Navigating with Wisdom and Strength

GPS is very convenient for sure but I joke with our kids that they need GPS to drive from our house to the train station.  Because they emerged as drivers with GPS as part of their reality, they have a poorer sense of direction than they otherwise would. Their internal navigation system is diminished because they don’t have to rely on it so much.

Norbert Friedman (1923-2019)

In general navigation is becoming a lost art.  I’m not thinking now about driving to the train station.  I’m thinking about navigating complex situations.  And while I could give all kinds of examples, specifically I want us to think about how the Jewish community is navigating the realities that we face which include, sadly and ominously, a rise in Antisemitism in Europe and the United States along with systemic infringements on the rights of others.

How do we navigate?  Do we protect ourselves?  Do we protect others?

Do we build walls?  Do we build bridges?  How do we determine who are our friends and who are our enemies?

The same way that GPS for all of its value may be causing our capacity to navigate on the road to atrophy, I am concerned that social media for all of its value may be causing our capacity to navigate complex social and political realties to be less sharp than it once was. 

Just a few days ago, I found out about the death of someone I care about, someone who had a strong impact on me, someone who knew how to navigate life’s complexities.  I want to say a few words about him because he deserves it but also because reflecting on his life, I believe, will be illuminating for all of us.

Norbert Friedman died a few days ago at the age of 96.  He survived the Holocaust and was imprisoned in 11 concentration camps.  He lived for many years in West Hempstead and I got to know him well as his rabbi for 7 years.  

Being Religious

This past Yom Kippur I mentioned a friend whom I envied when I was elementary school.  I envied him because he would get more expensive presents from his parents on Hanukkah than I did.  When I went over to his house once during Hanukkah, he showed me the amazing train set that his parents got him.  He asked me what I got the night before, I mentioned something that I’d gotten - I think it was a book.  And he said, only a book?  And then, to drive the point home, he said to me, “I guess your family isn’t as religious as mine.”

A question that we ask ourselves from time to time is, what makes a person religious?  I’m often intrigued when people tell me, as a rabbi, that they’re not religious.

As in - Rabbi, I don’t like to pray.  I’m not religious.   Or - I don’t keep all the rules.  I’m not religious.

I'm not sure exactly what people intend to convey when they say that.  Maybe they feel bad and are apologizing.  Maybe they are feeling superior, and saying something like, “I’m sophisticated enough not to worry too much about all this stuff.” 

This morning’s Torah portion ends with a description that is often associated with “being religious.”

A group of male leaders up on a mountaintop see a vision of God, complete with sapphire and light.  The Torah says ויחזו את האלהים Vayehezu et ha’elohim.  They saw God.

But I would argue that the rest of this morning’s parasha, most of the parasha, presents a different approach to "being religious" that is at least as significant.  Not up on a mountain trying to envision God, but in the world, trying to do what’s right by God's creatures.  So here are a few examples, as well as a word about the Lubavitcher Rebbe and Ben Franklin who had some worthwhile things to say about the religious enterprise.

What Happens Next?

I suspect that many of us followed various media coverages of the recent exchange on the National Mall involving Native Americans, Black Hebrew Israelites and a group of students from a Catholic high school in Kentucky.

A video initially released was interpreted by conventional news outlets and many on social media as showing the students acting disrespectfully toward a Native American man.  The video prompted strong criticism of the students, especially one who stood next to the Native American man and smiled at him for an extended period of time while he was drumming and chanting.

A longer video showed a controversy between the Black Hebrew Israelites and some members of the native American group that expanded to include the students.

Certain things were evident in the longer video.  The members of the Black Hebrew Israelites group criticized the way the Native Americans worship and gestured toward the students, saying to the Native Americans that there won’t be any food stamps coming to the reservations or the projects shutdowns because of the people wearing the "Make America Great" caps.

Some of the students made tomahawk chopping gestures in the presence of the Native American.  For awhile the students listened to one of the Black Hebrew Israelite preachers and booed when the preacher made a homophobic comment.

There’s been a great deal of analysis around the way people on social media use these kinds of videos to justify their own narratives before necessarily trying to understand the situation more precisely.

I am interested in what actually happened in front of the Lincoln Memorial that day.  Who said what?  Who did what?

However, I am more interested in what happens next.  How will all of the people present view the events and respond in similar situations moving forward? Focusing on the students who, by virtue of their age, will likely be part of the longterm future of our country, I am especially interested in what they will do next and what the people in their community - their peers, parents and teachers - will do next.

The Fallacy of "What Choice Do I Have?"

A guy is driving through a residential area and drives through a red light.  A police officer emerges from behind the corner and pulls the guy over.  Before giving the guy a ticket the officer asks him, “Didn’t you see the red light?”  The guy says, “I saw the red light, officer. I just didn’t see you.”

We behave differently when we think we are being watched than when we think we’re not being watched.  Often we are more likely to do the right thing when we think we’re being watched.  

But sometimes it goes the other way.  The people we are with discourage us from doing what we know to be right.  They make us feel like we can’t choose to act based on our principles.

When we’re in middle school, and peer pressure is persistent and sometimes nasty, we say, I may not have been so nice to so-and-so who didn’t deserve it, but “what choice did I have?”  It was middle school.

As we mature, we may still find ourselves influenced by peer pressure.  We may want to voice opposition to something we know to be wrong but we hold back.  We may say to ourselves, "Perhaps I should say or do something, but it would meet with the disapproval of my peers.  What choice do I have?"

I want us to think about the times we say, or feel, some version of “what choice do I have?”  How can I speak up at the Shabbat table when I see someone acting insensitively toward someone else?  How can I join a protest regarding a political issue I know to be problematic?  How can I say or do something that will have family, friends, peers wondering what’s wrong with me?

Learning From Our Elders

Jacob comes down to Egypt, sees his grandsons, and asks, מי אלה mee eileh - who are these people?

We spend so much time thinking about how older people should adjust to the needs of the younger generation - how they need to learn to communicate with younger people, to understand contemporary reality, to adjust to new realities.

Indeed Jacob needs to figure out מי אלה mee eileh - who are these people?  Who are Ephraim and Menasseh, this new generation? 

But I’m going to turn the tables.  I think it behooves Ephraim and Manessah - all the men and women of the younger generations - to figure out who Jacob is, who Rachel and Leah and Bilhah and Zilpah are.

In other words - rather than speak about how the older need to figure out the younger, I’m going to speak about why and how the younger need to figure out the older.

To turn to older generations and ask, mee eileh - who are these people?  

With an eye toward the patriarchs and matriarchs in the Torah, and with reference to contemporary matriarch and patriarchs, I want to suggest a few things that younger generations can learn from older generations.

Asking and Listening

Ernesto Sirolli is a special kind of management consultant.  He helps guide communities to fulfill their own passions, to achieve the most success possible with their own ideas. 

In a TED talk that he gave, he told a funny story about when he was in his twenties and he traveled from Italy to the Zambezi valley in Africa as part of a relief organization, the goal of which was to help the African communities grow food.

So they traveled to Africa and arrived at the valley which had beautiful soil, good sunlight, but no agriculture.  The Italian group set themselves up, had brought Italian seeds with them, said to the locals, we want you to show up and we will tell you how to plant the seeds and have successful agriculture.

The locals by and large did not show up.  The relief organization offered them with money to show up.  A few showed up.  They planted tomato seeds.  Over the next months the plants grew and produced big, beautiful tomatoes, bigger than any produced in Italy.  The Italians were so excited.

The tomatoes were just about fully ripe.   Everyone went to sleep.  

During the night, 200 hippos emerged from the river and ate all the tomatoes.  The next morning, one of the locals said to one of the leaders of the relief agency, this is why we don’t have agriculture in the valley.

The leader asked, why didn’t you tell us about the hippos?

And the local said, you never asked.

Sirolli told this story to illustrate how easy it is not to ask and not to listen, but of course, how important it is to ask.  How important it is to listen.

I want to challenge us to think carefully about our own lives, about all the times that we approach our loved ones - our spouses, our parents, our siblings, our children - with plans and expectations - without asking them what they think, what they want, what they need, or where the hippos are.

Imprisoned By Our Own Bitterness

I want to talk a bit about bitterness, specifically how our bitterness can destroy us.  I promise I’ll get there, but first, a word about my grandmother.

"Joseph and His Brothers," Anton Franz Maulbertsch, 1745

My grandmother lived with us during her final years and she used to love to come to synagogue every week.  She enjoyed following the stories in the Torah.  I sometimes sat next to her and she would would lovingly, with humor, offer advice to the characters in the stories. Of course we read the same stories each year, but she would jokingly advise the characters to act differently this time around so they would avoid their terrible fate.  

When we got to the story about Joseph each year, she would urge him, Joseph - don’t brag so much in front of your brothers. Remember what they did to you last year?

Of course each year when we read the story, it plays out the same way.  Joseph ignores my grandmother’s advice and brags to his brothers.  They throw him into a pit and sell him into slavery.  And when there’s a famine in the land of Canaan, the brothers go down to Egypt and whom do they face, asking for food?  Their brother Joseph, whom they don’t recognize because it’s been awhile and he looks different.  

He looks Egyptian.  New haircut, new outfit.

Joseph is bitter.  How could he not be?  He is looking at the people who initially left him to die and then sold him into slavery.  How could he not be bitter?