Clothes Make the Man: A Drash for Parashat Tetzaveh, 27 February 2015

Do you remember the 1980 film, The Elephant Man, starring John Hurt and Anthony Hopkins?  It is the story of Joseph Merrick, a man in Victorian England.  Merrick had a condition causes him to develop severe deformities in childhood.  In his youth, his parents rejected him.  Ultimately he ended up in a travelling freak show.  A surgeon named Frederick Treves discovered him and talked him into accompanying him to London Hospital for a study.  In hospital, he was still regarded as a freak, albeit in a higher-class way and in more comfort.  But even his benefactors did not treat him as a human being, as an equal.

          Merrick was kidnapped back to the freak show and ultimately liberated to return to the hospital.  The doctors, their wives, nurses and even the Princess of Wales, ultimately developed an interest in seeing and relating to the man behind the hideous visage.  They acceded to his requests to be given a gentleman’s clothes and a toilet kit.  Merrick showed how the allowance of such small dignities can transform a man.  This, because they transform the way that others see the man.

          This week’s Torah portion, Tetzaveh is dominated by narrative describing the vestments of the Kohanim, the Priests.  Their clothes had to perfectly fit the specifications spelled out in the reading.  And they had to fit the man perfectly.  If not, according to the Gemara in Sanhedrin 83b, it was as if they were not Kohanim.  In other words, their service would be as if it had not happened.  This, no matter how expert and exacting the performance may have been.

          This is certainly a proof text for the concept that clothes make the man.  Anybody who has dressed for an interview for a white collar job, is aware of the importance of making a good first impression by one’s appearance and one’s clothes.  As it is said, one doesn’t get a second chance to make a first impression.  Rightly or wrongly, that first impression will stick.  As much as one might argue against the superficiality of it, it is a fact of life.

          When I was preparing to retire from the US Air Force, I was sent to a transition class.  Among other things, we were told how to dress for job interviews.  Retiring military guys need this; they generally don’t know how to dress civilian, except for leisure!  So I learned all about cuts and qualities of suits, why not to wear button-down shirts, and how powerful ties should be.  I absorbed all this, got a job, and then I went back to my button-down shirts and my old ties.  But when I was interviewing, I got it.  Interview committees responded positive to the way I turned myself out.  And I responded to it myself, with increased confidence.

          So of course it mattered that the Kohanim dressed in an absolutely perfect manner.  That there was not a single stray thread hanging from their vestments.  That they were constructed perfectly according to specification.  And that they fitted the man perfectly.  Because the Priests, and what they did, served as a nexus between Hashem and the people Israel.  It mattered to Hashem.  It mattered to the people.  And it mattered to the Kohanim.

          In my congregation in Colorado Springs, there was a nice man on the Ritual Committee.  He was an older guy who had owned a clothing store for many years and so was always turned out in a very dapper fashion.  As you can imagine, one of his pet peeves was people who come to shule dressed sloppily, or overly casual.  He and I talked about it on a number of occasions.  I could say that I felt some agreement with his position, because I thought that some of our members and guests could have put a little more care into how they dressed for shule.  But I talked him out of making it an issue.  This, because at the end of the day, I preferred that the people in question came sloppy, than that they wouldn’t come at all.  Because we were happy to have these usually younger adults in shule, I counselled that we just not pick this fight…and we didn’t.

          I think it is good to dress in a not-every-day fashion to come to shule.  If this is a special place where we do something special – and I would argue yes on both counts – then we should feel comfortable dressing in a special manner.  Even if it isn’t the most comfortable suit of clothes we’ll put on during the week.

I have to be careful about how I express this.  The last time I spoke about the importance of dressing appropriately – guess what!  It was for parashat Tetzaveh last year! – some of my students took it to heart and showed up in dark suits the next week.  I had to explain to the Board of Management why we had a row of individuals dressed like gangsters, in shule.  So let me be clear about this; I am not expressing anything close to an expectation that anybody hearing this will go out and buy an expensive new suit of clothes for attending shule!  Not that you’ll be turned away if you do.  But you also won’t be turned away if you don’t.

Someday, we won’t be meeting to pray in a community centre meeting room with a dry erase board and a projection screen behind me.  And we’ll have more than 30 or so people in the room.  And then the informal ethic that we’ve adopted will no longer seem most appropriate.  And I’ll probably go back to wearing my formal robes, or at least a suit and tie.  And believe me, I’ll miss dressing casually on Friday nights.
          But in the meantime, I think we’ve all been around long enough, and seen and experienced enough, to understand clearly why the vestments of the Priests mattered to a people wandering in the desert.  And to the Deity.  And to the Priests themselves.  It mattered for the same reason that it matters how we dress for a job interview.  Or a wedding.  Or our kid’s graduation.  Or a friend’s funeral.  It matters to those who see us. And it matters to us.  The two feed off one another.

Joseph Merrick found that clothes make the man.  As did the Priests of ancient Israel.  It’s something that we all know and understand, even if we occasionally rebel against it.  Shabbat shalom.

A Place for G-d to Dwell: A Drash for Parashat Terumah, Friday 20 February 2015

This week’s Torah portion, Terumah, has been near and dear to my heart for a long time.  In the school year 1991-1992, I was in my first year of rabbinical seminary, in Israel.  One hoop we rabbinical students had to jump through, was to prepare a drash, a sermonette, on one weekly Torah portion and deliver it in the college synagogue during a weekday morning service.  My assigned portion was Terumah. 

          Looking back not long afterward, the assignment seemed rather silly; we were to prepare a homily before we’d ever been taught homiletics.  And to comment on a Torah portion before ever being schooled in commentaries.  Of course now, with the passage of many years, it is possible to see different dimensions to it.  Perhaps we were supposed to experience the process in order to internalise the lesson that it wasn’t quite so simple.  But regardless of the thinking behind the assignment, there is an incontrovertible truth.  And that is that each year, when Terumah is the weekly portion, I smile to myself about the experience.  And I prepare a drash on Terumah that pretty much says the same thing that I said on that morning in the seminary synagogue, all those years ago.  And I pray that my accumulated experience has enabled me to deliver The Message in a way that is more coherent.

          The reading opens with the Israelites being instructed to bring to Hashem gifts of various materials, as their hearts might move them.  They were to bring gold, silver, and copper.  Blue, purple, and crimson yarns.  Fine linen and goat’s hair.  Ram and dolphin skins.  Acacia wood, oil, and spices.  Various precious stones.  And the purpose of all these material gifts?  Let them make Me a sanctuary, that I might dwell amongst them.

          It is easy to read this as saying that, absent the sanctuary that would result from the use of all these material gifts, Hashem would have no place to dwell.  But that would counter the message conveyed in Psalm 24:  The earth of the Lord’s and the fullness therein.  This sentiment echoes throughout the Psalms; just read your way through the selected chapters of that book that comprise the preliminaries to the Shabbat evening or morning service.  And then, in the 23^rd Chapter of Jeremiah, Hashem declares:  Do I not fill heaven and earth?

          With all this, how else might we understand the verse, Let them make Me a sanctuary, that I might dwell amongst them?  Well, for one thing, we might read betocham, often translated amongst them, differently.  The word could easily be translated, inside them.  As in, in their hearts.  Viewed this way, the sanctuary’s purpose is not to provide a dwelling-place for Hashem.  Rather, it is to create a visible sign of His presence, so that we would allow Him to dwell within us.

          Most of my life, I was an iconoclast.  The word has its origin in early Christians who fought against the use of icons, or religious imagery, to depict G-d.  In general use today, it means someone who minimises the importance of visual symbols.  But over the years, experiences have taught me that symbols are powerful and not to be pooh-poohed.

          The day that I suggested to my colleagues on a multi-faith chaplain staff that their insistence on erecting a Christmas tree and other Christmas decorations in the chapel was silly, I began to understand this.  My basic argument was sound:  if it was truly a multi-faith chapel, then to decorate it gaudily for one group’s holiday was not appropriate.  But he way that it came out of my mouth, suggesting that my colleagues’ communities’ attachment to these symbols to the point that they would not be able to worship absent them was silly, was simply wrong.  Wrong, because it did not take into account the power of these symbols.

          Symbols are powerful.  They are the visible signs of things that cannot be seen, that are beyond seeing.  We cannot see Hashem.  But when we go out of our way to erect a sanctuary to Him, we create something that we can see, and touch.  And when we see and touch that something, we feel as if we are seeing and touching Hashem Himself.

          If that is so, then why do these visible symbols not bring out the best in us?  Why is it that, when we’re in the sanctuary, or in the building that serves as a sanctuary, that we’re probably as likely to indulge in gossip, or engage in nasty interactions, as we would elsewhere?

          It’s not an easy question to answer.  Perhaps it is because, in our heart of hearts, many of us simply to not believe that Hashem is real or cares.  Even in the place dedicated particularly to invoking G-d’s presence, we choose to behave in ways that the Torah forbids.  Ways that are absolutely intuitive, even if we are not personally so familiar with the details of what the Torah teaches.

          So does that call into question the enterprise of building ‘sanctuaries’ as symbols of G-d’s Presence?  No, I don’t think so.  But when we focus only on the brick-and-mortar type of ‘sanctuary,’ we limit the totality of what a ‘sanctuary’ might be.

          It might be – and in fact I would argue so – that the ultimate sanctuary for Hashem to be present, is within us.  And when we snipe at one another, or defame one another, or engage in striving with one another whose sole purpose can only be seen as wanting to lord it over to one another?  Then we make it impossible for Hashem to dwell among us.  This, no matter how much we will have collectively donated for the erection of edifices to remind us of G-d’s Presence.

          In reality, that’s why you, who are listening to me speak these words tonight, are here in this room, and not in temple you-know-what.  You saw that as an empty edifice, as a place full of symbols representing G-d’s reality, but where G-d is not allowed to dwell.  Because He does not dwell in the hearts of the people leading that congregation.  Instead of a shell serving to preserve one of the sparks of G-d’s light, that place proved to be an empty shell.

          Often, as I’ve attested to you from my own experience, the notions we hold prove to be wrong.  When they are, it takes a certain honesty and maturity to admit it to oneself and to change one’s mind.  But sometimes we’re correct from the start.  In those cases, the honesty and maturity that we exercise, helps us to articulate those truths more and more coherently with the passage of time.  Shabbat shalom. 

The Jew and the Stranger: A Drash for Parashat Mishpatim, 13 February 2014

Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day.  On it, we celebrate the love between two people.  Two who have chosen to share their lives together.  What a unique relationship.  We don’t choose our parents; we’re stuck with them!  We don’t choose our siblings; we’re stuck with them also!  All the rest, the members of our extended families if we are blessed to have extended family.  (Or cursed, depending on how dysfunctional our family might be!)  But our life partnership is unique.  We choose them!  We also choose our friends, but we generally don’t live with them full time.  And if a friendship goes pear-shaped, we don’t need to get a divorce.

          So the partnership that we celebrate on Valentine’s Day is unique.  It resembles a friendship, but it requires a much bigger commitment.  So we celebrate it twice a year.  Once on our anniversaries.  And once on Valentine’s Day.

          (Please don’t tell me that Jews shouldn’t celebrate Valentine’s Day because of its Christian origins.  Nobody shopping this week for flowers or pink, heart-shaped greeting cards is thinking about martyred Christian saints.  Get a life!)

          It’s an interesting convergence that Valentine’s Day comes on the Shabbat when we read Parashat Mishpatim.  In this Torah reading, in the 23^rd chapter of Exodus, verse nine, we read one of the most sublime edicts in the Torah.  Do not oppress a stranger; you know how it feels to be a stranger, since you were strangers in the Land of Egypt.  This is not the only verse that instructs us concerning the stranger.  In Parashat Kedoshim, in Leviticus 24, we find more.  The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens.  You shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

          The word ‘stranger’ here, the Hebrew ger, is understood to mean the resident alien amongst you.  After all, resident aliens is what we were in Egypt.  Our ancestors lived there for generations.  Yet, we were never citizens.  Until Hashem took us out of Egypt, we were considered a foreign presence.  And we were oppressed, as we all know having celebrated the Passover from year to year.

          When the Torah teaches an ethical principle as it is doing here, there are usually at least two dimensions to it.  The personal and the national.  The micro and the macro.  If so, how are we to understand our obligations regarding the ger?

          On the personal level, we are obligated as individuals to make the stranger feel welcome and comfortable.  This is simple to state in concept, but very difficult to actualise.  This is because we have so little day-to-day contact with strangers.  Groups of new migrants often isolate themselves in tight-knit communities of their own.  This is unfortunate, yet natural.  After all, many of our ancestors, here and elsewhere, stuck together as a way of coping with life in an unfamiliar land.

Having said that, how much are we blessed when we are able to reach out to a newcomer and help, even in a small way to ease their isolation?  This is, of course, in addition to the comfort that the newcomer feels.  Anybody who has had new neighbours reach out to them upon moving to a new city or state, has experienced what I’m talking about in a partial sense.  How much more important, when the newcomer has moved from a familiar to a new country!  When we have neighbours who are new to the country, who could use a little friendship from their established neighbours, it is a positive mitzvah to offer that welcome.

But it’s the macro side of this particular imperative that proves most problematic.  Some Jews, and others as well, read it as an imperative to welcome each and every ‘stranger’ into our midst and to accept them to live amongst us with no reservations whatsoever.  That sounds incredibly noble and therefore difficult to argue against.  In fact, when one does argue against the wisdom of such social policy, one often gets branded as a racist or xenophobe.  Such name-calling is an unfortunate practice of certain politico-social activists, who seek to shut down honest debate on various issues by labelling those who hold opposing opinions with various descriptives ending with ‘-ist’ or ‘phobe.’

The Rabbis understood the word ger, resident alien, as the stranger who abides in your land and follows your laws.  

History is full of ideologies that sounded noble and therefore took hold in various places.  And then proved disastrous, causing untold suffering.  It is therefore wise to examine any proposed public policy, perhaps especially if it sounds noble, with a jaundiced eye.

Here in Australia at this point in history, it is not difficult to imagine the sort of policy about which I’m talking.  There’s a great consternation over who should be accepted as refugees.  There is a reasonable cynicism as to whether all those seeking to present themselves on these shores as bona fide refugees, actually are.  And there is suspicion, with more than a little evidence to support it, that many such ‘refugees’ are not interested in becoming Australian in any sense of the word.  Or in following Australian laws.  At least some of these migrants are bent upon importing here a mindset and a way of life that is antithetical to Australian values.  So what is a Jew to do, reading do not oppress the stranger, for you know how it feels to be a stranger, since you were strangers in the land of Egypt?  Does one advocate a national policy that ignores the dangers and pitfalls of such migration?  Is one free to advocate another position, and therefore have to sense that they – and their country – are not responding positively to the Torah’s imperative?

The answer is that one engages in a serious conversation, ignoring pejoratives tossed at those who disagree with a particular position.  The Torah’s ‘social’ imperatives cannot be automatically translated to pat answers on today’s issues.  Rather, the imperative is to understand what the Torah is talking about.  And then to struggle to apply it.  We’re instructed not to oppress the stranger.  We’re not told to accept each and every stranger who desires to live among us.

So what does this have to do with Valentine’s Day?  What is the interesting convergence, to which I referred earlier?

On this Shabbat we celebrate the one closest and yet freely-entered-into relationship that, for most of us, will define our adult years.  And we receive instruction, with which we may struggle, regarding how we are to treat the people in proximity who are least like us.  And whilst the Torah does not provide us with clear guidance as to the tachlis of the matter, its essence is clearly conveyed.

          This week in one of my classes, we had a great discussion about the reasons we tend to divide the world into ‘us’ and ‘them.’  We agreed that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with this.  We go through life making classifications between things, and people.  The danger is when we see the ‘them’ as being less worthy of our concern.  Or even, G-d forbid, questioning their essential humanity.  We do have a tendency to connect with those with whom we share important cultural, or religious values.  There’s nothing wrong with that, as long as we remember the Torah’s imperatives regarding our treatment of the other.  Of the stranger.

          On this Shabbat which is also Valentine’s Day, as any day, we need to be sensitive to the needs and feelings of the strangers amongst us.  Because we Jews do remember how it feels to be a stranger, we of all people should have concern about the strangers we encounter.  Public policy is not quite so simple.  But it merits our sincere struggle nonetheless.  Shabbat shalom. 

What is Murder? A Drash for Parashat Yitro, Friday 6 February 2015

Chris Kyle - Hero

Abu Bakr al Baghdadi - Murderer

This week’s Torah portion contains the first iteration of Aseret Hadib’rot, the Ten Commandments or ‘Top Ten Commandments’ as I like to call them.  Even though there are another 603 besides these Ten, there’s no arguing that Hashem wanted to particularly emphasise these.  After all, these are the Ten that were inscribed in the two stone tablets given to Moses on Mt. Sinai.  So they were obviously special, bearing a significance that made them stand out from the rest.

          Given that, it is interesting that they are not read more often in the synagogue.  They are read three times in the course of a year:  when the weekly portions Yitro and Ve’etchanan are read, and on the festival of Shavu’ot.  In antiquity, there was a practice of reading them in every morning and evening service, just before the Shema.  The Rabbis abolished this practice by the time of the Mishnah.  This, because of the fear that we would come to believe that the Ten are the totality of what G-d expects of us.  In a traditional synagogue, the Song of the Sea is read every morning.  But the Ten Commandments only thrice a year.

In the introduction to the Zohar, Rabbi Shim’on Bar Yohai states that the key Mitzvah is Yir’at Hashem – the ‘Fear of G-d.’  Fear in this case, meaning reverence or awe.  As Rabbi Shim’on states, this leads to the observance of all the Commandments.  And that truth is acknowledged in the Ten Commandments. After all, Commandment Number One reads:  Ani Adoshem Elokeichem – I am the Lord your God.  This establishes G-d’s sovereignty and implies need for reverence.

          I saw American Sniper the other day.  You may be aware that the film is generating controversy in America.  This, despite its record-breaking box office gross for its introductory weekend, not to mention being on the way to being the largest-grossing film in history, period.  Or perhaps the controversy is because the film is such a success.

          You may have heard that a number of Hollywood ‘luminaries’ have criticised the film and its subject, SEAL Chris Kyle – the most successful sniper in US military history with 160 kills credited.  Kyle was killed by a veteran suffering from PTSD whom Kyle had been trying to help.

The criticism of the film and of Chris Kyle is led by none other than the ‘luminary’ Michael Moore who brought us such memorable films as Sicko, Fahrenheit 9-11, Bowling for Columbine, and Capitalism-a Love Story.  Mr Moore believes that Chris Kyle was not a hero but a coward.  And a racist too, for good measure.  Others who have joined the chorus, have said that he was a murderer.

This is a good time to reflect on what constitutes a ‘murderer.’ After all, this week we read the Ten Commandments and Number Six tells us:  Lo Tirtzach – Thou Shalt Not Murder.  I’m guessing that you are already aware that ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill’ is not a good translation.  ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill’ – as in, take a life under any circumstances – in Hebrew is Al Ta’arog.  So what’s the difference between killing and murdering?  Killing can be Manslaughter – that is, the taking of a life unintentionally, through negligence or recklessness.  It can be allowable, as in self-defence or as in the duties of a soldier or other public guardian.  Murder is a special case:  the willful, unlawful taking of a life, often under aggravated circumstances.  Murder is always killing; killing is not always murder.

Killing is always regrettable.  It is always the spilling of blood, the life-force which G-d planted within us.  Even when one has to kill in circumstances that constitute self-defence, one should regret having needed to do so.

I can tell you that many, perhaps most, American soldiers who had to kill in the recent wars regretted it.  For the last four years of my career as an Air Force chaplain, I was stationed in Germany, close to the Landstuhl Army Hospital.  This is the first stop for most of the wounded being evacuated from the war zones.  Including the Walking Wounded, those with PTSD.

Because the hospital did not have a Jewish chaplain, I was frequently summoned to the hospital’s mental health units to talk to Jewish soldiers who were traumatised after killing in the course of their duties.  These were not the ones who were being prosecuted for illegally killing.  They were evacuated because their PTSD had caused them to have a breakdown.

We saw this traumatisation in American Sniper, in Clint Eastwood and Bradley Cooper’s honest depiction of Christ Kyle.  The cumulative effects of his PTSD from four tours in Iraq as a sniper, weighed heavily upon him.  It could have made him completely dysfunctional had his therapist not encouraged him to seek out ways to help with the healing of those with severe physical injuries.  Kyle’s work with them, helped him to cope with his PTSD.

But the end of the matter is that Kyle was not a murderer.  His unique skills saved lives on the ground.  They rid Iraq of such evil men as The Butcher, an Al Qaida enforcer who punished those who talked to or aided the Americans by using an electric drill to amputate the limbs of their children whilst they watched.  Kyle was neither a coward nor a murderer.  Nor a racist.  Perhaps attestation of these negatives is that Iraqi cinema-goers in Baghdad last weekend, after seeing American Sniper had no such criticism.  Even among those who believe that the war to oust Saddam Hussein was ill-conceived.  The most prevalent criticism is American Sniper by Iraqis, was that the film was too graphic, too realistic.

Chris Kyle and American Sniper serve as an illustration of killing that is not murder.  Another killing to which we were witnesses this week, illustrates exactly what is the essence of murder.  Of course, I’m referring to the execution of Lieutenant Muath al-Kaseasbeh, the Jordanian F-16 pilot who was shot down by the Islamic State.  His gruesome murder, which probably happened weeks ago long before the IS cynically allowed Jordan to negotiate frantically to save the man’s life, was chronicled in a propaganda film.  If ever a killing qualified as murder, this is it.  If ever a murderer deserved our deepest contempt and loathing, it is Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the self-proclaimed ‘caliph’ of the so-called Islamic State.

So all killing is regrettable – even that of Bin Laden and, please G-d, al Baghdadi.  But not all killing is unwarranted.  Or in violation of the law.  Either G-d’s law, or man’s law.  And it is perfectly permissible to celebrate the achievements and successes of the guardians who accept the duty of killing the certifiably evil ones for our benefit.  And it is meritorious to concern ourselves with the well-being of these guardians when they come back, acquitted but wounded after they have so ably carried out their duties.  Shabbat shalom.