Powerful Symbols

A Drash for Friday, 28 September 2012

Rabbi Don Levy

In the US Southern States, one often sees the Confederate Battle Flag, the ‘Stars and Bars.’ One sees it flying high and proud from flagpoles in the front yards of homes and businesses.  It’s also a prevalent image as a bumper or rear windscreen decorations on cars, or especially...pickup trucks, or ‘utes’ as you call them here in Australia.  Many citizens from outside the Southern States think of the flag as a symbol of racism  They believe it is an expression of a desire to return to the antebellum South especially in regard to black slavery and the oppression of African-Americans.  I’m not a Southerner myself, but I have had enough Southern friends and associates to understand that that, for most who fly the Stars and Bars, it has nothing to do with slavery or race in any way.  For most who cling to the flag, it is a symbol of Southern Pride.  An expression of fondness for an entire series of values, which Southerners believe their region epitomises.  Loyalty.  Hospitality.  Faith.  Honesty.  A simple life.  Yes, if you search long and far enough you’ll find an unrepentant advocate of slavery who likewise clings to the Battle Flag.  But for most Southerners, 160 years on from the Civil War and 60 years on from the Civil Rights movement’s heyday, it has to do with the positive values of Southern Culture which seem harder to find today.

            Symbols are powerful and motivating, both in positive and negative ways.  To most Christians the Cross is such a symbol.  To the Christian, the cross is a symbol of life itself – it reminds of the sacrifice of Jesus which, the believer holds, is necessary for us to experience redemption.  To a Jew of course, the Cross has been exactly the opposite – a symbol of death.  For most Jews, it is the symbol that emblazoned the banners of those who have persecuted us over the last 20 centuries.  For the Jew who knows a little of the history of the turn of the Common Era knows, the Cross on which Jesus of Nazareth met his death was just an example of how many thousands of Jews in the Land of Israel met their death at the hands of the Romans.  It was the Roman way of executing political prisoners, those whom they considered a threat to their hegemony.  There was no shortage of individuals whom the Romans considered to be such a threat; therefore the countryside was liberally littered with crucified Jews.

            So the Cross, like the Stars and Bars, is a symbol that can be either profoundly positive or devastatingly negative.  The cross is a symbol of life or death.  The Stars and Bars is a symbol of Southern Pride or Southern Shame.

            The Torah itself is indeed a powerful image.  We read publicly from a scroll, hand-written on animal skin by a skilled scribe using a quill.  Why not a printed and bound volume?  Because reading from a scroll, traditionally produced, gives a powerful sense of continuity.  The scroll itself is a symbol of the Torah’s legitimacy and centrality.

But probably the most prevalent, and powerful symbol of Judaism is the Magen David, the six-pointed Shield of David that is usually called, ‘the Star of David.’  Whenever I talk to groups of non-Jews, someone is bound to ask me:  What does the symbol of the Star of David mean?  If I’m being honest, I have to reply:  Eh!  Who Knows??!  But since a rabbi doesn’t give such an answer, I generally give an explanation found in Stern der Erlösung, The Star of Redemption, Franz Rosenzweig’s magnum opus.   In the book, the early 20^th century philosopher sees the three points of the lower triangle as symbolising G-d, the universe, and the human being.  The three points of the upper triangle represent, to Rosenzweig, creation, revelation and redemption.  Anyway, it is a neat way to explain the picture, and I would be happy to spend a couple of Adult Education sessions in my upcoming Pardes series talking about it.  (See the announcement of this initiative in the October Gates of Peace newsletter, just published this week.)

            Dan Brown wrote a series of action-packed novels based on the premise that powerful symbols have motivated many evil acts.  His lead character, Robert Langdon, is a Harvard professor whose specialty is symbology.  I’ve enjoyed the Robert Langdon novels, although the film adaptations generally have not been well-received.  But to me, as a purveyor of the importance of religious symbology – at least in part – Brown’s work resonates powerfully with me.

            Symbology is not always visual; it can be literary as well.  This week’s Torah portion begins with words that sound unusual.  These words may seem opaque to the casual reader, but to one who understands and understands the symbology of words and phrases they are most powerful.

            The beginning of the portion is a poem that is usually referred to as The Song of Moses.  One could probably also call it The Swan Song of Moses, since it is his final utterance before we receive an account of his death.  It is one of two long poems in the Torah that are attributed to Moses, the other being the famous Song of the Sea, from Exodus chapter 15.  If Moses did indeed compose these poems, then he was most definitely a skilled poet.  Not as prolific as King David to be sure, but certainly no slouch with the use of the written word.  It would indicate that, despite his earlier protest about being asked to go to Pharaoh because he was a man unskilled with the use of words, Moses ultimately found his voice and became quite the orator.

            The Song of Moses opens with the following words:  Give ear, O heavens, let me speak / Let the earth hear the words I utter!  Of course, neither the heavens nor the earth literally has ears to hear.  But Moses’ phrases here conjure up a grand image of inanimate objects actually giving ear to hear the proclamation that follows.  It’s a way of saying:  The proclamation that follows is really important!  And that proclamation is the account of G-d’s love for Israel.  And the hope that Israel will accept G-d’s sovereignty and stop rebelling so readily.

            When you think about it, it is hard to imagine a more powerfully positive image than the People Israel living up to the lofty ideals transmitted to us through the Torah.  The opening of Moses’ Song, found in this week’s Torah portion, is a lovely way to introduce that image.  May the Torah’s power and loveliness inspire us to cleave to its values.  If we do, we shall bring untold Good into the world.  Amen.

Post-Holiday Letdown

A Drash for Saturday, 29 September 2012

Rabbi Don Levy

One time when my son, Eyal was less than a year old, I took him with me to the local shopping mall to stroll about and find a few things to purchase.  It was December and therefore very busy and festive at the mall.  Since I’ve never been through a Christmas season here in Australia, I don’t know how it compares.  But in America, Christmas is a very important season culturally.

            So I was pushing Eyal around in his perambulator, the proud new father, and a woman I passed looked and exclaimed:  Oh, what a beautiful baby!  How old is he?

            He’s six months old, I told the woman.

            Oh!  She gushed.  His first Christmas!  How wonderful!

I know what you’re thinking!  The Big, Bad Rabbi probably stared her down and said:  Madam, my son will not be celebrating Christmas!  But believe it or not, I held my tongue.  I smiled.   I Responded to the woman:  Yes, his first Christmas!  Then I continued my circuit of the mall, chuckling to myself.

Christmas.  Last night I was talking about symbols and their power over us.  In American life today, there are fewer symbols more powerful than Christmas.  The boughs of holly and tinsel.  The colourfully wrapped gifts.  The myriads of multi-colour flashing lights.  Santa Clause and his elves.  The baby Jesus in his manger, visited by the three wise kings from the east.  Okay, okay!  Don’t worry!  Your rabbi hasn’t gone over the ‘The Dark Side’ as it were.  But I grew up in America, where a religious festival has come to represent the national will.  As a Jewish boy growing up in New York, that most Jewish of cities, I couldn’t help singing a refrain of ‘Silent Night’ now and then.  It didn’t make me less Jewish.  Look, the most popular Christmas songs were composed by…Jewish songwriters!

I’ll be waiting to see if Christmas is as much of a Big Deal here in Australia, as it is in America.  I suspect not.

In the years when I served as a military chaplain, the Christmas season became an important part of my year.  Each unit on base – in the air force, each squadron – holds a unit Christmas Party.  Sometimes they call it a ‘Holiday Party’ lest Jews and other non-Christians feel somehow taken for granted.  But everybody knows it’s a Christmas party.  All the decorations, invariably, are red and green!  And there’s usually a grand entrance by Santa at some point in the party.  As the unit’s chaplain, I would be invited to give a prayer at the beginning of the festive evening.  Of course it wouldn’t be a Christian prayer – but it wouldn’t be a Jewish prayer either.  So, even though I was serving as a rabbi – as a Jewish chaplain – Christmas, somebody else’s holiday, was an important milestone in my year.

On several occasions, I even played Santa.  It was all good fun.

What was also an important factor in my work as a chaplain was the phenomenon of ‘Post-holiday Letdown.’  We chaplains used to talk about this and prepare for it by extending our January hours to be available for counselling.  We would visit units to deliver talks on dealing with disappointments in life.  Because many people feel a letdown after the holiday season.  Although there’s no statistical proof that suicide rates go up in January, there certainly is a statistical reality of depression and of filings for divorce.   It seems that many unhappy people, buoyed by the festiveness of the holidays, experience a sharp letdown when it’s ‘back to real life’ on the first of January.  Our counselling load was always higher at this time of year.  We were more likely than at any other time of the year to field middle-of-the-night, ‘I’m depressed’ calls during out rotations as duty chaplain.  For Christians generally, and especially for American Christians, the holidays in their totality are such an important symbol that it is quite normally to feel an acute sense of let-down when they’re over.

We’ve just finished going through two weeks of very important holy days.  I’m not trying to draw parallels between our High Holy Days and Christmas, G-d forbid, except in the sense that these days form an important season of the year for Jews.  And in the occasional sense of Post-holiday Letdown.

Post-holiday Letdown for Jews after Yom Kippur is not quite the same as the variant often felt by Christians in January.  After all, the tenor of our holy days is quite different.  It’s serious and reflective rather than festive.  But the similarities are there, because we attach a lot of expectation to our respective holidays.

Last night I mentioned Franz Rosenzweig, a German Jew of the early 20^th century who was an important Jewish philosopher of his age.  He wrote an important book called Stern der Erlösung – The Star of Redemption.  He saw Judaism, which its triangular relation between G-d, the universe and humanity, as a source of redemption.  His book was a watershed in modern Jewish philosophy.  There’s a well-known story about Rosenzweig, and as far as I know it’s entirely true – not apocryphal.

In Germany in the late 19^th century, when Rosenzweig was a student, a lot of promising young Jewish scholars in secular disciplines were converting to Christianity.  Not because of conviction of faith, so much as for a weak connection to Jewish faith and a desire to ‘fit in’ in the university.  Rosenzweig felt little pulling him back from becoming a Christian, and he was about to do so.  But meantime it was Yom Kippur, and he felt out of intellectual honesty that he owed his ancestral faith ‘one last chance.’  He attended a Yom Kippur evening service, and when he heard Kol Nidrei sung, he knew in his heart that he could not be anything other than a Jew.

Perhaps you had heard this story before, or perhaps you had heard some other, equally compelling story about how the sights and sounds of the holidays turned some Jew’s heart around.  Perhaps you go into these days with some great sense of expectation as to a spiritual uplift.  Perhaps, expecting such an uplift, you are disappointed if it does not come.

If you’re feeling any measure of this, I’m here today that it isn’t your fault.  On the other hand, it isn’t my fault either…  No it’s just part of the reality.

Hard as we might try to be affected by a powerful occasion, that affect does not always come.  We can’t force it.  But the hit-or-miss nature doesn’t call the process into question.  It just means that inspiration is elusive.  And we must therefore, sometimes search harder for it.  In a lifetime of prayer and communal worship, most of us can count sublime moments on the fingers of our hands.  But when they come, when the words and the sounds of the liturgy have the intended affect, one’s soul soars.  Those few moments happen when they happen; we can’t choose them.    This reality is the best argument for worshipping regularly.  Not just when one doesn’t have anything better to do, but religiously – what a concept! – every time one has an opportunity.

It is my hope that someone in the room felt an inspiration while I sang my heart out in Kol Nidrei.  Or Eyl Malei Rachamim.  Or when Sara sang Avinu Malkeinu.  Or Margaret Oseh Shalom.  But if onoe of these moment did it for you, please don’t think that you failed.  Or that we were singing off key.  It just wasn’t your moment.  If not, then G-d willing your moment will yet come.

Post-holiday letdown is as real to the Jew after Yom Kippur, as it is to the Christian after Christmas and New Year’s.  It shouldn’t lead us to neglect our respective festivals next year.  It should only serve to make us look for more opportunities to feel inspiration.  Through prayer.  Study.  Music.  Dance.  Whatever.  If we keep seeking, we will ultimately be rewarded for the effort.  And the reward makes the time and effort worthwhile.  Amen.

Yom Kippur Drashot

With All Your Abundance
A Drash for Yom Kippur Evening 2012
 

Some of you know that I wear hearing aids, in both ears.  Some of you did not know that of me. If not, it’s because the models I wear are quite small and unobtrusive.  Also, I don’t particularly advertise the fact.  On the other hand, I don’t go out of my way to hide it.  I’ve been asked if I wear my hair long, in order to hide my hearing aids.  The answer is no.  So here’s the news flash:  Rabbi Don does not wear long hair to hide his hearing aids.  He wears it to hide his big ears!  Seriously, I’m not particularly sensitive about needing hearing aids.  To me, wearing them is akin to wearing eyeglasses.  I wish I didn’t need them.  But since I do, it doesn’t bother me overly to wear them.  Apparently, some of us who experience hearing loss with age are sensitive about it and avoid being fitted for hearing aids as long as they can.  If anybody in this room fits this description (and if you can hear me), I urge you to get a screening and consider being fitted for hearing aids ASAP.  You will find the difference amazing.

          So I wear hearing aids and I accept the minor maintenance that goes along with them.  I have to change the batteries every few days.  I have to clean the ear wax out of the ear tubes from time to time.  To do that, one forces a thin wire, a twist tie with the paper covering removed, through the tube until it passes completely through.  You have to be careful, though to straighten out the tube before pushing the wire through lest the wire puncture the tube.

          But no matter how often you clean out the tubes, once a year or so it is necessary to replace them.  Over time, the ear wax builds up on and in them no matter how carefully you clean them.  The other day I did this.  With new, perfectly clean ear tubes it’s like experiencing the first day with the hearing aids, all over again!  I can hear much better than I have in a while.

          Yom Kippur is, in a way, like fitting new tubes to your hearing aids.  That’s by design.  The things that we miss most days, things about ourselves and truths about human nature to which we’re normally deaf or oblivious, become much more noticeable.  That’s because of the way that we observe this important day.  Everything about it is calculated to help us ‘clear the decks’ and work on ourselves.  It’s kind of like a session with a particularly good therapist.

          So while I particularly have your attention this evening, I do not intend to squander it!

          On Rosh Hashanah I spoke about some of the phrases of the passage in the prayer book that we call, Ve’ahav’ta, after its first word.  You know, Ve’ahav’ta et Adonai Eloheicha, bechol levav’cha uv’chol nafshecha, uv’chol  me’odecha.  You shall love Adonai your G-d, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your abundance.

          I know that there’s a certain risk in offering High Holy Day drashot in series.  After all, not everybody attends every service.  That’s unfortunate, because my sermons aside, the liturgies and themes of the days build one upon the previous.  The way to get the most benefit out of these days is to attend each and every service:  Rosh Hashanah evening and morning, Shabbat Shuva evening and morning, Yom Kippur evening, morning and afternoon.  Please don’t tell me why you could not attend all those times.  My point is not to make you feel guilty.  Well, maybe a little bit guilty!  Jews without guilt, after all, are like a Chinese junk without a sail!  But seriously, my point is to offer a kind of user’s manual for deriving the best benefit from these holy days.  If you didn’t attend on Rosh Hashanah or Shabbat Shuva, it’s too late!  But thanks to social media, you can read my drashot online, on my blog.  Just Google ‘Rabbi Don in Oz’!

          If you remember from last week, or if you’ve read my drashot online, you know that I defined love as used in this verse as Love, the Commitment.  Not Love, the Emotion.  And I explained that the ‘heart’ in ‘with all your heart’ means the intellect, the power of reason.  And the ‘soul’ in ‘with all your soul’ means the emotions, the human spirit.  I offered the view that it is no accident the Torah commands ‘with all your intellect and reason’ before ‘with all your motions and spirit.’  The intellect provides the basis for apprehending G-d.  The intellect opens a world of knowledge and inquiry that enables us to transcend the child-like view of G-d we were given in cheder.  But if we only gain knowledge, if we don’t truly have an encounter with G-d, then it will not be satisfying to grab us…and hold us.  So both are necessary, and are not at all in tension…just two sides of the same coin.

          This brings us to the third way we’re to love G-d.  Bechol me’odecha.  The phrase is usually translated:  with all your might.  But if you know a little Hebrew, you know that me’od means ‘very’ or ‘much.’  Tov me’od means very good.  Nachon me’od means very right.  If someone asks you how many lollies you have and you answer me’od, it means a whole bunch.

          So me’odecha, your muchness can mean ‘a whole lot’ as in really love G-d.  But the Rabbis have generally understood it to mean with all your abundance, with all your substance.  It’s talking about money, wealth.

          As the Israelites prepared to enter the Promised Land, subdue it, and set up their commonwealth there, each tribe was apportioned a specific territory in which to settle.  The land would be apportioned among the members of the tribe, so that each family had a means of earning a living.  Each tribe, that is but the tribe of Levi.

          The Levites were given no land, because they were set apart particularly for service to G-d on behalf of the entire people Israel.  They were to administer the mishkan, the sanctuary where sacrifices to G-d were offered daily.  This was their ‘full time job’; they were not to be farmers.  Or blacksmiths.  Or insurance salesmen.  Each Israelite family would bring to the Levites a tithe, a tenth of their increase, and from that the sons of Levi would operate the mishkan and support their own families since they had no other means.

          Okay, relax!  If you think that this son of Levi is winding up to demand that you surrender a tenth of your income to support the temple and my family, you can take your hands off your wallets now!  Take a deep breath.  Smile.  No, the temple and the rabbi don’t need that much of your income and aren’t asking for it.

          Nobody is suggesting that you bring a tenth of your income to Temple Shalom as an offering to G-d.  That commandment was for when the mishkan, and later the Temple was standing and in operation.  For reasons that are beyond the scope of my remarks tonight, absent the Temple and its priesthood, there is no more tithe.  Our Christian friends sometimes have a hard time understanding this.  Recently, two members of Temple Shalom and I had a conversation with three representatives of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, our next door neighbours.  Okay, I’m not sure that the LDS church is Christian or not, but that’s not my point here.   The LDS church teaches that its members must give a tenth of their income to the church.  Much of that goes to support and grow the church infrastructure.  There are also good works that their church does in the community, social services that they support.  We Jews support all manner of social services, but we don’t do so through our congregation.  There are other agencies that are set up to do that.  They fund-raise separately. 

We also tend to support social services run by non-Jewish organisations.  For example, I’m guessing that a few in this room have donated money and goods to the Salvation Army. The bags from the Mazon campaign will go to the Salvation Army.  The Army is, itself, a church.  But it is known as a social service agency that helps people regardless of their religious affiliation or non-affiliation.  To Jews that resonates, and we feel entirely comfortable giving to such an organisation.  But the LDS Church teaches that one’s own church is the address for good works for its members, and it expects each one of its members to remit a tenth of what they earn to their local church.  And our neighbours were surprised to hear that we Jews, given that the instructions for the tithe are in the Torah, do not do so.

          So nobody’s asking for a tenth of your income tonight.  But let’s be honest, the temple does need serious buy-in from every one of its members and everyone who is not a member, but benefits from what we do.  In other words, everybody in this room tonight.

          Like many smaller congregations, Temple Shalom offers annual subscriptions at extremely modest prices – prices that have absolutely no relationship to what it actually costs to run a synagogue.  There’s probably no way around this.  If fees were set to truly reflect the cost per member of keeping our doors open, they would be so high as to scare many of you away.

          As you may know, some of the big flagship congregations charge subscriptions fees five and more times what we ask for.  You who have lived ‘in the big city’ know this; assessments are sometimes more than one or even two thousand dollars per family.  This is true in North America, and it is also true in Australia; ask your friends and family who belong to Congregation Emanuel or Temple Beth Israel what they pay per year.  You’ll get an earful.

          And the truth is, what they charge isn’t enough either.  They still have to fund-raise vigorously to meet their annual budgets and provide for long-term growth.

          Here at Temple Shalom, our standard fee for an annual subscription is $220 for an individual or a single-parent family and $440 for a couple including their children up to 24 if they are full-time students.  Please hear me out!  If you truly stretch to pay this, please do not take offence to what I’m about to say.  I’m not talking to you at this moment.  The truth is, most of you in this room tonight do not stretch to pay it.  Let’s be honest, if you’re in this room tonight, chances are you spend that much on dining out.  In a month, not a year!  And let’s be even more honest; if you’re not a teetotaller, if you drink a beer a few times a week either out or at home, and buy a bottle of wine once a week or every second week…I’m guessing you spend more per year on alcohol than on your temple subscription.

          My point is not to vilify those of you who dine out or drink alcohol.  I do both.  All I’m saying is that this is spending that is 100% discretionary.  And there’s nothing wrong with discretionary spending.  You’ve heard me speak about this before.  Whether your thing is dining out, owning a boat, a membership at a swim club, or all of the above.  My guess is that you’ve worked hard to have some extra cash to enjoy in this way.  You shouldn’t feel guilty about allowing yourselves any of these little luxuries, or any luxuries for that matter.  You should however, feel guilty if you’re allowing yourselves these sort of luxuries, you’re here tonight, and you’re not a financial member of the temple – or some other congregation, and assuming you’re eligible to be one.  Or if, being a financial member of this congregation, you pay your subscription and no more.

          I’ve already gone out on a limb, so to speak, and I can hear some of your thoughts.  It’s inappropriate to talk about money on Yom Kippur.  It’s unfair to strong-arm us on the holiest night of the year.  Here we go again, someone asking for more money!

          In responding to these thoughts, let me remind you of the words of our great sage, Hillel:  If I am not for myself, who will be for me?  But if I am only for myself, who am I?  And if not now, when?

          Indeed, if not now, when?  If one cannot talk in specifics about the needs of your community on this, the holiest night of the year, then when?  Let me be direct:  if I wait until next Friday night to say these things, will you be here?  For most of you, the answer is no.

So, and since I’ve gone out on a limb already in some of your minds, let me be direct again.  It is the responsibility of everyone in this room to contribute to this congregation’s paying its way.  You cannot sit and wait for the Lessers, or whomever to pick up the tab.  Yes, a handful of our members are capable of going much farther than the rest of us, and thank G-d we have them.  But each one of you must ante up, must buy into the need to keep your congregation afloat, must make some significant contribution.  How much, is between you and your bank statement.  But if you want this congregation to be here for you, to have an open door and a quality service next Yom Kippur and the one after that and the one after that, it’s now show time.

Do you object to what I’m saying, and is your objection is that you’re already paying your fees?  My response to that, is that our fees are far lower than they need to be.  Over time, part of the long-term solution to the problem I’m addressing is to gradually raise our fees.  But in the meantime, we have a budget to balance.

My final point in this, is that this congregation really operates almost on a shoestring, carefully guarding against spending your hard-earned money.  If you scrutinise our financials, you’ll see this truth.  Your current Board of Management has worked hard, searching wherever possible for new ways of doing the things we do, to cut back on running expenses.  But control of expenses is only half the equation of balancing a budget.  And balancing the budget is not our only responsibility.

Have you ever been aboard a speed boat on a choppy day on the Broadwater?  A speedboat is an interesting device.  It is made to move fast.  But if it cannot – say, if the engine has a problem – it wallows.  It is unstable and gets tossed around by the wind, the waves, and the tide.  It’s a recipe for seasickness.  It’s a recipe for panic.  You do not want to be aboard a speedboat that is dead in the water, or whose engine is only working at partial output.

In a way, a congregation is like a speedboat.  If we as a congregation are not moving forward, then we are wallowing.  We are easy victim to any chop, any wind, and tide that might beset us.  But if we are moving forward and going places, we plane right over the rough stuff.  It doesn’t beset us.  We quickly leave it behind us and move from strength to strength.

We’re working hard to move this congregation forward.  A series of outreach events over the last year or so has resulted in new members coming in.  We need these new members, and not only because we need the fees we collect from them.  We need them because their joining us is an affirmation of what we’re doing here.  We all know that there are lots of Jews out there who belong to no congregation.  When more of them join with us, it tells us that what we’re doing matters.  It tells us that others, having checked us out, find what we’re doing attractive enough to them that they want to be part of it.  Reaching out, bringing new people and their energy in the door…this is how we remain excited about our congregation.  If we stagnate, if we focus only on maintaining what we’ve done in the past, then we’re wallowing as on a speedboat that is dead in the water.

We are calling this fund raising campaign, Temple Shalom 5773.  I know that this is not the most creative title you’ve ever heard.  After all, Temple Shalom is the name of our congregation.  And 5773 is the Jewish year that began last week.  But creative or not, this title says something very important.

I’m guessing that you’ve heard of Gematria.  It is the practice of Jewish numerology, of consulting the numerical values of words and phrases to find connections in meaning.  An Alef equals one, Beit equals two, and so forth.

The numeric value of Shalom is 376.  The year is normally rendered without the thousands:  therefore 776.  Add the two and the sum is 1152.  Now we look for a phrase in Hebrew that equals 1152.  We don’t have to look very far.  We have the value in the phrase:  Mah tovu ohaleicha Ya’akov, mish’kinotecha Yisra’el;  How good are your tents, O Jacob, your dwelling places O Israel.  The phrase is, of course the opening line of the song that opens our Shabbat morning services.  It’s a direct quote from the Torah, from Numbers chapter 24, verse 5.

What is the significance of the phrase?  I think back to the B’nai Mitzvah a few weeks back of the Dingley twins.  Zoe Dingley, in her bat mitzvah drash challenged us to understand this phrase.  What does it mean to say that someone’s tents are ‘good’?  It doesn’t mean pretty.  It means, strong, enduring, worth having as shelter against the elements.

What about our ‘tent’ – Temple Shalom?  Is it ‘good’?  It certainly has good qualities.  We can work to increase these qualities, and to cast aside her not-so-good qualities over time.  But the ‘good’ we need to make our temple exude, is its ability to endure.  We need it to be secure.  To know that it will be here for all of us tomorrow.  And the next day.  And the day after that. 

Now, I invite our President, Andrew Abrahamson to fill in the tachlis – to explain how this fund-raising campaign will work.  I hope that my words have resonated for you.  I hope that you wish to be instrumental in ensuring a bright future for this congregation.  I hope that you’ll listen prayerfully to Andrew and make a significant contribution.

 

We're Not in Brooklyn Anymore, Toto!
A Drash for Yom Kippur Morning

A few days ago, I attended an interfaith conference in Toowoomba.  The conference was hosted by the Pure Land Learning College Association.  The host organisation is a Mahayana Buddhist school located in that city.  It’s a bastion of Chinese religion and culture.  I learned some important lessons as a result of my day at the conference.

          First of all, if you didn’t already know it I have to tell you that its’ a schlep and a half from here to Toowoomba!  We have had visitors from that city come to Temple Shalom to worship with us.  If I’m not mistaken, several of them are here right now.  They have new respect from me, all of them, for schlepping back and forth to attend and join with us here.

          For those of us living here on the Gold Coast, it is sometimes difficult to appreciate the lack of Jewish infrastructure here in Queensland.  Even if you are aware of this, it is all too easy to lose sight of the fact that we here at Temple Shalom have the only full-service Progressive Jewish congregation in the entire state.  It is easy to forget that I am the only Progressive rabbi working in the state, and that there are really only four rabbis, period, working in the entire state, three of them here on the Gold Coast.  We have individuals who live quite far from the Coast, who are financial members of our temple and who drive out here regularly to worship and gather with us.  But I think that the group who come from Toowoomba, drive farther than anybody else.  Kol Hakavod to them!

          So back to the conference.  Registration was to begin at 8.00AM, with the program actually starting at 8.30.  I definitely wanted to be on time.  Partly this was my military conditioning coming once again to the surface.  No, I don’t look much like a military man anymore.  But I still do, in many ways, think like one!  My feeling is; if it’s worth going to, it’s worth being on time.  But in this case, there was more to it.  I was scheduled to give one of the opening prayers.  Whenever I’ve organised an event, I didn’t like it if someone with a key role – especially if that role was at the very beginning! – did not show up on time.  It always felt good when I actually saw the participants arrive, and until they did I could not relax.  So on the morning I went to Toowoomba, I backed out of my garage at 5,30AM in order to make sure I arrived in Toowoomba by 8.00.  Oh, I grumbled to myself for the first few kilometres about not having had time to make and drink coffee before leaving the house.  But I managed to arrive at the conference site just before 8.00.

          Stepping inside the door, I looked around.  I saw a sea of various-coloured robes, each of them draped over the shoulders of a shaven-headed follower of the Buddha.  All of them, men and women, were sitting quietly, not conversation, just sitting with their hands folded on the table in front of them or in their laps, patiently waiting for the start of the conference which was half an hour away.

          Okay!  I thought.  This definitely isn’t a Jewish event!  We’re not in Brooklyn anymore, Toto!  I’m not sure we’re even in the Land of Oz!

          Not only did most of the people arrive on time.  The event actually started on time.  And each flow point in the conference happened more-or-less on time.  Lunch break happened when scheduled.  The afternoon session ended and I was in the car headed home exactly when advertised.  Amazing, I thought!

          Do you know the old joke about how the airplane carrying the rabbi, the cantor, and the synagogue president gets hijacked by terrorists?  The hijackers tell the three Jews:  To show you that we are merciful, we are granting each of you one last request before we kill you.

          So the rabbi tells the hijackers:  Before I die, I want to give the Ultimate Kol Nidrei sermon.  I want to pull out all the stops, challenging the listener to live as a good Jew with no reservations of qualifiers.  I want to speak uninterrupted and not have anybody tell me to limit my remarks to ten minutes, or 15, or whatever.

          Then the cantor tells the hijackers:  Before I die, I want to sing the Ultimate performance of Kol Nidrei.  I want to pull out all the stops, singing it three times through, with every extra trill and flourish, slowly, savouring every note.

          Finally the synagogue president looks at the other two and croaks:  Kill me first!

          (Relax!  If you weren’t aware of the fact, the Kol Nidrei service was last night!)

Buddhist speakers, starting with the school’s president dominated the first day of the conference.  Let me make this clear.  They were the conference’s sponsors, and they had every right to feature their own remarks – on the first day, and subsequent days!  Also, their hospitality was absolutely overwhelming.  They were gracious to a fault.  And the premise of the conference was well-intentioned.  But if I ever have to sit through a series of Buddhist speakers… you can kill me first.

          The president of Pure Land Learning College, Venerable Master Chin Kong, gave the first major speech.  It was a looooooong speech.  In Mandarin.  Over a video link.  I have to tell you, it was painful for me to try to stay awake and alert during that speech.  His voice was soft.  With no emphasis.  He spoke sloooooooowly.  And he spoke in circles.

          None of the other Buddhist speakers spoke quite as slowly.  Or as softly.  But they all seemed to speak in circles.  There’s simply a dialectic that’s clearly the norm in Buddhist circles.  Thought is in entirely theoretical terms, with circular and stream-of-consciousness structure.  In other words, very little structure at all.  I have to admit, I was bored nearly to tears.

          The two Muslims who spoke that day, used a similar dialectic.  And droning voice.  That’s how Islam is going to conquer the world, I thought mischievously.  They’re going to bore us into    submission.  Okay, I’m kidding!  Please don’t accuse me of spewing hatred toward our Muslim cousins!  I really do cherish the children of Ishmael.  One of my most heartfelt prayers is for peace and harmony with the disciples of Muhammad.  Just please…don’t put me in a room where one is speaking!

          After lunch I was ready to struggle to stay awake during the afternoon session.  Thank G-d, the first speaker was an Australian, a Catholic woman who is a professional educator at a girl’s high school where she teaches religious education.  She gave a talk about the challenges of teaching RE in this day and age.  She didn’t drone.  Her presentation was of the sort one would expect from a good teacher:  well-organised, compelling, with an animated delivery.

          Afterward, when I had time to reflect I realised something important about this woman and her presentation.  Despite the divide between our respective religions, we shared a common language and methodology.  It was something not shared with the previous, Buddhist and Muslim speakers. 

There was another large difference.  We were both dressed conservatively, in clothes that we would expect to be seen in while working.  I was wearing a business suit, and she was wearing a pants suit.  The Buddhists wore their flowing robes and shaved heads, and the Muslims wore their kufis and long tunics.  In other words, both those groups dressed in a way calculated to set themselves apart from others around them.  Please don’t hear this as a criticism; I only mention it to point out a difference in mindset.  The Catholic RE woman and I clearly shared a mindset.  With the Buddhist monks and the Muslim Imams, the differences between our respective mindset formed an automatic gulf between us.

A few weeks earlier, two of our members and I had a meeting with three representatives of the LDS congregation that is our neighbour across the car park.  Occasioning the meeting was an encounter that I’d had with one of their members, who came in one day to chat with me and expressed interest in mounting some kind of dialogue between our groups.  At the time, I thought it would be best for a limited number of our members to meet with an equal number of them, see if we could get comfortable with one another, and then figure out how to proceed.

The LDS – or Mormons as many call them, came to the meeting on a weeknight impeccably attired to conduct business.  Their suits were tailored and pressed, with starched white shirts sporting French cuffs and polished cuff links, with carefully polished shoes.  They sat ramrod straight, their hands folded together on the table in front of them.  They were serious; they didn’t crack a joke, and they found it challenging to even crack a smile.  And us?  I won’t say that we were dressed as slobs, but we were definitely casual.  Loose.  Chatty.  Telling jokes, often at our own expense.  We sat sloughed over, leaning back, our legs elevated or crossed.  You get the picture.  These were our neighbours.  We seemed to instinctively act at home – since we were – in order to make our guests feel likewise.  It didn’t work so well.

After our guests left, we all agreed that they were such nice people…and as if from another planet.

We all know this, even if we don’t think about it much or articulate it well.  We gravitate to those who are the most like us.  We cultivate friendships with those who share with us certain, powerful social cues.  Who dress, and comport themselves as we do.  Who are of similar age, and in similar life circumstances.  Sometimes that means other Jews.  But most of us also have close friends who are not.  Those of our friends who are not Jews, are not likely to be Buddhists, Muslims, or LDS Christians.

These two recent experiences reminded me of the importance of sometimes coming out of our comfort zone to meet with others.  Of working hard to dialogue.  Even with those, with whom we share relatively little.  Of trying to stay awake through a presentation we might find boring, in order to understand the message behind the medium.

You’ve heard me mention Stephen Covey’s book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People before.  This book, although it dates from 1989, seems as fresh today as the day Covey wrote it.  Habit Five is:  Seek First to Understand, then to be Understood.  In business, in interfaith dialogue, and any kind of encounter, there is a very human tendency.  We are self-centric.  We internalise that, if only The Other would understand us, there would be understanding.  Covey suggests that we start by trying to understand the other, before worrying if he understands us.

Interfaith Dialogue, if it is going to be something real and not just a box to tick, has got to begin with this premise.  We must first seek to understand.  All the parties must.

Let me return to the subject of our Muslim cousins.

A week ago Saturday, as we prepared for Rosh Hashanah, there was a violent protest by a large group of Muslims in the Sydney CBD.  It was in response to that stupid 14-minute video posted on YouTube that makes disparaging assertions about the Prophet Muhammad.  The film was clearly made in America, since most of the actors spoke with American accents.  There are some who have asserted that it was actually made with the backing of Coptic Christians in Egypt.  In all honesty, I don’t especially care how the film came into being, who made it, or who financed it.  Had there not been anti-American violence across the Arab world, and the riot in Sydney, you and I probably would have not cared at all about its existence.  I mean that literally; the video has apparently been there some six months, and I’m guessing nobody in this room was aware of it.  Well, we are now.

The vociferous Muslim reaction to the film drove many of us to see it.  To me, it was 14 minutes of my life that I’ll never get back.  I can certainly see why a Muslim would be offended by it.

I’m not going to address the killing of the US ambassador and three staffers in Libya, in an attack ostensibly occasioned by that movie.  Except to say that the White House has finally admitted that some of those involved turn out to be affiliated with Al Qaeda, and one in particular was a guest of my country’s government at the ‘island resort’ at Guantanamo.  So I’m not going to try to understand how this moronic movie could have inspired acts of terrorism.  The riot in Australia was ugly, and frightening, and reflected poorly on Muslims in general.  But it wasn’t deadly.

There may have been some truth in the movie’s assertions.  Perhaps they are all true.  Maybe Muhammad was a paedophile.  To me, as a Jew in the 21^st century of the Common Era, this is not at all important. 

What is important to me is that we must somehow, someway, find a way to bring the Muslims who live in our midst, closer to the prevailing culture.  We who have mastered that culture despite our immigrant roots, must find a way to help them to express themselves within the culture.  To work past their deep sense of grievance over just about every aspect of Western Culture.  We have to let them know somehow that they have someone to talk to.  Somebody to listen to them and understand them.  Someone to help them learn to cherish freedom of speech as we do and not to loathe it even if it is used to propagate some idea with which they disagree.  Who, after all has more experience with this than we Jews?

And that requires dialogue.

This congregation is no stranger to dialogue.  I know that you have hosted a local imam before, and since my arrival we have hosted a number of Christian groups who attended our services and learn from us.  All the above is good, but I prefer real dialogue – people of different backgrounds really getting to know one another.  Getting to feel comfortable with one another.  Learning from one another.

I think that our congregation, if she is going to really help make our little corner of the world a better place, must be proactive about such dialogue.  It’s hard work.  It’s rife with risks.  It can be uncomfortable.  But it is important, and it is something we can do.

I have some ideas about how to go about this, but I want to hear your ideas.  I need your wisdom in organising these dialogues.  I need your input, frankly because I need your involvement.  If it is just between clergy, it is not going to be especially meaningful.  To really help, it must be between lay people, on a person-to-person level.

We need to engage in dialogue with our neighbours, because we are not in Brooklyn anymore, Toto.  We do not live in a Jewish ghetto.  We cannot simply shut out the parts of the world around us that we do not understand.  If we operate in this way, we’ll not contribute to the creation of Australia that embodies the values that this country stands for.  I happen to know what these are, because I’ve just arrived and had to sign a statement to the effect that, if allowed to be here, I would uphold them.  They are:  parliamentary democracy; the rule of law; living peacefully; respect for all individuals regardless of background; compassion for those in need; freedom of speech and freedom of expression; freedom of association; freedom of religion and secular government.  I don’t know about you; but I believe that each one of these values is worth fighting for.  They are certainly worth talking for!

Help me with this.  If we can get the talk going, we will begin to heal our community in so many ways.  We will begin to repair our broken world.  And that is what we Jews are called to do.

Saying Kaddish for Time Wasted Gossiping
Yom Kippur Yizkor Service 2012

As Yom Kippur comes toward its conclusion, we hold the Yizkor Service – the service of Remembrance.  This powerful time of our most powerful of days, when we take the time to honour those people, personally important to us, who are no longer with us.  To many Jews as they reach the final years of their lives, the image of their offspring and others taking time to remember them in a positive light is extremely powerful.  Yes, we go out of our way to think of the departed in the most positive terms.  It is hard to find someone, even the quirkiest and most problematic, about whom one cannot say something positive.

          Hard but not impossible.  I have had people come to me and say of a long-departed parent: “He was abusive.  He was a scoundrel.  I’m sorry, Rabbi; I can’t say I miss him, because I don’t.”

          If you are saying Yizkor this afternoon for such a person, there’s little consolation I can offer you.  I can’t change the nature of those who are gone, much less those who remain with us.  The latter, perhaps I can influence.  But when I try to, my efforts often seem pathetically feeble.  About the departed I can change nothing.

          So we try to think positive thoughts about the departed.  For most of those, no matter how problematic they may have been, one can find something positive to think and say.  For some, if it can’t be done then it can’t be done.  I’m not a miracle worker…only G-d is.  So we do try to think positively about the departed, and in saying the Yizkor prayers for those individuals we try mightily to conjure up positive memories.

          I hope you don’t see me as muck-raking!  It’s not my point to dethrone any of our dear departed.  But I have heard this refrain from those left behind often enough, that I feel compelled to say this today.  I’m saying it because I’m sure there is someone with such thoughts in this room.  I don’t know who you are and I don’t really want to know.  But I want you to know what I am saying.

          So we say Yizkor even for those about whom the memories are not especially fond.  We say Yizkor even for wasted lives.  But we don’t say Yizkor for wasted time.  Yet perhaps, wasted time and energy is precisely that, for which we should say Yizkor.

          This morning I joked about sitting through the recent Muhammad movie that has been causing a stir in the Islamic world.  I said that the time I spent watching the movie was 14 minutes of my life that I’ll never get back.  I’ll say that often, usually after a fruitless exchange with another person.  Well, that’s another five minutes of my life I’ll never get back.  A joke, but if you think about it, an important truth about the passage of time.

          Poems and songs have been written about the irrevocable reality of the passage of time.  We only have one go, and if we’re not careful it slips away from us before we realise it.  Every minute wisely spent is cherished forever.  But the converse is also true.  Every moment wasted is simply lost forever.

          I know many people who have taken this principle to heart.  As a result, they over-program their lives to the point of ridiculousness.  They are always busy, and their busy-ness always has a purpose.  Everybody knows someone like this.  I recognise the type, because there was a time in my life when I was that someone.  There were never enough hours in the day for all the things I had to accomplish, and as a result I was always busy accomplishing.

          I can tell you; that’s no way to be.  Of course it’s important to accomplish worthwhile things.  It’s important not to fritter away our lives doing things that don’t matter.  But it’s also important to take time to savour life.  To smell the roses, so to speak.  To take time for what we in the pastoral and counselling communities refer to as ‘Self Care.’  We who are professional carers tend to neglect it, until some extreme event makes us aware of what we’re doing.  Many carers leave behind broken marriages, and damaged relationships, because we are so driven to care for others.

          So when I suggested that we say Yizkor for wasted time and energy, I really wasn’t kidding.  And if I had to name the one activity on which we tend to waste the most time and energy, it would not be difficult at all to pinpoint.  That activity is gossip.

Everybody knows what I mean when I say gossip; it’s the spreading of supposed insider knowledge about a person or a situation, for no positive purpose.  Sometimes we think it means unimportant factoids about someone’s private life.  Yes, that does meet the definition of gossip.  But it’s not the only kind of information that meets the definition.  It’s almost always negative information.  Even if it’s true information – and really, it seldom is – the process of spreading gossip brings no merit to the gossiper.  Because if we’re honest, its purpose is almost always to bring discredit to someone else.  To undermine them.  To torpedo their careers, their lives, to cause them to fail.  And in return for what?  For the most part, nothing.  Gossip is the weapon of the powerless who brandishes it to somehow, in his or her own mind, negate his or her impotence.  But most of the powerless created their own impotence by not recognising, and cultivating, and celebrating their very real virtues and skills.  If you feel powerless, it is time to look inside yourself and find those strengths.  Give yourself credit for them.  Cultivate them.  That’s how you overcome feeling powerless.  When you gossip about others you do not overcome your powerlessness.  No, you only make yourself look pathetic.

          It’s no accident that ‘gossip’ in Hebrew is called lashon hara.  That is to say, evilspeak.  Because its end is always evil.  It can and does defame the person who is the subject of the gossip.  It can undermine any and all of the good that the subject is trying to do.  But the evil of evilspeak goes far deeper than that.  Because it undermines whole organizations, whole communities.  It wipes out the trust of large numbers of people and sours them on the community itself.  That’s the true evil of evilspeak.

          So gossip is far worse than a waste of time and energy.  It’s just simply wrong.  Morally, ethically wrong.  That’s why Torah has so much to say about it.  As we just read in our Afternoon Torah reading today:  Lo teilech racil be’amecha; velo ta’amod al dam re’echa.  Don’t go about as a talebearer among your people, and don’t stand upon the blood of your kinsman.  This juxtaposition – spreading gossip and causing the shedding of innocent blood – tells us what G-d thinks of gossip.  It is wrong, it is immoral, it is unethical…and it hurts the community terribly.

And yes, it’s a waste of time and energy.  If the gossip were doing positive things, he or she would be able to accomplish so much with the time and energy spent gossiping.  And that’s not to mention the waste of the time and energy of those to whom he or she brings the gossip.

My bringing this to your attention this afternoon is not just to teach you about something theoretical.  There has been a storm of gossip-mongering in the congregation lately.  It isn’t necessary to name names.  If you’ve had the misfortune to be the victim of this barrage – that is, if it’s been repeated to you – that you know who it is.  If you’ve been one of the lucky ones and haven’t had to listen to it yet, then take this as a theoretical lesson.  But I know it has been happening, because I’ve been told about it.  I’ve been told, because I am the subject of this gossip.  Let me be clear:  if I have been the subject, that’s one thing.  But you have been its victims.  You, and your very community…this community.

The other day, someone came to me to complain about it.  This person is a long-time member and has been a key member in ways I’d rather not specify lest I inadvertently give away their identity.  The complaint:  This temple was such a happy place.  But now there are divisions being sown.  Discord.  Because of this, I don’t feel the same about coming here as I used to.

          Gossiping is extremely common.  If we’re honest with ourselves, probably everyone in this room has been guilty of it at one time or another.  Because it is a common failure.  And I think that that’s the key to why, when someone engages in it, we have a hard time confronting them about how we feel about it.  Why this person who has been made unhappy by the results of this recent gossip-mongering, came to me and not the perpetrator.  It makes us feel hypocritical to confront someone about something we ourselves have done.  So we think we’ll let it go in one ear and out the other.  We’ll let it fizzle out and hope it goes away.  But that never happens.  If it isn’t stopped in its tracks, it sows discord and unhappiness.

          So in all reasonability, what is each person’s responsibility when they are burdened by the gossip-monger?  Simple.  It is your responsibly to do anything you can to put a stop to it.  To respond to the person spreading gossip that what they’re doing is wrong and that you will have none of it.  To tell the person that, if they cannot desist from gossip, you’ll have nothing to do to them.  Isolate the gossip monger.  Suggest that, if they feel they have a valid complaint against the subject of their gossip, then there are valid ways of addressing their grievance.  In the open.  In a forum where it can be aired directly, and responded to directly.  But the gossip monger will almost never confront in such a way.  Because the gossip monger knows in their heart of hearts that they are committing a grievous sin.

          So let’s get the gossiping to stop.  Then we won’t feel we have to say Kaddish for wasted time and energy.  To say Kaddish for the community that we once had, but which we see slipping away.  To say Kaddish for the happiness we once felt when we came into this building but can no longer feel.

          Life is finite – that is the sad truth.  For each and every person in this room, their life will ultimately end.  G-d willing, each one of us will have many good years to fill with accomplishment and happiness.  When we’re gone and someone is saying Kaddish for us, may it only evoke fond memories.

          But let’s make sure we don’t have to say Kaddish for the things that need not pass away.  Instead, let’s put a stop to the gossip and make our community what it once was to us, and work to make it even better.

And let’s not put ourselves in the position of feeling that we aught to say Kaddish for wasted time.  Instead, let’s take a deep look inside ourselves in this powerful moment when our day or fasting and introspection is coming to an end.  Let’s ask ourselves to what benefit we wast time in gossip.  In lashon hara, evilspeak.  Instead of feeling regret over the way we’ve wasted time, let’s stop wasting time.  Let’s use our time and energy to accomplish great and positive things together.  And we’ll all benefit.  Even the would-be gossip monger.  Instead of sentencing them to look pathetic, let’s challenge them to be a positive force for good.  Think about it.