Need for Lebensraum? A Drash for Parashat Toldot, 2 November 2013

In  Germany's Pfalzerwald today

The A6 Autobahn crosses a very picturesque part of south-western Germany and north-eastern France.  Starting northeast of Mannheim, it crosses the Rheine River between Mannheim and Worms.  It then climbs into the forests of the Rhineland Pfalz and slices west-south-west across the Palatinate, descending to the French crossing just past Saarbrucken.  Just inside France, it merges with the A4 Autoroute, which in turn carries its traffic towards and into Paris.

For four years, I lived just off the A6, on Ramstein Air Base, just west of the lovely city of Kaiserslautern, affectionately referred to as ‘K-Town.’  It was a busy four years.  By and large we enjoyed living in such a pretty corner of the world.  If we travelled south from the base, crossing over the A-6, we would be in the wonderland of the Pfalzerwald, the Palatinate Forest.  If we drove north, we would be in the agricultural part of the Palatinate, an area of picturesque villages separated by rolling fields.  I’m something of an Urban Cowboy, having grown up in New York and Miami, but I did thoroughly enjoy living in such a rural area for a few years.

The visual pleasures of life in Germany aside, people often ask me how I felt, as a Jew after the Holocaust, living in Germany.  And my answer is that most of the time, I did not dwell on this istory.  I did only at selected moments.  There were basically three sights that would set me off, getting me to thinking about the events of the Nazi Holocaust.  And what were those three sights?

Every time I passed the railroad yards, and saw the round-topped goods wagons, the sight evoked thoughts of the Nazi era.  American boxcars are flat-topped, and before my arrival in Germany I had seen images of those round-topped wagons mostly in conjunction with histories of the Holocaust.

Likewise when passing the railroad yards, whenever I saw the sign Umschlagplatz, that would evoke memories of the Holocaust.  The word umschlagplatz means, simply, loading or embarkation place.  But in every first person account I’ve ever read, of someone deported to the concentration camps, they were always herded by the SS to the local umschlagplatz for loading onto the cattle-wagons that would carry them to Auschwitz or wherever.

Finally, whenever I was driving through the vast, largely empty German countryside I would think of the word lebensraum and that would evoke thoughts and feelings concerning the Nazi era.  Lebensraum means ‘living space,’ but it is a loaded phrase.  Lebensraum was the justification for the annexation of the Czech Sudentenland and other Nazi expansions eastward.  The underlying philosophy was that the Aryan Germans being the ‘master race,’ merited the lands of ‘inferior’ peoples so that the German people could flourish and increase.  This way, they would grasp at their destiny to rule over these ‘inferiors.’  So whenever I drove in the largely-empty countryside north of the A6 and grasped how much room there was for population expansion even 60 years after the end of the war, I would shake my head with disgust.

This week’s Torah portion, Toldot, contains an account of the search by Isaac for lebensraum.  Isaac did not do as the Germans had in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s.  He did not conquer other peoples, and subject or exterminate them, in order to get their land.  But he did move his herds and flocks around in search of land where he could pasture them in peace.

Isaac wandered to Gerar and lived there in peace with the locals for a time until his herds and flocks increased to the point of frightening the natives of the land.  They were content to have him in their midst for a time, until he had grown large and powerful enough to where they feared him.  Abimelech, king of Gerar, asked him to leave in order to keep the peace amongst his people.  Isaac then wandered the region in search of lebensraum.  If Isaac had had only small holdings, he would have found an easier welcome but given the size of his herds and flocks, it took some time and some conflict before he found a place to settle.

The whole episode brings to mind the difficulty that displaced people have faced over history.  Some populations will never accept a presence that they consider ‘alien’ in their midst.  Despite the land’s ability to absorb further inhabitants, and despite the newcomers’ obvious distress, they will never be accepted by the ‘natives.’

And then there are the places where migrants find some degree of acceptance.  This, as long as they are not seen to be a threat to the existing population either because of their sheer numbers or because of some other aspect that causes the natives to fear them.

Of course, I feel some temptation to draw some parallel with the current situation here in Australia.  We have a population of migrants who want to come here – who are coming here by various means and who would come in ever larger numbers givens additional means.  For better or worse, this is considered one of the top domestic issues of the day.  Several of my colleagues in the Progressive Rabbinate have spoken quite forcefully about it.  And they have, without exception, put Australia in the former category.  They tell us that we’re a racist country, that no group of migrants would be accepted in our midst without a struggle.

On the other hand, in conversations with others here, I’ve been told that Australia more properly belongs in the latter category.  That these migrants who are attempting to come here, are not finding open arms because of their sheer numbers.  And because of the sense that, when they do come, they cannot be absorbed.  And that fearing them does not represent a baseless phobia, rather a reasonable concern.  These voices tell me to look at the history of Australia’s acceptance of wave after wave of migrants and refugees from various places, as evidence that the county and her inhabitants fall into the latter category.

And then there are those who ask me to look at the past, at the way migrant groups have been spoken about in the past, as evidence that the reluctance to take in the current crop of migrants is just a continuation of old attitudes towards any migrants.

It’s not my place to tell you which of the two kinds of places Australia is.  But I think it’s important that Australians are able to have an honest conversation about under what circumstances they are willing to take in migrants.  Unfortunately, that honest conversation does not seem to be happening.  Whenever I hear people discussing the issue, either person-to-person or through writing, it seems that there’s a great deal of reluctance, on the part of those who are reluctant to accept the newcomers, to speak openly.  They have been lectured ad infinitum that their ambivalence towards the newcomers reflects a systemic and essential ‘racism’ on the part of the Australian people.  In other words, there’s a form of ‘political correctness’ hampering the conversation.  And that is not a good thing.  Any seemly intractable issue will be and remain intractable if honest conversation is not forthcoming.

Our patriarch Isaac and his household and his holdings had a difficult time finding a place to settle in order to live – and grow – in peace.  In this they were not unique in history.  Throughout history, many peoples have been forced to migrate due to famine or war or persecution.  When they did, their receptions varied.  Some found hermetically-sealed borders, keeping them out at any cost and without any consideration.  Some found reluctant passage through the border but little real acceptance.  Some found acceptance and integration with open arms.  The nature of the reception depended on a complex composite stemming from an array of circumstances and attitudes.

Because of the sense that certain aspects of the debate concerning the current refugee issue are off-limits, it is difficult to come to a societal agreement on what kind of place Australia really is vis-à-vis the acceptance of refugees.  But only in the framework of such an agreement, would it be possible to deal honestly with the current issue.  It is my prayer that Australians will ultimately be able to sort this out, and thus solve this issue.  Shabbat shalom.        

You Are What You Is...Drash for Shabbat Toldot, 1 November 2013

Frank Zappa...no, he wasn't Jewish!

Who was the most significant twentieth century philosopher for you?  Hannah Arendt?  Emil Fackenheim?  Jürgen Habermas?  Abraham Joshua Heschel?  Emmanuel Levinas?  Ayn Rand?  Joseph Solovietchik?  Okay, you’ve probably noticed I offered only Jewish names.  But that’s not to say that Jews had a monopoly for philosophical thought in the twentieth century.  I guess I could just as easily have offered you the likes of Aleksandr Aleksandrov, Dietrich Bonhöffer, Miroslav Dzielski, Edward Said, and Jean-Paul Sartre.

On anybody’s list of the deepest thinkers of the twentieth century, you’re not likely to see Frank Zappa.  But profound and memorable things came from the pen of the prolific songwriter and rock musician, whose working career spanned the decades of the 1960’s, ‘70’s, and ‘80’s.  Some examples follow.

You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline. It helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer.

The United States is a nation of laws: badly written and randomly enforced.
          Communism doesn't work because people like to own stuff.

Art is making something out of nothing and selling it.
          Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe.
          Finally there are the lyrics to his song, You Are What You Is.  It was released on the eponymous album in 1981.  It goes:

Do know what you are? /  You is what you am / A cow don’t make ham / You ain’t what you’re not / So see what you’ve got / You are what you is / And that’s what it is.

The song then devolves into language that, today, would be considered racist.  In the early 1980’s, it was just a bit risqué.  But I’ve already given you enough of the song to make my point.  You are what you is; you ain’t what you’re not.

Sometimes it seems that we spend a good part of our lives trying very hard to be what we’re not.  We rebel endlessly against what we are.  And yet happiness is a product of the opposite mindset.  Acceptance of what we are.  And that we cannot be what we are not.

The things that people pass on to one another through Facebook are often a very telling commentary on society.  This week, there’s a 37-second video making the rounds.  It shows a young woman in a rather suggestive pose.  She’s lying with her pelvis, clad in a bikini bottom, against the floor.  Her arms are planted rigidly on the floor, holding her body trunk upright and partially hiding her bare breasts.  And she’s looking directly at the camera.

The woman is attractive, but in a decidedly ordinary way.  But then, as the 37 seconds of the video elapse, her image is continually ‘Photoshopped’; she is transformed into an image of the perfect dream girl.  Her body is shaped and slimmed and toned.  Her hair is made longer, fuller, wavier and blonder.  Her face is sculpted into the kind of pouty visage that some women work for hours with their makeup to achieve.

The video’s message is that what many consider ‘perfect’ beauty is an illusion.  It is false.  When we look at the images of supermodels and starlets, we are likely looking at Photoshopped images that cannot be duplicated in the flesh.  This is the cause of too much anxiety among young women,  Many of them can’t understand why – and are devastated because – they cannot seem to measure up to this image of perfection no matter what they do.  You are what you is; you ain’t what you’re not.

But it isn’t only women for whom this pitfall is a danger.  Who can forget Michael Jackson?  I remember how, when I was in high school, the Jackson Five, the Rhythm & Blues band consisting of MJ and his four brothers, was popular.  MJ had not even gone through puberty yet; he was a wholesome-looking kid singing in a high range.  With the passage of years, he matured into a handsome teenager.  But as an adult, he went through a further, and rather dismaying transition.  He discovered the plastic surgeon’s knife, and as he submitted to surgery after surgery, he transformed into a person bearing no resemblance to the good-looking kid he had been.  As one pundit declared:  He tried to turn himself from a black man into a white woman.  If so, he turned himself into a freakish imitation of a white woman.  Others, men and women, have similarly disfigured themselves in using plastic surgery to craft themselves into a new person.  You are what you is; you ain’t what you’re not.

But it’s not just in the realm of appearances that we try to be something we’re not.  How many of us try to put ourselves across as something other than what we are.  How many of us try to sound educated, even if we’re not.  Or folksy, even if we’re not.  Or talk endlessly about the symphony and opera while, in our heart of hearts, we want to sing Country?

Yes, you are what you is; you ain’t what you’re not.  Look, I’m not trying to say that we can’t develop new interests.  That we can’t educate ourselves.  That we can’t work hard and succeed and transform ourselves from marginality to notability.  I’m not trying to say that at all.  Self-improvement is itself, for so many people, a key to happiness.  We can, and should, admire people’s drive that makes them succeed in business.  That makes them transcend a so-so high school experience to achieve academic excellence and earn an advanced degree.  If we were all simply prisoners of our original circumstances, if we were unable to reach for greatness, then the world would be a bleak place indeed.  You are what you is; you ain’t what you’re not.  But that’s not to say that we can’t – or shouldn’t – reach for the best of what we are.  That’s the message of the midrash concerning Rabbi Zusya.

Zusya was near the end of his life.  He cried out to God, declaring his regret for not having been a Moses, for not having been an Isaiah.  I’m not disappointed in you for not being Moses or Isaiah, God responded.  I’m disappointed in you for not being Zusya.  In other words, for not being the best Zusya you could have been.

Reach for the best you that you can be.  But don’t waste your life trying to be something that you’re not.  Nobody expects that of you.  Not even God.

We Jews are as susceptible to this urge to be something we’re not, as anybody else.  Maybe even more so.  If so, that’s a sad commentary.  We should be happy in our own skins.  And secure enough to feel free to express the person who is inside us, no matter what the setting.

Jews who have spent significant time in Israel, have told me that Israel was the only place where they were able to feel at home in their own skin.  I don’t want to knock the idea of spending time in Israel.  I, too have felt especially able to express myself freely in Israel.  If you’ve felt that, you would indeed be well-advised to organize your life to spend more time in Israel.  Or even live there permanently.

But if you don’t feel free to be what and who you are in Australia, what does that say about you?  Ideally, we should be so free wherever we are.  To you I’d like to say:  go to Israel!  I’ll see you there eventually.  But in the meantime, ask yourself why you don’t feel free to be yourself here in Australia.  Because that freedom comes from within oneself.  Nobody can take away that freedom.  Yes, there are occasional acts of violence against Jews here.  There was one last week in Bondi.

Eli Behar, 66, one of the victims of the unprovoked attack last Shabbat, spoke with the press this week. “I am not going to take off my kippah," he told the Australian Jewish News on Thursday. “I don't want to go and hide or feel threatened or scared of being Jewish in Sydney.”
          I don’t feel obligated to wear a kippah constantly.  And it doesn’t matter to me whether you do or not.  But the next time you feel angst about being Jewish in Australia, think about what this 66-year-old, apparently Orthodox man decided, and expressed after being attacked by ruffians in the street.  “I am not going to take off my kippah.”  Now there’s a man who feels comfortable in his own skin.

 Wear a kippah or not, based on whether your sense of Jewish authenticity requires it.  But don’t ever let your sense of Jewish authenticity be held hostage to what you think, others think of you.  Or caring about it.  Maybe you would feel most authentic, or most free, living in Israel.  If so, go!  But if, in the pit of your being, you don’t feel you can be yourself here, then moving to Israel will not help you.  If you cannot feel comfortable in your own skin here, you will not find that comfort in Israel either.  You will not find it anyplace.

  You are what you is; you ain’t what you’re not.  Be what you are.  Be the best you that you are, the best you that you can be.  But don’t try to be someone who you’re not.  That is not the key to happiness.  Shabbat shalom.

Drash for Parashat Chayei Sarah, Shabbat Morning.

The Patriarchal Instinct

My father-in-law, of blessed memory, was definitely of what one would call the ‘old school.’  Immigrating from Libya to Israel as a young man, he built for himself and his family a life based on the values that he learned from his parents.  And that were as natural to him as breathing.  And one of foremost of those values was that a family is a patriarchy.  The pater familias was the undisputed head of the household.  Does this mean that, when a man takes a wife, she becomes his property and subservient to him?  Absolutely not.  I can tell you will complete confidence, that my mother-in-law was never subservient to her husband.  Oh, she didn’t disagree and dispute with him as a matter of principle.  But when she disagreed with him, she was not likely to roll over and be a doormat – or anything close!

          But such is not really the case in any culture that is, at least superficially, patriarchal.  Such as our friends, the Greeks.  Who can forget how, in the film My Big, Fat Greek Wedding, Maria reacted to her daughter’s mocking of Gus’ mindset?  The man is the head of the family.  Maria responded:  The man may be the head, but the woman is the neck.  And she can turn the head any way she pleases.

          I can imagine my mother-in-law, when her husband was still alive, holding such a mindset.  Let the fool say anything he wants, then I decide what to do.  She is just that kind of confident and assertive person.  As is her daughter, Clara.  But there were still conventions that supported the sense that the family was a patriarchy.  For example, how the children were named.  The first son was named after the father’s father.  The second son, after the mother’s father.  The first daughter was named after the father’s mother.  The second daughter, after the mother’s mother.  So in Clara’s family, every one of her brothers – and she had five! – had a son named Tsur or some variant.  And a daughter named Mazal or some variant.

          Another element of patriarchy that survives, is the sense that sons who marry, bring their wives into their family.  Meanwhile, daughters who marry, join their husband’s family.  Now sometimes, my father-in-law wanted it both ways!  He wanted his sons and their wives near him, as well as his daughters and their husbands.  But at the end of the day, it was all good-natured.  He never really gave Clara and me a hard time if we weren’t in her parents’ home for holidays.  Although if we were, Vito was a very happy man.  But we definitely were expected for weddings and the like.

          The patriarchal urge, the instinct for a father to gather and keep his sons and their wives in his orbit, is of course not a recent cultural phenomenon.  We see it at work in this morning’s Torah reading.  With our patriarch Abraham who, in his old age, is sending his servant Eliezer to find a wife for his son, Isaac.  Abraham has two big concerns.  First, he does not want his son to marry a Canaanite girl.  He wants for him a marriage with a girl of his own people back in Aram-Naharayim.  And he does not want his son to even consider leaving him and travelling to find a wife, lest he not return.

          Why the fear of losing his son?  Aside from the recent incident where Abraham almost sacrificed Isaac on an altar?

          There seems to be a natural order of things, that a son grows up resenting his father.  At least, until his finds himself and asserts his own dominance over his slice of the world.  I remember as a young man, needing to put some distance between my father and myself in order to create my own family.  And then, once I had created my own family, I was happy to be around my father.  He was no longer a ‘threat’ to me, nor I to him.  But I never felt I had to distance myself, even temporarily, from my mother.  There was no sense of competition between her and me.  But there does seem to be such a natural competition for dominance between fathers and sons.  DH Lawrence, whom I read as a teenager, certainly thought deeply about it.  To him, it was about an essential sexual attraction of sons for their mothers.  I have a feeling that Lawrence’s ideas were more than a bit overblown.  Perhaps he had an attraction for his mother and projected it upon all young men.  But there’s no doubt that fathers and sons compete with one another for the wife-mother’s attentions.

          And of course there’s the idea of the father’s need for his sons’ nearness being rooted in the pastoral economy.  Only with sons, and their sons, within the orbit can he significantly increase his herds and flocks.  But my father-in-law was not a herdsman, or the son of a herdsman.

          So my sense is that this need by the traditional patriarch, to have his sons and their wives and offspring added to the household, represents something far deeper.  Something natural and desirable, not some controlling and manipulating instinct as the non-traditionalist often thinks.  Whether its root was primarily economic, or social, or whatever, or whether Abraham simply feared he had driven a wedge between himself and Isaac through his recent behaviour.  Abraham was concerned that his son not leave his side in search of a wife.

          My own birth family was small and we have not remained overly close over the years.  Surely that reflects, in part the American spirit that makes separation from one’s family by great distances, a ‘normal’ rite of passage.  And of course, my brother and I both chose to make our careers in the military where we were always on the move…from one side of the world to the other.  I wonder how it would be possible, given changed circumstances, to live closer with a large extended family.  Even so, I wonder what my children have missed because of our peripatetic life.  I wonder if it would have been better for them to grow up with constant access to their many aunts, uncles, and cousins.  And if I’m being honest, I have to say…probably so.  My instincts as a modernist make me want to think of ‘tribalism’ as a quaint relic of another time whose demise we should celebrate.  But my heart says that connection to extended family is a desirable condition of life…not just a quaint holdover.  My guess is that just about everyone listening to my words this morning has experienced some degree of dislocation, some degree of separation from extended family.  We can do little to change that.  But we can, and aught to, recognise what we have lost in the lives that we’ve lived.  And thus celebrate the good intentions and desires of Abraham to keep his own tribe intact.  And in celebrating the Torah’s wisdom, pass on this particular bit of wisdom to up-and-coming generations.  Shabbat shalom. 

A Drash for Shabbat Evening, Parashat Chayei Sarah

Rebecca at the Well by Francesco Solimena

Will You Go With This Man?

There is a saying:  A woman needs a man, like a fish needs a bicycle.  It is patently obvious that a fish, which has neither legs nor arms, can get no use whatsoever out of a bicycle.  The meaning of the saying, then, is clear:  a woman has absolutely no need of a man.  The saying is used by feminists around the world to express their absolute independence from men.  And so often, that it just rolls off the tongue naturally.

          A woman needs a man, like a fish needs a bicycle is known and repeated worldwide.  But you may be aware that it was originally coined by an Australian.  Irina Dunn, its author, was born in Shanghai and migrated to Australia with her parents as a small child.  She went on to become a noted political activist, serving briefly in the Australian Senate in the 1980’s.  Since then she has made her mark as a writer of novels and plays.

          A woman needs a man, like a fish needs a bicycle seems to resonate with a large number of women.  But I’m guessing -  I hope! – that they do not think it is literally true.  Except for those whose sexual orientation is other than straight, I think most of us would profoundly disagree with the statement if we really thought about it.  A woman, in fact needs a man…just as a man needs a woman.  Men and women complement one another.  One without the other, except as a temporary condition, seems unnatural.  It is hard to think of a straight woman or a man who is psychologically and otherwise healthy, not desiring to have a partner of the opposite sex.  Unless perhaps, they are ‘recovering’ from a relationship that was abusive.  Or deeply disappointing.

          I get it that women should not feel desperate to hitch their star to that of a man in order to feel ‘complete.’  In fact, I not only get it, but I most heartily endorse that mindset.  After all, I do have a teenage daughter.  I don’t want her to feel so compelled to pair herself up to a man, no matter how good the man seems, before she gets a chance to experience independence and learn to live with herself.  Independence is a necessary intermediate step toward interdependence.  Do you remember my declaring this truism repeatedly during the recent High Holy Days?  I stand by the assertion. 

I don’t want my daughter rushing headlong into a serious relationship until she will have had a chance to experience independence and ‘find herself’ as an individual.  So if a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle is a good tool to keep my daughter and other girls in her position from desperately seeking a serious relationship before they’re ready, or before the ‘right’ man comes along, than I’m all for it.  As long as we understand that there’s no literal truth in it.

          The antithesis to a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle is found in this week’s Torah portion.  In Chayei Sarah, in the 24^th chapter of Genesis, Abraham sends his servant Eliezer to Nahor in Aram-Naharayim to find a wife for Isaac.  Eliezer, wanting to carry out his master’s wishes, imagines what would be a good portent that he has found the ‘right’ girl.  And then, encountering Rebecca at the well, the meeting plays out exactly as he had imagined and he seeks to get the permission of Bethuel, Rebecca’s father.  Bethuel is agreeable, but since it is not the custom to marry off daughters without their consent, he asks his daughter:  Will you go with this man?

          As I said, it is the antithesis to a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.  Will you go with this man summarises every young woman’s challenge.  Every woman must choose the man who will be her companion in life.  Who will be her partner in life’s journey.  Who will father her children and raise them with her.  Every woman, unless her sexual orientation dictates otherwise, has faced or will face this challenge.  Will you go with this man?  In the case of our matriarch Rebecca, she doesn’t even get to meet Isaac first.  It is his father’s servant, acting as agent for the transaction, who has chosen her.  She only knows that her potential husband’s father, Abraham, is a distant cousin of her father who left for parts unknown many years before and has clearly prospered greatly in his new country.  Even so, she is being put on the spot.  Will you go with this man?  Her father asks.  And the Torah records Rebecca’s unhesitating answer:  I will.

          In declaring that this is a challenge facing every straight woman, I don’t mean to exclude young men.  Of course they, too must rise to the challenge of finding the ‘right’ life partner.  But the challenge is not quite the same for a man.  It is not quite as difficult for a man.  He defines himself more by his occupation than by his relationships.  That’s not to say that a man shouldn’t choose his mate carefully and focus more on his most important relationships.  But men, generally are hard-wired differently from women.  A man’s failure in marriage does not carry the same level of devastation as that of a woman.  A woman therefore chooses much more carefully.  These are, of course generalisations and thus are not absolutely true of every man and every woman.  But there is a general truth to them.

          And of course, I mean no slight by my repeated statements that I’m not talking here about those whose orientation is same-sex attraction.  The latter is just beyond the scope my remarks tonight.  Someday, I will feel competent to understand homosexuality, how it makes one different and how it does not.  Until them, I only try to empathise with my homosexual friends…and hope that they will forgive me for my essential ignorance.

We live in a very different world from that of our patriarchs and matriarchs.  Really, we live in a radically different world even from that of our own parents.  And our children live in a world that is in turn radically  different from ours.  Today, there is no assumption that a young girl, in finding a mate, will drop whatever life she will have created and hitch her star to that of her husband’s.  We send our daughters to uni and educate them and hope that they’ll find a fulfilling career.  My daughter wants to be a doctor, and she’s a good enough student that she just might pull it off if all the right doors open for her.  But I still pray for her, that a worthy man will come into her life, and she will fall in love, and the man will ask for her hand.  And she will look into his eyes and ask herself, will I go with this man?  And, if it feels right both rationally and in a deeper sense, she will respond in the affirmative and will set off on a shared life adventure with that man.  And please, God, let him be Jewish…

          I don’t expect my daughter to choose her husband based on the agency of his father’s servant.  But I do hope that she will make her choice based not solely on rational knowledge but also on the spark of spiritual connection.  And it is implied in the text of this week’s Torah portion, that Rebecca is consulting that deepest sense that transcends the rational.  Will you go with this man?  She responds:  I will.  I hope that my daughter will experience that level of certainty, that level of confidence.  And that even so, she’ll get a prenup.  Shabbat shalom!

Drash for Saturday Morning, Parashat Vayeira

The Real Sin of Sodom

Some 13 years ago, Edward Norton directed a cute little movie starring himself as a Catholic Priest, Ben Stiller as a Rabbi, and Jenna Elfman as their mutual friend who becomes each man’s love interest.  The movie was called Keeping the Faith.

          There were messages in the movie to criticise, but overall it was a fun flick with a number of memorable scenes.  In one scene, Stiller’s character was strolling through the congregation giving an interactive sermon on the 19^th chapter of Genesis.

          “What is the Story of Sodom and Gomorrah really about?” Stiller, as Rabbi Jake Schram, asks.  “Steve Posner?”

          “Sexual perversion,” responds a man in the congregation.

          “Steve Posner has been watching a little too much Spice Channel,” Stiller quips.

          I never had a choice called Spice Channel in my cable TV subscription, but I’m guessing Stiller was referring to a channel that plays Adult-Themed movies and other programming.  Nowadays, 13 years after Keeping the Faith, it is difficult to find movies, or Prime Time network TV shows for that matter, that don’t include Adult Themes.  We are assaulted at almost every minute that we’re wired into the world of electronic entertainment, by Adult Themes.  Adult Themes, of course, is a euphemism for sexual content.  There was plenty of that in the movie Keeping the Faith, and there’s more than enough to go around today.  And mind you, this is not a complaint about Adult Themes.  I enjoy a little sexual innuendo as much as the next guy.  But it’s hard to argue against the view that there’s an excessive amount of it out there.  And there’s a very good reason for there being an excessive amount of it out there.  Sex sells.

          Because sex sells, and because the sellers of every sort of product know it, they are willing to sex up any and every product for sale in our world.

          And this is not a complaint about the sellers’ tendency to sex up every product.  My complaint rather, is that we consistently buy sex.  We choose the product that is sexed up, over the one that is not.  So we, as consumers, and we alone are responsible for the over sexing of just about everything in life today.  Don’t blame the sellers for selling us exactly what it is we wish to buy.  Blame us consumers for having our minds on sex all the time, and responding most positively to products which are marketed specifically to appeal for our desire for sexiness in all things.

          So of course the Steve Posners of the world hear the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, and see it as being about sexual perversion.  Specifically, that it’s about homosexuality.  The sense that the Sodom and Gomorrah story is about homosexuality is so complete, that Sodom and Gomorrah are many people’s first thought when presented with an image of a place where homosexual behaviour is conspicuously common.  San Francisco?  Sodom and Gomorrah.  Earthquake in San Francisco?  Fire and brimstone for Sodom and Gomorrah – they had it coming.  New Orleans?  Sodom and Gomorrah.  Hurricane and flooding in New Orleans?  Fire and brimstone for Sodom and Gomorrah – they had it coming.  For those who are focused on homosexuality as a sexual perversion, Sodom and Gomorrah is precisely about homosexuality, God’s punishment for homosexuality, and little or nothing else.

          And of course, if I were to stand here and tell you that Sodom and Gomorrah is not about homosexuality, and that homosexuality is not the sin that merited their destruction, then I would be taking the risk of being accused of being “politically correct.”  Because the story is, at least superficially, about homosexuality.  If not in total, at least in some measure.

          But I am going to take the risk of being considered “PC,” because all who know me and love me, know that I’m not.  So I am going to stand here and tell you that Sodom and Gomorrah is not about homosexuality.

          It’s like in the movie, The Shawshank Redemption.  Remember that one?  A gang in the prison has taken to regularly raping inmate Andy Dufresne, played by Tim Robbins. 

Red, another inmate played by Morgan Freeman, says to Andy:  “Word gets around.  The sisters have taken a liking to you.  Especially Boggs.” 

Andy responds: “I don’t suppose it would help if I told them I’m not homosexual.”

Red tells him:  “Neither are they.  You have to be human first.  They don’t qualify.”

This exchange comes to mind when considering this week’s Torah reading, because it is clear that although the Sodomites do practice a coercive homosexuality, it’s the coercion that is the real sin.  It’s their inhumanity.  It’s their driving away the poor, as opposed to offering them some relief from their poverty.  Their xenophobia, their exploitation of strangers, as opposed to the giving them hospitality.  And since these views were expressed by giants of Jewish scholarship, centuries ago, they cannot be written off to “PC” on the current thinking about homosexuality.

          In Pirkei deRabbi Eliezer, a collection of aggadic midrash that probably originated in the Eighth Century, the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah is clearly pronounced to be an utter contempt for the poor.  The two cities had great wealth, thanks to their location amidst extremely fertile and productive lands.  So the poor of other places were naturally attracted to the cities, thinking they would find a generous handout there.  Instead, the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah outlawed the giving of alms to the poor, under the penalty of death to the one who would show generosity.

So the Sodomites’ and Amorites’ sin was that they perverted the very law that, from the Noahide Code, is intended to make the world a just and fairer place.  It wasn’t so much the preponderance of wicked men in the place.  Rather, it was the co-opting of the very structure that should have been used to ameliorate man’s wickedness, to perpetuate wickedness instead.  This complaint against Sodom and Gomorrah was already pronounced by the Prophet Ezekiel, in chapter 16.

  Ibn Ezra, the great Spanish commentator of the 12^th century, saw the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah as the total rebellion against the rule of God.  In other words, that the culture of the cities was not unlike that of Nazi Germany.  It wasn’t just one particular sin or another.  Rather, that the overall culture and framework of laws was used to bring exploitation and death.  Frankly, when I read the chilling narrative in this week’s reading, I find it easy to see the parallel.  In this chapter we read of how the entire male population of the city came to demand that Lot give his guests to them in order to sexually assault them, and then…who knows?  It’s easy, when reading this, to think of Nazi Germany and the countries that the Nazis occupied, where people of humanity were put to death for hiding, and assisting Jews.

Perhaps a few words about Lot.  The Tradition is not kind to Lot, and perhaps rightfully so.  While it was praiseworthy for him to protect his guests against the mob, did he have to offer them his daughters??!  Even if he thought he knew that the mob would have no interest in raping the two girls, why would he even chance it?  Is it so important to protect strangers that he would sacrifice his own daughters?

If Lot’s morality seems more than a bit twisted, I think that’s because it is.  Perhaps the deepest lesson in this is that a righteous man cannot live in a place of utter wickedness without that wickedness skewing his morality.  The midrash tells us that Lot chose to dwell among the Sodomites, to become a townsman although he was a herdsman by nature, manifesting the absolute hospitality that is the law of the nomad.  If so, then he was in a place where his sense of morality was against that of the entire population.  This speaks volumes about the importance of being in a community which shares our values.  If everybody around us does not, then who supports us in our quest to live morally?  So it is important to seek out others whose values reflect our own.

The sad chapter of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, teaches us volumes about the nature of wickedness.  Homosexuality is, to be sure, a sin in the Torah’s universe.  The 18^th chapter of Leviticus famously proclaims the practice of male homosexuality as a ‘toevah,’ often translated ‘abomination.’  But note that the 14^th chapter of Deuteronomy proclaims the practice of Jews eating forbidden species as ‘toevah.’  Even the most traditionalist Jew, who believes that – imagine! – God doesn’t think we Jews should eat swine, would not imagine that fire and brimstone would befall a city of Jews for insisting on eating pork chops.

So homosexual acts are proscribed by the Torah to be sure.  In the same way that eating pork is.  To think then, that this sexual behaviour was at the root of the wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah, is clearly a mistake.  A mistake that our interpretive tradition pointed out centuries before the current age.

Last night, I spoke about how the act of Abraham in rushing to provide gracious hospitality, serves as a proof of his merit.  In the same way, the failure of the Sodomites to allow Lot to similarly provide hospitality, serves as a proof of their wickedness.  How we as a society greet, and shelter the stranger, or fail to, serves as an important measure of who and what we are.

So let’s get our minds out of the gutter, or out of the Spice Channel, and understand what really caused the downfall of Sodom and Gomorrah.  And then let’s avoid it, and thus not merit such cataclysmic destruction ourselves.  Shabbat shalom.  

Drash for Friday Evening, Parashat Vayeira

Abraham received the angels

 The Importance of Hospitality

I’ll never forget how, many, many years ago when I was a young adult in my twenties, a friend was trying to ‘sell’ me the Christian message.  He had his Bible open to the Gospels – the first four books of the New Testament, which supposedly present the narrative of Jesus and his life and works.

          “For the first 30 years, Jesus’ life was unremarkable,” my friend proclaimed. “Except that he was perfect.”

          My first thought in reaction to the statement was, then the Gospels must have been written by his Jewish mother.  And my second thought, following mere seconds later, was, Yeah, tell me some more, buddy.  I mean, he lost me almost before he had begun.

          Call it my Jewish cynicism or whatever.  When someone is proclaimed to be ‘perfect,’ that makes it clear to this Jew from the start that we’re talking fairy tale territory.  To tell me that someone is perfect, makes it patently false.  That’s not to say that nobody is righteous or meritorious.  Righteousness and merit do not require perfection.  And that’s a good thing, because if it did nobody would have any.  No, nobody has ever been perfect:  not the Dalai Lama, not Gandhi, not Mother Theresa, not Menachem Mendel Schneerson.  Not Jesus of Nazareth.  And no, not even Abraham and Sarah, the Father and Mother of the Jewish people.  Each had their quirks and foibles, their flaws and imperfections.  And yet they all made their own positive impact upon human history.  

As I’ve said before, the patriarchal narratives in Genesis are unique in scripture in that they provide us with keen insights into the human condition.  They seem calculated to teach us everyday morality as the patriarchs and matriarchs struggle with life and relationships and make decisions.  Sometimes these decisions are not the best possible decisions under the circumstances.  When they aren’t, the Torah doesn’t whitewash the actions of these towering figures.  But we clearly see the consequences of their actions.  They are presented to us with all their flaws and imperfections, as examples both positive and negative.  The glimpses into the lives of the patriarchs and other figures of long ago, make the Torah a great and important text for teaching ethics.

In this week’s Torah portion, Vayeira, we see a fairly complete picture of Abraham:  the good, and the bad.  The reading, which opens in the 18^th chapter of Genesis, starts with the good.  Abraham is seen as being hospitable to a fault.  Three travellers show up at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day when he and his household are taking their siesta.  These are not just any travellers; they are angels, messengers of God.  But presumably Abraham does not know this.  Even so, he galvanises himself and his household into action to prepare a feast for the unexpected guests.  He treats them as messengers of God.

We know that, in doing so, Abraham is upholding an ironclad law of the desert.  Desert-dwelling nomads consider it an absolute law to provide hospitality to the traveller.  Many are the accounts of travellers who have received such unstinting hospitality and wrote about the wonder of it.  I have personally been on the receiving end of such hospitality:  not in the Arab world but in Turkey.  Turkey is, after all part of the Middle East and therefore awash in the customs that have come to permeate in differing degrees the different peoples of the region.  When I was in Turkey, I could hardly pay for a meal or a drink.  Somewhat embarrassingly since I was wealthier than most of the Turks I encountered, as a foreigner or ‘guest’ I was not allowed to open my own wallet.

Years after my stint in Turkey, when I was stationed in San Angelo in West Texas, I was in the Base Exchange and accidentally encountered a Turkish man – a young Air Force officer attending an intelligence course for members of allied air forces at my base.  Aha!  I thought.  Here’s my chance to return, at least in some small measure, the hospitality shown me when I was in Turkey.  So I befriended the man, and showered him with meals, drinks and other perks over the next few weeks until he finished his course and returned home.  And that’s when I found out the secret.  The ‘price’ of hospitality is the cost of the catering that you provide, and perhaps the time spent catering to your guests.  But the ‘reward’ is far, far greater.

In the desert, part of the ‘reward’ of hospitality is surely the fact of helping to perpetuate the law of the desert.  If compliance were only spotty – if the customary hospitality were not actually provided in most instances – then the custom would ultimately fade away.  That’s why the idea of hospitality to travellers remains an important value today in many places where the environment is harsh and unforgiving.

In our comfortable and secure existence, we have seen the law of hospitality fade to insignificance.  Of course, we still enjoy hosting the people we know:  our friends and families.  But the idea of seeing a traveller stranded and taking them in, is all but foreign to our sensibilities.

Don’t get me wrong; this is not a criticism.  It’s a dangerous world out there today.  Many who have befriended travellers in need have lived to regret it.  Others did not live, did not survive the experience.  So don’t hear in this message, criticism for not taking a bedraggled traveller into your home or under your wing.  Rather, hear regret that our society has ‘progressed’ to the point where one puts oneself and one’s family at risk for going out of one’s way to provide hospitality.  If you feel a burden for this particular need – or even if you don’t – I recommend you consider making a donation to the Salvation Army or some other organisation that provides such hospitality.  But I do not recommend taking strangers into your home.

Abraham’s providing hospitality to unknown travellers did not carry the same degree of risk.  But it is still to his merit that he did it, especially considering the extent to which he did it.  However, if we really want to count the giving of hospitality as meritorious, we should look at Lot, Abraham’s nephew, also in this week’s Torah reading, in the 19^th chapter of Genesis.  I’ll talk more about it tomorrow morning.  But Lot actually put himself at great risk to give hospitality to two of God’s messengers who went down to Sodom to investigate the degree of wickedness there.  And that doesn’t mean that Lot is squeaky-clean either; in the course of the chapter we are given ample reason to think, Hmmmm.  But again; God takes us and uses us for good, to the extent that we make ourselves available.  In spite of our flaws.  Because as I said a moment ago, if we had to be flawless, there would be nobody doing good.

So let’s not worry if we are worthy enough to do good.  Let’s just do good, whenever and wherever the opportunity presents itself.  Because goodness does not require flawless people.  It only requires people willing to do good.  That is what we can learn from the patriarchal narratives in the Torah.  That is what I think God is specifically trying to teach us through the patriarchal narratives in the Torah.  Let us hear, and let us do.  Shabbat shalom.     

Drash for Saturday Morning, Parashat Lech Lecha

Party to a Covenant

Most of us have, at some point in our lives, negotiated and signed contracts of significant consequence.  It might have been an employment contact, or a contract for a major purchase such as real estate or a large durable good.  Many of us have, in our lifetimes, signed such contracts a number of times.  I certainly have!  When I purchased property.  When I enlisted, and re-enlisted in the US armed forces.  When I took congregational positions, here and elsewhere.

          When we are asked to sign an important contract, we are often filled with dread.  For one thing, we’re often afraid that we won’t understand some major part of the agreement.  After all, such contracts are seldom written in the language of everyday speech.  Even when someone is well-educated and normally uses an extensive vocabulary, the words of contracts are often unfamiliar and engender some level of discomfort.  We refer to the language of contracts as ‘legalese,’ a term which is usually taken as a pejorative.  The point is that it is language likely to trip us up for lack of, or incorrect understanding.  But of course, the use of ‘legalese’ in a contract is usually only for the purpose of precision – to convey the terms of the contract as precisely as possible so that there would be no chance in the future of misconstruing the intent of the parties when the contract was executed.  Nevertheless, it is language we don’t normally use otherwise.  And therefore, some of us have a tendency to read contracts with a mindset that the other party is trying to somehow trip us up and get us to agree to something we did not intend.

          There are other fears when signing an important contract.  Even if we are satisfied that the intent of the other party is entirely honourable and without any intend to mislead.  We may fear the large amount of responsibility, to which we’re agreeing.  And we wonder if the gain we will experience through the transaction is commensurate with what we’re being asked to commit to.

          Surely, everybody hearing my words this morning can relate.  Even if you can read ‘legalese,’ the language of a contract, with reasonable fluency.  Even if you have no notion that the contract is intended in any way to ‘trip you up,’ to get you to agree to something that is not in your best interest.  I can tell you that, because I prize clarity, I go through every important contract line-by-line and consult others on what specific items in the contract means.  And if I’m dissatisfied with anything stated in the contract, I ask for it to be changed before I’ll agree to it.  And I presume that the other party, even if they are the party presenting the contract, has gone over it with the same level of care.  And then, despite the best efforts of both parties to produce a contract that is entirely satisfactory to both parties, it is possible to miss something.  To not see clearly the consequences that would follow from some part of the agreement.  When that happens, you uphold the contract as a matter of integrity.  And look to the next contract to negotiate better.  There’s absolutely nothing unreasonable in any of this.

          Viewed through this prism, and understanding the history of Near Eastern contracts and legal documents, the procedure described in the narrative of today’s Torah reading becomes less mystifying than it might otherwise be.

          Abram has already taken extraordinary steps to do as God wished.  He separated himself from his home and his land to sojourn to a place which he did not know from the start.  After all, God didn’t say in advance exactly where he was going.  He only said “Go to a land that I will show you.”  I think we can all relate to the risk that Abram was taking in going forth. 

What if I told you the following:  Get on a plane to San Francisco, and when you get there I’ll do x or y for you.  You would be able to make a rational decision based on how much you liked the idea of going to San Francisco.  But what if I said the following:  Get on a plane to a destination that you will not know until you’ve arrived?  You’d understandably be less inclined to agree.  Okay, I’m only Don Levy, not God…but even so!  You would be entirely reasonable in demanding to know the actual destination.

          Now, time has passed since Abram did in fact do as God bade him.  He has made the trek to Canaan.  He has seen the land that God promised.  But he has also grown old and has not had a child by Sarai.  This seems not in keeping with what God promised Abram in the first place:  Go forth…and I will make of you a great nation.  Abram has thus far kept his end of the ‘deal,’ but he doesn’t see where God has done likewise.

          So now God is spelling out the terms of the Covenant, or contract, explicitly.  He reassures Abram that he will, indeed have offspring of his own and that they will be as numerous as the stars.  He spells out specifically the limits of the land which Abram will possess.  He names the current occupants of the land, who shall be dispossessed of the land in order for Abram and his progeny to possess it.  He even foretells the exile from the land that Abram’s offspring will experience when they sojourn in Egypt.

The fact that Abram is closely questioning God’s intent and the specifics of the Covenant is clearly not cause for any hard feelings on the part of the Deity.  God is entirely happy to be questioned in this way.  He responds with patience.  Abram’s questioning of God’s intent only indicates that Abram wants clarity.  God is happy to provide it.

And then God performs a ritual that, to our sensibilities, has got to seem very strange:  He instructs Abram to bring a number of animals and cut them in two.  And then, after dark had set in, a flaming torch passes between the pieces of the animals.

Strange as this ritual seems to us, scholars know that it is modelled after the testaments to contracts among the nations of the ancient Near East.  In other words, instead of using language or symbols that could be construed as ‘legalese,’ God is using that which Abram will understand unambiguously given his prior life experience.

How should we take this exchange as a whole?  I believe that we should take it as a model.  It shows how two parties with respect and regard for one another, can conduct negotiations leading to execution of a Covenant, or contract.  Even when one party is God Himself, he clearly is not of a mind to ‘pull rank’ and belittle Abram for his legitimate concerns.  I’m sure that the Sovereign of the World has other issues drawing His attention than the concerns of one man, no matter how important.  But God treats Abram with respect and deference.  This Covenant is clearly of great importance to God.  He therefore responds to Abram’s concerns seriously.

When we negotiate contracts with one another, it is perhaps natural to approach the process with a bit of impatience at times.  After all, we make a great emotional investment in our positions.  And in the contractual language that we’ve composed to ensure the integrity of our positions.  But if we take the negotiation presented in the 15^th chapter of Genesis as a model in the way I have proposed, then we should be ready to stand back and negotiate with a degree of dispassion.  Many of you, who are in business, negotiate important contracts far more often than I do.  You know what I’m talking about.  It’s something to think about.  Shabbat shalom.