Komen, the Ten, and the Tenor Upstairs

Sermon delivered at the Riverway Project's "Soul Food Friday, February 10, 2012

There’s a story told of an elderly gentleman, a retired music teacher, who lived in a boarding house.  His health was not good, he was confined to a wheelchair.  Each morning a neighbor of his, a student, would stop by his room and ask, “What’s the good news?” The old man would pick up his tuning fork, tap it on the side of his wheelchair, and say, “That’s middle C! It was middle C yesterday; it will be middle C tomorrow; it will be middle C a thousand years from now. I can hear the tenor upstairs—he sings flat!    The piano across the hall, it’s out of tune, but, my friend, this tuning fork will always be middle C!”

In our tradition, we have a middle C, and it’s called Torah.  In fact, the Torah itself has a middle C, and we read it this week in Parashat Yitro.  What we often call, “the Ten Commandments.”  There are hundreds of Commandments in the Torah- 613, according to our tradition- but these are “the Ten.”  Middle C.

In terms of the narrative itself, we’re reading from the story of Exodus.  The Israelites have been liberated from the oppression of the Egyptians and they now enter into direct relationship with God.  Their sacred, trusting bond, what we call the B’rit or Covenant, is in formation. They stand at the foot of Sinai. Moses is going back and forth between God and the people, relaying God’s message.  The 10 commandments are uttered for the first time. 

But we sense that the story isn’t going to unfold as smoothly as we’d like to it to—as if we’ve read it before! The Israelites are about to betray God by building an idol out of their own jewelry. And “the Ten” from this week’s portion will end up shattered, broken. They destroy the trust that they’ve built, by not upholding their behavior to the public standard that is uttered this week.  Dissonant to the 10 Commandments, their own middle C, the people will sing flat.

In our own time as well, we live in an age of broken tablets.  Major financial institutions have let us down.  Corporations and special interests are as equipped as ever to determine the outcomes of our elections, to buy and sell votes (almost literally), even to control the way we think by manipulating how we acquire information.

And we know it. According to a 2010 Pew Research Survey, “just 22% [of American voters] say that they can trust the government in Washington almost always or most of the time—among the lowest measures in half a century.”  In 1980, it was 70%.

 It’s no longer news—we are not surprise—to hear of corruption in the public and private sectors, bribes, Ponzi schemes, insider trading, state-funded sexual improprieties. Nor are we, in the Jewish community, surprised when we hear that many of the individuals who have broken trust are from our own community—Madoff, Abramoff, Spitzer, Libby, to name just a few.  Even my friends in my fantasy baseball league were only slightly surprised when our Jewish baseball hero, National League MVP Ryan Braun tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs. 

On the one hand, we celebrate the 170 Jewish Nobel Prize winners, the exceptional role that Jews have played in the advancement of society.  On the other hand, we're no longer living with the illusion that Jewish success implies menschlikite.  

This shouldn’t stop us from seeking out those among us, Jews and non-Jews alike, who inch our society ever closer to the high standard of our “middle C,” those who through their missions and accomplishments live out the value of social justice and equity so treasured in our faith and the faiths of our friends and partners.

Two months ago, at the Union for Reform Judaism’s Biennial Convention in Washington, D.C., we honored individuals whose work embodies our greatest aspirations.  And the Movement’s highest award, the Maurice Eisendrath Bearer of Light Award for Service to the World Community, was given to Nancy Brinker, the founder and CEO of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation. 

The achievements of Komen for the Cure, under Brinker’s leadership, cannot be overstated.  They’re the world’s largest grassroots network of breast cancer survivors and activist.  They’ve raised more funds to fight breast cancer through research and prevention than anyone else.  They’ve saved countless lives, and up until recently, they were regarded as one of the most trusted nonprofits in America.  Now that is no longer so.  

On January 31, Komen issued a statement that it would cut funding to Planned Parenthood.  Why?  Because of a pending congressional inquiry into the fiscal integrity of Planned Parenthood, launched by notorious anti-choice activist Rep. Cliff Stearns. This isn’t the first time Planned Parenthood is being audited to ensure they’re using federal funding properly, and these audits have never turned up any wrongdoings.  More significantly, these audits have never been cited by Komen as an excuse to pull funding.

What this came down to—what was plain to see—was that Komen’s mission was compromised, in this case corrupted.  In the public eye, and in the eyes of their supporters, this action appeared to be prompted by the Vice President of the organization, Karen Handel.  Handel ran for Governor of Georgia last year on a staunchly anti-choice platform, and advocates for reproductive rights have been concerned for sometime now that her politics and those of other Komen leaders might skew the Foundation from its central mission of eradicating breast-cancer as a life-threatening disease. 

This was a devastating blow not just to Planned Parenthood, but to the many people who are alive today because of this collaboration, and a significant number of Komen’s own regional leaders, many of whom threatened to resign. 

Eventually, Komen issued a statement saying they would no longer exclude Planned Parenthood from eligibility—reversing their commitment to cut them off, but not quite guaranteeing future funding.  Nancy Brinker apologized for the way the organization handled the matter.  And Karen Hendel, frustrated by this reversal, resigned from Komen.  Supporters of Reproductive Rights hailed the reversal as a victory, but nothing can change the reality of broken trust. 

This broken trust is understood quite well through the lens of Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Lessig, who in his book Republic Lost discusses governmental corruption.  Defining what he calls “dependency corruption,” Lessig writes:

“Imagine a compass, its earnest arrow pointing to the magnetic north.  We all have a trusting sense of how this magical device works.  When we turn with the compass in our hands, the needle turns back…. Now imagine we’ve rubbed a lodestone on the metal casing of the compass, near the mark for ‘west.’  The arrow shifts.  Slightly.  That shift is called ‘magnetic deviation.’  Magnetic north was the intended dependence.  Tracking magnetic north is the purpose of the device.  The lodestone creates a competing dependence….  A corruption.”

Komen suffered from the same kind of “dependency corruption.”  Their magnetic north, their middle C, their mission is to eradicate breast-cancer as a life-threatening disease.  Their deviation, their spurious dependence, was the influence of a few high-level anti-choice activists and their apparent coordination with a politician’s agenda to sabotage any women’s health clinics that provide abortions. 

As Brinker herself suggested in her apology, now the task for Komen, an ultimately life-saving organizing, is to rebuild trust. 

There’s no clean recipe for trust—not in the real world, nor in the didactic-yet-equally-messy world of our text.  But as we read from the 10 Commandments this week, knowing that in but a few weeks they’ll be shattered at the foot of Sinai, perhaps there’s some wisdom to carry forward. 

First, a lesson for Komen.  A simple fact of biblical Hebrew, that when it comes to the Ten Commandments, they’re not actually what they seem.  They are not just commandments.  Commandments are literally called, “mitzvot.”  The Ten Commandments are actually called “dibrot,” 10 utterances or statements—values that we declare aloud in public. And in so doing, we hold ourselves accountable, constantly, to the actions of our lives.  Trust is put to the test in public.  Trust will not be rebuilt through resignations and apologies, but through future public actions.

Second, a reminder for us: A midrash teaches that when the Israelites traveled in the wilderness, they placed both sets of tablets, broken and whole, into the Ark of the Covenant.  They carried them everywhere they went.  A reminder that trust, Covenant, sacred relationship demands hard work and constant repair. 

This week as we encounter our own dibrot, the Ten Commandments, we learn that a community can be entrusted, uplifted, even sanctified, when it strives with all its might to hold itself to the highest, most enduring standard: its middle C. 

How else can we live a life of purpose, when we find that the tenor upstairs sings flat?

###

Vayigash: Joseph's New Year's Resolutions

D'var Torah delivered on Dec. 30, 2011/ 5 Tevet 5772

Temple Israel of Boston

As we read the Torah, sometimes the stories that we find in our weekly parshiyot are so utterly distant from our reality that we find ourselves breaking a sweat forging connection between the text and our lives.  Other times the two are so complementary it can send chills down your spine.  This week… we’re somewhere in between…. 

Two weeks ago, in this space, we read from the beginning of the story of Joseph.  For levity’s sake, I called as an aliyah to the Torah anyone who has seen Andrew Lloyd Weber’s musical, Joseph. Very few people stood up, and I was shocked….until someone said, “does it count if I was in it?”  “Of course,” I said, at which point it felt like nearly everyone stood up.  Just imagine if it were Fiddler on the Roof!

This week we move toward the conclusion of the story of Joseph and his brothers, and it tells of their dramatic settlement in the land of Egypt. In fact, they were fleeing from the famine in the land of Canaan.  Their lives were threatened by starvation and Pharaoh, properly nudged by his right hand man Joseph, saved their lives by granting them land in a region called Goshen.  (And from my friends who are from the land of Goshen, NY—it’s different… but possibly the same number of Jews. I digress….often.)

The settlement of Jacob and his sons in Goshen, for the most part, settles the drama between the brothers.  But there’s no curtain call here, because the story’s just begun.  In the verses immediately following the settlement of the brothers, the narrative broadens its scope, dealing with the land as a whole.  And what we discover is that the people are once again in a life-or-death situation. The story reads:

“v’lechem ayn b’chol ha’aretz ki-chaveid ha-ra’av m’od—[At this time] there was no food in the entire land, as the famine bore down so heavily.” (47:13).

So the famine threatens the lives of all the people of Egypt, and they turn to Joseph to save their lives.  Joseph comes up with a plan, an economic solution.  He sells the grain that he’s stored to the people, in exchange for silver.  That helped for a bit. But the famine persists:

 “Vayitom hakesef mei-eretz mitzrayim—and the people ran out of silver…. And they say to him:  Hava lanu lechem, v’lama lamut negdecha ki afeis kasef!  Let us have food! Why should we drop dead, right in front you, for lack of silver!”  (47:15)

Once again, Joseph reacts to this desperate plea from the people who are starving to death.  He responds, coming up with another resolution.  “Bring me your livestock, in exchange for food,” he says.  He incorporates a new form of currency.  And according the text, this kept the people alive for the remainder of that year.  But the crisis of the famine doesn’t conclude there; it continues, and Joseph continues coming up with solutions.  But it’s at this point that we find three curious words for our own day: “Vatitom hashanah hahi—the year came to end.”  (47:18)

Funny words to stumble upon as we ourselves knock on the door of the final day of secular year of 2011.  Vatitom hashanah hahi, that year came to an end.  It’s the only occasion in the Torah in which we find these Hebrew words together, the end of the year.  And we find it imbedded within an economic crisis, a back and forth conflict between the people who lack food and sustenance, and their leaders, Joseph and Pharaoh, who are trying to find a solution, a resolution.

Now, our text is not a literal instruction manual for our own times—the Bible doesn’t understand the nuances of our own “world-as-it-is.”  Only we know that.  In the world-as-it-is, we are in a time of extreme economic hardship, and though we all see it, we don’t all feel it equally.  Our tradition, and the story of Exodus, which really begins in this week’s portion, sensitize us to the truth that the vulnerable, the have-nots, suffer in ungodly ways.  In the world-as-it-is, there are concrete reasons why people across the economic spectrum are protesting across this country—in fact, across the world—in reaction to the gap between the rich and the poor. 

Now, our Torah portion tells this story year after year, it’s not a magical book that knows the “world as it is.”  But when we read it, we keep our eyes open for glimpses of “world as it should be.”  And perhaps a few lessons here capture our aspirations and hopes:

1.   The resolutions to the problems in biblical Egypt would never have been possible without a healthy dialogue between the people and Joseph.  The people found a way to organize themselves to give voice to their needs. Then-and-only-then is Joseph positioned to help. As we know well, as a community practicing congregation-based community organizing, each of us—like the Egyptian people and Joseph—has a voice in the public square that can be activated to solve problems.  This exercise of leadership and social justice is authentic when it rises above partisanship, speaking to the utmost moral dilemmas of our time.

2.  The people in this story have the expectation that leaders must lead. It is entirely “Jewish” and a Torah-based demand that our leaders rise above the quibbling and spite that delays or destroys the life-saving solutions to the social disease of human suffering. That age-old problem of social depravity, whether manifested as healthcare crisis, educational failure, school drop-out rates, housing needs, and the like—is of the utmost Jewish concern.  It’s the Oxygen that flows through the veins of our tradition and our Torah—and it begins here, at the end of Genesis—vatitom ha-shanah—at the end of the year.

3.  In addition to the obvious social and economic link between our text and our lives… Tomorrow night is an evening that for some involves “New Year’s Resolutions.”  Although it’s a not a Jewish holiday, many Jews find themselves pausing, getting together with people who matter to them, and evaluating life and priorities. Here we find a hint into what a sacred New Years resolution could look like.  A litmus test, of sorts. 

Vatitom HaShanah, when the year comes to an end, Joseph and the people are discussing how they can sustain life.  Perhaps the question can be broadened and personalized for us as well:

What sustains you?  Ours is a tradition obsessed with life—what resolutions or action will enable you and those around you to live, in the fullest sense of the word?

Vatitom HaShanah, as this secular New Year comes to an end, we wish everyone abundant blessings and a 2012 filled with strength and joy and peace.  Shabbat Shalom.

Having Freed the Captives: Text Study for Noah 5772

D'var Torah/text study at Riverway Unplugged, 10/28/11

I’ve been asked by quite of few people in the last week about my views on Gilat Shalit’s release.  For those who are less familiar with this situation, or are taking a break from media bombardment:

On the 25^th of June 2006 an Israeli soldier named Gilad Shalid was abducted by Hamas.  For the last 5 years, Israel has been trying to get him back, in a number of ways.  And finally, thank God, just 10 days ago, they succeeded in achieving prisoner exchange with Hamas.  In exchange for Gilad Shalit, Israel released 1,027 of its Palestinian prisoners.

The deal itself is actually more complicated than that, with many stages and many stipulations about where the prisoners will be released, where they’ll be permitted to live or not live, travel or not travel.  For instance, only 200 of them are actually returning to Gaza, 100 returning to the West Bank.  Those details you can find on Haaretz or the Jewish Forward.  Those are the sites I most highly recommend to learn everything about Israel.

Many of you are already familiar with this story, and those who aren’t, I guarantee if were having this conversation in Israel, you could provide me with the update. 

In Israel, Gilad Shalit is a household name.  Just imagine in a country in which every family goes through the experience of sending their 18 year olds to the IDF, how deeply felt and how resonant Shalit’s captivity was.  He became in the words of one Israel’s most famous songwriter, “everyone’s child.”  And his release has been a truly cathartic and powerful moment for Israeli citizens.  6-1 of Israelis support the deal. 

And yet, no one will deny that the release of 1,027 prisoners, many of whom have so much Israeli blood on their hands, is an extraordinary cost. 

On top of this Shalit deal, just yesterday actually, another American-Israel citizen, Ilan Grapel, who had been held in Egypt since June, charged with spying for Israel, was released, in exchange for 25 Egyptians held in Israeli jails.

I’ve been asked by at least 3 people in the last week, “What do you think of the prisoner exchange?”  When one of my family members asked me this, I started answering the question with the politics of it all, and my family member replied, “I know the politics of it, but what I don’t know is what Judaism, what the tradition, has to say about it.” 

So in the next few minutes, I thought we could take a look at some of the texts that address the act of FREEING THE CAPTIVE, with the hope that they will enhance our understanding of this relevant situation.

TEXT 1: TORAH:

FOCUS: "You shall not harden your heart" (Deuteronomy 15:7)

          Why?  This is what Pharaoh does.  Doesn’t “let people go.” 

          What’s the response to Pharoah?  Implication:  We play Moses. 

"You shall not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor" (Leviticus 19:16)

“You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Leviticus 19:18).

TEXT 2:  Talmud

Bava Batra 8b

The freeing of captives is a mitzvah rabbah, sacred obligation of great importance.

It’s worth noting, this is the only commandment that’s considered a “mitzvah rabbah.”  

That’s not to suggest that the Talmud is monolithic.  We find an argument in the following text:

Gittin 45a

 “One does not ransom captives for more than their value because of Tikkun Olam  (literally: "fixing the world" but here meaning, “for the good order of the world, or for the sake of social policy.)”

[Why is this?  For two reasons:]

A)   “Because of the [financial] burden on the community";

B)    "So that [the robbers] should not seize more captives"

QUESTIONS:

What could this text possibly mean by the phrase “more than their value”?

What is “A” primarily concerned about?  [bankruptcy]

What is “B” concerned about?  [incentivizing captivity of JEWISH captives.]

What does this suggest about the context of the talmudic world?  [powerlessness]

Across these varying ideas, in the teachings of Maimonides, we find an interesting synthesis.  Maimonides is writing a Code, in the 12^th c. and Codes, by definition, have no place for ambivalence:

TEXT 3: Maimonides. 

“The redeeming of captives takes precedence over supporting the poor or clothing them. There is no greater mitzvah than redeeming captives, for the problems of the captive include being hungry, thirsty, unclothed, and they are in danger of their lives too. Ignoring the need to redeem captives goes against these Torah laws: “Do not harden your heart or shut your hand against your needy fellow” (Deut 15:7); “Do not stand idly by while your neighbor’s blood is shed” (Lev 19:16). And misses out on the following mitzvot: “You must surely open your hand to him or her” (Deut 15:8); “...Love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev 19:18); “Rescue those who are drawn to death” (Prov 24:11) and there is no mitzvah greater than the redeeming of captives.” (Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Matanot Aniyim 8:10-11)

Questions:

What’s Rambam’s bottom line?

How does he ground his argument—in what sources?

[Torah!  Rambam loves his Talmud, and when it comes to this, he doesn’t budge]

So important is this mitzvah that he pulls out the “Torah-card”-- which equates to our own sense of the parental “because I said so.”  In the halakhic process (i.e., the process that determines Jewish law), a Rabbinic mitzvah cannot trump a biblical mitzvah.  That’s how Rambam puts the kibosh on any hesitation to free a captive.

We have to note, of course, that all of these texts actually fail to directly address the nuances of this situation.  None of them talk about prisoner exchange.  Why?   We’ve never had this power! 

We’re not living in the premodern milieu in which halakha was developed.  The case could be made as well that we have more power, sovereignty, and self-determination than the Rabbis ever fathomed us having in this world.   So there’s nothing in the halakhic literature that directly addresses this situation.  As we can see, there is a wise word of caution rooted in the Talmudic admonishment to consider the safety of the community, even when performing the “greatest mitzvah of all.”  But how could that possibly hold up given these circumstances?  

If we want to know what is the appropriate modern Jewish response in this case we have to include modern Jewish voices in our consideration.

In this respect, I think The Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, Sir Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, brilliantly balances the halakhic warning with the situation as it is. 

TEXT 4: Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of Great Britain

 “The safe return of Gilad Shalit to his family and to his freedom is a sight Jews around the world have been praying and campaigning for since his capture on 25 June 2006. Our prayers have been answered, and we rejoice for and with Gilad and his family. The concept of Pidyon shevuyim, the redemption of captives, is a fundamental mitzvah in Judaism, and the sanctity and significance of a single life one of our highest values. Israel has again shown it is willing to pay a heavy and painful price to uphold one of its most sacred values, and we hope this is a step forward in the pursuit for peace in the Middle East.

“Every life is precious, and that is why, on this day, we also remember the victims of terror who have been killed at the hands of many of those released today, as well as those Israeli soldiers who remain missing in action. We continue to pray for their safe and speedy return, and that they too will one day soon know what it is to be free.”

 For Sacks, and for us as well, this event at its core is a story of our commitment to saving lives.  That’s the Jewish value.  We not only see it in the blessed return of Shalit and Grapel, but also we find it in our Torah portion this week. 

At the end of the Noah story, a story we know well—after the Flood, after the dove comes back with an olive branch in its mouth, signaling that the coast is clear.  As they leave the ark and return home to the world, they see something: a rainbow, arching across the sky.  And this rainbow is a symbol for what’s called a B’RIT OLAM.  A b’rit, a covenant or a promise, that is olam, forever.  It’s a sacred bond that extends not only to the past and present but the future. 

Judaism is a tradition obsessed with the future.

There’s a midrash that teaches that when Israel stood at Sinai to receive the Torah, when they were figuring out what the relationship would look like over time, God said to them “Present to me good guarantors, people who can promise that you will guard this Torah, and ensure that your community remains holy.  Then I’ll give it you.”

The people replied, “Our ancestors are our guarantors!”

God answered, “No, your ancestors aren’t enough.  If you can do better than that, I’ll give you the Torah.”

The people then said, “Ruler of the universe, the prophets are our guarantors.”

God replied, “No, the prophets are not sufficient guarantors.  Bring me better guarantors and I’ll give you the Torah.”

The people began to worry.  Who, if not the prophets, those who speak directly to God, could possibly serve as guarantors of this covenant?!  They discussed with each other these questions at length, reviewing everything they understood about God, about their journey, about why they’re even here!  And they came to complete agreement.  They spoke out to God in one voice:

“Our guarantors shall be our children.”

God replied, “they most certainly shall be. And because of this, I give you the Torah. 

From this ancient story, to the story of our modern day challenges, this b’rit olam, this commitment to “forever,” safeguarded by our children, continues to guide our decisions and, we pray, save our lives. 

Philo, Sukkot, & Occupy

I just stumbled upon Philo's interpretation of Sukkot (below), and I couldn't help but think about the sukkot being built this week by the Occupy movement in U.S. cities.  Intuitively, they're building upon the teaching of Philo that our sacred obligation has everything to do with addressing the inequality between poverty and privilege.

"[Sukkot] should remind us of the long journeying of our ancestors in the depths of the desert, when at every halting place they spent many a year in tents.  And indeed it is well in wealth to remember your poverty, in distinction your insignificance, in high offices your position as a commoner, in peace your dangers in war, on land the storms on seas, in cities the life of loneliness.  For there is no pleasure greater in high prosperity than to call to mind old misfortunes.  But besides giving pleasure, it is considerable help in the practice of virtue…"  (Philo, Special Laws 2.204, 206-211)

Yom Kippur 5772: Moving from Human Doing to Human BEING

Sermon delivered by Rabbi Matt Soffer, 

at the Riverway Project's "Ticketless" Kol Nidre Service for 20's and 30's, cosponsored by CJP.

It’s amazing what we can learn from our best-selling gadgets.  Consider the “smartphone.” My first “smartphone” was a Palm Treo, and what surprised me most about the Palm Treo was, in fact, not all of the really cool features that it had, it was one feature that it lacked: a devoted off-button. It disabled the phone-connection, but the rest of the computer, including my calendar, contacts, and tasks remain on, wide-awake, and inviting me into my To-Do-List. 

In the year 2010 alone, there were 300 million smartphones sold, and in the 2^nd quarter of 2011, there were 107 million—meaning, the number is only growing.  The most popular of these smartphones is, of course, the iPhone (and “if you don’t have an iPhone, well, you don’t have an iPhone.”) The iPhone, like most of these smartphones, also lacks a devoted off-button.  In order to turn it off, you have to actually work for it: you have to hold down a button for a little while and wait for further instruction.  It claims to have a power button, but if you push it once it just makes a clicking noise and pretends to be off. That’s not an off-button, that’s just “taking a nap.”

We live in a world that’s losing its off-buttons, and we are losing our naps.  It all breaks down to the number 7.  But first, a story.

                        *  *  *

In the summer of 2007, I was a chaplain in a hospice/end of life care unit.  In the morning of my first day of clinical work, I received a note: Room 7, Mr. Green. Mr. Green had just lost his father who was 98. When I entered the room, I saw his father on the bed and Mr. Green next to him.  Mr Green’s eyes were sore with grief; he was still holding his father’s hand. Right away he asked me a question: “What do I do now, chaplain?”  New to this role, I asked myself the same question: “what do I do?” Before I could even respond, Mr. Green’s daughter arrived.  The two embraced; she glanced toward her grandfather, shed a tear, and asked her father, “what do we do now, dad?”  Overwhelmed with sorrow, she did what she felt she had to do: she took out her Palm Treo and stepped out of the room to make calls.  She kept herself busy—a very normal initial reaction to grief. 

This early encounter of mine was one of many in which I observed this human habit of constantly doing, as it creeps into our lives in the most significant moments.  It is the habit of doing that can turn a sacred wedding into a business party, or a comfortable home into a 24-hour office.  Living in today’s world, we all have experienced first-hand, how our constant “doing” interferes with the all-too-neglected practice of being.  Being with a wedding couple, being with family, being with our selves—just being in the myriad moments of our busy, limited lives. 

Our tradition has much to say about these two categories—being verses doing. To a culture that lacks off-buttons, Judaism responds with the number 7.

                        *  *  *

In the beginning, there was the number 7.  7 words in the first verse of the Torah: B’reishit Bara Elohim Eyt HaShamayim v’Eyt Ha-Aretz (in the beginning, God created heaven and earth).  These first 7 words of Torah tell of the creation of heaven and earth—with the number 7, our universe begins.  For 6 days, God engages in the important work of doing, and on the 7^th, God stops, making that day… separate.

Historically, the 7-day week is a Jewish invention, and the idea of a 7^th day of rest emerged as a radical response to oppressive labor conditions. Shabbat is the result of a national liberation movement.  It’s not just a Jewish rule about what we can and can’t do on a certain day, it is also a Jewish concept, an idea—an ethical legacy.  At the core of our age-old Jewish story is the memory that avadim hayinu—we were slaves—deprived of a day of rest, and then liberated. 

Tragically, we live in a world that, by and large, is not. According to The American Anti-Slavery group, 27 million people are enslaved around the world—as many as 17,000 in our own United States are trafficked annually.  In this “Land of the Free” alone, slavery is estimated to yield profits of 9 billion dollars a year. As Charles Jacobs, President of iAbolish.org explains:

Modern-day slavery does not fit our familiar images of shackles, whips, and auctions…. Though the vast majority are no longer sold at public auctions, today's slaves are often no better off than their more familiar predecessors.

Ben Skinner, senior fellow at Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis, in his book A Crime So Monstrous, investigates the negotiations behind the selling of human beings in four continents.  He tells the stories of modern-day slaves, survivors, traffickers, and abolitionists. Skinner observes that there are more slaves in the world today than ever before.  He witnessed this with his own eyes. But as a percentage of the world population, there have never been fewer. Skinner therefore insists that "within a generation, we have the potential to wipe the crime from the face of the earth.

Avadim Hayinu, we were their predecessors.  We, as inheritors of the Shabbat concept, are strongly connected to the millions of people who are living in our nightmare memory. The fruits of their labor are the clothing on our backs, the coffee in our pots, the diamonds on our fingers.  Now is the time to remember that in the beginning there was the number 7.

And there have been 7 throughout: Lev. 25 instructs that every 7^th year is a Sabbatical year for the land, a year of complete rest. This 7^th year is known as the Shemitah year—shemitah means rest or release. In a Shemita year, the land must be free of cultivation or harvesting…. an “ancient expression of the Sabbath idea” (Rabbi Gunther Plaut).  Even the land deserves the number 7.

We can translate this in any number of ways:  Are we actively pursuing alternative energy resources?  Weaning off of oil, lessening our world-leading carbon emissions? Protecting wildlife? Managing waste?

And the concept of Shemita, of not working the land all the time, also informs our productive lives as well. According to the Harvard Business Review, workaholism is on the rise, particularly among high-earning individuals, the vast majority of whom now work more than 50 hours a week.  According to the American Institute of Stress, Job stress is more strongly associated with health complaints than financial or family problems.  It compromises the immune system; it can lead to depression, anxiety, and even psychosomatic issues.  It can strain or ruin relationships with family and friends. 

And it’s actually economically harmful as well: the Center for Disease Control and Prevention reports that Healthcare costs are nearly 50% greater for workers who report high levels of stress.

Though for most of us a sabbatical may be out of the question, perhaps a more reasonable possibility might be a year in which we don’t work ourselves sick, a year for us to breathe, to focus on the off-buttons: taking our lunch breaks, exploring this beautiful city of ours, taking care of our bodies, and of course, spending time with our loved ones.

In fact, one of our goals in Riverway is to help each other carve out the time and space to do just this: To unplug from the rest of our stressful, busy lives and connect—to plug in—to our best selves, to each other, to community, to tradition or spirituality—let’s just call that stuff, “Judaism.”  We and CJP are here to connect 20’s and 30’s to… the number 7.

                        *  *  *

Returning now to the hospital---to Mr. Green and his father and daughter….  When Mr. Green’s daughter returned to the room, after making her calls, Mr. Green reached out for her hand and drew her near.  He placed her hand on the still hand of his father’s.  Mr. Green was teaching his daughter how to turn off her Palm Treo and instead hold her grandfather’s hand. Mr. Green and his daughter had become human beings rather than human doings, as they said their goodbye.  I quietly left the room.  There was nothing left to be done. 

                        *  *  *

We are now at the culmination of the number 7: There were 7 days in between Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur.  These days are designed to represent Life.  This entire period of the Days of Awe, is a microcosm of our lifetime, with Rosh HaShanah as the beginning, Yom Kippur as the end.  On Rosh HaShanah we eat apples and honey, we celebrate Creation.  On Yom Kippur we don’t eat or drink, we don’t wash or brush, some traditionally dress in burial garb. 

During this Kol Nidre service, in accordance with tradition, we removed the Torah from the aron kodesh, the holy ark, during the chanting of kol nidre.  When the aron kodesh, the holy ark, is without a Torah it transforms from being an aron kodesh, to simply an “aron”—the Hebrew word not only for “ark” but also meaning, “coffin.”  With our bare humanness on our minds and our vulnerability in our hearts, we stand before the open aron, an open casket, and face our mortal selves.  The staging of a spiritual near-death experience.

To some this may sound morbid, but perhaps to many of us it may sound familiar, reminding us of these words spoken by one of the great geniuses of our age, who said this:

“Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life....  Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you....” 

The author of these words is Steve Jobs, of blessed memory.

Yom Kippur embodies this message.  Because unlike the day of our death, at the end of Yom Kippur, the Shofar is sounded—we awaken, and are pulled out of the depths. We eat, we nourish our bodies, and we are pushed forward to another week, another month, another year, with a new perspective on Life itself. Rosh HaShanah is the beginning, Yom Kippur is the end, and in the middle there are 7. Yom Kippur is referred to as “the Sabbath of all Sabbaths,” a day in which we commit to acting less like “human doings” and more like “human beings.”

It is now time to commit.  In Hebrew, the word for “commit” is nishba, at the core of which are three letters shin, vet, and ayin: spelling the number 7.  When we nishba, take an oath, we “commit to the number 7”:

·      To the works of creation, the delicate pieces of our natural world, we nishba, we commit.

·      To those who are deprived of their freedom, longing for the Sabbath ideal, we nishba, we commit,

·      To those around us, family and friends who fill our lives with love, we nishba, we commit,

·      We stand together on this day with the limited time that we have been given, and the presence—the being—with which we are blessed, and we nishba, we commit.

May we—as human beings—find the paths toward sacred rest and renewal, the hidden “off-buttons” aching to be pushed, and may we open ourselves and our world to the sacred blessing of peace: the Shabbat that is the only way to Shalom.

Rosh HaShanah 5772: Build an Ark for Unnatural Disasters

Sermon Delivered at Temple Israel of Boston, 5772/ Sept 2011

This summer I suffered from the rabbinic torment of High Holy Day writer’s block.  I had the sermon topic picked out for months actually, but every time I sat down and tried to write the words escaped me.  So I went down the shore, to Margate, NJ to relax, clear my mind, and hopefully begin writing.  Each day I’d sit on the sand with a beach chair and a book and wait for something to come.  And one day, it happened—something that completely shook me: an earthquake. Maybe you felt it too. 

          My wife, my aunt, my cousins and I, our feet buried in the shaking sand, turned to each other: what’s going on? Lifeguards were evacuating swimmers, our cell phones were down; we looked around and noticed everyone else looking around, as the social walls that normally divide neighbors from neighbors instantly dissolved—what’s happening? Is everyone okay? Our family and friends elsewhere, are they alright?  We soon learned, and thanked God, that this immense earthquake, among the strongest to ever shake the east coast, was somehow benign. Yes, they were all okay. A sigh of relief. 

          Nonetheless, as I stared out upon the water, I remained a bit shaken.  For two reasons: first, I’m pretty sure that on the list of safest places to be during an earthquake, “by the ocean” isn’t on the top.  A sigh of relief.  But there was another reason why I was shaken.  The topic that I had chosen to write about months prior, the subject I had research in the pages of 5 books, 3 journals, and countless newspaper articles that I brought with me was “Natural Disasters.”  I went inside, gathered my research, and I wrote this letter. 

Dear Noah,

I just felt my first earthquake.  As I looked out on the water, I thought of you.  And I write this letter with deep concern over your story.  I know you well, we read your story every year.  We know that you lived in an age of corruption, and that the book of Genesis describes you as an ish tzadik tamim b’dorotav, a righteous man, blameless in his generation. I’m sure that’s why you were singled out by God to build a boat.  You worked tirelessly. You gathered the finest wood and supplies in order to weather the worst storm imaginable.  And after the storm, creation began anew. A rainbow arched across the sky, and a new Covenant was established, a promise between God and humanity to move forward responsibly.  

Your story, Noah, is what biblical scholars call our “etiology,” our myth-of-origin.  Enduring throughout the generations, yours is among the most influential narratives, certainly the most pervasive flood myth, to span the millennia.  Your story teaches lessons in human purpose, devotion, and most of all, what it means to be tzadik, a righteous human being.  But knowing this, Noah, I have a complaint.

Sure, you’ve heard this complaint before, resounding within the ancient talmudic academies.  The Sages wrote this Midrash:

A story that imagines that after the Flood, Noah, you opened the ark and looked out. You saw the earth desolate, forests and gardens uprooted, corpses everywhere. No grass, no vegetation; the world was a wasteland. In dismay, you cried out to God: “Sovereign of all creation, in 6 days You made the earth and all that grows in it: it was like a garden, like a table prepared for a feast; now You Yourself O God have destroyed the work of Your hands, uprooting all that You planted, tearing down all that You built. Why did You not show love for Your creatures?”  The Midrash tells us that God then replied to you, Noah: “O faithless shepherd!  Now, after the disaster, you come to Me and complain. But when I said to you: Make an ark for yourself, you did not plead for your neighbors!

This ancient complaint about your story, Noah, continued echoing throughout the ages.  You heard it again in the 11^th century from Rashi, perhaps the smartest reader of Torah to ever walk the earth.  Rashi read the phrase “ish tzadik tamim b’dorotav” not as “a righteous man, blameless in his generation,” but rather as “a righteous and blameless man only in the context of his generation.” Noah, Rashi was siding with the Sages who read your story in Genesis and were deeply disturbed by your example of a tzadik, a righteous person. 

You heard it from the Sages; a millennium later you heard it from Rashi.  And now, a millennium after Rashi, I believe that today your example poses a greater existential threat to righteousness and human dignity than ever before.

Noah, in our world today, our exposure to natural disasters is on the rise. The data are unequivocal. According to the Centre for Research on Epidemiology of Disasters, in the year 2010 we witnessed 385 natural disasters, killing nearly 300,000 people worldwide, affecting 217 million.  This is exponentially higher than past annual averages.  Now more than ever, humanity is praying for a “sigh of relief.”

We all have taken painful note of these disasters.  The tsunamis in Southeast Asia, Hurricane Katrina, the earthquake in Haiti, and month later in Chile; the storms in southeast United States and Missouri; and of course, the mostly benign 5.8 earthquake that shook the east coast earlier today; and now I read about Hurricane Irene, which is hitting the outer banks in the coming hours. 

Many of our leaders are quick to call these disasters, “acts of God.” Noah, as you know personally, seeing floods and storms as God’s work is an age-old way of making sense of these events.  But did you know that still today, this is a widespread reaction by many on the Religious Right—to see every catastrophe as an intentional punishment issued by an Almighty and micro-managerial God-figure. I was in Israel during Hurricane Katrina, when the former Chief Sephardic Rabbi of Israel, Ovadia Yosef, blamed Katrina on the New Orleans African American community, saying they weren’t studying enough Torah.  According to Yosef, “God said….let’s bring on a tsunami and drown them.”  An “act of God.” 

An “act of God” is also how our own political leaders explained Katrina.  Then President Bush said, “God’s purposes are sometimes impossible to know here on Earth.” 

The phrase “an Act of God” is also legalese, common with insurance policies, and referring to a natural catastrophe that no one can prevent such as an earthquake, tidal wave, tornado, or volcano, and which is generally considered attributable to nature without human interference.  In legal terms, it’s an excuse for a failure to fulfill an obligation or a project.  In the wake of catastrophe, this “Act of God” language is a way of deflecting the cause of disaster, as completely outside of human control. 

Former Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff explained away Katrina’s impact in this way: “That perfect storm…exceeded the foresight of the planners, and maybe anybody’s foresight”  The disaster, he said, was “breathtaking in its surprise…. Mother Nature trumped the playbook.”  But Noah, I’m not writing to you about “Acts of God,” or “Mother Nature.” Let’s talk about you, about human beings.  Because if we learned anything from Katrina, it’s that we had the playbook.

Historian and disaster studies expert Ted Steinberg, in his book Acts of God concludes, “Rarely has a disaster been so accurately predicted.” Not only was it accurately predicted, all the warnings were strategically ignored.  In the years leading up to Katrina, the Bush Administration labeled the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) an “oversized entitlement program,” drained FEMA of its relief funding, and fired the experts in disaster relief. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.  Katrina was a complete disaster in disaster relief, and there is not a credible social scientist or policy expert in the world who will deny that it wasn’t God or Mother Nature that handpicked victims along unequal lines of race, and class, and age.  It was human hands that robbed the most vulnerable among us of any hope for a sigh of relief.

Noah, you may have heard that just this past July, a group of scholars within the growing academic field of Disaster Studies gathered for a conference hosted by the International Institute for the Sociology of Law.  What these scholars and policy experts have concluded is that natural disasters are not just weather events; the disastrous effects are produced by particular social and political environments. In other words, what we call “a natural disaster” is not so natural after all.  And to understand this clearly, let’s consider Chicago, in 1995. 

If you ask most people on the street what happened in Chicago in 95, few would even recall.  If you asked Chicagoans about ’95 many would recollect that around 100 or so people died in a Heat Wave.  But in fact the true numbers are startling. At least 521 people died within this week-long heat wave.  Some experts calculate a death count of more than 700.  Sociologist Eric Klinenberg, in his book Heat Wave, offers a “social autopsy” of the disaster. Klinenberg finds it shocking how little attention heat waves receive—they’re not even considered by most to be “natural disasters.”  Yet in the United States more people die in heat waves than in all other extreme weather events combined.

Why is there so little coverage? The truth is jarring: because unlike other weather events that wreak havoc on infrastructure and across the socioeconomic spectrum, in a heat wave the victims are almost exclusively the most vulnerable, the powerless, the alienated. Heat waves are, “silent and invisible killers of silenced and invisible people.”  In Chicago, most of the victims were elderly and poor. The majority of these victims died alone.  170 human beings were never even claimed at the Public Administrators Office. The unclaimed victims were carted off to a mass grave, and two civilians attended their funeral. 

The Chicago medical examiner called the heat-wave deaths an “Act of God.” The commissioner of the city’s Department of Human Services said, “people…. died because they neglected themselves.” Mayor Richard Daley said, “let’s not blow it out of proportion…every day people die of natural causes.” Left out of his “eulogy” if you will, is this so-called “natural cause”: months earlier, Congress passed the largest budgetary cuts at that time in US History.  What was the target of these cuts? The Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, leaving the impoverished without utilities. The House leadership sent a letter to President Clinton declaring, “it would be their policy from now on to pay for natural disaster…with budget cuts.” And President Clinton signed-off.  These victims in Chicago were literally powerless just in time for the heat wave.

These very words we now hear today, Noah, as Hurricane Irene approaches, echoing in the halls of a Congress that is now debating, once again, which programs will be cut in order to fund disaster relief.

The Chicago Heat Wave reveals the consistent public denial that so-called natural disasters are anything other than the weather, or nature, or an “act of God” at play.  What’s at play here reminds me of you, Noah: the propensity for a human being to turn his or her back to humanity.  To withhold, to exclude from others, a sigh of relief.  You live among us, within us.

But Noah what I want you to know is that the story of Genesis goes on and presents us with better role models than you. With Abraham, who prays for compassion amid the disastrous conditions of Sodom and Gomorrah; with Moses, who advocates for the Israelites after the sin of the Golden Calf.  The culmination of this story is, of course, Jacob—who not only stands up to God, but actually wrestles with God.  Jacob was renamed YISRA-EL—“one who wrestles with God” because, unlike you, Noah, Yisrael advocates for human beings above all.  This is why the Jewish people were named Yisrael or Israel—to do what you failed to do, to clean up your mess, to provide that sigh of relief. 

So I sign this letter with the great hope that we will live and act in this world, less like children of Noah, and more like – who we truly are-

Sincerely,

The Children of Israel. 

The 10 Days of Awe are a gift to us, designed to symbolize Life.  Rosh HaShanah is a birth, and Yom Kippur is a death.  But in the end, the shofar is sounded—we awaken, we are pulled out of the depths, pushed forward into the next year with a new perspective on Life itself. 

Rosh HaShanah is our Genesis, and each year we write a new chapter of the story. We move beyond the myth of Noah who could have done more and beyond the myth that there’s nothing more to be done.  We move beyond the myth that disasters are all-natural and beyond that myth that “poverty has nothing to do with me because I don’t live there.”  For indeed, the social depravity, the “savage inequality” that causes the unnatural disasters in New Orleans and Chicago, describes our own situation in our communities today: the unnatural disaster of poverty, the unnatural disaster of institutional racism, the unnatural disaster of an unbridled market “pricing” people out of their human rights.

Wrestling with the reality of these conditions that we are living among, the High Holy Days offer this hopeful message: We can build an ark. 

Bigger and better than Noah’s.  An ark that affirms of human life. 

With our own deeds in the year ahead, we can build an ark. 

In our congregation’s Ohel Tzedek, our tent of justice, open for all to enter, we can build an ark. 

In the hours of our chosen careers or in our free-time, we can build in ark.

By joining others who share our passions and pains,

By habituating acts of lovingkindness,

By speaking out for those who have no voice: we can build an ark.

For those who are “priced out” of food or healthcare or education—basic human rights—

For those who still experience hatred and discrimination—we can build an ark.

For those whose lives can be saved, if only we act less like Noah and more like Israel, one who wrestles—we can build an ark.

Because each year we begin with the refreshing Jewish conviction that we are here on earth for a purpose, as the children of Israel, the ones who stand up- even to God- in order to build an ark for humanity. 

May the ark we build bring a sigh of relief upon the earth,

And may the light that shines from our actions refract colorfully as a rainbow arching across the heavens.  

Ki Teitzei- Forgetting and Remembering

D'var Torah delivered at Riverway Project Soul Food Shabbat, September 9, 2011

An idiosyncrasy that my colleagues and a few friends know about me: whenever I speak formally, whether offering a d’var torah, sermon, or public speech, I always print up one extra copy of the final version.  I fold it up, slip it into my back pocket, and forget about it—with the hope that I won’t actually need it.  But often I do: because, I confess, when it comes to the minute details in life, I am among the more forgetful people who walk the earth.  And now… you know.

This Torah portion, Parashat Ki Teitzei, offers us wonderful insight into the habit of forgetting and the practice of remembering.  And lest we forget, let’s start with forgetting.

Does anyone remember … what the Torah says about our fields?  How are we to treat them?  (Not gleaning the corners). 

The mitzvah regarding the corners of the field (peah) is what most people remember.  And it’s probably the most significant because it captures the essential value here—don’t glean the corners (or edges) of the field, don’t even regard them as yours.  Yes, you work hard for all of your product, but rules are rules, and the rule is: part of whatever you think you own is communal, devoted to those who could only dream of having a field of their own.  So we sum up the value of our communal obligations with the commandment, don’t harvest the edges of your field, and that’s what most remember. 

But in fact there’s a whole lot of other interesting laws regarding the treatment of our fields.  Remember, this is an agrarian culture, so it makes sense that we find a ton of relevant mitzvot couched in agrarian language.  Try this one on for size:

Ki tiktzor k’tzircha v’sadeh-  When you reap the harvest of your field-  V’shachachta omer basadeh-  and you forget a sheaf in the field (i.e., if you accidentally leave behind a bundle of wheat), you shall not go back to fetch it.  It shall be for the stranger, the orphan, and the widow, that the Eternal your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.   (Deut 24:19)

Though this seems pretty straight forward, this commandment, referred to as “shoch’cha,” or the commandment of the forgotten sheaf—is one of the more puzzling mitzvot in our entire tradition.  The modern biblical scholar Nehama Leibowitz commented: “so puzzling is the accidental nature of the precept of the Forgotten Sheaf.  It is inconceivable to admit that help to the poor should be dependent on the contingency of forgetfulness…. this is the only precept [in the entire Torah] that is not dependant on man’s freewill.” 

Let’s think about that for one moment: of the 613 mitzvot this is the only one that is not dependent on freewill.  Everywhere else, if you forget something you’re in trouble.  Here, if you forget something, way to go!  (And conversely, if you don’t forget, you’re going to have to settle for performing 612.)

The medieval commentator Ibn Ezra offers a clever reading of this bizarre precept.  He reads the verse with an emphasis to how it ends: “….you shall not fetch it, it shall be for the stranger, the orphan, and the widow SO THAT THE ETERNAL YOUR GOD MAY BLESS YOU IN ALL THE WORKS OF YOUR HAND.”  Ibn Ezra then comments:  “because you gave of yourself in thought the Eternal your God will give of you in actual deed.”  Forgetfulness in this particular context is understood as a donation of thought.  Or a sacrifice of thought, which God rewards with blessing.

This mitzvah- and Ibn Ezra’s interpretation- is perhaps the “Holiness Code” for those among us who just forget things.  But philosophically, its implied message applies to us all. 

We spend so much time and effort thinking our way into mitzvot—whether we call it that or not—contemplating the “right thing to do.”  But in fact, among the most meaningful and important deeds are those we do without even thinking.  The question for us becomes:  What are the ways in which we can habituate good deeds—even thoughtlessly?  Practices that we can adopt that may be even life-saving? 

Our Torah portion this week suggests that our relationship to those who are in-need extends not only to the most ambitious deeds of our hands, but also our portion begs us to relate to human suffering- attend to human suffering- through our everyday and even second-nature habits. Even in our thoughtlessness, our forgetfulness, we are, somehow, commanded. 

And why?  Because despite this peculiar commandment of forgetfulness, when all is said and done there is a particularly kind of REMEMBRANCE that is unwavering. 

 

We find this in the final verses of our Torah portion.  Ki Teitzei closes with a famous paragraph that alludes to the story of the Exodus from Egypt:  It reads: “ZACHOR—REMEMBER.  ZACHOR et asher Amalek asa l’cha.  Remember what Amalek did to you, on your way out of Egypt.  How, undeterred by fear of God, he surprised you on the march, when you were famished and you were weary, and cut down all the stragglers in your rear.”

 The High Holy Days are so quickly approaching—as you may have learned from our weekly eblasts.  We’d love to have everyone here who’s in town with us—and Rebecca will say a word on that in a bit.  This is a time of “teshuva” of “return.”  We return to our community; we return to ourselves, our very best selves.  The process of returning is a kind of reckoning with forgetfulness and remembrance.  We confront all that we have forgotten, and we start to remember who we really are, and perhaps who we want to become.

In a sense, we live our lives in this fluctuation, between remembrance and forgetfulness. This portion teaches us:  Zachor – remember.  That shachachta, when you forget whatever you inevitably forget, zachor, remember that we are in relationship with those around us, with our community, and with those most vulnerable among us who are also a part of our extended selves. And that each of us, whether you forget your wallet, or your keys, or your sermon, or your sheaf of wheat, each of us, has the capacity to transform remembrance into compassion, and forgetfulness into blessing.