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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
