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B'SHALOM RAV - RABBI RON SHULMAN'S SERMONS 2019-20 | 5780

Sermons 2018-19 | 5779 Archive

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honest with ourselves

Selihot Sermon | September 12, 2020

I remember a visit to the tailor a few years back to fix a suit. I went into the dressing room to put on my pants. Lifting them off the hanger, a couple of pieces of paper fell out of my pants pockets. I bent down and picked them up. Reading them, I realized they were reminders still in my pockets from the last time I wore that suit. (I guess they didn’t work!)

One of the notes reminded me to check in on a friend who is ill. The other one listed some ideas for a paper I was writing. When I got home, I called my friend feeling bad that I hadn’t been timelier in my caring. When I got back to work, I filed the ideas for later, feeling good about how I planned to use them.

All of us do this. It’s simple. We jot down a note. Put it in our pocket, our purse, our phone, or our notebook so we won’t forget. The trick, of course, is to remember to check our notes. It’s simple.

Hasidic Rabbi Simha Bunam of P’shiskha used to say, "Every person should have two pockets. In one, there should be a note that says ‘bishvili nivra ha'olam - for my sake was the world created.' In the second, there should be a note that says ‘anokhi afar va'efer - I am dust and ashes.'"

It’s simple. When feeling bad, remember that the world exists for your sake. Perk up! Who you are matters! When feeling important, remember your origin and destiny. Find perspective. Who you are doesn’t matter as much as you may think! It’s simple. But, we have to remember to check.

This quaint and familiar teaching is commentary on a Torah verse from the end of Leviticus. “Do not deceive one another, but revere your God; for I the Lord am your God.” The verse itself is the basis for one of the 44 sins we enumerate in our confession this Selihot night. “Al het sh’hatanu lefanekha b’hona’at re’a - We have sinned against You, God, by deceiving one another.”

The pocket notes are Rabbi Simha Bunam’s way of interpreting this text, explaining this sin. "You shall not deceive another, but revere your God" includes you, yourself. We revere God by respecting other people and by being honest with ourselves, and honest about ourselves.

The poet W.H. Auden once observed. "The image of myself which I try to create in my own mind in order that I may love myself is very different from the image which I try to create in the mind of others in order that they may love me."

It’s hard to be honest, harder than we like to admit. We convince ourselves things are better or worse than they actually are. We avoid constructive criticism. We politely stay quiet rather than politely offering correction or comment.

We are right to be sensitive to people’s feelings. Still, I worry that as individuals, and in our society, too often we are less than honest, unable to face foibles that hold us back or facts that make us uncomfortable. We create illusions to comfort us in the face of realities that upset us.

In ways more and less profound, we all mislead ourselves to protect our feelings, to sustain our self-images, to feel better when we fall short. We blame others for what is our fault. We find excuses for what is our responsibility. As we prepare for Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur tonight, we seek to be honest. Honest with others. Honest with God. Honest with ourselves.

In the midst of our confessions, when in prayer we list what we’ve done wrong and strike our chests, we read in the Mahzor, “Atah yodea razei olam - You, God, know the mysteries of the universe, the deepest secrets of everyone alive.” It’s a call for honesty.

There are things known only to each of us, properly private and hidden. Hurts we remember. Loves we feel. Things we’ve done. Thoughts we’ve chosen not to say out loud. Hopes and memories we cherish. Disappointments and choices we regret. What we know and keep quiet forms our bond with God and our sense of mystery - as long as our secrets are true, as long as we’re being honest with ourselves.

When we don’t live truthfully, when we fool ourselves about why we can’t or don’t or won’t, about why they can or did or will, when we live the lie rather than tell the truth, we stop believing in ourselves. “Ki emet asita va’anahnu hirshanu – For You, God, were honest, and we have sinned.” Our prayer reminds us.

Let me tell you this story of an elderly woman who owned a popular bakery in her community. Word was that she made the best breads, cakes, and cookies anywhere in town. One day, a young man brandishing a gun entered the shop and demanded money from the register. “Listen to me,” she shouted. “I survived Auschwitz, you don’t scare me. Put down your gun. Put on this apron, and get into the backroom. You want some money? Earn it.”

He did. Shocked by her strength and indignation, this would be robber started working in the bakery. First, he washed pots, baking trays, utensils, and equipment. After a couple of months working regular hours, he started learning how to bake from his unexpected employer. He became her apprentice. She taught him her recipes and methods. He learned them all. Over the course of a few years, he became the new chief baker and her most trusted employee.

One day, the aging bakery owner called her protégé into the backroom. “Give me a dollar,” she demanded. “What? Why?” he asked. “Just give me a dollar,” she repeated. “Ok, fine. Here, take this dollar.” “Good,” she said smiling. “I’ve retired. You now own the bakery.”

The elderly woman understood her would be robber’s self-delusion. Rather than focus on the young man, she took a look at his circumstance. By hiring him, by holding him accountable, and by trusting him, she taught him to tell the truth about himself, to believe again in what he could do and who he could become.

When is the last time you were that honest with yourself, or helped to be that honest about who you are? For me, there have been a few such life moments. During them, I talk to loved ones and mentors. I sit outside late at night and gaze at the stars. I sit in synagogue and think as I pray. I worry myself and occasionally feel ill at ease. As a result, I grow. I change. I set out on my course. Finally, I know the truth.

It’s not simple to be really honest. It’s not as easy as putting notes in our pockets and remembering to check them. That’s why we pause tonight and reflect. We seek a different kind of reminder.

“Public acts and private ones are equally revealed and known to You, God,” claims the Mahzor. “Meh anu? Meh hayeinu? What are we? What is our life? Mah nomar l’fanekha? What can we say before You?” These are our questions. Demanding honest answers, they require the truth.

“Al het sh’hatanu lefanekha b’hona’at re’a - We have sinned against You, God, by deceiving one another.”

Tonight, let’s imagine new notes in our pockets. Like Rabbi Simha Bunam, let’s imagine two. On one, let’s write, “Am I being honest with myself?” On the other, let’s write, “Are they being honest with me?”

Remember to answer these questions. Answer them when you are criticized. Answer them when you are worried. Answer them when your conscience alerts you. Answer them when circumstances disturb you. Answer them when someone disappoints you. Answer them when you disappoint someone else, or yourself. Answer them when you have to try harder. Answer them when things seem too easy. Answer them when you fail. Answer them when you succeed.

Throughout this coming High Holy Day season, keep these questions in mind. As if you carry them in your pockets. Am I being honest with myself? Are they being honest with me?

re-open

Shabbat & Shavuot | May 30, 2020

I’m thinking about the Jewish calendar this morning. Our last public gathering at Congregation Beth El was on Purim. When Passover arrived, we celebrated our Seders in seclusion. Since then we’ve completed counting the seven weeks of the Omer, including observing Yom HaShoah and celebrating Yom HaAtzmaut – all online.

Today, as we complete our ritual observance of Shavuot we anticipate phasing in opportunities to gather together on Shabbat in the coming weeks, and a very different hybrid of in person and online experiences for the High Holy Days. For Sukkot, we’re imagining a virtual tour of Sukkot hosted by small groups from different homes. Maybe we’ll be able to gather together casually for Hanukkah, maybe not. Or, hard to believe, it’ll be a full year until we gather as we were once accustomed to next Purim.

I’m thinking about the Jewish calendar this morning. The courage and dedication to Jewish identity we frivolously celebrate on Purim is a set up for Passover. Then we get serious about what it means to believe in God and to represent God in the world. Freedom, human equality and dignity along with social justice are the ethical demands of our monotheistic religious tradition.

Gratitude for all that sustains our lives in God’s world is the reason for our daily counting of the Omer. Tempered by the sadness of mourning the generation of the Shoah and enhanced as we rejoice in the creation of the State of Israel, our Omer season of blessing and history anticipates this holiday, Shavuot – Z’man Matan Torateinu. We receive Torah, the revelation of God’s presence in our lives. The substance of Jewish purpose. The wisdom of Judaism.

Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur celebrate the moral me. You and I measure the character of our lives and the merit of our choices in order to earn the gift of our lives in this world. Sukkot brings us back to Passover and Shavuot. Dwelling in our Sukkot, we celebrate life as a journey from beginning to arrival, from slavery to freedom, from personal constraint to moral responsibility. We strive to care for one another and our natural environment. Hanukkah is a partner holiday to Purim. Courage, dedication to Jewish identity, and devotion to the light of God’s presence in our lives through ritual and learning.

I’m thinking about the Jewish calendar this morning. At no point over the past many, many weeks have we ceased celebrating, stopped demonstrating, or been unable to actualize the ideas and ideals our calendar of Jewish holidays symbolizes. Especially Shabbat, our weekly respite for joy and renewal celebrating God’s creative and redemptive presence in the world.

Today is our eleventh Shabbat livestream service. Not our preferred way to honor Shabbat each week. Not without its occasional technological glitches and inconveniences. Not with each other face to face. Not without meaning and substance, either. Never do we stop engaging in Jewish life, learning, and celebration. You and I did not withdraw from the beauties and enrichments of personal Jewish expression. We did not close Congregation Beth El.

In which case, I have to ask. What will it mean for us to re-open? I don’t mean the technical details and health procedures we’ll put in place to be safe when we again get together here. I mean the spiritual and emotional understandings we seek for what we’ve been through and what still awaits us. We did not close Congregation Beth El though we did have to close our campus.

You and I have never done this before. We have no experience returning to our synagogue buildings after we had to stay away. What will it mean for us to re-open? After all, we didn’t really close. Congregation Beth El is a synagogue family not a synagogue facility.

Still, we’ve shared a sense of loss these past many weeks of staying home and apart. This morning, this is something we do understand.

We’ve lost the chance to be with those whom we miss, our loved ones whose deaths changed our lives. We’ve lost their smiles, their hugs, their cheers, and their support. We cherish about them these simple, personal gestures which we hold onto as memories but no longer as realities. We’ve lost hearing the wisdom in their voices and seeing the love in their eyes. We’ve lost their laughter and tears, their complaints and their compliments. Yes, we hear it all and see it all in our memories of them. No, it’s not the same.

As a synagogue family, we grieve similar losses. We’ve lost our synagogue routines and habits. We’ve lost the chance to sing and talk together. We’ve lost the shared marking of life milestones. We’ve lost the chance to randomly see someone and catch up, or to meet someone new and welcome them to be with us. We’ve lost familiar rituals and comfortable traditions. We’ve lost the chance to voice our complaints and hear each other’s compliments. Yes, we’re doing our best online. No, it’s not the same.

What will it mean for us to re-open, to reclaim and renew these synagogue experiences we have lost temporarily? The same thing it means to recite Yizkor and to remember our loved ones.

We’ll hold on to what’s precious from the past. We’ll build new experiences on the foundation of our memories. We’ll honor yesterday’s hopes and achievements with visions of who we are now and dreams of what we can accomplish tomorrow. Those whom we lovingly remember at this sacred hour did this for themselves aware that, in time, we would, too. That’s what it will mean for us to re-open.

“Open for me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter them to thank the Eternal God. This is the gateway to the Eternal God, through it the righteous shall enter.” We are the righteous, explain our teachers of yore. We who are thankful for the precious people and significant events in our lives.

I’m thinking about the Jewish calendar this morning. It’s cycle and values are constant. Which is why we conclude each of our holidays by connecting the lives of our loved ones to the on-going life of the Jewish people. We recite Yizkor Memorial Prayers to express our people’s shared memories in the most personal way possible. We each remember our parents, spouses, children, siblings, and loved ones because their lives from before inspire ours today.

compassion

Erev Shabbat Bemidbar | May 22, 2020

I was a bit frustrated this week, I must admit. I function at a pretty even keel, but this week a bit of isolation exhaustion got to me. Things that normally don’t frustrate me did. I’m sure I’m not the only one.

Every one of us wants to get past this ordeal. We all want to get out into society. We all want to be productive and to be together. No, physically we’re not yet sure what is or isn’t safe to do. Yes, emotionally we’re very ready to start doing it.

Remember how not so long ago, after a long day of being out and about we went home to relax, rest, and recharge? These days we ask ourselves, who ever thought staying home could be so physically and mentally exhausting?

Cooped up and anxious, we’re working hard if we’re fortunate to be employed. We’re juggling our children’s educational, recreational, and social needs. Trying to take care of ourselves and our families, we’re also trying to make quality time out of this unplanned quantity time.

It’s no wonder we’re a little tired and on edge. We feel overwhelmed. Our freedom beckons.

One recommendation for overcoming isolation exhaustion is to spend a little time outside. Fresh air and sunshine brighten our moods, help us refresh. I found that helpful this week. As I do on this Shabbat. Our weekly pause revives our souls and calms our minds with joy and goodness.

I have another suggestion, too. We all know the virus is contagious. Scientific research shows compassion is also contagious and spreads rapidly. Examples are all around us. Many of you are helping neighbors, friends, and strangers who need assistance. We’re shopping. We’re serving. We’re donating. We’re supporting. We’re calling, connecting, writing, and Zooming.

I recently read about an elderly couple sitting in their car and crying while parked at the Grocery Store. Afraid to enter, they were nervous about the virus and didn’t have any local family who could shop for them. As a woman passed by on her way into the store, the elderly woman rolled down her car window holding a grocery list and $100 bill in her outstretched arm. The older, upset woman asked if this passerby would be willing to buy them groceries. Which she did, taking the list and money with pleasure, returning with food and change.

I tell this story because it’s uplifting. It teaches us to care for others and to be present to those in need. Those whose livelihoods have seemingly vanished or whose households may be at risk. Those who are business owners struggling to keep their businesses viable and had to furlough employees, or let them go. Those whose needs in every place are for food, health care, and security. All of us must be present to those in need. Please, if you need assistance or support, call on us at Congregation Beth El. We are here to help.

As essential workers sustain our communities and those currently without work struggle to make ends meet, while front line medical personnel treat the sick and researchers actively strive for vaccines and treatments to stop a contagious virus, the rest of us must continue to infect others with the compassion we feel and the caring we can provide.

Each morning our prayer poetry praises God. “Blessed is the One who has compassion for the earth. Blessed is the One who has compassion for all living beings.”

Our tradition describes God as the source of compassion. We praise God by imitation. We are compassionate toward others. We can also be compassionate toward ourselves.

This week I learned that isolation exhaustion is real. I got over it. You and I can’t let it frustrate us too much. We have to be kind to ourselves because there are people all around us worried and upset with outstretched arms and more pressing needs. They require our response. Infected with compassion, let’s each do what we can to take what’s in their hands and provide our caring help.

Compassion cures isolation exhaustion.

uncertain

Shabbat Behar-Behukotai | May 16, 2020

Rarely have we felt as one with the whole world. Right now, in different degrees of difficulty and disruption, around the globe humanity is united by our shared pandemic experience. No one of us is happy about it. Some of us are more agitated than others. A few of us are outright nasty in our public response and behavior.

I say “us” aware that, most likely, you and I aren’t the crude ones out there. Just the same, as I watch the news each day and see the variety of heroic and moronic reactions, I say “us” because we really are all in this together. Individual good decisions and bad choices impact all of us. Rarely have we felt as one with the whole world.

When we think about human harmony and unity in Jewish tradition, it’s a more messianic and idyllic vision than this time we spend enduring a contagion. We sing every day the Prophet Zechariah’s vision, “On that day, the Eternal God shall be one, and the name of God one.” By these words we express our hope to bring the world closer together.

We’re certainly closer together now than I ever remember. Every one of us, every person everywhere, wants to get past this ordeal. We all want to get out into society. We all want to be productive and to be together. We’re just not certain how to do it. We’re not sure whether or not it’s safe to do it.

This uncertainty defines this moment. We’re uncertain how to be around people. How close can we get? How many of us can gather, and for how long? Honest questions, they’re on our minds. We’re nervous about next steps. We’re uncertain about how this ends and anxious for it to be over. We’re of two minds at one time. We have to get back to business and it has to be safe for us to do so.

It’s not really a choice. The economy can’t recover if people aren’t comfortable participating in it. People won’t be comfortable being out and about until managing the virus is more effective.

I want to offer an illustration to help us manage our way through the uncertainty we’re feeling. This Shabbat is the 37^th day of the Omer we count. I don’t know when our seclusion will end. I do know the Omer period ends in 13 days. I also know that the Omer isn’t only a daily offering of gratitude once brought by our Biblical ancestors. It is also a measure, an amount of food the Israelites took each day of their 40 year sojourn in the wilderness.

Remember the manna on which the Children of Israel subsisted in the desert? One legend describes it tasting the way each individual Israelite wanted. Another legend reminds us that on the sixth day of the week a double portion appeared on the ground. Those uncertain it wouldn’t spoil only took an omer, a measure of manna for one day, and woke up on Shabbat without food. As a result, we’re told, only those who ate manna on Shabbat, only those who honored instructions, could receive the Torah at Mt. Sinai.

Here we find two responses to uncertainty. Two responses to the very uncertainty we are feeling right now. Individual preference. I do what I need to because I’m just not sure how much longer I can wait. Individual deferment. I do what I’m asked to for my sake and the sake of everyone else.

Hear it stated in real terms. This question recently appeared in a newspaper advice column. “My state is reopening certain businesses. I am uncertain about what I should do. How do I support our town and our nation’s economy and ensure that I don’t contribute to an increase in coronavirus infections? Am I selfish if I go or am I selfish if I stay home?”

We all recognize the problem. Uncertainty involves unknown outcomes. That’s why it’s uncomfortable. That’s also why we each have to be responsible for the choices we make. We are our nation. We are our community. We are our economy. We are our care providers. Each employer and employee, every consumer, all of us have to measure our omer, our tolerable amount of social isolation or interaction. Our choices, to taste what we want or to collect what we must, to be out and about or home and without, will impact others.

A Talmudic principle offers us a glimpse of direction. “Ein safek motzi mi-y’dei vadai. An uncertainty does not override a certainty.” In other words, whatever decisions we make, and they are each of ours to make, we ought to weigh what we know and see more heavily over what we can’t be sure of right now.

I’m certain we will reach the other side of these terrible times. I’m certain we will restore our routines and renew our lives. I’m also certain that the uncertainty of these days can be inspiration for better days ahead because rarely have we felt as one with the whole world.

“On that day, the Eternal God shall be one, and the name of God one.” By these words we express our hope to bring the world closer together.

looking forward

Shabbat Emor | May 9, 2020

I’m a member of a minority group. I’m fortunate to be among the 37% of Americans who are able to work from home during this stay at home mandate. 63% of Americans work jobs that require being onsite.

On this Shabbat, a day famous for being a chosen break from work and earning, more than 20 million Americans are recently unemployed. Through no choice or fault of their own, at a deeper and faster rate than ever before, individuals have lost jobs in every sector and segment of our nation’s economy.

I’m a member of a minority group. During these difficult and enduring days, I’m inconvenienced. I’m not impacted. I’m disturbed. I’m not in distress. I must admit. This awareness of my relative comfort upsets me.

I’m upset for any of you, or any of your family or circle of friends, or for anyone at all, if your livelihood has seemingly vanished, if your household may be at risk, if your future, at least in the short term, is uncertain. I’m upset for any of you who are business owners struggling to keep your businesses viable and having to furlough your employees, or let them go. Most of all, I’m upset for everyone in every place desperate for food, health care, and security for themselves and their families. Please, if you need assistance or support, call on us at Congregation Beth El. We are here to help.

I’m a member of a minority group. In this case most of you are, too. As Jews, you and I have the opportunity to seek wisdom from our religious and spiritual tradition at this challenging time. We carry a spiritual burden during this time of plague and economic hardship. Some of us may question our personal dignity and merit. We may ask, now that we are not working or earning as we did, were our efforts and work worth it before. Will they be again?

The answer is yes. Jewish tradition teaches that our effort to earn a livelihood is part of our dignity. The Talmudic Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachman said that parnasah, earning a living, is greater than geulah, God’s redemption of the world. Our earning measures more important than God’s redeeming, teaches Rabbi Shmuel, “because we do it.” Rabbenu Bahya, a 13th century Spanish scholar, comments. “This active participation of people in the creation of their financial means is a sign of spiritual greatness.”

I’m a member of a minority group. I believe we each imitate God by all that we create and produce. I proclaim, even when it is slow and difficult as it clearly is right now, we are of no less importance. We need to understand this about ourselves, especially if we struggle with personal or financial stress, unemployment, and worries about the world.

We are each more than what we have and more than what we lose. Judaism teaches, first and foremost, at all times we are manifestations of God in the world. Our personal value and worth, to quote Proverbs, are “far beyond rubies.” We are each precious and prized. Our dignity is inherent.

I’m a member of a minority group. In my genuine frustration and personal anger that we find ourselves in this predicament, I can take the long view. I understand transition to rebuilding our lives and society will be a patchwork process. I know, regretfully, that we won’t really engage socially and communally until this novel Coronavirus is better managed.

I don’t yet know anyone personally who lost their life to the horror of COVID-19. I know some of you do. I’m saddened by your personal loss. Anonymously and impersonally, I grieve your loss and the deaths of more than 78,000 individuals in America and 275,000 human beings worldwide. Each person mourned as a beloved parent, child, sibling, grandparent, aunt, uncle, niece, nephew, cousin, loving partner, colleague, or dear friend. Each life is precious. Every death is significant. Let’s all remember this truth during these horrible days of grief and devastation.

I learned a new story from the Talmud this week. It’s about how they cleaned the Holy of Holies in ancient Jerusalem’s Great Temple. The passage deals with a question very few people would even think to ask. If the Holy of Holies was so sacred and protected a place into which no one had permission to enter except the Kohen Gadol, the High Priest, how did they keep it clean and in good repair?

Rava said: “There were openings in the ceiling of the Holy of Holies through which they lowered artisans in containers into the Holy of Holies, so their eyes would not gaze upon the Holy of Holies itself when they were cleaning and repairing it.”

In his commentary on this vignette, Rashi explains the reason they placed workmen in boxes as they lowered them down into the Holy of Holies, by rope I assume, was “so they would not be able to turn their heads and look to each side.”

I teach this ancient story for its wisdom today. If you feel lowered down, dropped into an unusual and unfamiliar place, boxed in and confronted with the task of cleaning things up and repairing the damage, the most important thing you can do in order to succeed is look forward.

I’m a member of a minority group these days. Fortunate, inconvenienced, disturbed, upset, seeking, believing, frustrated, and angry, I invite you to join me in looking forward. If we focus on our spiritual selves, on the dignity and value inherent in who we each are and all we care about, with effort, determination, help as necessary, and personal purpose, I believe you and I will greet better days, fashion renewed lifestyles, again earn our livelihoods, and eventually, looking forward, see the fulfillment of our hopes.

masks

Shabbat Aharei-Kedoshim | May 2, 2020

When we plan to wear masks most of us think of Purim. Celebrating Purim we mask our true identities. We use costume and make-believe to hide ourselves as we celebrate Mordecai’s convictions and Esther’s courage. Nowadays, we put on masks to go to the grocery store or to take a walk in public. Seemingly, not much conviction and courage in that.

Except, these long weeks of pandemic living require of us different types of conviction and courage. Our conviction is to be responsible toward others. Our courage is to maintain stay-at-home lives with purpose and patience. Our mood right now is most certainly not frivolous like it is on Purim. Much more important right now is how we care for ourselves and our society.

A real opportunity lies before us. If we don’t hide ourselves from it and from one another. We can wear masks over our mouths and noses, as we’re asked, anxious to take them off and return to our more natural ways of relating. Or, we can wear our masks over our mouths and noses, as we’re asked, thoughtfully and with good intentions. More than being careful around people, we can be mindful about what good we want to result from this truly bad experience.

Sad but true, in the Exodus story, before our people went out from slavery to freedom we read about plagues and death. At our recent Seder celebrations, sensitive to the price of liberty and dignity, we spilled wine from our full cups when we recited the Ten Plagues.

Sad but true, in the story of this Coronavirus plague we will someday tell, before we could restore and rebuild our routines and our communities, we suffered illness and all kinds of difficult losses. When we do ultimately take off our masks, sensitive to the price of liberty and dignity, what do we want to say we changed or improved because we endured all of this?

I hope when we take off our masks we choose to speak and act with more respect and sensitivity. I’ll admit I’m not particularly optimistic. The divides in our society seem too wide at times. Our collective dreams too often feel small and selfish, not big and selfless.

When we put our masks away, fully revealing ourselves to each other, will most of us be who we were before, holding on to what we missed and were used to? Or, will enough of us adapt our lifestyles and choices - even just a bit - toward more equality, justice, and mutual regard?

At home, alone or with others, what are we learning about ourselves and our priorities? So much important to us weeks ago is no longer as pressing, perhaps no longer even relevant to our current needs and interests. When we remove our masks, exposed and open to life, what will be significant again or newly urgent?

In the withdrawal of human activity from the world, nature is healing. When we’re breathing freely again, no masks covering our faces, will we make the memory of this natural plague into our responsibility to take better care of our world? Or, will we rush right back to what used to be usual?

Let’s be thoughtful and intentional. Will we return to our pre-pandemic habits or will we discover a new vision of health not only for ourselves, but also for our society and natural environment?

Learn with me from this Torah verse. “And when Moses finished speaking with them, he put a mask over his face.” When Moses comes down from Mt. Sinai he reveals the content of God’s revelation, his face radiant from being in God’s presence.

Rabbeinu Bahya, a 13^th century Spanish Torah scholar, explains this Torah scene. When Moses finished relaying God’s words, Moses put on a mask to protect the people from the rays of Divine light emanating from him.

This is a spiritually compelling image. God is present in light. God is present in the light of caring and compassion. God’s presence shines between us when we speak words of Torah and truth. Moses wore his mask respectfully and responsibly. The example of Moses teaches us. It is beneath no one’s stature to wear a mask when necessary. We wear masks for the sake of others, not ourselves or our sense of pride.

It is still some weeks before we’ll be able to read and learn Torah in person on Shabbat. For now, God’s presence between us continues to shine online. We heard this week religious gatherings are in Phase III of California’s re-opening plan. Whenever that takes place, and whatever the attendance limits may then be, I imagine masks will be required during services as we’ll sit physically spread out, most likely in the Jacobs Family Community Hall.

We’ll share in yet another unusual experience for this very unusual situation. We’ve almost gotten used to working from our homes, livestream Minyan and Shabbat services, Zoom Seders, online classes and meetings, and Zoom lifecycle occasions. I guess this will be okay, too. If Moses can wear a mask, so can you and I.

Now, and for however many or few weeks still to come, you and I can demonstrate the courage of our convictions. When we have an appropriate reason and occasion to be out in public, we can wear our masks mindfully. Let’s be intentional about what good we want to result from this truly bad experience. For now this must be true. We cover our faces in order to receive the light of God’s presence by caring for and protecting each other.

shpilkes

Erev Shabbat Tazria-Metzora | April 24, 2020

We’ve got shpilkes!

Shpilkes is a Yiddish word for nervous energy that best sums up this past week. Literally, it means “sitting on pins and needles.” A dictionary defines shpilkes as “a state of impatience, agitation, anxiety, or any combination therof.” The perfect word. We’ve all got shpilkes right now. It’s been enough. We want out. We want to see and be with each other. We want to get back to work and life. We’re all feeling antsy.

We’ve got shpilkes!

We’re feeling what the author Leah Kaminsky described a few years back. “The demoralizing uncertainty of not knowing how long I will need to wait has me on shpilkes.” Unfortunately, you and I have got some more waiting ahead of us.

It’s going to take more time, and more planning, before we can be safe and healthy gathering together. Now is when we need to counter our shpilkes with patience. Now is when we need to remember our responsibility for one another.

It’s hard. These days we don’t often make sacrifices for the sake of a greater good. More commonly, we ask others to give us what we want. This moment isn’t about what you and I may want individually. This moment is about what we all need.

When you’re washing your hands, instead of singing Happy Birthday, sing these familiar lyrics by The Rolling Stones:

No, you can't always get what you want.
You can't always get what you want.
You can't always get what you want.
But if you try sometimes you find
You get what you need.

What we need is to be able to return to our lives confidently. To the best of our collective abilities, and with continued health and distancing practices, we need to make our way out of this pandemic into an opportunity. An opportunity to care a bit more about all who live among us and around us. An opportunity to speak and act with more respect and sensitivity. An opportunity to tweak our lifestyles just enough to become better citizens in our society. An opportunity to be better caretakers for our world.

But, since we’ve all got shpilkes right now, let’s have some fun with it. If you can’t sit still, in addition to all of the many physical and recreational things you can do at home, try to figure out the answer to this Shabbat riddle, and send me your answer to see if you’re correct.

“You measure my life before Shabbat in minutes and I serve you on Shabbat by expiring. I’m quicker if I’m thin and slower if I’m thick. I don’t move on Shabbat, but the wind is my enemy.

The Talmudic Rabbi Avin HaLevi said: “If a person forces the hour, the hour pushes that person aside. If a person yields to the hour, the hour yields to that person.”

It’s a call for patience when we’ve got shpilkes.

If the time isn’t right, the results won’t be either. When the time is right, the opportunities will present themselves. It may take more time before we can be safe and healthy gathering together again. Believe this. It’ll be worth the wait!

yom ha'atzmaut 2020

I was very much looking forward to my trip to Israel this June. Since moving to San Diego three years ago, Robin and I haven’t had the chance for a return visit. Our June travels were all set - until the Coronavirus pandemic ruined our plans. Yes, the pandemic is causing much greater damage than our cancelled travel. In our community and all over the world people cry out in distress and grief. Even so, I pause to reflect.

During this most unusual time of disruption we celebrate Israel’s 72^nd year of Independence. I wonder. For how many years, through how many generations, and due to which difficulties were Jewish desires to visit Israel, to live in Israel and, most of all, to achieve the Zionist dream of establishing the State of Israel no more than unfulfilled hopes?

As the medieval poet Yehudah haLevi famously wrote from Spain, “My heart is in the East, and I am in the far reaches of the West.” From the far reaches of San Diego, on this Yom HaAtzmaut our hearts beat with pride. We have the confidence and opportunities most Jews before us never did. Israel is real. We will visit again, or for the first time. We will be there with our families and friends. We will celebrate those who go on Aliyah.

“The face of Israel has two profiles,” wrote the prominent historian Simon Rawidowicz in 1957. “Babylon and Jerusalem. By Jerusalem we mean as a symbol of the Land of Israel in its entirety. By Babylon, we mean…every place that is not Jerusalem.”

This means our bond with Jerusalem, the State of Israel, when we are in Babylon, outside of Israel, is about Jewish consciousness. In this American Diaspora our consciousness of being Jewish is incomplete because, in a land of many peoples and perspectives, Jewish identity is not an expression of the majority culture. In Israel our consciousness of being Jewish is complete because, in a land of many peoples and perspectives, Jewish identity is an expression of the majority culture.

Celebrating Israel at 72, from a distance since we have to, we rejoice in the fulfillment of Jewish history and hope which is the State of Israel today. David Ben Gurion’s words from 1944 represent our current feelings. “The preservation of our political, national, cultural, and moral independence has required heroic efforts, and, during our prolonged struggle to maintain our identity and our values, we have suffered grievous losses…The Jewish people preserved its values and its prophetic hopes, and these, in turn, preserved it.

Robin and I very much look forward to rescheduling our trip to Israel. We join with all of you in hoping the Coronavirus pandemic will abate soon. We pray with all of you for healing and comfort in our community and country, for the people of Israel, and for all of humanity.

Yom HaAtzmaut Sameah!

Rabbi Ron Shulman

this too shall pass

Shabbat Shemini | April 18, 2020

There was once a king who had the most magnificent collection of jewels in the entire world. It was the source of his greatest joy. He prided himself on having collected the best and the finest of the world’s gems. Hour after hour he would admire and enjoy his jewels.

One night the king had a dream. He dreamed that somewhere in the world there was a ring, the most precious ring in the world. This ring had special power: When a person was sad, it could make her happy; when a person was giddy with delight, it could sober him; and when a person was joyful, it intensified and heightened his or her joy. The king awoke from his dream convinced that somewhere in the world such a ring existed. Prepared to pay any price, he sent his court officers to locate and purchase the ring.

After years of searching, one of the king’s ministers presented him with the ring, a gift of its owner to honor the king. The king examined the ring which was plain and unadorned. Could this be the precious ring he desired? Then he saw three Hebrew words engraved on the ring: “Gam zeh ya’avor.” “This too shall pass.”

Over time the king realized the true beauty of this ring. When he was sad, he looked at it and it reminded him that this too shall pass. He felt consoled. He remembered the dawn always follows darkness at night. When he was giddy with delight, he looked at the ring and knew this too shall pass. He reflected and gained perspective. And, when he experienced true joy, real happiness, the ring reminded him that this too shall pass. The king learned to hold on to and appreciate those precious moments. All of his many jewels and gems paled in comparison with this ring that reminded him to be sensitive to the brevity and meaning of his experiences.

We all confront loss and disappointment in our lives. We all grieve and reflect on how briefly it seems we have and we hold. Rather than despairing this reality of our lives, let’s reframe the way we approach the finite and temporal truths of our existence.

There are feelings of grief among us as a virtual community this morning. Many of us feel on edge in this time of disruption. We aren’t only worried about ourselves. We’re also focused on others and their needs. We want to help them through this rough patch and feel badly if we’re not able to.

I’m also confident there are good and comforting feelings among us as a virtual community this morning. Let’s be mindful. Let’s be honest. In life it is our blessing and our burden to measure and monitor the brevity, variety, and mystery of everything we experience.

Arthur C. Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute, describes one aspect of our current predicament sheltered and safe in our homes. “We think about the past and future more than the present. We are mentally in one place and physically in another.”

I understand. The present moment is unsettling. The news is disturbing. The situation is overwhelming. There’s talk of being done. I think we’ve really just begun. Naturally, we look back on the normal we miss and wonder about the new normal yet to come. This present is a strange one to dwell on. Our days seem to blur into one. Our desires strive to overcome the constraints holding us back.

Honest about our feelings and our current circumstance, our real job now is to discover the significance in every single moment of our lives. This is how we become sensitive to the brevity, variety, and mystery of our experiences. We strive to see the significance in each one of them, in all of them.

At a time of personal disruption and upset, God speaks to Moses’ brother Aaron following the death of two of Aaron's sons. “You must distinguish between the sacred and the profane,” between the significant and the trivial. This is wisdom of our Jewish tradition for these days we impatiently endure.

We are living through historically significant times. Let’s make them personally meaningful days, as well. Let’s hear God’s command to “distinguish between the sacred and the profane,” between the significant and the trivial. Let’s not spend these surreal days only in worry, disengagement, and loneliness.

Instead, let’s also remember the ring. When these days of pandemic and fear are gone, let’s be able to say we did something important and productive during our homebound days of isolation. Let’s be able to say we used these days for purpose and growth because, for these days and all days, we know a most precious gem of truth. Gam zeh ya’avor. This too will pass.

each life is precious

Passover Yizkor | April 16, 2020

Each life is precious. Every death is significant. Tragically, it’s hard to remember this truth during these sad days of grief and devastation. So far, as of this morning, more than 137,000 human beings infected with COVID-19 have died. Horrific as that number is, and knowing it’s going to get bigger, more upsetting is the loss of each and every one of them as a beloved parent, child, sibling, grandparent, aunt, uncle, niece, nephew, cousin, loving partner, colleague, or dear friend.

We’re also mindful this morning of personal losses. The passing of our loving parents, siblings, relatives and friends in recent days and weeks. Grief we ought to share by embracing and being with one another. Not offering our condolences at a physical distance, no less sincere.

Bound together and caring for one another, we hope for spring to arrive with its promise of redemption on Passover and life’s renewal in this season. Yet, dimming our hope is our awareness of so many deaths near and dear to so many people. Each life is precious. Every death is significant. We cherish and strive to remember each individual in life and the memories of all whom we personally recall with love today.

Over the course of a year, more than 58 million people die. It’s a staggering statistic. Balanced by the birth of almost 150 million new lives each year. Everyday murders and accidents end the lives of 1,300 human beings. Mosquitoes take 2,800 lives daily. More than 50,000 people die from illnesses. I don’t present these numbers to shock or upset. Nor do I diminish the current plague of death in our Coronavirus impacted world.

I want to remind each and every one of us of a risk. We cannot ever become de-sensitized to death. We must always pause. Honor the dead. Care for the bereaved with abiding compassion. Cherish life. Do all we can to live it fully. Do all we can to help others live fully, safely, and in health.

This morning I want you to know. Today anticipates tomorrow. The Talmud calls today, the 8th day of Pesah, tomorrow. In describing the Torah and Haftarah texts we just read our sages label yesterday the last day of our festival and then list today’s texts by saying, “u-l’mahar” “and for tomorrow.” Today is a tomorrow, a day we’ve not yet met.

Imagine that! Living in this present moment we seek what comes next. Confronting loss and disappointment all around us, we all grieve. How briefly it seems we have and we hold. When we feel sad today we long for consolation tomorrow.

Experiencing the joys of pride and accomplishment, we grow sensitive. How briefly it seems we reflect and rejoice. When we feel happy today we hope for perspective tomorrow. Today anticipates tomorrow.

This week we’ve eaten matzah to honor our ancestor’s redemption from Egypt. For seven days we celebrated our freedom. This sacred week we rejoiced in nature’s spring and felt our spirits reborn.

Surely, each of us with our memories understands. We prevent ourselves from being de-sensitized to death by remembering our loved ones’ purposes in life. We honor their accomplishments. We internalize the lessons of their lives as wisdom for our own.

During these difficult days, personally for some of us and collectively for all of humanity, we declare. Each life is precious. Every death is significant. Ironically, that’s why the future is bright. Those we’ve loved and lost taught us how to live. Our memories of them from the past sustain us today and, collected together, assure our people’s and our world’s future. We hold onto our memories because they inspire us to move forward.

Our loved ones lived their complete seven days, long or short. We are their eighth day. We live their tomorrows. And with this awareness we look at our own children and grandchildren. Today anticipates tomorrow.

“Hinei El y’shu-ati, ev-tah v’lo ef-had, ki ozi v’zimrat yah Adonai va’ye-hi li li-y’shu-ah. Behold God who is my redeemer! I am confident, unafraid; for the Eternal God is my strength and might, and God will be my deliverance.”

Believe with me. Just as nature’s renewal and rebirth have come this spring, so too will the compassion, love, and goodness of our loved one’s lives live again in our hearts. Through our sorrow, our bonds, and our renewal God redeems our lives.

Our memories inspire our lives. Our lives inspire our hopes. Our hopes inspire our faith. Our faith inspires our vision. Our vision inspires our goals. Our goals inspire our striving to touch the edge of eternity. Today anticipates tomorrow. Every death is significant because each life is precious.

once in a lifetime

Shabbat Hol HaMoed | April 11, 2020

In all my years, I have celebrated Passover Seders in Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston, New York, Jerusalem, Baltimore, and San Diego. Never before have I celebrated a Seder in seclusion. Like so many of you, this past week we had to figure out how to conduct our Seder over video-conferencing. I don’t think that’s what Moses had in mind when he said to the Israelites, “you’ll remember this day.”

I know of families and friends who gathered from all corners of the world for their first Seder celebrations together. I suspect a new Passover custom may emerge for future Seder gatherings, even when we are able to be together again. And, if you weren’t able to be present at a Seder in such a virtual way this year, please know you were with those of us who could. You were with us in spirit and the bonds we share as the Jewish people’s storytellers.

During our Seder ritual we declare our freedom. In every generation we are each obligated to see ourselves as if we personally left Egypt. It’s a timeless story imparting eternal values. We celebrate Passover every year in spite of, and because of, whatever troubles us.

This year, however, we learned to appreciate something else about Passover. For all that is seasonal or annual or ongoing in our lives, some experiences are once in a lifetime occurrences. This was the most unusual Seder experience of my lifetime, and possibly yours.

This is also Passover’s purpose. Free to appreciate all that we experience, to cherish every experience and every day, too often we don’t. Sometimes we can’t.

Even though in normal days we go to work, often repeating familiar tasks and routines, each interaction and conversation is distinctive. Even though we recite the same words in prayer, every prayer experience feels different, or should. Eating our favorite foods, no meal tastes quite the same as another. Even though two teams meet every season (except this one so far) each game they play is unique.

During this time of staying at home and apart, our perspective enlarges. Preparing for, or looking back on, each and every day we can remind ourselves. Our lives are truly rich and full because the freedom of our movement introduces us to familiar and new people and places. No Pharaoh rules over us. We are responsible for ourselves, and for each other.

Though it may not feel this way right now. You and I are deeply worried. Worried in a way that could also be a once in a lifetime experience for some of us. Our livelihoods may not be secure right now. Possibly for the first or only time in our lives. The threat of illness is all around. In an unprecedented way, the angel of death hovers over our world.

Worried as we are, we find courage in the lore and traditions of Passover. The ultimate vision of Passover, and of the Haggadah text we used at our Seder tables, is that through God’s blessing in our lives we may overcome death and despair.

“Then came the Holy One, Blessed be God, and slaughtered the angel of death who killed the butcher, who slaughtered the ox that drank the water that quenched the fire that burnt the stick that beat the dog that bit the cat that ate the kid that my father bought for two zuzim, had gadya, had gadya.”

It’s a strange Seder song, one we often play with. More than that, it’s a song about overcoming loss and worry. When we’re done singing, there is no more pain and no more death, only goodness and life. If only that were true to our current experience.

Yet, if the Exodus is our people’s once in a lifetime memory, it’s vision is for all time and every circumstance. This week, while worried and physically distant, we still choose to share the wonder and meaning of our ideals and purposes for life in a uniquely surreal circumstance.

This week we hope, more than ever before, to live Passover’s lessons in a future we impatiently await. We pray this Passover truly be a once in a lifetime event. Going forward, we want to live openly and reflectively. Seeing our lives overall as collections of unique experiences inspiring and defining us, rather than limiting our abilities and denying our freedoms.

In the future, may our days be more satisfying and significant because we understand freedom more personally. During these quiet and lonely days, let’s train ourselves to focus freely on each next moment we will encounter as being once in a lifetime – because it probably is.

remarkable

Passover First Day | April 9, 2020

For those of us who could, a remarkable thing happened last night. There was a palpable unity of Jewish peoplehood, memory, and destiny as so many responded with creativity and video-conferencing to enjoy our Passover Seder celebrations.

We often speak of the unity of our people. Rarely do we actually feel it. All too often our religious, political, cultural, and personal differences divide and weaken us. Last night, I sensed we truly were one in spirit and dedication to our people’s master story and visions of justice, goodness, and freedom.

I participated in two Zoom Seders last night. (Hag Zoomeah!) One was our Congregation Beth El synagogue Seder Starter. One was with my family spread over four households. I’m sure many of you had similar experiences. I know of families and friends gathering from all corners of the world for their first Sedarim together. I suspect a new Passover Seder custom may emerge going forward. If you weren’t able to gather in such a virtual way, you were with those of us who could in spirit and the bonds we share as the Jewish people’s storytellers.

At the Seder, the Haggadah text introduces the Second Cup of Wine by praising God for our spiritual liberation, for p’dut nafsheinu, redeeming our souls. Freedom is not only physical. It is also spiritual. We give praise for the redemption of our souls and the renewal of our lives, for the redemption of our people’s soul, and the renewal of our people’s life.

At this holy season when the entire world is united by disruption and distress, at a time when many of us feel fortunate while others grieve and suffer, an act of redemptive unity, of wholeness and hope is precisely what we needed to demonstrate and celebrate.

Traditionally, our Seder celebrations end with finding and eating the Afikomen, a last taste of Matzah which we no longer see as the bread of affliction and eat as a taste of freedom. Why is this our last ritual moment? We finish the Seder by finding and eating the Afikomen because telling our story of exodus and redemption is not complete until we repair what we broke, until we affirm our hope in a future of restoration and wholeness.

For those of us who could, a remarkable thing happened last night. Separated from one another, we joined together as one whole and holy people. I believe last night we shared a palpable sense of unity and togetherness as the Jewish people.

I pray our wholeness grow stronger and inspire us during these trying times. I also pray our wholeness grow wider, embracing all people in healing, harmony, and the redemption of humanity’s soul. Hag Sameah!

this

Erev Shabbat HaGadol | April 3, 2020

I have suggested that our Passover goal this year is to take physical and emotional care of ourselves and to enjoy a Passover of unusual meaning and blessing.

Passover reminds us to take the long view. This current disruption is temporary. As we recite from the Haggadah, “V’hi sh’amdah la’Avoteinu v’lanu.” “This has sustained us and our ancestors. For not just one challenge has stood against us.”

Mussar master, Rabbi Moshe Rosenstein explains what “this” is. This is the story of the Exodus from Egypt that sustains us. “Each and every one, in each and every generation, in each and every situation, can learn from the Exodus.”

What can we learn from our circumstance this Passover? Around the world and close to us too many are ill, too may suffer, too many grieve. Many of us are apprehensive about our health, our employment, and our personal security. Yet, we anticipate Passover. We plan creatively and differently for our Seder and holiday celebrations.

Enduring life’s most challenging moments, we need to hold on to our best visions. What we take for granted when life is good inspires us when life is hard. Reminders of what we believe, how we intend to live, and what we most cherish help us during any exodus toward better days.

These days we’re learning that viruses are effective when they persuade the body’s immune system that they are part of the body itself. Viruses mutate so as to appear to host cells not as enemies but friends. From a pandemic, a Passover plague upsetting us, we learn “this” - the inherent and universal message of the Exodus story.

Biological viruses are one type of threat. The viral spread of injustice and cruelty, the hateful thoughts people hold about others, and the inequality Passover stands against ought to be no less on our minds this year. We must always tell our story of Exodus and human dignity. After all, “this has sustained us and our ancestors.”

Alana Newhouse elaborates. “Most Jews throughout history have not been free, whether from murderous regimes or famines or pandemics. What we have been is devoted to the idea that we deserve to be.”

At our Seder table we display a broken piece of Matzah and recite: “This is the bread of affliction which our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt. Let all who are hungry come and eat. Let all who are needy come and celebrate the Passover. This year we are here; next year may we be in Israel. At present we are slaves; next year may we be free people.”

At this year’s Seder, in addition to reciting that paragraph, display a whole Matzah and recite: “This is the bread of health and wholeness that we used to take for granted. Let all who desire, anticipate and behold. Let all who are waiting, be patient and calm. This year we are separated; next year may we be together. This year we are sheltered at home; next year may we be free people.”

This current disruption is temporary. Like every year, our Passover vision is for a better future, a time of health, peace, and goodness. Let’s do our best to make this the mood we bring to our Seder experiences and holiday week. Ours is the privilege of being the Jewish People’s storytellers. “V’hi sh’amdah la’Avoteinu v’lanu.” “This has sustained us and our ancestors. For not just one challenge has stood against us.”

I wish you and yours a Passover of unusual meaning and blessing. Hag Sameah v’Kasher!

strict and lenient

Shabbat Vayikra | March 28, 2020

Something I don’t often say. I’m proud of my rabbinic colleagues, especially those we normally associate with strict interpretations of Jewish law and custom.

Like all of you in your professions and vocations, in the rabbinate there are colleagues from all streams of Judaism I admire and respect, from whom I learn, and some, not too many, whose rabbinic work frustrates me. I trust some other rabbis may say all of the above about me, and Rabbi Libman, too.

At this time of disruption upending everything we hold dear and sacred, I derive strength from learning about the guidance and choices of rabbis who are instructing their congregants to be more lenient while still observing the traditional practices of Passover. Before I offer an example, let me add some background.

A general principle in Halakhah, Jewish law, is “Safek D’oraita l’humra, Safek D’rabanan l’kula.” When there is a doubt regarding how to fulfill a commandment in the Torah, a person must be strict. But, when the doubt is regarding a commandment derived from rabbinic tradition, a person may be lenient.

For example, as Passover approaches, since the Torah instructs us to eat matzah and not hametz, unleavened instead of leavened products, we carefully clean away the hametz and eat matzah during the days of our holiday. We call that a humra, a strict practice.

Yet, since the prohibition of eating kitniyot, legumes like corn, peas, lentils, and rice, is an Ashkenazi rabbinic rule, and not found literally stated in the Torah, individuals and families may choose to be more lenient in their Kosher for Passover food practices.

Beyond reminding everyone to stay home, and to celebrate more or less alone, I’m receiving bulletins from rabbinic organizations in our country, in London, Israel, and elsewhere recommending purchase of essential Passover foods, not more. Some are “allowing the use of some regular” non-hametz food products, though not necessarily supervised as Kosher for Passover, “during this time of crisis.” Several Sephardic Orthodox rabbis in Israel declared this week that families may conduct their shared Seder over videoconference. Remarkable!

When life returns to normal these adaptations, these kulot – leniencies, will cease, in theory. A larger religious question I wonder about is the transformation, especially regarding technology, awaiting us and our previously normative Jewish observances. We won’t wonder too much about that right now.

What I want us to think about today is our own conduct. We all have things about which we are strict or lenient. Each one of us is more or less rigorous about our diets and exercise routines. We react with compassion or judgment when we learn about someone else’s misdeed or short-coming. Sometimes we decide to bend the rules. Other times we pay careful attention to our responsibilities or obligations. Committed to Jewish life, we make our choices too. Strict about this holiday. Lenient about that ritual.

These days I hope we’re being strict about honoring the physical distance between us, rigorous about washing our hands, strong in setting out daily schedules and routines to keep us alert and productive, and lenient with loved ones and friends as we cope and co-exist in a very different form than before.

Most important of all, I hope we’re not being too hard on ourselves. These are tough times for many of us. Perhaps your employment isn’t secure. I’m sure I’m now speaking to individuals and families whose income may be less than it was a week or two ago. Running errands is difficult for some of us. All of us, no matter who we may be with, feel isolated if not outright lonely.

Sometimes, we respond to burdens like these by blaming ourselves. We feel we’ve let down others or ourselves. Even though this unprecedented experience is beyond any of our control, we internalize the pressures it creates and feel responsible.

Let’s be clear. The categories of humra, being strict, and kula, being lenient, are personal not just legal, descriptions. Of all times, this is a time for leniency about your feelings and sense of self. If you are facing personal challenges these days, face them honestly. Discuss them with others. Reach out to us at Beth El. Most important of all, don’t be too hard on yourself.

On typical days, which these are not, we tend toward the middle. Sometimes we’re strict. Other times lenient. We lean one way or the other as a reflection of our experiences and temperaments. That’s why I respect those rabbis issuing Passover advice contrary to their preferences and religious values. They remind us that life, and people’s responses to life, are nuanced. No one of us ought to live on auto-pilot. We’re capable of much more. We can think. We can evaluate. We can change. We can hold firm. We can forgive. We can relax.

In the midst of these surreal days, we anticipate Passover. In a “normal” spring, we’d be preparing and cleaning, inviting Seder guests, planning menus and discussions, looking forward to our happy celebration. This year, we seek to strike a balance between precisely celebrating our annual opportunity to tell the Passover story and gently adjusting to our less festive mood and experience of separation.

About this, I have no doubt. This year, with confidence and consideration, by ourselves or somehow connected to others, this year our goal is to take physical and emotional care of ourselves and enjoy a Passover of unusual meaning and blessing. About this, we can also be proud.

a vision of redemption

Shabbat HaHodesh | March 21, 2020

This is an unprecedented Shabbat. These days are an unprecedented moment in all of our lives. Let’s acknowledge some of what we’re experiencing and going through. We’re nervous, perhaps anxious. We feel lonely, in some of our realities and in all of our separation. Beyond frustrated or afraid, we grieve the loss of routines, our plans, our social networks, and our hopes. We want it all back, soon. We didn’t do anything to create this unprecedented, surreal moment. Remaining calm, always optimistic, the only certainty we know right now is that we’re not in control.

It reminds me of a very different unprecedented moment, our ancestors’ Exodus from Egypt. We can imagine their upset and pain. We understand a slave has no dignity or control over his destiny, let alone his day. That’s why today, this unprecedented Shabbat, is significant. We call it Shabbat HaHodesh, the Shabbat on which we announce THE month of redemption is about to arrive.

In a special excerpt from Exodus we read: “This month shall mark for you – plural- the beginning of the months; it shall be the first of the months of the year for you.” In simple terms it means this Thursday will be Rosh Hodesh Nisan, the first day of the first Biblical month. I guess we ought say, Happy New Year! It also means Passover is just two weeks away.

One of my favorite Torah Commentators is the 16^th century Italian rabbi, Obadiah Seforno. About this verse he explains. “Hence forth the months of the years shall be yours, to do with them as you will. During slavery your days, your time, did not belong to you. Your time and days were used to work for others and to fulfill their will.”

In other words, it is only in freedom that our collective will, not only our individual liberty, can determine how best to behave and use our time, how to serve God and humanity, not a Pharaoh or tyrant. Only in freedom can we decide how to best live out the gift of our lives for dignity and goodness.

That’s what’s troubling us these days. Each and every one of us accepts our responsibility to step back from normal living, to remain home and socially distant, and to do our part to keep our society healthy. We know we will come through this and be back out and about in the course of time.

Unlike the Israelite slaves, we are the ones placing limits on our freedom. Freedom and responsibility go together. We know the Jewish people’s story. No one is free unless everyone is responsible. Yet, like the Israelite slaves, in the short term, we are not in control of our daily destiny.

This day, this Shabbat, we take hold of a vision of redemption.

Instead of feeling sorry for ourselves, at this unusual time, let’s dedicate ourselves to using these days, beyond whatever work and maintenance is required of us, to prepare for a better future.

All over our country, and around the world, people are expending incredible efforts to do what they must and can to sustain and redesign businesses, schools, and organizations, to care for loved ones and friends, and to rebuild the structures of normalcy and routine upon which we and our society depend.

Imagine what all of this human capital could do if we were actually solving the problems confronting us not during a pandemic. This collective determination inspires us. We human beings have remarkable capacities to cope and abilities to care.

What can you accomplish this coming week and beyond that will make a difference when you go out? With whom can you deepen, begin, or re-establish a bond? What can you reflect on about yourself and see these days as an opportunity for growth and renewal? What new learning, what new ritual practice, what new celebration of Jewish life do you now have the time to explore?

“HaHodesh hazeh lakhem rosh hodashim,” this month is the first the months. This is a time for new beginnings. This day, this Shabbat, we take hold of a vision of redemption.

letter to congregation beth el

March 19, 2020

It’s way too soon to begin to measure the scale of this disruption. Two things, however, are immediately clear.

First, all over our country, and around the world, people are expending incredible efforts to do what they must and can to sustain and redesign businesses, schools, and organizations, to care for loved ones and friends, and to rebuild the structures of normalcy and routine upon which we and our society depend.

Second, for better and for worse, this crisis will transform our lives and our society well into the future. Today, we can’t have any real idea about what these changes will be.

Here at Congregation Beth El, we are working intentionally and thoughtfully to move our communal routine online. We are striving to build, piece by piece, a virtual community that can ultimately enhance and enrich our entire synagogue community, for this exigent moment and for the future.

Each week or so we will introduce more layers of resources and opportunities to engage in Jewish life and learning virtually and vitally. We will make use of a variety of tools beyond Livestreaming, including Zoom and other digital platforms. We want to foster new forms of connection to maintain and enrich our warm and caring synagogue family.

Patience is a key virtue, teaches mussar, 19th century Jewish ethical teachings, especially at a stressful time. Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Satanov, an Eastern European mussar master whose writing influenced Benjamin Franklin, instructs, “When something bad happens to you and you do not have the power to avoid it, do not aggravate the situation even more through wasted anxiety and impatience.”

Like you, we’re in this for the duration. While wanting to do a lot quickly, we believe it’s more important to stay calm, to pace ourselves, to be responsive to your desires, and to do it all as well as we possibly can.

We look forward to being with you online. Don’t hesitate to call, text, or email us for any reason. You’ll be hearing from us. We want to hear from you. Please stay well and take good care.

our spiritual, not only our physical, well-being ii

Shabbat Parah Sermon| March 14, 2020

An article in The New York Times caught my attention earlier this week. Mattia Ferraresi, an Italian journalist, writes from a quarantined Italy. “Where does God self-quarantine during an epidemic? Not in a church, probably. At least not in a church in Italy.”

Like most synagogues and organizations, we sent out a Coronavirus advisory to our congregation. We explained how our campus cleaning protocols include regularly disinfecting public spaces and paying careful attention to strict health guidelines. Which is all fine and necessary. I want the synagogue to communicate something more, however.

We ought turn to our religious heritage for spiritual technologies, not medical ones. Spiritual technologies are insights about and responses to life, methods to express our emotions, joys, and apprehension. These we need more than ever as, alarmed, we take precautions and monitor the Coronavirus outbreak.

I wrote in our advisory: As we monitor this spreading Coronavirus, many of us feel uncertain and uneasy. We rediscover how truly interconnected is all that lives. COVID-19 is an example of a virus with origins in animals in one part of the world that entered the human community and spread around the globe. Not only is all of life interconnected, but so is all that sustains our lives. A physical menace impacts our social routines and economy. We stare at a truth we often ignore. Everything and everyone is bound together, equally vulnerable and responsible. This is a core spiritual message of our Jewish religious values.

Medical authorities tell us how to be careful and which precautions to take. We are mindful of them and responsible toward others and ourselves. But, we wonder. What authority helps us respond to our fears? What insight calms us? How do we each decide what to do, where to travel, where to gather?

Mattia Ferraresi suggests the same in his Op-Ed piece. “No one should dispute the need to strictly limit ritual gatherings and comply with public safety regulations…but for believers, religion is a fundamental source of spiritual healing and hope. It’s a remedy against despair, providing psychological and emotional support that is an integral part of well-being.”

I seek wisdom from Jewish tradition. In addition to genuine nervousness about our health, I sense something more is present in our reactions to this novel Coronavirus. I’m not able to define it yet. Our guts tell us more than a virus is threatening us. Monitoring daily news reports about the virus’ spread and how we ought to behave, we intuit a lot is at risk. Too much about our society, and societies around the globe, seems beyond our personal abilities to secure. We’re living through turbulent times. Hate is resurgent. Leadership is weak. Change or disruption impact our climate, demographics, national identities, and economies.

“If you look at the historical record,” observes Monica Schoch-Spana, a senior scientist at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, “you’ll find that when outbreaks of novel disease emerge they do trigger high levels of anxiety and uncertainty and dread. You can’t see it; you can’t smell it. As a result average people get a little bit more agitated. Fear is going to be up because it’s unfamiliar, and we don’t have the usual counter-measures like vaccines or medicines.”

Dr. Schoch-Spana warns. “When people are in a fearful state of mind they start sorting the world into safe people, unsafe people, safe places, unsafe places. If you can start to pinpoint the source of the problem that gives you a sense of control and calms you down.”

Striving to remain calm, the only certainty we know these days is that we’re not in control. At a moment like this one, Judaism teaches us responsible choice. Living fully and according to our plans and desires, we try to follow our routines and work to establish a proper balance. We evaluate the daily choices we must make and the necessary precautions we ought to take. Even so, it’s clear in the weeks ahead we’re going to become more and more socially isolated.

The 16^th century Jewish law code, the Shulhan Arukh instructs. “One should distance oneself from things that may lead to danger, for a danger to life is more serious than a religious prohibition, and one should be more worried about a possible danger to life than a possible transgression of a religious prohibition. Therefore, the Sages prohibited one to walk in a place of danger, such as close to a leaning or shaky wall or alone at night. They also prohibited drinking water from streams at night or placing one's mouth on a flowing pipe of water to drink, for these things may lead to danger.”

Faced with a contagious disease, the Talmudic sage Rabbi Joshua ben Levi reached out to those infected. He asked, “If the Torah bestows grace upon those who learn it, as we are taught in the Book of Proverbs, will it not protect them from danger as well?” It’s a spiritual technology, a tool to lessen isolation. Treat the whole person, their body and their soul. Connect with them to overcome their social isolation. Bring them hope and ease, routine and uplift.

Consider the strange Torah law of the Red Heifer. A person becomes spiritually impure when they come in contact with death. A bizarre ritual rectifies the situation. “The pure person shall sprinkle water mixed with the ashes of the Red Heifer thus purifying him.”

In Jewish spirituality, purity and impurity are not absolute categories like forbidden and permitted. They are states that people and objects can enter into and escape from.

We get that today. Touch something or greet someone, then wash your hands. Touch something or greet someone, then wash your hands. It’s an unending cycle of entering into and escaping from a contemporary, health based, form of purity and impurity.

There is a mysterious brilliance in this ancient Hebrew text. It’s also a spiritual technology, a symbolically relevant reminder of our current moment. In every era, people confront health concerns and social anguish. At all times, people seek safety and renewal. By this ancient rite, our ancestors affirmed the on-going gift of life rather than the inevitability of illness or death.

I don’t propose sprinkling ourselves with the blood and ashes of a cow as an answer to the Coronavirus. I do recommend monitoring our attitudes along with washing our hands. We can each hold good or bad thoughts in our minds. Emotional purity or impurity comes from the choice of mood we make. Within each of our souls is the God-given ability to cope and determine how best to be in whatever circumstance we may come to confront.

Finally, the Medieval scholar Maimonides describes our spiritual purpose when we worry about our health and well-being. “One who regulates life in accordance with the laws of medicine with the sole motive of maintaining a sound and vigorous physique, to work and labor for personal benefit, is not following the right path. A person should aim to maintain physical health and vigor in order to maintain an upright soul, a condition to know God.”

Maimonides reminds us. We seek to be healthy and to live well for the sake of what we hope to achieve and enjoy in life. A healthy life is one of purpose, service, goodness, and love. A life during which we try to regain and reclaim control over whatever upsets or disrupts. Afraid and careful, let’s not forget how to live in public, or if necessary in isolation, by our lives’ ideals.

Maimonides concludes, “Whoever throughout his life follows this course will be continually serving God, as to have a sound body is to serve God.” Hopefully remaining in good health, and being of sound body, we will also serve God by caring for one another.

our spiritual, not our only physical, well-being i

March 4, 2020

As we monitor this spreading Coronavirus, many us feel uncertain and uneasy. We rediscover how truly interconnected is all that lives. COVID-19 is an example of a virus with origins in animals in one part of the world that entered the human community and spread around the globe. Not only is all of life interconnected, but so is all that sustains our lives. A physical menace potentially impacts our social routines and economy. We stare at a truth we often ignore. Everything and everyone is bound together, equally vulnerable and responsible. This is a core spiritual message of our Jewish religious values.

Medical authorities tell us how to be careful and which precautions to take. We are mindful of them and responsible toward others and ourselves. But, we wonder. What authority helps us respond to our fears? What insight calms us? As we each must, how do we decide what to do, where to travel, where to gather?

The Biblical Book of Proverbs observes, “If there is anxiety in people’s minds, let them quash it, and turn it into joy with a good thought.” A 19^th century Ukrainian rabbi known as Malbim comments, “A person has the inner strength to elevate which personal vision to focus on. We can each awaken good or bad thoughts in our minds, and the choice we make is what fills our spirit and becomes our mood.”

Within each of our souls is the God-given ability to cope, to choose, and to determine how to be in each circumstance we confront. Judaism teaches us responsible choice. Living fully and according to our plans and desires, we cannot – and we should not - stop following the routines and opportunities of our lives. Instead, let’s establish a proper balance, evaluating the life living and affirming choices we must make and the necessary precautions we ought to take. Let’s turn anxiety into compassion and, careful with our health and well-being, live our days with confidence and joy.

Rabbi Shulman's Sermons from earlier this year continue here:

covenantal community

Shabbat Yitro | February 15, 2020

A thought piece about the Ten Commandments

and how we may appreciate commandment as a religious concept.

In his movie, The History of the World, Mel Brooks plays Moses coming down from Mount Sinai. He’s carrying three stone tablets containing the commandments he receives from God. Coming into the view of the people, Mel Brook’s Moses declares: “Lord, I shall give these laws unto Thy people. Hear me, O hear me, alte yidden, the Lord has given unto you these fifteen…drops one of three tablets and watches it break…oy, these ten! Ten Commandments for all to obey.”

Absent the humor, many of us learned the story precisely this way. As the Torah describes, Moses ascends Mount Sinai. He remains in God’s presence for forty days. He receives God’s revelation of commandments and laws. Moses walks down the mountain with the two tablets and reads the inscribed words, the Ten Commandments, to the Children of Israel encamped around the mountain.

Other than the Exodus itself, this familiar scene represents the most important event set out in Torah about the origin and purpose of the Jewish People. It is what most of the Torah’s text and narrative is about.

Not Mel Brook’s Moses, but Moses in Torah, says it this way. “Hear, O Israel, the laws and rules that I proclaim to you this day! Study them and observe them faithfully! The Eternal our God made a covenant with us at Sinai.”

Most agreements we make are mutual. The wonder of Jewish history lies in every generation perpetuating this remarkable covenant idea. We Jews are bound to each other through time and place, and bound to God by a choice we embrace, but did not make.

Our Biblical text emerges from the ancient Near East where rulers often made covenants or treaties with their subjects. They established expectations and roles. In historical fact, the covenant language of our Hebrew text mimics the language and terms used back in its day. Though, what Torah seeks is to inspire moral consciousness in behavior and relationships between people, and with God.

Biblical historians, like the scholar Nahum Sarna, take “for granted that the Ten Commandments comprise the minimal moral imperatives essential to the maintenance of an ordered and wholesome society.”

How else was Cain’s murder of his brother Abel wrong? Why did God bring the flood of Noah’s day? What bad acts did God seek to punish at Sodom and Gomorrah? These myths tell us ancient civilizations could not function, as we know they did, without covenants, social contracts defining right and wrong.

Let me share a fascinating example. In ancient Egypt, in order to attain life in the hereafter, believers of the god Osiris uttered this magical formula. “I have not committed evil…I have not stolen…I have not coveted…I have not murdered…I have not lied…I have not committed adultery.”

Sounds a lot like the last five of our Ten Commandments. “You shall not murder…commit adultery…steal…bear false witness…or covet.” But wait. Moses brought them down Mount Sinai to us from God, didn’t he?

This question represents a fundamental challenge to those of us who affirm and celebrate Judaism and who don’t read the Torah text literally. Not that we don’t know Biblical history. We don’t know how to respond to the imperatives and lessons of that history. We read Torah for meaning, not for fact. We live active Jewish lives by our considered choices, not necessarily because of Divine command.

So, understandably, we feel less obligated to the details and routines of ritual observance and the ethical demands of Jewish tradition. Which, in my view, diminishes our experience of Jewish spirituality and weakens the character of our Jewish community.

The Jewish People’s covenant with each other and God, a bond I’m not sure we really know how to describe, is actually what sustains us. It is a transcendent, imperceptible pull we feel at those moments in our lives when connecting to Jews and Jewish tradition is important to us.

Being members of a covenantal community is why we bring our children forward to become B’nei Mitzvah, sit at our Seder tables to recount the Exodus, light Hanukkah candles, give Tzedakah, engage with Israel, sustain synagogues, work for Jewish organizations and care about social justice as a demonstration of Jewish values.

What do we mean when we recite the b’rakhah: Barukh Atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melekh haOlam, asher kidshanu b’mitzvotav, v’tzivanu - by God’s commandments we are sacred as a people, charged to act upon our ideals and our beliefs?

Mitzvah, commandment, is response to an imperative, a covenant call from beyond our own instincts and inclinations. When we think beyond ourselves and remember we are precious parts of a larger whole, when we choose to act not only by convenience or self-interest, but by a felt, and perhaps intangible, urge to bring holiness and goodness into the world, to affirm the precious place of Jews and Judaism in the world, when we recite a b'rakhah and perform a mitzvah we announce that through us and our behavior God is present in the world.

Still, we ask. If the Ten Commandments aren’t fully original concepts or commands, how are they different from other law codes of the ancient Near East? In their declaration, there is no human authority, only God. In their performance, there is no consequence for violation, only aspiration.

And different from pagan law codes, Torah introduces two new moral concepts in two unique commandments.

Monotheism: “You shall have no other gods beside me.” To believe in One God is to believe in the equality of all people because we all originate from the same Unique source for all that exists.

Shabbat: “Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.” Shabbat is a grateful celebration for all that exists in life as well as a revolutionary promise of freedom and dignity for everyone in society.

The ancient anthology of texts and sources that influence the Bible don’t prevent Torah from being what we know it is. The living and sacred story of the Jewish People. The source for the Judaism we inherit, celebrate, transform, and transmit. The origin of Torah back when is less important for us than the message of Torah right now.

God is present through us when we experience life, through us when we respond to life. God is present through us when we meet, through us when we respond to one another. When we are loving, healing, and giving. When we strive to redeem others from the struggles of their lives. When we uphold the particular expressions of Jewish purpose and act on the universal ideals of Jewish principles. By transcending ourselves, by moving beyond ourselves, by thinking about something more than ourselves, we make God’s presence felt in the world.

We who don’t read the Torah text literally affirm the collective memory of the Jewish People as the authority we honor for the privilege of being members of our covenantal community. The wonder of the past and the promise of the future lies in how we continue to demonstrate and perpetuate this remarkable covenant idea today.

stubborn in principle

Shabbat Vaera | January 25, 2020

The Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum Website states, “Soldiers of the 60th Army of the First Ukrainian Front opened the gates of Auschwitz Concentration Camp on January 27, 1945. The prisoners greeted them as authentic liberators. It was a paradox of history that soldiers formally representing Stalinist totalitarianism brought freedom to the prisoners of Nazi totalitarianism.”

In America, today, 41 percent of our citizens, and 66 percent of those younger than 35 years old cannot say what Auschwitz was. There were over 40,000 concentration camps and ghettos in Europe during the Holocaust. On this 75^th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, almost half of all Americans (45 percent) cannot name a single one of them.

In Israel, to commemorate the 75^th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, which is this coming Monday January 27, the government hosted the largest political gathering in Israel’s history. Headlines boasted that Jerusalem was overflowing with Western presidents, premiers and potentates, all descending on the Holy City to recall the Holocaust and speak out against anti-Semitism. “It was a gathering like nothing Israel has experienced before,” journalists noted.

In his opening remarks on Wednesday evening, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin pointed out, “This evening as we remember the victims of the Holocaust and World War II, we also mark the victory of freedom and human dignity.”

Every survivor of the Shoah we know, and all among us who are their children and grandchildren, is proof of President Rivlin’s words. I say this with love and deep respect.

Survivors are the most determined people I know. As one Austrian survivor stated, “I am very stubborn. It helped me survive.” Survivors responded to unspeakable evil, consciously or sub-consciously, by being stubborn about moral principles, today urging us to do good.

Memory of the Holocaust demands we build the world those who perished didn’t know. We best remember the Shoah through a stubborn commitment to life’s gifts and tenaciously, intensely holding to life’s blessings. We best honor the memories of those whom the Nazi’s murdered by demonstrating the courage and character of our best convictions.

On occasion, in Torah, when God is frustrated with the ancient Israelites, God labels them as “a stiff-necked people - Am k’shei orekh.” The Midrash asks, “Is that a criticism? Rather it is to their credit. Their stubbornness is what has permitted us to remain Jews.” I suggest we apply this same insight to everyone who not only survived the Shoah, but to everyone one who devotes themselves to the renewal and future of the Jewish People.

We must all be stubborn in seeing to it that the memories and lessons of the Holocaust continue to be taught, learned, and lived. In life, as through history, it is right to be stubborn in principle when lives and decency are at stake. It is right to be stubborn in support of goodness and in pursuit of justice.

To be stubborn in principle is to protect the ideals and cherished purposes with which we live. Principled stubbornness is not aimed at individual aggrandizement, but at promoting greater truths in life. Truths that sometimes run counter to individual desires and opinions. It is wrong to be stubborn when selfishness is the motive. It is wrong to be stubborn when debating trivialities and banalities is our manner. It is wrong to be stubborn when anyone’s egotistical pursuits disrespect the rights and roles of others.

I once met a man who announced before our conversation began, “I’m stubborn. Once I decide what I think, I won’t change my mind.” I guess being stubborn like that has a certain advantage. You always know what you are going think tomorrow.

Such personal intransience is being stubborn for no meaningful purpose. Who do you know who isn’t speaking with a relative or friend because each one is waiting for the other one to call first? What parents or teachers have you met who pushed their children or students away with stubborn demands for behavior or achievement insensitive to their personal challenges or temperaments?

The Portuguese Torah commentator Abarbanel understands our being “a stiff-necked people” in this less than positive way. He says, “Unable to turn our heads we do not look down the road to see the consequences of our actions.”

I’ve always believed that the Torah story of Pharaoh’s hardened heart – the story we touched on in our reading today - is less about an ancient and cruel Egyptian ruler and much more about attitudes each of us who read the story possess.

We all have stubborn moments when we can’t turn our heads to see differently. We all have stubborn moments when we put our feelings and ourselves first. At those moments, this is the real question to ask. Are we being stubborn in principle or merely obstinate?

In the Exodus story, this question begins with a simple declaration by God, “But,” he informs Moses before sending him in to seek Israel’s freedom, “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart.”

Imagine Moses’ disillusionment. Moses is worried the Pharaoh will not heed his words. The Hebrew slaves themselves rejected Moses’ message of God’s coming redemption. Now, it seems, God is making things even more difficult. Obstinate or principle, we wonder.

Later in Torah God explains. “For I have made Pharaoh’s heart heavy in order that I may display these My signs and that you may recount how I made a mockery of the Egyptians in order that you may know that I am the Eternal God.”

The Exodus story teaches us the purpose and meaning of Jewish identity. The memory of the Holocaust teaches us the moral urgency of Jewish history.

Why did God “harden Pharaoh’s heart?” So that Pharaoh, the Children of Israel, and all of humanity can learn this truth. Why do we recall the horrors symbolized by Auschwitz and every other place of Nazi cruelty? So that next generations of children, the Jewish People, and all of humanity can learn this truth.

It is always right to be stubborn in principle when lives and decency are at stake. It is always right to be stubborn in support of goodness and in pursuit of justice. And, it is always through personal humility and mutual responsibility, never by arrogance or haughtiness, that we build just and good families, friendships, communities, and societies.

empathy training

Shabbat Shemot | January 18, 2020

A congregant told me this week his friends don’t think he’s capable of empathy. He said to me, “I just don’t understand why they feel that way.”

In part, empathy is a personality trait. In part, empathy is an emotion. Most of all, empathy is a necessary response to others and a key human tool for living in a kind and caring society. We have to be able to call on each other for comfort and compassion in those moments when we are weak or hurting.

Currently, we live at a time of empathy overload. Too much that is sad or painful in the lives of others demands our attention at home and around the world. We need a way to replenish our compassion and give of our concern. We need empathy training and to become empathy trainers.

This sensitivity is a core demonstration of Jewish values. Torah often commands us to be considerate of the feelings of others. “For you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. stated it this way. “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is what are you doing for others?”

Imagine this. “You’re in a barebones apartment. A pile of bills topped by an eviction notice sits on the desk before you. A radio to your left broadcasts a report about rising unemployment while your landlord knocks on your door, demanding rent you don’t have.”

At Temple University, this is a virtual reality simulation about becoming homeless. It allows users to experience the process of being evicted, getting ticketed for sleeping in a car, and riding a public bus through the night to stay warm.

For social service professionals, this is a new form of empathy training. By using virtual reality headsets and simulations students gain insight into the daily struggles of future clients and patients. It’s an immersive method for trying to feel what others feel and see what others see.

It makes sense to use technology in this way because we know people empathize most easily when they see other’s suffering with their own eyes. As one neuroscientist explained to me, feeling empathy for others is difficult because it requires our expending personal emotional energy we prefer to save for our own circumstances. That’s why we need empathy training and to become empathy trainers.

Rather than virtual reality, for the moment let’s train through our religious values. We meet Moses for the first time in this year’s Torah reading cycle. Moses is our empathy trainer.

Why is it, Jewish tradition asks, that Moses is God’s choice to represent the Hebrew slaves before Pharaoh and seek their freedom?

The answer emerges from Moses’ origin story, the second chapter of Exodus, a story filled with empathy and angst. Moses is born to a Hebrew slave woman determined to save his life. She raises him for three months at great risk to them both. When able, she sets her baby boy into a basket and sends him down the Nile River to an unknown fate, protected by his older sister.

Pharaoh’s daughter finds the baby boy, suspecting he is a Hebrew child. Empathetic to a mother’s fear, the Egyptian princess lifts up the baby to save him and, knowingly or not, hires his mother to nurse him. As the child grows, Pharaoh’s daughter takes him in as her own son and names him Moses, explaining, “I drew him out of the water.” This royal princess’ choice to heal the pain of a young boy and his family raises Moses into a position of prominence.

We all know well what follows. Slavery and plagues lead to exodus and God. Ever since, we the Jewish people find purpose and destiny in our master story, the story of Moses who leads our ancestors to freedom, the story of our people's covenant with God and history, a story replete with empathy, justice, and redemption.

As a grown man Moses walks among the Israelite slaves, aware these are his people. Moses sees an Egyptian taskmaster beating a Hebrew slave. Feeling for the beaten slave, Moses strikes the Egyptian oppressor and buries him in the sand.

The next day, Moses finds two of the Hebrew slaves fighting each other. Again feeling bad about their conflict, he steps in to stop them. They reject his outreach and retort, “Do you mean to kill us as you killed the Egyptian?” Martin Luther King, Jr. summarizes this scene for our contemporary times. “We have flown the air like birds and swum the sea like fishes, but have yet to learn the simple act of walking the earth like brothers.”

Now aware Pharaoh seeks to kill him, Moses flees the scene. Arriving in Midian, Moses comes to a well. He sees a group of young women coming to water their flock. He witnesses other shepherds scaring the women away from the well.

Our empathy trainer, Moses, “rose to their defense, “vayoshian – he saved them, and he watered their flock.” The Hebrew in this verse, vayoshian, is prescient. Eleven chapters later after the Children of Israel walk through the Sea of Reeds to their freedom, the Torah announces, “The Eternal God redeemed, vayosha – God saved, Israel that day from the Egyptians.”

The word used to describe Moses’ actions on behalf of the vulnerable women is the same word used to describe God’s actions on behalf of the vulnerable Israelites. Empathy is a Godly tool of justice for us all. Again, I quote Martin Luther King, Jr. “If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way.”

In gratitude for his act of kindness, the young women’s father invites Moses into their home. Moses marries one of the women, Zipporah, who bears him a son Gershom, a name of empathy meaning, “I have been a stranger in a foreign land.”

And then the Torah tells us “a long time after that, the king of Egypt died.” Moses is now free to step into his role. Ready, too, for a change in their destiny the Hebrew slaves cry out to God who now empathizes with their plight. The process of redemption begins. Professor Avivah Zorenberg writes, “The human rage that shakes the dulled world is a divine power within the human being.”

One commentary, the Sefat Emet, further explains. Until the people themselves understand the true nature and outrage of their condition, until their inner sense of empathy is stronger, they cannot see the promise of redemption. Martin Luther King, Jr. summarizes the point. “We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”

In part, empathy is a personality trait. In part, empathy is an emotion. Most of all, empathy is a necessary response to the circumstances and conditions of our lives and a key human tool for living in a kind and caring society. We train ourselves and other others to be empathetic and responsive by first seeing the facts of our own experience, and through a personal lens, identifying with the pain of others. We’re all capable of empathy.

Or as Martin Luther King, Jr. observed. “An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.”

Reacquainted with the beginning of our people’s exodus story this Shabbat, and honoring the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. this weekend, may we reclaim the empathy present in each of our souls, and sensitive to the needs of others be true to the story of our people's covenant with God and history, a story replete with justice, redemption, and empathy.

don't argue on the way

Shabbat Vayigash | January 4, 2020

Twenty years ago, we anticipated the start of a new millennium. Many of us spoke excitedly about living at the start of the 21^st Century. My father, of blessed memory, really wanted to cross that timeline from 1999 to 2000. Though he did not live to do it, I carried with me his sense of reaching a new era on that New Year’s Eve.

I remember the Y2K scare. What would happen to so many things computer dependent if the software didn’t properly adjust to the new date ending in 00? Though it all worked out fine, back then we sensed correctly that technology was going to transform our daily lives. What we did not envision was a world transformed by terror since 9/11/01 and the unending wars engulfing us still. Nor did we foresee the great recession or resurgent antisemitism.

Now it’s 2020. Twenty years later, we take stock of the 21^st Century so far. Great achievements and remarkable accomplishments, along with once unimaginable occurrences have captivated and inspired us.

We have more entertainment options than we have time to enjoy. We relate and communicate through social media. Our communities are more diverse and our awareness is more global. Yet, our sense of social community seems diminished.

What we did not envision on the eve of the new millennium was the more polarized and divided world we live in today. Social, political, and economic schisms divide us. We hold less trust in civic institutions and religious traditions. We’re more parochial and individualistic than ever before.

Looking back, we know rarely will we predict the future correctly. Looking ahead, we can still imagine what may be better and remember what we believe. Therefore, rather than guess about what the future will be, I offer instead a hope, even a prayer for this New Year and beyond.

I take the content of my aspiration from guidance Joseph provides.

Joseph, our Biblical forebear who stands before his brothers as a ruler in Egypt.

Joseph, who received a precious ornamented coat from his father Jacob.

Joseph, a dreamer whom his brothers cast into a pit when he was a naive lad.

Joseph once sold into Egyptian slavery, who his brothers and father presume is dead.

Joseph, who interpreting dreams believes he rose to prominence out of slavery and prison by God’s design.

Joseph, who serves Pharaoh by managing Egypt’s crops through plenty and famine.

Joseph, who watches his brothers come before him to seek food when there is a shortage in Canaan.

Joseph, who tricks his older siblings into bringing his youngest brother Benjamin down to him in Egypt.

After all of this, and much more drama in the journey of his days, Joseph reveals his true identity to them. He then instructs his brothers as he sends them home to retrieve their father, Jacob. “Don’t argue on the way,” (Genesis 45:24)

“Don’t argue on the way,” a strange instruction I think.

After years of yearning and days of disguise, in this moment, a Torah story scene filled with emotion and surprise, if you were Joseph, with all you have experienced, with all you have learned, with all you dreamed once upon a time would come to be, what parting words would you offer to your brothers? What advice or wisdom would you speak as they journey home to get your father? A strange instruction, I think. “Don’t argue on the way.”

Well, maybe not. Afterall, the brothers arguing is what led to them to cast Joseph aside in the first place. The medieval Spanish commentator Ibn Ezra acknowledges this. Joseph now worries his brothers might be feeling guilty for what they did. They might argue about it. A schism might form among them.

Jewish tradition imagines a deeper level of concern. In the Talmud, Rabbi Eleazar states that Joseph told his brothers not to argue over Torah and Halakhah on their journey home. Such intense debate can be distracting. Rabbi Eleazar worries for Joseph that his brothers might lose their way while arguing and not reach home safely.

Rabbi Eleazar seems to know. The experience of passionate discussion, especially an argument over who is right or who is wrong, can lead away from its intended goals. It can divide rather than unite. It can break rather than resolve. How often in the past decade or two did debates devolve into distasteful arguments? How often did holding to strongly held opinions obscure respect for those on the other sides of many arguments?

In Jewish law, while it is important to refine the details, it is more important to preserve the ethical principles behind the law and our relationships with all who practice it. We learn.

The reason for preferring the religious decisions of Rabbi Hillel’s students over those of Rabbi Shammai’s students is Hillel’s disciples were genial and modest. They showed restraint when affronted. When they taught the law, they taught both their own views and the opinions of their colleagues’ learning with Rabbi Shammai. Moreover, when they formulated their teachings and cited a dispute, they prioritized the statements of Rabbi Shammai’s students over their own.

Twenty years from now, if blessed to live toward the middle years of the 21^st Century, I hope we have long since arrived in an era like the one from so long ago the Talmud remembers.

On the Jewish New Year we pray, “V’yei-esu kulam agudah ahat, la’asot r’tzon-kha b’lei-vav shalem.” “God has created all of humanity bound together as one, carrying out Divine will wholeheartedly.”

On this New Year, as we engage with others, may we be true to the values we believe in and believe in the value of what others hold dear. May our culture heal and our society progress because each of us holding to our particular visions and values are open to what other people have to say.

I sincerely hope we can grow to balance our passion for ideas with our compassion for one another.

I genuinely pray we can respect those with whom we disagree and disagree with those whom we love.

These are my simple hopes and prayers for 2020 and beyond. Headed toward whatever may be our common experiences this year and into the future, as Joseph asked of his brothers let’s ask of ourselves in the spirit of drawing closer together and not farther apart. “Don’t argue on the way.”

who we are

Shabbat Vayishlah | December 14, 2019

On April 25, 1915, a year before he became a Supreme Court Justice, Louis D. Brandeis spoke these words.

“Enlightened countries grant to the individual equality before the law; but they fail still to recognize the equality of whole peoples or nationalities. We seek to protect as individuals those constituting a minority; but we fail to realize that protection cannot be complete unless group equality is also recognized.”

We were told this week that President Trump would sign an Executive Order on Wednesday defining the Jewish people in America as a nationality. He did not. He signed an Executive Order without that definition. I don’t know if the initial reporting was wrong or simply misunderstood.

Immediately, and at the same time a violent antisemitic attack took place in Jersey City, there was a rush to take sides. Different opinions were cranked out, including the usual pro and con Jewish organizational press releases, as to the wisdom and necessity of this order.

Here is the language of the Executive Order. “Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin in programs and activities receiving Federal financial assistance. While Title VI does not cover discrimination based on religion, individuals who face discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin do not lose protection under Title VI for also being a member of a group that shares common religious practices. Discrimination against Jews may give rise to a Title VI violation when the discrimination is based on an individual's race, color, or national origin.”

In other words, Jewish or not, individuals may not be discriminated against because of their race, color, or national origin. So, instead of declaring Jews as a nationality in America, the Executive Order affirms that discrimination against Jews in education could violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act if it is based on perceived Jewish ethnic characteristics.

To my mind that’s a symbolic, not a legal, statement. It’s not possible to outlaw antisemitism in the world. It has become necessary to use the bully pulpit to speak out against antisemitism and to call on America’s educational institutions to step up their responses to the harassment of Jewish students on college campuses.

Which is what Wednesday’s Executive Order actually does. It recommends for Title VI consideration an accepted, non-legally binding, definition of antisemitism adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.

“Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”

As best as I can describe them, those are the facts. Now, for a few moments this morning, enter with me into a noise free zone. In here, there is no president you do or do not like. There is no social media and op-ed shouting and arguing. There is no Executive Order to debate. There is only an important and complex question for us to think about.

Judaism is structurally different from other monotheistic religions. Religion is the core element, but not the only element of being Jewish. We all know Jews who may not believe in God or practice Jewish religious traditions, yet they are connected to Judaism through culture, family heritage, language, art, Zionism, or social justice.

Anyone who wishes to be Jewish can become Jewish and so Judaism includes people of all races and ethnicities. Therefore, Jews are not a race. But, we are not only a religious group. Most commonly, we talk about being "the Jewish people."

In 19th and early 20th century Europe, most governments declared Jews to be a nationality so they could discriminate against them for being different from the majority culture. That's part of what lead to the Zionist movement to create Israel, the nation-state of the Jewish people.

In Napoleon’s France, the French National Assembly stated that citizenship required Jews to relinquish their national distinctiveness. “The Jews should be denied everything as a nation, but granted everything as individuals.”

In Israel today, notably, the nationality of Jews is listed as Jew, and of Arabs, as Arab. What they share in common as Israeli Jews or Israeli Arabs is citizenship - which comprises anyone of any ethnic or religious background, or nationality, if they wish to be a citizen of Israel.

Think about this. Had it occurred that our government wanted to declare Jews a nationality in order to protect Jewish students on college campuses from discrimination, had it occurred, it would have been the reverse of what happened generations ago in Europe when claiming Jews were a nationality was an excuse to discriminate against them.

This isn’t the first time in American history when the status of Jews as a nationality within American society has been discussed.

A group of Jews from Amsterdam sent a petition to the Dutch West India Company seeking to join the first expedition to America in 1655. “As foreign nations consent that the Jewish nation may go to live and trade in their territories, how can your Honors forbid the same?”

On July 21, 1820, speaking in the company of James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, Dr. Jacob De La Motta explained that Jews are a people, a religious sect, and a nation.

“A nation whom, while appreciating the benefits granted by a spotless constitution, cast an eye on their brethren in foreign lands, writhing under the shackles of odious persecution, and wild fanaticism, with the fondest hope, the measure of their sufferings will be soon complete.”

Louis Brandeis elaborated on this idea in his April 1915 speech. “W. Allison Philips recently defined nationality as, ‘An extensive aggregate of persons, conscious of a community of sentiments, experiences, or qualities which make them feel themselves a distinct people.’

Can it be doubted,” asked Brandeis, “that we Jews, aggregating 14,000,000 people, are ‘an extensive aggregate of persons’; that we are ‘conscious of a community of sentiments, experiences and qualities which make us feel ourselves a distinct people,’ whether we admit it or not?”

For myself, in the spirit of Brandeis, I don’t want the government of the United States to declare who or what I am. That's up to me. As Jews, we define our self-understanding, just like all other groups of people. I don’t want the government labeling me or categorizing me in order to protect me. Acts of discrimination and hate speech are always wrong, regardless of who is the target, and must be rejected strongly.

For all of us, understand. The question of Jews being a religion or a nationality goes all the way back to the Bible.

Twice in Torah we read that our forefather Jacob’s name is changed to Israel. After a long night struggling with his conscience and fears, he wrestles with a man who injures his hip. After their encounter Jacob is told, “Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with beings divine and human, and have prevailed.” In this verse, Israel means, “To struggle with God.”

To be Israel, more personally to be a Jew, is to struggle, to search for the meaning we require. We wonder about God and we ask about human nature. We debate right and wrong. We try to figure things out for ourselves and ask our many questions about life. We confront the blessing of being who we are and the challenge of recognizing who others are.

Jacob struggling with God as Israel represents we Jews as a religion.

At the end of Jacob’s journey God appears to him and blesses him. God declares, “You shall be called Jacob no more, but Israel shall be your name.” In this verse, Israel means, “God will rule.”

To be Israel, more personally to be a Jew, is to receive a distinctive identity, to be set apart as a group. God says to Jacob, the newly named Israel, “Be fertile and increase, a nation shall descend from you.”

Jacob blessed by God as Israel represents we Jews as a nationality.

Regrettably, the time has come for us to leave the noise free zone, to return to the real world where knowledge doesn’t always inform opinion, and differences of opinion become nasty and divisive.

When you next ponder the important and complex question we’ve considered today, a question that will always be here for us to think about, first, remember how Justice Brandeis concluded those remarks of his back in 1915. He said, “Let us make clear to the world that we too are a nationality striving for equal rights to life and to self-expression.”

Then, consider this more contemporary perspective of Israeli educator Dr. Abraham Infeld who explains. “There is nothing like Judaism. It is not a religion. It is not an ethnicity. It is not even a nationality. It is a people.”

Think about all of it. Though I don’t want the government of the United States to declare who we are, we most certainly can and must.

good enough isn't

Shabbat Vayera | November 16, 2019

My father always told my sisters and me “Good enough isn’t.” He didn’t want us ever to settle for less than the personal best we could do or become. In our home there was no objective standard or comparison to others. Our genuine best was the only measure, which of course produced varying results in various ventures. We grew to understand. To bring less than our fullest efforts or consideration was to underestimate ourselves.

I have always cherished Dad’s lesson. I believe his message. Often, we set our expectations too low. We don’t demand enough of ourselves and, where it is our proper place, we don’t ask enough of others. We settle, too often in our lives, too often in our society, too often in our world. “It’s good enough,” we tell ourselves. Even though we know it isn’t fully the best we can do or the best it can be. You see, good enough isn’t.

I’m mindful of this when I speak with parents, teachers, and managers. We all have hunches about how much an individual may or may not accomplish. We all want to be honest about their capabilities and proclivities, always aware of their strengths and challenges. Nonetheless, we cannot use our assumptions about them to set goals for our children, our grandchildren, our students, or our colleagues. Instead, it is our task to support their progress, to encourage their best efforts, and to observe how much more they may actually achieve, unaware we ever had any lesser expectations.

We each deserve the same. When we insist we are not able, we lack the skills, we are shy of the capacity, we simply care less than we could, we deny ourselves something of our own dignity. When it comes to each and every one of us, good enough isn’t!

It’s not that we can do anything we set our minds to, or even everything we may want to do. Honestly, we cannot. We’re being unfair with ourselves if we think we can. But, we will never know what we actually can do, or may care deeply about doing, if we do not consistently greet life’s opportunities and responsibilities with our best efforts.

Torah portrays God and Abraham in this same manner. “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?” God muses. It’s not good enough to contemplate the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah alone. The medieval Torah commentator Rashi imagines God’s thought process. God appointed Abraham as the “father of a multitude of nations.” The people of Sodom are also Abraham’s children. Should God not tell a father the fate of this children? Will Abraham bring a different perspective?

“Shame on you!” Abraham shouts at God. “Shall not the judge of all the earth deal justly?” Good enough isn’t. Abraham challenges God toward a deeper justice. “Will You sweep away the innocent along with the guilty?”

The Talmudic sage Rabbi Abba ben Kahana explains. “It would be less than your sacred best to punish the righteous with the wicked.” In other words even for God, good enough isn’t. God accepts Abraham’s challenge. Ours must be the moral courage to challenge ourselves and to question God.

This is how the spiritual lens of our Jewish tradition looks out at the world. We yearn for meaning, for hope and ideals, for a vision of better days and moral ways. Six days every week we work. We engage in all we can and all we must to learn and grow, to make a living, to care for others, to give of ourselves to the people and communities of our lives, and to enjoy the gifts and miracle of being alive.

Obadiah Seforno, the 16^th century Italian Torah commentator observes. “One should always remember Shabbat while working during the six days of the week.” In theory, Shabbat celebrates the world’s creation. In practice, Shabbat is the first gift of human freedom, introduced just after our ancient Israelite ancestors passed through the Sea of Reeds out of slavery into freedom. Of course we work. We can also choose to rest.

One day each week we pause from our routine efforts. We stop to appreciate and celebrate what we actually did, what we really accomplished, and all we truly love. Our weekly celebration of Shabbat reminds us. Good enough isn’t. As we celebrate all that is and exists this week, we imagine what more can still become of ourselves and our world.

On Shabbat we hold out for our ideals. One day each week we realize good enough isn’t. We seek to internalize and actualize our visions for goodness and peace. It is when we set our expectations to be better than good enough, it is when we set our sights high while acknowledging we may fall short, it is then we discover our best selves.

Abraham could not prevent God from destroying Sodom and Gomorrah. According to the story, the good people simply weren’t there. But he tried. He set for himself the highest possible expectation he could.

Later on in the Torah text, in other challenging moments, Abraham himself falls short of this very standard he set before God. He makes some mistakes. Everybody does. Yet the last thing we read about Sodom and Gomorrah is this. “When God destroyed the cities of the Plain…God remembered Abraham.”

Voices in our tradition ask, how did God remember Abraham? In response to Abraham’s shortcomings, they answer, God shows compassion for him, just like Abraham sought for the innocent people he hoped to find.

Though we all may fall short, even when we do, we are striving to greet life’s opportunities and responsibilities with our best efforts. Ours must always be the moral courage to challenge ourselves and to ask hard questions. Just like my father taught me. Good enough isn’t!

god's selfie

Shabbat Lekh Lekha | November 9, 2019

Our smart phones with cameras, relatively new tools rarely out of our easy grasp, are radically impacting the culture in which we live, in good ways, funs ways, in a variety of ways. For example, many of us enjoy taking selfies, pictures of ourselves alone or with others. We take digital photos to capture the memory of a moment, of an activity we’re enjoying, of being next to someone else.

I don’t particularly like pictures of me, so a selfie by myself isn’t my thing. Plenty of other people take true selfies, pictures of themselves by themselves. 52% of all selfies posted on Instagram are pictures of individuals.

In our large and often overwhelming world, people want others to know them. They express their personal identities and try to stand out from the crowd by posting pictures of themselves doing all sorts of things. The routine of their lives most days may not bring them much personal satisfaction. They seek to find fulfillment in their digital diary open to real and on-line friends alike. Capturing moments of meaning and memory, in selfies people choose how they present themselves to the world.

Selfies can be expressions of personal identity. People measure their status in how many likes they receive. In virtual community, which may or may not overlap with tangible community, they count. They belong.

For some who post them, selfies may also be reflections of unhealthy self-importance or narcissistic self-involvement. For most people, let’s summarize, selfies demonstrate their desire to be known, to express their personal identity, and to have an impact on others.

All of us share in these hopes, however we may exhibit them. In fact, we can learn these same three goals, to be known for something, to stand apart from others, and to have an impact, from the way our earliest ancestors imagine our patriarch Abraham’s story.

Monotheism, the belief in One God, the idea for which Abraham is famous in religious history, monotheism was once a new concept, something that radically impacted the culture of its day, and humanity in every day and age.

The Torah never tells us why God delights in Abraham. To fill that curiosity void, Jewish tradition portrays young Abraham as a spiritual prodigy. “When Abraham was three years old, he went out of the cave and observing the world wondered in his heart: Who created heaven and earth and me? All that day he prayed to the sun. In the evening, the sun set in the west and the moon rose in the east.

Upon seeing the moon and the stars around it, he said: This one must have created heaven and earth and me - these stars must be the moon's princes and courtiers. So all night long he stood in prayer to the moon. In the morning, the moon sank in the west and the sun rose in the east. Then he said: There is no might in either of these. There must be a higher God over them. To God I will pray.”

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel derives from this lore of Abraham’s conclusion a religious insight for all of us. “Thinking about God begins when we do not know any more how to wonder, how to fear, how to be in awe.” What to do with our sense of wonder and awe is the original religious question, Heschel teaches, the source of Abraham’s awareness of God. Or as I like to say, “Life’s mystery is God’s reality.”

Another ancient source, one much less well known, influences the rabbis’ image of Abraham. The Book of Jubilees, a text outside of the Bible, a text not adopted for religious use by the rabbis, a text written sometime between 160 to 150 B.C.E., a text known to the Hasmoneans of Hanukkah fame, and a text retelling the stories of Genesis with different detail, offers this version of Abraham’s childhood.

Abraham’s father and grandfather were students of the idols. Named for his maternal grandfather, Abraham was but two weeks old when “he separated himself from his father that he might not worship idols with him. And he began to pray to the Creator of all things…”

In Jubilee’s telling of the story, as a child Abraham challenges his father, Terah. “What help and profit have we from those idols which you worship, and before which you bow? They are the work of men’s hands. Do not worship them.”

Terah agrees with Abraham, and then complains. What is he to do with those around him who buy his wares, whose “souls cleave to them,” and whose anger he won’t be able to bear? After hearing his father’s anguish, Abraham “burned the house of idols, and he burned all that was in the house and no person knew it.” Then Abraham turns to pray to God, who commands him.

“Lekh Lekha…Go forth from your native land and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you. I will make your name great, and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and curse him that curses you; and all the families of the earth shall bless themselves by you.”

Our Religious School students and their parents studied the other, more familiar, version of this story on Thursday in a discussion about their families’ spiritual values. They read the midrash of Abraham smashing his father’s idols.

“Abraham seized a stick, smashed all the idols, and placed the stick in the hand of the biggest of them. When his father came, he asked: ‘Who did this to the gods?’ Abraham answered: ‘Would I hide anything from my father? A woman came with a bowl of fine flour and said: Here, offer it up to them. When I offered it, one god said, I will eat first, and another said, No, I will eat first. Then the biggest of them rose up and smashed all the others.’ His father replied: ‘Are you mocking me? They cannot do anything!’ Abraham answered: ‘You say they cannot. Let your ears hear what your mouth is saying!’”

Whether or not we take selfies, and whatever we may make of the lore surrounding Abraham’s spiritual legacy, in our own lives we all desire to be known, to express our personal identities, and to have an impact on others.

For the earliest sources of our Jewish tradition, it seems to be important that Abraham is known for rejecting the idolatry of his time. Abraham stood out for what he believed to be true. Through monotheism and the world’s monotheistic religious traditions, Abraham’s story greatly impacts human history.

By our lives and beliefs, I hope we seek the same. What do each of us want to be known for? What truths are part of how we present or identify ourselves? What is our impact on others because we are true to ourselves and our values?

If Abraham stood among us today, he wouldn’t need to smash our idols, though we can all identify items people falsely worship. I think Abraham would mock self-sufficiency, the belief of some people that nothing else and no one else is greater than them. The idea inherent in some selfies that people who don’t already care about me might still care about what I’m wearing, what I’m eating, or what I’m doing.

Even if we were self-sufficient and able to find personal fulfillment without anyone else, which itself is an absurd and false claim, we would still crave something more. It’s human nature to strive beyond our finite selves toward something greater. Our patriarch Abraham’s legacy teaches that beyond is God.

Monotheism isn’t about any one of us alone. Proclaiming One God, monotheism is about everybody. To believe in One God is to believe in the equality of all people because we all originate from the same unique source for all that exists. To believe in One God, and therefore equality, is to believe in shared standards of justice and goodness for which we are all responsible. To believe in One God, and therefore equality and responsibility, is also to believe in an ultimate vision of human harmony and peace.

“On that day, the Eternal God shall be One, and the name of God, One.” All people smiling and striving for a world of human equality, responsibility, and mutuality. That’s God’s selfie.

high holy day sermons 5780

In my High Holy Day sermons this year, I spoke personally about Jewish ideas and concerns as I reflected with you on our society, our community, our people, and our lives. I’m gratified by your responses to my thoughts and look forward to our on-going conversations. My sermons follow below in this order.

On Yom Kippur I delivered “My Rabbinic Letter: ReJEWvenate.”

Kol Nidre eve I invited you to join me in “Reclaiming Personal Prayer.”

On Rosh HaShanah morning I asked, “What, Me Worry?”

On the Second Day of Rosh HaShanah I introduced you to “Practical Theology.”

rejewvenate

Yom Kippur Sermon 5780 | October 9, 2019

“Your visit to the synagogue should be very short. In fact, it is better to pray at home for it is impossible to be spared from jealousy or from hearing idle talk in the synagogue.” Oops, wrong opening. Sorry. That was intended for a congregation in 18^th century Lithuania, not us here at Beth El.

I meant to quote this excerpt from the Vilna Gaon’s letter to his family in Lithuania, written sometime in the mid-1700s. “For God’s sake, guide your children well and gently. Take care of their health and make sure they always have enough to eat.” Oops, wrong reference for today, sorry. That was the Vilna Gaon’s advice for his children, as they became parents.

Let’s try this quote from Nahmonides’ letter to his family written in Israel in 1267. “I will now explain to you how to always behave humbly. Speak gently at all times. Consider everyone as greater than yourself. In all your actions, words and thoughts, always regard yourself as standing before God, for the Divine Presence fills the whole world.”

That’s the one! Advice appropriate to the day and useful as we consider our teshuvah, our personal change, growth, and repentance. I speak to you this Yom Kippur, as I have previously, in the tradition of rabbis writing letters to their communities. In many lands and for a vareity of reasons, through the generations rabbinic letters have captured the spirit of the times and the deepest concerns of their writers.

Today I will address with you the Jewish spirit of our times, and one of my deepest concerns for Jewish life.

Dear Friends,

I’m worried about the future of the American Jewish community. From what I hear, many of you are, too. Some of you are nostalgic. You remember when with warmth and fond memories. Others of you don’t carry memories of any good old days. When younger, you felt left out or uninspired. Some of you weren’t involved in an earlier time in American Jewish life or the life of this community.

In spite of the insecurity about which I spoke on Rosh HaShanah, living at the greatest, safest, and most creative time in Jewish history, today we face challenges. All of us are curious. What is our future?

Here’s a simple truth about Jewish life today. We spend too much time feeling Jewish and not enough time doing Jewish. Study after study portrays our Jewish attitudes. Being Jewish is more important to us than doing Jewish. This has to change.

On Rosh HaShanah we are universalistic. Then we considered what troubles us in the larger world. On Yom Kippur we focus on our behavior. We think less about what we feel and more about what we do.

Today we remember there is a standard of personal activity and choice by which we measure our lives, toward which we aspire. We climb upward on a ladder toward doing better and doing more.

We Jews have standards. We Jews measure behavior. We profess deed over creed. “Lilmod u’lelamed, lishmor v’la’asot.” Being Jewish is about learning and teaching, preserving and doing. Though I’m always aware. What Judaism says and what Jews do are often two very different things.

Please accept my admiration. Each of you marks this unique and compelling observance of Yom Kippur. Each of you has my respect for the ideals you sustain in this very physical and real way. Spending this day in reflection and repentance, we call on our conscience and our common sense to guide us toward doing better in the choices we make for ourselves and toward one another.

Whatever our age, no matter our circumstances, being here we demonstrate hope. In a world poisoned by hatred and pain, conflict and hypocrisy, here we measure our lives by a standard born of our history and foretelling our destiny. We believe we are each and all responsible for a vision of goodness, caring, and meaning we strive to attain. We find meaning in being and doing Jewish.

Three things are happening in the American Jewish community. Demographics: we’re aging in place. Behavior: we ask less of our children and ourselves. Globalization: Jewish community is less local than it used to be.

As a consequence of these trends, strident, insular, and sometimes fundamentalist forms of Judaism grow. Filling the void in response to a more prevalent secular and cultural American Jewish identity. The traditional yet modern, religious yet reasoned forms of Judaism we practice here at Congregation Beth El, though we’re doing fine, resonates less in the hearts and minds of American Jews today.

This development troubles me because Jewish fundamentalism doesn’t inspire most of us. It’s too ethnocentric and intellectually isolated. A fundamentalist Judaism that doesn’t recognize legitimacy beyond its own limited and literal understandings troubles me.

On the other hand, the Jewish liberalism we prefer clearly isn’t engaging enough of us. It blurs the boundaries of a distinctive Jewish place and purpose without which we have no reason for being Jewish, let alone doing Jewish. Good feelings alone won’t sustain us.

Our response must be to rejuvenate Jewish life. We each need to be engaged in the 21^st century multi-faceted Jewish conversation swirling around us about our values, our people, and our traditions because we are in the midst of a generational turn over.

Disconnected from mainstream Jewish institutions, our children and grandchildren are either walking away from, or creating their own, Jewish settings. Many of those who care to explore anew what being Jewish means are not doing their Jewish here. They’re doing it online, on podcasts. They’re doing it around town. They’re doing it in communities that reflect their styles and experiences, not ours.

In today’s world, one has to stand out not blend in. Authority comes from within, not from on high. Next generations, not literate in the rudiments of Jewish cultural memories and communal norms important to their parents and grandparents, many not Jewishly literate as well, ask about and explore anew what being Jewish can be about for them.

We need to join with them, engage like them, and wherever possible, become role models for them. In this global environment of information and technology human beings still require meaning and purpose. We still desire values and ethics. We still care about who we are, what we do, and why we live. We continue to crave community.

Ours is a cultural and ethnic Jewish identity. Ours is a Jewish identity that finds warmth in seasonal traditions, in family heritage if we’re fortunate to have family around us, and in life cycle celebrations. For many of us there is a genuine, emotional bond with Israel and Jewish Peoplehood.

Devoted to God by caring for others, we are actively involved in Jewish communal causes and organizations. Some of us enjoy regular Shabbat dinners with family and friends. Most of us share in periodic holiday celebrations: these High Holy Days, Hanukkah, and Passover. Though sometimes we adjust our gatherings for calendar and convenience in a very stressed and over programmed world. Ambivalent about religious and communal authority, we cherish our autonomy and govern our lives as sovereign selves.

Going forward we’re going to be a smaller community of American Jews. The American Jewish future will reflect quality in experiences over quantity of participants. The American Jewish community will contain two worldviews: those of us who engage actively in our own comfort zones of doing Jewish and those of us who engage passively in our own comfort zones of feeling Jewish.

This may not be a new reality, but it is ours. Historically and sociologically these things move in generational cycles. Let’s not wait. The Jewish future we hope to greet with our children and grandchildren is too important for us to remain stuck in our current places.

We need to rejuvenate. We need to respond to the Jewish spirit of our times by getting up out of our comfort zones and engaging in Jewish life and learning for ourselves. In the 21^st century, we will create a compelling and dynamic Jewish community only if and when we raise our expectations.

We are going to do this here at Congregation Beth El. We will work to engage in the 21^st century multi-faceted Jewish conversation swirling around us about our values, our people, and our traditions. We will call these efforts, Re-JEW-venate. What does that mean?

Speaking openly with one another, we will start to unpack our beliefs and assumptions with an eye toward reclaiming authentic Jewish visions of social ethics, communal purpose, and personal meaning for the world we live in, one inconceivable to our ancestors, upon whose ideas everything is based.

As Nahmonides wrote to his family back in 1267, in all of our actions, words, and thoughts, we shall strive to regard ourselves as standing before God, for the Divine Presence fills the world.

Over time and between those of us who choose to engage, ReJEWvenate will include conversations about prayer and celebration, theology and social justice, Israel and the Diaspora, technology and individuality, the individual and the community.

My Dear Friends,

On this day of introspection and renewal, let’s make rejuvenation more personal. Consider the challenges you confront, the visions for life you embrace, and the shortcomings of your efforts so far. What steps do you need to take? What honest and possibly hard questions do you need to ask yourself? What from the past do you want to reclaim? What for the future do you need to establish? What risks will you take? What choices will you make? What promises will you state?

Last night I made a promise to myself, and maybe even to you, to begin putting my Personal Prayer Project into motion. Today, I do the same, promising myself, and maybe even you, to figure out what it can mean to rejuvenate the kind of Jewish life we and our people desire and require for today and tomorrow.

Now you know, beyond the honor of serving as one of your rabbis in this warm and sacred community, what I want my rabbinate here at Congregation Beth El to be about. To compare and contrast our lives with the lives and practices of our ancestors and to reach individuals whose positive feelings about being Jewish are not yet connected to compelling Jewish meanings, to make doing Jewish how we find purpose in being Jewish.

In this New Year, may you also make progress toward the realization of your dreams and the rejuvenation of all you are working to establish for yourself, for your loved ones, and for the world of your relationships and involvements. May you also know all the goodness of life – health, happiness, and peace.

G’mar Hatimah Tovah,

Rabbi Ron Shulman

reclaiming personal prayer

Kol Nidre Sermon 5780 | October 8, 2019

When I was 9 or 10 years old I remember going to High Holy Day services with my father, a friend of mine and his father. We two boys sat next to our dads who seemed so engrossed in their recitation, their davenen. They were mumbling under their breaths along with others in the congregation.

We were intrigued. What were they saying? We knew our Hebrew skills weren’t good enough. We whispered to each other if we could just figure out the secret to their words, we too could pray like adults.

So we listened very intently. We concentrated as best we could. Then I heard it! “I’ve got it,” I told my friend David. “I know what they’re saying!” “Really,” he answered with excitement. “What’s the word?”

“Watermelon,” I declared. “They’re saying, ‘Watermelon, watermelon, watermelon!’” That’s what I heard. I was trying to mimic incoherent mumbling that only later I grew to recognize as the beautiful Hebrew words of Biblical psalms and rabbinic poetry.

It becomes second nature for all of us familiar with the texts and formulas of the Siddur, our people’s book of ordered and established prayers. We lose ourselves in the rhythm and chant. We find ourselves achieving a deeper consciousness of soul and solitude. Some of us become aware of ourselves in relationship to God.

I’m not 9 or 10 anymore. Deciphering what seems like mumbling is no longer my challenge. Making prayer mean something is what concerns me now.

I worry for the Jewish people. I worry for the Jewish community. Too many of us and our children don’t know how to pray, even if we know what words to recite from the prayer book. I’m telling you this because if we don’t talk about it here, on a night like tonight, when else are we ever going to discuss it?

Prayer is important because it sustains Jewish identity. Jewish prayer connects us to the continuum of Jewish experience and provides context for understanding our life experiences.

We identify as Jews because of people, other Jewish people with whom we have a kinship and sense of collective memory. We each tell the story of the Jewish people as our own.

We also identify as Jews because of ideas, Jewish concepts and beliefs with which we form our values and about which we ask our questions. In our Jewish worldview, we find life meanings and purpose.

This is why Jewish prayer is important, especially when celebrated in a synagogue setting. Prayer nurtures our Jewish identities as we convey our story and discover our inspiration. This is why I want us to learn again how and what to pray.

This Kol Nidre eve I don’t want to teach you about what we read in the Mahzor, the prayer book and its contents. On this sacred night when we turn inward to reflect and repent, I want to teach you how to pray.

Can you hum a melody and think a thought? Can you listen to music and read a book? Can you dislike a person and still be polite to them? Can you know you are doing something wrong? If you can do any of these things, then you are able to sustain multiple levels of awareness.

Sustaining different levels of consciousness at the same time is the secret to successful prayer. Jewish prayer is the ability to be mindful and engaged with our many and varied thoughts while reading or skimming, chanting, or listening.

Most service settings throughout the Jewish world confuse prayer with rote, mechanical reading and recitation. I think this should bother us, not only because we want more from prayer, but because we respect the generations before us who composed and created our formal prayers from their own inner sensations of inspiration and faith.

After 80 or 90 years, 60 or 70 years, 40 or 50 years, 20 or 30 years, or even after just a few hours of synagogue service attendance, I bet no one has ever told you this before. Whatever is on your mind while you are here is your personal prayer.

You can't pray for anything that doesn’t involve you. How do you pray for health, for safety, or for love without asking yourself to do something?

You can't pray, “God give us peace” with your arms folded. You can't pray, “God, heal us,” and turn your head away from your responsibility to care for the sick or ailing. You can't pray “God, give us health” while acting toward your body in unhealthy ways. You can't love God and then exploit or embarrass people.

Prayer must stir up your conscience, your heart and mind, and your determination to act. As a result of your prayer, you come alive. Your prayer must always include you.

Prayer begins within each of us. Prayer pushes us beyond ourselves toward awareness of God and the actualization of our spiritual self. In the vast universe of existence we are each infinitesimally small and remarkably significant. Prayer validates who we are and that we matter. Prayer reminds us of the ideal as we reflect on what’s real.

Prayer both calms and excites us. Prayer brings order to the chaos of our emotions. Prayer nurtures our souls. Prayer challenges our consciences and ethics. Prayer connects each of us with one another in Jewish community and with the flow of life. Prayer unites our lives and daily concerns with the story, memories, and hopes of the Jewish People.

Prayer helps us both to celebrate and confront the ultimate meanings of existence. Prayer is an expression of our hearts’ yearnings, our lives’ concerns, and our personal joys. Prayer is boring only if our lives are dull.

I’ve served as a congregational rabbi for many years, facilitating hundreds of synagogue worship services. I’ve officiated in large, full sanctuaries and in large, empty sanctuaries. I’ve conducted prayer services in a variety of smaller, more intimate settings. In communal prayer, I’ve been moved, affected, and inspired, sometimes deeply, and I’ve been none of those things or worse, I’ve been uninterested.

What I have never been is satisfied that the contemporary synagogue prayer experience works for most of us.

Why not?

The usual list of reasons is familiar. Well educated in life, many of us are not well versed in synagogue skills. Praying to God confuses us. We’re unsure about Judaism, what we do and don’t believe, and what to do with our questions.

We’re also very busy. In life, so much else holds our attention. Some of us feel lonely in synagogue, too. Our peers are not present. As a result, we don’t feel connected to or welcome in the community of those who are regular worshippers.

There’s another reason. Typically, the synagogue services we attend do not value our presence. They don’t enable our participation. They don’t capture our imagination. They don’t touch us emotionally. They don’t challenge us thoughtfully. They don’t engage us personally.

They used to.

What happened earlier when I stopped the service, asked you to turn to each other, and talk about what we were praying. It’s Kol Nidre eve. I didn’t ask you to share out loud the promises you are making to yourself in God’s presence tonight. I did ask, do you find it difficult to keep your promises? Are promises to yourself harder or easier to keep than promises you make to others? Did it feel awkward, engaging, or worthwhile?

Jewish prayer did not begin as recitation from a book. Originally, prayer was extemporaneous, voiced to God by someone because of a specific need or in response to a particular situation. Be it petition or praise, each prayer was a singular expression.

Over time, familiar experiences produced common themes within small communities. People shared their prayerful, heartfelt concerns with one another. They began to gather and express themselves together. Patterns and forms for prayers developed.

As we do on the High Holy Days, what if we took turns presenting a personal prayer or Kavanah, a statement of personal feelings and thoughts? What if we each responded to a question relevant to our prayer experience or provided a quote, text, or insight to enrich our reflections?

What if you had permission to skip all or part of paragraphs in the prayer book you can’t feel or believe as you read them? Perhaps you will connect to them another time. Perhaps not. What if you could choose which words you want to say and really mean them? Well, you can! On each page, at each section or paragraph, we start a theme together. We go off on our own to daydream and consider. Then we reunite with one another in chant or song.

It’s like reading the newspaper. Each morning I skim the headlines. I focus on what immediately catches my interest. Some articles I delve into deeply. Others I get the gist of and move on. Some sections of the newspaper I skip over entirely.

Imagine brief prep sessions before each service. Organizing what’s in our hearts and on our minds into the agenda or themes we want our prayer to be or to inspire. Determining who will take responsibility for various roles or elements of a service.

Prayer can touch us, inspire us, and challenge us. Traditional patterns of prayer are important. But, they are not sufficient. True prayer is personal in the midst of community. Mediating meaning out of our lives’ circumstances and realities, prayer draws us nearer to one another and to God.

In truth, all you need to know in order to pray are two things. The first is who you are. Who are you today? What aspects of your personality, of your various concerns and involvements, what of your own character and nature are you aware of when you wish to pray? And second, what are you feeling? What emotions, cares, or inner rhythms form the parameters of your mood during a moment of prayer?

Jewish prayer is an activity of the heart, advocacy before God, a quest for self-awareness and understanding, as well as blessing and praise in celebration of life.

Jewish prayer is an activity of the heart. It must express emotion and feeling and be expressed through song and music, public moments of sharing personal expressions, and private moments allowing for personal reflection.

Jewish prayer is advocacy before God, a quest for self-awareness and understanding. It must inform our values and be relevant to our concerns. It must inspire our consciences and meet our needs. Why can’t a prayer service allow for debate and discussion, discovery and question? What visual cues and technological tools might help trigger our prayer in these deeper ways?

Jewish prayer is blessing and praise in celebration of life brought alive by the fixed words of our tradition, our senses of gratitude and wonder, the melodies we sing, and the community of friends and peers who embrace us.

We live in a culture that pushes us forward and sometimes acknowledges us but rarely encourages us to think about who we are, where we’re going, and why. We know ourselves better than that. Or we ought to. That’s why we pray. To remember who we are; to recognize with whom we belong; to review what we think and believe; to renew our hopes about what we’ll be able to do on every next day of our lives.

Long after mumbling “watermelon” was just a cute memory, it became my aspiration to reclaim something of what prayer once was so we can promote the promise of personal prayer for our lives today. I have worked and waited many years to put all of this theory into its fullest practice. It’s not easy.

Friends tell me personal prayer is the wrong thing to emphasize in synagogue life today. “Really,” I respond. “In a synagogue we shouldn’t strive to help Jews pray effectively and meaningfully?”

My promise to myself, and maybe even to you, is to give it a try here this year. I invite those of you to whom this appeals, and all of you for whom this may add perspective and meaning to your lives, to stay tuned and to join in.

Y’hi-yu l’ra-t’zon im-rei fi v’heg-yon li-bi l’fa-ne-kha Adonai t’zuri v’go-a-li.

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart

be acceptable to You, Eternal God, my Rock and my Redeemer.

what, me worry?

Rosh HaShanah Sermon 5780 | September 30, 2019

Our escort pulled out his gun and told the driver to stop the car. “Don’t worry,” he said in broken English as he opened the car’s front passenger door. What, me worry? I wasn’t worried. I was outright afraid. A man I had met just a few hours earlier, holding a gun while opening the back car door, was sliding himself onto the seat next to Robin and me.

I’ve never felt more insecure. I sensed a threat and was unsure about what was going to happen. Of course I was afraid, too.

Robin and I were on our way back to Israel driving through the Sinai Desert Peninsula on our way to the Suez Canal. Earlier in the day our planned flight from Cairo to Tel Aviv on Air Nefertiti took off without us in spite of the fact that we had confirmed tickets and were at the airport 3 hours before the scheduled departure time.

It was the spring of 1981. Robin and I were living in Jerusalem. After 10 fascinating days in Egypt, which we enjoyed with my parents, Robin and I needed to get back to Israel. The only flight available had left 3 hours early. The travel company apologized and offered us a private car escort. An 8-hour drive from Cairo to Jerusalem, through the Sinai Desert, crossing the Suez Canal, and transferring to an Israeli car and driver at the border.

All was fine as we drove on a single lane asphalt road over desert hills and sand dunes until we reached, what our escort described as, “a rough neighborhood.” He had taken out his gun and moved into the car’s back seat to protect us, he explained, hoping, though failing, to make me feel better.

You are the first congregation to whom I’ve ever told this story. Before, it never felt like the right illustration to use. Yet, gathered here in a different time, place, and circumstance, to be sure, I again sense a threat and am unsure about what is going to happen next. Today I’m absolutely not afraid. I am a bit apprehensive.

Before I go on, I want to ask how you’re all feeling this New Year’s Day. We’re all insecure about something. We wouldn’t be emotionally healthy, otherwise. Can I say, we wouldn’t be Jewish otherwise? Every one of us seeks approval and acceptance. We all want others to validate our presence and our worth.

I suppose there may be a few in this room without a care in the world. The rest of us are uneasy about some aspect of our lives.

Illness prevents family members and dear friends from being here with us. Some of us are living with the pressure of underemployment and financial stress. Others of us bear the burden of strained personal relationships. Who in this room doesn’t feel some personal regret? Who among us doesn’t feel now, or hasn’t felt at times before now, unfulfilled or inadequate to the moment?

I’m curious about how you’re feeling because I recently read that 73% of we American Jews feel insecure these days, less secure than we did two years ago. Beyond whatever may be our individual concerns, it seems as a group we’re apprehensive about our safety and security. Intolerance and hate, antisemitism and racism top our lists of many social concerns.

I’m asking you. Take a moment, turn to the person next to you, if you feel so inclined and comfortable, and tell them what worries you? When and where, during what moment of your life, did you feel insecure, threatened, or unsure about what would happen? How did you resolve those feelings? How are you feeling today?

The renowned psychoanalyst Eric Fromm guides us. “The task we must set for ourselves is not to feel secure, but to be able to tolerate insecurity.” Today, I want us to do more than tolerate insecurity. I want us to overcome it.

No one of us should ever feel insecure because we are Jewish. Not physically, not spiritually, not emotionally, and certainly not personally. Which is why this New York Times headline troubles me. “Synagogues, Responding to Violence, Add Security as High Holy Days Near.”

The first paragraph of the article explains, “After a year of high-profile antisemitic violence…Jewish groups…are planning increased security for services during the High Holy Days.”

Observed one rabbi, “Like many congregations…we’re taking increased security measures, not as much for protection but more of a statement of strength.” Here at Beth El, I hope our security protocols are about safety and strength. As we’ve been saying for the last many months, when we are here, in a welcome setting, we want to “Be Safe and Feel Safe.”

Needing to do this, and my feeling the need to speak to this, violates the spirit and vision of an open and accessible Jewish community we all cherish. It represents a very sad capitulation. Ours is not the free society in which we think we live. Our souls cry that it has come to this in 21^st century America.

But, you need to know this. The New York Times published the headline and article I just quoted twenty years ago, on September 6, 1999. As French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr famously said, “Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. “The more things change the more they remain the same.”

Except things aren’t the same.

For most of my life, I’ve felt Jewish from within. My Jewish identity and awareness come from my heart, my mind, and maybe even my soul. I think Jewish thoughts. I look out at the world through a Jewish lens of values and ideas. I read, study, and teach about Judaism.

Sometimes, I think in Hebrew words and phrases. I remember so many Jewish experiences and celebrations.

To be completely honest, outside of my rabbinic role and functions, though I don’t hide it, my Jewish identity is not on public display. It’s who I am personally, and how I live privately. For most of my life, I’ve felt Jewish from within. I imagine the same is true for many of you even though we’ve grown and lived in very different communities all over the world.

I am well aware. My internal Jewish identity is an anomaly, possibly a luxury. Throughout history, external forces defined identity for the vast majority of Jews. We, and many we knew, were told where we could live, what we could do, and whether or not we would survive.

The 20th century French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, who was not Jewish, observed, “The Jew is a person who other people consider Jewish.” It isn’t a compliment. We are Jews, according to Sartre, only because of what others imagine us to be. Our own history and experience transmit no inherent value or actual identity.

This imagined identity is the delusion of the antisemite. It is the root of hatred. It is again present and much too prevalent to ignore in our country and our world. This is why, secure in so many ways, you and I feel a bit more insecure than before. We didn’t expect to be feeling this way again, or ever, in our lifetimes.

If not a bit insecure, how should we feel these days? Since Pittsburgh and Poway we protect our synagogues and Jewish institutions. In political diatribe and international duplicity we respond to challenges to Israel’s legitimacy, which are really tools to undermine Jewish history and identity. On some college campuses students meet hostility or disrespect for affirming their Jewish heritage.

One student from a prominent university on the east coast reports she told a professor she would need to miss class for the High Holy Days. He told her to re-evaluate her religious beliefs and then told his class to imagine a world without Jews in it. Can you imagine the outcry if he said that about any other ethnic or religious group?

Well, happy to say, we are here at this only time in history when Jews live in a free and dynamic Diaspora coexisting with a free, dynamic, and sovereign Jewish state. We all ought to be able to distinguish between anti-Israel or antisemitic prejudice, which we must oppose, and political or policy disagreements, which we properly debate, and which ironically are a reflection of mutual care and concern.

I don’t agree with a current popular narrative that sees a break between American and Israeli Jews. The most recent Gallup Poll on this subject supports me. 95% of American Jews “have favorable views of Israel.” The divide isn’t as real as the noise. The reality is a reflexive reflection of our bonds and our sense of insecurity. We actually need each other.

If not a bit insecure, how should we feel these days? We answer questions about our loyalties as American citizens. We receive blame for the evolving demographic changes taking place in America. We witness the moral morass and cruel attitudes perpetrated as immigration policy. We know when immigrants and strangers are demeaned in any society, including our own, which is wrong in and of itself, we Jews are also seen as “the other.” Demagoguery against outsiders in America has led to an increase in antisemitic acts.

You and I cherish our internal Jewish identities. We will not allow anyone’s external and morally blurry vision redefine who we are and how we live. No one of us should ever feel insecure because we are Jewish. Nor should the xenophobia and hateful ignorance of anybody’s resentment ever minimize a person of any other personal identity or cultural heritage.

Our internal Jewish consciousness is exposed anew to all of these external and resurgent antisemitic lies and threats. In the midst of harsh days, we greet the New Year. If not a bit insecure, how should we feel?

Like Jews always have. Proud of who we are, devoted to what we believe, and sensitive to the people and world around us. Our security comes from knowing who we are, not worrying about what others may think about us. The German philosopher Martin Buber describes our need. “To stand one’s ground in openness and strength and to respond to insecurity with trust.”

Our ancestors’ desire to be open and strong, to honor and preserve their distinctiveness as Jews in 1^st century Greece, brought about history’s earliest recorded expressions of antisemitism.

In his treatise, “Against Apion,” the Roman Jewish historian Josephus seeks to refute the falsehood of various stories told about the Jews of ancient times. He decries the lies and mischaracterizations of Jewish character traits he hears in anti-Jewish rhetoric. He refutes pernicious deceits about Jewish history and efforts to delegitimize Jewish sovereignty.

What was the French quote? “The more things change the more they remain the same.”

Toward the end of his argument, Josephus writes about we Jews. “I would therefore boldly maintain that we have introduced to the rest of the world a very large number of very beautiful ideas. What greater beauty than inviolable piety? What higher justice than obedience to the law? What more beneficial than to be in harmony with one another…and to be convinced that everything in the whole universe is a reflection of God?"

We too boldly maintain beautiful ideas about who we are and what we believe. We are devoted to God by caring for one another and the world in which we live. We cherish life’s gifts and blessings. We inherit a tradition that stands for human dignity and equality, freedom and justice, compassion and goodness. We are heirs to standards of personal ethics and celebrations marking the seasons and milestones of our lives. When we act on the privilege of our Jewish identities we manifest something truly good and important whether or not those who hate us grasp it or not.

Earlier I asked what worries or angst may be yours. As headline issues of the day swirl around us personal insecurities bother us much more. No one of us likes feeling unsure about what may happen next. I didn’t on my desert drive from Cairo to Israel. You don’t now with whatever confronts you.

Insecurity results when our confidence wanes. Security results as our confidence grows. Confidence comes from the courage to be ourselves, from the commitment to do our best, and from the convictions we affirm.

Only when I’m secure in who I am can I feel secure about where I am and how I live my life. The most effective response to insecurity is to do something about it, to secure the present and plan for the future.

In this New Year, we will discover in ourselves the resilience to overcome what we can and the courage to cope with what we can’t. We will stand confident and sure where we are to become even more so where we aren’t yet.

In this New Year, we will reasonably do what we can to protect ourselves and care for one another. We will promote who we are and what we believe. We will demonstrate in our lives and for our society God’s attributes of compassion and kindness.

In this New Year, we will call out antisemitism and hatred of any kind. They are truly ignorant and irrational evils. We will never mollify or tolerate them. We will clearly and forcefully speak out against harmful ideas and hurtful insults. No matter their source or purported purpose. “Silence is consent,” teach our sages. “Shtikah k’hodayah damya.”

In this New Year, we will speak and conduct ourselves according to the highest ideals our Jewish tradition teaches in God’s name: to care for one another, to believe in each other’s humanity, and to bring dignity and decency into every human encounter whenever and wherever we can.

In this New Year, we will engage proudly and loudly in joy-filled and life-affirming Jewish experiences and celebrate a Jewish state that is safe, resilient, and humane.

The Talmud asks, “What difference is there between a person who performs mitzvot out of love and a person who performs mitzvot out of fear?” Rabbi Shimon ben Elazar answers, “Mitzvot done from love endure throughout the generations. Mitzvot done from fear don’t endure beyond the moment.”

I believe emphatically by affirming our love we can get past this ugly moment of fear. Our love of being Jewish, our love of Jewish ideas, our love of the Jewish people, and our love of doing mitzvot in this New Year will carry us forward from insecurity to confidence, from answering external threats to affirming the internal and intrinsic good of being Jewish in the world.

What, me worry?

practical theology

Rosh HaShanah Sermon 5780 | October 1, 2019

His gaze told me he was uncomfortable. I was too. Neither one of us wanted to be there, holding off impatient parents excited to visit their children. Our instructions were clear. Keep the gate closed. Keep the visiting parents with their picnic baskets and care packages out of camp until everyone down below is ready.

“Welcome to Visitor’s Day,” we greeted our summer camp guests. Wearing our camp staff t-shirts and brightest smiles, my gate-duty partner Ken and I were all that blocked the way of frustrated parents who wanted to get out of the July sun, walk down the hot asphalt road into camp, and spread out their blankets and banquets under the shade of the camp’s largest trees.

“How much longer?” snapped each new parent when they got to the gate. “Why can’t we wait inside?” they each asked, understandably. To be honest, I didn’t have a good answer to that question. It wasn’t up to me.

Try as we might to make their wait pleasant, the growing crowd wasn’t happy with us. “The oldest campers just returned from a three-day hiking trip.” One of the summer highlights we shared trying to keep our visitors calm. “They mud-hugged all of the younger campers to celebrate. It was a fun mess,” Ken described as he showed those curious how to give a mud-hug.

As Ken and I walked up and down the line offering our guests cold water to drink, we knew no one wanted to hear our stories. They wanted to see their children. Even so, we tried to introduce parents of campers in the same bunk to each other and keep morale up.

By my watch, we had to stall another 30 minutes. That’s when I looked up and saw the President of the camp’s Board of Directors approaching us at the gate. Maynard was a large and affable man, fun to be around and deeply devoted to Camp Ramah in Ojai, California where all of us were waiting for the annual summer Visitors’ Day to begin.

“Hi Maynard,” I called out. “Great to see you!” As we shook hands, just like all the others he asked me, “How much longer before you open the gate, Ron?” “About half an hour,” I replied awkwardly. “But, the camp director told me to let you in whenever you got here. He’s expecting you.”

Maynard looked around at all of the eager parents hoping to get in and get set up very soon. Turning to Ken and me he asked, “Who were the first ones to arrive?” I pointed at the earliest group of parents who were now waiting at the start of the camp entry road. Maynard walked over, chatted with them for a few moments, and came back.

“I’ll wait with you,” he told us. “We’re all equal here. Isn’t that a Jewish belief we affirm? If camp doesn’t want any visitors until they’re ready, then I’ll wait here together with everyone else. What message about our camp’s values would I send by going in first, before any of these nice people waiting here?”

Maynard then turned and walked back toward the line, introducing himself to who he didn’t know and greeting our summer camp guests. Ken’s gaze told me he was surprised.

“It’s rare to see someone live out what they claim to believe,” Ken exclaimed reacting to Maynard’s choice to wait at the gate with everyone. “I expected him to go into camp and leave us with a complaining crowd,” he admitted as we walked down the windy asphalt road to reunite with our campers and friends.

More than five decades have passed and here I am retelling that story. Clearly, it made an impression on me. As I recall, Ken and I spent many warm nights at camp talking about Maynard. He started us thinking. What would become our life principles? He motivated us to start searching. Which were the ideas by which we might choose to live? He got us wondering. Were there other people of such integrity we might know?

More than 180 decades have passed since Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi lived during the days of Roman occupation in Second Century Judea. He is the redactor and editor of the Mishnah, the founding document of Rabbinic Judaism published sometime around 200 C.E.

In Pirkei Avot, the Mishnah’s collection of rabbinic sayings and wisdom, Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi asks, “Which is the proper path a person should walk in life?” In other words, reflecting on our beliefs and values, how ought we behave? The rabbi’s answer considers both the character of the individual and their relationship to others. “The one which brings honor to the person and which other people also honor.”

I once met an older gentleman, a distinguished Jewish educator, who embodied this lesson. In a conversation with me he spoke passionately about living his life with a sense of mission. He proudly voiced commitment to the principles he believed in, many of which he derived from his learning and teaching about Judaism.

Before continuing his reflections, he paused. He began to speak in a softer tone. “Most of my students don’t share my beliefs,” he told me candidly. “As a result,” he mused with a tinge of sadness, “I’m not sure what I accomplished as their teacher.” Sensing my new acquaintance’s disappointment, I sat quietly,

Suddenly with much more confidence he completed his thought. “This gap between my beliefs and those of my students is the source of my life’s meaning. My personal purpose is to represent the principles and values I honor. I am responsible for acting according to my beliefs. I hope I have some influence and have earned my student’s respect. But, other people’s choices are theirs, not mine.”

Judaism’s earliest days and my early experiences inspired and challenged me to determine the principles by which I would conduct my life. As best I can, I strive to act on the values which I claim to believe. I’ve grown to call it “Practical Theology.” I’ll show you what I really believe by virtue of what I actually do.

We demonstrate what we believe more effectively than we profess it. Especially true in Jewish community, we achieve our bond by shared practice before declaring any common belief. My practical theology prioritizes “deed over creed.”

This is a good thing because most Jews I know can’t tell me what they believe. They’re generally more certain about what they don’t believe. More than once I’ve had a student ask me, “Rabbi, I’m Jewish. What do I believe?” “I don’t know,” I reply. “What do you believe?”

I do know it’s not easy to uphold personal principles or sustain religious practices without understanding why. Deed without creed lacks any compelling meaning beyond habit or social convention.

Ken and I discussed this late one evening many summers ago. “Maynard wasn’t just being polite at the camp gate that day,” Ken remembered. “He was demonstrating something he sincerely believed. Someday,” Ken looked up and stated, “I want someone to admire me like I respected Maynard.”

I’ve thought a lot about Ken’s goal. How many of us want what he does? How many of us can answer Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi’s question about which path is proper by the principles we put into action?

My principles are the core ethical, religious, and personal values that refine my character, reflect my conscience, and represent my religious beliefs. They are not my opinions because they transcend the limits of my experiences and preferences. They link me to the promise of human goodness and the purpose of Jewish identity.

I discern my principles from the consequences of my mistakes. I find them in the integrity of others. I discover my principles in the democratic ideals of America and the universal truths all human beings ought to cherish. Most of all, I learn the principles for my life in the moral wisdom of Judaism’s texts and the particular lessons of Jewish history.

It’s practical theology. When our choices demonstrate our values, when our behaviors represent our beliefs, when our presence in life matters to others, we imbue our Jewish identities with meaning and know we’ve made a difference in the world.

In this New Year, I intend to think through and explain the core principles by which I try to live my life. These days feel like a particularly good time for moral clarity and personal resolve. I plan to share my work and my progress with you. I encourage you to do the same. Answer these two questions for yourself. What do you believe? How would the rest of us know?

Or, as I said to Ken at summer's end long ago, “Thanks, Maynard.”

Mon, May 29 2023
9 Sivan 5783

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Jun

Women's Connection Canasta
Thursday, Jun 1 10:30am

Jun

Young Family Shabbat
Friday, Jun 2 5:45pm

Jun

Short Stories
Sunday, Jun 4 10:30am

Jun

Women's Connection Mah Jongg
Monday, Jun 5 11:00am

Jun

Wise Aging
Wednesday, Jun 7 10:30am

Shabbat Mevarchim

Shabbat, Jun 17

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Alot Hashachar	4:16am
Earliest Tallit	4:51am
Netz (Sunrise)	5:43am
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Zman Tefillah	10:25am
Chatzot (Midday)	12:46pm
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Plag HaMincha	6:22pm
Shkiah (Sunset)	7:50pm
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All Events

Thursday ,
JunJune 1 , 2023

Women's Connection Canasta
Thursday, Jun 1st 10:30a to 12:30p

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Friday ,
JunJune 2 , 2023

Young Family Shabbat
Friday, Jun 2nd 5:45p to 6:15p

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Sunday ,
JunJune 4 , 2023

Short Stories
Sunday, Jun 4th 10:30a to 12:00p

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Monday ,
JunJune 5 , 2023

Women's Connection Mah Jongg
Monday, Jun 5th 11:00a to 3:00p

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Wednesday ,
JunJune 7 , 2023

Wise Aging
Wednesday, Jun 7th 10:30a to 12:00p

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Thursday ,
JunJune 8 , 2023

Knit 'n' Nosh
Thursday, Jun 8th 1:00p to 3:00p

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Monday ,
JunJune 12 , 2023

Women's Connection Mah Jongg
Monday, Jun 12th 11:00a to 3:00p

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Thursday ,
JunJune 15 , 2023

Women's Connection Canasta
Thursday, Jun 15th 10:30a to 12:30p

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Monday ,
JunJune 19 , 2023

Women's Connection Mah Jongg
Monday, Jun 19th 11:00a to 3:00p

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Monday ,
JunJune 19 , 2023

Women's Connection Rosh Chodesh Gathering
Monday, Jun 19th 5:30p to 8:00p

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Mon, May 29 2023 9 Sivan 5783