Books, Bullies, Beit Shemesh: A Sermon for Parashat Bo
My two older sons recently did something very strange and surprising: they started reading a lot! The reason is that they found a book – or actually a series of books – that they really like. It’s called Diary of a Wimpy Kid. It’s a fictional, first-person account of something most of us would rather forget: Middle School. And it comes complete with little gems like this one:
Let me just say … I think middle school is the dumbest idea ever invented. You got kids like me who haven’t hit their growth spurt yet mixed in with these gorillas who need to shave twice a day.
Just like being 12, this book is sometimes funny, and sometimes not so funny. And as I’ve been reading it with my kids, it’s become very clear that even at their young age, they and their classmates can relate to a lot of what’s described in the books, including things like peer pressure and bullying. Even at age 6 or 7, kids, know what it’s like to be picked on by someone who is stronger or bigger. It’s just a reality of life for them.
So much so that the Ontario provincial government recently introduced anti-bullying legislation which – among other things – allows schools to expel bullies, and which gives strong support for student anti-racism groups, gender equality groups, and Gay-Straight Alliances. All in an effort to build the support system for kids who may be perceived, or who may perceive themselves, as weak or vulnerable or different.
Of course, being weak and vulnerable is nothing new to our people. It’s pretty much the story of Jewish history. And in this week’s Torah portion, we read about our escape from a bully of Biblical proportions. And that, of course, is Pharaoh. The Torah tells that after Ten plagues and 430 years of oppression, Pharaoh finally said:
“קומו צאו מתוך עמי – Get up and depart from among my people. Take your flocks and your herds, and begone!” (Ex 12:31-32)
And our people did as they were told: they beed gone.
Of course, it’s not that simple. Next week, we’ll read about Pharaoh’s change of heart and the parting of the sea. But the end is the same: our people are leaving Egypt and going out into the desert. And there, in the desert, something very important happens. A group of slaves will become a people. The mixed multitude of vulnerable groups will become Am Yisrael.
Our tradition teaches that there is safety in numbers. It teaches that we need each other, and that we build community based on the things that we have in common. Our vulnerability turns to strength when we find those types of supportive communities.
Some rabbis have objected to the current legislation because of the support for Gay-Straight Alliances. And while I wouldn’t take a position on the legislation from the bima, I do feel I have an obligation as a Rabbi to point out that there is another Jewish take on that issue. Yes, an Orthodox Jew may object to homosexuality on religious grounds. But you can’t use religious grounds to object to people forming a safe and supportive community with others who are like them. That’s exactly what our people did when we fled Egypt. And it’s something that we all need: whether it be a Gay-Straight Alliance, a single-parent support group, or a Temple Youth group, we need to be surrounded by people like us; people who share our beliefs and our struggles. That’s how the vulnerable become less vulnerable.
That’s what Judaism teaches: that all people are created in God’s image, that all people deserve to feel worthwhile and respected. That no person should harass or isolate or harm another because they are different.
And the sad irony of that statement is that, that’s exactly what’s going on right now within one segment of our own people.
Last week, a 27 year old woman in Beit Shemesh was attacked by several Ultra-Orthodox men. According to Haaretz, “They surrounded her car and pelted it with stones… and punctured her tires. One stone struck [her] on the head…”
And this is the latest in a long line of such attacks. All of these incidents lately have surrounded the issue of tzniyut – modesty. These women are being attacked because the men in that particular neighbourhood don’t feel that they are dressed modestly enough, or believe that they are behaving in ways that are at odds with their ultra-Conservative Jewish values. And none of this is new. For years, women riding through Haredi neighbourhoods have been forced to the back of buses. Ink has been thrown at women praying at the Kotel. 2 years ago a woman was assaulted at a bus stop because she has T’fillin marks on arms. And all of this has become more and more public, more and more audacious, as the ultra-Orthodox community grows larger and more radicalized.
And it all came to a head last month in Beit Shemesh when a little girl – a little 8-year-old Orthodox girl, dressed in a long skirt and long sleeves – was spat and called prostitute on by Ultra-Orthodox men – because her path to school happened to take her through their neighbourhood, and because – according to the New York Times, “her modest dress did not adhere exactly to their more rigorous dress code.”
It goes without saying that this is beyond wrong. I’m only preaching to the choir here, but it’s important that our voice be heard, that we stand up and say in no uncertain terms that our Jewish values and our way of life are being twisted into something ugly, hateful, and decidedly un-Jewish. Anyone who would choose to harass and bully women and girls, to attack weaker people, is not practicing Judaism. Those people are much closer to Pharaoh than they are to Moses.
Thankfully, Israeli society is beginning to speak up. In the last month, there have been rallies and protests in Beit Shemesh calling for an end to this madness. There was a women’s flash-mob – you can see it on You Tube – to send the message that women have the right to express themselves. Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke out, saying : “This is a phenomenon that contradicts Jewish tradition and the spirit of the Bible, with one of the most central [ideas] being: Love your neighbour as yourself.” Even an ultra Orthodox rabbi, Yitzchok Adlerstein, wrote that we must “condemn with passion, conviction and without qualification” these acts.
It is time for the Jewish world to speak up about the Pharaohs in our midst – the bullies who believe that it is their God-given right to oppress the weak and vulnerable who are different than they are. It is time for Israel to take a deep look at its political system which gives these people power and money. And it is time for us as Diaspora Jews to make clear that that is what we expect of the Jewish state at this moment in its history.
Prime Minister Netanyahu is right. At the center of the central chapter of the central book of the Torah stand the words “V’ahavta l’reiacha kamocha – Love your neighbour as yourself.” The Rabbis of the Mishnah debate whether loving God or loving your neighbour is the most important value in Judaism, and they determine that the two must flow from each other. We show our love for God by showing love for our fellow human beings. We show our love for God by standing up for the rights of the weak – in our neighbourhoods, in our kids’ schools, and across the world.
Because we Jewish people have been the “wimpy kid.” We’ve been the oppressed before. And that gives us a special obligation to do what’s right.
Shabbat Shalom.
Kaddish for Jastrow
It was about a month ago that our dog Jastrow died. He was 3. He escaped from the yard and got hit by a car. Our kids were devastated. So were we.
Jastrow’s name was the proof of my rabbi-nerdiness. (Only other rabbis realized that he was named for the Marcus Jastrow Dictionary of the Talmud.) But beyond the name, he was never my dog – he belonged squarely to the kids. Jastrow would play with them, sleep in their beds, lick their faces, and sit right on top of them. We called him our therapy dog because he was always good for providing our son who has Aspergers with the “deep pressure” he needed on rough days! Jastrow was the young, fun dog while April (our 10-year-old lab mix) was the old, boring dog.
So the kids were hit really hard when he died. This was, thankfully, their first real experience with death. (When their great-grandmother died nearly four years ago, they were too young to really be aware of it.) Their reaction was both heartbreaking and fascinating. You could see Kubler-Ross at work as they shuffled wildly between angry shouting, hopeful bargaining, tearful storytelling, and asking the same questions over and over again…. In the end, what they wanted was to “do something” for Jastrow. Maybe we could say a prayer for him, they suggested. Or maybe draw pictures and tell our favourite stories, and find a place in the woods to “visit” him. Without knowing the words Shiva, or Kaddish, or Funeral, our 3, 6, and 7 year old boys were asking instinctively for some ritual to help them through the mourning process.
Even our older dog was mourning. April’s sleeping and eating patterns changed, and she kept trying to run out the front door, apparently in an effort to go find her friend. It was as though she also needed something to happen – some kind of closure to let her move on.
Our need for ritual is deeply ingrained in our psyche. Judaism offers us ceremonies to help mark the emotional moments of our lives – the Brit Milah/Brit Bat, the wedding ceremony, the funeral and mourning rituals. This is part of the particular genius of our way of life – that it is able to provide us with guidance during these universal moments in which we all need it. And if you leaf through the Reform movement’s On the Doorposts of Your House, or search the works of Marcia Falk or the pages of ritualwell.org, you’ll find hundreds of new ceremonies and blessings for moments of life that were never before ritualized: retirement, miscarriage, menopause, sending a child to college, quitting a job, ending a relationship. Some of these are hokey and contrived, but they speak to a need that is very real and very powerful.
I never saw that as clearly as I did while watching my kids mourn their dog. May his memory be a blessing.
Techno-Judaism
Earlier this week, I taught a Confirmation class in North Carolina…. while sitting in Canada.
I used to be a rabbi in Charlotte. Now I’m a rabbi outside Toronto. So when the Confirmation teachers in Charlotte asked me to Skype with their class, I was excited to see some former students. But it wasn’t just a chance to connect. This was a class on the role of technology in Jewish life… taught using technology! Can you be part of a minyan through the internet? Can you form a true community when you’re not in the same room? These are the questions we discussed – from more than 700 miles away.
The truth is, the internet is an amazing resource. It gives us access to more information than every before in history. It lets us connect with people we’ve never met, and stay in touch with people we haven’t seen in years. It can even allow the sick and infirm to be part of a community when they can’t leave their homes or hospital beds. But there is also a danger: If we ever allow virtual connections to supersede actual connections, if we let our cyber-communities take precedence over real communities, then there will be a real loss. We need human connection. Technology can be an extraordinary tool for creating it, as long as it isn’t our only tool.
In every generation, Judaism must struggle with the role of the latest technologies. Once it was the printing press. Today, it is Skype and the internet. Tomorrow…. who knows! As I sit here writing, my kids are in the other room watching Star Trek, a show about intergalactic space travel. I don’t know about any of you, but I grew up dreaming about the days when those kinds of technologies would be a reality. And while transgalactic travel isn’t quite here yet, and we’re still waiting for hoverboards (like in Back to the Future), the things that we can do are pretty amazing. We can communicate instantly across vast distances; we can travel across continents in only a few hours; we can share ideas, videos, music, and pictures with the entire world; we can research anything instantly. And we can teach classes in North Carolina from the suburbs of Toronto.
Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote:
The solution of man’s most vexing problem will not be found in renouncing technical civilization, but in attaining some degree of independence from it.
Our technologies can help us break down barriers and build deeper and stronger connections. The possibilities are endless, as long as we use them wisely.
And to the Confirmation class in Charlotte – it was great to see you!
T’fillah – Like Child’s Play
If there is anything that the URJ Biennial is known for (other than Obama, this year), it is the Shabbat services. Services at the Biennial tend to be big, musical, and highly orchestrated. The key word there is BIG - it’s hard to be anything but, when you have 5000 people in the room!
This year was no different. Let me start by saying that I thoroughly enjoyed the Kabbalat Shabbat service. Rabbi Micah Greenstein of Memphis and Cantor Jen Frost of Deerfield, IL, injected beautiful music and thoughtful readings into their worship. But as anyone who has ever prayed by Jumbotron knows, it’s not easy to create a sense of community and spirituality in a group so large. Kol hakavod to the rabbi and cantor who took on this challenge.
So for all that I loved the music, the overwhelming size of the room and the crowd were not allowing me to connect spiritually. That is, until I took my eyes off the big screens, and looked down. There, a few rows ahead, was a two- or three-year-old child: rolling on the ground, skipping up the aisle, dancing to the music, generally enjoying himself.
I was mesmerized. This kid was having the best time – he might have been enjoying the service more than anyone else in the room! And every time his Dad called him over and asked him to settle down, I wanted to shout, “No, don’t make him stop!”
There is a famous Chassidic story of a child who plays his flute at Yom Kippur services, and whose sincerity is said to carry the entire congregation’s prayers to heaven. That was how I felt last Friday night: up until I saw this child, I was singing and reading and participating. But once I noticed his joy, I was praying.
Gilad and Marla
The Lord giveth. The Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. – Job 1:21
Five years ago, on June 25, 2006, Gilad Shalit was abducted by Hamas terrorists near the Gaza border.
Four years earlier, on July 31, 2002, my friend Marla Bennett – along with eight others – was murdered in the bombing at Hebrew University.
The two incidents were never really connected in my mind – until now.
This morning, seeing the images of Shalit coming home, hugging his parents, I feel elated. We have spent years hoping and praying and working for this day. And for so many who feared that he would become another Ron Arad, another Israeli who was never heard from again, or another Goldwasser and Regev, returned in a body bag, it is a day of great joy and relief.
But at the same time, I can’t help but think about Marla.
I got to know Marla when we were students at Hebrew University, and at camp. She was a smart, funny, witty, caring soul with a smile that could light up a room. She was an extraordinary educator who cared deeply about Israel, about teaching, about the Jewish future. She was cut off far before her time. A shining star was ripped out of this world.
And it turns out that among the terrorists being released in return for Shalit’s return are at least two who were involved in the Hebrew University bombing, including the maker of the bombs and the one who placed them inside the Frank Sinatra Cafe.
There has been much chatter online and in the newspapers about the high price that Israel has had to pay for Gilad Shalit’s release. I have little to add to that debate. Is the life of one Israeli soldier worth the release of hundreds of terrorists with the blood of thousands on their hands? Most Israelis say yes, and I agree. But I am still angry that the men who murdered my friend will walk free and be welcomed as heroes. All we can do is hope and pray that some good will come of this, and rejoice through tears that one of Israel’s children has come home.
At age 24, Marla was torn from this world. At 25, Gilad reenters it. Marla never had the opportunity to live life – to raise a family, to have a career, to make her mark on the world. Those are opportunities that Gilad will now have, and for that we are all thankful. I know that this doesn’t bring back my friend, but at least we know that one life – which is worth an entire world – has been saved.
Welcome home, Gilad Shalit. We’ve all been praying for you, and we’re glad to see you again.
Sukkot: Measuring the Years
Sukkot is the strangest holiday we have, and it has the strangest rituals. It’s one thing to sit around the table and eat and sing (like we do on every holiday). It’s quite another thing to build a shack in the back yard and wave around a bunch of plants in all directions. What’s that all about?!
Of course, what that’s all about is agriculture. A long time ago, our farmer ancestors used to reap their fields during this time of year. The festival of Sukkot was born out of the practice of measuring the yield and giving thanks to God.
Well, I’m not a farmer. (I can’t even keep houseplants alive!) But I do have something that I measure every year on Sukkot, and it has transformed this holiday into the most special time of year for our family.
Four years ago, my wife and I decided to designate one pole of our sukkah as a “measuring stick.” Each year, when we build our sukkah, we make sure that pole ends up in the doorway, and we mark each child’s height on it in permanent marker. That way, every Sukkot they get to see how much they’ve grown in the past year, and we get to celebrate the fact that they got a little taller and a little older.
I know there’s nothing novel about measuring your kids every year. Plenty of parents do it on birthdays, or on New Year’s Day. But for me, the connection with Sukkot is really important. Judaism tells me that on this holiday, I’m supposed to measure and be thankful for the yield of the past year. I think that’s exactly what we’re doing.
Plus, it makes us really look forward to putting up our sukkah!
Chag Sameach!
We Can’t Change the Past (A Sermon for Yom Kippur 5772)
A great scholar once taught that:
The future hasn’t been written yet. The future is whatever you make it.
Those are wise words, especially for Yom Kippur, as we sit and ponder the coming year, ponder the future.
But I’ll bet you’ll never guess who it was that said those wise words. It wasn’t a rabbi, or a Prime Minister or a philosopher. It was Doctor Emmett Brown, the time-traveling mad scientist from Back to the Future. If there’s anyone who knows about the past and the future, it’s Doc Brown. After all, he and Marty McFly spent three whole movies surfing round the space-time continuum, raising such important philosophical questions as: “What if you made a time machine out of a sports car?” and “When will hoverboards be invented?”
But in all seriousness, the movie actually does ask some important questions, and they are some of the same questions that we ask on the High Holy Days: about how our history shapes who we are today, about who we would be if we had the ability to change the past in order to shape the future.
Because we’re human, we all have regrets – about things we did or said or people that we hurt. And because we’re human, we all wish we could go back and change some things. In fact, you may not have realized it, but we opened our service tonight by trying to do just that.
“Kol Nidrei,” we said. “May all of our vows, all of the oaths and promises we’ve made in the past year, be considered null and void, if we were unable to fulfill them. In other words, if we couldn’t manage to accomplish what we promised to accomplish, to be who we promised to be, then let it be as though we never promised it to begin with. Let it be as though we’ve changed the past
Sounds nice, doesn’t it. An easy solution to the fact that we can’t always keep our end of the bargain – just retroactively cancel the bargain.
But it’s not so simple. You see, Kol Nidrei is not just retroactive; it’s also proactive. At the same time we ask to be forgiven for last year’s failures, we also beg God in advance to forgive us for what we will not accomplish this year. Turns out it’s not about changing the past at all; it’s about the expression of who we wish we were during this time of year. It’s about the longing to be better people than we are.
In the Mahzor Lev Shalem, the High Holiday prayerbook of the Conservative movement (p. 205) , it says: “Kol Nidrei expresses our fear that even our best intentions for the new year will not be fulfilled. [And it] expresses how much we regret what was not accomplished in the past year.
Because we are human, we are imperfect. Because we are human, we will have failures. And because we are human, we can’t change the past.
And while that may be a source of frustration to us in our everyday lives, the truth is, most of us wouldn’t want to. Our past – even our failures – are too important, because they help shape who we are today.
It is said that Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev, the great Chassidic master, was once accosted by a highway robber who was famous for his brutality and his ruthlessness. The Rabbi took one look at him and said, “I know who you are! I have to admit I’ve always been a little envious of you.”
“Envious of me?” Replied the criminal. “Why would a great scholar possibly envy a lowly robber.”
“Because,” said the Rebbe, “our sages teach that God loves the sinner so much that his if he repents, his sins can be counted as merit. And you are famous for your wicked deeds. Why, if you were to repent, no one could match you for your merit!”
The mistakes and sins and experiences of our past remain part of who we are, and they can help us be better people in the present.
We’ve all known great, patient teachers who were once themselves problem students. Sometime the kindest doctors are those who have tasted illness. The most successful entrepreneurs have often learned from their own failed businesses.
This past week, the world marked the death of a cultural and business icon. Steve Jobs, who founded Apple, who gave us the personal computer, the ipod, the iphone. Love him or hate him, he will be remembered for forever changing the way we consume information and connect with each other. But, Allison Lin at MSNBC that:
“He’ll also be remembered fondly as the poster child for how making mistakes — and even failing — can sometimes end up being the best thing that ever happen to you.”[1]
If you go back and look at Jobs’s story, you find that he was a college dropout. He founded, was fired from, and eventually retook the helm of Apple Corporation. But before he became a success, he had managed to drive his own company into the ground, and to found another ill-fated computer company called NeXT. Only on his third go-around – when he returned to Apple with those experiences under his belt – was he ever viewed as anything resembling a success.
Most of us are not technology magnates or billionaires, but we can learn from our failures – whether failures of business or in school or even in our relationships. And we can become better people by applying those lessons to our lives today.
It’s been said that “Error [is] the raw material out of which future successes are forged. Failure is not a crime. Failure to learn from failure is.”[2]
We can’t change the past, but we can change the meaning of the past when we learn from it to shape the present.
It’s not easy to forgive ourselves our failures. And it’s even more difficult to forgive others.
In the Talmud, there is a story about about the great Rabbi Meir, one of the finest and most learned sages of early Talmudic times. It says that there were some criminals in his neighbourhood who caused him a great deal of trouble. So he prayed to God for them to die.
The Rabbi’s wife, Beruriah, who was known as a scholar in her own right, rebuked him, saying: “Why would you think such a prayer is allowed? Do you not know that when the Psalms say “Yitmu chot’im min ha-aretz – Let sinners disappear from the earth” that it could also be read to say “Yitmu chata’im – Let sin disappear from the earth?” Rather than praying for their death, you should pray that they repent and there will be no more wicked people.”
Rabbi Meir understood that his wife was right. He prayed for the criminals to return from their ways, and when they did, he forgave them.[3]
Forgiving means trusting that we and others have the ability to change. It means believing that our past mistakes do not have to define us. And forgiving can be very, very hard to do.
Tomorrow morning, as part of our service, we will recite a formula through which we officially exonerate those who have done wrong by us. We will say:
“I hereby forgive all who have hurt me, all who have wronged me, whether deliberately or inadvertently, whether by word or by deed. May no one be punished on my account.”[4]
But it’s one thing to say the words, and quite another to actually believe them. When we are wronged, it’s not in our nature to forgive. And let’s be honest: we’ve all been wronged.
Every one of us has been hurt by others. Sometimes purposefully, sometimes by accident, sometimes simply by misunderstanding. It happens in our workplaces, in our marriages and families. Even within our own synagogue community there are people who have disagreed or argued – over what was best for the congregation, or what was the right or wrong path to take – and who have said or done things they later regretted.
And it’s so easy to remain mired in our grudges. It’s so easy to hold onto our anger. But failing to move forward from the past means being condemned to live there. What is best for our relationships – for our marriages and our families and our communities and ourselves – is to forgive, when we can.
We can’t change the past, but we can change the meaning of the past when we strive to forgive those who are as flawed as we are.
But what’s also true is that no matter how hard we try, there are some crimes that cannot be forgiven. And so, when we can’t look backward, all we can do is look forward.
Ernst Werner Techow was an anti-semitic terrorist who, in 1922, assassinated Germany’s Jewish foreign minister, Walter Rathenau. While he was in prison, Techow received a letter from his victim’s mother. She wrote: “I will forgive, even as God may forgive, if before an earthly judge [you] make a full and frank confession…. And before a heavenly judge repent.”
Techow was deeply touched by that letter. And years later, after being released from prison for good behavior, he smuggled himself into France during the Second World War where he helped over seven hundred Jews escape the Nazi regime.
He admitted later that the letter from Rathenau’s mother had prompted his actions. He said. “I only wished that I would get an opportunity to right the wrong I’d done.”
Even after saving 700 innocent souls, Techow did not believe that he had made up for his crime. And in truth, how many of us could see fit to forgive, to erase the past, in a case like this one. But Techow knew that even though our past actions are already written, our future actions are not. And whether he erased his crime we could debate until the end of the world, but he certainly made a difference in the lives of 700 people.
Rabbi Bachya Ibn Pakuda taught that “Our days are like scrolls. We should write on them what we want to be remembered.”
And our tradition tells us at this time of year that it is never too late to change what we will be remembered for.
We can’t change the past, but we can change the meaning of the past by creating a better future.
Kol Nidrei v’esarei v’charamei. All our vows and oaths and promises rise before us on the Yom Kippur evening. Because we are human, we make mistakes. Because we are human, we often fail. But we should remember that our failings can continue to be a constructive part of who we are.
And though we can’t travel in time to change the past, to erase our past wrongs or nullify our failed oaths, the truth is that’s not why we’re here. On this night of Kol Nidrei, we are here to begin to come to terms with the imperfect beings that we have been, to ask God’s permission and to ask our fellow human beings’ permission to move forward.
We can’t change the past, but we can change the meaning of the past through the choices we make, through the way we live our lives each and every day.
During these High Holy Days, may we strive to learn from our failures, to forgive others their failures, and to work together for a better future.
Amen.
Recent Comments