Remind Me Who I Am

It's important for us to remember who we are, as individuals and as a nation.  Not as simple as it sounds.  Gail Sheehy wrote a popular book called Passages in 1976 in which she outlined the challenges that people face at different stages of their lives.

I want to focus for a few moments on the 20’s.  Sheehy refers to the 20’s as the “trying 20’s” – I assume she intended the pun – the 20’s are a time in a person’s life for trying things out –relationships, professional paths – once people have gained some independence from their parents.  But the 20’s are also trying in the sense of difficult.

You look at people in their 20’s and they seem to be having an awesome time – they tend to look great, they are energetic, trying new things – big thumbs up – and in many respects they are having an awesome time.  But beneath the surface, there is often insecurity that comes form being “neither here nor there,” having left the structure of the home in which they grew up and not yet having settled into a home of their own creation.

It is really important for people at any stage in life to feel grounded – to feel connected to family and community – but it is especially important during this phase of a person's life.  Our three children are currently all in their 20's and I see how important it is first-hand.

In this phase of life a person needs to be reminded who he or she is fundamentally – what is the bedrock that I come from, and what is my potential.  The details – those can be worked out, even when painful – but the essential "who am I" needs to be conveyed by the people who care most. 

We don't know how old Jacob was when he left Beer Sheva on his way to Haran – escaping from his brother who wanted to kill him and heading off to find himself a spouse.

Who knows if he was actually in his 20's, but he was definitely in a trying phase of his life.  One has to imagine that he felt vulnerable all on his own, fearful of his brother's anger, possibly remorseful about his actions in the past, anxious of his prospects for the future.

Vayetze – he has left somewhere, but he surely hasn't arrived anywhere yet – and he won't settle for decades.

He is, emotionally, psychology, a representative of everyone who, at a certain point – is between the relative stability of the home we grew up in and the relative stability of the home we will establish.

If you've ever been in that place – you left home, maybe for university, maybe to seek out a professional opportunity, maybe to move a new land – and you have no idea where you will ultimately land – then you likely can relate to Jacob's situation.

Destiny Need Not Destroy Us

I’m currently watching an engaging series called “The Crown” on Neflix – about Queen Elizabeth II and the royal family.

Lots of intrigue as you might imagine – one source of intrigue is the relationship between Elizabeth and her sister Margaret.  As children, Elizabeth and Margaret knew that one day Elizabeth would become the Queen.  She was educated toward the task, groomed for it in many ways.

They have very different personalities – Elizabeth is reserved, circumspect; Margaret is dramatic, flashy, engaging.

One episode in particular underscores the tension in their adult relationship, with Elizabeth already having served several years as queen, Elizabeth resenting the freedom that Margaret has, Margaret resenting the position and prestige that Elizabeth has.

The element that I want to talk about is DESTINY - expectation writ large - how powerful that is especially in a family, how painful it can be and how it might be managed in the most healthy and productive way.

Gratitude Takes Practice

Gratitude doesn’t always come naturally.   If we tally up the ratio of gratitude to complaint that we feel and articulate in the course of a day, we may not be proud of the results. 

And yet every religious tradition I’m aware of encourages gratitude – for reasons that are psychological as well as theological.

On this Shabbat following the American holiday of Thanksgiving I want to offer three insights about gratitude from three different portions in the Torah, insights that can help us cultivate gratitude against the natural grain.

Vulnerable Enough To Know the Difference, Strong Enough To Make a Difference

What does it mean to be Jewish in America?  What is our essential story and what are our responsibilities based on our story?

Are we strong?  Are we fragile?  Are we safe?  Are we vulnerable?

Is America essentially different for Jews than any other place where we have lived – are we significantly freer, significantly safer?

Or at the end of the day is it not so different?  Not so different from Spain, Germany, Iran – countries where we had really good runs for centuries before things changed.

I don’t have the tools to analyze how safe we are and even for those who do have the tools, it’s only speculation.

But I do have some tools, and much responsibility, for speaking about how our view of ourselves ought to impose a vision and a responsibility for how we respond to our nation and our world. 

So fasten your seatbelts and join me on a journey that will include, not in chronological order, father Abraham, two rabbis who lived around the time of Jesus, and, well – us.

 Abraham Arguing with God

Who are we American Jews and – in this complex, multi-cultural, seismically shifting country we live in - what exactly should we be doing based on who we are? 

A Post-Election Message to My Congregation

Here is what I sent to the Temple Israel of Great Neck community two days after Election Day.

To the Entire Temple Israel of Great Neck Family:

We have completed a tense, divisive election season and a new president, Donald Trump, has been chosen.  The reactions in our congregational family run the gamut, our own ideological and political diversity in many ways reflecting that of our nation.

As American Jews, we strive to bring the noblest values of two traditions to bear on how we influence and shape society – the American commitment to democracy and freedom and the bedrock Jewish principal that all human beings are equally precious by virtue of having been created in the image of God. 

We must continue to affirm our commitment to honor the equal, inalienable rights of all of our nation’s inhabitants of all political perspectives, religions, races, ethnicities, abilities and disabilities, gender identities and sexual orientations.  We have made much progress in these areas and must continue to move forward.

We must work harder to talk and especially to listen well to one another, particularly when we disagree. 

And we must continue to affirm our commitment as a synagogue to be a place where everyone feels welcome to discover the power of Judaism to bring blessing to our lives and to our world.

Abraham and Sarah, whose geographic and spiritual journey we will be reading about this Shabbat, were charged by God to be a source of blessing to all the families of the earth.

Let all of us in our beloved, passionate, diverse Temple Israel community continue to channel the legacy of Abraham and Sarah, bringing blessing to our community, our nation and our world.

Please join us at 8 pm this evening, Thursday, November 10, for our daily evening service, which will include a prayer for our great nation and its potential.  Of course we will also offer this prayer on Shabbat. 

May God forever inspire us to honor God’s image in all human beings and may God bless the United States of America.

November 10, 2016

Is Our Self-Esteem Blowin' in the Wind?

When Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize for Literature, some people were excited, applauding what they believed was a well-deserved, “outside the box” choice, and some were upset.

Here it is, weeks later, and he hasn’t returned the Academy’s phone call informing him that he won the prize. 

(Shortly after I wrote this Bob Dylan did respond affirmatively to the committee, but I don’t think it changes the substance of my message.  So if you’d like, please read on…)

Some think that’s a real chutzpa – I mean, who doesn’t pick up the phone when the Nobel Prize committee is calling?

Others think that this is a tribute to his artistry.  He doesn’t want to be categorized by anyone – he wants the freedom to be himself, to define himself.  He doesn't require the validation of others.

Today is Shabbat Bereishit – the Shabbat associated with the creation of the world on which we read the story of creation.

In the first account of creation, human beings are the climax – created on the last day before Shabbat.  Given the scriptural context, I’d like to explore the question, where does our value come from?  To what extent does it come from the e-valuations of others, to what extent does it come from our own sense of who we are?  How does all this impact our self-esteem?

Are We Trying Hard Enough? The Essential Yom Kippur Question

The morning back in high school that I took the SAT’s, I packed my number 2 pencils and was about to leave the house when my mother said to me, “Remember.  All you can do is the best you can do.”

She said that to me numerous times as I was growing up.  Before tests.  Before I went onstage to act in a show.  On my wedding day…

All you can do is the best you can do.

Sometimes the comment made me more nervous.  Though overall it was a helpful thing to hear and I think my mother said it because she wanted me to understand that the most important measure of my success was the knowledge that I’d done my best.

However, with enormous respect for my mother, may she rest in peace, I’m going to begin my comments by modifying hers a bit and encouraging us to evaluate ourselves using what I believe is a more effective measure.

Truth is, not every situation calls for “the best we can do.” 

When our kids were growing up and we would get dinner ready, we realized it didn’t have to be our best.  It just had to be reasonably nutritious and something they would eat. We knew we could do “better,” but with all of the other competing priorities we chose not to.  We didn’t aspire to be Wolfgang Puck while we were making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for their school lunches. 

When we cleaned up at the end of the day we realized we didn’t have to do our best.  We just had to make sure it was neat enough and we determined what neat enough was.

On arguably the holiest day of the year, when we’re supposed to take a look at ourselves, and a look at the world, and ask appropriate self-reflective questions about how we relate to the world, I propose the following question that we can ask today, and all year long, about different situations.

Are we trying hard enough? 

In each realm of our lives, the mundane and the unusual, the individual and the societal, are we trying hard enough?

Open Our Hearts - A Plea for the New Year

At the end of the Amidah, which is part of our daily prayer, we each say the words:

פתח לבי P’tah libi.

Dear God – Open my heart.

Why do we have to pray for this?

Why don’t we just do it?  

A 6 year old boy named Alex who lives in Westchester sent a letter to the president of the United States.  He had seen the picture of a 5-year old boy sitting in an ambulance in Aleppo, wiping blood off of his face, a picture many of us have seen.  Alex wrote to the president that he wants the boy to come live with his family.  Alex wrote that he is prepared to share his toys with the boy.  He ended the letter by saying, “We will give him a family and he will be our brother.”

It’s very inspiring to hear about the pure open-heartedness of a 6-year old boy.  A boy who is ready to open his home, his toy box, and his heart to someone roughly his age.

But our view of things gets more complicated as we grow into adolescence and adulthood.   We experience fear again and again.  We experience disappointment again and again. 

We understand how complicated situations are socially and politically.

Our expectations lie unfulfilled.   Our hearts get broken.

And little by little, in different situations, over time, our hearts harden – they close up. 

So maybe that’s why we each pray to God ptah libi – open my heart – because we wish our hearts could remain open despite all of the internal and external forces that can keep our hearts rigid and closed.  And because it’s not so easy to keep our hearts open.

It is truly understandable for us to harden our hearts in so many situations.  We are often perfectly justified in being suspicious, or wary, or fed up. 

At the beginning of this New Year, I want to explore some of the political and personal reasons why we harden our hearts.  And I also want to explore why and how and in what situations we should strive to keep our hearts open.  Long past the relative innocence of childhood, can we face the world as it is, can we face life as it is, with hearts that remain appropriately open?  I hope so. 

Beware the Online Megaphone: in Defense of Research and Conversation Before Hitting Send

By mid-July of this year a colleague and friend of mine found himself in the midst of considerable controversy.  His name is Rabbi Neil Blumofe and you may have read about him in the Jewish Week and elsewhere on-line.

He is the rabbi of a thriving Conservative synagogue in Austin.  He was planning an Israel trip to include a local interfaith group he’s involved with as well as interested members of his congregantion. 

To plan the trip he turned to an organization called Mejdi, which was founded by an Israeli and a Palestinian with the objective of providing a dual narrative approach to travel.  Mejdi has planned trips for organizations that include the Hartman Institute and AIPAC.

The organization forwarded a tentative itinerary to Rabbi Blumofe for his consideration and Rabbi Blumofe held a meeting with congregants who expressed interest in the trip. 

The proposed itinerary included an overnight stay at a settlement and a meeting with the rosh yeshiva there, a discussion with a women's rights advocacy group in Haifa and numerous other items.  The proposed itinerary item that became quite controversial was a stop at the grave of Yasser Arafat.  The idea of it, as explained to Rabbi Blumofe, was to use that stop as a context for presenting various Palestinian narratives about Arafat and the PLO.

Rabbi Blumofe found that the guide that the Palestinian guide from MEJDI that he spoke with, and was hoping would help lead the trip, actually was very critical of Arafat and the PLO.   Rabbi Blumofe did not respond to any of the proposed items, wanting the entire itinerary to be discussed by those who were interested in the trip.

Rabbi Blumofe told a reporter for the Times of Israel that when he met with interested congregants on June 30 no one mentioned anything about the visit to Arafat’s grave.

A congregant of Rabbi Blumofe’s wrote a letter to him questioning his judgment and calling for his resignation.“To me, it’s no different than were you to travel to Germany to pay your respects at Adolf Hitler’s tomb, if one existed,” he wrote in his letter to Blumofe, adding that it was “time for you to resign. Depart and let us be done with you. In name of G-d, go!”

Rabbi Blumofe offered to meet with this congregant and the congregant refused.  The congregant wrote letters to major Austin philanthropists, including one who donated the property on which the synagogue and other Jewish institutions are located.  Statements were circulated on the internet including an open letter to Rabbi Blumofe calling for his termination, accusing him of helping to promote modern blood libels against Israel and world Jewry, and calling for termination of his rights to visit Israel.

Over the past 4 years I’ve gotten to know Rabbi Blumofe well.  He is a creative, compassionate, intelligent rabbi and an ardent supporter of Israel.  Within and beyond his congregation, he has succeeded masterfully in deepening and elevating the way people approach Judaism and Israel.

I personally think that a trip to Arafat’s grave is so loaded, so problematic, that whatever intentions you might have can easily be undercut by your symbolic presence there.  And Rabbi Blumofe himself has identified the problems involved with such a visit.

However.  What troubles me is that people assume intention before they ascertain intention.  What troubles me is that people mount campaigns before they do research.  What troubles me is that given the amplifying capacity of social media – people in the public eye but anyone, frankly – any one of us – can be tried and convicted without being given the opportunity to say a word.

That’s not the way it’s supposed to be, certainly not according to Jewish tradition going back to its Biblical roots.  

No More Sarcasm - Just Like That

In the scene from “The Frisco Kid” that has been frequently circulated on social media since the death of Gene Wilder a few weeks ago, the Polish rabbi, played by Wilder, is asked by a Native American chief if his god can make it rain. 

Gene Wilder and Val Bisoglio, "The Frisco Kid"

“He can do ANYTHING!”  Exclaims the rabbi.

“Then why can’t he make rain?” Asks the chief.

“Because He doesn’t make rain.  He gives us strength when we’re suffering.  He gives us compassion when all that we feel is hatred.

“He gives us courage when we’re searching around blindly like little mice in the darkness.   BUT HE DOESN’T MAKE RAIN.”

All of a sudden a clap of thunder is heard and it starts to pour. 

“Of course,” says the rabbi, “sometimes - just like that - He’ll change his mind.”

Today is Rosh Hodesh Elul.  During this month we are supposed to make a very special effort at heshbon hanefesh – looking at ourselves, wondering what we’re doing right, what we’re doing wrong, what changes we might like to make.

It’s interesting that we’re not asked during this month to try to understand God better.   But I do think that there’s a marvelous teaching that helps us to understand what God’s role might be in helping us to look within and do what’s right.

It’s expressed in the very first verse of Parashat Re'eh – ראה אנכי נותן לפניכם היום ברכה וקללה re’ei anokhi noten lif’nekhhem hayom brakha uk’lala – today I set before you a blessing and a curse. 

The verse establishes a framework for honoring and challenging our capacity to choose how we live our lives.  So here we are, beginning the month that leads right into Rosh Hashanah, and I want us to get off on the right foot.  I'm going to get philosophical and practical.  

I want us to think about what needs to go on inside of us in order for us to make positive changes.  In a moment I will use an issue I personally have started to work on as an example.

Pray for My Father

On Monday, August 22, I joined with a group of rabbis for a condolence call.  It was the first condolence call I'd paid to a Muslim family. 

On August 13, Maulama Akonjee, an imam in the Bangladeshi community in Ozone Park, was shot and killed, along with his associate, Thara Uddin, while walking home from religious services dressed in religious garb.

The New York Board of Rabbis (NYBR), which I serve as an officer, contacted the family and asked if they could bring a group of clergy – rabbis and Christian clergy as well – to offer condolences, and the family agreed.

So I drove to the family’s house and stood outside with the other clergy until we were ushered in.  We sat in the living room.  Two of the imam’s sons came out to sit with us, accompanied by other family members, one of whom helped with translation.  (The imam’s sons came to New York from Bangladesh just a few years ago and their English is not yet fully fluent.)

The sons sat quietly as several of the clergy, including NYBR Executive Director Rabbi Joe Potasnik, spoke.   When asked, the sons told a bit about their father – that he was a peaceful man, that he wanted his community to commit themselves to regular prayer and good deeds.

Rabbi Joe Potasnik with a group of clergy at the Akonjee home

A representative from the NYPD, a Muslim, chanted verses in Arabic that are traditionally recited in a house of mourning.  Rabbi Angela Warnick Buchdahl, senior rabbi of Central Synagogue in Manhattan and also a cantor, led us in the singing of the 23^rd psalm.  Rabbi Avi Weiss of the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale offered a blessing to the imam’s sons.   The oldest son said it was the first time he had spoken with a group of Jews. 

As we were about to leave, we each had the opportunity to offer personal condolences to the sons.  I said a few words to the oldest son.  He offered me a hug and he said quietly, “pray for my father.”

Justice Includes Jews: Thoughts About Black Lives Matter, Jews and Justice

I want to talk about the recent Black Lives Matter statements about Israel for two reasons:  First, this is an issue many of us have been reading about, and are likely passionate about.  Second, it challenges us to navigate a complex political dynamic, to oppose injustice toward others while also insuring justice for ourselves.

Here are some relevant facts and some context:

Black Lives Matter  - an organization launched, according to its website, in 2012 - has sought to advocate in multiple realms for just treatment of people of color.  

At the beginning of August 2016, the organization refined and presented a platform that includes several sections, including:  End the war on black people, Reparations, Invest/Divest, Economic justice, Community control and Political power.

Individual elements within these sections include advocacy for universal health care, fighting climate change and a reallocation of funds from policing and incarcation to education, justice services and employment programs. 

In the Invest/divest section is included the topic of cutting military expenditures, in which the United State is criticized for using excessive funds on its military in order to expand territory and power.  

In that topic, under that section, are several statements pertaining to United States support of Israel.   Here’s the one that was deemed most offensive by a wide political spectrum within the Jewish community:

“ The US justifies and advances the global war on terror via its alliance with Israel and is complicit in the genocide taking place against the Palestinian people.” 

Some more context.  Numerous Jewish leaders have worked with the Black Lives Matter movement to protest unfair treatment of African Americans in this country.

Most Jewish organizations, right-wing to left, including those who have collaborated with the Black Lives Matter movement, were angered by these statements and for very good reason.  The statements are distorted, false and incendiary.  Several Jews of color have criticized the platform for being anti-Semitic.  Rabbis across the political spectrum have denounced the statements.

I saw some attempts to defend the statement about genocide on the basis that the authors were using the word differently, to indicate extreme discrimination rather than wholesale murder, but neither that nor any other interpretations were satisfactory to most Jewish leaders, and for good reason. 

Along with the vast majority of Jewish leaders, I say unequivocally that to call the treatment of Palestinians by Israelis a genocide is libelous and anti-Semitic. 

I want to identify two pitfalls that the Jewish community can fall into, neither of which are acceptable, and a possible third approach.

The Past Won't Shut Up: A Brief Tale of Two European Cities

Toward the end of the fourth book of the Torah, we read once again the long list of places that our ancestors stopped through on their way from Egypt to the promised land.  It’s a part of the Torah that gets us thinking about passing through different places, and a nice backdrop for me to reflect on a few of the places that Deanna and I passed through this summer.

But I’d like this to be more than a travel-log.  What emerged for me, especially in visiting some of the places in Europe that we saw recently, is a sense of the strong pull that the past exerts on the present.  Europe has strong resonance with the past.  You walk the streets of its cities and towns and you get pulled in, and pulled back, and it makes you wonder about how these places will continue to respond to current challenges.

So passing through inevitably leads to looking back as much as it leads to looking around.

And with no further intro, here’s my “tale of two cities."  I will in the future reflect on my time in Israel this summer, but today I’m going to take us to two of several cities that we visited in northern Europe - Copenhagen, Denmark and Berlin, Germany.

We spent a full day in Copenhagen on my birthday, actually.  Beautiful city, resonant with history but also in many ways future-oriented.  A city focused on reducing its collective carbon footprint – far more bicycles than cars in the city center, for example.  A city focused on broadening economic opportunity – universal health care coverage, fully subsidized university tuition. 

Inside the courtyard of Amalienborg Palace in Copenhagen 

We decided to take a walking tour.  The tour-guide was a young Danish man named Magnus who spoke excellent English and was very well-informed. 

Fathers Can't Flake Out

In the aftermath of the Orlando shootings, there is much that needs to be said and done.  Among other things, I want to affirm my own belief, as a father, as a Jew, as a rabbi, that the sexual orientations and gender identities of our children and grandchildren and nieces and nephews have no bearing on the unassailable, bedrock truth that they, we, all of us, are all human beings equally valuable, equally endowed with a divine spark.

I will go further and say that as a rabbi, in the context of the recent rulings of the Conservative movement and the United States Supreme court, I will do my best to be present to help sanctify the marriages of all Jewish couples, regardless of their genders, who ask me to participate.  Moreover, although as a Conservative rabbi I do not officiate at interfaith weddings, I will do whatever I can to help welcome interfaith couples into our community, regardless of their genders, and to encourage them to bring Jewish tradition into their lives and their homes.  

Now I want to move away from the rabbi piece and talk a bit about being a father. I want to talk to all the fathers who are here, since today is technically “Erev Father’s Day.”

Fathers can’t shirk the obligations of being a father.  We can’t use work as an excuse, we can’t use exhaustion as an excuse, we can’t use confusion as an excuse, we can’t use fear as an excuse, we can’t use “mom will take care of it” as an excuse, even if mom takes care of a whole lot.

When Confusion Is a Sin

I planned this message before the Orlando shootings occurred.  They occurred the day before I delivered the message and proved tragically relevant to the theme.  I referred to the shootings briefly in the moment and I'm including a paragraph which I subsequently added (along with the photo) to reflect what I said.  

We’re months away from the high holidays but I want to start with a reference to Yom Kippur.  On Yom Kippur we confess to a whole bunch of sins – most of them make complete sense.  One in particular, I always found curious. 

על חטא שחטאנו לפניך בתמהון לבב Al het shehatanu lefanekha b’tim’hon levav.  We confess for the sin which we committed through confusion of mind.

What’s so wrong with being confused? 

God knows, there are many situations that are legitimately confusing, where we are considering competing needs, or weighing competing values.  In such situations we may do well to admit to some confusion, even ambivalence.

But there are situations that are so clear that a response of confusion of mind, tim’hon levav, is a sin.  Situations where anything other than a clear, unequivocal response is a travesty.

I’m going to discuss some unpleasant but important topics this morning that illustrate the sin of tim’hon levav with reference to Shavuot and these upcoming moments of Yizkor.

A Lesson from Harambe: The Issues are Usually Bigger Than We Think

A 17-year old gorilla named Harambe was killed in a zoo in Cincinnati because it was felt that he posed a danger to a little boy.  The boy had climbed over a pretty short wall and fallen a considerable distance into the area where the gorilla lived.   

The mother of the boy, who had lost sight of him temporarily after he said "I want to swim with the gorilla," was quite scared as you might imagine when she saw the gorilla scooping the child up and carrying him a bit.  It's all on video which you can watch, if you haven't seen it yet.  The mother called 911 and the zoo officials made a quick decision to shoot the animal dead. 

Reactions ran the gamut.  People said the mother was at fault for not supervising her child more carefully.  People said the zoo was at fault for not having a high enough barrier or that they were at fault for deciding to kill the animal, rather than stun the animal. 

On Wednesday, one of our sons texted his brother and me that they would try to use the story of the gorilla to help me write my sermon.  What followed was a brief back and forth of collaboration and I present the fruits of that collaboration as tribute to Harambe, a magnificent animal whose name means "pulling together" in Swahili.   

The incident at the Cincinnati zoo suggested to us that people are quick to place blame for specific situations, but not so willing to step back and ask the larger questions about what allows such situations to happen. 

Find Me Through One Other: a Brother's Blessing

Jews deal with God in kind of a unique way.  I'd like to reflect on that by exploring a blessing that one brother recently offered another.

Ordination of Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie

But first I want to take you back several decades.  When I was a rabbinical student I worked at Lenox Hill Hospital participating in a pastoral education program.  In my small group of six students were clergy students of other faiths.  Our group included someone preparing to be a Dominican friar, a Roman Catholic lay leader, a Presbyterian minister and a Franciscan monk.

The pastoral work was fascinating.  In addition, it was enormously beneficial to have extended contact with people of other faiths at a similar point in their professional journeys as I was.  We talked often about tradition and community and theology.   We noted our similarities and our differences.

Here’s one area of difference that I noticed and I want to use it as a basis for my comments this morning.

My Christian colleagues took many classes at their respective seminaries in a subject called systematic theology. 

Systematic theology classes, as you might imagine, teach various Christian views on God in a systematic way.  These classes were a major part of the curricula at the various Christian seminaries that my colleagues attended.

We, however, took classes in Bible, Talmud, Jewish history – an occasional class in Jewish philosophy – but proportionately we didn’t spend a lot of time learning the systematic theologies of various thinkers.

Again, proportionately, Jews don’t do a lot of systematic theology.  When we arrive at God, it’s generally not through systematic contemplation.  If I had to generalize I would say that when we arrive at God at all, it’s through our laws, our stories and, not incidentally, it’s through each other.  

Through other human beings – family, community, people, humanity - we sometimes come to some understanding of God.

To reflect on how we might arrive at God through one another, I'd like to share a brief vignette about two brothers.

What To Do With Our Bitterness

Bitterness can be hard to let go.  Case in point:

Chapter 1 of the book of Exodus:  וימררו את חייהם בעבודה קשה Vayemar’ru et chayehem ba'avoda kasha.  

The Egyptians embittered the Israelites’ lives with hard labor.  (Exodus 1:14)

Ch. 15 of the book of Exodus:  After leaving Egypt, after crossing the sea and singing the song of thanksgiving and victory, the Israelites came to Marah ולא יכלו לשתות מים ממרה כי מרים הם v’lo yachlu lishot mayim mimarah ki marim hem. 

They couldn’t drink the waters of Marah because they were bitter.  Hence the name Marah, bitterness. (Exodus 15:23)

How interesting, how sad, how understandable, how human – that the bitterness that the Egyptians imposed somehow remained with the Israelites even after they left Egypt and began to experience freedom.

 Moses looking out toward the Promised Land

This morning, on the last day of Passover, with the resonance of the Passover story still with us and the resonance of loved ones present and no longer present powerful for each of us, I want to talk about bitterness.  The understandable, yet ultimately corrosive feelings of bitterness that most of us have felt at some point or another and possibly are feeling for whatever reason even now.

Did someone hurt us physically or emotionally?  Does life feel unfair? 

Did we not get what we felt we deserved?  Were we discriminated against for one reason or another?

I would define bitterness as the feeling of hurt and resentment that perpetuates a sense of victimhood and misery.

Someone else can embitter our lives, as the Egyptians did for our ancestors, but the extent to which we continue to feel bitter, even after the initial impetus may be gone, often depends more on our volition than we realize – a version of Eleanor Roosevelt’s often quoted statement, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

By and large, no one can impose lifelong bitterness on us without our consent. This can be hard to accept, but what we do with our bitter feelings is largely up to us.

Finding My Hallelujah

Much has been said and written about young Jews feeling alienated from Judaism and Israel.  Much has been said and written about young people of all faiths feeling alienated from their families as they try to figure out who they are and if and how they fit in.

A few weeks ago I had a minor epiphany about all of this that I want to share with you.  One of those moments when the clouds part and you say to yourself, Gee, I think I’ve figured something out.

It didn’t happen outside, though, so I couldn’t actually see the clouds parting.  I was inside on our stationery bike, doing a Spin routine...

The very last song in the routine, just as I was about to give up, was a song I'd never heard before but subsequently discovered is quite popular.  It's called "Good to Be Alive," by Andy Grammer.

"Good to Be Alive"

It’s to music what snickers bars are to chocolate, really addictive.  And it actually gave me the oomph to finish the routine.

The premise is that someone who’s been down on his luck is experiencing a turnaround and the chorus is “I think I’ve finally found my Hallelujah!”  followed shortly thereafter by “Good to be alive right about now.”

When the routine was over I was thinking, Hmm.   Familiar concept.  Sounds a bit like She'heheyanu, the blessing where we thank God for being alive.

And for a brief endorphin-addled moment I considered singing the song with bar and bat mitzvah families on Shabbat mornings instead of reciting She’heheyanu. 

Of course there’s a difference between the I-infused “I think I’ve finally found my Hallelujah” and the us-ness of She’heheyanu.  Thank you for keeping us alive and sustaining us and enabling us to reach this sacred time. 

But the two are related.  And while I'll stick with the old-time religion when it comes to saying She’heheyanu, I will say this:

The success of the Jewish community moving forward will depend upon our ability to demonstrate that a connection with a strong, moral, responsive “We” is critical to producing a strong, moral, responsive “I.”  The more I feel connected to my family, my community and my people, the deeper, more sustainable and more sustaining my own Hallelujah will be.

The Wicked Child Asks the Best Question

Soon we’ll be reading about the arba’ah banim, the four children, at the Seder.  I’ve always felt that the רשע rasha, the so-called wicked child, gets treated unfairly.  On closer reflection I actually want to intensify my reaction to say that the rasha asks just about the most important question there is.  He, she – deserves a careful answer.

What’s the question?  Invoking the words of the Torah (Exodus 12:26) the rasha asks מה העבודה הזאת לכם Ma ha’avodah hazot lakhem.  What does this mean to you?  This ritual, this worship, this whole enterprise – what does it mean to you?

A contemporary artistic rendering of the four children

According to the Haggadah, because the child removes him or herself from what’s going on and denies God, we’re supposed to say to such a child, this is because of what God did for me when I left Egypt.  Implication – had the child been there, the child would not have been redeemed.

What’s going on here?  First of all, assumptions.  The child is removing him or herself.  The child is denying God.  Then an answer that, if anything, is going to move the child further away.

We may find it more comfortable to hear the question of the hakham, the wise child – "what are all the things I have to do?"  

"What do I do" is an important question, but it probably won't have the same degree of traction unless it comes with a deep, personal understanding of why.  In 2016, can you think of a more important question than a child, of any age, frankly – turning to someone of previous generations and asking, “Why do you do this?  What does all of this mean to you?”