We tell a lot of stories to children that are terrifying. The Brothers Grimm - two German scholars - are best known for their fairy tales and they are quite scary. But we don’t even need them as examples. The Bible has plenty of scary stories.
To be sure, when we tell the story of Noah, we focus on the cute little animals and there are even cute songs about them walking onto the ark which I’ll spare you. But the overall story is terrifying. Destruction by flood is terrifying and if children use their imaginations to consider what that would be like, it might keep them up at night.
There’s another scary aspect of the story, and that is, that God decides to give up on humanity. And at least as scary as that is the fact that the human that God picks to be saved along with his immediate relatives says nothing and starts to build a big boat just like God commands in order to save himself, his family, and certain animals.
Giving up is one answer to the fact that human beings are various shades of imperfect/dismissive/downright cruel. There are lots of ways to give up that don’t involve wholesale destruction, though we’ve certainly done that to one another as a species. We give up by allowing injustice and violence to continue without saying or doing much. Ignoring and denying are very common ways that human beings give up on one another.
The first thing Noah does when he leaves the ark after the flood is plant a vineyard and get drunk. Usually we don’t teach children that part. I imagine he gets drunk in part because it is too painful to face sober the reality of the destruction that occurred and the reality of his own complicity, his tacit agreement to “give up.”
There is an alternative to giving up. It occupies the rest of the Torah, such that the Noah story becomes the exception rather than the rule. The alternative to giving up is engagement.
That will be the legacy of Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob, Leah and Rachel. And when Miriam, Aaron and Moses take the stage, engagement will extend beyond the founding tribal family to an entire nation.
Engagement involves teaching, engagement involves advocacy, all with the goal of trying to change reality, rather than give up.
I want to share three examples from the present that I hope will inspire us.
A month ago I received an invitation from the New York Board of Rabbis, which I serve as an officer, to attend an award ceremony. The Board was establishing an award in honor of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to support efforts on behalf of gender equality.
Last week I attended the ceremony. Justice Ginsburg spoke briefly and then she was interviewed by New York Board Executive Director Rabbi Joe Potasnik. She spoke about the impact that her being a Jew has had on her pursuit of justice. At one point, she was asked what it was like for her to get a job after graduating first in her Columbia Law School class (she transferred from Harvard Law School where she began due to family reasons). She said, it was the 1950’s and I had three strikes against me. I was a Jew. I was a woman. And (most problematic of all) I was a mother.
You probably know that Ruth Bader Ginsburg played a decisive role in advocating for gender equality in this country. The film “On the Basis of Sex” dramatizes the whole process. It’s a great film - watch it if you haven’t seen it.
Anyway - she spoke about her friendship with the late Justice Scalia (very different ideological leaning than hers) and the importance of recognizing the deep commitments even of those with whom you disagree.
Asked about her views of the constitution as a living document, she asked, Why would a living, breathing society want to be governed by a dead document? And went on to opine that the Constitution was intended, by its founders, to grow with society’s growth.
I was especially moved at how she spoke about her health challenges. She has battled numerous cancers and is currently being treated for cancer, and she said that, from an emotional perspectie, her work saved her. She kept going because she knows there is important work to be done.
This is what engagement looks like. You come of age in a world that you believe is lacking in certain respects that impact you and others. You can ignore. You can lash out. But instead, you choose to engage. This can be very challenging, but the effects can be significant and lasting.
Few of us will have the access and impact of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. But we too can engage appropriately to try to effect important change.
On Tuesday, November 12, a group of community leaders, many of whom are members of Temple Israel, will be presenting a forum to discuss the implications of the “Never Again Education Act” which will make it mandatory for middle and high schools across the country to deliver meaningful Holocaust education. This will strengthen the already excellent Holocaust education that the GN schools provide and will potentially have a considerable impact on those schools whose efforts in this area have been insufficient.
The aforementioned community leaders, recognizing the upsurge in antisemitic incidents nationally and internationally, determined that they would continue to advocate for quality education focused on the Holocaust and antisemitism as part of the overall anti-bias, anti-discrimination education that takes place in our schools.
This is classic engagement at work. These individuals are involved in our community generally, and our schools specifically, and are coupling their local influence with the existence of national legislation to address realities that impact not just the Jewish community but all of society.
There is still much hatred and violence in the world, just as there was during the time of Noah, just as there has been throughout history.
Reality doesn’t change easily, deep-seated hatred doesn’t yield easily. The surest way to effect lasting change is education, the best form of engagement there is.
Every day people wake up to a world that is inequitable. Every day far too many people face the reality that their own basic needs will not be met. The Torah understands that poverty will likely never end completely, but urges us פתוח תפתח את ידך pato’ah teef’tah et yad’kha. Open your hand. Open your hand to those in need.
On Monday night, our Waxman Youth House community will once again lead an effort to bring food, clothing and necessities into the city to give to those in need.* Many of us have already contributed goods.
Many dissertations have been written about income inequality and many more could be written.
What our youth house community has done through these efforts - known as Midnight Run - is to to choose to engage, rather than explore (which has its legitimate place), rather than to ignore (which has no legitimate place).
People often ask if Judaism has a version of heaven and hell and what will happen to us in either place.
I want to conclude with a well-known story that focuses, not on what will happen to us, but on what we can do to make things happen.
So it seems that at the end of his life, a person arrives at the next place and asks about the difference between heaven and hell. He is told, I’ll take you to see both, starting with hell. So they arrive and they see a whole bunch of people sitting around a table filled with food. Unfortunately there are devices on everyone’s arms that prevent their arms from bending, so that no one can actually get the food into their mouths. They try and try and are profoundly frustrated. They are doomed to an eternity of being surrounded by delicious food that they cannot eat.
Next, the person is taken to see what heaven looks like. A whole bunch of people are sitting around a table. It’s filled with food. There are devices on everyone’s arms that prevent their arms from bending. But there is one essential difference. In this place, the people are reaching over to feed each other.
The world is a scary place with many scary stories to be told. It is a place of hatred, violence and inequality. If, unlike Noah, we choose to face the world sober, we know that we cannot give up on the world and we cannot give up on each other. We must engage.
Surely that's the story we want each generation to tell.
Originally shared with the Temple Israel of Great Neck community on November 2, 2019
*I posted this the day after the Midnight Run occurred.
To be sure, when we tell the story of Noah, we focus on the cute little animals and there are even cute songs about them walking onto the ark which I’ll spare you. But the overall story is terrifying. Destruction by flood is terrifying and if children use their imaginations to consider what that would be like, it might keep them up at night.
There’s another scary aspect of the story, and that is, that God decides to give up on humanity. And at least as scary as that is the fact that the human that God picks to be saved along with his immediate relatives says nothing and starts to build a big boat just like God commands in order to save himself, his family, and certain animals.
Giving up is one answer to the fact that human beings are various shades of imperfect/dismissive/downright cruel. There are lots of ways to give up that don’t involve wholesale destruction, though we’ve certainly done that to one another as a species. We give up by allowing injustice and violence to continue without saying or doing much. Ignoring and denying are very common ways that human beings give up on one another.
The first thing Noah does when he leaves the ark after the flood is plant a vineyard and get drunk. Usually we don’t teach children that part. I imagine he gets drunk in part because it is too painful to face sober the reality of the destruction that occurred and the reality of his own complicity, his tacit agreement to “give up.”
There is an alternative to giving up. It occupies the rest of the Torah, such that the Noah story becomes the exception rather than the rule. The alternative to giving up is engagement.
That will be the legacy of Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob, Leah and Rachel. And when Miriam, Aaron and Moses take the stage, engagement will extend beyond the founding tribal family to an entire nation.
Engagement involves teaching, engagement involves advocacy, all with the goal of trying to change reality, rather than give up.
I want to share three examples from the present that I hope will inspire us.
A month ago I received an invitation from the New York Board of Rabbis, which I serve as an officer, to attend an award ceremony. The Board was establishing an award in honor of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to support efforts on behalf of gender equality.
Last week I attended the ceremony. Justice Ginsburg spoke briefly and then she was interviewed by New York Board Executive Director Rabbi Joe Potasnik. She spoke about the impact that her being a Jew has had on her pursuit of justice. At one point, she was asked what it was like for her to get a job after graduating first in her Columbia Law School class (she transferred from Harvard Law School where she began due to family reasons). She said, it was the 1950’s and I had three strikes against me. I was a Jew. I was a woman. And (most problematic of all) I was a mother.
You probably know that Ruth Bader Ginsburg played a decisive role in advocating for gender equality in this country. The film “On the Basis of Sex” dramatizes the whole process. It’s a great film - watch it if you haven’t seen it.
Anyway - she spoke about her friendship with the late Justice Scalia (very different ideological leaning than hers) and the importance of recognizing the deep commitments even of those with whom you disagree.
Asked about her views of the constitution as a living document, she asked, Why would a living, breathing society want to be governed by a dead document? And went on to opine that the Constitution was intended, by its founders, to grow with society’s growth.
I was especially moved at how she spoke about her health challenges. She has battled numerous cancers and is currently being treated for cancer, and she said that, from an emotional perspectie, her work saved her. She kept going because she knows there is important work to be done.
This is what engagement looks like. You come of age in a world that you believe is lacking in certain respects that impact you and others. You can ignore. You can lash out. But instead, you choose to engage. This can be very challenging, but the effects can be significant and lasting.
Few of us will have the access and impact of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. But we too can engage appropriately to try to effect important change.
On Tuesday, November 12, a group of community leaders, many of whom are members of Temple Israel, will be presenting a forum to discuss the implications of the “Never Again Education Act” which will make it mandatory for middle and high schools across the country to deliver meaningful Holocaust education. This will strengthen the already excellent Holocaust education that the GN schools provide and will potentially have a considerable impact on those schools whose efforts in this area have been insufficient.
The aforementioned community leaders, recognizing the upsurge in antisemitic incidents nationally and internationally, determined that they would continue to advocate for quality education focused on the Holocaust and antisemitism as part of the overall anti-bias, anti-discrimination education that takes place in our schools.
This is classic engagement at work. These individuals are involved in our community generally, and our schools specifically, and are coupling their local influence with the existence of national legislation to address realities that impact not just the Jewish community but all of society.
There is still much hatred and violence in the world, just as there was during the time of Noah, just as there has been throughout history.
Reality doesn’t change easily, deep-seated hatred doesn’t yield easily. The surest way to effect lasting change is education, the best form of engagement there is.
Every day people wake up to a world that is inequitable. Every day far too many people face the reality that their own basic needs will not be met. The Torah understands that poverty will likely never end completely, but urges us פתוח תפתח את ידך pato’ah teef’tah et yad’kha. Open your hand. Open your hand to those in need.
On Monday night, our Waxman Youth House community will once again lead an effort to bring food, clothing and necessities into the city to give to those in need.* Many of us have already contributed goods.
Temple Israel teens and adults delivering food and clothing in NYC
When I have had the privilege of joining the group, as I will do again in two days, I have seen the reactions of the people receiving these goods and I’ve also seen the reactions of our children, teens and adults helping people find the right coat, the right gloves, the right amount of sugar or milk in their coffee.Many dissertations have been written about income inequality and many more could be written.
What our youth house community has done through these efforts - known as Midnight Run - is to to choose to engage, rather than explore (which has its legitimate place), rather than to ignore (which has no legitimate place).
People often ask if Judaism has a version of heaven and hell and what will happen to us in either place.
I want to conclude with a well-known story that focuses, not on what will happen to us, but on what we can do to make things happen.
So it seems that at the end of his life, a person arrives at the next place and asks about the difference between heaven and hell. He is told, I’ll take you to see both, starting with hell. So they arrive and they see a whole bunch of people sitting around a table filled with food. Unfortunately there are devices on everyone’s arms that prevent their arms from bending, so that no one can actually get the food into their mouths. They try and try and are profoundly frustrated. They are doomed to an eternity of being surrounded by delicious food that they cannot eat.
Next, the person is taken to see what heaven looks like. A whole bunch of people are sitting around a table. It’s filled with food. There are devices on everyone’s arms that prevent their arms from bending. But there is one essential difference. In this place, the people are reaching over to feed each other.
The world is a scary place with many scary stories to be told. It is a place of hatred, violence and inequality. If, unlike Noah, we choose to face the world sober, we know that we cannot give up on the world and we cannot give up on each other. We must engage.
Surely that's the story we want each generation to tell.
Originally shared with the Temple Israel of Great Neck community on November 2, 2019
*I posted this the day after the Midnight Run occurred.
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