Tag Archives: Ethics

Elul – The Season to Forgive

08 Thursday Aug 2013

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With the beginning of the Hebrew month of Elul yesterday (August 7) we count down the days to Rosh Hashanah (30) and Yom Kippur (40). During this period, t’shuvah (return to family, friends, community, Torah, God) is the spiritual and emotional per-occupation of the Jewish world. Central in this process of return is the ability to forgive others, ourselves and God.

Forgiving those who hurt us is among the most difficult emotional challenges in our lives. According to a 2001 study, Psychologist Loren Toussaint and colleagues at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, it was learned that men have a more difficult time forgiving than do women, and men have a more difficult time asking forgiveness of others than do women (LA Times, September 9, 2002).

The study upon which this article was based that appeared in an article in the Journal of Adult Development (2001) also found that those people who have forgiving personalities “have fewer psychological problems, feel more satisfied with their lives and are generally healthier than grudge holders.”

It goes without saying that unresolved anger has a negative impact on our marriages and our other relationships because anger hardens the heart and distances us from others feeding mistrust and getting in the way of intimacy.

The best antidote to anger is forgiveness, which really means letting go of what once occurred. Doing so does not require us to forget the harm that another caused us, but it does enable us to relieve ourselves of the negative burdens of the past.

I love this statement by the poet, novelist and playwrite Alden Nowlan (1933-1983), and I offer it at the beginning of this season of forgiveness, return and renewal:

“The day the child realizes that all adults are imperfect, s/he becomes an adolescent; the day s/he forgives them, s/he becomes an adult; the day s/he forgives him/herself, s/he becomes wise.”

“What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank” – By Nathan Englander – Book Review

24 Wednesday Jul 2013

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Book Recommendations, Ethics, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Stories, Uncategorized

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What I appreciate most about Nathan Englander’s new collection of short stories, “What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank” (publ. Alfred A. Knopf, 2012), is not only his gifts as a writer, story teller and psychologically sophisticated observer of people, but that he actually knows something about Judaism, Jewish history, modern Orthodoxy, Ultra-Orthodoxy, the secular Jewish world, the state of Israel, and the place of the Holocaust in the psyche of the Jewish people.

Mr. Englander was born in 1960 in New York, raised on Long Island and educated in Orthodox schools through high school. In his mid-thirties, he moved to Israel where he lived for five years, but returned to the states and moves between Brooklyn, New York and Madison, Wisconsin where he teaches fiction and creative writing.

His Jewish/Israeli/secular background plays itself out in all his stories. He is at once an insider and outsider, sympathetic to the Jew as victim and vanquisher, and he knows Jewish tradition, though I suspect he  is no longer Orthodox himself. I sense, as well, that despite the darkness that undergird his stories, he sees the world through a comic and ironic eye as some of his stories are at once absurd and hysterical.

Englander’s eight stories, mostly involving Jewish characters and 20th century Jewish experience, touch upon many themes; the limits of love using the Holocaust as a backdrop in the title story (“What we Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank”); the very different fates and destinies that befall two Israeli sisters who move into the West Bank after the 1967 Six Day War with their husbands and children to establish a settlement that eventually grows into a city (“Two Sisters”) – one sister loses her husband and all her children in war and a freak accident and the other survives with 9 children; the revenge-filled encounter with an anti-Semitic bully in America that is reminiscent of Bernard Malamud (“How We Avenged the Blums”); a dream sexual fantasy of a married protagonist who has lost his faith but is still plagued by Orthodox Judaism’s moral strictures (“Peep Show”); the influence of a person’s family history, familial bonds and memory on his heart, mind and soul long after everyone has died (“Everything I know About My Family On My Mother’s Side”); the ease towards paranoia among Holocaust survivors who, in an unlikely setting of an American seniors summer camp, accuse another survivor of being a former Nazi (“Camp Sundown”); the pain and loneliness of a once famous writer whose fan base is now old, dying but ever-demanding (“The Reader”); and the legacy of the death camps on a boy survivor who returned after the liberation as the only one left in his family to his boyhood home to discover his “governess” plotting to murder him in order that her family will keep his family’s farm (“Free Fruit for Young Widows”).

Every story is provocative, imaginative, engaging, entertaining, moving, and memorable. As a whole, they challenge the modern Jew to think about the nature of one’s Jewish identity in modernity, the role of religion, God, faith, culture, and history in forming who we are, and our capacity for evil and revenge. These stories are complex and operate on multiple levels from the real to imaginary to allegorical. They will leave you impressed by Englander’s skills,  moved and wondering – who am I?

Where Ever You Go There You Are! – D’var Torah Parashat Mattot-Masei

04 Thursday Jul 2013

Posted by in Divrei Torah, Ethics, Health and Well-Being, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life

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Twenty years ago the physician and Zen Master, Jon Kabat-Zinn, wrote a book he called “Where Ever You Go There You Are.” The book’s title has stayed with me and it has helped me to focus not only on why I do what I do, but also on why others might behave as they do.

We are who we are where ever we are, and that means that we carry with us trunk loads of emotional baggage – fear, trauma, anger, resentment, disappointment, as well as our loves, passions, joys, dreams, and hopes. Consequently, for better and worse, we often respond to situations not based on who or what stands before us, but rather out of the “stuff” we carry in our emotional trunks that have nothing to do with present circumstances.

The idea that “Where ever you go, there you are” begs the question – Can people really change their orientation in the world, or are we fated because of our personal histories to think, feel and behave as we have always done?

Judaism affirms that we can change and evolve, though slowly, incrementally and often with sacrifice and pain.

In this week’s double Torah portion Matot-Masei , our sages affirm this truth as they reflect upon Moses’ list of 42 places through which he and the Israelites passed during the 40 years of wandering (Numbers 33).

The book of Numbers as a whole (the 42 places act as chronological signposts) enumerates the people’s disillusionment and struggle, temptation, rebellion, and broken faith. If there is a common theme to Numbers, it’s that the people wanted to be somewhere else, anywhere else than where they were.

Commentators asked why Moses enumerated these 42 places. The Malbim (1809-1879) suggested that because their experience in Egypt was so filled with suffering, it was necessary before they entered the Land of Canaan to exorcise, a little bit at a time in each of the 42 places, a measure of the pain, resentment, humiliation, and defilement that they bore. Then they would be able to meet God in a pure state in the land.

Their redemption from Egypt, therefore, was gradual and progressive spread out over 40 years. With this understanding of the Biblical narrative, the Talmud says that when we are brought before God for heavenly judgment, we’ll be asked Tzapita l’yeshua (“Did you anticipate redemption?”) (Shabbat 31a).  In other words, did you undo wrongs you committed? Did you do restore your relationships with family and friends, colleagues, community, the Jewish people, and God? Did you forgive? Did you act from fear or faith? Did you restore justice and mercy? Did you live with high moral standards, with kindness and integrity?

Rav Abraham Isaac Kook taught

“…we should feel that we are like a limb of a great organism….that we are part of a nation, which, in turn, is part of humanity. The betterment of each individual contributes to the life of the larger community, thus advancing the redemption of the nation and the universe.”

The end of Numbers finds Moses and the Israelites encamped on the steppes of Moab, at the Jordan River near Jericho. They had not as yet entered the land, but, say the commentators, they did as individuals and as a community relieve themselves of the burdens and defilement, humiliation and degradation of Egypt, and so they could answer collectively “Yes” to the question, Tzapita l’yeshua – Did you anticipate redemption?

What about us? What fears, trauma, anger, resentment, and disappointment do carry with us that we need to release in order to encounter others as individuals and as a community appropriately?

The good news is that we can make choices. We do not have to do things the same way we have always done them. Nor do we have to presume the same responses of others that we’ve experienced before. We have the capacity to be self-critical and, by an act of will, transform who we are and where we are in our lives.

“Where ever you go there you are?” This is a true statement, but the supplementary questions are as important to ask and answer – Where are we? Who are we? And do we need to remain where we are if fear, distrust, pain, and resentment keep us in Egypt far from the Promised Land.

This is what I believe our Torah portion is asking of us as individuals and as a people this week, to break from the chains that keep us far from redemption.

May our journeys transform and uplift us.

Shabbat Shalom.

The Challenge of Defining Who is a Jew and What is an Israeli Today – A Book Review

30 Sunday Jun 2013

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The 188th Crybaby Brigade – A Skinny Jewish Kid from Chicago Fights Hezbollah, by Joel Chasnoff (publ. 2010) is a well-written, insightful, at times hysterically funny memoir of a young American Yeshiva bucher who sought to live the complete modern Jewish experience while shedding the diaspora coat of victimhood. He made aliyah, enlisted in the Israeli army, did basic training, was chosen “Outstanding Soldier of the Platoon,” fought the Hezbollah as a tank commander in Lebanon, and got engaged to a beautiful Israeli woman.

One would think that he had arrived. But not so fast!

Joel’s army experience was not what he expected. He was, in fact, disheartened by the capricious, nasty, sadistic, and dehumanizing treatment of recruits by some of the commanders. Yet, after three weeks of training he reflected that

“…mandatory army service is the reason why Israelis are the way they are: aggressive, hotheaded, and stubborn on the one hand, and, on the other, unbelievably generous and community minded. It’s because these are army values. And since just about every Israeli comes of age in the army, these values become national values.”

When he finished his service, Joel and his fiancé Dorit sought out an Israeli Orthodox rabbi to officiate at their wedding, but upon inquiring into Joel’s family past, the rabbi said, “You are not a Jew!”

As Joel and Dorit sat there bewildered, the rabbi explained that though Joel’s mother had converted before he was born with an American Orthodox rabbi, she was instructed by a Conservative rabbi who “practiced an invalid brand of Judaism.”

Dorit was furious, and, pounding her fist on the desk, shouted, “A young man risks his life for the Jewish state, and you have the chutzpah to say [he’s not a Jew]… Rabbi, did your sons serve in the army?… You don’t mind if he dies for your country, so long as he doesn’t get married here.”

Joel was devastated: “It’s as if my entire identity just got kicked in the nuts, and then it hits me: As far as this country is concerned, I’m a Gentile….I was enraged at how Israel had stabbed me in the back.”

He then reflected about his identity and Israel’s dilemma:

“I was a Jew, through and through. I couldn’t reinvent myself if I tried…. I’m not the one [however] with the identity crisis. Israel is. I know exactly who I am, but after two generations in which Israel defined itself as a post-Holocaust haven from antiSemitism – in other words, the past – Israel now faces a much greater challenge: defining its future. In the meantime, the country has no idea who it is. It’s a democracy with no separation between church and state. It’s a sovereign nation with only one rigidly defined border: the Mediterranean Sea. It’s a Jewish state where observant Jewish soldiers have to choose between breakfast and prayers, where the most religious Jews don’t even have to serve in the army, and where the criteria for getting drafted aren’t enough to get you buried in the military graveyard. The country is confused. Meanwhile, at the top of the pyramid is this tiny group of rabbis who think they’re Kings of the Jews and therefore get to decide who’s in and whose out. But the Kings of the Jews are out of touch, because they fail to realize that Israel’s future, if it has one, depends on all the reject-Jews they’ve been pushing away from the table: the half-Jews and intermarried Jews, the queer and bi Jews, the women rabbis and young, freethinking Israelis who crave spirituality, not just restrictions, and the children of supposedly illegitimate converts, like me.” (p. 255-256)

The author articulates the central challenge of the Jewish people and State of Israel today. Who are we and what are we becoming? Are we stuck in the past governed by narrow religious definitions and extremist politics, or are we inclusive of all religious streams, expansive in our thinking and moving forward?

Despite his feelings, Joel decided to convert, but admitted:

“The stage in my life where I could innocently take for granted that I belonged to the Jewish people simply by virtue of being me-when I dunked in the water, that part of my life ended and a piece of me died. Even though I chose to convert, I’m furious at Israel for forcing me to choose, for humiliating me, for making me stand naked before three rabbis. I’m also furious at myself for going through with it, because by dunking in that pool, I accepted their claim that it is they, not I, who get to determine who I am.”

Joel and Dorit married and now live in Chicago. Their decision to leave Israel is a great loss for the State.

Finding Light Amidst Darkness – D’var Torah Pinchas

28 Friday Jun 2013

Posted by in Divrei Torah, Ethics, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life

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How to read the story of Pinchas, a shatteringly brutal tale of love and violence? That is the question in this week’s Torah portion, especially for the modern Jew?

The story begins this way:

“Now YHVH spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Pinchas, son of Elazar son of Aaron the priest, has turned my venomous-anger from the Children of Israel in his being zealous with My jealousy in their midst, so that I did not finish off the children of Israel in my jealousy.” (Numbers 25:10-11)

What did Pinchas do to attract God’s attention? Without due process he took his sword and in one thrust plunged it into the back of the Israelite man Zimri and through the belly of the Midianite woman Cozbi who were locked in an amorous embrace, and Pinchas killed them dead.

The Torah tells us that God credited Pinchas with having saved thousands who God was about to kill Himself, but Pinchas’ righteous rage kept God’s violence at bay. Then God rewarded Pinchas with “briti shalom – My covenant of peace.”

If this were the entire story many of us would despair its implications. Indeed, Jewish extremist rabbis in Israel have used this story in recent years to justify attacking Reform rabbis in the manner Pinchas attacked Zimri.

Thankfully, the midrashic and esoteric traditions explore deeper truths hidden in this grim tale that offer meaning rather than despair.

Most rabbinic commentary justifies Pinchas’ deed as virtuous. There is, nevertheless, a mystical strain that regards Cozbi’s and Zimri’s love not as a great sin at all, but as a union so pure and beautiful that the world could not contain it.

For this understanding I’m grateful to Rabbi Jonathan Omer-man and Rabbi Yosi Gordon. They have brought forward the reflections of some of our greatest mystic sages, Rabbis Isaac Luria, Chaim vital, Abraham Azulai, and the Izbeca Rabbi (“Learn Torah With…” – July 22, 1995) who wrote:

“There are ten degrees of fornication in the world. At the lowest level, the worst, the will to sin is even greater than the desire to perform the act, and the person has to urge himself on to sally out into the world and sully it. At each ascending level, however, the protagonist’s will becomes progressively more powerful. At the tenth and final level, which is extremely rare, the desire is so powerful that no human will in the world would be strong enough to vanquish it. We must conclude that it was not a sin at all, but God’s will. Zimri and Cozbi, far from being wicked sinners, were a couple ordained from the beginning of creation.”

In other words, Zimri’s and Cozbi’s love was so high and exalted that it could neither be realized nor sustained in the real world, reminding us of the forbidden love of Romeo and Juliet and the maiden and her beloved in The Song of Songs 8:6-7:

Ki azah cha-mavet ahavah, /  kasha chishol kin’ah.      

“For love is fierce as death, / passion is mighty as Sheol;

R’shafeha rispei esh / Shalhevetya.

Its darts are darts of fire, / A blazing flame.

Mayim rabim lo yuchlu l’chabot et ahavah / Un’harot lo yish’t’puha.

Vast floods cannot quench love, / Nor rivers drown it.”

The Kabbalah teaches that though Zimri’s and Cozbi’s soul-love defied the tragedy of their real life together, they came back into the reincarnated life of Rabbi Akiva who built his famed academy.

In light of this, how might we regard Pinchas?

To the modern eye his reward of the “covenant of peace” seems unjust and wrong. Most traditional commentators, however, emphasize Pinchas’ motive as pure, l’shem shamayim, for the sake of heaven. The Kabbalists said that though Pinchas sincerely sought Truth, he did not grasp nor understand Cozbi’s and Zimri’s love.

There are two slight variations in the text that give support to this view. The first is in the writing of Pinchas’ name – Peh-yod-nun-chet-samech (Numbers 25:11).  The yod is written unusually small suggesting that God’s holiest Name – Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh (which at times is designated by a lone yod), and Jews (Yehudim) – Yod-heh-vav-daled-yod-mem) that begins with yod, are diminished when a Jew engages in violence, even justified violence.

The second variation comes in the vav of the word shalom – shin-lamed-vav-mem – meaning “wholeness.” The vav here is strangely broken in the middle suggesting that the wholeness of this covenant – briti shalom – (indeed, any agreement that’s reached by destroying one’s opponent) will inevitably be a flawed and incomplete peace.

Is it not true? Real peace cannot come from violence and war.

Lest we despair, Rabbi Omer-man reminds us of Zimri’s and Cozbi’s love, of its exalted purity despite transgressing tribal taboo, and that even in situations as dire as this one “there is light [even] when we [believe we] can only see darkness.”

Shabbat shalom.

Sinai and American Efforts for Peace – D’var Torah Hukat

14 Friday Jun 2013

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

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In this week’s Torah portion Hukat, Miriam dies and the people complain bitterly that there’s no water (Numbers 20:3-5). God tells him to take his rod and order the rock to produce water. But Moses, old and weary, instead of ordering the rock strikes it with his rod. Though the people drink God punishes Moses from ever entering the Promised Land.

Talmudic sages said that Moses’ faith wasn’t strong enough, that because he failed to sanctify God in the sight of the people God deemed him unworthy to lead them into Canaan.

RAMBAM explained that Moses lacked compassion, that because the people were on the verge of death from thirst he should have spoken kindly to them instead of with words of rebuke.

Others say that in losing his temper Moses lost his moral authority to be leader.

And some say that because Moses claimed credit for the miracle of the water without acknowledging God, the Almighty denied him what he dreamed for most.

And there’s yet another explanation.

Earlier at Massah and Meribah (Exodus 17) the people also had complained of their dire thirst. Similar to our portion God told Moses to take his rod, but this time to hit the rock instead of speaking to it.

Why? What was different then vs now?

The answer is that Sinai intervened between the two events. There, at that lowly mountain God sought a new way for the people, to erase the experience of slavery, to create a new people in which force would yield to reason, physical strength to law, violence to dialogue and compassion.

God intended that a new age was to begin, the messianic age, and Moses was to be the Messiah. However, when Moses hit the rock instead of speaking to it, he showed the people that Sinai had actually changed nothing, that God was just a more powerful Pharaoh with bigger magic and greater violence.

In a modern midrash on the “Waters of Meribah,” Rabbi Marc Gelman writes movingly of what God intended for the people, then and now (Learn Torah with…Vol. 5, Number 16, January 30, 1999, edited by Joel Lurie Grishaver and Rabbi Stuart Kelman):

“When my people enters the land you shall not enter with them, but neither shall I. I shall only allow a part of my presence to enter the land with them. The abundance of my presence I shall keep outside the land. The exiled part shall be called my Shekhinah and it shall remind the people that I too am in exile. I too am a divided presence in the world, and that I shall only be whole again on that day when the power of the fist vanishes forever from the world. Only on that day will I be one. Only on that day will my name be one. Only on that day Moses, shall we enter the land together. Only on that day Moses, shall the waters of Meribah become the flowing waters of justice and the everlasting stream of righteousness gushing forth from my holy mountain where all people shall come and be free at last.”

Turning to the present, we ask how we can apply the message of Sinai to the most challenging problem facing the Jewish people – the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

Sinai teaches that the power of the fist must give way to a vision of Oneness, and that vision requires us as American Jews to publicly support our own American effort led by President Obama and Secretary Kerry to help the Israelis and Palestinians resolve their conflict diplomatically in two states for two peoples living side by side in peace and security.

The status quo in which Israel occupies another people is morally, religiously and practically unsustainable. Israel will lose its soul, its democracy and/or its Jewish majority if it continues to occupy millions of Palestinians.

Israel must be helped to choose and the Palestinians must be helped to choose a new way that leads our two peoples and two nations towards acceptance of the other and a peaceful resolution of this conflict. The extremists on both sides need to be contained and controlled. Each side will need to make significant compromises for the sake of peace.

It will not be easy, but that, I believe, is the greater meaning of Sinai and we ignore it at our own peril.

Theodor Herzl said more than a century ago when envisioning a State for the Jewish people –  Im tirtzu, ein zo agadah – If you will it, it is not a dream!

If Israel and the Palestinians will it, peace is also not a dream.

 

A Poem about “Love”

02 Sunday Jun 2013

Posted by in Life Cycle, Poetry, Quote of the Day

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I have read this wondrous poem very infrequently at weddings over the years. I offer it only to couples who I sense have attained a special depth of camaraderie uncommon even for those who feel great love for each other.

The poem reflects a depth of generosity, humility, gratitude, kindness, tenderheartedness, acceptance, and understanding of oneself in relationship to the “Other” that could well be the standard towards which every individual aspires with his/her beloved. Though some young couples attain such a relationship by the time they come to the chupah, it often takes many years to realize and understand the poet’s deeper sentiments.

This is among my most favorite wedding poems. I have cited its origins as written in Wikipedia below.

I love you
Not only for what you are,
But for what I am when I am with you.

I love you,
Not only for what you have made of yourself,
But for what you are making of me.

I love you
For the part of me that you bring out;
I love you
For putting your hand into my heaped-up heart
And passing over all the foolish, weak things
That you can’t help dimly seeing there,
And for drawing out into the light
All the beautiful belongings
That no one else had looked quite far enough to find.

I love you because you
Are helping me to make of the lumber of my life
Not a tavern but a Temple,
Out of the works of my every day
Not a reproach but a song.

I love you
Because you have done more than any creed
Could have done
To make me good,
And more than any fate could have done
To make me happy.

You have done it
Without a touch,
Without a word,
Without a sign.

You have done it
By being yourself.
Perhaps that is what
Being a friend means,
After all.

From Wikipedia on the origins of this poem and the “poet” named “Roy Croft.”

“This poem, which is commonly used in wedding speeches and readings and is quoted frequently (attributed to Roy Croft), is nearly identical in meaning to a German-language poem titled Ich liebe Dich (“I Love You”) and composed by Austrian poet Erich Fried; the main difference is that Croft’s version stops at the third-from-last line of Fried’s poem, with the effect that Fried’s poem contains two final lines for which Croft’s version has no equivalent. Croft’s version appears without further attribution in The Family Book of Best Loved Poems, edited by David L. George and published in 1952 by Doubleday & Company, Inc., then of Garden City, New York.

The poem “Love” was included in a 1936 anthology entitled “Best Loved Poems of American People” edited by a Hazel Felleman, and published by Doubleday. This would seem to imply that regardless of the origins of Mr. Croft, that Erich Fried in fact appropriated the poem himself and translated it into German, as he would have been only 15 in 1936. Seeing as the book was a compilation of best loved American poems, it is hard to see how he could be the author.”

“You Shall Not Stand Idly By?” The Syrian Civil War – What to Do?

05 Sunday May 2013

Posted by in American Politics and Life, Ethics

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It should be clear that the last thing the Obama Administration wants is to get caught in another Middle Eastern war, with no “good guys” and no viable exit strategy. What else can explain American passivity in the face of 70,000 Syrian dead and 1 million refugees in two years? What else can explain the President’s hedging on his pledge to act if Syria crossed the “red line” of introducing chemical weapons, now that indeed Syria has crossed that “red line?”

So much for the Biblical command, “Thou shalt not stand idly by while your neighbor bleeds.” (Leviticus 19:16)

Bill Clinton confessed that his greatest regret was not acting to stop the genocide in Rwanda. Will Barack Obama make the same confession about Syria one day?

Yes, Syria is embroiled in a nasty civil war. Yes, the Syrian rebels, increasingly radicalized Islamists, are a mixed bag. Yes, Al Qaida is involved. Who should the US support?

In an interview with Terry Gross on “Fresh Air” (April 30, 2014 – “On the Ground in Syria”) the New York Times correspondent C.J. Chivers, who has covered the wars in Libya and Afghanistan and spent time on the ground with Syrian rebels, understands Obama’s resistance to get involved in Syria.

Chivers says that though the rebels distrust and hate the west, they want the west to get involved because they cannot match the Syrian government’s superior fire power. The west, ironically, is their only hope. They do not want American troops in Syria, but they do want weapons, and, a no-fly zone to protect the people from the air.

“Put yourselves in the shoes of the Syrian people,” Chivers said. Your village has been occupied by the Syrian army and then shelled. Everyone has lost someone. Obama says that the “red line” that will provoke American action against the Syrian government is its introduction of chemical weapons, and the Syrian people think:

“My life isn’t what you care about. It’s the nature of my death. So if I die by high explosives, if I die by a bullet, if I die by disappearance because I’m rolled up at the checkpoint, never seen again, that’s OK. That’s a green line? And a SCUD missile’s OK? An airstrike’s OK? But chemical weapons, that’s not OK. I mean there are more than 70,000 killed in this conflict. And to the Syrians, they say those don’t count? But if someone takes the cork off chemical weapons, that’s different. They feel they’ve been abandoned by the world. “

Chivers is a distinguished journalist and observer of this kind of warfare. He is also a former marine who has seen his share of death. He confesses that he has no good recommendation to offer the President were he asked.

Despite American claims to the contrary, there has been a covert airlift of weapons to the rebel forces, probably orchestrated by the CIA, which creates a long-term problem. These weapons have a long life, and one can never know into whose hands they will end up. Maybe they will be used against the US and Israel.

An American response to chemical weapons is meant to deter other countries in the future from using them, but again, to the Syrian people that “red line” was set pretty far out to the right. The chemical weapons have come so late that the west has already tolerated great cost in human life.

The quandary of the Obama Administration is that people are suffering and there are reasons to arm them and reasons not to arm them.

Chivers notes that the Syrian leaders have played perfectly and with cunning calibration (as opposed to Qaddafi in Libya) the tactics of the war to what they thought the West could tolerate. The Syrian government began the battle with arrests, and with each step of the way introduced more violent actions; first came batons and then bullets; then came the army, mortars, and 107 millimeter rockets; then the artillery and air force, helicopters followed later by jets, and then ballistic missiles and chemical weapons.

It’s been like dropping a frog in water and bringing the water to a boil slowly, pushing the “red” line step-by-step forward until so many people have become desensitized by the violence.

“Thou shalt not stand idly by!”

But, what to do? A no-fly zone? Bomb Syrian government positions? Give more weapons to the rebels?

And then what?

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

02 Thursday May 2013

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The next Shmitta year is 2014-2015 (5775)

 

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

30 Tuesday Apr 2013

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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