Shanah Tovah—A Good New Year, everyone. So good to see you all in a new space for a
new year. The holidays should not only
be a time for accepting apology and granting forgiveness, but also for
expressions of appreciation and gratitude for what we have been given during
the year. And I want to begin with a
thank you to you all. I want to thank
you for teaching me so much and sharing your wisdom with me. When I listen to you, your challenges and
frustrations, the lessons you have gained through professional and personal
experience, I gain a great deal—with almost every interaction I have with
you. And the insights you give me, the
perspectives you grant to me are greatly appreciated. That kind of knowledge cannot necessarily be
found in books—secular or sacred—which make those lessons all the more special.
Imparting the right lesson is not always easy and even
professional teachers run the risk of inadvertently communicating the wrong
lesson. There was the crisis of the grammar school teacher who wanted to convey
to her young charges the evils of liquor so she secured two very large glass
jars, one filled with pure spring water and one filled with good ole’ Kentucky
Bourbon. She had her fifth graders
gather around the exhibit and then took a worm and dropped it ever so delicately
into the jar full of spring water and there the worm swam about in carefree
delight to the amusement of all the children in the class. The teacher then took another worm and
dropped it ever so delicately into the jar of Kentucky Bourbon and within ten
seconds the worm grew listless and, to the horror of the children in the class,
sunk dead to the bottom of the jar. The
teacher then looked at her stunned class and asked, “Children, what do we learn
from this little experiment?” And one kid
in the back shouted, “Drink Bourbon and you’ll never get worms.”
So that clearly was not the moral of the story, at least as
the teacher hoped it would be conveyed, but there you have it—we don’t always
learn what we are supposed to learn and when our learning seems off, when the
message doesn’t seem right, it’s important to stop and seriously question
whether we got the message right, if the message was in some way garbled, or
flawed in its transmission, or if we simply misunderstood it in some way.
The fact is that we live in an ocean of messages. The music we listen to, the ads we read, the
television shows we watch, etc. all are designed to convey something to
us. And one of the great message
delivery systems that surround us on a daily basis is architecture and
design. The way we arrange the space in
which we live is a message about what is important to us or what values we
aspire to. If you look at your living
room or den, the place where you spend the most time, perhaps it is the
kitchen, those spaces and how you have arranged those spaces tell a story about
who you are. Maybe it’s a story about
elegance, or hobby collections, or revolt against authority; or maybe a message
about safety, or living life in a fun way.
When I see a mezuzah on the front door, or if I don’t see one, it tells
me something about the people inside. It
may be the wrong message or the right message.
The mezuzah on that front door conveys some message. But ask yourself, and ask your family, what
your home design reveals about what is important to you and above all, if the
message that is being conveyed is the message you want conveyed. What might you do to tweak the design in
order to tighten the message? It’s an
interesting question and I’m sure there are several interior designers in the
congregation today who would start passing around their business cards were it
not for it being Yom Tov, a sacred day when we don’t do business.
We just finished a major renovation of our synagogue and sanctuary. We’ve pulled out the building a bit, installed
an elevator, made the building handicap-accessible, redesigned the Ark,
installed new lights, tore up the carpeting and laid new carpeting, and replaced
individual seats with bench pews. The
new design says something about us as a Jewish community. It says a lot of things about us, including the
desire to feel uplifted, and necessarily by the springs in the seats we sit on. There is something else that our new sacred
space says about us louder than anything else and I think it would be a shame
to leave its identification only to our imaginations. So I’m going to spell it out for you.
But before I spell it out for you, I want to talk to you
about an issue that has been particularly troublesome to me and to the Jewish
community in general. It has been this
controversy in the community about our government’s leading role in creating
the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, more popularly known as the Iran
deal. Senator Schumer and Congressman
Israel have both come out in opposition to the deal, but Congressman Jerry Nadler
didn’t. And Congressman Nadler represents
the Upper West Side of Manhattan—a pretty liberal concentration of people—but
also some very Conservative areas of Brooklyn—Midwood and Borough Park. Anyway, after a truly consistent record of
supporting Israel throughout his lifetime, Nadler was condemned as anti-Israel
and New York Assemblyman Dov Hikind parked a double decker bus in front of the
Congressman’s Manhattan office with a banner of the Iranian Supreme Leader Ali
Khamenei smiling and thanking America.
And then, what happens, is the New York Times and the Jewish Week print
articles about how the Iran deal is tearing the Jewish community apart. The New York Times, August 28, 2015,
headline: “Iran Deal Opens a Vitriolic
Divide Among American Jews.”
Now I have to tell you, I am really opposed to this
deal. In fact, I am scheduled to speak
at a rally in New York City, just outside the United States Mission to the
United Nations, East 45th Street between First and Second Avenues
this coming Sunday, September 20, at Noon.
That’s how opposed I am to this deal.
I don’t like this deal at all. I
don’t believe that this is the only way to respond to a belligerent nation like
Iran; given all we know about the historically lethal mixture of religion and
politics, I don’t think nuclear power and a theocracy is a combination that in
any way serves American interests; I especially distrust that combination when
such a country refers to us as the Great Satan; and although I don’t trust Iran
to abide by whatever protocols have been set, I really don’t trust the
inspectors to reign in Iran when Iran will, as even the deal’s supporters admit,
violate the agreement. But I say all
this with the following caveat: I may be
totally wrong. I am, as someone once said,
really bad at predictions, especially about the future. And that’s why Jerry Nadler deserves better,
especially from the Jewish community, because he’s doing what I’m doing—really
what we are all trying to do—each from our own peculiar perspectives: Do what is right for the free world. He may be right or he may be wrong. I may be right or I may be wrong. One thing for sure: Neither he nor I, nor
anyone in this room, can predict the future and that ought to dampen some of
the passions that have erupted in the Jewish community. We all ought to state our positions with a
little more humility.
Several months ago, Newsday asked me to write a piece for
their weekly Ask the Clergy section, and the question was whether we should take
the Bible literally. This is the kind of
question I love and so I consented to write a piece, which they edited—I would
say conservatively—and even the photo they printed of me was a faithful
rendering of exactly what I looked like 17 years ago. But aside from that, in that piece, I quoted Abraham
Joshua Heschel, the great theologian and poet of the 20th century
who wrote: “The surest way of misunderstanding revelation is to take it
literally…” He is basically saying—Don’t
be a fundamentalist. Don’t read the Torah
literally. Don’t be so sure that reading
the words themselves gives you a full appreciation of what the Torah is trying
to say. And though that may sound
radical or even heretical, it is pure rabbinic Judaism—whether one is Conservative,
Orthodox or Reform, none of us reads the Torah literally because we have always
read the Torah, these Five Books of Moses, through the lense of another Torah,
namely the Oral Torah or the Talmud.
The Talmud has a curious way of presenting arguments to us
and it’s a bit frustrating but it’s the Talmudic style. It begins with an old rabbinic teaching
called a Mishnah, and then later rabbis give us some interpretations of that
Mishnah. Maybe it’s a Mishnah about when
Rosh Hashanah begins, or what constitutes a kosher sukkah, or whether to
believe witnesses when they bear testimony.
Once the Mishnah is stated, rabbis who live at a much later time give us
their interpretations of what the Mishnah really means, and guess what, the
Talmud often rejects the rabbis’ interpretations as illogical or irrational. You may ask, well if that rabbi’s argument
was irrational or illogical, why did it find its way into the Talmud? Great question. And the answer, I believe, is that the rabbis
weren’t put out by illogical or irrational answers. They were delighted that anyone would take the
time to argue a point of Torah. The
Talmud is what we would refer to as a sefer kadosh, a holy book, and its
holiness comes not from is dogmatic prescriptions but in its respect and
admiration for all those who would busy themselves with words of Torah, who
would struggle with those words, play with those words, debate those words. They saw a certain sanctity in the
conversation and in the dialogue. In
fact, on those occasions when the Talmud will actually cite the law, it will
give us the opinion of the hakhamim, the Sages, which one generally can assume
to be the Law, but then it also might include words to the effect of Rabi Me’ir
Amar—But Rabbi Mei’r says something else.
In other words, the Talmud gives us the minority opinion. But why should we care about the minority
opinion? It’s not the law. We shouldn’t follow it. It’s only one guy’s opinion—but the Talmud
sees that solitary opinion as critical.
There is a respect shown to the minority by citing the opinion. My friends—this is Judaism at its best. This is a Judaism that creates a safe space
for people to speak honestly, openly, and respectfully. And even though it could very well be that
one positon is correct and the other is not, both positions are accorded a
certain degree of legitimacy.
So what do we make of the so-called vitriol of debate
within Jewish circles? Well, it isn’t the
kind of Judaism that the rabbis ever envisioned.
When I came out with my article against the deal, it
generated several letters from people who took issue with my reasoning. And that’s fine. That’s what healthy debate is all about. Am I angry with them? No. Are
they haters of Israel? Not the people I
corresponded with. They made some
excellent points. They haven’t convinced
me, and I don’t think I convinced them, but that’s okay. We can disagree with each other and still
remain one people. And by the way, whenever
the media reports that the Jewish community is divided on some issue, that’s
not news. The Jewish community has been
divided for about 3500 years. But is our
primary message a message about division?
Not at all. The message is this:
All of Israel are friends
It’s
a phrase lifted directly out of a prayer we recite prior to Rosh Hodesh, each
new month. And it’s not a joke. It’s serious, but clearly there are people
who got the message wrong. If the Jewish
community, a community that has been divided for 3500 years and a community
that has stuck together for 3500 years cannot model how a loving community disagrees,
humanity is lost. None of us knows the
ultimate truth.
Beware the people who know the
truth. They are dangerous. In August of this year, Jerusalem was the
scene of a Gay Pride Parade. An ultra-Orthodox
Jew, recently released from jail having served a ten year term for attempted
murder and aggravated assault, went on a stabbing rampage in the parade,
wounding several people and ultimately murdering a 16 year old marcher by the
name of Shira Banki. When a crime of
this nature is committed, and committed by an ultra-Orthodox Jew, it embitters
us toward religion, and observance, and Orthodoxy, and even God. People were deeply upset as well they should
be. And even if you may not have heard
of this horror, the crime sent a shock wave throughout Israel. Shira’s name headlined every newspaper in
Israel. But there is a Conservative /
Masorti rabbi in Jerusalem, Yosef Kleiner is his name, who wrote something
rather remarkable. He wrote that after
all was said and done, he was very proud of what happened. What happened? What happened was almost every arm of the
Jewish world expressed outrage at what this haredi man had done. It was clear to one and all, from the Prime
Minister of Israel to the mayor of Jerusalem, that his actions did not
represent Torah, did not represent Orthodoxy, did not represent the will of God,
and was nothing less than a total hillul hashem, a violation of
God’s name. The perpetrator of this
crime might sport a beard, wear a black hat, white shirt, black pants, tzitzit
flying at his side and the message of his dress says something, but one thing
it doesn’t reveal is the spiritual state of his heart or soul. Just because you dress for piety doesn’t
make you pious. This man was so sure of
his Torah, so sure of his position that he granted himself the authority to
kill. But I can tell you right now that
anyone who operates with that kind of certainty in their life knows nothing
about God and what they think they know about God is probably wrong.
Shalom Bayit—Peace within the
home, is a very important Jewish value.
For there to be peace within our community, our synagogue, our homes, we
have to think differently about how we listen to each other and how we speak to
each other. A few years ago, Dianne
Schilling wrote an on-line article for Forbes on “Ten Steps toward Effective
Listening.” You can look it up on-line
if you like but I want to underscore just a few of her ten points: She wrote that in order for listening to be
effective, you have to 1) Keep an open mind; 2) Don’t interrupt and don’t
impose your “solutions;” 3) Try to feel what the speaker is feeling; and
finally 4) Pay attention to what isn’t said—to the non-verbal cues. I find her advice very wise. In order to listen to the other person, you
have to really keep quiet and engage that person face to face and listen to the
words, the feelings and the emotions. It
doesn’t matter if we are talking with our boss, our employees, our spouse or
our children. In order to listen you
have to be quiet and attentive.
When it comes to speaking, you need to ask yourself only
three questions before you open your mouth.
The three questions are: 1) Is it
true? Thinking something is true, doesn’t
make it true. Hearing that something is
true, doesn’t make it true. Reading
something on the Internet almost invariably means it’s false. I
like to say that everything on the Internet is false until proven true. Well, that may be a bit of an
exaggeration, but really, if you are going to say it, it better be true and that
means doing a lot of research before saying anything. 2) Is
it kind? Words can be terribly
damaging. If you need to say something,
you ought to be able to say it in a kind way, without wounding, without sarcasm,
without resentment or anger. I know
that’s difficult, but maybe it’s better to not say anything rather than say
something in the wrong way or at the wrong time. And finally 3) Is it necessary? What you are about to say, do you really have
to say it? What would happen if you didn’t
say it? Sometimes the better part of diplomacy
is not what is said, but what is not said.
There is sometimes great wisdom in writing long letters, printing them
out, and then ripping them up or deleting them before you hit the Send button.
I used to think that our
greatest failing as human beings was our love of material goods. This sacrifice of the spiritual in favor of
the material—the pursuit of luxury or money—that was our greatest failing. But I think differently now. Today I believe that our greatest failing as
human beings is our love of the petty resentments and hatreds that we either
nurture or collect year after year after year.
This inability to forgive others and to dwell on the injustices that
have hurt us. The inclination to judge
others as if we ourselves were the bearers of ultimate truth. There
is something in human nature that loves that sort of negative energy. And the thing is this. You can collect money your whole life and actually
create the potential for doing something good with it. But if you collect resentments and nurture your
anger year after year, and indulge your will to judge others, no good, no good
at all, will ever come of that.
The renovation. I want its message to be clear. I want the Torah to be read in the middle of
the sanctuary, and so that is where the bimah now is. The Torah has to always be central to our
lives. Those laws that question our
instincts and reign in our more unseemly inclinations—that needs to be in the
center. There can be no partition between the bimah
and you and there isn’t, because the Torah has to touch our lives and we have
got to respond to Torah.
The word has got to be very close to you
Close enough that you can hear it, understand it, respond to it,
In your mouth
So you can repeat it, question it, argue it, love it,
And in your heart so that eventually you can do it (Deuteronomy 30:14)
Or perhaps not do it, but you’ll never know what to do, unless you come
to struggle with the words of Torah that lead us down a certain road. And what road is that?
Its road is the road of pleasantness
And all its paths are paths of peace
(Etz haim hi…)
Shalom
Bayit—Peace within our home, our community, our synagogue, our world. This is a great Jewish value. Let’s pledge to listen more intently. Let’s pledge to speak more carefully. Let’s cleanse ourselves of the petty hatreds
and resentments that undercut the positive energy that flows through us from
God. Let’s make Torah central to our
lives. This is the year of renovation. The sanctuary speaks a certain message. Now is the time to integrate that architectural
message into ourselves and by so doing, renovate our very selves.
Shanah Tovah, everyone.
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