Connection to God
I have noticed that many people think of prayer as a periodic activity, but truly religious and spiritual people of whatever conviction view prayer as a continuous process. Formalized praying times are focused on specific, communal prayer activities. But other times, even stressful times, prayers run in the background like a tape, keeping God in mind and attached to the spiritual in each moment. That is the reason, I believe, for thrice daily formal Jewish prayers and 100 blessings a day. The 100 blessings force the religious Jew to constantly keep in mind whether the experience at hand demands a specific blessing, meaning always asking the question: In what way is this moment connected to God? Those who meditate maintain the same process, only differently, and often more individually than communally. Catholics and Jews have more formalized liturgies. But in all cases the connection to the divine is not a matter of on again off again, but, rather, more intense and in the foreground, less intense and in the background, a sine curve of connectivity to the ever present divine.

Hanukkah 2014, December 19th, 2014
Among the sacred myths of Jewish history is the Talmudic story of Hanukkah about the oil lasting for 8 days when there was only enough sacred oil for a single day. A second sacred myth, also attached to Hanukkah, is that the Maccabees won the war against the Syrian Greeks. While both may be spiritually true, neither is historically accurate. The Talmudic story was created to give credit to God regarding the rededication of the Temple and the resumption of the Temple sacrifices, rather than giving credit for the military victory to the Hasmoneans. Second, the war continued after the Maccabees succeeded in removing the Syrian Greeks from the Temple Mount, and the war lasted another 2 decades plus. So why do we celebrate? Hanukkah commemorates the first war for religious freedom. It recognizes the victory of the Judaizers, those who would preserve Judaism, over the Hellenizers, those who preferred Greek culture. But one more unnoted historical innovation also occurred, more important than either. During the period of the Hasmonean dynasty, because the High Priesthood became illegitimate (the wrong people served as High Priest), a small group of Jews removed themselves to live according to their own innovative ideas of Judaism near the north western corner of the Dead Sea. We know them as the Essenes. This group of Jews, frustrated with the Temple cult that no longer represented the people before God, chose to express their spirituality through purity rites and, most creatively and importantly, introduced text study as a means to contacting the divine. This innovation, that studying holy texts enables the preservation of God's covenant, saved Judaism after the destruction of the Second Temple and changed all of Western civilization. After Qumran and the Essenes, study of sacred texts enabled the democratization of Judaism: anyone can learn to read and study God's word (you need not be a scribe or priest), bringing us into direct connection with the divine. The basis of Judaism for the last 2 millennia was created and rooted in the Hasmonean period, and that, in and of itself, is a reason to celebrate!

Parashah Vayigash December 26, 2014: After Joseph reveals himself to his brothers and they return to their father to tell him that Joseph is not only alive but the vice-Regent of Egypt, the Torah says, "... Jacob's spirit revived." But the Onkolos Targum (1st-2nd century c.e.) translates, "... the prophetic spirit rested upon Jacob their father." And Rashi (11th century) comments, "The presence of God (Shekhinah) that had departed from him came to rest upon him." The Avot D'Rabbi Natan (2nd - 3rd century c.e.) comments, "The Holy Spirit that had departed from him rested upon him at that time." The Torah Temima, quoting Maimonides Shemoneh P'rakim (Eight Chapters, chapter 7, 12th century) "explains the matter of the withdrawal of prophecy from Jacob during the time of his mourning [at the reported death of Joseph 20 years earlier] according to what is written in B. Shabbat 30b 'prophecy only occurs in times of simcha (joy),' and now it has returned to him [Jacob]."
American Jewry went into deep mourning subsequent to the Holocaust, and a reactive phase of protecting the new Jewish State of Israel from 1948 until 2 years after the Six Day War (1969). At the General Assembly of Federations in 1969 a group of rebellious college students demanded more of a focus on essential issues in the United States, like education. With the rise of interfaith marriage statistics in the 1980s and through today, it seems that Jews and Judaism persistently focus on calamity as the motivator of religious zeal. But we see in this parashah and the Talmud that God's spirit only rests on those who experience joy.
Jacob had descended into a two decade grieving over the loss of his favorite son. He failed to embrace life, and as a result prophecy left him. Perhaps the American Jewish community needs to learn the lesson of the Torah, Talmud, Maimonides, and Chabad: that we cannot motivate a creative, responsive Judaism in grief and calamity. Rather, Judaism must concern itself primarily with the joy of living, and seeing God's presence in that joy.
Jewish life can no longer focus on "They persecuted us; we won; let's eat." Instead, the spirituality of the everyday, the joys of each moment given to breathe, love, give, experience friendship, exercise, raise others' spirits, etc must be the focus of our prayers and our spirituality. No creative religious tradition can focus primarily on the negatives in life and expect to remain both vital and popular. Particularly among America's Jews, that have so much to celebrate, the presence of God in the daily happiness of living should be our primary concern. Practice spreading joy, and thanking God in each happy moment. Then let us find the joy not only in the moments of revival, like Jacob, but in the less obvious moments of worry. For life itself is a blessing, and every new day an opportunity to become a blessing in others' lives.

HOSPITALITY: Bikur Holim: Visiting the Sick
Genesis 18:1 The Lord appeared to him at the Terebinths of Mamre while he [Abraham] sits in the doorway of the tent in the heat of the day...

From here [we see] that among the ethical traits [midot] of the Holy One Blessed Be He is to visit the sick. Babylonian Talmud Sota 14a [Background: at the end of the previous chapter and episode in Genesis, Abraham circumcised himself and all the males of his household: Gen. 17:23. Therefore, God is visiting Abraham in the form of the 3 messengers at the height of his infirmity.]

Torah Temimah: In the adjoining Torah section God visits him in his [Abraham's] infirmity after his circumcision. and we gather from this that humans will learn to cling to God's ethical traits, as is written in Parashat Re'eh "You shall follow after the Lord your God and cling to Him." And we interpret, "Is it possible to cling to the Shekhinah [God's indwelling presence on earth]? For it is written "The Lord your God is a consuming fire." Rather, cling to [God's] ethical traits; just as He visits the sick..." [so shall you visit the sick].

From here we have the very essential mitzvah, to visit the sick, further elaborated in the Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot 5b. This mitzvah is not only essential because it relieves suffering, but because in connecting to those who are ill we create or reinforce essential human connections and build community. We learn the intricacies of the path all of us will walk eventually, and enhance our capacities for sympathy and empathy. Thereby we increase our humanity, bring others to God (the mitzvah of kiddush ha-shem, sanctifying God's name in the world), and share our souls, delving below the superficialities of many conversations. Here ma'aseh [deeds] demonstrate their superiority over limud [study]. It's so easy to study the mitzvah of visiting the sick, but in actually performing the mitzvah we raise two souls: ours and the person who suffers with illness. In this mitzvah all three of the beings present in ethical mitzvot become obvious: self, recipient of the mitzvah, and God.

Setting the Time To Die
Gen. 9:5 states: "But for your own life-blood I will require a reckoning..." Torah Temima takes this statement not only to prohibit suicide, but as the biblical proof text that those who take their own lives do not inherit the world to come.
Rabbi and ethicist Elliot Dorff writes against the idea of assisted suicide because he believes that it is the lack of communal support and pain control that drives people to want to take their own lives. Pain control can be provided, he claims, and lack of communal support is our own obligation.
In Atul Gawande's new book, Being Mortal, he makes the case that nursing homes are built on a medical model to take care of illness but not to provide a meaningful life, and that most assisted living homes do not provide meaningful lives for their residents as they were founded to do.
I am wondering how you feel about this. Should we allow people to take their own lives when they are in pain or alone, isolated and lonely? Do each of us have an obligation to reach out to those who are alone and perhaps sick, particularly people who have shared our lives for many years? Should we each prepare more for meaning to our lives in our old age? Many people tell me that when their spouses die or they move into assisted living, they lose their previous friendships. People just fade away.
Are these questions you are asking yourself, and what's your thinking?

GOD'S PEOPLE!
Written Torah is referred to as "the interpreted text." Oral Torah, the Talmud, midrash and all of rabbinics, is the interpreter text. Judaism implemented a unique and revolutionary system. While maintaining the absolute constancy of "the interpreted text," an immutable Torah embodied in each Torah scroll, the Torah remains fluid by being interpreted to apply anew to every age. On Simchat Torah we celebrate this divinely inspired system that has enabled the Jewish people to live immortally, in every land and age, by the immutable yet ever adjusting Torah. We live diachronously attached to Torah, preserving the constancy of the Jewish view and interpretation of the world. But simultaneously Torah interacts with and interprets all current events. Jews are the people who view reality through the prism of Torah. Whether the pursuit of justice, or dancing with the Torah scrolls, or blessing our children Erev Shabbat, or welcoming LGBT Jews into the community in a new and God conscious way: Jews ask "What does the ever ancient but ever-renewing Torah teach me about the eternal principles inherent in our current reality?" By preserving Torah God touches our lives even as we live in the real world daily. We willfully give our lives as God's instruments in the world. In so-doing, we become God's people.

Happy Rosh HaShanah 5775!
When American culture celebrate events, frivolity often demands center stage. New Year's Eve in particular, but also the devotion nearing addiction to professional sports events on Thanksgiving and most public holidays.  Weddings for sure, birthdays, even anniversaries, celebration translates to the expectation of excessive eating and drinking. It's almost as if we should not think too much or plumb the depths of the meaning of the event itself. Instead we "celebrate."  Who talks seriously about the meaning of aging on a birthday, unless you're under 30? Who seriously discusses or redirects their lives to freedom on July 4th?
But not tomorrow night, the New Year, Rosh HaShanah, the anniversary of the 6th day of Creation. We rejoice!!! But how do we choose to rejoice? We happily contemplate the meaning of our existence. It's Yom HaZikaron, the Day of Remembrance, and Yom Truah, the Day of the Sounding of the Horn so that we may consider our lives. The central focus is not our appetites but the reason for our existence.
We start with family meals; we pray together as families in community. Consider the difference: When Jews celebrate: we push to the fore the values central to our lives. When Americans celebrate, the culture tells us to forget our values for one night, and "just enjoy!" The difference is stark and demands attention.
Let us rejoice in our holiday, and celebrate our lives, proclaiming that we happily exist for a reason, and redirecting ourselves to serve the purposes for which we were created. When Jews rejoice, surrounded by family and friends, we don't deny reality for a night, we restore that which is must important in our lives.

Teshuvah Restores
When Teshuvah is complete, if the person actually accepts your repentance and forgives, your mutual relationship should be restored. Teshuvah can mean beginning again. History cannot be erased; but Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, in remaking Creation, restore relationships that have gone astray. Teshuvah is difficult, but extremely worthwhile work of the soul.

Teshuvah Brings Blessings
As I prepare myself for Rosh Hashanah, including last evening's Healing Service at Village Shalom, tomorrow night's community Selichot Worship at Beth Torah, and reading over the prayers and their history, I become aware of just how much preparation I actually require for teshuvah. My physical nature constantly demands my attention: appetites for sure, but more than that: psychological demands: anxieties, fears, joys etc. Yet I know that meaning and purpose, essential to valuing life, are entirely spiritual. Last evening I encountered how being among the grieving, those who have lost and yet recovered to live fully, helps me aspire to wholeness. I witness how others, living with their grief in tow, nonetheless focus to live each moment completely. This triumph over despair, a choice we make, demands thankfulness. That gratitude actively blesses our lives, flows like the sefirot, for we know not only what is, but what has been and the tragedies that we imagine might have ensnared us. Therefore, I am led to thank God for each blessing, each escape from misfortune, each joy that crosses my path. I pray that I never again ignore a blessing that gratuitously comes my way, sanctifying my life. We live with such bounty surrounding us, giving us creature comforts unknown and unimagined by any previous generation. But much better are the loving, soulful embraces of those who are thanking God in that moment that we have one another in our lives.
As the New Year begins, I pray ardently not for more blessings, but that I may be fully conscious and appreciative of those pouring over me in every moment. It's wonderful to be blessed, but so much more wonderful to know, appreciate and acknowledge those blessings.
May 5775 be a year of appreciation for us all. Shabbat shalom.

What Price Fear?

We were in Baltimore this weekend, coinciding with the bicentennial of the Star Spangled Banner. Walking the breadth of Baltimore Harbor, we wanted to travel the short distance to Fort McHenry, where President Obama had visited the day before, to witness the original of Key's poem. But no such luck, and perhaps the reason should be noted 200 years after the nation's founding: 
Both Kacy and I were carrying large purses containing our wallets, food, an umbrella in the drizzle, and assorted paraphernalia. That convenience kept us out of Fort McHenry. No bags allowed. No examination of bags. No place to check bags. We were simply too dangerous to view the nation's National Anthem. This, 200 years after the battle that witnessed "the bombs bursting in air..."
Everyone will draw their own conclusions. But to me, it's symbolic of the fear that has gripped the United States over guns and terrorism these last few decades, particularly since 9/11, but really before. Believe me, I know and understand that there are forces in the world who mean us harm. I get that. I understand every time I pass through the airport and TSA checkpoints. But Israelis have the same obstacles, and even worse, but they do not limit their freedoms. Part of the courage of our convictions is to take risks to preserve liberty. Along with the now ever present line "If you see something say something," urging Americans to report the unusual and keep us all safe, a fear trembles in the gloom. Along with the 2,996 deaths on 9/11, Bin Laden succeeded in rattling the bones of America.
I don't want to die in a terrorist attack. And I can live without going to Ft. McHenry, even on the 200th anniversary. But I'll be damned if I want to live my life in fear that some terrorist will shoot me or my family. We live in a dangerous world. We owe it to ourselves to take reasonable precautions. But fear, like vengeance, corrodes the soul and makes us wary of living. The Blue Angels flying overhead displayed American war making prowess. But down below, we cowered lest an unknown assailant threaten us. Americans are bolder and better than that. Yes, it's a dangerous world, and precautions are necessary; but we might reasonably ask ourselves, at what cost?

The Idea of Creation in Genesis 
Two biblical Hebrew words translate as emptiness. One, pronounced “rake,” most often means physically empty, as in “Don’t appear before me empty-handed” (Ex. 23:15), but may also describe “wicked people,” as in Judges 11:3. 
The other word, “Tohu,” describes the emptiness of the world before God’s creation. It is chaos, the opposite of Creation’s orderliness. But this primordial physical disorder becomes symbolic of moral disharmony. Biblical order is both physical and moral. “It is a fundamental biblical teaching that original, divinely ordained order in the physical world has its counterpart in the divinely ordained universal moral order to which the human race is subject.” (JPS Torah Commentary, Genesis, p. 6) When the prophet Jeremiah describes the coming destruction of Israel, he teaches, “…Watchers are coming from distant land, they raise their voices against the towns of Judah. Like guards of fields, they surround her on every side for she has rebelled against me.” (Jer. 4:16-17) The prophecy concludes, “I look to the earth, it is unformed and void (tohu); at the skies, and their light is gone.” (vs. 23) All of this occurs because the people refuse God’s commandments and worship idols. As Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel writes, “Civilization may come to an end and the human species disappear… the world’s reality is contingent on compatibility with God.” (The Prophets p. 10)
As we approach the High Holy Days, we take upon ourselves restoring God's creation and thereby restoring the moral order of the universe. That process of restoration, "teshuvah," begins internally with each of us, and proceeds out to the world.

Shema and Torah Study
This week's Torah portion, Deut. 27:9, Moses and the levitical priests spoke to all Israel, saying, Silence! Hear, O Israel.Today you have become  the people of the Lord your God..."
Berakot 63b:  "Listen! Hear..."  ... Make yourselves into groups to study the Torah, since the knowledge of the Torah can be acquired only in association with others...
Berakot 16a: When one recites the Shema, it is incumbent that he should concentrate his attention on it, since it says, "Hear O Israel..."  and in another place it says, "Listen. Hear, O Israel..." showing that just as in the latter 'hearing' must be accompanied by attention, so here it must be accompanied by attention.
Torah Temima to Deut. 6:4: Because the word "Hasket (Listen, be silent!) is clarified as discernment and focusing the thought and imagination, meaning that it be the intention of the heart to receive the yoke of heaven.  This is only in the first verse (of the Shema), but in remainder of the paragraphs the Shema requires only the intent to perform the mitzvah.

Both the recitation of the Shema and the study of Torah are included in this mitzvah, to be silent and listen. Reading the Shema is, in fact, Torah study, but Torah study in which we accept upon ourselves the obligation of the commandments. How much focus must we have? The Torah and commentaries imply to be silent in order to focus intently on the acceptance of the "yoke of heaven," meaning that we accept God as our Sovereign.  Whereas such focus is desirable in all Torah study, it is not absolutely incumbent, because having accepted with full consciousness the relationship with God, all else follows. The Rabbis and Torah recognize the different abilities of the community, thus requiring only the acceptance of our granting to God the authority to command us. Further, the mitzvah of listening implies that we study in groups, because "Torah is acquired only in association with others." There is no acquiring Torah alone and forming our own independent opinions without sharpening them against the debates of others. Only in community can we determine the meaning of Torah in our own lives.

War Weapons as Sport

I can't clear the accidental killing of the firing instructor by a 9 year old girl in Arizona from my mind. Few people seem to question the thrill seeking mentality that firing lethal weapons meant for war exhilarates the senses. Jews say a blessing when we are forced to take a life in order to eat. It implants a reminder of the sacrality of all of life, even when we have to kill animals to eat them. We don't eat the blood of an animal for the same reason. Often people will ask forgiveness of the animal.

Much of Jewish law can be seen as designed intentionally to engender a moral sensitivity. Encouraging children to take up arms of mass destruction as entertainment instills just the opposite: it subtly cheapens life. People were appalled at the death of the instructor. But they focus was on the safety precautions that should have been taken, not the cheapening of life instilled by glorifying agents of death. The only purpose of an Uzi is to kill someone, always a tragedy regardless of surrounding circumstances. The death of the instructor and the damage to the little girl are tragedies. But the greatest tragedy hangs in the air: the underlying America romance and dance with violence.

In this week's Torah portion we find the exalted commandment, "Justice justice shall you pursue." (Dt. 16:20). But justice is not  easily achieved, which is perhaps a reason the word is repeated. The Rabbis develop various principles to achieve justice, as the great modern Jewish legal scholar, Menachem Elon writes, "The halakhic authorities established the principles of justice and equity in Jewish law as primary norms that determined the substance of judicial decision--principles to which all other rules were required to yield, however legally valid such rules might otherwise be." (Jewish Law, vol. 1, p. 176). Already in the Babylonian Talmud (Baba Metzia 30b) Rabbi Yohanan teaches, "Jerusalem was destroyed only because they gave judgments therein in accordance with Biblical law. Were they then to have judged in accordance with untrained arbitrators? But say thus: because they based their judgments [strickly] upon Biblical law, and did not go beyond the requirements of the law. (Lifnim meshurat hadin -- going beyond the letter of the law to achieve justice) (Soncino, Nezikin vol 1, p. 189). In Mishnah Peah, the laws of those who may take public charity, we find in the final mishnah, "...he that needs to take from the gleanings, the forgotten sheaf, the peah or the poor man's tithe and does not take them shall not die in old age before he has come to support others out of his own goods. Of such a one it is written, 'Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is...So, too, is it with a judge that judges a judgment of truth according to its truth. (Decides on justice to its depths)" (Jeremiah 17:7) About this Moshe Yehiel HaLevi writes in Torah Temima, "And it appears simple to me, that the intention is that the judge who judges 'judgment according to its truth' and does not recognize the litigants (is not partial to one over the other) and does not fear them and sometimes suffers damage and distress from this, also regarding him Scripture says, 'Blessed be he who trusts in the Lord,' like the one who needs to take from the public coffers but does not take, because the value of both of them is equal in this matter, that they need the help of humans and nonetheless do not rely on them; and nearby [Scripture] says, '... in order that you live and inherit the land.'"

It is sad that we live in a time when many people, even Jews, angle for every material possession they can squeeze from public coffers, and hope to influence public policy to enrich themselves. The place the nation and our mutual welfare at risk (destroy Jerusalem, not inheriting the land). The Jewish legal system seeks justice beyond all other goals. We live in an era in which the beauty of Jewish law has been lost most notably among those in Israel who regard themselves as its champions.

With Tisha B'Av behind us, and the second Shabbat of Consolation before Rosh Hashanah, my thoughts are turning to the power of prayer. I have come to see prayer as a sacred drama, a play into which we intentionally place ourselves so that the drama will alter our perceptions of reality to see the spiritual and eternal alongside the circumstantial and ephemeral. The physical world constantly impinges on us, and forcefully molds us to discern how our physical being must conform in order to meet our appetites. But prayer, particularly shabbat prayer, exposes a separate reality. With the descent of the sun, and surrounded by the believing community, we are free to distinguish, emphasize and enhance the spiritual world in we which live constantly but feel compelled to ignore. Sacred drama lights the way.
Imagine Moses' frustration having led this people for 40 years, watching his people experience the miracles without making them a permanent enhancement in their moment to moment lives, returning constantly to the physical world in order to satisfy their appetites. "Feed me meat!"  "Find me water!"  "Give me a leader."
They lived in but not of the spiritual world surrounding them.
In his final speeches, Deuteronomy, Moses emphasizes their tragic blindness: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your mind with all your strength and with all your being. Set these words which I command you this day upon your heart...Know then this day and take it to heart. the Lord your God is in the heavens above and the earth below, there is none else." We repeat these words in our sacred drama to take us to the place of the divine encounter and immerse ourselves in its emotions and draw its lessons in our own lives.
We are not Moses, however much we may wish to compare ourselves. We are the people, struggling to personally ingest the encounter with the divine, not just in our communal history called Torah. This week, what did you do to poignantly bring God into your life? Whose life did you change for the good? What did you add to the world?  And do you understand that prayer's sacred drama enables us to rehearse and increase those roles in life, such that, when Rosh Hashanah is upon us, we are ready and eager to change.

Are Jews the canary in Western Civilization's cultural mine? 

Anti-Semitic violence in France; demonstrations against Israel and vitriolic anti-Semitism in Germany; threats against Jews in Italy. (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/02/world/europe/anger-in-europe-over-the-israeli-gaza-conflict-reverberates-as-anti-semitism.html)
A necessary, defensive but horrifying war rages in Gaza that must be fought to protect Israelis. Gaza's civilians are dying, exploited by their own government as human shields in the immoral calculations of asymmetrical warfare. Only an irresponsible or weak government would tolerate Hamas' tunnels or rockets. So why the hatred aimed again at Europe's Jews for Israel acting as any rational government would act?

The war in Gaza is not the issue. We are focused in the wrong place, and I fear we will pay the price.

The Egyptian army under President al-Sisi had the power not only to oust a democratically elected government, but to suppress the Muslim Brotherhood relentlessly without attracting world condemnation. Problem solved, at least temporarily for Egypt.

ISIS (The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) proclaims a caliphate in northeast Syria and northwest Iraq, murdering Shi'ites and now Kurds along the way. The world's public ignores the carnage and the expanding threat. The United States struggles to determine how to support Iraq while the Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, resists sharing power with Sunnis; and the U.S. fears handing de facto control in Iraq to totalitarian Iran while fighting ISIS.

Jordan suffers but holds on, even while over one million refugees enter from Syria to the north and King Hussein attempts to prevent al-Qaeda from gaining strength.

The Taliban will eventually regain control in Afghanistan, after the U.S. waisted our "nation building" efforts, thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars over 13 plus years. Al-Qaida operations extend to most of the Arab and Muslim nations, particularly Yemen, as well as nations like Germany and Indonesia. (see:http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/05/12/world/12aqmap.html).

All of this manifests the theology of virulently anti-Western culture, anti-modern, caliphate oriented, Islamism, resolute to destroy free society, personal liberty, separation between religion and state, and as ruthless as any regime in the history of the world. Originating in Wahabbism, this is not peaceful Islam, a respected religion. Islamism is a political/religious movement, and a threat to democracy everywhere because Islamists stop at nothing to gain political control. Their vision is of god-ordained domination. They will exploit then cause an end to democracy, like any totalitarian regime. Today they are the real adversary of freedom.

Hamas understands what it is doing. They've been in this place before. Running out of money and diminishing in power, they provoked Israel in order to gain the world's sympathy, and Prime Minister Netanyahu foolishly complied. Rather than strengthening the Palestinian Authority, Israel sadly chooses confrontation with Hamas. Rather than creating a Palestinian Authority that can rule, Israel gerrymanders the West Bank. But, though choosing the wrong path, Israel is not criminal. Wrong-headed: maybe. But it is now embroiled in the worldwide Islamist struggle. No longer simply the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, we have moved to a manifestation of the global Islamist threat.

President Obama set out at the beginning of his administration to establish a new tone with the Muslim world. It has not worked. But the fact that the governments of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Iraq recognize the threat to their existence ought to be exploited. Great Britain, France, Germany and all of Europe need to heed the new totalitarian threat. Israel stands and fights on the front lines. Jews are right to fear, particularly in France and Israel, that we will once again be sacrificed by the nations of the world to a global menace bent on obliterating freedom.

Finally, we in the United States need to understand that with Hamas (an affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group) controlling Gaza without regard for its people's lives but with the goal of a Judenrein Middle East controlled by a sovereign Muslim Caliph, American policy must be to support the Israeli democracy and suppress Islamism wherever it rears its murderous head.

How Religions Work

It amazes me that no contemporary writer about Judaism seems to go back to the basics of how religions work and ask why we are failing.  Of course, as we all know, the primary and first religious question, asked by all humans as part of our makeup, is "Why do we die?"  The corollary question, "What does my life mean? or "Why am I here?" is answered with 3 separate observations that become structures:

1.  What has my life meant until now?

2.  What is the purpose of my life in the future?

3. What am I attached to that is greater than myself, has ultimate meaning, and will continue beyond my body's death?

The social construction of reality created to answer these existential questions humans explain to ourselves as though they were absolute truths (insofar as religious liberals allow ourselves absolute truths) with myths (the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves), rituals and symbols.  Our days are filled with all 3 as we explain the above 3 questions to ourselves constantly so that we do not fear the first question about our mortality.

It seems to me that modern, liberal Judaism has done a lousy job with most of this. Anyone in the fundamentalist movements can answer all of these immediately and in a convincing manner for themselves, viz: they are sincere believers.  Our people have been trained to doubt, and we have offered poor answers to the questions. We are tepid in our teaching about afterlife, although my experience is that most of our people believe in afterlife.  Most of our people attach themselves to God and pray informally and daily, yet we have never organized this from the ground up: what do they believe and how do we create a community of believers based on their common theology?  And finally: how do we convincingly explain the purpose and meaning of our lives in a community that will reinforce and sustain those structures so that people receive reinforcement for the questions that challenge their very existence?

In addition, the great existential problem of the 20th century, addressed by the existentialist philosophers, poets etc. has been and continues to be our identity destroying and isolating anonymity in western society. The solution is community. But it's a very complicated issue in that people belong to many communities, yet no one religious community that sustains and fulfills them. If we provided, as Chabad and the ultra-Orthodox do, a sustaining community that answers the questions of death, meaning, purpose, and attachment to something greater, we'd have successful and sustainable communities as well. 

Rabbinic Judaism created, introduced and built upon learning as a central feature of spirituality and contact with God. Comprehension of and participation in our liturgy depends upon basic literacy for the novice and extensive literacy for the general practitioner. The problem with our liturgy, for instance, is not its rote quality but how complicated it is. Our people pray, but not according to the very elaborate structure of our liturgy in general. That's not when they turn to God. They turn to God in their private moments, informally, and with great conviction. However, the prayer structure that we content should connect our people to God and sustain that belief is too complicated for moderns and depends too much on the believer's Jewish literacy.  Take a look at other, successful American religions whose liturgy relies upon a very simple structure and pounds home the message of immortality. Such a belief system appeals to modern North Americans. It is simple, straight forward, and reinforced by the believing community. It works in crisis, and answers their existential questions.

This week's Torah portion contains the phrase "...You shall be clear before the Lord and before Israel..." (Numbers 32:22). This becomes a well-known principle: "meriyat ayin," encouraging Jews to be free from even appearing to have committed a sin. In Mishnah Shekalim 3:2 there is the remembrance of monetary offerings that were collected in the Temple, and how they were handled to avoid the appearance of wrong doing. "He that went in to take up Terumah (donations) did not wear a sleeved cloak or shoes or sandals or phylacteries or an amulet, lest if he ... became rich they should say that he became rich from the Terumah (donations) taken up out of the Shekel-chamber; for a man must satisfy mankind even as he must satisfy God, for it says, 'and be guiltless towards the Lord and towards Israel...'" We should avoid the appearance of impropriety. So the person who transports the charity funds should not wear clothing in which money could be hidden, and the operator of the community soup kitchen may not sell left-over soup to himself, lest people become suspicious that he did not pay the proper price for food intended for the poor. (Babylonian Talmud, Pesahim 13a).
In the current war in Gaza many have been suspicious of the motives of the Israeli government. Many articles have been written, including that Israel simply wants to kill Arabs, that this is revenge against Hamas for murdering the Israeli teens, that Israel is attempting to replace the Hamas government, and that Hamas is hurting for money and support so they needed to start a war (see earlier post below).  I will not be a naif and claim that governments must always be straightforward, although that would be wonderful. But when lives and the destiny of nations are on the line, it behooves a democracy to be straightforward with its people. I am not a fan of the current Israeli government. But I am hopeful that, with all of the hate for Hamas harbored by the political right in Israel, the true motive for this war is to remove the threat to the Israeli civilian population. Without such honesty, a nation cannot pull together. The reason for the Rabbis' elaboration on the principle of "meriyat ayin," is so that the authorities will earn a history of candor in order to obtain the backing of the nation when tough calls are required. That did not occur in the American war in Iraq, and we are witnessing the disaffection and abandonment of involvement in government that results, a great danger for a democracy. May Israel's leadership be governed by belief in her people worldwide, so that, earning our trust, Israel may lead us forward toward peace. Ken yehi ratzon.

I Kings 19: 11, this week's haftarah, we read first of God not appearing in the loud, awesome, natural events: wind, earthquake and fire. These 3, as Hirsch pointed out, are destructive, as we see the events of this week are loud and destructive. Where does God appear? God is in the inaudible sound emerging from silence with great focus and concentration. Often this "still, small voice" is thought to emerge from within, as many have experienced the God who emerges from the inner recesses. But I am enamored of the sound that emerges and yet is not quite heard, for which we lean forward and strain to hear, the auditory expressed in "Hear, O Israel." One never quite knows if it's there, and yet we seem to hear in the midst of silence. Sound flows. It's never absorbed all at once. A musical score, unlike a static picture, unfolds and develops. It's serial, as God's existence comes into our lives over time, if we listen and respond, the meaning of "shema." Elijah, the eternal prophet, flees to Sinai, and there encounters the True Presence. After great travail, and in the midst of stillness, Elijah feels the the auditory Presence, an emerging God that cannot be seen, but he feels the commands within, the voice that urges us to our mission. May your shabbat enable you to share Elijah's Sinai.

Suddenly this week I gained a new understanding of Genesis 2, the Garden of Eden  with the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life. For me it has long been an etiological allegory, giving contextual meaning to the origins of good and evil while explaining our failure to achieve eternal life. Now I see the story differently.
We ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, which, like the infusion of a new gene into the human genome, altered every human decision by endowing it with moral valence. The Bible would urge us toward the positive moral choice in every instance, but freedom is nonetheless given and humans become independent moral agents.
We are expelled from the Garden due to our choice to achieve moral knowledge and our resultant devisings and their actions, not because humanity disobeyed God. Now the Tree of Life becomes reserved for the sum total of our life actions, not some instantaneous condition thrust upon us by our Creator. Had we eaten of Eternal Life without morality we would never have known the nature of death or tragedy. Immortality would be meaningless without moral choice and the knowledge of alternatives. But having eaten of The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil the way to The Tree of Life is barred until the sum of our individual actions are totaled and God knows whether we chose life or death.
Those who murdered the Israeli and Arab boys choose death for all of us, Jew and Arab, humanity in general; and most particularly the inevitable future victims. God created an ambivalent world: of death of life. It's ultimate disposition will be determined by the sum of individual choices that actually, in virtually every instance, have universal implications and impacts. This week, the centennial of the events leading to World War I, it was reported that the assassins of Archduke Ferdinand stated that had they known the outcome of their actions they would not have done what they did. But that statement exemplifies every deed performed every single day, because the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil pervades each thought and manifests itself in every deed. Final results can never be known for certain at the moment of action.
These deaths, so tragic that nations weep for the losses, are mere manifestations of actions taken over years on both sides, ignoring their final outcome as though it would never be; or hoping that either side could triumph and ignore the other's reality. But the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil will take its toll on us all, and whether we create the path to the Tree of Life with each decision will determine future events in specific ways we cannot know at this moment except that they will most assuredly occur.

Last week's Torah portion, Hukat, opens with discussion of the Parah Adumah, the Red Heifer, used ritually to reverse the impurity imposed by touching a dead body. The parashah continues on to discuss the death of the prophetess Miriam, the loss of the water supply for the Hebrew people, and the death of Miriam's brother, Aaron.  Aaron is mourned for 30 days in the wilderness. All of this reminds us, indeed instructs us, of the mysterious power inherent in the life force.

Encountering both life and death, and the transition between the two, we are awestruck, like a bolt of lightning electrifying and transforming our lives.
We ignore this force at our peril. Traditionally we celebrate births and commemorate deaths with ceremonies. When Israel ignores Miriam's death, tradition tells us they are punished in the wilderness with the loss of water. But I think the punishment of ignoring the power in life and death penetrates to a deeper, spiritual place. We attempt to avoid its profundity, but at our peril. For it is the confrontation with the life force that makes us most fully human. Therefore we should embrace it.

People speak of looking into someone's eyes and seeing their soul. We encapsulate our physical selves in skin and our emotional selves in psychological escapes. Tearing away the emotional barriers and "I-Thou"ing another soul vitalizes and grounds our existence. The exchange injects meaning into otherwise time-bound, secular moments -- without the holy to give those moments dimension and meaning. This is the reason socializing on social media is so dangerous to society. The encounter is too literal. There is no opportunity for soulful encounter, in a society already spiritually impoverished.

Israel is not merely traveling to a Promised Land. Their divine embrace gives them direction and potential meaning. But the fulfillment of God's intent for them, as for us, comes in the inter-workings of God's creatures as we labor together to mutually fulfill God's plan. That eye to eye, soul to soul, awesome exchange of selves infuses the divine into the momentary. The ordinary is transformed into eternality. The mortal experiences the eternal. The Red Heifer laws mark the internal awe that drives us to examine the mystery of the life force, using it more effectively to transform mere existence into holiness.

The Purpose of our Enterprise
Psalm 8
When I behold Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
The moon and stars that You set in place,
What is man that You have been mindful of him,
Mortal man that you have taken account of him,
That you have made him little less than divine
And adorned him with glory and majesty?
The psalmist captures the religious enterprise, my work for these last 4 decades and more.
As far as we know, we homo sapiens, the upright mammal, are the only beings that ask the questions, "Why am I here and why do I die?"
In investigating our surroundings, starting with ourselves and moving outward, like an infant child who discovers there is a world beyond his hands, we humans experience the emotion of holiness: awe at a Presence more worthy than and beyond ourselves. The emotion is akin to fear; but is so much more, because unlike fear, awe does not threaten but is a salve for the earthbound soul.  Its trembling is the shudders of encompassing love, and a longing for the eternal home.  Awe overwhelms and uproots the moorings of place and time, transporting us for just moments into the midst of eternity, among the stars as our psalmist might opine. Awe grants perspective, and we find ourselves and our place in the universe in its embrace; like a child set free of his mother's hug yet knowing that mother's breath is ever so near.
Awe alerts humans to the presence of the holy, but does not define what is holy. That God left as a human task. Holiness may be easily discerned at a baby naming or a wedding.  But throughout the centuries holiness has donned different costumes. Our Torah portion this week, Naso, contains episodic encounters with events our ancestors felt to contain holy awe.
Our biblical ancestors often experienced disease as God’s absence or curse, and so disease indicated impurity and God’s disapproval, the opposite of holiness. The entire Book of Job consciously dispels the equation of disease with sin, so present in the Torah. Yet, people ask all the time, “What did I do wrong to deserve this disease?”
On the other hand, some of our biblical ancestors, called Nazirites, chose to declare themselves holy. Nazir today means hermit, or abstinent, or even a nun in modern Hebrew. These people temporarily or permanently chose holiness as their preoccupation. To achieve a holy state of being, they refrained from grapes in any form, including wine, or any strong intoxicants. They didn’t cut their hair. And they were particularly forbidden to approach a dead body, a strong contaminant because death absolutely defiles; it’s the polar opposite of holiness.
How they arrived at these particular stringencies, like wine and grapes, is anyone’s guess, and many have. Rather than analyze the holiness in such laws, some of which we understand and some is beyond us, let us state the obvious: that humans search for experiences revealing God’s inexhaustible presence.
Perhaps Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel was correct and God is in search of humanity; that it is not God who moves away but we humans. We witness the same phenomenon concerning love: many people will declare that they were once in love but no longer are. Who moved away, ourselves or the beloved? Perhaps in the divine/human encounter we know who moved, as God is a constant without change. Perhaps we move away from God. But the emotion of awe demonstrates God’s existence and presence in our lives.
We, like our ancestors, encounter God’s presence in the awe of life and death. We feel it viscerally at births, brises, baby-namings, deaths and funerals. We may feel it when a youth breaks through the childhood chrysalis to become a butterfly at bar/bat mitzvah or Confirmation, when we see our children glow in a new light and it brings perhaps inexplicable tears of joy. So often we make a joke, or become sarcastic, in this world that avoids and even rejects the holy as though it were unreal. How often I have wished that celebrants would simply live the moment as is, and fully imbibe, taste and swallow the overflowing joy and awe of the spiritual moment. Instead, so often we escape into humor, banishing the uncomfortably awesome Presence,  the momentary flash of lighting, the incursion of the divine into our small, time-bound world. How sad for us that we have been trained to not tolerate God’s presence and experience the eternal present in the moment.
But awe is not limited to a single set of experiences. We, like our ancestors, encounter God when we altruistically reach out beyond ourselves, connecting in Martin Buber’s I-Thou awe, losing the sense of isolated selves in that moment and gaining oneness with the world.  Anyone who has been there knows the fleeting energy and sheer joy of intense camaraderie.  It’s the reason soldiers give their lives for their buddy. It’s the unio mystica of the mystic. It’s eternity lived in a moment as clock hands merge into a single, seamless and timeless reality. You’ll hear soldiers talk about never having lived as meaningful a life as when they feared for their lives on the battlefield and suffered. Why? Because they were prepared to give up everything for a friend, or a cause so deep they’d sacrifice life itself. Here we find awe, just as in our people’s past.
And finally, there is the awe of community, being part of something greater than ourselves. You and I together comprise a community, stretching back 3000 years and across every continent and country on this globe. We are the spiritual inheritors of Moses and Zipporah, of Akiva and Rachel, of Emma Lazarus, and Albert Einstein and Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin and Theodor Herzl and David ben Gurion and millions of others. When people enter this building, even strangers tell me how accepted they feel because of the heartfelt reception. In this congregation everyone sings out, everyone prays together. You should be up on the bima sometime and hear this congregation sing Shema, or Avot v’Imahot, or Chatzi Kaddish. It takes my breath away for its beauty: one voice and one people. Together we have achieved a modern American Judaism in southern Johnson County, and I hope and pray there will be moments in your lives, as there are constantly in mine, when you feel the awe and God’s presence among God’s people.  We bring the Shekinah down to earth with our prayers, and everyone feels it each time we gather in large community.  When we welcome strangers; and when we collect tons of food to feed the hungry; and when we serve meals at reStart, God’s awesome presence abides. I can close my eyes and feel God’s awe, and I pray that you do as well.
The relationship continues through the millennia.  Like the psalmist, we know God’s presence when we gaze on the beauty of creation. But each generation also finds its own way. I pray that just as Numbers 6 concludes, so will we conclude each awesome encounter with God’s face:  May the Lord bless you and keep you; May the Lord’s face shine upon you and be gracious to you; May the Lord lift the light of his Presence to you, and give you peace.

To whom do you ascribe your character?

Rabbi Samuel bar Nahmani said in Rabbi Jonathan's name: He who teaches his neighbor the Torah, scripture ascribes it to him as though he had begotten him. (Babylonia Talmud Sanhedrin 19b) Resh Lakish said: He who teaches Torah to his neighbor's son is regarded by scripture as though he had fashioned him. (Sanhedrin 99b) "And you shall teach them to your children." Deuteronomy 6:7: "This refers to your disciples, for you find that disciples are always referred to as children..." (Sifrei to Deuteronomy 6:7) Those who teach children Torah are like parents, because they create them anew. Isn't this true: that teachers mold children, fashioning who they will be in life? Torah Temima says that before Torah came into the world people were crude and simple, and with Torah we are like a new creation.

As we conclude the school year, I am wondering at the role of teachers in our lives, particularly teachers of Torah. Rabbi Abe Shusterman helped me to become a better man because he taught by example that it's our job to improve the world, helping to integrate Baltimore, and bringing better relations among the religions. Rabbi Eugene Lipman demonstrated that there is no substitute for learning, and that social justice may require us to put ourselves on the line, to risk something in our lives to bring about a better world. They were not more important than my parents, but without them I would not have become the man I came to be.

Today marks sheloshim, 30 days, since the murder of 3 dearly loved Christian souls, martyrs of our Jewish community. Looking in the rear view mirror on April 14th, we could view only the shocking tragedy  of the previous day and vainly attempt to comprehend what it all meant. By Thursday, April 17th, unity through interfaith worship lifted our spirits and enabled us to dream of a better tomorrow, freed of the plague of enmity and the scourge of anti-Semitism.

Now the murders recede in the mirror, but with what change other than increased security at our agencies and synagogues?

At that communal worship we were brought together in common humanity with neighbors we had never met, all touched in the same way by the tragic events.  What did we learn; and what, if anything, will result from our losses? The ironic murder of Christians in two Jewish locales brought home the indisputable truth that when bullets guided by hatred fly, no one can be sure whom they will kill. At what point do we change our lives to avoid the repetition of these deaths? And how might we change? Did we learn from the outpouring of grief that united us all?

When Marion, Missouri's mayor, Don Clevenger, was caused to resign for his anti-Semitism and approval of the murderer's motives, we saw the vision of what might be:  citizens who will stand up without being asked to say "no" to religious bigotry. We saw decent people demand, "We will not accept sympathy with bigotry from our political leaders." One friend of mine called the City Hall of Marion, Missouri, to offer thanks. I wonder how many others did the same.

Where do we go from here? Does a longer term solution suggest itself?  These deaths offer us an opportunity, if we are willing to follow the lead of the Marion, Missouri, City Council. Each and every synagogue and church ought to have a standing, interfaith committee that examines the evil we tolerate in our midst and furthers interfaith understanding.  What might we have stood up to oppose this month out of our common and core belief that God has created us all equally? What baseless enmity should have outraged us and why did we miss it?  How do we teach our children to think of others as different, rather than the image of God?  Where do we allow religious bias in our schools? Where, in our own community, did bigotry raise its head and we did not notice or call it out? Not something foreign, or even several states distant. But right here, in our midst.

We hear around us comments about aliens, the disenfranchisement of the poor, comments about Muslims, and rationalizing racism. Our own Jewish children are sometimes told they are unsaved and will go to hell because of our beliefs. We need not go far to see how misunderstandings of others, ignorance of the reality of others' lives, affect all of us. Might this be an opportunity to investigate the implications of the biblical insistence that we are all created in God's image?

The shock of these murders touched many of us personally, and we have had to examine how we might move forward. But have they challenged us to improve our world to avoid the wickedness that brought all of this upon us? Only we can determine the best road forward.

A man broiling with lifelong hatred, like sludge oil within an overheated engine, wedged his way into Overland Park hunting Jews so he could release his pent up, liquid rage. Only his hatred matters. His name should disappear, like biblical Amalek. By pure chance he murdered, not killed as is often reported, three innocent, God revering Christians whose names should be listed among the martyrs: Dr. William Lewis Corporon, his 14-year-old grandson, Reat Griffin Underwood, and Terri LaManno.

The bullets flew precisely where aimed and missed their target, demonstrating the oft taught but rarely learned truth that once bullets fly they or their leaden siblings may strike anywhere. They murdered three, but penetrated all of our hearts.

Whose lives were altered forever?

1.    The murdered:  I will not even attempt to eulogize the talented young man, friend and singer, lauded by his school principal as a standout talent; the altruistic doctor, who gave up his life-giving practice to love his grandchildren in Overland Park; the daughter and energetic community volunteer who, by her very being, energized those privileged to be around her.

2.    Those in the Jewish Community Campus and Village Shalom: whose psychological armor protecting them from the possibility of flying bullets launched by murderous hatred was pierced and has yet to fully heal, or even scar over.

3.    The relatives of those so proximate to the murder in physical space that, in their mind’s eye, their loved ones were imagined as the flesh and blood bodies in the parking that sunny Sunday.

4.    The Overland Park population who suddenly witnessed the horror: the terror aimed at their anonymous neighbors but instead striking their friends, members of their church, people with whom they worked and prayed and played.

The murderer tore away the psychological pretense, the protective fiction afforded by such suburban fantasies that others are targets and victims of hate. Suddenly we all became Gabby Gifford with a target on our backs, as we too felt as though our flesh were penetrated and torn. Because the murdered lay dead in parking lots, we, too, no longer held shields against random hatred. It might have been us.

What have we learned?

An inchoate, internal sense that something eminently real but as yet unnamed has been altered forever within us. We witnessed random, yet purposeful and directed violence. Each person who self-selected as a witness made him/herself vulnerable to the same unspeakable violability. Whether we take the next step to turn our vulnerability into constructive action is what faces us now.

What will we do?

Curiously, we instinctively turned toward one another to share the moment, and then to mourn together. We did not isolate ourselves into separate camps, but came together as a cross-political-border/state line/inter-faith/interracial community to share our common experience. I believe this to be a new reaction in our metro-area. Our humanity united us as neither State Line nor Troost Avenue divided us. Instinctively we talked and listened to whomever felt compelled to share our human terror and disgust. We instinctively started the process.

Where will we take this process?

It is important to state that it has begun. But now, to whom shall we turn? Which thoughtful leaders will help this newborn community to take it’s first childlike steps toward a new understanding of what it means to be a citizen of a loving community, created in the image of God?

If we stop where we are, we will fail to honor the dead.  If we do not move forward, we shall fail the hope-filled path just being forged in a wounded community. Admitting our common vulnerability, might we together construct a path beyond hate-filled destruction to a newly realized unity of spirit? God could well be present in this moment, if we could build upon our discovered common humanity to create a lasting civic peace.

Creating Sacred in the Moment
Have you noticed people in a better mood with the arrival of better weather? We suffered a long, cold winter with plenty of snow, and by the end of it I know many people were not only tired of the darkness and cold but their moods were affected. Environment matters. It twists both how we feel, and as a result, how we act toward others.
The end of Leviticus 22 that we read this week contains some really interesting commandments. First a general principle: “You shall not profane my holy name, that I may be sanctified in the midst of the Israelite people.” (v. 32) What’s the general principle? “That I may be sanctified in the midst of the people.”
In the real world, dealing with our daily lives, how do you do that? Why would I do that? Well, some of the answers appear right here within a few verses, so perhaps we’ll find enough examples to understand what and why.
In the very next chapter, just 2 verses after the command to sanctify our lives, we discover the most obvious and the most observed of holiness for American Jews: sacred times. Leviticus 23 lists the biblical holidays. “These are my fixed times of the Lord, which you will proclaim as sacred occasions.”
We American Jews at least superficially understand holy times. Shabbat, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Passover and finally Shavuot. We get it. We’re assigned to do things we think of as holy, like pray, or maybe have a special meal with the family. We get it.
Add to that personal holy times: Births, brises, bar and bat mitzvahs, weddings, funerals: we get it. These times are special, and to mark them we need to do something extraordinary. We change our routine. We mark the occasion, and hopefully we enable ourselves to experience the sacred presence in the moment. It’s pretty easy to do that when a healthy baby is just born. The miracle of life somehow inspires awe in us. When we lose someone to death the sacred in the moment is more difficult to bring to the surface. But interestingly, and many say this, the mystery of life is present also at the moment of death, not just the moment of birth. At such times, the manifestation of something “other,” something beyond our grasp, presents itself in such a way that demands our affirmation and yet we cannot put it into words. So we use symbols and ceremonies to capture, explain and enhance such moments.
Judaism attempts to attach us to sacred in good and bad moments. That’s the reason that Pirkei Avot says that an ignorant person cannot be pious. It’s tough discovering and extracting the holy in trying times, like when you feel horrible. I fail daily; but I also succeed daily. So, for instance, this chapter in Leviticus (v. 28) demands that no ox, sheep or goat should be slaughtered on the same day as its mother. Well, why? The obvious answer: compassion for animals. Does an ox recognize its offspring? I don’t actually know. But our guts are churned by slaughter. That’s why we stay so far away from the processing of the meat we eat. We limit our exposure. Jews separate out the blood, because the blood symbolizes the life, and we don’t want to take the life but we must in order to survive many would say. God is “rachum” in Exodus 34’s 13 attributes of God, and so we must be compassionate as well. Creating compassion within calms our nerves, settles our churning stomachs upset by what we feel we must do, or by what we must do to satisfy appetites.
You see how this works? God is available in every circumstance and every moment. But just as it’s easier to be happy in spring weather for some people, it’s easier to feel the sacred in the birth of a child than in a moment of slaughter or frustration. The Jewish ideal is to live in holiness all of the time. Study trains us to both find what is holy in this moment, and then actually do it, not just talk about it.
In Lev. 18:4 Torah commands us to live by the commandments. During the Maccabean wars, two millennia ago, a Jewish town was besieged by Syrians. They held out until Shabbat, when, interpreting the Torah to mean that they could not fight on Shabbat, they lay down their weapons and were slaughtered. Our Rabbis thereafter interpreted Leviticus 18 to mean, “You shall live by the Torah laws and not die by them.” So, since that time a coerced Jew may break any but 3 laws rather than give us his/her life for being Jewish.
Now, thank God, we do not live in a place or time in which Jews are told, “Eat pork or I’ll kill you.” But it’s interesting to know what those 3 things are for which a Jew must die rather than transgress. We may not murder another person to save ourselves, commit a sex crime to save ourselves, or publicly practice idolatry to save ourselves. For the first two that means: your life is of equal importance to others, but not more important. Loving your neighbor does not mean giving that neighbor the water that will save your life. You are commanded to live. But we may not take another’s life to save ourselves.
How might this apply today? It will be interesting to watch the research about fracking as it develops. If it turns out that fracking is destroying lives in order to make the United States oil independent, or lower the cost of fuel, or make life more convenient: which is the path of holiness? May a Jew compromise another person’s life to improve his own? Is that holy?
I am painfully aware that I have not always been able to live in this fashion. My fear of hypocrisy is nearly as bad as my fear of being wrong. So I want to tell you a story:
The Dubner Maggid, a Hasidic rebbe and story teller, was a friend of the great 17th and 18th century rabbinic genius, the Vilna Gaon. It is said that the Vilna Gaon asked of the Dubner Maggid one day, “Preach musar to me.” Now musar is everyday moral teaching. It’s not fancy university stuff. It's how to live a moral life. The Dubner Maggid refused, “How can I teach anything to the great Vilna Gaon?” And indeed on a certain level, the Maggid was right. The Vilna Gaon knew every Jewish text, and was very worldly besides, having mastered both philosophy and mathematics as well as Jewish law and kabbalah. But the Vilna Gaon insisted. “Preach musar to me.”
Said the Dubner Maggid, “You teach how Jews should live their day to day lives, but you sit and study and teach all day. Come down here and live with the people, and then you tell them how to live.”
It’s a great insight. I see, I watch, I listen to how the pressures of the day to day world press people to do things and live in ways they would not choose to live. My own father was told one day, in a business for which he kept the books, “We need to lose $50,000 on the books, Bob.” Dad knew it was a bribe to a New Jersey union. He also knew he needed a job and had a wife to support and a son in college. But within weeks my dad quit his job, and without having found another job, moved to a new state. He never told me that was the reason. I just surmised. He did what the job required, and then quit and left.
Living with religious theory is one thing. Living with the pressures of daily realities may be another. But let me conclude with this: Living attached to God yields great satisfaction of the spirit. Compromise does not. I have witnessed great people who live as a blessing, have little material wealth, and thank God every day for God’s nearness. God has given us this gift of the spirit. The Torah and all of Jewish writings try to help us to figure how we live our particular lives in holiness. There are only two judges of your life that truly matter: God above, and God within. Be true to them, and God’s holiness is yours.

A spiritual God placed us in a physical world and gave us the possibility to live lives of the soul. This week's Torah portion begins, "You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy." How do we achieve holiness?
Jews create and live in sacred dramas. We have just been through one: the seder, in which we enact our exodus from Egypt, the root experience of the Jewish people, until we fulfill th...e commandment, "In each generation each person is obligated to see him/herself as though s/he came out of Egypt."
Each time we remove the Torah from the ark, we participate in a sacred drama reenacting the revelation on Sinai, in which the lectern is Mt. Sinai, the reader is Moshe Rabbeinu, and the Torah is revelation.
Why these sacred dramas? In order to structure our lives to fulfill this week's portion: being holy, the ultimate purpose of human life. If we simply indulge in the physical world, we will lead purely physical lives. But if we set aside time, called Shabbat, to dedicate to sacred living; if we dedicate a portion of our work for the altruistic act of selfless giving, tzedakah; if we behave morally with others even to our physical detriment (e.g. - do not put a stumbling block before the blind, love your neighbor as yourself) then we transform the physical earth into a spiritual abode and transcend time. Sacred drama enables us to transform our beings by sculpting our actions to fit God's design.
Shabbat shalom.

We were all assaulted last week. For the first time many Jews felt the visceral experience of being the hunted.

The murderer who killed 3 innocent souls at the Jewish Community Campus and Village Shalom had his shotgun aimed at you and me in his mind, and we know that very clearly now. Deadly anti-Semitism is no longer a theory. For many, particularly those who were at the Campus or nearby, but really all of us, it broke through our psychological defense, and theory became emotional reality. It’s difficult to be so hated that someone wants you dead.

It’s easy to claim that the murderer was a madman.  By some definition I suppose he is. But he was not insane. He lived among us, a 3-hour drive away, and everyone tolerated his anti-Semitic anti-minority hatred because nothing legally could be done about his venom. Until last week, it appears he never hurt anyone. Now 3 innocent and kind people are dead because nothing can be done about blatant hatred until a corpse lies on the ground.

Everything in our being strives not to be that corpse. For the first time many in our community feel themselves in the gun sights of a murderer, and the reality is unnerving.

But consider: so has it always been, just ask a Holocaust survivor. We are given an opportunity to deal with the real world. There are those who hate us despite all that Jews contribute to civilization. So then, how do we cope?

Let us not bottle up our fears.  Be aware of those around you, family members or other loved ones, particularly those who were near the line of fire, who have perhaps even dissociated this experience, put it in a bubble separate from themselves and are not willing to deal with it.  Encourage them to talk until they have worked through the trauma.  Validate their feelings by listening and affirming how their emotions. Check in to hear and see how they are progressing. Please do not deny or contradict their feelings, or belittle their fear. It’s very real to many among us. Some people may want a couple of conversations with a psychologist to get past their trauma.  But what about the rest of us?

We live in dangerous world. Most of Johnson County culture has been cultivated to make it seem that the world is not dangerous at all. We avoid infirmity and those who are ill. Some live in gated communities. We drive large cars to protect our bodies, our families and often our egos from harm. All of this seems to keep the jungle at bay, until the unthinkable happens.  So now what?  Now that we see the brutal reality of the jungle where animals are prey, how do we cope?

First, let us admit that we are frightened, and that we do need to take reasonable measures to protect ourselves.  But let us not react as our nation did after 9/11 by exaggerating the threat.

Next, let us keep an eye out for one another in this jungle called life.  So many around us have their lives threatened daily, and you don’t have to motor across State Line to see it. So many suffer life-threatening illnesses and need the help of friends and community to support them in their hour of need. I just met with a man who is all alone and suffering terribly. It was driving him out of his mind until he had a caring person to share his thoughts and fears. Let us watch out for one another, and reach out to help with a kind thought, a listening ear, transportation to a doctor, watching after children, buying groceries for a neighbor, mowing a yard.  So much can be done to show support and make a threatened life easier to bear.

Finally, let us remember that none will escape this world without trials. Let us thank God for our lives, the lives of those we love, and a community that supports us. Rather than searching for where our enemies may be hiding, let us reach out to the friends who are newly awakened to the threat to all of our lives, and together build a new community with a new heart. This will not be organized by clergy, or church and synagogue boards. It can only be brought to fruition by good people who realize now, together, today, that only we and our neighbors united in commitment, those with whom we share our lives daily, can tame this jungle we call home. Bullets flew and found targets, humans died without distinction of race, religion, color, sexuality, age or national origin.  The murderer had targets in mind. He did not succeed in his goal because human beings are all the same in the final analysis.  Maybe we can finally learn this from these deaths. As Benjamin Franklin first wrote, “If we don’t all hang together, we shall all hang separately.” The best solution to violence is for all of us to accept that “there but for the grace of God go I,” and to accept responsibility for the welfare of our neighbors. That means watching out for their children, taking care of them in illness, and caring about their welfare. We will live together as a community, or perish together as fools: class war, racial tensions, right against left and vice versa, religion against religion, whatever division we choose to distinguish ourselves from our neighbors.  The choice is ours. Once the bullets fly, we are all endangered. But a community of creatures in God’s image cannot be destroyed by terror.  Let us live together like aspen trees live in groves: individual trees standing strong, but all connected together at the root. As goes one, so go we all.

I awoke this morning feeling sad about those poor souls murdered last week at the Jewish Community Campus and Village Shalom:  Dr. Bill Corporon, Reat Underwood, and Terri Lamanno, religious Christians all. I can only imagine the tragic emotions of their families, and my heart goes out to them.

We emotionally attach ourselves to those we love.  In our grief we struggle to hold on to many of those invisible lines of connection.  The pain of loss throbs within not only because we lack their presence, but also because we desire to maintain every possible link in order to avoid abandoning their place in our lives. The irony is that so often people feel disloyal to the deceased if, as mourners, we attempt to find happiness.  We feel that not only are we deserting what they meant to us, but that somehow we ought never be blissful without their companionship.

The kaddish prayer addresses that internal instinct of disloyalty. By reciting kaddish from the grave forward, tradition insists that even though we resist, we are commanded to go on and strive for full lives without those who lie in the grave. It’s not disloyal to work towards enjoying life even though our loved one has died.  By tradition we return slowly to normalcy: giving up entertainment for at least the first month, avoiding certain pleasures.  I have often told people it’s because we feel these activities are not appropriate in the light of our loss and death itself. And that’s true. But there’s this other aspect: “You are no longer alive, but I will not abandon my love of you in death.  You are not alone in the grave.” We are not abandoning our loved ones who have died.  It’s not disloyal to enjoy life to the fullest, insofar as that is possible, even though they no longer walk by our side.

When I first studied the Talmudic text that men may not wear a tallit in the cemetery because the dead will be jealous, I thought it was ridiculous.  Now I understand its logic.  “How can I gain pleasure from life when the person I loved has suffered and can no longer have the same pleasure I enjoy, in this case: fulfilling the mitzvot?”  It’s totally natural to feel that way, but, nonetheless, tradition demands that from the cemetery forward we begin the journey that returns us to the world of living rather than attempting to keep one leg in the grave with our beloved.

Jewish tradition is ever so wise, and tuned in to the actual lives we lead. I pray for healing for all those who have lost family or friends in this tragedy. May we all restore ourselves to health and strength, wiser and closer to one another because even in tragedy there are lessons to be learned about life’s beauty.