Aging Alone
May 30, 2015

I frequently work these days with folks facing the deterioration of the physical aspects of their lives, and with loss of those whom they love. Every person individually faces these universal and very human questions, and yet we seem to face them alone.
Other universal statuses in life we confront as communities: how to create loving relationships; how to choose a life occupation; where to live; what to do about the possibility of children. All of these major life decisions we learn about and discuss with friends, family, peers, in learning sessions, in other social groupings, and sometimes even in courses. But the even more universal questions of bodily deterioration, the meaning of my life, loss of major loves, loss of meaning, we face alone.
Often our theologies are not sufficient to satisfy the questions of these existential issues. Religion theoretically provides answers to the meaning questions in life. What has my life meant? What do I do when confronting a disastrous loss? How do I survive my pain? How do I preserve meaning when the meaning structures in my life (work, children, home, loved ones, etc) disappear from my life?
We should be discussing these issues along the life span, and particularly after 45 or 50 years old when they kick in big time. But we don't. Most often we assume that there are no satisfying (real) answers, so we put off and ignore the questions. But if we live long enough, there they are, right in front of us, demanding our attention.

One possible answer of many:
This afternoon, as I took my daily walk (used to run, used to bike, now I walk), I thought about the oneness of all creation. I find myself constantly attracted to two things: beauty, and the harmony of the universe. Whether thinking about how the complex structures of the world fit together in a single creation, or harmoniously sensing my place in that creation, I find myself emotionally attached to viewing my life as simply a small piece that fits harmoniously into a magnificent complexity. Beauty demonstrates to me how that wholeness is intertwined in an intricate variety that possesses ultimate meaning. When I strive to connect with those creations that surround me, viz.: nature, animals, all living creatures, environment for example, I discover a peacefulness that I can make a very minor contribution, and that contribution will not die with my body's death, but will continue its impact eternally. As I bear the mark of past generations living within me, so it will be with the world that follows me.
Focusing on my place in creation existing and breathing at this moment, I attempt to discover what is most significant to me: touching other lives, lessening the pain in others, contributing knowledge to the world. Since those things create meaning in my life, I am plotting how I will maintain them even as my body inevitably deteriorates. In other words: how do I maintain meaning when my past skills, loved ones and occupations disappear?
There's not enough space on FB to lay out the entirety of the issues. But I feel that someone must provoke the conversation that real solutions exist, but not if we go about trying to solve all of the existential problems of aging alone. Like the past decisions we made about our life choices, these too must be discussed and conclusions tested in communities we find trustworthy and similar to our experiences in life: among friends, family, our most trusted partners in living. Then we can move forward together, facing the complex world with our private solutions to universal issues of how to live our most meaningful years even while facing the losses in life.

Creating Children
May 23, 2015

How do we create children? Not as obvious as you might think.
Numbers 3 opens with this, "These are the generations of Aaron and Moses on the day that Adonai spoke to Moses on Mt. Sinai."
The chapter proceeds to list only the children of Aaron, not of Moses. Was this a mistake, since Moses is also prominently mentioned in the verse?
Commenting on this in the Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 19b, Rabbi Shmuel bar Nahmani said in Rabbi Yonatan's name, "Anyone who teaches Torah to his friend's son, the Torah credits him as though he gave birth to him." Then quoting our verse, the midrash concludes, "Aaron sired and Moses taught [them], therefore they were called by Moses' name."
Whom have you raised or greatly influenced? Whose life have you changed for the good, that was not your own biological child? The Rabbis credit the major influence in a child's life as being the parent.
Explaining this, Torah Temimah teaches, "They are thought of also as his children, and this is taught in Parashat v'Ethanan [the Shema] 'And teach them diligently to your children:' these are your students." And because of this the instructing rabbi is called "father," as [the prophet] Elisha called [the prophet] Elijah, "my father my father." (II Kings 2)
See also in Sanhedrin 99b, "Reish Lakish said, 'Anyone who teaches his friend's child, the Torah credits him as though he created him,' as it is said, 'The souls they created in Haran,' that Abraham would convert men and Sarah would convert women...'"
Abraham and Sarah are credited with creating the people whom they converted to the new religion. Whom have you converted to a new thought that influenced their lives on a fundamental level? Perhaps that should be a goal, to touch lives in a positive and overwhelming fashion.
In 1992 I wrote to my 3rd grade Hebrew teacher, who taught me to read Hebrew letters, and to my 8th grade English teacher, who gave me a C in English but taught me to diagram sentences, which changed my writing life after college. I was not a natural writer, and am still not. But I have written a huge amount in my life, and that teacher changed the course of my life.
Others had the opportunity, but chose not to take it. My gym teachers could have improved my health, since I was asthmatic, but were interested only in the good, natural athletes. But my senior year English teacher, Mr. Johnson, gave me an essay, the Myth of the Birth of the Hero, by Otto Rank, that changed my life. That small act sent my academic career in a new direction. He took an authentic interest in a student, and changed the direction of my life with one essay. He took a chance, and thought about what might interest me. It wasn't guaranteed to work, but it did.

Who might be called by your name, because you helped to create her soul? You may not share DNA, but perhaps you have formed another person's soul.

The Problem with Oppression
May 17, 2015

Last week my daughter and I took a wonderful vacation to Charleston, S.C. Among other sites, we visited Ft. Sumter, where the first shot of the Civil War was fired. There we witnessed and toured the Slave Mart Museum, located in the space once occupied by one of the largest slave markets in the Old South. It's a very educational, self-guided tour, on which it became patently obvious that slavery was not the goal. The goal was an easier life through economic prosperity for white southerners. Slavery was the means. And in order to achieve that goal in South Carolina, the first State to withdraw from the Union, where, by 1730, there lived more people with black skin than white skin, whites passed laws enabling them to control the lives of enslaved people. Those laws, often cruel, removed the dignity and humanity of plantation workers, but with a different goal: economic prosperity for white land owners. The slaves were a means to an end, mere property. Slaves' humanity was removed because treating them as human would have rendered unachievable the great prosperity the south enjoyed.

And the entire time I visited the museum I could not remove modern Israel from my mind. Israel's overall goal is security, for its Jewish inhabitants and citizens to live without fearing for their lives. The means for achieving that goal today involves separating Arab Israelis from Jewish Israelis, limiting where Arabs can live in some cases within the State of Israel, separating in some instances, not all, between citizens according to Jewish or Arab background, and often teaching suspicion, sometimes called caution, of the Arab minority.
And because of that suspicion, Bibi Netanyahu could pull off a last minute election victory by claiming that Arabs were being bused en mass to the poles to exercise their democratic right to vote, and thereby creating panic of "the enemy within."

And here's where some of you are going to not like this post: I could not help but think that the necessity for security is doing to Israel what the necessity of economic prosperity did to the South. You see, oppressing people, no matter what the goal, inevitably leads to subjugation and removing human dignity. The motive for oppression is irrelevant.

To remain in control of security, nearly every government of Israel has kowtowed to the ultra-Orthodox, and therefore The Jewish State is the only democracy in the world that does not allow religious freedom to all Jews. It's the only democracy in the world that limits the right to marry among its citizens, and therefore hundreds of thousand of Israelis are not permitted to marry legally in Israel. The Chief Rabbi of Safed has prohibited renting to Arabs or selling them property. Rabbis have demanded that soldiers not evacuate settlements on the West Bank, even if the government of Israel orders a withdrawal. And last summer, Sayed Kashua, an Arab Israeli Hebrew writer of novels and a columnist for Haaretz chose to leave his homeland rather than suffer the indignities of being an Arab citizen of Israel's democracy.

The current government of Israel wants to limit the power of the Supreme Court, the way the Kansas Governor wants hold sway over the State Supreme Court and refuses to enact an order of the court to increase money for education. The current government of Israel seeks to put in place a Basic Law stating that Israel is a Jewish State, and not just a democracy; and while no one knows exactly what that mans, it appears a means to Constitutionally further limit the rights of non-Jews.

I fear for Israel, and that fear extends to the Jewish people. As goes the State of Israel, so goes Jewish history. An Israel that oppresses its Arab minority will fail. Amos Oz recently wrote that the Prime Minister is poised to take on the entire world, and certainly sees himself and the world's savior from a nuclear Iran.

A non-democratic Israel will never be the State of the Jewish people, no matter how much Hebrew is spoken or how many Jewish holidays it keeps. And ultra-Orthodoxy is neither Judaism nor expressive of the soul of the Jewish people. Israel is losing its way, as the south lost its way by oppressing human beings. It is not too late. I pray Israel turns from its oppressive direction, and once again lives by the prophetic spirit: "What is it that the Lord requires of you? Only to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God."

Parashat Behar: That Your Brother May Live with You

Leviticus 25:35-36:
How shall we treat others?
Leviticus 19:18 commands, "Love your neighbor as yourself." But our tradition instructs that is impossible, against nature. Who can love a neighbor the same as himself? So, what's next?
In the Babylonian Talmud, Baba Metzia 62a, we read the story of two men in the desert who have enough water for only one to survive. Rabbi ben Petura observes that both should drink and both die, since neither life is more sacred. Rabbi Akiva teaches that the one holding the water should drink it, for then at least one will survive. What's the rule: when only one can survive, your life takes precedence.
But is that all?  No, there's more.
In this week's Torah portion, Leviticus 25:36, we find, "... that your brother may live with you."  What does that mean? In the Babylonian Talmud Kiddushin 20a we find that if you own a slave you must treat him as you would treat your neighbor. He must eat like you and sleep like you. If there is only one pillow, the slave uses it, "That your brother may live with you." So we discover that if only one person can survive, your life takes precedence. But you may not treat those dependent on you , like a slave, as inferior, and you must provide for him as for yourself. Tradition says, "If you own a slave, the slave owns you."
The Talmudic Encyclopedia says that the mitzvah is to save a person whose life is in danger, both because we are not permitted to "stand idly by the blood of a stranger," (Lev. 19:16) and because of the law of returning a lost object. If a Jew sees a lost object, it must be returned to the owner. If you see someone about to lose his life, you must return that life to him! A person in danger must be saved, even if we are not sure that the danger will take his life, whether save him bodily or financially. (Talmudic Encyclopedia)
This is also a source of the mitzvah to give money to the poor (Maimonides, Laws of Gifts to the Poor, chpt. 7:1) and of redeeming captives (ibid. 8:10)(See Nicholas Kristof's column in Friday's Star re: Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, where Buddhists are murdering Muslims and they are fleeing to the sea.)
The Torah in Leviticus 25 discusses not charging usury or interest. (Think: Payday Loans in contemporary society) However, Torah Temimah to Leviticus (note 192, p. 539) discusses cogently why loaning at interest is now permitted. In Biblical times, Torah Temimah instructs us, the basis of making a living was from the land. Anyone who needed to borrow was borrowing for the staples of life, like bread, and therefore it was forbidden to charge interest. But in the Middle Ages (Yamei haBeiniyim), when Jews did not work the land, the basis of earning a living was from money -- buying and selling -- and therefore charging interest became foundational to making  a living itself. The basics of making a living changed. But the law's essence, "That your brother may live with you," did not change. That remains.
So what do we conclude?  In Kansas and Missouri, at the beginning of the 21st Century, religious people are commanded to ordain laws, "... so that your brother may live with you." No, we are not commanded to sacrifice our lives for our brothers and sisters. But we are commanded to save them from death, whether physical or financial. Clearly, allowing people to die because they do not have access to medical care because of finances is therefore forbidden by the Torah and Jewish Law. Allowing people to starve is also forbidden. And charging interest so that people are placed in very dangerous circumstances, also forbidden by the Torah.
Shabbat shalom.