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?