Curiosity Can Save Us - a Message for Shavuot

There are many things I miss about when our children were younger, but one thing I don’t miss so much are parent teacher conferences.  Sometimes they were illuminating and sometimes they were frustrating.

Curiosity undimmed in the British TV series, "Call the Midwife"

I remember once Deanna and I went to speak with our son's English teacher.  I walked into the room and the teacher had his grade book out, and started telling us about how he averaged all the scores and came up with the final grade.

I listened and said thank you and then asked, Is our son interested in what’s going on in class?

I realized that what I said could be interpreted as a critique of the teacher which was not my intention at all, so I said, I’m really just trying to ask if he’s curious about what’s going on.  Does he seem to like the books you are reading?  Is he excited to write about them, to be be part of the discussions you’re having?

I want to take a few minutes this morning to talk about curiosity. It’s at the heart of this holiday of Shavuot and it’s at the heart of whether we succeed or fail as individuals, as a people, as a species.  Curiosity.

Restoring What Should Have Been Prevented

A few days ago I had a conversation with my sister, who is a physician, and worked as a genetic counselor for years before starting medical school.  I was asking her for some advice.  Without getting into the details, because of our family history I was advised to seek genetic testing and I was asking her about the pros and cons of knowing certain things.  She said, basically, if the knowledge will be able to lead to prevention, then it’s worthwhile; if it will just lead to you walking around anxious about possibilities that you can’t do much about, then it’s not so worthwhile.

Migrant children rest on cots inside the house of Refugee in El Paso, TX

I said, me walking around anxious over things I can’t do much about?  Who do you think you’re talking to?  And then we had a good laugh.  She’s known me all my life.  I do have a tendency on occasion to walk around anxious over things I can’t control which, ironically, might be genetic.  

Of course we want to do whatever we can to prevent bad things from happening.  Medically, for sure.  But also societally.  If we can take actions to ensure that discrimination and persecution not take place, that people live with decency and receive just treatment, we are morally obligated to do so.

Trying to Right What Is Wrong

I shared these thoughts with my congregation, Temple Israel of Great Neck, one week after the shootings at Chabad of Poway:

A week ago, on the last day of Passover, I spoke about how important it is for us to claim religion as a source of affirmation and love, rather than discrimination and violence.  Roughly at the time I was speaking, a hateful murderer was preparing to kill as many innocent worshipers as he could at Chabad of Poway in San Diego.

As we learned more details, we discovered that the murderer is 19 years old, had been influenced by white supremacist teachings, and had also been accused of setting fire to a nearby mosque.  We discovered that the woman killed, Lori Gilbert Kaye, was fatally shot as she tried to protect Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein who was wounded, along with 8-year old Noya Dayan and IDF veteran Almog Peretz.

How awful that the topic of my sermon last week ended up being tragically relevant once again in this way.  Religion as a source of affirmation and love, rather than discrimination and violence.

A woman is dead, leaving behind a husband and a daughter whose lives are shattered.  Those in the synagogue who witnessed the shootings and survived, including children, are traumatized.  

I am angry, frustrated, despondent.  

This happened 6 months after the shootings in Pittsburgh, there have been shootings of Jews in Europe and shootings in churches and mosques the world over.

Which Side Are We On?

Last year I was in Washington with a group of rabbis under the auspices of AJWS (American Jewish World Service), urging our elected officials to advocate for human rights in a variety of areas.  One of our meetings included a conversation with Senator Kirsten Gillibrand.  

We discussed a variety of things with her and asked her if she would be prepared to support them.  When we were done with that part of the conversation, one of us asked if there’s anything she wanted us to do that would help her.  And she said, "reclaim scripture."  That was a bit terse so we asked what she meant, and she said, so many religious leaders quote the Bible in order to judge and constrain; as I get to know you and what you stand for, I am asking you to invoke the Bible in order to embrace and empower.  

If, like many people, you sometimes wonder if religion is making the world better or worse, this past month provided grim reminders of religion’s negative potential.  In mid-March we learned of the murder of 50 Muslims in New Zealand by a Christian white supremacist terrorist who, among other things, yearns for the Christian reconquest of the Istanbul.  Just this past week we saw the murder of 100s of Christians in Sri Lanka by Muslim ISIS operatives avenging the murders of Muslims on, as they put it, “the infidel holiday.”

Also quite damaging are the numerous statements and policies that discriminate based on gender and sexuality and ethnicity and race in the name of religion.  

Not just because Senator Gillibrand mentioned it, but because I think it’s one of the most essential issues we can wrestle with as Jews in this point in time, I turn to us and ask, pointedly, Which side are we on?

Preparing a Generation for the Road

When I told Moji Pourmoradi that I would be happy to come along with 44 teenagers on a 10 day trip to Israel, what I meant to say was, I’ll give it a shot and see what happens.  What happened is that it exceeded my expectations.  More exciting, more crazy, more wonderful than I expected.

Conversation at Givat Haviva, February 2019

With the expert leadership of Avi Siegel, Moji, Tziona Kamel and our Israeli staff, we had quite a trip.  We climbed a few mountains in the Negev, slept in a kibbutz down south that I will describe as rustic, stayed at a less rustic kibbutz north of Tel Aviv, created our own graffiti in Tel Aviv, spent several uplifting days in Jerusalem.  We had fun, made noise, ate all kinds of food, made some new friends and had many more experiences that would take days to talk about.  I’ll get back to the trip in a few minutes.

The ancient rabbis encouraged us to tell story of Passover as fully and deeply as we can.  וכל המרבה לספר ביציאת מצרים הרי זה משובח  The more one tells of the Exodus from Egypt, the better. Moreover, between the recognition of diversity implicit in the drama of the four children and the acknowledgement of the morally problematic aspects of the Ten Plagues, the rabbis provided a template for confronting the complexity inherent in our story and our tradition.

Given our tradition's propensity for acknowledging complexity here and elsewhere, why is it that in many respects we overprotect the next generation, treating them like they are fragile, like they might break or short-circuit if we make things too hard or expose them to too much controversy or risk?

Precious As We Are: a Pre-Passover Reflection

Chances are you heard about the recent college scandal involving 50 people, orchestrated by a college prep company that involved getting students into elite college through cheating on standardized tests and presenting false athletic credentials.

Passover Haggadah Graphic Novel, Gorfinkel and Zadok, 2019

What messages does all this send to the students?  First of all, that honesty is optional.  If it works, be honest; if not, don’t.  But another problematic message that is sent to these students is, you’re not ok as you are.  "As you are" isn’t good enough.  In order to satisfy other people’s expectations, you have to pretend to be what you’re not.

Two weeks before Passover, I want to challenge us to think about the following. To what degree are we sending the message to people we love that they are not really welcome as they are. That “as they are” isn’t enough or isn’t ok.  “As they are” can be, their actual abilities; their actual appearance; their actual sexuality; their actual personality; their actual degree of conformity or noncomfority.

What To Do With Advice

I’m wondering if what I’m about to describe ever happened to you.  You make a decision, let's say regarding a job to apply for or perhaps a person to go out with on a date.  You get the job and you work at it for awhile; or you go out on a date, maybe even more than one date.

And things don’t go so well.  I won’t get specific, each situation is different.

Has it ever happened to you that after you make the decision, after you get yourself into professional or personal situation, after it doesn’t go so well, that someone close to you says:

You know - I had a feeling that wouldn’t work out.   

Perhaps at this point you may be wondering why the person didn’t say anything before but you may ask, why did you have such a feeling that it wouldn’t work out?

And the person may say some version of, I think by now, I know you better than you know yourself.

Is it actually true that someone else can know us better than we know ourselves?  And whether or not this is true, how do we feel about advice altogether?

I’d like to reflect on how we deal with advice.  Do we want other people to give us advice?  Are we more upset when people offer their opinions or when they don’t, especially if our decisions end up not being good ones?