The ‘Strange’ Tenth Commandment? A Reflection for Parashat Yitro, Saturday 30 January 2016

Last night I talked about how strange the First of the Ten Commandments sounds.  That is, if you consider I am Hashem your G-d, who led you out of Egypt, the house of bondage to be one of the Ten, and not just a preamble.  This morning I wish to present to you the Tenth of the Ten Commandments, which sounds strange in its own way.  And reflect on why it is there, and why it is essential if the entire ‘package’ is to make any sense to us.

There are a number of law codes in the Torah.  In the next parasha, Mishpatim, we’ll encounter one.  But the Ten Commandments contain ten statements of law that are so basic that one cannot imagine a society based on the relationship between G-d and man, functioning without them.  Worship only Hashem.  Don’t make idols.  Don’t use G-d’s Name to deceive.  Keep the Sabbath.  Honour your parents.  Don’t murder.  Don’t commit adultery.  Don’t steal.  Don’t give false testimony.  Don’t covet that, which belongs to your neighbour.  These ten principles are not the sum-total of what G-d expects of us.  But they are the centrepiece of what is necessary for Israel to begin to create a just society.

          But that Tenth Commandment:  it sounds rather strange, doesn’t it?  All the preceding deal with actions.  Do this.  Don’t do that.  But the last one has to do with our thoughts, doesn’t it?  We’re instructed not to covet.  Some would use the word desire as a synonym.  But the word covet really goes beyond just desiring.  Look, it is worthwhile advice to avoid desiring what belongs to your neighbour.  His livestock. His home.  His wife.  I’ve spoken before, at length, about the pitfall of jealousy.  About the importance of counting your blessings.  But this commandment not to covet, goes beyond all that.

          In the past, I’ve explained it as follows.  If we desire something, that is the first step towards actualising it.  So if we desire something that belongs to our neighbour, that is the first step towards going to steal it, which we know is also one of the Ten Commandments.  So the commandment not to covet, is there to reinforce and serve as a prophylaxis against violating the others.

          But the Ten Commandments should not be seen as carrying the authority of advice!  One can take or leave advice.  No, each one of these statements needs to be seen as carrying the full weight of Divine sanction in its words.  If so, how are we to make sense of a commandment, that tells us how to think?  The answer lies in the word tachmod, usually translated as ‘covet.’  It has to mean more than simply, ‘desire.’  And so it does.

          To covet means to look at something that someone else has, and to believe that, for whatever reason, it is rightfully yours.  To believe that your neighbour, that schmuck, only possesses it because of his cunning, deceit, or perhaps luck.  So you look at what he has, and you wonder why it isn’t yours.  Why that Porsche is in his driveway, not yours.  Why that very driveway, and the adjacent home, has his name on the deed and not yours.  Why his beautiful wife, whom he treats poorly, isn’t yours to treat as a queen.  To ‘covet’ is to question the very legitimacy of your neighbour’s ownership or possession of whatever.  To think yourself as being, for whatever reason, ultimately entitled to it.

          To harbour such thoughts, is likely to lead not only to theft, or adultery, or whatever.  It will ultimately burn at the person’s sense of right and wrong.  It will lead one to question all the other commandments as nothing more than a rigged system to preserve the established order.  It will sow the seeds of chaos and needless rebellion.  Rebellion with no good end.

          The world isn’t fair.  It isn’t fair that someone else has a yacht, and I don’t.  It isn’t fair that someone is good-looking, and I’m not.  But if I define my world by that supposed unfairness, I am setting myself up for eternal unhappiness.  And the world, for anarchy.  That’s why I cringe whenever people make broad statements about the guilt of robber barons and businesses that make more ‘than they deserve.’  For example, I wish petrol would be much cheaper than it is.  But I avoid – and counsel others to avoid – cursing the ‘rapacious’ oil companies that ‘profiteer at our expense.’  It isn’t my business to dictate how much profit an oil company should make.  Or a pharmaceutical company.  Or a bank.  Or an airline.  If I define the world in this manner, identifying those who take more than they ‘deserve,’ then I am feeding the tendency for baseless entitlement.  My sense of justice will forever make me burn with a desire to overturn the world.  That already happened in parts of the world, and the result was not good.

          We have a tendency to desire just about anything we might lay our eyes upon.  Given that, do not desire isn’t really useful advice.  But when we’re told lo tachmod…kol asher lereyacha – don’t covet anything that belongs to your neighbour – we aught to understand the tendency to covet as something far deeper than just to desire.  We desire just about everything that our eyes behold.  No, it’s not a good thing to do so.  But to covet is to question the very order of things.  Not to harbor simple jealousy, but to question the concept of ownership that keeps me from possessing the object of my desire.  To question the legitimacy of my neighbour’s possession of an object, not because I think he doesn’t hold valid title to it, but because I think he doesn’t deserve it whilst I do.  If we understand the Ten Commandments as being the very foundation of a society, then we can see why do not covet needed to be included.  And needs to be heeded.  Shabbat shalom

The ‘Strange’ First Commandment? A Reflection for Parashat Yitro, Friday 29 January 2016

In some congregations, there is a custom of celebrating the festival of Simchat Torah, by unrolling a Torah Scroll.  This gives those in attendance, an opportunity to glimpse the Written Torah as a whole, to get a sense of what it means to navigate through the text by noting its highlights.  The interesting thing is that most of said highlights, are written in a distinctive fashion so that they stand out.  This, in a text that has no page numbers of any other markers to indicate where one is.

One of the first obvious visual features is the gap that exists between each of the Five Books.  So if you’re at the very start of Genesis and want to find the start of Exodus, you roll ahead to the gap of about two inches, below which you see the opening words of the book:  Eileh shemot benei Yisrael…

Then, certain passages are ‘marked’ by some distinctive way of writing them.  For example, the Shema, Deuteronomy 6:4, is marked by an elongation of the last letters in the first and last words of the declaration:  the Ayin in the word Shema, and the Dalet in the word Echad.  The two elongated letters, form the word Eid, meaning ‘witness.’  The very text of the Shema offers an important witness to the existence and nature of G-d.

Some passages are easy to identify by their being written with a unique spacing.  Last week I allowed as how I think the Song of the Sea, Genesis 15, is one of the highlights of the Torah.  Its words are spaced in a way that supports its poetic metre, which makes it easy to immediately spot as one scans through the text.  Likewise, other poetic passages are written to support the poetic metre of their words.

This week’s portion contains a significant piece not of poetry, but of thundering prose.  It, too is spaced in a way that makes it hard to miss as one rolls or scans through a Torah.  The passage in question is, of course, none other than the Ten Commandments.

The Ten Commandments is one of the best-known passages in the Torah.  Even if it didn’t fairly jump off the page at us, it is one of those passages by which people define the Torah.  And not just the Torah.  Christians consider the Tanach under the name ‘Old Testament’ to constitute some two-thirds of their holy scriptures, volume-wise.  And for most, the Ten Commandments is one of the defining passages.  So not just for Jews, the image of Moses carrying the two tablets of stone with these words chiseled into them, is central to their faith story.

Recently, my daughter and I visited the US National Archives in Washington, DC.  We couldn’t miss the Great Hall, where the originals of all the important documents of American history are on display.  The line past the display cases moves slowly, because people tend to stand and read, word-for-word, the key passages of each.  When it comes to the US Constitution, people tend to read only the Preamble.  We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.  It’s a simple declaration, but it sings in a way that few run-on sentences of 52 words can.  Even when we Americans fail to make our country live up to its founders’ lofty aspirations, we find that these words resonate deeply and inspire us to get back to work.

So too the ‘preamble’ of the Ten Commandments.  I am Hashem your G-d who led you out of Egypt, the house of bondage.  Much shorter than the Preamble to the US Constitution!  Much more to the point!  Only eight words in the Hebrew.  And yet, these eight words sing to us across the centuries and capture our attention for what follows. 

The Torah does not identify the Ten Commandments as such.  It just tells us that G-d presented them to Moses.  The idea that they contain ten discrete statements, is commentary.  But it stuck.  Our tradition loves symmetry.  The idea of ten specific, identifiable statements chiseled on two stone tablets, five to a tablet.  We tend to attempt to order everything around us into recognizable patterns, in order to make them make more sense.  It that’s so, then which commandment is the first?  Well, that depends on whom one asks.  Some authorities consider this preamble, this statement of who G-d is, to be the First Commandment.  It sure doesn’t sound like a commandment!  It sounds like nothing more than a preamble, a setting of the tone for what follows.

But without this preamble, the rest of the Ten Commandments are gutless, with little power to compel us.  It is because Hashem did this for us – took us out of Egypt and relieved us of our servitude – that he has the authority to then proceed to make demands on us in the form of a list of positive and negative commandments.

Whether you prefer to consider this statement – I am Hashem your G-d who led you out of Egypt, the house of bondage – as ‘just’ the preamble, or as a rather strange First Commandment, is not important.  Because whether it does constitute a commandment or not, it gives us the basis for all that follows.  That we have not always gotten with the programme of the latter, does not call the enterprise into question.  The establishment of Divine authority is the basis.  Not just of the Ten Commandments.  But for all 613.  Shabbat shalom!

Faith: the Prerequisite for Miracles: A Reflection for Parashat Beshallach, Saturday 23 January 2015

This morning you heard the Song of the sea.  It’s the song of Moses and the people Israel.  They sang it spontaneously when, having crossed the split sea on dry land, they witnessed Pharaoh’s chariots and charioteers drown when the waters returned to their place.  These events are memorialised in the 15th chapter of Exodus.

          Last night I spoke about the importance of singing out with joy when deliverance comes.  And about how, if you can’t imagine what to sing about, you’re being blind to the miracles that surround you.  So you don’t need to cross the sea on dry land, between two walls of water.  Nor do you need to witness the demise of your enemy as the waters return.  Those are great miracles.  But we experience less-great miracles all the time.  We often miss them, because we’re looking for the great sort.  So we sing, and in singing we become aware of all the ‘small’ miracles for which we give thanks.

          But the Song of the Sea flowed forth from the voices of the people Israel after a miracle of the great sort.  And what was necessary for that miracle to happen?  Well, Hashem had to will it that the people Israel would experience deliverance.  And Moses:  he played a major part.  Raising his staff so that waters would obey.  But the Midrash teaches us that an additional element, not included in the Written Torah’s narrative, was necessary.  And that is…faith.

          We Jews don’t talk much about faith.  Faith has a bad name in our circles.  When someone invokes faith, we usually think it means belief that belies evidence.  In other words, there are things that can be proven…and things that one accepts on faith.  Now that is one meaning of the word ‘faith.’  But it isn’t the only one.

          Our Torah tells us:  Abraham believed G-d, and it was counted to him for ‘righteousness.  (Genesis 15:6)  Now let me ask you:  what is the image in our minds of this man, Abraham?  Do we picture him as this mousy little guy who sits around, waiting for miracles to happen?  Do we think that Abraham’s faith is of the sort that belies logic, that doesn’t expect some proof?  I think not.  Abraham is the epitome of the proactive guy.  He steps out in confidence, in faith, that his actions will bring positive result.  He is not passively looking for signs from the heavens, needing that kind of reassurance before he has the courage to act.  That simply isn’t the man we picture.  It’s not the one that emerges from the text.

               But we’re not talking about the faith of Abraham today.  We’re talking about the faith of Nachshon ben Aminadav.  It was the faith of Nachshon, according to the Midrash, that paved the way for the splitting of the sea.

          The people stood at the shore of the sea, their backs to the waters, watching Pharaoh’s chariots approach from afar.  As you can imagine, the dust cloud thrown up by those heavy chariots and their rigid wheels could be seen from a great distance.  The people were afraid, and turned to Moses demanding to know why he had led them out of Egypt only to die at the sea.  Moses, obeying Hashem, raised his staff.  But nothing visually happened.  Until Nachshon said, “The heck with this!  I’m outa here!” (Okay, maybe her didn’t say it exactly like that!) As he stepped into the waters, they parted.  One man had to have faith.  And the rest of the nation, riding the one man’s merit, followed.

          The point of the Midrash is to remind us of the centrality of faith to the realisation of good things.  And to highlight the important of the faith of the one lone person in the crowd.

          Faith is not an easy thing to have.  It is much easier to be a sceptic.  In our day, it makes one feel smart and cultured.  To be religious is not at all ‘cool.’  It shows one to be of a lower stratum of intelligence, according to many.  Then-Senator Barack Obama, vying for the Democrat Party’s nomination to run for President of the United States, expressed this disdain perfectly.  In April 2008, speaking to a ‘hip’ San Francisco crowd, he explained his lack of support in some sectors of small-town America:  “…They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them…to explain their frustrations.”  Oh, those poor, benighted people!  Clinging to their religious faith, among other things, because they couldn’t understand the complexity of their world.  But in reality, Obama was expressing a mindset that many urban hipsters share.

          In truth, I’m not sure it was ever easy to have faith.  Oh, in ages past it was easier to act religiously.  But to allow faith to guide your thoughts and actions; that was never an easy calling.  Human history shows us that we strive for either self-reliance, or to rely upon charismatic individuals who are bound ultimately to disappoint.  Men and women like Nachshon, willing to step out with faith and confidence, are not common.

          Thank G-d, then for the second part of the faith equation:  that one person’s faith can infect others and shore up their confidence.  Fortunately, these individuals while in the minority can be found in every age, in every situation.  But they can easily get drowned out in the malaise surrounding them.

          So here’s today’s takeaway.  When you encounter a person of faith, cling to that person.  Desire what they have and seek to learn how they developed it and how they sustain it within themselves.  And let it infect you and lead you to the confidence and certainty that comes from having true faith.  And who knows?  Maybe you’ll be your generation’s Nachshon.  Maybe your faith at a critical moment, will bring good result not just for yourself and those close to you, but to masses of people.  Shabbat shalom.   

A Song in our Hearts: A Reflection for Parashat Beshallach, Friday 22 January 2016

Do you remember the movie, Midnight Express?  It was a mediocre movie made in 1978.  It was a story about a young American, caught smuggling hashish out of Turkey.  About his nightmare in the Turkish justice system and a Turkish prison.  It was an eminently forgettable film, though not without a couple of humorous moments to make it memorable.  In one such moment, a group of foreigners behind held in the prison talk of escaping.  One of them tells the others that, underneath the prison are catacombs where Christians hid for their lives during the Muslim conquest.  One of the group taps the wall, puts his ear to it and nods.

“Gotta be here someplace.  Thought I heard a couple of dead Christians singing down there.”

It’s a powerful stereotype, that of singing Christians.  But in reality, almost all religious traditions include singing or chanting during worship.  I think the Quakers are about the only group that does not.  I’ll never forget when I was invited into an American Indian sweat lodge.  I couldn’t join in the chanting in Lakota, so I chanted in Hebrew.  I chanted the Shema to the Lakota beat.  Nobody seemed to mind; they even offered me a toke from their peace-pipe afterward.

Anybody who knows my wife Clara and me, and has attended any of our programs, knows that we love to sing.  We include as much singing as we think you can stand – and then a little bit more! – in our services.  Sometimes, Clara breaks into spontaneous song…when I’ve gone a little long for my sermon, for example.  Nobody seems to mind.  We go out when we can, to join singing and ukulele-strumming nights; I strum and sing, but Clara only sings.

Some Jewish congregations like to sing more than others.  Clara and I belonged to a Conservative Synagogue in Colorado Springs when I was stationed there, at the Air Force Academy.  I held services at the Academy, for the cadets, on Friday evenings and would attend the Saturday morning service at the synagogue.  I never noticed that not everybody around me was singing, but many weren’t, or they were singing quietly.  I sometimes wondered why people would stare at me.

One day we got a new Cantor with a lovely voice.  But she complained to the Rabbi about the guy several rows back, near the window, who sings so loudly.

“Oh, that’s Rabbi Don,” the Rabbi told her. “He sings so loudly because he’s deaf and can’t hear himself.”

Shortly thereafter, I was fitted for my first hearing aids.  The first Saturday I wore them, the Cantor came over to me after the service.

“Congratulations on your new hearing aids,” she told me.

That was funny.  I hadn’t told anybody I had them.  And they were the kind that hide inside one’s ears, impossible to see if you’re not looking for them.  But the Cantor knew I had them, because I wasn’t singing quite so loudly as before.

As I said, we love to sing.  But maybe, just maybe, it’s more than that.  Maybe we have to sing!  I don’t think that’s an exaggeration at all.  If you’re feeling down, feeling that the world is just pressing down on you…sing!  You’ll see what I mean.  When you sing, it is much easier to think that maybe, just maybe, everything will work out in the end.

Psychotherapy by a skilled therapist, is a wonderful tool.  But nine times out of ten, singing will be more effective.  And it’s cheaper, too!

In this week’s Torah reading, Moses and the people Israel break out in song.  Boy, did they need it!  Enslaved by Pharaoh.  Under the grinding pressure of taskmasters.  The crack of the whip.  Edicts that their male babies be killed.  Unhappy?  Gather your own straw!  That’ll teach you people to complain!  Then the plagues, ten of ‘em.  Remember:  only the last one, the Smiting of the Firstborn, spared the Israelites.  The first nine plagues hurt the Israelites also.

Then, at the shore of the sea, a miracle!  Pharaoh’s chariots bear down on the assembled Israelites.  The sea splits for them to cross over.  When the Egyptians give pursuit, the waters crash down upon them, wiping them out entirely.

Look, I’d be willing to wager that the people Israel, at this point in their history, were not given to frequent, spontaneous singing.  But when their adversary drowned or turned back, how could they not sing!  At that moment, I imagine, there was no embarrassment.  Nobody worried that their voices might be off-key.  Nobody worried about how professional or amateurish they might sound.  They must have let loose, uninhibited and with unbridled joy.

The splitting of the sea, and the drowning of the Egyptians was a grand miracle.  We seldom see such miracles.  We have to settle for small miracles.  The problem with the small ones is that, if you’re not paying attention, you might miss them altogether.  That’s where singing comes in.  If you sing out your joy, you will feel joy.  If you sing out thanks for miracles, your eyes will be opened to the miracle that you’ve already experienced…but probably missed.

Music soothes the ‘savage soul.’  But it also uplifts the civilised one!  So we should never be embarrassed to sing out.  We should sing, knowing that our song will help to heal our own souls of most of what might be oppressing us.  But we should know that our song floats heavenward.  In the time it takes to reach the ears of the angels, our notes are corrected so that everyone is true and on key.  Our song is only pleasing to the angels, and to G-d Himself.  But you know what?  When they hear the perfection of our song, we hear it as well.  So if our song sounds good to us, that is proof that the heavenly hosts are enjoying it.

Then, our distant ancestors sang out their joy upon their deliverance from Pharaoh.  Today, despite all the tsurres in the world, we can sing out our joy that we are here and alive and whole and able to celebrate Shabbat.  That is a sublime gift indeed.  And worth singing about.  Shabbat shalom.

Jewish Journeys Weekly E-gram

Dear Friends,

Yet again the ordinary week draw to a close and Shabbat approaches, a wonderful opportunity to join in community and praise G-d.

Tomorrow, Friday, 6.30PM, at the Levy home; Shabbat evening service followed by dinner. Dairy this week.

Saturday, 10.00AM, at the QCWA Hall in Southport. Shabbat morning service. This week the Torah reading is Beshallach; we sing Moses' triumphant Song of the Sea. Bring yourself a sack lunch, and afterwards we'll sit at table, enjoy one another's company and do a little study. I'll pick a new topic for this week. Feedback is welcome.

Sunday at 6.00PM, Tu B'shvat Seder at Sharon Barnett's home. RSVP to attend this if you haven't yet. Let me know if you need the address. Asking $36 donation per person, $10 for kids.

Looking forward to seeing you soon! A peaceful Shabbat and a pleasant Australia Day.

Rabbi Don

Death of the Firstborn: Why? A Reflection for Parashat Bo, Saturday 16 January 2016

The twelfth chapter of the Book of Exodus contains the climax of the Plagues against Egypt.  In the previous chapter, the Pharaoh repeatedly refuses Moses’ demand that the Israelites be freed.  This, despite the increasing cost from his refusal.  Now, Hashem instructs Moses regarding the preparations for the Final Plague, Makat Bechorot, the Slaying of the Firstborn.  The Israelites are to prepare a sacrifice, the Paschal Lamb, and daub its blood on the lintels of their doorways.  That way, when the Angel of Death moves through Egypt taking the lives of the firstborn of every family, he will spare the firstborn of the Israelites.

          We know the story.  We read it every year.  And yet, as the narrative turns to this passage, it is difficult not to get caught up in the excitement of the drama.  To experience it as if for the first time.

          If you heard or read my sermon from last week, you know that I consider the recitation of the Plagues to be an essential part of the Seder.  Without it, we are robbed of the high drama and the full Glory of G-d’s power.  Maybe that’s why some liberals want to expunge the Plagues.  They want the narrative to be stripped of its most compelling quality.  They won’t admit this.  They’ll say that we shouldn’t take delight at others’ misfortune.  No argument from me on that point.  But those who want to ban our enjoying the Plagues, are often the most gleeful in their reactions to the misfortune upon those, whom they oppose.

          So if we are to sympathise, at least on some level, with the Egyptians for the plagues that they endured to the point of the Death of their Firsborn, how are we to understand them?  How are we to understand Hashem, who exacted this terrible price from the Egyptians, apparently for their leader’s obstinence?  Isn’t it shown to us earlier in the Torah that G-d wishes to relent from punishing large numbers of people, even if a small number of righteous individuals can be found among them?  Aren’t we taught, that the merit of the few can absolve the many?  If so, how can one man’s continued refusal – even when that one man is the Pharaoh – cause G-d to rain down such severe judgement upon an entire people?

          It’s a reasonable question, but in asking it we reveal our ignorance concerning Ancient Egypt and its laws and society.  There’s far more to the story of Egypt, than the fact that they were ruled over by a tyrannical Pharaoh who singled out and enslaved the Israelite people.

          Repeatedly in history, subject people have suffered from the excesses of capricious rulers.  Let’s use Nazi Germany as an example.  There is no doubt that each and every German citizen ultimately suffered for Hitler’s maniacal plans to conquer the world, and in particular his using the Jewish people as a scapegoat for explaining all of Germany’s problems.  But as historian Daniel Hagen showed us in his blockbuster Hitler’s Willing Executioners, Hitler didn’t not feed his people anything they were unwilling to swallow.  Sure there were individuals who resisted the worst of the Nazi persecutions.  But Hitler did not invent the Germans’ antipathy toward the Jews, he only channeled it.  And not only that of the Germans, but also of the Eastern Europeans.  Even in lands of the East which were brutally occupied and raped by the Nazis, finding accomplices for the destruction of the Jews was not difficult.  And for the Jews, finding assistance from locals was – not only difficult, but mostly impossible.

          Human nature is such that most people, if their own status is secure, will not oppose a tyrannical regime to defend someone who is less fortunate.  And this is so even when the citizen does not imperil himself by opposing the regime.  How much more so, when it does!  Even those who secretly think the regime evil, will often acquiesce if it keeps them safe.  Of course, this is a fallacy; any regime evil enough to single some group or groups in society for persecution and annihilation, will not hesitate to target other groups or individuals at its pleasure.  People in their cowardice, often fail to see this clearly.  It should be self-evident.  But people want to be convinced that their well-being is assured.  So they will ignore – or even be coopted into – evil as long as they’re not its target.

          I think we can make this assumption regarding the Ancient Egyptians.  The Pharaoh enslaved the Israelites to a life of heavy servitude on the counsel of his advisors, who expressed fear that this ‘Certain People’ among all the groups of resident aliens in Egypt, would form a Fifth Column to rise up against his rule.  Given this behavior, I think it requires an extreme stretch of the imagination to think that everybody else would get off scot-free!  More likely, the Pharaoh used various means and degrees to control everybody, native Egyptians being no exception.  Remember how, later in our Torah narrative, the Israelites in the desert rebel against Moses’ leadership?  Sick of the sameness of their diet, they proclaim to him:  At least in Egypt, we had meat to eat!  While it is frequently said that an army marches on its stomach, it is frequently ignored that civilian populations can be controlled by rewarding them with food.    

          So we should not mourn excessively for the Egyptians who suffered under the plagues.  Surely some of them transcended the persecution of the Israelites and tried to be kind to them.  But given what we know of human history, we should assume that most of the Egyptians were Pharaoh’s willing taskmasters.

          One more thought on the Slaying of the Firstborn.  We know that most ancient Near Eastern cultures, had a death-cult whose god required human sacrifices.  In particular, the Sacrifice of the Firstborn.  This is a repeating trope.  In Ancient Canaanite societies, the sacrifice was to the Fire-god Moloch.  Many of the ancient societies of the Fertile Crescent, North Africa and Arabia had a similar cult.  The god who required this sacrifice was considered the most awesome of a people’s gods, because this is to many the Ultimate Sacrifice.  Although there is little evidence that this practice existed in Egypt, that does not prove that it didn’t.  It isn’t a stretch to think that the Pharaoh, who was held as the chiefest of the gods, required human sacrifice.  Just because some contemporary Egyptologists want to whitewash Ancient Egypt’s practices, doesn’t mean that we should eagerly embrace this whitewashing.

          The god requiring the sacrifice of the firstborn was considered the most awesome, most powerful of the gods.  And we understand that Pharaoh – and his people – were not going to budge on the issue of freedom for the Israelites until they could see their G-d, Hashem, as being the most awesome and powerful G-d:  more than any of the gods of Egypt, Pharaoh included.  Given all this, it is easier to understand why there was no serious movement to free the Israelites until after the Slaying of the Egyptian Firstborn – which spared the Israelite Firstborn.  It is self-evident in the narrative that this final act was not Hashem’s preference.  The plagues began with acts that could have been passed off as magicians’ tricks or natural acts, and escalated to the point where Hashem had no other choice but to smite the Egyptian firstborn.  This ultimate plague must be seen as being the consequence for the Pharaoh’s obstinance and his people’s complicity.  And not because Hashem, the G-d of the Israelites, desired it should happen.

          So we remember the Ten Plagues.  And we understand that they are an essential element of the story of our freedom.  We don’t celebrate that it was necessary, for our ancient forebears to fulfil their destiny.  But we do celebrate that the G-d we serve, was so steadfast in His determination to overcome evil, that He reluctantly made it happen.  Shabbat shalom. 

Playful Negotiations: A Reflection for Parashat Bo, Friday 15 January 2016

Charlton Heston as Moses, faces off with Yul Brenner as
Pharaoh Ramses in the 1956 film, ;The Ten Commendments'

Being married to an Israeli, I’ve gotten used to every shopping expedition taking on the air of a trip to the shuk, to the bazaar.  Clara insists on negotiating price every time we make a purchase.  Unless it’s laundry soap, or something equally pedestrian.  But in most stores, for most purchases, she will never just pay the stated or marked price without trying to negotiate a better one.

          Of course, she learned this behavior in the informal shuk in Israel.  Today, there are modern supermarkets all over the country.  Just like here in Australia, one can even shop online and have the one’s groceries delivered home.  Inside the supermarkets, there are working bakeries, salad bars, and hot food to go.  But alongside the supermarkets, the institution of the shuk endures, beloved by many veteran Israelis.  Many visitors to Israel make a stop at one of the two largest of these markets:  Shuk Carmel in Tel Aviv, or Mahane Yehuda in Jerusalem.  When I lived in Jerusalem for a year to study, I did my weekly shopping at Mahane Yehuda.  It was the place for the freshest fruit and veg and the best prices.  And it made shopping an experience, not just a quick trip to fill the trolley.

          At the shuk, one learns to negotiate price.  Here in the West, we are used to negotiating only for houses and cars.  But in the Middle East, one negotiates for everything.  It is said that, if you wander into a shop there and don’t negotiate, the shopkeeper will be insulted.  I cannot confirm this.  But I do know that, once you start negotiating, the shopkeeper rises up to the Challenge of the Game.  And the Game is fun for all.  I experienced this especially in Turkey.  Once, whilst I negotiated for a carpet, I noted that every other patron in the shop stopped what they were doing and watched the negotiations.  Perhaps it was particularly interesting because I was a foreigner with limited Turkish.  But they stopped their own shopping to see what kind of price I could negotiate.  And once the sale was agreed, the shopkeeper ordered tea and sweets brought in for everybody in the store.  Everybody had enjoyed watching the yabanci bargain like a Turk.

          In this week’s Torah reading, we see the desperate dialogue between Moses and Pharaoh devolve, for a time, into a playful Middle Eastern bargaining session.  In the past, you’ve heard me urge you to learn Hebrew because much of the humour, poetry, and deeper meanings of the Hebrew get lost in translation.  But in this week’s portion, this playfulness actually comes through even in the English.  For a change, everybody gets to enjoy it.

          Moses has been commanding Pharaoh all along, to let the Israelite people go so that they may worship Hashem.  Of course, he means that they must be freed, period, so that they may worship Hashem by travelling to their Promised Land and organising there their society in accordance with Hashem’s laws.  When Pharaoh repeatedly refuses, Moses makes it clear that the resulting plague is imposed by this G-d, Hashem, and not through any powers possessed by Moses himself.  When Moses and Aaron threaten Egypt with the next plague, Locusts, Pharaoh’s advisors for the first time show themselves to be more than sycophantic Yes Men.  They urge him to let the Israelites go and worship their G-d, as Egypt has already been severely damaged and stands to be completely ruined.

          But Pharaoh doesn’t really ‘get’ it.  He interprets the ‘worship’ that Moses tells him the Israelites need to carry out, as being a discreet event for which they must sojourn to some place in the wilderness, then return.  Of course he is thinking in terms of the cults of the gods of Egypt, who demand sacrifices and then, once they’re thus placated, the people just go on with their lives as before.  The gods of Egypt do not make continuing moral demands upon the people.

          So Pharaoh begins negotiating with Moses on the basis that this ‘letting my people go’ is a temporary event.  Maybe he does understand what Moses is really demanding.  But as he warms to the negotiation, he treats it as if it were just a limited evolution.  As if letting my people go to worship Hashem meant that the Israelites would accomplish said worship, then return to resume their labours.

          The playfulness with which Moses parries the Pharaoh’s positions, makes it clear that he is willing to play the Game.  Pharaoh tells Moses to take his people and go worship.  And who, he asks, needs to go?  Moses tells him that everybody must go:  men, women, and children.  Pharaoh tells him ‘nothing doing’; he should take the men, do what they need to do, and get back immediately.  Pharaoh’s frame of reference is clearly Egypt’s cults, where only men participate in the offering of sacrifices.  But Moses insists that their G-d, Hashem, is different.  He demands that all worship together:  men, women, and children.  But Pharaoh won’t agree to this.

          So the locusts come.  And then the darkness.  And Pharaoh calls Moses back.  He agrees that all the Israelites may go.  Pharaoh then tells Moses to take all the people to offer their sacrifice; just leave their livestock behind.  It’s clear that, even if he ‘gets’ it that Moses means freeing the Israelites for once and forever, he’s still conceding only a temporary freedom for a specific event.  But Moses responds playfully:  If we go to sacrifice without our livestock, what can we sacrifice?  He explains that the protocols of the sacrifice involve pulling out the choicest animals from the herd and flock, so therefore it is necessary for them to travel to where they’ll erect their altar with their complete herds and flocks.  But Pharaoh doesn’t want to allow this; he wants some surety that the Israelites will return.  And sending them out without their flocks, would suffice.  But of course, from Moses’ perspective it would not.  So he refuses Pharaoh’s ‘last, best offer’ and that sets the stage for the final plague, the Slaying of the Firstborn.

          The lesson?  There are so many lessons to draw from this Torah.  But perhaps one important lesson is that we need not take ourselves so seriously that we cannot enjoy a little humour even in the most desperate situation.  Even in the darkest of life-and-death situations, we can draw a little humour to make the situation just a little more bearable.  I can give you an example of this.

          In 1968 the USS Pueblo, an America Navy spy ship was taken forcibly by North Korea and its crew detained.  In one of the photos taken by the North Koreans of crew members, they are seen extending their middle fingers, ‘flipping the bird’ to their captors.  When the Koreans saw the photo, they demanded to know the nature of this gesture.  The crewmen answered: “It’s the Hawaiian Good Luck sign.”  And afterward they frequently flipped their captors the bird in the course of their daily interactions, telling them “Good luck!” each time.  Their captors of the ‘Hermit Kingdom’ were so ignorant of other cultures that they were fooled for a time.  Eventually they found out that the extended finger was a gesture of contempt, and they beat the prisoners.  But for a time, their displaying the middle finger to their captors with impunity, raised their morale and made their captivity more bearable.

          Even when things seem hopeless, we can approach our situations with a little humour.  Most of us never face the kind of conditions faced by the crew of the Pueblo.  Or of Moses, when he faced down Pharaoh.  So if they could respond with a little playfulness even in extremis, then we can lighten up from time to time.  And this is not a lesson lost on the Jewish people.  Our brand of humour is celebrated, and is enjoyed by Jew and gentile alike.   But sometimes, Members of the Tribe inconveniently forget this.  And when we do, we add unnecessarily to the grimness of our lives.  So I say:  Lighten up!  Even when logic might preclude it.  Shabbat shalom.

Jewish Journeys Weekly Newsgram

Dear Friends,

Once again a busy week is almost past, and we can look forward to a relaxing and spiritual Shabbat experience with our friends!

You're invited to join us at the Levy's tomorrow, Friday evening at 6.30PM for the Shabbat evening service followed by a hot dinner.  meat this week, although there will be a vegetarian option for those who prefer.  We ask a $15 donation per persion attending, except Jewish Journeys' members.

Saturday morning.  Last week Paul proposed, and those in attendance seemed to like, the following idea:  instead to joining together, those who are interested, to have lunch in a restaurant, we remain at the hall.  Everybody bring their own sack lunch - this is not a 'pot luck'! - and we'll sit, eat, enjoy one another's company and study a bit.  Everybody who cares to, can donate to Jewish Journeys the $20 you would have spent in the restaurant as a boost to help us through our funding difficulties.  (This is in addition to the $15 per person donation that we ask of all those attending the service, except members).

The only difference to what was proposed last week, is that we are not going to start half an hour early, at 9.30AM as announced.  Several people expressed concern about that.  So we're going to start at ourregular time, 10.00AM but otherwise we're going to try what Paul proposed.  Bring a sandwich or something for lunch - remember, you can stow it in the fridge at the hall during the service - and we'll sit down together, all who can stay, after the service.  We have the hall until 1.00PM.

Of course, the hall I refer to is our usual meeting place, the QCWA Hall in Southport.  And remember, I am welcoming suggestions for topics for the table lessons!  If you have something you'd like to learn, your letting me know in advance will enable me to do some research and maybe prepare handouts or other materials.

Remember, we're taking bookings for the Tu B'shvat Seder which will be on Sunday, 24 January at 6.00PM at Sharon Barnett's home.  $36 donation per person, $10 for children.  I don't need payment now, but I do need to know if you"re planning to come.

Finally, I have been invited to speak at an inter-faith function at 3.00PM on Thursday, 28 January at St. Martin's House, St. John's Cathedral, 373 Ann Street in Brisbane.  You are all welcome to come if you're available!  If you'd like to go, and would like to travel up together, please let me know right away.  Maybe after the program, we'll go someplace in Brissy for a no-host dinner.

Looking forward to seeing you on Shabbat and beyond...

Rabbi Don

Don’t Fear the Plagues? A Reflection for Parashat Va’era, Saturday, 9 January 2016

During the years that I worked as a rabbi in the USA, I was asked many times to put on demonstration Passover Seders for Christian groups.  I was always happy to fulfil such requests, with the proviso that I was going to show them an authentic Jewish Passover Seder – not a Jesus-centred ‘Last Supper.’  I would ask the hosting pastor to give an opening prayer in accordance with his tradition, then I would run with the rest.  It was a formula that worked wonderfully.  The Christians were almost without exception, enthusiastic and appreciative.  And wow, did they work hard to sing the Hebrew songs!

          The only time I really walked away from a demonstration Seder with a bad taste in my mouth, was not from a Christian group but a Unitarian-Universalist congregation.  For those who are unfamiliar with the UU’s, they are culturally Protestant but they do not limit their views to the Trinitarian, Christian god.  They are an extremely liberal group.  And interestingly, a significant number of their members are Jews…or ex-Jews, as I prefer.  In the case of the congregation where I helped with the demonstration Seder, the member who invited me was such an ex-Jew, partner of a woman who was a member of my – Jewish – congregation.  Also interestingly, the minister at this church was also an ex-Jew.

          That didn’t bother me much.  Jews, like others, make choices in the spiritual ‘marketplace,’ moving easily from Judaism to other faiths…and sometimes, back again!  For some reason, with this group I gave them a pass from my usual parameters.  And what bothered me was the Political Correctness practiced by this very Left-wing group in their adaptation of the Jewish ritual.  You know I hate political correctness!  Well, in this congregation, it went so far as to refuse to include the Ten Plagues!  That bothered the heck out of me.  A Passover Seder without gefilte fish I can bear, but a Seder without the Ten Plagues??!  Oy!  That’s not a Passover Seder, it’s a Progressive Tikkun Olam conference.  Of value perhaps, but incredibly painful to endure…

          The UU’s aren’t the only ones to fear the Plagues.  In Progressive Judaism there has long been an institutional ambivalence – at best – concerning the reciting of the Ten Plagues at the Passover Seder.  Seems we enjoy it too much!  Oy!

          Perhaps Schadenfreude – taking delight in another’s misfortune – is not the healthiest expression of feelings for someone who has wronged you, however badly.  But whatever Schadenfreude we experience at the Seder in the Ten Plagues, its target is a civilisation that lived 30 centuries ago!  So, c’mon!  They’re long dead, and we can’t have a little fun at their expense?  Political Correctness…

          Okay, you can tell that I’m enjoying giving this sermon!  But there is a serious side to all this, and you know it!  Through the way that the plagues are sequenced, we can see that Hashem is trying very hard all along to change Pharaoh’s mind whilst causing him and his people a minimum of injury.  First, He sends Moses and Aaron to simply reason with Pharaoh.  When that does not succeed, He uses a sign – the turning of Aaron’s staff into a snake, and that snake devouring the snakes into which the Pharaoh’s magicians have turned their staffs – that causes no hurt at all.  Still, Pharaoh is not impressed, and this leads to a slow yet inexorable escalation as plague after plague follow, each one more damaging than the last.  At any point, Pharaoh could have acknowledged the power of G-d and relented, and that would have been the end of the matter.  But he didn’t and that led to the result of Makkat Habechorot – Slaying of the Firstborn – that was the final straw.

          In seminary, I heard such ridiculous things as “But G-d caused Pharaoh’s obstinence by ‘hardening his heart.’  Pharaoh was a victim in the end.  Oy!  Pharaoh as a victim…give me a break!

          Even though the text tells us that ‘God hardened Pharaoh’s heart,’ I don’t think for a minute that we’re supposed to take that literally.  I say this for two reasons.  First, we know that G-d does not control humans like a Divine puppet master.  G-d gives us all choices.  We choose the door that we walk through.  Second, had it been pre-decided that Pharaoh was going to hold out to the end, then the slow escalation of the stakes would have been redundant.  If G-d is perfect, he certainly cannot be redundant.  So there’s clearly something else at work here.  The lesson of the plagues is not that our actions are pre-ordained and that we’re not in control.  Rather, it is that G-d gives us multiple choices and does not punish indiscriminately.  He wants us to behave in certain ways and is willing to punish our indiscretions.  But He does not draw any pleasure – as it were – from the steps that might be necessary to modify our behavior.  

          So Don’t Fear the Plagues.  That is to say, don’t worry that a spirited reciting of the Plagues during our annual ritual says something negative about us.  Lighten up a bit.  Enjoy the fact that, in the end, we won!  Hashem did force Pharaoh’s hand.  If G- has given us a great miracle, is it not wrong to be ambivalent about it?  Enjoy it; it is a mitzvah, just as it’s a mitzvah to enjoy that the Jews of another generation in Persia, were able to beat those who sought to destroy them as chronicled in the Book of Esther.

          On the other hand, Do Fear the Plagues!  That is to say, do try to heed the Divine voice when it speaks to us.  And fear the result of rejecting the Divine counsel.  Do you think for a moment that G-d would want us to come to a bad result?  Of course not!  Sometimes it is difficult to intuit G-d’s will, but that’s another matter entirely.  Do fear the plagues, as they represent the results of ignoring G-d, and out of that fear listen for G-d’s voice speaking to you from the pages of the Torah.  Shabbat shalom.  

Fighting City Hall: A Reflection for Parashat Va’era, Friday 8 January 2016

I was the Jewish chaplain at the US Air Force Academy.  A Jewish woman from Connecticut phoned me.  A cadet at the Academy, not a Jew, was a close family friend.  He was invited to the woman’s daughter’s bar mitzvah celebration.  The cadet was unable to get a pass to absent himself from the Academy for a long weekend to participate in the festivities.  Could I do something to help?

          I explained that there was a scheduling committee that must approve all absences from the Academy.  Even if I wanted to organise a trip for cadets under the auspices of the chaplains’ office, I needed their approval.  This committee had turned down the cadet’s request.  He would likely have been given the pass if the bat mitzvah had been for someone in his immediate, or close family.  But for a family friend, that was outside the parameters.  There were no appeals.

          “You can’t fight city hall,” I told her, ‘city hall’ being a euphemism for any higher authority.

          “Oh, yes I can…and I will!” the woman retorted.

          I tell the story because it was so quintessentially Jewish.  We Jews are taught from a young age to test the boundaries.  To not necessarily take ‘no’ for an answer.  This spirit is the subject of a lot of criticism.  Adherents of other religions, whose ethos aim to develop a submissive spirit, don’t ‘get’ the Jewish mindset.

          This mindset goes back to Moses, the protagonist in the Book of Exodus which we continue reading this week with the weekly portion, Va’era.  Moses could not have continued not taking ‘no’ for an answer, had the people not been with him.  Of course, not all the people Israel had the same spirit.  At the end of last week’s portion, Pharaoh responds to ‘Let my people go’ by withholding straw for making bricks whilst not adjusting the daily quota.  In other words, by doubling the workload.  The people are angry at Moses and Aaron.  How could they not be?  They are not privy to the ongoing conversation between Hashem and Moses.  Beginning this week, Moses calls down the Ten Plagues on Pharaoh.  The plagues, at least at the beginning, seem to be as much for the benefit of the Israelites as for Pharaoh.  Lest they think that Moses is just a crazy old deluded guy.

          When we manifest a stubborn spirit, we imitate Moses.  Which is not to say, thinking that we are Moses or his equal.  Moses was a man, and a flawed one with his foibles and quirks.  And yet at the end of the Book of Deuteronomy we’re told:  There will never be another Prophet like Moses.  The Rambam, in the 13^th century of our era, names it as one of his 13 Principles of Faith.  Yet we are not thinking ourselves the equals of Moses when we take to heart his example.

          I’ve observed that Australian Jews, as a group, don’t exhibit this spirit.  The Jewish community here seems docile and unwilling to stand up against abuses of authority.  The way that small-potatoes organisational leaders cow the people belies my experience elsewhere:  In the USA for sure, but also in Europe and most definitely in Israel.  I cannot explain it; I only observe that it’s there.

          Not to sound self-congratulating, but I’ve never allowed myself to be cowed by abuses.  And I came here with no intention of adopting that habit.  Therefore, when my former employer on the Gold Coast insisted that I participate in the excommunication of three individuals or families, I told them that we Jews don’t do that.  When they threatened my tenure for this, I asked them to show me in my contract where they get to control me in this way.  When they tried to make me so uncomfortable that I would leave voluntarily, I threatened them with workplace action for harassment.  When they tried to circumvent all the above by declaring me redundant, I took them to the Fair Work commission and won a judgement against them.  When they tried to get me deported from Australia by informing Immigration that I was persona non grata, I prevailed upon some friends to start Jewish Journeys to take over my sponsorship.  When they influenced other organisations in the community to shun me, I kept doing my work for your benefit.  When last week a funding crisis put my salary out of reach, I told the Jewish Journeys board that I would work for a reduced salary until we get through the crisis.  When our chairman told me that my willingness notwithstanding, he had to inform Immigration that Jewish Journeys cannot pay my salary at the government-mandated amount, I told him that for now, I will donate any salary shortfall to Jewish Journeys from my own pocket, so that they can turn around and pay me.  Understand what this means.  It isn’t the equivalent of making a salary concession.  It means that I am going to be taxed twice on this money:  once when I earned it in the USA, and again when I receive it back after paying it in to Jewish Journeys.

          This has been an incredible odyssey, one that I never choose for myself.  But it came my way and whilst I’m tired of it, I can only thank Hashem for testing me to the point where I now know what I’m made of.  Again, I’m not looking for praise for going through it.  But there are two things that I would appreciate.

          First, I want you to see my actions as being within that Jewish history of Fighting City Hall, of not accepting the dicta of authority simply because they are authority.  Moses didn’t. Akiva didn’t.  So many famous Jews through our history didn’t.  Not only Jews have internalised that spirit.  I’m not sure it will resonate in this room, but the Minutemen assembled on Lexington and Concord greens on the morning of 19 April 1775 didn’t.  It doesn’t mean we should be forever difficult and cantankerous because that’s the stereotype of the Jew.  Rather, that we should have a keen sense of right and wrong, and be willing sometimes to take a personal risk when we believe that what’s happened is simply wrong.  That’s the first lesson I’d like you to take from this.

          Second, if my steadfastness – or stubbornness – resonates with you, I’d like you to respond by taking seriously at least the most basic of my teachings.  It’s a message that I have repeated again and again, and yet it keeps cropping up, even in this group.  Gossip that is rooted in jealousy.  We cannot seem to master it.

          This week someone close told me that, during my recent travels to Israel and the USA, someone talked about how Clara and I were taking a trip that others can only dream of.  Therefore, it would seem that pleas for consideration for members of our group to consider upping their financial support, are not to be taken seriously.  I cannot afford to go to Israel, and yet there the Levy’s go…again.

          I don’t want to know who said this.  I do want everybody to understand that, for almost all of you, a trip to Israel is certainly within your reach.  If you make it a priority in guiding your spending and saving, you will be able to go in your lifetime.  Clara and I have ordered our own economic lives with this priority in mind.  Thus, we have no material possessions to speak of.  We drive a 20-year-old car.  Which was given to us.  And…worst blow of all…I still carry an iPhone 4S!  Which was given to me.  Okay, I’m kidding.  Not that I don’t use a gifted iPhone that’s three generations into obsolescence.  Only that it isn’t really much of a blow.

My point is that the Levy’s have made visiting Israel a priority because we couldn’t do otherwise.  That choice has precluded for us, many of the things that you have allowed yourselves.  I’m not saying our way is superior, only that it’s our way.  Understand though, that when we go we stay with my mother-in-law.  So you judge whether this is an enviable holiday.  When you stay with your in-laws, do you consider it a windfall of some kind?  Okay…I’m kidding, people!

          But I’m not kidding about this.  Envy is the surest route to misery.  We pounded the message into our kids when they were growing up:  Count Your Blessings!  Focus on something that someone else has but you lack, and you’re virtually guaranteed misery.  Because no matter how much you have, there’s always someone else who has more.  It’s a no-win proposition.  So you dwell on the ways that you have been blessed.  There is someone out there – you don’t have to look too hard – who has less.  The spirit of Count Your Blessings, is the surest road to happiness.  And I didn’t make this up.  In Mishna Avot we read:  Who is rich?  The one who is happy with his lot.  Already in the 2^nd century the Rabbis fought this tendency to allow envy to rule people’s lives. 

          To hear that members of our group are jealous about the Levy’s good fortune in being able to travel to Israel, is frustrating.  But more frustrating is the evidence that some in the group have not heeded the most basic, and self-evident, of my teachings.  And that – more than the personal frustration that I feel over the saga of our lives here or the recent gossip – makes me wonder truly what I have achieved here.  I’m sure that I’m not here because I can sing pleasantly in Hebrew or play the ukulele.  If I’m supposed to be here, it is to help you to achieve happiness.  And that happiness cannot come if you can’t swear off jealousy.

          So let’s learn from Moses’ example of steadfastness in his pounding to Pharaoh the message that Hashem gave him.  Let’s understand the Jewish imperative to stand up to corrupt authority, even when it’s uncomfortable to do so.  And let’s also internalise the most basic lessons on control of the tongue and how to reach for happiness.  Hashem wants each one of us to be happy.  Some would say that to be happy is nothing short of a Divine obligation, and I’m inclined to believe it.  So how about taking the most basic message of your Rabbi to heart?

What about the woman in Connecticut, who vowed to fight City Hall?  Did she?  I don’t know, I never heard anything more.  I can’t say that she was justified in thinking she had a good cause.  But thinking back on the incident today, I recognise that essential Jewish spirit in her.  In our lives, there will inevitably be times when we are called upon to fight City Hall.  When we do receive that calling, may it be for good cause and bring good result.  Shabbat shalom.