Drashot for Shabbat Va'era...enjoy!

One’s Personal Name is…Personal!

A Drash for Friday, 11 January 2013

One time during my military career, I took over an office whose last occupant had been a Baptist colleague.  Sometime after his departure for his next station, I was looking at the documents he’d left on the computer’s hard drive, cleaning things up a bit.  One document I found was a sermon he wrote, rueing the realities of our contemporary world.

          The sermon went on and on about how the lives of people living in medieval times, before the European enlightenment, would have been better.  They would have had a much surer faith, because the temporal rulers would have ruled the lives of their subjects according to their Christian faith.  Since their lives would be more integrated in this sense, the ‘typical’ individual would have been happier.

          When I finished rolling around on the floor with laughter, I was appalled.  This colleague was a really smart and educated man, a graduate of our Air Force Academy and a former line officer.  He had just been promoted early to the rank of Major and, in conversation his name was often followed by predication that he would someday attain general’s rank.  Although such predictions were more than a bit premature, it was clear that this young man was going places.

          I therefore could not fathom the ignorance-by-choice of ignoring the realities of disease, early death, infant mortality, lack of freedom, even serfdom that would have been the peasant’s lot before the enlightenment.  And for the city-dweller, long hours in sweatshops at wages calculated to keep the worker barely above the starvation level!  And all this for an ‘integrated’ life where one’s religious principles – if one were of the proper religion – were the law of the land??!

          If you’re getting the idea that I have little patience for unthinking nostalgia, you’re correct.  The closest Jewish version to what I’ve outlined above is nostalgia for the shtetlach of Eastern European Jewry of the late nineteenth century.   Sholom Aleichem’s delightful stories notwithstanding, Jewish life in the shtetl revolved around grinding poverty, exploitation by various authorities, and periodic pogroms as a device to let the Christian peasants ‘blow off a little steam.’  Within the shtetl, Jews were greatly limited in the types of occupations they could follow to make a living.  And there were severe restrictions on their moving to larger towns and cities in search of greater opportunities.  We really should feel no nostalgia for the world that vanished with the coming of the Shoah.

          So Rabbi Don is not nostalgic for a rose-coloured view of the past.  But one indulgence to nostalgia that I do make is that I rue the erosion of respect for one another that contemporary life has brought.

          Remember when a merchant, if he wanted your business, would address you respectfully?  If I were a customer of a business I would expect to be addressed as ‘Mr. Levy.’ After my rabbinic ordination, I would not criticise the honorific ‘Mr.,’ even though correctly speaking the title ‘Rabbi’ should be used instead.  After all, the clerk or owner in the shop would probably not know that I was an ordained rabbi.  And if he did know, but in ignorance addressed me as “reverend’ or some such, I would only correct him in the most gentle way.

          But today, it seems to be accepted that people in retail call their customers by their given names.  To me, it is presumptuous for someone from whom I’m making a purchase to call me, ‘Donald.’

          It’s worse when the person in question is phoning me to solicit my business, or my charitable donation.  When my telephone rings and I cannot identify the caller, I always immediately identify myself. ‘Hello, this is Rabbi Levy; how can I help you this afternoon?’  And then the caller almost inevitably asks, ‘Is this Donald?’  Whatever slim chance there had been that I would listen favourably to a pitch for a product or service, or for a charitable cause, has just gone right out the window!

          I mention this, because our Torah reading for tomorrow begins with G-d’s identifying Himself to Moses by His Personal Name.  You know – the four letter name that we don’t even try to pronounce.  When we encounter it in a text, we instead say ‘Adonai,’ meaning ‘My Lord.’  In Orthodox circles, they take it a step farther.  Except in prayer, they will not even say ‘Adonai’; instead they will say ‘Hashem,’ meaning ‘The Name,’ instead of uttering the name.

          G-d reminds Moses that he appeared to the three patriarchs – Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – but did not reveal to them his personal Name.  Moses therefore knows that his relationship with the Deity is unprecedented in its familiarity intimacy.  Because this dialogue is preserved in the Torah, we understand that Moses had a relationship with G-d unlike any figure before or after.  Millennia later, the Great Rambam placed Moses at the very pinnacle of the hierarchy of prophets in the history of the Jewish people.

          It is said that nothing is quite as sweet as the sound of one’s own name.  That is to say, hearing one’s own name adds intimacy to any conversation.  Until addressed by one’s own name, a conversation can be and often is impersonal, nothing more than a business transaction.  Please don’t hear this in any way as a criticism of business or of business people.  Business people – at the least the successful ones – know the value of knowing, and using the names of their customers.  But to use the customer’s given name, at least in a superficial business transaction, seems inappropriately familiar.  At least, it does to this somewhat old-fashioned individual.  Whatever business manual tells salesmen today that their using their customer’s first name will help them make a sale, did not ask me!

          And this is not to criticise our use of first names in our encounters within the congregation.  I am very comfortable with being addressed as ‘Rabbi Don’ by members of my community.  After all, we are ideally partners in creating a strong and caring community.  And while I expect that you would want me to address you by your given name, I’m always sensitive to the possibility that you will not.

So too with G-d.  Despite his revelations, and unique promises, to the patriarchs He did not reveal His most intimate, personal Name.  Only with Moses, whom he met in the desert and sent to argue with the Pharaoh, did He completely reveal himself.  Clearly the Deity anticipate a long sojourn with Moses as the latter did G-d’s bidding in leading the people Israel to the Promised Land.  That long relationship would require of level of intimacy beyond that which Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had required.

So G-d reveals Himself, through his most personal name, to Moses before anybody else.

And I find myself gnashing my teeth almost daily when other people, in situations where it is inappropriate to my mind, try to establish a level of intimacy with me!  Shabbat shalom!

Synergize!
A Drash for Saturday, 12 January 2013

Recently, an acquaintance asked me what is the most difficult part of my job.  I had an immediate answer, and it was exactly the answer the questioner expected.  I told him that there was no particular task I have to do, that taxes my abilities.  Thanks to my training and experience,  any particular task that is ‘on my plate’ – be it reading Torah, preparing sermons, leading services, teaching classes, preparing funerals or weddings or any of the other special ceremonies that are part of my job – is not especially difficult.  What provides the challenge, is getting people of divergent personalities to work together for common goals.  In other words, the most difficult part of my job is people issues.  Politics, if you like.

I hope my saying this is not off-putting to you.  It certainly shouldn’t be!  Most of us, especially if we have been doing the same job for a while, develop a competency that makes that job largely second nature.  Mind you, I would probably make certain exceptions.  I'm guessing that neurosurgeons never find their work ‘routine’ given the life-critical nature of that work.  And perhaps a handful of other professions.  But for most of us, repetition enables us to develop a certain ease.  And I’m guessing that for you, too, the aspect of working with other people is the most challenging part of your jobs.  This is especially so, if our jobs incorporate some leadership function.  The main function of a leader is not to do, but to get a group of people to do, all in their separate tasks and separate ways.

I know that I have referred before in my writing and speaking to The Seven Habits of Highly Efffective People, one of the greatest self-help books of all time.  It was written by the late Dr Stephen Covey back in 1989.  The book became so popular that it spawned a series of live workshops, taught by specially-trained facilitators that were offered in many settings.  Clara and I once took one of those workshops when I served in the US Air Force.  The book and workshop were, for both of us, life-changing.

Habit number six of the Seven Habits is, Synergize.  The Habit is defined as:  Combine the strengths of people through positive teamwork, so as to achieve goals no one person could have done alone.  If you have been a boss, or if you have worked for a boss, you probably know that this is one of the most difficult tasks of leadership.  A congregational rabbi is not, strictly speaking a ‘boss.’  But this is still one of my biggest challenges.
I can work 60-hour weeks and produce all kinds of programs and content that cannot but benefit this congregation.  But I can achieve far better results by encouraging you to join me as a team, accomplishing through our synergy far more than I could ever do, or any one of us could, on our own.

 Moses was definitely a synergizer.  In this week’s Torah reading, G-d charges him with confronting Pharaoh to gain freedom for the people Israel.  He demurs, citing an unspecified speech impediment.  I referred to this in my drash last week.  If there’s one ability that a leader definitely needs, it is the ability to communicate clearly, forcefully, and with vision.  Here, G-d won’t let Moses off the hook.  He teaches Moses an important lesson in synergy.  He brings Moses’ brother, Aaron into the picture. For the near term, Moses will speak to Pharaoh through Aaron.  Aaron will bring to the table, an ability that Moses feels he lacks.  Aaron’s speaking ability will serve as the ‘force multiplier’ for Moses’ vision.

And Moses takes the lesson to heart.  As we follow his career as leader of the people Israel, we see him accepting the counsel of others and integrating their ideas into his leadership style.  Three weeks from now, we shall read from the portion Yitro.  In it, Moses accepts the counsel of his father-in-law with regard to delegating tasks and authority to others.

There is no question that the Torah depicts Moses’ strength as a leader as coming from his obedience to G-d.  Moses’ position stems from his election by G-d and his willingness to take on the role – if reluctantly at first.  But what makes him truly effective as a leader is his ability to absorb and apply the lessons of leadership.  In today’s reading, we see Moses learning the habit of synergizing.

None of us has been elected for such a task as that, which faced Moses.  None of us can take on a task of anything approaching the enormity of Moses’ task.  Even so, each one of us can learn important leadership lessons from the Great Leader.  And the lesson we see the Great Leader absorbing today, is to synergize.  To build a team where each person’s particular strengths are utilised to their fullest.  This, for the greater benefit of the entire team.  The ‘team’ in this case, the people Israel who went out of Egypt, number 144,000 souls.  If there’s any truth to the number, it would have actually been far greater, because it did not include women, children below military age, or senior men above military age.  It also did not include the ‘mixed multitude’ who left Egypt with the Israelites.  So it would probably have been close to, or upwards of, a million souls all told.  None of us in this room today has been charged with the care of so many, for so great a purpose.

But that doesn’t mean our work is not important, because it is.  So we can learn the lesson of synergy from Moses.  If we take this lesson to heart, it will make us all more effective in our tasks.  Shabbat shalom.