To Celebrate the Moon; a Drash for Shabbat Rosh Hodesh Saturday, 1 February 2014

Today, in addition to being Shabbat, the Sabbath, is the second day of Rosh Chodesh Adar.  In the way that the Hebrew calendar is figured, when the month ending is a 30-day month then Rosh Chodesh of the next month consists of two days:  the last day of the current month and the first day of the new month.  Since Shevat, the month now ended is a 30-day month that means that Rosh Chodesh was yesterday and today.

          But what’s the point of marking the arrival of the new month in any case?  And why mark its arrival with the singing of Hallel – psalms of praise?

          To understand this, remember that we’re not noting something as abstract as a month designated on a calendar.  Rosh Chodesh means, literally New Moon, and we’re marking the sighting of the New Moon.  The Hebrew word Chodesh, used to mean ‘month,’ really means ‘moon.’  And that makes sense, since the Hebrew calendar is a lunar calendar whose rhythms are determined by the cycles of the moon.

As I like to point out, to the typical city-dweller today the cycles of the moon can and often do go completely unnoticed.  We live in our largely sealed environment of home and office, and if we’re out at night we’re unlikely to notice the moon through the clutter of city lights – unless, that is, the moon is full and prominent in the sky, in which case we might notice.  Those of us who are likely to notice the phase of the moon are farmers, fishermen and sailors; for all these, the moon’s phases are very important.  But the rest of us might not notice the moon at all.

But, had we lived in the ancient world, the moon’s phases would have meant more to us.  Before the invention of electric lights, the relative darkness of the night sky was far more important.  And as the moon waned, people – not just farmers, fishermen and sailors – would notice the encroaching darkness.  Some, undoubtedly, would find it frightening.  So it’s no surprise that the appearance of the new moon would be an occasion for celebration.  It was taken as a sign that God had not abandoned His people.  He had once again sent the gift of light, to light the night.

We’re commanded in the Torah, in the 28^th chapter of the Book of Numbers, to celebrate the new moon, and of course for many Jews that’s enough.  The mandated celebration is a special sacrifice.  But of course, we no longer offer sacrifices since the Second Temple was destroyed, so the Rabbis of late antiquity formulated the current way of celebrating:  a special Torah reading, and recitation of Hallel.

The rest of us can remember the probable reasons behind the celebration.  Our continuing to mark the appearance of the New Moon, even if we’re generally not very sensitive to the moon’s phases, connects us with an ancient world and an ancient people whose legacy we claim.  It reminds us of our ‘roots,’ of the legacy of faith and devotion that the ancient Israelites bequeathed to us.

But we can also celebrate the difference a new month makes in our own lives.  Even if we are generally unmoved by observations of the moon, we take great joy in our festivals.  Almost every month of the Hebrew calendar has its joyous festivals, and Adar brings us Purim, the Feast of Esther, which is one of the most joyous.

But the renewal of the cycle of the moon, reminds us of the process of renewal that can happen for us at any time.  Stuck in a rut?  A new month reminds us that we can break old cycles and find joy in the new.  Feeling sorry for yourself over some turn of events?  A new month reminds us that, at any given moment, we have the opportunity to transcend the disappointment, hurt or whatever and set a new course.  Whatever unpleasantness we are experiencing, the appearance of the New Moon can – and should – be for us a sign of hope.  We are not stuck in the limitations of yesterday and instead see spread before us the limitless possibilities of tomorrow…of a thousand tomorrows!

So…celebrate the New Moon!  Sing out with passion when we recite Hallel in just a moment.  Connect yourselves with the joy of generations past.  And find your own joy in the possibilities that lie ahead.  Shabbat shalom. 

What We Bring to the Table; a Drash for Parashat Terumah Friday, 31 January 2014

Last night a group of 19 of us from Temple Shalom went out together.  First we had dinner in a Chinese restaurant then we attended a klezmer concert.  It was a great evening!

          Because of the size of the group, I asked everybody to decide well in advance what they wanted to eat.  Then I sent the order to the restaurant for them to organise the cooking beforehand.  The wait-staff brought the food out a couple of dishes at a time.  They would tell me what the dishes were, and I would direct them to the person at the table who had ordered each specific dish.

As is usual when a group eats Chinese, our members ordered a wide variety of dishes.  But the restaurant did a reasonably good job of filling our order, and with only a couple of delays everybody was soon munching away on the tasty food.  A little exhausted from my role as ‘traffic cop,’ I looked at everybody eating something different, but all enjoying Chinese food, before I sat down to eat my own dinner.

Everybody eating something different, but all enjoying Chinese food.  It reminded me a bit of this week’s Torah portion, and what it has to teach us.

Parashat Terumah opens with a command to Moses:  Speak to the Israelites and have them bring me an offering.  Take my offering from everyone whose heart impels him to give.  And the offering that Moses was to take from the people Israel consisted of the following:  gold, silver, copper, acacia wood, wool of various colours, goat skins, ram skins, dolphin skins, oil, spices, incense, and various precious and semi-precious stones.

Now please don’t listen to me tonight and think that I’m asking you to donate dolphin skins to Temple Shalom!  Or even goat skins!  Gold and silver would probably be welcome…but really, my message tonight is not about the substantive gifts we give to the temple.  Rather, my message is about how we add to the totality that is Temple Shalom by the personal talents and gifts that we bring to the table.

My colleague and classmate Martha Bergadine, from Hong Kong, presented this principle so well in her drash this week.  Using a delightful account of an annual kosher corned beef sandwich funder-raiser in her former community in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, she illustrated how we create community today.  As Rabbi Bergadine said so well:  We do not seek to build a Mikdash from acacia wood and ram skins.  Rather, our materials are the talents and skills, of our community members.  

What I bring to the table is quite obvious; much of what I do is highly visible.  But there are gifts which others in the community possess in far greater measure than I do.  But because they’re less obvious, you in the community often don’t give yourselves, or others, recognition for the gifts that you bring to the table.  So allow me to offer a couple of examples.

The gift of extroversion – that quality that distinguishes one as being an extrovert or an outgoing personality – is a special gift.  I do not have it.  When I took the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator years ago, it showed that I’m an introvert.  More precisely, I am an ‘ISTJ.’  I envy those who are extroverts, who have the self-confidence to walk up to strangers and just begin talking to them naturally and comfortably.  To be sure, I’m not the only introvert at Temple Shalom.  A number of our lay leaders share this characteristic with me.  Now let me be clear; ‘introvert’ is not a character flaw!  Those of us who are introverts, simply lack the specific gift of extroversion. 

But we do have extroverts among our membership, and the gift they bring to the table – the ability to unabashedly approach others and draw them in – is priceless.  Tonight you will see the extroverts amongst us, working the room and making people feel welcome and part of the our Temple Shalom ‘family.’  Envy them is you must.  But also, thank God for their presence in our midst, and that they bring that gift to bear for our collective benefit.

Another gift that some bring to the table is hospitality – a gift somewhat related to that of extroversion, but not quite the same thing.  My colleague Rabbi Ruth Adar from the East Bay in California, who calls herself ‘the Coffee Shop Rabbi,’ refers to this as ‘radical hospitality.’  And it is radical:  the notion that we can offer hospitality to others, with absolutely no expectation that it will be returned in kind.  The radically hospitable person offers his or her gift only in the hopes that the recipient will be somehow uplifted by the experience.

We have one or two members in this community, and you know who they are, who have this gift of hospitality.  They’re the ones who automatically reach out to others in the community, inviting them home to a Shabbat dinner on weeks when we have no Oneg Shabbat.  Would that more of us, your sometimes-grumpy rabbi included, had it.  But thank God for those of us who do have it.

There are obviously other gifts and talents that others bring to the table, and they’re all important and cherished.  My message to you tonight is that you should never feel that your unique gifts are unwelcome.  And that you should never denigrate the gifts that others bring to the table.  As we freely give of the specific gifts that we have to offer, we take a shule and make it into a community.  Let’s continue to do that, until it becomes automatic.  Shabbat shalom. 

What About Moneylending? A Drash for Parashat Mishpatim, Saturday 25 January 2014

We tend to have ambivalent attitudes about the lending of money at interest.  On one hand, we recognise it as a needed service.  Most of us have no compunction about using credit cards for purchases.  Even when we pay our entire balance on receipt of our monthly statement, we understand that we are using the account as a short-term loan to buy things without needing to withdraw the cash from the bank.  And even those of us who are loath to use credit cards, or borrow money in other ways, still purchase large items on credit:  for example, an automobile or a home.  Very few of us would be able to purchase these things at all without the use of credit.  So by our buying patterns, we heartily endorse the practice of lending money at interest.  In differing degrees, we are happy to utilise the services of those who do so.

          On the other hand, we hold those who make a living lending money, at the very least, in distaste.  Even whilst we happily use their services, we find credit companies and banks unsavoury.  I can’t remember the last time I heard someone praise their credit card issuer.  This, even if the interest rate paid was not especially excessive.

          If you know some Jewish history, you know that Jews often fell into the role of the moneylenders for the Christian world.  And you probably know that the Christian world held us in contempt for this.  Perhaps, their willingness to use Jews for this service, reflects that they already held us in contempt.

          Early church cannon law forbade Christians from lending money at interest.  And the prohibition was partly based on one verse from this morning’s Torah reading.  In chapter 22, verse 24 we read:  When you lend money to my people, to the poor man among you, do not press him for repayment.  [Also] do not take interest from him.  So why do we, the People of the Book, the people to whom the Torah was directly given, find it okay to lend money at interest while our Christian neighbours could not?

          The key is in understanding the different ways of interpreting ‘my people.’  To the Jew reading the Torah, this means other Jews.  To the Christian, this means other Christians. 

          Rabbi Louis Jacobs of Blessed Memory was one of great Torah scholars of our generation.  According to him, in ancient Israel there were foreigners in the land whose business was to lend money.  They were something like predators, swooping down on the needy, offering a quick loan with little fuss.  And those in need of money would often borrow from them as it was less embarrassing than to request a loan from family of neighbours.  Perhaps they only needed the money for a limited term, a few days or so, until the expected payment of something owed them or which they planned to sell.  But as we know, those who borrow money even with the best intentions can easily of have turn of luck that makes timely repayment impossible.

          The prohibition on charging interest to one’s fellow Jew, represents a preference that Jews would overcome their embarrassment at borrowing from someone they knew.  The advantage in terms was intended to nudge them to ask for temporary help from family and neighbours, rather than borrow from the ‘carpetbaggers’ who roamed the land in search of easy money.

          Note also that the verse assumes the money borrower would be poor.  The point is that the borrowing of money in ancient Israel, at least where this verse is concerned, should be seen as a poor man’s last resort to get past a difficult moment.  For this reason also, in our verse the lender is enjoined against ‘pressing…for repayment.’  When one lends money to the poor among the people Israel, one is not permitted to make vigorous demands for repayment when the borrower has experienced further misfortune.

          The prohibition on interest, and on pressing for repayment, gave rise to Hebrew Free Loan Societies in various communities.  They exist primarily in North America, but there is at least one such Australian organisation, in Melbourne.  Jews give money to the free loan societies, so that they can in turn help other Jews with basic needs, without causing any embarrassment.

          But the prohibition on lending at interest should not be seen as a license for Jews to demand interest-free loans from other Jews for any purpose.  Unfortunately, a lot of people today have an entitlement mentality, and Jews are not exempt from this tendency.  If you want to borrow money, even from a fellow Jew, in order to invest for profit, or for discretionary spending, you should be willing to pay interest for the privilege.  And it is perfectly permissible under Halachah to charge interest under such circumstances.

          There’s another dimension to all this.  The availability of credit ultimately paved the way for the development of the modern industrial, mercantile economy.  To the extent that the Jews were willing to be the medieval world’s bankers, we pulled the world out of the primitive agrarian economy and enabled the development of manufacturing and international trade.  As Christians no longer feel constrained to lend money at interest, we Jews no longer dominate the enterprise.  But we Jews were pioneers in the business, and that’s partly why the stereotype of the Jews dominating banking, persists to this day.

          We will probably never extinguish the unsavoury image of those who lend money for a living.  But understand that not all moneylending is worthy of contempt.  We may think poorly of the loan companies that prey on the poor, with so-called payday loans at sky-high interest.  We may practice personal thrift, avoiding the use of credit for discretionary purchases, to preserve our personal financial well-being.  But the overall practice of lending money is an important service that has enabled the creation of our modern, diversified economy.  And even in our worst personal financial moments, I doubt that most of us would want to return to the pre-industrial age.  Shabbat shalom.     

Remember the Widow and the Orphan...Still; a Drash for Parashat Mishpatim, Friday 24 January 2014

As I’ve said more times than you probaly remember, it is important to read the Torah in the context of its time and setting.  Otherwise, it is often difficult to understand where it is ‘coming from.’  Specific pronouncements in the Torah can, and often do, seem unnecessary or perhaps unnecessarily harsh to our ears.  But if we understand the Torah’s context, then it becomes much clearer why things are stated the way they are.

          Note that I didn’t say the Torah’s wisdom is only applicable to its time and setting.  There are those who will offer you this argument.  Because the Torah was talking about a specific condition existing in a specific time, it isn’t necessary for us to worry about it.  That’s not my argument.  Even when the specific conditions being addressed no longer exist, the principle holds.

          This helps explain the Torah’s ‘obsession’ with widows and orphans.  The Torah tells us repeatedly not to oppress them.  One of those instances is found in this week’s Torah reading, from Parshat Mishpatim.  It is clear that the condition of widows and orphans in the ancient world, was particularly onerous.  Otherwise, why would the Torah constantly harp on condition of these classes of people, and instruct us to take such care not to oppress them?

          In the Torah’s law, mirroring the laws generally in effect among the peoples of the ancient Near East, inheritance was through the male.  Male children inherited their father’s estate, with the firstborn son getting a double share.  Female children had no inheritance, because it was assumed that they would marry and share in their husband’s inheritance.  Through their marriage, they and their children would benefit from property of various kinds.  Because of this, a wife if widowed, and her children would become immediately destitute according to the societal norms then held.

          As one can see when one reads with an open eye, the Torah is a ‘conservative’ document.  It addresses the various ills of the societies among which the Israelites lived by attempting to ameliorate them.  It does not prescribe radical solutions.  Rather, it seems to recognise the very human need for continuity.  It therefore attempts to lessen the negative impact of various institutions and practices, but not to do away with them.

          Take slavery.  The Torah does not prohibit slavery, which was of course a common institution in the ancient world.  But it places limits upon it.  It’s specific limitations, make slavery a less onerous condition.  Less permanent.  Less open to the abuse of the slave.  But it doesn’t eliminate it. 

          Likewise, the passing of all inheritance to the male offspring.  The Torah recognises the disadvantage this creates to a female, especially when widowed.  So it addresses this disadvantage rather than prescribe a radical change to the social order.

          Really, the only ‘radical’ change in societal norms among the peoples of the area, which the Torah prescribes, is the worship of One God, the invisible Adonai.  That innovation, to the ancient man, is a radical departure from the continuity of the givens of life.  The elimination of the various deities – and the worship of them, which often included practices we now consider abhorrent such as ritual prostitution and child sacrifice – was a big change.  So big, that the Israelites often backslid to the previous ways at the slightest excuse!  So perhaps, the Torah’s reluctance to prescribe radical phases shifts from the assumptions of life in other areas, represents God’s desire to keep the Torah from being onerous to the People Israel.  At least, that’s what I think.

          Let me be clear that I am not advocating the reactivation of slavery in lands where it is prohibited, because the Torah does not forbid it!  I advocate that the Torah’s purpose was to ameliorate the onus of various institutions.  If so, then why on earth would one want to use the Torah as a rationale to make things worse?  It defies reason.

          In some ways, widow or orphan-hood today is not the onus it was in the ancient world.  After all, a man’s widow and their children are assumed to have the right of inheritance.  When there’s no will, the property goes automatically to the widow and children.  Even if there’s a will stating the deceased’s wishes as otherwise, a widow and children often successfully sue for the lion’s share of the deceased’s estate.  There is little fear of the widow’s brothers-in-law pre-empting the deceased man’s property.  And there’s also life insurance, something unknown in ancient Israel.  A generous insurance policy makes some men worth…more dead than alive, so to speak.  And even when there is no private life insurance, there are features in the government’s social safety net that specifically address the widow and the orphan.

          But while all the above lessen the onerous conditions of widowhood and orphan-hood, they do not eliminate them.  It is still difficult for a woman to carry on after the death of her husband.  (The truth is, it is also difficult for a man after the death of his wife, but probably not as difficult.) Difficult emotionally, of course.  Women who become widowed, often find that their network of friends evaporates, or at least weakens.  But also substantively.  Poverty rates are considerably higher for single parent women and their children, and a widow is the consummate single parent.

          So, despite that widows and orphans are not as likely to be destitute as they were in ancient Israel, they still need special consideration.  When the Torah tells us, do not oppress the widow and the orphan, we should read, go out of your way to show extra consideration for the widow and the orphan.  Because widow and orphan-hood are still onerous.  While we are never promised a fair world, we still can, and should, work to make it fairer.  Let’s always keep that in mind.  Shabbat shalom.

A Harbinger to Greatness; a Drash for Shabbat Yitro, 18 January 2014

Cataclysmic events are often preceded by precursors, which serve as harbingers to what will eventually happen.  As hints to the coming upheaval.

          This is certainly true in the natural world, where earth-shattering events can often be predicted.  Cyclones, for example, don’t form in a minute’s time; they happen when fronts clash in a process that is drawn out over several days.  Tornadoes occur with less warning.  But still, everybody who lives in Texas or Oklahoma has learned to closely watch the western sky for hints as to coming storms.  Likewise earthquakes, volcano eruptions, and the like seldom come out of nowhere.

          Harbinger to cataclysm is also typically observable in human history.  Major wars and revolutions seldom break out spontaneously, overnight.  They are caused by chains of events and reactions to events that can be predicted to precede the initiation of hostilities.  Much as my countrymen still resent Japan’s ‘surprise’ attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, in retrospect we can trace the attacks origins to a chain of political moves that should have, and indeed, did give hint that hostilities were about to happen.  Too, the Egyptians’ crossing of the Suez Canal on Yom Kippur in 1973 is now understood not to have been as much of a surprise as was originally asserted.  The American Revolution, the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, the Iranian Revolution…all were preceded by ample hints and should not have caught the world with its collective pants down.

          So many events can be seen as harbingers, as hints to coming disaster.  And often, it is far easier to see these harbingers in the past tense, when we are looking back at the period before an earth-shattering event.  As it is said, hindsight is 20/20.  That is to say, looking back it is easier to see hints to the coming cataclysm that one missed before.  There’s some truth to this principle, but not as much as some people like to claim.  It is all too easy, after the fact, to make the events before the cataclysm fit some pattern that supposedly was there.  There’s an entire ‘cottage industry’ out there of individuals who would like us to see past events as being predictable from a logic which, in turn supports their particular cause.  Just recently, someone I know casually handed me a DVD produced by a man who bills himself as a rabbi, although he’s actually some kind of Evangelical pastor,  He claims that the attacks on America on 9-11-2001 could have been predicted by reading the ninth chapter of Isaiah.  The whole notion would be laughable, except that so many are convinced.

          So yes, great, reality-changing events can often be predicted to some extent.  But the bush is full of charlatans who want you to apply some logic after the fact for their particular agenda.  Thank God, from hindsight we have the leisure to consider each such claim without having the imperative to make a rash decision.  We can ‘check it out’ thoroughly.

          I’ve been talking up to here about disastrous events, but the idea of the harbinger can also be applied to positive events.

In the experience of the Jewish people, the Sinaitic Event was a cataclysm of the positive kind.  It established the lines of authority for the leadership of the people as they managed the transition from servitude to wandering bands to a sovereign people.  The harbinger of Sinai was, of course the safe passage through the sea.  In that sense, last week’s Torah reading predicts this week’s.  The transit of the Red Sea predicts Sinai.  The salvation of the people predicts their unique role in the unfolding drama of human history.

Because that’s what Sinai represents for us.  It represents the placing of the people Israel into a unique and central role in the sweep of history.  It represents the elevation of a people who never have, and never will represent a major proportion of the human race.  It gives the Jews an importance that completely out-shadows their meagre numbers.

In that sense, Sinai is foreshadowed by the Red Sea.  But Sinai itself is also a harbinger.  It is the harbinger of the significance of the Jewish people.

One can see this significance as a blessing or as a curse.  I prefer to see it as the former.  Because the people Israel chose God, God chose the people Israel for a unique role to bring light to the nations.  Let’s let role, into which the Torah casts us, be only a blessing.  And let us, thus, bless the world.  Shabbat shalom. 

...The Real Work Begins; A Drash for Shabbat Yitro, Friday, 17 January 2014

At the morning service, we begin by thanking God for, as I like to say, ‘all the miracles we experience daily, which we often let pass unnoticed.’  We thank God for enabling us to distinguish day from night.  That is, for giving us to ability to know when to get out of bed.  For opening the eyes of the blind; that is, for letting us awaken to the sight of the beautiful world that surrounds us.  For freeing the captive; that is, for allowing us to wake up feeling free to leave our homes and engage in the ‘business’ of the day.  For lifting up the fallen; that is, for giving us the strength to rise to the vertical position.  And so on, and so on.  In the time we have awakened on a ‘typical’ day, we have experienced no fewer than 14 discreet miracles.  And so what?  Well, if we did not experience one or more of the aforementioned, that means we are bedridden, incapacitated, really…in for a lousy day.  So the Rabbis who put together the ritual of daily prayer, thought it would be a great start for our day if we acknowledge these miracles.  One need not witness the splitting of the Red Sea, in order to experience the miraculous Hand of God.  Waking up in the morning, getting vertical, emptying our bladder and bowels…these may seem like ‘small’ miracles, but they are miracles nonetheless.  But once these miracles are behind us, we must face the slog of the day.  Once the miracle is over…the real work begins!

          That’s why we precede the Morning Prayer with the Morning Blessings.  If you are not a ‘regular’ at the Shabbat Morning Service, I challenge you to make participation in the service part of your regular routine.  As a result, you will experience, if nothing else, the centering that comes from acknowledging how miraculous our daily life is.  If you are already a regular at the Shabbat Morning Service, I challenge you to recite the Morning Blessings every morning, not just Shabbat.  Doing so, you will experience a measure of the centering that our communal Shabbat worship brings, but in the privacy of your own home and for your benefit on an ‘ordinary’ day.

Sometimes we experience a miracle that is, shall we say, far more dramatic than the ones mentioned in the Morning Blessings.  Let me tell you one that Clara and I experienced.  When our son, Eyal was born, he was in the 24^th week of gestation.  That is, he was seriously premature.  A prematurity that would have been a certain death sentence only a few decades before his birth.  I never thought much about the incredible gift of modern medicine before the fateful June day of Eyal’s birth, which would send us into an incredible drama over the next few months while he fought for his life.  But believe me, I think about it now.

It was difficult, emotionally, to watch our son’s birth and struggle for life.  But the real difficulty came afterward, when we had to raise him to be a man.  Once the miracle ends…the real work begins.  In our case, the slog of the years of struggling with him, to teach him how to be Good.  To help him develop an effective work ethic.  To deal with each little crisis as he grew and experienced life.  I do not mean to imply that Eyal was a difficult child:  no, that’s not my point at all!  Rather, that raising a child is hard work, sustained over many years.  Eyal’s birth was nothing short of miraculous, but the truth is that every birth is a miracle and should be experienced as such.  Only if we remember the joy of experiencing this miracle, will we have the stamina for the Great Slog that is the ‘career’ of parenting.

That’s why we accompanied our son’s miraculous survival with the constant and repeated recitation of Psalms.  The reason for this traditional custom is to plant indelibly in our brains the connection between the overcoming of great adversity, and the miraculous saving power of God.  Remembering why we are still here after the miracle, girds us for the slog to come.  It certainly did for us.

In our Torah narrative, we learn that the ancient Israelites faced the same challenge on a larger scale.  It was one thing to experience the miracle at the Red Sea.  It was another thing, once across, to begin the struggle to constitute themselves into a Holy People.  Beginning with this week’s Torah portion, we see that struggle reflected in the weekly cycle of readings.  It took four weeks for us to read the text that shows the set up, and the execution of the miracles that define us as a people.  Now, for the rest of the year until Simchat Torah, we will read of the Great Slog that is the ‘career’ of the Jewish people.  And as we will see – as we already know – that career is fraught with difficulty.  Once the miracle ends…the real work begins.

In reality, everything in life is a Great Slog.  We may experience miracles along the way.  We experience the little miracles like getting up every day, day after day, ready, willing and able to face the day.  And then, we have the slog of the day’s toil to face.  We experience the big miracles like seeing a seriously premature infant overcome his physical challenges and survive.  And then, we have the slog of parenthood to face, as he has the slog of growing up on his plate.

If we do not recognize and acknowledge the miracles we experience, then whence comes the wherewithal to face the Great Slog?  And if we do not acknowledge the inevitability of the slog, if our emotional constitution requires a steady diet of miracles to get and keep us going, to feed our emotional needs, to make us feel rewarded because, because…we are entitled to reward, then we are not going to make it.  And this so common to the human condition.  This is why so many people today are dependent upon pharmaceuticals to keep going.  This is why so many of us are touched by mental illness.  This is why each one of us knows so many people who, despite therapy, despite pharmaceuticals, despite constant attention and pampering…cannot keep on an even keel.  Folks, if we do not acknowledge the miracles that we experience, and then acknowledge the inevitability of the slog that then ensues, then we are…dead in the water.

Thank God it’s Shabbat.  Another great gift…another great miracle.  An opportunity to experience the daily miracle on a larger scale.  An opportunity to lay aside the accumulated anxieties we feel and give our minds a rest.  Ahad Ha-am, a contemporary and colleague of Theodore Herzl, put it this way:  ‘More than Israel has kept the Sabbath, the Sabbath has kept Israel.’  But it is easy to translate his words into something far more personal.  More than the individual Jew has kept the Sabbath, the Sabbath has kept the individual Jew.  Kept the Jew from going crazy.  Kept the Jew from caving in to the crippling anxieties that conspire to drag him down and make him dysfunctional.  Kept the Jew to weather the Great Slog that is life.

When we open and read from the Torah tomorrow morning, we will read of how Moses begins the real test of his leadership.  That test was not the leading of the people across the parted sea.  No, that test was organizing and inspiring the people as they settled in to the Great Slog that was the galvanizing of the people into a nation.  The Great Slog that was their preparation for the conquest of the Holy Land.  The Great Slog that was the setting up of cultus and government for the task of everyday life once ensconced in that land.

That all these things came fraught with difficulty, does not call into question Moses’ leadership.  It does not call into question the people’s fitness for the task.  It simply speaks of the reality that the Great Slog is no walk in the park.  Once the miracle is over, the real work begins.

Acknowledge the miracles.  Face the slog.  That’s how it’s done, folks.  Shabbat shalom.  

The Sabbath of Leadership? A Drash for Parashat Beshallah

Part One:  Friday, 10 January 2014

You’ve probably noticed that the ‘singing part’ of the service tonight has been – shall we say – a little more robust than normal.  We’ve sung more than usual.  And I’ve used unfamiliar melodies in a place or two.  The former aspect was probably, if surprising at first, ultimately pleasing.  Most of us like to sing.  The latter aspect may have been a bit disconcerting, at least at first.  Most of us prefer the familiar.  In the case of singing, the familiar makes us feel competent.  And that’s a good feeling.  The unfamiliar makes us feel incompetent, lost.  But expanding our repertoire sometimes requires that we allow ourselves a momentary incompetence.  If we are willing to accept that momentary incompetence, then we soon transcend it.  We add the new melody to our repertoire.  We can sing, in effect, a new song.

          This Shabbat, on which the weekly Torah portion is Beshallah, is known as Shabbat Shira – the Sabbath of Song.  The song referred to, is the passage found in the first 21 verses of the 15^th chapter of Exodus.  It is called, ‘The Song of the Sea.’  So, we call this Shabbat, ‘Shabbat Shira’ because it is the Sabbath on which we hear The Song of the Sea.

           In many of our congregations, “Shabbat Shira’ is taken to mean Sabbath of song, period.  And therefore, in many Jewish congregations around the world, the services this Shabbat will emphasize all song.  Some of our Reform and Progressive congregations will go out of their way to highlight and sing, in particular, the songs of Debbie Friedman.  Debbie is one of the individuals most responsible for bringing the joy of singing back into our congregations.  But generally speaking, we just emphasize the singing aspect of our worship.

          A friend recently pointed out to me that today, people don’t sing the way they used to in previous generations.  Especially those who came of age soon after the Second World War, remember sing-alongs as a regular part of growing up.  Whenever there was a gathering of young people, whether formal or informal, it seemed someone always brought a guitar and there would be some communal singing.  There was a common body of songs that everybody seemed to know.  First it was folk-songs.  If you were Jewish, there was an additional body of songs, some of them religious and some of them the national songs of Israel, that you sang.

          People still sing, but today it seems as if singing is more about putting on a show for one’s friends, than about friends lifting their voices together.  Karaoke is more the style of singing that fits in with the zeitgeist.  And I am not criticizing karaoke – I love it.  But karaoke is not about a room full of like-minded individuals raising their voices together.  It’s about standing out.

          I’m proposing that we consider Shabbat Shira to be, instead of a Sabbath of Song, a Sabbath of Leadership.  There are lessons in leadership to be drawn from this week’s Torah reading.  And there are lessons to be drawn from the enterprise of making music, and singing, in its entirety.

          Many of us have a somewhat limited way to define leadership.  We think it means, exercising control.  And that certainly is one solid definition of leadership, probably the first of several given in your dictionary.  Karaoke certainly epitomizes this aspect of leadership.  The singer chooses the song she’s going to sing.  She in effect, controls the group present for the next four minutes or so.  Forces them to hear her song choice.  In a karaoke show, it is difficult not to pay attention to the song and the singer.  So those who get up to sing will often accompany their rendition of their song with some outrageous stage antics…because they can.  And because karaoke shows usually include the drinking of adult beverages.

          Invite me out for a karaoke evening, and chances are I’ll happily go.  But this week, I went out for a different kind of musical evening.  Actually, two of them!  This being the second week of the month, I went out for ukulele play-alongs on two consecutive nights.

          I finally figured out why I enjoy ukulele play-alongs.  It’s because of the awesome feeling that comes from a roomful of people all playing and singing the same song, in more-or-less the same key, and thus making beautiful music together.  It’s so reminiscent of my youth, when we would gather informally, someone would take a guitar out of a case, and we would all sing.  Nobody was self-conscious about how well or poorly they could carry a tune.  If you knew the words, you sang along.  If you didn’t, you at least sang along on the chorus.

          If leadership is being in control, an alternative – and just as valid – definition is to join together toward a common goal.  We all exercise leadership when we do that.  Even when you’re following, you may be exercising leadership.  It know that’s a complex concept to grasp, but we actually do it whenever we lift our voices together.

          This Shabbat, I’m reverting to a method I occasionally use, and using this evening’s drash as a sort of teaser for tomorrow morning’s.  I’m going to ‘flesh out’ this topic more fully tomorrow.  If you come, it will be worth your while.  If you do not, then I challenge you to read the continuation of this drash on my blog, or listen to it on my podcast site.  Because I believe that leadership is one of the biggest challenges facing us today.  I mean in the Jewish world.  But also in the greater world.  Much of the malaise that we feel, about ourselves, our lives, our congregations, our countries, comes back to failures of leadership.

          Let’s sing.  Let’s sing with relish, and with joy.  And let’s recognize that, when we sing, the obvious result is that we fill the room with music.  But there’s more that happens.  And perhaps that, not just the music itself, is why singing is so uplifting to us.  Shabbat shalom.         

Part Two:  Saturday, 11 January 2014

Last night I announced that this Shabbat is commonly called, Shabbat Shira – the Sabbath of Song.  That’s because this Shabbat, we read the Torah portion Beshallah, which includes the passage found in the first 21 verses of the 15^th chapter of Exodus.  It is called, ‘The Song of the Sea.’  So, we call this Shabbat, Shabbat Shira because it is the Sabbath on which we hear The Song of the Sea.  But in many of our congregations, we’ve gone beyond that aspect of this week’s service and made it a Sabbath of song, period.

          Are you a member of the generation that came of age immediately after the Second World War, or perhaps the next generation, the ‘Baby Boomers’?  If so, you probably remember communal sing-alongs as being an important part of your social life with your friends.  Whenever there was a gathering, formal or informal, someone usually brought along a guitar and at some point, everybody would join their voices together in song.  I remember it, both in general and in Jewish gatherings.  It was what we did.  The singing was often the highlight of the gathering, the most memorable part.

          Song is really, at its heart, all about leadership.

          Leadership is an interesting, and many-faceted, ‘animal.’  When we invoke the word, we usually think of taking control of a group.  And that is, to be sure, one of the dictionary definitions of ‘leadership.’  When someone, by virtue of position or by force of character, takes control of a group, we call that ‘leadership.’  Now it may be good leadership or it may be bad leadership.  But when we think the word ‘leadership,’ control is what usually comes to mind.

          Singing together is not a common anymore.  Perhaps the contemporary equivalent of the singing we used to do, is the karaoke show.  Now, as I said last night, I’m not criticizing karaoke.  I very much enjoy it.  Invite me out for a karaoke night, and I’ll happily go if I can.  I think it’s fun and entertaining.  It’s a hoot to see what songs people will choose to sing, and how they sing.

          Karaoke is the kind of singing that perhaps, best captures the zeitgeist, the spirit of the age.  In life today, there’s very little room to express our individuality without taking serious risks.  When someone steps out of the ordinary to express his leadership, the instinct of many is to shoot him down.  So, many of us learn not to stand out.  But when we step up to the mike to perform karaoke, we feel we are expressing our individuality in a safe way.

          Karaoke is also about exercising leadership in the sense of ‘taking control.’  The one who has the gumption to get up and sing, gets to take control.  She determines what the gathering will experience for about four minutes.  Because karaoke shows often include the imbibing of adult beverages, the singers sometimes engage in outrageous behavior in their performance.  As I said, if taking control is a form of leadership, it can be good or bad leadership.

          But there are additional definitions of the word ‘leadership.’  During my military career it was constantly driven home that ‘leadership’ does not necessarily involve taking control.  Following the appointed leader is also a form of leadership.  When we follow, we can follow reluctantly.  Or whole-heartedly.  Bad leadership…and good leadership.  We seldom think of following as ‘leadership,’ but it is.  Refraining from taking control, accepting at any given moment that someone else is in control and yielding to that person’s control, is an essential element in leadership.

          In a communal sing-along, there is usually someone in control.  The song leader determines the key, the tempo, and the melody.  But it’s the lifting of voices together that makes communal singing so joyful.  If you’re not the song-leader, you can grouse about the key, the tempo, or the melody.  That would be bad leadership on your part.  Or you can work at blending your voice in with that of the song-leader and the other singers around you.  That would be good leadership on your part.  And ‘blending’ does not necessarily mean singing the same note.  Some of the most sublime communal singing comes when some member or members of the group are able to harmonize – to sing different notes, which compliment the melody.  When we’re here in the sanctuary and I hear harmonizing, it lifts my spirits as you might not imagine.

Singing together is different from karaoke.  But they are not polar opposites, because they are both music.

In the same way, taking control is leadership.  But accepting you’re not being in control, and adding your efforts to the group’s goals as a follower, is also leadership.  Yes, even when you follow, you are exercising leadership.

And when you follow, when you’re not in charge, sometimes the opportunity will arise, to exercise leadership in a way that stands out.  In a way that highlights the importance of initiative.  In the Midrash on the Song of the Sea, that initiative is provided by a man named Nachshon ben Aminadab.  His name does not figure in the written Torah narrative.  But the rabbis identify him as the one who made the splitting of the sea and the safe passage of the Israelites, possible.

Nachshon was the first man to step into the waters.  The Midrash tells us that, until he did, the waters didn’t part.  What was required as the faith of at least one person, to make it happen.

Most of us have, at some point in our lives, encountered a Nachshon ben Aminadab.  He was the one who, after the putative leader gave the instructions, was the first to have the faith that the plan would work.  Whilst everybody else was waiting around to see what the others would do, this Nachshon embraced the plan and made it his own, and set the tone for the others to fall in step behind it.  This person was as important as the one in charge.  Without him, the group’s goals would not have been met.

I came of age in the wake of the Vietnam War and the Watergate Scandal.  The message of these events to my generation was the importance of questioning leadership.  We learned that leaders often fail in various ways, and the consequences of that failure can be onerous for the rest of us to bear.

But I think the damage inflicted by the consequences of the Vietnam-Watergate era is that we question – and reject – leadership as an instinct.  Instead of rejecting failed leaders, we rebel against the very exercise of leadership.  Having observed corrupt leaders, we mistakenly internalize that leadership is, by its nature, a corrupt enterprise.  Or at least, a corrupting enterprise.  If a leader is not corrupt in seeking leadership positions, then we at least suspect that being in leadership is likely to corrupt him.

Of course, rebellion against leadership was known before the 1970’s.  We think back to Lord Acton of the 19^th Century, who declared in a famous letter:  “Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.”  His point is certainly well-taken, but I would have preferred that he nuance it by saying what I think he meant: “Power has a tendency to corrupt.”

When we question the very notion of leadership, we consign ourselves to mediocrity.  Because personal greatness requires leadership.  It requires vision and risk-taking.  And group greatness also requires leadership.  The aforementioned form.  But it also requires the other form of leadership that says, “I’m not in charge, but I’m going to put my heart into this enterprise.”

Singing is all about leadership.  And the Song of the Sea, which we have heard chanted this morning, is about the result of leadership in all its forms.  When the Israelites passed through the sea safely, they did so only because of leadership in its various levels.  And the message of this, to us, is unmistakable.

If we are to achieve greatness together, then we must transcend the distrust for leadership that the Vietnam-Watergate era taught us.  That our other life experiences have taught us.  The failures of leadership that we’ve observed, should not lead of to reject leadership, period.  They should instead provide greater impetus for seeking out good leadership.  Shabbat shalom. 

To Eat in Haste; A Drash for Parashat Bo Saturday, 4 January 2014

I was reading one of those self-help articles on the web, on the site health.com the other day.  It was on New Year’s Day, when about three-quarters of the population of the prosperous Western World make New Year’s resolutions to lose weight.  The article I was reading was therefore, predictably, a list of helpful hints for losing weight.  Specifically, it offered ‘14 Ways to Cut Portions Without Feeling Hungry.’  If you’re a veteran of the weight-loss wars as I am, you know that the biggest impediment to eating less is that, when you do, you feel hungry.

Predictably, then, helpful hint number six was, ‘Set the Scene for Slower Eating.’  As most of us know, eating fast makes us continue to eat after we’re really sated, because the brain hasn’t yet had enough time to receive the signal from the stomach that the latter is full.  It cannot yet, therefore, inform us that we’re no longer hungry.  So, by the time we get the message, we’ve continued to eat – unnecessarily.  Had we eaten more slowly, we would have given our stomachs and brains a chance to still the hand with the fork.  Hint number six, therefore, suggests a number of tactics to slow down our eating.  We should dim the lights and put on some relaxing music to set the tone for a more leisurely meal.  We should chew slowly, put the fork down between bites, and sip water continuously to make the meal last longer.

Intellectually, this all sounds good, but of course there’s much more than the intellect in play when we eat.  In our busy lives, we often eat in haste as a strategy to get the meal over with and return to our long ‘to-do’ lists.  We eat on the run between tasks and appointments.  In America, we famously as a nation eat whilst driving our cars.  Of course, nobody would dream of eating whilst driving here in Queensland, lest he draw the attention of the Queensland Constabulary and receive a fine of $330 accompanied by three demerit points.  Ah, the Nanny State…but I digress. 

So even if you don’t eat behind the wheel, you have probably eaten enough meals on the run in your life to know that eating that way makes your meal far less enjoyable.  And yet we do often eat that way out of habit, because we are so used to being pressed for time.

In this week’s Torah reading, the people Israel are instructed to eat their Passover sacrifice in haste.  In Exodus chapter 12, verse 11 they are instructed:  You must eat it with your waist belted, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand.  In other words, they must eat it in complete readiness to move out on signal.

It’s not only the eating of the Passover sacrifice that must be done in haste.  Also the baking of bread without giving the dough time to rise.  That, of course, yields matzo – represented on our Passover tables today by the ubiquitous square cracker-like sheets.

Contrast this with the way we’re instructed to eat our Passover Seder today.  We’re told to eat whilst reclining, at a deliberately leisurely pace.  The reason is that the exodus has already occurred.  We’re out of Egypt.  We eat a leisurely meal in recognition of the freedom we now enjoy.

 Although the Passover Seder is just one of over a thousand meals we’ll eat during the year – two of the thousand for those of us who insist on maintaining the tradition of two Seders – it would serve us well to learn to apply this lesson to our daily meals.  To take our time and eat with a deliberate slowness as an expression of our freedom.  To fence off a good half-hour for each breakfast and lunch, even if we’re eating alone.  And an hour for dinner.  Turn off the mobile phones and tablets for that time, look across the table at our companions, and enjoy a little face time instead of worrying about responding to a call on Face Time.

Since it is not socially acceptable to eat whilst driving here, I’ve unlearned that bad habit.  I am still working to teach myself to really slow down when eating.  It’s a good lesson to learn.  To remember that we are, after all, free men and women.  And to help us in fighting the Battle of the Bulge.