Drashot for Vayetzei

Jacob's Ladder, by William Blake

The Power of Dreams

Friday, 23 November 2012

The Reverend, Doctor Martin Luther King, Junior, the American civil rights icon, famously declared to the world:  I have a dream.  His dream was of an America where people of all races would live in harmony and friendship.  It was of an America where negative stereotypes of people of other races would disappear, enabling each American to rise to his true potential.  It envisioned a society thus benefitting from the collective creativity and initiative of all people.

                Dr. King’s dream described a utopian society, and America is no utopia.  Even so, it is hard to argue in the wake of the decisive re-election of the country’s first mixed-race president, that the essence of Dr. King’s dream has not been realised.  And I can tell you first hand, that in America many racial barriers have dropped at least to the point of insignificance.  Wherever you look, you see inter-racial couples, as well as multi-coloured groups of mates out enjoying themselves.  In every sphere of employment, you see teams of workers and professionals of all colours, working together for the benefit of their business or organisation.  It’s in the greater public sphere, particularly politics, where race becomes a source of tension.  But then, it can’t be that bad; as evidence…President Barack Obama.

                As with America, so too with the rest of the Western world.  Yes, even here in Australia!  It doesn’t take an eagle eye to see the way that, for so many Australians, the colour of one’s neighbour’s skin is just not a consequential issue.  Utopia?  Again, no.  But compared to where we were 50 years or even 20 years ago, probably quite breath-taking.

                Tomorrow, in our Torah reading we’ll hear about Jacob’s dream.  It’s also a very famous dream.  In it, there is a ladder planted on the ground and reaching for the sky.  Angels were ascending and descending the ladder.  G-d stood next to Jacob.  He identified Himself as the G-d of Abraham and of Isaac – Jacob’s grandfather and father.  He promised Jacob that He would be with him through his journey, and that in the end he would inherit the land upon which he lay sleeping.

                The context of Jacob’s dream, of course is that he is running for his life.  Having gotten his older brother Esau to sell him his birth right for a pittance, Jacob then tricked is father Isaac into giving him the blessing intended for Esau.  His mother Rebecca, a co-conspirator in the deception, has told Jacob to travel to her family in Haran, ostensibly to find a wife, but really to escape murder at the hands of Esau.  Jacob is running for his life.  He is about to depart the Land of Canaan for his ancestral land, and he has no idea what will be his ultimate destiny.

                Given this context, it is not surprising how the Rabbis have interpreted the symbols in Jacob’s dream.  The most popular interpretation is that the angels ascending and descending represent the nations of the world.  Over the times to come, many nations’ fortunes would rise and then eclipse.  Some would rule of the people Israel.  But such rule would be impermanent.  Through all sorts of adversity, the people Israel would endure.  And they would continue to possess their land, promised by G-d to Abraham.

                Jacob’s dream, like Dr. King’s is therefore seen to contain a message of hope.  Both dreams are seen as expressions of the most profound longing.  They lend much credence to the postulations of Sigmund Freud in his famous work Die Traumdeutung (The Interpretation of Dreams). Freud believed that all dreams represented visions of the dreamer’s sub-conscious wish fulfilment.

                Freud is still closely studied in psychology today, and most of today’s students acknowledge a certain timelessness to his wisdom.  Even so, it is almost universally acknowledged that he’s not the Last Word on everything, about which he wrote.  Most psychologists would agree that a large portion of dreams represent the deep-seated longings of the heart in the way that Freud believed.  But today, many would say the issue is more complex.  Freud dismissed the idea of dreams as windows into psychic visions, as useless parapsychology.  But others would argue that there is a world beyond the rational, where we are offered glimpses into the future.  In that world, dreams do have a role beyond that of vehicles for our deepest longings.

                While I’m not completely dismissive of this role of dreams and visions, I am sceptical.  For example, when someone comes to me and says she is plagued by demons that taunt her and terrorise her neighbourhood.  My immediate reaction to this person is that she doesn’t need a rabbi…she needs a pshrink!  And indeed, the job of the pshrink – the psychiatrist or psychologist who practices psychoanalysis – is to delve into the deep recesses of people’s subconscious.  To probe inside and decide what is really there.  It’s true that there is some overlap between psychology and religion, but not that much.  Even my Catholic colleagues don’t do many exorcisms these days.

                So my reaction, when someone tells me they’ve had a dream, is usually quite Freudian.  My first instinct is not to see it not as a psychic vision of the future.  Rather, my gut instinct is to place the dream in the realm of the person’s deepest wishes – whether conscious or unconscious.  In that case, the difference between a dream and destiny, is nothing more than initiative.  It’s true that the fulfilment of Jacob’s dream, or that of Dr. King, required far more than one person’s initiative.  But in both cases, the fulfilment surely began with one person’s initiative.  With the translation of the dream-concept to hard work.  With the charisma to bring other people on board, to get them to also dream the dream and be motivated to work towards its fulfilment.

                Theodore Herzl, the pioneer of Zionism, put it so well.  Im tirzu, ein zo agada.  If you will it, it is not a dream.  The difference between a dream and a reality is the will to pursue it.

                Yesterday, a truce ended eight days of exchanges of fire between Hamas and presumably, other factions in the Gaza Strip, and Israel.  This latest exchange of fire began with two unprovoked attacks by Hamas on Israeli forces across the border fence.  It ended with intervention by the Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.  The entire world – at least those who care about the destinies of the Israeli and Palestinian peoples – is holding its breath to see if the truce holds.  To see if it will lead to a more substantial easing of tensions.  Or even, a lasting peace.  Peace in the Middle East is, for now only a dream.  But if the Palestinians will it – if they ever come to terms with the reality of Israel and her continued existence – it will not be but a dream.  Will that day ever come?  May it be more than a dream.  Shabbat shalom.

Rachel at the Well, by henry Ryland

The Meaning of Destiny

Saturday, 24 November, 2012

Perhaps you know the Yiddish word beshert.  It means fated, or destined.  Its most common use is with regard to how those who will become a couple, happened to meet.  It was beshert that I met my wife.  Or the word is used as a noun.  She is my beshert.  That is to say, she is my destiny.

                When you meet the one whom you will love for your life, or at least foreseeably, it is completely natural to think that it was destined.  I don’t know about you, but when I was single, I met many women.  I dated some of them.  I was attracted to them.  I enjoyed being with them.  But not until I met Clara did I feel I was destined to be with any of them for life.  It is easy, and commonplace to be instantly infatuated with someone.  It is another thing entirely to see one’s destiny as being with another someone.  I’m sure there are others in the room this morning who experienced this instant recognition of their destiny with the one who came to be their partner.  It is not at all uncommon to find such a person.  But that doesn’t mean it is not a very special find when it does happen!

Last night I spoke about the power of dreams.  Anticipating this morning’s Torah reading, in which we read the narrative of Jacob’s dream, I spoke about the difference between dream and reality.  And the difference is will.  As Theodore Herzl famously said, If you will it, it is not a dream.  A dream is fulfilled when the dreamer has the will to realise it.  Of course, if it is a big dream, its fulfilment requires the will – and the initiative – of many.  Such was the case with, for example, the dream of the Reverend, Doctor Martin Luther King, Junior.  He dreamt a dream of a colour blind America.  While the entirety of his dream has not been realised, it is hard to argue that its essence has not come to pass.  After all, my home country elected a mixed-race president in 2008.  And re-elected him recently.  Decisively.  Who’da thunk 50 years ago, that this would happen?  Now, many of you know of my own political preferences.  If you do, you know that I am a conservative.  You know that President Obama was not my choice.  An American conservative would not vote for someone in the Western European, Social Democratic mould like President Obama.  Still, despite my not thinking he was the man of choice, it is difficult to argue that his election and re-election bodes for optimism with regard to progress on the long march toward achieving Dr. King’s dream.  My country has survived bad choices in presidential elections.  I’m sure Australia has had good prime ministers, and no-so-good ones, and it has survived the latter ones.  But evidence that the power of knee-jerk racism is on the wane – that’s really important.  And that’s a gift that Barack Obama, perhaps unwittingly, has given to the American people, and the world.

Was Obama’s election beshert?  Nu, let’s not get carried away…

But it is hard to argue that, for Jacob, Rachel was not beshert.  In this morning’s reading, we read the narrative of their first meeting.  Upon arrival in the ‘lands of the east,’ Jacob joins a group of shepherds at a communal well, and inquires of his mother’s brother, Laban.  It happens that, at that very moment, Laban’s daughter Rachel is arriving on the scene, leading her father’s flocks.  Jacob immediately recognises that Rachel is his beshert.  As the narrative continues beyond where we read this morning, we learn of the trickery and adversity that Jacob must endure, in order to be married to Rachel.  But if you know the story, you know that he does it.  And the two sons whom Rachel gives him, Joseph and Benjamin, end up as his favourites, because they are the result of his love for Rachel, his destined one.

Some would argue that destiny is an illusion.  That we create our own destiny by our attractions, our decisions, and our commitments.  All that may very well be true.  But I will never make that argument.  For me, there is always a side to life that transcends the rational.  There are phenomena that cannot be easily explained, or cannot be explained at all.  There are outcomes that could not have been anticipated, not in a thousand years.

Could Jacob have anticipated that, just because he was in the general vicinity of Haran, he would immediately meet his cousin and see in her his destiny?  Of course not!  Could I have anticipated that, on the summer day on the sidewalk in front of the terminal at Austin’s airport, I would meet the one for whom I was destined?  Again, negative.  But it happens, in ways that one cannot rationally explain.

Destiny is difficult to discern.  The radar that we use to sniff it out cannot easily separate it from the clutter of our desires.  From the distraction caused by the attractions of our eyes.  The eyes can and do easily deceive us.  That’s no secret.  Ask any lawyer or judge involved in criminal justice.  They will tell you that eyewitnesses, are the most unreliable kind of witnesses.

 When we read the account of Jacob and Rachel meeting for the first time, we can draw a number of lessons from the narrative.  The lesson I like to take away, and that I recommend for you is this.  Not everything in life can be anticipated.  There is mystery enough to delight or confound.  To some degree, our success in life – or our happiness – rests in our ability to recognise things for what they are.

Life has taught me to believe in destiny.  That we are born to fulfil a destiny or destinies that might be completely illogical given prior experience.  Surely, the desires of our eyes may prevent us from recognising those destinies when we see them.  We may fight them.  We may turn away from them.  The attraction of rational decisions is powerful.  It’s something I will never argue against.  But if we’re open to destiny, we may find it transcends rational decision.  It can produce result far more sublime than any possible when we follow our intellect.  Such was the case with Jacob.  The price he had to pay was far too great than that to logically be paid for any woman.  That is, for any woman except for his beshert.  For all of Jacob’s shortcomings – and they were many – he recognised Rachel for what she was.  And his steadfast will to realise his destiny, in that it produced Joseph, saw the realising of no less than G-d’s promise to Abraham.  Such is the power of destiny.  Such is the importance of recognising it, for what it is.  Shabbat shalom.

Operation 'Pillar of Defence'

Although I am a rabbi and not a news commentator, I have been struggling since last Friday over posting some additional thoughts on the current Gaza violence.  This morning I came across the op-ed at the following link, by Rabbi Abraham Cooper from the  US who is visiting Jerusalem.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/11/20/my-week-in-jerusalem-when-rockets-fell-on-holy-city/

I don't think I could say it better than Rabbi Cooper has.

Drashot for Shabbat Toldot

Hamas rocket destroys an apartment house in Kiryat Malachi, Israel

The ‘Kids’ are at it Again?

A Drash for Friday, 16 November

For those of you who have not been coming to Senior Schmoozers, I want you to know how much fun we’ve been having.  Oh, the Schmoozers always have fun!  But the last two weeks, we’ve been reading together a series of articles by Dov Landau, a noted Israeli journalist.  Mr. Landau writes for Ha’aretz, one of Israel’s leading newspapers.  He’s a decidedly secular man, a man of the Left.  The articles in question are about Jewish religion, Israeli politics, and the ‘problem’ of the mixing of religion and politics in Israel.  I selected the series of articles because, while I often disagree with Mr. Landau’s views, I found them very thoughtful – and thought-provoking.  And that, my friends – at least to me and others who have been attending – is the best kind of fun!

          One view that Landau expresses in his articles is the difficulty for Jews outside of Israel to have an honest conversation about Israel, and specifically about Israeli defence policy.  He fears that the ‘orthodoxy’ that is ‘required’ in Jewish circles concerning Israel, and supporting Israel no matter what, turns many young adults off to the conversation, period.  And the conversation about Israel is so inextricably woven into the general conversation of Jewish life in the diaspora.  It’s virtually impossible to have an ongoing Jewish conversation without the State of Israel being part of it.  And usually, a big part.

          In a way, I agree with Landau on this point.  We should be able to have an ‘honest conversation’ about Israeli politics and Israeli national policy.  We should not feel constrained from having a conversation amongst ourselves as Jews, where we express disagreement over Israeli policies.  We should even feel free to express that disagreement in public, even though such disagreement, and such criticism from Jews, is always in danger of being ‘exploited’ by Israel’s enemies and detractors.  In that way, I am in disagreement with some of the members of our discussion group, who expressed the opinion that we should not express and criticism of Israel that could be picked up by Israel’s enemies to use as ammunition in their war of words against the Jewish State.  I disagree; I think that integrity demands that we express our opposition whenever we experience it.  Where to express that opposition – in terms of which media – is merely a question of tactics.  But we should certainly feel free to express opinions – certainly among Jews – that are critical of Israeli policy.

          Having said that, I believe that integrity requires much more than a willingness to express criticism.  Specifically, integrity requires that we be sure of our facts before we conclude that criticism is in order.  This latter quality is the more difficult side of integrity.  Anybody can express an opinion that they honestly hold.  But how many would be willing to ‘test’ that opinion by verifying, at least to the extent possible, the background information that caused them to form that opinion?  For that, we rely by necessity on the news media.  But integrity is sorely lacking in the world media.

          The lack of integrity is not only with regard to Israel.  A generation ago, there was news coverage and there was editorial content.  The news coverage might be influenced by one’s editorial preferences that guided what got covered and what did not.  But the media would be subject to severe criticism if they allowed that bias to show even in determining the extent of coverage, not to mention the content of that coverage.  Today, the onus is off.  The world’s media routinely allow their personal preferences to guide what gets covered and what does not.  And the boundaries between news content and editorial content have largely disappeared.  This is why, for example, The New York Times, long considered one of the world’s premier newspapers, is seeing its market share ever shrinking.  Consumers of print media, unless they happen to agree with The Times’ editorial slant which it does not even try to hide, don’t trust its coverage.

          In the recent US elections, any objective observer had to notice a visible bias of the world’s media toward President Obama.  I don’t think it was personal; I’ve noticed a preference for left-wing politicians, personified in my country by the Democrat Party, for years.  So seeing this bias come to the surface, with regard to the US election and the US media, was no surprise.  That I saw the same bias clearly displayed by the Australian media, starting with your ABC, was surprising to me although in retrospect I suppose it should not have been.

          No, I’m not winding up to ‘blame’ the results of the US election on the media, neither in the US or the entire world.  I’m only using this phenomenon, which any fair-minded person had to see, to point out the existence, and prevalence of the media’s bias.

          And the media is clearly – even breathtakingly – biased against Israel.

Unless you’ve been in deep hibernation all this week, you’re surely aware that Israel and Hamas have been at it again after a few relatively quiet years.  It started with two incidents, in which Hamas forces staged unprovoked attacks against Israeli forces.  The first one was an explosion in a smuggling tunnel that had been dug under a military post on Israeli soil.  The second was an attack on a military Jeep travelling along the border fence between Israel and Gaza.  That attack wounded four Israeli soldiers.

          Israel, in response to the two attacks in question, launched a ‘surgical’ attack on the car of Ahmed Jabari, the commander of Izz-al-Din-al-Kassam, also known as ‘the military wing of Hamas.’  Hamas, in response to this attack, launched hundreds of rockets into Israeli cities causing death, injuries, and destruction.

          This morning, I was watching Today, the morning show on Channel Nine, whilst working out on the elliptical trainer at my gym.  I was not really surprised, just disappointed, when the news presenter gave a chronology of the Gaza tensions that omitted any mention of the two attacks that precipitated it.  Does it matter?  From my standpoint, it matters considerably.  If it did not matter, the biased media would not make such omissions.

          Every country has the right to defend its borders and its citizens from attack.  Yes, even Israel.  To President Obama’s credit, he is standing with Prime Minister Netanyahu on this.  As well he should.  As should every other national leader in the world community.  But don’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen.

          Because in the eyes of much of the world, the murderous violence of the likes of Hamas and Hezbollah toward Israel, is tantamount to a spat between siblings.  And we all know about spats between siblings.  In tomorrow’s Torah portion, we will read: (Genesis 25:22-23)

The children struggled in Rebecca’s womb.  She said: ‘If so, why am I alive?’ She went to inquire of the Lord.  And the Lord answered her: ‘Two nations are in your womb / Two separate peoples shall issue from your body / One people shall be mightier than the other / And the older shall serve the younger.’

          When referring to the Arabs, or to Muslims, I often use the euphemism, ‘Our Cousins.’  That’s because of the tradition that the Arab peoples descend from Ishmael, the half-brother of our patriarch Isaac.  Just as those who become Jewish by conversion are ‘grafted’ into the Jewish nation by their choice, it is common to think of all Muslims as being likewise ‘grafted’ into the Abrahamic lineage through Ishmael by their acceptance of Islam.  And it’s natural to think of Muslims as being kin to Jews, at least somewhat distant kin.  After all, Muslim traditional practices do somewhat resemble Jewish ones.  If you know something of the history of the relationship between Muhammad and the local Jewish community of Medina, that comes as no surprise.  There are many similarities between Jewish and Muslim practice, although the similarities really must be seen as superficial.  I say that, because the underlying ideologies of Judaism and Islam are miles apart.  But that’s another sermon, for another day.  My point here is only to show why much of the world sees the Arab-Israeli dispute as a family spat.  And when family spats occur, the instinct is to want to ‘knock heads together’ until good sense takes over.  Many Jews, understandably tired of this conflict, think in all seriousness that knocking heads together is the answer.

          The world does not want to see Hamas’ war against Israel as precisely that – a war.  If I would try to recite my own take on the reasons why the world does not want to recognize this war for what it is, I would keep you here far longer tonight than you would appreciate.  It is more appropriately a subject for a series of discussions like the ones we’re now having in Senior Schmoozers.  (Hint, hint…)  But a war it is, and in war it is perfectly legitimate to go after the commanders rather than the common foot soldiers.  That’s why generals tend to stay in hardened bunkers during war.  And why they move about, they try to do so with as much anonymity as possible.  That’s why rank devices on battlefield uniforms are subdued.  And mounted via Velcro, for quick and easy removal.  And why today’s military leaders eschew the flamboyance of past generals such as George S. Patton, Bernard L. Montgomery, and Douglas MacArthur.

          So Ahmed Jabari was a legitimate target of an Israeli missile fired in response to Hamas’ breaking the undeclared truce that had held for so long.  If innocent bystanders also died, that’s entirely regrettable.  But still it was a surgical strike by a precision-guided weapon.  A larger, less precise weapon would have caused far more collateral casualties.  But it is not Israel’s way to wage war that way.  It is, however, Hamas’ way.  The rockets launched on Israeli cities and towns must be seen as weapons of pure terror, fired and inflicting death and damage indiscriminately.

          So please, do feel free to be critical of Israel.  At least, when talking with me.  I can handle disagreement, even on this sensitive point.  And I think we should all have the integrity to conduct an ‘honest conversation’ on a subject that has such a large impact on the Jewish world.  But let’s also have the integrity to base the opinions that spur the conversation, on facts.  I mean real facts.  And unfortunately facts are elusive in the world media,  This includes the media outlets that are at our disposal here in Australia.  Because there’s a definite and palpable bias in the media, we really need to do our own homework before we jump to conclusions.  If we do do our homework, and we can still honestly blame Israel for this recent conflagration or any other, then we should be able to talk about it.  Without name-calling.  Without trying to delegitimise one another.  Because that’s not the way one gets to the truth.  And truth matters.

          No the kids are not at it again.  This is not a family spat.  This is not the twins struggling in Rebecca’s womb.  This is not sibling rivalry.  This is a war being waged against Israel, a tiny state in a bad neighbourhood,  She has the right to be in that neighbourhood and should not be condemned for defending that right.  Hold Israel up to a high standard.  If you have the integrity to examine the facts, you’ll find that Israel’s leaders demand a high standard.  Even if our best reading of the facts makes us critical of one or another action of the Israeli government, let us express that criticism in a spirit of love and kinship toward our beleaguered cousins in Israel.  Because even if one calls the Arabs or the Muslims ‘Our Cousins’ when being tongue-in-cheek, we should be able to see the Israelis as Our Cousins in the most serious and complete sense of the word.  Shabbat shalom.

           

The Crap Shoot of Parenthood

A Drash for Saturday, 17 November

Having and raising children is like a crap shoot.  Even if we were all ‘expert’ at the art of parenting, we could not guarantee any particular outcome for our children.  How much the more so are there no guarantees, in light of the fact that none of us, not one, is an expert parent?  Children do not, after all come with a ‘user’s manual.’  Nor can one take a course in uni or in TAFE on the art of bringing up children.  When raising our children, we necessarily fly by the seat of our pants.

          Oh, we can learn the basics of paediatric illnesses, and be somewhat prepared for what to do when a child’s tummy hurts or when she scrapes a knee.  We can memorise the stages of human development, and know at least in general terms what to expect at certain milestones.  And if we’re very reflective, we can remember the feelings we experienced during childhood and adolescence, and try very hard to apply such memories in the ways that we relate to our kids.  Ancient history though our own childhoods are, I’m sure your memories of the triumphs and the disappointments are as fresh in your minds, as mine are in my mind.

          But in every way that really matters, parenthood is an art rather than a science.  Because raising children is a very emotional process, we cannot approach it in a completely rational manner.  So much of the way that we guide and respond to our children is driven by our emotions.  By our deepest held hopes and fears.  By our very worldviews.  Even when we’re trying hard to be dispassionate, we often find it impossible.

          So when we’re raising more than one child, we find it difficult at best to deal with the differences between children.

          My parents did.  No, this is not a complaint about them; I have long ago forgiven them for any slights I may have felt when growing up.  Anything that I may have experienced as a slight, I only attribute to my parents’ imperfection – to their essential humanity?  Do you hear that, Mom, if you’re reading this on my blog?

By the way, I recommend this – forgiving your parents – as the best cure for lingering resentments of which we may not even be aware.  Once I forgave my parents for all the ‘mistakes’ they made in raising me, I was free to love and cherish them.  I was free to be supportive and, I hope, non-judgemental when they had a late-in-life divorce.  I was free to respond in affection as my father fought the illness that eventually killed him.  I am still free to regard my mother with love and affection for the selfless way she gave to me.  I am freed from obsessing about the ways I would do things differently.  And that is a great freedom!  Finally, I was free to go on and become a parent myself.

Whenever I have been counselling someone who has residual childhood issues – and if they exist they invariably come bubbling to the surface quickly in counselling – I advise this forgiveness.  If you do persist in resenting your parents, you will be stuck indefinitely in the morass of self-pity and dis-function.  Forgive them, and get on with your life!  You don’t even have to tell them you forgive them if, please G-d, you manage to do this while they’re still living.  Just forgive them in your own mind, and begin acting toward them out of that mindset.

          So you have more than one child, and you try to give each one an equal share of your attention and your love.  Of your approval and support.  And yet, each one is different, with different strengths and quirks.  Each one will grow up to achieve a different destiny.  Being human, you will probably find it impossible not to measure one against the other.  You will probably find one child’s dreams and accomplishments more worthy than the other’s.  And your children will know this; you cannot hide it, no matter how hard you try.

          Isaac and Rebecca fell ‘victim’ to this pitfall of parenting, and they apparently did not try very hard to hide it.  Blessed with the twin sons Esau and Jacob, each quickly favoured one over the other.  As we read in the Torah this morning: (Genesis 25:27-28)

When the boys grew up, Esau became a skilful hunter, a man of the outdoors.  But Jacob was a mild man, who stayed in camp.  Isaac favoured Esau because he had a taste for game.  But Rebecca favoured Jacob.

          Each twin developed a personality that pleased one of his parents.  Isaac preferred the manly outdoorsman Esau.  Rebecca preferred the quiet and reflective Jacob.  If you’ll read ahead in the portion, beyond where we’re reading together today, you’ll see how the parents’ preferences spark a competition between the boys that will result in one running from the other in fear for his life.

          Most conflict between siblings does not reach the point of murderous ire of one towards the other.  But just about anybody who had a sibling of a close age, has experienced this competition between brothers, sisters, or brother and sister, in some measure.  And more likely than not, their parents’ overt preferences of one for the other fed this competition and conflict.  Just was with Isaac and Rebecca, Esau and Jacob.

          The obvious lesson from all this – at least I think it’s obvious – is that we must try hard to accept and cherish each child on her own terms.  That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t work hard to goad our children to be the best they can in every way.  That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t correct them when they make bad choices, breaking our rules or society’s.  But we must always remember that one child is not a copy of the other.  This, in the same way that our children are not clones of ourselves.  Each one has a unique mix of qualities.  Of strengths and challenges.  Of dreams and desires.  If we want to help our children reach for the best that is within them, we must accept that each one is a unique creation of G-d…with more than a little help from us.

          When my mother was studying for her belated bat mitzvah at age 79, her parashah was this week’s portion, Toldot.  Her reading was from chapter 27, which chronicles the way that Jacob and Rebecca deceived Isaac into giving Jacob the blessing intended for Esau.  To help her contextualise that part of the narrative, I had to fill in the narrative from today’s reading, of how the twins were in competition from the very start.  My mother, suddenly ‘getting it,’ shouted:  You means its’ all about sibling rivalry!

          Sibling rivalry.  Many a time when my brother and I were growing up, she would invoke that phrase as if it explained everything.  At times I had to laugh, thinking that the words sibling rivalry were her two favourite words in the English language!  Now she could relate the phrase, and its meaning, to the circumstances that began the process of making us the Jewish people.  All this because, if there’s a human foible, we see it exposed in the Torah!

          Yes, this week’s Torah reading has a lesson about sibling rivalry in it.  But that lesson is not that it is an inevitable consequence of having siblings.  Rather the lesson is that parents, when they cannot submerge their own preferences, feed the competition between their children.  We’ll see this phenomenon appear again, a few weeks down the line in the narrative about Joseph and his brothers – the sons of Jacob who appears as a young man this week.  In both of these narratives, the ire of the ‘slighted’ brother or brothers turns into a murderous envy.  Most of us who had conflict with our siblings, did not see the conflict escalate to that point.  Even so, we can relate to these stories.

          I know I’ve said this before, but I’ll continue saying it as long as I’m called to be a rabbi.  Whatever you believe with regard to the Torah’s origins, you cannot argue that it is an incredible repository of wisdom and genius.  Here in the book of Genesis, we have the story of our patriarchal family with all the foibles of our ancestors plain to see.  With all the dirty laundry hanging out.  This quality enables the Torah to offer unique glimpse into profound truths concerning the nature of life and relationship.  Even if it isn’t divine, then it certainly exceeds the wisdom of Freud.  To be sure, Freud himself – while no traditional believer – would agree with this sentiment.  He recognised the Torah’s wisdom and wrote about how it teaches us about human nature.

          As I said earlier, having and raising children is like a crap shoot.  We cannot anticipate the choices that each child will make.  Sometimes, those choices will be difficult for us to take.  Moral choices we should address.  But the choices that reflect each child’s reaching for the talents she has, to try to find her own unique destiny in the world, we can only influence.  We cannot make those choices for our children.  We should not even try.  And we should try very hard to love and accept each child equally, even when one child’s choices resonate more strongly with us.  After all, it isn’t about us.  It’s about partnering with G-d to raise good human beings.  Without guarantees of any sort.

          As we contemplate these lessons in life on this Shabbat, may we be always strengthened to face the challenges of parenthood.  May we always be endowed with a forgiving spirit toward our own parents.  And pray that our children will forgive us for our shortcomings.  Then, with this kind of inter-generational conflict out of the way, we can go on to become the best we can be.  Ken yehi ratson.

Drash for Chayei Sarah

The Jewish Way of Mourning

Saturday, 10 November 2012

Rabbi Don Levy

Strange people, these Jews!  They don’t bury and mourn their dead like other people.  They don’t embalm their dead and dress them in their best clothes to make them presentable.  In fact, they don’t even look at their dead; once they are deceased, the Jews don’t view them at all.  That is, except for the squad of volunteers who wash the body…some practice call taharah.  Once the body is washed, they enclose it in a shroud and then nobody can visit with and view the dead person.  Even at the funeral, the casket is closed and you can’t get one last look.  And they hold the funeral and burial so quickly after death.  It barely gives the close relatives time to gather for the funeral!  This, not to mention preparing themselves emotionally for seeing their loved one lowered into the ground.  And then, once the dead person is in the ground, the close family sits around on low stools, and doesn’t bathe or leave the house, for a week.  They cover the mirrors, and when you go to visit them you don’t greet them.  You just walk in and sit down.  And then for a month they don’t shave or cut their hair.  Or listen to music or dance.  If it’s a parent they’ve lost, they don’t listen to music or dance for eleven months!

                And then when they place a headstone on the grave, it looks exactly the same as all the other headstones in the cemetery.  All the graves look the same; there’s no individuality.  They can’t express their love for their departed ones by organizing a particularly nice or ornate headstone.  And they don’t place flowers when they visit the grave.  No, they place small stones that they’ve picked up from the ground.  And then, every year on the anniversary of a person’s death, they hold a commemoration.  Imagine celebrating the person’s ‘death day’ instead of their birthday!  Yes, those Jews certainly have strange burial and mourning customs.  They’re just not like those of other people.

                Indeed, Jewish customs with regard to burial and mourning are markedly different from those of our neighbours.  This is especially true of our Christian neighbours.  Their customs often seem to be out of synch with the way we do things by 180 degrees.

                Many Jews, of course do not closely follow traditional burial and mourning customs as outlined in my simulated rant above.  For example, sitting Shiva is a practice that’s becoming more and more exceptional.  It doesn’t fit in with our ‘busy lifestyles.’  We bury our dead, perhaps host a reception for the funeral-goers, and then resume our busy lives.  We don’t find time for Shiva.  Most of us don’t even try.

                In my years as a rabbi, only one family whose dead I buried practiced Shiva.  Yes, it was a difficult imposition given the unique geography of the situation.  It was even a logistical nightmare.  But they did it.  They felt it was an important part of honouring their deceased relative.  I’ve never had another family in one of my congregations do it, even in a modified form.

                And my intent is not to throw guilt.  I’m personally no exception.  When I buried my father in Virginia, after the burial we gathered at my brother’s house nearby to eat, remember and visit with one another.  Then, in the afternoon my brother went back to work; he’s an accountant and this was just a few days before 15 April, the deadline to file income tax returns in the USA.  And me?  The next day Clara, the kids and I made for the airport to catch our overnight flight back to Germany, where we were living at the time.  We were back in Germany for the weekend, then on Monday I was winging my way to Kuwait to conduct Passover Seders for US troops in that country.  I guess my life then, epitomized the go-go lifestyle that many of us lead today.  I didn’t have time to stop and observe Shiva; I had places to go and people to see.

                Shiva is not the only Jewish funerary custom that, for many of us, has fallen on hard times.  In our heart of hearts, we seem to see mourning customs as relics of a time when life was much different.  They don’t fit in with the way we live today, with the sensibilities that guide our lives.

                Against this picture we read the account of Abraham burying Sarah.  The details of the narrative focus on the process, by which Abraham obtained the burial place and negotiated for its purchase.  But if we read between the lines, we can find that the story reflects the incredible sorrow and devotion of Abraham toward his partner.  Others, including some of the Rabbis, read into the account the guilt that Abraham must have been feeling upon his wife’s death.  It has been suggested that Sarah died spontaneously of a broken heart after hearing the news of Isaac’s binding and near-death on Moriah.  Abraham’s guilt is also reflected in his choice, after the events on Moriah, to go immediately to Beersheba.  That’s not where he and Sarah were living at the time.  It was as if he needed to hide from his wife.  This is the reason for the placement of today’s reading, the narrative of the events following Sarah’s death, immediately after the Akeidah narrative.  That is, according to this particular view.

                Others, upon reading the narrative, see hints of Near Eastern mercantile practices.  They see in the negotiations certain social realities concerning the way parcels of land changed ownership.  They see a playing out of the way two shrewd businessmen in the Canaanite culture would negotiate and close a sale.

                But I see a broken man, a resident alien who has no rights of land ownership, bargaining hard for the right to give his deceased wife a respectful burial.  The negotiations for the burial-plot reflect Abraham’s need for a choice spot despite his lack of land rights.  He agrees to pay an outlandish price for the cave at Machpelah out of desperation for the right to purchase it.  And then, although we have not read the following chapter this morning, he turns around and engages in extraordinary measures to acquire a wife for his son, Isaac.  The same son that he almost sacrificed immediately before Sarah’s death.  Surely Isaac has been traumatised by his experience on Moriah.  But after burying and mourning his Sarah, Abraham turns his attention to the need to ensure his – and his wife’s legacy.  He sends his trusted servant back to his country of origin.  The result, as we know, is that the servant happens upon Rebecca, the daughter of Abraham’s nephew, and prevails upon her to return to Canaan with him to marry Isaac.

                The elaborate mourning customs that have come to characterize the Jewish way in death and mourning were largely unknown to Abraham.  Yet we see him taking extraordinary measures to bury his wife respectfully, and to ensure her legacy.  He goes far out of his way to do these things.  And surely he experiences through his actions an uplifting from the sorrow of his loss.  He busies himself with the business of securing a respectful burial, and then with the pressing matter of securing a shidduch for his grown son.  Through his efforts, he surely manages to contextualize Sarah’s death and prepare himself for the final years of his own life.  Because Abraham, despite his advanced age, was not finished living.  Our text informs us that, after he secured a marriage for Isaac, he went on to marry again himself and produce five more children.  In taking extreme measures to honour Sarah, he enabled himself to go on living.

                At the end of the day, that’s the reason for our elaborate mourning practices.  I’ve heard certain of them criticized.  For example, I read an article once – in a Jewish magazine, if memory serves! – that criticized the closing of the shroud after taharah and the impossibility of viewing the deceased in repose.  ‘It denies the loved ones the closure they need.’  The author of the article where I read that gem interviewed a Jew who was unable to cope with a parent’s death after not getting to ‘visit’ with the body in an open casket.  He also interviewed a non-Jew who related that the experience of seeing her mother lying ‘at peace’ in her casket was a seminal moment in her process of working through her grief.  Again, this was in a Jewish magazine!

In addition to the article in question, I’ve also attended workshops on grieving for children who were stillborn or who died soon after birth.  The psychologists who wrote the materials for these workshops counseled letting the grieving family spend time with the infant before giving it up for disposal.  They showed video clips of families fondling the dead infant, singing to it, dressing it up like a little girl’s doll.

                I actually once witnessed this.  As the duty chaplain, I was summoned to labour and delivery at the base hospital.  There was an African-American family gathered around a dead infant, passing it around amongst them, wailing loudly and talking to the child, expressing regret about the aspirations they’d had for this child which would now go unfulfilled.  I was fascinated, and then appalled by the scene.

                I mean no criticism.  Perhaps in the display of raw emotion the family was girded to face life after burying the child and moving on with their lives.  I’ll never know.  I do know that, for a woman, there are few traumas more sorrowful than losing a child to miscarriage, stillbirth, or death soon after birth.  Any of these represents a tragic loss of the potential joy of raising a child and seeing it grow and become a joy to the family.  Perhaps in this custom of emoting so powerfully while handling the dead infant is a key to the catharsis necessary to go on.  I don’t have the answer.  I did not have the opportunity to work with this family afterward; I never saw them again.

                But I have had ample opportunity to later observe Jews who had earlier bridged their phases of traditional Jewish mourning, for whatever reason.  The Shiva, the week immediately following the burial, is the most intense period.  In contrast to the display I witnessed by the African-American family I mentioned, a Shiva is emotionally subdued.  But it’s also incredibly intense.

                Once, a rabbi who worked as a full-time chaplain in a behavioural health hospital was telling me of her work.  She told me of one patient who had been diagnosed as clinically depressed.  The patient was, among other things, listless to the point of dis-functional.  And she was obsessed with her father’s death several years earlier.  In her extensive talks with this patient, the rabbi learned that the patient hadn’t sat Shiva for her deceased father.  In consultation with the attending psychiatrist, the rabbi offered to help the patient sit Shiva retroactively.  And that experience helped launch the patient onto her road to recovery.

                I’ve never witnessed such a turnaround thanks to a belated Shiva.  But I’ve witnessed many individuals who, having not gone through the traditional Jewish mourning process, were unable to process and transcend their grief even years later.  My own processing of the loss of my father was protracted, and I attribute at least some of that to my not having taken the time to do the phases of grief, starting with Shiva.

My point is not that our mental health is going to be miraculously helped along if we only follow Jewish customs scrupulously.  Rather, I’m asserting that an incredible amount of wisdom went into the developing of these practices.  Their benefits far transcend just ‘ticking the box’ with regard to Jewish observance.

                I try hard not to be prescriptive in advising those who have suffered a loss.  We Jews don’t respond well to such prescriptions, and I no more than you!  Even so, I try to encourage Jews to take the time to go through as much of the traditional mourning process as possible.  There is a wisdom, and a genius, behind it that our own experiences and sensibilities cannot match.

                We should take our cue from Abraham.  Not in imitating his exact actions.  Rather in imitating the spirit in which he acted.  In imitating the extent, to which he extended himself to ensure Sarah’s dignified burial and ensuring her legacy through her son.  If we do, if we try to capture and express this spirit, then we will not want to quickly bury our dead and then quickly return to our busy lives.  We will not see funerary customs as an imposition.  We will want to pay proper homage to our dead.  And that homage may, just may, include incorporating more of the traditional Jewish practices into our process of mourning.  It’s something to think about.  Shabbat shalom.  

My Drash for Vayeira...Enjoy!

Focusing on What Really Matters

Saturday, 3 November 2012

Rabbi Don Levy

We who are responsible for leadership in congregational life have a tendency to focus on programme.  If only we create and sustain the best possible community programme, we will have Jews flocking to our door and staying once inside.  The key to the strength of our community is to have the most vivacious programme of services and observances.  This, plus all sorts of educational, cultural and social programmes.  If we can only maximise our offerings in each and every one of these areas, and make them of professional quality, we will succeed as a congregation.

                We certainly need every resource we can call to bear, in order to succeed as a community.  Forgive me for indulging in a bit of shreying gevalt, of complaining about our existential reality.  But we do have concerns.  They are concerns that we should all share and discuss often.  But let me mention just one of the big challenges we face:  the greying of our congregation.

                Look at the demographics of our temple.  Many of our members have grown children my age and older.  And they, in turn have children:  in some cases young ones, in some cases teenagers and young adults.  Where are they?  They seldom attend, but in most cases they don’t even join.  This is cause to worry about the future of Judaism.

                And the problem is not just here in Temple Shalom of the Gold Coast.  It’s being felt all around the Jewish world.  The differences between places and congregations are mere differences of degree.  Gen X, Gen Y, and the Millennials are, sadly, not coming to shul.  And it’s not only an issue in Progressive Judaism.  Our Orthodox neighbours, both here on the Gold Coast and elsewhere, are feeling it as well.  Just visit Gold Coast Hebrew Congregation any Shabbat, and you’ll see evidence of this.

                And it’s not a problem that can be addressed by programme.  In essence, this was something I already knew on an intellectual level.  I’ve known it for a long time.  Many of you know it, too.  If we’re thoughtful and honest, we must admit it.  No matter how hard we work to make the best services and programmes possible, we cannot possibly compete with the incredible array of entertainments available to the members of our community.  Notice I said, ‘entertainments.’  To many Jews, both young and old, in their heart of hearts what we do here in temple is a form of ‘entertainment.’  As such, it has to compete with every other form of entertainment available to our members on Friday nights, on Saturday mornings, and any other time we offer a service, class or other programme.  And those choices are vast.

                To those of you who do attend services and attend regularly, what we do is not an entertainment.  It is an obligation.  You have internalised this even if you don’t realise it.  Whatever else is available to lift your spirits on a Friday night, Saturday morning or both, you feel that you belong here.  I like to think that, since you’re here, we do offer a worthwhile experience in every way that matters.  That our congregational music is evocative.  That our collective prayers are heartfelt.  That my sermons are challenging and, on the rare occasions when I want them to be, comforting. :-) But in all honesty it is not the quality of our service that prevents your being distracted from coming here.  No, you come because you feel it is an obligation to come.  Perhaps you truly believe in a G-d who desires us to separate the Sabbath from the rest of the week and make it special.  Perhaps you sense that, without your presence, our critical mass will fade away.  Whatever the reason for your sense of obligation, you feel it.  It draws you back to Shabbat worship week after week.  It kicks in every Friday night and/or Saturday morning.  At those times, despite the attractions of the vast array of entertainments available, you come here.

                So obligation makes you attend week after week.  And it also makes you take ongoing membership in your community a given.  For those who are not here today, or who seldom attend services but whose names appear on the membership list, they feel a part of that sense of obligation.  But those who neither attend nor join, including many of the children and grandchildren of you folks, feel no sense of obligation.

                Some of us here tonight have a hard time understanding this, but it is real.  We are not going to draw in younger members by ‘selling’ obligation.  Obligation, at least of the sort that brings you here to services, simply does not come easily to latter generations.  And since there is an incredible array of entertainments that are more amusing, more exciting, and more fun than coming to temple, we cannot compete with them and draw folks in by offering them entertainment, no matter how good a job we can do.

                So what can we do to draw people in?  And if we do manage to draw them in, how do we keep them in?

                This was the subject of the programme at the recent biennial conference of the Union for Progressive Judaism, which Clara and I attended along with a couple other members of our community.  The superb scholar-in-residence, Dr Ron Wolfson managed to take that which many of us already knew intellectually and make us truly apprehend it emotionally.  And that is, it is not programme that draws and keeps members in our communities.  Particularly younger members, the Gen X’s, Gen Y’s, Millennials and what-have-you’s.  The ones about whom we shrey gevalt because they’re not part of our community.

                The ‘secret’ to building a strong, vibrant and multi-generational community lies in the juxtaposed messages of last week’s and this week’s Torah portions.

                Last week’s sidra was Lech-lecha.  In this Torah portion is the account of how Abram, son of Terah receives a vision of a single, demanding yet benevolent G-d.  This G-d calls Abram to separate himself from his patrimony and leave behind the materials comforts and securities of his life to find and found something new.  This, with the promise that he will thus change the course of human history.  Those who bless Abram and his spiritual heirs will be blessed.  Those who curse them will be cursed.  And all of humanity will be blessed for Abram’s stepping out in faith and trust.  For this reason, G-d changes Abram’s name to Abraham.  Abram means ‘exalted father.’  Abram, recognising his mission in life, exalts himself with the promise of his potential.  Abraham means ‘father of many.’  In entering into a specific covenant with G-d, Abram makes himself in effect the father of many – as in many people of many nations.  Abraham becomes a blessing to many who will ultimately embrace the Abrahamic covenant and vision.

                In simple terms, the message of Lech-lecha is that we should have the confidence to follow our dreams.  That the thing which limits us, more than anything else, is the smallness of our vision.  That greatness requires a bit of audacity.  It requires the confidence to step ‘outside the box.’  Many Jews over the ages, perhaps without thinking about it, have taken this message to heart.  This is why so many of humanity’s over-achievers come from the tiny Jewish people, this drop of water in the ocean of humanity.  The Jewish people, barely registering as a percentage of the earth’s population, has been very over-represented in all lists of individuals who have made a difference.  This spirit of Lech-lecha, which we have absorbed from our sacred narrative, certainly has something to do with this history.

                And this week’s sidra is Vayeira.  It opens with the narrative, which we read this morning, of Abraham welcoming three strangers into his camp.  Sitting inside the open flap of his tent in the heat of the day, presumably while recuperating after circumcising himself at the age of 90, Abraham falls all over himself offering sanctuary and hospitality to the three strangers.

                So the lesson we can learn from the juxtaposition of these two Torah readings, last week’s and this week’s, is that success depends on our answering our calling.  It means we sometimes have to step outside our comfort zone and do something audacious.  But it also requires that we welcome others into our tent.  And that we work hard to make them feel welcome when they do come in.

                Here at Temple Shalom, we generally do a good job of welcoming others into our tent.  The proof of this is in a number of your own stories.  Several of you have told me how you chose to belong to Temple Shalom as opposed to a certain other Jewish congregation in town.  It was not our Progressive ideology.  It was not our magnificent edifice.  Rather, it was the welcome you felt instantly when you first entered our doors.  And this is not intended a criticism of that other congregation in town.  It simply is the reality that you felt more welcome here.  It’s not a secret that we should guard carefully in order to enjoy an advantage over the ‘competition.’  No, if we accept the truth of this message we should not hold it closely like a state secret.  The fact is that, feeling welcome here, some of our members whose previous affiliation had been in Orthodox Judaism, joined this Progressive congregation.  We got it right.  At the end of the day, it isn’t about programme.  It’s about the sense of community you felt when you entered this tent.

                 So I’m not here to shrey gevalt about how poorly we do the ‘Welcome Thing.’  Rather, as we celebrate Shabbat and seek to understand the message of Vayeira, I want to refocus us on its importance.

                I want each one of you here today to ask yourself:  Is Temple Shalom still the Welcoming Congregation that attracted me in the first place?  Do we still, regularly and consistently, make first-timers feel so welcome that they cannot help but want to be a part of this community?  And in truth, I think we have to answer:  Sometimes.  We do it well, but we can certainly do it better.

                I therefore challenge each of you today.  Do you see anybody in this room whom you don’t know?  Make sure you know their names, and that they know your names, before leaving this building today.  Pledge to yourself, for the sake of your congregation, to get to know every new face which enters our tent.  Get to know them, and get to know what their specific needs are.  Make them feel welcome initially, and do whatever you can as an individual to make sure they feel welcome and connected over time.

                Yes, we want to have a great programme here.  You can be assured that I and your lay leadership will continue to work to make it so.  But we must emotionally accept the truth that programme is not going to see our congregation go from strength to strength over time.  What will ensure that is the extent to which people feel welcome when they first enter our door, and the extent to which they feel connected over time.

                We do well in this area.  We could do much better.  And that starts with me.  If I’m honest, I don’t always fall all over myself making sure newcomers feel welcome.  I don’t always act in the best tradition of Abraham our Patriarch in his embrace of the principle of hospitality.  Many of us, starting with your rabbi, are not naturally extroverted.  Reaching out can, and does feel like hard work sometimes.  So let’s pledge to ourselves and to one another.  That we will engage in this hard, yet oh-so-vital work.  That we will make it our number one priority to make everybody who comes in that door feel that they are welcome and needed here.  Then, let’s join together and make sure our programme is second-to-none. 

                I truly wish that we could afford to bring Ron Wolfson here to Temple Shalom so that he could deliver this message to you in person, in the way that inspired us at the conference in Sydney.  But with that not being in the realm of possibility, I hope that my own modest efforts to bring his message to our congregation will suffice to energise you.  And I plan to hammer this message:  from the pulpit, with the Board of Management, and one on one with each of you.  I’m going to hammer this message home until I’m sure all of you have bought into it.  So…you might as well buy into it now and save me the trouble… :-)

                I know I've gone on a little long this morning, but I hope you will agree that I'm making an important point.  So allow me to go on just a little longer and add a final tidbit.  The Torah reading opens, 'Adoshem appeared to him.'  To Abraham.  In the very next verse, we read: 'Looking up, he saw three men standing near him.'  What's the connection between 'Adoshem' appearing to him, and him seeing three men standing nearby?  We could start a theological marathon with this one, but let me tell you what it means to me.  Abraham saw the three men, created in the image of G-d, and he embraced them out of his keen desire to serve G-d.  If we embrace G-d's creations, we embrace G-d Himself.  How empty would it be if we claimed to love and serve G-d, but turned his creatures away?  The message is that Abraham served G-d Himself when he rose up to offer hospitality to the three strangers.

               I think this is the most important principle, apart from the core values of Judaism that we already embrace, to strengthen our congregation and one another.  Programme is good.  As we learn to work together, we should expect to continue to see programmes that are imaginative, compelling and first-rate.  But let’s focus the lion’s share of our emotional energies toward what really matters.  Let’s decide that it is the business of each one of us, every time we’re here in shul, to make sure that nobody falls through the cracks.  If we can pull this off, we will have made our congregation stronger and more secure.  But we will have accomplished far more than that.  We will have done our share to ensure the future of Judaism and the survival of the Jews.  Shabbat Shalom.

I was on holiday last week...

...so that explains why no drashot.  Clara and I travelled to Sydney for the semi-annual meeting of the Moetzah, the council of progressive rabbis, followed by the biennial conference of the Union for Progressive Judaism (UPJ).  We did find some time to 'chill out' in Sydney, as the photo attests.

Clara and me on Manly Beach

There were also some very spiritual moments.  Here with the Moetzah davvening shacharit (praying the morning service) at the Q Station overlooking Sydney harbour.