, / And, casting me into a pit / They spat me away / And broke my father’s heart.

My name had been written with stars – / But I became a slave  / And as flesh in a woman’s heart.

Her master, incensed / Sent me to Sheol, / But still a seer / I glimpsed a glow / And blessings bubbled / Into my dreams.

Alas, I was given reprieve, / Restored to the King, / And I served him faithfully / With shaven head, an Egyptian name, / Secure at his right hand.

There, alone, my heart hardened, / I trusted no one, / Neither man nor angel, / But I dreamed my dreams / And waited for redemption.

My brothers came, / Their faces forlorn, / Begging for bread / Before the throne, / Thinking me Viceroy, / With scepter in hand, / Not as Joseph / From their clan.

My heart had shut down / For twenty odd years / My love blown away / In cold desert tears.

As my father re-dug his father’s old wells, / Seeing my brothers / I recalled where I dwelt, / And water seeped up / Into my steeped-up heart, / To open me to love again.

I forgave them / And brought them near, / And saved them / from their fears, / As God intended / all these years.