tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-91728074857824238422024-03-14T03:45:31.088-07:00Pri HaGeffen - Rabbi Geffen's BlogAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13086781176511709410noreply@blogger.comBlogger50125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172807485782423842.post-81083977748030075522016-07-15T19:52:00.002-07:002016-07-16T06:00:30.109-07:00On Despair and Hope - Remarks from Shabbat services July 15, 2016<br><br>A few weeks ago, when our congregation came together after the Orlando attack, we named each murdered victim among with the names of our own community members before saying Kaddish. We did that because while news reports of 49 murdered people may have helped us to understand the sheer magnitude of the largest mass shooting in our country’s history, the number itself did not bring us closer to those who were murdered along with the countless families and futures forever altered that day -- each soul a doorway to the lives of so many others, each soul a whole world to itself. Our tradition affirms this when the Mishnah* instructs: whoever destroys a single life, it is considered that he destroyed the entire world itself. <br><br>And so what does it mean to consider this in terms of the condition of this world of ours, when we know that sadly, attacks like that happen regularly now. Our world is so fraught with fear, anger, and terror. Kazakhstan -7, The United States - 49, Israel - 6, France - 2, Turkey - 44, Bangladesh - 23, Iraq - 290 and still counting, Saudi Arabia - 7, and yesterday’s attack in Nice - 84, (and that is just since June). So many souls cruelly murdered by the hands of radicalized islamic terrorists and their equivalents. <br><br>Add to that the challenging times in our country, not just in Falcon Heights and Dallas, but everywhere. Friends, 3-word phrases like All Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter, Blue Lives Matter- these should not be in conflict with each other; the terms are not mutually exclusive, and the fact that they have been commodified and politicized, this is a shonda. Put that in the larger, slippery and pervasive proliferation, and seeming normalization of hate speech...it all seems too much to handle. I notice within myself a wavering between a growing anger and rage on the one-hand and I think worse on the other, an apathetic acceptance and settling that this is just the norm now. It is hard not to succumb to the pervasive despair that looms large these days. <br><br>But in moments like these, I remind myself of the chasidic teaching: "<i>Gevalt Yidden, Seit ich nisht mayesh"</i> - a phrase that the residents of the Bratslav Shtibel had inscribed on their entrance sign in the Warsaw Ghetto -- it means “Jews, You are forbidden to despair.” <br><br>Ours is a religion that under all circumstances comes to teach us that we choose life over death, blessing over curse, always. It is why in Jewish tradition, if a funeral procession and a wedding procession cross each other’s path, the wedding procession always has the right of way.**<br><br>It is why we are not just permitted but encouraged to override any commandment in order to save a life - because the rabbinic passage equating the destruction of one life to the destruction of the entire world continues: the one who saves a single life, he saves the world in full.<br><br>This is what Abraham Joshua Heschel was talking about when he instructed that the key to navigating life comes down to Radical Amazement. You see, Heschel understood that Judaism’s entire purpose was to keep us awake and sensitized to this existence of ours, in its fullest sense. He recognized that in the course of ordinary life, we tend to become numb to or acclimate to the conditions of the world - whether good or bad. And Heschel understood that this condition was the ultimate threat to our existence. On this he said:<br><br>“An individual dies when they cease to be surprised. I am surprised every morning that I see the sunshine again. And When I see an act of evil, I'm not accommodated. I don't accommodate myself to the violence that goes on everywhere; I'm still surprised. That's why I'm against it, why I can hope against it. We must learn how to be surprised. Not to adjust ourselves.” ***<br><br>We cannot permit ourselves to be anesthetized to the darkness. And as such, we cannot permit ourselves to lose hope that we might yet bring light, even if we don’t know if our efforts will be successful.<br><br>As the former President of the Czech republic Vaclav Havel once said: "Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.”<br><br>Each and every time a child is called to Torah as Bnai Mitzvah, each and every time two individuals choose to bind their lives to one another under the chuppah, each and every time we give a child a Hebrew name, each and every time we give tzedakah, smile at our fellow human being, join together as a community in song and prayer, each and every time we come together on Shabbat for a taste of the World to Come, we defy the darkness; we make a profound statement as individuals and as a people: we will not let meaninglessness win. That we will not let fear and hate have the last word, because hope and goodness have that spot reserved.<br><br>Thirteen days ago, the world lost one of its great illuminating forces: Elie Weisel. But the light of his legacy will never be dimmed. The fact that this world was able to have and know this man, who not only survived the Holocaust when by all accounts he should not have, but went on to write 62 books, to teach and influence countless people across the world as a professor, activist, nobel peace prize winner, and humanitarian, well, this is an incomparable gift.<br><br>Last week, I attended Shabbat services at my home synagogue- Temple EmanuEl in Dallas - a day after the horrific attack that left police officers Lorne Ahrens, Michael Krol, Michael J. Smith, Brent Thompson and Patrick Zamarripa dead and 7 more more officers and 2 civilians injured and the entire city, no less country reeling. The clergy shared words of mourning, consolation and a call to not give in to despair, and my rabbi David Stern shared the following story that Elie Wiesel often told of observing Simchat Torah in the camps:<br><br>It was Simchat Torah in the Barracks in Auschwitz - but there was no Sefer Torah to be found. A man looked over and saw a young boy and called him over.<br><br>“Do you remember anything from cheder?” - he asked.<br><br>“I remember the Shema” the boy responded.<br><br>“Recite it”<br><br>“<i>Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad</i>. Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One.”<br><br>“<i>Shema Yisrael</i> - It will be enough.”<br><br>And then the man lifted the boy up, as the Sefer Torah and in Auschwitz, on Simchat Torah, they danced.<br><br><br>Shabbat Shalom<br><br><br>* M. Sanhedrin 4:5<br><br>** TB Ketubot<br><br>*** From a 1971 interview<br><br><br><br><br>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13086781176511709410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172807485782423842.post-71768006311975270592015-09-24T16:27:00.000-07:002015-09-24T16:27:02.776-07:00One Heart: Kol Nidre 5776<i><br /></i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>“The Place Where We Are Right”<br /><br />From the place where we are right<br /><br />Flowers will never grow<br /><br />In the spring.<br /><br />The place where we are right<br /><br />Is hard and trampled<br /><br />Like a yard.<br /><br />But doubts and loves<br /><br />Dig up the world<br /><br />Like a mole, a plow.<br /><br />And a whisper will be heard in the place<br /><br />Where the ruined<br /><br />House once stood.<a href="file:///Z:/Geffen/The%20Place%20Where%20We%20Are%20Right.docx#_edn1">[i]</a></i><br /><br />I confess that I have been carrying these words, from renowned Israeli poet Yehudah Amichai, in my heart for some time now. I share with you that as we move into this new year, I worry about the divisiveness of our world, the chasm’s expanding breadth. I worry about our fixation on being right and just how dangerous such a habit can be, the toll it takes on each of us, the damage it does to our hearts. <br /><br />Just a few moments ago, we recited the <i>Vidui</i> – the public confession in which we name aloud the litany of sins we’ve committed in the hopes of finding forgiveness. The second one in the list reads:<br /><br /><i>“al cheit shechatanu lifanecha b’imutz halev.</i><br />For the sin we have sinned against you through hardness of heart.”<br /></span><div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Listen to that translation once again: “For the sin we have sinned against you through hardness of heart.”<br /><br />This Yom Kippur, this Kol Nidre – the most soul-stirring night of our Jewish year - I invite us to listen and consider not through the everyday lens of our mind and predilection for the rational and quantifiable, but rather to listen and consider through a more soulful filter – from our heart.<br /><br />Think back to the last time you had a sustained, civil disagreement with someone on any matter about which you and that person cared deeply but viewed differently. Perhaps you cannot even remember it at all. So certain we are of our place of rightness that we often cannot even countenance exposure to the view of the other side and what, from our side, appears to be their self-righteousness against our authentic understanding of what is actually True.<br /><br />The role of social media as a so-called vehicle for connectivity and dialogue among those who disagree is particularly problematic because for so many, this has become our preferred mode of communication. A comment box presents us with just the right amount of perceived immunity as well as permission to “justify our own views” so as to tear any relationship apart. We can practically write a treatise on how right we are and how wrong, ignorant, or inept another is, all without a second thought.<br /><br /><i>From the place where we are right, flowers will never grow in the spring. </i><br /><br />Nothing in recent memory has set the Jewish community against itself like the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action– better known as the JCPOA or the “Iran Deal.” I, personally, have never experienced anything as hurtful or antithetical to what it means to be a part of our people than this, and the saddest part is that we have done it to ourselves. When the U.S. ambassador to Israel is subjected to death threats and called a “kapo” for supporting the Iran Deal<a href="file:///Z:/Geffen/The%20Place%20Where%20We%20Are%20Right.docx#_edn2">[ii]</a>; when Representatives who oppose the Iran Deal are accused of “dual loyalty,”<a href="file:///Z:/Geffen/The%20Place%20Where%20We%20Are%20Right.docx#_edn3">[iii]</a> a borderline anti-Semitic euphemism; when otherwise well-intentioned Jews go on nothing less than witch hunts to determine if their clergy signed whatever petition represented the opposite of their views —well, we do not need much more proof that we have hardened our hearts to one another. <br /><br /><i>The place where we are right is hard and trampled like a yard.</i><br /><br />We live in a world where we thrive on confirmation bias – the intrinsic desire to seek out evidence that will be compatible with beliefs and assumptions we already hold. This kind of thinking makes it extremely difficult for us to integrate information that challenges our definitions and assumptions.<a href="file:///Z:/Geffen/The%20Place%20Where%20We%20Are%20Right.docx#_edn4">[iv]</a><br /><br />Renowned family therapists Richard Chasin and Margaret Herzig, themselves Jews and founders of the incredible resource on civil discourse called Public Conversations, write that ideological opponents often resemble families stuck in chronic conflict. In such battles, supporters of each side “believe they hold the high moral ground and are prey to unprovoked attacks from the other side, which they see as power hungry, self-centered, destructive, and perhaps even deranged…[E]ach find[s] ‘proof’ of their own innocent victimhood and of the other’s unwarranted attacks and wrongdoing.”<a href="file:///Z:/Geffen/The%20Place%20Where%20We%20Are%20Right.docx#_edn5">[v]</a><br /><br />Theologian Martin Buber’s words from half a century ago ring so true today: “The human world is… split into two camps, each of which understands the other as the embodiment of falsehood and itself as the embodiment of truth...Each side has assumed monopoly of the sunlight and has plunged its antagonist into night, and each side demands that you decide between day and night…”<a href="file:///Z:/Geffen/The%20Place%20Where%20We%20Are%20Right.docx#_edn6">[vi]</a><br /><br />At a time when technological advancement enables us to be more connected than ever before, how is it that we are so deeply fractured, that the chasm of ideological, political<a href="file:///Z:/Geffen/The%20Place%20Where%20We%20Are%20Right.docx#_edn7">[vii]</a>, economic, racial<a href="file:///Z:/Geffen/The%20Place%20Where%20We%20Are%20Right.docx#_edn8">[viii]</a>, even spiritual division grows wider with each and every sunset? How is it that we find ourselves siloed into filter bubbles of the confirmation blind, the like-minded, anesthetized by the dull hum of agreement, that is, until opposition forces us to harden our hearts with even greater urgency?<br /><br />“We’ve forgotten that as mere mortals, we are meant to search as much as to find,” observes one of my teachers. He continues: “After all, each of us has had only a few decades of what has been a 14-billion-year evolution. We are finite creatures. How could we possibly have access to what is infinite…? The fact is that there is no issue, large or small, that we can understand fully. When we think we’ve found the final truth we’re a little less alive, a little less awake, and the world itself is diminished.”<a href="file:///Z:/Geffen/The%20Place%20Where%20We%20Are%20Right.docx#_edn9">[ix]</a> <a href="file:///Z:/Geffen/The%20Place%20Where%20We%20Are%20Right.docx#_edn10">[x]</a> <br /><br />The only real Truth we know about anything is that there is some truth in everything. <br />Consider physicist Neils Bohr’s paradoxical teaching: “The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth.”<br /><br />Take, for example, something called wave–particle duality, a fancy physics idea that explains how light works. The concept teaches that the elemental particles, the “stuff” that makes up light, are defined, at once, as opposite states of being - they are both particle and wave. This means that light in its most rudimentary form cannot be fully one thing or fully its opposite, but in fact, functions as both. On this understanding, Einstein – physicist and also a pretty famous Jew, wrote: "We are faced with a new kind of difficulty. We have two contradictory pictures of reality; separately neither of them fully explains the phenomena of light, but together they do."<a href="file:///Z:/Geffen/The%20Place%20Where%20We%20Are%20Right.docx#_edn11">[xi]</a><br /><br />It sounds like a relatively modern idea, but over 2,000 years ago, our rabbis taught that the world cannot function if we only see it in black and white, right and wrong, with rigid boundaries rather than a more subtle shading. They taught: "If you desire the world to endure, there can be no absolute justice, while if you desire absolute justice the world cannot endure.... Unless you forget a little, the world cannot endure."<a href="file:///Z:/Geffen/The%20Place%20Where%20We%20Are%20Right.docx#_edn12">[xii]</a><br /><br />Listen again to that sentence:<br />"Unless you forget a little - the world cannot endure."<br /><br />Our ancestors were fearful of absolutes because they understood that anytime we attach ourselves so firmly to an idea that we place our rightness over our relationships, we set ourselves up for a fall. <br /><br />Can we possibly emerge from our constricted caves of rightness to release, to forget just enough of what we are so sure is right in order to see the vastness of the universe, its diversity in all its forms? Can we remember that it is not our rightness, but our demystified assumptions that birth the greatest learning and much greater truths?<br /><br />This is, actually, one of the key truths that Kol Nidre comes to tell us each and every year. Have you ever read its translation? It says: “Let all our vows and oaths, all the promises we make between this Yom Kippur and the next, be null and void should we, after honest effort, find ourselves unable to fulfill them. Then may we be absolved of them.”<br /><br />It means: for all those things we assume to be true and operational, and around which we base our lives and our promises, should it turn out that what we thought to be real, true, and undeniable actually is not, we don’t have to be left holding the bag. We don’t need to let our pride get in the way. We can admit we saw it wrong. We can change our minds. We can evolve, expand our field of view, and grow as a result. It is not about being right or wrong – the truth is we are always both. Kol Nidre comes as the first thing we say each Yom Kippur because Jewish tradition has always understood that any hope we have of becoming better people, of evolving, demands the hard work of <i>teshuvah</i> - the repentance and returning that starts with the operational assumption that we were wrong about something.<br /><br /><i>But doubts and loves dig up the world like a mole, a plow.</i><br />We do not have to agree with each other’s opinions; nor do we have to shy away from discourse and disagreement. But, on this Day of Atonement, which if you pull it apart is really a day of At-One-Ment, the truth is: we must strive to have one heart.<br /><br />There is an early Rabbinic teaching that depicts the rival academies of Hillel and Shammai sharply disagreeing on matters of Jewish law. “If the Torah is given by a single God, then how can there exist such differing interpretations?” The Rabbis answer: “Make yourself a heart of many rooms and bring into it the words of the house of Shammai and the words of the house of Hillel, both the words of those who forbid and the words of those who permit.”<a href="file:///Z:/Geffen/The%20Place%20Where%20We%20Are%20Right.docx#_edn13">[xiii]</a><br /><br />On this, the renowned pluralistic Rabbi David Hartman explained: a Jew must become a “person in whom different opinions can reside together in the very depths of your soul.... a... person who can feel... conviction and passion without the need for simplicity and absolute certainty.”<a href="file:///Z:/Geffen/The%20Place%20Where%20We%20Are%20Right.docx#_edn14">[xiv]</a><br /><br />We must make a room in our heart for the other view, and place it right next to the room that holds the view we hold most dear. We must make a room for the Iran deal, and a room against it, and place them right next to each other. We must make a room for #alllivesmatter and a room for #blacklivesmatter. We must make a room for each perspective, each right and wrong, each truth. We must make a room for each other’s hearts within our own heart.<br /><br />On Yehuda Amichai’s poem, author and educator Parker Palmer says the following: “Many of us who differ…love the same things — our children and grandchildren, our country, the natural world. Many of us who differ … harbor the same doubts — that what's being done (or not done) to care for the things we love is the best or the right thing to do….But what if instead of starting by arguing over solutions — over "the place where we are right" — we began by sharing our loves and doubts? I suspect that our ...conversations would be much more productive because they would proceed from common ground.”<a href="file:///Z:/Geffen/The%20Place%20Where%20We%20Are%20Right.docx#_edn15">[xv]</a><br /><br />This is one of the incredible lessons taught by Rabbi Hannan Schlessinger, an orthodox Israeli settler and Ali Abu Awwad, a West Bank Palestinian peace activist, through their work together to foster co-existence and peace between Israeli’s and Palestinians. You will have the opportunity to learn from both of them when they speak at NSCI on October 20th. Through their work, they bring together people from both sides to listen to each other’s narratives and to absorb one another’s truths. Through getting to know and understand each other, to see each other not as enemies but as human beings, Awwad and Schlessinger write: “Then maybe we can build a system that will enable our politicians to sit together and arrive at some sort of a solution.”<a href="file:///Z:/Geffen/The%20Place%20Where%20We%20Are%20Right.docx#_edn16">[xvi]</a><br /><br />People can learn to speak with genuineness, listen with respect and curiosity, and see both self and others as whole, complex human beings, even across chasms of disagreement.<br /><br />It is exactly our diversity of opinion, our uniqueness, according to Martin Buber, that is the key to our enlightenment. “We are created along with one another and directed to a life with one another. Creatures are placed in my way so that I, their fellow creature, by means of them and with them, find the way to God. A God reached by their exclusion would not be the God of all that lives, in whom all is fulfilled.”<a href="file:///Z:/Geffen/The%20Place%20Where%20We%20Are%20Right.docx#_edn17">[xvii]</a><br /><br />When we allow ourselves to encounter each other, when we allow our Truths to be impacted, softened by others’ truths, our hearts soften too.<br /><br />When explaining why the ancient Temple of Jerusalem, the physical dwelling place of God, was destroyed, instead of citing reasons such as the enemy army's strength, Jewish tradition teaches that the Temple was destroyed on account of our own moral failures, the most well-known narrative rooting the cause of the destruction to something called sinat chinam -- most often translated as baseless hatred among each other. The hearts of our ancestors were so hardened against one another, so closed off, that they could not even recognize that they were the ones destroying one another.<a href="file:///Z:/Geffen/The%20Place%20Where%20We%20Are%20Right.docx#_edn18">[xviii]</a><br /><br /><br /><i>From the place where we are right,<br /><br />Flowers will never grow in the spring.<br /><br />The place where we are right,<br /><br />Is hard and trampled like a yard.<br /><br />But doubts and loves<br /><br />Dig up the world,<br /><br />Like a mole, a plow.<br /><br />And a whisper will be heard in the place,<br /><br />Where the ruined House once stood.</i><br /><br /><br />I often wonder if we could go through our days entirely open-hearted? I wonder if our hearts could sense the echoes of isolation, fear and despair that our ears cannot perceive? I wonder if we could find a way to hold each other with increased sensitivity and compassion? I wonder if we could heal the brokenness in each other's hearts with our own? And if we did so, I wonder what sort of Dwelling Place for the Divine might we build, together, again?<br /><br /><i>Gmar Chatimah Tovah</i>. May we be inscribed for goodness in the Book of Life.<br /><br /> <br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="file:///Z:/Geffen/The%20Place%20Where%20We%20Are%20Right.docx#_ednref1">[i]</a> Amichai, Yehuda. “The Place Where We Are Right.”<br /><a href="file:///Z:/Geffen/The%20Place%20Where%20We%20Are%20Right.docx#_ednref2">[ii]</a> http://www.timesofisrael.com/us-ambassador-to-israel-gets-death-threats-over-iran-deal/<br /><a href="file:///Z:/Geffen/The%20Place%20Where%20We%20Are%20Right.docx#_ednref3">[iii]</a> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/29/us/politics/iran-deal-opens-a-vitriolic-divide-among-american-jews.html?_r=0<br /><a href="file:///Z:/Geffen/The%20Place%20Where%20We%20Are%20Right.docx#_ednref4">[iv]</a> See Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman’s book: Thinking Fast and Slow for more<br /><a href="file:///Z:/Geffen/The%20Place%20Where%20We%20Are%20Right.docx#_ednref5">[v]</a> “Creating Systemic Interventions for the Sociopolitical Arena.” Richard Chasin and Margaret Herzig, in The Global Family Therapist: Integrating the Personal, Professional, and Political. Edited by B. Berger Gould and D. Demuth.<br /><a href="file:///Z:/Geffen/The%20Place%20Where%20We%20Are%20Right.docx#_ednref6">[vi]</a> Buber, Martin. “Hope for this Hour,” The Human Dialogue: Perspectives on Communication, edited by F.W. Matson and A. Montagu. pp. 221.<br /><a href="file:///Z:/Geffen/The%20Place%20Where%20We%20Are%20Right.docx#_ednref7">[vii]</a> Pew Survey about Liberal versus Conservative - each moving farther to their respective sides:<br /><a href="http://www.people-press.org/2014/06/12/section-1-growing-ideological-consistency/pp-2014-06-12-polarization-1-01/">http://www.people-press.org/2014/06/12/section-1-growing-ideological-consistency/pp-2014-06-12-polarization-1-01/</a><br /><a href="file:///Z:/Geffen/The%20Place%20Where%20We%20Are%20Right.docx#_ednref8">[viii]</a> Pew Survey about Liberal versus Conservative - each moving farther to their respective sides:<br /><a href="http://www.people-press.org/2014/06/12/section-1-growing-ideological-consistency/pp-2014-06-12-polarization-1-01/">http://www.people-press.org/2014/06/12/section-1-growing-ideological-consistency/pp-2014-06-12-polarization-1-01/</a><br /><a href="file:///Z:/Geffen/The%20Place%20Where%20We%20Are%20Right.docx#_ednref9">[ix]</a> Kula, Rabbi Irwin. Yearning. pp. 4,5.<br /><a href="file:///Z:/Geffen/The%20Place%20Where%20We%20Are%20Right.docx#_ednref10">[x]</a> In her well known TED talk, sociologist Kathryn Shulz, shares her findings on our human tendency to fixate so much on being right, she notes the behaviors we employ to assure ourselves of our rightness. “If we believe we are right, we believe our beliefs perfectly reflect reality. But then we have the challenge of how to address all of those who see the world differently than we do. She notes the three-leveled rationale we humans employ around the assumptions we make about the others who disagree with us with whom we have to deal: Our first assumption is that they must be ignorant not to see what we do. But when we find out they are in fact not ignorant, but quite aware, our second assumption is that they not capable of fully understanding our so-called Truth because of what must be their lack of intelligence. And then if and when we find that in fact they are neither ignorant nor stupid, we move to the third and most dangerous conclusion: they must be evil.”<br /><a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/kathryn_schulz_on_being_wrong?language=en">http://www.ted.com/talks/kathryn_schulz_on_being_wrong?language=en</a><br /><a href="file:///Z:/Geffen/The%20Place%20Where%20We%20Are%20Right.docx#_ednref11">[xi]</a> Einstein, Albert. Infeld, Leopold. The Evolution of Physics. P. 263<br /><a href="file:///Z:/Geffen/The%20Place%20Where%20We%20Are%20Right.docx#_ednref12">[xii]</a> Genesis Rabbah 39:6<br /><a href="file:///Z:/Geffen/The%20Place%20Where%20We%20Are%20Right.docx#_ednref13">[xiii]</a> Tosefta Sota, 7:12<br /><a href="file:///Z:/Geffen/The%20Place%20Where%20We%20Are%20Right.docx#_ednref14">[xiv]</a> Hartman, Rabbi David. A Heart of Many Rooms. p. 21.<br /><a href="file:///Z:/Geffen/The%20Place%20Where%20We%20Are%20Right.docx#_ednref15">[xv]</a> http://www.onbeing.org/blog/the-place-where-we-are-right/6630<br /><a href="file:///Z:/Geffen/The%20Place%20Where%20We%20Are%20Right.docx#_ednref16">[xvi]</a> http://www.friendsofroots.net/<br /><a href="file:///Z:/Geffen/The%20Place%20Where%20We%20Are%20Right.docx#_ednref17">[xvii]</a> Buber, Martin. Between Man and Man. p. 60<br /><a href="file:///Z:/Geffen/The%20Place%20Where%20We%20Are%20Right.docx#_ednref18">[xviii]</a> Yoma 9b</span></span><div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13086781176511709410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172807485782423842.post-77879954255936032892015-09-15T12:10:00.001-07:002015-09-15T12:10:13.584-07:00"What Does It Remember Like?" <div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The following is the sermon I delivered on Rosh Hashanah morning 5776.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">Shanah
Tovah.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">This being
the 14th High Holy Days that we’ve shared together, I hope you’ll indulge a
personal reflection. I think back all the way to the first High Holy Day
sermon I delivered here. It was Yom Kippur. The year was 2002 or 5762, if
the Hebrew calendar is more your style, and I was a freshly minted rabbi
straight out of seminary. I remember the moment vividly: standing up as
the ark was closing, walking from my seat over there across the bema, arriving
at this very spot. I remember looking up to see all of your faces. Faces
that were unknown to me before that moment, with no history or memories yet
cultivated or shared. And the rest, as they say, is history. Now, 14
years later, I am ever so grateful for all the times we’ve shared and the
multitude of memories we’ve made together. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">The power of
memory: let’s start there.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">In his
beautiful book <i>Everything Is Illuminated</i>, Jonathan Safran Foer writes
about the special place memory holds in Jewish consciousness: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">“Jews have
six senses: Touch, taste, sight, smell, hearing … [and] memory. While
[others] experience and process the world through the traditional senses...for
Jews, memory is no less primary than the prick of a pin, or its silver
glimmer.... It is only by tracing the pinprick back to other pinpricks – when
his mother tried to fix his sleeve while his arm was still in it, when his
grandfather’s fingers fell asleep from stroking his great-grandfather’s damp
forehead, when Abraham tested the knife point to be sure Isaac would feel no
pain – that the Jew is able to know why it hurts. When a Jew encounters a
pin, he asks: What does it remember like?”<a href="file:///Z:/Geffen/Rosh%20Hashanah%205776.doc#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">Not “What
does it feel like?” but “What does it remember like?” An inherently and
uniquely, I believe, Jewish question. But to fully understand it, we must
first distinguish memory from history. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">To
demonstrate, an example from my family – some of you have heard me share this
before:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">When my son
was three, we took him skiing with us in Colorado. It was a
disaster. He hated ski school, his boots hurt, the snow was slushy, and
his skis kept getting stuck along the very small bunny hill run. Because the
experience was so bad, we assumed that that would be our first and last family
ski trip. History.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">But
something funny happened when we printed out our pictures from the trip about 2
weeks later. Our son started recalling how much fun he had had on our
first ski trip. That he was proud of himself that by the 4th and final
day the boots didn’t hurt as bad and he couldn’t wait to go skiing again.
Memory. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">History is
something to which we are witness, over which we have little to no control.
Memory, on the other hand, is something we shape ourselves. History is
passive, and it navigates in the past. Memory, on the other hand, is active,
innately more personal, and helps us construct identity. Memory is not just
about the past, but the present and the future as well. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">And Jewish
memory ups the ante on just how much potential it has to form and shape what is
possible in the world! One of the unique gifts of Judaism is its
insistence that memory is nothing less than the driver of creativity,
inspiration, and transformation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">One of the
most repeated commandments, appearing more than 120 times in the Torah alone,
is <i>Zachor</i>/Remember, and it is not just an ancient biblical notion; it is
a critical tenet for us in our day too: that we remember our past and affirm
who we are in order to navigate into the future. <i>Zachor</i>/Remember.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">Want to know
something interesting? In the original form of Hebrew, there is no word
for “survival.” Think about this for a minute. How is it possible,
for a people who has undergone such tragedy and in so many ways prided itself
on its miraculous ability to survive, that there is no original Hebrew word for
survival!? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">Over and
over again, in the face of imminent danger and destruction, we have instead
responded with, what former Chief Rabbi of Great Britain Jonathan Sacks,
rightly calls, “a burst of creativity!”<a href="file:///Z:/Geffen/Rosh%20Hashanah%205776.doc#_edn2" name="_ednref2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[ii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
It was the destruction of the First and Second Temples that gave birth to the
creation of the Talmud. It was the Spanish Inquisition that gave birth to
rich mysticism of Tzfat. And as Rabbi Sacks himself writes: “The Holocaust,
in human terms the worst tragedy of all, led to the single greatest affirmation
of the collective Jewish will…the birth of the state of Israel. Jews recovered,
[and] turned tragedy into creativity because they refused to see themselves as
victims.”<a href="file:///Z:/Geffen/Rosh%20Hashanah%205776.doc#_edn3" name="_ednref3" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[iii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> In
reflecting on what has happened to us, we have always chosen to remember, not
with the lens of victimization and despair, but instead with operating
assumptions of agency and hope. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">This idea is
woven into the critical three part narrative that is our Jewish master story: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">1. They
tried to kill us.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">2. We
thrived instead.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">3. Let’s
eat.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">But too
often in our day, we remember only the “they tried to kill us” part of the
story. And we let that singular viewpoint color and shape who we are as
Jews. This, my friends, is what I view as the greatest existential threat to
Judaism and Jewish peoplehood in our time. Not Iran. Not Hamas. Not
anti-Semitism in Europe. Not the Republicans or the Democrats. But
what seems to be the Jewish community’s singular obsession with Jewish survival
as the end all and only metric that matters. Google the phrase:
“Jewish survival” – it will come up 26,500,000 times! But a Judaism that is
obsessed only with its survival is a Judaism that will not survive.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">Renowned
Scholar Jacob Neusner addresses this issue when he writes: “... The major
concerns of the Jews retain the obsolete qualities of the siege-mentality… And
for the average [American] Jew, the chief Jewish issue is phrased in wholly
ethnic terms: whether children marry Jews is [too often] more important than
whether they build Jewish homes, [and] whether people live in Jewish
neighborhoods matters more than whether the neighborhoods in which they do live
are places of dignity and commonplace justice.”<a href="file:///Z:/Geffen/Rosh%20Hashanah%205776.doc#_edn4" name="_ednref4" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[iv]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
And in a country in which Jews are more assimilated and better accepted than
they have ever been at any other time in history, we cannot, nor should we,
expect that our children will be satisfied when we answer their question of
“Why be Jewish” with a fear driven statement evoking a narrative about the
Holocaust or worse, with a passive statement about “that’s just how it’s always
been.” These answers, thankfully, no longer satisfy. Survival is
not enough.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">Look up
survival in the dictionary, and you will see it defined as: “remaining alive
after the occurrence of some event.” It means having a pulse, it means “not
being dead.” There is no Jewish word for “survival” because this, in and of
itself, from a Jewish view, is not really living.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">Judaism is
concerned not with surviving, but with thriving. We must shift our concerns
away from how many people with a pulse we can get to fill the seats, and focus
on getting people enlivened by Judaism. Getting people’s hearts to race
faster with the electric pulse of Jewish wisdom, inspiring them to, at once,
connect with the generations before them and to see themselves as inheritors
and progenitors of a faith and practice that calls them to do nothing less than
heal the sick, clothe the naked, help the poor, pursue peace, love each other,
to animate the Divine in themselves and others so that they can transform the
world from the way it is to the way it can yet be. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">Should we be
concerned with the external threats that loom? Yes, of course we should.
But if we let fear be the sole driver for that concern, if the only
reason for our worry is to continue a Judaism that exists in name only, well
then, what’s it all for? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">Let me speak
for a moment to those of you who are here today even though you really would
rather be somewhere else. Why are you here? Maybe you were dragged
here – either by the living forces of family or community or the voices of ages
past that stir a guilt inside you that needs to be silenced. Maybe you
are here because of Jewish survival. Because of what our ancestors sacrificed
for you to be here. Maybe you don’t even know why you are here. But
nevertheless, you are here. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">Despite
cynicism and skepticism, despite alienation and marginalization, you are here.
And I believe that one of the reasons you are also here is because
in some part of yourself, you <i>remember</i>
that here, today, is the possibility that maybe, just maybe, something will
happen. That you might feel less alone, that you might feel awakened,
enlivened. That you might be brought more fully into your life, the life
of community, the life of the world. With your questions of transcendence,
your struggles over life’s meaning and your purpose in the world – you are
here. We are here. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">Sure, the
first thing that may come to your mind in remembering is the “they tried to
kill us” part of the story, but I also think that each and every one of us deep
down carries the deeper moral and message. Part two and three of the story: “We
didn’t just survive – we thrived.” And then, “Let’s eat!” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">Deep down in
our <i>kishkes</i>, this is the root of our
profound pride. Jewish population studies may report low percentages of
religious affiliation, but the percentage of Jews who feel proud to be Jewish
soars higher than it ever has before. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">And in this,
we see what is undeniably the greatest opportunity beckoning the Jewish
community at this moment in time: We Jews are on the precipice of the next
great burst of creativity: the next great American Judaism, a Jewish
renaissance revitalized for our time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">We are more
than just cells and oxygenation, more than metabolism and response to stimuli.
As the great 20th century Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik puts it: “Man is born
an object and dies an object, but possesses the ability to live like a subject,
like a creator, an innovator... Man’s task in the world, according to Judaism,
is to transform fate into destiny; a passive existence into an active
existence; an existence of compulsion, perplexity, and muteness into an
existence replete with a powerful will, with resourcefulness, daring and
imagination.”<a href="file:///Z:/Geffen/Rosh%20Hashanah%205776.doc#_edn5" name="_ednref5" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[v]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">Did you know
that Rosh Hashanah is not the original name for this day we observe today?
Long before it was Rosh Hashanah, it was <i>Yom HaZikaron</i> - the Day
of Remembering. And then later, it became <i>Yom Harat HaOlam</i> - The
Day of the Birth of the World.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">On this
first day of the New Year, this <i>Yom Harat HaOlam</i> - this Birth Day - this
day that insists that what is at stake is nothing less than the rebirth and
renewal of ourselves, our relationships, and our world, and on this <i>Yom
HaZikaron</i>, this Day of Remembering - of reframing, widening and deepening
our memory to encompass the fullest and best version of who we’ve been, who we
are, and who we can yet and once again be, I invite you to remember: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">What does
being a Jew remember like? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">What does
being a part of this community remember like? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">What does
being part of the people whose eyes are always open to what is yet possible
remember like? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">Remember
with me the story of Creation – the story we celebrate this day. We are
likely familiar with the Genesis “In the beginning God created” story. It puts
each phase of creation neatly into one of 6 days and names the 7th day the day
of rest. A friend of mine likes to call that story the Container Store
creation story because everything fits nicely and easily into pretty little
structures that are easy to understand. In it, we, humans, are the
passive recipients of God’s creation and need to respond accordingly – God’s
“yes-men” as it were. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">But I want
to let you in on a little secret. This isn’t actually the first creation
story. There is a story that comes before that story, originating in the Jewish
mystical tradition. This is the one I want you to remember: Your
soul will remember it even if your mind does not.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">In the
beginning, God’s presence filled the universe and there was only light. When
God decided to bring this world into being, to make room for creation, God
needed to make space for it, so the Divine contracted itself. From that
contraction, darkness was created. But the light and the darkness were totally
separate. So God sent vessels of the Divine light, like a fleet of ships,
into the darkness to create the universe. But the vessels were too
fragile to contain the powerful light. They burst open, shattered, and all the
holy shards were scattered across the cosmos.<a href="file:///Z:/Geffen/Rosh%20Hashanah%205776.doc#_edn6" name="_ednref6" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[vi]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">That is why
we were created: to gather the sparks, no matter where they are hidden. And to
put them back together so the vessels can sail all the way home. When the
broken vessels are restored, <i>tikkun olam</i>,
the repair of the world, will be complete. We were not created to be
“yes-men.” We were created to restore the unity of all things.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">That is what
it remembers like:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">An engaged,
challenged, charged responsibility and opportunity, even destiny, to make
ourselves, our relationships and our world whole. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">Our faith,
our culture, our tradition was not designed for stagnation, to serve solely as
the anchor of a vessel never intended to be put to sea. But more as a wide,
billowing sail enabling it and us to thrive as we traverse and discover more of
the endlessly revealing cosmos of which we are an integral, covenantal,
evolving part. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">Will you be
fearless and join us as we remember, re-imagine and reanimate what a 21st
century synagogue can become? A community that is substantive and
consequential, a community in which everyone is invited, a community that
recognizes the Divine spark in each and every person and invites them to learn,
interpret, and demonstrate the impact of Judaism in their own lives? In the
lives of others? And in our world? A community that is at once
broken hearted for the pain of our world AND open-hearted, hopeful for the
potential for healing? Will you join us in remembering our faith in the
possible?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">Hashiveinu
Adonai Aylecha vNashuvah. Chadeish yameinu K’kedem.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">“Return us
to You, O Source of All, and we shall surely return. Renew our days as
they were in days of old.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">In a New
Year of abundant blessing, goodness, and possibility for us all,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">Shanah
Tovah.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div>
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<!--[endif]-->
<div id="edn1">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///Z:/Geffen/Rosh%20Hashanah%205776.doc#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 8pt;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 8.0pt;"> Foer, Jonathan
Safran. <i>Everything Is Illuminated</i>. pp. 198, 199.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn2">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///Z:/Geffen/Rosh%20Hashanah%205776.doc#_ednref2" name="_edn2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 8pt;">[ii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 8.0pt;"> <span style="color: #181818;">Sacks, Rabbi Jonathan. <i>To Heal a Fractured World</i>. p. 181</span></span><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="edn3">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///Z:/Geffen/Rosh%20Hashanah%205776.doc#_ednref3" name="_edn3" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 8pt;">[iii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 8.0pt;"> Ibid.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn4">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///Z:/Geffen/Rosh%20Hashanah%205776.doc#_ednref4" name="_edn4" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 8pt;">[iv]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 8.0pt;"> <span style="color: #181818;"><a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/books/188365/stop-obsessing-over-holocaust">http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/books/188365/stop-obsessing-over-holocaust</a><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn5">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///Z:/Geffen/Rosh%20Hashanah%205776.doc#_ednref5" name="_edn5" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 8pt;">[v]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 8.0pt;"> <span style="color: #181818;">Rabbi Joseph Soloveithchik, “Kol Dodi Dofek,” in Bernard
Rosenberg and Gred Heuman (eds.), </span><i><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Theological
and Halakhic Reflections on the Holocaust</span></i><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">. Pp. 54-5</span></span><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="edn6">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///Z:/Geffen/Rosh%20Hashanah%205776.doc#_ednref6" name="_edn6" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 8pt;">[vi]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 8.0pt;"> Based on Isaac Luria</span><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13086781176511709410noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172807485782423842.post-3044120876028113692015-01-20T20:28:00.003-08:002015-01-20T20:28:45.580-08:00Am I My Brother's Keeper? Strengthening the Bonds between the African-American and Jewish Communities<b style="font-weight: normal;"><div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b0378e8d-0ab8-0213-435f-2f179352fd77" style="line-height: 2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(These are my remarks from the Celebration of the Life and Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at the Stone Temple Baptist Church on Monday, Janurary 19, 2015)</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16pt;">Thank you so much Bishop for your kind words and
for your graciousness in hosting this community gathering today. To the Jewish
United Fund, to Pastor Phil and the Firehouse Community Arts Center, the North
Lawndale Historical and Cultural Society, and to the Sinai Health System whose
work continues to be a powerful example of ongoing partnership between the
Jewish and African American communities for sponsoring today’s gathering as we
honor the legacy of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16pt;">When an emptiness so profound in the soul of one
man caused him to murder his own brother, the question, which arguably became
the most important question for humanity throughout time, was “Am I my
brother’s keeper?” And the resounding answer to that question, echoing still in
our day, remains: Yes. We are each other’s keepers, and we are all in this
together.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16pt;">And so, together, let us listen to Dr. King’s
words from March 17, 1966 whose message rings so true today as well: “…in order
to tell the truth, it is necessary to …say not only have we come a long, long
way, we still have a long, long way to go before the problem of racial
injustice is solved in our country…we need only to turn on our televisions and
open our newspapers and look around our community….We must learn to live
together or we will perish together as fools.”</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16pt;">On this day commemorating what would have been
Dr. King’s 86th birthday just 4 days ago, 50 years after the march at Selma, we
come together to acknowledge that although we have come a long way, indeed we
still have a long way to go. In this age of “colorblindness,” as Michelle
Alexander, the author of the critically important book <i>The New Jim Crow</i>
calls it, we build walls not with bricks but with zip codes and school
districts; we create distance and impose borders with words like South Side or
North Shore - good neighborhood or bad as if those terms somehow justify our
disparate standings. When the wealth gap between white and black America is
greater today than it ever was in Apartheid South Africa[i], when 1 in 3 black
men will end up incarcerated at some point in their life[ii], when we know so
deeply that although all lives matter, this is the moment to name the fact that
#BlackLivesMatter because we can’t breathe anymore, we must ask ourselves: what
does it mean to be each other’s keepers and to act as such in the world today?</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16pt;">One of my teachers, Rabbi Jack Stern of Blessed
Memory, served as a student rabbi in Greenville Mississippi in the early
1950’s. He gave a sermon on “The Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man”
- everyone loved it. Sometime later, he proposed to the synagogue president
that the congregation should hold a clergy Institute where all the clergy in
town could gather to study and break bread together. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16pt;"></span> </div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16pt;">President: All the clergy?
</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16pt;">Jack: yes. </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16pt;">President: White clergy and black clergy
breaking bread together? Jack: Yes </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16pt;">President: Well that will never happen. </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16pt;">Jack: But just last week, I gave a sermon on the
fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man and you thought it was the
greatest thing since sliced bread? </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16pt;">President: It was a great sermon, but you have
to be careful when you get specific.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16pt;">Friends, we are here together today to get
specific.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16pt;">Throughout his life, Dr. King often drew
inspiration from the specifics of the story of the flight of the ancient
Israelites from bondage to freedom. Picture it:</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16pt;">Behind them, an advancing army. Before them an
expansive and impassible sea. Trapped, Moses cried out to God, but God rebuked
him: “Why do you cry to me? Tell the Children of Israel to move forward.”
Forward where? The Israelites hesitated, until a leader appeared willing to
step ahead into the rushing waters with faith that his actions could make a
difference. This leader, teaches Jewish tradition, was not one of the
headliners of the Exodus narrative, not Moses or Aaron, not Miriam or Joshua,
but instead, was a man named Nachshon. Wading through the rising tide, only
when the waters rose all the way up to his nostrils, the story tells us, did
the Sea part.[iv] Nachshon was willing to take risks for a better future for
his people, for his faith in the promise of freedom from On High, and in doing
so, he catalyzed the Israelites’ redemption.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16pt;">There were countless Nachshon’s in the Civil
Rights movement whose specific actions and partnerships demonstrated their deep
understanding that we are in fact each other’s keepers. So many African
American and Jewish partners, known and not, who marched the road of justice
together. Take Fannie Lou Hamer and Heather Booth. Born in Mississippi, Hamer
grew up as a sharecropper. In 1961, she was sterilized against her will as a
part of Mississippi's plan to reduce the number of poor blacks in the state.
When, at a 1962 Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee meeting she learned
blacks could vote, she raised her hand immediately to volunteer, despite the
grave risks she would face, as many were beaten or even lynched for attempting
to register. Hamer quickly became a leader of the Mississippi Freedom
Democratic Party, fighting for dignity and the right to vote, and was a true
hero of the civil rights movement.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16pt;">Heather Booth, an 18 year old Jew, who after
visiting Israel and making a commitment at the Yad VaShem Holocaust memorial to
struggle for justice, went to Mississippi to volunteer at the Freedom Summer
Project. Booth’s synagogue actually funded the $500 bail money required to
participate in Freedom Summer in the case of an arrest. It was during Booth’s
volunteering that she met Fannie Lou Hamer and was inspired by her activism,
moving forward herself to serve as the founding director of the NAACP National
Voter Fund and Americans for Financial Reform, along with becoming very
involved in the women’s movement, in particular here in Chicago.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16pt;">The time for us to get specific is <strong><span style="font-family: Arial;">now.</span></strong> In our day, we can no longer
assert that proof for a living Jewish and African American communal partnership
is demonstrative through the many Jews and African Americans who marched
together half a century ago. We must not claim that because our communities come
together one day a year to remember Dr. King that we are somehow fulfilling the
best of his and his activist partners’ vision for a just world. There is so
much more we can do together, and there has not been a better moment in the
last 50 years for us to envision <em><span style="font-family: Arial;">what is
yet possible together</span></em>.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16pt;">Who will be our Nachshons today, stepping
bravely forward into the rushing waters, risking for each other, for freedom,
with faith that we can yet create hope and change?</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16pt;">·</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 7pt;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16pt;">Because the work of social justice is not the sole reserve of the
students who attend a social justice school.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16pt;">·</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 7pt;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16pt;">And the prospect of education, employment training and opportunity
is not the sole reserve of organizations tasked with that singular mission.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16pt;">What can each of us do to get specific when it
comes to the holy work of keeping each other?</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16pt;">Will business owners commit to hire kids from
Lawndale for internships this summer? </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16pt;">Will students ask themselves, can I organize my
community at my school to demand equal access to quality education? </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16pt;">Will churches and synagogues from all over our
community partner with each other, eat together, pray together, beyond this day
once a year? </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16pt;">Will we find new ways to know and see each
other, to learn from each other, to be sensitive to our assumptions and words,
to listen to each others histories and stories so that we are actually keeping
each other in the highest expression of that ideal?</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16pt;">The sages of my tradition tell a story about a
man who goes out on a boat with his friends and, once offshore, starts to drill
a hole under the bottom of his seat. His friends ask him to stop, but he
continues, “The hole is <i>only</i> under my <i>own </i>seat and not yours.”
His companions cry out, “But if you continue, the boat will sink and we will
all drown. Don’t you understand that we are all literally in the same boat
together?” </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16pt;">As the great human rights activist Lilla Watson
famously said: “If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time.
But if you have come here because your liberation is bound up with mine, then
let us work together.” Because not one of us is free until every last one of us
is free. Indeed, let us work together, my brothers, my sisters. We are each
other’s keepers.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br /><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div>
<br /><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[i]</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Kristof, Nicholas. “Whites Just Don’t Get It, Part 5” New York Times, November 29, 2014</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/30/opinion/sunday/nicholas-kristof-when-whites-just-dont-get-it-part-5.html?_r=0" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/30/opinion/sunday/nicholas-kristof-when-whites-just-dont-get-it-part-5.html?_r=0</span></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[ii]</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Report of The Sentencing Project to the United Nations Human Rights Committee Regarding Racial Disparities in the United States Criminal Justice System</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, August 2013</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[iii]</span><a href="http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-gun-violence-death-rate-us-20140918-story.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-gun-violence-death-rate-us-20140918-story.html</span></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[iv]</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Exodus 14:15. Midrash Tehillim 114:8; Bamidbar Rabbah 13:7</span></div>
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<br /><br /></b>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13086781176511709410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172807485782423842.post-72357462672615330152015-01-10T13:29:00.001-08:002015-01-10T13:29:58.694-08:00Meaning and Meaninglessness<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">(My remarks from Shabbat services on Friday, January 9, 2015)</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">In this past week, we’ve once again watched a scourge of horrific violence and terror wreak havoc, death and destruction around our world: from the senseless bombing of the Colorado Springs NAACP office, to the unconscionable and brutal attack at the offices of Charlie Hebdo and the murder of 12 innocent people, including 2 police officers, to the horrific acts that played out today at a Paris Kosher grocery store. And all of it can leave us feeling terrified, angry, bewildered, and wondering how people can do such horrible and senseless things? Where is the meaning in any of it?</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">And in times like this, we first ask questions like those that involve us looking outside of ourselves for meaning, but often afterwards turn to look more internally, and ask ourselves what our existence means in the grand scheme of things when so often everything can seem so meaningless? And the truth is, both these and those questions come not only to characterize our responses to traumatic moments, but rather, they actually characterize what is perhaps the ultimate and quintessential human pursuit. And for millennia, scholars, theologians, philosophers, psychologists, talk show hosts and many others have offered theories and advice on how to find the meaning that we, as humans, so desperately seek.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">And so, David Brooks’ op-ed from Monday “The Problem with Meaning” caught my interest. In his well-articulated, somewhat vitriolic critique, Brooks asserts that this yearning for meaning has actually become most problematic in our time. He rightfully observes that “how meaningful something is” has become a standard metric for how we gauge whether something is worth our while. In general, we seek meaningful relationships, we want to use our time meaningfully, we want our learning and growth to be meaningful. But whereas in its purest sense, meaning is what</span><span style="color: #323333; letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> you feel and find when you’re serving that which is beyond yourself, today we have instead commodified “meaning,” using it as a vehicle for serving ourselves instead. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In Brooks’ words:</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"As commonly used today, the word [meaning] is flabby and vacuous, the product of a culture that has grown inarticulate about inner life...</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Let me put it this way: If we look at the people in history who achieved great things — like Nelson Mandela or Albert Schweitzer or Abraham Lincoln — it wasn’t because they wanted to bathe luxuriously in their own sense of meaningfulness. They had objective and eternally true standards of justice and injustice. They were indignant when those eternal standards were violated. They subscribed to moral systems — whether secular or religious — that recommended specific ways of being, and had specific structures of what is right and wrong, and had specific disciplines about how you might get better over time."</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Put more simply, meaning is what should result as an ancillary benefit of a life grounded in a totally different, much more fixed force - morality - asserts Brooks. He concludes: “Real moral systems are based on a balance of intellectual rigor and aroused moral sentiments. Meaningfulness is a pure and self-regarding feeling, the NutraSweet of the inner life.”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But I think Brooks misses something in his relatively black and white analysis, something he should have been taught when he was in Hebrew School growing up. When it comes to this battle of meaning versus morality, from the Jewish vantage, there actually is no battle at all as the two forces not only navigate the same ground, but in fact, blend together so as to strengthen each other. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Morality, living according to a set of culturally or communally agreed-upon principles about right and wrong, might actually prove a little less fixed than Brooks assumes. Sometimes we may not know what the absolute right or wrong thing to do is in a given situation, but we will still have moral foundations to serve as guidelines. As an aside, this premise is the basis for the entire structure of the Talmud. Morality, from a Jewish sense, establishes the ground upon which we navigate in the world, but if we lose the understanding that everything, every experience, every relationship, every act, every breath, is imbued with the potential for deep, impactful meaning in life, we diminish both in the process. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">As Rabbi Geoff Mittleman of Sinai and Synapsis puts it: Meaning is how we make sense of the world; ultimately, it is how we figure out what our lives and our world “mean.” So it is meaning that can help us discover how we can best bring our best gifts and talents to better not only our own lives, but our communities and our world. And one of the great gifts of Judaism is the understanding that our ethical choices and grounding, our morality, is in and of itself a form of making meaning. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Victor Frankel, the famous neurologist, psychiatrist, Holocaust survivor, and author of the masterwork “Man’s Search for Meaning,” recounted a life-changing decision. With his career on the rise and the threat of Third Reich looming, Frankl was granted a visa to America in 1941. Frankl knew that it would only be a matter of time before the Nazis came to take his parents away, and that once they did, he had a responsibility to be there with his parents to help them through the trauma of adjusting to camp life. On the other hand, as a newly married man with his visa in hand, he was tempted to leave for America and flee to safety.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Frankl was at a loss for what to do, so he set out for St. Stephan's Cathedral in Vienna to clear his head. Listening to the organ music, he repeatedly asked himself, "Should I leave my parents behind?... Should I say goodbye and leave them to their fate?" Where did his responsibility lie? He was looking for a "hint from heaven."</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">When he returned home, he found a piece of marble from the rubble of one of the nearby synagogues that the Nazis had destroyed. The marble contained the fragment from the 5th Commandment: honor your father and your mother. Frankl decided to put aside his individual pursuits to serve his family and, later, other inmates in the camps. He later wrote about the relevance of the wisdom he derived from his experiences there, in the middle of unimaginable human suffering. "Being human always points, and is directed, to something or someone, other than oneself -- be it a meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter. The more one forgets himself -- by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love -- the more human he is."*</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Those who would choose to use violence and terror, those who murder in their perverted understanding of what they claim as their religion and their god, poison the moral good in society and prove nothing more than heathen idolators whose actions truly merit no meaning in the construct of our existence. We, those unwittingly subjected to their crimes as witnesses, can choose whether or not we will permit the deaths of the innocent, the destruction of innocence, to fall into meaninglessness as well. Victor Frankl so rightly said: “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” Our faith calls upon us not to be silent or complacent because the task is too daunting, not to accommodate oppression because it is easier that way, but rather because our lives and our world are filled with meaning and potential even in the darkest moments, to move forward with moral courage, clarity, and clear </span><span style="color: #141923; letter-spacing: 0.0px;">resolve. In this week’s Torah portion, the Pharoah issued an edict of infanticide intended to destroy the future of the Jewish people, commanding the Hebrew midwives to kill all the Jewish male infants upon their birth, or risk their own execution. The Torah tells us though that because, "the Hebrew midwives feared God, they did not do as the king of Egypt spoke to them, and they caused the boys to live.” A profound example of courage and defiance, morality and meaning. Today too, we are called upon to make meaning out of the meaningless, and so we must act too to defy oppression in any form, to bring justice and healing to each other and our world. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #141923; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;">*As told in Victor Frank: A Life </span><span style="font-size: 12px;">Worth Living by Anna Redsand</span></span><br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13086781176511709410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172807485782423842.post-65638751556109981872014-12-26T19:00:00.000-08:002014-12-26T19:00:03.736-08:00History and Memory - The What and How of Remembering<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">(My remarks from Shabbat services on Friday, December 26, 2014)</span><br />
<br />
As January 1st proves only a few days away, I imagine many of us find ourselves considering the transition from 2014 to 2015, how we want to shape the coming year for ourselves, our community and our world. And although at first, we might think that this secular New Year proves quite different from our Jewish New Year, the truth is the wisdom we apply to one most definitely can be applied to the other, specifically when it comes to Cheshbon ha Nefesh - our tradition of taking an accounting of our lives, the positive and the negative, as a conscious exercise to help guide us in to a better tomorrow, because knowing where we've been can serve as a key asset in helping us determine where we are going.<br />
<br />
But the process of reflecting on the past is not always an easy one, and too often we jump right in to the realm of history, solely addressing what we assume is the operative question: what happened? When really, if we want to approach our evaluation of the past as a vehicle to lead us into the future, the real question we should be asking ourselves is not only about the what -what happened in history - but also about the how - how will I remember what has happened in the past? How will I choose to shape my memories?<br />
<br />
There is in fact a critical difference between history and memory. History, the branch of knowledge dealing with past events, relies on empirical demonstration and rational thought. <br />
Memory, on the other hand, has to do with our mental capacity for retaining or reviving impressions and it dwells in the non rational architectures of mythology. History is something we are witness to, over which we have little to no control. Memory is something we shape ourselves, sometimes consciously, sometimes not.. <br />
<br />
To demonstrate, let me share with you this example from my family.<br />
When my son was three, we took him skiing with us in Colorado. It was a disaster. He hated ski school, his boots hurt his feet and legs, the snow was slushy, and his skis kept getting stuck along the very small bunny hill run. Each day, about 2 hours in, the ski school called us to tell us that Josh did not like skiing and that we should come pick him up. The s’mores offered at 3:30pm each day when ski school was over were no incentive for him to keep trying. And so, based on our analysis of the events at the time, of course, we assumed that that would be our first and last family ski trip. History.<br />
<br />
But something funny happened when we printed out our pictures from the trip about 2 weeks after we returned home. When he saw the pictures, Josh started recalling how much fun he had had on our first ski trip. That he was proud of himself that by the 4th and final day the boots didn't hurt as bad. That eating s’mores after we were done skiing was great! And then he asked us when we were going skiing again because he couldn't wait. Memory. <br />
<br />
Jewish tradition has in fact always stressed the need for us to understand both history and memory when considering how to both navigate our present and forge ahead into our future. In fact, the presentation of the Exodus narrative in the Torah itself is a powerful example of this idea. The books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers serve as the “historical” account of our ancestors enslavement, redemption and arrival at the border of the Promised Land. The narratives are told from the perspective of those who were there experiencing it first-hand. But then the book of Deuteronomy comes along and repeats the whole story again. But not verbatim. Where as many of the historical points are reiterated, the Deuteronomic telling re-frames many parts of the story to raise up certain ideals and teachings. Why? Because the contents of the book of Deuteronomy are what was told to the generation of our ancestors who weren't slaves ever, who weren't at Mt. Sinai themselves. Deuteronomy is the story that we know best. Deuteronomy is all memory. And it is because of that that it allows for intentionality; it has slant as well as direction. <br />
<br />
Let’s look at this on a more personal level. When something significant happens in our lives of which we feel we need to take note, something that we perceive may afford us an opportunity to break out of a negative pattern, we declare we will remember, we will not forget. We assume that recalling the event or experience as it occurred will be enough to help us change our behavior, our relationships, our choices. But all too often, we find ourselves back in our same negative patterns, despite what we believe were our best efforts. Because remembering history alone without the added value of memory remains a passive act, and doesn't actually allow us to do much of anything. <br />
<br />
This is not to say that we do not need history. If everything were left to dwell in the domain of memory alone, we would risk falling victim to what renowned Jewish historian Yehuda Kurzter calls “memory anxiety”, finding ourselves waxing so nostalgic about the past that we have no will to navigate into the future because it appears so dismal. <br />
<br />
But when we combine the two, we find that firm grounding in history with an openness to the potential of memory to form and shape our understanding can yield ripe ground for transformation. <br />
<br />
Take the Joseph narrative that we've been reading in the Torah for the past few weeks. You know the story: Joseph’s brother’s, jealous of Joseph’s favored place in their father’s heart, throw Joseph into a pit and sell him into slavery. Through a series of events, Joseph ends up second in command in Egypt, ultimately forgiving his brothers, being reunited with his beloved father, and saving the Jewish people. <br />
<br />
<br />
Toward the end of the story, Joseph and his brothers return to their home to bury their father, and a midrash describes that en route, Joseph sees by the side of the road that same pit where his brothers threw him so many years before. He stops and spends quite a while staring into the pit. When the brothers see this, they assume that Joseph is remembering all of the horrible things that they did to him so many years previous, and they fear that Joseph will seek out retribution since his memories have been stimulated. <br />
Joseph does in fact recognize the pit and its painful associations, but instead of seeing that through a lens of bitterness, he now sees it as the source of blessing: without his brother’s throwing him into that pit, his incarceration in Egypt would not have happened, he would never has risen to power, he would never have been married to his wife and had his children; and, most importantly his would not have been able to help his family when famine struck their homeland. <br />
<br />
In the words of a renowned Biblical scholar: “[Joseph] has gone to the trouble of returning to that place of his terror in order to bring closure to the old narrative. He makes the blessing for a personal miracle, claiming the site of his trauma as the site of redemption. By this act, he re-reads the pit as a space of rebirth, transforming pain into hope. The grave has become a womb.”<span style="font-size: xx-small;">(Aviva Zornberg, The Murmuring Deep: Reflections on the Biblical Unconscious, p.319) </span><br />
<br />
When rooted in history, memory does not permit us to rewrite history, but rather to re-read it. And how we re-read may indeed be one of the most powerful abilities we have to determine how we live our lives and how we relate to other people. We may not be able to control what happens to us or even what we remember, but in remembering that we can control how we remember, we can in fact shape our thoughts, assumptions, beliefs. And now is just as good of a time as any. But if you aren't ready for that yet, the good news is that memories are available to most of us whenever we want to call them up. We just need to remember that we are their owners, holders and shapers, and they have the potential to impact our choices and actions for the better, for ourselves, our community, our world.<br />
<br />
Wishing you all a new year of great potential and blessing.<br />
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13086781176511709410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172807485782423842.post-75773454966253498732014-10-06T09:41:00.000-07:002014-10-06T16:54:58.751-07:00Awakening - A Sermon for Yom Kippur 5775<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">Thanks
to recent conversations with my doctor friends, I’ve learned a litany of jokes
about anesthesiologists and rabbis. Here are a few:<o:p></o:p></span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">What’s
the difference between a rabbi and an anesthesiologist?<o:p></o:p></span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">They
both do the same thing, but a rabbi can do it to 1000 people at once!<o:p></o:p></span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">Or
how about this one: <o:p></o:p></span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">What’s
the difference between a rabbi and an anesthesiologist?<o:p></o:p></span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">An
anesthesiologist needs drugs to put you to sleep!<o:p></o:p></span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">There’s
one more:<o:p></o:p></span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">What
do anesthesiologists and rabbis have in common?<o:p></o:p></span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">They
both share the same motto: putting them to sleep is the easy part, waking them
up is much more challenging!<o:p></o:p></span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">As
it happens, we tend to take the field of anesthesia for granted since it’s so
routine today, but, up until even the late 19th and early 20th centuries, most
patients regularly chose to take their chances over enduring the pain of a
surgical procedure. This has made our
modern ability to diminish or even eliminate pain perhaps the most significant
medical innovation of all time. <o:p></o:p></span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">But
the challenge, as we all so deeply know, is that the pain we experience in life
is not limited to the walls of the operating room, and, just like with physical
pain, it often feels too much to bear.
The crushing conditions of our world can leave us feeling so overwhelmed, that
we will do anything to numb ourselves to the distress they create.<o:p></o:p></span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">Now
sometimes, this is necessary. There is a reason people go into shock when
something devastating occurs. It is our body’s way of protecting us from the
otherwise too harsh impact, and it softens the blow. Although this sort of
sedation is not meant to be a regular part of our daily existence, it is not
hard to understand why it has become just that.<o:p></o:p></span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">Take
the ubiquitous 24/7 news feeds of the television, internet, and social media
that on the one hand leave us no reprieve from the horrors of our world, but
ironically, on the other, shorten our attention spans and ultimately
desensitize us to whatever is actually happening. Remember Malaysian Air flight
370? Or the 191,000 now dead in Syria? Or closer to home, the state where the
latest school shooting took place? It was North Carolina, 4 days ago. [ii]<o:p></o:p></span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">In
the 1960’s, psychologists explored our human tendency to habituate by measuring
ordinary people’s nervous system responses to the repeated ringing of a loud
bell. Although everyone reacted strongly initially, their reactivity became
somewhat weaker for the second bell, and increasingly diminished, until finally
they did not register any response at all.
It turns out that we can become so accustomed to our experiences that we
reach a point where we just don’t notice them anymore. They just become
imperceptible to us. [iii] <o:p></o:p></span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">The
truth is, out of self-preservation, we numb ourselves all the time. As a
society, we know the destructive and unfortunately expansive nature of the
disease of addiction. But no matter the method of distraction - with pills or
alcohol, working non-stop or even with our faces lost in our hand-held devices
and screens - we end up with the same sense of detachment.<o:p></o:p></span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">Perhaps
even more troubling is that we sedate ourselves even in anticipation of
something that might hurt later. On some deep inner level, we humans tend to
fear the fullness of our potential. We think that if we love deeply, we risk
the possibility of that love not being reciprocated or one day losing that
love. If we strive for our deepest desires, we might still fail, so we settle
for the confines of our self-imposed limitations. <o:p></o:p></span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">We
numb ourselves too with our defensiveness, our guarded or half-apologies, unwilling
to admit full accountability for fear that we might actually have to feel the
weight of our hurting someone else. We do this as well with our withholding of
forgiveness; frightened to make ourselves vulnerable for fear we might get hurt
again.<o:p></o:p></span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">And
even in common conversation among friends, we tend to prefer dulled agreement
to the discomfort of true dialogue and debate. We watch the news that matches
our own opinions and belief, surround ourselves with like-minded allies,
labeling anyone who disagrees as ignorant, or worse idiotic. And by so doing, we protect ourselves against
the uncomfortable confrontation of divergence and challenge. <o:p></o:p></span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">But
whatever the reason, willed or not, individually or communally experienced,
what is certain is that this emotional blunting does not actually protect us.
In an attempt to shield our hearts, we end up hardening them, and in so doing, we
actually remove ourselves from our lives, relinquishing ourselves, our
relationships, and our world to the currents of chaos.<o:p></o:p></span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">The
real world is full of heartache and despair.
Many say that the world of religion offers a reprieve, something to take
us out of this world and into the world of heaven. It is not a modern idea. Two centuries ago, Karl Marx penned his
infamous critique. Religion, he said, is
“The sigh of the oppressed creature, the feeling of a heartless world, the soul
of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”[iv]<o:p></o:p></span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">Even
though Marx was a Jew, either he didn’t listen very well in Hebrew school, or
perhaps he slept through the rabbi’s sermons. When it comes to Judaism, Marx
couldn’t be more wrong. Judaism is not, nor has it ever been, a religion that
reconciles us to the world as it is, that sets out to dull our experiences.
Former Chief Rabbi of Great Britain and all around brilliant teacher Rabbi
Jonathan Sacks addresses this in his powerful book, To Heal the World. He
writes: “In Judaism, faith is not acceptance, but protest, against the world
that is, in the name of the world that is not yet, but ought to be…Its aim is
not to transport the believer to a private heaven. Instead, its impassioned, sustained desire is
to bring heaven down to earth. Until we have done this, there is still work to
do. ”[v]<o:p></o:p></span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">Remember
that motto from earlier? Putting them to sleep is the easy part, waking them up
is much more challenging? Turns out it’s not just for anesthesiologists and
rabbis. It is a fundamental and binding truth, not reserved only for the
orthodox or the folks who come to services every Shabbat, but for any and all of us who call ourselves part of the family of the Jewish people. I want you to hear that: this is for all of
us.<o:p></o:p></span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">Jewish
practices are designed consistently to open our hearts and direct our awareness
towards our world, each other and our souls. They stir us out of our everyday
rhythms and unconscious living. Sacks again: “However free or affluent we are,
on Passover we eat the bread of affliction and taste the bitter herbs of
slavery. On Sukkot, we sit in shacks and know what it is to be homeless…To
imitate God is to be alert to the poverty, suffering and loneliness of others.
Opium desensitizes us to pain. [Judaism] sensitizes us to it.” [vi]<o:p></o:p></span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">And
make no mistake: these Days of Awe are designed to be the annual wake-up call
for our hearts and souls. This is the whole point of why we blow the Shofar;
its heart piercing call literally wakes us up to ourselves, our lives, our
world. And as it turns out, we’ve been self-sedating for a long time. Listen to the words renowned philosopher and
commentator Maimonides wrote 900 years ago about the purpose of the Shofar that
we still read each Rosh Hashanah: “Awake, you sleepers from your sleep. Arouse
you slumberers… Do not be like those who miss the truth in pursuit of shadows
and waste their years seeking vanity. </span><br>
<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">Look well to your souls and consider your
deeds….”[vii]</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">And
if there was ever a single day designed to shake us out of the stupor of our
everyday lives, it is today. Yom Kippur challenges us to snap out of our
routine lives by literally putting us in the most raw and uncomfortable
situation we can imagine. And it’s not just the fasting, intended to awaken our
awareness of the pain of thirst and hunger. Or the beating of our chests,
beckoning us to crack open our otherwise locked-tight hearts. Yom Kippur, its rituals and liturgy all
facilitate a process that is nothing less than a spiritual near-death
experience. No sedation allowed. On Yom Kippur, we spiritually die in some way
to awaken us to our lives as they are, so that we might, at the day’s end,
re-enter our lives reborn, heart more open than ever before. Truly, Yom Kippur
is meant to turn our lives and our world upside down.<o:p></o:p></span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">The Talmud
records a curious incident. Joseph, the son of Rabbi Joshua, fell into a coma.
Everyone thought the boy wouldn’t survive, but one day, he woke up. And upon
reviving, he said: “<i>Olam hafuch ra-iti</i>:
I saw an upside-down world. The people who are on the bottom here were on the top there, and the people who are on the top here were on the bottom there.” His father, astonished
at his son’s vision, declared: “My son, <i>olam
barur ra-itah</i>, What you saw was the clear world.”[viii]<o:p></o:p></span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">To
be Jewish is to believe in the possibility of an upside down world, that there
is a difference between the world-as-it-is and the world as it ought to be, and
our lives-as-they-are and our lives as they ought to be; that the
world-as-it-is is not a clear world, but it could be one day. And that,
according to Judaism, is up to all of us, if only we can remain awakened to that
awareness. <o:p></o:p></span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">Consider
this powerful story about the man who invented dynamite. One day, his older brother died, but the
newspaper printed his obituary instead, giving him the unusual experience of
reading his obituary while he was still alive. The title read: ‘Dr. Alfred
Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever
before, died yesterday….’ Like a cold bucket of ice water had been poured on
his head, he threw down the paper. “I’ve
never thought of my life that way! That’s not how I want to be remembered.
That’s not what’s important to me.” And
right then and there he decided to direct his entire fortune into rewarding
people for bettering this world and bringing it closer to peace.[ix] The
inventor of dynamite is the creator of the Nobel Peace Prize! What is done cannot be undone – but we can be
awakened, our hearts can be unlocked, and our wounds can be healed; our pain
can even become the instrument for our healing, but for that to happen, we have
to feel, even if it hurts.<o:p></o:p></span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">For
in truth, the angst we have about what might happen pales when we realize the
unmet potential of our lives.<o:p></o:p></span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">The
fear we sense from withholding repentance diminishes when we understand that
without real <i>teshuvah</i>, our lives and
relationships are left in limbo, actually held in an anesthetized state.<o:p></o:p></span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">The
threat we experience when opposition confronts us abates when we awaken to
understand that the Truth is only revealed when contrasting perspectives
flourish.<o:p></o:p></span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">We
are not permitted to seal our hearts and abandon hope. When we see pain and
suffering, we must not turn away; we must open our hearts and let them sense
the echoes of isolation, fear, and despair that our eyes and ears cannot
perceive. And then, we must dare to bring comfort and healing. In fact, it is
our very experience with pain that actually gives birth to empathy, compassion
and, true comfort! 18th century
Chassidic teacher Reb Shlomo of Karlin once said, “If you want to raise a
person from the mire and darkness, it is not enough to reach your hand down and
pull that person up. You must go down into that darkness and with great
strength pull yourself and your friend up.” True for healing the pain of our
world; true for healing the pain of our lives. <o:p></o:p></span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">When
Yom Kippur ends this evening, we will sound the shofar one last time. The
resonating and greatest blast of all, <i>Tekiah
Gedolah</i>, will fill the vast air of this holy space and echo in our ears,
hearts, and souls. Did you ever wonder
why we end these High Holy Days with the shofar? Why do we need to hear it
again if the Holy Days are now over?
Because the real work of awakening is only just beginning. When we return to our homes and ordinary
lives, you can bet that the sedating ringing of our everyday existence will still
be there, just as it always has been.
The challenge for us is to take our now open hearts, awareness and and
yes, even our pain with us into the New Year, enabling us to act against and
above the currents of our existence as-it-is, and by doing so, awaken and
transform our lives and our world.<o:p></o:p></span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">In
this New Year of awareness, compassion and healing for us all. Shabbat Shalom.
<i>Shanah Tovah.<o:p></o:p></i></span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><br></span>
<br>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 8.5pt;">[i]
This sermon is inspired by the life-changing lessons I’ve been taught by my
teachers at the Institute for Jewish Spirituality. I am forever indebted to them for opening my
eyes and heart to the most compelling and profound currents of Judaism and
Jewish practice that I have ever known.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 8.5pt;"> [ii] Even Jewish legal principles have
demonstrated this propensity to tune out or habituate to what was once only an
exceptional threat of danger but has become the constant and thereby normative
existential peril we face daily in our world. Previously, Jewish law permitted
the overriding of normal legal and moral restrictions in the case of something
called "<i>hora-at sha'ah</i>" - an exceptional moment. The age in
which we live, with the constant threat of terror, forces one to essentially
adopt the notion that every moment in every day is <i>hora-at sha'ah</i>. But
making every moment an emergent moment essentially normalizes such urgency,
thereby nullifying the entire exceptional purpose of <i>hora-at sha'ah</i> in
the first place. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 8.5pt;">[iii]
Lew, Alan. <i>Be Still and Get Going</i>. p.16.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 8.5pt;">[iv]
<a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/critique-hpr/intro.htm" target="_blank">https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/critique-hpr/intro.htm</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 8.5pt;">[v]
Sacks, Rabbi Jonathan. <i>To Heal a Fractured World: The Ethics of
Responsibility</i>. pp.18, 20. 27<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 8.5pt;">[vi]
Ibid. p. 28.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 8.5pt;">[vii]
MT <i>Hilkhot Teshuvah</i> 3:4<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 8.5pt;">[viii]
BT, <i>Psachim</i> 50a<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 8.5pt;">[ix]
As told by Rabbi Alan Lew in <i>This is Real
and You are Completely Unprepared</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13086781176511709410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172807485782423842.post-44905440880772830722014-09-08T08:22:00.004-07:002014-09-08T08:22:53.976-07:00Self-Imposed Restlessness for the Weary: Fear of Stillness in Elul<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">I walked
into my regular Thursday morning yoga class recently, and saw something funny. </span><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">If you’ve never been to a yoga class before,
the general idea is, since it is a contemplative practice, you arrive a little
before the class, set up your mat, and begin to center yourself so that once
the teacher officially begins, you are ready.</span><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">Well, I arrived at class about 5 minutes early, and as I walked into the
door of the studio, I noticed that many of my classmates had arrived in advance,
were sitting or laying on their mats already, but instead of assuming one of
many yoga postures and focusing on their breathing, they were all staring
intently at screens on their cell phones – some even in child’s pose with the
cell phone under the gaze of their eyes.</span><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">Have you noticed that people don’t seem to know how to do </span><i style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">just be</i><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;"> anymore?</span><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">This summer,
the results of a new study on human behavior and introspection came out detailing
just how much so. In explaining the reasoning for the study, its lead author
Timothy Wilson, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia
remarked, “We had noted how wedded to our devices we all seem to be and that
people seem to find any excuse they can to keep busy. No one had done a simple study letting people
go off on their own and think.”<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/sermons/Elul%202014.doc#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> In
11 experiments covering more than 700 people across an expansive age-range, the
majority of participants reported that they found it “unpleasant” to be alone
in a room with their thoughts for just 6-15 minutes. Nearly
a third of people admitted they cheated during the experiment by checking their
phones or listening to music.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">Which caused
Wilson along with Harvard psychology professor Daniel Gilbert to ask a
different question: “If people found it so unpleasant to be alone with their
thoughts, what lengths might they go to in order to escape themselves?”<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/sermons/Elul%202014.doc#_edn2" name="_ednref2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[ii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">To answer
this question, they started by exposing volunteers to positive and negative
stimuli, including mildly painful electric shocks. They asked the people how
much they would pay to avoid the shock experience if they had $5 to spend. Forty-two
people responded they would pay. Then, the researchers told the participants to
sit in a room and think to themselves for 15 minutes. If they wanted, they also
had the option to shock themselves by pressing a button, feeling a jolt
resembling a severe static shock on their ankle.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">“I have to
tell you, with my other co-authors, there was a lot of debate: ‘Why are we
going to do this? No one is going to shock themselves,’” Wilson said.<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/sermons/Elul%202014.doc#_edn3" name="_ednref3" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[iii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> To
their surprise, of the 42 people who said they would in fact pay to avoid the
shock, two-thirds of those men chose to shock themselves, and a quarter of the women
did. One person pressed the button 190 times.<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/sermons/Elul%202014.doc#_edn4" name="_ednref4" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[iv]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">I’ve been
trying to wrap my head around this idea that we humans would rather administer
electric shocks on ourselves than be alone with our thoughts, for even just a
few minutes. It’s as if we’ve become
addicted to the condition of busy-ness: so desperate to find something to fill
up all the moments in our day with noise, distraction, buzz just to carry us to
the next moment, fearing what condition might set in if we actually did nothing
for a moment or two. Many posit that
ultimately, this is about the fact that when left alone, we humans tend to
focus on the negative. From <i>The New York Times</i>’ coverage of the
study: “We have evolved to become problem solvers and meaning makers. What preys on our minds, when we aren’t
updating our Facebook page or in spinning class, are the things we haven’t
figured out – difficult relationships, personal and professional failures,
money troubles, health concerns and so on.
And until there is resolution, or at least some kind of understanding or
acceptance, these thoughts reverberate in our heads. Hello rumination.” Put simply, it just
doesn’t feel good to have to introspect.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">But
interestingly enough, I don’t think this is a new phenomenon. Sure, today distraction is literally at our
finger tips, but I’d contend that the preference of mindlessness over
mindfulness has been going on for a lot longer than the invent of the cell
phone or even the industrial revolution, and certainly, many of the most
foundational Jewish teachings and tenets make this clear. But to understand this, it is important to
understand that, more often than not, when a practice or rule is introduced
into a culture, it is because the opposite behavior or reality has set in. So take Shabbat. A day set aside every week,
where consumption and “business” are forbidden, where quietness and gratitude
are stressed. Why mandate these
behaviors? Because otherwise they
wouldn’t be practiced. It was true for
our ancestors and remains true for us today.
Without setting a limitation, the world of keeping busy, of producing, of
consuming rolls right along, sweeping our ancestors and us up in its wake.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">More
directly, let’s think about the time in which we find ourselves in right
now. Tonight marks the second Shabbat in
the month Elul, the 30 day period set aside for us to search our lives, our
thoughts and our actions, to acknowledge both the enlightened parts of
ourselves, but also the darker parts of our souls, all with the hope that such
introspection might positively impact our own process of<i> teshuvah</i> – the call for repentance and returning that is the
essential demand of the High Holy Days – now less than three weeks away. And let me tell you, to do this process the
right way, it takes a lot longer than 6-15 minutes alone with ourselves. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">The process
of self-evaluation is designed to be an internal one, and it has never been easy. But the trick is, when it’s actually
practiced, we find we can actually change our thoughts, our actions,
ourselves. And it even goes beyond each
individual in impact. Other studies show
that not giving ourselves time to reflect impairs our ability to empathize with
others. According to one expert: “The
more in touch with my own feelings and experiences, the richer and more
accurate are my guesses of what passes through another person’s mind. Feeling what you feel is an ability that atrophies
if you don’t use it.”<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/sermons/Elul%202014.doc#_edn5" name="_ednref5" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[v]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> So
taking time to cultivate a true sense of self-awareness actually has the
potential to transform our relationships with and how we understand the other
humans with which we share this world. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">Here’s the challenge
for each of us: let’s take some time to be alone with ourselves. Optimally, each day between now and the High
Holy Days would be great, but if that seems like too much, what about just on
Shabbat? And if you need a little
facilitation, I’d recommend the practice of <i>cheshbon hanefesh</i> –
literally an inventory taking of our souls – in which we reflect on our successes
and failures over the past year in light of our relationships and experiences. Here is a sample that you can use: <a href="http://www.nsci.org/uploadedFiles/site/Home/Cheshbon%20haNefesh.pdf">http://www.nsci.org/uploadedFiles/site/Home/Cheshbon%20haNefesh.pdf</a>.
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">Is it possible that we will find the
process challenging? Yes. Uncomfortable? Yes.
I don’t think it will be less desirable than self-administered electric
shocks, but you never know. What I do
know is that if we take up the challenge, we may just discover something about ourselves
we never realized or knew before, and that may just assure that our life as
well as the other lives our life touches will be better as a result. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div>
<!--[if !supportEndnotes]--><br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<!--[endif]-->
<div id="edn1">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/sermons/Elul%202014.doc#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">[i]</span><!--[endif]--></span></a> Murphy,
Kate. “No Time to Think,” <i>The New York
Times.</i> July 27, 2014<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn2">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/sermons/Elul%202014.doc#_ednref2" name="_edn2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">[ii]</span><!--[endif]--></span></a> Ibid.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn3">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/sermons/Elul%202014.doc#_ednref3" name="_edn3" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">[iii]</span><!--[endif]--></span></a> Johnson,
Carolyn. “People Prefer Electric Shocks to time alone With Thoughts.” <i>Boston Globe</i>. July 3, 2014<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn4">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/sermons/Elul%202014.doc#_ednref4" name="_edn4" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">[iv]</span><!--[endif]--></span></a> Wilson,
Timothy. “Just Think: The Challenges of
the Disengaged Mind.” <i>Science.</i> Vol
345. July 2014.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn5">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/sermons/Elul%202014.doc#_ednref5" name="_edn5" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">[v]</span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Dimaggio, Dr. Giancarlo. As referenced in “No Time to Think” – see
above</span><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13086781176511709410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172807485782423842.post-73992034664737400662014-08-09T06:46:00.001-07:002014-08-09T10:22:09.826-07:00Pushing Forward to Get Back Home<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In his
incredible book, “This is Real and You are Completely Unprepared,” Rabbi Alan
Lew writes of how each of our lives “is a strange dance of pushing forward to
get back home.” Pushing forward to get
back home. And he writes of the power of this particular quarter of the year in
which we find ourselves right now (no, not the summer, but the period of months
that begin just before <i>Tisha b’Av</i> and
continue through the High Holy Days) to impact our path on that journey, all
through the process of <i>teshuvah</i> –
that turning and returning to the best of who we can yet be. For most, I think, <i>teshuvah</i>-talk doesn’t really start until Rosh Hashanah and Yom
Kippur, but the truth is, Jewish tradition begins the <i>teshuvah</i> conversation much earlier – seven weeks earlier to be precise,
marking the start of a period of time that many, myself included, believe is of
real consequence. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">On <i>Tisha b’Av</i>, we lament the calamities of
our people throughout history, but we also lament the calamities of our own
lives. The Temple is always a metaphor
for the soul’s wholeness, and when we mourn the Temple’s destruction, we mourn
too the brokenness of our own souls, of our relationships with each other, of
the brokenness and destruction in our world.
Something that this year in particular wasn’t hard to do. According to Lew, “<i>Tisha b’Av</i> is the moment of turning, the moment when we turn away
from denial and begin to face exile and alienation as they manifest themselves
in our own lives – from God, from ourselves and from others... <i>Teshuvah</i> is the gesture by which we seek
to heal this alienation and find connection, reconciliation, and anchoring in
our lives.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">And so
this Shabbat, the first Shabbat after <i>Tisha
b’Av</i> represents our first step out from the exile and despair of Tisha b’Av. It is called Shabbat <i>Nachamu</i>- "Shabbat of Comfort," referring to the opening
verses in the <i>Haftara</i> we recite
tomorrow morning, where the prophet Isaiah eases the people’s anguish after the
destruction: <i>Nachamu nachamu ami</i> – take comfort, take comfort my people. So whereas <i>Tisha b’Av</i> immerses our souls in a place of darkness, this Shabbat of
<i>nechama</i>, of comfort, comes to teach
that although desolation and alienation feel so all-consuming, we must not give
up hope, we cannot shut your eyes from seeing our self and our world from the
way they might yet be. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">But
how do we do that? How do we move from immersive
despondence to eyes and heart open to the promise of a better tomorrow?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">This
week’s Torah portion, which is always read on Shabbat <i>Nachamu</i> offers a powerful insight right as it opens, as Moses
recounts what is perhaps one of, if not the most heart wrenching part of his
own story. Speaking to the generation
that will cross over into the Promised Land, Moses shares this with them: I
pleaded with God, I begged God with all my soul “O God, You let me see the
works of your greatness and your mighty hand. You whose powerful deeds no god
in heaven or on earth can equal! Please, let me cross over and see the good
land on the other side of the Jordan.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">But
God says, no. Moses continues: “But God
would not grant me my wish and said, “<i>Rav
lach</i>!” Enough! Never speak to me of
this again.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Moses
- the only one to see God face to face - so longs just to touch, to step onto
the land, to which he’s dedicated his life to lead the Jewish people that he
literally begs God to take back the Divine punishment that forbids him to get
there. “God, you can do anything, he
says, I’ve seen you perform miracles.
Please, do this one thing for me, your most loyal servant.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">And still,
God says no, <i>rav lach</i>, you already
have so much Moses. This is enough. Moses, who has had it all, is left with one
thing he can’t have. He is left longing for something else. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">So
many of us understand this story as one of failure or God’s abandonment, but I
think we read it on Shabbat <i>Nachamu</i>
because it is in fact just the opposite, as it gives us back our sense of life. We don’t ever get there – to the finish line. It’s why every year at Passover, we always
say “Next year in Jerusalem.” We never get there. None of us do. And the truth is, every arrival that seems
like a finish line, really only turns out to be another starting point. But there is a beauty and a gift of longing deeply
for something. It gives us something to
strive for, something to move towards, in particular in times when it would
otherwise seem like we couldn’t go on.
Robert Browning must have known this deep Torah truth when he famously
wrote: “Ah but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">So
this day, this Shabbat of comfort, amidst a still shattered world, we are
called to rise up from amidst the ashes, and ask ourselves what is it that we
long for? What is it that we ache for? What triggers in us a sense of yearning
that is strong enough to drive us forward out of yesterday and into tomorrow? And then, can we hold on to that longing,
that yearning to really feel it sink it and move us? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">So as
we move forward for the next seven weeks leading us up to Rosh Hashanah, the
renewal of our world and our souls, we need to awaken this longing in our
souls. We can ask ourselves: in what way are we trading in our deepest desires
for something <i>less than</i> – in what way
have we placated our souls with nourishment that doesn’t truly sate us? And how can we raise up our awareness of our
longings so that it might become a vehicle turning us toward <i>teshuvah</i>, pushing us forward to get back
home? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">It’s not
about destination. It is always about
the journey. It is the longing that pulls us
toward wholeness. It is the longing that
will bring us back home.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13086781176511709410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172807485782423842.post-76790343920754827602014-07-25T19:09:00.001-07:002014-07-25T19:11:27.293-07:00The Climate of Our Hearts<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">From
the Washington Post earlier this week: “On
July 23, 2012, the sun unleashed two massive clouds of plasma that barely
missed a catastrophic encounter with the Earth’s atmosphere. …Had this event occurred a week earlier when
the point of eruption was Earth-facing, a potentially disastrous outcome would
have unfolded.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">There
but for the grace of God, right?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">There
is so much that is out of our control, all the time. And take that on any level: from the small
stuff that seems big when it is happenings – like getting stuck in traffic jams
when we have someplace to be to the big stuff that is actually immensely
significant – like life-altering events that we’ve done nothing to invite. For a species that thinks itself so powerful,
perhaps we’ve missed something along the way.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">I’ve
been thinking a lot about this lately. As
some of you know, I am a participant in a 2 year fellowship of the Institute of
Jewish Spirituality. In addition to
intensive study year round, the fellowship includes four 5 day retreats, one from
which I just returned late last night.
The retreats are silent, meaning that the only sounds participants intone
for the majority of the time are words and melodies of prayer during worship
time. We spend significant time in
contemplative meditation, Torah study, and embodied practice. Most of my time during this last retreat was
spent contemplating this issue: in this
world where so much doesn’t make sense, where so much seems beyond our will,
what is within our grasp to hold on to? What are the atmospheric conditions of
our lives that we can actually control?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">The
Chasidic masters of Jewish tradition answer that question: The only thing that
any one person can actually control is the climate of their own heart. Is my heart warm and open today? Or is it
cold and closed? That is it. And that, they say, is truly a matter we can
direct. The condition of our heart is
the seat of our dominion. And who and
what we let into our hearts is ultimately the only measurable that
matters. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">I confess
I am with you this Shabbat with an aching heart. The pain of our world, both near and far, is
something that I feel most deeply. And
with each divide, each blinded us versus them, each skewed news report stewing
in its own sanctimoniousness, each hateful remark, each tunnel and bullet and
bomb, the walls of self-justification amass higher and higher, obscuring the
light from entering our hearts. And I
swear to you I can feel the cosmos cracking. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">I do
not want to speak with you tonight about right and wrong. About justification. About what is fair or not. About any of the things that speak to those
parts of us that stimulate our egos. If
there is a time and place for those things, it is certainly not in this moment. I don’t want to speak with you about Israel
or Hamas, about politics and media, about Europe and anti-Semitism, about a
shot down airplane carrying the world’s best hope for a cure for AIDS now lost
along with hundreds of other souls, about families that have no home or food, children
alone on a border in Texas or shot down in Chicago’s streets. About people who
sit with us together tonight here in this sanctuary who feel more alone than we
could ever know. <i>I want to talk about how our hearts respond when we encounter any of
these and more.</i> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">This
Shabbat puts us smack dab in the middle of the three week time period called <i>Bein</i> <i>Ha
Meitzarim</i> that carries our people from day we memorialize the walls of Jerusalem
being breached to <i>Tisha B-Av</i> - the
day we remember the destruction of the <i>Beit
HaMikdash</i>, the Temple in Jerusalem.
Of note is that, although there is certainly historical detail about the
events leading up to the Temple’s destruction and our people’s subsequent
exile, our tradition frames our memory of the events differently. When explaining why the Temple was destroyed,
instead of citing reasons like the enemy army’s strength, the Talmud instead
teaches that the Temple was destroyed on account of moral failures, the most
well-known narrative rooting the cause of the destruction to something called <i>Sinat Chinam</i> – translated most often as
baseless hatred, but if taken literally, it is the condition of hating
graciousness – the denial of benevolence, the abnegation of mercy, the rejection
of compassion. What, according to Jewish
tradition, led to the destruction of the place where we felt most connected to
the Divine? The condition of
closed-heartedness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">What
leads to the destructions of our deepest connections to ourselves, each other,
our world, to the Divine? In our day as well, the condition of closed
heartedness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">We
cannot control the disasters that loom in the universe or the wars that rage on
battlefields and in other’s souls. The
only question for us is what is the climate of our heart? Is it heat or ice? Vulnerable or locked up
tight?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">I
wonder what it would be like if we could go through our days entirely
open-hearted? I wonder if our hearts
could sense the echoes of isolation, fear, and despair that our ears cannot perceive?
I wonder if we could find a way to hold each other with increased sensitivity
and compassion? I wonder if we could
heal the brokenness in each other’s hearts with our own hearts? And if we did so, what sort of Seat of
Holiness, what sort of <i>Mikdash</i> we
might build together again? Shabbat
Shalom<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13086781176511709410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172807485782423842.post-88104733861499006942014-06-13T17:50:00.002-07:002014-06-13T17:53:36.988-07:00Gun Violence and Seeing the Promised Land<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #323333;">About three weeks ago
just after the shooting near UC Santa Barbara, the satirical newspaper “The
Onion” ran a little article that, sadly, proved not so satirical. </span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #1a1a1a;">It read: “In the days
following a violent rampage in southern California in which a lone attacker
killed seven individuals, including himself, and seriously injured over a dozen
others, citizens living in the only country where this kind of mass killing routinely
occurs reportedly concluded Tuesday that there was no way to prevent the
massacre from taking place. ….At press time, residents of the only economically
advanced nation in the world where roughly two mass shootings have occurred
every month for the past five years were referring to themselves and their
situation as “helpless.””<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/sermons/Shelach%202014.docx#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #1a1a1a; line-height: 115%;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a></span> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #1a1a1a;">We
are living in, what I believe to be, a particularly dark moment in our
country’s history.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #323333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A different sort of
dark moment is marked for our ancestors in this week’s Torah portion Shelach.
The parashah records our ancestors’ actual arrival at the border of the
Promised Land only 2 years into their wandering. Moses directs twelve tribal
leaders to scout and assess the land, its inhabitants and cities. When they return,
they report on the land’s goodness, but 10 of the 12 also warn that the
obstacles in front of them are simply too overwhelming, in particular detailing
the giant-sized residents. Overtaken
with insecurity, they assume that they must have looked like grasshoppers in
the eyes of the land’s giant inhabitants. This sends the entire
Israelite population into a fear-fueled panic. Despite the desperate pleas of the
undeterred Joshua and Caleb, the people beg to return to Egypt. Enraged, God
seals the fate of their entire faithless generation: none of them, save for
Joshua and Caleb, will ever see the Promised Land again.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #323333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We can deduce from the
story that the 10 scouts did something wrong in their reporting, but the Torah
never actually specifies what exactly their failure was. Most commentators assume the scouts’ sin was
their exaggeration of the challenge in front of them – their warped sense of
their enemies’ size, which caused them to fall victim to their own insecurities
and fears. This ultimately led not just to their own demise but to that
of their entire generation. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #323333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This explanation
resonates I think. We can see obstacles that stir insecurity and fear inside
us; and if we allow these concerns to run unchecked, they can certainly drive us
to betray our values and ourselves. We
see this in our lives and world today all the time – how often does insecurity
derail relationships, does anxiety stop people from moving forward in their
lives, does fear paralyze and blind us to what is still possible. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #323333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It’s certainly playing
out when it comes to our response to gun violence. My 5 and 7 year olds have regularly rehearsed
lock-down drills, so they can be prepared should, in the words of my son, “a
bad person come into the school with a gun and shoot, because it happens a lot
mommy.” Just this week, our nation added another school shooting to its growing
roster, and this week, two different corporations launched products for schools
to help protect the students and staff in the case that a shooter entered their
school. 1) a bullet proof blanket with
backpack like straps that a person puts over themselves while cowering on the ground
or in a closet during a lock down. 2) a
metal device that can slip over a classroom door making it nearly impossible to
breach, thereby preventing a shooter from entering a classroom. And although on the one hand, I am glad to
see the development of protective devices that might lower shooting fatalities,
on the other hand, I can’t articulate appropriately the growing frustration and
anger and terror I feel about this situation.
It’s hard not to see anything but the growing reality that gun-violence
is now just part of a normative list of other life-threatening risks we all
face, like car accidents and disease. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #323333;">But let’s not give up
so quickly, and instead return to the Torah portion for a moment, because not
everyone sees the problem the same way. 18th-century
Chasidic master the Baal Shem Tov understands the real sin of the scouts as
their skewed perception not of the land’s inhabitants, but of the land itself.
In the portion, when the scouts arrive in the land, the Torah offers a substantial
description of its bounty. In particular, the text details that a single
cluster of grapes proved so abundant that “it had to be borne on a carrying
frame by two of [the scouts].” Really big grapes! But when the scouts
report back to the people on what they saw, they describe the fruit of the land
in simple, brief terms, focusing instead in hyperbolic terms on the
intimidating nature of the people already living there, whereas the Torah text
itself offers only a brief, nondescript verse on them.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #323333;">According to the
BeShT, seeing the fruit of the land should have cued the scouts to recognize
that the hard work would have a worthwhile payoff. This explains why the
Torah’s description of the land emphasizes the quality of the terrain and the
beautiful crops: the Torah had the end game in mind. If the scouts had
understood this, they would have focused on the promise of what was ahead, just
as Joshua and Caleb implored them to do, but instead, they saw the task as too
daunting and ultimately not worth either the risk or the reward.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #323333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sadly, we too are so
easily daunted by the magnitude of major systemic challenges that we quickly
throw up our hands: the obstacles that stand in front of us are giants in our
midst. Who are we, so small and insignificant, to even attempt to conquer them?
It would be great to see an end to gun violence in our country, or even our
city, but the real challenges far outweigh the potential rewards. Like the scouts,
we list the obstacles one after another – race, class, the right, the left, the
NRA, the 2<sup>nd</sup> amendment, mental health systems, prisons, police, gang
violence, bullying, gun stores, and on and on and on, and we forget the promise
of the end game – a safer, more peaceful country and world. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #323333;">In the portion, Joshua
and Caleb’s gaze stayed fixed on the promise of the future while still acknowledging
the challenges ahead. There are many
Joshuas and Calebs in the fight against gun violence. Here are two. Take Dr. Gary Slutkin, the infectious disease
doctor who determined that patterns of gun violence follow the exact same
patterns as infectious diseases. And so,
in the early 2000’s, applied the same method of addressing and stopping the
spread of infectious diseases like malaria to gun violence. The results were
drastic reductions of violence in each of the communities where the system was
applied and this continues to prove effective today. If you haven’t seen the film the
Interrupters, inspired by his work, I would commend it to you. Or take Rabbi Joel Mosbacher and the Do Not
Stand Idly By campaign, which is engaging communities and congregations around
the country in advocating that local mayors, gun retailers, firearms
manufacturers and large buyers like the military sign a “covenant” of gun
overhaul measures. Among its 30 points, the covenant calls for voluntary limits
on selling certain types of weapons and large-capacity magazines, sale of guns
only through federally licensed dealers and mandatory safety classes for
buyers. Neither is a perfect
solution. But it doesn’t take perfection
or a grand leap. It just takes one step
forward toward the vision of something better.
When it comes to the scourge of gun violence in our country, we’ve
forgotten to hope and dream for what might be possible again, resigning
ourselves to the fact that the best we can hope for is status quo, and in doing
so, we’ve set ourselves right back in Egypt.
The Baal Shem Tov’s insight into Parashat Shlach reminds us that if we
don’t keep our eye on the prize, our destination right in front of our mind’s
eye, we’ll never get anywhere. Ultimately,
the true lesson of this week’s Torah portion beckons powerfully in our day
too. </span>Let it sustain us as we continue our efforts
to cultivate peace and freedom throughout our land. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Shabbat
Shalom<span style="color: #323333;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/sermons/Shelach%202014.docx#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> http://www.theonion.com/articles/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this,36131/<o:p></o:p></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13086781176511709410noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172807485782423842.post-66911458887032967822014-03-12T20:00:00.000-07:002016-03-03T12:36:12.054-08:00Known: Vashti's Story<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
(I wrote this poem on the occasion of my synagogue sisterhood's Vashti's Banquet. It references a number of biblical and midrashic sources, as well as commentaries, including modern, on Vashti and her story.)</div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "tahoma" , sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">I am known</span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">you know<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">from the pen of men.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Ink's indelibility<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">forever staining my
name,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">co-opted for the
sake<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">of an agenda that
was not my own.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">I am known<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">you know<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">according to the
Scroll <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">named after that
other<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">more known<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">who replaced my
throne<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">next to the king<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">whose desires I
would not entertain.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">I am known<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">you know<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">for my inaction,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">condemned for my not
doing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Denied a voice, a
verse,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">a claim to my own
fate,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">to carve out <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">my own words.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">My own story –<b> <o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">intoned by the voice
of others -<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">no full due is
credited me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">I am simplified,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">lessened,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">diminished,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">made insignificant.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">It is the will of
the eunuch,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">the ultimate
powerless,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">so threatened by me,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">who writes and seals
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">my censored story's
supposed end.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Not even my husband,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">most powerful in the
land,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">schemed to punish
me, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">to banish me <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">from his kingdom.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Only remembering me<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">enough <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">to know his need for
another,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">better, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">in his bed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">I am known<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">you know<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">this day <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">too.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Celebrated<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">in circles of
sisters<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">who praise my
refusal,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">who elevate me,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">coronate me<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">a new queen:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">of
self-determination,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">an exemplar of
justice pursuit,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">and yet a victim <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">of my own untimely
circumstances.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Still story known by
names <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">I never claimed for
myself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Still victim,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Still used,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">with others twisting,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">diminishing my story
and me<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">to simple
straightforward<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">goodness<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">for their own
purposes,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">not mine.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">My story, my name <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">not mentioned even
10 times,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">in Esther’s scroll,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">has echoed and
beckoned for generations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">My story, my name<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">has been recorded<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">recounted,
re-written,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">for ages.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Midrashic ink
flowing with the colors<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">of boiling blood and
cool deep sea.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Did you know,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">I am known<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">by the Babylonian
rabbis<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">as a goat-tailed,
scaly-skinned whore?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">The symbol of their
exile’s source,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">So detesting of my
rule, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">my power, my story-<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">they imagined me a
monster.<a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/WGeffen/Desktop/Vashti%20Banquet.doc#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Though not all <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">despised me so.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Did you know,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">I am known </span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">by </span><span style="font-family: "tahoma" , sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">the rabbis of Israel</span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">as a source for
their pity?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">They told of how
their Mighty God<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Watched over me,
took me in,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">saved me time and
time again<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">from life’s
cruelties and crushing force.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">So listen as I tell
you<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">that there is more
to my story<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">beyond the twists and turns </span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">of
one </span><span style="font-family: "tahoma" , sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">chapter of a scroll.</span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Not inactive or
reactive,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">but determined and
willful.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Not pure evil or
good<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">but dimensioned and
full.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Not so easily fit or
forced into<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">a simple, bowed up
box.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">So might you
entertain my desire,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">this new night of
feting,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">to tell you my story
more full<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">than you could
possibly know<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">so that you might <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">know me better?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">You see I was the
daughter<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">of a great Chaldean
king,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">whose own fate was
sealed at a feast<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">when I was but a girl.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">A chandelier cut
from its chains<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">landing upon my
father's brains<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">in front of my very
eyes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Chaos erupting in
the drunken room<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">I found my way to
the newly crowned king,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">who pitied me, took
me in,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">married me to his
own son,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">the prince who would
one day be king,</span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Ahashveirosh.<a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/WGeffen/Desktop/Vashti%20Banquet.doc#_edn2" name="_ednref2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt;">[ii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Entertain the fact
that <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">I myself did
entertain<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">my fellow unknowns<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">at a fete of women,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">a grand banquet,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">in the palace of
non-other than the king himself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">And know that this
celebration<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">was no proper ladies
affair.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Said to rival the
licentiousness of my own husband's desires<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">my fete was set in
the innermost rooms of the castle,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">just under the nose
of the king and his men,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">So brazen and emboldened
was I.<a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/WGeffen/Desktop/Vashti%20Banquet.doc#_edn3" name="_ednref3" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt;">[iii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">But before you
bedeck me<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">in ribbons and
jewels,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">call me "equality's champion,"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">know too that in my
chamber<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">I took great
pleasure in demanding<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">my own maidservants,
Jews as they were,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;"> serve me on their
seventh day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">And I preferred them
without their clothes,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">only their trays and
washbasins in hand.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Do not seem so
surprised,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">measure for measure<a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/WGeffen/Desktop/Vashti%20Banquet.doc#_edn4" name="_ednref4" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt;">[iv]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">I never asked <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">to be your role
model or revulsion,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Neither Beauty nor
Mystique,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">neither least or
most desired queen.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Know this:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">They will tell of my
execution,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">they will write of <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">the eunuch’s perverted
desire <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">to have my head
presented <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">and served <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">on a platter<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">at the seat of the king.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Some will speak of the
king <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">strangling me himself<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">In his drunken rage,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Fires so burning inside.<a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/WGeffen/Desktop/Vashti%20Banquet.doc#_edn5" name="_ednref5" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt;">[v]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">But they do not
know,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">No one does,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Where I abide.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">The throne upon
which I now sit<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">I whittled and
carved myself<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">from craggy
crystals, thorny roses,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">And knotted roots
from brush that grew<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">out of the Chaldean
sands of my Babylonia.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">For I sit enthroned <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">in the echoing halls<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">of the banished,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">of the monster-ed,</span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">of the simplified,</span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">of the misunderstood.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Our stories left
unfinished, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">un-ended.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">our fates un-written,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">our red-ribbon hauntings,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">our legends, our standings<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">not fully known<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">to any soul.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">So dine and revel<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">this night <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">in my own banquet’s tribute,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">but do me the honor<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">of judging me<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">for yourself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Not by the story <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">you knew or <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">you wanted,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">but by the fuller
tale <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">that you now know</span><span style="font-family: "tahoma" , sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="Body1" style="tab-stops: 221.0pt; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div>
<!--[if !supportEndnotes]--><br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<!--[endif]-->
<br />
<div id="edn1">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/WGeffen/Desktop/Vashti%20Banquet.doc#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> TB
Megilah 12b<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="edn2">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/WGeffen/Desktop/Vashti%20Banquet.doc#_ednref2" name="_edn2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">[ii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> Ester
Rabbah 3:5 and Midrash Panim Acherim B:1<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="edn3">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/WGeffen/Desktop/Vashti%20Banquet.doc#_ednref3" name="_edn3" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">[iii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> TB
Megilah 12a-b<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="edn4">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/WGeffen/Desktop/Vashti%20Banquet.doc#_ednref4" name="_edn4" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">[iv]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> ibid, Rashi<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="edn5">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/WGeffen/Desktop/Vashti%20Banquet.doc#_ednref5" name="_edn5" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">[v]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> Esther
Rabbah 4:9, 12, Leviticus Rabbah 12:1<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13086781176511709410noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172807485782423842.post-75876096186078509802014-02-15T06:53:00.001-08:002014-02-16T17:25:56.998-08:00Character Counts: Cookie Thievery and Idolatry<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>(The following is my sermon from Shabbat Ki Tissa)</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The Cookie Thief by Valerie Cox*<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">A
woman was waiting<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">At the
airport one night,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">With
several long hours<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Before
her flight.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">She
hunted for a book<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">In the
airport shop,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Bought
a bag of cookies<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">And
found a place to drop.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">She
was engrossed in her book,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">But happened
to see,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">That
the man beside her,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">As
bold as could be,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Grabbed
a cookie or two<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">From
the bag between,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Which
she tried to ignore<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">To
avoid a scene.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">She
read, munched cookies,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">And
watched the clock,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">As the
gutsy “cookie theif”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Diminished
her stock.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">She
was getting more irritated<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">As the
minutes ticked by,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Thinking,
“If I wasn’t so nice,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I’d
blacken his eye!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">With
each cookie she took,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">He
took one too.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">When
only one was left,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">She
wondered what he’d do.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">With a
smile on his face<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">And a
nervous laugh,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">He took
the last cookie<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">And
broke it in half.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">He
offered her half,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">And he
ate the other.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">She
snatched it from him,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">And
thought: “Oh brother!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">This
guy has some nerve,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">And
he’s also quite rude,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Why,
he didn’t even show <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Any
gratitude!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">She
had never known <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">When
she had been so galled,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">And
sighed with relief<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">When
her flight was called.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">She
gathered her belongings<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">And
headed for the gate,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Refusing
to look at <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The
“thieving ingrate.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">She
boarded the plane<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">And
sank in her seat.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Then
sought her book,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Which
was almost complete.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">As she
reached in her baggage,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">She
gasped with surprise.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">There
was her bag of cookies<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">In
front of her eyes!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">“If
mine are here,”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">She
moaned with despair.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">“Then
the others were his<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">And he
tried to share!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Too
late to apologize,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">She
realized with grief,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">That
she was the rude one, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The
ingrate. The thief!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Does this story resonate? Maybe we haven’t been a cookie thief, but
perhaps we laid on the car horn those extra three seconds just to make the
point of how wrong that other driver was for cutting us off, only to realize
that they had the green arrow and we actually had the red light? Or maybe it happened when, in a ridiculous
disagreement with a boss, or an employee, or a student or a teacher, or a
child, or parent or a sibling or partner, we just knew we were right and the
other was wrong, so we chose to belittle our counterpart because of how
ridiculous their perspective or opinion was, only to come to see that they, in
fact, were right all along? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">And the sad truth is that, just like in the
Cookie Thief, often by the time we realize how wrong we were, it’s too
late. The cookies have already been
eaten, the other driver has driven off, and the person we belittled has walked away.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">And so I wonder: what is this tendency that
drives us to perceive of ourselves as right and others wrong, to see ourselves
as blameless victims and the others as purposeful offenders? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Well, let’s take a look at this week’s Torah
portion, to see if it can offer us any insight.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The portion details arguably our ancestors’ worst
moment in the Torah – the sin of the Golden Calf. You know the story: after not seeing Moses
for a long time (he’s been up on Mt Sinai with God getting the remainder of the
commandments), the people determine that they need a visible connection to the Divine
and call upon Aaron to build them a golden sculpture of a calf. Aaron obliges
and in a frenzy, our ancestors bow down and worship what they’ve created. It’s the #1 no-no in the book – idolatry, but
they don’t even realize they’ve done anything wrong until the moment they see
Moses come down the mountain with the stone tablets in his hands. And by the
time they realize just how wrong they are, it’s already too late. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: small;">What’s of note in the story, however, is not
what the people do, but rather, what drives God to respond. You see, while our ancestors are busy </span><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">worshiping</span><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> their idol, God becomes enraged and plans to wipe the people out. But here’s the interesting part - what offense
does God cite to justify the punishment?
Idolatry, right? Wrong. The text reads: “I see that this is a </span><b style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">stiff-necked</b><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> people. Now, let Me be, that My anger may blaze forth
against them so I will destroy them.”
The Israelites may have committed the crime of idolatry, but for what does
God want to punish them? Not their
sinful act, but for a quality of their character, or in this case, the lack
thereof - their stiff-neckedness – their obstinate nature. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">One of the late 19<sup>th</sup> century
Mussar rabbis (Mussar being the ancient Jewish practice of character
cultivation) Rabbi Natan Tzvi Finkel writes about this seemingly strange
response from God. “From here we see
that a defect in character is even worse than a defect in action – more serious
even than a grave sin like idolatry.”1 <!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->According to Finkel, character
flaws are more serious than sinful acts, because they alter who we are at the
deepest level, as the divine image in us is damaged in the process.2<!--[if !supportFootnotes]--> The eating of the
cookies, the long blow on the horn, even the cruelties to other people – those
are just the surface results of a much deeper problem. It’s why the Cookie Thief story’s ending
resonates so deeply. When we get so
caught up in our pride, our own perceived infallibility, our own insecurities, our
own stubbornness, we actually become that which we are so quick to condemn. I
imagine you’ve heard that the characteristics and behaviors we find most
repelling in others are actually insights into those qualities we dislike in
ourselves. It’s why even Maimonides teaches that we don’t
just repent for our deeds – we must repent for our negative character traits as
well. The trick is, fixing faulty
character traits proves a lot harder than apologizing for our bad actions.3<!--[if !supportFootnotes]--></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Mussar tradition defines stubbornness as an
inability to alter one’s opinion. But
even stubbornness in and of itself is not a root problem. As it happens, stubbornness is actually a
symptom of an even greater character flaw – a lack of humility.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">From a Jewish lens, humility is a tricky
concept that doesn’t just mean being modest.
Rather, humility is the quality that stands between conceit and
self-debasement. As Mussar teacher Rabbi
Alan Morinis puts it: “Humility is not an extreme quality, but rather, a
balanced, moderate, accurate understanding of yourself that you act on in your
life. Arrogance [or stubbornness] has an
insatiable appetite for space. It
claims. It occupies. It sprawls. It suffocates others…The opposite extreme is
self-debasement. Shrinking from
occupying any space whatsoever, it retracts meekly inside itself….[but] whether
we see ourselves as nothing or as everything, we are still pre-occupied with
the self, and both of these traits are, therefore, forms of narcissism. In
Jewish terms, they are two variations on the theme of idolatry.”4<!--[if !supportFootnotes]--> Idolatry isn’t just something we demonstrate
externally with sculpted forms and images.
The idols can actually be inside of us –hubris or meekness in some ways
– idols more dangerous than the golden calf.
Morinis again: “Without humility, either you will be so puffed up with
arrogance that you won’t even see what really needs some work, or you will be
so deflated and lacking in self-esteem that you will despair of being able to
make the changes that are lit up so glaringly in your self-critical mind.”5<!--[if !supportFootnotes]--> Complicated stuff.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">But all is not lost. We don’t have to throw up and hands and
declare: Once a cookie thief, always a cookie thief. Rabbi Shai Held points out that just as bad
character can yield bad action and then that bad action can feed back into our
bad character in a vicious cycle, the opposite is true as well: “Good character
is manifest in good behavior, and good behavior in turn helps instill good
character. If you want to train yourself
to be more compassionate, for example, start by doing compassionate things. Compassionate character yields compassionate
behavior, which in turn deepens compassionate character, and so on in a virtuous cycle.”6<!--[if !supportFootnotes]--> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I love this idea of a virtuous cycle. It’s the cultivation of virtuous cycles that
leads to teshuvah around the otherwise vicious cycle of character flaw. Morinis challenges us to do the following: “…ask
yourself this: Do you leave enough space in your life for others, or are you
jamming up your world with yourself? Or is there space you ought rightfully to
occupy that you need to stretch to do? Your answers are the measure of your
humility.”<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->7 And if you have work to do on this, start
with an action. Identify an area where
you have space to relinquish or to take up, and try to cultivate something
different. If you tend to dominate
conversations, take a step back and consciously try to listen. If you tend to stay silent, challenge
yourself to speak up and contribute. And
then do it again. And again. These little acts add up over time in a
virtuous cycle to change not only the way we are perceived, but more
importantly, the way we are. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Shabbat Shalom<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div>
<!--[if !supportEndnotes]--><br />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<!--[endif]-->
<br />
<div id="edn1">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">* Many thanks to Rabbi Jonathan Slater for sharing "The Cookie Thief" with me and my IJS cohort.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/sermons/Ki%20Tissa.docx" name="_edn1" title="">1</a></span></span></span> R.
Natan Zvi Finkel, Or HaTzafun, “Kashyut Oref”,p. 187 – as translated by Rabbi
Shai Held in his Dvar Torah on Ki Tissa 2014<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="edn2">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/sermons/Ki%20Tissa.docx" name="_edn2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">2</span></span></span></a> R.
Shai Held explores this idea extensively in his Dvar Torah on Ki Tissa 5774<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="edn3">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/sermons/Ki%20Tissa.docx" name="_edn3" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">3</span></span></span></a> <i>Mishneh
Torah</i> (Hilchot Teshuvah 7:3)<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="edn4">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/sermons/Ki%20Tissa.docx" name="_edn4" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">4</span></span></span></a>
Morinis, <i>Every Day Holiness</i>. P. 50.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="edn5">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
5 Morinis. 46<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="edn6">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/sermons/Ki%20Tissa.docx" name="_edn6" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">6</span></span></span></a> R.
Shai Held, Dvar Torah Ki Tissa<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="edn7">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/sermons/Ki%20Tissa.docx" name="_edn7" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">7</span></span></span></a>
Morinis. p. 54.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13086781176511709410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172807485782423842.post-55073744213406768182014-01-03T17:00:00.000-08:002014-01-04T20:09:12.420-08:00What Judaism Can Teach Us About New Year's Resolutions<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In this
week’s Torah portion,<i> Bo</i>, the first directive is given by God to the entire
collective of the Jewish people: to observe the first Jewish month. “This month shall mark for you the beginning
of the months; it shall be the first of the months of the year for you.” This moment, the first time God instructs the
Jewish people collectively, marks the official beginning of Jewish time. Not
that our ancestors weren't observing time before. But this moment initiates the beginning of
our ancestors marking time according to their own collective narrative, their
own collective history and story. At
this point, for our ancestors, time begins again. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.75in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Usually,
we wouldn't read <i>parshat Bo</i> until early to mid-February, but the oddities of
this Jewish calendar year have presented us with a powerful opportunity to read
<i>parshat Bo</i> the same week as we observe the secular new year, the same week that
we begin counting secular time again in the annual solar cycle. So I got to thinking: if Chanukkah could help
inform the way we experienced Thanksgiving this year – there was that whole Thanksgivukkah
thing a while back - then perhaps
<i>parshat Bo</i> might have something to inform our experience of the secular new year
as well.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There
is an interesting difference in approach to time between our western, secular
culture and Judaism, and that difference is really easy to see when we compare the
words for month and year in English and Hebrew.
In English, the word month originated from a word that meant moon and year
originated from a word that meant season. We can easily understand how the
words evolved, and their roots make sense.
They are, after all, concepts of time and their etymologies source to
the same time concepts. But these words
in Hebrew prove quite different. In
Hebrew, the word for month is <i>chodesh</i>. The root of <i>chodesh</i> isn't tied to the moon or seasons or even to time. Its root literally means “new.” And the
Hebrew word for year, <i>shannah</i>, is
connected to the root for “change.” It
is extremely instructive that the Jewish lens on these basic units of time moves
us out of the surface definitions of these words and takes us into the deeper
concepts of renewal and evolution.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.75in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We, as
humans, of course, resonate with this connection of time and change or renewal –
just think about those New Year’s resolutions so many of us make, implied in
each the hope and yearning we have to make changes in our lives, to make new
and renew our lives, our actions, our choices as a way of marking the beginning
of a new year. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The
trick, of course, is that New Year’s resolutions aren't always so easy to
keep. It’s why the first week in January
is always so crowded at the gym, but by the time you reach February, that big
wave of newly resolved and well-intended people has petered down to just a
little ripple. Our human desire to wipe
the slate clean and start fresh, although commendable, proves notably difficult
in actuality to accomplish.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.75in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is
where that first directive of marking the first month or <i>chodesh</i> comes to offer us a powerful insight. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Let’s
think back to the point at which God instructs our ancestors to mark the first
month of all the months of the year? It
is not delivered when the people cross the sea once they are free, when they
have left the constrictive oppression of Egypt and the new era of living free has
actually begun, but rather, while they are still slaves, still dwelling in
their mud shacks in the land of Goshen.
They will be freed – it will happen at the end of the portion, but when
they receive this designation to mark the first of the months, it is a moment
when they are still living amidst oppression, a moment while they are
essentially still living in their past. And
it is in that place of the past, before the apex moment arrives, that our
ancestors are told to start over. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To put
it in our secular New Year equivalent, it would be to start going to the gym on
Dec 17<sup>th,</sup> instead of waiting to start until Jan 1. When should we change our behavior, when
should we begin again? Jewish tradition
teaches that we don’t have to wait until the “right time” or when we feel
everything is perfectly aligned. We
begin again in the midst of the chaos – in the murky middle. We begin the practice and cultivation of
change while still actively familiar with the situations and behaviors from
which we are trying to move away.
Because to believe that an arbitrary marker of time will somehow wipe
away the place from where we've come, the struggles and setbacks of the past, well
that, as we know, is the stuff of good marketing campaigns, but certainly not
of reality. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.75in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We are
told to start counting Jewish time at a liminal moment poised between the great
journey from slavery to freedom, from exile to return, from constriction to
release. And that is not just the journey our ancestors took, it’s the journey
of each of our souls, every year, every month, every day. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ultimately,
Judaism doesn't really care all that much about our secular new year’s resolution. If we make one, great. But if we find we don’t keep it, we don’t
need to wait around until the next year to try again. The opportunity to change and renew doesn't just come around one time a year, or even one month a year, but rather, any
day, any moment, all the time. After all, Jewish tradition teaches that God
renews the work of creation every day. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There’s
another funny Jewish confluence with the secular year this week. The beginning
of the month of <i>Shvat </i>– think <i>Tu b'Shvat</i> – was yesterday, January 2. <i>Shvat </i>is
the month when we are told that in Israel the sap begins to rise in the trees,
stimulating new growth internally, new growth that will soon yield deeper
roots, new sprouts and blossoms. May
this day, this month, this year, be a year of deepening roots and new growth
for us all. And if not <i>Shvat</i>, then <i>Adar</i>, and if not <i>Adar</i>…well,
you get the picture.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Shabbat
Shalom.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br></span>
<br>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13086781176511709410noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172807485782423842.post-85009679852759856832013-10-04T16:30:00.000-07:002013-10-04T17:46:21.790-07:00Noah's Silence: A Jewish Take on the Government's Shut Down<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">(My sermon from this Friday night)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I think it’s
fair to say it’s been a difficult week.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2013-10-01-Capitol_Building_Closed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="155" src="http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2013-10-01-Capitol_Building_Closed.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Unbelievable,
yet real events have led up to and continue through our Government’s shut down, leaving so many throughout our country and even beyond in a state of increasing
peril.</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Whatever your view of politics,
we can likely all agree that the current state of affairs in our country is not
a good one, as our land these days seems flooded, so to speak, by elected
leaders and power players whose interests are so focused on their own side’s
voice and needs that they are willing to drown out the voices and needs of
everybody else, if they deem that such behavior is what it takes to “survive.”</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">There is no interest like self-interest after
all.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/23/Noahs_Ark.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="173" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/23/Noahs_Ark.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">It’s
an eerie coincidence, seeing that our Torah portion this week details the
famous story of Noah and the Ark.</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">10 generations after God
created the world, the Torah tells us that “lawlessness” filled the earth, as corruption overtook the actions of mankind.</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Fed up, God decided to flood the whole thing
and essentially start over.</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">But God
saved one man, Noah, along with his family, and 2 of every animal.</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Why Noah?</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Because as the text says, "In his generation, Noah was a righteous
man, and he was blameless.”</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"></span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Do you see anything odd in that phrasing?</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Whereas
at first, we assume that Noah was an all-around fabulous, outstanding human
being, when we look more closely, we see that he may have been a good guy,
but only relative to the other people -‘in his generation” – who as we know,
were not of the highest repute. Midrashim – ancient stories that help to answer
questions otherwise unanswered in the Torah text itself - go to great lengths to
emphasize just how bad the people of Noah’s generation were.</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">One particularly disturbing midrash teaches
that the people of the generation were so corrupt that they expressed
compassion through means of cruelty.</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">To
quote it: “When God raised the depths of the waters over them, and they saw that
the fountains of the deep threatened to submerge them, what did they do? They took
their own children and placed them into the depths, pressing them down
mercilessly.”</span><a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/sermons/Noah's%20Silence%202013.doc#_edn1" name="_ednref1" style="text-indent: 0.5in;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[i]</span></span></span></a><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
Essentially, in order to assure their own safety, one generation was willing to
sacrifice the needs, no really the lives, of the next.</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Pretty awful stuff.</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">You can imagine that winning the competition
for “all round good human being” in Noah’s generation was not so challenging.</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">So
what was it about Noah that diminished his status from a righteous man in every
generation to a righteous man only in his generation?</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Let’s think back to the story.</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">God sees a world so overcome with evil that a
decision is made to end to it, and then to start over with Noah and his
family.</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">God informs Noah of the plan,
and Noah dutifully and faithfully constructs the ark.</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Noah is nothing if not obedient.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Do
you know that throughout the entire story, from the time God asks Noah to build
the ark- to the actual deluge itself – to God making a rainbow, promising never
to wipe out all existence again – Noah never says a single word?! He is literally the most silent main
character in the Torah. Sure, he follows
directions well. He’s dedicated too. One story even suggests that Noah never slept
for the year the ark was afloat because he was too busy tending to the needs of
his family and the animals with him on the ark.<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/sermons/Noah's%20Silence%202013.doc#_edn2" name="_ednref2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[ii]</span></span></span></a> But
regarding the suffering of those around him, Noah is surprisingly unconcerned. According to the brilliant Aviva Zornberg, Noah’s indifference becomes clear right from
the start</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“…in a process that begins with
planting cedars that are to provide wood for the ark, so that they may become a
topic of general conversation and lead to the rebuke and repentance of his
contemporaries.”<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/sermons/Noah's%20Silence%202013.doc#_edn3" name="_ednref3" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[iii]</span></span></span></a> So
instead of seeing his guaranteed safety as insurance enough to try to reach out
and help the others around him to avoid suffering, Noah keeps his head down,
focussed on what he perceives as the task at hand. He accepts the status quo, and does what he’s
told, nothing more and nothing less. One
Chasidic scholar<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/sermons/Noah's%20Silence%202013.doc#_edn4" name="_ednref4" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[iv]</span></span></span></a> teaches
that the reason the Torah says that “God shut Noah in the ark” instead of Noah
walking in the ark and closing the door behind him is to stress that, although
Noah was saved by the ark, it also represented a punishment for Noah’s
self-concern –with God serving as the guard that shuts the door behind a prisoner
in jail. </span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://aubenoire.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/not-my-problem.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="198" src="http://aubenoire.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/not-my-problem.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">There
is a strong lesson for all of us in this.</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">We learn that righteousness is diminished when we are not open to the
suffering of those around us, as was the case in Noah's generation.</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">It follows that if we are not aware of the
world around us and the needs of others in our midst, we too risk being shut
out.</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">We may not be directly or
personally impacted in the immediate wake of any danger, but the conditions of
the world in which we survive will undoubtedly affect us all at the end of the
day.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">If we
merely accept the situation in the world around us, its corruption, its dangers,
its suffering, and spend all of our time building our own proverbial arks to
shield us from the inevitable impacts of these problems on us, that doesn't make us bad people – but it also doesn't make us righteous or holy.</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">And since the whole purpose of Jewish living, not just living, but Jewish living is to bring righteousness
and holiness into the world, well, then our obligation to others around us is
clear.</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">We Jews don’t ever have luxury of
silence, of not speaking out against suffering and injustice.</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://trustinginhistruth.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/right.jpg?w=538" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://trustinginhistruth.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/right.jpg?w=538" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">But
I want to be clear about one more thing. On a universal level, Abraham Joshua
Heschel couldn't have said it better when he declared, “Some may be guilty, but
all are responsible.”</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Let’s be clear:
If, in order to achieve our own well-being, we somehow cause added suffering to
another, we fail not just as Jews, but also as human beings.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">It’s
interesting to know that next week’s Torah portion raises up another character that
is called righteous.</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">And in some ways,
places him in an eerily similar situation to Noah’s.</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">This time, it’s not the entire world that that
God wants to destroy – just the cities of <i>Sodom and</i> </span><i style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Gemorrah, </i><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">since the behaviors of the inhabitants of
the towns</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> have deteriorated to a Divinely intolerable rate.</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">When God tells Abraham of the plan, Abraham
responds </span><i style="text-indent: 0.5in;">differently</i><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> than his Octo-great grandfather Noah.</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">In the face of God's willingness to wipe out
an entire population, Abraham does not just accept God's decision.</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Abraham stands up and argues, questioning
the justice of God’s judgment.</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">In
complete opposition to Noah’s self-interest and apathy toward the other,
Abraham puts his own life on the line by engaging in a disagreement with God,
concerned completely in upholding justice and mercy for the other.</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">This is one of the reasons that Abraham is
righteous unconditionally, not just relative to his generation. </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">There
is something else that Abraham and Noah have in common.</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Both are described as walking in relation to
God.</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">The Torah tells us that Noah walks </span><i style="text-indent: 0.5in;">with </i><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">God, but Abraham, Torah teaches, walks
</span><i style="text-indent: 0.5in;">before</i><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> God.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What
is the difference between walking <i>with</i> God and walking <i>before</i>
God? Walking <i>with</i> insinuates
keeping pace with. Walking <i>before, </i>on
the other hand<i>,</i> means going beyond that, standing up for what we know to
be right, and making our best attempt to see that justice in a given situation
is upheld before it is too late. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If we follow Abraham's model, walking
before God, speaking out and acting on behalf of what is right is not something
we do only with a guarantee of success.
We are commanded to seek out justice, to bring righteousness and
holiness into our world, regardless of the outcome. There is no fine print disclaimer stating
that the offer is only valid if we feel our actions will really make a
difference. The expectation is that we
do the right thing, go above and beyond, regardless of how daunting a situation
is, simply because this is what Jews do.
We don’t have the
right to say, "The situation is so horribly beyond repair that anything I
do will make no difference, so I will instead do nothing." From a Jewish lens, the end result is not
nearly as critical as the means by which we walk in the process. Noah may have been the progenitor of humanity
after the flood, but Abraham is called the first Jew. From a biblical
perspective, there is a fundamental difference between what it means to be
human versus what it means to live Jewishly.
And the fact that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all root themselves
not to Noah, but to Abraham, well, that should be a source of great hope for us
all. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Shabbat
Shalom.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div>
<!--[if !supportEndnotes]--><br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<!--[endif]-->
<br />
<div id="edn1">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/sermons/Noah's%20Silence%202013.doc#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> Tanhuma,
Noah 7 as described in Aviva Zornberg’s <u>The Beginning of Desire</u>, p.57<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="edn2">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/sermons/Noah's%20Silence%202013.doc#_ednref2" name="_edn2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[ii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Zornberg, Aviva. <u>The Beginning of
Desire</u>. P. 60.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="edn3">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/sermons/Noah's%20Silence%202013.doc#_ednref3" name="_edn3" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[iii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> Ibid.
p. 58.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="edn4">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/sermons/Noah's%20Silence%202013.doc#_ednref4" name="_edn4" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[iv]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> Aharon
Shmuel Tamaret<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13086781176511709410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172807485782423842.post-40544219706787074472013-09-15T08:56:00.000-07:002013-09-18T10:40:54.596-07:00Yom Kippur 5774: Independence and Interdependence<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRFeREyNbtfnka8cSjpOslB_XE0rb5LBSN_dMSyNjMMnY2eIkZn3ZS11INafNc_O39vPXD6MBXjnD0id4B4Xg2rPoQPcJgtYklGeZNGkBhGcPZK1MR2sPDu9-LXQym-MOnuRNW8mC9aLI/s1600/Menurkey.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><br /><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRFeREyNbtfnka8cSjpOslB_XE0rb5LBSN_dMSyNjMMnY2eIkZn3ZS11INafNc_O39vPXD6MBXjnD0id4B4Xg2rPoQPcJgtYklGeZNGkBhGcPZK1MR2sPDu9-LXQym-MOnuRNW8mC9aLI/s200/Menurkey.png" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I’d
like to begin today with an exciting announcement. Mark your calendars right now
because in just 2 1/2 months, Jews all over our country will, for the first
time in their lives, celebrate : Thanksgivukah
- the once every 18000 year confluence
of Thanksgiving and the first day of Chanukah.
United as Americans and Jews for this once in an eon opportunity, we
will of course dine on deep-fried turkey, but also latkes with cranberry sauce, and pumpkin sufganiot;
our menorahs will instead be called <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/830273895/the-menurkey">menurkeys</a><a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/hhd/print/yk%205774%20final.docx#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>, with red, orange and
yellow candles emerging from ceramic turkey-tail feather candle-holders – don’t
believe me? Check out <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Thanksgivukkah">Thanksgivukah’sFacebook page</a>: as of yesterday, there were nearly 3000 likes and the number is
growing. There doesn’t seem to be a Jew (or
a retailer) that isn’t excited about Chanukah’s early appearance this year.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">So,
why does Chanukah fall so early on the civil calendar this year? Well, unlike the Gregorian calendar’s solar
orientation, "<a href="http://www.jewfaq.org/calendar.htm">the Jewish calendar</a> is based on not 1, not 2, but 3 astronomical
phenomena: the rotation of the Earth around its axis (a day); the revolution of
the moon around the Earth (a month); and the revolution of the Earth around the
sun (a year)." The Jewish calendar actually connects them all, creating a cycle that
aligns and diverges, eventually realigning with the secular calendar. But the really amazing thing about the Jewish
calendar isn’t just the complicated algorithm that makes it work. It’s that the calendar itself is actually a
profound Jewish teaching: that nothing in the universe is isolated or
independent. Rather, everything is inextricably woven together in the
encircling spiral of existence. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">This interdependence
stands in opposition to the forces controlling the orbit of secular society. Last
May, <i>New York Times </i>culture
commentator David Books wrote <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/21/opinion/brooks-what-our-words-tell-us.html?_r=0">a really interesting article</a> demonstrating just
how much so.<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/hhd/print/yk%205774%20final.docx#_edn2" name="_ednref2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[ii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
His piece described Google’s new database of 5.2 million books published
between the years 1500 and 2008. The
database includes a search function enabling anyone to type in a word and find
out how frequently or infrequently that word has been used throughout the ages.
Brooks’ article revealed two notable cultural phenomena of the last 50 or so
years. First: it showed an increase in modern society’s emphasis on the individual
over community. As it turns out, over the last half century, words and phrases like “self,” “unique,” and “I can do
it myself” were used more frequently than relational words like “community,”
“tribe,” and “common good.”<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/hhd/print/yk%205774%20final.docx#_edn3" name="_ednref3" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[iii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> But along with an increase in
individualization, came the second result: a decrease in the prioritizing of
morality. Terms like “virtue” “decency,”
and “conscience” were used less frequently.
Gratitude words like “thankfulness,” humility words like “modesty” and
compassion words like “kindness” decreased by nearly 50% while productivity
words like “result” and “deadline” skyrocketed.<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/hhd/print/yk%205774%20final.docx#_edn4" name="_ednref4" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[iv]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> We live in a culture
intoxicated by the myth of radical individualism. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo7ZntylO4wmRssgJ0BZrNl2esz0DTFx2yOMuw5bCoGcFNpL0n-wKnela-LlFOUcrp1OIYOEDsuvHZuVRdW1yIo-6XrqnHqGKBaZxGpkHNFj9TtQ2_U9VsT5LkSk72Y5FjmR_N5f8aLD4/s1600/epic-fail-photos-family-dinner-fail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo7ZntylO4wmRssgJ0BZrNl2esz0DTFx2yOMuw5bCoGcFNpL0n-wKnela-LlFOUcrp1OIYOEDsuvHZuVRdW1yIo-6XrqnHqGKBaZxGpkHNFj9TtQ2_U9VsT5LkSk72Y5FjmR_N5f8aLD4/s200/epic-fail-photos-family-dinner-fail.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In his
flagship book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Bowling-Alone-Collapse-American-Community/dp/0743203046/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1379110223&sr=8-1&keywords=bowling+alone">“Bowling Alone</a><a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/hhd/print/yk%205774%20final.docx#_edn5" name="_ednref5" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[v]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>,” Robert Putnam offered expansive data confirming America’s changing
behaviors: our disconnects from one another along with our disintegrating social
structures – such as religious organizations, political parties, and even bowling
leagues. We are literally bowling
alone. But you don’t need to be a culture commentator or social scientist to notice this.
When it’s commonplace that family out-to-dinner nights entail parents
and children sitting around a table together, but each staring at the screen of
a personal device; or when the first, and sometimes only question we ask in
response to a problem is “How does it impact me?” we know that somehow, knowingly
or not, we’ve prioritized the Sovereign Self over the community. The first
person singular “I” is the new world. After all, friends, there’s a reason Apple
doesn’t call them we-pods, we-phones, and we-pads.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I’m
not claiming any lack of culpability either.
And here’s the problem for all of us:
this notion that there is nothing more important than my independence
and my “self” is perhaps the biggest, most dangerous lie. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
lie, however, is not a new one, and we’re not the first people to be drawn into
its pull. Let’s talk about <a href="http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/8750-jonah">Jonah</a> - the
last biblical story we read on Yom Kippur.
When the story opens, God tells Jonah to warn the people of Nineveh that
if they don’t repent, God will destroy them.
Jonah, though, is not particularly interested in helping out
Nineveh. You see, Nineveh was an enemy
of the Jewish people at the time – think Iran, North Korea, or perhaps even
Syria for an appropriate contemporary equivalent. “Why should I help them repent? It would be better for me if God zaps them –
destroys them all. Why should I care
what happens to them?” Jonah thinks. So,
he runs away. He finds a boat, hops
on. You know this part. Big storm.
While everyone else on the boat is terrified that the boat will split
apart, Jonah sleeps soundly, oblivious to the world around him. The crew members decide to toss Jonah
overboard to appease God. Something that
proves quite a wakeup call, since Jonah almost immediately is swallowed by a giant
fish. For three days and three nights,
Jonah languishes inside the fish's belly. It’s enough time for him to learn his
lesson: Choose to shut your eyes, to believe that you are just one, isolated,
independent person, choose to believe that you are NOT a part of something
bigger, and that you don’t have to be accountable to the world, and here’s what
you get: Live alone. In darkness.
(Where it doesn’t smell so great either.) Away from the world of which
you claim you are not a part. Jonah
promises to change his behavior. The creature then spits Jonah out, and Jonah
delivers God’s message to Nineveh. They repent, and God forgives them. The story goes on, but you get the
point. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8y7-ylTHycTzMYZ42xm903dm9mywjQWxQPjWrxZ3M8agtnJ0kK1AefB1bXTHIMDymXRgVdQA5qF7CQVIqZCPK1cQIZXUUkvM8WRdYmD_51AZjj9U1UFE7VO4rtPPuJ_-rqUopaNJJDEY/s1600/redwoods.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8y7-ylTHycTzMYZ42xm903dm9mywjQWxQPjWrxZ3M8agtnJ0kK1AefB1bXTHIMDymXRgVdQA5qF7CQVIqZCPK1cQIZXUUkvM8WRdYmD_51AZjj9U1UFE7VO4rtPPuJ_-rqUopaNJJDEY/s200/redwoods.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
very last Biblical message we get on Yom Kippur wakes us up to the fact that
although everyone and everything may look like independent, disparate entities
floating around the universe at random, the spirit knows, the soul knows, (and
by the way so does science), that every last one of us is connected to everyone
else. We are just like giant redwood
trees, each seemingly a powerful, independent miracle of nature, but dig a
little deeper, and you will see that they all share the same root system, not
only intertwining and using each other’s roots to create a wide base enabling
them to grow to their abounding heights, but often in fact, fusing their roots
together, so that they cannot survive without each other. You will never see a towering red wood tree
standing solitary in a field. John Miur,
the environmentalist for whom <a href="http://www.nps.gov/muwo/index.htm">the famous and beautiful Miur woods</a> was named, illuminated
this deep Jewish truth when he famously said: “When you tug at a single thing
in the universe, you find it is attached to everything else.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3i78ChwhhU9ngcUEK7QeTSux1uesBxOQUiGBxKoyNFUo2MmhkHmrIDqfZJOsZGh85cSOE5HbA75cuzjVabhQoVcSKaaGhIIjl29bsANZpfwTeXJPehErNXeA3vjPJsMYsXMpAKD2D07c/s1600/India.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3i78ChwhhU9ngcUEK7QeTSux1uesBxOQUiGBxKoyNFUo2MmhkHmrIDqfZJOsZGh85cSOE5HbA75cuzjVabhQoVcSKaaGhIIjl29bsANZpfwTeXJPehErNXeA3vjPJsMYsXMpAKD2D07c/s200/India.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I was
reminded of this lesson first hand this summer during my participation in a
rabbinic delegation with <a href="http://www.ajws.org/">the American Jewish World Service</a>. Inspired by the Jewish commitment to justice,
AJWS works to realize human rights and end poverty in the developing world.<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/hhd/print/yk%205774%20final.docx#_edn6" name="_ednref6" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[vi]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> This summer, AJWS flew me and 16 other rabbis
from across the country and the denominational spectrum 7,643 miles around the
planet to Lucknow, a city in North Eastern India and the small rural village of
Bhakaripurwa. Each morning, our group would do construction work in the village
to help improve its school, its students’ water access, as well as provide a
sanitary food-preparation area. Each
afternoon, we met with AJWS grantees and social justice activists from across
India, and each evening we would study the Jewish sources rooting our engagement. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I had
so many incredible experiences while in India, and I look forward to sharing
more of the trip with you over the coming year.
But today, I want to share the story of just one person I met. Her name was Renu. For as long as she could remember, Renu was different
from the rest of her siblings. A daughter
in a traditional family from the highest caste, her role as a female was clear
and also notably limited. Her mother
died when she was a child, and her father died when she was only 19, and still
unmarried. Although women are not
permitted to perform funeral rights, she insisted on carrying her father to his
funeral pyre literally on her back, along with the other males in her
family. When her siblings tried to force
her into an arranged marriage, Renu refused. They disowned her. Left with
nothing, Renu swore to herself she would never marry or bring children into such
a cruel and unfair world. And then,
somehow, despite the terribly complicated and corrupt system, Renu continued
her education, eventually going to law school and becoming a lawyer. And along the way, she met and fell in love
with her now husband. When they had
children, Renu and her husband chose to make up an entirely new, non-caste-defining
last name for their children, so they would never be subject to the narrowness
and oppressive nature of the caste system. We would expect that the next part
of her story would be that because of her experiences of rejection and
oppression, Renu and her family then moved to London or to the US, where they
now live a life of freedom, worlds away from the pain of their former
community. But instead, her story goes
like this: because of her experiences of rejection and oppression, Renu, in
that very same oppressive community, founded and dedicates her life and work to
<a href="http://aalilegal.org/">a legal advocacy group</a><a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/hhd/print/yk%205774%20final.docx#_edn7" name="_ednref7" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[vii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> that addresses women’s
issues from within a human rights mandate, with particular attention to
violence against women and the right to choice in sexual relationships. Renu is
a person who, by rights, would be completely justified in separating herself
from her community and the system. But instead, she chooses to dedicate her
life to that very system, to its improvement, for the betterment not just of
women, but of everyone. And when people like you and me support AJWS, AJWS is
able to help fund organizations like Renu’s throughout the global south, so they
can change their communities from the ground up. You and I, AJWS, Renu, and communities a
world away, seemingly independent entities orbiting each in their own universe,
and yet, Judaism comes to say that all of it, just like the sun, the moon, and
the Earth, are in fact connected and interdependent. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">About
my trip this summer, people often ask me, “Did you visit the Jewish community in
India? Or Synagogues there?” and I say “No.” And then they say, “So, it was a
service trip, but not a Jewish trip, right?” And I say, “No, it was a service
trip, but it was also a totally Jewish trip.” And then I get this puzzled look. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I
think that we Jews, living in the 21<sup>st</sup> century, have become confused
about what being Jewish and doing Jewish means in our world. Yes, being Jewish
means having a special relationship with the Jewish people, both here, and
everywhere else. It means understanding
that as Jews, we value each other, our communities and synagogues. It means we are responsible to and for each
other and our communal institutions. No
one else will do it for us. And by the
way, educating our children about their Jewish identity, nourishing our own
spiritual selves alongside others in community, supporting our synagogue and
this community that we call our spiritual home, these are not burdens; they are
privileges. Being Jewish also means that
we, as Jews, will always have a deep relationship with Israel. Whatever your opinion about land and peace
and religious practice, we, the Jewish people, don’t have the right to dust
away Israel from our hands. To deny any
of this is to deny a unique gift that is particular to the heart of what it
means to be Jewish. But being Jewish also comes with a unique demand to see
beyond our own sovereign selves and our own sovereign communities. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0Q9iiVwLnViRdqoMv6QHVpgOE-EKuOWCeXMBc_RFvLJZFTwKFskiAwqLUZAtPDTWMqDpW1v2xK4gqlZgIG5FPQdbQjRQwN2CPU9C2rUqmf4qzi6jq_Em_Jvnm6C6HN8b105WnBGJBZhc/s1600/Blue+Marble.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0Q9iiVwLnViRdqoMv6QHVpgOE-EKuOWCeXMBc_RFvLJZFTwKFskiAwqLUZAtPDTWMqDpW1v2xK4gqlZgIG5FPQdbQjRQwN2CPU9C2rUqmf4qzi6jq_Em_Jvnm6C6HN8b105WnBGJBZhc/s200/Blue+Marble.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">On
December 7, 1972, Apollo 17 captured a photograph of Earth as it traveled
toward the moon. It showed for the first
time a color view of the entire planet, with its swirling brown and green land
and cobalt seas and white clouds. The
magnificent blue marble whose circumference spans 24,901 miles filled the entire
frame, and in that one image, it expanded for all humanity our understanding of
the larger planet of which we are all a part.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Long
before that photograph, our tradition taught us that our Jewish obligation
extends as wide as our world. It is our
particular identity as Jews that calls us to a responsibility to the other in
the circles extending out from our center. To all of them. We can’t say it
applies to one and not the other.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">We’ve
heard a lot about this these High Holy Days. Rabbi Greene reminded us of our
connection to the fate of Judaism in the State of Israel. Rabbi Mason charged
us to consider gun violence and immigration issues. And he reminded us that even if we have no
perceived invested interest in Syria, we still aren’t permitted to look the
other way. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">There
is an interesting teaching in the Talmud<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/hhd/print/yk%205774%20final.docx#_edn8" name="_ednref8" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[viii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>, where someone asks
what the best way for a person to cultivate holiness is. One rabbi says to study Torah. Another says to make sure to say blessings
whenever you have a chance. The third,
and the winner, offers an odd response.
He says that to be holy, we must practice and uphold laws of civil torts
– the laws of damages. Why? Because guess what is at the heart of civil
litigation? One person in relation to
another. When you don’t uphold the laws
of damages, you negate the critical notion that each person is responsible for
and accountable to the other. The great 19<sup>th</sup>
century rabbi, Israel Salantar taught that we should see our responsibilities
in the world as follows: first a person
should put his house together, then his town, then the world – in expanding
circles of obligation that may begin at the center, the perceived point closest
to us, but those responsibilities do not end until the wide expanse of the
world is encircled in our embrace.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Jewish
tradition is clear that we are accountable to and responsible for the
communities from which we consume because we are, whether we recognize it or
not, in relationship with each other. We
live in a world about which we know more than we ever have before. Our market place is no longer the corner
shop. It is the globe. Don’t believe me? When you get home today,
take a look at the tags on the clothes in your closet. Some will say made in America. Some may even
say made in Israel. But still others will
say India, and Bangladesh, and China, and, so on. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">This
tallis I’m wearing today serves as a powerful reminder for me. I bought this fabric in India – fabric
traditionally hand woven and painted by women in a rural village in Bengal, and
sold to me through <a href="http://sanatkada-lko.blogspot.com/">an organization</a> that provides those women in that village
education opportunities, job training, legal advocacy, and fair commission so
that they can empower themselves and improve their own lives. I knew when I saw it that I would turn it
into a tallis, so it could serve as a physical reminder to me, and perhaps now
to you, of our unique obligation as Jews in bringing people from the outside
in.<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/hhd/print/yk%205774%20final.docx#_edn9" name="_ednref9" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[ix]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> Of knowing the heart of those we would call
the stranger. Of our accountability to
the world around us, in everything we do.
Because our own sovereign self, and our own sovereign community, and our
own sovereign world are all connected by the very same roots. “When you tug at a single thing in the
universe, you find it is attached to everything else.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLPCSrYg-KbfzxYKyvuP3n8dIPN6QAo0fAHjymzN_2voLZFhBhJ3_QgQTUst45_7hIYa0d5BJXpQVzjnEbL3_HA29mjr4eIWaT5R4eDV1myU6FYATJilZJaYx0AmSSKtX954MtOFyB0Yc/s1600/cassini.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLPCSrYg-KbfzxYKyvuP3n8dIPN6QAo0fAHjymzN_2voLZFhBhJ3_QgQTUst45_7hIYa0d5BJXpQVzjnEbL3_HA29mjr4eIWaT5R4eDV1myU6FYATJilZJaYx0AmSSKtX954MtOFyB0Yc/s200/cassini.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Two
days before I left for India, NASA’s robotic probe, the Cassini Orbiter, while
travelling on the far side of Saturn, captured an incredible image of that
planet’s majestic rings along with a tiny pale blue dot - a planet called Earth nearly 900 million
miles away.<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/hhd/print/yk%205774%20final.docx#_edn10" name="_ednref10" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[x]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> No surface features are visible since Earth
takes up only a scant few pixels – however its unique blueness, caused by
sunlight reflecting off our planet’s oceans, clearly shines through.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">One of
the early Jewish mystics, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qk2LECxHGeQ">Moses Cordovero</a>, wrote of the theological impact that
this picture leaves, 500 years before it was taken. He said: “…If you are enlightened, you know
God’s Oneness; Then you wonder, astonished: “Who am I? I am a but a tiny speck* in the middle of the
sphere of the moon, which itself is a speck within the next sphere. So it is with that sphere and all it contains
in relation to the next sphere. So it is
with all spheres – one inside the other – and all of them are a speck within
the further expanses.”<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/hhd/print/yk%205774%20final.docx#_edn11" name="_ednref11" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[xi]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> From which we might expect Cordovero to
conclude that we are therefore nothing, that our lives are small and
insignificant and meaningless in the grandeur of the cosmos. But instead, he says this. “Your Awe is invigorated, the love in your
soul expands.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
sun, and the moon, and the Earth, and you and I, and so much more, are all part
of one infinite, eternally unfolding and interdependent cosmos, of which we are
nothing more than the tiniest speck of dust, but nothing less than the guarantors
of its harmonious grandeur. “When you
tug at a single thing in the universe, you find it is attached to everything
else.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span>
</div>
<br />
<div>
<!--[if !supportEndnotes]--><br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<!--[endif]-->
<br />
<div id="edn1">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/hhd/print/yk%205774%20final.docx#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[i]</span></span></a> </span>http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/830273895/the-menurkey</div>
</div>
<div id="edn2">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/hhd/print/yk%205774%20final.docx#_ednref2" name="_edn2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[ii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> Brooks,
David. “What Our Words Tell Us.” <i>New York Times</i>. May 20, 2013<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="edn3">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/hhd/print/yk%205774%20final.docx#_ednref3" name="_edn3" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[iii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Ibid.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="edn4">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/hhd/print/yk%205774%20final.docx#_ednref4" name="_edn4" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[iv]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Ibid.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="edn5">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/hhd/print/yk%205774%20final.docx#_ednref5" name="_edn5" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[v]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> Putnam,
Robert. <u>Bowling Alone: The Collapse
and Revival of American Community</u>. New York: Simon and Schuster. 2000.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="edn6">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/hhd/print/yk%205774%20final.docx#_ednref6" name="_edn6" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[vi]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Www.ajws.org<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="edn7">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/hhd/print/yk%205774%20final.docx#_ednref7" name="_edn7" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[vii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
AALI – The Association for Advocacy and Legal Initiatives. http://aalilegal.org/<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="edn8">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/hhd/print/yk%205774%20final.docx#_ednref8" name="_edn8" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[viii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Bava Kama 30a<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="edn9">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/hhd/print/yk%205774%20final.docx#_ednref9" name="_edn9" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[ix]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
As informed by Exodus 23:9 in particular. See too Levinas’ teaching “The trauma
I experienced as a slave in the land of Egypt constitutes my humanity itself.
This immediately brings me closer to all the problems of the damned on the Earth,
of all those who are persecuted” in <u>Beyond the Verse: Talmudic Readings and
Lectures</u> p. 142. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
As well, BT Gitin 61a, Dt 21:1-9 and Mishnah Sotah 9:6.
Dt 22:8, as well as recent halachic responsa around Pikuach Nefesh that expand
the limits of “lifanecha” in “choleh lifanecha.”<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="edn10">
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As translated by Danny Matt – note my choice to change Matt’s translation
“mustard seed” to “tiny speck” given the readers’ lack of awareness of the
context/connotative value of “mustard seed” in biblical/theological
hermeneutics.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13086781176511709410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172807485782423842.post-59131656400974851082013-08-11T15:47:00.006-07:002013-08-11T15:52:30.671-07:00Soul-Seeing in Elul<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>(This sermon was delivered on Friday, August 9th, 2013 - Shabbat Shoftim)</i></span> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Late
one night in the city of Chelm, known to be populated by fools, Shmuel happened
upon his friend Avrum.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Avrum was down on
his hands and knees, underneath a streetlight, searching for something.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Shmuel inquired as to what Avrum was doing.
“I’ve lost my keys,” he replied.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“Perhaps you’ll help me search.” Shmuel joined him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After half an hour, they still had no
success.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Avrum, where exactly did you
lose those keys?” Maybe we can concentrate our efforts.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Avrum replied, “I lost them in that alley over
there.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Shmuel was dumbfounded.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“So why are we looking here!?!?!?” Avrum
looked over at his friend: “Why are we looking here?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because the light is better here-<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>that’s why!”[1]</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
story seems a little silly, yet we know it hits on a real truth – one that
likely resonates deeply with many of us: that too often we choose to look where
the light is best, where it is easiest to see, even if that which we are
seeking is located someplace entirely different.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When navigating our own lives and making our
own choices, we generally take familiar, well-lit paths - those routes we’ve
traveled many times, ground we’ve traversed before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s more predictable, more comfortable that
way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s also why we tend to fall into
the same patterns of thinking and behavior over and over and over again,
despite our “best attempts” at a different outcome.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">That’s
why the period of time in which we find ourselves calls to us to try something
different.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This Shabbat marks the first
Shabbat in the month of Elul, the 30 day period that serves both to close out
the past year and to prime us for the year ahead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each day of Elul beckons us to step out of
our comfort zones, to search our lives, our thoughts, and our actions in ways
that aren’t always easy, to acknowledge both the enlightened parts of
ourselves, but also to confront the darker parts of our souls, all with hope
that such a search might positively impact our own process of teshuvah – that
call for repentance and return that is the essential demand of the High Holy
Days – now less than a month away.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">There
are, in fact, many long-standing traditions associated with the month of Elul
to help this process along. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Traditionally,
the shofar is blown every day during Elul (except Shabbat), sort of like a
repentance alarm clock, to remind us of what is coming. And in case you don’t
have a shofar, and want to get in on the daily shofar call, there’s an app for
that!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>Some recommend that in anticipation of the
High Holy Days, the every person should focus on repentance, prayer, and
tzedakah in advance for at least one hour every day. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An hour a day – not so bad.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Others
advise compiling a cheshbon hanefesh – literally an inventory of the soul – in
which one documents their successes and failures over the past year generally
in light of their relationship with God, other people, and themselves, as sort
of a preparatory document and teshuvah business plan as it were.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>But before any of these recommended steps can
happen, I believe there is a critical pre-step which might be the most
important thing any of us can do if we seek to engage in this challenging
seasonal work of teshuvah.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many of you have heard me sing the praises of
Rabbi Alan Lew of Blessed Memory and his incredible master-work titled, “This
is Real and You are Completely Unprepared.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It is, in my opinion, the best book out there about the High Holy Days
and what they can mean.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you are
considering acquiring any book at all about the High Holy Days, this is the one
you should have.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Much of this pre-step
is inspired by his book as well as the following story that he shares in it:</span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>While hiking on Martha’s Vineyard with his
son, a storm came up and they had to take shelter in a little shack with a big
picture window.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rabbi Lew sat looking
out the window in the rain at the birds and other nature, none of which he
found very captivating after about 5 minutes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>His son, on the other hand, was having a much more interesting
time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was not looking out through the
window at what was outside, but rather at the window itself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The window, he pointed out to his father, was
a very active world in and of itself, a nature preserve for insect life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was clear that the window wasn’t just
something through which to view the world; it was a world in and of itself, a
place with a life of its own.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>The shifting of our gaze from the big broad
world out there and how we engage in it, to the window through which we see the
world – our own lens of experience and consciousness -<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>that is where the work of Elul and the High
Holy Days begins.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because that screen of
our perspective mechanisms is, according to Rabbi Lew: “not just a blank
transparent medium.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rather, it is a
world unto itself, a world teeming with life, and that life affects everything
else we see.” [2]</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>If the main work of the teshuvah process in
Elul is to travel back over the past year and essentially sight-see the course
of our lives and relationships, determining high lights and low points along
the way, then the pre-step to that process, this deeply inward focusing, might
be understood as soul-seeing, where we move our search light away from the
outside world and point it in a different direction, illuminating the activity
taking place in the window through which we view that world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The concept sounds complicated, but it’s
really not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Think about the expression
of what it means to look at or see the world through rose colored glasses, and
you’ll have a great example of what this means.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">This
week’s Torah portion, Shoftim, offers us deeper insight into the type of
soul-seeing we need to do before embarking on the interactive work of teshuvah.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Usually interpreted as a portion focused on
the establishment of an ancient judicial system, the Torah reads: “Judges and
officers you shall appoint for yourselves in all your gates.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What gates are we talking about? According to
Hasidic tradition, those gates mentioned in the text are more than the big city
gates.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As Rabbi Lew also points out: we
learn that there are 7 gates - or better windows to the soul of every human
being.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>2 eyes, 2 nostrils, 2 ears, and
the mouth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everything that passes into
our consciousness must enter through one of these gates. And appointing judges
for those gates comes to mean that we seek to acquire discernment over that
which influences our consciousness, that which passes through our gates.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, the passage from the portion really
beckons us to look deeply into our own systems of discernment and opinion and
even belief, to understand that all of it is a lens that colors our impression
of the world and our relationships. [2]</span>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">As many
of you know, I spent the last 2 weeks of July in India as a part of American
Jewish World Service’s 2013 Rabbinic Delegation. Inspired by the Jewish
commitment to justice, American Jewish World Service works to realize human
rights and end poverty in the developing world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>One of the most difficult parts of the trip was coming to understand
that how I see the world and the characterizations I understand as defining
concepts like failure, success, liberation, and oppression are not universal,
but are in fact specific to the western cultural lens to which I am
conditioned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At one point, the women in
our rabbinic group had the opportunity to meet with the women of the rural
village in which we were working.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
asked the village women to tell us about their system of marriage and
family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They shared that in India,
marriage is not about individuals, but rather it is about families. When a
couple is married, they do not live separately in their own house but rather
move in to the groom’s parent’s house (in which sometimes grandparents still
live), where they will continue to live.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Boy did we have a hard time with this, and our immediate evaluation of
their system was really negative.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What a
system of oppression – where were the rights of the individuals to choose
whether or not to partner with another,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>and where were the opportunities for them, if they even did choose each
other, to start their own life together without the burden of their entire
family, I wondered?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But then the village
women asked us to tell them about our system of marriage and family life here
in America.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And when we explained first
that marriage in and of itself wasn’t mandatory, but for those who chose it,
marriage was really about the individual choices of 2 people to share their
lives – nothing more and nothing less, the village women stirred a bit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“But where do you live?” they asked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And when we said that often newlyweds share
their own apartment or home together, without other members of the family
living with them, they became even more uncomfortable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“But how do you take care of your parents and
grandparents when they get older and need you?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And let me tell you – any negative judgment that I was feeling about
their ways was shared equally in the negative judgments they were feeling about
our ways.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And so, when the conversation
moved to the topic of poverty eradication and human rights, we had to
understand that the things we assumed were base-line, shared systems were actually
completely different.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s not to say
that the village women didn’t yearn for empowerment opportunities for
themselves, nor did it mean that they didn’t want to improve the living
conditions in their village no less their country – in turns out we shared the
same values and desires, but the way they envisioned what that might look like
proved entirely different than any Western ideal I know of.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It wasn’t until we were able to
acknowledge our own lens of assumptions that we were able to find
common ground.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>The same is true for our own selves and
souls.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Before we can do anything that
begins to address the world outside of ourselves, we have to develop a keen
awareness of the driving personal forces behind the thoughts we think, the
choices we make, and the actions we take.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And there is no real way to account for, and certainly not to atone for
our choices and actions, until we can be aware of that window in each of us,
which refracts every one of our assumptions and thoughts, no less behaviors in
the world.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Because
we can’t begin to look outwards and assess our engagement with the rest of the
world until we attempt to search out those places where the light doesn’t
always shine so brightly. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>So this start of Elul, take some time, maybe
it’s a few minutes, maybe it’s an hour a day, and take a good look at your own
window.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Spend some time there and study
closely what you find.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You just may
discover something that you didn’t even know you’d lost, but once found, will
lead you on a path of return, assuring that your life and the lives your life
touches will be all the better for it.</span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";"></span><br />
<div style="mso-element: footnote-list;">
<br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<div id="ftn1" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172807485782423842#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[1]</span></sup></span></span></sup></a><span style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">Joel Ziff,<u> Mirrors in Time,
A PsychoSpiritual Journey through the Jewish Year</u></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">2 Lew, Rabbi Alan. <u> This is Read and You Are Completely Unprepared</u>. </span><span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: #0400; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-language: #0400;"></span></div>
</div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13086781176511709410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172807485782423842.post-36071910614084516892013-07-20T07:00:00.004-07:002013-07-20T12:28:56.117-07:00Where Am I?<div class="MsoNormal">
Dear Friends:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As many of you know, the Jewish tenets of social justice (<i>tzedek</i>),
acts of loving-kindness (<i>chesed</i>), and global repair (<i>tikun olam</i>)
are central to my understanding of what it means to be a Jew in the world today
and certainly core to my own Jewish identity and rabbinate. As such, I am
so honored to be a part of the American Jewish World Service’s 2013 Rabbinic
Delegation, joining 16 other Reform, Orthodox, Conservative and
Reconstructionist rabbis selected from around North America. Our
delegation will be travelling to Lucknow, India for second half of July, where
we will experience first-hand the power of grassroots development and explore
issues of social justice and global responsibility from the perspective of
Jewish texts and tradition. Our group will be working at Sahbhagi Shikshan
Kendra (SSK), an AJWS-supported NGO devoted to fighting prejudice, urging local
community leaders to advocate for the rights of oppressed people, and educating
members of the Dalit (untouchables) communities about their rights so that they
can take steps to realize them. Just preparing for this trip has already
been quite an experience! Each morning, we will work in partnership with SSK
helping to construct and repair various water and food preparation systems so the community (in particular the area school) has access to clean water and sanitary food preparation. The
afternoons will be spent meeting with community
representatives. The evenings involve intensive Jewish text study and
processing. We depart on Sunday, July 21st and return on Friday, August
2nd. While away, I will not have access to phone or email, but I look forward to sharing stories and insights from my work
during the high holy days, as well as at other moments.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the meantime, to learn more about AJWS, check out their
website at AJWS.org<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Much gratitude to all of you for the support and encouragement!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
L’shalom,<o:p></o:p></div>
<br>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Rabbi Wendi Geffen<o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13086781176511709410noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172807485782423842.post-49939763516318635272013-06-01T19:00:00.000-07:002013-06-02T07:02:15.494-07:00The Power of Fear<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: x-small;">(My sermon from Friday, May 31, 2013)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">Which
emotion do you think is the most critical to human survival? Love, trust, happiness? How about fear?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">As
defined in the Medical Dictionary: fear is “the unpleasant emotional state
consisting of psychological and physiological responses to a real external
threat or danger, including alertness, tension, and mobilization of the alarm
reaction.”<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/sermons/fear_-_shelach_lcha.doc#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title=""><span class="endnotereference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="endnotereference"><span style="line-height: 115%;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> And that alarm reaction is, of course, what
enables us to then make critical decisions that often prevent harm. Fear lets us know when to flea a dangerous
situation. It’s how we know what risks
not to take. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<a href="http://www.awakeninthenow.com/aitn/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/anxiety.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://www.awakeninthenow.com/aitn/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/anxiety.jpg" width="178" /></a><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">But
fear isn’t just about our reactions to the real threats that we see and
experience. Fear also includes our
reactions to the perceived dangers we imagine.
This is where the concept of anxiety comes from. “Anxiety reflects a
combination of biochemical changes in the body, an individual’s personal
history and memory, as well as social situation. As far as we know, anxiety is
a uniquely human experience. Other animals clearly know fear, but human anxiety
involves an ability to use memory and imagination to move backward and forward
in time. The range of anxiety each human experiences varies, but anxiety in and
of itself is something that every person experiences.”<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/sermons/fear_-_shelach_lcha.doc#_edn2" name="_ednref2" title=""><span class="endnotereference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="endnotereference"><span style="line-height: 115%;">[ii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">I tend
to think that we Jews know a thing or two about fear and anxiety, whether real
or imagined, because the truth is that we Jews have been worrying and fearing
for a really long time. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">Do you
know what the most repeated commandment is in the Hebrew Bible? <i>Al
tirah –</i> do not fear. God or God
speaking through someone else says some form of this phrase over 120 times in
the TaNaKh. The command “not to fear”
becomes a poignant trope throughout our most ancient Jewish text, as it is
employed at every point of danger and every point of destiny along our
ancestor’s path of wandering from Egypt to the Promised Land.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">And
the truth is: whether real or imagined or anything in between, fears in our
lives today often, not always, but often sit at this same crossroads between
danger and destiny. Our anxieties often
sit in contradistinction to our own advancement. And so, I can’t help but feel the poignancy
and relevance of the command “<i>Al tirah”</i>
for us still today. After all, we live
in an age that sociologists claim is governed by the culture of fear. In his book with the same title, Sociologist
Barry Glassner writes: “There has never
been another era in modern history, even during wartime or the Great
Depression, when so many people have feared so much. Three out of four
Americans say they feel more fearful today than they did twenty years ago.” <a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/sermons/fear_-_shelach_lcha.doc#_edn3" name="_ednref3" title=""><span class="endnotereference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="endnotereference"><span style="line-height: 115%;">[iii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> The truth is: fear, when experienced in
proportion, functions as a healthy guide for people and societies vis a vis
survival. It helps us avoid dangerous, destructive, overly risky scenarios. But when fear is hyper-emphasized, it often
distorts reality, at a minimum holding people and societies back, if not
causing them to regress somewhat or entirely.<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/sermons/fear_-_shelach_lcha.doc#_edn4" name="_ednref4" title=""><span class="endnotereference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="endnotereference"><span style="line-height: 115%;">[iv]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">This
is not a modern phenomenon. It is the
main factor at play in the Torah portion<i>, Shelach L’cha</i>. In it, our
ancestors actually reach the border of the Promised Land only two years into
their journey. Twelve scouts from among their leaders enter into the land to
assess the situation. All report that
the land is indeed good, but it is also heavily fortified by its
inhabitants. Ten of the spies emphasize
the size of these inhabitants, calling them giants and reporting that the
Israelites must have looked like grasshoppers in the giant’s eyes. With this, the entire people begins to panic. Two of the scouts- Joshua and Caleb, announce
that despite the obstacles, the people should still move forward. They will be safe because God is with them,
the land is indeed good, and twice, they cry out: “<i>Al
Tira-u</i> - Do not fear!” But it is too
late – the people are overcome with worry of the perceived danger that they may
face, and they beg to return to Egypt.
And as you might imagine, that response does not go over so well. The entire generation, save Joshua and Caleb,
are condemned to wander the desert for the rest of their lives – none of these people who
actually stood at the border will ever see the Promised Land again. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">When
that generation of our ancestors encountered their moment of danger and
destiny, their fear caused them to forget that God had been and would continue
to be with them, that their perceived dangers were no more real than any
monster that exists in dreams but disappears in the morning’s light. Their anxiety so clouded their vision that
they completely lost sight of their destiny.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">In the
case of <i>Shelach L'cha,</i> those ten scouts who disseminated the frightful
message serve as what Glassner calls “Peddlers of Fear” – individuals and
groups that energize and promulgate messages of fear for their own benefit. In a modern context, the top two “Peddlers of
Fear” in our world today are the media and politicians. But at a certain point, we can’t just place
responsibility on the ten scouts, on MSNBC or Fox, on the DNC or GOP. At some point, just like each of our
ancestors, we each become accountable for our own responses and actions. So we need to ask ourselves, have we become
our own peddlers of fear in those liminal spaces in- between danger and
destiny? What are those moments, those
times of “stuck-ness” when we, like our ancestors, need to quiet the voice of
“I can’t” and heed the command “<i>Al tirah</i>?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">We all
know about these in-between moments when we find ourselves standing on the
border in-between, when the future’s call of potential whispers from the
distance, but the loud beckoning of the status quo or the past reverberates
powerfully. We may experience this in
different ways:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->·
<!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">In
our relationships that putter on: in our marriages, with our parents, with our
siblings, with our children, or with our friends - relationships that we know
could be more, that we know we need more from. But the thought of entering in
to that conversation, of taking that first step toward change, also presents
the risk of cracking the relationship open and potentially damaging or even
losing it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->· </div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;"> In
our jobs or courses of study where </span><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">we've</span><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;"> been safe, that have sustained us, but
where we know we could do more and be better. Where the thought of asking for a
change or promotion, or the possibility of stepping away from it and into a
different path seems at once appealing and at the same moment terrifying.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->· </div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";"> </span><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;"> In
our personal behaviors where we so deeply desire to be known and appreciated,
but again and again choose to put up walls and defenses that keep others at a
distance for fear of being vulnerable and thereby potentially wounded. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9172807485782423842" name="GoBack"></a><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">So
how can we tell the difference between the real fears – the ones that can actually avert legitimate
danger – verses the anxieties that seem real but prove only to hold us back –
that in reality are distractions, avoidances, those vaporous ghosts that
diminish and eventually disappear once that first bold step is taken? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<a href="http://inspiredliving.tv/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/fear-not.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="158" src="http://inspiredliving.tv/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/fear-not.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">Modern
psychology and mindfulness teachings offer many tips, but personally I like a
more traditional process, as taught by Rabbi Alan Lew, of blessed memory. The first time our ancestors hear the command
“Do not fear”, it is in response to what appears to be a very dangerous
situation. Trapped, with the waves of the Sea of Reeds lapping at their feet
and the massive Egyptian army rapidly closing in on their backs, the Israelites
cry out in terror, “Was it for want of graves in Egypt that you brought us to
die in the wilderness?” Moses and then God
respond to the Israelites with the following statements, beginning with the
command <i>Al tira-u</i> – do not fear. It
is the first time the Israelites hear this, and it is also the first time they
are confronted with the reality that destiny doesn't come easily. The command is then followed by 4 verbs,
presented in rapid sequence, that distill the process of moving beyond fear.
First: <i>hityatzvu</i> – gather yourselves. In the context of the story: unify,
get together, feel less alone. But as a
teaching for us as individuals – collect yourself, get yourself together, take
that first deep breath. An interesting
thing about<i> hityatzvu</i>: it comes from
an ancient near eastern word that means “to build”<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/sermons/fear_-_shelach_lcha.doc#_edn5" name="_ednref5" title=""><span class="endnotereference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="endnotereference"><span style="line-height: 115%;">[v]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>–
thus if in preparing to build a structure, one must first gather the proper
tools and materials in order to do so, in this situation, one must collect the
appropriate emotional tools with which to handle the situation – think: perspective, analysis, optimism, cool
headedness. Second: <i>Re-u</i> - See. See clearly.
Look around you to see what is really happening. Not the fears of your mind that run rampant,
but what is actually real. See with open eyes the danger, the promise, and
everything in between. Third: <i>tacharishoon</i> – be still. Different from <i>hityatzvu</i>, that first deep breath, this stillness implies a more
empowered and focused stance. This is
place from which decisions are made – not before. And decisions about facing fear cannot be
made in a place of hyperactivity. Even if the world around is full of turmoil,
the self can find a place of stillness.
And then, if you find that what you initially so feared is nothing more
than a peddler selling his wares of worry, then it is time for the 4<sup>th </sup>step
– <i>yisa-u</i> – get going. Step forward, bravely, boldly, collected, and
eyes set firmly toward what awaits you.<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/sermons/fear_-_shelach_lcha.doc#_edn6" name="_ednref6" title=""><span class="endnotereference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="endnotereference"><span style="line-height: 115%;">[vi]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">Because
at the end of the day, the difference between danger and destiny ultimately
comes down to just one step. A step of
faith into the beckoning promise of the future in spite of an awareness that
the potential of the unknown can be scary, sometimes scarier than the known
trouble and struggle of the present and past.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">Because
fear may indeed be the most important emotional resource we have when it comes
to survival, but when it comes to really thriving, to true actualiziation and
optimization, we must remember the powerful, still relevant call to our
ancestors and to us: “<i>Al tirah</i>” –
then and now, “Do not fear.”<span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div>
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<!--[endif]-->
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<div id="edn1">
<div class="endnotetext">
<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/sermons/fear_-_shelach_lcha.doc#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="endnotereference"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="endnotereference"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande","serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "ヒラギノ角ゴ Pro W3"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/feared+for<span lang="en-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: #0400; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: #0400;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn2">
<div class="endnotetext">
<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/sermons/fear_-_shelach_lcha.doc#_ednref2" name="_edn2" title=""><span class="endnotereference"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="endnotereference"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande","serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "ヒラギノ角ゴ Pro W3"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[ii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
ibid/ anxiety<span lang="en-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: #0400; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: #0400;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn3">
<div class="endnotetext">
<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/sermons/fear_-_shelach_lcha.doc#_ednref3" name="_edn3" title=""><span class="endnotereference"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="endnotereference"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande","serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "ヒラギノ角ゴ Pro W3"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[iii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
Glassner, Barry. <i>The Culture of Fear: Why
Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things</i>. New York: Basic Books, 1999.<span lang="en-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: #0400; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: #0400;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn4">
<div class="endnotetext">
<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/sermons/fear_-_shelach_lcha.doc#_ednref4" name="_edn4" title=""><span class="endnotereference"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="endnotereference"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande","serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "ヒラギノ角ゴ Pro W3"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[iv]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
Zbigniew, Brzezinski, “Terrorized by ‘War on Teror’: How a Three-word Mantra
Has Undermined America” The Washington Post, March 25, 2007<span lang="en-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: #0400; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: #0400;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn5">
<div class="endnotetext">
<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/sermons/fear_-_shelach_lcha.doc#_ednref5" name="_edn5" title=""><span class="endnotereference"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="endnotereference"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande","serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "ヒラギノ角ゴ Pro W3"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[v]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
as taught by Rabbi David Ingber<span lang="en-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: #0400; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: #0400;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn6">
<div class="endnotetext">
<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/sermons/fear_-_shelach_lcha.doc#_ednref6" name="_edn6" title=""><span class="endnotereference"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="endnotereference"><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande","serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "ヒラギノ角ゴ Pro W3"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[vi]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
I first learned about it from a teaching by Rabbi Alan Lew of blessed memory in
his powerful book on Jewish meditation – <i>Be
Still and Get Going</i>. <span lang="en-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: #0400; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: #0400;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13086781176511709410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172807485782423842.post-50107538004868117732013-04-16T09:48:00.002-07:002013-04-19T14:04:17.991-07:00If We Choose To Pray<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">If
we are going to choose to pray to God, let's not direct our prayers to the
Divine for Boston, for the Red Sox, for the Marathon, or for any other thing
that doesn't breathe. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; line-height: 115%;">Let's
direct our prayers to God for people. Let's pray for 8 year old Martin
Richard's family and friends and classmates and teachers at school. Let's pray for the families and
friends and communities of 29 year old </span><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 21px;">Krystle Campbell, graduate student </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 21px;">Lingzi Lu, and MIT police officer Sean Collier</span></span><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">. Let's pray for the hundreds
of people who cling to life, whose limbs were lost, whose lives are shattered.
Let's pray for the helpers who run toward chaos instead away from it. Let's
pray for any and all of the people whose lives have been physically,
emotionally, spiritually violated, because they were at the Marathon, or heard
about it, or live or lived in Boston, or feel connected to it because something
in them hurts when others do. Let's pray for the people whose hearts move swiftly
from a necessary desire for justice to a seething desire for vengeance that God
comfort their pain with a loving-kindness that tempers the hate and anger and
hurt they feel. Let's pray for people whose souls and lives are so broken that
they seek not to build, but to destroy.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: large;">For
justice, for mercy, for healing, for consolation, for a Shelter of Peace, for
hearts and souls all around us.</span><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13086781176511709410noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172807485782423842.post-80521006235008463292013-04-08T10:56:00.002-07:002013-04-08T10:56:20.151-07:00Simultaneous Joy and Pain: The Wisdom of the Counting of the Omer<br />
<div style="background-color: white; border: none; line-height: 20px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 14px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">(Originally published on <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-wendi-geffen/simultaneous-joy-and-pain-the-wisdom-of-the-counting-of-the-omer_b_3037843.html">Huffingtonpost.com</a>, based on a sermon I delivered on April 29, 2013)</span></div>
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</div>
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<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This
year at our Passover Seder, I experienced something deeply powerful --
something I had not felt in the context of Passover before. Like many, we spend
much of our Seder going around the table, each reading a section from the
Haggadah out loud. Generally, because our Seder is populated partially by
adults and partially by very young, mostly illiterate children, we move from
adult to adult, skipping over the smaller folks at our table. But this year,
when my husband finished reading his part, my Kindergarten age son said he'd
like a turn to read.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And
all of a sudden, space and time expanded for me, while I assume it continued at
a normal pace for everyone else. It felt like a worm hole opened, and in what
must have actually been only a second between my son saying he wanted to read
and his starting to pronounce the Haggadah's words, his entire life so far from
his birth until that moment flashed through my mind. And in that 5 1/2 years
contracted down into 1/60th of a minute, I felt the most profound, overwhelming
joy, and at the very same time, an all-consuming sadness. Joy at the fact that
my son could actually do what he was doing: he could read, was somehow growing
up, increasingly less toddler like and more and more fully real. Sadness that
my son could actually do what he was doing: he could read, was somehow growing
up, increasingly less toddler like and more and more fully real.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This
is the time of year when we Jews find ourselves in the middle of the annual
observance known as <i>Sefirat haOmer</i>, the Counting of the Omer. As such,
beginning on the second day of Passover, each day (technically evening since
Jewish days start at night) we say a blessing and literally count which day and
week it is in the seven-week cycle, leading us up to Shavuot, which falls on
the 50th day. What began as an ancient agricultural-spiritual holiday to mark
the weeks between barley and wheat harvests has evolved significantly over
time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Thanks
to the rabbis of the Talmud, we understand the Counting of the Omer primarily
as the communal spiritual re-enactment of our ancestor's process of journeying
from the Egypt for 49 days to the Torah being given to them at Mt. Sinai.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Thanks
to the Kabbalists, we also understand the Omer time as an individual
opportunity to refine and perfect areas of our own lives as we leave our own
individual <i>Mitzrayim</i> -- whatever narrow and constricted parts of ourselves hold
us back, and then travel to a place where we too can be open and receptive to
whatever Revelation awaits us.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In
either case, most important is the idea that we count up, not down, to express
our ancestors and our own increasing excitement as they and we step closer and
closer toward Revelation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">But
the period of the Omer, as you might know, is also overshadowed with the tone
and rituals of mourning, thus the associated prohibitions against haircuts,
shaving or getting married, except on <i>Lag B'Ome</i>r , the 33rd day of the Omer.
The question is: Why? Why the sadness and mourning, if the time should have
been completely celebratory? Think about it: Our ancestors were finally free --
no Egypt, no taskmasters. They could live life on their terms and would soon
culminate their seven-week trip with the most momentous, holy experience of
meeting the Divine and receiving of the Torah. Not much to be sad about, right?
There are a few explanations for the mournful tone of the Omer period, mainly
having to do with a plague that was said to have ravaged a Jewish community at
the time of the Mishnah's composition. But I wonder if there isn't something
more at play?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">When
we think about our own journeys out of whatever enslaves us, into moments of
liberation and redemption and then ultimately to moments of real awakening and
revelation, what are they really like? Are they filled only with excitement and
joy? Or are they more complicated than that?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As
a person whose job privileges her to share many important moments in people's
lives, I have seen this complexity -- simultaneous overflowing joy and sadness
-- particularly, but not exclusively at life-cycle events, made manifest in
tears. Tears that society and Hallmark card commercials suggest are wholly
joyous, but which I know also contain an honest sorrow. Both feelings evoked by
the same experience, at once deep happiness for the arrival at a new marker,
and also grief that the arrival at said marker comes with the knowledge that
all the previous markers won't be sought out and reached again. It's in these
moments that we live in both worlds, but out of which we all have to make a
choice: which sensibility we will choose to let color our experience? When we
arrive at these crossroads, one the path of joy and optimism and one the path
of sadness and regret, how do we choose which route to take?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The
Omer tradition, linking Passover to Shavuot, gives us the answer. This set of
seven weeks, each made up of seven days, enables us to live in the real,
complicated world of emotional complexity, fully, experiencing both joy and
sadness -- incarnate in each day of the counting. But when the last day of the
Omer concludes, the mourning ends. There is a reason that the moment of
Revelation happens the first day of the eighth week, the 50th day -- the day
after the last day of the counting. Because to experience Revelation, we can't
be in mourning. We have to release it, and take that deep breath that acknowledges
that we have a choice to make: Will we view life as some sort of diminishing,
increasingly limiting count down to the end -- a road that ultimately leads us
back to <i>Mitzrayim</i>, to the death of the spirit -- or will we see life as opening
to an unending fount of opportunity, hope and joy -- a road that is the promise
of a Revelation at a mountain point in an open, awaiting, uncharted land?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The
wisdom of the Counting of the Omer is that it enables us to live in both worlds
for a bit. The moments in between, those moments where only a second in real
time passes, but a lifetime flashes through our mind's eye, those moments
between <i>Mitzrayim</i> and the Mountain, that's when the real awakening happens. But
you can't stand at Sinai unless you are awake -- heart, mind, body and spirit
not somewhere back where you've been before, back in <i>Mitzrayim</i>, but open to the
only place and moment there really is: the Present.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Back
to our Seder: So I'm in this out-of-place-and-time experience, fully immersed
in my seemingly conflicting feelings. And then, I hear my son carefully sound
out: "God -- took -- us -- out -- of -- E...E...E...g...." And just
like that, I am back. Back from this journey into the realm of my own
reflections and emotions, because my son needs my help. "Egypt" I
say. "Egypt with -- a -- strong -- hand..." he continues. And my eyes
well. And there is no longer any sadness. But neither is there joy. I am simply
and only and entirely filled with the most deep and overwhelming sense of
gratitude and wonder instead.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13086781176511709410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172807485782423842.post-16721477146681739782013-03-20T15:18:00.002-07:002013-03-20T15:25:46.992-07:00Are We There Yet? On Sea Crossing, Mountain Climbing, Departures, Arrivals, and the Space In Between<br />
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";"> </span><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">Each year at the Passover Seder, we read
these words:</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<a href="http://www.bonnmuller.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Ha-Lachma-Anya.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://www.bonnmuller.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Ha-Lachma-Anya.jpg" width="133" /></a><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">“This
year we are here, next year, in the land of Israel. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";"> This year we are slaves, next year, free
people.”<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/blog/Are%20We%20There%20Yet.docx#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">We
navigate the entire Seder through this dichotomy, as if dancing back and forth between the imprisoning
constriction of <i>Mitzrayim</i> and the boundless
openness that true freedom seemingly provides.
We engage in story-telling, observe and consume edible symbols, and
physically mimic different postures evoking these same themes of slavery and
freedom, disgrace and glory, degradation
and praise, departure and arrival. And
ultimately, we culminate the Passover Seder with the same hopeful words every
year:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";"> “<i>L’shanah haba’ah b’Yirushalyim</i>
– Next year in Jerusalem!” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">Which can lead one to wonder: will we
ever actually get there? To that state of <i>shalom/</i>peace and <i>shaleim/</i>wholeness that Jerusalem represents? Will we ever actually arrive at the freedom, liberation, openness,
and fulfillment that is the yearning and promise of every previous Seder’s beginning
and end? What’s the point of telling
the same story with the same unfinished ending over and over again if we never really get anywhere?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;"><b>Because ultimately, there is only one story to tell, and it is the Truth of our lives.</b> How often do we find ourselves in our
relationships, our work, our education, our bodies, thinking “I’ll be satisfied
when:” </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">*my partner understands or does what I need him/her to</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">*I get
that next promotion or title</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">*I attain my degree</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">*I lose that last 5 pounds...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;"> - only to arrive at that milestone to discover another "I'll be satisfied when" destination marker somewhere yet to be attained in the future? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1TMw6RCsTAJEq0puuuwCZo8EipFZE8j_kIXLXdjgz-sebCxuhn6QTn1-qNqGDrpiYYZXJb4kkTWR_ZICfwQMwprsgHsDU1GKGcOiJINbaDJcwMH9aVfcMmruVoZdtM4IrfcGgDL59lHrY/s1600/moses_parting_the_red_sea.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="142" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1TMw6RCsTAJEq0puuuwCZo8EipFZE8j_kIXLXdjgz-sebCxuhn6QTn1-qNqGDrpiYYZXJb4kkTWR_ZICfwQMwprsgHsDU1GKGcOiJINbaDJcwMH9aVfcMmruVoZdtM4IrfcGgDL59lHrY/s200/moses_parting_the_red_sea.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">An
interesting insight comes from what is generally perceived as our ancestors’ culminating moment of true freedom from the grips of Egypt: the
Crossing of the Sea. In a
section detailing the various occasions upon which a person should utter a
blessing of gratitude, the Talmudic sages point out, “One who sees the <i>abrot</i>/crossings of the Sea [of Reeds]…must
give thanks and praise to God.”<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/blog/Are%20We%20There%20Yet.docx#_edn2" name="_ednref2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[ii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> But what does it mean to see the <i>abrot</i>/ crossings of the Sea? <b>When exactly should one utter gratitude at
such an occasion: once safely across when the miracle is complete and finish
line crossed or somewhere along the way when the fullness of the miracle is not
yet realized? </b> Nineteenth century scholar
<a href="http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/netziv.html">Rabbi Naftali Zvi Berlin</a> notes Exodus 14:29, “The Israelites <i>went </i>on
dry land into the midst of the sea.”
Picking up on the past-tense phrase “the Israelites <i>went</i>,” Berlin asserts what most tend to think: that it would only
make sense to offer praise once completely across the parted
sea, safely on the other side. We cannot, after all, offer gratitude for something that is yet to be done, can we? But Twentieth Century commentator <a href="http://www.ou.org/about/judaism/rabbis/epstein.htm">RabbiBaruch HaLevi Epstein</a>,
Berlin’s nephew, disagrees. Noting Rashi’s
definition of <i>abrot</i>/ crossings as “the
place through which they traversed the sea,”<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/blog/Are%20We%20There%20Yet.docx#_edn3" name="_ednref3" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[iii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> Epstein asserts that our
ancestors offered thanksgiving while walking the entire length of the crossing.
As Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg so masterfully
surmises in her book <u><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Particulars-Rapture-Reflections-Exodus/dp/080521237X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1363800322&sr=8-1&keywords=The+Particulars+of+Rapture">The Particulars of Rapture</a>:</u> “…the Talmud is urging praise and thanksgiving while one is <i>in the midst</i> of the narrative. <b>Before the tension is resolved, before one
has emerged from the undetermined, ominous passage - that is the time for
gratitude and song.</b>”<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/blog/Are%20We%20There%20Yet.docx#_edn4" name="_ednref4" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[iv]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">I don't know from crossing the sea, but I do know that charting the
course of our lives can often feel as if we are climbing a mountain, taking
each step higher and higher in the hopes of one day reaching the very top. Which is a noble goal, but that’s just not
how mountain climbing works. When
climbing a large mountain, we work to ascend what seems like the
tallest peak, only to arrive at that top to gaze on to the vision of a yet
taller and grander peak in the distance.
And once we arrive at the tallest point, we don’t get to stay up there
forever; the journey back down awaits.
Mountain ranges don’t provide one steady, evenly paced ascent or descent. They are full of small and large elevations
and depths that go on and on, from the smallest
foothills to the most majestic highlands, and back down the range again. Think
about where a mountain range ends? It’s
not at the height of the tallest peak.
It’s once the larger slopes merge into foothills that merge into flat
ground again, back on the road, back on the journey, until arriving at the place where foothills emerge from flatland again. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTlwpCt_EMR-pthKthxLwoGbyr87C5J3NUzAWbbeWSvnggqqyzI" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="198" src="https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTlwpCt_EMR-pthKthxLwoGbyr87C5J3NUzAWbbeWSvnggqqyzI" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">Why do we repeat the same story over and over again? W</span><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">hy do we never
actually "get there?” Because every place we stand </span><i style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">is</i><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;"> “there,” if we only allow ourselves to be there. Every place,
every moment has the potential for constriction and release, for fear and hope, for degradation and praise, for brokenness and wholeness. Our lives are not black and white; our souls are complicated amalgams of all these qualities, sometimes leaning one way, sometimes another; we live somewhere in the middle. This is the Seder's ultimate lesson: w</span><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">e don’t have to wait until the height of achievement or the perfect moment to express gratitude, to change our own lives or make an impact in the world. </span><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;"> Every place, every moment is the
perfect and best time from which to be grateful and catalyze repair. Indeed, this year we are slaves, next year, free people. </span></div>
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<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/blog/Are%20We%20There%20Yet.docx#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> From
<i><a href="http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.bonnmuller.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Ha-Lachma-Anya.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.bonnmuller.com/2011/04/a-rare-gem-of-hebrew-manuscript-illumination/&h=1000&w=670&sz=288&tbnid=bzU2v5QiOFH0-M:&tbnh=81&tbnw=54&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dha%2Blachma%2Banya%26tbm%3Disch%26tbo%3Du&zoom=1&q=ha+lachma+anya&usg=__WVt87MHGgEm7G2l3OTNQuUXNsoE=&docid=tUXxUrOtVgigsM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=IRpKUefqCYne9ATr9oF4&ved=0CG4Q9QEwDA&dur=337">Ha Lachma Anya</a></i> – This is the Bread of
Affliction<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/blog/Are%20We%20There%20Yet.docx#_ednref2" name="_edn2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[ii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Brachot 54a<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/blog/Are%20We%20There%20Yet.docx#_ednref3" name="_edn3" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[iii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
See Rashi’s comment on the meaning of “<i>abrot”</i>
in Brachot 54a<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/blog/Are%20We%20There%20Yet.docx#_ednref4" name="_edn4" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[iv]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> P.
216, see too Sforno and Nachmanides on Ex 15:1 and 15:19<o:p></o:p></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13086781176511709410noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172807485782423842.post-29674027128652256492013-02-21T14:09:00.000-08:002013-02-21T18:26:49.480-08:00Bar Mitzvah You Tube Save-the-Date Haters and Internet Bullies<div>
Call me old-fashioned, but I was taught that upon receiving an invitation to a Bar Mitzvah, the ONLY thing one should respond with is "Mazal Tov!"</div>
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<a href="http://www.snapahead.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Mazal-Tov.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.snapahead.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Mazal-Tov.jpg" /></a></div>
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Over the past week, a certain YouTube video has gone viral on the Jewish net-waves and social media feeds. The video presumably was intended to serve as the "Save the Date" for the friends and family of a boy who will become Bar Mitzvah this Spring. I don't know the family or the boy, but I received a link to the video, presumably from someone else who doesn't know the family either, and they likely received it from someone else who doesn't know the family, etc. etc. The video has drawn much attention. Those on the positive side (I find myself in this camp - a minority from what I can read on the comment feeds) praise the child for finding a creative, fun way to discuss his upcoming experience. The video is "not all about the party" and even includes some footage at the family's synagogue as well as a cameo appearance of the congregation's rabbi. Those on the negative side (a clear majority from what I can read on the comment feeds) condemn the "clear lack of purpose or integrity," the "gross misappropriation of financial resources" by the family - funds "that could have been donated to charity," the fact that "the boy didn't even mention his Torah portion," and the list goes on, and on, and on, some even criticizing the child's lack of rhythm and mocking the lyrics to the rap performed by the child. </div>
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And to that, I ask: since when did it become acceptable for adults to speak so critically, negatively, no less publicly and permanently about a child? After all, this child is likely reading directly or being forwarded every snarky or judgmental remark ticking down on the feeds and websites of people he does not know and who he certainly did not invite to his family's upcoming <i>simcha</i>, but most of whom seem to feel justified in rendering an opinion or judgement about him and his family's decision about their save-the-date Bar Mitzvah notice. I'm sure a Bar Mitzvah boy can handle the fact that hundreds of people are standing in judgment over him and his video. He is, after all, the ripe, mature age of 12 or 13! NOT!</div>
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I don't know how the video spread so quickly, why the family did not designate better privacy settings on the video, or really what their intentions were. The truth is, I don't think any of that matters. How can responsible adults (some of whom are my fellow clergy) condemn loudly the devastating impact of youth cyber-bullying, but in the same breath become so blinded by their own judgmental stances on what is or is not "Bar Mitzvah Appropriate" that they themselves become cyber-bullies, freely condemning the actions of a child and his family? It is one thing to debate non-specifically choices and priorities for religious coming of age events, but it is something entirely different to air one's judgments so publicly and specifically in an arena that we all know can be cruel and where context can easily be lost. Even if the intention of the family was for the video to go viral, are any of us really willing to assert that this soon-to-be Jewish adult should actually be treated as a real adult and somehow expected to have the capacity to handle the potential "criticism" he could receive knowing that he "put it out there in the first place?" I would certainly hope not.</div>
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Here's what I'm really hoping won't happen, but what I fear will. What likely started off as a wonderfully positive way for a young boy and his family to engage creatively around an important, upcoming moment in his life will now likely become a tarnished, if not traumatic occurrence overshadowing not just his Bar Mitzvah, but his Jewish identity and development as well. Where's the win in that for this boy, his family, the Jewish people? Oh right, there isn't one.</div>
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Enough with the judgement and bashing. It is really easy to fall into the trap of passing judgment on others when their choices, both personal and in relation to Judaism, diverge from what we perceive we would do in the same situation. It is much harder to take a step back, accept that different people make different choices, and try to find the positive, raising up the good instead. </div>
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So, if you happen to see the video pop up in your twitter of FB feed or in your inbox, extend the boy and his family a hearty "Mazal Tov!" Praise him for his willingness to add his own creativity and community into the process. Let him know we are proud that he is going to be an adult in the Jewish world and we can't wait to see how he'll invest his talents and self after the big day has come and gone. Perhaps if enough of us put out positive energy, or at a minimum keep our negative opinions to ourselves, we might send a different, better, more enduring message, to the boy, his family, our own community, and the world.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13086781176511709410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172807485782423842.post-82877393082829476442013-01-25T09:49:00.000-08:002013-01-28T09:38:15.441-08:00My Grandmother's Hands and Psalm 90<br />
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<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">We are in her
house in Dallas.</span><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">Sesame Street plays on
the television I am supposed to be watching.</span><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">But instead, I watch her, specifically her hands.</span><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">She grips her new, clean easel, finagling its
three legs in different positions until it stands independently.</span><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">She extends her arms, pinching her thumbs and
middle fingers on the top corners of a recently gesso-ed and pencil-detailed
canvas, lifting and setting it down gently to rest on the easel. Her soft,
peachy hands reach into an off-white fabric and brown leather-lined painter's
bag resting on a table next to her and pull out 1 larger and 1 smaller plastic
paint tube.</span><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">She sets the smaller one
down, carefully unscrews the larger one and gently squeezes about a tablespoon
of its bright white contents a bit off-center on , what at the time seems, an
oddly shaped, somewhat rounded wood plate.</span><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">She screws the top back on, puts it down, picks up the smaller tube,
unscrews it and applies even more controlled pressure to the tube, causing a smaller
teaspoon size deep cobalt-colored mound to ooze out.</span><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">She screws the top back on and puts it back
down. Next, she reaches into the bag for her brushes, lots of them, different
shapes and sizes that she gathers up in one hand and places vertically on a
table, releasing as if they were pick-up sticks to fall and spread
haphazardly on the table's surface.</span><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">The
bristles are clean, but the handles are splattered with layers and layers of
her past paintings - blues in pastel shades are most noticeable, but there is a
speck of white here, a smear of pink or red there.</span><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">And when ready, she selects a brush, dips it
into the smaller splotch on her palate and pulls the now bristle-blue bulb
toward the center where it meets the dollop of bright white.</span><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">She mixes the two colors together, blending
them until they are no longer deep sky and ice, but instead a perfect Caribbean
Sea.</span><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">We are in a quiet hospital room, and my grandmother is unconscious, peaceful, and dying.
She lives for two days like this after I arrive. Neither my mother nor I leave
the hospital these oddly endless, urgent, blurry forty-eight hours. We spend the time in a quiet rhythm: me
sleeping while my mother keeps watch and then the reverse. Most of my awake time is spent holding and
looking at my grandmother's hands. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglBVaWDb8WfT0kMppaZ3MqxFRlgH13sls7sqmEaU8CRUImnehBEN9T_tCsZWhXnk8824WbRtOX2u6h79f1jo4HsksQDXAQHVReTdaOfQtxmDAFgnxAtaDarmK0YWFXsWowca9mIwaYel0/s1600/nani+painting.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglBVaWDb8WfT0kMppaZ3MqxFRlgH13sls7sqmEaU8CRUImnehBEN9T_tCsZWhXnk8824WbRtOX2u6h79f1jo4HsksQDXAQHVReTdaOfQtxmDAFgnxAtaDarmK0YWFXsWowca9mIwaYel0/s320/nani+painting.JPG" width="185" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of My Grandmother's Paintings</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">My grandmother
was a creator: a painter, a sculptor, a decorator, a seamstress, a pianist, a
cook, and the list goes on. Over the
past year and half since she died, countless reminiscences play like old-style
home movies with no sound reel in my mind's eye, sometimes because I turn them
on myself and sometimes because they seem to have a will of their own. In them,
I see my grandmother painting, sculpting, playing piano, cooking, sewing, often
looking up to smile, laugh, or say something that I cannot hear. But inevitably, the focus zooms in on her
hands: how they moved, what her nails looked like, the length of her fingers,
the shape of her knuckles, the pale tone of her skin. And then, as if in time-lapse projection, the
film clips capture advance to show memories of more recent times, and I watch
her hands change. The once taut skin
loosens, revealing deepening wrinkles and more pronounced veins. Her arthritis becomes more and more
challenging and as such, her knuckles appear larger. A broken wrist changes the angle at which her
hand rests when flat on a table. And
then I flash to those final moments, sitting at her bedside, holding her hand,
her still soft and smooth and strangely strong and beautiful hand.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">I have always
been moved by Psalm 90, its honesty, its intentionality, its yearning, its
hope. In acknowledging the limits of
life and the struggles we all experience, the Psalm asks the Divine to teach us
mindfulness, perspective and compassion.
The Psalm concludes that we find purpose in life when we can recognize
the Holy, the Divine around us. And ultimately, life extends beyond the finite
bounds of days and years when our lives
and legacies are remembered and lived out in those who live on after us. The
Psalmist expresses this idea so beautifully in the last verse: "Establish the work of our hands that it
may long endure."<a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/blog/My%20Grandmother's%20Hands.doc#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: black;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">My son loved my
grandmother, his great-grandmother. He
inherited much of her creativity and talent, demonstrating a real artistic gift
very early on in his life. Now, at the
age of five and a half, if there is down-time, he spends it creating:
sculptures, drawings, and most often paintings.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body1">
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">We are in our home in Deerfield. The water
is pouring over the dishes I am supposed to be washing, but instead, I am
watching him. He is determined to create
something "really special, like Nani used to do" he says. He reaches into his plastic art supply box to
set up the palette, acrylic paints, "fancy" brushes, and canvas he
received for his birthday. Then, he
reaches along-side a book shelf, in the space between the shelf and the wall. It takes a little coaxing to set up since it
hasn't been opened in many years, squeaking and creaking as he pulls each leg
out so it can stand balanced. The top is
still very clean, but the ridge along which the canvas rests is covered in
paint. Layers and layers of paint - blues in pastel shades are most noticeable,
but there is a speck of white here, a smear of pink or red there. It is like a yet-to-be excavated site of the
countless layers of works of art my grandmother painted on canvases that rested
on this same easel. My son places his
blank canvas on my grandmother's easel, selects a brush, dips it into a deep
shade of blue, pulling up a substantial glob. And then what I see and my son
does not is that as he lifts his brush to the canvas and begins to paint, a
drop of azure from his brush falls to the bottom of the canvas and drips
onto the ridge, adding his own layer, his own imprint, onto the foundations of
history and story and love that sit beneath.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body1">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body1">
<i><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">May Your Work be visible to Your servants, and Your Glory
to their children. And let the beauty of the Divine be upon us; establish the
work of our hands that it may long endure</span></i><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">. Psalm 90:15-16<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div>
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<!--[endif]-->
<br />
<div id="edn1">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="file:///G:/Users/Geffen/blog/My%20Grandmother's%20Hands.doc#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> A
modified translation as suggested by the Reform Rabbis manual. </span><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13086781176511709410noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172807485782423842.post-88945269177781988702012-12-29T10:20:00.003-08:002012-12-29T20:52:27.817-08:00Why I Am a Jewish None (or a None-ish Jew) and Why You Should Care<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: x-small;">(This is an adapted version of the sermon I delivered on Friday evening, December 28, 2012 at NSCI)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://visionroom.com/wp-content/files_mf/1352220850The_Rise_of_the_Nones.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="160" src="http://visionroom.com/wp-content/files_mf/1352220850The_Rise_of_the_Nones.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Tahoma;">I’d
like to share a recent self- revelation: deep down inside, my soul is the soul
of a None. No, I didn't spell that
wrong. I’m not referring to a Catholic nun of course! Let me explain. A "None" is the
name given to a “member” of the fastest growing religious group in our country
- a seemingly new religious denomination named by the Pew Forum and other religion
demographers as those who will not identify with any singular religious
grouping, category or denomination. The
Nones have grown from 15% to 20% of the </span><st1:country-region style="font-family: Tahoma;" w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Tahoma;"> population in the last 5 years
alone, and they’re projected to increase even more over the next decade. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Tahoma;">It seems like a pretty sad
indicator for the face of organized religion at first. But don't get too
distressed. Here's something
interesting: Although atheists and agnostics are included in the "Nones"
category, their specific populations have remained a steady, flat 6% for a
quite a while now. So who are the other
now 14% of our population of those not identifying in one singular religious
category but yet not atheist or agnostic, and why on earth would I consider
myself to be like them?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://rlv.zcache.com/funny_jewish_yoga_chick_shalommm_post_card-p239643669023148022ens4d_216.jpg?max_dim=328" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://rlv.zcache.com/funny_jewish_yoga_chick_shalommm_post_card-p239643669023148022ens4d_216.jpg?max_dim=328" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">Well, 37% of them say they
are spiritual. Check. 68 % of these Nones say they believe in God.
Check. 58 % say they have a deep connection
with nature and earth. Check. 1 in 5 say
they pray daily. Check.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Scott%20&amp;%20Wendi/Documents/what%20we%20can%20learn%20from%20the%20nones.doc#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> The Nones are searchers, seekers, boundary
pressers and question askers, souls unwilling and uninterested in tightly
reinforced definitions and denominations. They may very well have deep
spiritual encounters in a prayer service, but they will also have them in their
yoga class, or walking in the Botanic Gardens. Or listening to stirring music
or reading a powerful book. Check,
Check. They view themselves as open
vessels for the meaningful and the sacred in all experiences. Check. In many ways, they sound like they'd make
great Jews! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Tahoma;">What are the true defining
characteristics of Jews anyway? Outside
of not believing in more than one God, what other consistent indicator or
unifier is there - in origin, in practice, in ethnicity, in language, in
sexuality or in family structure? Jew by
birth, Jew by choice, Jew by matrilineal or patrilineal descent? Jew by
synagogue membership or not? Jew by how
many days a year or lifetime they attend services? None of these offer a real limitation
on what being Jewish means, only what Judaism can mean to a given individual in
a given situation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Tahoma;">After all, who among us fits
perfectly in the category of any label?
We are by nature complex, amalgams of identities, experiences,
histories, practices and beliefs that don't generally fit a cookie cutter
definition or picture. And that, if you
asked me, is a pretty wonderful thing – these combinations keep us interesting,
diverse, learning and evolving! If being
a None equates to a rejection of black and white, absolutist religion then the
real question should be, who among us isn’t a None?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Tahoma;">So what at first seems like
a pretty ominous report of eventual religious demise instead turns out, I would
suggest, to indicate an evolution in the openness of what faith based and religious
communities, including Jewish ones, will someday become, if they aren't already
on their way.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Tahoma;">Here's the snag: Many Jewish organizations and Jewish
population study publishers have a problem with what I just said. They want to perpetuate the emotional
response from what seems to have become Judaism's historical
meta-narrative: Someone, somewhere is
trying to put an end to Judaism by steering us away from our long-held, steady
and implied "proper" roots and traditions.
Maybe it is an external demise that's predicted, maybe it’s an internal
one, as the latest <st1:city w:st="on">Chicago</st1:city> and <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">New York</st1:place></st1:state> Jewish population studies seems to
suggest about all forms of non-Orthodox Judaism. We've gone astray from our tradition -
strangers to our faith and the so-called "right" way to practice it. Failures of perpetuating what our ancestors
throughout the ages fought and died for.
And the truth is, these erosion narratives have long worked as catalysts
for community solidarity and fundraising.
It is one of the main myths at play when non-Orthodox Jews make
financial contributions to organizations like Chabad instead of their own
non-Orthodox synagogues or organizations with which they are affiliated –
almost as an apologetic and acknowledgement in a sense of their self-perception
as somehow a lesser or failed Jew. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Tahoma;">But if the only
justification for practicing Judaism, for identifying as “Jewish” is to react
against this so-called erosion, then how can it ever be possible to really
flourish? Survival mode never yields
much other than stasis at best, and at worst, ironically, it causes the very
same erosion it was created to fight against.
I think <i>that</i> is what we are
seeing now in the non-Orthodox world, and maybe even the Orthodox world too. The reality of most Jewish institutions </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://cdn.eyefetch.com/900w/2f972798-9996-4621-9c2a-10b2cf75e755.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="130" src="http://cdn.eyefetch.com/900w/2f972798-9996-4621-9c2a-10b2cf75e755.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">for
the last 6-7 decades has been one of survivalist mentality.</span><span style="font-family: Tahoma;"> </span><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">It’s as if we, at some point, forgot that at
its heart, Judaism has always, always been about a relationship between the
evolving mundane and ineffable qualities of life, with Jewish traditions and
laws not designed for stagnation, to serve solely as anchors of vessels never
intended to take to sea, but more as wide, billowing sails, enabling us to
traverse and discover more of the endlessly revealing cosmos of which we are an
integral, covenantal, evolving part.</span><span style="font-family: Tahoma;"> </span><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">Solely
surviving inhibits and prohibits thriving.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Tahoma;">One key reason the Nones
are important is because they are not interested in just surviving, erosion, in
anchored vessels that can’t sail; they are wholly invested in yearning, in
seeking, in thriving. They seek deep
rooted answers to the significant questions of existence and meaning in the
universe. Their yearnings, I believe,
are not unique, but are actually shared by every human being. It’s just that not
everyone is comfortable or willing to articulate them in a so-called religious
or Jewish context because we, as Jewish institutions, have failed to foster an
environment where such questions are the norm.
But these questions are ultimately what we find at the heart of life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Tahoma;">Our desires to know and
deepen our understanding of ourselves, our place in the world, what we are here
to do, ultimately our search for Truth – with a capital T – the asking of and
searching for answers to these questions, I’d say prove the very purpose for
which God created us in the first place.
And that search is necessarily about wrestling and digging. The goal is not reaching “a single, eternal
realization,” as Rabbi Irwin Kula teaches, but instead “living out the process of
realizing again and again.”<a href="file:///C:/Users/Scott%20&amp;%20Wendi/Documents/what%20we%20can%20learn%20from%20the%20nones.doc#_edn2" name="_ednref2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[ii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSKuf8pLAJ3K3ycjrbUHnO2N9WqUk54eqTGDfTgQlgG744suDda" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="112" src="https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSKuf8pLAJ3K3ycjrbUHnO2N9WqUk54eqTGDfTgQlgG744suDda" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">Our Jewish teachings are at
once plentiful and varied, ripe and evolving, rooted and ethereal. Ours is a wisdom tradition intended to be
lived, wrestled with, imagined, “deconstructed, and re-imagined.”</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Scott%20&amp;%20Wendi/Documents/what%20we%20can%20learn%20from%20the%20nones.doc#_edn3" name="_ednref3" style="font-family: Tahoma;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[iii]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Tahoma;"> We must not be afraid to do just this – to
activate and enliven our own yearnings and souls’ quests in this light. Not to do so surely resigns us to a life of
malaise and stagnation. And that’s not
just a modern psychological statement.
Jewish mystics have been talking about it for centuries, originating in
Jewish folklore about the Golem of all places, with poignant teachings about
the Hebrew word for Truth: Emet. Rabbi Kula puts an interesting twist on it.
He teaches: If you remove the first letter from Emet, you are left with a
different word: “met” – which in Hebrew means death. As such, the mystics taught that if you only have
one side of the story which you believe is absolute truth – with a capital T, you've essentially begun your own demise.
Truth, they inherently understood from a most profound level, has always
been more complicated, nuanced, evolving than that. When viewed all together, </span><i style="font-family: Tahoma;">Emet</i><span style="font-family: Tahoma;"> – </span><i style="font-family: Tahoma;">aleph, mem, tav -</i><span style="font-family: Tahoma;"> is comprised of the first, middle, and last letters of the
Hebrew alphabet – as if to suggest that the very composition of the word Truth itself
urges us to seek a wider, more inclusive, deeply resonating, and all-encompassing
truth.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Scott%20&amp;%20Wendi/Documents/what%20we%20can%20learn%20from%20the%20nones.doc#_edn4" name="_ednref4" style="font-family: Tahoma;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[iv]</span></span></span></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Tahoma;">Indeed, this call to seek a
wider, more inclusive, deeply resonating and all-encompassing Judaism, I
believe, is the call to all of us at this precise moment in our evolution as a
faith. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Tahoma;">So I’m a Jewish None, and maybe
you are too. And maybe we’re all better for that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
<!--[if !supportEndnotes]--><br clear="all" />
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<!--[endif]-->
<br />
<div id="edn1">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Scott%20&amp;%20Wendi/Documents/what%20we%20can%20learn%20from%20the%20nones.doc#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> http://www.pewforum.org/Unaffiliated/nones-on-the-rise.aspx</div>
</div>
<div id="edn2">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Scott%20&amp;%20Wendi/Documents/what%20we%20can%20learn%20from%20the%20nones.doc#_ednref2" name="_edn2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">[ii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> From
the teachings and language of Rabbi Irwin Kula in “Yearnings” p.4.</div>
</div>
<div id="edn3">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Scott%20&amp;%20Wendi/Documents/what%20we%20can%20learn%20from%20the%20nones.doc#_ednref3" name="_edn3" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">[iii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> Ibid.</div>
</div>
<div id="edn4">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Scott%20&amp;%20Wendi/Documents/what%20we%20can%20learn%20from%20the%20nones.doc#_ednref4" name="_edn4" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">[iv]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> These
teachings on Emet are sourced to any number of places, both ancient and
modern. The play on Emet and Met is a
reference to any number of Golem narratives.
See Sefer Yitzirah as an example.
The concept of Emet as comprised of the first, middle, and last letters
of the alphabet I first heard mentioned in rabbinical school and have since
heard and read mentioned many times, however I do not know the original source
of it. Irwin Kula offers a fitting
description of these stories, and it is from his conceptions of the stories
that this sermon derives its meaning.</div>
</div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13086781176511709410noreply@blogger.com0