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.

To The Honorable Eric Holder, Attorney General of the United States
Dear Mr. Attorney General:

We are honored that you will address our community on Thursday morning regarding the tragic hate-crime murders this past Sunday at the Jewish Community Campus and the Shalom Geriatric Center in Overland Park.

Mr. Attorney General, these events have focused the attention of our community in a fashion I have not seen in my four decades in the rabbinate. The overwhelming impact of the murder of 3 wonderful, accomplished, giving, religious, caring and outstanding Christians as a hate-crime against Jews cannot be overstated. Our community is dumbfounded. We need your voice.
We all understand that you will not be able to solve this problem on Thursday. Indeed, the truth is, you cannot even begin to solve the problem striking at the heart of this community. But you have the unique ability and opportunity to start us in the right direction.
MR. ATTORNEY GENERAL, I ASK YOU TO ASK US TO LOOK AT ONE ANOTHER UNTIL WE TRULY SEE ONE ANOTHER. NOTHING WILL BE ACCOMPLISHED UNTIL THAT OCCURS.

Anti-semitism occurs in our region, but it is not overwhelming. Jews are seen on a continuum between outsider and beloved friend. But few of our neighbors truly understand us or our religion, neither do they desire to. We are largely strangers to one another.

Racism provides us with our primary bigotry. A color line still exists in Kansas City, Missouri along Troost Avenue. But our racism is more subtle. It's embedded in our neighborhoods, in our schools, in our dating patterns, in our hiring practices and in our interpersonal assumptions. It's also in our guardedness in the presence of other races; and when we allow ourselves the comfort of assuming a pose as though we are not racist, and then go on our merry way harboring unspoken prejudices. It's in our courts, and in our fears of others. We see more interracial couples in greater Kansas City than ever before, but it's still a rarity. Not much has changed in the last 30 years.

Religious superiority exists throughout our region. It is the assumption that somehow our personal religion is chosen, that our group is preferred by God, that our very being is better than our neighbors'. The murders unexpectedly attacked this intrinsic prejudice against the other because it exposed our mutual vulnerability. But we need you, Mr. Attorney General, to point us in the right direction, to instruct us that we cannot allow these innocent and righteous people to have died in vain, and that we must now assume the responsibility to truly understand our neighbors.

Had these murders occurred as black on black crime east of Troost Avenue you would not be here, and this community would not gather, even if it were called a hate-crime. You must help us to see ourselves for the people we are, or nothing will ever change, and our dead will be buried and mourned and we will go on with our lives.

There is a single villain here, a murderer, and he must be brought to justice. But I am asking you to plead with us to put on trial the assumptions that tolerated his existence among us. I believe now is the time; we have the opportunity; and you are the man for the job.

Thank you, and I look forward to hearing you speak to our community so confounded by our grief, but uncommonly willing to break down barriers to move forward together.

Sincerely,

Rabbi Mark H. Levin

13

The Myth of the Exodus

People in Shabbat class have been asking me about Richard Elliott Friedman's article in Reform Judaism Magazine contending that the Levites lived in and left Egypt. The article bears the unfortunate title "The Exodus is Not Fiction." Friedman proves no such thing, and his proffered information is not new. He contends, and he certainly could be correct, that the Bible's levitical names reflect an Egyptian origin, and that the tribal history of the Levites was adopted as the collective history of Am Yisrael. I do not disagree. But that's far from verifying the historical Exodus.
The Exodus narrative holds that the entire people escaped Egyptian servitude as a direct result of divine intervention through miracles and God's servant sent as Redeemer. The people not only flee slavery to Pharaoh, but voluntarily accept servitude to God at God's own mountain: Sinai. That is the Exodus myth. To contend that the core of that myth had historical origins with a single tribe is like saying discovering a 5,000 year old garden in Iraq proves the Garden of Eden. It may hint at the Garden of Eden, but it's no proof. To say that the myth of Hebrew origins in slavery had an historic core is nothing new and no surprise, but it proves nothing about the true meaning of the Exodus. That we will have to leave to the sphere of faith.