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.