How to Succeed at Resolutions Without Really Trying (or at Least Taking It Slowly)

A few year’s ago on an episode of Prairie Home Companion that fell on the weekend around Rosh Hashanah, Garrison Keillor wished his Jewish listeners a happy new year and then told everyone else that they’d just have to make do with the year they still had for a few more months. In last year’s January/February Temple Israel Hakol, I wrote about the Jewish significance of tonight’s New Year’s Eve, in light of the one we celebrated a few months ago. I won’t go into those details here, but I will acknowledge, like I did then, that New Year’s Day still has significance for us as people who operate not only under the Jewish calendar, but also the Gregorian calendar.

I try to make my New Year’s resolutions leading up to the 1st of Tishrei, not the 1st of January, but I can’t help but be reflective at this time of year, as well. The changes I make this time of year are sometimes more mundane than the ones I tried to initiate a few months ago, eating better, exercising more, the usual. At the same time, I’m keenly aware that New Year’s resolutions don’t stick.

In a study done by a British psychologist about the effectiveness of New Year’s resolutions, it was revealed that only about 1 in 5 people actually keep their resolutions. What he discovered was that most of the people who failed to keep their resolutions went about it all wrong. They focused on the negative, the downside of not achieving their goals. They pasted pictures of skinny people on their refrigerators or relied on willpower alone. Of those that succeeded, the common thread was that they had broken their goal into smaller steps and rewarded themselves along the way. Rather than focusing on the bad stuff, they focused on the benefits of success.

At the beginning of this week’s Torah portion, Va’era, God hears the moaning of the Israelites, who are being held in bondage by Egypt. Moses is told that God remembers the covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and promises to bring the Israelites into the Promised Land. God tells Moses to let the Israelites know that God will free the Israelites and deliver them from bondage, redeeming them and taking them as God’s people. But when Moses relays this message to the Israelites, the text tells us that they would not listen to Moses, their spirits crushed by cruel bondage.

Within just a few short verses, we witness the Israelites’ crying out for help and then, when help comes, deciding that they can’t do it; they are overwhelmed. Sounds a little like how we handle our resolutions! And when we make resolutions and break them, we find ourselves feeling dispirited and despondent, like the Israelites.

So, why do the Israelites all of a sudden withdraw their bemoaning. And why can’t we follow through on our resolutions? What might the two of these have in common? It might be all about willpower. Apparently, our prefrontal cortex is responsible for willpower, but it’s not the only thing that part of our brain handles. It also keeps us focused, handles short-term memory, and solves abstract problems. In an experiment at Stanford University, scientists discovered that people given seven-digit numbers to memorize were twice as likely to choose a slice of chocolate cake over a bowl of fruit salad, compared to people who were given two-digit numbers to memorize. Those extra digits overloaded the cognitive part of the brain making it harder to resist a decadent dessert! Our willpower is so weak that it can be overcome by an overload in our experiences. No wonder that extra cookie, another slice of pizza, or an extra helping of mashed potatoes are so tempting after a hard day at work.

Well, the Israelites’ experience was similar. According to Nahmanides, it’s not that the Israelites didn’t believe Moses when he came to tell them about God’s plan to save them. Instead, it’s that they were incapable of listening because of how crushed their spirits were because of their labor. They hardly wanted to live any longer, even though they knew that relief would come. Ibn Ezra agrees, saying that the Israelites were powerless to listen because of how dispirited they had become because of their exile and bondage.

So, how do they get past this moment? How do we see our resolutions come to fruition? It’s in our ability to distract ourselves from what’s attempting to set us off course. In an another experiment – you may have seen one like this – where four-year-olds were placed in front of a marshmallow and told if they could wait 20 minutes to eat it, they’d get another one, the children that could distract themselves from the marshmallow were the ones who succeeded. Some sang songs, others played with their shoelaces, some pretended the marshmallow was a cloud. They knew their willpower was weak, so instead of focusing on the marshmallow, they shifted the spotlight.

Ultimately, God helps the Israelites do the same thing. Moses and Aaron appear before Pharaoh demanding the Israelites’ freedom. But before they appear, God tells Moses that God will harden Pharaoh’s heart and make Pharaoh not want to let them go. This has always been a difficult moment in the text for me. Why would God make it harder for the Israelites to go? Well, if they tried to take it on all at once – like how we sometimes try to take on our resolutions with an all-or-nothing attitude – perhaps they would have quit before they’d reached the Sea of Reeds. Instead, God gets them out in small steps, one plague at a time, slowly motivating them and propelling them towards freedom with incremental progress. God teaches them, as we can learn about the resolutions we might put into place tomorrow morning, that when we are tempted to change course, hunkering down and convincing ourselves we can do it all at once isn’t the way to go. Instead, we have to shift our focus, reward the small victories, and keep our eye on the prize.

Chinese Food on Christmas, an Age-Old Tradition

Do you know what you get if you subtract the Chinese year, 4708, from the Jewish year, 5771?

No, not 1063. You get the number of years Jews had to go without Chinese food.

This year will be the first Christmas in many, many years that I will not be having a traditional Jewish Christmas dinner: Chinese food. I even tried to have Chinese food for lunch today, but the place I'd chosen had gone out of business.

So, where'd all this Chinese food on Christmas come from? In reading Galit Breen's Minnesota Mamaleh: So What DO Jews Do On Christmas?, I found a link to Hanna Raskin's So, Why Do Jews Eat Chinese Food at Christmas? Hanna Raskin wrote her Master's thesis on the relationship between Jews and Chinese food. I was surprised to learn that Jews' eating Chinese food (not only on Christmas, but in general), was not an experience of our affinity for Asian cuisine, but rather because of our proximity to the Chinese community. Not in Biblical times, but in New York. Thinking about it, I realized Raskin was totally right. The Lower East Side, the quintessential Jewish neighborhood of the last two centuries in New York, the place where so many of us can trace our Jewish roots, borders Chinatown. While I don't agree with Raskin's point that Chinese food is kosher-ish, because the meat is so finely chopped that it's hardly recognizable at treif, I do agree with the rest of her points.

She points out that chop suey was a sophisticated dish in its heyday. Eating it meant you were part of American culture. Also, in Chinese restaurants, Jews look like white people; so, while there was persecution of Jewish communities elsewhere, in a Chinese restaurant, Jews got to be just like everyone else. As New York Jewish culture spread throughout the rest of the country, so did the custom of eating Chinese food, especially on Christmas, even for those Jews who didn't have ancestors who'd lived on the Lower East Side.

So, whether or not you choose to celebrate Jewish Christmas with a traditional meal of Chinese food, have a Shabbat Shalom/Merry Christmas and remember, pork isn't kosher, unless it's in Chinese food.

Is God a Bully?

I am on my way to NFTY CANOe's Winter Kallah, where this year's theme is bullying. The regional boards, teens from Illinois, Minnesota and Wisconsin, have decided in response to the heightened awareness of bullying in our society, to provide their peers with appropriate Jewish responses to bullying and ways to be more inclusive. As I've been thinking about the theme, I began wondering, "Is God a bully?"

According to Norwegian researcher Dan Olweus, bullying is the repeated behavior of intentionally inflicting "injury or discomfort upon another person, through physical contact, through words or in other ways." This definitely sounds like God's reaction to the Israelites' and others' behavior throughout Torah: following the incident with the golden calf, when the Israelites complain about having left Egypt, and God's reaction to Sodom and Gomorrah, to name a few. In each of these three moments, humankind has to intercede to stop God's behavior. Moses steps in at the first two and Abraham in the third.

In the narrative of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham begs God not to destroy the cities if there are even 50 righteous people present. God agrees, but the cities lack even 50 righteous people. Abraham bargains God down to 45, to 40, 30, 20, and even to 10. Still, God destroys the cities. Why does Abraham stop before getting to 1 and why is God still willing to destroy the cities?

According to a midrash in Tractate Sanhedrin 109b, the people of Sodom had a bed on which the would make visitors lie down. Anyone too tall for the bed would have his limbs cut off to fit the bed. Anyone who was too short for the bed would be stretched, breaking his limbs to make him fit. The people of Sodom refused to tolerate anyone who was different from them. God, we see, is not the bully, but instead stands up to bullies to defend the victims, those who are bullied for not being just like everyone else.

In this week's Torah portion, Vayechi, Joseph's brothers become fearful following their father Jacob's death. They are afraid that now Joseph will seek revenge on them for all the wrong they did to him and their father won't be there to protect them. In the end, Joseph tells them that though they meant him harm, God was looking out for Joseph and made sure things turned out well. We might wish God would have interceded and stopped Joseph's brothers, but we can find comfort in Joseph's confidence in God's presence on his behalf.

So, is God a bully? In short, no. Sometimes God steps in to actively protect the bullied. Sometimes the bullied can sense God's presence in the midst of tragedy. We have the power - and the sacred obligation - to bridge the gap.

A Time for Trust and Belonging

While listening to MPR the other day, I heard the newscaster share the notion that we sing the same songs at various times of the year - holidays, birthdays, celebrations, even funerals - and that this repetition, year after year, of the same melodies, gives us a sense of trust and belonging. The comment was part of an introduction to a story on Christmas carols. I was feeling lucky to have been arriving at my destination at that moment so that I wouldn't have to listen to the Christmas carols in the segment. I immediately began thinking, though, why it is that I find Christmas carols, of all the Christmas-related onslaught, to be the most irritating. Then, I thought about the newscaster's comment. Christmas carols provide a sense of trust and belonging - that is, if you belong. That was it. The carols, the garland, the sparkling trees in the center of every shopping mall across America, the commercials, all evoke a sense of belonging if you belong to the tradition they represent. But I don't. I am grateful, as I blogged last year, that during the days of Chanukah, XM radio provides us with Radio Hanukkah as an escape from Christmas carols.

But worse than being surrounded by Christmas carols was the article that my friend Rory shared with me. In his piece for SmartMoney, Kelli Grant suggests that, "Even if you’re not celebrating Hannukah, there’s a good reason to wrap up your holiday shopping before the last light on the menorah goes out." Her thesis is that because the American population that celebrates Chanukah (She claims it's 5%, though most statistics argue that the Jewish population in the United States is a mere 2%.) will boost stores' November sales by 3% to 4%, "retail analysts say an early Hanukkah could spell trouble for Christmas shoppers: Thanks to consumers’ extra holiday spending in late November, retailers may cut back on big discounts in December."

You read that correctly: Because of the Jewish population in America (you decide if it's 5% or 2%), Christmas shoppers will suffer. The Jewish population will cause the Christmas shoppers' sales to be cut short, costing non-Jews more money. At least, that's what Grant argues.

Both Chanukah and Christmas are holidays connected to the winter solstice, a time when the days are at their shortest, light is diminished, and we need greater hope and greater light. Perhaps we can accomplish this best by seeing how our celebrations help one another, creating trust and belonging, not by cutting one another down.

Chag urim samei'ach! Happy Chanukah!

"The Seat" and Other Solutions to Sibling Rivalry

My brother and I always got along growing up, to the best of my recollection. Maybe he would disagree. But I don't think so. I can't remember a time when we really fought about anything. We had peaceful solutions to any conflict, some perhaps a little abnormal, but we always found a way to resolve our differences. I think one of the best gimmicks we devised was "the seat." When our parents got new sectional sofas, they placed the six pieces in pairs. Two were at the back of the arrangement, facing the fireplace. The other two pairs faced inward - with all six around a coffee table - with their backs on the side walls of the family room. On one side, one of the pieces sat about 4 feet away from the television. This was the seat. It came with the privilege both of being able to be closest to the television and also was situated right next to one of the vents, providing the perfect supply of air conditioning or heating.

I imagine that most siblings would have fought over 'the seat.' There would have been mad dashes to get there first, brothers shoved out of the way, and sisters thrown to the floor. But not at our house. Adam and I devised a system, a set of rules that governed who got 'the seat.' (My brother tells me that I was like a third parent for him growing up; I may have devised the rules and forced them upon him, but you'd have to check with him to be certain.) There were two simple rules:

1) Each day, we would alternate who got 'the seat.'

2) If your birthday fell on a day on which you wouldn't have gotten 'the seat,' the alternation would switch so you would have 'the seat' on your birthday.

I don't think the system ever failed. This, however, wasn't the case with Jacob and Esau. If you remember two weeks ago, in Parashat Tol'dot, Jacob steals the birthright from his brother, Esau, and then steals their father's blessing, too. But this week, the brothers have worked through (some of) their differences and reunite after a long estrangement.

In Genesis 33, the brothers reunite. Jacob arrives with his wives, his maidservants, and all of his children. Esau arrives with four hundred men, ready to engage in battle. When Esau sees Jacob with his family, he runs to greet his brother and, weeping, kisses him. (Last year, I discussed the rabbis' concern about Esau's sincerity and intention in the moment of his embrace with Jacob. This year, I'd like to assume he was well intentioned. There's nothing in the text that really indicates he wasn't.) When Esau asks Jacob why he's brought the whole family along, Jacob tells him he wants to please his brother. Jacob offers Esau gifts, which Esau refuses. "I have enough, my brother; let what you have remain yours," Esau tells Jacob.

The two argue back and forth for a while, but ultimately, Esau tells Jacob he doesn't have to offer gifts to make up for their difficult past, but Jacob insists. When the time comes to move along, Esau, in a moment that I think demonstrates his sincerity, offers to travel at Jacob's pace. Jacob has his family, including small children, and his livestock, all of whom cannot travel as quickly as Esau's army. In this moment of compassion, Esau affirms his intention to walk alongside Jacob, something they might not have ever done before. When Jacob insists that Esau go ahead, that his family would slow down Esau, Esau offers some of his men to protect Jacob and his family. Later in the parashah, Esau and Jacob are present when their father dies and, together, they bury him.

In spite of their lifelong estrangement, in spite of the ways they treated each other in the past, Jacob and Esau find a way to walk side by side and to recreate their bond to one another. No one's relationship with his or her sibling is perfect. There will be conflict, there will be times when our differences overpower us. Still, Jacob and Esau teach us that there are always opportunities to stand (or sit) side by side, if we just take advantage of those opportunities.

Ufaratzta - Spread Peace in Every Direction

In the midst of Jacob's dream, after he sees angels ascending and descending a ladder that reaches heaven, God tells him that his descendants will be like the dust of the earth, spreading out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south, ופרצת ימה וקדמה וצפנה ונגבה (Genesis 28:14). These words make up a song, Ufaratzta, that I learned as a participant at the Reform movement's youth leadership summer camp, Kutz Camp, from Cantor Ellen Dreskin. The song, apparently, was written by Avi Maslo. I always knew how the words translated, but never really thought about what they meant in my understanding of Judaism. Let's unpack the meaning of the words:

ימה, yamah: towards the Mediterranean sea, to the west;

קדמה, keidmah: towards the early part of the day, to the east;

צפנה, tzafonah: towards the hidden, to the north;

נגבה, negbah: towards the Negev desert, to the south.

These aren't just words that tell us that Jacob's descendants will spread out in all directions, but specifically that they will fill what we come to understand as the Land of Israel, as the Hebrew Bible sees it. It's all well and good if we believe, today, that the people Israel should inhabit all of the land from east to west, from north to south, but I am one who believes that if the State of Israel is to remain democratic and Jewish, we need to find a peaceful, two-state solution with the Palestinians.

So, then, what do we make of God's words spoken to Jacob? Are they meant to be understood literally? Do they have a different message for us today, with our awareness of the reality in Israel and with her neighbors? I hadn't really given much thought to the meaning behind the words of Ufaratzta until yesterday morning when I was reminded of another version of Ufaratzta, one by Noam Katz, that re-interprets the words in a modern context. You can hear the song here:




In his version, Noam Katz uses the Hebrew as the chorus, but re-interprets the meaning of the words in the way he translates them in the verses of the song:

May you... may you always try to inspire.
May you... may you always try to reach higher and higher.
May you bring your goodness and may you bring peace.
May you spread it from the west to the east.
May you spread it from the north to the south.

May you... may you be a light that shines the way.
May you... may you be a blessing each and every day.
May you let the laughter and love increase.
May you spread it from the west to the east.
May you spread it from the north to the south.

Instead of a vision of manifest destiny, Noam Katz teaches us that it isn't spreading ourselves east and west, north and south, that God intends. Instead, God expects us to inspire others and elevate ourselves to a place where we bring laughter and love, goodness and peace into a world in much need of those blessings and more.

When You Cut One Finger, the Whole Hand Hurts

My great-grandmother was a mother of eight children. Her three oldest children were daughters born to my great-grandfather's first wife, who died when her daughters were 1, 3, and 5 years old. My great-grandmother raised Jeanette, Francis, and Ruth as though they were her own daughters, along with her five children, including my grandmother. Whenever asked which of her children she loved the most - a potentially explosive question given her blended family - my great-grandmother would always reply with a comment along the lines of, "When you cut one finger, the whole hand hurts." (I hope my family will forgive me if I didn't get the quotation quite right.) What I think she meant was that if she loved any of her children less than the others, they would all have suffered.

I am fortunate that my great-grandmother was one of my ancestors. Isaac and Rebekah, however, could have used her wisdom. This week's Torah portion, Tol'dot, tells us of the birth of Isaac and Rebekah's twins, Jacob and Esau. Jacob was the gentle one, loved more by their mother, Rachel. He spent his time with her at home. Esau, the rugged one, loved more their father Isaac, hunted game and spent his time in the great outdoors. When it comes time for Isaac, on his deathbed, to bestow a blessing on his older son, Rebekah steps in to help her beloved son steal Esau's blessing. She dresses him in a goat skin and passes him off as his hairier brother. Jacob tricks his blinding father and steals his brother's blessing.

We often forget about what happens next (Gen. 27:30-40). Esau returns from the field with the game that Isaac has requested, ready to nourish his dying father. When he sets the food before his father and asks to receive his blessing, Isaac lets him know that Jacob has stolen his blessing. It is then that my heart goes out to Esau, that I wish that my great-grandmother had been there. "Bless me! Me too, father!" he exclaims, but Isaac explains that there is no blessing left for him. Esau cannot believe it. "Did you not reserve a blessing for me?" he asks, becoming overwhelmed. Isaac can only reply by saying it's out of his control. And then, Esau begs a third time - and my heart breaks a little with his - "Do you have only one blessing, father?" Isaac musters up a blessing that at best tells Esau to move away and then maybe things will be okay.

What Isaac and Rebekah didn't understand, what my great-grandmother did, is that love cannot be divided. It is like fire. If it isn't cared for and nurtured, it will either grow wild and out of control or it will fade to embers and ash. But if love is nourished, like fire it will increase with warmth and light as it separates from its source.

Parashat Chayei Sarah and Compassionate Response

Today's news of attemped attacks on our country and, notably for the Jewish community, explosive packages bound for Chicago citizens has caused our nation to reflect on the past 10 years and on how one moment's madness can change everything. While it appears that al Qaeda may be responsible for these attempted attacks, it is important, especially at times like these, that we not blame an entire people for the wrongdoings of some. As Jews, we know what it is like to be falsely charged with creating harm - blood libels, plagues, financial ruin - when we were not responsible, definitely not as a people, and usually not as individuals, either. Instead, our tradition teaches us the value of compassion. There will likely be voices in the coming days, weeks, and even months, that will place blame on all Muslims for the actions of a fringe element in Islam. Be not mistaken: what has transpired over the past day or hours has not been the work of the Muslim community.

This week's Torah portion, Chayei Sarah, teaches us the value of compassion in Jewish tradition. When Abraham sends Eliezer to find a wife for Abraham's son, Isaac, there is a litmus test that the would-be bride must pass. The young woman who would not only offer to provide water for Eliezer, but also for his camels, would be worthy of marrying Isaac. Abravanel teaches that the woman who would marry Isaac had to be compassionate, kind, and generous. In her Torah commentary, Studies in Bereshit, Nehama Leibowitz explains that "Rebecca was not satisfied with running once to the well and drawing water. She took the trouble to make a number of journeys to and fro, each time letting down her pitcher, filling it, and giving them to drink." She goes on to teach that those who would take pity on Rebecca for having to go through "all of this trouble to quench the thirst of a total stranger and his cmaels, would do well to remember Akavia ben Mahallel's maxim in the Mishnah: Better that I should be dubbed a fool for the rest of my days, rather than become a wicked man for one hour before the Omnipotent (Mishnah Eduyot 5:6).

Better we should be deemed fools for the rest of our days for not blaming an entire people for the actions of some, than that we scapegoat an entire people and in turn offend God.

Parashat Vayera: Pleading for Others, Having Faith in Ourselves

Abraham, our partriach, has quite a week this week. He learns he and Sarah will have a son, though they are both nonagenarians. He argues on behalf of the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah, to no avail. He refers to his wife as his sister, nearly causing a king to sleep with her. He has his son, Isaac, which only leads to Sarah's plea to have Abraham cast out his son, Ishmael, and his mother, Hagar. And ultimately, he prepares to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice to God. Wow. It's almost too much to handle all at once.

Each of these moments is complex, filled with uplift and depression. But it is with Abraham's pleading with God on behalf of the sinful cities of Sodom and Gomorrah that I want to wrestle this week. I encountered a teaching about this portion, Vayera, from Kolel, the Adult Centre for Liberal Jewish Learning, in Toronto, that spoke to me, especially in light of my recent blog posts about bullying and GLBTQ youth.

In the portion, Abraham is deeply troubled by the possibility that when God destroys Sodom and Gomorrah, innocent people will be wiped away with the guilty. He even goes so far as to chastise God, saying, "Far be it from You to do such a thing, to bring death upon the innocent as well as the guilty, so that innocent and guilty fare alike. Far be it from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly?" (Genesis 18:25).

The commentary from Kolel unpacks this moment in contrast to the last scene in our sedra, where Abraham willingly prepares to sacrifice his son without any argument. With Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham argues for quite a while, first asking what God would do if there were 50 innocent people, eventually bargaining God down to only 10. But there weren't 10. But when it comes to his son Isaac, Abraham remains silent. Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz, citing midrash, indicates that Abraham's silence in regards to his son doesn't come from a place of fear, but rather from a place of faith. Regarding Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham sees it as an issue of justice. But regarding Isaac, his son, it is an issue of faith. These are two completely separate issues for Abraham.

So, what does this mean for us today? The commentary from Kolel asks, "How often do we put other people's interests before our own? In our society today, we tend to 'look out for number one,' which is not to say that we don't care for others, but we put ourselves and our own needs before all others." Justice, the value that motivated Abraham's actions around Sodom and Gomorrah, and faith, the value that motivated Abraham's silence surrounding the near-sacrifice of Isaac, do not exist separate from one another. Sometimes, they require compromise. In order to make a better world for everyone, the commentary argues, we sometimes need to put our own needs after those of others. If we are willing to give a little more to others, we can create a better world for all of us. The commentary concludes by teaching us, "Abraham showed us that we manifest our love for God best when we believe in a God-like fashion towards others, and maintain a faith in God for ourselves."

I believe that Abraham also teaches us that we have to know when to speak up for others and when to be secure in who we are.

Lech L'cha: Going Forward

Last night I attended a vigil in Loring Park in solidarity with students who have been bullied or who are being bullied because of their actual or perceived sexuality or gender identities. This week, I heard a GLBTQ leader's interview on public radio where she said that there aren't all of a sudden more cases of bullying, but that we are both paying more attention and that the cases are more severe than they have been. As I've recently posted here, Dan Savage's It Gets Better Project is encouraging teens who are being bullied to know that things won't always be like this. And I've heard from friends, colleagues, congregants, and others that Dan Savage's project falls short of what we need. Telling teens that it gets better is telling them to wait it out. But as one of the speakers last night at the vigil pointed out, we need to be telling teens, "It gets better now." We need to be doing the work to make this world safer for our children.

Then, this morning, I read an email from a congregant that included Rabbi Shmuley Boteach's post opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal, My Jewish Perspective on Homosexuality. In it, Boteach begins strongly by stating that when the Bible uses the word תועבה (to'evah), meaning abomination, in regards to sex between two men, it is important to note that there are over 120 other instances where this word is used and that a sexual act between two men is no worse than any of these other instances, according to the Hebrew Bible.

As I read the rest of Boteach's editorial, I felt as though I was on an emotional roller coaster... sudden ups and downs, twists and turns. At moments I thought, “Whoo-hoo! A ‘right wing’ religious leader who gets it!” and then all of a sudden, I found myself saying, “But you’re still saying homosexuality is a sin!”

I really appreciated his putting abomination in context. And I love that he says, “You have 611 commandments left. That should keep you busy. Now, go create a kosher home,” reminding us that none of us can actually follow all of the commandments, but at the same time I’m troubled by the idea that he disqualifies two commandments with his statement, the prohibition against men lying with one another and one commanding us to bear children. The commandment in Genesis is not, “Marry a woman and be fruitful and multiply.” It is simply “Be fruitful and multiply.” It doesn’t tell us with whom. And he doesn’t even begin to address, in the midst of his concern about divorces and children growing up in multiple homes, all of the children who are not growing up in stable homes at all, whether they are in orphanages or foster homes, who could be the well-loved children of gay and lesbian couples. Talmud (Sanhedrin 19b) teaches us that someone who teaches Torah to a child is considered as if he had produced that child. Even the Talmud understands that some people will “be fruitful and multiply” through non-conventional means.

I love that he implies, in his remarks about Pat Robertson, that homosexuality just isn’t big enough of a deal to exclude people from our communities. But nonetheless, he still labels homosexuality as a sin, He says it is a religious sin, one we commit against God, not a moral one, one we commit against our fellow human beings.

It's a a good start that had me hoping he’d done better. Judaism changes. It always has. It changed when Mahlah, Noa, Hoglah, Milcah and Tirzah, Zelophehad's daughters challenged the laws of inheritance and insisted that in spite of the fact that they had no brother, their father's property should not leave their family; they should be allowed to inherit. It happened when the rabbis examined the text of the wayward and defiant son whom the Torah commands to have stoned to death (Deuteronomy 21:18), and they conclude that never has such a son existed and never will he. Judaism changes.

But I also hold the value that the Reform rabbis of 1885 held when they wrote their Declaration of Principles, the Pittsburgh Platform of 1885:

We hold that the modern discoveries of scientific researches in the domain of nature and history are not antagonistic to the doctrines of Judaism, the Bible reflecting the primitive ideas of its own age, and at times clothing its conception of divine Providence and Justice dealing with men in miraculous narratives.

So, when we look at this week's Torah portion, Lech L'cha, and we see Abraham setting out from his father's house, and we consider the midrash from Genesis Rabbah 28:13, we know that we have to move beyond what we have always done when what we have always done is no longer enough. In the Torah portion, Abraham sets out for a new life. In the midrash, we learn that his father was an idol maker. One day, when left to tend the shop for his father, Abraham smashed all of the idols but one, the largest one, with a stick and then placed the stick in the largest idol's hand. When his father returned and asked him what he'd done, Abraham blamed the largest idol, saying it was jealous of the other ones. When his father told him that was impossible, Abraham asked why his father would worship something without knowledge or power. And so, he set out on his own.

When texts and interpretations hinder our relationships with one another and with God, it is time not to rationalize them or to cast them aside as inaccessible, as Boteach claims by telling gay and lesbian Jews that there are still 611 commandments they can follow, but rather to reinvent them, grapple with them, and understand them in the modern world which God has created. It's not enough to say, "It's still a sin, but God will deal with that." God gave us Torah and it is our responsibility to wrestle with it and make sure no one is left out.

In the Image of God: Parashat B'reishit

This week we begin Torah again, with Parashat B'reishit, the first portion in the book of Genesis. As you probably know, Genesis begins with the Creation narrative, where God creates the world in six days and completes the work of Creation by resting on the seventh day, the Sabbath, or Shabbat. As just about each aspect of Creation is completed, God observes it and admires it, proclaiming it 'good.' When God creates human beings, God proclaims the work completed that day, טוב מאוד, very good. Why are that day's creations, especially the creation of humanity, 'very good,' and not just, 'good'?

When God sets to the task of creating human beings, God says, "'Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness...' And God created man in God's image, in the image of God, God created him; male and female God created them" (Genesis 1:26-27). What does it mean for us to be created in God's image?

Pablo Casals writes, "Each second we live is a new and unique moment of the universe, a moemnt that never was before and will never be again - and what do we teach our children? We teach them that two and two is four, and that Paris is the capital of France. When will we also teach them what they are? We should say to each of them, 'Do you know what you are? You are a marvel! You are unique. In all of the world there is no other child exacly like you. In the millions of years that have passed there has never been another child like you. And look at your body, what a wonder it is. You may become a Shakespeare, a Michelangelo, a Beethoven. You have the capacity for anything. Yes, you are a marvel.' And when you grow up, can you then harm another who is like you, a marvel? You must cherish one another. You must work - we all must work - to make this world worthy of its children."

This is what it means to be created in the Divine image: it is to recognize the spark of God in each and every human being and to teach our children to recognize that spark in one another. But we are failing. Since Rosh Hashanah, four teens have taken their own lives because they were being bullied based upon their actual or perceived sexualities.

15-year-old Billy Lucas took his life on Rosh Hashanah day, Thursday, September 9. He never told anyone he was gay, but his classmates believed he was and taunted and bullied him because of it. He hanged himself in his family barn, where his mother found him. We are failing our children.

18-year-old Tyler Clementi took his life on Friday, September 22. Tyler jumped off the George Washington Bridge after his roommate secretly set up a webcam and broadcast his intimate encounter with another guy. We are failing our children.

13-year-old Asher Brown took his life on Thursday, September 23. Among other things, his classmates would perform mock gay acts on him during physical education classes. Repeatedly, he and his parents complained about bullying, but after he shot himself, school officials denied ever knowing about the ongoing harassment and bullying. We are failin ourchildren.

13-year-old Seth Walsh took his life on Tuesday, September 28, nine days after his suicide attempt. He hanged himself in a tree in his family's backyard, where he was found still alive, but he never recovered. In spite of an anti-bullying program in his school, no one stepped in to stop his bullies.

The Human Rights Campaign is calling on Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to include gender identity and sexual orientation in anti-bullying programs nationwide. Sign the pledge.

Dan Savage has created a YouTube campaign to tell gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer youth everywhere that "It gets better," through his project, the It Gets Better Project. Here's his video with his husband, Terry:



B'reishit teaches us that we are created in the image of God. How we treat one another reflects the relationship we have with God. By failing to act, we are failing our children. But we can do better. Our children need to know that they are marvels, and that it gets better. We were too late for Billy, Tyler, Asher and Seth, along with so many others - zichronam livracha, may their memories be a blessing - but we don't have to be too late for anyone else. It gets better.

Bearing Witness - Parashat Va-et'chanan

Within the next week, the National Organization for Marriage (Discrimination) will be making three stops within the State of Minnesota as part of their nationwide tour of intolerance and discrimination. The National Organization for marriage, as Michael Crawford has noted in his article Avoiding NOM's Trap, written for the Huffington Post, has even gone so far as to claim that denying others access to marriage is an outgrowth of the civil rights movement. You read that correctly, they are claiming that denying others their rights is the logical next step of the civil rights movement. At their rally in Trenton, New Jersey, NOM President Brian Brown made an attempt to link his discriminatory cause to the civil rights movement and to the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.:

“What if Martin Luther King, Jr. would have listened to those who tried to silence and tell him that his faith has no place in the public square — that he should be silent?,” Brown told The Star-Ledger. “You are a part of a new civil rights group — a civil rights group dedicated to protecting the most fundamental and basic institution known to mankind: marriage.”

Fortunately, Outfront Minnesota, Minnesota's pro-LGBT equality group is responding here in Minnesota and has organized events around each of NOM's stops in the North Star State. Join Outfront for 3 Days of Action for Equality and stand up for LGBT equality in Minnesota. Join Outfront and other pro-equality groups in the Capitol Rotunda on Wednesday, July 28 at 12:00 noon to stand up for love.

This week's Torah portion, Va-et'chanan, includes the words of the Shema (Deut. 6:4):

Shema Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad.

Hear O Israel, the Eternal is our God, the Eternal Alone.

In the image above, just as in the text of the Torah, the last letter of the word 'shema' and the last letter of the word 'echad' are written larger than the other letters. These two letters, ayin and dalet, spell the word eid, meaning witness. The text of the Shema teaches us to bear witness to God's unity and to the fact that we are all creating the the image of God.

Stand up for love. Stand up for equality. Bear witness to God's image in each and every person. Show up and lend your pro-equality and pro-love voice of faith to the debate. Let's show NOM whose side God is really on.

A Taste of Torah - Parashat D'varim - Shabbat Hazon

This Shabbat is Shabbat Hazon, the Sabbath of vision, given its name because of the Haftarah portion, Isaiah 1:1-27 and Isaiah's vision of the people's transgression and their hope for redemption. This Shabbat is the one that immediate precedes Tisha b'Av. But the designation of hazon, meaning 'vision', can also be tied to one of the Biblical characters briefly mentioned in the Torah portion this week. "Not one of the men [counted in the census], this evil generation, shall see the good land that I swore to your fathers - none except Caleb son of Jephunneh; he shall see it, and to him and to his descendants will I give the land on which he set foot, because he remained loyal to the Eternal" (Deut. 1:35-36). Of the generation of the Exodus, only Caleb and Joshua make it to the Promised Land because of the hopeful report they brought back when they and ten other scouts checked out the Land of Israel. Joshua gets a book named after him in the Hebrew Bible, but Caleb does not.

Rabbi Zoë Klein gives Caleb a voice in her text, The Scroll of Caleb. According to Klein, Caleb represents the highest potential of every person. He is not capable of miracles and wonders, like Joshua's making the sun stand still, but he was able to see things that the other scouts couldn't. He helps us see that we, as ordinary people, possess extraordinary potential without being something we are not. On this Shabbat before Tisha b'Av, Tisha b'Av being the date on which numerous calamaties are said to have befallen the Jewish people (including among them the day on which the people chose not to listen to Joshua and Caleb, but rather to the ten other scouts), we are called to have vision like Caleb, seeing the potential of our future and our ability to fulfill the potential that God has placed within us, even when we seem overwhelmed by what seems impossible.

Disconnecting to Better Connect

When I was a camper at Camp Canadensis, I was a camp director’s nightmare. I refused to participate in cabin activities, constantly found reasons to go to the infirmary, and on multiple occasions threatened to run away. One time, I even wrote my parents and told them if they didn’t come and get me right away, I’d run away. They still remind me of this any time I get too full of myself. Oh, the grief I caused them. Camp Canadensis is a camp for Jewish kids in the Pocono mountains of Pennsylvania. It’s an eight-week program, no matter your age, and my four summers there were probably the worst summers of my life, or so I thought then.

Because of the duration of the session, there was a visiting day halfway through the summer. During the rest of the summer, campers were allowed to make periodic collect phone calls home. Maybe once a week, though it might have only been once every two weeks. Those collect calls never came soon enough for me. One day, probably on my way back to the cabin from arts and crafts, I found the phone room, a pad-locked room near the main office building, miraculously unlocked. Looking around to see that no one was watching, I snuck into the dark phone room, picked up a phone, and dialed ‘zero’ to get an operator to connect me with my parents. I pleaded with them to come and pick me up. If I were a camper now, and that had been my experience, I would have loved to have had a cell phone at camp.

Fortunately, I did not have a cell phone at camp. And fortunately, my parents did not come and pick me up, no matter how much it pained them to see me suffering so much at camp. Earlier this week, Mitch Albom wrote a piece titled ‘Cell phones at summer camp? Just say click.’ In it, Albom details the highlights of his summer camp experience. He was, I imagine, a better camper than I was.

Summer camp, he writes, “meant disappearing into another world. It was a world of woods and fields and bunks, a world without Mom and Dad, without friends from the neighborhood, without TV, without movies, a world where you wrote letters to communicate with your ‘other’ life.” Unfortunately, this is not always the reality at summer camps today. Camps are struggling with cell phone policies. They know how disruptive a cell phone can be to creating community, but they also know that the kids who want them are the reason the camps exist. Some kids, Mitch Albom accurately notes, even opt out of summer camp if it means being without their cell phones and other technology. But it isn’t only the kids’ fault.

Many parents, perhaps more than the kids, want there to be cell phones at camp. They want to be able to be in constant contact with their children. They cannot bear the thought of not having their children at their fingertips. Now, don’t get me wrong. I understand where the parents are coming from, even though I am not yet a parent. Parents want the best for their children. Parents worry about safety. They worry about loneliness. Mitch Albom points out that “we can’t live in constant fear.”

But more importantly, he gets what really makes technology at summer camp so problematic: We can’t enjoy life while filming it. Mitch Albom expresses his desire for a ban on all electronic devices at summer camps. He says this out of fear, too, but out of a different kind of fear. He fears that kids are losing the ability to exist. Albom writes, “When we went to camp, we were in the moment. We jumped in the pool; we didn’t film ourselves jumping in the pool … Kids who have to give up their smartphones or computers for summer camp – thereby losing touch with Facebook – worry about becoming invisible. But they are erasing themselves from the real world every minute they spend in the virtual one. Kids need to learn that memories are not the same as storage devices and feelings are not the same as postings … You can’t absorb the experience if you’re constantly sharing it.”

For us, as Jews, this shouldn’t be a foreign concept. From the beginning, Judaism has taught us the value of disconnecting with our every day experiences in order to have a richer existence. In his book The Sabbath, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel teaches about the unique quality of Shabbat. Other religions, he teaches, speak of holiness in space and in nature – sacred spaces. But Judaism introduced the concept of holiness in time. Heschel writes, “The sense of holiness in time is expressed in the manner in which the Sabbath is celebrated. No ritual object is required for keeping the seventh day, unlike most festivals on which such objects are essential to their observance, as, for example, unleavened bread, Shofar, Lulab and Etrog or the Tabernacle. On that day the symbol of the Covenant, the phylacteries, displayed on all days of the week, is dispensed with. Symbols are superfluous: the Sabbath is itself the symbol” (Heschel, The Sabbath, p. 82).

Though I may not have known it then, my disconnecting from the world around me taught me to focus on the world in which I was living, the world of summer camp, with all of its activities and all its anxieties. I learned more about who I was as a person, even if some of that understanding took years to develop. It meant that when I was a staff member at a summer camp, I was more keenly aware of kids like me who need to be encouraged not to withdraw from the summer camp experience to survive it, but rather understand that disconnecting from the outside world would help me to connect better with the world of summer camp.Just as Shabbat needs no ritual objects to be a holy experience, summer camp needs none of the sacred objects of our everyday lives to create meaningful moments and memories. Shabbat teaches us to disconnect with the ordinary world so that we may better appreciate it. Summer camp provides our children with the opportunity and the incentive to disconnect with ordinary existence so that we can relish the world in which we live and the people with whom we interact during the rest of the year.


P.S. If you made it this far and you are reading this at summer camp, you've missed the whole point. Put away the technology and go enjoy the summer.

A Taste of Torah - Parashat Pinchas

A fair amount of this week's Torah portion details a census of the Israelites. One of the details of the census is the division of land among the tribes of Israel. According to the Torah (Numbers 26:54), the larger tribes would be given more land while the smaller tribes would be given less land. But the next verse says that the land would be given out by lottery. Rashi looks at these two verses that seem to contradict one another and sees a nuanced lesson. He writes, citing a midrash from Sifre, that since some areas were superior to others, the land was not divided solely according to measurements, but it was assessed; an smaller piece of land sufficient to grow crops well was equivalent to a larger piece sufficient to grow fewer crops. It all depended on the value of the soil. These two verses, when read together, teach us that while the Israelite's land was divided up by size based upon the size of the tribe, the real value of the land was in its quality, not its quantity, a lesson that we could well apply to our daily lives, as well. It's not about how much we have, but about how good it is.

Balak, Balaam, and the Perfect Game

If you know me at all, you know that I'm probably one of the last people to talk sports. And when it comes to sports, I am probably least interested in baseball. It's not that I have anything against baseball; it just doesn’t captivate me. But a few weeks ago, a baseball game caught my attention. Well, to be honest, the aftermath of the game caught my attention. I didn’t know about the game until a few days after it had been played.

The game, played on Wednesday, June 2, pitted the Detroit Tigers against the Cleveland Indians. It was the top of the ninth inning and Detroit pitcher Armando Galarraga was one out away from a perfect game. In baseball, a perfect game occurs when there are 27 batters up, 27 batters down, no walks, no hits, and no errors. There were two outs in the ninth inning and Cleveland's Jason Donald was up to bat. When Jason hit a ball towards the space between first and second base, the first baseman went for the ball while Galarraga left the pitcher’s mound to cover first base. The umpire, Jim Joyce, stood alongside Galarraga at first base, ready to make the call.

As the ball hit Galarraga's glove and the batter crossed the base, Jim Joyce, the umpire, had to make the call. Who had arrived first? The batter or the ball? With his arms spread to his sides, Joyce made the call. Jason Donald was safe. And Armando Galarraga’s hopes for a perfect game disappeared. The fans were disappointed, to say the least. Galarraga's teammates and coach doubted the call. But baseball has no instant replay. Joyce's call had to stand. Armando Galarraga grinned and Joyce, with a sort of, "Well, if that’s what you think you saw," kind of look, confident that the umpire had made a bad call, but with no recourse to do anything about it.

To be fair, Jim Joyce's task was onerous, to say the least. Hall of Fame umpire Doug Harvey explains, "When you have a play where the first baseman fields a ball to his right and the pitcher covers first, the thing you focus on is watching the fielder pick up the ball and make the throw, and then you turn your eyes to first base and watch and listen for the ball hitting the pitcher’s glove. At the same time you are watching the runner, but it is the sound of the ball hitting the glove that will trigger the call. I would imagine the noise of the crowd was so great, in view of the circumstances, that the umpire had trouble hearing the ball hit the pitcher’s glove."

With Donald on first, Galarraga pitched the twenty-eighth batter, who never made it to first base and the game was over. Some have dubbed it the '28-out perfect game.' But that’s not what I think made the game a perfect one. I think it's all in how Armando Galarraga and Jim Joyce handled themselves and the situation.

Galarraga didn’t scream at the umpire. In fact, he didn't even respond to the umpire. He simply smiled, perhaps with a smile that expressed his dismay, but smiled nonetheless. Mary McHugh of The New American described him as "disappointed but classy." After the game, when Jim Joyce had the opportunity to review the tape and saw that he had, in fact, made a bad call, he approached Galarraga, even before Joyce had showered, to apologize. Galarraga thanked Joyce for the apology and, in the story I heard after the game, explained that he looked forward to showing his kids tape of his perfect game, even if the record books didn't record it.

This week's Torah portion, Balak, teaches us to be careful with the words that leave our lips. In the Torah, the Moabite king Balak, after whom the portion is named, becomes concerned with how numerous the Israelites have become and calls upon a Moabite prophet, Balaam, to curse the Israelites. The king offers Balaam riches for performing the task, but God seeks to intercept Balaam and stop him from cursing the Israelites. God even sends an angel to block Balaam's path, an angel that only Balaam's donkey can see, until the donkey begins to talk and tells Balaam why they can’t move forward. Still, in spite of God's persuasion and the talking donkey, Balaam still chooses to move forward with the king's men to curse the Israelites.

Three times, Balaam opens his mouth to curse the Israelites and he is instead filled with awe for God and a blessing comes out, instead. He wanted to say all the wrong things, but in the moment, he can only say all the right things. Among his words of blessing are the words, " Mah tovu ohalecha Ya'akov, mish-k'notecha Yisrael – How lovely are your tents, O Jacob, your dwelling places, O Israel" (Numbers 24:5), words we recite in our morning liturgy. We take the words that were meant to be a curse, that instead were a blessing to us as a people, and recite them about ourselves. When all the right things come from our mouths, they are, indeed, words of blessing.

Rabbi Arthur Segal understands this moment with Balaam in this way: "Life really is not a battle of God versus man or good versus evil. Life is an eternal battle inside each of us between what we know is right and what we know is wrong. It is man's battle against himself. We all have the power to curse and the power to bless ... If Balaam's curses could be turned into blessings, perhaps we could turn our own personal adversities into opportunities for blessings as well."

The day after Galarraga's perfect game, Jim Joyce had home plate assignment in Detroit's afternoon game. When Jim Joyce took the field, most of the crowd rose to their feet and gave him a hand, bringing umpire Jim Joyce to tears. It was another perfect game, not because of the stats or the score, but because of its abundant blessings. Shabbat Shalom.

Parashat Chukat - Learning to Do Things Differently

I heard a brief segment about the implications of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico on Science Friday this afternoon. One of the comments caught my ear. I wish I could tell you who said it. When asked what the worst possible outcome of the spill could be, one expert summed it up. She said, "Not to have learned anything from this." A lot of comparisons have been made between the Exxon Valdez oil spill and the recent one in the Gulf of Mexico. Better than knowing how many Exxon Valdezes equal each day of this crisis, we need to know how we can do better. While fines of BP may begin to offset some of the loss, what really matters is doing things differently. The host, Ira Flatow, noted that rather than President Obama declaring war on oil, he would have rather seen the President ask us all to chip in in our own communities. The President should have motivated us to help clean up local waterways and make an environmental impact that would ripple out to those around us. This might have a more profound impact than any efforts in the Gulf will have.

In this week's Torah portion, Chukat (which happens to be my Bar Mitzvah portion), Miriam dies. In the wilderness, Miriam was the source of water. We commemorate this role with Miriam's Cup on the Passover Seder table. The text tells that following Miriam's death at Kadesh, "The community was without water" (Numbers 20:2). You probably know the story that immediate follows this: Moses strikes the rock out of anger with the Israelites. But I want to jump about a chapter past that incident.

In the middle of Numbers chapter 21, amidst the verses I read when I became Bar Mitzvah, we read that God tells Moses to assemble the people so that God may give them water. Then, the Israelites sing to the well, requesting water from it. The words that introduce their song, "Az yashir Yisrael et-ha-shirah ha-zot - Then Israel sang this song" (Numbers 21:17), are the same words that introduce the Song at the Sea (Exodus 15:1). One midrash, Yalkut Shimoni, teaches us that at the Sea of Reeds, Moses had to lead the song, but at the well following Miriam's death, the Israelites gain the courage and maturity to sing for themselves.

Through Miriam's death, she passes the baton to the people, empowering them to find water for themselves. Though initially they are scared, so much so that they rebel against Moses causing him to lose his temper, the Israelites realize that they have to learn from the tragedy of Miriam's death and learn to do things differently. So, too, we need to respond to the oil spill. We may initially respond with anger and fury, but if we are to survive, we have to learn how to do things differently.

A Taste of Torah - Shelach-Lecha

So, twelve spies scout out the Promised Land. Ten of them return with a rather terrifying report of the land and its people. They describe grape clusters so big they need to be carried by multiple people, a land that devours the people, and people so large they made the spies look like grasshoppers in comparison. But two of the spies - Joshua and Caleb - talked about the wonders of the land, what it had to offer, and how with God's help, they would be able to conquer it.

Unfortunately, the people sided with the ten spies who came back with the terrifying report. God got angry and threatened to wipe out the people, only to be stopped by Moses who warned God about what the other nations would think of God if the Israelites were to all be wiped out.

Shelach-Lecha reminds us that what is popular is not always right and what is right is not always popular. In the end, Joshua and Caleb were right, even though they weren't popular. Of the entire generation of the exodus from Egypt, only Joshua and Caleb set foot in the Promised Land, because of their faith in God and their faith in the Israelite community.

A Taste of Torah - Parashat B'ha'alotecha

I was a strangely patriotic child. On my night table, I had a little American flag that I could raise and lower on its miniature flag pole so that I could put it at half-staff when appropriate. I knew the words to countless patriotic anthems. Above my bed was a picture of President Kennedy. I was also the kid who would show up at my high school and remind the principal to lower the flag to half-staff on such occasions as the deaths of President Nixon and of Corporal Jamie Smith, an alumnus of my high school, who died in the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu. I was aware of Veterans Day, Pearl Harbor Day, Flag Day, and, of course, this coming Monday’s holiday of Memorial Day. But it wasn’t until I celebrated Israel’s Memorial Day during my first year of rabbinical school that I truly understood what Memorial Day could mean.

Unlike most Israelis’ experience, I have no immediate family members who had served in the military. Neither of my grandfathers served, both, I believe, because of medical reasons. Some of the other men of their generation in my family had, but they were people I either didn’t know or who had died before I was born. In Israel, Yom Hazikaron, Israel’s Memorial Day, is a somber day which begins with a siren that sounds for a solid minute, bringing Israel to halt. There are no barbecues, no sales, and no youth group trips to Valleyfair. We Americans would not recognize Memorial Day in Israel and Israelis would not recognize ours here.

We don’t often think about Monday’s holiday of Memorial Day as one with Jewish significance. But it is. In the hall outside this sanctuary are plaques memorializing members of this congregation who served in both World Wars and on Monday morning, there will be a memorial service at Temple Israel's cemetery. Jews have been part of the military in this country since before we were a country. One of the earliest examples, which you might have read in today’s “Ten Minutes of Torah” (from the URJ written by Kate Bigam) indicates that in 1655, Jews living in the colony of New Amsterdam fought a prohibition against their military service, gaining the right to enlist. Ever since then, Jews have served in the U.S. Armed Forces.

Still, few of us can name even two people serving our country today, unless you include the two members of our congregation whose names are listed under the prayer for peace on the back of the Shabbat service program. In an article published Wednesday in The Jewish Week, Gary Rosenblatt shares the story of Stephanie Koerner, a young Jewish woman who joined the ROTC program at Syracuse University in 2002. Since then she has served twice in Iraq. Her career choice had a profound impact on her rabbi, Gerald Skolnik. Rabbi Skolnik was a vehement opponent of the Vietnam War, but when Koerner deployed to Iraq, he had a change of heart. When she deployed, Rabbi Skolnik gave a sermon that apologized for his generation’s inability to separate the war from the soldier. Whether or not we agree with the wars we currently wage in Iraq and Afghanistan, we must remember that there is a difference between supporting the war and supporting the troops. For some of us, these go hand in hand. For all of us, the latter must be important.

Five years ago, the Reform Movement recognized our failure at supporting Jewish members of the Armed Forces. A resolution passed by our movement called upon our congregations and communities to provide for the needs of Jewish military chaplains, personnel, and their families. The resolution went on to encourage us to reach out to Jews on bases, on ships and in military hospitals. Just yesterday, I received an email about a Jewish chaplaincy position at the Minneapolis VA Medical Center.

It’s not only about the Jews serving our country, though. There are nearly 3 million men and women currently on active or reserve duty. As Hillel teaches in Pirke Avot (2:4), we are not to separate ourselves from the community. It is our responsibility to make sure that those who serve our country are not separated from our communities. Andrew Bernstein, a philosopher and novelist, writes, “To fully appreciate the virtue of our soldiers, we must remember what freedom means. It means we can choose our own fields of study, our own careers, our own spouses, the size of our families and our places of residence. It means we can speak out without fear regarding any issue—including governmental policy—choose our values, without interference from the state.”

Bernstein says it’s about remembering what freedom means. This is the essence of Memorial Day: remembering. In this week’s Torah portion, B’ha’alotecha, God commands us to make silver trumpets that will be used in order to summon the people when it is time to assemble or move into battle (Number 10:1-10). Twice, the passage alludes to the concept of remembering. The first tells us to sound the trumpets when we are at war with our enemies so that God will remember us and deliver us from our their hands. The second tells us that the trumpets themselves will serve as a reminder of us before God. It seems strange that God would need to be reminded of us.

Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik teaches that Judaism wants us to cry out aloud against injustice and unfairness, against the imperfections of the world in which we live. If we allow our own legitimate needs to go unmet, we will ignore the crying out of others. The calling out of the trumpets before engaging in battle is not just a battle cry, but a prayer to God. According to Soloveitchik, “Prayer tells the individual, as well as the community, what his, or its, genuine needs are, what he should, or should not, petition God about… God needs neither thanks nor hymns.” God wants to hear us cry out against the discord in our world.

Memorial Day provides us with an opportunity, a Jewish opportunity, to speak to the conflict in our world. We may agree with the way it is being solved or we may not, but we cannot, as Rabbi Skolnik did in the 60s, confuse the conflict with the soldier. The Talmud teaches us that the labors of our ancestors are a sign to us today (BT Sotah 34a). Our Torah portion tells us how our Israelite ancestors organized themselves and how they used the trumpets to move them forward. We, too, must be reminded of the need to move forward. Memorial Day reminds us of how our American ancestors labored for our freedoms today.

Wherever you find yourself on Monday – at the Memorial Day service at Temple Israel's cemetery, at a barbecue with friends, at Valleyfair with Temple's youth groups – find some time to remember those who fought and died for our country and our freedoms. Sound the trumpet so that God may remember them, as well. Rabbi Skolnik, inspired by his congregant, Stephanie Koerner, who chose to make a career of serving her country, penned the following prayer:

Ribbono Shel Olam! - Sovereign of the Universe!
We invoke Your blessings upon the members of our American military forces, those brave men and women whose courage and commitment to that for which this country stands protects us all.
Whether by air, land or sea, in the mountains of Afghanistan, the cities and deserts of Iraq, or wherever their orders take them, we ask, dear God, that they be protected within your sheltering presence. Shield them from harm and from pain, assuage their loneliness, and sustain their faith in the face of the formidable enemies that they confront on a daily basis. May all of their efforts be crowned with victory, and the assurance that we who depend on their courage appreciate and understand the great difficulty of their work.
Most of all, we pray what for all soldiers is the ultimate prayer - that they be privileged to return to the loving arms of their families and a grateful country safely, speedily, and in good health. Because of their courage, may we all be privileged to know and savor the blessings of true peace and security.

Oseh shalom bimromav hu ya’aseh shalom aleinu, v’al kol Yisrael, v’al kol yosh’vei teiveil, v’imru: Amen. May the One who makes peace in the high heavens make peace for us, all Israel and all who inhabit the earth, and let us say: Amen.

A Taste of Torah - Parashat Naso

The ancient threefold blessing of the priests is contained in this week's Torah portion, Naso:

May the Eternal bless you and keep you.
May the Eternal's face shine upon you and be gracious to you.
May the Eternal turn toward you and grant you peace. (Numbers 6:24-26)

According to two commentators, Rashi and Ha'emek Davar, the first line is connected to one's secular business be blessed. The second is of a spiritual nature, asking for the one being blessed to feel God's presence. And the final line builds on the previous two by asking for peace.

In order to find peace, we need to be sure that our ordinary needs are met and that our spiritual needs are met. Without one or the other, peace will not happen.

A Taste of Torah - Parashat B'midbar

Rabbi Jack Riemer (in Learn Torah With...5756 Torah Annual) calls our attention to a nuanced detail in this week's Torah portion, Parashat B'midbar. In the Torah portion, which begins with a census of the Israelites in the wilderness, each tribe names a prince. Eleven of these princes have names that contain a name of God. There are names like Elitzur (God is my Rock) and Elishama (God has heard). There's even Shelumiel ben Tzurishaddai, which includes Shalom, El, Tzur, and Shaddai, which are all names of God. But then there's the twelfth prince, Nachshon ben Aminadav, whose name gives no allusion to God. Perhaps he sounds familiar to you, though? Nachshon ben Aminadav, according to midrash, was the first one to jump into the Sea of Reeds before it split, the one whose confidence in God was enough to begin to part the waters.

What Nachshon (and the other princes) teach us is that our identities are not based upon the names we have or even the names we give ourselves, but rather based upon our actions. Each of the eleven princes whose names bore God's names had a falling out with God. But the one whose actions spoke to his relationship with God ended up being the most holy among them.

As Shavuot approaches, the holiday on which we celebrate receiving Torah at Sinai, let us not define ourselves by the names we have or by the words we use to describe ourselves, but rather by our actions that make us worthy of our relationship with God and with one another.

A Taste of Torah - Behar-Bechukotai

As I type this, rain drops are cascading onto the greening lawns in South Minneapolis and, undoubtedly, in other nearby areas. (I hear it will snow up north today, but let's not talk about that.) The rain couldn't be more perfectly timed. In this last portion of the book of Leviticus, Bechukotai (the second half of a double portion with Parashat Behar), God tells us that if we follow God's laws and commandments faithfully, our reward will be rain. Rain? That seems like a strange reward. But wait! God doesn't just say there will be rain, but that the rains will fall at the right time, allowing the earth to grow produce and the trees to bear fruit. Nature will flourish (Leviticus 26:3-5). (Remember that ever-greener grass in Minneapolis?) But God doesn't stop there. With produce, with fruits and vegetables, we will have our fill of food and we'll live in safety. God will grant peace in the land.

That last bit is the key. If we have enough to eat (not just us, but the whole world), there will be peace. How do we get enough to eat? When the world functions the way its supposed to and the rains fall in their appointed times. How do we get that to happen? By following God's commandments. Well, as Reform Jews, what does that mean for us? A lot of things, of course. Rashi and Ibn Ezra explain that following God's laws means studying, doing, and teaching. Sforno takes this one step further and says that studying, doing, and teaching help us fulfill God's intention that we are created in God's image, after God's likeness. We are partners in Creation with God and we have an obligation to act like God in the world. Behave in a way that represents God well - feed the hungry, take care of the environment, take a break (on Shabbat, of course), help make peace - and God will bless us so that each person has enough and can live in peace.

As we finish Leviticus, the third book of Torah, we say, "Chazak, chazak, v'nitchazeik - Be strong, be strong, and together we will be strengthened." We're all in this together; let's act accordingly. Shabbat Shalom!

A Taste of Torah - Parashat Emor

This week’s Torah portion, Emor, contains one of the most misunderstood concepts, by Jews and Christians alike, in Biblical text, the notion of eye for eye, tooth for tooth, life for life (Leviticus 24:17-21). It can be difficult to figure out what our tradition, the rabbis of old, and God want from us concerning revenge. At their core, these verses speak about how we live in community with one another.

Nehama Leibowitz teaches that the misconception of what ‘eye for eye’ means has made the idea into the embodiment of vengeance at its cruelest level. Think even of the scene from Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, where Shylock wants exactly a pound of flesh from Antonio. In that case, Shakespeare has reversed the rabbis understanding of monetary compensation and implies that bodies can pay for monetary debts.

The rabbis worked hard from the beginning to teach that ‘eye for eye’ was never intended as anything except monetary compensation, that that reading is not a new interpretation, but rather the purpose of the text all along. One example: If a blind man blinded another person, how could we apply the verse literally? The law cannot be inequitable. It must apply equally to everyone. In another example the rabbis give to justify an understanding of monetary compensation, the school of Hezekia teaches that in seeking retribution, the revenge could go further than the initial offense. In an effort to blind an offender, taking his eye could inadvertently result in the taking of his life, too, based upon injuries he would sustain. This, like the first example, would not be evenhanded. (Babylonian Talmud, Bava Kama 83b-84a)

While the Biblical text seems to imply that revenge is to be taken literally, Jewish understanding of Biblical law begins with the Torah. It does not end with it. We have to take into account the position of the rabbis in order to fully understand what the text means for us. And we must add to that opinion our own interpretation, because Jewish law continues to develop over time.

Another way our tradition understands ‘eye for eye’ as metaphorical is nuanced in the Hebrew. The Hebrew text says, “nefesh tachat nefesh, life for life … shever tachat shever, bruise for bruise; ayin tachat ayin, eye for eye; shein tachat shein, tooth for tooth” (Lev. 24: 18, 20). As Nehama Leibowitz teaches, the word we translate as ‘for,’ tachat, does not really mean for. It means, ‘in place of.’ In the binding of Isaac, Abraham sacrifices a ram tachat his son Isaac, in place of his son Isaac. In the story of Joseph in Pharaoh’s court, Judah says to Joseph, let me be your servant tachat Benjamin, in place of Benjamin. And perhaps most notably, when the spies speak with Rahab in Jericho, they tell her that if she keeps their presence a secret in the Israelite conquest of the city, they will pledge their lives tachat the lives of her family, in place of their lives. All of this teaches us that someone who blinds another person must give the other person something tachat the lost eye, something in place of the lost eye. That something, our tradition tells us, is monetary compensation. If we were to live in a society where we sought revenge based on actual loss, not the value of our losses, where would that leave us? To paraphrase Gandhi, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth would leave the whole world blind and toothless.

Our relationship with our community is of a higher value in Judaism that our individual needs. Whether or not we are wrapped up on the offense, Judaism teaches us "Kol Yisrael arevim zeh ba-zeh, All of Israel is responsible for one another" (BT Shavuot 39a). At sundown on Saturday, May 1 the holiday of Lag b’Omer begins. It is the 33rd day of the counting of the Omer, the transition from Passover to Shavuot, symbolically building towards the barley harvest commemorated on Shavuot. The 33rd day of this cycle is unique among those days. Lag b’Omer is known as the holiday of Aish ha-Torah, the fire of Torah. It is a holiday of scholars, teachers, and students because of the celebration of learning and teaching associated with it.

As my friend and colleague, Amy Gavel, teaches, “The name, Lag B’Omer, simply refers to the 33rd day of Counting the Omer, which refers to the seven weeks from the second night of Passover to the day before Shavuot. Just as simply, that means the counting is a reminder for us of the link between Passover, commemorating our Exodus from Egypt, with Shavuot, commemorating the giving of the Torah at Sinai. What complicates everything is that between the time when we left Egypt together and arrived at Sinai together, we weren’t exactly together. We fought, we bickered, we saw each other’s faults. We didn’t work together. We didn’t study together. We didn’t even always eat together. Instead, we worked hard to find reason, after reason, after reason to have conflict – and there are always reasons for conflict if we look for them.”

One of the reasons that Lag b’Omer is an important holiday in our tradition ties to the story of Rabbi Akiva. There was a terrible plague that affected the students of Rabbi Akiba, killing 1200 pairs of students. Our tradition tells us that the plague struck because the students were fighting among one another. As Amy Gavel teaches, “Conflict was a problem in Rabbi Akiva’s time, too. Today, counting the Omer is not only a time of rejoicing and remembering freedom, it’s also a time to mourn the 2,400 students of Akiva’s who mysteriously died from their own plague. The Talmud says they died because they ‘did not show proper respect for one another.’” Our understanding of ‘eye for eye’ and how we choose to apply it may be understood as whether or not we respect one another.

Aish ha-Torah, “the fire of Torah is like the fire of the soul, not like the fire of conflict. The fire of Torah is like the moment the soul reunites with its source, or the moment two people understand each other, or the moment two people accept each other for who they are – even if they can’t understand” (Amy Gavel). Parashat Emor and its text of ‘eye for eye, tooth for tooth,’ along with the holiday of Lag b’Omer seek to teach us not to take ‘eye for eye,’ but rather to see eye to eye. May we learn not to destroy our relationships with revenge and distrust; but rather, to build community based on fairness, equality and mutual understanding.

A Taste of Torah - Shemini

This week's Torah portion contains one of the most troubling scenes in the Torah. Parashat Shemini continues the outline of sacrificial laws and in the midst of it, we witness two tragic deaths at the altar, where the priests would carry out the sacrifices. Aaron's sons, Nadav and Abihu, having witnessed their father make sacrifices on the altar, make an offering of their own, one which the Torah describes as an eish zarah, an alien fire. Immediately following, God sends a fire down, consuming the two young men instantly. When Moses tries to console Aaron with words I hardly find comforting (This is what the Eternal meant when God said: Through those near to Me I show Myself holy, and gain glory before all people. - Lev. 10:3), Aaron is speechless. The text says, "Vayidom Aharon - Aaron was silent" (Lev. 10:3).

Rashbam (Rabbi Samuel ben Meir), the 12th century French commentator, tells us that when the text says that Aaron was silent, it means that he was silent about his grief, neither crying nor mourning. It implies a refraining from the weeping and mourning he would have wished to do.

Rashbam doesn't say it explicitly, but what I think he means to imply is that such restraint is not the appropriate response. Aaron should have cried out and mourned if that was what he wanted to do. Silence is not golden. Aaron's silence does not teach us how to act and react when events in the world are not as we would wish them to be. Instead, his reaction teaches us to speak out if not to cry out. There are far too many issues that demand our voice and far too many times when we remain silent.

Wednesday, April 21 is Outfront Minnesota's justFair Lobby Day at the Minnesota Capitol. Their publicity for the event says, "Equality in 2011 begins with Action in 2010." Consider making your voice heard and participate in Outfront Minnesota's GLBT Lobby Day in an effort to bring equality - marriage and otherwise - to Minnesota.