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?