Stretching & Late to the Game (Ki Tissa)

This morning, I think, was the first time I cried while hearing the story of a family from Kibbutz Be’eri.

Maybe I’m late to the game.

But what made me cry was a little different.

It was deeper than the personal story of pain and trauma of a specific family.

While heart breaking, it offered a ray of hope.

It was more than their personal story.

It was also indirectly about the loss of an intentional way of living.

A communal way.

An ideal.

Where all income goes into a common pool, and all benefit.

Where everyone has their needs met, whether it’s for health, food, education, friendship…

After months of living in a hotel with their fellow kibbutz members who survived, there were decisions to make.

As a group—as one big family—they talked.

What to do going forward?

For the good of everyone.

Some argued not to return to rebuild until they knew it was safe.

That included knowing that Palestinians would be treated fairly!!

They didn’t sound bitter, despite their unimaginable loss and grief.

And they were doing everything to stay together as a community—a community that had grown up together, like a family.

When I heard this, it brought tears to my eyes.

I was amazed at the humanity of people whose whole way of life and worldview had been threatened and upturned.

To know that, in spite of everything, they were able to maintain their care and concern for another people—

—a people they could easily turn their wrath on for having betrayed their trust.

They were not bitter.

They did not abandon their ideals.

This week in Torah, we have a story of loss of hope and faith—and a feeling of betrayal.

The Israelites have been waiting for Moses to descend Mt. Sinai for a long time.

And they’re done waiting.

With their history of grief and trauma, having escaped from slavery and walked through a wall of water through a divided sea, they are afraid.

They have experienced and seen death and destruction beyond the imagination.

In their anxiety, they descend as a mob on Moses’ brother, Aaron, and threaten him;

This guy Moses has betrayed us, they say in essence. He said he was coming back, and we see no proof of it!

“Make for us a god!”

From this comes a calf made out of gold: a false god, one they can bow down to, one they can see.

It’s a terrible moment when Moses learns of this disaster and hears God’s wrath.

Moses confronts his own wrath as well, smashing the tablets engraved by God’s own finger that he has brought down from the mountain.

Yet he pleads for the people: “Do not destroy them.”

From all this, ultimately, once all is calm, comes a beautiful moment of deep connection.

Moses has a heart-to-heart talk with God, a rational conversation, wishing to know God more deeply.

And God, in return, gives Moses a sweet assurance of revelation and protection, showing him only so much as he can observe safely—

—for to see God’s face would be too much, and Moses would die.

Since Oct. 7th, many people have abandoned hope of any kind of reconciliation, or the idea of Israeli Jews and Palestinians ever living peacefully together.

We want to see proof in a moment when there appears to be none.

Many have likewise abandoned hope of a world where people can live together and support each other in community.

We are caught, both literally and figuratively, in the crossfire between political players.

Yet we do have choices.

We do not have to make false gods of these political powers—as if they are there to protect and keep us safe.

We do not have to give in to forces that personally gain by keeping us afraid and full of hatred, ready to explode.

And just like those members of Kibbutz Be’eri, we do not have to give in to bitterness and hatred.

We do not have to react from our gut, despite feeling vulnerable.

We can choose, instead, to have rational, calm conversations.

We can choose to make sweet connections—and see what might be revealed.

It may take stretching ourselves to maintain hope and commitment to an ideal.

But we are capable of stretching.

Join me if you will.

The ripple effects are immeasurable.

And say Amen.

Note: To hear the story I describe above, listen to the latest episode of This American Life, called Family Meeting.

To hear more on communal living in today’s world, listen to the Ezra Klein show when he interviewed the author of an upcoming book about reimagining life “with friendship at the center.”

Aliens, Whales, & Tetzaveh

This week I happened upon a funny series on Netflix.

At first I thought it would be too silly, too childish.

But I found the humor to be right up my ally.

So I’ve kept watching, becoming more and more engrossed and invested in the characters and the outcome.

It’s called “Resident Alien.”

The main character is an alien living among humans—thus, he is a “resident alien.”

The title is obviously a play on the way we often speak of migrants from other countries in the U.S.; we dehumanize them.

This particular alien on the show has come from another planet to Earth—and not for good reasons.

He is on a mission to destroy all of humanity.

(And I’m not totally clear on why.)

One of his strengths is that he can transform his outer appearance to look like any other human.

As he lives among humans, he learns their ways.

At first, it’s all part of his disguise.

But slowly he is transformed.

He becomes more and more human, and less and less alien.

This is part of his charm.

When once he thought himself far superior, far more intelligent, he begins to see the strengths in humanity.

One character, who becomes his only friend, teaches him about human compassion.

“We show up for each other when we’re in need.”

This is how we survive the trials and tribulations of life, she explains.

The show also teaches that anyone can be your family, even when they are not blood-related.

This morning as I was exercising, I tuned into the Radiolab podcast.

It’s fun and funny, and I always learn something from it.

This week, the episode was called, “The World’s Smartest Animal.”

The hosts set it up kind of like a game show.

The contestants each argue for a particular animal as the smartest on Earth.

The chicken, one says, is so smart, it can play tic tac toe.

The crow makes tools.

It also holds funerals for other crows (so it can figure out what they died of and avoid a similar death).

In the end, the audience votes.

And the animal that wins is the sperm whale.

Why?

Partly because the sperm whale can sense another being approaching from very far away (good for self-protection against the enemy).

More importantly, however, it was admired for lacking the concept of “I” in its “vocabulary.”

If a sperm whale could express its emotions, it would say, “We are sad,” or “We are in pain,” for example.

There was even a group of sperm whales that adopted a dolphin with a deformity that had caused its own group to reject it.

(Brings tears to your eyes, right?)

The sperm whale is the epitome of a completely communal way of thinking and living.

Since the beginning of the war in Gaza, I’ve been talking a lot about compassion.

How can we open our hearts to those we disagree with?

Or even to our “enemy”?

Or that which seems alien to us?

Does it protect us to be afraid and maintain our distance?

Certainly. Sometimes.

This week in Torah, instructions are given for garments to be worn by the high priest in the Temple.

One major element is the breastplate, or khoshen.

It is a patterned brocade made of special, colorful threads into which are set four rows of stones.

The stones add up to twelve, each representing one of the twelve tribes of Israel.

The priest is to wear it over his chest.

What is the meaning behind this?

It is said to have been a tool for divination—a way of getting Divine guidance.

Each tribe has its own particular qualities, as represented by the stones, and perhaps needs guidance in times of war.

But they are twelve that add up to One: the Jewish people in sum.

Why do we continually need reminders that we are One?

Like the Resident Alien in the TV series, who learns that the greatest human strength lies in our ability to have compassion, it seems that this is a lesson we, too, have not yet internalized.

Israel is a microcosm of all humanity.

We are still in a tribal mindset, waiting to be attacked, and using an attack as a reason to strip our “enemy” or their humanity.

When we stop seeing the Other as human, we lose our compassion.

When we lose our compassion, we lose what is perhaps most valuable and special about being human.

I wonder if we can stop politicizing violence with labels that either dehumanize others or hold them up as heroes.

If we personally are not capable of doing this, how can we expect our “enemy” to do it?

After all, what’s the difference between a “terrorist” and a “freedom fighter” except that we think one is more justified in their actions than the other?

Can we make it a practice to look at a stranger, someone we are perhaps even frightened of, and still see the image of God?

Like the Resident Alien who begins to rethink his mission of killing humans as he gets closer to them, maybe we, too, can get closer to those we consider our enemies.

I think it’s fair to say that are all engrossed and invested in this—and all—conflict on Earth, and its outcome.

Our future as a people, as a species, and as a planet depends on it.

This future depends on us.

We just have to remember that we are all characters in this show on Earth.

May we all become more human, less alien, and stop thinking of ourselves and our tribe as superior.

Because anyone can be family, even if they’re not blood-related.

Shabbat Shalom.

And say Amen.

Burying a Gift & T’rumah

In Judaism, we say that burying someone is the biggest mitzvah of all.

Why?

Because it is a kindness that cannot be repaid—like a gift.

In other words, it’s not transactional.

A mitzvah is enacted in order to bring us closer to God.

Another way to say it is that we bring God into the world through our actions.

Saying, “What do I get for it?” doesn’t figure into the equation.

When it comes to death, however, more often the feeling is one of being robbed—what kind of gift is that?

I did my first funeral last Friday.

It was a particularly difficult situation: youth, addiction, mental and physical illness, an ugly ongoing custody battle with an abusive biological father.

How can kindness, or the idea of gifts, be any part of this death?

If anything, it felt cruel, both the life that was, the fact that it was lost, and the untimeliness of it.

Her young son insisted on a traditional Jewish funeral for her, whatever that meant to him.

I went to the family’s house and spent hours talking and listening in their kitchen.

I looked at photos, heard of her brilliance, her sensitivity, her talent.

And her pain.

And their pain.

And their guilt.

How they’d fallen short as parents.

It was clear that they loved her dearly and had tried always to support her.

I sat alone with the teenage son for a while in the living room.

When I came back to the kitchen, his grandfather was waiting for me.

“Is he okay?” he asked hopefully.

I hesitated.

“Nnnooo?”

(Why would he be okay?)

(And what would be the purpose of pretending?)

His grandfather nodded, understanding. Perhaps he was grateful for my honesty in the face of his helplessness.

Later at the cemetery, we walked slowly behind the coffin, pausing along the way to show our reluctance.

We watched as it was lowered into the ground.

Just before giving instructions on how to proceed with the burial, I talked about the mitzvah of burying someone—the gift that can never be repaid.

Then I explained that, as a further show of our reluctance, we are to use the back of the shovel as we begin placing earth into the grave.

But I have to stop here for a moment.

Because I have to say that, in my experience, the most profound moment in a traditional burial is watching that coffin being lowered into the ground.

The next is hearing the echo of dirt, one shovel at a time, fall onto the coffin below.

It’s the ultimate wake-up moment; this is really happening.

We seem to need it, especially when we are in shock.

As painful as it is, it’s almost like a gift in itself.

As the mourners gathered round, taking turns with the shovel, I chanted, “Return again, return again, return to the place of your soul…”

I heard someone gasp behind me—a surprising acknowledgement that we are intimately connected to the Earth.

And another reminder that this person was truly dead.

I noticed that, to complete the task of the burial, there was a backhoe waiting nearby.

It almost felt like the mourners were being robbed of a sense of completion, of finiteness.

I resisted giving them permission; there wasn’t time.

The limos were waiting, and Shabbat was descending; it was a long trip home.

Yet people lingered nonetheless.

They were reluctant to leave, needed to stand around with each other, taking in the moment.

For me, not having known the family or her community at all, there was suddenly a deep connection between us.

Several people stopped to talk to me.

I offered a hug, and they gratefully accepted, holding on as though we’d known each other for ever.

In this week’s parsha, T’rumah, the people Israel receive instructions for the building of the Mishkan.

The Mishkan is the portable sanctuary they will carry with them through the desert over the next forty years.

It is, God says, “So that I may dwell amongst them.”

Or “within” them, depending on how you translate the Hebrew.

And “t’rumah” means gift.

The materials Israelites are to bring for the building of the sanctuary are gifts.

They get nothing in return.

Whether they bring pieces of wood, or precious stones and metals, animal skins, or various specially colored yarns to be woven into fabric that will be hung in the Tabernacle, all are valuable.

Like the gift of the funeral last week, each part was valuable.

The stories told, the songs sung, the tears shed.

The woman who died had been a gift to her parents.

Her son had been a gift to her, and her love had been a gift to him.

Each person that showed up at the funeral, or made the effort to drive out to the cemetery, was like a small jewel.

Each shovelful of dirt dropped into the grave was a tiny gem.

Each embrace and each hand held.

Each tear shed.

Each lingering person sharing their grief was a small piece of gold to another.

All these woven together by brightly colored threads made a beautiful fabric of human connection.

Over these past months, since the brutal Hamas attack on Israeli Jews, and the counter attacks on Gaza that have taken on such huge proportions, many people have closed themselves off to the grief of others.

Instead of grief, it’s anger and rage that overwhelm us.

Or I’ve heard people say, “My grief is so great, I don’t have room in my heart for the suffering of others.”

We’re not okay.

None of us is okay.

People on both sides have shut themselves off to the other.

Maybe it’s because we haven’t helped each other understand.

Or maybe we’re in the habit of not talking.

Or, more importantly perhaps, of not listening.

If we didn’t shut ourselves off and down, grief could be a healing that might bring us together.

If only we understood that grief is not something to possess, or feel possessive of, but rather a gift offering to others, to be shared, expecting nothing in return.

The Israelites are to bring gifts for which they expect nothing in return.

This is how they build the sanctuary.

And yet, there is a gift in return; God’s presence—among them and within them.

We also could build a sanctuary—woven out of the grief we share—for God to dwell among us.

May it be so.

Sapphire in the Ordinary & Mishpatim

On Monday morning of this week, I had a real panic attack.

Like, really.

I had an appointment to meet with someone I was very nervous about meeting.

We were matched up to work on a project together: me as the rabbi and he as the artist.

Me writing a drash, or sermon, on the weekly parsha—like I do here every week.

Him making a painting based on my drash.

But we were from completely opposite backgrounds.

A fierce Zionist, he moved to Israel at the age of 15 and has been in counterterrorism his entire life.

One of his children had been at the music festival in Israel when Hamas had attacked.

He had escaped, but the trauma was real.

Me? I grew up in a communist, antizionist household.

What a time, in the midst of such high tensions, for us to meet!

Why had we been matched? What if we couldn’t find common ground to work together?

On my way downtown on the subway, a man came walking down the aisle with his cane leading the way.

“I have a wife and children, and I’m almost blind. If anyone could spare a quarter, a nickel, a dime, some food, anything…”

Across the aisle from me was a young man I had noticed.

He seemed to be a new African immigrant in New York.

As the blind man approached the pole that separated me from this young man across the aisle, he reached out to pull him over so he wouldn’t hurt himself.

He didn’t worry about how dirty the blind man was; he wasn’t afraid to touch him at all.

I wasn’t the only one surprised by the gesture; the blind man seemed taken aback as well.

He didn’t give him money, but treated him with dignity: a human being in need of assistance.

It struck that he did it like it was the most natural thing in the world, reaching out with his whole body in a caring way to grasp the man’s arm.

In this week’s parsha full of “mishpatim,” or laws, there’s a very curious little paragraph.

All the elders of the community ascend the mountain, and they see God.

“Under God’s feet,” it says, “there was the likeness of a pavement of sapphire, like the very sky for purity…they beheld God, and they ate and drank.”

These men see God, and instead of trembling at the sight, they just go about their business, eating and drinking.

There has been much commentary on this strange verse.

The one that seemed the most probable when I read it was that God is in the ordinary, if we only stop to notice it.

Or not; maybe God is in the ordinary even when we don’t notice.

When I got downtown and met the artist, I realized how all my worries had been for naught.

I could not have been more surprised by our encounter.

We had so much more in common than I could have ever imagined!

Our conversation was as natural as could be.

We ate pizza and drank Snapple, and then went to see his artwork, and it was exciting learning about each other, our families, our children, our lives, our paths.

We could have talked for hours.

Like the man on the subway, he was just another human being, not the extreme person I had expected after all.

Like when the men beheld God and went to their eating and drinking, maybe I also beheld God on Monday.

Maybe I do every day, and fail to realize it.

Fantasy & Yitro

When I was in high school, I had a favorite teacher who loved saying the word “appalled.”

He spoke with a pretentious British accent, drawing out the word.

“I am appaaaawwlled at your behavior,” he would say to us collectively.

Outside of class, we would imitate and laugh at him.

Now I find myself using the word quite often, and I can never quite get his voice out of my head.

But I feel like I’m living in a constant state of “appalledness” or “appawllation.”

Funny how we become our teachers.

This week, I was appalled by something I heard on the podcast, For Heaven’s Sake, of the Shalom Hartman Institute.

The hosts told the story of an Israeli army chaplain speaking to a group of soldiers at the beginning of the war on Hamas in Gaza.

The chaplain told the soldiers that the attacks on Israel of October 7th were something to rejoice; it portended the coming of the Messiah.

(Appalling, isn’t it??)

The episode, entitled “The Politics of Fantasy,” is a discussion of the conference, Settlements Bring Security, that was held this past Sunday in Israel.

The Jewish “Religious Right” is promoting the idea that this war Israel is currently engaged in is the war to end all wars.

It’s the war that will bring about the messianic dream of Jews repossessing the land that God promised us in the Torah.

If you take the Bible literally, as the fundamentalist religious right does, whether Jewish or Christian, then this story has to play out.

It’s the reason (or excuse) for possessing land, as recounted repeatedly in the Torah—and for repossessing land.

For Jews, it’s based on the idea that we are God’s Chosen People—and that God promised us “The Land.”

It’s the reason Chistian fundamentalists support Israel as a state—even while they call for Jews to convert to Christianity and will openly show disdain for our “Old” Testament.

They believe that the Messiah will come (back) when Jews have repossessed the land.

The idea of choseness, as it’s been translated, appears for the first time in the Torah in this week’s Parsha.

Now “free,” the Israelites are just beginning to be exposed to what it means to be—well, them.

Becoming them as God wants them to be, begins with trembling at the foot of Mt. Sinai, receiving the Torah—

—which really means hearing the Ten Commandments, or Ten Utterances, more properly translated, for the first time.

Being them—Israelites (or us, Jews)—will mean living by these words.

Among the words are some key utterances I think we should pay special attention to at this time as Jews:

You shall not swear falsely…    

You shall not murder.

You shall not steal.

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

You shall not covet your neighbor…

But there’s a key stipulation:

The people are told they will be God’s chosen, God’s “segula,” or treasure, if they listen to God’s voice.

God promises the land—but God also specifically says the land belongs to God, not to the people!

We’re in a very difficult position at this time, as Jews, as Americans, as Israelis.

It’s a dangerous game that’s being played.

We as a people, as Jews, whether American or Israeli, need to make sure we’re not being played.

It’s a dangerous game we’re caught in, between politics, fundamentalist religion, and fear.

It’s a dangerous idea when a sense of specialness, singled out by God, coupled with trauma, along with a messianic vision, and military power, all come together.

What happens to our inner moral compass when this happens?

What has happened to our inner moral compass?

Perhaps we should each stop pretending to know the answers.

Perhaps we should start by stopping pretending to be, each of us (because we all are guilty of this!) the only possessors of Truth and Solution.

Perhaps we all need a little more humility, and to examine ourselves, our thoughts, our beliefs, more carefully.

And can we do that without making excuses or giving reasons?

We should ask, are we in fact following God’s commandments?

Is it a fantasy that we can create peace in a world so fraught?

Maybe.

But we have to try.

And doesn't it start with each one of us that collectively become a "we"?

Because the way things are now is just appaaaawwwling.

Don’t you agree?

If so, say Amen.

Cowardice, Bravery, & B’shalakh

It’s been over a month since I’ve written.

I got sick (better now!).

But the whole world is sick.

(And the Whole World is sick.)

This past Monday morning I heard about the scathing report that came back from the Justice Department on the Uvalde, Texas school shooting that happened in 2022.

I was disgusted to hear about the utter failure of local police to prevent the deaths of 19 children.

Disgusted to hear again that 400 law enforcement officers stood around for 77 minutes before deciding to go in and help!

Disgusted that children acted like adults, calling repeatedly for help, while the adults outside acted like children, unwilling to go inside and help while they knew what was happening!!!

Disgusted to hear about the cowardice of those police who knew what kind of rifle they were dealing with

—and decided that their own lives were more important than the lives of the children.

Disgusted to hear about the cowardice of our American politicians not to side with what can be the only right thing to do:

—to ban automatic assault rifles of the kind used continuously around the country in these mass shootings.

—to prevent such guns from getting into the hands of those still barely adults—let alone anyone at all.

I am disgusted at the cowardice of these same politicians to even watch the videos of dead children, some of whose faces are blown off.

Because they must know that if they saw the images, they couldn’t live with themselves—

—they couldn’t live with their political decision to allow such things to continue to happen.

—how much they have allowed their hearts to harden for their own political and economic gains.

I’ve been thinking a lot about bravery and cowardice.

Because I’ve also been afraid.

When the report came out about the women and girls that were raped by Hamas, I was too afraid to read about it or see the pictures.

I was too afraid to look at the photos of the beheaded babies.

And I have asked myself, “Do people really need yet one more rabbi talking about Israel/Palestine?”

And, “Do I even have something special and different to say?”

Yet week after week, I listen to sermons that leave me frustrated, angry, and disgusted.

Rabbis too afraid to even mention Palestinian lives lost—if they in fact care.

If they have even a little doubt that Israel is fighting a just war in a just way.

It’s hard to tell by their silence, but the stakes are high.

The risk of being attacked, “canceled” or blacklisted as a rabbi for speaking one’s mind is very high.

People are so angry that they are ready to misinterpret anything you say.

And it’s frightening.

But I’ve been thinking of what is required of me in this moment in time.

I’ve been thinking of how I will feel if I do not speak my conscience.

Isn’t that what I was taught by my Communist upbringing?

To be brave?

I do not want to be a coward.

This week in Torah, the Israelites finally walk to freedom.

They walk through the famous split sea, the “wall of water” to their left and to their right.

As the Egyptians pursue them one last time, Pharaoh’s heart is hard as a rock (it’s God’s fault here).

When the Israelites reach the other side, they sing the famous Song of the Sea/Shirat Hayam, rejoicing at their freedom.

Miriam the Prophetess leads the women in dancing as she plays her timbrel.

Pharaoh and the entire Egyptian army have drowned as the walls of water collapse on them, purposefully preventing them from reaching the Israelites.

Immediately afterwards, as the Israelites begin to roam through the desert, they struggle with their fears around survival.

Will there be enough food and water?

But then God makes manna fall from the sky, and gives Moses the power to draw clean water from a rock.

There is enough for everyone, even double on Fridays for Shabbat!

This is a biblical story that has given Jews the strength to go on in spite of discrimination and oppression over millennia.

It gave enslaved Americans the hope and the strength to continue on.

It gave later generations of Black Americans the courage to continue to demand freedom and equality.

But I think it’s important to note that when the Israelites get to the other side, now free, they do not look back.

They do not see the utter destruction left behind, of bodies floating in the sea.

And perhaps they don’t have the courage.

Perhaps the pain would be too great, after everything they’ve gone through.

Perhaps their own pain is too deep and overwhelming to see the pain of others.

As I thought about it, it seemed similar to the situation in Israel proper at the moment.

On Israeli TV, numbers of dead Palestinians are posted, but no images are shown of the suffering Gazans are experiencing.

What they see on Israeli news is destroyed and empty buildings, but no people, dead or alive.

Much like what happened during the Iraq War, they only read numbers and hear rockets flying.

According to stories I’ve read and heard, Israelis near the border with Gaza have become immune to the sound of rockets flying and bombs falling.

At best, they can only wonder if people are dying on the other side.

On the other hand, they can imagine, and perhaps rejoice secretly, that Hamas is being wiped out with each bomb that falls, and each Israeli soldier dead.

And their own pain is so deep, the situation so dire, that out of self-protection, they close and harden their hearts to the “other” who is suffering.

It takes great courage to look at images of flattened buildings, and especially injured and dead children.

But Jewish tradition teaches that we are never to rejoice at the death of another, even the enemy.

Today, as in the past, Jews worry about the survival of our people.

Today, many Jews cling to Israel as a symbol of the survival of our people.

They see the mass demonstrations in support of Palestinian rights and the rise in antisemitism around the world as proof that we need Israel in order to survive.

But the cost of survival should not be the utter destruction we are seeing in Gaza.

After the Egyptian army drowns in the sea, those who are actively pursuing the Israelites, God doesn’t order the destruction of the civilian Egyptians left alive.

Perhaps because God has already caused so much destruction and suffering, having killed so many baby boys.

Perhaps God realizes in the moment that this time, maybe, just maybe, he’s gone too far.

And that it’s time to stop.

Because war has never, ever, been a path to peace.

Committing injustice against another, even if injustice has been committed against you, has never, ever, been a path towards justice.

It just leaves more pain and destruction in its wake.

I don’t pretend to have the answers.

I just wish us all the courage to soften our hearts and look at the destruction, death and suffering that has happened and is happening.

I wish us the courage to soften our hearts to the suffering of that which is not “ours.”

Only then will we finally find a path to a lasting peace.

And say Amen.

Six Feet Under & Tevet

Since October 7th, until a couple of days ago, I would say I have been truly depressed.

I have been constantly on the verge of tears, all day.

Simultaneously, I began obsessively watching the show “Six Feet Under.”

It took me out of the horrors of the world for a couple of hours a day, into someone else’s problems.

I don’t know about you, but I generally love dark humor.

Especially about death, and talking ghosts.

The show is about a family with grown children that lives above a funeral home, their family business, in a beautiful old Victorian house.

The first floor serves as the funeral parlor.

The basement is where they prepare dead bodies for burial or cremation.

Throughout the show, different characters have conversations with the dead.

The ghosts spontaneously show up and begin interacting with the living.

It’s pretty obvious that the various characters are working through their own issues through these conversations.

But it’s a fine line between being sure it’s simply their own imagination, fears, and struggles, and the ghosts really being there.

It’s deeply spiritual in that it begs the question, “Why are we here, and what happens after death?”

While the interactions are often funny and quirky, they become increasingly serious.

And it’s stressful to watch as the various characters make bad choices over and over.

They fail to communicate with each other effectively, walk away when things get hard, and are self-destructive.

Just when you think maybe things are taking a turn for the better, they don’t.

In fact, circumstances go from bad to worse as the show progresses through the seasons.

It is truly depressing and hopeless.

Everyone is deeply lonely, disconnected, and unhappy, whether they have partners or not.

They struggle just to get through each day.

All yearn deeply for love and connection, but can’t quite seem to reach it.

As I watched each night, I kept wondering if the show was making me feel worse, or simply reflecting how I was feeling as the weeks progressed and the world news got worse.

The show takes place in the early 2000’s in the Bush years, just was the Iraq war is beginning.

It reflects the era we are in now, proclaiming the need for destruction in order to make peace.

It reflects the anger, the fury, the frustration.

A neighbor told me, “Wait ‘till you get to the last episode! What they did...! It’s incredible.”

But he wouldn’t tell me if it was good or bad.

So I was bracing myself for an ending so horrible, it went beyond my wildest imagination.

And during the last episode, even until halfway through, things did not bode well.

But suddenly it all changed.

You got a window into the future, and it was shockingly a heartening one.

The characters freed themselves from their inner constrictions and restrictions.

They reached out and freed each other.

They healed old wounds.

They learned to offer and accept love and help.

They took chances.

They grabbed opportunities for adventure and exploration.

They found joy, despite the daily struggles.

The night I finished watching, I went to sleep smiling.

Though I woke up sad again, crying agin, I went on my daily walk through the North Woods of Central Park.

I came upon a flock of well-camouflaged mourning doves.

Startled, they took flight, which is when I saw them, and they startled me, filling me with a sense of joy and freedom.

I thought, maybe this means I’m coming to the end of my mourning, despite the bad news and the state of the world.

I mean, how can I go on like this?

What good am I to others in this state?

Then, a few days ago, I went to visit my friends on the beach.

Just the 32 hours I was there pulled me out of it—at least for now.

It’s not that my friends were any more hopeful than I was.

But they share the more nuanced view I have of the situation, with true compassion for all involved—for all sides.

I had realized how alone I felt.

Besides finding comfort in connection with friends, I found joy in nature.

The night after a big rain storm came across the northeast, the weather turned cold, as it should be for this time of year.

Standing outside on the porch in my pajamas and a sweater, looking up at the constellations in the sky, breathing in the crisp, clean air, I was energized.

In the dark, I broke into a run along the pathway in front of the house until my nostrils froze.

In the morning, I ran on the beach and dipped my bare feet in the freezing water, and reconnected with the Earth.

We all desperately want to know how this will all end.

We might be asking existential questions like, “Why are we here?” and “What’s it all for?”

We want to know that the wars will stop, and that people will make peace with each other despite differences.

We want to know that we will learn to communicate with each other and not walk away when things get hard.

We want to know that we will wake up before it’s too late for our children, and their children, and start taking care of our planet.

In the meantime, we need to remember that we are not alone.

We must remember that our fears are not necessarily reality.

We must seek out connections with others that give us strength, and offer it to others.

We must notice that the idea of “nuance”—that things are never black and white—is spreading.

We must not only notice joy and gratitude when it happens, but create opportunities for it to flourish.

We need to find a degree of acceptance for what is, and learn to better live with uncertainty.

At the same time, we need to look for places and times where we can make a difference, to one person, or to many.

Until we are six feet under the ground, we each have the power to bring more love and peace into the world.

Let’s use it. Let’s do it.

One step, one foot, one word, one conversation at a time.

May it be so.

And say Amen.

Thanksgiving, Stuffing & Kislev

I didn’t realize how deeply this whole Israel/Gaza mess would make its way into my bones.

I didn’t know how isolated and alone I would feel.

I’m afraid to feel.

Afraid to express myself.

Instead, I’ve been stuffing my face since October 7th.

As if that will make me feel any better. (Tried-and-Not-True).

I think I’ve actually been depressed.

Has my silence been deafening?

But who needs another pundit?

What if, this time, I don’t want to take sides?

Everyone says I’m supposed to.

But what if taking sides is what gets us into trouble?

A part of me really wanted to go down to Washington for the Israel March.

But for what purpose?

Other than to be among my fellow Jews?

But are they? My fellows, I mean?

I thought maybe I should come as a more liberal voice.

But who would listen? Who would notice?

And who were they speaking to?

My deepest fears were realized when that evangelical pastor, John Hagee, known for making anti-semitic statements, spoke.

I knew right away, even though I’d never seen or heard of him. (Maybe my “evange-radar” is high.)

You don’t have to go any farther than Wikipedia to read about him, though it was in the news, but you can also learn more here.

Maybe this proves that Jews can’t actually spot “the enemy,” even when we try.

In the Torah during these weeks, we are in the thick of the saga of Isaac, Rebecca, Esau, Jacob, Rachel, and Leah.

Our matriarchs and patriarchs.

The lying, the cheating, the hiding, the stealing.

It might as well be a microcosm of what’s happening in the Jewish community, in Israel and Gaza…

Who can we trust?

Doesn’t history prove we can’t. Anyone. Ever.

Like Jacob and Esau.

Who is more at fault for the “stealing” of the birthright?

Is it even stolen?

Or is it given away?

And what drives their actions?

Fear?

Greed?

Hunger?

What about Jacob and his father’s innermost blessing?

Is it Rebecca or Jacob’s fault that this too, is stolen, though meant for someone else?

Or is it Isaac’s fault, for willful blindness and deafness?

Who is guilty: the one who makes the plan and carries it out?

Or the one who goes along with it?

Our sages say that Rebecca knew something Isaac did not.

Because God said Jacob should become our patriarch.

He was the righteous one.

But was he?

He didn’t start out on sure footing; he went along with his mother in her guile—and only cared about getting in trouble with God.

Where was his concern for the lives of others? For right and wrong?

And what about the years of suffering for Rachel, Leah, and Jacob?

Jacob’s father-in-law, Laban, lies and switches his daughters on the wedding night.

Does Jacob bear no responsibility?

And who suffers more: the barren one, Rachel, who is loved, or the fruitful one, Leah, who is unloved?

Is their suffering a competition, like Jews and Palestinians?

When Jacob finally takes his family, after decades of working tirelessly for his father-in-law, and runs away, Laban gets wind of it and pursues him.

“How could you do this to me??” he cries. “How could you take my family away?”

Where and how will it all end?

What all these stories teach us is that by looking only through one lens, nothing is solved.

If we only see our side of the story, then there is no other story to hear.

And the ending is not a happy one.

And maybe it’s too late for a happy ending.

Maybe we just give up on the “other side”—because they’re evil.

But that seems like the easy way out.

Calling the others “evil” is a copout.

If all we see, when trying to discuss differences in opinion—among Jews, or between Jews and others—is that another is attacking us, then maybe there is no hope.

Maybe we should all give up.

Don’t we all have that parent, or uncle, or cousin we have given up on?

But that feels like a trap.

The same trap of despair we fall into on the subject of Climate Disaster. (If you’re there, then listen to this!)

When our children and grandchildren later ask, “What did you do to stop it?” what will we say?

Will it be a proud moment?

What if all we can honestly say is, “I sided with those who denied we were killing indiscriminately”?

But everyone hates the Jews!

Is that a good enough reason?

Even more so, is it righteous?

If there is an end, if, like I heard the Israeli peace advocate Gershon Baskin say, can it end like it did for the Irish?

Can we have our “Belfast moment” where we say, “Enough! We’ve been killing each other for a hundred years. Let’s just stop.”

Weeks ago, just as the hostages had been taken by Hamas in Israel, we read of Abraham’s nephew Lot being taken hostage.

Abraham secured Lot’s freedom, but then he was worried, the Torah says.

Why?

Our ancient sages had an explanation; Abraham worried that even one person might have been harmed in the freeing of his nephew.

How much more so for us, knowing that many thousands of innocent people have indeed been harmed in the name of freeing not even a handful of hostages?

From the depths of the darkness in which we find ourselves, may we learn to look through multiple lenses.

May we learn to receive differing opinions as just that, rather than as attacks.

May we practice feeling comfortable with the discomfort of differing opinions.

Rather than stuffing down the pain, may we learn to express ourselves gently.

May all that we are stuffing down inside, trying not to feel, come out in a way that can bring healing.

May we lay down our sword and shield.

May the light of Hannukah bring all this to pass.

Bitter Heshvan Living Up to its Name & Light in the Darkness

The Hebrew month of Heshvan is more properly known as Bitter Heshvan, Marheshvan, מַרְחֶשְׁוָ, so-called because there are no holidays during this month.

It follows a month of deep introspection, joy, and then…nothing.

As I write, the moon reaches its fullest, greatest light.

Yet there has been nothing but dark and bitterness.

Bitter Heshvan has lived up to its name.

Israel, Gaza, the Jewish and Palestinian worlds (or should I say “world”?) are in the throws of fear, terror, destruction, death, despair.

I feel unable to speak.

I feel, deeply, the inability of the world to hold each other in love, grief and despair across tribal lines.

What remains is rage.

“They will destroy us!”

Followed by, “We will destroy you!”

“Senseless killing,” is repeated again and again.

Is killing ever senseful, I wonder?

“Overkill” is the word that comes to my mind.

And does killing in the name of killing ever turn out okay?

A young Jewish Orthodox woman quietly whispers, “Am I crazy, or does it seem like Israel is going too far?”

She feels unable to speak.

She feels silenced by her family and community. Her tribe.

And because I begin to doubt my own sanity, I say, “Oh, please, tell me I’m not crazy, too.”

I hear the mantra: “Of course I care about innocent Palestinians.”

Only the innocent, I want to ask?

What about the Jewish tradition that says, if you kill one person, it is like you are killing the whole world?

Or does that only apply to Jews?

And I want to say, “Show me someone who is innocent.”

“Hamas doesn’t care about its own people!” others repeat.

And I want to say, “Show me a politician or political group that is not self-interested, and really cares.”

I grapple, painfully, with my need to be cautious in my speech and my obligation to speak up and speak out.

Who will listen?

Who will not shut me down?

Returning from the wedding in South Carolina two weeks ago, I buried myself in a book just as the Jewish and Palestinian worlds were beginning to rage.

The Invention of Wings, by Sue Monk Kidd, is a historical novel set in Charleston in the early 1800’s.

It follows the life and evolution of Sarah and Angelina Grimke, two sisters from a prominent slaveholding family.

Sarah is widely considered to be the founder of the Suffragist Movement, yet her name is mostly unknown.

Together with her sister in the 1830’s, she fought to bring the Abolitionist Movement to the forefront in American minds.

Their beliefs came from their direct experience of witnessing the horrors of slavery.

They were strengthened by religious conviction.

While others said, “Pray and wait,” they said, “The cruelty and suffering must end today!”

But as women, men tried hard to silence them.

And there was a constant effort to shame them into loyalty to their own people—their family. Their tribe.

Yet they did not give in.

“Not in our name!” was their cry.

To everyone’s dismay, the fight became as much about women’s rights as it was about slavery.

The famous quote, “I ask no favors for my sex. I surrender not our claim to equality. All I ask of our brethren is, that they will take their feet from off our necks, and permit us to stand upright …” comes from Sarah Grimke.

Well-meaning men went to great lengths to get them to back down. To separate the movements.

The fight for women would hurt the fight to end slavery, they claimed.

Slavery was the greater evil in these men’s eyes.

And people wouldn’t be able to hold the two at the same time, they said.

But Sarah and Angelina insisted that they were one and the same.

Because justice for one is justice for all.

While any is oppressed, all are oppressed.

I also feel the pressure to defend “my tribe.”

So when I hear Jews shouting in the streets of New York, “Not in our name!” I break down sobbing.

Not in our name.

While the cry has been, “This was our 9/11!” I ask, did we learn nothing from the twenty years that ensued?

Did we learn nothing from the excuses used for killing innocent people “caught in the crossfire”—because of hidden weapons of mass destruction.

Tunnels.

Hostages.

The whole country united—for war.

“Pure evil” is the other mantra.

And it was a “beautiful coming together of all Americans across the divide.”

Was it?

Those who questioned our war cry were screamed at: “You are anti-American! You hate your own people!”

But I love my country—my people, my tribe—enough that I want us to be better.

So I say, “Not in my name!”

Like the Evangelical pastor who dares to speak for all, in the name of Jesus Christ “Our” Lord and Savior.

The arrogance.

To speak for others.

To speak for Jews.

For some Jews to speak for all Jews.

To silence those who question.

Instead of speaking, I find myself listening.

Listening to other people’s pain.

Just listening.

Because they can not.

Their pain is too deep and too great.

It is too fresh.

And I understand their pain in a way that is hard to explain to others who are not Jewish.

But I, too, have that pain.

I, too, am horrified by the slaughter of Jews.

I can’t explain my nuanced point of view to other Jews any more than I can explain Jewish trauma to those who don’t come from it.

How can I ask people who are worried about family and friends to think of someone else’s?

To think of other tribes when it’s their tribe that’s being attacked?

How can I ask people not to choose?

“What else are we supposed to do? What would you have us do?” people ask in frustration.

If the answer is, “I don’t know,” then maybe we haven’t thought hard enough.

“You feel helpless?” says a Chabad rabbi and his wife on Instagram; “Do a mitzvah. If you’re a man, lay tefillin. If you’re a woman, recite psalms. That’s how Mashiach (the Messiah) will come!”

I lay tefillin daily.

I am a woman.

Does that count?

I hear a sermon in shul that makes me recoil, that leaves me deeply disappointed in my very progressive Jewish community:

“As horrible as everything is, so many beautiful things are happening. Look at how Jews are coming together! In Tel Aviv the restaurants are giving away hundreds of meals to soldiers, and they’re making their kitchens kosher to the degree that anyone, literally anyone, no matter their level of Jewish observance, will feel comfortable eating there. They’ve reached out to the rabbinical authorities to put a rush on their kosher certification. And it’s happening! Isn’t it beautiful? Jews coming together across divides. Maybe Mashiach (the Messiah) really is coming!”

Everyone laughs.

Because we normally make fun of those who speak that way.

Now we’re talking like them.

I cry.

I cry because this is our Progressive Left giving into our Religious Right.

I cry because the progressive Jews of Israel have been forced to sideline their fight against the Extreme Right due to war.

Because they’ve been forced to put aside their fight for democracy.

“Oh, it’s only temporary,” says someone.

But I fear not.

I fear it will be lost in an ongoing war of death and destruction.

And it feels strangely coincidental.

Strangely intentional.

Instead, we give in to the primal need to defend our tribe and survive.

Once again.

“The Jews need a home. A safe place to go.”

Yes.

But not like this.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

Where is Mashiach now?

Then I have a dream.

I dream that I become the owner of a building.

It has a beautiful, grand, arched entrance with carvings.

But the entrance is strangely in the back, blocked from sight.

I am afraid to go down to the basement.

Dark. Dank.

I imagine cockroaches. Waterbugs.

A friend suggests I block off half the building, the dark half, from usage.

But I don’t want to. That’s also where the beautiful entrance is.

I need the whole thing.

Then another friend says, “It’s actually not so bad. Don't be afraid. You should go down and see for yourself.”

So I go.

And there are hundreds of rooms.

Like in a university, they are classrooms where I imagine animated discussion, learning, growth happening in the future.

Hope.

I see hope.

And, actually, there is light.

Though it’s the basement, light is flooding in.

And I see on the windows, the dirty windows, that someone has wiped away the grime and drawn peace symbols with their finger.

The light shines through.

And within the grimy spaces inside the symbols, there are little feather wings, like angels’ wings.

And I am filled with immense joy.

There is light in the darkness.

But I notice that the peace symbols are not visible all the time—only from a certain angle.

As we come towards the month of Kislev, the darkest time of the year, when we intentionally bring light into the world with the candles of Hannukah, may we hold on to the images of light and hope.

May we open our hearts so we can listen to and hold each other in our grief and pain beyond our tribes.

May we raise our voices above the silencing, and stop blaming each other.

May we invent wings that can carry the destruction and death away.

May we find an entrance into a grand new era of peace and love.

May we see not “worlds” but one world.

May we look from a different angle.

May we find another way.

And please say Amen.

Two Weddings, a Funeral, and an Unveiling

Some rabbis in the Talmud pose a situation: if a wedding and a funeral procession meet in a crossroads, what do they do?

The answer: the funeral procession is diverted; the wedding takes precedence.

This was something of the situation I experienced this past weekend.

It was the second wedding, two weeks in a row, where I co-officiated with a Christian pastor.

The attacks on Israel by Hamas had happened that very morning.

Just before the wedding in the evening, the Jewish parents of the groom’s family and I talked about it.

Should they “tell the children”?

They had decided against it.

Why ruin their wedding day?

I agreed completely.

It was nice to know that our instincts went with Jewish tradition.

And since celebration trumps mourning, I begin with my wedding experiences.

Both weddings were extremely joyful.

And life changing.

For the couples, the families, and for me.

The first was Upstate New York, near Rochester.

The second, in Charleston, “Down South.”

Very different places with very different cultures.

Yet, not such different experiences for the families or for me.

The fears I’d had about the ministers did not play out—not even with the Evangelical pastor.

They were both extremely careful, respectful, sensitive, caring.

We laughed together and bonded.

I had also wondered at the wisdom of traveling for four days each, two weekends in a row.

It’s demanding work.

And Covid is going around like wildfire.

The decision had been a difficult one; officiating on Shabbos afternoon, on the first day of the holiday of Sukkos, and then on Simchas Torah.

But both couples wanted me at the rehearsal, and to lead a ketubah-signing ritual on Friday, and Shabbos prayers that night before dinner.

For free, I threw in an interfaith-egalitarian-inspired Bedeken ritual (veiling and unveiling of the bride) before signing their interfaith ketubah (the traditional Jewish marriage contract made untraditional).

I wove Sukkos and Simchas Torah into all of it; the reminder that God does not need a permanent structure in which to abide, but rather moves with us, within us, and around us at all times.

And we would be dancing like crazy that night, with so much joy, as we do on Simchas Torah.

I taught through stories, and led everyone in song and blessing.

For the first wedding, I carried a lulav and esrog with me on the airplane along with other religious Jews.

And before the traditional prayers over the candles, wine, and challah, before inviting in the angels with Sholom Aleichem, I gave a little shpiel.

I talked about the kind of world these couples, and their families in supporting them, were ushering in: a world of love and peace between people that seem so different on the outside, but are the same on the inside.

It was about crossing boundaries that have been closed for centuries.

It was about how difficult this was for the families, both of whom feel strongly about their religious faiths and traditions.

And the courage it took for them to be there.

It was about helping the Christians understand a little more about Jewish trauma and our history.

It was about the importance of focusing on the commonalities more than our differences:

Our common texts, the language of blessing, even God language (minus Jesus) is the same.

And the language of Messiah: whether it’s a “second coming” or a first, we’re all praying for the same thing:

When peace and love will reign on Earth.

I even explained that I would be changing the language of the Hebrew prayers from “God, you have chosen us from among all peoples” to “with all peoples”—because we are all chosen by God; God chooses all of us.

There was so much appreciation for these statements, from all present.

Had I said no to them for the myriad of reasons listed above, it would have been a lost opportunity.

A lost opportunity for deep connection between me and the families.

To serve the pastoral needs—not just of the Jews, but of the Christians present as well.

The Jews would not have had representation, and they wouldn’t have had a rabbi to help them close the gap.

It would have been a lost opportunity for healing.

And a lost opportunity for learning and appreciation of Jewish ritual and custom.

The result was gratitude expressed by both the Jewish and Christian families and friends.

Gratitude from people of such different backgrounds for being able to come together the way they did.

Gratitude for accomplishing boundary-crossing so successfully, not just by clenching jaws and bearing it.

Gratitude from everyone in the room feeling heard and seen, understood and accepted.

This was holy work.

It gave me hope in humanity and the future.

Then the attack happened on Israel.

And the retaliation.

And a veil seemed to come down over the joy.

Suddenly, after the joy, it felt like a funeral.

All the hope I’d had for Israel’s future drained from me.

Just as Israel was fighting, divided over its political future, with a chance for a better democracy coming to be, it united in war.

In vengeance.

All of Jewish trauma came out at once; “We will be annihilated!”

Doubt and hopelessness came screaming in my face.

Heartbreak and grief took over.

And then.

I remembered a shiur (a teaching) I heard just a couple of weeks ago.

It was from Rabbi Jonathan Sacks on Rosh Hashanah.

A teaching that Rosh Hashanah does not celebrate the birth of the world, but the birth of humans.

As we read from Genesis this coming Shabbos, each step along the way, God creates on his own.

And each time, God says, it’s good: the heavens, the Earth, the sea, the light, the animals…

It’s all good.

Until it comes to humans.

Then God asks, “Shall we create humans in our likeness?”

The rabbis answer the conundrum of the plural “we” that suddenly appears, implying collective creativity, with a midrash:

God creates a group of angels, and asks them, “Shall we create humans in our likeness?”

The angels answer the question with a question: “What are these humans to be like?”

God gives them a little preview.

The angels say, “No, better not."

God doesn’t like their answer, so God destroys them.

God creates a second group of angels, and the same thing happens.

With the third group, the angels answer God’s question by saying, “Master of the Universe, we know what happened to the first two groups of angels. This is your world, do with it as you please.”

So God creates humans.

Then bad things start happening: Cain and Abel, the flood, the Tower of Babel…

The angels say to God, “Sorry, but we told you so.”

And God answers, “I will not give up on them, no matter how bad they are.”

This Saturday, with the new moon, we enter the Hebrew month of Heshvan.

With that transition, we come to the end of Tishrei, the busiest month in the Jewish year that started with Rosh Hashanah and ended with Simchas Torah.

It is a time that is supposed to bring about transformation.

I pray that we continue to find ways of transforming what feels like a world void of hope.

I pray that we remember that, for all that is happening in our world, we maintain awareness that there are other worlds where different things are happening for different people.

I pray that we remember the suffering of others besides ourselves.

I pray that, despite the grief and anger and outrage, we each try our hardest to see the likeness of God in every human being.

I pray that, despite rising violence and increasing polarization, we each find ways of closing gaps and crossing boundaries.

I pray that a way to peace is unveiled for all of us.

I pray that we each contribute more to peace than to war.

With our words, our prayers, and our deeds.

Like God, we should refuse to give up on humanity, no matter how bad it gets.

And please say Amen.

God Willing (Ha’azinu)

What would it be like, every single time we made a plan, to acknowledge that it might not come to pass?

To say, “God willing,” after every expectation?

For something as small as meeting someone for pizza?

Or as big as a life plan?

To acknowledge that we have no control over our lives—or the future?

That things we thought would continue—have actually come to an end.

And things we thought should end, are actually continuing.

We are constantly experiencing endings and new beginnings.

It can be no other way.

Here we are, in the middle of the Yamim Nora’im—the Days of Awe.

These are days of opening to deep reflection.

For me, this year has been the first time attending full-on services indoors, in a very full, large, sanctuary, in three years—since the pandemic began.

I have still had some mourning to do as I let go of the past—

—of what I thought things would look like, be like, the things that would have come to pass for me by this point.

Through this time, I’ve reached a new level of acceptance of a different kind of future.

Maybe better said: of a different kind of present than I’d imagined.

But that’s kind of true for all of us, isn’t it?

This Shabbat we come to the end of the Torah.

In the last paragraph of this Parsha, Moses is told once again what a disappointment he’s been to God.

For there was a moment—one small moment—when he showed a lack of faith.

For this, he will only see the Promised Land from afar—and then he dies.

This is not what Moses dreamed for himself.

After forty years of yearning, this is not the “present” he’d imagined for himself.

But before he dies, Moses recites a poem given to him by God for the people to hear.

Ha-azinu—give ear—oh, people!

And then he launches into a poem that is made up of God’s last warnings.

As we launch into Yom Kippur, a day full of God’s warnings and our prayers that these warnings not come to be, we have much listening to do, much quieting of all the chatter in our heads, of the plans we are constantly making.

We rehearse our deaths, imagining a world in which we might actually die—where the worst we can imagine happens.

All during this past week, the following prayer, which we recite or sing on Yom Kippur evening, has haunted me:

Act for Your Sake—L’ma’ancha—O Maker, not for ours.

See—behold our position—standing before You,

Impoverished and empty.

The soul is Yours and the body is Your work,

Have compassion on Your work,

Over the soul that is Yours.

לְמַעַנְךָ אֶלקֵינוּ עֲשֵׂה וְלא לָנוּ,
רְאֵה עֲמִידָתֵנוּ, דַּלִּים וְרֵקִים

הַנְּשָׁמָה לָךְ וְהַגּוּף פָּעֳלָךְ
חוּסָה עַל עֲמָלָךְ הַנְּשָׁמָה לָךְ.

On Yom Kippur, we come before the Mystery of the Universe, our Maker, empty, impoverished, begging for our lives.

Lives that are on borrowed time.

As we pray, we are reminded that we must do the best we can with this body and this soul—these things that don’t actually belong to us.

Thus it makes sense to “give ear” to the “still, small voice,” as our High Holiday liturgy says.

As we launch into a new year of unknowns, I personally have given ear to a still, small voice inside of me that has been telling me, “It’s time, after three full years of writing weekly, for a change.”

The plan is to transition into writing monthly, in sync with the Hebrew months.

I don’t really know where this will take me, but I know that I am opening up and making time and space for other things as they come along.

In a couple of weeks, I will have returned (God willing) from co-officiating at two interfaith weddings—the ones I’ve been working towards and planning for over the past months.

And then, you will hear how they went.

My hope and prayer is that we all give ear to the still, small voice, and that we present ourselves as empty, opening ourselves to be filled with awe as we step into a new year.

L’Shanah Tova U’m’tukah.

May it be a good year, and a sweet year.

May we have faith in ourselves, in humanity, and the future.

Keyn y’hi ratzon—May it be so.

And say Amen.

Newer-Truer vs. Oldy-Moldy (Nitzavim/Va-Yelekh)

I couldn’t fall asleep last night.

My mind was doing that thing that happens when you least want it to—

When you most need it to quiet down.

It was trying to figure something out—at the perfect time: when everything else was quiet.

Why was I so uncomfortable?

What was I uncomfortable with?

I’m in the last stages of preparing for a wedding in Upstate New York.

Maybe you remember; I’ll be co-officiating with a Lutheran pastor.

Last night we all met to plan the ceremony in detail: the couple, the rabbi, the pastor.

This pastor is very kind and respectful towards me.

He’s generous.

He gives the couple options for wording.

And he me asked repeatedly if I was comfortable with various Christian pieces as he presented them.

I kept saying yes, of course, no problem.

I was trying to be generous, too.

But inside, a different truth was speaking up.

In the quiet and the dark, I finally figured it out.

It was that wording, “Jesus Christ Our Lord and Savior.”

Don’t get me wrong; I’m okay with Jesus—many of you know this about me already.

But then it hit me.

“Our.”

“Don’t speak for me!” my insides scream out when I hear this phrase.

These words feel like they’re taking Judaism and Jews, and together, smashing us under a big thumb.

—Like a tiny little ant that got in the way.

The same is true with “New” Testament.

The Jewish “we” didn’t get the memo.

While the Christian “we” have the Newer-Truer testament from God, the Jewish “we” are stuck with our Oldy-Moldy one.

.

And the Very-Jewish-Jesus became the “Christ”—“the Anointed One,” the Mashi’ach, or Messiah.

But how can I ask a Christian pastor to take out something so central, so core, to their religion?

This week’s parsha—a double one—ends with Moses’ last words.

He is about to die, and he gives a kind of last testament.

He writes down all God has told him to.

The words he writes will serve as a witness—a testament—to the people’s bad behavior.

For they will stray again, even in the land flowing with milk and honey that God promised. and delivered, to them.

I had a long conversation with a close friend who’s becoming a Presbyterian minister.

She was happily shocked that a Lutheran would give any options for wording at all.

Truly generous of him, considering his heritage.

In searching for a common wording that could be comfortable for both Jews and Christians, my friend and I searched for a common truth.

We compared the beliefs of Christians and Jews regarding the Messiah.

And we came to a conclusion:

Jews and Christians both spend a lot of time imagining, praying for, waiting for, and perhaps most importantly, working towards a time when peace will reign on Earth.

A time when the Anointed One—the Christ, the Mashiach/Messiah—will come—in the future—whether it’s a first coming or a second coming!

The result is the same.

We are essentially praying for the same thing.

Yet, divisions—between the oppressor and the oppressed—along with dangerous beliefs—persist, adding more bloodshed as anti-semitism rises once again.

This Saturday night, the week before Rosh Hashanah, according to Jewish tradition, we stay up late into the night and pray.

We pray for forgiveness.

We pray for redemption.

We pray for Mashiach—the Anointed One.

We pray—for a good ending.

The Parsha this week leaves us with a cliff-hanger—not an ending at all.

There is a poem.

But we don’t get to hear it:

“Then Moses recited the words of this poem to the very end, in the hearing of the whole congregation of Israel: ”

We don’t get to hear how things end.

And we don’t even get to hear the first words of the poem.

Because the end is yet to be determined.

But what we do know, what we already have, are the Instructions on how to make a world of peace.

How we act, the words we use with and to each other, determine the end.

Maybe a good ending starts by finding language we can all agree upon.

So maybe we can start with this:

May the Anointed One, through our prayers and actions, bring peace on Earth and all that resides in her.

May we learn to speak our own truth for the sake of the other’s understanding.

May we learn to speak for each other in a manner that upholds the other’s truth.

And, perhaps most of all, may we be generous.

And let us say Amen.

A Hard Pill to Swallow (Ki Tavo)

During my convalescence from not-Covid over the past weeks, I got hooked on a show.

It’s called New Amsterdam.

It’s based on a book about the oldest public hospital in the U.S., Bellevue, in New York City.

It’s set in the present day.

It’s a little preachy, but the main character is kind of hot.

And the messages are good.

It’s about what medicine could look like in our country—if profit were not the goal.

The main character is a doctor who is also the medical director of the hospital.

He’s a really good guy, but he’s got problems.

He behaves as if he can single-handedly change the state of American medicine.

He’s also got a serious illness, and doesn’t know how and when to let go—and be a patient himself.

He repeatedly refuses to surrender to his own illness while trying singlehandedly to save the world.

He acts as if he just keeps going—and doing—he can fix the system—without slowing down one little bit.

He acts like he’s God.

The show also seems to be competing with Grey’s Anatomy on several levels, but especially when it comes to shocking surprise endings.

(If you’ve seen Grey’s Anatomy, you know what I’m talking about.)

Just when you think things couldn’t possibly get any worse, they do.

It takes your breath away and leaves you with your jaw open.

“No, no, noooooo!!!!!” you cry out.

Much like in this week’s Torah portion.

The curses God promises the people if they don’t follow the commandments once in the Promised Land are beyond most of our imaginations.

Just when you think it couldn’t get any worse…

For instance: nothing will grow in the land, pestilence will rule, people will succumb to all kinds of illness, they’ll be so hungry, they’ll be eating their own children…

(No, no, noooo!!!)

The promise of blessings is equally extreme.

If the people do follow all the commandments, they will be fertile, the land and animals too, all their babies will be healthy, no one will miscarry, and there will be no sickness!

Wow.

“Just” by doing all God tells us to do.

And so much of Jewish spiritual practice is in the doing—the commandments.

As Jews, we are known to be about all about the “law.”

Jews have gotten a lot of backlash because of our laws.

Why can’t we just try to be good people, love God, and pray?

But our laws, our commandments, are spiritual tools to help us connect to a higher power.

—tools put in place to help us surrender to that power, and give up our own will to control.

—to help us remember that we are not God—not even little gods—ourselves.

The High Holy Days are a perfect time to make new commitments—and it can be overwhelming.

There’s always the pressure to do more in the coming year.

—always a sense that, obviously, we haven't done enough.

Because the world is such a mess.

How can we stop? Or even slow down?

There’s so much urgency around it, too—the social and political problems, the climate…

And you would think, from our culture—and Torah—that we are not human beings, but rather human doings.

Plus, isn’t that how most of us behave most of the time?

About our lives, our health, our world?

I don’t know about you, but I find the main character of the show I’ve been watching very relatable.

Because, for instance, I was so proud that my current illness (I’m finally truly on the mend!) didn’t stop me at all from my normal activities.

I kept telling people—and myself—that I wasn’t that sick.

Being sick, and having my work rhythm broken by illness, is always a hard pill for me to swallow.

Until I had to finally surrender, just like that doctor (and all his pills).

With all I do regularly for my health, I most definitely shouldn’t have even gotten sick.

I eat all the right foods, do all the right exercises, take all the home remedies, get the right amount of sleep, swallow all the right pills (and not too many!)—plus I meditate, practice deep breathing, and take cold showers!

(Is anyone giving out gold stars for perfect behavior?)

Hell! I should live forever at this rate.

Maybe I should have singlehandedly gotten us all entry into the Promised Land by now.

But it’s simply not true that if we do everything right, we won’t get sick.

Sometimes shitty things happen despite doing everything right.

It’s a fact of be-ing human.

What if we took a step back and thought more about being, and a little less about doing?

Maybe it’s all the “doing” that got us in trouble in the first place—what gets us sick and our climate?

While thinking about which biblical commandments I might take on for the coming year, I also commit to recognizing myself more as a human be-ing with human limits—

Not a god—-not even a tiny, little one.

This week there’s a Blue Moon, the second full moon in a month.

It’s also a Super Moon, looking much bigger and brighter than usual.

This week is also the Sixth Haftarah (prophetic reading) of Consolation of Isaiah since Tisha B’Av, the commemoration of the destruction of the Temple earlier this summer.

The prophetic readings of consolation lead us right up to Rosh Hashanah.

Isaiah says that one day we will no longer need the light of the moon, or even the light of the sun.

Instead, God will provide all the light we need.

The Super Blue Moon can be a reminder that all the light we need in the world is already provided.

If we don’t take the time to stop and just be, we might miss the opportunity to receive the blessing of the light.

As we continue the work of trying, through all our doings, to bring more light into the world, let’s take time to stop and bathe in the light of the approaching High Holy Days—and just be.

You let us say Amen.

Zero Expectations and Ki Tetzei

I keep doing this thing to myself.

I keep expecting more of myself than I can deliver.

I push and push, and I’m surprised and disappointed when my body can’t deliver.

I’m doing all the right things, and yet the trajectory I have planned out in my mind does not meet my expectations.

It disappoints.

Every year, I read these verses in Torah:

If you have a wayward son, bring him to the elders of the community, and let him be stoned to death.

In this way, you will help wipe out evil from Israel.

What??

You are expected to give up on your own child??

I get it.

I guess. Sort of.

Maybe he’s a total failure: a drunkard, a thief, a liar.

Every parent’s nightmare come true.

And maybe we should be expected to judge objectively—even with our own offspring.

Sacrifice for the greater good.

Sometimes people are beyond help.

Sometimes a relationship is beyond help.

A marriage. A friendship.

Haven’t we been told it’s important to recognize when “it’s over”?

To know when to walk away?

But how often do we give up on someone before we’ve—before they’ve even gotten started?

What about self-fulfilling prophecies?

“You were always a disappointment to me,” used to be a common refrain that parents told their children.

Rather, it might be more productive to ask in return, “What were your expectations?”

Maybe they were too high to begin with.

Maybe you had this idealized version in your head of what it would mean to become a parent.

Or a wife.

Or a husband.

A friend.

Life itself can be a disappointment if we let it.

Either we learn to expect to be disappointed because life is hard—very hard.

Or we expect others to be more than human.

Rosh Hashanah is only three weeks away.

What kinds of expectations are we each putting into the holidays?

To be elated?

To be disappointed?

To be bored?

Maybe we should enter with no expectations at all.

I think it’s fair to say that if we could approach life with this attitude, we’d all be much happier.

Then we’d have a much fairer chance of having the experience we could potentially have.

So I want to propose a different kind of “getting ready” for the High Holidays during this month of Elul:

Let’s let go of our expectations and attitudes—good or bad—and come into it free and clear, ready to have the experience we will have.

Objectively.

And say Amen.

And good Shabbos.

Go Woke, Go Broke (Shoftim)

I have Covid for the third time.

It’s not so dramatic.

It’s become a part of normal life, I guess.

Not to underestimate how very harmful it can be.

For me, now, it’s been a very painful sore throat.

Chills and fever are gone.

Now heaviness on the chest has set in.

And the fatigue.

So much fatigue.

My brain is a bit muddled, and things are not entirely clear to me at the moment.

Will what I right even make sense—oops, I mean “write”? (I didn’t make this up; I had to actually correct my words)

In Shoftim this week, we read about fair judgment.

Throwing stones.

You can only sentence someone for a crime based on at least two witnesses.

The witnesses claim to have seen the person commit the crime.

The law is meant to make sure it is perfectly clear that the person committed said crime.

Then you can throw stones.

At the convicted person.

To death.

And the witnesses must be the first to throw the stones.

So, two things are true:

1. You have to really believe in the cause

2. You enjoy, or at least don’t mind, seeing someone else suffer

Last week I got an email from someone close to me.

In it was a link to an article entitled:

“What it Took to Save My Daughter From Transgenderism.”

“Tell me what you think,” was the tagline.

As soon as I saw the title, I shut it down.

Did they really want to know what I thought?

Or were they pushing a certain political agenda?

They claimed they were not.

They were genuinely curious.

Because it seemed to them that people were going “too far.”

To me, it seemed like an extension of the old fear mongering from a bygone era.

That gay people “make” other people “turn”gay.”

And that the person needed “saving.”

Besides, they said, the mother was a Democrat.

I scoffed.

As if being a Democrat makes you some kind of real progressive.

To me, being a Democrat simply makes you “middle-of-the-road.”

—Only willing to stand up for people’s rights when it’s popular.

—Or perhaps makes you the kind of person who looks like you’re standing up for people when you’re really not.

Because, remember; more undocumented people were deported during the Obama Administration than at any previous time in U.S. history. (You can fact-check on your own.)

I’m not meaning to bash Obama—just meaning to tell the truth.

I think the truth is important.

The truth is, I actually cried with relief when Biden was elected.

I voted for him.

Not because I thought he’d save us, but because the alternatives were not great, to say the least.

It’s a complicated world out there.

We all suffer from “information overload.”

But it’s important to be clear—especially if you’re planning to throw stones.

(I’m not throwing stones at Democrats. I just think our two-party system limits us, and there’s so much corruption.)

This week, we enter the month of Elul.

Traditionally it’s a time of deep inner work in preparation for the High Holy Days.

I think we need to see present-day stone-throwing as words.

Words can be just as harmful as actual stones, as we know now.

That thing our parents used to tell us?

That sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never harm me?

Let’s be perfectly clear.

It’s just not true.

Sometimes it’s in subtle ways that our words might harm someone.

Even sending an article in a casual way might be construed differently from how you intended.

(Or like me speaking badly of Democrats.)

Just because something has become a part of everyday life, like Covid, it doesn’t mean it’s harmless.

My blessing for this month is that we all become accutely aware of how our words (or actions) might harm someone else, and might add to the fear mongering discourse of harmful judgment of others.

And may we begin the work of making amends for harm done in the past year.

And may we be clear, to ourselves and others, about the intentions of our actions.

Say Amen, and Shabbat Shalom.

(To hear a really interesting discussion on the state of discourse around gender, listen to Go Woke, Go Broke on this week’s On The Media)

R’eih & The Choices We Make

Thirty years ago, I made choices as a young mother that went against the grain.

One was that I ultimately decided I would not “sleep train” my child.

I would not “let my baby cry it out.”

I got a lot of pushback.

People laughed at me.

They told me I was a victim of my child’s “manipulation.”

The same for breastfeeding beyond one or two years.

How would my marriage survive?

Because it’s inconvenient to get up for a baby in the middle of the night.

We need our sleep.

And our sex life.

I understand completely.

Such are the choices we must all make.

It’s never easy.

This week in Torah, we are given a choice:

A blessing or a curse.

If we continue to act as we have, we will be cursed.

If we listen to God’s commandments, blessing will be ours.

Moses tells the Israelites:

“Once you cross over, you will not act in the Promised land as you act here.”

Things will be different.

Two crucial things came out in the news this week.

Both may lead us to despair, if we look at them from one angle:

How can these things still be happening—after everything!

Take, for instance, what happened in Mississippi.

A gang of six former law enforcement officials attacked, abused, sexually assaulted two Black men back in January.

It goes without saying that the cops were white.

They shot one of the men through the mouth, causing permanent physical damage.

Which I’m sure pales to the emotional trauma.

They then stood on the porch of the house talking about how to cover it up.

Modern day lynching, so many years after Jim Crow was abolished.

How could they continue to get away with such a thing?

How is this still possible?

Then there’s Donald J. Trump.

How can his political career still be thriving?

How?

After all that’s been brought to light over the years and decades and even more recently.

After continual abuse of power in government, and sexual abuse of women.

As I write!

We may easily be overcome by hopelessness.

Just a year ago, we were given the impression that the Me Too movement was dying!

(So soon? It was just getting started!)

And that the Donald Trumps of the world would win.

But E. Jean Carroll, a sexual assault target of Trump’s—thirty years ago—has refused to be a victim.

She won a civil case against Trump earlier this year—way past the statute of limitations was up!

Because of changing laws!

She had been told three decades ago by her friends to stay quiet; “He’ll bury you.”

It was a fair assessment of the power differential—

For that time, and even now!

Thirty years later, she refuses to be timid.

She has not let him bury her voice.

Now, women are saying, “We are not victims, not broken, not defiled, not ruined, asking men to rescue us.”

Rather, as Brooke Gladstone of On The Media says, “They’re pissed off, living their lives, defying the public imperative to open a vein in public as a testament to their loss and brokenness…

“They’re nobody’s property, nobody’s responsibility, and it’s about freaking time we took them seriously.”

And those former cops in Mississippi?

They pled guilty.

They will no longer be allowed to continue what they’ve been doing for—decades?

This was not true even a few years ago.

So are we ready for the Promised Land?

Not quite.

But we’re getting ready.

Thirty years ago, people told me I was damaging my children by taking them to bed with me.

That they would grow up to be too afraid to walk in this world.

My marriage would not survive.

None of these things happened.

Both my children are thriving, anything but afraid to walk in this world.

The same for my marriage.

We may despair and become paralyzed after a defeat, says Rebecca Traister in her On The Media interview.

But, “Social progress happens over lifetimes, not seasons.”

The choices we make are never easy.

We live in a society that demands much of us.

But the big spiritual lesson I took from my choices around child rearing was this:

“If I could close my heart to my own baby’s cries,

“how much easier, then,

“to close my heart to the cries of strangers in the world?”

The choices we make should never involve closing our hearts to those who suffer.

Our choices start in the home of our hearts.

Shabbat Shalom.

And say Amen.

A Whack on the Head & Eikev

The other day in the park, someone whacked me on the side of my head.

I had just passed these two young boys as they ran up behind a woman.

She spun around quickly just as they reached her.

She gave them a menacing look.

They backed off.

I kept walking, very conscious of how I carried myself.

Not to look weak.

Not to be a victim.

I heard footsteps racing up from behind.

I stiffened (but in a casual way) as I maintained my stride.

I refused to turn around.

I wasn’t afraid of them!

They were young, skinny things in their early teens.

Pipsqueaks as far as I was concerned.

Harmless.

And I could be tough.

I had gone to public schools in New York City!

I had taught kids like them!

Poor. Black. Tough.

I would show them.

As they skidded by, one on either side, one of them whacked me on the side of my head.

I yelled out.

“WHAT THE F**K!”

(I could say that because I wasn’t their teacher.)

The one stopped and looked at me as the other bounced off.

“Sorry! It was an accident!” he called out.

“Oh, really!!”

”Yeah,” he said. “He pushed me,” pointing to his friend. “I’m sorry.”

I knew he was making it up.

It was such a weird mix of young innocence and a hardening meanness.

I turned silently and kept walking, holding my head high, my neck stiff.

No real damage had been done.

My glasses were still on my face.

But I was shaken.

I could feel my heart pounding.

I was angry.

It brought me back to my junior high school days where I was beaten up almost daily in school.

By Black kids like them.

Kids who looked at me and saw all that was wrong in their lives represented in this one white girl with blonde hair.

A feeling of utter helplessness—maybe for both of us.

But I had also been a teacher.

I’d seen and experienced at least as much, and more.

Once, pushed to my limit, I grabbed a student almost twice my size.

He’d threatened me, leaning relaxed against a wall.

I was having none of it.

I pulled his collar up close around his neck, and slammed him against the wall, my protruding belly almost touching him.

I put my face up close enough to smell his breath:

“Don’t you dare threaten me!” I said.

The kid stiffened.

All of his bravado was gone.

He looked at me, terrified.

Where had that nice, caring, dedicated teacher gone?

The one who would never give up on any child, not even on him?

The teacher who didn’t believe in punishment.

Who carried the weight of society’s ills on her shoulders.

The chairman of the department was there and witnessed the whole thing.

I could have gotten myself fired.

I’m pretty sure he gave me a pass because I was pregnant.

Very pregnant.

And because he knew me.

But when you don’t have time to think, and you’re scared and angry, you do and say stupid things.

As I walked away from the kids in the park this week, I yelled out, “Go find something more productive to do!”

I was embarrassed for myself as soon as the words left my mouth.

Stupid-White-Lady thing to say.

What was there for them to do, after all?

Summer in the city for poor, Black children doesn’t offer a lot.

This week, I read an opinion article in the New York Times about the dearth of public pools in the United States.

It’s titled, “When It Comes to Swimming, ‘Why Have Americans Been Left on Their Own?’”

I learned about the public health crisis of drowning.

It’s really real, and I had known nothing about it.

Black children are the most likely victims because they don’t know how to swim.

Every year in New York City, a few teenagers drown in the murky waters of the Bronx River.

Every city and town has its murky waters.

And the public pools?

There used to be many of them, and they had huge capacity.

Especially in big cities.

But most closed their doors during the Civil Rights Movement.

It was preferable to integrating them.

But with summers getting hotter, this is a real issue.

Especially for the poor, who have no air conditioning.

So my comment to these children was utterly stupid, and I knew it.

In this week’s Parsha, Eikev, Moses speaks to the Israelites (as per the usual):

“What does God command you?

“Only this: to revere your God, and to walk in God’s paths.”

How should we do this?

By cuttting away “the thickness around your hearts and stiffening your necks no more.”

News came this week about the shooter that attacked the Pittsburgh Synagogue five years ago.

He will get the death penalty.

Antisemitism is not to be tolerated.

It was decided he should die for his crime.

But will this do anything to solve the problem of antisemitism?

What about racism?

Will any of society’s ills be solved through this kind of punishment?

Or through any kind of punishment, for that matter?

Has it ever worked?

Long after I had left those boys in the park, I continued to reflect.

The teacher in me wanted to make a difference.

Maybe I should have said,

“You keep this up, you’ll end up getting shot by a racist cop!”

“Or you’ll join the ranks of the mass incarcerated!”

I don’t know if it would have made a difference.

If it would have given them pause.

Even for a moment.

Later in the day, I encountered them again.

“Are you still picking on people?” I asked the same one as had whacked me.

He was the one willing to look at me and engage at all.

Again, the innocence, as if he could fool Stupid-White-Teacher:

“He started with me!” he defended himself as he pointed towards a man that was long gone.

I shook my head and walked away.

Either way, they’ll end up as just one more statistic in a society of crusted-over hearts.

A society of stiff-necked people.

Towards the end of the Parsha, Moses quotes God again:

If we do not love God with all our heart, if we do not follow God’s paths, the rains will not come in their time, the fields will not yield, and we will all perish.

We are to impress these words upon our very heart.

As we experience increasing temperatures—whacky weather more and more—we’re clearly missing something.

This is why we are to bind God’s words as a sign on our hands, let them serve as a symbol on our forehead, teach them to our children, recite them at home and on our way, when we lie down and when we get up, inscribe them on the doorposts of our houses and on our gates.

What it means to love God and walk in God’s paths clearly needs reinterpretation for our times.

I saw a posting on Instagram this week about Ubuntu.

This is the South African practice of showing compassion and humanity to a person who has acted badly.

It is to bring that person into the middle of a circle where they are surrounded by their community.

Then they are reminded of all the honorable qualities they possess—of all the goodness that they are.

My prayer for this week is that we have the ability as a society to cut the scabs that covers our hearts, and create another type of society.

This practice of Ubuntu may be a good place to start.

Shabbat Shalom.

God is a Communist (Tisha B’av & Va’etchanan)

Earlier this week, my husband and I, coming home from a walk, stopped.

The doorman looked perturbed.

He was staring at a screen.

“What’s the matter?” we asked.

“Another bank going down,” he said.

I told him he should listen to some good news.

(Because you have to smile and laugh in the midst of pain.)

He laughed.

My husband and I talked about it after.

Why was the average person so concerned about the banks?

Was he losing money if that bank failed?

Do their profits “trickle down” to him?

Back during the financial crisis of 2008, the Obama Administration bailed the banks out.

“Too big to fail!” was the slogan.

If they failed, our economy would fail.

Same with the stock market.

But who’s actually losing out?

And who’s gaining?

This week, starting Wednesday night into tonight, we are in mourning;

With Tisha B’Av, we commemorate the destruction of the Temple.

Tradition has us hear the chanting of Lamentations in the dark, sitting on the floor.

We’re told to bring a flashlight so we can see the texts in front of us.

But there are those who say we shouldn’t be mourning the Temple.

Why should we want to return to a system of sacrifices?

Even in Isaiah, last week’s reading from the prophets, it says:

“What need have I of all your sacrifices?”
Says GOD.
“I am sated with burnt offerings of rams,
And suet of fatlings,
And blood of bulls;
And I have no delight
In lambs and he-goats. That you come to appear before Me—
Who asked that of you?

But in more progressive Jewish circles today, mourning for the Temple takes on new meaning:

We have plenty to mourn in today’s world.

(And it’s not the failure of banks or big business!)

As humans, we seem to go between believing that things used to be different—

—and that they’ve always been the same.

“Things will never change,” is also a common refrain.

But I recently learned something.

Starting about a hundred years ago, there began an unrelenting propaganda campaign.

This campaign was to get Americans to believe that the “free market'“ is a good thing.

This campaign was made by businesses very deliberately—and very united—in their efforts.

They convinced Americans that socialism and communism could never work.

(You can hear about it all here—if you don’t know this history, I highly recommend this episode on On The Media!)

They convinced Americans that capitalism is not only a good thing, but that it’s the only way.

Because humans are the way we are, right?

—Greedy and ready to fight or exploit each other.

“It’s a dog-eat-dog world.”

They’ve done a great job making us think that things will never change.

They’ve taught Americans that our sacrifices are necessary—for the economy.

—That in the end, the money from big business will trickle down.

This week’s parsha begins with Moses’ memory of pleading with God to allow him to cross over into the Promised Land.

He’s kind of in mourning; God will not allow him.

The Haftara reading from the prophets this week from Isaiah begins with Nachamu—be comforted, my people.

We do indeed need comforting as we look upon and experience the destruction in today’s world.

We are in mourning.

But that flashlight might come in handy to shed light upon the types of sacrifices we should be making.

Because burnt offerings made to God certainly will not solve the problems we are experiencing today.

But other types of sacrifices—like reducing our consumption of resources as Americans—would do well.

On the corporate and on the personal level.

Isaiah even gives us a solution:

Wash yourselves clean;
Put your evil doings
Away from My sight.
Cease to do evil;

Learn to do good.
Devote yourselves to justice;
Aid the wronged.
Uphold the rights of the orphan;
Defend the cause of the widow.

Your rulers are rogues
And cronies of thieves,
Every one avid for presents
And greedy for gifts;
They do not judge the case of the orphan,
And the widow’s cause never reaches them.

As we face record heat this summer on a global level, we need to get serious about all this, people!

We are even seeing what happens right now if we don’t, as predicted in Isaiah:

Stored wealth shall become as tow,
And he who amassed it a spark;
And the two shall burn together,
With none to quench.

But maybe we can be grateful for one thing:

That at least it’s not snowing.

Because, (my friend sent me this meme);

Imagine shoveling snow in this heat.

And because you have to laugh even when there’s pain.

Don’t believe those people who think things will never change.

It seems to me that God wants a world of socialism—or even communism.

Because we actually don’t know if communism might have been successful if it hadn’t been for the CIA.

If we believe Isaiah, it doesn’t really matter what you call it; God wants a world where everyone is taken care of.

Where there is justice for all.

It’s not communism we need to be afraid of.

It’s the big banks.

Isaiah has the answer of how to cross over into the Promised Land;

God says, it’s not our pleading and praying that will bring about change.

So help spread the word!

It could be the word of God, or just yours.

Shabbat Shalom.

Which Way to Look, & Devarim

This morning I went down into the North Woods of Central Park.

I am privileged. I have the time for such things.

The air didn’t seem as bad as it’s been from the wildfires blowing our way again this week.

But the AQI (Air Quality Index) still indicated, “Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups.”

We are in a temporary but glorious reprieve from the heat at the moment, despite the poor air quality.

But also, I’m privileged. I have air conditioning.

And how long and to what degree am I to worry about the smoke?

Some Californians I know have told me they’ve simply learned to live with the smoke.

They don’t even pay attention anymore.

And didn’t I grow up breathing the worst pollution back in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s?

Didn’t I leave New York to live in an even more polluted place, Mexico City, in the early ‘80’s?

There was no AQI back then.

I’d forgotten all this.

Also, I’m privileged; I have air conditioning.

Sitting in the North Woods this morning by the stream and waterfall I love, it was a little escape.

For a few minutes, I could forget about a world literally on fire.

I could forget about the extreme sustained heat taking over large swaths of the world.

I could forget for a moment—or try at least—and also try to find some peace.

Because like I said; I’m privileged.

I sat staring at the water.

I noticed that if I looked one way, the water was calm and beautiful.

I watched the tiny ripples made by landing insects.

The trees and the blue sky reflected on the water.

But if I looked the other way, I saw the disgusting scum on the top and the polluted water beneath.

I chose to look the other way.

In thinking about this week’s Parsha as we begin the book of Devarim (Deuteronomy), I wondered about stories.

—about the stories we tell ourselves.

And those we tell others.

Moses gives a long speech.

He reminds the people of all they’ve been through, the places they’ve been.

He tells them not only of their own bad behavior, but his own;

Of his lack of sufficient faith in God, even after all the miracles he’d witnessed.

He tells them again that he will not be crossing over into the Promised Land as a result.

He reminds them of their new leader, Joshua, to whom he has passed the mantle.

These are the stories of the Torah.

What are the stories we tell ourselves?

That it will “all somehow work itself out”?

That it’s too hard not to take airplanes even though we know the carbon footprint we’re leaving causes more heat?

That the airplanes will fly even if we’re not on them?

That this is not a global issue that we must address together?

That it’s someone else’s—some other politician’s/country’s—fault and responsibility?

That we do our part by “recycling,” even though most of that plastic is not recycled?

That there’s a safe place where we can run to on this Earth?

And what kind of faith do we need?

In a God who will save us?

In humanity?

In our ability to work things out?

In the Earth to heal herself once we’ve destroyed most of humanity?

Ah, yes, but we can tell ourselves we ourselves will survive—because we’re the privileged ones?

Here we are on the other side of the worst of the pandemic, and it feels like we still didn’t get the memo.

—that there is no “back to normal.”

—that using less was a real thing.

—that slowing down and not getting on an airplane was something we needed to continue.

—that we are a global community.

Those who had the means, “escaped” to the country where the air was clean, and the weather not so hot.

But dirty air and heat follow people wherever they may flee.

I’m not sure I have an uplifting, hopeful message this week.

Do I have to?

Just because I’m the rabbi—and I can actually say I am now?

As I write, we are experiencing and witnessing apocalypse.

There are tens of thousands of climate and violence refugees pouring into New York City.

And our mayor wants to reverse the legal imperative to provide shelter to all who come to our city.

This is all happening right here, right now—not in some nefarious future time.

Who will be our leader now?

I think we have to be that together.

Which way should we look?

Maybe not the other way.

And maybe to each other.

Shabbat Shalom—for real.

And say Amen.

Along the Way (Matot-Masei)

I’m back!

The Kallah conference was just as magical as I had hoped it would be for me.

I don’t know if I told you how stressed out I was during the weeks prior.

In fact, I was terrified.

It felt really big to be going to this conference as a newly ordained rabbi.

I would be leading services as a colleague to the other clergy.

Was I worthy?

Would they come?

I barely slept the first two nights.

The schedule was insane.

I was anxious despite being totally prepared.

Anxious about getting up early.

Anxious about getting enough sleep.

Anxious to do my morning routine of self-care.

The davvenen, or prayer services, started at 7am.

There was competition;

Several services were happening at the same time.

Other leaders were well-known.

Did anyone even know me besides my former classmates?

There was even competition with breakfast because of the schedule.

And with late-night evening events.

You had to make choices; morning or evening, but not both.

But they came. And it was wonderful.

People went deep into prayer, and quickly.

They were grateful.

I felt worthy.

What a magical feeling.

And as if that wasn’t magical enough, my classes were perfectly juxtaposed:

“Life” in the morning; how to live with love at the center through Hebrew chant practices.

“Death” in the afternoon: Jewish views of the afterlife.

I had come with a question.

By day two, a voice whispered in my ear:

“This is the course you will be designing as a future offering: a mixture of these two classes.” (More on that to come!)

And I knew it was time to begin writing my book.

Another little voice whispered, “and this is the title:”

Love and Fury in the Time of Covid; From Communist to Rabbi.

All so magical.

Like little miracles.

This week’s Parsha, as we come to the end of the Book of Numbers, lists all the place-names the Israelites stopped along the way on their journey through the desert to the Promised Land.

It’s a very dry list, but there’s a Midrash, a rabbinic story, that imagines God telling Moses, “Write down all the places through which Israel journeyed, that they might recall the miracles I wrought for them,” guiding them safely through human and natural dangers.

The people are to remember the places where they complained:

Of lack of water.

And water poured from a rock.

Of lack of food.

And manna fell from the sky.

Of boring food, and quail fell from the sky.

The Midrash goes on:

It is like a king who takes his sick son to a specialist, and on the return journey, now better, reminds him along the way; this is where you had a headache; here is where we stopped to rest.

Each place was an oasis, providing what was needed in the end.

Here is the journey of last week’s conference:

Along the way, we complained about the schedule.

Along the way, we complained about the food.

Along the way, we complained about the beds, and how tired we were.

Along the way, we complained about our room keys not working.

About the heat and humidity.

About flight delays due to torrential rains and lightning.

We complained about people not wearing masks when they had cold symptoms.

We complained of getting Covid, or being exposed.

But along the way, we had air conditioning.

And along the way, we had friendly staff who worked so hard to accommodate us.

And along the way, we made new friendships, and deepened old ones.

Along the way, we talked for hours.

Along the way, we walked barefoot in the grass.

Along the way, rain poured from the sky, providing much needed water.

Along the way, we laughed and cried.

We anointed or were anointed with oil as Shabbat descended upon us.

We chanted and sang at the tops of our lungs.

Along the way, we felt our prayers go up to heaven.

We have a long way to go before we get to the Promised Land.

But along the way, we must keep noticing the miracles and magic.

I end with a prayer by Joel Kushner:

Blessed are you, Source of Direction who offers to whisper in our ears and hearts, guidance for our way. Allow us to quiet ourselves to hear and receive you fully, and enable us to be like a watered garden even in the parched places of our lives.

Good Shabbos, and say Amen.