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Opening Our Minds

September 24, 2018 by thejewishobserver

A second grade teacher collected a group of well known proverbs.  She gave the first part of each one to a child in her class and asked them to complete it.  Here are some of the results:

Better to be safe than (sorry)….to punch a fifth grader.

Strike while the (iron is hot)….bug is close.

It’s always darkest before (the dawn)….Daylight Savings time.

Don’t bite the hand that (feeds you)….looks dirty.

You can’t teach an old dog (new tricks)….math.

A penny saved is (a penny earned)….not much.

Two’s company, three’s (a crowd)….the Musketeers.

Children should be seen and not (heard)….spanked.

If at first you don’t succeed (try, try again)….get new batteries.

A journey of a thousand miles begins (with a single step)….by getting in your car.

Are the children’s endings to the proverbs wrong?  Although they are different than the versions we grew up hearing, we can see the logic in each one, based on the perspective of that child.  Because these are children’s perspectives, we chuckle, but add theirs to ours.  That is what rabbinic tradition urges us to do.  I have often cited this quote from the Talmud, eilu v’eilu d’varim Adonai, “these and these are the words of the living God.”  God’s voice announces this in the middle of an argument between the disciples of Rabbi Hillel and Rabbi Shammai.  One of the lessons I draw from this is the necessity for us to open our minds and accept different perspectives on issues.  We do NOT have to agree with a perspective different from ours, just understand it has legitimacy, or at least the person having that perspective has a legitimate reason for believing it.  Further, rabbinic tradition is clear that our arguments can be done fiercely. They can be strong and energetic. We just have to end themwith respect for the other side, even in disagreement.

Here is a current example. Liberals often condemn capitalism as a means of extortion from the working class and the poor.  What they often fail to acknowledge is that free enterprise in business is the best way to uplift an economy, to create jobs, to bring financial energy to more people.  It encourages ordinary people to enter the business world, and our country is filled with stories of people coming from poverty and building great success. On the other hand, conservatives see the policies of liberals as undermining business, and classify them as socialist.  Current rhetoric from the right claims if we institute Medicare for all, increase state  corporate taxes, and raise the minimum wage, we will downgrade our country into Venezuela. They claim liberals want everything to be free for all.  They misrepresent what socialism truly is – a system by which the government promotes community ownership of all land and businesses instead of individual ownership. These progressive policies are not intended to replace individual business ownership.  Typically, neither side’s minds are open to understanding the true purpose of the other side’s position.  Neither side wants to acknowledge that we need the other’s perspective to properly balance policies.

I am a liberal who used to own a manufacturing business.  I have seen the benefits of free enterprise, how my business’s growth created jobs. From 1977 to 1983 we went from employing 12 people to 50.  We provided good salaries, with our base well above minimum wage.  We provided health insurance for our employees’ families. Our success was never affected by the taxes we had to pay in Pennsylvania, which were much more than any business has to pay in Florida.  I embrace the current proposals of raising the minimum wage, giving all people the option of Medicare, and raising the state (not federal) corporate taxes to help fund things like raising teachers’ salaries.  I can see a bigger picture of how these policies can help people who are struggling, as well as improve some aspects for businesses.  I bet the typical right wing conservative has no understanding of my perspective at all.  Both political sides need to open their minds.

The sadness existing in our Jewish world is how this same close mindedness, the refusal to understand the perspectives of the person who thinks differently than you, exists today largely through an issue that used to unite the overwhelming bulk of the Jewish people – support for the state of Israel.  The dominant perspectives on Israel now are the two most extreme.  One is blind support of anything Israel does, to the point of accusing a fellow Jew who is critical of Israel as being a “self hating” Jew.  The other is represented by the BDS movement, which claims to use boycotts, divestments and sanctions to end international support for Israel’s oppression of Palestinians.  BDS supporters will classify those who do not support it as racist, or xenophobic.  If you are a non-criticizing acolyte supporter of anything Israel does, you are failing to face many of the realities of the Netanyahu government.  If you are a BDS supporter, you do not realize many of the movement’s leaders oppose the legitimacy of Israel’s existence.  Both sides are failing to acknowledge the complications and nuances of the history of Israel.

Consider the earliest Jewish settlers from Europe, who began immigration in the late 1880’s, and expanding in the first years of the 20thcentury, when the Zionist movement formally came into being.  It was common for European Jews moving to Palestine to have false impressions.  The famous Jewish essayist, Ahad Ha’Am, after visiting Palestine in 1891 for 3 months, wrote, “We abroad are used to believing that Eretz Yisrael is now almost totally desolate, a desert that is not sowed…But in truth this is not the case.  Throughout the country it is difficult to find fields that are not sowed.” Indeed, when the first waves of Jewish settlers arrived, there were around 500,000 Arabs living in Palestine. But it was not an independent country. It was territory controlled by the Ottoman Empire.

What were the attitudes of Jewish settlers and the native Arabs?  They were diverse and complicated.  Some Jewish settlements trained their folks to speak Arabic wanting to establish good relationships with the local Arabs.  Others saw the native Arabs as many Europeans saw the native residents of other areas colonized by European countries – as inferior savages who needed to be modernized.  Some saw the Moslem Arabs in particular as aggressive, and others were just shocked to find them living there at all, confirming the observation of Ahad Ha’Am. Some Jewish settlements set up just councils, that took in complaints by Arabs, judging them at the same level as complaints by Jews.  Others treated the local Arabs as a threat.

How did the Arabs see the Jewish settlers?  The response was as diverse, but we must acknowledge an added component.  Islam created an atmosphere that did not like Jews and forbade land controlled by Islam to be handed over to any foreign group. In addition, the Turkish rulers and the local Arabs often had a xenophobic view of foreigners, and saw their presence as a threat.  Some of this inborn dislike of foreigners was exacerbated by certain groups of Jewish immigrants.  Those coming from Russia were often socialists, anarchists and atheists – revolutionaries in a way that annoyed the local Arab population.  After a number of years some of the Jewish immigrants began to behave like lords and masters over the Arabs, again creating a bad atmosphere. A significant amount of the land occupied by European Jews had been bought from absentee Arab landowners.  In some cases there were no problems.  In others the new settlers pushed out the Arabs who had been farming the land for the absentee owners.  Who would those Arabs blame, the absentee owners or the local Jews who took over the land?

There is plenty of documentation for all of this, but here is the bottom line.  If you are a blind supporter of Israel, you will ignore the difficulties caused by many of the early settlers for the native Arab population. You will ignore the attitude of colonialism, not typical of Jews, but Europeans.  If you are a supporter of the BDS movement, you will ignore the reality of anti-Semitism and xenophobia that already pre-existed in the Arab population. You will ignore the attempts by many Jewish settlers to establish an existence of fairness for all.  Here is another reality, while a population of a bit more than a half million in 1900 seems like a lot, today we are talking about a segment of land that houses 10 million people.  Why would it be wrong for some of the Jews of that era to move to Palestine?

These issues continued during the years Israel gained independence.  During the 1948 war, it is a fact that some Arabs were forced from their homes by armed Israelis, sometimes the Irgun, Jewish terrorists, sometimes the official military.  It is also a fact that the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem was a serious anti-Semite, who cooperated with Hitler during WW II.  He broadcast that Arabs should leave their homes while the war was on, so the Arab armies could come in and destroy the Jews.  We also know that many Arabs fled their homes simply because they could not stand living in the middle of a violent war.  I must ask, could you?

We see a continuation of all these issues today.  From 1977 onward, beginning with the Begin government, the building of settlements on the West Bank, to the dismay of Palestinians living there, increased tremendously.  Many of the settlements were built by Orthodox Jewish extremists, who claimed that the West Bank rightfully belonged to Israel, based on their interpretation of ancient Biblical boundaries that increase, the size of the Jewish state. There are other Biblical boundaries that decrease that size.  In recent years the Netanyahu government has made the establishing of Jewish outposts legal, even ones that have taken over Palestinian property.  It is morally wrong to legalize stealing land from Palestinians.  Supporters of the Netanyahu government refuse to see that as wrong.

Those who support the BDS movement often try to justify Hamas’s terrorist actions.  Their advocacy for Palestinian rights blinds them to Hamas’s hatred of Jews.  They refuse to acknowledge that in the 2014 Gaza war, Hamas used little children to help dig tunnels for terrorists to enter Israel.  They refuse to acknowledge that just this past spring, the protests that happened at the Gaza border, were not just by peaceful Palestinians, but included violent members of Hamas who actually drove the whole series of incidents. Hamas admitted this.  Most of all, there is little admission that large hatred of Jews exists in the Arab world in general, let alone the Palestinian world.

Yet, and here is the saddest, both sides fail to acknowledge that most Palestinians, just want to have normal family lives.  They fail to acknowledge that among Israelis there are many who do oppose the Netanyahu government.  While I was on a river cruise in France in June of 2017, we became friends with a couple from Israel, owners of an extremely successful business, who are so upset with the current government they voted for the Arab party in the last Knesset election.

Finally, we have the current policies of the Netanyahu government that is deepening divisions in the Jewish world, not just between Israeli Jews and American Jews, but among all Jews in the diaspora.  Here is one example.  After making an agreement with non-Orthodox Jews to create an area at the Western Wall where non-Orthodox men and women can worship together, he revoked that agreement in order to preserve his political alliance with orthodox political parties. It is also clear that Netanyahu is now focused on an alliance with Christian evangelicals who give unquestioning support to his policies, while dismissing the bulk of the American Jewish community that has, through the years, helped to finance so much of Israel’s development.  If you are a supporter of Netanyahu, you fail to acknowledge he is under constant investigations for corruption, as well as his dismissing of the majority of American Jews.  If you are a critique of Netanyahu, too often you judge all Israelis based on his actions, instead of continuing to embrace the legitimacy of Israel’s existence. And you fail to acknowledge that Israelis do many things to help others, providing relief services to countries suffering a disaster, or initiatives by Israeli Jews to help Palestinians and Israeli Arabs.

In the early 2,000s I gave a sermon on how too many Jews made Israel the focus of their Jewish identity, as well as too many Jews made remembering the Shoah as the focus of their Jewish identity.  I said while both of these were important, the focus of Jews should be on strengthening our Jewish communities, by strengthening our knowledge of Jewish tradition, theology, values and strengthening our commitment to each other. It says in Pirkei Avot, kol Yisra’el aravim zeh l’zeh,  meaning all the Jewish people are responsible for each other.  I said that we need to find the proper balance between particularism and universalism. I think all of that is still true. What is so sad for our people is how, in today’s world in particular, the disagreements over our relationship with Israel, are tearing us apart.

Why is this?  Because the Jewish world, is mirroring the state of American society.  Like everyone else in America, we are reinforcing our political and religious divides by refusing to acknowledge factual truth, especially about history. We reject factual nuance.  We are refusing to even listen to a narrative that contradicts our ideological bubble. As a result, most of us understand nothing about the true feelings, intentions, and actions of other Jews who think differently from us.  Instead we condemn them.  We fail to open our minds.

The Torah portion we read this morning begins with these words, Atem nitzavim hayom kulchem lifnei Adonai elohaichem, rosheichem shivteichem, v’zikneichem v’sotreichem col ish Yisra’el, tapchem n’sheichem v’gercha asher b’kerev machanecha, meichoteiv eitzecha ad sho’eiv meimecha.“You stand this day, all of you, before Adonai your God, your tribal leaders, your elders and your officials, all the men of Israel. Your children, your wives, even the alien within your camp, from the wood chopper to the water carrier.” All of the people of Israel are standing there to begin our covenant with God.  Notice, this includes everyone, from leadership to children, from actual Israelites to aliens working at the lowest level jobs.  Do you think all of the people standing there had the same thoughts, the same beliefs?  Do you think they all approached life the same way?

Of course not.  Our people have always been filled with multiple opinions, arguments and thoughts.  As the joke goes, the only thing two Jews can ever agree on is what their friend should donate to the synagogue.  What unites us, is our covenant with God, our understanding that we should be a “light to the nations,” a model of how to live, how to manage our diversity of thought.  It is time to cry, because we are failing.  How incredibly sad that Israel, the land representing our covenant with God, and the fulfillment of so many modern Jewish dreams; now represents the issues breaking our people apart.

Today, Yom Kippur, is the final day we are supposed to examine ourselves, to finish our repentance and ask God for atonement, forgiveness.  But God will only forgive each of us if we have made peace, shalom, with each other.  Do it! Reach out to those who think the opposite of you.  Listen to their narratives, their thoughts, their emotions.  You do not have to agree.  You can even argue fiercely.  Nevertheless you must embrace them as a fellow Jew, a fellow human.  You must open your mind.

The second word of the Torah portion is one of the reasons we read this today, nitzavim, to stand.  We should stand together.  That verb is connected to this noun, matzeivah, which can be translated to mean either a tombstone or a pillar.  A tombstone memorizes that which is dead. A pillar gives support to the living. If we insist on degrading the fellow Jew who holds a different perspective than us, we will just be tombstones of a Jewish memory.  If we work to understand each other, to listen to each Jewish narrative, we will be pillars supporting the life of the Jewish people.  May all of us choose to be pillars, to support the life and well being of our people.  If we are pillars for the Jewish people, including Israel, then we will making the Jewish people a pillar for the world.  Kein yehi ratzon, may that be God’s will

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Love

September 21, 2018 by thejewishobserver

Love makes the world go round

Love makes the world go round

Somebody soon, will love you

If no one loves you now.

 

High in some silent sky

Love sings a silver song,

Making the earth whirl softly

Love makes the world go round.                 From Carnival, by Bob Merrill

You know I love Broadway musicals.  So how can I talk about love, without sharing a song of love, from a show that I love, Carnival.  It is a show about love, about the conflicts between feelings of love and our hateful instincts, caused by the difficulties we suffer.  In the end, it is the giving of love that wins, but the source of love is hidden from its recipient, Lili.  So yes, while love may make the world go round, often it is hidden, hardly revealed, and mixed with surrounding difficulties, at least according to the show, Carnival.

How necessary is love? Well, if you agree with Vulcans on Star Trek, love is just an emotion that gets in the way of logical decisions. If you prefer the Beatles then, “all you need is love.”  While I love Star Trek, I agree with the Beatles.  The circles of our lives are driven by love.  As children, the love from our parents shapes so much of our whole lives.  When we have children, our love for them drives so many of the life decisions we make. As we age, we need our children to show their love for us, even sometimes making sure we are cared for much the same way we cared for them as infants.  Love makes our lives go round.

What does Judaism say?

Well, growing up, love was presented as the focus of Christianity, not Judaism.  An example was this quote from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, “I say to you love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”  I remember our rabbi saying it is not realistic to think people can be forced to love someone, particularly an enemy.  It is more realistic, and better, to advocate for justice, not love.

Indeed, the texts highlighted by Jewish teachers are the prophetic texts about bringing justice to the poor, the orphan and the widow.  The Torah texts we rabbis typically love to teach are about justice and righteousness, such as tzedek, tzedek tirdof, “justice, justice you shall pursue.”  Yes the Torah teaches us to “love the stranger,” but we almost always put that a political context.  Yes, the Torah teaches “love your neighbor as yourself,” but we automatically defer to the Hillel version: “what is hateful to yourself do not do to your neighbor.”  We debate if love of our neighbor is really meant to be particularistic, or universalistic. In other words, it becomes the subject of an intellectual discussion.

It is hard to find a traditional Jewish text that discusses love.  Instead there are stories showing how we confuse infatuation with love.  For example, there is a story about Rabbi Chiya ben Ashi, whose wife was feeling very neglected by him.  So she put on a wig, perfume, dressed up, and passed in front of him while he was studying.  He asked who she was and she answered “Charusa, I have just returned from my travels.”  He then propositioned her.  When she revealed her real identity, he felt so guilty he fasted until he died. Another story tells of an observant man who was so overwhelmed by the beauty of a harlot, he paid 200 pieces of gold to sleep with her.  But when he climbed into her bed, his tzitzitraised up, and hit him in the head, waking him up to the sin he was about to commit.

Judaism tends to teach about life mostly in the light of justice and intellect.  I have come to believe, however, that love is key to life. So now I will share two stories, each about a man I believe demonstrated love.  Both lived in Cologne, Germany.  Both were my dad’s father.  One was his biological father.  The other was the man who actually raised him.  They hated each other.

Walter Romberg was my grandfather.   He died in 1942; the result of forced labor in a chemical factory in Nazi Germany.   My father only met him once, while getting his signature on the paperwork needed to leave Germany.  Dad’s parents were divorced before he was 3.  While growing up, he was told by his mother and uncle, that Walter was despicable. Certainly it is easy to understand how bitter his mother, Martha Stern, felt about her experience with Walter. In 1922 Walter fathered a boy, with another woman.  This half brother died in a street accident when Dad was a toddler.  In  January of 1923 Walter married Martha.  My dad’s birthday was July 11, 1923.  Clearly, this marriage was a “shotgun” wedding.  To put it in today’s language, Walter was a “player.”  Nobody in Martha’s family had anything good to say about Walter.

Even much of Walter’s family considered him the black sheep of the family.  He was a gambler.  He failed in every business venture or job he took.  He was a member of the German Communist party, which put him in opposition to most of the Romberg family.  He served Germany in World War I, and had the strange view that the war was fun, not tragic.  His younger brother Karl, the most successful of the Romberg brothers, often gave him financial aid.  Karl’s son Ralph was one of the few to say something positive about Walter.   Every time Walter came to see his brother in Essen, he brought treats for Ralph, who found his uncle kind and funny.

In 1932, Walter married Margaret, a Catholic woman, about 1 month after their first child Charlotte was born.  It was Charlotte who told me about her father, my grandfather.  Walter had no relationship with my father, but he had deep love for the 4 children he fathered with Margaret.  Each child felt their father’s love.  He would play this game, calling each one by their name, gathering them into his arms one by one until he was hugging all four.

As the 1930’s progressed, Walter was forbidden by the Nazis to continue his career.  Instead, he was pressed into hard labor on road crews. This paid very little, so the family moved into progressively worse apartments – from one with an inside toilette to one with the toilette in a hall shared by many families.  Food grew scarcer, but Walter made a game of saving food for his children.  He would not eat all of the lunch he took to work.   He brought some home then made a festival of cutting it into little sections for each of his children, humorously calling it “rabbit food.”

Walter scrounged to find things to make his children happy.  Charlotte wanted a toy pram, but they could not afford one.  An acquaintance of Walter’s found one, but it was so old and out of style that Charlotte was ashamed to wheel it home with her father. They stopped at a kiosk to eat an ice cream cone, leaving the pram outside, laughing together over what should be its fate – perhaps someone would walk off with it while they were eating.

Even though he was married to a Catholic woman, Walter wore a yellow Jewish star like all Jews.  His children were kept out of certain schools and once the war was on, he was forbidden from using the bomb shelters with German families.  Still, Walter was determined to help other Jewish families.  He knew a lot about the paperwork families needed to fill out to get out of Germany.  He would help them get their paperwork done.  He owned a small handcart and used it to help families being deported take their possessions to either train stations or deportation facilities – not realizing that the Nazis would often take these things from families especially if they were sending them to concentration camps.  Walter, after putting in long, hard days of forced labor, helped these families almost every night.

One of the saddest cases was a Jewish family with two little girls Charlotte’s age who were told in 1941 they had to evacuate Cologne, and to report to a camp outside of the city. Walter used his small handcart and helped this family transport their belongings, not knowing this was a useless exercise, as this family was sent to a concentration camp in the east.  In Minsk, this family was put on a truck and told they were being taken to a work camp, but the truck was a rolling gas chamber and they were slaughtered.

Walter Romberg died on a warm, sunny Sunday in early August 1942.  He was home and sick in bed, probably because of the poisonous chemicals he was handling in forced labor.  He came into the kitchen, clutched his chest, and collapsed in front of his wife and daughter.  As his body was being carried from the building, another girl, the daughter of a Nazi family, asked Charlotte why she was crying.  It was, after all, only a Jew.

As a young man, Walter was enchanted with looks and sex.  In a little over a year he fathered two boys with two different women.  In the 1930’s, as life for Jews became harder every year, he did all he could without concern for his own health, for his children and other Jewish families.  His love grew as life degenerated.  His love inspired his children for the rest of their lives.

The second story is about Richard Stern, the man who raised my father.  I have spoken about him before, being a hero and a protestor, but this is not about his heroism.  This is about the love that drove his life.  Unlike my grandfather Walter, Uncle Richard was a deep part of my early life, dying about 6 months after my bar mitzvah.  Externally he could be a little gruff.  Yet his heart was soft and filled with love.  I saw this many times but the real story of his love begins on January 23, 1928, the day Richard and his sister’s father, Marcus Stern, died.

Marcus had been caring for his divorced daughter and her 5 year old son.  They lived with him in the apartment above his bedding store in Cologne, Germany.  Richard promised his father, that upon his death, he would take over the business and look after his sister and her son.  In 1928 it was impossible to know how this would affect his entire life.  He could not have known the Nazis would take power in 1933 and overturn his future.

For the first few years of caring for his sister and nephew, life was normal.  The business provided a nice income.  Richard was active in local politics as a member of the Social Democratic party.  He was a well-liked citizen in Cologne, and was the emcee for some events during the annual Karnival.  He should have been able to attract a wife as successful businessman in his early 30’s, but on January 30, 1933, Hitler was appointed the chancellor of Germany. After April 1, 1933, when he was arrested for protesting the Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses, his business declined. After the passing of the Nuremburg laws in 1935, life became extremely difficult, yet Richard placed the wellbeing and safety of his sister and nephew as his first priority.  November 9, 1938 was Krystallnacht, and Richard survived by fleeing to a hiding place outside of Cologne.  His sister and nephew were hidden by neighbors.  All of the products in the store were stolen, destroyed or thrown into the street by the Nazis.

A few months earlier, Richard already realized he needed to get his sister and nephew out of Germany, so he applied to the US consulate for visas for all 3 of them.  He was able to leave Germany in May of 1939, to get to New York, find a job, and begin a new life structure for his family.  Instead of being an entrepreneur, he became a dishwasher.  His sister and her son made it to New York in early September, 1939, while Germany invaded Poland.

What tore at Richard’s heart, even though he, Martha and my dad made it safely to America, was the splitting of their greater family.  His brother, Heinrich, was put into a concentration camp shortly after Richard left Germany.  They never heard from him after 1942.   Heinrich was murdered by the Nazis.  His sister Tekla, who was married to a non-Jew, Heinz, had made it with their daughter Ellen, to Brussels, Belgium, where she hid during the war.  His sister Hilda and her husband Ludwig, made it to the United States.  Richard worked hard to provide for Martha, buying life insurance and war bonds to make sure there were assets for her if something happened to him.

The possibility of Richard being killed became a reality when he decided to take a position in the US army corps of engineers in October of 1942.  He then created a letter to his family, outlining how to utilize the few assets he had obtained if he died in the war.  His main concern was Martha, who had no husband and whose son was now about to enter the army.

There is no doubt that Richard felt conflict about going into the army at age 43, knowing he had promised his father he would never abandon his sister Martha.  But he made his choice because he felt opposing the Nazis would determine the ultimate safety of any of his family that survived. It is clear Martha worried constantly about her brother, as a letter from my dad to Richard in August of 1943, assured his uncle not to worry about dad’s mother.  Dad wrote, “Uncle Richard, you have always been my very best friend.  If today you are going into combat again on your own will, I respect you even more yet.  If anything should ever happen to you, you can be sure that I will take care of mother.”

Richard’s love for my father never ceased.  In the winter of 1945, Dad was standing guard with his unit somewhere in France.  It was pouring rain.  Dad looked up and saw his Uncle Richard walking towards him with tears pouring down his cheeks.  They hugged and spent a couple of hours together.  This was the only time from October 1942 until the end of the war that Richard and dad got to see each other.

Once the war with Germany ended, Richard applied for a pass to travel to Brussels to find his sister Tekla and to Cologne to try to trace the fate of missing family members.  In Brussels, Tekla’s husband Heinz had gotten into some kind of legal trouble and was being held by Belgium authorities. Richard visited him and tried to help. I am not sure what he was able to do, but I have a picture taken in Brussels in June of 1945 of Richard and my dad, with Tekla, Heinz and their daughter Ellen.  I also know, as I have a copy of the affidavit he filed in November of 1945, he sponsored his sister and her family as immigrants to America, swearing to use his income to insure their ability to settle in NY.

In 1949, at 50 years old, Richard was finally able to marry.  His sister was doing well.  My dad was building his own life.  But that was not the end of Richard’s expressions  of love.  In 1959 Martha was diagnosed with cancer, dying in 1960 at 58 years old.  Richard, living then in Allentown, Pa and already dealing with heart problems, spent so much time at her side, writing to my dad, then living in West Virginia, giving constant reports on his mother.  In 1963, his sister Tekla was fighting illness as well. Richard went to NY to be with her and learned she had died a few days earlier.  Her daughter, Ruth, never bothered to let the man who got her parents into the United States know his beloved sister had died.  The funeral had already taken place and Richard was heartbroken.

Richard Stern wrote a short summary of his life in 1959.  He saw his life as messed up.  I never did. Uncle Richard saw me as his grandson. Being with him was so much fun. While visiting us in West Virginia, we took a walk to look for Indians.  At the edge of a forest, we saw an old, thrown out chair.  He told me it belonged to Sitting Bull.  In December of 1967, just a few days before Uncle Richard died, I visited him in the hospital.  Uncle Richard knew I saw him as a hero.  When I walked in he broke down and cried, so upset that I was seeing him suffering from heart failure.  To this day I still feel his love when I think of that moment.

What is love?  Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler, from the early 20thcentury writes this, “We see that love and giving always come together. Is the giving a consequence of love, or is perhaps the reverse true: is the love a result of giving?  We usually think it is love which causes giving…But there is another side to the argument.  Giving may bring about love for the same reason that a person loves what he himself has created or nurtured…”

Love is what motivates us to give at key moments during the cycle of our life.  The best we can try to do is to begin, and end, with love.

Walter Romberg and Richard Stern each nurtured, gave, and loved.  Walter’s life was so unsteady.  He was an outcast from much of his family.  His love, however grew under stress, and steadied his life.  Richard’s life was stable.  When Nazism destroyed that stability, his life was driven by love.   Why did I pick a song from the show Carnival for this sermon? Both men lived in Cologne, Germany.  The Karnival of Cologne was part of both of their lives, connecting two opposites. It represents the cycle of their lives. So I sing.

Love makes the world go round

Love makes the world go round

Somebody soon, will love you

If no one loves you now.

 

High in some silent sky

Love sings a silver song,

Making the earth whirl softly

Love makes the world go round.                 From Carnival, by Bob Merrill

 

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What is Truth? What is Falsehood?

September 17, 2018 by thejewishobserver

It seems like every day we are seeing tweets, FaceBook posts, and news reports about fake news. Every time we read or hear any of this it raises the question, what is true?  What is false?  American politics seems to be the center of fake news, so let me share a great example from American politics.

How many of you know about the XYZ affair?

In 1797, at the beginning of the John Adams administration, relations with France, our ally during the Revolutionary War, became quite tense.  The French Revolution had changed France’s nature, with executions quite prominent, and many Americans, particularly in the Federalist party, no longer trusted the French at all.  President Washington, before retiring from office, even acknowledged that the former ally from our Revolution was in total chaos, and could not be trusted. Washington declared the United States should stay neutral in any conflict between France and Great Britain. The Democratic Republican party members, however, saw the French Revolution as a continuation of the ideals from our revolution, despite evidence that the fall of the French monarchy resulted in the madness of murders and oppression of many French citizens, eventually leading to a dictatorship – Napoleon.

President Adams was a Federalist, and his Vice President, Thomas Jefferson, was a Democratic Republican. Great Britain was at war with France.  Jefferson, wanted the US to side with the French.  Adams, abiding by Washington’s policy, wanted to stay neutral. Jefferson met secretly with a French representative in Philadelphia, undermining Adam’s plans.  Then, Adams sent a three person delegation to France to negotiate with the French foreign minister, Talleyrand.  Talleyrand refused to see them, instead having them meet with 3 minor officials.  He insisted that the United States give a large loan to France (in reality at extortion) as well as America paying for the damage French naval ships had done to American merchant ships.  This became known as the XYZ Affair.  Thomas Jefferson believed, and put forward the idea, this affair was a hoax created by the Federalist party, despite factual confirmation of the despicable ways the French were operating.  What made Jefferson’s actions even more reprehensible, was that he and President Adams, had been friends coordinating on numerous previous items for America, including the Continental Congress passing the Declaration of Independence.

A key figure in pushing American neutrality, during the Washington and Adams administrations was Alexander Hamilton, Washington’s treasury secretary.  Hamilton was a realist, recognizing the disaster unfolding in France. Further, he knew that for our newly established country to reach a level of economic strength, we needed a trade agreement with Great Britain.  Jefferson hated Hamilton so much he secretly supported an extremely partisan newspaper, the Aurora, that condemned Hamilton as a monarchist, someone wanting to reestablish American submission to the British monarchy.  Anyone knowing Hamilton’s history recognizes the falsehood of this claim.  Yet Jefferson and his political allies constantly claimed Hamilton and the Federalists were monarchists.  Further, they claimed Hamilton’s financial policies were meant to create his own personal wealth.  The truth is Hamilton was being sensible by knowing America was not ready to participate in a war.  His economic policies formed the basis of American capitalism that would bring our country amazing strength.  Jefferson lacked moral consciousness, shown by his embracing of falsehood.  As our 3rdpresident, he utilized executive powers in the same way he condemned Washington and Adams.

You can see that whatever exists today has deep roots in American history.  Our tendency to ignore truth and to embrace falsehood that supports our ideology seems as strong now as in 1797.  To put this in language we hear a lot today, they were living in their isolated bubbles without caring about the boundaries of others.  I am sure you have heard lots of discussion, for example, how your FaceBook page is filled with links, stories, and postings that feed your political, religious, and personal perspectives.  And I would also guess that most of us have been guilty of posting comments that feed our egos and feelings without caring about the feelings of others.

What is at the core of this problem?  Well, there is never one answer.  The moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt would say that we are driven mostly by our instinct and not by our intellect.  He came to that conclusion while analyzing why most people are stuck in their ideological political bubbles, despite what certain information might prove.  I agree with Dr. Haidt but I will add a couple of other aspects, both of which are appropriate for us to reflect upon as part of our process of repentance and atonement during the High Holidays.

If we were to make a real attempt to be morally conscious, we would be sensitive to the impact the words we write or speak will have on others.  I am not saying we should just hold hands and sing “Kumbaya” together. There will always be disagreement. We just too often fail to handle that disagreement in a moral manner.  However, I believe there is a second question we need to ask about what pours out of our mouths – what actually is falsehood and what actually is truth?

Jewish tradition has strong statements on falsehood and truth.

Exodus 23:7 states, “Keep far from a false matter.”  The first dozen verses of chapter 23 are focused on certain themes.  First, nothing should undermine justice, that is, no one should do any action to skew a court case to favor either the wealthy or the poor.  It should be based on fact.  Second, there is a definite attempt to create peace and acceptance of others.  We are told to aid our enemy if their animal has gone astray or has fallen under a burden.  We are told to not oppress the stranger, as we were strangers in Egypt. Perhaps most significantly, is the stress on avoiding falsehood and its impact on justice for all, especially the poor – their needs should not be undermined by the desires of the wealthy.

The Talmud (Shavuot 30b – 31a) puts the statement “Keep far from a false matter” more explicitly in the context of how a judge in a court should operate.  The judge cannot accept bribes.  He cannot advocate for his own statements.  He cannot sit on a court with another judge he knows to be a criminal.  He cannot provide an advantage for a wealthy person over a poor person.  He cannot arrange for a second person to be a witness but not speak, having him there only for the appearance there are the required 2 witnesses.  He cannot even have a student who is an ignoramus sitting before him to observe the court as the mere presence of an ignoramus might cause the judge to err.  In short, the judge must do everything possible to distance himself from falsehood.

Now let’s look at truth. It says in the midrash, Deuteronomy Rabbah, “What is God’s seal?  Truth (emet).  And why emet?  It consists of three letters, alef, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, mem, the middle letter, andtavthe final letter, confirming what it says in Isaiah 44:9, ‘I am the first, and I am the last and beside me there is no God.’”  The Talmud then shares this story about speaking truth:

Rava said, I once thought there was no one person who speaks only the truth. One of the rabbis said to me that even if they would give him all the riches in the world, he would not tell a lie, and told this story.  Once he visited a town called Kushta; whose inhabitants would not tell a lie.  And none of the people there died before his or her time.  He married a woman from there and had 2 sons with her.  One day, his wife was washing her hair.  A neighbor came and knocked on the door.  Thinking it would not be proper to tell the neighbor his wife was washing her hair, he said, “she is not here.”  Subsequently his 2 sons died.  The people of the town came and asked him, “What is the reason for this?” He told them what happened and they said to him, “We beg you, leave our town, and do not incite death against us.” (Sanhedrin 97a)

I am sure you are sensing the same questions as me this story raises.  Truth might indeed be God’s seal, but does that mean we must always tell the truth?  Are there situations in which we can or even should state something false, a lie? Have we, in reality, misunderstood what the concepts of truth and falsehood truly are?  The Talmud wrestles with these questions.

In Baba Metzia Rav Yehuda says there are 3 times one can deviate from the truth.  You can say you did not study a text even if you did. This promotes the value of humility. You can say you did not sleep in a bed, even if you did – as there might be some unseemly residue found in the bed, and you can lie to avoid shame.  Third – you can say you were not treated well by a host in order to prevent others from taking advantage of that person’s hospitality.  In summary, you can lie in order to be humble, to avoid shame, and to protect someone else’s situation.

In Ketubot we get a different approach.  In a debate between the conflicting schools of Shammai and Hillel, the question is how or if you should praise a bride who is  ugly. The school of Shammai says to stick to the truth and only praise the specific good qualities of the bride. The school of Hillel says you should call any bride fair and attractive.  The school of Shammai asks, should you praise her beauty even if she is ugly?  To which the school of Hillel replies that if you limit what you praise about the bride, it implies that the rest of her can be denigrated.  Hillel is not saying to praise anyone truthfully or falsely every time, but know there are certain occasions on which you must only issue praise in a full manner.

Perhaps the strongest argument in the Talmud justifying a lie (Kevamot) states that it is a mitzvah to not be truthful in a situation that will bring peace.  This teaching is based on a lie recorded in the Torah spoken by God. Here it is from Genesis 18, “Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in years.  Sarah had stopped having the periods of women.  And Sarah laughed to herself saying ‘Now that I am withered, am I to have enjoyment with my husband so old?’  Then God said to Abraham, ‘Why did Sarah laugh, saying, shall I in truth bear a child, old as I am?”  There are numerous Jewish texts that draw on this passage from Torah to teach that a falsehood which keeps peace in a household is acceptable, even necessary.

Now comes a key question. How do we reconcile 2 connected teachings with a third that seems in contradiction?  Exodus 23:7 commands us to distance ourselves from falsehood. Truth is the value that should drive and connect everything – it is God’s seal.  Yet God’s lie is used to exemplify how there are times we should use falsehood to push forward other values: humility, avoiding shame, preserving respect for others, and advancing peace.

Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler, an Orthodox rabbi, philosopher and theologian from the early 20thcentury, gives a key insight.  From Michtav mi Eliyahu, a book of his letters compiled by his students we get this thought.  “We had better define truth as that which is conducive to good and which conforms to the will of the Creator; and falsehood as that which furthers the scheme of evil in the world.”

Truth, in other words, is not simply what is factually correct.  Truth is an element that pushes forward goodness in our world; that helps us bring divine presence to our world.  This conforms to the midrash that proclaims truth to be the seal of God. We should not and cannot dismiss factual correctness.  We must always be aware of facts, and then put that awareness in a context that will forward goodness in the world.  Falsehood is more than pushing forward lies.  It is misusing knowledge to advance immorality.  If we tie this back to Exodus 23, it is misusing knowledge to advance the immorality we are commanded NOT to tolerate: the undermining of justice, especially for the poor, the undermining of peace, the abuse of the stranger.

We struggle with this because we tend to cling to idealized, inflexible definitions of morality and truth. Too many of us condemn those who perceive new knowledge changing how we should deal with morality as “moral relativists.”  Years ago I read an article in Newsweek written by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.  Williams stated we are not moral relativists.  We are simply always discussing what is our idealized truth – meaning the highest ideals that will push forward morality and God’s presence. The more knowledge we gain, the more our idealized truth changes.

Archbishop Williams also made an interesting observation about the relationship between our moral system and science.  We accept a system of science that is always being challenged, ergo always changing as our knowledge increases.  We also accept the need for having moral standards, but change in knowledge forces us to reconsider the parameters of the moral ideal.  The ending of slavery, the increased rights of women, and the acceptance of LGBTQ relationships are just 3 examples of how increasing our knowledge changed our moral idealism.  Those who do not accept those changes then call those of us who do, “moral relativists.”

Truth, then, is also accepting the reality of change in our understanding of how to best follow the moral commandments from the Torah.  As we mature, as we learn, our understanding grows and changes.  Truth is our commitment to improving and expanding our understanding of morality.  Denial of the reality that we are constantly learning new facts, thus adjusting our understanding of morality, is falsehood.  We must have faith that truthfulness exists, and that justice and peace are the highest goals we can pursue.  For God has always represented justice, as well as the high hope for humanity to use truth to reach up and embrace it.  As it says in Psalm 85, “Faithfulness and truth met, justice and peace kiss. Truth springs up from the earth, justice looks down from the heavens.”

Our attempt to constantly understand truth and falsehood, that is to understand what really advances morality at the highest level, is our human method to reach up and try to connect with God.  It is not only about fact and fiction.  It is about our attempts to reach the highest ideals.  As we begin our High Holidays, our time of teshuvahand atonement, let us look into our hearts and souls with the highest goal in mind, a deepening connection to each other that will lead to a deepening connection to the Divine.  May we strive for an embracing of truth.

Shanah Tova metukah

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Who Is Cruel?

September 12, 2018 by thejewishobserver

Once upon a time, a Chasidic rabbi, Rav Ya’akov Yitzchak told his student, Simcha Bunem, to make a journey to a distant hamlet.  When Simcha Bunem asked what the purpose of the journey was, his teacher remained silent. So Simcha Bunem took several of his fellow Chasidic students with him and traveled.  By the time they arrived at the small village the sky had already turned to dusk.  Because the village had no inn, Simcha Bunem ordered his coachman to stop at the first cottage.  He knocked at the door and was invited in along with his fellow students.  When they asked whether they could join their host for dinner.  The man replied that he had no dairy food and could only offer them a meat meal.

Instantly the Chasidim bombarded the man with questions about his level of keeping kosher.  Who slaughtered the meat? They demanded to know. Were the animal’s lungs free of even the smallest blemish, and was the meat salted enough to draw out all traces of blood as required by kosher law?  The interrogation would have continued had not a commanding voice from the back of the cottage called out to them.  They turned their attention from the owner of the home to a man who looked like a beggar sitting near the hearth smoking a pipe.  “My dear Chasidim,” the beggar began, “With regard to what goes into your mouths, you are scrupulous.  Yet, regarding what comes out of your mouths, you make no inquiries at all.”  When Simcha Bunem heard these words, he knew exactly the reason his teacher had sent him on this journey.

It is significant that a story from Chasidic tradition, a culture that embraces strict observance of Jewish law, reminds us that our commitment to a particular belief should not justify cruel action.  Last night I spoke about how real truth is our attempt to increase goodness in our world. Today we will explore a different approach – the undermining of kindness by cruelty.  And, I will ask each of us to honestly question ourselves:  are we cruel?

We begin with another question.  What is a basic source of cruelty?  The answer is pretty clear – anger.  Unless someone is so mentally or emotionally sick that they gain pleasure out of cruelty, it is anger that pushes us to a cruel action or belief.  The easier we become angry, the faster we slip from exhibiting kindness.  Many of us regret anger, and try to control it.  Some of us see anger as a justification for a belief or action we are taking.

Further, we need to consider what cruelty actually is.  Here I think we can draw on traditional Jewish teachings.  Yes, Judaism is filled with all kinds of rituals and laws a traditionally observant Jew will emphasize and follow.  Yet, there is also an amazing amount of focus between the Torah, Tanach, and Talmud on the necessity for kindness and a discussion of anger and cruelty.

Here is an aggadahfrom the Talmud. (Berachot 7a)

Rabbi Yochanan said in the name of Rabbi Yossi, “From where do we learn that the Holy One, Blessed be He, prays?”  As it is stated in Isaiah 56:7, “I will bring them to My holy mountain, and make them joyful in the house of My prayer.”  It does not say “their prayer” but rather “my prayer.”  From here we see that the Holy One prays.  What does God pray?  Rav Zutra bar Tovia said, God prays, “May it be My will that My mercy will overcome My anger towards My people for their transgressions, and may My mercy prevail over My other attributes, and may I conduct myself towards my children with the attribute of mercy, and may I enter before them beyond strict law.  Rabbi Yishma’el ben Elisha taught, “Once I entered the innermost sanctuary of the Holy of Holies to offer incense, and I saw the Lord of Hosts seated upon a high and exalted throne.  He said to me, ‘Yishma’el, My son, bless Me.’  I said to Him, ‘May it be Your will that Your mercy overcome Your anger and may Your mercy prevail over You other attributes, and my You act toward Your children with the attribute of mercy, and may you enter before them beyond strict law.’  The Holy One Blessed be He, nodded His head.  This teaches us that you should not take the blessing of an ordinary person lightly.”  (Berachot 7a)

Interesting that God’s sole prayer is one to help God with anger management. Remember, we are taught in the first chapter of Genesis that humans are created in the image of God.  As Jews do not believe God is a physical being, “image of God” is not about appearance.  It is about emotions, intentions, spirituality and intellect. So we can draw certain lessons from this Talmudic story.  First, that God experiences anger yet understands how kindness, mercy, and caring must take precedence over anger, and all other attributes.  We humans should be imitating God’s priorities. Second, God struggles, ergo, of course we struggle.  God’s use of prayer is significant as the Hebrew word for prayer, tefillah, is related to the verb l’hitpaleil, which means “to judge oneself.”  True prayer, then, is not about asking God to do us favors, but about examining if we are behaving the way God requires and models.  Third, God appreciates a blessing from a human, teaching us we should not look at fellow human beings in denigration.  Rather, we should be open to accept any person’s offered blessing.

Here is another question. How extensive is God’s anger?  The same page of Talmud addresses this.  It says in Psalms 7:12 that God has anger every day.  Yet, that anger lasts less than a 58 thousandth of an hour.  Indeed, Psalms also teaches us that the vast majority of God’s day is spent in kindness and mercy.  This page of Talmud also teaches that an evil person knows when God’s moment of anger occurs and uses that brief moment to justify their cruel actions. Now let’s consider this question: what is cruelty?

Rabbi Akiba, one of the key early Talmudic contributors, teaches this: “Love your neighbor as yourself” is a fundamental principle of the Torah, so that you will not say, “I was degraded, let my fellow be degraded with me; I was cursed, let my fellow be cursed with me.”  Rabbi Tanchuma adds to Akiba’s teaching saying, “If you do this, know whom you are degrading, for each person was made in God’s image.”  Cruelty, then, is degrading a fellow human being; ANY other human being, as we are all made in God’s image.  And remember, God’s image is not physical, but intellectual and spiritual.  A person’s physical appearance is irrelevant to God. It is their soul that must try to be as God tries to be.  Why am I stressing the need to dismiss the importance of physicality?  Because so much of our anger and cruelty is based on a physical appearance that makes us uncomfortable.  We are now experiencing a despicable episode of this in our country.

I sadly share some incidents.  A Yemenite American man, who along with his 3 youngest children were American citizens, committed suicide when his wife and 2 older children who were not citizens, were denied visas to join him because of the travel ban.

A middle-aged couple living peacefully in Brooklyn for 2 decades decided to visit their daughter and son in law – an American army sergeant who just returned from duty in Afghanistan – at his military base in upstate NY.  They were turned over to ICE and face possible deportation to their home country of Mexico.

A 63 year old Peruvian born grandmother, who became an American citizen, now has US agents trying to take her citizenship away from her, presumably because she was working for a fraudster boss.  This is despite the fact she fully cooperated with the police in the probe into her boss’s business.

A Guatemalan mother who crossed the Rio Grande this spring with her 8 year old son got caught by the U.S. border patrol, had her son taken away from her just before she was put on a plane back to Guatemala.  She cried that she could not go without her son.

Let’s add to these individual episodes the policy decision to retract the Temporary Protected Status of 195,000 El Salvadorians, 57,000 Hondurans, and 50,000 Haitians.  Yes, one can argue that legally that status is supposed to be temporary, yet, all of these folks fled their countries because of natural disasters or oppressive circumstances, and they are NOT living off of welfare here.  94% of the men and 82% of the women are working, contributing 4.5 billion dollars in pre-tax wages annually to our GDP.  Some are small business owners.  Reality is they have established positive lives here.  Why can we not modify the law and embrace their presence and contributions instead of just throwing them out?

We can add the annual increase of arrests of undocumented immigrants by 40,000 – most of whom have no criminal records.  We can add to that the still unresolved question about those protected by DACA or the “Dreamers.”  We can add to this an increase in the retraction of American citizenship from Hispanics born close to the Mexican border in Texas because of claims a midwife or doctor falsified the birth certificate – even though these investigations were concluded in 2009 and despite the fact that those under investigation are not criminals, but often people who served in our military or even the border patrol.

Those who support these policies will cite the necessity to abide by the law.  They will point out the need to keep criminal elements from coming into our country.  Those who oppose these policies will cite the fact that the criminal rate among immigrants, including undocumented immigrants, is less than the rest of our population.  They will say that opposition to current immigration policy is in the same class as opposition to racist policies overturned in the 1960’s.  I will add that no one of any common sense supports open borders allowing the admittance of criminals into America.  The problem is how we define criminality.  Is trying to illegally enter our country, while running from a horror in your native land, a wrong act?  Here, however, is the key question I ask of everyone debating these issues, what is the true common thread shared by all of the incidents and policies I just shared?

The answer is the center of my concern – we are talking about opposition to non-white people establishing their lives in our country.  If you doubt this opposition exists, then here is what Fox News commentator Laura Ingraham said on August 8, “In some parts of the country it does seem like the America we know and love doesn’t exist anymore.  Massive demographic changes have been foisted upon the American people and they’re changes that none of us ever voted for and most of us don’t like.”  While Ingraham tried to qualify that she did not mean ethnicity, David Duke certainly saw it that way and embraced her statement.  Indeed, how can you be referring to a change in our population’s demographics, including immigration (which Ingraham later mentioned) and not be referring to people of color?  Ingraham, without intending to, made clear the true cruel, bigoted feelings of a significant segment of our country.

If we will be perfectly honest with ourselves, we must ask if we are part of that group of people who are scared over the demographics changing at a rate where white people will become a minority sometime between 2040 and 2045.  I am convinced that fear is the basis of support for the current policy approaches to immigration and the repeal of Temporary Protected Status for non-whites.  I am convinced that fear is why the status of the Dreamers has failed to be resolved.  I am convinced this racist stream is confirmed by the inarguable increase in the public presence of white nationalism.  By the way, this group includes an increased amount of anti-Semites who take anti-Jewish public positions such as Holocaust denial. If you need evidence of the climbing of white supremacy, just read about the racist robo-calls received even by some members of our congregation after Mayor Gillum won the Democratic primary for governor last month.

What I have just described is one of the worst examples of cruelty condemned by Jewish tradition – consistently so from Torah through Talmud to today.  If we are truly trying to act in the image of God, we cannot focus on the physicality of others, but their soulfulness.  Here are 2 clear citations from Torah.

From Exodus 23:9  “You shall not oppress a stranger (ger), since you know the stranger’s soul, because you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”

From Leviticus 19:34,35 “When a stranger (ger) lives with you in your land, do not persecute him.  The stranger living with you must be treated as one of your citizens. Love him as yourself, for you were strangers in Egypt.  I am the Lord your God.”

The Hebrew word ger in these quotes can be translated as either alien or stranger.  The quote from Exodus reminds us that it is the soul, not the appearance that takes precedence, for we share elements of the soul with the stranger.  The Leviticus quote teaches our treatment of the stranger should not just be tolerance, but love.  By ending the verse with the phrase “I am the Lord your God,” we are reminded it is our task to try and emulate God.  The importance to our people of kind treatment of the stranger is amplified by constant repetition throughout the Torah.  It is re-enforced by teachings in Jeremiah and Ezekiel – all stressing not to mistreat the ger.

Yes, cruelty is failing to follow this very clear commandment from the Torah, but there is another part to cruelty as well.  Recall I shared an aggadah about God’s anger. Recall that the Talmud teaches God’s daily anger is about a 58 thousandth of an hour.  The same page also shows how a cruel person draws on the limited  moments of God’s anger to justify their cruelty.

The example it gives is Balaam, the non-Israelite prophet who is hired by king Balak of Moab to curse the Israelites.  Balaam is considered evil by most of rabbinic literature, but someone God took control of to convert his words from curses to blessings.  Talmud teaches that Balaam had knowledge of when God’s anger occurred. In Numbers 24:16 it refers to him as someone who has knowledge of the one who is most high (God).  In Numbers 23:6 Balaam declares, “How can I curse whom God has not cursed?”  The rabbis interpret this to mean that Balaam, indeed, any person who is evil, will use their knowledge of God to curse and oppress people.  They will take their knowledge that God has a brief moment each day of feeling anger, and use that to justify actions based on God’s anger. They will stress Psalms 7:12 that teaches us about the daily moment of God’s anger but will ignore Psalms 30:6 that states, “His anger is just for a moment, his favor for a lifetime.”

The person trying to justify an evil act will draw on a Biblical verse to justify that action, often ignoring the full context of the verse as well as the general direction of Biblical teachings.  Historically, this has been done by bigots, drawing on Biblical verses to support slavery, oppose equal rights for women, to condemn gays and lesbians.  All of this is a metaphor for a person drawing on the brief moment of God’s anger to justify an evil position.  When this happens, they are purposely ignoring the overall dominant themes of the Bible, Christian or Jewish, on justice, on acceptance of all people as children of God.

Last night I concluded my definition of truth by saying it is not simply about factual correctness, but real truth is what pushes morality forward in our world.  The truth we all must embrace is to search our own hearts and souls, to confront our own prejudices, our own bigotries.  A real truth is that we too often make our judgments based on appearance.  A real truth is that we need to connect to other people’s hearts and souls.  A real truth is that the atmosphere in our country today is inhibiting our ability to do this.  A real truth is that our treatment of immigrants and refugees is an expression of our personal moral failures.  A real truth is that too many of us worship the wrong elements of our world, those elements that feed our anger and help us justify wrong actions, even if they are technically legal actions.

What is it that causes God’s anger?  Rabbi Meir teaches that when the sun rises and the kings of different countries place their crowns on their heads and bow down to the sun, God grows angry.  So each day starts with that flashing moment of God’s anger, caused by ego and worshipping an idol.  But that moment flashes by and God’s compassion and faith in us drives the rest of the day.  The final questions we must ask ourselves are these.  What are we doing to justify God’s compassion for us?   Are we trying to be in God’s image by connecting to the hearts and souls of the strangers?  And finally, ask yourself – Am I cruel?

Now is the time when we are supposed to look into ourselves, to judge ourselves, as we know God will. Then, we must begin to change. The section of the Talmud I have been teaching closes with this thought.  A single regret or pang of guilt in one’s heart is preferable to many lashes by others that cause physical pain.  It is the shape of our soul that concerns God, not our body.  It is our willingness to judge ourselves in truth, not judge others that concerns God.  It is our actions to create shalom, with others that please God.  If we are serious about our teshuvah, our repentance, it will center not on our needs, but how we treat the needs of others.  May our journey in these Yamim n’orim, these High Holidays, bring us to a place not just of acceptance, but of love for the stranger.  May we truly live our lives in the image of God.  Amen.

 

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Leon County Children’s Services Council

May 22, 2018 by thejewishobserver

The following is a letter I sent to each county commissioner.

To Our Leon County Commissioners:

I am writing to express my disappointment (well actually my anger) at the increased hesitation over proceeding to establish a Leon County Children’s Services Council.  The only concern I truly understand is over making sure it passes, so as NOT to deprive the underserved children of Leon County of the support they need.  In reality it is not only the children who need the services the CSC would provide. Our community at large will reap huge benefits when these children become adults.

One of the objections I am hearing, from numerous parties who oppose the CSC (in particular the Tallahassee Chamber of Commerce) is we do not know the necessary details.  I am curious as to what details are missing. In fact, much research has been conducted and the proof has been long established about the needs to improve early childhood learning, literacy, as well as mental and physical health of young children.  Let’s look at just one example – reduction of crime

Multiple studies indicate that improving literacy will reduce the percentage of people arrested for a wide range of crime.  Here is one link to research:  https://literacymidsouth.wordpress.com/2016/03/16/incarceration-and-low-literacy/

The state of Florida uses 3rdgrade literacy rates to predict the number of prison cells that will be needed in the future.  Texas uses 4thgrade literacy rates.  A CSC that invests in a combination of early childhood education, literacy programs and mental health will impact the crime rate in Leon County. Further, the benefits will go far beyond reducing crime.  Businesses will benefit from an increased population that can provide workers and customers.  Our economic system will both save money (less folks put in prison) as well as be more productive.

There is a slew of evidence/research that covers many aspects of the benefits of the CSC. Perhaps most significant is the need to increase the self confidence and vocabulary levels of children by the time they are 3 years old.  Brains are about 90% developed by the time a child is 3 years old.  While development continues through adolescence, indeed until about 25 years old, the need to have positive programs for children 0 to 5 is obvious and will have the greatest impact on improving the adult population of the next generation.  A University of Chicago research program from 2016 gives the details on many of the benefits from improved early childhood learning programs.

Enough about details.  There are professionals in our community who are better able than me to inform you on the research done that addressing both needs and programmatic solutions.  In truth, the opposition mostly has nothing to do with either details or concern it will not pass.  Rather, the opposition to the CSC is fearful it WILL pass.

Why?

Well, because this opposition is led by folks who either:

  • Are very shortsighted in their assessment of what will truly benefit the community in the long run verses the short run.
  • Are mostly concerned about giving up some money in increased taxes.
  • Are opposed to any government program that is perceived as adding to “big government.”Some prefer to have it as part of the commission’s budget/agenda.
  • A combination of all of the above.

Allow me to address each of these “concerns.”

  • As stated above, the research on the long term benefits is clear. Providing necessary services especially to children 0 to 5 will bring the benefits to our community as stated above.
  • The half mil increase translates to just an increase of $50 of tax per every $100 thousand of property ownership. A person with a half million dollar house will pay $250.  This is affordable at every level especially when considering the long term improvements to the general community.  In addition, we have just received a tax decrease on the federal government level, and if we are honest, we must admit Florida is one of the lowest taxing states in the country.  Property owners can afford this with no problem.
  • This is not creating big government. This is a local decision that has to be renewed by voters.  Further, having children’s services be part of the commission’s budget and decision making every year, puts them at the mercy of political lobbying as opposed to assessment by professionals who know how to address the needs and have a built in cash flow to do so.  While I do not oppose programs for elderly or veterans, children’s needs are the only ones that truly affect the future of the community. They should NOT be at the yearly disposal of a group of county politicians.  The result might be the ending of programs that need a number of years to change the path of children, due to the pressure of folks lobbying for other needs or a budget difficulty.  All of this is why the independence of a CSC is actually critical.

You will hear from all those who are opposing the CSC that they care about children.  Here is the reality.  If you truly care about children, your focus should be on how to best get this done, not to find excuses to not pursue a CSC.  If you are concerned about the complexity of this fall’s ballot, put it on the primary ballot or declare a path to have it voted on for sure ASAP after this fall’s election.

I will be very blunt. If you do not find a way to create an independent council that provides needs for underserved children; which will in turn create numerous long term benefits for our community, then do NOT say you care about children.  Your words will be as meaningless as people who offer “prayers and thoughts” as their only response to school shootings.

Rabbi Jack Romberg

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A Full Response

March 22, 2018 by thejewishobserver

Recently I published an guest column in the Tallahassee Democrat criticizing the comparison of the political influence of the NRA to Planned Parenthood.  www.tallahassee.com/story/opinion/2018/03/05/opinion-nra-vs-planned-parenthood-bad-comparison/394038002/

Lynda Bell, the leader of an active anti-abortion group, wrote a response criticizing my interpretation of a Biblical passage.  I wrote a response that was shortened by the paper into a letter.  Here is the full content of my explanation of Exodus 21:22 to 25:

I completely understand the passion of Lynda Bell in her opposition to abortion. She is the leader of a group that leads the fight against abortion in Florida, so of course she sees Planned Parenthood as a mortal enemy.  What I would like to address, however, is the interpretation of Exodus 21:22 through 25. By insisting that her take on this Biblical passage is the only correct one, she misses my point that Biblical passages are seen differently by various religious traditions. I do not claim the Jewish perspective is the only way to read the passage, but that it is as valid as any perspective. So let’s look at the complete passage and see how it forms the basis for the Jewish perspective on assessing life.

Here is the full passage, 22) If men quarrel and hurt a pregnant woman so that her (unborn) child comes out and yet no further harm follows; he shall surely be punished, according to what the woman’s husband will lay upon him and he shall pay a determined penalty. 23) And if any further harm follows, then you shall give life for a life, 24) Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, hand for a hand, foot for a foot. 25) burning for burning, wound for a wound, bruise for a bruise.

While the actual Hebrew has some wording oddities, this passage is not used to either justify or oppose abortion. Rather, it is the basis for establishing that there are different levels of life. The punishment for the loss of the unborn child is a fine, NOT a death penalty. The Torah has many examples of when a death penalty is the punishment for the loss of a life. This is not one, so the rabbinic sages of the first few centuries CE qualify fetal life differently than fully formed human life. In this passage we should note a few things. First, the husband is the one who has a say in the amount of the penalty. The further harm referenced in verse 23 is to the woman, which would then be punished by what is outlined in verses 24 and 25. If the woman loses her life, then the perpetrator loses his and so on.

The Talmud, which is the early rabbinic elaboration on Torah law redacted between 200 to about 600 CE, builds upon the difference between fetal life and fully formed human life. The example used for abortion arguments is a case in which a woman’s life is threatened by the birth of her child, the child can be aborted unless its head is emerging during birth. There are other examples showing different levels of life. Funeral rites are not required for the loss of a fetus regardless of the reason (miscarriage, accident, abortion). They are required for the death of a fully formed human. In the early 20 century, a leading rabbi in Palestine (before the establishment of the State of Israel) took these teachings and ruled that a woman who consulted him, could have an abortion because her doctor concluded the pregnancy would result in her being blind. Of course today we would question how this doctor could know this, but the point is the rabbi used our traditional perspective on the levels of life to make his decision.

Therefore, from a Jewish perspective, the mass murders of students at schools, the mass shooting in Las Vegas, or at the Orlando night club are more horrific than abortions, as they are murders of fully formed human life. I must, however, add this note that will make liberals unhappy. While the Talmud is clear that fetal life is not the same a fully formed human life, it is also clear that fetal life is human life. Ergo, the use of abortion as simply birth control would be condemned by Jewish tradition.

There is so much about all of this to discuss, and I invite Ms Bell to meet with me and set up a community, public discussion. If we do it civilly, perhaps we can find some areas of agreement to bring our community together rather than to verbally fist fight.

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Sacred Space?

February 18, 2018 by thejewishobserver

February 14, 2018 in Parkland, Florida.

This week’s Torah portion, Terumah, is about the creation of sacred space for the Israelites as they wander through the wilderness. God says to Moses vayikchu li terumah, “they will take a gift for me.” A key question here is why the use of the verb “take” instead of just “they will give me a gift.” Then begins a long list of valuable and beautiful materials that will be used for the space, along with this sentence, V’asu li mikdash v’shachanti betocham, “They will make sacred space for me (a sanctuary) that I might dwell among them.” A question asked by Rabbi Yitzchak Arama is, since the Israelites experienced Sinai and learned that God is not material, why is it necessary to create a material sanctuary for God?

One answer is to read this not just literally, but metaphorically. The sacred space we create for God is about the world we create, the morality and/or goodness that are the result of our actions. A midrash from Pesichta d’Rav Kahana teaches that human action either draws or repels God’s presence from our world. If we act evilly, God’s presence leaves and retreats to heaven. If we act righteously, God’s presence dwells with us.

We are currently repelling God’s presence.

On Valentines Day – a day of “love,” 17 people were killed and numerous others wounded at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL. This is the third mass school shooting in our country since January 1 of this year. Please tell me what other major developed country has any where near the number of mass shootings as the Untied States. The answer is none.

One of the students killed was Alyssa Aldaheff, a 14 year old girl who attended Camp Coleman. A young man from our congregation, Andrew Goren, who is now a student at UF, was one of her counselors in the Kesher unit last summer. Here is what he texted me, “She was loved throughout the unit by her friends and her counselors.” Andrew attended her funeral today in Parkland, FL along with other staff members from Camp Coleman.   This sadness has touched many of us. Another one of our younger students is camp friends with Alyssa’s younger brother.

I have never been one who has been vocal on gun issues. I have always felt that gun ownership was not the major cause of our problems with violence. After the school massacre in Columbine about 20 years ago, I agreed with Pope John Paul II’s observation about our country, “America has to provide its children with a moral vision.” The problem is American culture; its obsession with raising the desires of the self constantly above the needs of the community, the idolizing of guns by a significant portion of the population. We worship the god of personal liberty to the point of forgetting the responsibilities and obligations we have to each other. In many ways I still believe these attitudes, which corrupt our culture, are at the base of what causes gun violence.

Now I feel that enough is enough. I am sick of the continued tragedies in which innocent people, most horrifically children in schools, keep getting murdered. Already numerous Republican leaders and right wing commentators are chiming in once more that this is not about gun ownership, but about mental health. The left, of course, makes this about gun ownership. Here is the reality. Both sides are right that their concern contributes to the problem. And, both are wrong if they think their perspective is the only correct way to view the problem.

But now I admit feeling real anger with leaders like Paul Ryan, Marco Rubio, and President Trump, just to name a few. They all cite mental illness as the cause of the mass shootings, yet they fail to do anything to prevent gun ownership by those displaying mental illness that could lead to violence. This shooting is a prime example of what is wrong with our system. The accused shooter, Nikolas Cruz, (who has confessed to the shooting), was expelled from 3 schools for exhibiting violent tendencies. He has at least a 5 year documented history of mental problems. The staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School was warned to be on watch for him as someone who could pose a potential threat to the students. A staff member who saw Cruz enter the campus sounded an alarm and called for help, but the response was not soon enough to prevent the shootings.

Of course we must add to this tragedy the failure of the FBI to properly process the tip it received on Cruz the beginning of January. This is inexcusable!

However, here is a key question. How could Cruz legally obtain an AR 15 semi-automatic assault rifle given his tortured background? Here is another question. How can a person not old enough to even legally buy a beer be allowed to buy an assault rifle? But here is the most important question. What is our political leadership going to do to stop standing behind ideological lines and have real discussions on how to handle gun violence not only in schools but in our country period?!

The answer to the last question is – nothing.

Why? Because they are corrupted by idolizing the self as opposed to what is good for the community. They are corrupted by political ideology instead of truly caring about morality. Politicians care more about raising money for re-election than doing what the country really needs.

Who is to blame? Well, I certainly lay a good share of blame on the NRA. This is an organization that has become an immoral lobbying group for gun manufacturers. Their payments to politicians to prevent them from even having significant dialogues on the possibility of reasonable and effective gun laws is reprehensible. Marco Rubio received over 3.3 million from the NRA. President Trump received 30 million – and switched his view supporting a ban on semi-automatic weapons expressed in a book in 2000, to being even more radical than the NRA!  The NRA’s lobbying was successful in getting congress to pass a law a number of years ago, that prevents government agencies from even researching the connections between mental health and gun violence. This is beyond hypocritical. It is corrupt. In Florida, they successfully lobbied for our legislature to pass a law preventing doctors to have discussions about gun safety with their patients, so they cannot even discuss safe gun storage to prevent accidental shootings. We need to shout out and condemn the NRA for what it really is.

I also blame the 2nd amendment, or rather, those who now see it as freedom to obtain any weapon without restrictions. Do you really think the founding fathers, in particular James Madison who wrote the Bill of Rights, would have wanted the situation that exists today given the ultra advanced forms of guns existing now versus the single shot pistols and muskets existing in their time? Further, it is likely the 2nd amendment was written in the context of the importance in the early years of our country, of maintaining state militias. I have come to believe the 2nd amendment, at least as interpreted by certain groups, is not only irrelevant, but harmful. We live in a different world than the 1780’s.

Mostly, however, I blame us. We are failing to make our voices heard. We are accepting corruption. We have become too complacent. We should be inspired in our resistance and protesting by some of the students who survived the shooting.

One, Carly Novell, hid in a closet for 2 hours, much like her grandfather, Charles Cohen, did 70 years ago. He also was hiding from a mass gun shooter. What I love about Carly is her response to a tweet by Fox newscaster, Tomi Lahren which read:

“Can the left let the families grieve for even 24 hours before they push their anti-gun and anti-gunowner agenda? My good ness, this isn’t about a gun, its about another lunatic.”

This was her response:

“I was hiding in a closet for 2 hours. It was about guns. You weren’t there, you don’t know how it felt. Guns give these disgusting people the ability to kill other human beings. This IS about guns and this is about all the people who had their life abruptly ended because of guns.”

Other students who survived are protesting and pushing for change. They are providing the leadership us older folks have failed to do for them.

I do not claim to know what the real solution would look like. I do not know what changes to the laws will be most effective. I only know that the jabbering of right wing newscasters, the presence of the NRA, and ideological rigidity on all sides will not bring us to the answer. I strongly believe that protests and pressure on leaders at all levels can make a difference. Here is a reality. Poll after poll shows that an overwhelming majority of our country wants some kind of change to gun laws to address this problem. We must begin to speak out.

In Judaism, pekuach hanefesh, the saving of a life, is one of the highest values. The Talmud teaches that one who saves a single life is like one who saves an entire world. One who takes a life is like one who has killed a whole world. The 17 lives lost in the shooting are the destruction of 17 worlds. If we are going to create sacred space that invites the presence of God, we need to save lives, not kill them. We need to create holy space that recognizes the sanctity of life, that enacts laws to prevent the loss of life. When God says the Israelites must take something from themselves to give to God, that implies much more than just giving a superficial gift. We must be willing to take something from our self desires, our egos, and sacrifice it for the sake of our community at large. Perhaps then God will decide to rejoin us. If we do not take action, our prayers will be meaningless.

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