The Mendy Logs 2009
January 3, 2009
I don’t know if I ever told Mendy that my comments about what he says go out monthly to friends, relatives, former students, and a man who sits in a Florida prison. What you have to say to me and to the congregation is also being said to people you will never know. What you say is important and life affirming. People need life affirming messages.
Mendy taught something related to the Torah portion and also related to a specific US tax law. The law is that houses owned by churches, synagogues, mosques, temples etc, and used as homes for clergy, are exempt from paying taxes. It seems that this law came out of the express statement in Genesis where Joseph is gathering land for Pharaoh in exchange for food, but does not take the land belonging to the priests. This evolved into the “Parsonage Law” that exempts property owned by religious groups from taxes. I’m sure Joseph had his reasons, and they were probably more political that religious. I’m sure that periodically, someone in America raises the separation of church and state issue as regards this law, but thus far it has held.
The story of Joseph’s life is one of pain and frustration. He is resented by his brothers, sold into slavery, falsely accused, thrown in prison for years, and finally elevated to the highest position next to Pharaoh. Never once does he appear to sink into depression or self pity. Never once does he defend himself to his accusers knowing full well that the people charging him have his life in their hands and are not to be denounced. What is to be learned here is that we all suffer and many of us slip into self-pity, depression, or despair. Joseph and his response to his life and experiences, teaches us not to do that. His comfort is that there must be a plan even though he does not know what it is. It is his faith that keeps him from falling. At last, the plan is fully revealed to him when the famine hits Egypt and he is in the right place to save his family and by extension, the Jewish people.
He had the option of sinking into his pain, but did not. So another message beyond the greater plan is “Don’t become your pain.” Don’t become your sorrow. Work against it. Work through it. Breakthrough to the light even though darkness engulfs you. I think this wisdom works. I’ve had some pretty dark moments as we all have had or will have, and I found myself deliberately refocusing my life and activities into things that would keep me from “going off the deep end.” Some people have the option of climbing into a bottle, becoming addicted to drugs, or generally messing up their lives sometimes beyond repair. Or some people begin to write a novel, run for public office, do the family genealogy, join a theatrical group, or start going to shul and learning. We always have options even if we are not aweminded that he was to serve both G od and the people with humility. Again, it all seems to point to the recurrent theme in Judaism that devoting your mind to Go d, and your heart to G od are not enough. It is the hand, the doing, the emptying of the ashes, the actions that make for a discomforted ego, that make the lives of people better and ultimately, the world a better place. One must stretch oneself into uncomfortable places. Humility is important, and that said, like all things, it must be in equilibrium with other elements of the personality. Buncha Schveig, when reaching heaven, may have caused the angels to weep over his humility, but the Buncha Schveigs of the world are not the movers and the shakers that make the wider world a better place. Remember, it is the ego, the yetzer harah, that causes a man to build a house and to have children. True, if the movers and shakers had smaller egos, there would be fewer problems. But, all are free to act. It is ego that causes us to acquire and to give even if the giving is to get us recognition. The ego does good for the individual and for the world. But it is to be kept in check and in balance. Our Torah is the guide book for this. That’s why it was given. Mendy also spoke about the different children at the seder table, and also of the fifth child, the one who isn’t there.
May 2009
The Book of Numbers begins with a tedious recounting of the twelve tribes, a census, and their placement around the mishkon which was the portable tabernacle that moved with the Children of Israel in their wanderings and was to be the focus of their lives. I confess I skimmed this parsha looking for some hidden meaning, but could find none. Happily, Mendy came up with a perception that did not change the tediousness of the chapter, but gave me some insight as to why the detail. All the twelve tribes were to be arranged around the tabernacle facing it. Mendy challenged us to think about why it would not have been better for the Israelites to mingle with one another and to set camp as a homogeneous group rather than as individual tribes. Would it not have been logical for the purpose of solidifying the people as one to have them lose their individual identities? The answer was profound. We are all individuals, and it is our individuality and uniqueness that strengthens us to be the people we are and to contribute in our unique way. Such individuality must be treasured. So we were instructed to place ourselves around the tabernacle as distinct tribes to show our uniqueness, but to face the tabernacle to show that we have the same focus. Unique people with the same focus. What a brilliant concept. Mendy also related a midrash about the Jews crossing the Sea of Reeds during the Exodus. I had never heard this story before. As the story goes, there were twelve paths through the water, one for each tribe. Each was on his own path, but was able to see all the other individual tribes through the walls of water, and all had the same focus, namely, to get to dry land on the other side. Actually, it reminded me of America: a great diversity of ethnicities, faiths, orientations etc. who all see each others differences while sharing the common goal of preserving freedom and the American way of life. The bible has so many hidden truths.
Well, this got me to thinking. We, as Jew, even though we no longer know our specific tribes, continue to revel in our “tribal” sense of individuality and in our independence of thought. Judaism has given us a sense of uniqueness. This independence of mind has given us permission as a people to conceive of unique ideas regarding G od and religion. As a reaction to Orthodoxy, independent thinkers have conceived the Reform Movement, Conservatism, Reconstructionism, and Renewal to mention a few. Then there are a dozens of individual philosophers who have posited remarkable ideas about our faith. All of their visions have the singular focus of assisting other Jews in their search to establish a relationship with the transcendent. Their approaches may be different, but the focus is the same, namely, to establish a relationship with a deity whose primary demand of all people is to behave righteously and treat one another decently, and to achieve salvation. So the biblical conception is that we honor each other’s diversity while keeping the same focus, is addressed. But this teaching begs the question. Why are the only Jews who use term such as “hullul Hasham,” (the allegation that you have desecrated G od’s name) and “appikoros” (blasphemer) terms used only by Orthodox people when confronted by ideas held by other Jews in their personal search for their transcendent relationship with G od and their own salvation? Why do the Orthodox not recognize and appreciate G od’s teaching that diversity is to be respected? Or is diversity to be respected only in dress, music, and customs, but not in theology and practice? It seems to me that Jews are a very diverse group of people moving through time with the focus of modeling correct behavior and mending the world. That is why we are all on earth. That is the focus. Have the Orthodox become so focused on “proper faith,” and “correct practice” that they can no longer see the goal and the beauty of other Jews who choose to be different but retain the same objectives on a different path to G od.? Orthodox Jews, the Jews who traditionally know more about practice and theology than others, are the ones who should be out in the world teaching and especially welcoming to Jewish people who have fallen away or who were never involved in the Jewish community. Yet more often than not, they are hostile and condescending.
“The righteous of all nations have a share in the world to come,” is a quote from the Talmud. Whichever Rabbi said that, that man recognized the universality of Judaism and recognized that a loving G od would not withhold Paradise from the righteous people of other faiths and ethnicities. Judaism basic philosophical core is inclusive and open unlike other faiths who insist that Paradise awaits only those who have correct faith and correct practices. Not so for Judaism. Correct behavior, not correct faith or correct rituals will redeem you and get you to Paradise, and those people who condemn and judge others for not holding their concept of correct faith and their concept of correct rituals have missed the point of their own religion.
Mendy, this became very clear to me in China visiting a Buddhist temple and a Dowist shrine. These people, holding their burning incense, demonstrated a kavanah every bit as intense as that of a yehivah buchur even though none had a concept of G od as we have. But if we are all G od’s creation, how could anyone imagine that the loving and creative G od of all could deny these people the right to Paradise? G od would not, but people of Western faiths would and do. The statement, “the righteous of all nations have a share in the world to come,” should become a guide to those who study Judaism seriously so they might become less judgmental and derisive. It seems rather presumptuous of us to think that we have cornered the one truth that leads to salvation. Ours is a good truth, and we don’t have to be contemptuous of others for holding another.
June 6, 2009
Mendy spoke of Manis Friedman, a rabbi who wrote an article in Moment Magazine conjuring up the Torah’s method of dealing with terrorists and Amalak type people. Sadly, the question called upon responders to address how they would deal with Arab neighbors. He did not address the question, but his response may bring down harsh criticism on Jews.
This Sabbath, Mendy cautioned us to be aware of what might be a media frenzy because the controversial would sell papers, and would you know that the Forward came in the mail the next day, and there was the story on the front page. Happily, I haven’t seen it in the secular papers yet. Hopefully, it will be forgotten. I don’t know if it is the arrogance that comes with the self-engrandizement of celebrity that gives people permission to say what they think without considering the consequences of their words, or is just thoughtlessness or presumption. Whatever it is, the power of association is a very potent factor in making judgments, and by Rabbi Friedman asserting that “men, women, children, and animals” are to be destroyed because the Bible says so, does not speak well of us or our tradition without a full explanation of where the reference comes from and the context in which it was given. He inferred that just the threat of such devastation would be enough to stay the hands of terrorists, but he never mentioned the word “terrorist” so it is left to those who took his response at face value, that Jews associated with Chabad and Orthodoxy were in favor of imposing such brutality on “Arab neighbors.” Sadly, there are orthodox people who do feel this way in or out of context, and happily, they are in the minority. Still, the impression was left via guilt by association, that all Orthodox people are that ruthless and cruel. His response was one of ten, but the ten who addressed the question will be forgotten. Hopefully, he will be able to clarify and put the issue to rest. Hopefully, he will learn that there are people out there just waiting for such verbal missteps so they can pounce and point out the paradoxes of religion. Bill Mahr, a rabid atheist, prior to the Friedman issue coming to light, has already commented on the desert G od who calls for the killing of cattle and babies. And of course, he frequently raises the issue of “the talking snake.” But then again, he refers to Jesus as “the Jewish zombie,” so he is an equal opportunity blasphemer. In any event, the entire episode reminded me of a Carl Sandburg poem and a quote from The Rubbiyat, a Persian poem. Sandburg's Proud Words:“Be careful how you let proud words go.They wear hob nailed boots and stalk off Unable to hear you calling them back.Be careful how you let proud words go." Omar Kyam wrrote:”“The moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on. And all your piety and wit shall not call it back To cancel out half a line.”
Mendy continued with the parsha of the week. Gifts brought to the mishkan by the ten tribes are recounted and Nachshon ben Amidai of the tribe of Judah, represented unflinching faith in God, was first. The second bringers were the descendants of Issacar whom we are taught were scholarly and asked the “why” of what they were doing. The rabbis taught that these two teach us that a balance between faith and reason are needed in our faith and in our actions. Nacshon has always been one of my favorite biblical people, not because of his gift, and not even because of his faith. I like Nachshon because of his recognition that one must act to save one’s self and the situation. In the is a midrash (a Talmudic story that fleshes out what is not said in the Torah) about Nachshon where he is on the shore of the Sea of Reeds. As the story goes, nothing happens when Moses raises his arms. Nachshon, possibly in exasperation, or frustration wades into the water up to his nose and that we are told is what parts the waters. Perhaps it was faith as we are taught. Perhaps not. Faith may bring about miracles, but one I believe one must act first for the miracle to occur. His action, I believe, gives us the aphorism: “Pray as if everything depends on G od, and act as if everything depends on you!” I know I’ve written that before, and will probably write it again.
Mendy also tossed off a comment that was parenthetical to his drush, and brilliantly connected for me in that moment something I’d been thinking about for a while. Suddenly, something made sense, and tragically, the comment passed quickly and dissolved in what followed. I could neither grab it nor could I grasp its full meaning. I cannot even recall what it clarified. Other tangential pieces of wisdom tossed off: Three things that destroy Judaism for young Jews.• The bar mitzvah training program• The silencing of questions • Hebrew school as it is currently presented.June 28, 2009
Mendy relinquished the bimah to his older brother who came in from Ohio. Mendy’s entire family visited his new home to celebrate his and Dinie’s seventeenth wedding anniversary and to commemorate the yherziet of his beloved brother and of the Rebbe. He said there were over forty people at his Shabbos table. I both rejoice at his good fortune to have such a family, and I am envious that I have never and will never experience a family who will happily come together to rejoice in the Sabbath and rejoice in being with one another and with me..
Mendy’s brother’s voice is steady, calm, and reassuring. His drush was rather desultory, and I was looking for some way to connect the disparate pieces. His talk reminded me of standing too close to a Surat painting and seeing the individual points but not the full picture until one steps back. Then and only then, one is able to see that the individual points are all part of a whole and the whole makes sense.
He began with a humorous story of a man who was told to memorize five answers to questions he would be asked on his citizenship test. This he did, but the judge did not ask the questions in the order in which he had memorized them. The results were rather amusing. I didn’t know where he was going with this little story, and concluded that the message was that you can prepare for an event, but you never know what will be thrown at you that may or may not take your preparation into account. We must always be prepared for contingencies because there are variables out there over which we have no control. It’s a good learning, and I wondered how it would fit into the parsha of the week, but to he honest, I never fully made the connection.
We’re still in Numbers, and the parsha discussed dealt with the Korah rebellion and how Moses begged them not to test G od. The brother focused on the midrash that had Korah asking Moses that if the entire garment commanded by G od that the Israelites were to wear were to be made of the blue threads, would the individual blue thread commanded still be needed? Moses’ answer was “yes.” Stepping back, I believe the brother was suggesting the importance of retaining your individuality, and the strength that individuality brings to the community. That single blue thread is a reminder to do all the commandments. This story reinforced the midrash about individual tribes camped around the Mishkon but facing it so it becomes the total community’s focus. Again, a community of individuals with one focus. It reinforced the same theme revealed with the twelve individual paths through the Sea of Reeds with the community’s sole focus on freedom. Be an individual while remaining part of the group, is the theme. It seems that one might cull from these various midrashim that individuality was to be a key value of the Jewish people. But Korah, as an individual, was also an egotist, and could not abide Moses and Aaron being chosen above him to lead the congregation. His focus as an individual was on his own image and not on the survival of the people. Also, he was not content that he had been chosen to supervise the movement of the ark itself. Again, his lack of contentment and his jealousy reinforces other stories where people who are not content with their lot can cause themselves and others great trouble. Hayman had the Persian world but wanted what was given to another also. Adam and Eve had everything and still wanted what they were told they could not have. Even Miriam was discontent and punished for it. It is a recurrent theme. So Korah and his supporters are swallowed up by the mouth of the earth that was waiting for such a moment from the time it was created at the beginning of creation itself.
Mendy’s brother moved to a story about a Rabbi in Florida who was able to take some prisoners to the Rebbe in Brooklyn for a fabrengin. He mentioned that the Rebbe was concerned that the prisoners would be grouped together, identified as prisoners, and embarrassed. I was reminded of the aphorism, “Let every man’s honor be a dear to you as your own.” He also said something about prisoners being loved by G od perhaps because they can still believe despite the difficulties they have encountered in their lives. He may have been connecting the idea that G od values each individual even if they are prisoners, but I’m not sure if he made the connection clearly or my memory of the moment is not clear.
The brother’s style was confident, soothing, measured, and articulate, but for me, he did not fully make the connections clearly. Mendy’s style is rapid fire, passionate, punctuated by tangents, and more often than not, focused on a clearly delineated theme. Mendy’s drushes are like looking at a Kandinsky painting. They are slashed with color and movement. His brother’s drush was like looking at a Surat painting; a series of individual diamond shaped points, but requiring one to step back to see how the individual points create a total picture. Mendy’s comments are in your face invitations to an argument. With the brother, you calmly contemplate the connections.
To have two such works of art in one family must be a source of great nachus. To have such sons! Mendy, the younger brother, has no reason ever to doubt his strength on the bimah. He cast a great shadow. In our tradition, younger brothers have always been blessed..
July 4th, 2009
Still in Numbers, and happily out of the census and ritual minutia that I found less than stimulating. The parsha for this week contained three really interesting events that needed commentary: The Red Heffer ritual of purification, the Brazen Serpent, and the story of Bilam. Mendy chose only to speak about the serpent. Now I have to say this about my people or at least my ancestors. Either they had remarkably short memories, or they were profoundly stupid and ungrateful. It is possible both conditions existed.
Now as far as I’m concerned, Moses was the greatest man who ever walked the earth. If you don’t buy into the story of G od dictating the commandments to him directly, you then have to admit that his concept of moral rectitude and the laws promulgated were far above and beyond anyone living in his time or since. Moses was a moral genius! G od may have recognized this and cast him in the role of leading Abraham’s descendants out of slavery. Now Abraham himself was no intellectual, moral, or conceptual slouch, and G od decided to fulfill his promise to Abraham by sending another genius to save Abraham’s descendants. Being so fathered, there must have been great intellectual potential, but centuries of slavery numbed the people to anything beyond their immediate survival. Still, these people saw the wonders wrought with their own eyes. They saw the plagues, they crossed the Sea of Reeds, and they stood at the foot of Sinai. They saw manna fall from heaven, they saw flocks of birds fly into their nets, they saw bitter waters become sweet. But they couldn’t get it through their thick, slave heads, that G od was going to see them through. So they continued to bitch and moan and plague after plague broke out in the camp because of their doubt and disobedience. Thousands died in front of them. The earth itself opened and swallowed Korah and his minions. They saw all of these things and forgot these things as soon as they passed. Not a very bright group. G od and Moses may have conceived a morality that becomes the bedrock of decent human behavior for all time, but the people chosen to give this message to the world were not intellectually gifted enough to see it or appreciate it. Even after everyone dies out who came out of Egypt and no one left ever felt the slave master’s lash, they still complained, rebelled, and wanted to return to Egypt even if they had never been there! Perhaps it takes more than one generation to erase collective memory. Moses, always fully confident that G od would provide, never seems to recognize or anticipate the needs of the people. He is always reacting to their rebellion, going to G od, getting the problem solved, but never initiating a solution to a real problem. By not seeing the real need such as water or food, he becomes less than a great leader. Great leaders, even just good leaders, always anticipate the needs of their followers and address the issue before it becomes a problem. People look to their leaders and if the people’s mind set is that G od and Moses will provide, why do G od and Moses always wait and respond after there is a rebellion? I can understand G od being away taking care of other things going on in the universe, but Moses should have been more observant and more proactive. Many of the rebellions he encounters could have been avoided had he seen or listened to what was going on. The Golden Calf and Korah rebellion were not his fault. Other rebellions over food and water were. Now the above preamble was to Mendy’s drush on the so called Brazen Serpent.
Now this story starts out with another rebellion over the lack of drinking water that Moses should have anticipated. Did he always have food and water and assume everyone else did also? If that were the case, then these rebellions would indeed be a surprise. Or was he just oblivious because he was so focused on the minutia of the rituals demanded and the rites? So the parched people demand water, and once again, Moses, after forty years still not believing that he could make the water come from the rock all by himself, goes to G od and asks for help. Moses was not a proactive person. So G od tells him to speak to the rock and he does. When nothing happens, he hits the rock twice with his staff. He has used the staff before for emphasis, and the water gushes forth. But G od is angry with Moses for not sanctifying His Name by speaking to the rock, tells Moses that after all Moses has gone through and done, he will not be permitted to enter the Promised Land. This I think is a very vindictive and mean spirited thing to do, and not worthy of the Creator. How much sanctification does G od need? Talk about egos! Moses, as reluctant a leader as he was, still stepped up to the plate, and carried the burden of these stiff necked people for four decades. He deserved better. But G od was not finished. G od decided that these people needed to be taught yet another lesson, and He sent forth fiery serpents to harass the people. Again thousands died until Moses was told to craft a snake of brass and put it on a pole. Those bitten who looked at it would be saved.
And this whole thing brings us to Mendy’s initial question as to why Moses put this image on a pole, and what was to be the result? I don’t recall the exact question, but it was in this area. No one was really able to guess what Mendy had in his head, but he’s getting better by just asking for other ideas and not criticizing an answer immediately. Even I felt comfortable enough to respond and my response was “the hidden meaning here is that the solution to the problem may very well be found in the problem itself.” The thing that caused the pain and death was also the instrument to heal. It’s like being bitten by a poisonous snake. The antidote for the bite is made from the venom that is the original poison. The rabbis teach that by looking up at the serpent on the pole, one also is looking towards heaven and G od. That is what brought about the cure. But Mendy’s take was slightly different. His message was that one has to look beyond the immediate trouble and focus on the hope that something better might be out there. It was a message that having faith will bring better things to you. It is a good teaching.
We didn’t talk about the red heifer conundrum where the ashes of the heifer that will make someone pure after contamination, also contaminates the person preparing it. It is one of those wonderful biblical paradoxes. My take on it is this is similar to my take on the brazen serpent but the reverse. Where as my take on the serpent was “that the solution to the problem may be found in the problem itself,” my take on the red heifer is that “within the solution to a problem may lie the seeds of another problem.” How often is that true! Both are good pieces of wisdom if I do say so myself. There’s lots of wisdom in the Torah if one looks for it. But again, my wisdom, as truthful as it may be, may be discounted because I did not die two thousand or so years ago.
July 19, 2009
Last week Mendy spoke about leadership, and I was reminded of something I read somewhere in the literature that says: “In a place where there are no men, strive to be a man.” The story considered in this part of Numbers was the story of Pinchus, a man who took G od very seriously. It seems that at the moment in the story, the sons of Israel were whoring after the daughters of the Midianites and forgetting their obligations to be decent. Licentious behavior with pagans was a big no no, and no one in the leadership, including Moses, was doing anything about it so Pinchus puts a sword through the guts of the Midian princess and an Israelite named Zimry as they were flaunting their disregard of G od’s law. Though he commits murder, Pinchus is rewarded by being elevated to the level of priesthood even though he was not born to it. He was rewarded because of his faith and because he knew what was right for the people, even if it meant taking two lives. It was what the leader should have done. I don’t recall what Mendy said about Moses not taking charge. Initially, I thought it might have been because G od did not want Moses to be a murderer, but he had killed an Egyptian taskmaster earlier in his story so that could not have been the reason. Perhaps Moses was looking for righteous and brave people to assume leadership positions because he knew he would soon die..
So it seems that there are greater goods that must be acted upon even if they are odious. The greater good takes precedence over contemporary mores and attitudes. Turning people away from immoral sexual behavior and pagan worship was paramount in this society and the greater good..
For me, the teaching addresses the quality of existence. We can assume that the men who cavorted with the Midianite women were married men, and we know adultery and idol worship were forbidden. Judaism was the first religion that insisted that a man’s sexual energy be focused on to one woman, his wife. This enabled the family unit to become the core of a stable society. It is that stable family unit that permits children to sleep soundly. It is that stable family unit that creates and drives civilization forward. G od commanded decent behavior because G od understood what it would take to create a people and a civilization that would last.
This week, Mendy presented the idea that though we may consider ourselves not up to the task, every person has the potential for making a contribution and a difference. Even if it is a small difference, it counts. Mendy, to stress the point, spoke of an elderly Iraqi Jew who was a scientist with NASA and involved in the moon landing. The man was very humble, and denied that he did anything of great importance, but when Mendy asked him what small contribution he made, the man confessed that his small discovery enabled the moon walk to happen.
We all have within us the power to act and to lead if we choose to do so. It might be just those small contributions that are built upon by others that make great things happen. (“If I have done anything of importance, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants”) or those small acts of compassion that bring comfort that may ultimately bring the Messiah. It seems that we are all part of a great something, and our individual efforts could instrumental in inching us closer to the Messianic Age. Mendy asked for volunteers to visit people in hospitals. I agreed to do this. If I cannot make the world a better place, perhaps I can make someone’s world better.
July 26, 2009
Mendy’s opening statement was that he was not going to say anything about the corruption charges made against the rabbinic types taken into custody for alleged money laundering. He did say that he was embarrassed by the event. I suspect he is reluctant to say anything from the bimah because the whole story is not known, and to jump to conclusions, especially if they are the wrong conclusions based upon erroneous data would be defamation of character. I for one, just seeing a rabbi being brought into a police station in handcuffs felt deeply ashamed. That perhaps is my problem for having bought into the concept of Kal Yisroal, namely that what one Jew does effects all the others because we are part of one people. But to use a trite expression, “where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” and why would this rabbi and his associates even be considered if there was no involvement?
I have had my own very personal experiences with rabbis who betrayed me and the Jewish people. One did it by abusing women, both single and married, who came into his office, and by being a bigamist, and the other by putting out a contract on his wife and murdering my dear friend. That’s why whenever things look bleak, find someone with a different perspective and talk to them. You can go only as far as your own experiences and head will take you. Another thing to be noted in not succumbing to what is happening to you is the importance of separating your own sense of self from the events happening. This is not easy, but necessary. Often, things are out of our control, and conditions are imposed that are not of our doing. For example, people who see themselves in terms of their finances and ownership can be easily devastated in the economy such as we have if they lose what they deem gives them their identity. So the important thing always to remember is that you are not your bank account, you are not your car, and you are not all your “stuff.” We must focus on the intangibles within and without for comfort.
The story of Joseph and his brothers is also the story of forgiveness for past misdeeds and sincere return to righteous behavior. And by that I mean behavior that doesn’t injure another human being or yourself. Tehshuva contains within it both the concepts of forgiveness and behavioral changes. Mendy said the Rabbis taught that the true meaning of tehsuvah comes from what will happen in the future. Being sorry for something you did in the past is not enough. Apologizing to someone you’ve injured in the past is not enough. But making sure that your behavior will change in the future is the true teshuvah, and you can assure the wronged person of that future and demonstrate that promise when the occasion next presents itself. I came to that conclusion after years of not feeling any sort of forgiveness on Yom Kippur. So I concluded that teshuvah was not in the actual service, but the service did provide me with a vehicle for thinking about what I’ve done that needed forgiveness. I decided that the next time I was presented with the same opportunity or event that caused me to feel “sinful” or in need of teshuvah, I would not behave in the way in which I had behaved before. I would choose an alternate behavior even though it went against my basic inclinations. I concluded that if I could reject the behavior I recognized as inappropriate and acted consistently for the better whenever a negative behavior was an option, only then would I be able to forgive myself and feel as if G od forgave me, too. But there are people around us who are not as forgiving as G od, and we are usually married to them. The quote, “I can forgive you, but I can never forget!” is small comfort to someone attempting to change because it really says that “I shall always carry the memory of your infraction and I shall never fully trust you again.” If the injured party cannot let go, and in the face of true teshuvah, the relationship will always have a problem. There are moments in a life when a controversy occurs and one party brings up a past event that may have absolutely nothing to do with the current issue, but it is ammunition.
The person who brought up something from the past is like a stamp collector. If you recall, people use to save books of stamps and cash them in on a gift when they got enough books. That was appropriate. You gave up the stamps for the gift and couldn’t use those stamps again. Emotional stamps can be used over and over again, and when a person perceives that he or she has suffered enough slights and each slight became a stamp, they now feel they have the emotional right to cash in those “hurt” stamps on a “gift.” The “gift” is the argument and the dumping of past infractions that have never really been disbursed. With the argument there is some relief and justification, but never true satisfaction. As long as you hold onto the stamps, you are never free from your history.
And this whole teshuvah thing brings me to the concept of “guilt.” Guilt is really being ossified in the here and now by something you did in the past. Guilt wastes time and injures the present. If you don’t like feeling guilty, resolve never to behave the way that caused the guilt in the first place the next time the opportunity presents itself. Through honest teshuvah, you can choose not to get bogged down in guilt.
January 31, 2009
Mendy commented on tefillin as one of his favorite mitzvahs, and after he spoke I could fully understand his devotion to this ritual. I have always considered the rituals in Judaism as reminders of one basic idea, namely, that G od expects us to lead a G od centered life and to behave well. Each time we walk through a door, each time we choose our food, each time we make a blessing, and at the three daily minyans, we are reminded of these expectations.
Tefillin or phylacteries as they are also known are those little boxes with leather straps attached that are placed on your head, on your arm next to your heart, and are wound seven times down your arm to your hand. Each box contains the Shema.and passages from the Torah. Simply, the one on the head is to remind us that we are to devote our minds to the service of G od. The box placed on our arm next to our heart is to remind us that we are to devote our hearts to G od, and the straps that wind down our arm and wraps around our hand to form one of the names of G od reminds us that we are to act in G od’s service. The straps from the box on our foreheads touches the straps on our arm, thus linking the head, the heart, and the hand.
We are a species in conflict with ourselves. We have natural inclinations of the heart which may move us to behaviors that are not wholesome or wise. Our heads are there to monitor us. But the triad is not complete and we are not complete until we devote our hand to the work of heaven. Judaism teachers that it is not enough to think holy thoughts or have holy intentions of the heart. We must do. We must turn our minds and hearts to the betterment of ourselves and of others.
In the class I currently teach, “Law, Values, and Morality,” I was able to use the teffilin image to clarify what I was teaching. We are discussing Torah law, or ethical principals. I’m teaching that out of these ethical principals emanate a value, and, by extension, G od’s value system. And out of these two come moral behaviors or moral statements that reflect said value. I’m teaching that a value is something you strongly believe in, is stronger than your feelings, and is acted upon. The teffilin on your head becomes the ethical principal. It is an idea related to correct behavior based on observations and conclusions. Ethical principals are aspects of higher order thinking that goes on in your brain as the brain experiences the world.. The teffilin on your arm next to your heart I implied was the physical manifestation of the value that emanates from the ethical principal. In metaphoric terms, it is the heart that inclines us to act well, to have compassion, to love. The value is the conclusion one reaches when one thinks about the expectation of the ethical principal or Torah law. The strap winds down the arm seven times to remind us that our behavior for each day of the week is to be dedicated to what G od is asking us to value what He values, and to act on these values in the world.
Now sometimes, we don’t like the idea of having to act in a particular way because it may not be convenient or suit our needs. But a value is something that is important whether it is convenient or not, and therefore more important than our feelings. Things need to be done in the world, and the world needs to be mended. And that brings us to the third element of the teffilin, the hand. Without the hand, the reasoning of the head and the yearnings of the heart do little to make the world better or lift the burden that weighs on the lives of some people. Without the hand doing, it is academic and good intentions are of little value when people need to be fed or the earth needs to be saved as just two examples.
So let’s look at one of these ethical principals from the Torah to see how this process works: “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not completely reap the corner of your field. You shall leave them for the poor and the stranger.” Lev. 19:10. The law is based on the observation that there are poor people who need to be fed, and instructs the person with property that he is to be a factor in feeding them. It is both law and instruction in one package and totally. unique in ancient legal codes. What we take from this is the idea that we are to have compassion for those who are less fortunate than we are. This is the value. Now we might not feel like leaving the corners of our field to the poor, but we are obliged to do so. G od is asking us to act. And that is where the hand comes in. The hand part of the teffilin becomes the moral statement or behavior that reflect the value itself. Since we are no longer in an agricultural community, our action to alleviate the situation comes with donating food to a food bank, cooking for the poor in a soup kitchen, delivering food to poor shut ins, or making a donation to any agency that provides food to people who need it. We may not feel that we want to share, but we must. The reasoning of the brain and the inclination of the heart are useless without the hand actually doing something to ameliorate the situation.
There are thirteen principals of faith posited by Miamonides, and according to Orthodoxy, unless you accept all, you are not an observant Jew. I have a problem with any dogma except for the Shema which states that G od is a total unity. Beyond that, I do not believe that you must believe in all the principals or you are not a “good Jew.” You may not be a “good Jew” in the eyes of the Orthodox, but accepting that premise means you have ascribed to the Orthodox the power to tell you what Judaism is and how it is to be practiced.
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March 1, 2009
Discipline, self-control, being satisfied with your lot, and not wanting to control everything outside of your self were the themes Mendy spoke of this Sabbath. He began talking about the Ark of the Covenant and the two cherubim that face one another on the lid. We were informed that these angelic depictions of a boy child and a girl child who were the symbolic personifications of the knowledge of what God wanted of us; namely, to recognize our limitations and that it was God who was in control. I don’t recall the connection between the faces and G od’s being in control because it came very early in the talk.
But he then referred us to the story of Adam and Eve and the expulsion. God also places a cherubim and a flaming sword so the disobedient couple could not reenter, but this cherubim, unlike the ones on the Ark’s lid is a reminder that an angel can also be a destroyer. The interesting item here is why Adam and Eve were expelled, and it was not the eating of the fruit that caused G od’s wrath- it was the fact that Adam and Eve had everything that was, and they still wanted more. They wanted the one thing they were told they could not have. They were undisciplined and not satisfied. They had no self-control. It would seem that self-discipline and self-control are serious issues that G od has with us.
The comparison and connection was made with the Megilah of Esther where Hayman, the villain of the story, speaks about his wealth, and power, his property, his friends, the honor he has, and yet he says it is all meaningless because Mordichai, the Jew, will not bow down to him. Like Adam and Eve, Hayman has it all and is still not content. So he sets his eyes on that which is not his, and in effect, like Adam and Eve, is tossed out of his own Eden.
Mendy’s talk got me thinking about the tenth commandment of the Ten Commandments. That commandment says: “You shall not covet what your neighbor has.” This commandment seems to me to be more important than many would think, and very much in keeping with the concept of self-discipline and self-control. Coveting is not just wanting something; its wanting that specific thing that your neighbor or someone else owns. If you want a house just like your neighbors, you can build one just like it if you have the means. But you can’t have his because that is taken. So coveting your neighbors belongings can lead to stealing, and coveting his wife can lead to adultery, and both can lead to murdering your neighbor for his house or wife and bearing false witness to protect yourself from the law.
But none of this means anything at all unless you buy int the first statement of the ten that says “I am the Lord your G od who brought you out of the land of Egypt. In this statement, G od is re-introducing Himself to the people as a reminder to the people that He is the authority behind moral law He is giving. If G od is not the authority, then these ten and all the others are just good ideas written by a very good man named Moses and do not have to be universally accepted or acted upon by humanity. Without G od as the authority behind moral law, morality can change from nation to nation, group to group, and person to person. Accepting G od as the authority behind the law gives people stability. G od has serious expectations for us, and they are all to keep society stable and safe. To keep society stable and safe, people have to exhibit self-control and keep their appetites in check. We develop self-control by being asked to observe the laws of kashruth, the laws of family purity, and lots of others . We cannot eat whatever we want to eat, and we cannot act any way we wish to act. Metaphorically, Adam and Eve did not see the value of what they had, appreciate what they had, lost control, and the perfect society they had in their grasps, was lost to them and their descendants. They wanted it all and got nothing for their lack of control. Hayman wanted it all and was hanged for his selfishness.
All of this has to do with rejoicing in your own portion as the Ethics of the Fathers advise us to do until we can have something better if we want something better and the wherewithal to have something better. There are things we cannot have, and perhaps there are thing we shouldn’t have. Accepting the limitations a religious life imposes upon us, helps us develop self-control and helps us to refrain from sinful behavior. Self-control is also one of G od’s primary expectations of us.
March 8, 2009
Purim is upon us, and Mendy took the opportunity to discuss it at length. He began talking about Amalek, the ancient group of people who attacked Israel rear flank where the weakest people were; the women, children, aged, and infirm. The Amalekites were not in danger of losing their land; they attacked out of hatred. For this, they were condemned to be eradicated and blotted out of existence. Sadly, King Saul did not kill the Amalekite king when he was told to do so, and Saul’s compassion gave the king time to procreate. This king’s descendants are among us, and Amalek rears his head in every generation. In the story of Purim, Haman is the descendant of Amalek and his hatred prompts him to try to destroy the Jewish people. He thought he could do this because they were spread over the Persian Empire and disunified. But they were not, fought back, and survived.
And so we come to the true meaning of Purim. In short, Purim commemorates the ability of a people to unify themselves in times of stress and danger to ward off outside forces seeking to destroy them. America can use such a holiday right now because we need to come together as a unified nation to combat world wide terrorism and the pervasive fear that the economy is inflicting on us.
Mendy, I wrote this many years ago for “The Berman Family Haggadah.” It is included after my tribute to martyrs the Holocaust and the singing of Ani Maamin. It fits in with your comments on Purim, because it speaks to our ability to survive. Sadly, not all survive when Amalek comes after us. One might say that G od took us out of Egypt, but many died there. One might say that G od took us out of Europe to Israel, but also, many died. We are promised that “a remnant” shall remain. So the remnant remains, and if we were left alone, we would be a numerous on the earth as the Chinese are today.
You cannot destroy us! G od will not let it happen.
Egypt could not destroy us.Babylon could not destroy us.Assyria could not destroy us.
The Syrian-Greeks could not destroy us.
The Romans could not destroy us
.The Church Fathers could not destroy us.
The Moslem edicts could not destroy us.
The Medieval Papal Bulls, Libels, and Crusades could not destroy us.
The Inquisition could not destroy us.The Reformation could not destroy us.
The Tsarist mandates could not destroy us.
The German Nazis could not destroy us.
The Russian Communists could not destroy us.
The Arab nations and the PLO will not destroy us.
Neither the extreme Right or the extreme Left will destroy us.
The United Nations will not destroy us.
We will not be destroyed because we are a “minority with One.
” Never Again!
Today it is said, “It is not for the Jewish People to ask, “Why?”It is for the nations of the world to ask, “How could we have done to these people what we have done?”
It is an interesting idea that Purim celebrates the need for unity. If the holidays of Judaism were to be compared with the holidays of other faiths, one would readily see that unlike other religions that celebrate the events in the lives of their deity or saints, Judaism celebrates human concepts. For example, while Chanukah might celebrate a miracle of oil, it commemorates the concept of religious freedom and the right of people to worship G od as they choose. Miracle or not, that’s an idea worth fighting for and commemorating. Passover celebrates our going out of Egypt, but the underlying concept of the celebration is the right of people to be free. Again, a concept worth celebrating. Undergirding the High Holidays is Rosh Hahshonah’s celebration of creation and of mankind, as well Yom Kippur’s message that humanity has the ability to perfect itself. They are holidays of hope with concepts worthy of commemoration. Simchat Torah celebrates the idea that moral law exists to protect society and that we are to rejoice that we are so protected.. Shavuot celebrates the giving of the Torah and the establishing of God as the authority behind morality; that morality is not situational. It also celebrates individuality. . Tu Bishvat celebrates the importance of treating our earth with respect. Also, a concept and realization celebrated centuries before the rest of the world realized the effect humans have on the environment.
I have thought a great deal about Judaism, about G od and His relationship to the world and our people. The G od of my theology is not the G od of your theology. The eternal conflict is wanting a deity to resolve the horror of the world, yet knowing that if G od were to intervene, such an intervention would negate our concept of free will. Without free will, we are less than human. Our G od, who seems to be a self limiting G od in that He frequently chooses “to hide His face” from us and limit His involvement in this world, has left us to our own devices for imposing order on the chaos. We are not doing a very good job of it.
So the mantra of “Pray as if everything depends on G od, and act as if everything depends on you,” must continue. The one concept that keeps me coming back to your concept of G od is the realization that without the traditional concept of G od as the aware and involved authority behind moral law, the moral laws of the Torah and the ensuing values are just good ideas offered as guidelines to a recalcitrant group of people by a brilliant legal minded humanist named Moses. I would find it difficult living in a world were morality floats from person to person, group to group, and government to government. For survival’s sake, there has to be something higher than the latter three.
March 28, 2009
I think one has to figure out the relationships among certain concepts in Judaism to others before you can understand the full meaning of the message. This is a daunting task, especially for someone like me who has not had a formal education regarding the concepts in question. I think this is one of the reasons why I love this faith and the intellectual challenges it offers.
The portion of the Torah read was on Temple sacrifice, and Mendy made it clear that this teaching was the one taught first to little children. It did not make sense, but it became fully clear of his intent in sharing this information when I read the Haftorah of Jeremiah. Sadly, Jeremiah was the prophet who assumed the responsibility of foretelling the Jews that if they do not change their evil ways, disaster would follow. What with idol worship, child sacrifice to other gods, and evil broadcast though out the land, this stiff necked people were doomed. Yet they continued to erroneously believe that all would be forgiven if they sacrificed appropriately in the Temple. They actually believed that it was the sacrifice itself that G od wanted and not integrity and nobility of character. Perhaps the expectation that G od’s primary demand is that we behave well towards one another and follow the laws were too abstract a concept for them to understand. I think it still is.
Children need to learn that it is not the smell of the sacrifice, not the physical thing being offered in which G od delights, but the actual act of doing as He asks. I think it was G od’s expectation that we carryover of the doing into our daily lives. So the Temple is destroyed, the sacrifices end, and prayer is substituted because like the smoke of the offering, words fly up to heaven and disappears. It’s all very symbolic. Now, words become the physical substitute for the animal. Sacrifice itself is a substitute ritual. In effect, the supplicant comes to the alter and says: “Here G od, take this bull or lamb or this oil and flour instead of me for the sin that I have committed.” Substitution of an offering instead of the self is a very ancient, magical ritual, and the supplicant sees the smoke rise, dissipate, and gives him the sense that the offering is accepted and the sin is forgiven. The core concept of Christianity is based on this substitution concept of replacement sacrifice.
So we pray instead of offering sacrifice, and one question Mendy raised was why three times a day? My response was that the patriarchs prayed and I was correct. I actually guessed what was going on in Mendy’s head. I think he gave an additional answer, but I was so pleased with myself for my response and his lack of dismissal that I don’t recall his other reason. But if I am to look back at Jeremiah’s audience, and combine this with G od’s statement in Genesis that “Man is evil from his youth,” you get a sense that the learned ancients thought that by devoting three portions of the day to prayer, Jews would be staying out of trouble for that amount of time.
We are also being reminded three times a day of what G od expects of us. Reminders are all over the place. Each time we walk through a door, we are reminded. Each time we decide what to eat and what not to eat, we are reminded. Each time we make love, we are reminded. The Rabbis knew just how much of a stiff necked people we were and are, and being reminded of how to behave had to be built into the process of daily living because without it, we would quickly revert to our natural inclinations. Reminders keep us balanced and being balanced is what living from day to day is all about.
I think the core idea here is that if G od is in your head a minimum of three times a day, each time you sustain your life by eating, each time you go through a door, you won’t be as bad as you probably could or would be. The yetzer tov in man is very strong and all these reminders are there to keep it in check. As part of the talk, Mendy said that there are three type of laws: those we would come to just by living, those that we are given and can accept because they are logical, and those we follow even though we have no idea as to why we are asked to do them. It would seem that the latter laws are those requiring the greatest devotion. And we are back to the initial idea that children are taught early on about sacrifice because it teaches children that G od delights in obeying and in doing just because He asks us to do this. This is the interpretation of the “sweet aroma that is pleasing to the L ord.” It is our actions, not the smoke that is “sweet.” This is an interesting interpretation, but I think we can find reasons for commandments of the third type by thinking about them. For example, not mixing meat and milk is given without an explanation. It may have been given for a very practical reason. People had wooden bowls then. They were porous and meat served in a bowl that also had had milk in it might take on a sour taste. Food was not abundant, and therefore risk of spoilage had to be minimized. But I like something more spiritual. Milk is produced by the mother to give sustenance and life. For meat to exist, something had to die and be cut up. That which is symbolic of life and that which is symbolic of death may not be mixed together. It’s part of the over all picture of keeping separate things that should be kept separate. The same thing holds with procreation. The act itself is intended to create life. The menses is a physical phenomenon where something that could have become life is sloughed off. It was potential life and it died. The act of love making at such a time of the month is mixing two things that should not be mixed, namely the act to create life and a kind of death. And so we have the prohibition of intercourse during the woman’s menses. And of course, all of this stems from the commandment: “Be holy, for I am holy.” This actually says, “Be separate for I am separate. Separate from what? Separate from our animal natures. We are to rise above them. This is what makes us human, and we must constantly be reminded of this because “man is evil from his youth.” Lots of fascinating concepts in Judaism, and so many are related. But one must look.
P.S. A joyous Passover to you and your family. May your new home be blessed.
April 5. 2009
Sometimes, the most profound learning comes from unintended comments in responses to serendipitous questions from the congregation. The question dealt with the search for chomatez, and in answering it, Mendy spoke of the similarities and differences between chomatez and matzah. Both are made from flour and water. The difference in the two is the hot air in one and the lack of it in the other. The correlation is interesting. We say a person is full of “hot air” when they are stretching the facts often to enhance themselves. The hot air is the ego speaking. The opposite would be humility. Thus, the chometz represents the ego and the matzah represents humility. We search for the chometz to expel it from our lives, at least for a week. Symbolically, we are to free ourselves from our egos which enslave us to any number of spirit crushing conditions.
Passover is the season of freedom, and we are asked to free ourselves from chomatz in our lives, the dark places, our personal places of enslavement, our personal Egypts. To do this, we are to let our egos go, and focus on our humility for the sake of peace and freedom. It is a good image to carry into our post-Passover lives. All this can be related to the portion of Numbers read this week which spoke about the high priest given the task of changing out of his high priest garments that he had to wear to gather the ashes of the evenings sacrifice, and changing into other garments, working garments, so he could carry those ashes to a place where he might dispose of them. Why should the high priest be required to do such a menial task? Mendy made it clear that the leaders must recognize that in order to lead, they must be seen by the people doing things normal people would do. He was not to allow his ego to keep him from working for the people and being seen by the people because of his exalted office. He was required to do this humble task, so he would keep connected to the people, and daily r23">
When one wraps himself in a prayer shawl, stands on a bimah and professes to be a leader of the community and a representative of G od, that person does not have the option of behaving despicably. Yes, there are people who will say, “They are only, men,” and to them I say, “Bullshit!” When you take on the mantle of community and religion, you had better be more than “just a man,” because you have serious obligations to that community and to G od. You don’t embarrass either. Most people think of the second commandment as not calling upon G od or using His name for frivolous reasons or crude curses. But I think the second commandment really means we must not give G od a bad name. Rabbis who claim the mantle of speaking for G od on earth and behave despicably, give G od a bad name. Bad behavior while representing G od is what breaks that commandment! Rabbis do not have the option of not behaving well. I hope whatever Mendy ultimately says if these rabbinic types are in fact guilty, will not be something that will excuse them because of some esoteric Talmudic thought machination based on some equally obscure midrash that convolutes integrity and morality to save face.
That’s what Mendy didn’t talk about. But he did talk about the holiday of Tish b’Av which commemorates the destruction of both Temples in Jerusalem, and a variety of other nasty things that befell the Jewish people in their trek through the centuries. The question raised was why these tragedies befell us, and the answer he gave took us to the Talmud and the idea that mindless hatred on the part of the people for each other so disgusted G od, that he removed His protection on these two occasions. He also related a story in the Talmud, probably apocryphal, about a wealthy, respected, and pious man who held a banquet and mistakenly forgot to invite a friend. He then sent his servant to hand deliver an invitation, and the servant thought the address a mistake and delivered the invitation to the man’s enemy. The enemy is delighted that there is the possibility of reconciliation and goes to the banquet where the host orders him out. This man pleads with the host, offering to pay for the entire banquet if the host will relent and not embarrass him by sending him away. But the host’s heart is hard, continues the demand, and the dis-invited man flies into a rage threatening to destroy the host and all those who watched his shame. As the story goes, the man takes his revenge by going to Caesar and telling him that the Jews are going to rebel, and he will know when they refuse to allow a sacrifice to be brought to honor Caesar. The man then injures the offering knowing it will be refused, and Caesar has proof of the forthcoming rebellion and ultimately destroys Jerusalem and the Temple. This is a tale of extremes: extreme resolution and extreme hatred.
Mendy then asked who was most guilty. Personally, I think all participants, active and passive, were to blame, but if I had to do a forced choice, I’d have to say that everything could have been avoided if the host had acted on what he had been taught by his faith. These follow:• “Let every man’s honor be as dear to you as your own.”• “That which is hateful to you do not do to another.” • “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” • “The reasonable man is noble, he glories in the pardoning of injury.” • “Master of the World, I pardon every transgression and every wrong done to my person, to my property, to my honor, or to all that I have. Let no one be punished on my account.” • “If you ask pardon for your sins do you also forgive those who have trespassed against you? For remission is granted for remission.” Following the wisdom of these statements from our literature, one can avoid the pitfall of implacable hatred for one another, and hopefully bring about the Third Temple in our time.. To do this, Mendy urged us to look to a kind love that must move beyond reality to a higher actuality.
Mendy is improving. Since he stopped telling people why they were wrong right after their response to his questions, he is starting to get more people responding. They are feeling more comfortable with their thoughts and not quite as worried that they will not be able to guess what goes on in Mendy’s head. Even I have become a participant. I hope these weekly missives to him where I have related my feeling on the matter, had some effect.
August 2, 2009
Mendy did take the opportunity to speak about the religious people who were caught up in the sale of internal organs and money laundering. He said that while their behavior was despicable, there were things to consider about the legality or illegality of organ transplants. He said that the rabbis are not in agreement on the subject, but there are certain things about Judaism that are clear and intertwined that address the issue.
The following are some of the important parameters to be considered but all in all, there is a lot up in the air about this matter .• No one may sacrifice his or her life for another. Sidney Carton was not acting Jewishly despite his nobility. (see the last pages of A Tale of Two Cities by Dickens) • We are forbidden to take payment for a mitzvah. That said, we are permitted to be compensated for our suffering, medical expenses, and potential physical problems down the road, so that while we may not take payment for the organ itself if we choose to donate one, we can be compensated for the tangential things that might result. • The Torah demands that we observe the law of the land in which we live, and if that law forbids selling a body part outside the established protocol, we must adhere to that law. Civil law take precedence over religious law except in the case when the civil law is immoral (The Dred/Scott Decision: Giving up an escaped slave to his master)• To save a life is to have saved an entire world is a foundational statement in Judaism.• The human body is viewed as sacred and not to be desecrated (cut apart or into) before or after death unless to save the life of the person. • Human beings have the capacity of doing good and bad almost simultaneously. We often lose focus of what our values should be in favor of what our eyes desire. • We cannot charge more than 20% over the cost of an item that sustains life such as food we produce, but we can charge anything the traffic will bare for any item someone desires from us. The person who gave the kidney received $10,000 dollars for it. The go-between sold it to the recipient for $150,000 because the traffic was willing to pay.
Periodically, The Forward writes extensive stories about Jews who rip off the government, abuse workers, steal from companies, etc., etc., etc. Each story saddens me because we are each a reflection of the other, and what one Jew does, good or bad, reflects on us all. I do not understand why religious Jews have the mind set that they have the right to break the law. Perhaps in Europe when they knew the government was evil and brutal, cheating the tax collector was a way of getting something back. But that’s not the way it is here, and why the mind set remains is a mystery to me. We are taught that we are to obey the laws of the land in which we live as long as they are moral laws. Then, if we disagree with them, there is a process to go through including civil disobedience to make the point. But theft, abuse of any kind, organ trafficking are not options.
I have experienced the contempt that some black hats have for any society and any group for that matter that is not theirs, and I wonder if this contempt gives them permission to break the law? Do they feel their superiority enables them to behave with impunity because they feel entitled. Do they feel that their adherence to “the truth” exempts them from being just to those who are not part of them? Are there instances in the Talmud were such behavior is condoned or encouraged, or have they totally misinterpreted what they read and are they missing the entire point of Judaism? You tell me.
August 9, 2009
Mendy began his talk by asking how one maintains a good relationship with one’s spouse, and my stage whisper response was “keep your mouth shut.” The guys around me laughed. In some ways, Mendy would have agreed because he went on to enumerate all the rules and regulations that spouses have that keep them happy. He also said that if it were only the rules and regulations being met, they still wouldn’t be happy unless the underlying relationship was good. In my first novel, Consider My Servant, Reuven, the protagonist’s father tells him before his son’s wedding that “It is easier to get forgiveness from G od than it is from your wife.” The connection between Mendy’s drush and the parsha was expectations and responsibility. Still in Deuteronomy, and Moses is telling the people what God expects of them in order to inherit and maintain the good land into which they were going. Moses tells them that not only do they have to do all the commandments, they have to do them with all their heart, all their souls, and with all their might. But as human beings, that is not an easy task. For Moses, it may have been easy. Moses had a very special relationship with God so no expectation was a burden. Perhaps for Moses, this was easy, but for the rest of us, it is hard. Still, if the relationship with G od is a true and honest one, these obligations are met with joy. And that is the test of any union. Despite the expectations, if the relationship is good, no request is too great a burden. Moses ask the people not only to follow all the commandments, but to evaluate their relationship to G od as well. Their attitude towards the performance of the mitzvot, would be an indication of their relationship.
In our relationship with G od, Mendy spoke of “fear,” and related two different concepts.The first concept of fear is that it means “awe.” To be in awe of God as the ruler and creator of all things in existence is an appropriate response. The second is actual fear: to be afraid of G od, because G od has specific expectations of you and has a big stick that according to tradition, He is not afraid to use. You can have a relationship with a G od who tells you that He cares about the widow and orphan; one who loves the proselyte because that person chose to be part of the people and chose to adhere to Torah law. One does not easily have a relationship with the God who created the universe. Too awesome to comprehend. So the G od with whom we are to relate is a G od whose values extend to the poorer, lonely, and destitute of society. In responding positively to such people, we are letting G od know that we care about what He values and will act on them freely. Yet it is the En Sof concept of G od that I relate to better because I have so much difficulty believing in and finding a personal deity who seems to care about what actually goes on in this world. Yet each week I reach out to this G od who loves the orphan, widow, etc., and ask Him to heal my former student, a wonderful young man not yet twenty who has a virulent cancer and is getting chemo and radiation therapy. Tradition asks me to believe in a G od who ordains a person’s life. To accept this, I would have to believe that the same G od who gave the cancer be prevailed upon to remove it. If he responds, have my prayers been answered? So I privately summon the healing energy of the universe that comes with En Sof, while asking for mish’ beraches to Hashem. Pascal’s wager comes to mind. Am I hedging my bets and being honest?
August 20, 2009
“If you want to be treated like a king, treat your wife like a queen, but do it like the king was told to do it in the rabbinic story.” Mendy started his drush with these quoted lines from his mother-in-law’s advice the fist week of marriage to her daughter. As the story goes, Solomon’s son goes first to wise men for advice on how to respond to the request of the people for respite from taxes. He then he goes to his friends who tell him that he is to show them who is boss. Following the friends advice, kingdom ultimately breaks in to and is overrun by foreign powers. The advice the wise men gave him was “to be kind initially, gain the loyalty of people and then do as you wish. They will follow.” To me, wise men or not, the advice is duplicitous. Where is the idealism? The altruism?– that being kind will get you the loyalty of the people without having an ulterior motive. At least the friends were up front if not political. But all advisers were acting on their need to sustain their influence and power. Was Mendy’s mother-in-law suggesting duplicity by suggesting that he act as the wise men instructed Jeroboam to act?
August 30, 2009
Mendy told a joke about dying, going to heaven and finding two different lines. The sign above one entrance reads: “For men whose wives told them what to do.” The sign above the other read: “For those who did as they wished.” The line for the first door had hundreds of men waiting, but the other line had one little old man. The last man to arrive that day, looked at the two lines and decided to get on the longer line, but since there was time, he went over to the little old man and said, “What did you do to be able to stand on this line?” to which the old man replied, “I don’t know, my wife told me to stand here.” This was prelude to a happy occasion in the tradition where a young man, a week before he is to be married, is called up to the Torah. The ritual is called an “uf fuf.” It is a special honor that involves special prayers of celebration, dancing around the Torah, and tossing candies at the bridegroom. So part of the drush was on relationships between a man and his wife and how it is basically up to the man to make the marriage work. Mendy said that the Torah portion to be read this week dealt with divorce so it was not easy to make a happy connection. But Mendy, being Mendy, rescued the situation and spoke of of three great rabbis, Shammi, Akiva, and Hillel and comments they made about divorce and when it is permissible. There were other the interpretations made by other great rabbinic sages such as Maimonides, and Schnerson. The comments of the three former rabbis really needed to be interpreted because the comments on what behaviors might support a divorce were totally alien to any comments one could make today. To make a long story a little shorter, it boiled down to this. If a man finds fault with his wife’s looks, or cooking, it is that he is not looking beyond the superficial to the inner person he married and he has to refocus on what is truly important in their relationship: love, friendship, companionship, trust, etc. In Judaism, it seems that the onus for making a marriage work is on the man. It seems the rabbis did not consider the possibility that at the core of some women there might just be a mean spirit.
Part of the drush had to do with the law in Deuteronomy that states that if you find a piece of clothing that is identifiable, it must be returned. Likewise if you find a donkey, a sheep, or an ox, these must be returned or cared for until the owner comes to reclaim them. If you find five dollars on the street, it may be kept because no one can tell whose it is, but if the five dollars is in a wallet and the name of the owner is there, the money and the wallet must be returned. So says the Talmud. But Mendy went further in explaining this Torah portion and related the Chabad teaching. The three different animals and the garment are to be viewed as types of people. The ox, a strong animal who will work and provide wool, will not bother you as long as you treat it well, but anger it and its rage is dangerous. The donkey is stubborn and little can be done to alter that person’s character. The sheep is totally agreeable with everyone, has no opinion, and stands for nothing. The sheep wants to be left alone. I’m not recalling the person symbolic of the garment, but that person must be important to be included in this group. Mendy seemed to rail mostly against the sheep. People who yawn in the face of beauty, people who have neither opinion nor passion seem to him most damaged.
September 5, 2009
Parsha Ki Tavo
Mendy began by telling the story of a young boy born three hundred or so years ago whose mother died in childbirth and whose father died when the boy was quite young. The boy was raised by the community, and the community soon found that he was an exceptional child with an exceptional mind. He grew in scholarship and in character, and became a melamed, or teacher. When he was old enough to travel, he began to do so in the hope of bringing the knowledge of Yiddishkite to other Jews in other towns.. In his travels, he discovered outlying communities of Jews who knew little about their faith, but were passionate and interested to learn more. When he returned to his own town, a town of pious people who were focused on their faith, he fell into conflict with them because they believed you focus on and bolster your base and not worry about the fringes. The young man disagreed, and made his life’s work of bringing tangential Jews back into Judaism. This man became known as the Bal Shem Tov, the master of the good name, and founded the Hassidic movement. This story was connected to one Mendy told of a woman who called the office and asked him if the offer to attend the high holiday services without a ticket was a true offer. She related the story of how she had been a member of a synagogue and, because of finances, could not afford the ticket. She said that her own shul would not extend her the courtesy of giving her and her husband tickets. (I personally find that hard to believe, because it is my experience that any synagogue will work with any member in financial difficulty.) But Mendy assured her that the offer was real, and challenged regular members of the congregation to welcome strangers who will be present at the High Holidays, and even offer them their seats. Mendy is asking us to imitate the Bal Shem Tov, and make Jewish people feel welcome. That small effort of extending one’s self may be just that small nudge to give that person who may have fallen away from Judaism to feel welcome enough to return. Chabad,,unlike other Orthodox traditions that may look down on anyone not part of their group, warmly and non-judgmentally, accepts people where they are in their Judaism. Such is the spirit of the Bal Shem Tov. I can certainly appreciate this attitude. In the early 70's when I moved to Willingboro, I decided to become part of the Jewish community there. I was not particularly observant at that time, but felt the need to belong. That decision to take the step to belong was made on Rosh Hashonah. So I, my wife and daughters got dressed up and went over to Beth Torah, the local Conservative synagogue where we were greeted at the door by a very tall man whose name need not be revealed. He would not let us in because we did not have a ticket. I was thoroughly embarrassed, feeling like a beggar, and could have walked away angry, confirmed in the belief that this how Jews treated Jews. But I said that I intended to join the synagogue, and then said, “Are you really going to keep a Jewish family out of shul on Rosh Hashonah?” I stared him down and may have even raised my voice. He stepped aside. We joined and I became an active member, creating a teenage youth group and acting as an alternative cantor for Friday evening services. To tell the truth, I never developed a friendship with that tall man or even liked him. Also, I never forgot the feelings generated by that policy of exclusion even though I understood the reasoning for the policy. Since that time, whenever I see a person who appears to be alone in shul, I walk over and welcome them. It’s the Jewish thing to do. We must all see one another as part of the same mishbuchah.
September 14, 2009
Parsha Nitzavim-Vayeilech
Mendy began his talk this Saturday before the high holidays by posing a question to the congregation. It was this: On Rosh Hashonah, when he is facing a packed shul consisting of the regulars and the regulars who come twice a year, to whom does he address his comments and what does he say? My suggestion was that he stay true to the mission of Chabad and make the case to those who rarely attend services to come back into the fold. Others felt that since those who attend twice a year live lives that are patterned on non attendance, the focus should be on those who support and nourish the synagogue on a regular basis. It’s a complex issue. People who do not attend regularly but do attend on the High Holidays probably have very specific reasons for their discount of prayer and support. None of them are atheist, because if they were, they would not be there at all. Now many of these people might say that they don’t believe in G od, but that might be because they don’t accept the G od they were taught about as children, and walked away because they were never given an alternative concept of G od to consider. The Torah and Rabbinic concept of G od is not always an easy G od to embrace.
September15, 2009
My best thinking seems to be just when I’m getting up in the morning, and this morning I got up thinking of your request for input regarding those to whom you might direct your comments on the holidays. A religious interpretation to explain why there are some people who attend on the holidays only, might be related to their soul’s longing to hear the sound of the shofar and the words of the Torah. A less mystic interpretation might hover around the idea that there sits in all Jews who are not officially committed to a synagogue but tangentially associated with the Jewish people, a deep seated feeling for the need of community. Certainly, I cannot think of a secular reason to attend twice a year. So here is my suggestion for addressing those people, and for addressing the regulars. My suggestion to you this past Shabbat was that you follow the mission of Chabad in your comments. By this I mean that you speak to the joy of Judaism and the acceptance of all Jews no matter what their beliefs are because for me, that’s what Chabad and you are all about. Go with your strength. Since the holidays focus on our sins, I am offering an alternative thoughts you might consider in addition to the traditional liturgy. It will speak to the joy of being a Jew and the reasons why this faith has persisted despite centuries of hostilities. You can name it.
For the joy of being part of a religion that honors life and human dignity.
For the joy of being part of a religion that gave the world its vision of peace and harmony.
For the joy of being part of a religion that insist that all are equal before the law.
.For the joy of being part of a religion that insists on everyone being educated.
For the joy of being part of a religion that sees the family as the foundation of a stable society.
For the joy of being part of a religion that requires us to be socially responsible.
For living all these joys, inscribe us in the book of life and grant us atonement.
For the joy of being part of a religion that fills us with moral passion and asks us to hate evil.
For the joy of being part of a religion whose objective is to mend the world.
For the joy of being part of a religion that invites us to be preoccupied with our actions.
For the joy of being part of a religion that expects us to critique ourselves in order to become better.
For the joy of being part of a religion that asks us to model correct behavior for others.
For the joy of being part of a religion that structures our time through celebrations and behaviors.
For living all these joys, inscribe us in the book of life and grant us atonement.
For the joy of being part of a religions that gave the world the concept of holiness.
For the joy of being part of a religion that asks us to be a light unto the nations
.For the joy of being part of a religion that invites us to struggle with our G od.
For the joy of being part of a religion that insists that I be grateful.
For the joy of being part of a religion that inculcates self control.
For the joy of being part of a religion that gives me a community and a distinctiveness.
For living all these joys, inscribe us in the book of life and grant us atonement.
For the joy of being part of a religion that provides me with a pathway to the transcendent.
For the joy of being part of a religion that insists that I use my intellect.
For the joy of being part of a religion that insists that I focus on this world and not on the next.
For the joy of being part of a religion that provides me with sacred time each week where I can refocus, replenish my resources, and rejoice in living.
For the joy of being part of a religion that inculcates feelings of justifiable pride in our people’s accomplishments.
For being part of a religion that teaches that correct behavior, not correct faith is what G od desires. of us.
For living all these joys, inscribe us in the book of life and grant us atonement.
Mendy, this was a wonderful exercise for me in reacquainting myself with why I love being Jewish and what Judaism does for me. Too many people see the practice of religion as a burden, but beyond the practice lie the truths and benefits of it. A joyous holiday to you and your family.
Somewhere along the way, Mendy spoke about women who wept. Hagar who wept because she felt all was lost and gave up. No faith. Sarah who wept for joy in the hope that she would become a mother, and Rachel who wept because she would not give up on her children.
October 3, 2009
Sukkot
Mendy spoke of the three holidays that we celebrate this season: Rosh Hashonah, Yom Kippur, and Sukkot. He said that the core concept of Rosh Hashonah is to recognize, explore, and come to an acceptance of your relationship with G od. On this day of celebrating the creation of humanity and of the world, we are to recognize our place in the universe and the expectations G od has for us.
Yom Kippur is a sacred day where we look within and self-assess our relationship or lack thereof with G od, and decide on how we can make it better through righteous behavior, prayer, and charity. Yom Kippur teaches that the human being has the power to transform himself or herself into the person they dream they can be. The idea that we have this power is itself empowering. Also, within this holy day is the idea that we come to G od as both individuals and as a collective people. We recite the same list of offenses, and we utter the same prayers in unison. But there is also the diversity of the individual utterances that might, to an outside observer, seem out of tune, off key, and chaotic, but this is merely the reflection of individuals bringing their own melodies and voices to what is in reality a great unity. It is a solemn day
Sukkot is a holiday that both recognizes and reinforces the unity of the people and also reminds us of our individual uniqueness. In the sukkah we eat and pray and everyone around the world does this in much the same way. In this we are all one. But when we take up the luluv and the ethrog, and wave them to heaven and earth and in the four directions, we are reminded that the palm, the myrtle, the willow and the fruit species are symbolic of the different types of people who come into our sukkah and into sukkah’s around the world. We are in relationships with these types as we are in a relationship with G od. How we behave in these relationships will dictate the direction and quality of our lives. Judaism is a religion that celebrates life affirming concepts, and in this, it is rather unique.
October 11, 2009
Simchat Torah
Mendy spoke of Simchat Torah as a holiday with no particular symbols, not particular foods, and particular prescribe rituals. It is not one of the holy days mentioned in the Torah, and yet it is an integral part of the holiday season. Simply put, it is the Jew’s expression of appreciation for the gift of moral law which in reality is what makes us truly human and enables civilization to flourish. With out a doubt, the uniqueness of the Ten Commandments and the laws that flow from them are the greatest gift the Jewish People have given to the world, and the foundation stone of both western and mid-eastern civilizations.
Beginning with Slichot were we put ourselves in the mind set of assessing our relationship with G od and beginning our focus on how we want that relationship to improve or develop. High Holidays which are sobering, and deal with renewal of self and renewal of that relationship, give us hope that we can transform ourselves into the people we believe we can be with G od’s help. Simchat Torah is about rejoicing in the moral law that we were given to assist us in becoming the people we wish we wish to become. In an important way, it reflects our appreciation for the relationship with G od that moral law bestows upon us.
October 24, 2009
Parsha Noach
Mendy’s initial question to the congregation was, “Why do we know so much about Noah’s life when we know so little about Abraham’s?” He went through midrashic stories, the stories our ancestors wrote that fill in the spaces between the lines of the Torah, and reviewed what has been imagined about Abraham’s early life. After many responses to the question and wonderful extended tangents initiate by Shaul who sits in front of the bimah, the answer that was given was that Abraham’s life prior to leaving Mesopotamia for Canaan, was of little matter, because he was now a totally new individual and everything prior to his leaving was of no consequence. At this moment in the narrative, I believe the Torah is also teaching that at any moment any person can hear the call to righteous behavior and faith, and move towards creating a better life away from the place that keeps him anchored in old behaviors. It is difficult beginning anew in a place that won’t let you move forward. I didn’t share this perception. Mendy also spoke about the Torah, not as a story book, but more of a guide book on how to have a meaning relationship with G od. He focused us on the laws and how people respond to them.
Noah was a righteous man in his generation, and responded to G od’s order that he build an ark and await the flood. Afterward, the Noahchid Laws, all seven of them, were formulated for the pagan world so as to keep the society they would build from collapsing. I guess G od anticipated that the descendants of Noah would become corrupt and need such laws just to address basic minimums needed for survival. But the six hundred and thirteen laws given in the Torah to the Jewish People are given as a vehicle for Jews to find a relationship with G od. They are there for spiritual elevation as well as the practical needs for societies survival.
Mendy spoke of three types of laws: those whose existence are logical and reasonable such as “don’t murder” or “don’t steal”; those laws that are commanded because doing them will assist you in becoming a better person such as the laws of kashruth that prohibit certain foods while teaching you self-control, and those laws that you address for the sole reason that G od tells you to do so. I think the laws pertaining to the red heifer fall into this category.
To obey the laws because they are reasonable and will lead to a practical outcome places you in the Noah camp, because Noah did what he did to survive. I’m not clear on that point nor do I understand why such obedience should be viewed on a lesser level. To act on laws and commandments dictated by G od that have no grounding in logic or practicality, places you in the camp of Abraham, a man of unquestioning faith who did exactly what G od asked to be done without question. Without hesitation, he agreed to murder his son, and we are taught that it is Abraham’s unquestioning relationship with G od that we are to emulate. Personally, if I heard a voice that told me to take one of my children and sacrifice him or her, I’d question the righteousness of such a request and of the deity asking me to do such a thing. My response would be to hold my child even closer than before, and “let the chips fall were they may” regarding the promises made to me by this deity in the past. If G od always knows the heart of a person as well as the outcome, why put the man through that horror for proof of a devotion that had been ascertained years before when at age seventy-five, he picked himself up, left his home, and ventured into the unknown with his wife and retinue? The Akidah was a defining moment in the life of Abraham and for society, for the event told the world that child sacrifice was no longer an option as a statement of religious devotion, and that symbolic representation would be acceptable. This latter innovation is a major leap forward and a major conceptual contribution of the Jews to Western Civilization. The substitution of the ram for Isaac introduced to the world symbols as alternatives to infanticide and human sacrifice. The entire sacrificial system where by substitutions could be made was introduced. In this, the story is of great power and significance, but in my mind, neither G od nor Abraham come off well. I guess I would be considered in the Noah camp in this instance because I would not blindly follow such an order. And I don’t think that is a bad thing.
November 14, 2009
Parsha Chayei Sarah
Initially, Mendy’s voice was soft and measured, not the high pitched, rapid fire explosion I’ve come to expect. It seems that this week is the anniversary of the murders of the two Chabad leaders from Mumbai, India who were brutally gunned down along with three others by Muslim terrorists solely because they were Jews. So Mendy spoke about tragedy and how we are to respond to tragedy. In doing so, he reminded us again that the Rebbe, when confronted by another tragedy, told those in mourning that the way to respond was to ”build something.” It is only in building something that we can move forward. This is wise council, and the opportunities to build are all around us. I see this as a link into Tikkun Olam because when tragedy strikes and the world reveals how broken it really is, one can respond by repairing, building if you will, something new and better. One way one might address tragedy is to build relationships with other people through kindness, especially those kindnesses offered to someone who cannot possibly be of service to us. Such a kindness comes from the core of who we really are, and we can reveal our own depth of character through such actions.
In honor of the slain Rabbi and his wife, hundreds of children now bear their names and therefore, carry their message. A Safer Torah is being written in their honor, and I am proud to know that a small contribution I made will go towards that goal and symbolically fulfill the mitzvah incumbent upon each of us to write a Torah. All over the world, Sabbath candles that may never have been lit before, are being lit in their memory, and Chabad’s effort in Mumbai has never faulted with people continuing their dream of reaching out to the Indian Jewish community.
My student’s parents, in response to their loss, have set up a foundation in his name that will fund alternative approaches to cancer treatment for children. They are building something.
Mendy then proceeded to speak about the parsha of the week entitled, Chaye Sarah, where Sarah dies and Abraham purchases the cave of Machpelah for her burial. Here, Mendy became Mendy, his voice going up a pitch or two, and his delivery rapid and intense. The core of his messages dealt with the cave itself, with a reference to the outside building that now covers the inner burial chamber. He said that the stones covering the cave have nothing to do with the cave itself where our ancestors are buried, but just an outer shell. He likened these two places, one an outside structure, the other the inner structure to the relationship between a man and his wife. It was an interesting analogy that spoke to the criteria we have when searching for a mate, and what might happen to our view of that mate as the years go by. The point being made was that the outer building covers the depth of the cave, as the outer appearance of our mate covers the core of who that person really is. If a person chooses a mate based solely on outer appearance, when that appearance fades as it must, or interests diverge as they might, that relationship will be in trouble. But if at the core of these mates, at the core where the inner self resides, there are qualities that are timeless and beautiful; integrity, honesty, and loving support, the people in people in such a relationship will be able to withstand whatever winds buffet them no matter what they come to look like. I think Mendy and his wife model such a relationship.
November 21, 2009
Parsha Toldot
Mendy spoke of Esau and Jacob, the twins born to Isaac and Rebecca. Esau is described as a ruddy man, a wild man of the fields, while Jacob is described as a quiet, contemplative man who lived in tents. Esau was passionate and lived in the moment. Jacob was steady, with a vision of the future. To underscore this, the story is told of how the famished Esau sells his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of soup. He fancied himself dying in the present. Jacob, a crafty man, took advantage of his brother’s personality, and got the birthright which Esau disparaged, but Jacob coveted. Despite Esau’s wild nature and his apparent lack of concern for the future of his people, (he married pagan women) Isaac still loved him and was willing to give him the blessing reserved for the first born and the man who was to lead the tribe after the patriarch’s death. Rebecca, overhearing her husband send Esau off to hunt and to prepare him food, contrives with Jacob to take the blessing. The ruse is that Jacob will dress up as Esau and put lamb’s wool on his arms so his blind father will be fooled. “The hands are the hands of Esau, but the voice is the voice of Jacob,” are the famous lines uttered by the old man. The question Mendy raised was, “Why did Rebecca insist that Jacob receive the blessing as Esau?” If the parents were in conflict, G od would have settled the matter, and Rebecca, like Sarah, would probably have won if G od judged. But Mendy’s answer dealt with symbolism. Both brothers represented extreme positions; extreme personalities, even though one was clearly better able to perpetuate the religion. Jacob had to assume and thus combine Esau’s identity with his own so he could symbolically represent the broadest spectrum of people on earth; neither totally good or totally bad. People such as you and I are not extremes, but composites of both brothers. It is in this composite that we find our ability to function in a civilized society and through which we express our humanity It is by functioning in this composite that we deserve and will receive our blessings providing that we maintain life’s balances.
This is my take: The Yetzer Tov and the Yetzer Hara, translated as the good inclination and the evil inclination are given to us. The Talumud teaches that without the Yetzer Hara, a man would never have a child or build a house. To me, there is nothing evil in having a child or building a house, so I’ve concluded that what is at work her is the human ego extending itself into the environment. Our homes and our children are extensions of ourselves into the world. I think on another level, both Esau and Jacob are symbolic of these two inclinations, and it is only when these two exist in a person in balance, that a person can function properly and behave well. Another message was that at the core of every human being, there is goodness and a soul worthy of being saved. Judaism tries to rescue the Esaus of this world with core concepts such as that one, and yet I do believe that there are people on this earth whose redemptive qualities are so deeply hidden, it would take vast oceans of our limited resources to uncover such hidden attributes.With limited resources, is it worth the effort? Such talk brings out the Conservative in me.
November 28, 2009
Parsha Vayeitzei
If you want to find God, find people. If you want a relationship with God, have a relationship with another person. That seemed to be the core of Mendy’s talk. Again, prayer, and all the mitzvot, are opportunities that enable us to encounter God and to enter into a relationship with Him, and the best way to guarantee such a relationship is to involve other people. Abraham, we read finds G od on a mountain top; Isaac in a field. But it is Jacob, the true progenitor of the Jewish People who finds G od in a house. Mendy pointed out the parsha where Jacob goes to sleep with stones around his head and dreams of angels walking up and down a ladder. He gets up and is astounded, saying that he did not know that G od was in this place. He calls the place, Beth El, or House of God. To me, it also means that G od can be encountered everywhere if one is looking, but Mendy hammered in the point that the best place to encounter G od is at home in familial relationships. While not mentioning his name, Mendy was speaking of Buber and his idea that we best encounter G od when we enter into an I – Thou relationship with another person. Such a relationship comes at that moment when you recognize the true essence of the other person and are fully aware of that other person’s existence. At such a moment, one, according to Buber, finds G od. I also think one might encounter G od in a lilac bush or in a rose garden. Mendy spoke of those who pray to G od as if G od is a vending machine with goodies to disseminate. G od in such prayers becomes the celestial butler who is there to be used. Buber would call such a relationship an I – It relationship because services are being exchanged. Most of our relationships are I – It, because we mostly use other people, even those dear to us, for servicing our needs. It isn’t a bad thing because it is part of survival, but if it is the only type of relationship we have with these people, it is not healthy. Mendy summerized the talk by referring us to the opening daily prayers where the sages requested that a prerequisite to prayer we acknowledge the statement that we should love our neighbor as ourselves. Without understanding this concept, prayer if really futile because the only true way into a relationship with G od is through righteous behavior regarding other people, and if you cannot fathom the “golden rule,” prayer without extending prayer to action results in empty words. Shakespear has King Claudius in Hamlet say, “My words fly up, my thought remain below. Words without thoughts never to heaven go.” Mechanical words, gestures, rituals, all miss the point. I left the service early right after the reading from the prophets. I was suddenly aware of all the words and all the extraneous sounds. I needed to process what was said. I needed silence. I think I stand the best chance of encountering G od in silence.
December 5, 2009
Parsha Vayishlach
Mendy spoke of the three divisions of Judaism at the time that the Chabad movement was forming. I don’t recall their names. The first division were composed of those Jews who sought to investigate the “whys” of the Torah. The second group focused on the spiritual and the esoteric of the Torah. They were the Kabbalists. The third group focused on the halacha or laws of the Torah and how to fully implement them so as to lead a fully religious life. One focused on intellect, one on spirituality, and one on action. Chabad arose because there was a need for one group to take elements of these three and to fuse them into something that would be uplifting to the average man or woman who was unable to think, feel, or act as these organized approaches demanded. Chabad took a person wherever he or she was and helped them rise in their learning, in their spirituality, and in their behavior.
This was not the topic Mendy had planned for the parsha that talked about Jacob’s encounter with his brother after years of separation, although he did speak to Jacob’s doubts as a man who believed that he was worthy of G od’s support. As Jacob, he doubted. As Israel, he could not. The man is a combination of both. So very human. I think the message here is that while we are filled with doubt, we still have within us the spark to move forward. Standing still waiting to be saved by G od is not an option. G od’s time frame and our time frame are not the same. While we might be praying for immediate relief, G od may be off creating new worlds and not hear the request for what in our time frame is decades. So I keep with the maxim, “Pray as if everything depends on God, and act as if everything depends on you.” As I look at the Jacob- Esau story, and at that entire dysfunctional family, I can’t help but think that the Rabbis tend to whitewash them so they will appear as something they are not. In fact, all the patriarchs and matriarchs are made to look like paragons of human virtues despite the behaviors that by today’s standards would be deemed immoral. They do this through midrash, which are stories that are imagined events that they create between the lines of the Torah, and through interpretations that challenge the very standards of righteous behavior as they are later spelled out in the other four books and in the Prophets. I can relate to people who dissemble to survive, but I cannot relate to invented paragons of virtue. For me, what makes these people interesting are their flaws and their blemishes. My flaws and blemishes are what makes me interesting and my struggle to overcome them makes me human. Our ancestors struggle to overcome the adversaries they encounter as they trek through history and also the adversaries within their own families. I cannot think of moments in the narrative where one does some introspection and tries to overcome his or her own failings. I fully believe that these people lived and did what they did in order to survive in a violent and unjust world. In that world women were property and found security only if they bore sons. In that world another man could kill you if he coveted your wife. In that world, people who wanted what you had, took it without fearing the law. In truth, the only real law governing the world in which our patriarchs and matriarchs found themselves was the law of the survival of the fittest. Their numbers were weak, so stealth and duplicity were acceptable means of getting on. It made them fit. They used cunning, not force to survive, and survival was the name of the game. Survival may be an intelligence we’ve developed over the centuries, and our ancestors showed us the way. For that they are to be revered. They don’t have to be made into something they were not. The Torah gives us real people, warts and all. The Rabbis chose to twist them into what they were not by reinventing them and rationalizing their actions. It robs them of their inherent humanity and truth.
December 12, 2009
Parsha Vayelshev
Mendy spoke briefly about the story of Joseph being sold by his brothers into slavery. Reuven, the eldest son and the one who would be held responsible, convinces his brothers not to kill Joseph but to throw him into a pit. He hopes to free him later. Reuven goes away, and his brothers sell him to a caravan going down to Egypt. Reuven is very upset when he comes back, and he and the others, rather than going after the caravan, concoct a story that Joseph was killed by wild beasts.
Of course the white washing of this heinous behavior by the Rabbis is to teach that G od’s hand was in this and Joseph was placed in Egypt so that his family would later survive the famine. It is a logical conclusion if you are looking for a reason for the brother’s behavior, but as far as I see it, these boys acted reprehensibly. Personally, I think Jacob is the one at fault here for creating a situation where he obviously selects one brother over the others to shower with affection. While it is true that you might like one of your children more than you like another, that preference must be kept private. Jacob created the jealousy, and Joseph, being either naive or deliberately condescending lauded himself and his dreams over them.
(As a side point, centuries later, one of the Roman emperors challenges one of the Rabbis of the time with the question, “What is to be done with kidnappers according to your law? ” The Rabbi honestly responds that the crime is punishable by death. The emperor then tells him that the brothers were never punished for kidnaping their brother, and that he would carry that out. So eleven of the greatest Rabbis of the Roman period were brutally murdered. Their martyrdom is commemorated each year during the Yom Kippur service. There is a belief in mystical Judaism that these Rabbis were the reincarnated souls of the original brothers all come together for the first time. The proof given is that if you add up the numerical value of each brother’s name and the numerical value of each of the Rabbis names, they add up to the same numbers.)
The Joseph story is interrupted by story of Judah. Judah is the brother who suggests that they sell Joseph rather than kill him so one might think of him as having some redeeming quality. The story jumps to Judah’s eldest son who dies after marrying Tamar. According to the leverite tradition, Judah’s next son, Onan (whose name gives us the word onanism) is to marry Tamar and have a child with her that will legally be his older brother’s. This he doesn’t want to do this, and also dies for coitus interruptus. Judah has one more son, but is fearful that he will loose this child also, so he stalls on the marriage. Tamar realizes that something must be done (possibly to fulfill her own destiny of being the ancestor of King David) so she dresses as a harlot, seduces her father-in-law and conceives twins. She does this because Judah has not kept his promise and she has waited patiently and done all that was required of her. For harlotry, she is condemned by Judah to death, but when she proves that he is the father, he recognizes that he was to blame for withholding his last son from her, and supports her and her twin sons. One of the twins, Perez, becomes the ancestor of King David.
Mendy gave a Chabad interpretation of the story where Tamar becomes a metaphor for the Jewish people who are waiting for the Messiah to come and who are trying to do what is expected of them, and Judah becomes a metaphor for G od who promised redemption but has not kept His part of the bargain. The story asks the question: How much can the Jews do to win God’s favor? Is it ever enough? Obviously, not. Mendy derided those Orthodox men who continue to say that the horror that befalls us is of our own doing. He disagrees with such a perversion and so do I. He also compared Tamar’s complaint to that of Rabbi Levi Itzhak of Berditchev who comes before G od with the complaint of why the people who recognize Him as the King of kings continue to be brutalized without His intervention.
I think the answer rests with G od not interfering because that would deny free will. Free will is as inviolate as is gravity. G od promised that there will always be a remnant of the Jewish people left and there always was despite the horror inflicted on them. Some will be saved, but not all. We may not be among those saved. It’s a reality we are reluctant to accept when we, as individuals, try to be righteous and feel that our reward should be redemption. But again, the people Israel is to be saved, not the individual. That was the promise and that promise has been kept. Fools claim that what befalls us is G od’s punishment for bad behavior. That is nonsense. What bad behavior could possibly have caused G od to inflict upon us the Holocaust or the myriad of other horrors over the centuries? I could not believe in or praise such a G od. The horror that befalls us is horror created by evil people serving their own evil purposes and has nothing to do with G od. If there is such a thing as redemption, and if the Messianic Age is to come to fruition, it will come by people acting collectively for the good of humanity. Humanity is capable of saving itself if it makes the right decisions. We have all witnessed Messianic moments, but the tendency towards evil in humanity is very strong.
December 19, 2009
Parsha Mikeitz
The story of Joseph’s reconciliation with his brothers, the reunification of a long lost son with his father, and the undergirding theme of forgiveness, always causes tears to well up in my eyes. Year after year, whenever I read it, I respond with tears. It is the only story in the Torah that resonates with me to that extent. Perhaps I respond because it is a story that offers hope to those of us who are not reconciled with significant people but might be one day.
Mendy challenged us to come up with a statement in the Torah that tells us that we must forgive one another. There are many places that speak of G od forgiving us, but no where does it say that we must forgive another. I don’t recall if he said why such a statement was not included. It was early on in the talk. But he gave examples of how apologies and forgiveness are really meaningless if there is no internal change in behavior on the part of the one making the apology. Even the one saying that they forgive may not really be forgiving. I personally have always felt that G od forgave only after the person who asked for forgiveness for a particular infraction was was confronted with the opportunity to commit that infraction again and chose not to do so. Forgiveness is not an easy thing for me, and as Shakespeare wrote, “I have been more sinned against than sinning.” Perhaps forgiveness would be easier had those from whom I think an apology is due me had actually ever offered one and asked that I forgive them for their behavior. Only people to whom you ascribe power can hurt you deeply, and when they do, the pain is profound and long. For those who should have apologized to me and who have died, there is no closure, and those still living seemed to be resolved in their justification for real or imagined offenses and feel that only I and not they are to blame. Gestalts are open like gaping wounds. Guilt is a feeling in the present for something done in the past. It is a recurring feeling and a debilitating one because it ossifies you in the present. The only way to eliminate guilt is to resolve never to perform the same action again which caused the original guilt, and knowing that you would never do such a thing again, helps to eliminate that negative feeling. Not going back to dark places or dark moments but focusing on what the future holds that is positive, is a productive message one can take from the comments made on this moment of Joseph’s story. What was done was done, and the reason Joseph can forgive is that he fully believes that G od’s hand was in his brother’s behavior when they sold him into slavery. For this belief, Joseph is referred to as “Joseph the Tzadik.” For me, the appellation, tzadik, has always meant a knowledgeable and righteous man, but Mendy added another dimension to the meaning by saying that a tzadik is one who fully believes that G od has planned it all out and that whatever happens is part of that plan. Joseph saw the big picture of how G od had sent him down to Egypt to be the savior of his people. I guess, when something turns out well, we can retrospectively imagine that what one went through was directed by some unknown hand. I imagine some comfort can be taken in that thought. Well, that small criteria eliminates me and most people I know from ever becoming a tzadik, because to hold with that belief logically leads one to conclude that there is indeed predestination. Once you conclude that, you must deny free will. It is free will that gives us our humanity. Without it, we are no more than automatons. Yet in Genesis, G od’s speech to Cain saying that he can rule over “the sin that crouches at the door” specifically grants us free will, and as there is no statement in the Torah that says we must forgive one another, there is no statement that I know of that to be righteous, one must believe in predestination. I have a real problem with the rabbinic definition of what a tzadick is. I am not a great scholar or philosopher, nor do I believe in “ the big plan.” What is left to me then and others like me is just to continue to strive to be just a “mensch.” a decent human being.
Mendy also spoke about two other brothers: Reuben, the eldest, and Judah. Both play an important part in the Joseph story. Reuben is the brother who insists that Joseph be thrown into a pit unharmed. As the eldest brother and morally responsible, his intension is to return to release him after he takes care of some business with his father. It may be that his heart is in the right place, or it may be that his status as the obligated eldest brother is at stake, but he does leaves Joseph to the good will of those who want him dead. It is Judah who suggests that Joseph not be killed but sold, thus appealing to the profit motive and greed of the others. This may not sound particularly noble, but the boy’s life is saved and the other brothers are diverted from what could be a heinous crime. (Why these men are held up by the rabbis as paragons of virtue, I am at a loss to know.) Yet it is Judah who emerges in history as noble, giving his name to the nation and the people, and becoming the ancestor of the Messiah because the House of David is descended from the House of Judah. (I am cynical enough to suspect that the rabbis who finally pieced this story together and put it into the canon, may have been descendants of the Judah line.)
The point that Mendy was making is that the good intentions of Reuben really amounted to very little, and one is reminded again of the quote, “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.” It was Judah’s decisive actions that were deserving of praise and historical recognition. Again, it all boils down to the willingness to act, and my favorite quote continues to be: “Pray as if everything depends on G od, and act as if everything depends on you.” I have no idea where that statement comes from, who may have said it, or when I learned it. Whatever the answer, it just resonates with me and continues to be my guide.
The drush today was particularly significant to me because it dealt with the concept of forgiveness. My question is basically this: For the sake of shalom mishbahcha, how do you forgive and reconcile with someone in your family you really don’t trust and basically don’t like because of how they have treated you over the years? How do you inch back into a relationship that has been hostile knowing that you are not being totally honest with your feelings about the matter? How do you forgive someone when they really don’t deserve your forgiveness because they can only see themselves as the aggrieve party? Thanks for the drush. It was very meaningful at this moment in my life
.P.S. A joyous dance is also a good response to tragedy.
I don’t know if I ever told Mendy that my comments about what he says go out monthly to friends, relatives, former students, and a man who sits in a Florida prison. What you have to say to me and to the congregation is also being said to people you will never know. What you say is important and life affirming. People need life affirming messages.
Mendy taught something related to the Torah portion and also related to a specific US tax law. The law is that houses owned by churches, synagogues, mosques, temples etc, and used as homes for clergy, are exempt from paying taxes. It seems that this law came out of the express statement in Genesis where Joseph is gathering land for Pharaoh in exchange for food, but does not take the land belonging to the priests. This evolved into the “Parsonage Law” that exempts property owned by religious groups from taxes. I’m sure Joseph had his reasons, and they were probably more political that religious. I’m sure that periodically, someone in America raises the separation of church and state issue as regards this law, but thus far it has held.
The story of Joseph’s life is one of pain and frustration. He is resented by his brothers, sold into slavery, falsely accused, thrown in prison for years, and finally elevated to the highest position next to Pharaoh. Never once does he appear to sink into depression or self pity. Never once does he defend himself to his accusers knowing full well that the people charging him have his life in their hands and are not to be denounced. What is to be learned here is that we all suffer and many of us slip into self-pity, depression, or despair. Joseph and his response to his life and experiences, teaches us not to do that. His comfort is that there must be a plan even though he does not know what it is. It is his faith that keeps him from falling. At last, the plan is fully revealed to him when the famine hits Egypt and he is in the right place to save his family and by extension, the Jewish people.
He had the option of sinking into his pain, but did not. So another message beyond the greater plan is “Don’t become your pain.” Don’t become your sorrow. Work against it. Work through it. Breakthrough to the light even though darkness engulfs you. I think this wisdom works. I’ve had some pretty dark moments as we all have had or will have, and I found myself deliberately refocusing my life and activities into things that would keep me from “going off the deep end.” Some people have the option of climbing into a bottle, becoming addicted to drugs, or generally messing up their lives sometimes beyond repair. Or some people begin to write a novel, run for public office, do the family genealogy, join a theatrical group, or start going to shul and learning. We always have options even if we are not aweminded that he was to serve both G od and the people with humility. Again, it all seems to point to the recurrent theme in Judaism that devoting your mind to Go d, and your heart to G od are not enough. It is the hand, the doing, the emptying of the ashes, the actions that make for a discomforted ego, that make the lives of people better and ultimately, the world a better place. One must stretch oneself into uncomfortable places. Humility is important, and that said, like all things, it must be in equilibrium with other elements of the personality. Buncha Schveig, when reaching heaven, may have caused the angels to weep over his humility, but the Buncha Schveigs of the world are not the movers and the shakers that make the wider world a better place. Remember, it is the ego, the yetzer harah, that causes a man to build a house and to have children. True, if the movers and shakers had smaller egos, there would be fewer problems. But, all are free to act. It is ego that causes us to acquire and to give even if the giving is to get us recognition. The ego does good for the individual and for the world. But it is to be kept in check and in balance. Our Torah is the guide book for this. That’s why it was given. Mendy also spoke about the different children at the seder table, and also of the fifth child, the one who isn’t there.
May 2009
The Book of Numbers begins with a tedious recounting of the twelve tribes, a census, and their placement around the mishkon which was the portable tabernacle that moved with the Children of Israel in their wanderings and was to be the focus of their lives. I confess I skimmed this parsha looking for some hidden meaning, but could find none. Happily, Mendy came up with a perception that did not change the tediousness of the chapter, but gave me some insight as to why the detail. All the twelve tribes were to be arranged around the tabernacle facing it. Mendy challenged us to think about why it would not have been better for the Israelites to mingle with one another and to set camp as a homogeneous group rather than as individual tribes. Would it not have been logical for the purpose of solidifying the people as one to have them lose their individual identities? The answer was profound. We are all individuals, and it is our individuality and uniqueness that strengthens us to be the people we are and to contribute in our unique way. Such individuality must be treasured. So we were instructed to place ourselves around the tabernacle as distinct tribes to show our uniqueness, but to face the tabernacle to show that we have the same focus. Unique people with the same focus. What a brilliant concept. Mendy also related a midrash about the Jews crossing the Sea of Reeds during the Exodus. I had never heard this story before. As the story goes, there were twelve paths through the water, one for each tribe. Each was on his own path, but was able to see all the other individual tribes through the walls of water, and all had the same focus, namely, to get to dry land on the other side. Actually, it reminded me of America: a great diversity of ethnicities, faiths, orientations etc. who all see each others differences while sharing the common goal of preserving freedom and the American way of life. The bible has so many hidden truths.
Well, this got me to thinking. We, as Jew, even though we no longer know our specific tribes, continue to revel in our “tribal” sense of individuality and in our independence of thought. Judaism has given us a sense of uniqueness. This independence of mind has given us permission as a people to conceive of unique ideas regarding G od and religion. As a reaction to Orthodoxy, independent thinkers have conceived the Reform Movement, Conservatism, Reconstructionism, and Renewal to mention a few. Then there are a dozens of individual philosophers who have posited remarkable ideas about our faith. All of their visions have the singular focus of assisting other Jews in their search to establish a relationship with the transcendent. Their approaches may be different, but the focus is the same, namely, to establish a relationship with a deity whose primary demand of all people is to behave righteously and treat one another decently, and to achieve salvation. So the biblical conception is that we honor each other’s diversity while keeping the same focus, is addressed. But this teaching begs the question. Why are the only Jews who use term such as “hullul Hasham,” (the allegation that you have desecrated G od’s name) and “appikoros” (blasphemer) terms used only by Orthodox people when confronted by ideas held by other Jews in their personal search for their transcendent relationship with G od and their own salvation? Why do the Orthodox not recognize and appreciate G od’s teaching that diversity is to be respected? Or is diversity to be respected only in dress, music, and customs, but not in theology and practice? It seems to me that Jews are a very diverse group of people moving through time with the focus of modeling correct behavior and mending the world. That is why we are all on earth. That is the focus. Have the Orthodox become so focused on “proper faith,” and “correct practice” that they can no longer see the goal and the beauty of other Jews who choose to be different but retain the same objectives on a different path to G od.? Orthodox Jews, the Jews who traditionally know more about practice and theology than others, are the ones who should be out in the world teaching and especially welcoming to Jewish people who have fallen away or who were never involved in the Jewish community. Yet more often than not, they are hostile and condescending.
“The righteous of all nations have a share in the world to come,” is a quote from the Talmud. Whichever Rabbi said that, that man recognized the universality of Judaism and recognized that a loving G od would not withhold Paradise from the righteous people of other faiths and ethnicities. Judaism basic philosophical core is inclusive and open unlike other faiths who insist that Paradise awaits only those who have correct faith and correct practices. Not so for Judaism. Correct behavior, not correct faith or correct rituals will redeem you and get you to Paradise, and those people who condemn and judge others for not holding their concept of correct faith and their concept of correct rituals have missed the point of their own religion.
Mendy, this became very clear to me in China visiting a Buddhist temple and a Dowist shrine. These people, holding their burning incense, demonstrated a kavanah every bit as intense as that of a yehivah buchur even though none had a concept of G od as we have. But if we are all G od’s creation, how could anyone imagine that the loving and creative G od of all could deny these people the right to Paradise? G od would not, but people of Western faiths would and do. The statement, “the righteous of all nations have a share in the world to come,” should become a guide to those who study Judaism seriously so they might become less judgmental and derisive. It seems rather presumptuous of us to think that we have cornered the one truth that leads to salvation. Ours is a good truth, and we don’t have to be contemptuous of others for holding another.
June 6, 2009
Mendy spoke of Manis Friedman, a rabbi who wrote an article in Moment Magazine conjuring up the Torah’s method of dealing with terrorists and Amalak type people. Sadly, the question called upon responders to address how they would deal with Arab neighbors. He did not address the question, but his response may bring down harsh criticism on Jews.
This Sabbath, Mendy cautioned us to be aware of what might be a media frenzy because the controversial would sell papers, and would you know that the Forward came in the mail the next day, and there was the story on the front page. Happily, I haven’t seen it in the secular papers yet. Hopefully, it will be forgotten. I don’t know if it is the arrogance that comes with the self-engrandizement of celebrity that gives people permission to say what they think without considering the consequences of their words, or is just thoughtlessness or presumption. Whatever it is, the power of association is a very potent factor in making judgments, and by Rabbi Friedman asserting that “men, women, children, and animals” are to be destroyed because the Bible says so, does not speak well of us or our tradition without a full explanation of where the reference comes from and the context in which it was given. He inferred that just the threat of such devastation would be enough to stay the hands of terrorists, but he never mentioned the word “terrorist” so it is left to those who took his response at face value, that Jews associated with Chabad and Orthodoxy were in favor of imposing such brutality on “Arab neighbors.” Sadly, there are orthodox people who do feel this way in or out of context, and happily, they are in the minority. Still, the impression was left via guilt by association, that all Orthodox people are that ruthless and cruel. His response was one of ten, but the ten who addressed the question will be forgotten. Hopefully, he will be able to clarify and put the issue to rest. Hopefully, he will learn that there are people out there just waiting for such verbal missteps so they can pounce and point out the paradoxes of religion. Bill Mahr, a rabid atheist, prior to the Friedman issue coming to light, has already commented on the desert G od who calls for the killing of cattle and babies. And of course, he frequently raises the issue of “the talking snake.” But then again, he refers to Jesus as “the Jewish zombie,” so he is an equal opportunity blasphemer. In any event, the entire episode reminded me of a Carl Sandburg poem and a quote from The Rubbiyat, a Persian poem. Sandburg's Proud Words:“Be careful how you let proud words go.They wear hob nailed boots and stalk off Unable to hear you calling them back.Be careful how you let proud words go." Omar Kyam wrrote:”“The moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on. And all your piety and wit shall not call it back To cancel out half a line.”
Mendy continued with the parsha of the week. Gifts brought to the mishkan by the ten tribes are recounted and Nachshon ben Amidai of the tribe of Judah, represented unflinching faith in God, was first. The second bringers were the descendants of Issacar whom we are taught were scholarly and asked the “why” of what they were doing. The rabbis taught that these two teach us that a balance between faith and reason are needed in our faith and in our actions. Nacshon has always been one of my favorite biblical people, not because of his gift, and not even because of his faith. I like Nachshon because of his recognition that one must act to save one’s self and the situation. In the is a midrash (a Talmudic story that fleshes out what is not said in the Torah) about Nachshon where he is on the shore of the Sea of Reeds. As the story goes, nothing happens when Moses raises his arms. Nachshon, possibly in exasperation, or frustration wades into the water up to his nose and that we are told is what parts the waters. Perhaps it was faith as we are taught. Perhaps not. Faith may bring about miracles, but one I believe one must act first for the miracle to occur. His action, I believe, gives us the aphorism: “Pray as if everything depends on G od, and act as if everything depends on you!” I know I’ve written that before, and will probably write it again.
Mendy also tossed off a comment that was parenthetical to his drush, and brilliantly connected for me in that moment something I’d been thinking about for a while. Suddenly, something made sense, and tragically, the comment passed quickly and dissolved in what followed. I could neither grab it nor could I grasp its full meaning. I cannot even recall what it clarified. Other tangential pieces of wisdom tossed off: Three things that destroy Judaism for young Jews.• The bar mitzvah training program• The silencing of questions • Hebrew school as it is currently presented.June 28, 2009
Mendy relinquished the bimah to his older brother who came in from Ohio. Mendy’s entire family visited his new home to celebrate his and Dinie’s seventeenth wedding anniversary and to commemorate the yherziet of his beloved brother and of the Rebbe. He said there were over forty people at his Shabbos table. I both rejoice at his good fortune to have such a family, and I am envious that I have never and will never experience a family who will happily come together to rejoice in the Sabbath and rejoice in being with one another and with me..
Mendy’s brother’s voice is steady, calm, and reassuring. His drush was rather desultory, and I was looking for some way to connect the disparate pieces. His talk reminded me of standing too close to a Surat painting and seeing the individual points but not the full picture until one steps back. Then and only then, one is able to see that the individual points are all part of a whole and the whole makes sense.
He began with a humorous story of a man who was told to memorize five answers to questions he would be asked on his citizenship test. This he did, but the judge did not ask the questions in the order in which he had memorized them. The results were rather amusing. I didn’t know where he was going with this little story, and concluded that the message was that you can prepare for an event, but you never know what will be thrown at you that may or may not take your preparation into account. We must always be prepared for contingencies because there are variables out there over which we have no control. It’s a good learning, and I wondered how it would fit into the parsha of the week, but to he honest, I never fully made the connection.
We’re still in Numbers, and the parsha discussed dealt with the Korah rebellion and how Moses begged them not to test G od. The brother focused on the midrash that had Korah asking Moses that if the entire garment commanded by G od that the Israelites were to wear were to be made of the blue threads, would the individual blue thread commanded still be needed? Moses’ answer was “yes.” Stepping back, I believe the brother was suggesting the importance of retaining your individuality, and the strength that individuality brings to the community. That single blue thread is a reminder to do all the commandments. This story reinforced the midrash about individual tribes camped around the Mishkon but facing it so it becomes the total community’s focus. Again, a community of individuals with one focus. It reinforced the same theme revealed with the twelve individual paths through the Sea of Reeds with the community’s sole focus on freedom. Be an individual while remaining part of the group, is the theme. It seems that one might cull from these various midrashim that individuality was to be a key value of the Jewish people. But Korah, as an individual, was also an egotist, and could not abide Moses and Aaron being chosen above him to lead the congregation. His focus as an individual was on his own image and not on the survival of the people. Also, he was not content that he had been chosen to supervise the movement of the ark itself. Again, his lack of contentment and his jealousy reinforces other stories where people who are not content with their lot can cause themselves and others great trouble. Hayman had the Persian world but wanted what was given to another also. Adam and Eve had everything and still wanted what they were told they could not have. Even Miriam was discontent and punished for it. It is a recurrent theme. So Korah and his supporters are swallowed up by the mouth of the earth that was waiting for such a moment from the time it was created at the beginning of creation itself.
Mendy’s brother moved to a story about a Rabbi in Florida who was able to take some prisoners to the Rebbe in Brooklyn for a fabrengin. He mentioned that the Rebbe was concerned that the prisoners would be grouped together, identified as prisoners, and embarrassed. I was reminded of the aphorism, “Let every man’s honor be a dear to you as your own.” He also said something about prisoners being loved by G od perhaps because they can still believe despite the difficulties they have encountered in their lives. He may have been connecting the idea that G od values each individual even if they are prisoners, but I’m not sure if he made the connection clearly or my memory of the moment is not clear.
The brother’s style was confident, soothing, measured, and articulate, but for me, he did not fully make the connections clearly. Mendy’s style is rapid fire, passionate, punctuated by tangents, and more often than not, focused on a clearly delineated theme. Mendy’s drushes are like looking at a Kandinsky painting. They are slashed with color and movement. His brother’s drush was like looking at a Surat painting; a series of individual diamond shaped points, but requiring one to step back to see how the individual points create a total picture. Mendy’s comments are in your face invitations to an argument. With the brother, you calmly contemplate the connections.
To have two such works of art in one family must be a source of great nachus. To have such sons! Mendy, the younger brother, has no reason ever to doubt his strength on the bimah. He cast a great shadow. In our tradition, younger brothers have always been blessed..
July 4th, 2009
Still in Numbers, and happily out of the census and ritual minutia that I found less than stimulating. The parsha for this week contained three really interesting events that needed commentary: The Red Heffer ritual of purification, the Brazen Serpent, and the story of Bilam. Mendy chose only to speak about the serpent. Now I have to say this about my people or at least my ancestors. Either they had remarkably short memories, or they were profoundly stupid and ungrateful. It is possible both conditions existed.
Now as far as I’m concerned, Moses was the greatest man who ever walked the earth. If you don’t buy into the story of G od dictating the commandments to him directly, you then have to admit that his concept of moral rectitude and the laws promulgated were far above and beyond anyone living in his time or since. Moses was a moral genius! G od may have recognized this and cast him in the role of leading Abraham’s descendants out of slavery. Now Abraham himself was no intellectual, moral, or conceptual slouch, and G od decided to fulfill his promise to Abraham by sending another genius to save Abraham’s descendants. Being so fathered, there must have been great intellectual potential, but centuries of slavery numbed the people to anything beyond their immediate survival. Still, these people saw the wonders wrought with their own eyes. They saw the plagues, they crossed the Sea of Reeds, and they stood at the foot of Sinai. They saw manna fall from heaven, they saw flocks of birds fly into their nets, they saw bitter waters become sweet. But they couldn’t get it through their thick, slave heads, that G od was going to see them through. So they continued to bitch and moan and plague after plague broke out in the camp because of their doubt and disobedience. Thousands died in front of them. The earth itself opened and swallowed Korah and his minions. They saw all of these things and forgot these things as soon as they passed. Not a very bright group. G od and Moses may have conceived a morality that becomes the bedrock of decent human behavior for all time, but the people chosen to give this message to the world were not intellectually gifted enough to see it or appreciate it. Even after everyone dies out who came out of Egypt and no one left ever felt the slave master’s lash, they still complained, rebelled, and wanted to return to Egypt even if they had never been there! Perhaps it takes more than one generation to erase collective memory. Moses, always fully confident that G od would provide, never seems to recognize or anticipate the needs of the people. He is always reacting to their rebellion, going to G od, getting the problem solved, but never initiating a solution to a real problem. By not seeing the real need such as water or food, he becomes less than a great leader. Great leaders, even just good leaders, always anticipate the needs of their followers and address the issue before it becomes a problem. People look to their leaders and if the people’s mind set is that G od and Moses will provide, why do G od and Moses always wait and respond after there is a rebellion? I can understand G od being away taking care of other things going on in the universe, but Moses should have been more observant and more proactive. Many of the rebellions he encounters could have been avoided had he seen or listened to what was going on. The Golden Calf and Korah rebellion were not his fault. Other rebellions over food and water were. Now the above preamble was to Mendy’s drush on the so called Brazen Serpent.
Now this story starts out with another rebellion over the lack of drinking water that Moses should have anticipated. Did he always have food and water and assume everyone else did also? If that were the case, then these rebellions would indeed be a surprise. Or was he just oblivious because he was so focused on the minutia of the rituals demanded and the rites? So the parched people demand water, and once again, Moses, after forty years still not believing that he could make the water come from the rock all by himself, goes to G od and asks for help. Moses was not a proactive person. So G od tells him to speak to the rock and he does. When nothing happens, he hits the rock twice with his staff. He has used the staff before for emphasis, and the water gushes forth. But G od is angry with Moses for not sanctifying His Name by speaking to the rock, tells Moses that after all Moses has gone through and done, he will not be permitted to enter the Promised Land. This I think is a very vindictive and mean spirited thing to do, and not worthy of the Creator. How much sanctification does G od need? Talk about egos! Moses, as reluctant a leader as he was, still stepped up to the plate, and carried the burden of these stiff necked people for four decades. He deserved better. But G od was not finished. G od decided that these people needed to be taught yet another lesson, and He sent forth fiery serpents to harass the people. Again thousands died until Moses was told to craft a snake of brass and put it on a pole. Those bitten who looked at it would be saved.
And this whole thing brings us to Mendy’s initial question as to why Moses put this image on a pole, and what was to be the result? I don’t recall the exact question, but it was in this area. No one was really able to guess what Mendy had in his head, but he’s getting better by just asking for other ideas and not criticizing an answer immediately. Even I felt comfortable enough to respond and my response was “the hidden meaning here is that the solution to the problem may very well be found in the problem itself.” The thing that caused the pain and death was also the instrument to heal. It’s like being bitten by a poisonous snake. The antidote for the bite is made from the venom that is the original poison. The rabbis teach that by looking up at the serpent on the pole, one also is looking towards heaven and G od. That is what brought about the cure. But Mendy’s take was slightly different. His message was that one has to look beyond the immediate trouble and focus on the hope that something better might be out there. It was a message that having faith will bring better things to you. It is a good teaching.
We didn’t talk about the red heifer conundrum where the ashes of the heifer that will make someone pure after contamination, also contaminates the person preparing it. It is one of those wonderful biblical paradoxes. My take on it is this is similar to my take on the brazen serpent but the reverse. Where as my take on the serpent was “that the solution to the problem may be found in the problem itself,” my take on the red heifer is that “within the solution to a problem may lie the seeds of another problem.” How often is that true! Both are good pieces of wisdom if I do say so myself. There’s lots of wisdom in the Torah if one looks for it. But again, my wisdom, as truthful as it may be, may be discounted because I did not die two thousand or so years ago.
July 19, 2009
Last week Mendy spoke about leadership, and I was reminded of something I read somewhere in the literature that says: “In a place where there are no men, strive to be a man.” The story considered in this part of Numbers was the story of Pinchus, a man who took G od very seriously. It seems that at the moment in the story, the sons of Israel were whoring after the daughters of the Midianites and forgetting their obligations to be decent. Licentious behavior with pagans was a big no no, and no one in the leadership, including Moses, was doing anything about it so Pinchus puts a sword through the guts of the Midian princess and an Israelite named Zimry as they were flaunting their disregard of G od’s law. Though he commits murder, Pinchus is rewarded by being elevated to the level of priesthood even though he was not born to it. He was rewarded because of his faith and because he knew what was right for the people, even if it meant taking two lives. It was what the leader should have done. I don’t recall what Mendy said about Moses not taking charge. Initially, I thought it might have been because G od did not want Moses to be a murderer, but he had killed an Egyptian taskmaster earlier in his story so that could not have been the reason. Perhaps Moses was looking for righteous and brave people to assume leadership positions because he knew he would soon die..
So it seems that there are greater goods that must be acted upon even if they are odious. The greater good takes precedence over contemporary mores and attitudes. Turning people away from immoral sexual behavior and pagan worship was paramount in this society and the greater good..
For me, the teaching addresses the quality of existence. We can assume that the men who cavorted with the Midianite women were married men, and we know adultery and idol worship were forbidden. Judaism was the first religion that insisted that a man’s sexual energy be focused on to one woman, his wife. This enabled the family unit to become the core of a stable society. It is that stable family unit that permits children to sleep soundly. It is that stable family unit that creates and drives civilization forward. G od commanded decent behavior because G od understood what it would take to create a people and a civilization that would last.
This week, Mendy presented the idea that though we may consider ourselves not up to the task, every person has the potential for making a contribution and a difference. Even if it is a small difference, it counts. Mendy, to stress the point, spoke of an elderly Iraqi Jew who was a scientist with NASA and involved in the moon landing. The man was very humble, and denied that he did anything of great importance, but when Mendy asked him what small contribution he made, the man confessed that his small discovery enabled the moon walk to happen.
We all have within us the power to act and to lead if we choose to do so. It might be just those small contributions that are built upon by others that make great things happen. (“If I have done anything of importance, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants”) or those small acts of compassion that bring comfort that may ultimately bring the Messiah. It seems that we are all part of a great something, and our individual efforts could instrumental in inching us closer to the Messianic Age. Mendy asked for volunteers to visit people in hospitals. I agreed to do this. If I cannot make the world a better place, perhaps I can make someone’s world better.
July 26, 2009
Mendy’s opening statement was that he was not going to say anything about the corruption charges made against the rabbinic types taken into custody for alleged money laundering. He did say that he was embarrassed by the event. I suspect he is reluctant to say anything from the bimah because the whole story is not known, and to jump to conclusions, especially if they are the wrong conclusions based upon erroneous data would be defamation of character. I for one, just seeing a rabbi being brought into a police station in handcuffs felt deeply ashamed. That perhaps is my problem for having bought into the concept of Kal Yisroal, namely that what one Jew does effects all the others because we are part of one people. But to use a trite expression, “where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” and why would this rabbi and his associates even be considered if there was no involvement?
I have had my own very personal experiences with rabbis who betrayed me and the Jewish people. One did it by abusing women, both single and married, who came into his office, and by being a bigamist, and the other by putting out a contract on his wife and murdering my dear friend. That’s why whenever things look bleak, find someone with a different perspective and talk to them. You can go only as far as your own experiences and head will take you. Another thing to be noted in not succumbing to what is happening to you is the importance of separating your own sense of self from the events happening. This is not easy, but necessary. Often, things are out of our control, and conditions are imposed that are not of our doing. For example, people who see themselves in terms of their finances and ownership can be easily devastated in the economy such as we have if they lose what they deem gives them their identity. So the important thing always to remember is that you are not your bank account, you are not your car, and you are not all your “stuff.” We must focus on the intangibles within and without for comfort.
The story of Joseph and his brothers is also the story of forgiveness for past misdeeds and sincere return to righteous behavior. And by that I mean behavior that doesn’t injure another human being or yourself. Tehshuva contains within it both the concepts of forgiveness and behavioral changes. Mendy said the Rabbis taught that the true meaning of tehsuvah comes from what will happen in the future. Being sorry for something you did in the past is not enough. Apologizing to someone you’ve injured in the past is not enough. But making sure that your behavior will change in the future is the true teshuvah, and you can assure the wronged person of that future and demonstrate that promise when the occasion next presents itself. I came to that conclusion after years of not feeling any sort of forgiveness on Yom Kippur. So I concluded that teshuvah was not in the actual service, but the service did provide me with a vehicle for thinking about what I’ve done that needed forgiveness. I decided that the next time I was presented with the same opportunity or event that caused me to feel “sinful” or in need of teshuvah, I would not behave in the way in which I had behaved before. I would choose an alternate behavior even though it went against my basic inclinations. I concluded that if I could reject the behavior I recognized as inappropriate and acted consistently for the better whenever a negative behavior was an option, only then would I be able to forgive myself and feel as if G od forgave me, too. But there are people around us who are not as forgiving as G od, and we are usually married to them. The quote, “I can forgive you, but I can never forget!” is small comfort to someone attempting to change because it really says that “I shall always carry the memory of your infraction and I shall never fully trust you again.” If the injured party cannot let go, and in the face of true teshuvah, the relationship will always have a problem. There are moments in a life when a controversy occurs and one party brings up a past event that may have absolutely nothing to do with the current issue, but it is ammunition.
The person who brought up something from the past is like a stamp collector. If you recall, people use to save books of stamps and cash them in on a gift when they got enough books. That was appropriate. You gave up the stamps for the gift and couldn’t use those stamps again. Emotional stamps can be used over and over again, and when a person perceives that he or she has suffered enough slights and each slight became a stamp, they now feel they have the emotional right to cash in those “hurt” stamps on a “gift.” The “gift” is the argument and the dumping of past infractions that have never really been disbursed. With the argument there is some relief and justification, but never true satisfaction. As long as you hold onto the stamps, you are never free from your history.
And this whole teshuvah thing brings me to the concept of “guilt.” Guilt is really being ossified in the here and now by something you did in the past. Guilt wastes time and injures the present. If you don’t like feeling guilty, resolve never to behave the way that caused the guilt in the first place the next time the opportunity presents itself. Through honest teshuvah, you can choose not to get bogged down in guilt.
January 31, 2009
Mendy commented on tefillin as one of his favorite mitzvahs, and after he spoke I could fully understand his devotion to this ritual. I have always considered the rituals in Judaism as reminders of one basic idea, namely, that G od expects us to lead a G od centered life and to behave well. Each time we walk through a door, each time we choose our food, each time we make a blessing, and at the three daily minyans, we are reminded of these expectations.
Tefillin or phylacteries as they are also known are those little boxes with leather straps attached that are placed on your head, on your arm next to your heart, and are wound seven times down your arm to your hand. Each box contains the Shema.and passages from the Torah. Simply, the one on the head is to remind us that we are to devote our minds to the service of G od. The box placed on our arm next to our heart is to remind us that we are to devote our hearts to G od, and the straps that wind down our arm and wraps around our hand to form one of the names of G od reminds us that we are to act in G od’s service. The straps from the box on our foreheads touches the straps on our arm, thus linking the head, the heart, and the hand.
We are a species in conflict with ourselves. We have natural inclinations of the heart which may move us to behaviors that are not wholesome or wise. Our heads are there to monitor us. But the triad is not complete and we are not complete until we devote our hand to the work of heaven. Judaism teachers that it is not enough to think holy thoughts or have holy intentions of the heart. We must do. We must turn our minds and hearts to the betterment of ourselves and of others.
In the class I currently teach, “Law, Values, and Morality,” I was able to use the teffilin image to clarify what I was teaching. We are discussing Torah law, or ethical principals. I’m teaching that out of these ethical principals emanate a value, and, by extension, G od’s value system. And out of these two come moral behaviors or moral statements that reflect said value. I’m teaching that a value is something you strongly believe in, is stronger than your feelings, and is acted upon. The teffilin on your head becomes the ethical principal. It is an idea related to correct behavior based on observations and conclusions. Ethical principals are aspects of higher order thinking that goes on in your brain as the brain experiences the world.. The teffilin on your arm next to your heart I implied was the physical manifestation of the value that emanates from the ethical principal. In metaphoric terms, it is the heart that inclines us to act well, to have compassion, to love. The value is the conclusion one reaches when one thinks about the expectation of the ethical principal or Torah law. The strap winds down the arm seven times to remind us that our behavior for each day of the week is to be dedicated to what G od is asking us to value what He values, and to act on these values in the world.
Now sometimes, we don’t like the idea of having to act in a particular way because it may not be convenient or suit our needs. But a value is something that is important whether it is convenient or not, and therefore more important than our feelings. Things need to be done in the world, and the world needs to be mended. And that brings us to the third element of the teffilin, the hand. Without the hand, the reasoning of the head and the yearnings of the heart do little to make the world better or lift the burden that weighs on the lives of some people. Without the hand doing, it is academic and good intentions are of little value when people need to be fed or the earth needs to be saved as just two examples.
So let’s look at one of these ethical principals from the Torah to see how this process works: “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not completely reap the corner of your field. You shall leave them for the poor and the stranger.” Lev. 19:10. The law is based on the observation that there are poor people who need to be fed, and instructs the person with property that he is to be a factor in feeding them. It is both law and instruction in one package and totally. unique in ancient legal codes. What we take from this is the idea that we are to have compassion for those who are less fortunate than we are. This is the value. Now we might not feel like leaving the corners of our field to the poor, but we are obliged to do so. G od is asking us to act. And that is where the hand comes in. The hand part of the teffilin becomes the moral statement or behavior that reflect the value itself. Since we are no longer in an agricultural community, our action to alleviate the situation comes with donating food to a food bank, cooking for the poor in a soup kitchen, delivering food to poor shut ins, or making a donation to any agency that provides food to people who need it. We may not feel that we want to share, but we must. The reasoning of the brain and the inclination of the heart are useless without the hand actually doing something to ameliorate the situation.
There are thirteen principals of faith posited by Miamonides, and according to Orthodoxy, unless you accept all, you are not an observant Jew. I have a problem with any dogma except for the Shema which states that G od is a total unity. Beyond that, I do not believe that you must believe in all the principals or you are not a “good Jew.” You may not be a “good Jew” in the eyes of the Orthodox, but accepting that premise means you have ascribed to the Orthodox the power to tell you what Judaism is and how it is to be practiced.
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March 1, 2009
Discipline, self-control, being satisfied with your lot, and not wanting to control everything outside of your self were the themes Mendy spoke of this Sabbath. He began talking about the Ark of the Covenant and the two cherubim that face one another on the lid. We were informed that these angelic depictions of a boy child and a girl child who were the symbolic personifications of the knowledge of what God wanted of us; namely, to recognize our limitations and that it was God who was in control. I don’t recall the connection between the faces and G od’s being in control because it came very early in the talk.
But he then referred us to the story of Adam and Eve and the expulsion. God also places a cherubim and a flaming sword so the disobedient couple could not reenter, but this cherubim, unlike the ones on the Ark’s lid is a reminder that an angel can also be a destroyer. The interesting item here is why Adam and Eve were expelled, and it was not the eating of the fruit that caused G od’s wrath- it was the fact that Adam and Eve had everything that was, and they still wanted more. They wanted the one thing they were told they could not have. They were undisciplined and not satisfied. They had no self-control. It would seem that self-discipline and self-control are serious issues that G od has with us.
The comparison and connection was made with the Megilah of Esther where Hayman, the villain of the story, speaks about his wealth, and power, his property, his friends, the honor he has, and yet he says it is all meaningless because Mordichai, the Jew, will not bow down to him. Like Adam and Eve, Hayman has it all and is still not content. So he sets his eyes on that which is not his, and in effect, like Adam and Eve, is tossed out of his own Eden.
Mendy’s talk got me thinking about the tenth commandment of the Ten Commandments. That commandment says: “You shall not covet what your neighbor has.” This commandment seems to me to be more important than many would think, and very much in keeping with the concept of self-discipline and self-control. Coveting is not just wanting something; its wanting that specific thing that your neighbor or someone else owns. If you want a house just like your neighbors, you can build one just like it if you have the means. But you can’t have his because that is taken. So coveting your neighbors belongings can lead to stealing, and coveting his wife can lead to adultery, and both can lead to murdering your neighbor for his house or wife and bearing false witness to protect yourself from the law.
But none of this means anything at all unless you buy int the first statement of the ten that says “I am the Lord your G od who brought you out of the land of Egypt. In this statement, G od is re-introducing Himself to the people as a reminder to the people that He is the authority behind moral law He is giving. If G od is not the authority, then these ten and all the others are just good ideas written by a very good man named Moses and do not have to be universally accepted or acted upon by humanity. Without G od as the authority behind moral law, morality can change from nation to nation, group to group, and person to person. Accepting G od as the authority behind the law gives people stability. G od has serious expectations for us, and they are all to keep society stable and safe. To keep society stable and safe, people have to exhibit self-control and keep their appetites in check. We develop self-control by being asked to observe the laws of kashruth, the laws of family purity, and lots of others . We cannot eat whatever we want to eat, and we cannot act any way we wish to act. Metaphorically, Adam and Eve did not see the value of what they had, appreciate what they had, lost control, and the perfect society they had in their grasps, was lost to them and their descendants. They wanted it all and got nothing for their lack of control. Hayman wanted it all and was hanged for his selfishness.
All of this has to do with rejoicing in your own portion as the Ethics of the Fathers advise us to do until we can have something better if we want something better and the wherewithal to have something better. There are things we cannot have, and perhaps there are thing we shouldn’t have. Accepting the limitations a religious life imposes upon us, helps us develop self-control and helps us to refrain from sinful behavior. Self-control is also one of G od’s primary expectations of us.
March 8, 2009
Purim is upon us, and Mendy took the opportunity to discuss it at length. He began talking about Amalek, the ancient group of people who attacked Israel rear flank where the weakest people were; the women, children, aged, and infirm. The Amalekites were not in danger of losing their land; they attacked out of hatred. For this, they were condemned to be eradicated and blotted out of existence. Sadly, King Saul did not kill the Amalekite king when he was told to do so, and Saul’s compassion gave the king time to procreate. This king’s descendants are among us, and Amalek rears his head in every generation. In the story of Purim, Haman is the descendant of Amalek and his hatred prompts him to try to destroy the Jewish people. He thought he could do this because they were spread over the Persian Empire and disunified. But they were not, fought back, and survived.
And so we come to the true meaning of Purim. In short, Purim commemorates the ability of a people to unify themselves in times of stress and danger to ward off outside forces seeking to destroy them. America can use such a holiday right now because we need to come together as a unified nation to combat world wide terrorism and the pervasive fear that the economy is inflicting on us.
Mendy, I wrote this many years ago for “The Berman Family Haggadah.” It is included after my tribute to martyrs the Holocaust and the singing of Ani Maamin. It fits in with your comments on Purim, because it speaks to our ability to survive. Sadly, not all survive when Amalek comes after us. One might say that G od took us out of Egypt, but many died there. One might say that G od took us out of Europe to Israel, but also, many died. We are promised that “a remnant” shall remain. So the remnant remains, and if we were left alone, we would be a numerous on the earth as the Chinese are today.
You cannot destroy us! G od will not let it happen.
Egypt could not destroy us.Babylon could not destroy us.Assyria could not destroy us.
The Syrian-Greeks could not destroy us.
The Romans could not destroy us
.The Church Fathers could not destroy us.
The Moslem edicts could not destroy us.
The Medieval Papal Bulls, Libels, and Crusades could not destroy us.
The Inquisition could not destroy us.The Reformation could not destroy us.
The Tsarist mandates could not destroy us.
The German Nazis could not destroy us.
The Russian Communists could not destroy us.
The Arab nations and the PLO will not destroy us.
Neither the extreme Right or the extreme Left will destroy us.
The United Nations will not destroy us.
We will not be destroyed because we are a “minority with One.
” Never Again!
Today it is said, “It is not for the Jewish People to ask, “Why?”It is for the nations of the world to ask, “How could we have done to these people what we have done?”
It is an interesting idea that Purim celebrates the need for unity. If the holidays of Judaism were to be compared with the holidays of other faiths, one would readily see that unlike other religions that celebrate the events in the lives of their deity or saints, Judaism celebrates human concepts. For example, while Chanukah might celebrate a miracle of oil, it commemorates the concept of religious freedom and the right of people to worship G od as they choose. Miracle or not, that’s an idea worth fighting for and commemorating. Passover celebrates our going out of Egypt, but the underlying concept of the celebration is the right of people to be free. Again, a concept worth celebrating. Undergirding the High Holidays is Rosh Hahshonah’s celebration of creation and of mankind, as well Yom Kippur’s message that humanity has the ability to perfect itself. They are holidays of hope with concepts worthy of commemoration. Simchat Torah celebrates the idea that moral law exists to protect society and that we are to rejoice that we are so protected.. Shavuot celebrates the giving of the Torah and the establishing of God as the authority behind morality; that morality is not situational. It also celebrates individuality. . Tu Bishvat celebrates the importance of treating our earth with respect. Also, a concept and realization celebrated centuries before the rest of the world realized the effect humans have on the environment.
I have thought a great deal about Judaism, about G od and His relationship to the world and our people. The G od of my theology is not the G od of your theology. The eternal conflict is wanting a deity to resolve the horror of the world, yet knowing that if G od were to intervene, such an intervention would negate our concept of free will. Without free will, we are less than human. Our G od, who seems to be a self limiting G od in that He frequently chooses “to hide His face” from us and limit His involvement in this world, has left us to our own devices for imposing order on the chaos. We are not doing a very good job of it.
So the mantra of “Pray as if everything depends on G od, and act as if everything depends on you,” must continue. The one concept that keeps me coming back to your concept of G od is the realization that without the traditional concept of G od as the aware and involved authority behind moral law, the moral laws of the Torah and the ensuing values are just good ideas offered as guidelines to a recalcitrant group of people by a brilliant legal minded humanist named Moses. I would find it difficult living in a world were morality floats from person to person, group to group, and government to government. For survival’s sake, there has to be something higher than the latter three.
March 28, 2009
I think one has to figure out the relationships among certain concepts in Judaism to others before you can understand the full meaning of the message. This is a daunting task, especially for someone like me who has not had a formal education regarding the concepts in question. I think this is one of the reasons why I love this faith and the intellectual challenges it offers.
The portion of the Torah read was on Temple sacrifice, and Mendy made it clear that this teaching was the one taught first to little children. It did not make sense, but it became fully clear of his intent in sharing this information when I read the Haftorah of Jeremiah. Sadly, Jeremiah was the prophet who assumed the responsibility of foretelling the Jews that if they do not change their evil ways, disaster would follow. What with idol worship, child sacrifice to other gods, and evil broadcast though out the land, this stiff necked people were doomed. Yet they continued to erroneously believe that all would be forgiven if they sacrificed appropriately in the Temple. They actually believed that it was the sacrifice itself that G od wanted and not integrity and nobility of character. Perhaps the expectation that G od’s primary demand is that we behave well towards one another and follow the laws were too abstract a concept for them to understand. I think it still is.
Children need to learn that it is not the smell of the sacrifice, not the physical thing being offered in which G od delights, but the actual act of doing as He asks. I think it was G od’s expectation that we carryover of the doing into our daily lives. So the Temple is destroyed, the sacrifices end, and prayer is substituted because like the smoke of the offering, words fly up to heaven and disappears. It’s all very symbolic. Now, words become the physical substitute for the animal. Sacrifice itself is a substitute ritual. In effect, the supplicant comes to the alter and says: “Here G od, take this bull or lamb or this oil and flour instead of me for the sin that I have committed.” Substitution of an offering instead of the self is a very ancient, magical ritual, and the supplicant sees the smoke rise, dissipate, and gives him the sense that the offering is accepted and the sin is forgiven. The core concept of Christianity is based on this substitution concept of replacement sacrifice.
So we pray instead of offering sacrifice, and one question Mendy raised was why three times a day? My response was that the patriarchs prayed and I was correct. I actually guessed what was going on in Mendy’s head. I think he gave an additional answer, but I was so pleased with myself for my response and his lack of dismissal that I don’t recall his other reason. But if I am to look back at Jeremiah’s audience, and combine this with G od’s statement in Genesis that “Man is evil from his youth,” you get a sense that the learned ancients thought that by devoting three portions of the day to prayer, Jews would be staying out of trouble for that amount of time.
We are also being reminded three times a day of what G od expects of us. Reminders are all over the place. Each time we walk through a door, we are reminded. Each time we decide what to eat and what not to eat, we are reminded. Each time we make love, we are reminded. The Rabbis knew just how much of a stiff necked people we were and are, and being reminded of how to behave had to be built into the process of daily living because without it, we would quickly revert to our natural inclinations. Reminders keep us balanced and being balanced is what living from day to day is all about.
I think the core idea here is that if G od is in your head a minimum of three times a day, each time you sustain your life by eating, each time you go through a door, you won’t be as bad as you probably could or would be. The yetzer tov in man is very strong and all these reminders are there to keep it in check. As part of the talk, Mendy said that there are three type of laws: those we would come to just by living, those that we are given and can accept because they are logical, and those we follow even though we have no idea as to why we are asked to do them. It would seem that the latter laws are those requiring the greatest devotion. And we are back to the initial idea that children are taught early on about sacrifice because it teaches children that G od delights in obeying and in doing just because He asks us to do this. This is the interpretation of the “sweet aroma that is pleasing to the L ord.” It is our actions, not the smoke that is “sweet.” This is an interesting interpretation, but I think we can find reasons for commandments of the third type by thinking about them. For example, not mixing meat and milk is given without an explanation. It may have been given for a very practical reason. People had wooden bowls then. They were porous and meat served in a bowl that also had had milk in it might take on a sour taste. Food was not abundant, and therefore risk of spoilage had to be minimized. But I like something more spiritual. Milk is produced by the mother to give sustenance and life. For meat to exist, something had to die and be cut up. That which is symbolic of life and that which is symbolic of death may not be mixed together. It’s part of the over all picture of keeping separate things that should be kept separate. The same thing holds with procreation. The act itself is intended to create life. The menses is a physical phenomenon where something that could have become life is sloughed off. It was potential life and it died. The act of love making at such a time of the month is mixing two things that should not be mixed, namely the act to create life and a kind of death. And so we have the prohibition of intercourse during the woman’s menses. And of course, all of this stems from the commandment: “Be holy, for I am holy.” This actually says, “Be separate for I am separate. Separate from what? Separate from our animal natures. We are to rise above them. This is what makes us human, and we must constantly be reminded of this because “man is evil from his youth.” Lots of fascinating concepts in Judaism, and so many are related. But one must look.
P.S. A joyous Passover to you and your family. May your new home be blessed.
April 5. 2009
Sometimes, the most profound learning comes from unintended comments in responses to serendipitous questions from the congregation. The question dealt with the search for chomatez, and in answering it, Mendy spoke of the similarities and differences between chomatez and matzah. Both are made from flour and water. The difference in the two is the hot air in one and the lack of it in the other. The correlation is interesting. We say a person is full of “hot air” when they are stretching the facts often to enhance themselves. The hot air is the ego speaking. The opposite would be humility. Thus, the chometz represents the ego and the matzah represents humility. We search for the chometz to expel it from our lives, at least for a week. Symbolically, we are to free ourselves from our egos which enslave us to any number of spirit crushing conditions.
Passover is the season of freedom, and we are asked to free ourselves from chomatz in our lives, the dark places, our personal places of enslavement, our personal Egypts. To do this, we are to let our egos go, and focus on our humility for the sake of peace and freedom. It is a good image to carry into our post-Passover lives. All this can be related to the portion of Numbers read this week which spoke about the high priest given the task of changing out of his high priest garments that he had to wear to gather the ashes of the evenings sacrifice, and changing into other garments, working garments, so he could carry those ashes to a place where he might dispose of them. Why should the high priest be required to do such a menial task? Mendy made it clear that the leaders must recognize that in order to lead, they must be seen by the people doing things normal people would do. He was not to allow his ego to keep him from working for the people and being seen by the people because of his exalted office. He was required to do this humble task, so he would keep connected to the people, and daily r23">
When one wraps himself in a prayer shawl, stands on a bimah and professes to be a leader of the community and a representative of G od, that person does not have the option of behaving despicably. Yes, there are people who will say, “They are only, men,” and to them I say, “Bullshit!” When you take on the mantle of community and religion, you had better be more than “just a man,” because you have serious obligations to that community and to G od. You don’t embarrass either. Most people think of the second commandment as not calling upon G od or using His name for frivolous reasons or crude curses. But I think the second commandment really means we must not give G od a bad name. Rabbis who claim the mantle of speaking for G od on earth and behave despicably, give G od a bad name. Bad behavior while representing G od is what breaks that commandment! Rabbis do not have the option of not behaving well. I hope whatever Mendy ultimately says if these rabbinic types are in fact guilty, will not be something that will excuse them because of some esoteric Talmudic thought machination based on some equally obscure midrash that convolutes integrity and morality to save face.
That’s what Mendy didn’t talk about. But he did talk about the holiday of Tish b’Av which commemorates the destruction of both Temples in Jerusalem, and a variety of other nasty things that befell the Jewish people in their trek through the centuries. The question raised was why these tragedies befell us, and the answer he gave took us to the Talmud and the idea that mindless hatred on the part of the people for each other so disgusted G od, that he removed His protection on these two occasions. He also related a story in the Talmud, probably apocryphal, about a wealthy, respected, and pious man who held a banquet and mistakenly forgot to invite a friend. He then sent his servant to hand deliver an invitation, and the servant thought the address a mistake and delivered the invitation to the man’s enemy. The enemy is delighted that there is the possibility of reconciliation and goes to the banquet where the host orders him out. This man pleads with the host, offering to pay for the entire banquet if the host will relent and not embarrass him by sending him away. But the host’s heart is hard, continues the demand, and the dis-invited man flies into a rage threatening to destroy the host and all those who watched his shame. As the story goes, the man takes his revenge by going to Caesar and telling him that the Jews are going to rebel, and he will know when they refuse to allow a sacrifice to be brought to honor Caesar. The man then injures the offering knowing it will be refused, and Caesar has proof of the forthcoming rebellion and ultimately destroys Jerusalem and the Temple. This is a tale of extremes: extreme resolution and extreme hatred.
Mendy then asked who was most guilty. Personally, I think all participants, active and passive, were to blame, but if I had to do a forced choice, I’d have to say that everything could have been avoided if the host had acted on what he had been taught by his faith. These follow:• “Let every man’s honor be as dear to you as your own.”• “That which is hateful to you do not do to another.” • “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” • “The reasonable man is noble, he glories in the pardoning of injury.” • “Master of the World, I pardon every transgression and every wrong done to my person, to my property, to my honor, or to all that I have. Let no one be punished on my account.” • “If you ask pardon for your sins do you also forgive those who have trespassed against you? For remission is granted for remission.” Following the wisdom of these statements from our literature, one can avoid the pitfall of implacable hatred for one another, and hopefully bring about the Third Temple in our time.. To do this, Mendy urged us to look to a kind love that must move beyond reality to a higher actuality.
Mendy is improving. Since he stopped telling people why they were wrong right after their response to his questions, he is starting to get more people responding. They are feeling more comfortable with their thoughts and not quite as worried that they will not be able to guess what goes on in Mendy’s head. Even I have become a participant. I hope these weekly missives to him where I have related my feeling on the matter, had some effect.
August 2, 2009
Mendy did take the opportunity to speak about the religious people who were caught up in the sale of internal organs and money laundering. He said that while their behavior was despicable, there were things to consider about the legality or illegality of organ transplants. He said that the rabbis are not in agreement on the subject, but there are certain things about Judaism that are clear and intertwined that address the issue.
The following are some of the important parameters to be considered but all in all, there is a lot up in the air about this matter .• No one may sacrifice his or her life for another. Sidney Carton was not acting Jewishly despite his nobility. (see the last pages of A Tale of Two Cities by Dickens) • We are forbidden to take payment for a mitzvah. That said, we are permitted to be compensated for our suffering, medical expenses, and potential physical problems down the road, so that while we may not take payment for the organ itself if we choose to donate one, we can be compensated for the tangential things that might result. • The Torah demands that we observe the law of the land in which we live, and if that law forbids selling a body part outside the established protocol, we must adhere to that law. Civil law take precedence over religious law except in the case when the civil law is immoral (The Dred/Scott Decision: Giving up an escaped slave to his master)• To save a life is to have saved an entire world is a foundational statement in Judaism.• The human body is viewed as sacred and not to be desecrated (cut apart or into) before or after death unless to save the life of the person. • Human beings have the capacity of doing good and bad almost simultaneously. We often lose focus of what our values should be in favor of what our eyes desire. • We cannot charge more than 20% over the cost of an item that sustains life such as food we produce, but we can charge anything the traffic will bare for any item someone desires from us. The person who gave the kidney received $10,000 dollars for it. The go-between sold it to the recipient for $150,000 because the traffic was willing to pay.
Periodically, The Forward writes extensive stories about Jews who rip off the government, abuse workers, steal from companies, etc., etc., etc. Each story saddens me because we are each a reflection of the other, and what one Jew does, good or bad, reflects on us all. I do not understand why religious Jews have the mind set that they have the right to break the law. Perhaps in Europe when they knew the government was evil and brutal, cheating the tax collector was a way of getting something back. But that’s not the way it is here, and why the mind set remains is a mystery to me. We are taught that we are to obey the laws of the land in which we live as long as they are moral laws. Then, if we disagree with them, there is a process to go through including civil disobedience to make the point. But theft, abuse of any kind, organ trafficking are not options.
I have experienced the contempt that some black hats have for any society and any group for that matter that is not theirs, and I wonder if this contempt gives them permission to break the law? Do they feel their superiority enables them to behave with impunity because they feel entitled. Do they feel that their adherence to “the truth” exempts them from being just to those who are not part of them? Are there instances in the Talmud were such behavior is condoned or encouraged, or have they totally misinterpreted what they read and are they missing the entire point of Judaism? You tell me.
August 9, 2009
Mendy began his talk by asking how one maintains a good relationship with one’s spouse, and my stage whisper response was “keep your mouth shut.” The guys around me laughed. In some ways, Mendy would have agreed because he went on to enumerate all the rules and regulations that spouses have that keep them happy. He also said that if it were only the rules and regulations being met, they still wouldn’t be happy unless the underlying relationship was good. In my first novel, Consider My Servant, Reuven, the protagonist’s father tells him before his son’s wedding that “It is easier to get forgiveness from G od than it is from your wife.” The connection between Mendy’s drush and the parsha was expectations and responsibility. Still in Deuteronomy, and Moses is telling the people what God expects of them in order to inherit and maintain the good land into which they were going. Moses tells them that not only do they have to do all the commandments, they have to do them with all their heart, all their souls, and with all their might. But as human beings, that is not an easy task. For Moses, it may have been easy. Moses had a very special relationship with God so no expectation was a burden. Perhaps for Moses, this was easy, but for the rest of us, it is hard. Still, if the relationship with G od is a true and honest one, these obligations are met with joy. And that is the test of any union. Despite the expectations, if the relationship is good, no request is too great a burden. Moses ask the people not only to follow all the commandments, but to evaluate their relationship to G od as well. Their attitude towards the performance of the mitzvot, would be an indication of their relationship.
In our relationship with G od, Mendy spoke of “fear,” and related two different concepts.The first concept of fear is that it means “awe.” To be in awe of God as the ruler and creator of all things in existence is an appropriate response. The second is actual fear: to be afraid of G od, because G od has specific expectations of you and has a big stick that according to tradition, He is not afraid to use. You can have a relationship with a G od who tells you that He cares about the widow and orphan; one who loves the proselyte because that person chose to be part of the people and chose to adhere to Torah law. One does not easily have a relationship with the God who created the universe. Too awesome to comprehend. So the G od with whom we are to relate is a G od whose values extend to the poorer, lonely, and destitute of society. In responding positively to such people, we are letting G od know that we care about what He values and will act on them freely. Yet it is the En Sof concept of G od that I relate to better because I have so much difficulty believing in and finding a personal deity who seems to care about what actually goes on in this world. Yet each week I reach out to this G od who loves the orphan, widow, etc., and ask Him to heal my former student, a wonderful young man not yet twenty who has a virulent cancer and is getting chemo and radiation therapy. Tradition asks me to believe in a G od who ordains a person’s life. To accept this, I would have to believe that the same G od who gave the cancer be prevailed upon to remove it. If he responds, have my prayers been answered? So I privately summon the healing energy of the universe that comes with En Sof, while asking for mish’ beraches to Hashem. Pascal’s wager comes to mind. Am I hedging my bets and being honest?
August 20, 2009
“If you want to be treated like a king, treat your wife like a queen, but do it like the king was told to do it in the rabbinic story.” Mendy started his drush with these quoted lines from his mother-in-law’s advice the fist week of marriage to her daughter. As the story goes, Solomon’s son goes first to wise men for advice on how to respond to the request of the people for respite from taxes. He then he goes to his friends who tell him that he is to show them who is boss. Following the friends advice, kingdom ultimately breaks in to and is overrun by foreign powers. The advice the wise men gave him was “to be kind initially, gain the loyalty of people and then do as you wish. They will follow.” To me, wise men or not, the advice is duplicitous. Where is the idealism? The altruism?– that being kind will get you the loyalty of the people without having an ulterior motive. At least the friends were up front if not political. But all advisers were acting on their need to sustain their influence and power. Was Mendy’s mother-in-law suggesting duplicity by suggesting that he act as the wise men instructed Jeroboam to act?
August 30, 2009
Mendy told a joke about dying, going to heaven and finding two different lines. The sign above one entrance reads: “For men whose wives told them what to do.” The sign above the other read: “For those who did as they wished.” The line for the first door had hundreds of men waiting, but the other line had one little old man. The last man to arrive that day, looked at the two lines and decided to get on the longer line, but since there was time, he went over to the little old man and said, “What did you do to be able to stand on this line?” to which the old man replied, “I don’t know, my wife told me to stand here.” This was prelude to a happy occasion in the tradition where a young man, a week before he is to be married, is called up to the Torah. The ritual is called an “uf fuf.” It is a special honor that involves special prayers of celebration, dancing around the Torah, and tossing candies at the bridegroom. So part of the drush was on relationships between a man and his wife and how it is basically up to the man to make the marriage work. Mendy said that the Torah portion to be read this week dealt with divorce so it was not easy to make a happy connection. But Mendy, being Mendy, rescued the situation and spoke of of three great rabbis, Shammi, Akiva, and Hillel and comments they made about divorce and when it is permissible. There were other the interpretations made by other great rabbinic sages such as Maimonides, and Schnerson. The comments of the three former rabbis really needed to be interpreted because the comments on what behaviors might support a divorce were totally alien to any comments one could make today. To make a long story a little shorter, it boiled down to this. If a man finds fault with his wife’s looks, or cooking, it is that he is not looking beyond the superficial to the inner person he married and he has to refocus on what is truly important in their relationship: love, friendship, companionship, trust, etc. In Judaism, it seems that the onus for making a marriage work is on the man. It seems the rabbis did not consider the possibility that at the core of some women there might just be a mean spirit.
Part of the drush had to do with the law in Deuteronomy that states that if you find a piece of clothing that is identifiable, it must be returned. Likewise if you find a donkey, a sheep, or an ox, these must be returned or cared for until the owner comes to reclaim them. If you find five dollars on the street, it may be kept because no one can tell whose it is, but if the five dollars is in a wallet and the name of the owner is there, the money and the wallet must be returned. So says the Talmud. But Mendy went further in explaining this Torah portion and related the Chabad teaching. The three different animals and the garment are to be viewed as types of people. The ox, a strong animal who will work and provide wool, will not bother you as long as you treat it well, but anger it and its rage is dangerous. The donkey is stubborn and little can be done to alter that person’s character. The sheep is totally agreeable with everyone, has no opinion, and stands for nothing. The sheep wants to be left alone. I’m not recalling the person symbolic of the garment, but that person must be important to be included in this group. Mendy seemed to rail mostly against the sheep. People who yawn in the face of beauty, people who have neither opinion nor passion seem to him most damaged.
September 5, 2009
Parsha Ki Tavo
Mendy began by telling the story of a young boy born three hundred or so years ago whose mother died in childbirth and whose father died when the boy was quite young. The boy was raised by the community, and the community soon found that he was an exceptional child with an exceptional mind. He grew in scholarship and in character, and became a melamed, or teacher. When he was old enough to travel, he began to do so in the hope of bringing the knowledge of Yiddishkite to other Jews in other towns.. In his travels, he discovered outlying communities of Jews who knew little about their faith, but were passionate and interested to learn more. When he returned to his own town, a town of pious people who were focused on their faith, he fell into conflict with them because they believed you focus on and bolster your base and not worry about the fringes. The young man disagreed, and made his life’s work of bringing tangential Jews back into Judaism. This man became known as the Bal Shem Tov, the master of the good name, and founded the Hassidic movement. This story was connected to one Mendy told of a woman who called the office and asked him if the offer to attend the high holiday services without a ticket was a true offer. She related the story of how she had been a member of a synagogue and, because of finances, could not afford the ticket. She said that her own shul would not extend her the courtesy of giving her and her husband tickets. (I personally find that hard to believe, because it is my experience that any synagogue will work with any member in financial difficulty.) But Mendy assured her that the offer was real, and challenged regular members of the congregation to welcome strangers who will be present at the High Holidays, and even offer them their seats. Mendy is asking us to imitate the Bal Shem Tov, and make Jewish people feel welcome. That small effort of extending one’s self may be just that small nudge to give that person who may have fallen away from Judaism to feel welcome enough to return. Chabad,,unlike other Orthodox traditions that may look down on anyone not part of their group, warmly and non-judgmentally, accepts people where they are in their Judaism. Such is the spirit of the Bal Shem Tov. I can certainly appreciate this attitude. In the early 70's when I moved to Willingboro, I decided to become part of the Jewish community there. I was not particularly observant at that time, but felt the need to belong. That decision to take the step to belong was made on Rosh Hashonah. So I, my wife and daughters got dressed up and went over to Beth Torah, the local Conservative synagogue where we were greeted at the door by a very tall man whose name need not be revealed. He would not let us in because we did not have a ticket. I was thoroughly embarrassed, feeling like a beggar, and could have walked away angry, confirmed in the belief that this how Jews treated Jews. But I said that I intended to join the synagogue, and then said, “Are you really going to keep a Jewish family out of shul on Rosh Hashonah?” I stared him down and may have even raised my voice. He stepped aside. We joined and I became an active member, creating a teenage youth group and acting as an alternative cantor for Friday evening services. To tell the truth, I never developed a friendship with that tall man or even liked him. Also, I never forgot the feelings generated by that policy of exclusion even though I understood the reasoning for the policy. Since that time, whenever I see a person who appears to be alone in shul, I walk over and welcome them. It’s the Jewish thing to do. We must all see one another as part of the same mishbuchah.
September 14, 2009
Parsha Nitzavim-Vayeilech
Mendy began his talk this Saturday before the high holidays by posing a question to the congregation. It was this: On Rosh Hashonah, when he is facing a packed shul consisting of the regulars and the regulars who come twice a year, to whom does he address his comments and what does he say? My suggestion was that he stay true to the mission of Chabad and make the case to those who rarely attend services to come back into the fold. Others felt that since those who attend twice a year live lives that are patterned on non attendance, the focus should be on those who support and nourish the synagogue on a regular basis. It’s a complex issue. People who do not attend regularly but do attend on the High Holidays probably have very specific reasons for their discount of prayer and support. None of them are atheist, because if they were, they would not be there at all. Now many of these people might say that they don’t believe in G od, but that might be because they don’t accept the G od they were taught about as children, and walked away because they were never given an alternative concept of G od to consider. The Torah and Rabbinic concept of G od is not always an easy G od to embrace.
September15, 2009
My best thinking seems to be just when I’m getting up in the morning, and this morning I got up thinking of your request for input regarding those to whom you might direct your comments on the holidays. A religious interpretation to explain why there are some people who attend on the holidays only, might be related to their soul’s longing to hear the sound of the shofar and the words of the Torah. A less mystic interpretation might hover around the idea that there sits in all Jews who are not officially committed to a synagogue but tangentially associated with the Jewish people, a deep seated feeling for the need of community. Certainly, I cannot think of a secular reason to attend twice a year. So here is my suggestion for addressing those people, and for addressing the regulars. My suggestion to you this past Shabbat was that you follow the mission of Chabad in your comments. By this I mean that you speak to the joy of Judaism and the acceptance of all Jews no matter what their beliefs are because for me, that’s what Chabad and you are all about. Go with your strength. Since the holidays focus on our sins, I am offering an alternative thoughts you might consider in addition to the traditional liturgy. It will speak to the joy of being a Jew and the reasons why this faith has persisted despite centuries of hostilities. You can name it.
For the joy of being part of a religion that honors life and human dignity.
For the joy of being part of a religion that gave the world its vision of peace and harmony.
For the joy of being part of a religion that insist that all are equal before the law.
.For the joy of being part of a religion that insists on everyone being educated.
For the joy of being part of a religion that sees the family as the foundation of a stable society.
For the joy of being part of a religion that requires us to be socially responsible.
For living all these joys, inscribe us in the book of life and grant us atonement.
For the joy of being part of a religion that fills us with moral passion and asks us to hate evil.
For the joy of being part of a religion whose objective is to mend the world.
For the joy of being part of a religion that invites us to be preoccupied with our actions.
For the joy of being part of a religion that expects us to critique ourselves in order to become better.
For the joy of being part of a religion that asks us to model correct behavior for others.
For the joy of being part of a religion that structures our time through celebrations and behaviors.
For living all these joys, inscribe us in the book of life and grant us atonement.
For the joy of being part of a religions that gave the world the concept of holiness.
For the joy of being part of a religion that asks us to be a light unto the nations
.For the joy of being part of a religion that invites us to struggle with our G od.
For the joy of being part of a religion that insists that I be grateful.
For the joy of being part of a religion that inculcates self control.
For the joy of being part of a religion that gives me a community and a distinctiveness.
For living all these joys, inscribe us in the book of life and grant us atonement.
For the joy of being part of a religion that provides me with a pathway to the transcendent.
For the joy of being part of a religion that insists that I use my intellect.
For the joy of being part of a religion that insists that I focus on this world and not on the next.
For the joy of being part of a religion that provides me with sacred time each week where I can refocus, replenish my resources, and rejoice in living.
For the joy of being part of a religion that inculcates feelings of justifiable pride in our people’s accomplishments.
For being part of a religion that teaches that correct behavior, not correct faith is what G od desires. of us.
For living all these joys, inscribe us in the book of life and grant us atonement.
Mendy, this was a wonderful exercise for me in reacquainting myself with why I love being Jewish and what Judaism does for me. Too many people see the practice of religion as a burden, but beyond the practice lie the truths and benefits of it. A joyous holiday to you and your family.
Somewhere along the way, Mendy spoke about women who wept. Hagar who wept because she felt all was lost and gave up. No faith. Sarah who wept for joy in the hope that she would become a mother, and Rachel who wept because she would not give up on her children.
October 3, 2009
Sukkot
Mendy spoke of the three holidays that we celebrate this season: Rosh Hashonah, Yom Kippur, and Sukkot. He said that the core concept of Rosh Hashonah is to recognize, explore, and come to an acceptance of your relationship with G od. On this day of celebrating the creation of humanity and of the world, we are to recognize our place in the universe and the expectations G od has for us.
Yom Kippur is a sacred day where we look within and self-assess our relationship or lack thereof with G od, and decide on how we can make it better through righteous behavior, prayer, and charity. Yom Kippur teaches that the human being has the power to transform himself or herself into the person they dream they can be. The idea that we have this power is itself empowering. Also, within this holy day is the idea that we come to G od as both individuals and as a collective people. We recite the same list of offenses, and we utter the same prayers in unison. But there is also the diversity of the individual utterances that might, to an outside observer, seem out of tune, off key, and chaotic, but this is merely the reflection of individuals bringing their own melodies and voices to what is in reality a great unity. It is a solemn day
Sukkot is a holiday that both recognizes and reinforces the unity of the people and also reminds us of our individual uniqueness. In the sukkah we eat and pray and everyone around the world does this in much the same way. In this we are all one. But when we take up the luluv and the ethrog, and wave them to heaven and earth and in the four directions, we are reminded that the palm, the myrtle, the willow and the fruit species are symbolic of the different types of people who come into our sukkah and into sukkah’s around the world. We are in relationships with these types as we are in a relationship with G od. How we behave in these relationships will dictate the direction and quality of our lives. Judaism is a religion that celebrates life affirming concepts, and in this, it is rather unique.
October 11, 2009
Simchat Torah
Mendy spoke of Simchat Torah as a holiday with no particular symbols, not particular foods, and particular prescribe rituals. It is not one of the holy days mentioned in the Torah, and yet it is an integral part of the holiday season. Simply put, it is the Jew’s expression of appreciation for the gift of moral law which in reality is what makes us truly human and enables civilization to flourish. With out a doubt, the uniqueness of the Ten Commandments and the laws that flow from them are the greatest gift the Jewish People have given to the world, and the foundation stone of both western and mid-eastern civilizations.
Beginning with Slichot were we put ourselves in the mind set of assessing our relationship with G od and beginning our focus on how we want that relationship to improve or develop. High Holidays which are sobering, and deal with renewal of self and renewal of that relationship, give us hope that we can transform ourselves into the people we believe we can be with G od’s help. Simchat Torah is about rejoicing in the moral law that we were given to assist us in becoming the people we wish we wish to become. In an important way, it reflects our appreciation for the relationship with G od that moral law bestows upon us.
October 24, 2009
Parsha Noach
Mendy’s initial question to the congregation was, “Why do we know so much about Noah’s life when we know so little about Abraham’s?” He went through midrashic stories, the stories our ancestors wrote that fill in the spaces between the lines of the Torah, and reviewed what has been imagined about Abraham’s early life. After many responses to the question and wonderful extended tangents initiate by Shaul who sits in front of the bimah, the answer that was given was that Abraham’s life prior to leaving Mesopotamia for Canaan, was of little matter, because he was now a totally new individual and everything prior to his leaving was of no consequence. At this moment in the narrative, I believe the Torah is also teaching that at any moment any person can hear the call to righteous behavior and faith, and move towards creating a better life away from the place that keeps him anchored in old behaviors. It is difficult beginning anew in a place that won’t let you move forward. I didn’t share this perception. Mendy also spoke about the Torah, not as a story book, but more of a guide book on how to have a meaning relationship with G od. He focused us on the laws and how people respond to them.
Noah was a righteous man in his generation, and responded to G od’s order that he build an ark and await the flood. Afterward, the Noahchid Laws, all seven of them, were formulated for the pagan world so as to keep the society they would build from collapsing. I guess G od anticipated that the descendants of Noah would become corrupt and need such laws just to address basic minimums needed for survival. But the six hundred and thirteen laws given in the Torah to the Jewish People are given as a vehicle for Jews to find a relationship with G od. They are there for spiritual elevation as well as the practical needs for societies survival.
Mendy spoke of three types of laws: those whose existence are logical and reasonable such as “don’t murder” or “don’t steal”; those laws that are commanded because doing them will assist you in becoming a better person such as the laws of kashruth that prohibit certain foods while teaching you self-control, and those laws that you address for the sole reason that G od tells you to do so. I think the laws pertaining to the red heifer fall into this category.
To obey the laws because they are reasonable and will lead to a practical outcome places you in the Noah camp, because Noah did what he did to survive. I’m not clear on that point nor do I understand why such obedience should be viewed on a lesser level. To act on laws and commandments dictated by G od that have no grounding in logic or practicality, places you in the camp of Abraham, a man of unquestioning faith who did exactly what G od asked to be done without question. Without hesitation, he agreed to murder his son, and we are taught that it is Abraham’s unquestioning relationship with G od that we are to emulate. Personally, if I heard a voice that told me to take one of my children and sacrifice him or her, I’d question the righteousness of such a request and of the deity asking me to do such a thing. My response would be to hold my child even closer than before, and “let the chips fall were they may” regarding the promises made to me by this deity in the past. If G od always knows the heart of a person as well as the outcome, why put the man through that horror for proof of a devotion that had been ascertained years before when at age seventy-five, he picked himself up, left his home, and ventured into the unknown with his wife and retinue? The Akidah was a defining moment in the life of Abraham and for society, for the event told the world that child sacrifice was no longer an option as a statement of religious devotion, and that symbolic representation would be acceptable. This latter innovation is a major leap forward and a major conceptual contribution of the Jews to Western Civilization. The substitution of the ram for Isaac introduced to the world symbols as alternatives to infanticide and human sacrifice. The entire sacrificial system where by substitutions could be made was introduced. In this, the story is of great power and significance, but in my mind, neither G od nor Abraham come off well. I guess I would be considered in the Noah camp in this instance because I would not blindly follow such an order. And I don’t think that is a bad thing.
November 14, 2009
Parsha Chayei Sarah
Initially, Mendy’s voice was soft and measured, not the high pitched, rapid fire explosion I’ve come to expect. It seems that this week is the anniversary of the murders of the two Chabad leaders from Mumbai, India who were brutally gunned down along with three others by Muslim terrorists solely because they were Jews. So Mendy spoke about tragedy and how we are to respond to tragedy. In doing so, he reminded us again that the Rebbe, when confronted by another tragedy, told those in mourning that the way to respond was to ”build something.” It is only in building something that we can move forward. This is wise council, and the opportunities to build are all around us. I see this as a link into Tikkun Olam because when tragedy strikes and the world reveals how broken it really is, one can respond by repairing, building if you will, something new and better. One way one might address tragedy is to build relationships with other people through kindness, especially those kindnesses offered to someone who cannot possibly be of service to us. Such a kindness comes from the core of who we really are, and we can reveal our own depth of character through such actions.
In honor of the slain Rabbi and his wife, hundreds of children now bear their names and therefore, carry their message. A Safer Torah is being written in their honor, and I am proud to know that a small contribution I made will go towards that goal and symbolically fulfill the mitzvah incumbent upon each of us to write a Torah. All over the world, Sabbath candles that may never have been lit before, are being lit in their memory, and Chabad’s effort in Mumbai has never faulted with people continuing their dream of reaching out to the Indian Jewish community.
My student’s parents, in response to their loss, have set up a foundation in his name that will fund alternative approaches to cancer treatment for children. They are building something.
Mendy then proceeded to speak about the parsha of the week entitled, Chaye Sarah, where Sarah dies and Abraham purchases the cave of Machpelah for her burial. Here, Mendy became Mendy, his voice going up a pitch or two, and his delivery rapid and intense. The core of his messages dealt with the cave itself, with a reference to the outside building that now covers the inner burial chamber. He said that the stones covering the cave have nothing to do with the cave itself where our ancestors are buried, but just an outer shell. He likened these two places, one an outside structure, the other the inner structure to the relationship between a man and his wife. It was an interesting analogy that spoke to the criteria we have when searching for a mate, and what might happen to our view of that mate as the years go by. The point being made was that the outer building covers the depth of the cave, as the outer appearance of our mate covers the core of who that person really is. If a person chooses a mate based solely on outer appearance, when that appearance fades as it must, or interests diverge as they might, that relationship will be in trouble. But if at the core of these mates, at the core where the inner self resides, there are qualities that are timeless and beautiful; integrity, honesty, and loving support, the people in people in such a relationship will be able to withstand whatever winds buffet them no matter what they come to look like. I think Mendy and his wife model such a relationship.
November 21, 2009
Parsha Toldot
Mendy spoke of Esau and Jacob, the twins born to Isaac and Rebecca. Esau is described as a ruddy man, a wild man of the fields, while Jacob is described as a quiet, contemplative man who lived in tents. Esau was passionate and lived in the moment. Jacob was steady, with a vision of the future. To underscore this, the story is told of how the famished Esau sells his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of soup. He fancied himself dying in the present. Jacob, a crafty man, took advantage of his brother’s personality, and got the birthright which Esau disparaged, but Jacob coveted. Despite Esau’s wild nature and his apparent lack of concern for the future of his people, (he married pagan women) Isaac still loved him and was willing to give him the blessing reserved for the first born and the man who was to lead the tribe after the patriarch’s death. Rebecca, overhearing her husband send Esau off to hunt and to prepare him food, contrives with Jacob to take the blessing. The ruse is that Jacob will dress up as Esau and put lamb’s wool on his arms so his blind father will be fooled. “The hands are the hands of Esau, but the voice is the voice of Jacob,” are the famous lines uttered by the old man. The question Mendy raised was, “Why did Rebecca insist that Jacob receive the blessing as Esau?” If the parents were in conflict, G od would have settled the matter, and Rebecca, like Sarah, would probably have won if G od judged. But Mendy’s answer dealt with symbolism. Both brothers represented extreme positions; extreme personalities, even though one was clearly better able to perpetuate the religion. Jacob had to assume and thus combine Esau’s identity with his own so he could symbolically represent the broadest spectrum of people on earth; neither totally good or totally bad. People such as you and I are not extremes, but composites of both brothers. It is in this composite that we find our ability to function in a civilized society and through which we express our humanity It is by functioning in this composite that we deserve and will receive our blessings providing that we maintain life’s balances.
This is my take: The Yetzer Tov and the Yetzer Hara, translated as the good inclination and the evil inclination are given to us. The Talumud teaches that without the Yetzer Hara, a man would never have a child or build a house. To me, there is nothing evil in having a child or building a house, so I’ve concluded that what is at work her is the human ego extending itself into the environment. Our homes and our children are extensions of ourselves into the world. I think on another level, both Esau and Jacob are symbolic of these two inclinations, and it is only when these two exist in a person in balance, that a person can function properly and behave well. Another message was that at the core of every human being, there is goodness and a soul worthy of being saved. Judaism tries to rescue the Esaus of this world with core concepts such as that one, and yet I do believe that there are people on this earth whose redemptive qualities are so deeply hidden, it would take vast oceans of our limited resources to uncover such hidden attributes.With limited resources, is it worth the effort? Such talk brings out the Conservative in me.
November 28, 2009
Parsha Vayeitzei
If you want to find God, find people. If you want a relationship with God, have a relationship with another person. That seemed to be the core of Mendy’s talk. Again, prayer, and all the mitzvot, are opportunities that enable us to encounter God and to enter into a relationship with Him, and the best way to guarantee such a relationship is to involve other people. Abraham, we read finds G od on a mountain top; Isaac in a field. But it is Jacob, the true progenitor of the Jewish People who finds G od in a house. Mendy pointed out the parsha where Jacob goes to sleep with stones around his head and dreams of angels walking up and down a ladder. He gets up and is astounded, saying that he did not know that G od was in this place. He calls the place, Beth El, or House of God. To me, it also means that G od can be encountered everywhere if one is looking, but Mendy hammered in the point that the best place to encounter G od is at home in familial relationships. While not mentioning his name, Mendy was speaking of Buber and his idea that we best encounter G od when we enter into an I – Thou relationship with another person. Such a relationship comes at that moment when you recognize the true essence of the other person and are fully aware of that other person’s existence. At such a moment, one, according to Buber, finds G od. I also think one might encounter G od in a lilac bush or in a rose garden. Mendy spoke of those who pray to G od as if G od is a vending machine with goodies to disseminate. G od in such prayers becomes the celestial butler who is there to be used. Buber would call such a relationship an I – It relationship because services are being exchanged. Most of our relationships are I – It, because we mostly use other people, even those dear to us, for servicing our needs. It isn’t a bad thing because it is part of survival, but if it is the only type of relationship we have with these people, it is not healthy. Mendy summerized the talk by referring us to the opening daily prayers where the sages requested that a prerequisite to prayer we acknowledge the statement that we should love our neighbor as ourselves. Without understanding this concept, prayer if really futile because the only true way into a relationship with G od is through righteous behavior regarding other people, and if you cannot fathom the “golden rule,” prayer without extending prayer to action results in empty words. Shakespear has King Claudius in Hamlet say, “My words fly up, my thought remain below. Words without thoughts never to heaven go.” Mechanical words, gestures, rituals, all miss the point. I left the service early right after the reading from the prophets. I was suddenly aware of all the words and all the extraneous sounds. I needed to process what was said. I needed silence. I think I stand the best chance of encountering G od in silence.
December 5, 2009
Parsha Vayishlach
Mendy spoke of the three divisions of Judaism at the time that the Chabad movement was forming. I don’t recall their names. The first division were composed of those Jews who sought to investigate the “whys” of the Torah. The second group focused on the spiritual and the esoteric of the Torah. They were the Kabbalists. The third group focused on the halacha or laws of the Torah and how to fully implement them so as to lead a fully religious life. One focused on intellect, one on spirituality, and one on action. Chabad arose because there was a need for one group to take elements of these three and to fuse them into something that would be uplifting to the average man or woman who was unable to think, feel, or act as these organized approaches demanded. Chabad took a person wherever he or she was and helped them rise in their learning, in their spirituality, and in their behavior.
This was not the topic Mendy had planned for the parsha that talked about Jacob’s encounter with his brother after years of separation, although he did speak to Jacob’s doubts as a man who believed that he was worthy of G od’s support. As Jacob, he doubted. As Israel, he could not. The man is a combination of both. So very human. I think the message here is that while we are filled with doubt, we still have within us the spark to move forward. Standing still waiting to be saved by G od is not an option. G od’s time frame and our time frame are not the same. While we might be praying for immediate relief, G od may be off creating new worlds and not hear the request for what in our time frame is decades. So I keep with the maxim, “Pray as if everything depends on God, and act as if everything depends on you.” As I look at the Jacob- Esau story, and at that entire dysfunctional family, I can’t help but think that the Rabbis tend to whitewash them so they will appear as something they are not. In fact, all the patriarchs and matriarchs are made to look like paragons of human virtues despite the behaviors that by today’s standards would be deemed immoral. They do this through midrash, which are stories that are imagined events that they create between the lines of the Torah, and through interpretations that challenge the very standards of righteous behavior as they are later spelled out in the other four books and in the Prophets. I can relate to people who dissemble to survive, but I cannot relate to invented paragons of virtue. For me, what makes these people interesting are their flaws and their blemishes. My flaws and blemishes are what makes me interesting and my struggle to overcome them makes me human. Our ancestors struggle to overcome the adversaries they encounter as they trek through history and also the adversaries within their own families. I cannot think of moments in the narrative where one does some introspection and tries to overcome his or her own failings. I fully believe that these people lived and did what they did in order to survive in a violent and unjust world. In that world women were property and found security only if they bore sons. In that world another man could kill you if he coveted your wife. In that world, people who wanted what you had, took it without fearing the law. In truth, the only real law governing the world in which our patriarchs and matriarchs found themselves was the law of the survival of the fittest. Their numbers were weak, so stealth and duplicity were acceptable means of getting on. It made them fit. They used cunning, not force to survive, and survival was the name of the game. Survival may be an intelligence we’ve developed over the centuries, and our ancestors showed us the way. For that they are to be revered. They don’t have to be made into something they were not. The Torah gives us real people, warts and all. The Rabbis chose to twist them into what they were not by reinventing them and rationalizing their actions. It robs them of their inherent humanity and truth.
December 12, 2009
Parsha Vayelshev
Mendy spoke briefly about the story of Joseph being sold by his brothers into slavery. Reuven, the eldest son and the one who would be held responsible, convinces his brothers not to kill Joseph but to throw him into a pit. He hopes to free him later. Reuven goes away, and his brothers sell him to a caravan going down to Egypt. Reuven is very upset when he comes back, and he and the others, rather than going after the caravan, concoct a story that Joseph was killed by wild beasts.
Of course the white washing of this heinous behavior by the Rabbis is to teach that G od’s hand was in this and Joseph was placed in Egypt so that his family would later survive the famine. It is a logical conclusion if you are looking for a reason for the brother’s behavior, but as far as I see it, these boys acted reprehensibly. Personally, I think Jacob is the one at fault here for creating a situation where he obviously selects one brother over the others to shower with affection. While it is true that you might like one of your children more than you like another, that preference must be kept private. Jacob created the jealousy, and Joseph, being either naive or deliberately condescending lauded himself and his dreams over them.
(As a side point, centuries later, one of the Roman emperors challenges one of the Rabbis of the time with the question, “What is to be done with kidnappers according to your law? ” The Rabbi honestly responds that the crime is punishable by death. The emperor then tells him that the brothers were never punished for kidnaping their brother, and that he would carry that out. So eleven of the greatest Rabbis of the Roman period were brutally murdered. Their martyrdom is commemorated each year during the Yom Kippur service. There is a belief in mystical Judaism that these Rabbis were the reincarnated souls of the original brothers all come together for the first time. The proof given is that if you add up the numerical value of each brother’s name and the numerical value of each of the Rabbis names, they add up to the same numbers.)
The Joseph story is interrupted by story of Judah. Judah is the brother who suggests that they sell Joseph rather than kill him so one might think of him as having some redeeming quality. The story jumps to Judah’s eldest son who dies after marrying Tamar. According to the leverite tradition, Judah’s next son, Onan (whose name gives us the word onanism) is to marry Tamar and have a child with her that will legally be his older brother’s. This he doesn’t want to do this, and also dies for coitus interruptus. Judah has one more son, but is fearful that he will loose this child also, so he stalls on the marriage. Tamar realizes that something must be done (possibly to fulfill her own destiny of being the ancestor of King David) so she dresses as a harlot, seduces her father-in-law and conceives twins. She does this because Judah has not kept his promise and she has waited patiently and done all that was required of her. For harlotry, she is condemned by Judah to death, but when she proves that he is the father, he recognizes that he was to blame for withholding his last son from her, and supports her and her twin sons. One of the twins, Perez, becomes the ancestor of King David.
Mendy gave a Chabad interpretation of the story where Tamar becomes a metaphor for the Jewish people who are waiting for the Messiah to come and who are trying to do what is expected of them, and Judah becomes a metaphor for G od who promised redemption but has not kept His part of the bargain. The story asks the question: How much can the Jews do to win God’s favor? Is it ever enough? Obviously, not. Mendy derided those Orthodox men who continue to say that the horror that befalls us is of our own doing. He disagrees with such a perversion and so do I. He also compared Tamar’s complaint to that of Rabbi Levi Itzhak of Berditchev who comes before G od with the complaint of why the people who recognize Him as the King of kings continue to be brutalized without His intervention.
I think the answer rests with G od not interfering because that would deny free will. Free will is as inviolate as is gravity. G od promised that there will always be a remnant of the Jewish people left and there always was despite the horror inflicted on them. Some will be saved, but not all. We may not be among those saved. It’s a reality we are reluctant to accept when we, as individuals, try to be righteous and feel that our reward should be redemption. But again, the people Israel is to be saved, not the individual. That was the promise and that promise has been kept. Fools claim that what befalls us is G od’s punishment for bad behavior. That is nonsense. What bad behavior could possibly have caused G od to inflict upon us the Holocaust or the myriad of other horrors over the centuries? I could not believe in or praise such a G od. The horror that befalls us is horror created by evil people serving their own evil purposes and has nothing to do with G od. If there is such a thing as redemption, and if the Messianic Age is to come to fruition, it will come by people acting collectively for the good of humanity. Humanity is capable of saving itself if it makes the right decisions. We have all witnessed Messianic moments, but the tendency towards evil in humanity is very strong.
December 19, 2009
Parsha Mikeitz
The story of Joseph’s reconciliation with his brothers, the reunification of a long lost son with his father, and the undergirding theme of forgiveness, always causes tears to well up in my eyes. Year after year, whenever I read it, I respond with tears. It is the only story in the Torah that resonates with me to that extent. Perhaps I respond because it is a story that offers hope to those of us who are not reconciled with significant people but might be one day.
Mendy challenged us to come up with a statement in the Torah that tells us that we must forgive one another. There are many places that speak of G od forgiving us, but no where does it say that we must forgive another. I don’t recall if he said why such a statement was not included. It was early on in the talk. But he gave examples of how apologies and forgiveness are really meaningless if there is no internal change in behavior on the part of the one making the apology. Even the one saying that they forgive may not really be forgiving. I personally have always felt that G od forgave only after the person who asked for forgiveness for a particular infraction was was confronted with the opportunity to commit that infraction again and chose not to do so. Forgiveness is not an easy thing for me, and as Shakespeare wrote, “I have been more sinned against than sinning.” Perhaps forgiveness would be easier had those from whom I think an apology is due me had actually ever offered one and asked that I forgive them for their behavior. Only people to whom you ascribe power can hurt you deeply, and when they do, the pain is profound and long. For those who should have apologized to me and who have died, there is no closure, and those still living seemed to be resolved in their justification for real or imagined offenses and feel that only I and not they are to blame. Gestalts are open like gaping wounds. Guilt is a feeling in the present for something done in the past. It is a recurring feeling and a debilitating one because it ossifies you in the present. The only way to eliminate guilt is to resolve never to perform the same action again which caused the original guilt, and knowing that you would never do such a thing again, helps to eliminate that negative feeling. Not going back to dark places or dark moments but focusing on what the future holds that is positive, is a productive message one can take from the comments made on this moment of Joseph’s story. What was done was done, and the reason Joseph can forgive is that he fully believes that G od’s hand was in his brother’s behavior when they sold him into slavery. For this belief, Joseph is referred to as “Joseph the Tzadik.” For me, the appellation, tzadik, has always meant a knowledgeable and righteous man, but Mendy added another dimension to the meaning by saying that a tzadik is one who fully believes that G od has planned it all out and that whatever happens is part of that plan. Joseph saw the big picture of how G od had sent him down to Egypt to be the savior of his people. I guess, when something turns out well, we can retrospectively imagine that what one went through was directed by some unknown hand. I imagine some comfort can be taken in that thought. Well, that small criteria eliminates me and most people I know from ever becoming a tzadik, because to hold with that belief logically leads one to conclude that there is indeed predestination. Once you conclude that, you must deny free will. It is free will that gives us our humanity. Without it, we are no more than automatons. Yet in Genesis, G od’s speech to Cain saying that he can rule over “the sin that crouches at the door” specifically grants us free will, and as there is no statement in the Torah that says we must forgive one another, there is no statement that I know of that to be righteous, one must believe in predestination. I have a real problem with the rabbinic definition of what a tzadick is. I am not a great scholar or philosopher, nor do I believe in “ the big plan.” What is left to me then and others like me is just to continue to strive to be just a “mensch.” a decent human being.
Mendy also spoke about two other brothers: Reuben, the eldest, and Judah. Both play an important part in the Joseph story. Reuben is the brother who insists that Joseph be thrown into a pit unharmed. As the eldest brother and morally responsible, his intension is to return to release him after he takes care of some business with his father. It may be that his heart is in the right place, or it may be that his status as the obligated eldest brother is at stake, but he does leaves Joseph to the good will of those who want him dead. It is Judah who suggests that Joseph not be killed but sold, thus appealing to the profit motive and greed of the others. This may not sound particularly noble, but the boy’s life is saved and the other brothers are diverted from what could be a heinous crime. (Why these men are held up by the rabbis as paragons of virtue, I am at a loss to know.) Yet it is Judah who emerges in history as noble, giving his name to the nation and the people, and becoming the ancestor of the Messiah because the House of David is descended from the House of Judah. (I am cynical enough to suspect that the rabbis who finally pieced this story together and put it into the canon, may have been descendants of the Judah line.)
The point that Mendy was making is that the good intentions of Reuben really amounted to very little, and one is reminded again of the quote, “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.” It was Judah’s decisive actions that were deserving of praise and historical recognition. Again, it all boils down to the willingness to act, and my favorite quote continues to be: “Pray as if everything depends on G od, and act as if everything depends on you.” I have no idea where that statement comes from, who may have said it, or when I learned it. Whatever the answer, it just resonates with me and continues to be my guide.
The drush today was particularly significant to me because it dealt with the concept of forgiveness. My question is basically this: For the sake of shalom mishbahcha, how do you forgive and reconcile with someone in your family you really don’t trust and basically don’t like because of how they have treated you over the years? How do you inch back into a relationship that has been hostile knowing that you are not being totally honest with your feelings about the matter? How do you forgive someone when they really don’t deserve your forgiveness because they can only see themselves as the aggrieve party? Thanks for the drush. It was very meaningful at this moment in my life
.P.S. A joyous dance is also a good response to tragedy.