We have met the Enemy…and He is Us! A Drash for Shabbat Chanukah, 19 December 2014

Chanukah is, arguably, the most beloved of all Jewish festivals.  Periodic surveys of the Jewish community in the United States show, time after time, that lighting Chanukah candles is the one Jewish ritual that ‘marginal’ Jews are most likely to do.  In other words, if a Jew does only one overtly Jewish thing all year, it’s probably going to be celebrating Chanukah.  There’s no reason to suspect it is any different here in Australia.

          Given this, one would think that we’d have a good handle on the lessons that Chanukah comes to teach us.  Sadly, that is not the case for most Jews.

          We focus on the external enemy.  On the malefactor from without who seeks to harm us – who seeks to destroy us.  Most Jews, in retelling the Chanukah story to celebrate the festival, focus on the sins of the ‘evil’ Assyrians under their despotic king, Antiochus Epiphanes.  They tried to wipe out all vestiges of Jewish practice.  They took extreme measures to get the Jews to turn away from their religious practices and adopt the pagan cult of their conquerors.  As a result, the Jews rebelled and mounted a guerilla war against the Assyrian occupation.  The Jews succeeded in expelling the enemy.  Then they rededicated their Temple to the worship of G-d.

          The story, presented thusly, sounds compelling.  Presented thusly, it is a source of pride for Jews.  And we need a source of pride!  Our history since then has left enough of a pride deficit that, once a year in December, the injection of pride ‘serum’ is needed and welcome.  Just when our neighbours are preparing to celebrate their own major festival of Christmas which by definition excludes us, we need to feel some measure of pride at being Jewish.  The Chanukah story as presented, succeds in providing that measure.

          The only problem is that the story, as presented, is a lie.  Or at the very least, it is grossly incomplete.  And in its incompleteness, it misses the important lesson it could teach us.  That important lesson is the danger of assimilation.  That is, of trying too hard to accommodate our Jewish-ness to the circumstances – and to the attractions – of the world around us.

          There are those Jews who take incredible measures to separate themselves from their surrounding world.  They dress and present themselves in ways that ensure they cannot be identified as anything other than Jews.  They congregate with other Jews to the point that they hardly have contact with the greater world.  They affect lifestyles, and even mannerisms, that clearly allude to Jewish-ness.  They relish the degree, to which they insulate themselves from the world around them.

          But most Jews are not hyper-insular.  Most Jews reading this, unless I miss my guess completely, are the type of Jew who mixes freely in the non-Jewish world around them.  They struggle, not to find ways to express themselves in the wider world, but to find ways to express themselves as Jews.  This, without reducing their opportunities to mix in the wider world.  It is for these Jews that the lesson of the Chanukah story is most potentially beneficial.

          The Assyrian king did not concoct the notion that depriving the Jews of their religion would make them loyal subjects of his empire.  He got the notion by observing the many Jews who were happy to cast off their religion in order to embrace Hellenism.  When Hellenism came calling, many Jews were enamoured of the new culture.  They sought to integrate fully with the society of their conquerors no matter what the ‘cost’ in terms of distancing themselves from Judaism.  It was the loyalty and ‘usefulness’ of these Jews to the Assyrian empire, that informed Antiochus of the wisdom of wiping out Jewish practice.

          We need not look all the way to events of 2,200 years ago to learn this lesson.  Many have been the periods when similar desire by many Jews to adopt to the dominant culture, have resulted in disaster for the Jewish people.  But because the Chanukah story is one that resonates so strongly with Jews today, it is certainly one that we should not sanitise to the point of removing its message.

          We do not live in a Jewish society that has been conquered by outside forces.  We live in a multicultural, liberal, society which is – at least superficially – not hostile at all to the religious practices that cause Jews and other distinctive groups to appear, and act, different.  But you and I know that it is often challenging to be true to our religion whilst also participating fully in society.  So if we’re going to be true to any degree to our religious imperative, then that counsels an acceptance that our Jewish-ness by its very nature – and the nature of society – lessens our ability to participate in the latter.

          How might this lessening of our ability ro participate, manifest itself?  In varying ways.  Because I have come to a point where I put a fence around Shabbat, I must turn down many opportunities to mix socially and in other ways with my gentile friends.  I must forego many cultural opportunities.  There are all sorts of things that happen on Friday nights and Saturdays that I might enjoy, that I don’t even consider.  This could be termed a loss.  But it doesn’t feel like a loss because I acknowledge the profound satisfaction I derive from Shabbat.  Everything else about Jewish life, where it puts me in a position of sacrificing the ‘freedom’ to do one thing for the meaning that Judaism adds to my life, is similar.  We all know this.  And yet we sometimes make choices that indicate we’ve assigned little value to the meaning that Judaism adds to our lives.

          So celebrate Chanukah.  But when we tell its story, let’s not santise it to where it loses its meaning.  The lesson of Chanukah is the danger of assimilation.  Assimilation to where we’re willing to choose the ways of the many over our ways.  Assimilation to where it becomes easy to subsume our very identity as Jews, in favour of our identity as citizens of the land.  Our present circumstances do not require this.  And yet, so many Jews today, in Australia and other free societies, choose that very course.  That’s unfortunate.  Especially when we consider how many times in our history when the tendency of Jews to choose that very course, has brought on disaster and suffering to Jews.  Something to think about.  Shabbat Shalom, and a Joyous Chanukah! 

The Imperative not to Shame: A Drash for Parashat Vayeishev, Friday 12 December 2014

Tamar, from www.womeninthebible.net

When I was a military chaplain, I used to spend a considerable number of hours every month in marriage counselling.  I very seldom do any such counselling now.  Why not?  Because all those who came for marriage counselling were gentiles.  Gentiles, especially Christians, often seek out clergy first when looking for someone to help them sort out life’s issues.  Jews almost never turn their rabbis for that kind of help.  At the heart of it is that they don’t see a rabbi as being uniquely qualified to sort out relationship problems.  Since today I’m ministering primarily to Jews, I seldom do counselling, except to advise on specifically religious issues.

          Just so I’m clear, I’m not whinging about being under-employed in my role as counsellor!  Just stating the facts.  In truth, sometimes I regret that all that experience is being wasted.  Because marriage counselling is based on very simple principles.  And those principles apply not only to marriage, but really any kind of human relationship.

          Many young married people feel that marriage is supposed to be conflict free.  I’m not really sure why this is so, since surely almost none of them have seen conflict free marriages modelled.  Unless there’s a submission of one person’s will – either as a voluntary act or as a result of some kind of abuse – it is inevitable that there will be conflict.  So the existence of conflict does not call a marriage into question.  Or a friendship.  Or any other sort of relationship.  But it does point to the need for each one of us, unless we’ve determined to live out our lives as a hermit or an abuser, to learn the rules of conflict.

          Most interpersonal conflict is over issues that are not intractable.  But we approach conflict in ways guaranteed to build deep divisions, unlikely to heal except over long periods of time.  So conflict over relatively trivial matters can tear relationships apart irreparably.  And more than that.  The irreparable conflicts eat at our souls and wound us to the point where we have trouble having positive relationships with anybody.

            One of the most important ‘rules’ of conflict – so I’ve learnt over time – is that one must be careful not to publicly shame the other party to the conflict.  Then a simple disagreement becomes a wider war where bystanders feel forced to ‘take sides.’  And that is often the step that makes the conflict intractable.

          In this week’s Torah portion, we see a conflict between Judah and his daughter-in-law Tamar.  It is not a trivial conflict.  Tamar was married to Judah’s eldest son Er, who died without making an offspring.  According to existing social custom, Judah sent his second son Onan to her to make a child in his dead brother’s name.  But Onan avoided fulfilling this duty; as a result he too died.  Two of Judah’s sons died, but neither death was due to Tamar’s culpability.  But Judah is now spooked; he is reluctant to give Tamar his third and final son to make a child, lest he suffer a similar fate.

          Tamar is, therefore stuck in the role of childless widow; again according to custom she cannot marry again until she produces a child to carry on her dead husband’s name.  Until Judah sends Shelah to her for this purpose, she is stuck in limbo.  Tamar understands the injustice she is being forced to bear.

           Out of desperation she disguises herself as a prostitute and gets Judah to sleep with her; he doesn’t have what to pay her fee, so she retains his seal, his cord, and his staff until such time as he will send her the negotiated price.  Then she discards her disguise and Judah is unable to pay her and retrieve his things.

          Tamar gets pregnant by her father-in-law.  Being pregnant whilst not being free to marry is an offence punishable by death, and Judah as her father-in-law is the one to whom the trial and sentence falls.  He asks Tamar who got her pregnant.  She replies by showing him his own articles and responding “The one who owns this seal, cord, and staff.”  And of course, Judah knows immediately that it was himself.  And he immediately admits that Tamar’s offence was in fact been his own fault – and no punishment is called for.

          The Sages want us to know that the conflict solved itself because Tamar did not publicly shame her father-in-law, even though she was facing a death sentence and therefore might have been expected to lash out publicly.  Instead, she responded to him in a way that enabled him to see his own offence without losing face.  And seeing it, he relented and spared her.

          But it goes much deeper than that.  In the previous chapter, where the brothers sell Joseph to the Ishmaelite traders, it was Judah himself who counselled selling their brother.  So Judah is a major actor in an incredible injustice.  It’s clear that Judah’s character is already flawed.  But Tamar’s respectful approach enables him to make a decision leading to a good result.

          But there’s even more.  Fast forward to the reunion that will take place between Joseph and his brothers.  Joseph plays with his brothers, letting them think that he’s going to keep the youngest brother, Benjamin as a slave for a trumped up charge of thievery.  Knowing that would break their father’s heart, Judah offers himself in place of Benjamin.  In doing so, he breaks Joseph’s anger and this leads to another good result – a very good result – for the family.  The Sages see Tamar’s way of gently confronting Judah without publicly shaming him, as ultimately leading to Judah’s humility before Joseph years later.  And that act of humility saves the entire family…the entire people Israel.

          The lesson is clear.  When we have conflicts and disagreements, we must carry on these disputes with restraint.  It is only when we do practice restraint that we will pave the way to an ultimate rapprochement with the other disputant.  And peace on a wider scale, to the benefit of many.  But even more than that.  When we practice restraint and humility in conflict, it offers a proven means to heal our very souls.  Because we all need healing of the soul.  But especially when our souls are wounded by conflict, they need healing.  From individual healing, comes healing on a larger scale.  Shabbat swhalom.

It’s been a Long, Long Time: A Tribute for Pearl Harbor Day

The USS Arizona sinks during the Japanese attack
 on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, a coffin
for 1177 sailors and officers.

Each generation must face its unique challenges.  And for the generation that came of age in the 1930’s and 1940’s, that challenge was the conflict known as the Second World War.  When we Jews think of this era, we usually think of the Nazi Holocaust, a chain of events contemporaneous to the war.  This is certainly a reasonable association since a third of World Jewry perished in the Nazis’ drive for a Final Solution to the ‘problem’ of the Jews.  But for the young Jews of the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, going off to fight a war on distant shores – or perhaps not-so-distant – was their experience.  Or perhaps, waiting patiently for the return of loved ones who were out fighting.

          This Sunday we mark the 63^rd anniversary of the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor which brought the USA into the war.  For Australia, the war began much earlier.  But the entry of the United States, with its vast industrial base and huge pool of manpower, marked the turning of the tide:  both in Europe and in the Pacific.

          We Jews recount that, in every generation, a tyrant has arisen to torment and persecute us.  But in every generation, there are also the brave ones who answer the call to face down the tyrant.  Many say that Australia became a nation on the beaches of Gallipoli, in 1915.  If so, it can be said that she came of age in the Jungles of New Guinea and Burma, and also on the beaches of Anzio and Normandy and in the forest of the Ardennes.

          Tonight we salute the veterans of the Second World War who answered the call and faced down the tyrants of the 1930’s and 1940’s.  We remember the war dead, and we honour those who served on all fronts and survive yet today.

Okay, Let’s Cut Jacob Some Slack: A Drash for Parashat Vayishlach, Friday 5 December 2014

Jacob Meets Esau by Francesco Hayez

This week’s Torah reading is the third weekly reading in what might be called, ‘The Jacob Sequence.’  Once we get into the patriarchal narratives in Genesis, there are several readings where each patriarch, in turn, is the protagonist.  Now we’re in the series dominated by the third patriarch, Jacob.  I looked back at the assessments I gave you of Jacob’s character the last two weeks, and I realised I have not been especially complimentary.

            As I’ve said before, all the patriarchs were flawed.  That’s, in a sense a part of the beauty and truth of Torah.  It doesn’t whitewash the characters who are supposed to be seen as the ‘heroes’ of the story.  They weren’t perfect.  But each was, in turn, the ‘Man of the Hour.’  Hashem takes such as are available, and inspires them to greatness.  Being perfect is not a prerequisite for being a servant of G-d.  And Jacob was no exception.

            But if you read my blog, then you saw my post from earlier this week where I wondered if I could be given just a little slack.  In the same spirit, I’m ready to cut Jacob a little slack tonight.

            Last week’s reading began with Jacob having a dream, the so-called ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ dream.  Troubled by his travails, he dreamt that everything would turn out alright.  It gave him the courage to go on, the courage to do great things in Haran.

            This week’s reading begins with a nocturnal event, but it is not represented as a dream.  Jacob spends the night wrestling with an angel.  Some of the Sages suggest that Jacob is actually wrestling with his own nature.  At the end of this encounter, he is given a new name, Israel.  This name can have a number of different meanings.  But the most verbatim is ‘He will strive with G-d.’  Our tradition reads this as a reflection that the people Israel, taking its name from this patriarch, will make a calling of serving G-d but never in a spirit of blind submission.  Rather, the people who ultimately came to be called ‘the Jews’ have made an eternal calling of struggling to understand and agree with the Mind of G-d.

            But the Rabbis don’t think that Jacob had to struggle with his priorities.  They look at him through a critical lens, and they see him as being the worthier successor of his father’s legacy.  Worthier than his older twin, Esau.

            For example, look at the encounter between the two brothers in this portion.  Immediately after the night wrestling, Israel has to survive an encounter with his twin whom he hasn’t seen in years.  Esau is coming out to meet him in what is clearly a military formation.  Israel cannot overpower his brother; he must somehow manage the encounter so that he will survive and live to coexist with Esau in the land.

            In that encounter, Jacob sends forth a very generous tribute – a gift or a bribe – to his brother.  Esau does not want to accept it.  He says “Yesh li rav,” meaning I have plenty.  Israel counters by begging his brother to accept his tribute, telling him “Yesh li kol,” meaning I have everything.

            On the surface, it might not look as if there’s much difference between I have plenty and I have everything.  But to Rashi, there’s a big difference.  He sees Esau’s declaration as a boast, whilst Israel’s is a statement of contentment.  Esau’s I have plenty means: “Who needs your crummy gift??!”  Israel’s response I have everything means:  “I am satisfied with my lot.”

            Our tradition has never been one of asceticism.  With few exceptions, Jewish history has not known sects that eschew material pleasures.  Our priests – and this may come as a surprise to you – did not take vows of poverty as some, and only some, Catholic priests do.  And rabbis, the closest contemporary parallel to the ancient priests, also do not.  That said, I recommend that any young Jew looking for a well-paying career look anywhere but the rabbinate…

            On the other hand, our tradition has always recognised that the road to happiness is paved, in part- with contentment with one’s lot.  Mishnah Avot asks:  Mi ashir?  Who is rich?  It provides the answer, and it isn’t The one with the yacht, the showy decorator home, the Jaguar automobile and the seven-figure bank account.  Rather, the answer is:  Mi shesame’ach bechelko.  The one who is happy with his lot.  To be rich – in the only way that matters – involves contentment with what one has achieved.  Those who drip with expensive toys, are often miserable in their lot.  Perhaps it could be said, usually.  That’s not to say that the wealthy have a monopoly on misery.  Plenty of poorer folk are also miserable.  I suppose it can be said that it’s better to be rich and miserable than poor and miserable.  But that distracts us from the whole point that we have an obligation to be happy.

            Israel was happy.  Despite his travails – some of which being of his own making – the sages saw him as being happy, as being contented.  He was materially successful.   But that was not what he saw as bringing him his happiness.  According to Tanna devei Eliyahu, a midrashic text, Israel’s contentment was from his children.  In his encounter with Esau, the older brother looks at Israel’s children and asks:  Who are these?  And Israel replies:  The children, whom G-d has graciously given to your servant.  Our midrash posits that it was from these children that Israel drew his contentment, not from his material wealth.  In this, Israel had his priorities in order.

            Jacob.  He was flawed, like all of us.  But he was great enough to become Israel.  And he was imbued with so many positive traits in the end, that he becomes the worthy successor of Abraham and Isaac.  Shabbat Shalom.

Americans and Aussies: Two Different Species? A Humorous yet Serious Comparison…and a Sincere Apology

When I first moved to Australia, I wrote occasional pieces about the differences between the USA and Australia.  You can find them by checking the archives of this blog.  You’ll see that I definitely did not write them in a spirit of complaining about my new home.  Rather, I thought then – as I still think today – that the differences between countries, especially countries that are superficially very similar, make for a fascinating study of the results of geography, history and culture.

Sometime in my first year here, several Australian friends sent me an e-mail that offered a favourable comparison of Australia against America.  It was written by an American, a professor who had spent some time here.  Everybody wanted to know what I thought of it.  My response was that, whilst the author clearly had his rose-coloured glasses firmly in place, living in Australia is in many ways a very positive experience for this American.

A few years back, from 1999 to 2001, Clara and I lived in the UK.  A familiar trope there is:  Americans and British – Two People Divided by a Common Language.  The point of it is that, whilst the two peoples speak the same tongue, they attach different meanings to words.  This, not to mention the different cultural contexts.  So this ‘division’ is complex and can easily trip one up.  But the truth is that it seldom does trip up Americans and Britons, because most are aware of the pitfall and are watching out for it.

          Having now lived longer in Australia than I did in the UK, I can say that the relationship of Americans and Aussies is far more complex.  The reason for this is that the two countries seem far closer than America and Britain culturally, but that closeness often does not go beyond the superficial.  Although there definitely is a unique Aussie dialect called ‘Strine,’ most Aussies I’ve met speak something close to what I’d call ‘American’ English.  For example:  our British cousins say garage but Americans and Aussies say garage.  Here, a truck is not a lorry.  It is proper here to write ‘labour,’ But the Australian political party with that word in its name, spells it ‘labor’ as we do in America. 

In other areas as well, it is easy to get tricked into thinking that, in contrast to Americans and Britons who differ so much, Americans and Aussies share many cultural cues.  There’s a spirit afoot in this land, an individualism and self-reliance that Aussies celebrate and believe guides their lives.  Just like in America.  And the truth is that it’s largely a national myth, not really operative in most people’s lives.  Just like in America.  I could go on and on, but I think you get my point.

But there’s a point on which Australians are far closer to our British cousins, than their American friends.  Lord Jonathan Sacks, retired Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, now lives and teaches in the USA.  He observed a very important difference between the two peoples.  Americans, he says, are imbued with a sense of openness and possibility.  British, in contrast are imbued with a sense of tradition and place.  They’re two very different mindsets, making the cousins across the Atlantic very different from one another.

In Australia there’s a very strong egalitarian rejection of social class.  Very much like in America.  So it is easy to be deluded into thinking the two peoples of similar mindsets.  But the truth is that the Aussie mindset is really closer in this regard to the British than the American.

And that’s a trap where it is easy for an American to trip up with Australians.  Americans generally love their land, but love to hate its institutions.  To criticize anything American, to compare it unfavourably with the same thing in the UK, Europe, or just about any other place in the world, is paradoxically considered almost patriotic.  You can’t make something better if you can’t criticize it, right?  We even expect immigrants, to a point, to compare America unfavourably with aspects of the land they left.  After all, we tend to cherish immigrants – as long as they’ve arrived legally! – and celebrate that they bring the best of their former homes with them when they come to America.  And this, in turn, makes America better and stronger.  President Obama recently made that point in a speech.  And the late President Ronald Reagan made the same point in what many consider to be a very similar speech, years ago.

And visitors?  Bring on the criticism!  Even if we don’t agree with it, we’ll make great sport of arguing it out with you.  And then we’ll have a beer together!  (We’ll probably buy.)

And that’s where an American can inadvertently cross the line with Aussies.  Australians, for all their apparent irreverence and egalitarianism, are much more conscious of tradition and place than Americans.  Even when they express criticism of their own country, and admiration for other countries, they seem to have a much stronger sense of belonging than Americans.  And they don’t like to hear visitors criticise their country.  I don’t think they’re secure enough in their Australian-ness to take that.  They prefer to hear that their land is a utopia, The Lucky Country, even though when Donald Horne coined the phrase in his seminal 1964 book he didn’t really mean it to be complimentary.

The other day, in a fit of frustration at a meeting, I blurted out that this was ‘a miserable country.”  Wow!  Did I ruffle some feathers!  And had it been a remark made rationally, I’m sure I would have realised it would be taken as a hurtful utterance, and avoided saying it.  But it was at an emotional moment.  At least one Australian friend – and at least one Aussie who is definitely not a friend – understandably took offence.  I wish I could turn back the clock so I hadn’t said it.  But obviously I cannot.  An American would probably have agreed with me had I said that America was a miserable country, or at worst would have waved off the comment and entered into a conversation about why it isn’t that miserable.

So…I’m asking my Australian friends – and non-friends – to look back at the many positive things I’ve said in defence of their country over the years, and find it in their hearts to forgive me.  And cut me a little slack. 

If you will, I’ll promise to remember never to declare that they drive on the wrong side of the road here.  And I’ll promise not to talk about how I miss my guns and my concealed-carry permit.  And I’ll promise to remember to say weekend instead of weekend.  These are all very important.  Most of all, I’ll promise not to whinge (there’s an Australian word, eh!) about Chanukah occurring in the Summer, for cryin’ out loud!  Nu, a great Aussie day and good on ya, Mate!

Love and Justice: A Drash for Parashat Veyetze, Friday 28 November 2014

Love.  It makes the world go around.  It makes the pain of life worthwhile.  It is so sublimely important, that it inspires much of the world’s art, literature, and music.  And religion.  Remember the movement, G-d is Love?  Remember love-ins in the park, where clergy would flit around, telling revelers, G-d loves you?

          We Jews never got caught up in that.  Or perhaps I should say, our religion never got caught up in that.  Chances are, there were plenty of Jews at those love-ins.  But chances are, you never saw rabbis at one.

          And we’ve paid a price for that!  Because official Judaism never joined the G-d is Love movement, we’ve been accused of seeing G-d only in terms of stern Judgment.  Vengeance.  The G-d of war.  The G-d of punishment.  All this, in contrast to the G-d of Love.  Imagine if we could have recruited a corps of rabbis who would have flitted around the park on Sundays, blowing bubbles, strumming ukuleles, handing out flowers, telling people that G-d loves them.  Perhaps there would be 200,000 Jews in Australia today instead of 100,000?

          But G-d is a G-d of love even in Jewish thought.  Ever heard of the Torah?  You know, that funny book we read now-and-then when we simply can’t avoid it?  Well, that book describes a G-d for whom love is supremely important.  Let’s look at some examples.

          G-d wants us to love Him.  In Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5, we’re told that, if we love G-d, then G-d will love 1,000 generations of our offspring.

          In Leviticus 19, we’re told to love our fellow Jew as ourselves.  A little later in the chapter, and in Deuteronomy 10, we’re told to love the non-Jew.

          In Deuteronomy 6, we’re told to love the Lord our G-d with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our being.

          In Deuteronomy 7, we’re told that G-d particularly loves the people Israel.  And it’s not because they are the most numerous or powerful nation on the earth.  And since G-d loves the people Israel so much, Israel is obligated to love G-d.  And we’re promised that, because G-d loves us, He will particularly bless us in a number of substantial ways.

          In Deuteronomy 10, we’re told again to love G-d.  And we’re told that, when we love G-d, He takes delight in that.

          In Deuteronomy 11, we’re told repeatedly to love G-d.  And we’re told explicitly that, out of our love for G-d, we must keep His commandments.

          In Deuteronomy 13, we’re told to love G-d and out of that love, we’re to resist the efforts of false prophets to get us to love other gods.

          In Deuteronomy 19, we’re promised that, if we love G-d, we will see more cities of refuge established to us.

          In Deuteronomy 30 we’re promised that, if we love G-d, He will let us live and will curse our enemies.  If out of love for G-d we obey His laws and commandments, He will bring all sorts of success to the works of our hands.

          All this is just in the Five Books of Moses.  The other books of the Tanach abound in references to the importance that G-d attaches to love.  The G-d of Israel, the G-d of the Torah, is most definitely a G-d of love.

          Ah, but not a G-d of unconditional love!  In most of the citations above, we’re told that G-d loves us because of this or that.  Or that we should love G-d because of this or that.  Or that we should love one another, or the non-Jew because of this or that.  The Torah’s message is not a G-d who practices, or who demands, unconditional love.

          So the Torah’s message is that love is supremely important.  But not unconditional love.  Or, as Rabbi Sacks put it this week, Love is not enough.  Love must evoke a response of justice, fairness and concern.  Proclamations of love not accompanied by actions confirming it, are empty words.  Feelings of love that are not accompanied by acts of devotion, are just feelings.  Those feelings – the emotions connected with love – are important.  But if they do not inspire us to acts of kindness, justice, and of willing sacrifice, then who cares?

          The protagonist of this week’s Torah portion, Jacob, has a love problem.  Oh, it’s not that he doesn’t love; he loves in a big way!  He loves Rachel and works seven years for his father-in-law for her hand.  When he tricks him into marrying Leah instead, Jacob works another seven years for the bride whom he thought he’d already earned.  Laban tricks him, just like Jacob tricks his brother Esau, and his father Isaac.  Later on, we’ll see how Jacob loves his sons, but loves one son more than the others, and that causes strife in the family.

          Jacob is a man of love, but he is not always a man of justice.  He does love Leah, the wife he didn’t choose.  But because he loves her less than he loves Rachel, Leah doesn’t feel loved.  She feels hated.  Perhaps she deserves it to some degree.  Maybe she should not have allowed her father to put her in Jacob’s bed in place of her younger sister.  The Torah omits these lacunae.  But it does not omit that G-d loves Leah, and sees her suffering.  As a way of trying to alleviate that suffering, G-d opens her womb and gives her numerous sons to present to Jacob, in hopes that Jacob would love her more.

          Jacob is a man of love, but he is a man sometimes challenged to act ethically.  And that sometimes makes his love almost meaningless.  Because, if love is not accompanied by ethics, then love is empty.  Love the emotion, without love the devotion, does not impress us.  We should therefore focus less on the emotion, and more on the devotion.  We should outgrow the childish notion that love should be unconditional.  We should love one another, and out of that love, we should strive to act toward one another in a supremely rational, predictable, ethical way.  So why don’t we?

          Because it’s hard work!  Love the emotion is giddy, and exciting, and fun.  Love the devotion is hard work.  Drudgery.  Sacrifice.  Boring.  Everything that’s calculated to take our inner child, our ADHD,  and frustrate it.

          Jacob never quite outgrows the child-like quality of his love.  He never quite manages to always accompany his love with devotion, fairness, and justice.  He does get better over time.  But he never quite gets there, to the goal.  In that way, Jacob is exactly like you and me.

          We’ll never perfect this stuff.  But we must nevertheless keep working at it.  As individuals.  As families.  As a community.  Because even love accompanied by an imperfect devotion is better than love that ignores that dimension entirely.  We can’t be perfect.  But that does not free us from working.  And working.  And working.  And working some more.

          There’s something to be said for carrying child-like qualities into adulthood.  But when an adult acts only like a child, we don’t find that endearing at all.  For example, when an adult acts explosive repeatedly and doesn’t learn from the experience.  We reserve our greatest scorn for adults who won’t grow up.  And we should.  Because an adult who acts like a child all the time, or much of the time, is nothing more than…pathetic.

          So Jacob must grow up.  He must struggle to temper his love with justice.  And he does get better over time.  In the same way, we must work on this and get better over time.  Even if we despair of never quite being able to get there.

          ‘Tis the season, right?  Back home in the USA, yesterday was Thanksgiving, which is the official opening of the Christmas holiday season.  We don’t have Thanksgiving here in Australia, but I noticed last night from the commercials on TV that we are definitely in the throes of Christmastime greed.  The holiday itself does not resonate for us Jews – why would it?  But as the summer comes to our austral world, it is a good time to take stock of everything we are, and everything we aren’t.  It’s a good time to ask ourselves:  Are we accompanying our love, with justice?  With fairness?  With devotion?  With kindness?  If not, let’s rededicate ourselves to doing just that.  Rededication is definitely something that should resonate for us.  In just over a fortnight, we will celebrate a festival whose name means ‘rededication.’  Let’s let our light shine for all the world.  But let’s let our love – and the devotion it inspires – shine for one another.  Shabbat shalom.

A False Equivalence: A Drash for Friday 21 November 2014

Over time, I avoid speaking from the pulpit about Israel.  And the reason is that I cannot match the professionalism of the commentators who follow world events and understand them in all their nuance.  But sometimes I feel compelled to speak, because you can find yourselves in the position of defending Israel to friends, associates, and family.  Or, letting an outrageous statement go unchallenged.  Whilst I do not see myself as being a commentator on current events, sometimes I do have clarity on an issue that might help you.

          As you probably know, in recent weeks there has been a troubling series of deadly attacks on Jews in Israel.  First it was ‘enraged’ Palestinians driving vehicles into crowds of Israelis waiting for a bus or tram.  Then it escalated to different types of attacks.  Just this week on Tuesday, two Palestinian men wielding knives, meat cleavers and handguns entered a synagogue during weekday morning prayers.  They killed five and injured a number more.

          This week, in the wake of a day of intense reporting of events in Israel, one of our members told me that a friend had declared the anger over the attacks misplaced.  Actually, the member’s friend had declared her ‘brainwashed’ to care about a ‘couple of rabbis’ killed in a synagogue.  And why is that?  Because Israel killed some 2,000 Palestinians in the recent Gaza conflict.  So, to complain about a handful of Jews killed by Palestinians, if we’re silent on the latter, is disingenuous at best.

          This person had just used a tactic that is popular among those who delegitimize Israel.  Specifically, he used the argument of False Equivalence.  Israel kills Palestinians.  Palestinians kill Israelis.  Tit-for-tat.  Why criticize the Palestinians?  But let’s examine the nature of these killings.

          Yes, a couple thousand Gazans died in the recent 50-day war.  And it was far in excess of the numbers of Israelis killed – 71 in the latter case.  And some of the 2,000 were civilians, but not as overwhelmingly so as Israel’s detractors want you to believe.

          On the surface, it matters how many of the dead were civilians.  A lot.  Because, if a large proportion were civilians, at the very least it shows that the Israelis were applying force either indiscriminately, or even cynically, specifically to terrorise civilian populations.  It’s for this reason that a couple of Gazan NGO’s, and the UN Relief and Works Agency, were busy all during the recent hostilities, number-crunching the death toll.  The two NGO’s estimated civilians made up over 80% of the casualties, whilst UNRWA estimated 72%.

          But you should know that those figures are doctored.  If you break them down by gender and age group, you’ll find that over half are of military-age males.  To suggest that males of fighting age are overwhelmingly not fighting is absurd.  Especially when you consider the following.  The same agencies discount almost any Israeli casualties as being civilian.  The reason?  Because Israeli men – and in some cases women – serve in the reserve forces until their 40’s and even 50’s.  So even if they are killed when a missile rains down on them in their home, they are combatants.  At the same time, a Gazan cut down in his home, even though he is an active fighter, is a civilian casualty.  All I’m saying is that you can’t have it both ways.  But the Palestinians try, and largely succeed.  And why they succeed, I’ll get into in a moment.

          But let me back up for a second.  I’m not saying that a high death toll – either your own or your enemy’s – is something to dismiss.  Even in war, where death is inevitable, it’s a tragedy.  But to take a number such as those killed on either side of a war, and attach either an equivalence, or even a strong condemnation or one side specifically because of the imbalance, is intellectually dishonest.  And here’s why.

          The actions of Hamas are calculated specifically to draw an Israeli response that will result in high casualties.  Because Hamas knows it cannot win a military conflict with Israel.  Instead, it tries to orchestrate conflict in order to defeat Israel in a propaganda war.  It knows that much of the world is predisposed to consider Israel a brutal occupying power, and it is willing to sacrifice thousands of its citizens in order to continue to feed that predisposition.  That’s why they position rocket launchers and mortars amidst civilian areas where, if they are hit with return fire, great carnage will follow.  Hospitals.  Schools.  Mosques.  Apartment blocks.  They use these places to shoot off their projectiles, knowing that the Israelis have the ‘eyes’ to see where the incoming rounds came from.  They use the same places for storage of munitions, so that when the Israelis hit them, the damage can be spectacular.

          And of course, that puts the Israelis between the proverbial rock and a hard place.  Can they not respond against the launchers that fire missiles and shells into their cities?  Or course not; they must respond.  How can a sovereign country tolerate its citizens living under missile fire?  So they respond, hoping to kill the launcher and its crew.  And, in the process, civilians are killed.

          But even then, the Israelis try to minimize the ‘collateral damage.’  They’ve been known to drop leaflets from aircraft and drones before a bombing raid.  And now they’ve embraced newer technologies; they send out mass text messages to Gazan mobiles, warning of which neighbourhoods they’re going to hit.  But Hamas’ police force prevents civilians from evacuating the targeted areas, even shooting their own citizens if they try to force their way out.  Such atrocities have been reported by news organisations, such as the BBC and the NY Times, that could not possibly be seen as friends of Israel given their overall reporting.  But such reporting is often ignored.  It’s too rational and measured.  It exposes a flaw in an entity that one could not expect to act ethically, given the asymmetry of its conflict and the power of its opponent.  So even when such things are reported, the World has a way off dismissing them.

          So, given the specific circumstances of the generation of casualties, the condemnation of Israel, and the drawing of equivalence between Israeli and Palestinian casualties is a false equivalence.  It happens, because the different successor Palestinian power centres – of which Hamas in Gaza is just the latest iteration – cynically create their own civilian casualties for no reason other than to exploit them in winning the propaganda war with Israel, since they can’t win on the battlefield.  If the World were paying attention to the totality of reporting of the Arab-Israeli conflict, slanted against Israel though it often is, they would see a much different picture.  So that begs the question:  why isn’t the world paying attention to the totality, by and large?

          I wish there was a simple answer; if there were, and if I knew it, I would gladly share it with you.  But I do have a sense as to what it is.  And it is that Judaism’s successor faiths – including Christianity and Islam – need to see Israel, and that’s a code word for ‘the Jews,’ as being an oppressor.  That way they can excuse themselves for centuries of persecution of Jews by their peoples.  If the Jews, once they have power, use it to oppress others, then by golly we don’t have to feel so guilty about oppressing the Jews!  I acknowledge that this may sound like an oversimplification, but I have dealt with others’ perceptions of the Jews for so many years that I can’t help but believe it.  This, despite how terrible it is if true!

          So how do you respond when someone responds to your concern about Israeli casualties by questioning whether you care about Palestinian casualties which are, after all, so much greater?  You point out the falseness of the equivalence.  They may be simply ignorant.  You know the old saw; repeat a lie enough times and it begins to sound true.  But if the person is not speaking out of ignorance, there’s a much more sinister possibility.  And that possibility cannot be overlooked.  And that is, that a few Jewish deaths simply don’t trouble him.  Given the history of the last 20 centuries, it is hard to deny that the world is full of people, who are not especially troubled by Jewish deaths.  That’s not a pleasant thought, but to deny it is to deny reality,  So we repeat it.  Even on Shabbat.

To Know One’s Destiny: A Drash for Chayei Sara, Friday 14 November 2014

I’ve told a number of you in this room tonight about how Clara and I met and came to be married.  We were both working at a youth camp in Texas, and the director sent me with the car to pick her up at the Austin Airport.  Although the sidewalk in front of the arrivals terminal was crowded with weary travelers, I somehow instinctively picked her out from the crowd.

          One day soon after we were kidding around with the camp rabbi, who told a funny story about spending Rosh Hashanah with the Sephardim.  I turned to Clara and asked her: “Are you Sephardi?” knowing that the answer was ‘yes.’  When she confirmed it, I told her: “Okay, I’m coming to your house for Rosh Hashanah.”  And she said: “Welcome.”

          After we left camp, I was home in Florida at my parents’ home waiting for my day to fly to Israel.  Clara rang me to make sure that I was indeed planning to come to her house.  And then, when I was staying with her, I left the apartment on an errand whilst she was cleaning house, and she made a joke about ‘the man going out while the wife cleans.’  It was only a joke, but when she said it, I suddenly and inexplicably had a clear vision:  This is the woman I’m supposed to marry.  And the rest, as they say, is history.

          Why do I tell you this tonight?  Only because this week’s Torah portion includes the narrative of how Isaac, the son of Abraham came to marry Rebecca, Abraham’s grand-niece through his brother, Nahor.  There are some common elements that weave through his narrative and mine.

Abraham does not want Isaac to marry one of the local Canaanite girls.  So he sends his trusted servant Eliezer, back to Haran, the place where Abraham’s family had been living when he received his calling from G-d.  The servant, when entering the city prays to G-d for success in his mission.  And how will he know the girl who is fated to marry his master’s son?  Eliezer’s prayer is that he will approach the communal well, and the girl who offers him to drink and to water his camels as well, will be the one.

          The Torah describes what Eliezer seeks as an act of chesed, extreme kindness.  It is what one would expect a kind soul to offer, if a traveler obviously arriving from a long journey would approach a communal well for water.  It is therefore easy to put Eliezer’s decision in context.  He is not trying to second-guess G-d.  He is only interested in identifying a girl given to kindness, as he sees his master, Abraham as being a kind man.

          So Rebecca, daughter of Bethuel, offers kindness to Eliezer.  He gives the girl a valuable gift and asks to meet her family.  He proposes the marriage and the girl’s parents agree, subject to the girl’s acceptance.  They ask her:  “Will you go with this man?” And Rebecca responds:  “I will go.”

          Rebecca has clarity that this proposed marriage is what she’s supposed to do.  That it is her fate, her destiny.  She doesn’t get to meet, much less see Isaac before making her decision.  No more than Isaac is able to lay eyes on Rebecca.  And as we learn if we read ahead a few verses in the text, when Eliezer and Rebecca arrive back in Canaan Isaac is pleased with his bride.

          It would be easy to use this narrative to make an argument for the benefits of leaving marriage decisions, except for the final ‘yea’ or ‘nae,’ to one’s parents.  Of course, to do so would make one sound as if protesting against our age, where it is accepted orthodoxy that young adults are left alone to make their own marriage choices.  I think a strong protest against the current age would not be a bad thing.  Many of you in this room (or reading this) have been disappointed by your children’s marriage choices.  Or lack thereof, by their putting off marriage until very late or altogether.  Most of you who withheld counsel did so because it’s not  done today.  But that’s not this evening’s lesson.

          Rather, I want to talk about how each of us has someone who is our beshert, our fated partner.  Most of us are familiar with the concept of beshert.  It’s difficult to judge whether someone has found, and accepted his beshert.  After all, so many factors internal and external contribute to our marital happiness, or lack thereof.  On the other hand, it is not our place to judge whether someone else has married his beshert.  It is our responsibility to find and accept our own beshert.  If a trusted friend or relative consults us, then we can help them to the extent possible to make a good choice.

          It isn’t our place to judge others’ choices, but it is all too easy to do so.  If a person has achieved what could objectively be called ‘happiness’ in marriage then the odds are that they have not found their beshert, or chosen to ignore the evidence.  If that describes someone you know, it is not your job to criticize.  It is your job to encourage them to reach for the happiness that eludes them.

          The Torah, through its lacunae, tells us that Isaac and Rebecca achieved happiness.  Later events in the narrative of their intersected lives, show us that even when they disagreed, they accepted the outcome of each other’s actions with equanimity.  Their marriage started with the decisions of emissaries.  And they, the principals, being open to what their emissaries had discerned.  It didn’t start with their filling out a comprehensive personality profile.  Or going to one of the places where singles meet and greet.  Or trusting others who, whilst being well-meaning, were not using the right measures to advise them.

          Once they were married, Isaac and Rebecca knew they had acted according to G-d’s will.  So when the aforementioned conflicts came up, their marriage was not held hostage to the false, but popular notion that marriage is supposed to be conflict-free.  Instead, they approached their shared lives in a spirit of acceptance of one another.  How important is that??!  How many of us know of someone who, facing a conflict with their life partner, reacted by cutting and running?  And did that bring them happiness?  I’m guessing not.

          It’s hard to bring this message without sounding judgmental, and I’m guessing that someone is hearing (or reading) judgment in my words.  But my purpose is not to judge at all, or to second guess you or your decisions – whether you are single, married, or divorced.  Rather it is to convey the lesson that we are not dependent upon our own limited vision, clouded as it often is by the desires of our eyes, for making difficult life decisions.  If we but accept that G-d indeed has a partner in store for each one of us, and if we work to open ourselves to whom that partner might be, we will have gone a long way towards finding the best perspective for making our life’s decisions.  In our Torah reading this week, we are given an example of success in the latter that offers an important illustration of this principle.  Shabbat shalom.