An Important and (Sadly) Controversial Visit

Naftali Bennett’s recent visit to the Solomon Schechter School of Manhattan was eagerly anticipated by the entire school community.  After considerable planning, Bennett, who serves as Israel’s Minister of Education and Minister of Diaspora Affairs, spent several hours at the Schechter School on December 1. 

Minister Bennett visiting the Solomon Schechter School of Manhattan on December 1, 2015

I received a full description of the planning and the actual event from my wife Deanna, who is the school's coordinator of learning support and serves on its Educational Leadership Team.  Among other things, Bennett had conversations with middle school students and adults and shared stories and songs with the entire school.  A video showed him sitting on the floor with the children and singing along to some popular Israeli tunes.

That same day, along with the video, Bennett tweeted the following message, in Hebrew, to his approximately forty thousand followers:  “Meeting with the students of the wonderful Conservative Solomon Schechter School in New York.  Such love of Israel.  Such love of Judaism.”

Naftali Bennett, who personally identifies as Modern Orthodox, had unabashedly revealed the school’s affiliation and indicated how impressed he was.  Deanna informed me that the students and parents were likewise impressed by Bennett’s down to earth manner and ability to engage.  So far, so good.

Subsequently, however, several people castigated Bennett for having visited the school.  Among his critics was Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi David Lau.  According to Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Rabbi Lau said in a radio interview,  “you should not go to a place that explicitly belongs to groups that you know don’t respect klal yisrael (the Community of Israel).” 

In response, Naftali Bennett’s office issued the following statement: “Minister Bennett believes that public leaders in Israel need to bring Jews closer and not alienate them, and he views comments that alienate rather than bringing people closer with major concern.”

I especially appreciated a letter written to Rabbi Lau by Daniel Labovitz, former president of the school, in which he wrote, “You insulted me directly and personally, Rabbi, when you said that this school, of which I was president for four years, and which has educated both of my sons to love Israel, explicitly belongs to groups that you know don’t respect klal yisrael.  You insulted me directly and personally, Rabbi, when you said that my son, who sat next to Minister Bennett on the floor and sang, "yachad, lev el lev niftach b'tikva,” (“together, we will open each other’s hearts with hope”) doesn't respect klal yisrael.  You insult me personally because two of the graduates of Schechter Manhattan are currently serving in the IDF, defending klal yisrael, something that most of the Haredi men their age aren't doing.”

On Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, we sing the prayer, hayom t’gadleinu.  Today, make us larger.  On Hanukkah, we follow the opinion of Hillel by increasing the number of candles we light each night so that we can increase holiness in the world.  How sad that Rabbi Lau chooses to reduce rather than enlarge, to be incapable of seeing an abundance of holiness even when it is coursing through the hearts and souls of children and the adults who love and guide them.

Fortunately Naftali Bennett knows better, and so do we.  At the Solomon Schechter School of Manhattan, at Temple Israel of Great Neck and at numerous other places across the globe, we understand that there are multiple paths toward embracing the beauty of our heritage and enhancing the glory of klal yisrael. 

Originally written for the Temple Israel Voice, December 18, 2015 edition

Where Everyone is Really Welcome: a Vision for Temple Israel of Great Neck

Thousands of years ago, our ancestors told a story about a man who was afraid to reunite with his brother after a rift that had occurred several decades prior.  He took a variety of precautions, sent his family along ahead of himself, and was left all alone.  Another man appeared and struggled with him until dawn. 

 Jacob Wrestling with the Angel by Marc Chagall

These moments in the life of our patriarch Jacob, moments of isolation and struggle, are not hidden from us.  They were described and recorded and, not only that, they became essential to his identity and to his new name, Israel, ישראל Yisra’el.

Which became the name for the nation, ישראל yisra’el, who are known as בני ישראל b’nei yisra’el, the children of Israel.

I have some questions for all of us on this beautiful Shabbat morning of Thanksgiving weekend. 

Given that our ancestor was Yisrael – who struggled, prevailed, complained and prevailed again.  And that our people bear his name.  And that our synagogue bears his name.  

Why do we exert so much energy pretending that everything is just fine when it’s not?  

Why are our synagogues, this one included, places where by and large people feel uncomfortable sharing anything beyond, “I’m fine, thank you”?

Why is it that in 2015, people whose life circumstances are other than happily married with high-achieving children sometimes wonder if they are fully welcomed here and in other synagogues?

How did the children of Israel – tormented dreamer and struggler, Israel who has good days and lousy days, Israel who sometimes supports his children and sometimes messes up spectacularly with regard to his children, Israel whose roller-coaster of a life is captured in unflinching detail in our Torah, Israel who is asked at the end of his life how he’s doing and says, “badly, thank you for asking” – how did the children of Israel come to believe that they are being measured, explicitly or implicitly, against certain narrow expectations and that they have to come into God’s house appearing to have it all together even when they don’t?

It’s exhausting.  It’s debilitating.  And the craziest part of it is that it isn’t even authentic to our tradition.

The Power of Expectation

Ellen Langer was a young psychology professor at Harvard in 1981 when she conducted an experiment that would become highly influential in her field.

Professor Ellen Langer, Harvard University

She took two groups of men in their 70’s and 80’s to a rustic hotel.  The first group was told that they were going to spend a few days reminiscing about the 1950’s, which they did – they talked, they laughed, they remembered.

The second group, which came a week later, was told to spend a few days inhabiting the 1950’s – in other words, to actually relive life as their younger selves.  This was accomplished in concrete ways.  For example, the second group, unlike the first, was told to bring their own luggage to their rooms rather than have porters take it. 

Both groups were measured for physical and cognitive function before and after their stay at the hotel.

There was a noticeable difference between the two groups at the end of their respective stays.  The group that inhabited their earlier lives were significantly more energetic and capable than the other group.  They were more boisterous and more lively.  

While waiting for the bus following their stay, they broke out into a game of touch football which they said they hadn’t played in years.

Ellen Langer’s experiment, shared recently with a group of clergy by Dr. David Pelcovitz of Yeshiva University, demonstrated, more dramatically than she even imagined, the power of expectation.  The men who were expected to act youthfully quickly came to expect that of themselves.  They didn’t fully regain the dynamism of their youth but they were far more agile than they had been and more agile than those in the other group.

In our concern for not overwhelming people, for allowing people latitude and freedom, for not imposing on people, we may be going overboard by failing to hold, and to convey, sufficiently high expectations.

I'd like to unpack the dynamics of expectations, starting with the Torah and then encouraging us to consider how high expectations, appropriately conveyed, can have a positive impact on others, as well as on ourselves.

Walking Together: The Challenge and Joy of Parenting Adult Children

Recently I was chatting with someone.  He told me what his children were up to.  He asked what my children were up to.  

I started by telling him what our oldest was up to – that he’s been working in a vineyard in Vermont, involved in the growing of the grapes and the making of the wine.  I didn’t get to our other children.

He said, “So you’re letting him do that?”

I wasn’t sure what he meant exactly, so I asked for clarification.

He said, “I guess you figure your son is still young, he needs to get this out of his system, so you’re letting him explore it before he settles down.”

I thought his comments were curious and I tried to unpack what might have been some of the assumptions behind what was said.  Here are three that I came up with:

An assumption that certain types of work are more worthy of support than others.

An assumption that I as the parent would not approve of the type of work my son is doing.

An assumption that even if I didn’t approve of it, I would or could stop him from doing it.

I’ll get back to my son - the vibrant Vermont vintner - eventually.

I want to reflect this morning on the extent to which parents impose their visions and aspirations onto their children. 

The Censored Life is Not Worth Living: Reflections on Our Land, Our Tradition and Our Lives

The poet Yehuda Amichai imagined what it would be like to go through the Bible and censor the parts that are distasteful or painful.

To explore this concept he wrote the following poem:

From the Book of Esther I removed the sediment

of vulgar joy, and from the Book of Jeremiah

the howl of pain in the guts. And from

the Song of Songs, the endless

search for love. And from the Book of Genesis,

the dreams and Cain. And from Ecclesiastes,

the despair, and from the Book of Job: Job.

And with what was left, I pasted myself a new Bible.

Now I live censored and pasted and limited and in peace.

A woman asked me last night on the dark street

how another woman was

who’d already died. Before her time – and not

in anyone else’s time either.

Out of a great weariness I answered:

Shloma tov, shloma tov

She’s fine, she’s fine.

The fantasy of living a censored life, adhering to a censored Judaism, pledging allegiance to a censored Israel certainly has its appeal.

To the question, how are we doing, on all fronts, we can say, “fine, fine” thank you for asking.

But I wonder – and I guess this may well be Amichai’s point – what is the cost of all of the censorship that we inflict on our lives, our religion and our land? 

We Change When We Need To: A Message for Yom Kippur 5776

Several months after my father died, back in 1996, Deanna and I and our boys, all younger than 6 at the time, moved from Roslyn to West Hempstead.  My mother said, a few weeks after we moved to the new house, I’m going to drive out to see you.

That may sound like nothing to you.  But she might as well have said to me, sweetheart, the day after Passover we’ll do brunch on top of Mount Everest. 

My mother didn’t like to drive.  She got anxious when she needed to drive.  She had a poor sense of direction. 

Once when my sisters and I were little, after we’d moved to New Jersey and she took us back to see our ophthalmologist in Brooklyn because my father couldn’t drive us at the time, she got lost on the way back.  She began a sentence with, “If we ever get home…”

When we were growing up, my mother only drove when she absolutely had to, only locally and she defined what was local.

Driving to Long Island from New Jersey, requiring the crossing of two bridges, to an address she’d never been to, was a big deal.

Yom Kippur is supposed to be about reflection and resolution and the possibility of change. 

In his book, Halakhic Man, Soloveitchik wrote that teshuva, repentance, change, is an act of self-creation.

Maimonides said that we’re not just supposed to change our actions, we’re supposed to change our personalities. 

Last month I got an email from the head of a rabbinic organization urging rabbis to talk to their congregations about Pope Francis’s encyclical regarding climate change and economic inequality. 

And I want to say, to Soloveitchik, to Maimonides, and to the author of the email about the Pope, “Don’t you understand that it’s really hard to change, forget about the global issues – it’s hard to drive from New Jersey to Long Island when someone else used to do it.  It’s hard to deal with life day to day when it throws us God only knows what.  And you’re asking us to think about self-creation and personality transformation and the relationship between melting icebergs and growing income gaps?”

I’m going to offer some Yom Kippur heresy and here it is.  Ladies and gentlemen:  we don’t change. 

We Rise Up Together: A Message for the New Year

I’m thinking of a place where African Americans are elevator operators and speak only when spoken to.

Where gays are so deep in the closet they can barely see the light of day.

Where women take dictation and sometimes harassment from their male bosses and continue to smile and bring them coffee.

Where Jews are the objects of anti-Semitic slurs.

What place have I just described? 

Many places, I suppose.

But specifically I was thinking of the office of a particular advertising agency, Sterling Cooper, in the early 1960’s.  Sterling Cooper, you may know, is a fictional ad agency depicted in the award-winning TV Show, "Madmen." 

We’ve made some progress since the early 1960’s.  Some progress.  The reason we’ve made progress at all is only because each underprivileged group I mentioned made some noise and advocated for themselves.

The 60’s were a turning point for each group I mentioned including Jews.  And slowly, painfully, to differing degrees and in different ways, over the next decades and up to the present, each group gained more equal footing in this country. 

A human being can only take so much when marginalized or put down.  There comes a time when we grow so fed up with the way we are being treated, fed up with the status quo, that we demand a change.

We say, “this time will be different.”  And then, if we are courageous and persistent, we take the steps necessary to ensure that things will be different for us.  That we will be treated decently, equally.

I’m going to reflect on that but I won’t stop there.  It’s not right to stop there and our tradition demands that I go on.  I will go on to urge us to consider that the sense of justice which demands “this time will be different for me” also cries out for “this time will be different for you.” 

Subduing the "Yes-But" and Learning to Listen

There’s a tiny creature that is extremely common and very industrious.  It’s called the yes-but.

I won’t ask you to raise your hand if you ever heard of a yes-but because I’m sure you’ve heard of it you just didn’t know what it was called. 

The yes-but actually lives inside of us, each of us, I think.  It’s industrious, for sure, also somewhat impulsive, especially when we’re talking to other people.

Especially when we’re talking to other people who say things that we don’t agree with.

Here’s how it works:  We’re listening to the other person – yet as we’re listening, the yes-but is jumping up and down, tickling our throats until we open our mouths and say to the other person:

Yes – I heard you.  BUT did you consider this?  Yes, I know you’ve said this.  BUT don’t you know that?  Yes, you’re entitled to your opinion.  BUT how can you say such a thing when so-and-so, who’s an expert, feels differently?

The yes-but is alive and well inside of us.  And it makes it hard for us to really listen to each other.  Before the other person has finished talking, we’ve come up with all of the arguments to prove him wrong.  While the other person is still talking, the yes-but has all but silenced her.

I’d love to meet two people who disagree with one another about the Iran Nuclear Treaty who have managed to subdue their internal yes-but’s long enough to really consider what the other person is saying before responding.

How Do We See One Another? The Challenge of Getting Past First Impressions

I want to describe a conversation I had while in Israel this summer.  It has to do with how we see one another.

While our rabbinic group was involved with its program at the Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, a group of Christian theologians were simultaneously involved in their own program. As we’ve done for the past several summers, we had a few joint sessions with the Christian leaders. 

For one session we joined in small groups to discuss the concept of the Jews as the chosen people.

A rabbinic colleague and I joined with a Baptist minister from Massachusetts.  She spoke to us about the experience of being African American and serving a largely white congregation for several years before taking an administrative role in the church.

Faith and Fear: Reflections on My Recent Month in Israel

Recently I was sitting and learning with my rabbinic cohort of colleagues at the Hartman Institute in Jerusalem when we were informed that in five minutes there would be a test-siren, just to make sure the system was working properly.

I quickly called Deanna, who was in our apartment at the time, to let her know.  And sure enough the siren went off five minutes later.

As you might imagine, she was happy for the heads up.  Last summer, of course, the sirens were not just a test.

To state the obvious, Israel is very pleasant when there isn’t a war. 

It was a very different experience this summer.  Much calmer than last. 

We took buses everywhere, had a chance to go to the beach in Tel Aviv, ate in cafes and just to make clear, I also did a lot of studying, just like I was supposed to!

At the Tomb of Abraham in Hebron

One of the main topics our rabbinic cohort discussed was faith, mostly defined as faith in God.  You may or may not be surprised to hear that this is a very complicated topic for rabbis and one that many of us like to avoid.

What we discovered, as we spoke and studied and went on a few field trips, is the extent to which faith is connected to fear.  Noting the less fearful mood of this summer in Israel, as compared with last summer, I nonetheless want to reflect on the connection, as we studied and explored it, between faith and fear.  Even during peaceful times, after all, fear is a part of life.

The Secret to True Self-Esteem

My son just returned from a trip to Iceland with one of his best friends.

While he was there, he hiked all over, took in the nightlife in the capital city – it never really got dark, so it wasn’t technically nightlife – and he sent us pictures with captions like “most beautiful scenery I’ve ever seen.” 

When he got back, we schmoozed about the trip and he told us that when he and his friend were sitting in a restaurant, they looked around and had the following perception:

That they were the shortest, most plain-looking people in the restaurant.  Apparently the restaurant they were in drew a lot of native Icelanders.  According to my son, they were all well above 6 feet tall and looked like models for Nordic track. 

Whether or not he realized it at the time, he created an interesting modern version of the Torah’s story of the twelve scouts, which we read this morning.

The essential story is similar:  The land is beautiful beyond belief.  We, however, are inadequate.  The people are larger, stronger, nobler than we are.

My son and his friend felt this in a humorous way and I don’t think he was reflecting a deep sense of inadequacy.

But our ancestors who scouted out the land felt their inadequacy profoundly.  To be fair, they were not on a post-college jaunt.  They knew that they had to conquer this land, not just visit and take pictures, that their lives would be on the line.

After considering my son’s story and the ancient story, it occurred to me that they present an opportunity to reflect on the notion of self-esteem.

Let's Not Give Up on Prayer

I was in a hospital recently with a family whose loved one was nearing the end of his life.  The family asked that I say a prayer and I recited the prayer traditionally reserved for those moments.  The prayer begins with a request for refuah, for healing, but goes on to say, if this is the end, if healing is not to be, then take this person gently, lovingly.

One of the people who heard the prayer is a native Hebrew speaker and she noticed the sudden transition in the prayer – from requesting healing to requesting a gentle end to the person’s life. 

We talked about that a bit and then we all recited Shema Yisrael together, sensing that the neshama, the soul, of their loved one was already in a different place.

Experts in Jewish tradition and community-building lately have focused on the reality that prayer is hard for people to relate to for lots of reasons. 

They go on to say that there are many ways to engage Jews and we should be emphasizing those, which include Jewish learning, Jewish culture, social action.  Since prayer may not be compelling for people, we should be placing more emphasis on these other areas.

To which I say yes, but...

Hunger and Desire the Jewish Way

I remember the years when our children were invited to their friends’ b’nei mitzvah.  We did a lot of carpooling in those years to get them to and from various receptions.  Every parent knows that if you just drive quietly, your children and their friends will sort of forget you’re there and they’ll talk pretty openly.

As the occasional chauffer I heard all sorts of things about friendships and crushes.  But the most entertaining part, I think, was when I’d drive them home from a celebration and hear a critique of the food at the party. 

I’m talking an all-out analysis of the cocktail hour that would make Ruth Reichl proud.

The sushi was better last week.

The franks in a blanket were room temperature – can you believe it?

Etc.

These conversations got me thinking about how, from an early age, we need to deal with desire and self-control.  Beyond that, they can raise questions about the way we think about abundance and scarcity.  A tiny percentage of the world’s population experiences cocktail hours.

This morning, I want to explore the overarching issue, not just as it pertains to food, and that is – what does Judaism teach us about how we relate to the physical world which includes how we eat and how we handle sexuality.

Investing in Our Brand of Judaism

When Deanna and I got married, her father suggested that we speak to his financial advisor about starting an investment portfolio.  We showed up with our modest savings and he recommended two mutual funds.  I followed their progress and noted, after a few years, that they weren’t doing so well.

I asked the advisor about them and he said, “Well, historically they’ve done well.”

And I said some version of, “I’m a very respectful student of history, but how does that help us now?”

And he said then, what he would say to us over and over again, you need to look at the long haul. 

At the time, I thought to myself, the phrase “you need to look at the long haul” must be his way of saying, “I messed up, but I can’t actually say that.”

But truly, over 25 years later, I’ve come to realize that he’s right.  Investments don’t necessarily pay off immediately, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t invest.  Careful, mindful investments generally do pay off in the end.

This morning, I want us to think about our investments – financial and spiritual – and the benefit they bring over the long haul.  Specifically, I want to talk about the importance of investing in the approach to Judaism that our synagogue represents.

For several months, we’ve been urging the congregation to vote for Mercaz, the organization that supports Masorti, or Conservative, Judaism in Israel.  The investment in a type of Judaism in Israel that is traditional yet open and fully egalitarian is crucial.  But we don’t always feel the importance of that investment, frankly, and we should.

Here’s a situation that will explain way we need to invest in Masorti Judaism:

For over two decades, the Masorti movement in Israel has sponsored a program to prepare children with special needs for bar and bat mitzvah. Participants have included children with cerebral palsy, Down Syndrome, ADHD, autism, blindness, hearing impairments and learning disabilities.

Each year, the Masorti movement partners with over 40 special education schools to bring appropriate bar/bat mitzvah training to over 300 children with special needs.  Whatever the physical, cognitive or emotional challenges, each child receives an aliya to the Torah.

This is the only program of its kind in Israel and it has drawn families from across the religious spectrum, including many Orthodox families. 

Let’s fast forward from the genesis of this program to recent events, April 2015.  The Masorti synagogue in Rehovot, a suburb of Tel Aviv, was planning a Shabbat morning b’nei mitzvah celebration in a Masorti synagogue for four children with autism. 

Passover, Politics and the Jewish Obsession with History

I want to speak this morning about the value of history. 

Starting with very recent history.  Last week, the Rabbinical Assembly hosted a call with Dennis Ross about the agreement with Iran. 

He identified 4 areas that need to be emphasized in order for an agreement to be sufficiently satisfying to him:

1.    There needs to be one year minimum breakout period, defined as the time it would take Iran to finalize a nuclear weapon

2.    The international  need to be able to verify; all sites need to be accessible at all times

3.    There need to be severe consequences, that include the use of force, for lack of compliance.

4.    and it needs to be understood that severe consequences, which may include force, can be applied even after 15 years.

He pointed out that there has been mistrust between the US and various nations seeking nuclear power for as long as there’s been nuclear power, that this dynamic is hardly new.

During the Q and A, he was asked about the relationship between Obama and Netanyahu.  He said, it’s not ideal.  But let’s face it – there have been rough spots in relations between US and Israeli leaders throughout Israel’s existence.

He reflected, for example, on the relationship between Ronald Reagan and Menachem Begin which was hardly ideal.  Reagan thought that Begin was a bull in a china closet.  And Begin had reservations regarding Reagan’s mastery of the subtleties of international affairs. 

I’ve referred before to Yehuda Avner’s book, The Prime Ministers, which chronicles Yehuda Avner’s perspective from working in several Israeli administrations from Levi Eshkol to Menachem Begin.

Passover is the holiday which grounds us in historical perspective.  In ways that I will make explicit, and with implications that are political and personal, the Passover story takes us beyond the OMG of the moment and allows us to look at our lives against the backdrop of history and even eternity.

The present can be a very lonely and frightening place and the perspective that this holiday brings can give us insight and hope in multiple realms.

So here we go...

Keeping the Flame Burning Every Day: We Can't Respond Just When There's a Crisis

We get worked up when crises occur – a frustrating election in Israel, perhaps.  Or a series of anti-Semitic incidents in the community - and rightly so.  We should get worked up, we should try to assess the situation, we should speak out if necessary.

But I wonder, and I want to ask us all to consider, what happens the next day?  What happens on a regular day regarding matters that are important all the time, even when a particular crisis is not taking place

I'd like to talk about the day-to-day commitment that we need to have when it comes to matters that are truly important.  Not just what to do when underlying issues erupt in crisis, but what we must do, day after day, to respond to issues that cut to the heart of the kind of nation, the kind of community, we aspire to be.

Kabbalah and Closeness: The Importance of Being Nearby

When I was in Israel recently with a cohort of rabbis, Dror Eshed, husband of Professor Melila Hellner-Eshed, died following a long illness.  I had never met him, though I have gotten to know his wife as one of our teachers, a passionate, brilliant expositor of Kabbalah.   At his funeral, she shared an insight that I want to bring to our congregation.

The Jewish mystical tradition maintains the notion that God’s energy and presence somehow flow into the world as a kind of emanation, the word for which is atzilut.  Dr. Hellner-Eshed pointed out that the Hebrew word contains the same root as the word etzel which means “next to” or “near.”  Some people, she said, associate spirituality with things that are remote and esoteric, thinking of it as a hidden force that we wait for to appear and flow into us.  But maybe the essence of spirituality, she suggested, is that it is near us and that often it flows from us, not just to us.  

She went on to describe how her husband inspired people by being near them and often by inviting them in.  He was an artist who had a studio near Jerusalem.  Frequently he worked with young people who came from disadvantaged homes, giving them opportunities to work in his studio and to gain the confidence that they had lacked.  Dror, she told us, brought atzilut to people because he was etzel, accessible, near them.

We Are Family

Two colleagues and I arrived in Israel last Thursday morning for a week with the Hartman Institute.  We were headed to Jerusalem to meet the rest of our colleagues.  There was a line of cabs waiting at the airport.  My colleague headed toward a particular cab.  As he was starting to put his suitcases in the trunk (and on the roof of the cab), I noticed what was inside the cab.  Piles of books, plates, the remains of a few peppers.  I’m not a neat freak, but the pepper rinds on the passenger seat up front were a bit much for me.  I motioned to my friend, maybe we want to take another cab.  Meanwhile, his stuff was already in the trunk and the driver, a woman named Rachel, was saying, rega, rega – wait a minute, as she picked the pepper carcasses off the passenger seat.  And we got in and away we went.

                                My colleagues and I (back right) at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem

Along the way, she’s asking us questions, where are we from, what are we doing in Israel, she’s schmoozing and schmoozing.  About her family, about her trip to New York, how she hopes to get to the pool by 10 o’clock – she doesn’t swim for pleasure but for therapeutic reasons, she’s facing some economic challenges, etc.

By the time we were on the main highway to Jerusalem I knew a whole lot about her.

The endless conversation, the sharing of good and bad, the few remaining pepper seeds that I discovered underneath me, her pointing out of the shkeydiya – you see, she said, the almond tree blossoms really do bloom on Tu Bishvat - reinforced one thing for me.  That I was with family. 

The week I spent in Israel with over 20 rabbis at the Hartman institute was devoted to Jewish identity in Israel and in the US.  We discussed lots of challenges that face both communities which are in many ways very different from each other; Israeli Judaism by and large is becoming more nationalistic, more tribal, less open; American Judaism is becoming more assimilated, more universal, more open.

But one theme which emerged for me in Israel, which has repercussions in the US, is family. 

What does it mean to be with mishpacha?  The good, the bad, the beautiful, the ugly – what does it mean?

One Day with the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem

I’m writing from Jerusalem where I’m participating in the second winter portion of the Rabbinic Leadership Initiative, a program for over twenty rabbis from varying ideological perspectives sponsored by the Shalom Hartman Institute.   In the past I’ve shared teachings and insights that I gleaned from my experience and recently Temple Israel hosted two other rabbis from the program, Rabba Sara Hurwitz and Rabbi David Ingber.

In order to give a sense of the depth and breadth of the program, I’d like to present a chronology, with minor descriptions, of most of the events that transpired on a single day.  Below is an account of my experience with the Hartman Institute on Monday, February 2, 2015.

8 am.  Breakfast with several of my colleagues and Dr. Yehuda Kurtzer, President of the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America.  Yehuda spoke with us about the inaugural year of a new program, a Gap Year for American and Israeli students that allows them to explore Jewish topics together and to engage in dialogue about the realities of American and Israeli life.  He told us that he is thrilled by the enthusiastic engagement of North American Israeli teens that he has witnessed.

9 am.  Study and discussion of Jewish sources from Bible to Zohar that deal with the theme of universalism and particularism in Jewish thought.  Unfortunately the scheduled instructor, Dr. Melila Hellner-Eshed, Professor of Jewish mysticism and Zohar at Hebrew University, was unable to teach due to the death of her husband the night before.  Dr. Biti Roi, a Lecturer in Jewish Mysticism at Hebrew University, filled in for her colleague after offering a brief reflection about Melila’s husband and leading us in the chanting, in his memory, of a medieval poem about the soul.  We made plans to pay a shiva call to Melila. The subsequent study and discussion raised questions that we applied to contemporary Jewish life.  How is the Jewish experience of God and history unique?  What are the parameters of our loyalty to our people specifically and to humanity overall?

With my colleagues at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem

Looking in Two Places at Once: An Authentic Jewish Response to Current Events

A boy named Henry was a real wise-guy and eventually was kicked out of the Jewish day school he was attending. 

So his parents enrolled him in another school.  Henry showed up that day and was doing pretty well until it came time for snack.  The children were all lined up in the cafeteria.  There was a basket of apples on one side of the serving table and one of the rabbis had written a note that was placed next to the apples:  The note said: Take only one.  God is watching.

Henry read the note.  He then noticed a big plate of chocolate chip cookies on the other side of the table.  Quickly, he wrote his own note and put it next to the cookies.  It said:

Take as many as you want.  God is watching the apples.

We like to believe that God is capable of keeping track of more than one thing at once.  We can debate that, I’m sure.

But I’m reasonably convinced that we mortals are not very good at doing that.  Given how over-loaded we are, given our particular perspectives, we tend to see one thing clearly at the expense of another. 

Jewish rabbinic tradition famously requires us to consider more than one thing at a time.

I’m going to begin with layers of understanding that go back generations and then I’d like to reflect on how we might face the very real challenges that confront us today.