A Place for Private Light and Public Light

What do people think about wearing a kippa in public?

About lighting a Hanukkah menorah in the public square?

What do we feel about sharing our feelings for our loved ones publicly?

About doing acts of kindness, or advocating for justice, in public ways?

I suspect some of us think it’s a great idea to be public about all manner of observance and behavior, Jewish or general, and others think, not so much.  Or perhaps for most of us it depends on the issue at hand.

I want to reflect on the private/public dilemma of how we live our lives generally and how we navigate being Jewish.  What do we keep private?  What do we share publicly?

Joseph, Judah and Jerusalem: Confronting Intergenerational Baggage

When it comes to confronting deep-seated, challenging, multi-generational baggage, it helps to take small, thoughtful steps. How might this look in families and what it might mean for the recent announcement about Jerusalem?

Parents and children from "Hand in Hand" Center of Jewish-Arab Education in Israel

First, families.  I highly recommend a TV show about genealogy called Finding Your Roots.  The host, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., interviews several well-known people and presents them with research about their ancestors, often going back more than 10 generations.  The research includes ship records, census records and DNA.

The show is often fascinating.  It raises issues of race, ethnicity and socio-economics.  It raises questions about inherited traits, including personality.  Often the research reveals family secrets that were hidden for generations.  

The most recent episode featured the actor Gaby Hoffman, who starred in the Amazon TV series Transparent.

Gaby Hoffman was raised by her mother in the Chelsea Hotel in Manhattan.  Her father left when she was a young child.

Hoffman saw her father occasionally as a preteen and teenager. She generally found him distant, formal and a bit angry.

The episode focused on her father’s side of the family going way back generations.

Hoffman wondered - why the anger?  Why the distance?  

His father, it turns out - her grandfather - was angry and even abusive.  Hoffman said that she and her sister always wondered if there was some reason why these two generations of men were so angry and what situations might have occurred in previous generations.

As the research was revealed to her by the host, she discovered that one of her great-grandfathers was raised by a different man than his biological father.  

Hoffman’s comment when she discovered this was telling.  She said, I'm paraphrasing, all this stuff somehow lasts a lot of generations.  The animosity, the anger, the secrecy - it has a conscious and subconscious effect that lasts. 

Painful emotional realities often last from one generation to the next. Mistrustful, hostile relationships get replayed over and over with different actors from one generation to another.  They don’t magically disappear.  

Unless - says the rabbi channeling his inner Lorax - unless courageous, pragmatic, thoughtful steps are taken.

Gratitude is a Choice

A few years ago I watched every episode of an excellent Israeli TV series about modern-Orthodox "30 - somethings" called S’rugim.  S’rugim refers to the kippa s’ruga, the crocheted kippa that, for many, has grown to serve as a symbol for this community.  

I thought it was a compelling show.  The characters were appealing but also at times frustratingly self-absorbed.

Deanna stopped watching after season 2 and I continued.  One night when I couldn’t sleep, I went downstairs and binge watched through to the end of the third and final season.

One of the main characters is named Hodaya.  

She grew up in an observant home, daughter of a rabbi.  Of all of the characters, she departs the most from her observant upbringing.  

She is also probably the least satisfied of all of her friends. She is brilliant, creative - perhaps in some ways the most gifted of all of her friends - and yet she never seems to be satisfied.

It first occurred to me this past week - as I was preparing to speak - the irony of her character given her name.

Her name - Hodaya - means gratitude in Hebrew. Thanksgiving, actually.  

And she appears almost constitutionally incapable of being thankful.

Many people will say that gratitude is a feeling.

To some degree it is.  But I want to suggest - on this Shabbat immediately following the American holiday of Thanksgiving - that gratitude is primarily a choice.  We choose to be grateful or not.  We choose to what extent we focus on saying “thank you” for the good things in our lives and to what extent we focus on everything that is wrong or tense or problematic in our lives.

Supporting Israel with High Resolution

Last Tuesday night the Central Student Government at the University of Michigan voted in favor of a divestment resolution targeting Israel.  The vote was 23 in favor, 17 opposed, 5 abstaining.   

The vote has no bearing on the University’s policies.  The University of Michigan in the past has roundly opposed divestment resolutions and in all likelihood will oppose this one. But it's quite disturbing nonetheless.  

I want to affirm today what I’ve said all along.  When it comes to how students relate to Israel, understand Israel, and advocate for fair treatment of Israel, the best thing we can do is educate them as deeply as possible about Israel, the Palestinians, the peace process and the larger Middle Eastern context.

That does not mean presenting Israel as completely virtuous and without flaw.  To the contrary, efforts to educate high school students this way often backfire.  The students get to college, realize it’s not so simple, and then feel that they have been misled by their teachers and rabbis.

What's called for is an approach that the educational institution Makor calls "high resolution." High resolution means knowing as much as possible in as deep a way as possible.

I want to take us to three places.  The family drama of Esau and Jacob.  The approach of an Israeli thought-leader who understands high resolution.  And back to the college campus.

Confronting the Hole in the Soul: Addiction, Trauma and Us

Rabbi Schweber and I attended an unusual performance last week at the Sid Jacobson JCC.

The performers are not professional actors but they all have two things in common.  They are all recovering addicts.  And they all participated in an unusual residential recovery program called Beit T'Shuvah.  I say it’s unusual because Beit T'Shuvah, in addition to using psychotherapy, creative arts and 12-steps, also mines Jewish tradition as a source of therapeutic healing.  Most recovery programs that have a religious bent are Christian, so this sets Beit T'Shuva apart.

Scene from Freedom Song

The performance we saw is called Freedom Song.  It features a split stage.  On one side of the stage, a family is having a passover seder.  One of the children, a young adult whose addiction caused pain to her family and was estranged from them for several years, walks in during the middle of the Seder.  

On the other side of the stage, a 12-step meeting is taking place and tension emerges between a woman and her husband, whose addiction has caused severe strain on their marriage.

The performance explores the causes and effects of addiction, not just on the addicts themselves, but on their family and friends.

At the end of the performance, Rabbi Mark Borovitz, co-founder of Beit Teshuva, spoke to the audience and answered questions.  A recovering addict himself, he said that one thing which addicts have in common with one another is that they have what he calls a “hole in the soul.” Something missing, or wounded, deep in the soul.  

Addictive behaviors and substance abuse are complicated, involving emotional, chemical and social components.  One key element, Rabbi Borovitz emphasized repeatedly, is the “hole in the soul,” a hole that addicts will try, unsuccessfully, to fill with behaviors and substances that are harmful.  

I want to talk this morning about the hole in the soul.  It’s a difficult topic.  It’s easier to avoid than to face head on, but avoiding it comes at a great cost.  Many people sense holes in their souls  - not just addicts.  In fact, I venture to say that just about everyone feels it at some point.  A pain so raw that you don’t quite know what to do with it.  

Reinventing Ourselves

My father’s retirement required him to reinvent himself.  He no longer had a job that he needed to get to every weekday at 8 am.  He had newfound time on his hands.  I’ll say more about how he managed this later.

To reinvent is to re-create, to forge a new approach to something.  Charles Darwin explored this in the natural world as something that is random, unintentional.  As an example, a mutation causes certain animals, over millennia, to develop long necks and those long-necked animals who live in places with tall trees have an advantage which lets them survive.  The mutation “reinvents” the animal and, given a felicitous set of circumstances, the animal is then poised for an increased chance at survival.

But we can also recognize intentional reinvention, especially among humans, reinvention of a religion tradition, reinvention of an institution, reinvention of a person.  Without reinvention, things stop in their tracks.  With reinvention, continuity is possible.

What Are We Missing? An Invitation for Yom Kippur 5778

A few weeks ago I confessed that I missed the solar eclipse completely.  Now there’s a bigger crowd so I’ll expand my confession.  Unlike so many people, I didn’t arrange to be in the path of totality.  I didn’t pay $1000 to rent a small room in Wyoming.  Worse than that – even just staying here in Great Neck, I didn’t get my act together.  I didn’t buy the right sunglasses.  Many people ordered them in advance and I didn’t. I thought about it but in the end I didn’t order them.  

"Best seat in the house"

So when the big day came, I realized I would miss the eclipse. During the brief moments when you could look up and see the eclipse if you had proper eyewear, I walked from my house to the synagogue.  I was so afraid of damaging my eyesight that I looked down the whole time.  So there was a major cosmic event going on and I was looking at my feet and hearing the voice of my mother saying, "Don't look up!"  Feel free to interpret that however you wish. 

Maybe it was important to see the eclipse, maybe not.  I don’t need to spend any more time on that right now.

But I do want to share with you, to invite you into, an exploration of what significant things we might be missing in our own lives.  And why.

Finding Our Power - A Message for the New Year

Roughly 10 years ago I was sitting at our dining room table, opposite Deanna, working on some project, and the phone rang.  It was one of our son’s high school teachers. He said, “Hi Mr. Stecker.  It’s Mr. So-and-so, your son’s teacher.”  I said, “Hi Mr. So-and-so.  So nice to hear from you.”  

He said, “I want you to know that your son is a really great guy, Mr. Stecker.”  I said, “Thanks, Mr. So-and-so.”  He went on, “But the thing is, Mr. Stecker…there are a bunch of assignments that he didn’t hand in.  And if he doesn’t get them in, it’s definitely going to affect his final grade.  So hopefully you and Mrs. Stecker can talk to him and encourage him.  Remember I’m here to help.”  We discussed some of the details and then he said,  “It’s been great talking to you, Mr. Stecker.  I’m so glad that we can partner with each other to ensure the best educational outcomes for your son.”

And I said, “Thanks, Mr. So-and-so.  I too am glad that we can partner together.” 

I got off the phone.  I summarized the conversation to Deanna and I said, “You know, this is frustrating.  But let’s look on the bright side.  If our son keeps going in this direction, we’ll be able to save a whole lot of college tuition.” And then I said a few more things that of course I shouldn’t have said.

At that point I heard a voice from the kitchen, which is right next to the dining room.  “Thanks a lot, Abba.” 

It was our son.  It seems he had heard what I said.  I felt terrible.  I walked into the kitchen and apologized.  I told him how much I love him, how much I regret what I said, how much faith I have in him.  But of course, I couldn’t take back the words.

At that moment I understood something that I want to reflect on this morning for all of us.  I understood that I have more power than I realize.  We all have more power than we realize.  Power to do harm.  And also to do good.  

We Stand in the Gap

It’s reassuring to think that there’s rhyme and reason in the world.

We do the right thing and good things happen.  You study and you do you well.   You work hard and you make a good living.  That’s reassuring.   

Of course we know it doesn’t always work that way.  It's not news that the world is often a mess.  We’ve always struggled with – on the one hand, wanting there to be rhyme and reason and order and on the other hand, realizing that often there is not.

I'd like to reflect on what we need to do when we face the gap between life as it is and life as we expect it to be.  How do we respond to this gap?

Leading With Love

Yom Kippur is far away but I’ll start with a confession.  I didn’t see the eclipse.  I didn’t get the glasses in time, I didn’t think of some clever workaround like looking at the sun’s refraction through a colander.  

I already have plans for 2024 though.  Apparently the path of totality will include Burlington, VT, and assuming my son is still living there and toiling in the vineyard of the Lord – literally – I’m going to crash at his place and preorder the glasses.

The eclipse is a spectacular thing.  Along with being spectacular it’s also frightening.  Don’t look up!  We were told.  It will do permanent damage to the eye!  Most people took those warnings seriously.

We are a few weeks away from Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and I want to talk a bit about fear – healthy fear as well as unhealthy fear, as they often get mixed up.  

The Rev. Brian Ellis-Gibbs

Fear is powerful.  Often it’s healthy.  We can all come up with examples of healthy fear, starting with the fear that urges you to protect your eyes from the sun and all of the metaphorical implications of that.  But often it’s not healthy.  And today I want to reflect on one specific unhealthy manifestation of fear and how we fight it.

Fear is unhealthy when it causes us to erect unnecessary boundaries between people. 

The Power to Fight Back

This has been a deeply disturbing week.  As anyone who has dealt with corrosive problems knows, the first thing we have to be able to do is name the problems unequivocally.  If you don’t name them, you can’t confront them.  The killing in Barcelona was Islamic terrorism.  The killing in Charlottesville was white supremacist neo-Nazi terrorism.  Islamic terrorism is pernicious and requires continued vigilance and opposition.  This morning I want to focus on white supremacist neo-Nazism and make a few observations.

NYC Interfaith Gathering - "Yes to Love, No to Hate," August 23, 2017

Learning to Land in the Moment

A few weeks ago all three of our sons came home.  We were hanging out in the kitchen, which is somehow the room we all tend to hang out in.  I didn’t realize this but Deanna pointed out that the three of them and I, four people – pace constantly when we talk.  We don’t stand still.  From her perspective it looks like a tiny solar system, four planets in constant motion.

I spent a few weeks this summer reading a novel by renowned Israeli author, A. B. Yehoshua, called “The Liberated Bride.”

I’ve read several of his novels.  He depicts Israeli society in a complicated way that is specific to Israeli society but also in many respects universal.  To an unusual degree, his novels tend to unpack the relationships between Jews and Arabs.  The Arabs include Israeli and Palestinian Arabs, Christian and Muslim Arabs.

The main character in “The Liberated Bride” is a Jewish professor at Haifa University who is studying French colonialism in Algeria.  He has numerous Arab students, which gives him a port of entry into several Arab communities.  He undergoes a tragi-comic journey to uncover a secret about his son’s past.   Much of his journey involves the locations and lives of Israeli and Palestinian Arabs.  

I can’t possibly do justice to the book in a few sentences.  But I want to focus on an ongoing theme that we should all consider.

The professor, Yochanan Rivlin, is often headed to the airport to pick up family members.  The detours on the way to the airport are half the story and half the fun.  

One of the Arabs, who works at a hotel owned by Jews and gets to know the professor very well, notes that Rivlin’s folks are always flying in and flying out and he remarks to him that the Jews are always coming and going.  

This morning I want to reflect on two things.  One – how deeply rooted “coming and going” is in Jewish culture.  Pacing back and forth, flying in, flying out.

And two – how important it is for us to learn how to land.

Charlottesville and Our Obligation to Fight Hatred

In light of recent events in Charlottesville, VA, I sent the following message to my congregation, Temple Israel of Great Neck:

Dear Temple Israel Family:

Last Saturday’s white supremacist neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville, Virginia, led to the murder of Heather Heyer and the wounding of at least 19 others.  Many situations have multiple legitimate sides to consider, but this is not one of them. Many issues are ambiguous.  Not this one. 

Heather Heyer was protesting the neo-Nazis whereas James Fields Jr., who murdered her and wounded the others, was affiliated with them.  She was seeking to sow justice.  He was seeking to sow terror.    

Fields' peers are racists and anti-Semites.   They were marching in Virginia with confederate flags and swastikas, chanting “Jews will not replace us” and “Sieg Heil!” What more do we need to see and hear in order to respond? 

The white supremacist neo-Nazis who marched in Charlottesville, who have been spreading hatred and violence throughout the United States for years, consistently and egregiously violate the American and Jewish values that we hold dear.   And therefore we must do everything we can to oppose them in word and deed.   

We who value diversity as an American ideal and a fundamental expression of God’s love for all humanity must oppose those who champion a deranged vision of uniformity.  We who seek justice for all human beings, regardless of race, religion, gender and sexuality, must oppose those who discriminate against anyone who looks or acts differently than they do.  We who believe that America is truly great only when all of her citizens live together peacefully must oppose those who aspire to a twisted definition of greatness that thrives on discord and violence. 

In keeping with our American Jewish values we call upon President Trump to oppose white supremacist neo-Nazi terrorism consistently, unabashedly and systematically.  He may not hesitate or equivocate any more.  The danger is too clear and the stakes are too high as the enemies of diversity and justice gain strength and influence every day.  If you haven’t signed the ADL’s petition calling the president to action, I encourage you to do so.  

This coming Shabbat morning, as we pray for the wellbeing of our nation, we will voice our resolve to oppose these threats and to uphold our Jewish and American values of diversity and justice.  I hope you will join us. 

Elie Wiesel famously wrote, “Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.”  As Jews we have known the sting of oppression and we bear a timeless legacy of fighting for justice for all people.  We dare not remain neutral.  We must speak out and fight back so that America can truly be a nation with liberty and justice for all. 

With resolve and hope,

Rabbi Howard Stecker 

True Leadership is Not About Ego

We just came back from a few weeks in Canada.  When people realized we were from the USA, we heard a few comments.  Like, “Glad the War of 1812 didn’t quite work out for you.”  The War of 1812, you may recall, involved numerous invasions of Canada.  But more than questioning the past, we got a few comments from the generally quite polite Canadians to the effect of, “What’s up with your leadership – eh?”  A British man we met at a hotel said that England is looking at the US as kind of a soap opera.  

Now, as I’ve said before, I’m not Stephen Colbert.  It’s not my job to bring humor to the current situation though I sometimes have funny things to say, as I’m sure we all do.  And I’m not Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett and company delivering clever,  partisan podcasts.  It’s not my role to share a partisan analysis of contemporary events. 

Dan Elman, a leader of the Saint John, New Brunswick, Jewish Community 

It is my task as a rabbi to view the present with the insights that come from our rich past – to offer Torat Chayim – to bring Torah to life, to our lives.  The Torah has much to teach us about the dangers of ego-driven leadership and the nature of true leadership.  So here we go...

Risking Discomfort in Order to Help

This was a tough week.  I want to reflect on two situations and three people who have stepped forward to act decently in ways that require some analysis and recognition.

The Israeli prime minister’s cabinet reneged on a deal designed to create a state-recognized egalitarian prayer section at the Kotel, the Western Wall.  Reform and Conservative leaders naturally have expressed outrage.  What I find especially heartening is that two Orthodox leaders, among others, have stepped forward to offer a critique of the cabinet’s actions.

When We Are Criticized

A common question at job interviews is, How do you handle criticism?  

Possibly if we’re asked the question, we say something like, "Of course it's not easy to hear criticism, but I try to consider it carefully and to take a close look at what I can be doing better."

But the truth is that most of us hate to be criticized.  We get defensive.  We get offensive.

Our humble leader Moses was criticized all the time.  Poor fellow – he was criticized for a doing a job that he didn't even want.  God said, "Go tell Pharoah to let the people go" and Moses basically said, find someone else.

So I was thinking, Why not look at how he handles criticism and see what we can learn?

Why and How Rabbis Should Talk About Politics

Two weeks ago Rabbi David Wolpe published a piece in LA’s Jewish journal entitled,  “Why I Keep Politics off the Pulpit.”  

In the article he observes that rabbis are forever being pressured to take stands on political issues.  

He writes, “If it is a left-wing cause, I will be rebuked for neglecting prophetic ethics, which is the guardian of the widow and the orphan (and the climate and the transgendered). If it is a right-wing cause, I will be reminded of the primacy of peoplehood and objective moral law (and the sanctity of unborn life and the free market).”

And later, “I know outstanding rabbis on the left of the political spectrum and others on the right. You can love Torah and vote for Trump. You can love Torah and think Trump is a blot on the American system. What you may not do, if you are intellectually honest, is say that the Torah points in only one political direction.”

And finally, “All we hear all day long is politics. Can we not come to shul for something different, something deeper? I want to know what my rabbi thinks of Jacob and Rachel, not of Pence and Pelosi."

I want to share my thoughts about the question, should rabbis talk about politics from the pulpit.  Spoiler alert – my answer is yes.  But I want to clarify what I mean.  And I want to use Moses as a guidepost, since his leadership is central to the Torah and there’s a lot to learn from it.

What to Do With Our Resentments

We attended our son’s graduation earlier this week and there were many nice moments and some funny ones.  

De and I at one point were headed to a night-time program and we found ourselves surrounded by a group of students all walking to the same place.  

This was the second day of a three-day graduation and families of course had been gathered from all over to celebrate and to spend what my friend likes to call “quantity time” together.

One student turned to the other and asked, so how dysfunctional was YOUR family today?  

And then they proceeded to share stories.

At which point I thought – what if Zach were part of that conversation?  What, if anything, would he have to add?  And then I decided to stop thinking about that. 

At the end of our Torah portion Miriam and Aaron gang up on their little brother, Moses.  They criticize his choice of a spouse.  

And then they express their resentment at the preferential treatment that God gives him.  

הרק אך-במשה דבר ה׳ הלא גם בנו דבר Ha’akh rak b’moshe diber adonai halo gam banu diber – Did God just speak to Moses? Didn’t God also speak to us?

It is quite common for members of a family, specifically but not exclusively siblings, to resent one another.  

I thought it might be interesting to reflect a bit on how resentment works in a family and then to apply that to the Jewish community. After all, according to Adin Steinsalz, Jews are more than a religion, more than a people even – Jews are family.  

I promise this will end up being uplifting.

Expanding Our Offerings as a Jewish, Spiritual, Political Act

In Biblical times Shavuot marked the time that farmers in ancient Israel would begin to bring bikkurim, first fruits.  They were brought in special baskets, as part of a clearly defined ritual which included recitation of an encapsulated version of the history of the Israelites up to the moment of bringing the offering.

We spend much of Shavuot talking about the giving of the Torah, which is just fine.  But today I want to speak about bikkurim – first fruits, offerings.  Who brings, and how they bring, has implications for us today, implications that are political and spiritual, implications that tell us a great deal about how we should apply Torah to live.  

The ancient rabbis, in dealing with the bringing of these offerings, dealt with all kinds of situations.  What if the person bringing was a convert?  What if the person bringing didn’t know how to recite the history?  What if the person bringing was too poor to afford a nice basket?

Their responses to these situations were sometimes progressive even by today's standards and sometimes not so much.  But their willingness to consider enlarging the pool of those who brought offerings inspires me this morning to offer a public meditation on what we should be doing, for everyone’s benefit, to maximize the scope of who brings offerings and how, in multiple settings, from the most local to the most universal.

On Pesach we ask four questions.  On Shavuot I'd like to offer three recommendations.

Celebrating Jerusalem and Israel 50 Years Later

A few months ago a college friend who lives out of town sent me an email asking what we were planning to do as a synagogue to commemorate this upcoming Jerusalem Day, Yom Yerushalayim, 50 years since Israel's victory in the Six-Day War.  

I said, we're going to be having a concert in a local park, we're going to sing and celebrate. 

Yom Yerushalayim Concert, May 21, 2017, Great Neck, NY

He wrote back – interesting.  You know that there are rabbinic leaders that are struggling with whether or not they and their communities should celebrate.  

I knew what he was referring to.  Since1967 was also the beginning of the annexation of the West Bank, it also marks the beginning of the occupation.  So colleagues of mine, in light of that outcome of the Six-Day War, are ambivalent about celebrating Jerusalem Day.  Perhaps the day should be devoted more to solemn study and reflection, some are saying.

He wasn't expressing his opinion, he was giving me a sense of what he's been reading and observing.

Since I've known him for a long time, I decided I wasn't going to continue the conversation through emails.  So I picked up the phone and called him and I started to get excited.

Maybe the "Blind Person" is You or I

A Greek filmmaker named Nancy Spetsioti produced a powerful short film.  In the film a couple and their young daughter walk into a doctor’s waiting room.  They all sit down when the mother notices that the little girl just seated herself next to a young man with darker features than the family members have.  The mother switches seats with the girl.  The father gives his seat to the mother and stands nearby, leaving the seat next to the young man empty.  They look at at him suspiciously, he looks down awkwardly.

The family is told that the doctor is ready to see them and that he would also like the young man to come inside as well.  

Scene from "Jafar," directed by Nancy Spetsioti

The family walks in, followed by the young man.

The doctor happily observes that the little girl looks strong and well following her surgery.  And then he walks over to the young man, puts his arm around him, and says to the family, “Let me introduce you to Jafar.  He is Anna’s bone marrow donor.”

Jafar smiles gently, the family look at him and at one another.  The film ends.

I looked for reactions to the film on-line.  One person wrote, he must be a Muslim.  Another wrote, he’s Turkish, and a Greek family would consider him to be the enemy, untrustworthy.  

The film appears to have been created to call into question the assumptions that we make about one another before we know each other well, or even at all.  

I thought it would be worthwhile to explore the Jewish perspective on how we judge one another.  What do we assume when we see someone?  When we know, or think we know, something about the person's racial, cultural, ethnic identity and other aspects of his or her life?

Turning Our Worry Into Action

When I was in college I spoke to my parents about once a week, usually on Friday afternoons.   In addition to the general back and forth, my mother would usually ask if I was getting all my work done.  

I wondered at the time why she was still worried about this.  I was, after all, 20 years old and managing reasonably well.

Years later, when I was a rabbi and we would talk before the holidays, she would ask if I was getting my work done.  Are the sermons going to be ready?

I used to think that my mother worried more than my father since she usually asked the questions, but one week when I was a teenager and she took off to visit my aunt in Cincinnati and left him to “take care of me,” he worried non-stop.  

I’m sure that worrying is universal, but Jews certainly have a reputation for it.  We even have our own jokes about worrying, including one I expect you’ve heard.

What does the classic Jewish telegram read?

Start worrying.  Details to follow.

Passover is known as the season of our freedom.

Listening Brings Freedom and Life

My paternal grandfather lived until his early 90’s.  Toward the end of his life we went to visit him in the hospital.  He was suffering.  

One of us, I don’t remember who, asked how he was feeling.  He said, “I’m dying.”

One of the family gathered there said something like, “Oh, you’re trying. Of course you’re trying.  It must be hard but you’ll be OK. We love you."

He didn’t say I’m trying.  We knew that.  He surely knew that.

We don’t always listen very well.  Sometimes when things are actually said we pretend we didn’t quite hear them, especially if what was said was too painful or even inconvenient.  

My grandfather might have gained some comfort from us telling him that we actually heard what he said instead of pretending we didn’t hear and that everything would be ok.  We won’t ever know.

The foundation of the Passover story is listening.  

Me at AIPAC 2017: Appreciation, Challenge and Suggestions

I spent Sunday through Tuesday at the AIPAC national policy conference.  AIPAC – the American Israel Public Affairs Committee – was founded in 1963.  Its stated mission is “to strengthen, protect and promote the U.S.-Israel relationship in ways that enhance the security of the United States and Israel.”

I’d like to share some highlights from my perspective along with some of the challenges I experienced as a participant.  Using my reactions as a guidepost, I hope to reflect on how each of us might navigate when it comes to our own social and political views and our relationship to Israel.  Ultimately I hope to suggest how established institutions like AIPAC can support engagement that is deeper and, ultimately, more effective for America and Israel.

Panel on "Shifting Landscapes:  Israel and the African American Community", AIPAC Policy Conference 2017

First the highlights.  There were roughly 18,000 people at the conference.  

Approximately 1000 rabbis attended.

Approximately 4000 college students attended.

The student presidents of approximately 150 colleges and universities were there, including 50 student presidents of historically black colleges.

What I Want For Me, I Should Want For You

The moment when Moses says to God, “I want to know you.  I want to understand you,” is a moment I think many of us can relate to.  

Perhaps we have sought an understanding of God, or some divine reassurance, to help us make sense of our lives in ways existential and mundane.

We know, however, that our yearning for understanding and reassurance from God, and more specifically our claim that we have such understanding and reassurance, can lead us, individually and communally, to some pretty dark places.

Temple Israel Players 2017

As tempting as it is to want some divine reassurance about our beliefs and our actions, it's also dangerous.  As we well know, we can look to God to help us justify all kinds of things that are problematic, ranging from garden-variety self-righteousness to truly vile behavior.  

The Muslim suicide bomber thinks he is acting in Allah's name. The Christian shooter thinks he is acting in Jesus's name. The Jew who shoots scores of worshippers in a mosque thinks he is doing the will of Hashem.

Two major rabbinic leaders have dared to suggest that when it comes to our behavior we should put God second.  Don't be quick to invoke God, don't be over-reliant on God's blessing. Just do what you know is right and worry about God later.

Response to Anti-Semitism: Protecting Ourselves, Protecting Each Other

This past week I was at a wonderful conference sponsored by Hadar with rabbis of multiple ideological perspectives from all over the country

During a particular session I was studying with two colleagues and one of them, who lives in the Philadelphia area, looked down at his phone and said, “Sorry - Gotta step out.”

He came back in and we asked is everything ok, and he said, the Jewish day school that my children go to just received a bomb threat.  All the children are waiting outside.  The leadership is trying to figure out what course of action to take next.

Vandalism at Mt. Carmel Cemetery In Philadelphia, PA, February, 2017

Over the next hours he filled us in on the outcome (everyone was ok), on what the leadership decided to share with the children (K through 5), on what procedures they followed.

This, as we know, is part of a much larger recent trend.

The Perils and Power of Advice

It’s not easy to take advice from other people.  There are many reasons why we resist and many ways to resist.  Sometimes we doubt the motivation of the person giving the advice.  Sometimes we question whether the advice is sound altogether.

The Torah describes a moment where one person gives advice to another.  Not just any two people, but Yitro, Midianite priest and Moshe, leader of the Israelites and Yitro’s son-in-law.

You are overwhelming yourself and others by judging all of the people directly, Yitro tells his Moshe.  You need to delegate.  

Moshe follows the advice.  He delegates.  He handles the difficult cases and he appoints others to handle the simpler ones.  

The Torah records no vocal response on Moshe's part and doesn't externalize his thought process.

However, in keeping with our people’s long-standing interpretive impulse, I’m going to ask a few questions of my own about that which the Torah does not explicitly state.

The Power of the People

Assuming we’re not “in the room where it happens.”  Assuming we are not serving in one of three branches of national government, assuming that we are not in a position that gives us access to the halls of power.  How do we face each day, take our temperature, assess ourselves and our surroundings, and determine what we want to say and do given national events?

The story of the Exodus describes the showdown between two main characters, leaders on the stage in the room where it happens, leaders whose actions have the capacity to impact entire nations.

Moses and Pharaoh have an extended showdown, a dance of ego, will and destiny that the Torah describes in dramatic detail.

But of course most of the people were neither Moses nor Pharaoh.  They were figuring out how to manage each day, how not to be literally and figuratively beaten.