My Fifth Question

Every year I study one or two new commentaries on the Haggadah to enrich my seder.  This year’s Haggadah is one of the best commentaries I have ever read and one that really resonates with me after our Israel seminar.  I can’t recommend highly enough Rabbi Jonathan Sack’s Haggadah.  The religious lessons he gleans from the tradition text truly moves me. 

The Maggid section of the Haggadah begins with “Ha Lachma Onya.”  This paragraph ends: “This year we are slaves – next year, may we be free.”  Rabbi Sack writes:

There are two words for freedom in Hebrew, chofesh and cherut.  Chofesh is ‘freedom from’.  Cherut is ‘freedom to’. Chofesh is what a slave acquires when released from slavery.  He or she is free from being subject to someone else’s will.  But this kind of liberty is not enough to create a free society.  A world in which everyone is free to do what they like begins in anarchy and ends in tyranny.  That is why chofesh is only the beginning of freedom, not its ultimate destination.  Cherut is collective freedom, a society in which my freedom respects yours.  A free society is always a moral achievement.  It rests on self-restraint and regard for others.  The ultimate aim of the Torah is to fashion a society on the foundations of justice and compassion, both of which depend on recognizing the sovereignty of God and the integrity of creation.  Thus we say, ‘Next year may we be bnei chorin,’ invoking cherut not chofesh.  It means, ‘May we be free in a way that honours the freedom of all.’

After reading his understanding of cherut, I couldn’t help think but about the some of the social justice issues I confronted during mystay in Israel as part of the Leadership Institute.  I visited kav le’oved (an agency that protects the rights workers whether they be Israeli or migrant workers and works to help women out of white slavery) and my group also learned about the asylum seekers from war torn Africa like the Sudan and Eritrea.  Our speaker took us on a walking tour to South Tel Aviv where these asylum seekers sleep out doors in the park no matter what the weather might be.  Besides no housing, hunger, employment, education, and other necessities of life which lead to human dignity are sorely lacking or at best inadequate.

The Israeli government certainly isn’t living up to the ideals of our Torah as taught in the Haggadah by creating a society built on the foundation of both justice and compassion.  Instead of giving these people refugee status which would guarantee them certain legal rights, they have no rights at all.  Instead of creating refugee camps or other living facilities for them, Israel is building a 10,000 bed prison to house them because the government has enacted laws that make the trek to safety and freedom a crime.  Thank God, individual Israelis are stepping up in lieu of the government.  But more needs to be done.

I don’t have solutions, but Passover, the Haggadah, and Rabbi Sack’s commentary challenges me.  What should I be doing to alleviate their suffering so to honor the freedom of all?  That’s my fifth question for my seder.

If you are more interested in learning more about these asylum seekers and the daily problems and challenges, I encourage you to read my friend Allen Katzoff’s blog, Seven Months in Tel Aviv.  Allen is a past director of Camp Ramah in New England and is now in Israel while his wife Joan Leegant teaches literature and writing at the Bar Ilan University.

Purim, Revelation, and Tel Aviv

Purim, Revelation, and Bus Routes in Tel Aviv

One of the literary threads that tie Megillat Esther together is “Nahafoch Hu” or reversals.  Let me share just two examples of this literary device.  Haman plots to kill all the Jews and at the very end he, his 10 sons, and all of his supporters are put to death.  One night when sleep evades King Achashverosh, he asks that his book of records be read to him.  He learns that nothing had been done to reward Mordechai for saving his life.  Who should be in the court but Haman to ask permission to hang Mordechai.  The King asks Haman “what honor should be done for a man whom the king desires to honor.”  *(6:6)  Haman thinks the king is speaking about himself and advises him to dress the honoree in the king’s clothing, be ridden around town on the king’s horse, and let them shout before the honoree “This is what is done for the man whom the king desires to honor.”   To Haman’s utter shock and dismay the king said, “Quick, then! Get the garb and the horse, as you have said, and do this to Mordechai the Jew who sits in the king’s gate. Omit nothing of all you have proposed.” (6:10)

The Rabbis have always loved Megillat Esther. They taught: “The truth of the Book of Esther is like the truth of Torah…just as the Torah requires interpretation, so does the book of Esther.  (Jer. Talmuld Megillah 1:1)  The Book of Esther was given to Moses on Sinai, but since there is no chronological order in the Torah, it appears after the Five Books of Moses.  Rabbi Yochanan said that the Prophets and the Writings will one day be annulled, but the words of the Torah will not…Resh Lakish added that the Book of Esther will also never be invalidated. (Jer. Talmud Megillah 1:5)

They saw an even deeper connection and more between Purim and Torah which bears on the current situation in Tel Aviv.  “And they stood under the mountain.” (Ex. 19:17). Rav Avdimi ben Hama ben Hasa said: “This teaches that the Holy One, blessed be He, overturned the mountain and suspended it upon them like a barrel and said to them: “If you accept the Torah, well and good, but if not-there shall be your burial!”  Rabbi Aha ben Jacob observed: “This furnishes a strong protest against the Torah.” (i.e., a blanket excuse for nonobservance of a covenant ratified under duress). (The same principal is being applied when art work is being returned to survivors and their descendants since the sale of these paintings were not volitional but coerced by the Nazis.) Said Rava: “Yet even so, they accepted it again in the days of Ahashverosh, for it is written: ‘They confirmed and they assumed, the Jews, upon themselves’ (Esther 9:27); they ratified (with the institution of Purim) what they took upon them long before (at Sinai).” (Shabbat 88a) 

Because accepting the covenant at Sinai was under duress, Jews could now nullify the agreement. Rabbi David Hartman extrapolated an important lesson from this Gemarra. “What began at Sinai as an externally imposed system of norms had become a successful internalization of those norms when Purim was identified as the celebration of the free acceptance of the Torah.  (A Living Covenant: The Innovative Spirit in Tradition Judaism, page 219)  I understand this to mean that Judaism can only be meaningful and valid if it is accepted voluntarily and not coerced by God or the Rabbis.

All this Purim Torah made me return to reflect upon the first Shabbat in Tel Aviv of our Leadership Institute seminar in Israel.  Jews generally gravitate to Jerusalem for Shabbat because there is a shul on every corner as well as the opportunity to daven at the Kotel, the Western Wall, in the Old City.  On the other hand, Tel Aviv has the reputation of a secular city that never sleeps.  We were asked to reflect upon our Shabbat there because Tel Aviv isn’t a usual Shabbat destination. 

As my small group walked to Yakar, the shul we chose to daven in, I was amazed how few cars were on the road and how few stores and restaurants were opened. I came up with two possible reasons.  One, perhaps there are more traditional Jews in Tel Aviv than I suspected. Or two, everybody was still sleeping in from the previous night’s revelry at the numerous night clubs that rock until dawn.

Later on the trip the newspapers reported “Green light, red light: Tel Aviv okays buses on Shabbat, fears brakes to be put on plan   Resolution needs approval by Transportation Ministry, which city officials consider unlikely to come through." The municipality will submit a detailed request to the Transportation Ministry to operate essential [bus] lines on Shabbat," states Monday's resolution, which passed in a 13-7 vote and was sponsored by city council member Tamar Zandberg (Meretz ). "This is out of a desire to allow public transportation from neighborhoods in the north, the south and Jaffa to the center of town, the sea and recreation venues." Zandberg said maintaining the existing religious balance was not adequate justification for keeping residents from using public transit. (Ha’aretz published Feb. 21, 2012)

Of course, the Orthodox religious political parties came out decrying this change of the status quo.  In response, I truly feel like a Purim Jew who has gone through “Nahafoch Hu.”  I love the quiet Shabbat atmosphere in Israel when cars are off the road and businesses are closed.  It truly is a taste of the World to Come. Nevertheless, for Shabbat to be a meaningful part of one’s life, its observance can’t be compelled.  For all those who love Shabbat we need to persuade others of the beauty and need for a Shabbat in one’s life and act as positive role models.  Our message can be heard as proof of the thousand secular Jews joining in prayer on the beach of Tel Aviv each Shabbat as we learned.  Even though I am a traditional observant Conservative Rabbi, if I were on the Tel Aviv City Counsel I would have voted with the majority to allow buses to run on Shabbat.  Let those who want to ride, ride and those who don’t, don’t.

I learned a brand new blessing just in time for Tu Bishvat

I earned a double degree when I was an undergraduate student.  I graduated the joint program between Teachers Institute, now known as List College, of JTS and Columbia University.  I earned a BA from Columbia and a BHL, Bachelors of Hebrew Letters from T.I.  Despite carrying a full load of Judaic courses at the Seminary as an undergraduate and rabbinical student, I always found chevrutot, study partners, to study Torah Lishma, Torah for its own sake, unrelated to my class work.

I continued this tradition of Torah Lshma, first in Springfield, MA, next in Framingham, MA, and now in Queens.  Ever Since I moved to NY some 8 ½ years ago, I’ve been studying with Rabbi Marvin Richardson of the Jericho Jewish Center once a week.  I have studied Talmud, Biblical commentaries, and Hassidic Masters.  I am constantly surprised how interconnected my Jewish life is.  Inevitably what I am learning lishma, for its own sake without any conscious connection to my practical life, is relevant to what I happen to be learning or doing elsewhere.  This happens too often for it to be a coincidence.

Take my latest example.  For the last 4 years Rabbi Richardson and I have been working our way through the tractate Brachot.  As I am preparing to leave for Israel on my Leadership Institute for Hebrew School Principals Israel Seminar next week, Rabbi Richardson and I learned a new blessing.  “The Rabbis taught in a baraita:  If one sees Houses of Israel in their inhabited state, he says ‘Blessed are You…who establishes the boundary of the widow.  (58b)  Rashi in his commentary says this refers to the Second Temple period  because it was only after the destruction of the First Temple was Israel describe as a widow in the book of Lamentations, Eicha. Rashi implies that this refers only in the Land of Israel. 

Wouldn’t you know we leave for Israel on Tu Bishvat! I know from all my previous trips that the National bird of Israel should be the Building Crane.  There is constant construction go on, changing the landscape.  I am constantly impressed by the beauty of these new apartment buildings.  I can hardly wait to land in Israel and be able to recite this bracha when I see the land of Israel being redeemed and flourishing with Jews living in their own houses in their own state.  “Baruch Matziv Gevul Almana!”Amen!

Rememberances of shuls past

Today I went to St. Francis Hospital to visit a congregant.  As I was leaving, I saw a woman pushing a cart full of Siddurim Sim Shalom.  I must have looked at them strangely (Who can blame me. St. Francis is a Catholic Hospital and why would they want so many Siddurim?), for the woman explained that the last time she was here, they only had one Siddur.  So she brought some from MA.  I told her that I lived in MA for 25 years.

She lives in Northampton and works in Spfld at the JFS which is now housed in the JCC.  I told her that I was a rabbi in Spfld for 19 years.  I go to open up the Siddurim and they are from Bnai Jacob, my first shul!  Names from my past leaped out at me.  Doug Winnaman, Irving and Sylvia Chelder, and Gloria Engleson. I saw their faces as I read their names.  I told the woman that I either married their children or buried those people on the dedication sticker.  I was so overcome, I don't remember if the siddurim come from Bnai Israel in Northampton or from Bnai Torah, the reconstituted Orthodox shul from Kesser, Kadimoh, and Beth Israel.

I am glad that Bnai Jacob is still are good force for yiddishkeit fulfilling its mitzvah mission even though it is no longer in existence.  That community is still close to my heart.

My First Flash Mob

I attended my very first flash mob on yesterday. If you don't know what a flash mob is, let me explain.  Disparate people are invited to meet to meet at a selected designation to do something in unison.  Perhaps you've seen the cell phone commercial when a man arriving at the flash mob point and begin dancing only to learn that his telephone carrier is slow in delivering a text message indicating that the flash mob has been rescheduled.

I attended the world's first shofar flash mob yesterday, but almost didn't make it.  Congregants showed me articles about the impending shofar flash mob at Lincoln Center and Shira Dicker sent me a facebook invitation.  Shofar blowers were converging in cities all around the world to blow shofar together.  I thought that would be a neat experience so I decided to participate in the world's first shofar flash mob.  My son needed the car; consequently, I decided that I would walk to the LIRR train station nearest my house.  I misjudged the time it would take me to get there so I was still walking down the hill in sight of the train station when my train pulled up and then left before I had time to even reach the platform.  The next train was in an hour.  I hoped the flash mob will start on Jewish time and me being a bit late wouldn't matter.  Sadly, I was 10 minutes late and the flash mob had already dispersed.

I saw a father with his young daughter.  He was holding a real shofar and she had one of those plastic ones.  They too had missed the Lincoln Center opportunity.  He told me that there is a second chance at the Manhattan JCC. 45 minutes later.  Happily, I could walk there in time and blow my shofar with that flash mob.

My whole adventure reminded me of a Hasidic story.  A rebbe once taught that everything can impart an important life lesson.  A hasid asked his master what does a train teach us?  The rebbe answered that every second counts for if you miss the train even by a few minutes you have missed your opportunity.

I wonder how many of us are missing the train preparing for the High Holidays so that we attain our spiritual goals of living a meaningful life of integrity for the coming year.  Unless we do the soul accounting now, Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur will fly by in a twinkling of an eye and we shall be the same people we’ve always been.  Every second counts!

I remain hopeful though.  I missed my train on Sunday, but I did catch the next one and attended an alternate shofar flash mob. The lesson I took away from my near miss is: Judaism believes in second chances.  No matter what you have done up to now, today is a new opportunity, a second chance, to transform your life and become the person you truly want to be. 

Dr. Louis Newman concludes his book Repentance: The Meaning & Practice of Teshuva on this hopeful note:

The only question left unanswered is the question that can only be answered in the depths of each person’s heart: how shall I finally find the will to undertake the arduous work of teshuvah and then, because I will inevitably fail, to begin it yet again?  The path of repentance will be, by turns, difficult and easy, straightforward and circuitous.  But, like all spiritual paths, the most difficult part may be the decision to embark upon the journey in the first place.  There is much holding us back – fear, to be sure, but also shame, pride, and hopelessness.  In this respect, we may take some comfort from one final text.  It is the biblical text that is read in synagogues each year on the Shabbat before Rosh Hashanah.  In one of Moses’s final address to the Israelites, he admonishes them one last time that God will bless them if they observe the law and curse them if they depart from it.  He reminds them of the great gift of the Promised Land that they are about to enter and possess.  He encourages them to love God and to “return to the Lord your God with all your heart and soul” (Deuteronomy 30:10), a phrase that echoes the theme of the year.

And then, anticipating the reticence of the Israelites to believe that all this is possible and to commit themselves to living by the terms of the covenant, Moses says:

Surely this Instruction which I enjoin upon you this day is not too baffling for you, nor is it beyond reach.  It is not in the heavens, that you should say, “Who among us can go up to the heavens and get it for us and impart it to us, that we may observe it?”  Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, “Who among us can cross to the other side of the sea and get it for us and impart it to us, that we may observe it?”  No, the thing is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to observe it.

All aboard!

One article two spiritual lessons

This article about Steve Jobs has also taught me another spiritual lesson today.  “Don’t jump to conclusions or in Hebrew

,ufz ;fc ostv ,t is. Bono, the lead singer of the rock band U2 and the co-founder of the advocacy group One and Product Red.  He wrote a letter to the editor responding to the same article.

“As a founder of Product Red, I’d like to point out that Apple’s contribution to our fight against AIDS in Africa has been invaluable.  Through the sale of Red products, Apple has been Red’s largest contributor to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria-giving tens of millions of dollars that have transformed the lives of more than 2 million Africans through H.I.V. testing, treatment, and counseling.  This is serious and significant.  And Apple’s involvement has encouraged other companies to step up.

“Steve Jobs said when we first approached him about RED, ‘There is nothing better than the chance to save lives.’”

One article two important spiritual lessons as we prepare for the New Year.  Make Tzedakah the cornerstone of your life and give your fellow human beings the benefit of the doubt this coming year 5772.  If we do so, we'll become the type of person we truly desire to be.

Steven Jobs, the true measure of a man

 Even though today is the first day of Elul, the month set aside to begin our self-reflection, I began well over a month ago because I have been preparing for the High Holidays seriously since the end of July. I've been, reading, thinking, and writing ever since.  Consequently, an article in yesterday's New York Times Business Day section caught my eye because this topic is one of the major themes of our High Holidays in our quest for renewal.

The article is entitled "The Mystery of Job's Public Giving" by Andrew Ross Sorkin.  He writes:  "Steve Jobs is a genius.  He is an innovator. A visionary.  He is perhaps the most beloved billionaire in the world.  Surprisingly, there is one thing that Mr. Jobs is not, at least not yet; a prominent philanthropist.  Despite accumulating an estimated $8.3 billion fortune through his holdings in Apple and a 7.4% stake in Disney (through the sale of Pixar), there is no public record of Mr. Jobs giving money to charity.  His is not a member of the Giving Pledge, the organization founded by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates to persuade the nation's wealthiest families to give away at least half their fortunes. (He declined to participate, according to people briefed on the matter.) Nor is there a hospital wing or an academic building with his name on it."

Mr. Sorkin continues, "None of this is meant to judge Mr. Jobs." Even though Sorkin doesn't judge Steven Jobs, I know our tradition has a lot to say about this kind of person.  One of the thematic prayers we recite when the ark is opened is the Unetaneh Tokef.  The book of life is opened and our deeds are recorded for all of posterity.  The prayer ends "But repentance, prayer, and Tzedakah can remove the severity of the decree."  Rabbi David Stern comments, "Repentance, prayer, and charity do not prevent misfortune-to say so would simply be to return to the fantasy of human mastery that the earlier litany demolished.  But they do temper the harshness of life's circumstances by asserting our redemptive capacity for response." (Who By Fire, Who by Water edited by Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman, PhD, page 174)  Tzedakah should be one of the cornerstone of our lives.

Tzedakah shouldn’t be translated as charity. but rather it is derived from the Hebrew root TZ-D-K, meaning justice.  We're not given the choice to give tzedakah or not because it is an obligation, a mitzvah.  In this week's Torah portion we're told "Justice, justice you shall pursue." (Dt. 16:20)  This is such an important mitzvah the Talmud Gittin 7b teaches us that nobody is exempt from this obligation.  "Even a poor person who receives Tzedakah must give from what he receives."  It is an honor, a privilege, and an opportunity to maintain ones kavod or dignity to help another person.  The donor also benefits from Tzedakah.  You know that the old saying that the giver receives much more than the recipient is true.

The article continues to describe how other successful businessmen like Warren Buffet came to philanthropy later in their careers.  "Another billionaire, Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart Stores, did not start the Walton Family Foundation until he was 69, just five years before his death. In his autobiography, Mr. Walton expressed misgivings about formal charity programs. 'We have never been inclined to give any undeserving stranger a free ride...'" 

I am reminded of a wonderful Hasidic story as a response to Walton's attitude. A rich man once came to the Maggid of Koznitz. "What are you in the habit of eating?" the Maggid asked.  "I am modest in my demands," the rich man replied.  "Bread and salt, and a drink of water are all I need. "What are you thinking of!" the rabbi reproved him. "You must eat roast meat and drink mead, like all the rich people." And he did not let the man go until he promised to do as he said.  Later the Hasidim asked him the reason for this odd request.  "Not until he eats meat," said the Maggid, "will he realize that the poor man needs bread.  As long as he himself eats bread, he will think the poor man can live on stones."

I remember asking a pre Bar Mitzvah boy in Spfld, what he would like to be when he grows up.  He told me that he didn’t care as long as he was rich.  I responded, “Great.  That means you can give more Tzaedakah!”  When it comes to philanthropists like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, I say better late than never.  I only wish they had this vision earlier in their careers. Just think how much Tikun Olam they could have accomplished.  Just think how many problems could have been solved easier then than now as the problems have grown more and more complex and difficult.  I hope one day Steve Jobs will come to the same conclusions Gates and Buffet came to when it comes to Tzedakah.  I'll keep him in my prayers during the High Holidays just like in the story about the Rabbi of Ropchitz.  His wife said to him, "Your prayer was lengthy today.  Have you succeeded in bringing about that the rich should be more generous in their gifts to the poor?"  The Rabbi replied, "Half of my prayer I have accomplished.  The poor are willing to accept their aid."

We have two spiritual goals during the High Holidays.  One is live a meaningful life and the other is to renew a personal relationship with the Holy One Blessed be He. Tzedakah is our way to accomplish both.  We learn truly to live only when we learn to give and we meet God when we serve His creatures