CAN WE TALK? ROSH HASHANAH 5775, SEPTEMBER 25-26, 2014

                So good to see the congregation gathered on this Rosh Hashanah.  L’shanah Tovah Tikateivu— May we all be inscribed into the Book of Good Health and Peace, Prosperity and Goodness in the New Year, for all of us and for our families.              

The story is told of the famous Sherlock Holmes and his trusted aide Watson who had to leave London en route to solve a particularly difficult case in the North.  They were travelling by horse-drawn wagon when night fell and it was time to set up camp on the road.  They erected a tent, ate dinner, and the two turned in for the night.  In the middle of the night, Sherlock Holmes awoke with a start and looked about.  He nudged Watson out of a deep sleep and said, “My dear Watson—Look about you and tell me what you see.”  Watson, rubbing his eyes and allowing them to adjust to the darkness gazed up into the heavens and replied, “Well, Sir, I see planets and stars, I see distant galaxies, I see the transcendence of the universe and the majesty of eternity.”  Sherlock Holmes replied, “Watson, precisely.  Someone has stolen our tent.”

                If God ever came to me and asked, “So, what do you think of my Bible?  Give Me an honest appraisal.  As a work of literature, how would you rate it?”  How’s that for a question that should inspire a little fear and trembling.  Tell the author, and in this case it would be an author with a capital “A,” exactly what you think of His creation.  And when it comes to conversing with the Lord, deception is not a prudent strategy.  “Well, Lord, now that you’ve asked, I can tell you that I think that there are many passages where the Hebrew soars poetically, and the drama is first-rate, and the laws are demanding and thought-provoking, and it is a miracle just how much is conveyed using words as sparingly as You do.  “Rank,” the good Lord would say, “I hear a ‘but’ coming so on with it.  What would you change?”  “Well, Lord, I don’t think it’s really a ‘but’ per se, but if You ever consider a rewrite, You might want to throw in a joke here and there.  You know, lighten it up.  Put people at ease.  I think humor is really important.”  And that’s what I would say to the good Lord, Author of the most read, studied and pondered piece of literature for the past two millennia.

                Assuming I actually could survive a conversation of that nature, God might just point to the funniest guy in the Torah as proof that the Bible is not divorced of humor.  And who would that be?  It would be Isaac, Yitzhak, whose name literally suggests “laughter.”  There is a passage in the Torah that speaks of a famine, forcing Yitzhak and Rivkah to move to Gerar, a city in Philistine territory.  And fearing for his life and the life of his beloved Rivkah, he tells the residents of Gerar that Rivkah isn’t really his wife, only his sister.  But then one day, the king of the Philistines, Avimelekh, spies Yitzhak and Rivkah through their window and what does he see…

 [he] saw Isaac [doing something with]  his wife Rivkah (Genesis 26:8)

Now, the Torah doesn’t actually say “doing something with,” it uses a verb “m’tzahek” which is difficult to translate.  It has been variously and sensuously translated as—Isaac was caressing his wife, sporting with his wife, playing with his wife, fondling his wife, and so forth.  There are many different ways the translators have chosen to translate the term m’tzahek,” but the translation I like best is one I heard from my revered teacher, Rabbi Harold Kushner, who suggested that we translate the verse simply as:

Isaac was making his wife, Rivkah, laugh…

It really is a translation that works beautifully and it takes our most maligned patriarch Isaac, who too often is written off as silent, passive, victimized, and gives him a new and more appealing character.  Isaac is the patriarch with a sense of humor.  He makes Rivkah laugh.  What a wonderful human activity: making each other laugh.  When we forget how to laugh, we lose a part of what makes us human.

                This past year, 5774, was about as unfunny a year as they get.  And that’s not to say that there weren’t some positives.  There were.  The stock market has been pretty good.  But on the other hand—we had a tough winter; Malaysia Airline Flight 370 just disappeared from the face of the earth; another one of its planes was shot down over Crimea; gun violence continued to disrupt the nation, the outbreak of Ebola in Africa; and then, of course, there was the kidnapping and murder of the three yeshivah students in Israel: Eyal (Yifrah), 19 years old; Gilad (Shaer), 16; and Naftali (Fraenkel), 16 years of age.  I don’t think there’s a congregation around the world that won’t hear the names of these three boys mentioned during Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur.   

                It has been a long time since the American Jewish community has been as galvanized as it was this summer having received news of their murder.  It was just so senseless, so pointless, so perfectly wasteful of human life.  It was an action that served no one’s interests—not the Israelis, certainly not the Palestinians.  I wanted the Plainview, Syosset, Jericho, Woodbury, Bethpage, Westbury communities to convene.  We needed a vehicle by which to express our outrage and our sorrow, our solidarity with Israel, and with the help of the Mid-Island Y JCC, we got together, and we drew on at least a 350, perhaps 400 person crowd.  We filled the gym at the Mid-Island Y. 

                It was a very Jewish meeting.  We lit candles, we said kaddish, we listened to some speeches and afterwards we talked.  The only thing missing was food.  But here we were, on a week day, drawn together by a common concern, the fate of the Jewish State.  It was an evening of sorrow but also an evening of triumph because that evening everyone knew that we had a purpose in this world, and the purpose was to stand up against injustice and insanity.  We were there because we were Jews, and I know that for those who could not be there, they were proud of all of us who could be there.  It’s amazing how powerful just showing up can be.

                There’s a professor at the Harvard Business School by the name of Clayton M. Christensen.  And he tells a very interesting story about an exchange with a Marxist economist who was finishing up a Fullbright fellowship in Boston.  This economist was from China.  And he asked the economist if he had learned anything startling during his stay in America and the economist said he had.  What he found so surprising was the role that religion played in the functioning of democracy and capitalism.  He was astounded by the fact that people would listen to a minister or a priest instruct them about rules to abide by that were not necessarily in their own self-interest, and then willingly abide by them.  And this economist saw a connection between the ethical and moral commitments of religious faith and the success of our democracy and our American form of capitalism.  Christensen, who is himself a Mormon though I have no idea how devout, reflected on the waning influence of religion on the general population and suggested that as religious commitment declines, the very foundation of democracy is at stake.  There will never be enough police to keep people in check who believe that they owe no allegiance to any power greater than their own selves.  Neither of them really addressed the issue of ritual or prayer, sacred rites of passage, though they must have been thinking of them as well.  But their focus was more on the internalization of sacred principles, ways of looking at the world that define what it means to be a person of conscience and integrity, what we would otherwise refer to as a mensch

                I love this story and I love what the professor had to say about religion.  This idea—religion is that which moves you to be a better businessperson, a better human being, a better proponent of democracy—is one I want to believe in, even if we can find instances where religion seems more a toxin than an antidote.  But let’s be real.  Religion sometimes is unfairly given a bad rap.  There’s no noble discipline in life, whether medicine, the law, politics, or religion that can’t be abused or used for disreputable purpose.  I want to be more specific about religion.  I want to say that it is our Judaism, when understood and practiced with clarity and creativity that actually makes us better human beings.

                And yet, I always cringe when I hear myself differentiate between being better Jews and better human beings.  Not that I don’t wish that—I obviously do!—but it’s as if our Jewishness and our humanity occupy separate realms of reality.  Witness Person X—he’s a wonderful Jew, but a terrible human being.  Witness Person Y—she’s a wonderful human being, but a terrible Jew.  This divorce of our Jewishness from our humanity makes no sense.  How can Jewishness be divorced from humanity?  If I had a dog and only fed her kosher food, I could say, she’s not a very good human being, but a terrific Jew.  There’s a reason why we think that our Judaism and our humanity occupy different realms of reality, but getting into that will take us too far afield.  Suffice to say that we do think like this and because we do, our Jewishness having been separated from the issues that concern us most. 

Is it any wonder that synagogues today find themselves under tremendous pressure?  Membership dwindles and programs no longer capture the attention of the community as they once did.   And it’s not, as some might argue, that Jews don’t want to be Jews—they do.  But they are, and I would dare say, we all are seeking a Jewishness that is integral, not peripheral, to our lives.  The less our Judaism speaks to us about life—our lives lived everyday and in real time--the lower a value we will place on that kind of Judaism.  And the lower the value we place on our Judaism, the less likely we are to associate with an organized Jewish community.

                A brief quiz:  Who was it who used to get up on a stage, turn to the audience and ask, “Can we talk?”  That’s right.  It was Joan Rivers, alehah hashalom—she should rest in peace.  It was her signature question.  Public speakers sometimes have these telltale phrases that identify them, like Rodney Dangerfield when he would say, “I get no respect.”  But I was thinking about Joan Rivers and asking myself why did we think that question was funny.  Maybe we thought it was funny because it was a signal that we were going here something outrageous come out of her mouth.  Maybe it was funny because it was a way that this petite woman, only five foot two, could immediately draw thousands within an audience into her confidence.  Maybe it was funny because it had an innocently stereotypical Jewish ring to it.  Suddenly, you were sitting in her kitchen or living room and you’re going to hear a juicy story.  Whatever—she pulled it out of her tool box of jokes and captured our attention for however long she was going to keep us laughing.

                You know, we all like to laugh and we all like to talk.  And when something funny is going on, we all like to listen, which is the reason why I would have had God tuck a few more jokes into the Torah.  On the other hand, the Torah is Five Books worth of conversation.  God doesn’t quite say, “Can we talk?” but we get hundreds upon hundreds of verses that begin either with Vaidaber God spoke or  Vayomer God said.  I always chuckle when I walk into a synagogue with a sign that reads:

It is forbidden to speak during prayer

Really?  I hope not, because the predominant form of Jewish prayer is speech.  Were we to stop people from speaking during prayer, the entire prayer service would come to a screeching halt.  We don’t have the Ten Commandments, at least not in the Hebrew, we have the Aseret haDibrot the Ten Speakings.  We even have a way of identifying types of conversation dividing them into Divrei Kodesh Words of Holiness or Sihat Hullin Ordinary Discussion.   Jews are talkers.  We all have differing levels of skill, when it comes to communication, but it is, for all of us, the principal way that we interact with each other, touch one another, console one another, encourage one another, educate one another, enlighten one another, and it’s also the way we make each other laugh.

                I was once interacting with a group and I said that I was going to make a bold assertion that there wasn’t a topic in the world that didn’t have some Jewish spin to it.  So I challenged the group to stump me by shouting out a random topic.  So someone shouted: Craps.  OK.  So what do we learn from this?  We learn the rabbi should never say, Stump me.  But ok—is Craps the topic?  Fine.  Actually, let’s broaden the topic.  Let’s talk about gambling.  And we did.  Why do people gamble?  Well, it’s fun.  It’s okay to indulge yourself in a dream of being a multi-millionaire.  Hey—you never know!  Then again, do you know any gamblers who have an addiction to gambling?  I’ve known a couple in my time and in both cases, they lost thousands of dollars, they lost their jobs, and their marriages ended in divorce.  The addiction led them to lie about money, lie about where they were, and eventually create enough debt in the family as to generate the kind of distrust and anger that places substantial strains on the marriage, and in the cases I’m thinking of, the marriage did not survive.  The Jewish spin?  It should be clear to all that any addiction is dangerous, not only what it can do to you but what it can do to the loved ones around you.  Once gambling is above the truth or above one’s marriage, then it’s legitimate to question whether one’s priorities are in order.  The sacrifice of love and security in favor of wealth and riches is something our tradition will question.  And you notice I’m not saying that gambling as entertainment is in some way wrong.  I think we would be hard pressed to make that argument.  But if asked, both Moses and God would have something to say about Craps.  It’s a Jewish topic.

                This group I spoke with had not gathered to study Torah.  It was more of a spontaneous gathering.  They weren’t necessarily regular shul-goers—some were.  They weren’t necessarily observant—though some were.  But they were all Jews who were fascinated by the idea that an ancient tradition, one they had presumably inherited, one they could call their own because it was their own, could in some way guide their lives today in spite of it being over 2,000 years old.  And we weren’t talking about anything peripheral to their lives.  We were talking about people whose decisions lead them to financial and marital ruin.

If I told you that I walked away thinking that this was one of the more successful, effective, powerful sessions in Torah study, would you agree with me that we were studying Torah?  We really were.  And it all happened surrounded by some really good nosh, casual conversation, and a lot of laughter.  I think the humor allows us to touch on subjects that make us uncomfortable or sad or anxious in a safe way. 

Sometimes, it’s the funniest people in the world who are perhaps struggling the most with inner demons.  How sad were we when we learned about Robin Williams and how he ended his life.  We were shocked—right?  How could someone so talented and so funny be so desperate as to end his life so abruptly?  I’m not going to suggest that he needed a friend or a community to talk to, (he may have had both of those, I don’t know, and perhaps his situation was such that no one could have helped him), but I do know that the people who have friends, confidants, a community that they can turn to when life becomes tumultuous fare better than those who do not.  People need people with whom they can talk and talk with honestly. 

Who was the funniest character in the Torah?  Isaac—he made his wife laugh.  At another time and another place, maybe Isaac would have been a stand-up comedian getting up on the stage and saying “Can we talk?”  Wait, that’s Joan’s line; Isaac would need something else.  And eventually his fame would grow and he’d be interviewed and the reporter would say, “Isaac, what in your background gives you the emotional energy to get up on the stage and be so funny?”  And Isaac would say, “Well, it really comes down to anger.  You see, when I was a kid, my father tried to kill me.”    “Wow,” the reporter might say, “that must have been traumatic.”  “Yea—that was traumatic!”  The interviewer might press him a little bit more on this matter and ask, “How do you cope with the awareness that your father tired to do this to you?” and here let us suspend our imagination in favor of the actual words of Torah when we read of Isaac:

And Isaac went out into the fields, as evening fell, to talk…  (Genesis 24:64)

That’s what Isaac did.  Isaac might say, “I talk a lot with people who love me and care for me.”  Actually, the rabbis read this line to mean that Isaac went out into the fields to pray, specifically Minhah, the afternoon service, which is ideally recited as evening falls.  And maybe Isaac did both.  Maybe his talking to friends in the field was a sort of spiritual encounter in which the burden of his heart was made lighter.  Maybe he could at some point come to the realization that his father did try to kill him, but that was long in the past, and though it still hurt, he is now the father of two children and married to a wonderful woman with whom he speaks all the time.  He makes her laugh and she makes him laugh and over time he’d been able to work through the deepest anxieties and troubles of his heart.  Of the three patriarchs, Isaac lived the longest, passing from this world at the age of 180. 

It’s the friend, the confidant, who challenges your thinking—gently I would hope—questions your conclusions, offers alternative perspectives, deliberates on whether there is another logical approach to the issues you face, who is among our most precious assets in our lives.  We may come upon the truth ourselves but we are more likely, after multiple conversations with others who help us refine our thinking and dispute our conclusions, to finally arrive at the truth.  And the truth about who we are and the path we need to take in life is always the most compelling form of Torah.

 I have a few questions.  With whom do you talk?  With whom would you like to talk?  What would you like to talk about?  Is there something that’s either troubling you or something that’s puzzling you that you would want to share with a few other people troubled or puzzled by the same issue?  It could be anything really.  It could be issues as varied as how to say No to my teenager without the roof caving in; how to cope with a parent suffering from dementia; how to navigate through a relationship that has become unstable and tumultuous; how to deal today with a past that has included some form of physical or emotional abuse; how to deal with an addiction, your own or that of a loved one; how to survive the Bar and Bat Mitzvah year; how to love kids who have drifted from you; techniques for being a good grandparent; following a diet that is reasonable and balanced; Jewish meditation; Jewish yoga; I could go on but the point here is not to enumerate an exhaustive list of what to talk about.  It is rather to get you thinking about what you would want to talk about with other like-minded individuals, with the understanding that the synagogue is a place where our Judaism and our humanity coincide, and an ancient wisdom exists which can offer us insight in how to live our lives today.  But in order to do that, we have to start a conversation, with a little bit of nosh, some coffee or tea, among trusted friends or people we can learn to trust, in some safe space.  The issues to talk about would be the issues closest to your hearts and you are the only ones who can tell me what those issues are.

Over the past year, I’ve been speaking to a very talented and bright group of people who comprise what has become known as the Whole Health and Wellness Committee.  We’ve been talking about what a congregation would look like were it to focus on the issues that mattered most to the members who belong.  We have a vision of people getting together, maybe once-a-month, maybe once every six weeks, to talk about these critical issues.  They could meet at the synagogue, or perhaps in each other’s homes, or maybe at Bagel Boss or Starbucks.  The location of the meeting could be anywhere, but it’s the topic that would matter most, because it would be the topic that mattered to you most.  I call this group the Whole Health and Wellness Committee, because the ultimate goal of the committee is to use the congregation, our Jewish tradition and background, as a tool for promoting greater health and wellness.  It is a concrete plan to follow one of the Torah’s most fundamental mitzvot: Choose Life.  So here comes a little assignment I’d like to give you:  I’m asking you to write to me and tell me what’s on your mind.  You’ve got my e-mail address.  I’ve been sending you e-mails every day.  Let me know the issue that is your deepest concern.  And let me know if you want a group organized or if you already have a group of friends with whom you would want to meet.  Let’s get together and talk, and nosh, and think, and laugh.  The laughter is really important.  There is always a certain joy in coming closer to the truth.

                Joan Rivers once said, “I hate housework.  You make the beds, you do the dishes, and six months later you have to start all over again.”  If our Judaism is something that appeals to us only a handful of days during the year, we’re going to end up hating it.  For years now, the Jewish leadership around the world has been staring at the planets and the stars and galaxies without the guts to say that the tent is missing.  So here I am to say:  the tent is missing.  There is something missing from our Judaism and it should have been obvious but we get too distracted by non-essentials.  We always hear that Conservative Judaism is doing poorly.  You know what: Judaism the world over is doing poorly. A tradition this old and this rich should hold greater sway over the people it supposedly serves.  Our Judaism and our humanism need to reconnect, and they can, but only if we start talking about the stuff that really touches us.  We will soon discover how the wisdom of the ages as found in our sacred texts can put us back onto the path of righteousness.  I look forward to hearing from you this week.

                Shanah Tovah, everyone.

A LITTLE MORAL CLARITY, PLEASE

It was the last day of June of this year when our hearts were broken.  We finally found Naftali, Gilad, and Eyal.  Their bodies were desecrated, violated, ripped away from their parents, their siblings, their community, and from us.

Why?  What was the point?  What was the objective?

There was no military advantage in killing them.  There was no political gain in murdering them.  There was no territorial advance in snuffing out their young lives.  It was pointless violence.

Bibi was right in questioning what manner of human being does such a thing.  And his answer was that no human being would do such a thing.  An animal—yes.  But a human being, no.  What manner of human being launches  hundreds of rockets aimed at civilian targets with the intent of killing as many people as possible?  No human being would do such a thing.  Animals—yes.  Not a human being.

We, as Jews, have our own problem with those who would act violently.  But when our own acts violently and sins, we arrest them, we try them, we convict them because they are a bushah, an embarrassment to us and to everything we hold dear.  We do not celebrate the deaths of the innocent, we do not sing songs of triumph to Allah when the innocent are murdered, we do not hand out candy upon hearing news of bloodshed.  What manner of human being does that?  No human being would do that.  An animal—maybe.

We have been bombarded for years already with all sorts of reasons why Israel is the culprit in this continuing conflict.  And actually, because we are decent human beings, and because we believe in justice, and because we cherish western liberal values that embrace the importance of each human being, we take those criticisms seriously.

But the time has come for moral clarity.  The IDF has scored 1800 hits, that have resulted in 170 deaths. The ratio between deadly fire and actual deaths is probably the lowest in the annals of warfare because of the humanity of the IDF and the fact that its strikes are targeted.  The Israelis give warning to those within the buildings, the homes, but Hamas encourages people to stay, populate the roof top, act as a shield.  What manner of human being asks another human to be a shield for a bomb?  No human being would do that.  In this case, not even an animal would do that. 

The media keeps reminding us, forever pointing its own bloody finger at Israel, that innocent lives have been lost.  And innocent lives have been lost.  That’s what happens in war.  All war.  It doesn’t matter which war.  It happens in all war.  That’s why there’s  great benefit in solving a problem diplomatically.  But the fact of the matter is that as far as Hamas is concerned the problem is not one of settling borders.  It’s one of the Jews having moved into the wrong neighborhood.  And until the Jews leave, the neighborhood will see no peace.

Guess what…  the Jews are not leaving the neighborhood.  We will not practice restraint when our children are murdered or rockets fall on our cities.  We will not practice restraint because under those conditions, no decent government  committed to protecting its people would practice restraint.  Now is the time for moral clarity.  And if few others in this world have the guts to stand up and tell the Palestinians that their leadership has failed them miserably, and that their military strategy is immoral and unethical and irreligious, and an abomination to all civilized people wherever they may be, then thank God for Israel who will.  This is no time for equivocation.   This is a time only for moral clarity.

 

SHMOOZEDAY INTERVIEWS RABBI RANK

 

SD:         Rabbi Rank, Midway Jewish Center has just inspired 640 people to do one mitzvah on June 13, Mitzvah Day.  How does that make you feel?

RR:         Like a million dollars!

SD:         Has the synagogue ever done anything like this before?

RR:         I don’t think so.

SD:         The synagogue wanted 613 people to do one mitzvah on a single day.  Was that a reasonable goal?

RR:         It was ridiculous!

SD:         But in the end, you actually exceeded expectations.

RR:         We did indeed.

SD:         What was the most popular mitzvah?

RR:         Well, 69 people recited the Shema; 81 people lit Shabbat candles; and 99 people gave a buck for tzdakkah.

SD:         So if 99 people gave a buck for tzdakkah, this Mitzvah Day campaign generated 100 bucks.

RR:         Not exactly.  Many people wrote to me that they were giving $18 or $36 there or even $180 to some worthy organization.  I did not want this to be a contest between big givers and small givers.  Instead, the very wonderful mitzvah of tzdakkah was simply listed as that—A Buck for Tzdakkah

SD:         Which mitzvah was the hardest one to fulfill?

RR:         I think forgiving someone was the most challenging.  But we had 10 people committing to that.

SD:         Some have said that a few of these mitzvot were not really mitzvot, as for example—telling someone that you love him/her?

RR:         Love your neighbor as yourself—Leviticus 19:18.

SD:         But aren’t there 100 ways to love one’s neighbor?

RR:         There may be a thousand ways to love one’s neighbor, one’s fellow human being.  However you choose to do it—by offering advice, encouragement, money, time, etc.—will ultimately be the fulfillment of that mitzvah.

SD:         But wait—what about saying Barukh HaShem?  That certainly cannot count as a mitzvah.

RR:         Why not?  It’s a prayer albeit a very simple prayer.  Barukh HaShem—Praise God—that’s a prayer.

SD:         That’s a prayer?

RR:         Uhm—are you Jewish?

SD:         Yes.

RR:         Oh, well, that explains it.  You think every prayer is 15 minutes long and a full service is three hours plus change. 

SD:         You mean Jews can say Barukh HaShem and feel as if they have prayed?

RR:         If they say Barukh HaShem with sincerity, over something that truly deserves an expression of gratitude to God, not only have they prayed, but they will feel as if they prayed fully.  Twenty-two people committed to saying Barukh HaShem.  That calls for a Barukh HaShem!

SD:         This sounds rather unorthodox.

RR:         We’re Conservative.

SD:         No, I mean in the sense of… would other rabbis define mitzvah as broadly as you do?

RR:         Some rabbis would and some would not.  If all rabbis were of the same opinion, that would not be a mitzvah, but it would be a miracle.

SD:         So what is a mitzvah?

RR:         It is an act which serves as a sacred connection, connecting us to our history, our bible, our past, present and future, our fellow Jews around the world, the community of humankind, our responsibilities to the earth, to each other, and most importantly, it connects us to God.

SD:         Traditionally, a mitzvah was thought to be a command from God, but your definition seems to avoid any reference to a commanding God.

RR:         I think God knows that moderns don’t like to be commanded, but are open to be guided, as long as that guidance is loving, reasonable, and life-affirming.  It all works like the solar system.  God is like the sun and we are like the planets.  Like the sun, God exerts this power over us which keeps us in orbit.  Unlike the planets which are captured by the sun’s gravitational pull, we can defy God’s pull and travel another path.  But it won’t be a path that is loving or reasonable or life-affirming.  We know how many people get off track—even clergy, sad to say—when God is no longer their sun, their gravitational force pulling them back into the orbit of life.  That’s when things get dicey, hairy, scary. 

SD:         Did you ever think you weren’t going to make your 613 Mitzvah Makers?

RR:         Everyday.

SD:         What kept you working at this?

RR:         Midway is a wonderful community and I had these angels in the congregation who got out and encouraged others to do a mitzvah—Debbie Kolodny, Jeff Lambert, Ilene Schlank, Beth Weinstein, just to name a few.

SD:         You weren’t discouraged?

RR:         Optimism is a mitzvah.

SD:         You’re joking.

RR:         Choose Life—Deuteronomy 30:19

SD:         But rabbi, can someone do a mitzvah without being aware that it is a mitzvah?

RR:         Yes, but it’s better to do the mitzvah with awareness or mindfulness.  This is in part what Mitzvah Day was all about: becoming aware of the mitzvot we naturally do.

SD:         Were some people uncomfortable signing up for a mitzvah that they would be doing anyway, like keeping kosher?

RR:         Yes—some even felt guilty about it.

SD:         That can’t be good.

RR:         No, that was terrific—feeling guilty for a perceived wrong is a mitzvah.

SD:         I’m afraid to ask if you are serious.

RR:         Of course, I’m serious.  “…when [a person] realizes guilt in any of these matters, he shall confess that wherein he has sinned” (Leviticus 5:5).  I ended up hearing confession from a couple of people.

SD:         Did that make you feel uncomfortable?

RR:         No—it was marvelous.  The seriousness with which the community took this project was breath-taking.  I had thoughtful exchanges with a number of people about whether the mitzvah they were thinking about was legitimate.  Many people who recruited their whole family to do a mitzvah.  I know of friends who got together to do a mitzvah.  It was a beautiful thing to see.

SD:         What is the most important thing you want people to take away from Mitzvah Day, June 13?

RR:         Just do a mitzvah a day.  And should you find the spiritual energy to place God at the center, everything you do will be a mitzvah.  We always say “It’s hard to be a Jew…”  It really isn’t.

DINA

Well before I began my official tenure at Midway, I was intent on getting to know the staff, and chief among those staff people was the Religious School Director, Dina Barze’ev Hochbaum.  This was back in the Spring of 1999 and at that time, Dina had been with the congregation for some 13 years.  I was amazed by this simple statistic for two reasons: first, I couldn’t name a single place, even during my school years, where I had been with a single institution for 13 years; and second, I was leaving a synagogue where we had the unpleasant experience of going through six Hebrew School principals in 12 years.  That’s a headache!   I was practically drooling to meet this woman who had endured 13 years of what I, and my other colleagues, would deem the toughest job in a synagogue: Religious School principal.

There are two things I remember about that initial meeting with Dina.  The first is that it took me about five to six, certainly no more than seven minutes to realize that I was in the presence of an incredibly competent educator—organized, passionate, thoughtful.  The second is that our meeting was interrupted at least three times by various people—I can’t recall specifically whom—but people who would just throw the door open looking for something or seeking Dina out for some reason.  After the third interruption, Dina turned to me and said, “You could never have an affair around this place because people burst into rooms without knocking.”  Now that was an unanticipated piece of advice.  Not that I was planning anything, but at least I was forewarned.  We had a good laugh.  I’m happy to say that these days, there’s a greater sense of propriety before entering closed-door meetings. 

With Dina’s decision to retire, another kind of door has flung open.  It’s a door that will lead Dina to a new phase of her life—more time for hiking, for nature that she so loves, for yoga, for private educational consulting, for family—and one that will compel us to deal with the vagaries of transition, and all the uncertainties that such a transition brings.  Transition means “change”—a four-lettered word if ever there was one—but after 27 years of Dina creating Jewish experiences and learning for us, I think those changes will continue to reflect the spirit that Dina has breathed into our school and our synagogue, as they should.

In an America that has grown increasingly indifferent to substantive religious education, Dina leaves us with a school dedicated to Hebrew language, synagogue skills, Bible familiarity, and ritual observance;   in other words, a school of real substance.  Some families have left because the curriculum was too demanding and others may never have considered joining.  And yet, our school has remained incredibly strong in numbers while other schools around us have suffered plunging enrollments.  We didn’t become the school of excellence by accident.  Dina’s commitment to standards and expectations made it so.  And there are still plenty of Jewish families for whom this reverence of substantive learning is important.

At times, I think Dina should have been known as the Assistant Rabbi.  She virtually operated as such for both our rabbi emeritus, Rabbi Finkelstein, and for me.  She need only have programmed for her Religious School but she came up with programs for the whole synagogue.  She need only have taught the kids but she was concerned about parents and adult education as well, exposing adults to Hebrew reading, Hebrew literature and poetry, history, etc.  I made sure she accompanied me to Israel on a couple of occasions so that she could interface with the Israelis during our synagogue trips and care for our travelers, giving them her undivided attention.  When she had to rise before the congregation in praise of a Board of Education Chair, a student, a congregant being honored, a fellow staffer—she was always exceedingly prepared, her words carefully chosen, and the honor she paid those people sincere and genuine.  What a lesson in hakarat hatov, expressing gratitude, she would teach us in her each and every word.

In part, I think she could do this because for her, the position was clearly more than a paycheck.  She is, and I expect her to remain, very much a part of this community.  It was not uncommon for her to show up at B’nei Mitzvah, weddings, funerals, and shivah calls.  How many Religious School directors are so connected?  Dina is. 

When it came time to reimagine our school, Dina was a key player in redirecting our school onto a new and vibrant path.  Without her support and consent, we would not have been able to do what we did.  It was a time of significant changes:  the creation of parent havurot, the two–day school, the emphasis on family services (you can count on one hand how many people in this country can actually lead that kind of service and Dina is one of them).  And out of it all, we were blessed with Lisa Stein, who now becomes Dina’s successor, having really absorbed so much of Dina’s approach toward Jewish education.

Did I mention Dina’s eggplant dish?  Oh my God—to die for!  She is a gourmet cook.  And when my Ellen took ill around 2005, Dina, unsolicited, would show up at our door with casseroles in hand.  But I digress.  Back to Dina’s pedagogy.

Recently, at a symposium she attended at Yad Vashem, Israel’s premier Holocaust museum and research center, Dina presented the Shoah curriculum that she created for our synagogue.  She was given a standing ovation.  Magi’ah lah—she deserved every minute of applause.

Dina has never been afraid to voice an opinion, which is one of the reasons we love her.  She has had a reputation for being tough.  And she is.  Have you ever seen her in the parking lot during dismissal?  She could be a traffic cop on 42^nd Street and Eighth Avenue.  The truth is that anyone who intends to be a Religious School director better be tough—real tough.  This job is not for the faint-hearted. 

Dina does not like Good-byes.  I don’t blame her.  She is a hovevet Yisrael, a lover of Israel.  She is a serious Jew.  She is a compassionate and loving human being.  She is an outstanding mother, wife, and friend.  We need more Dinas in this world and when we have them, we should never let them go.  And so it is for that reason that the Board of Trustees is granting Dina and Charlie lifetime free membership at Midway.  When you have someone like Dina, you never say Good-bye.

CAN WE TALK?

Several weeks ago, I attended a UJA-Federation “town meeting” that brought six members of Knesset to New York to learn more about Federation and the American Jewish community. It was fascinating to hear their differing views on President Obama, Netanyahu, the peace process, and women and Ethiopians in Israeli society. At one point, addressing himself to the challenges of talking peace to Palestinians who refuse to even recognize Israel as a Jewish state, one of the Knesset members said (and here I must paraphrase)—I am very much in favor of appointing Canada as Israel’s official neighbor. But in as much as that appointment may never materialize, we’ll have to speak with the people who live on our borders, and right now, those people are represented by the Palestinian Authority.

It was a lighthearted yet profound lesson in pragmatics. With whom do you speak when there is a conflict? Do you speak to your friends or your enemies? You can speak with your friends all you want, but that will never resolve anything with your enemies.

This past month, Brandeis University rescinded an offer to Ayaan Hirsi Ali to receive an honorary doctorate from the university. Who is Ali? Ali is a women’s rights activist and a vocal critic of Islam. You might recall the Dutch film director, Theodoor Van Gogh, who was brutally murdered for creating a film highly critical of Islam’s treatment of women. That film, Submission, was written by Ali. She now declares herself an atheist, speaks of violence as being intrinsic to Islam, opposes female genital mutilation (of which she is a victim) and honor killings, that is, the “accepted” killing of women for so-called acts or infidelity. In 2005, Time magazine named her as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

Apparently, the Moslems at Brandeis, and many other sympathizers, were unhappy with the university’s choice. In an editorial printed in The Justice, the university’s independent student newspaper, the author(s) wrote: “By presenting Hirsi Ali with an honorary degree, the University applauds all aspects of her work [bold and italics are mine]. An honorary degree validates the good she has done for women’s rights, yet it also condones the comments she has made against Islam, and therefore against a valued portion of our community.” Really? I don’t think so. There is no specific logical connection between presenting a person with an honorary degree and thereby applauding “all aspects of her work,” unless the university specifically were to say that, and it did not. So why did Brandeis pull the plug on Ali?

I don’t know. I wasn’t in any of the backroom discussions on this so I don’t know. Was it a fear that it would insult the Moslems? Was it a fear that Moslems might retaliate, disrupting commencement ceremonies or physically damaging the campus? Was it a financial threat—the witholding of substantial revenues were the degree to be conferred? Was it something else I haven’t thought of? I don’t know. But what I do know is that the administration caved to the forces that shouted—We can’t talk to her. We can’t listen to her. We only talk to our friends, to the people who believe as we do.

Sad. So much for the Brandeis logo with the Hebrew word “Emet” [that is, Truth] emblazoned upon it.

It should be noted that Brandeis did permit Israeli Apartheid Week on campus, demonizing Israel as an apartheid-like state. It has honored American playwright and screenwriter Tony Kushner, who has referred to the creation of Israel as a “mistake.” It has honored South African Bishop Desmond Tutu, whose anti-Israel statements are well-known. But those programs or honors were ok because they involved the people we talk to.

Can we talk? In this polarized, radicalized, demonizing society of ours, the answer is no. We could possibly talk, but many of us make the conscious decision not to, because that’s the toxic air of western cultural society today.

The Conservative Jewish Movement, often parodied as vacillating, irresolute, wishy-washy, or namby-pamby, is actually the movement that has historically and uniquely looked for the truth in what different people are trying to convey. And the truths, we discovered, are all over the place. More often than not, there’s truth, perhaps only a lentil’s worth of truth, but nonetheless truth, in just about everything that people do say. The truth may emanate from their own whacky and distorted perceptions, but unless the people with clearer perceptions choose to interact, the whackiness and the distortion remain unchallenged. An error in motion remains in motion unless acted upon by some other forceful idea. When we stop talking to “those other people,” whether for personal, professional or academic reasons, the certainty of our own righteousness is almost always a road to Hell. And when something like this manifests itself in an institution of higher learning, where the free exchange of perspectives and ideas is the path we walk to the truth, the consequences are pathetic in the extreme.

MH370: SOME THOUGHTS AND A PRAYER

It’s the not knowing that is maddening.  We always want answers, as if we are owed them.  The frustration of the families awaiting news of their loved ones is completely understandable.  And when agencies and governments withhold information, or are so suspected, we almost immediately sense injustice and moral wrong.  But the fact is that when it comes to Malaysia Flight 370, the questions outnumber the answers substantially.

In this week’s parashah, Shemini, we read of the tragic death of the High Priest Aaron’s sons, Nadav and Avihu.  They were killed in a flash fire during a religious ceremony.  The Torah is essentially silent on why this happened, leaving later generations to speculate.  Among the suggested answers given is that Nadav and Avihu were drunk, or impatient, or dressed inappropriately, or executed their functions with excessive piety.  But the most damning explanation for their deaths is the charge of egotism.  They felt no need to consult their elders or even each other on matters of proper ritual procedure.  They knew it all.

We humans may think we know a lot.  But the fact is that a Boeing 777 carrying 239 people can take off and just disappear—for days.  And some experts say it may never be found.  MH370 should be a jarring reminder to us all of just how little we know.  When we stand on the edge of “we don’t know,” we stand at the border between us and God.  A little humility is in order.  

Our hearts go out to the families searching for answers, to the rescue workers searching for wreckage, and to the victims of this tragedy wherever they may be.  May God grant each one the appropriate blessing.