If you’re happy and you know it…

If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands…

If you’re happy and you know it than your face will surely show it…

That childhood favorite is backwards and contradictory. If my face will surely show it, why do I need to clap my hands? Do I really have to wait until I am happy to clap my hands? Both Judaism, research and our personal experiences tell us otherwise.

Numerous studies have shown conclusively that moving our bodies or faces in ways associated with happiness will generate the same physiological responses as happiness itself. If I smile, clap, sing etc, my body will respond as if my brain had sent “happy” signals in the first place. My brain itself will begin to light up as if it had been happy all along. In many ways, our mind takes its cues from our body.

Judaism agrees. When it comes to tefillah (prayer) we assume a number of different postures and movements all aimed to generate certain feelings and a general spiritual attitude. When we stand, feet together, we feel more respectful. When we bow, we fell more willing to acknowledge that something is superior to ourselves. When we sing, we are moved by beauty, rhythm, and when together a sense of belonging. As we stretch up on our toes during the Kedushah at the triple mention of God’s holiness, we truly draw closer to standing in the Heavenly court.

On the other hand, if we sit, glum and defiant or bored and disdainful of all that is going on around us, we shouldn’t be surprised that we come away unmoved by the service. We have chosen a body posture and attitude that makes it that much harder to reach a spiritual place. The next time someone tells you to clap our hands or rise, don’t fight it.

Radioactive Holiness

As we read through Tzav we are reminded again and again that the consequence of mishandling the sacrifices is often death. Since the korbanot (sacrifices) and Mishkan (Tabernacle) itself were meant to draw us closer to God, why all the death-talk? Where are the warm fuzzies?

A good, and unfortunately all-too-timely analogy is radiation. Radiation, like holiness, can emanate powerfully from a source. Those emanations can be used for healing or medical diagnostics. Or they can be used to run turbines and power cities. Those same emanations, however, can be lethal if we are unprepared or treat them casually.

For most of creation, when we have sought to draw closer to God’s holiness, we have had to labor intensively. Through prayer, contemplation and right acts, we slowly bring our souls closer to God. The slowness, however frustrating it may be sometimes, allows us to make course corrections and adjustments. We have time to integrate the holiness into our lives bit by bit.

The Mishkan changed all that. It was, to continue the metaphor, a barely shielded reactor emanating the most powerful flow of God’s holiness in the world. Rather than slowly reaching up, God was reaching down, or out depending on your point of view, and letting the holiness flow to us with little resistance. This kick started the spiritual revolution we needed to be a Holy Nation, but it was not without danger. Without proper care, the flow of holiness could easily overwhelm even well-trained Cohanim (priests). This fire-hose of godliness, this fountain flowing from the divine was not to be treated casually. This wasn’t a punishment, but simply a human limitation; we can absorb only so much of God’s holiness at a time.

The Mishkan, and Beit HaMikdash (the Temple in Jerusalem) that replaced it, are both long vanished from this world. But, we still have the “normal and safe” means of drawing in God’s holiness. But we have to look at them as such. Often we we pray we think of it, at best, as a spiritual exercise to refine us to be better people or a mechanical practice to either fulfill a duty or spend time with friends at worst. Each prayer can be a small step in aligning our souls to God’s holiness. Every mitzvah performed with this kavannah (intention) has the same potential. Every act of kindness, every choice to behave ethically according to the Torah, every step we take can move us closer to God. But if we never look for it, never think of it, the power of life and strength that comes with holiness will pass us by.

Is Judaism Racist?

Trivia question: What is the only UN resolution ever to be revoked? UN resolution 3379 which called Zionism, racism. As part of the Madrid peace process, the resolution was revoked in the 91 by resolution 46/86.

As fascinating as the ebb and flow of politics can be, the question still remains in the minds of many: Is Judaism racist? This last week we had an electric discussion on Shabbat that covered this very topic.

We can, sadly, point to many episodes in recent Jewish history that seem to support such an attack. A group of rabbis in Israel forbid others from renting to Arabs. Ethiopian Jews and African converts are routinely treated differently in Israel. There was even a period when blood donated by Ethiopians was thrown out by blood banks. Jews have, and unfortunately use, pejorative terms such as goy, shiksah and schvartze.

However, as someone pointed out, there is difference between what some Jews do and what Judaism teaches. The very first sacrifice mentioned in the book of Leviticus refers to an “adam.” This word can be translated as man, but since Hebrew has another, more common word to denote gender, it is better translated as person or human. Sacrifices from Jews and non-Jews were welcome in the Mishkan and later the Temple in Jerusalem. Throughout the Torah and Tanach, humans are seen as identical. Yes, we each come from different cultures and nations, but our shared humanity is never in doubt. No one, not even the most wicked, are seen as sub-human. We can and should hold on to our distinctiveness, but what sets us apart is our commitment to God through the Torah, not our DNA.

As the father of a child who enjoys a complicated genetic past, who does not look like the stereotype Jews have of themselves, perhaps I am more aware of the need for us to continue to improve in this area. I take great consolation from the warm reception my family has had in Orlando, but know that part of that is due to my position.

Ultimately, I am glad to know that when Mashiach comes and someone does the blood work, they will confirm that he is not a pure-blooded decedent of Jacob. Ruth, the ancestor of David, who in turn is the ancestor of the Messiah, was from Moav. In the meantime, we should continue to define ourselves through our allegiance to Torah and not our genome.

 

Installation

How many Jews does it take to install a rabbi?

Please join me and the Temple Israel community for my formal Installation this Shabbat. We will also be rededicating our newly restored Goold Holocaust Torah. It is sure to be a wonderful time.

TSA: Sorting through the Chaff

Two weeks ago we talked about the TSA screening process and how it intersected Jewish concerns. Judaism is opposed to excessively exposing our bodies, a principle known as tsniut. Even though Judaism celebrates the body as being made in God’s image, it is not something that should be shamelessly displayed. The definition of shameless is set within Jewish Law as culturally dependent, but by every account, letting some stranger stare at your near naked body counts. The new scanners that produce such images seem to fall into the category.

The alternative though is to allow a full, clothed, body search. Much more than a wave of a wand or even a pat down, this is meant to thoroughly investigate every inch of the passenger’s body. Again, this sort of semi-intimate contact, even between members of the same gender, is frowned upon under normal circumstances.

But these are not normal circumstances. This is not some party game but a means to make us safer as we travel. Our tradition is equally clear that when a life is in danger, almost all bets are off. Indeed, the very definition of pious fool in the Talmud is one who refuses to save a woman drowning because he thinks it inappropriate to look upon her. Sotah 21b

However, as we discussed, such accommodation for security only apply when security is actually being improved. In this case, the new screening techniques seem to provide marginal benefit at best and a false sense of security at worst. El Al for example, does not use such machines. Instead they use what might be referred to as profiling.

I say might, because this is often misunderstood. There are many who think that selecting those who fit a pattern of racial, religious or cultural features should be more thoroughly examined as routine procedure. Not only does this have many potential problems for racist outcomes, but, more to the point, it is neither effective, nor the sort of profiling El AL engages in.

Spreading time and energy evenly across every passenger or even every passenger that fits a superficial profile, wastes time and energy that could be directed towards detecting more reliable indications of problems. Plus it sets us up to be blindsided by attackers who are 5’4″, blond, answer to the name John yet wish to kill us for Islam or any other cause.

As Judaism finds the new methods objectionable and reason finds them ineffective, we should be willing to tolerate the time and cost needed to use better trained inspectors to ferret out the signs of questionable behavior so those individuals can be better examined. If security is our real goal and not merely the appearance of security, we should be ready to pay that price before we pay the ultimate one.

Torah/Haftarah Vayishlach 5771

Torah

How do we make peace with someone we have mistreated? How do we make peace with those who have mistreated us? How do you make peace within a family built on discord and mistrust? Yaakov came back from Haran a rich man. He had wealth, he had a large family, he had the Canaanite dream. But the dream masked a deeply troubled life. His wrestling with the mysterious angel may have given him the name Yisrael, but he had been wrestling his whole life and his material success had not ended it.

At the outset of the parashah he is met by his brother Esau. The man he cheated out of his blessing is now the leader of not only his own large family but also hundreds of armed men as well. This does not fill Jacob with confidence. He splits his family to try and ensure that if there is an attack at least some will escape. In so doing, he emphasizes the deep divisions already there in his household; how do you choose which wife or kids to put in harm’s way to help the others live?

Thankfully, Esau does not attack but seems grateful that his brother has returned. Perhaps his own success has reassured him that the blessing his brother stole did not come at his material expense. Ultimately, he and his descendants may be spiritually impoverished but that does not seem to bother him.

Jacob’s relief at the peaceful reunion is shattered when his daughter Dinah is raped and forcibly taken by the prince of the Canaanite town of Schechem. Caught between his desire to avenge her wrong and his wish to have peace, Jacob remains paralyzed while his sons Shimon and Leivee put their own plan into action. Having learned the ways of deception from their father, mother and grandfather they fool the citizens of the town into thinking they will join their families together if the Canaanites all circumcise themselves. Then, while they are in the throes of painful recovery, the brothers sweep into the town and slaughter them to a man.

To round out the complications in this parashah, Jacob loses his favorite wife Rachel in childbirth. Even as Benjamin is born, Rachel dies and is buried apart from the others of the family. She is laid to rest near modern day Bethlehem instead of in Hebron. Which is where Jacob must take Isaac when his death is recorded near the end of the parashah as well.

Peace does not, it seem come from financial gains or material security. Jacob is still learning that he must actively shape his own life and his family to create peace among them and with their neighbors. Similarly, as individuals, a community and people we have the same task.

Haftarah

The haftarah today is the one and only chapter of Ovadiah. The entire prophecy concerns the fate of Edom, the nation descended from Esau. As we’ll see, their future is not bright. Edom will be laid waste and, unlike Israel, never be rebuilt. It will be plundered down to the last grape and kernel of grain, more thoroughly than any thief would normally do.

Why the harsh judgment? What could Edom have done that was so terrible that they would receive such a fate? After all it was the Assyrians and the Babylonians that destroyed the land of Israel. All Edom did was rifle through the left overs for a bit of loot. They were little more than cheerleaders at our destruction.

And can we blame them? Our own Torah says that Jacob had cheated Esau, their ancestor, out of his inheritance of Israel. When we finally get taken down a peg, it’s natural that they would gloat a little. Egypt was the one who told us they would help against our enemies and then backed out; aren’t they more deserving of punishment than Edom?

Edom’s destruction is retribution for their inaction more than their action. As the great commentator Rashi says, how can Ovadiah say that Edom was like the attackers while at the same time saying they stood back during the assault? -  Because of their passivity, God holds them accountable as though you were one of their attackers.

One who stands by when they can help is considered an accomplice. This is why Jews have played significant roles in most calls for justice. One who can offer aid but refuses is guilty of harming the one in need. This is why Jews give disproportionately to tzedakah, Jewish and non-Jewish charities alike. Unfortunately, in recent years we have slipped a bit. We still give generously, but quite as disproportionately as we used to. We still speak out, but we don’t stand out in as large of numbers as we once did.

Perhaps like Esau and Edom, we feel we have been wronged and owe the world nothing. Perhaps we feel that since we are not actively harming others, we have done no wrong. Perhaps we feel what we have is ours to do with as we wish, and no one can claim we must use it to help someone else.

Perhaps Ovadiah was speaking to us as well.

 

 

 

 

What’s Their Purpose?

An old joke:

According to Jewish calendar it is the year 5771 since creation. According to Chinese calendar, it is the year 4708. Which means that for 1063 year Jews went without Chinese food on Christmas.

Historical inaccuracies aside, such jokes are a reminder of the way non-Christian minorities have found connections to one another in this country. Such jokes can also reveal an underlying philosophic quandry that many feel but never articulate: Why do they exist? Why are there a billion Chinese? What purpose do they serve in God’s world? And more pointedly, Why are there a billion of them and so few of us? It hardly makes one feel Chosen.

Rav Ovadia Yosef, spiritual leader of the influential Shas party in Israel has this answer:

“Goyim were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world – only to serve the People of Israel… In Israel, death has no dominion over them… With gentiles, it will be like any person – they need to die, but [God] will give them longevity. Why? Imagine that one’s donkey would die, they’d lose their money. This is his servant… That’s why he gets a long life, to work well for this Jew… Why are gentiles needed? They will work, they will plow, they will reap. We will sit like an effendi and eat… That is why gentiles were created.” The Jerusalem Post

After sharing this quote, I was pleased to hear a great many mutterings of dissapproval. How could a rabbi say something so callous, so chauvanistic, so egocentric? Does he really think the whole world and all the people in it were created for we few Jews? In all probability, yes, he does believe the world was created to bring Torah to life and life to God through Torah. As the transmitters of Torah, that puts us at the center of creation. With regards to that, I too believe that Torah forms the center of creation. Where I disagree is his conclusion regarding other people’s place in this world. I prefer these quotes:

“Should I not care about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and many beasts as well?” (Jonah 4:11)

“To Me, O Israelites, you are just like the Ethiopians – declares the Lord. True I brought Israel up from the land of Egypt, but also the Philistines from Caphtor and the Arameans from Kir”(Amos 9:7)

But we cannot feel too superior to Rav Ovadia Yosef in our broader understanding of creation, because even though we do not consign whole nations to our servitude, most of us daily commit the same error on an individual level. Do we treat the person standing by the cash register as a truly equal human, with all the emotional depth and complexity of life as ourselves, or do we see him or her as a kind of organic extension of the machine that speeds our purchase along? That person who takes care of the lawn, are we civil and polite out of honest respect for another piece of God’s holiness on Earth, or is it little more than lip service to ensure the job gets done properly? Even those we call colleagues and peers, do we always look at them as creatures made in the image of God who happen to be working with us or are they that guy from HR that has the file I need?

Our own egocentricity is every bit as deplorable as what Rav Ovadia Yosef stated. We mask it better to be sure, but how much better to remove both the mask and the feelings behind it? How much better to look upon others as our true equals and not objects that either help or hinder our own goals.

Torah/Haftarah Vayeitzei 5771

Torah

My grandfather, z”l, used to say of braggarts and cheats, the first liar doesn’t stand a chance. If you say you won $500 at the casino, the next guy will say he won $1000. If you’re willing to cheat someone by 5% the next guy will be happy to cheat him by 10%.  The one who “loses” this game is the one who either chickens out or refuses to play.  It takes Jacob over 20 years to figure this out and win by other means.

Our parashah starts off with Jacob’s famous vision of a ladder and angels. In it God makes an amazing categorical promise to be with Jacob and his descendants throughout all time. Jacob responds by proposing a deal: If God helps Jacob, Jacob will give God a cut of his prosperity.

Does anyone else see the problem here? First of all Jacob is proposing a worse deal for himself – God offered it all free of charge. Jacob’s better offer is to make himself liable for a tithe? On top of that, Jacob has the chutzpah to offer God a percentage of the prosperity God is going to give him. Is this some sort of spiritual cash-back plan; for every 10 shekels he spends on Jacob he gets 1 back?

It all points to one fact, Jacob does not trust God. Why not, because he doesn’t trust himself. Here he is on the run because he cheated his father and brother. Even his mother has sent him away. Who can he trust?

Throughout this parashah of Va-yetzei, Jacob deals with a mixture of cunning and trust and is met with the same. Laban tricks him into marrying Leah before Rachel. He uses his trust in God’s promise to trick Laban out of a huge flock. Even when leaving, he does it by stealth to avoid a confrontation with Laban who, of course, overtakes him threatening to take back everything Laban had “given” him. In the end, this is resolved only by an uneasy truce to never meet again.

Finally, at the very end of this parashah, Jacob sees the angels of God once again. The story that began with angels and mistrust ends with mistrust and angels. Jacob has come a long way in 20 years, but he is only now beginning to see the angels in life instead of the angles.  As we will see next week, the dawning realization that he can depend on God will help him to face his brother once more. As we enter Shabbat we are accompanied by angels of many types.  During the week, our striving often makes us blind to them. With this special time of Shabbat we have a chance to glimpse them more clearly.

Haftarah

For the paths of the Lord are smooth; The righteous can walk on them, While sinners stumble on them.

This closing line of the haftarah is counterintuitive. The whole haftarah has been a steady attack on Israel for having trampled God’s ways. Their doom is spelled out in both poetic and gruesome detail. God’s wrath as a vengeful mama bear is chilling; if we made a movie of someone’s rib cage being torn open and their heart peeled from its casing I imagine we’d have a hard time getting a PG rating.

Yet, how can God be so angry? For the paths of the Lord are smooth; The righteous can walk on them, While sinners stumble on them. It’s easy for the righteous to follow God’s ways, but the sinners will unavoidably trip. Is it their fault? If God had wanted them to follow His rules, He should have either made them easier for sinners to follow OR not made them sinners who would stumble.

The ancient Chinese sage Mencius lambasted a king for making a huge royal reserve in the middle of a poor area in the country and then punishing anyone who hunted there. It’s like making a trap and then blaming the animal for stumbling into it. He asks rhetorically, “Is there any difference between killing a person with a stick or a sword? Is there any difference between killing a person with a sword or a system of government?”

God seems to condemn Himself to the same criticism in this Haftarah. Indeed, many Christian theologians argue that the mitzvot were designed to be impossible to increase our guilt and therefore need for salvation through Jesus.

This attack almost rings true except, except God has constantly provided support to our people as a nation and as individuals to help us live according to the mitzvot. God has consistently restrained from punishing us when we mess up in order that we can make amends and improve. Most importantly, God has never put the mitzvot out of reach. We are not forbidden to hunt while starving. We are not required to donate all our possessions. We are not asked to renounce all earthly desires or pleasures. All that we need to do is rein them in a little and direct them in new ways. When we fail to even try, well, it’s not hard to understand why God is annoyed.

Women in Chains

Jewish marriages can sometimes need to be dissolved. When this happens, the husband gives his wife a document called a Get that formally severs the marriage. Without it, neither of them can remarry. Unfortunately, some husbands refuse to give a get even though they seek a civil divorce. They can always choose to remarry through a civil ceremony, but the woman remains chained to him, still officially his wife, what is called an agunah.

In the ancient world and until modern times, the community could remedy such cases through coercion. The community would … explain it to the husband and after ostracization, fines or physical “encouragement” he would give the get. Nowadays, we lack these tools.

What we do have is access to a classical form of annulment that was unused for 1500 years. In fact, it may have existed only as a potential tool, a theory to establish the authority of the rabbinic courts. Since there were others ways to free the women, it was never needed. Simply put, the Sages proposed that since the marriage was conducted “according to the laws of Moses and Israel,” they, as the authority of Israel, have the right to revoke that underlying authority retroactively rendering the marriage null and void.

The Conservative movement has put this theory into practice to end the suffering endured by so many. Hopefully, other streams of Judaism will also use the tool put into our hands by our Sages of blessed memory.

 

A victory delayed – see this news story to understand a bit more about this problem and the need for a more effective solution.

Torah/Haftarah: Toldot 5771

Toldot

If serving God brought a life of dull bliss, than we would expect Abraham, Issac and Jacob, Sarah, Rebbecca, Rachel and Leah to have had the best of it. What we have seen is quite the opposite. Serving God get’s us into trouble. Abraham had to leave his home and then later break his home. Isaac has to struggle with memories of his almost sacrifice, blindness later in life and two kids who hate each other. Jacob has his own problems and we’ll hear more about them next week.

In all the family grief, we usually overlook the external problems. Famines hit all three generations forcing them to uproot and become, in the modern lingo, displaced persons. All have strained and sometimes violent interactions with their neighbors. Abraham goes to war, and struggles with Paraoh over Sarah, and Abimelech over wells. Isaac also wrestles with Abimelech due to his prosperity and others over his wells. Jacob’s lead him to the brink of war when they slaughter the town of Shechem in vengeance.

Worst of all, we don’t always know who to root for. It is easy to root for Abraham when he rushes off to battle to rescue Lot, but do we cheer when he casts Ishmael and Hagar out? Isaac is clearly in the right as he bends over backwards to accomidate the other shepards in the water disputes, but is his deception of Abimelech regarding Rivka an Odyssian ploy or an act of cowardice. We can applaud Jacob when he wrests the birthright from one who measures it worth only with his stomach, but when he deceives his blind father and steals the blessing, I hope we are uneasy.

I hope I am not depressing anyone. Finding the path to God, does not guarantee happiness. Serving God wholeheartedly does not remove the possibility to of heartache and strife. What it does do is provide the promise of meaning and companionship. Hardship can and will happen. God and Torah can help us avoid some and heal the wounds of others. God and Torah form our spiritual safety net. It’s best if we don’t let them get too frayed from neglect.

 

Haftarah

It is easy to read this Haftarah as very petty. God is complaining that the people of Israel are trying to foist their sick, lame and blind animals off on God as sacrifices. Instead of giving their best, they give the rejects, the ones they need to get rid of anyways. And God is not pleased. But why? Surely this is letting these animals serve a noble purpose why also making the sacrificial system less costly to the average person.

 

Malachi points out that if we gave such animals as a gift to the Govenor, he would not be pleased. So how can we feel good about giving God something we KNOW we wouldn’t give to a mere human? Which Ultimately is what the sacrificial service is all about.

 

Not making us feel good per se, but it is certainly about us and not God. God does not care that we are bringing the worst because He feels shortchanged. God is worried, and rightly so, that if we treat the sacrifices as a troublesome announce to be done as quickly and cheaply as possible, that it will have a negative effect on us. It will erode our sense of wonder and holiness.

Similarly, if we consistently come later to services than we could, avoid learning even a little Hebrew or improving it so we can feel more comfortable or even avoid looking at the English, then of course the services will seem tedious and meaningless. Putting a little effort into it will go a long way towards getting the most out of it.