A Sensory Experience: A Reflection for Parashat Ki Tissa, Saturday 27 February 2016

Orthodox Priest leading the liturgy

In last night’s drash I mentioned a Catholic Priest whom I befriended during whilst at the Air Force Academy.  And about how I got to see the scandal of Priests sexually abusing children, and the Church covering it up, through his eyes.  The next year, a Greek Orthodox Priest arrived to our staff.  Orthodox Priests are even rarer than Rabbis in the multi-faith Us Air Force chaplaincy.  Father Stefan Close was the first Orthodox Priest I’d ever worked with.

          Every year at the Academy, soon after the start of the academic year, the faith groups represented in the chapel staff conducted retreats for the first year cadets.  I struggled to put together a meaningful retreat for my few Jewish first years.  Smaller religious groups didn’t even bother.  But one year, Father Stefan and I came up with the idea of collaborating in putting together a joint Jewish-Orthodox Christian retreat.  By the time the plans had firmed upwere complete, the Buddhist cadets rounded out the group.  During the weekend of the retreat, each group shared something from its practices with the entire group.  We Jews shared the Friday evening table blessings, and the Havdallah ceremony.  The Buddhists shared a ‘walking meditation.’  And the Eastern Orthodox shared the Sunday morning liturgy and Eucharist.  The rest of the weekend was spent hiking, sharing kitchen duties, watching movies and playing games.  It was definitely a success.

          Seeing the Orthodox liturgy in an intimate setting was eye-opening for me.  I’d attended a few of their services before.  But I’d never before noticed, how they are designed to appeal to all five senses.  Sight:  the display of icons on the church’s iconostasis.  Sound:  the melodic chanting of the liturgy and the Gospel.  Smell:  the wafting of fragrant incense.  Taste:  the placing of the Eucharist on the tongue.  Touch:  every object is there for the tactile experience.

          The Eastern Orthodox, in creating a sensory worship experience, imitated the ancient Jews.  This week’s Torah reading, Ki Tissa, could have served as the instruction manual for creating this experience.  It details the specifications for the oil and incense.  It points to the importance of filling all the senses with clues to the presence of Hashem.  This, in order to cast out impure and less-than-edifying thoughts when the congregation’s thoughts needed to be directed heavenward.

          If we Jews were first privy to the concept of the total sensory experience of worship, why have we dropped it along the way?  Compared to Orthodox – or any ‘high church’ – worship, our Jewish services can seem rather utilitarian.  For the most part, we don’t build ornate temples that are showplaces of religious architecture.  And we don’t go in for iconography, statuary, or even much for stained glass.  Or thundering music.  When any of the above are incorporated into a Jewish service, most Jews deride it as ‘churchy,’ inauthentic, imitating the goyim. 

          In many Jews minds – and I’ll admit that I’m not completely exempt – the most authentic shule is one that is utilitarian.  I’m talking about the small schtieblach one finds peppered throughout the Jewish world.  Utilitarian furnishings.  The only ornate objects are the Ark, its parochet, or curtain, and the mappah, or covering for the reading table.  And of course, the dressings for the Torah scroll itself.  Apart from these things, any tendency to beautify the synagogue is often dismissed as un-Jewish.  And sounds?  Most traditional Jewish services today are rather cacophonous.  One is unlikely to hear worshippers chanting together or in the same key, much less hear a thundering organ!  And fragrant?  Nothing doing, except perhaps for the overdose of cologne on the old man to your right!  And taste?  Nix.  (But have you ever tasted the Christian Eucharist anyway?  Nothing to fill a foodie’s dreams!)

        So where and why did we Jews lose sight of the notion that worship should be a total sensory experience?  I’ll give you a three-part answer.

          First, the synagogue, the house of prayer and study, coexisted with the ancient Temple.  So the shule was not a replacement for the pageantry commanded and detailed in the Torah.  It was a supplement.  With the Temple’s destruction in the year 70 CE, the synagogue and its rituals did become a substitute for Hashem’s magnificent sanctuary on Mount Zion.  But the Rabbis deliberately kept it austere, lest we not fail to pine for the Temple and pray for its re-establishment.

          Second, the Jewish experience since the Second Destruction, has been one of exile and insecurity.  We have gotten away from the custom of building edifices, because of the essential impermanence of life wherever our exile has taken us.  Whenever we have built magnificent synagogues, it has been only to have them destroyed as our fortunes changed in that particular place.  So, circumstances have taught us to express our desire for beauty in a limited way, crafting a few lovely objects that could be moved from place to place when the need arose.

          Third and finally…it is not our shules that aught to serve as the substitute for the ancient place where we met Hashem.  Rather, it is our homes.  Typically, we Jews expend much effort on creating in our homes, a small sanctuary where all the senses are fed and satisfied.  Most Jews’ earliest memories of Shabbat beauty, for example, do not centre around what they experienced in synagogue.  Rather, what they experienced at home.  The aroma of the challah baking, or of the Shabbat dinner – the most sumptuous meal of the week – cooking.  The sight of the table set splendidly ffor the family and whatever guests would be present.  The singing at the table, or the listening to uplifting music afterward.  Our recent ancestors created a world where, once every week, the beauty and holiness of G-d’s house would infuse our houses.  Because of this emphasis, we never expended too much effort on the synagogue.  Because in reality, it is the home – not the synagogue – which is the real successor of the Temple.  Until the Messiah comes and re-establishes the latter, anyway!  Shabbat shalom.

    

Denying the Truth: A Reflection for Friday, 26 February 2016

I know that I talk about my time as a US Air Force chaplain quite a bit.  I wouldn’t be surprised if you get tired of hearing my ‘war stories’ so much.  When I mention my experience during that phase of my rabbinate, I always look carefully for rolling eyes.  I seldom see any, probably because you know I’m looking for them!

          As I’ve mentioned in the past, one of the joys of my service during those years, was the comradery between chaplains of different faiths.  For example, during my years at the Air Force Academy I worked with Martin Fitzgerald, a Catholic Priest.  He and I were at about the same point in our respective careers, and we had both completed assignments in Europe just before being transferred to Colorado:  Father Marty had been in Aviano, Italy; and I was in Mildenhall, UK.  We were both in our mid-forties, and struggling to maintain good physical fitness.  Father Marty decided to try mountain biking, and I was already an aficionado of the sport.  Because our cadets were seldom in need of our ministrations during the day, we could absent ourselves from the office sometimes.  So Father Marty and I occasionally broke away from the office and went for a bike ride together.

          During those years, I got to experience the world through the eyes of my colleagues who were Protestant, Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Muslim.  Whilst Father Marty and I were at the Academy, sometimes spending time together away from the office, the American Catholic Church was going through a very turbulent time.  It was when the huge scandal of Catholic priests in the Boston Archdiocese sexually abusing minors came out.  In the one city, some 90 priests were documented to have been abusers.  John Cardinal Law, the Boston Archbishop, was forced to resign.  The Archdiocese still reels under the financial and moral effects of the scandal. 

The worst of it wasn’t priests abusing children.  It was the Church’s cover-up.  Moving the offending priests around from parish to parish.  Systematically hiding what was happening.  When the story broke, it brought similar behavior in many other cities, and similar cover-ups, to light.  The extent was world-wide.  Any reasonable observer would conclude that the entire church, up to and including the Pope himself, knew.  It was a difficult time to be a Catholic Priest.  I could see the pain on my colleague’s face every day.

          This week, on the recommendation of a friend, Clara and I went to see the movie Spotlight. The film chronicles the investigative process of an elite group of reporters at the Boston Globe. How they doggedly and systematically uncovered the church’s actions to keep the truth about the extent of the abuse from coming to light, and protecting the priests.  But there’s an important subplot.  The same group of reporters had stared at convincing evidence of the priest sexual scandal five years before the events chronicled in the film.  And they had missed it entirely. 

The movie is only partly about the church’s duplicity.  It’s really more about how we react when we have knowledge that is just too terrible to accept.  Especially when that knowledge calls into question an institution that is seen as beneficial to its constituents.  Beneficial being an understatement in this case.  The Catholic Church is seen by its members as no less than the conduit of G-d’s favour.  In Boston, a city whose population is 57 percent Catholic, the Church provides an array of social services that benefit the entire city.  It was therefore not only the Church that quashed the truth.  Even dedicated journalists unconsciously ignored what was in front of their faces for years because it was too terrible to contemplate.  It was the denial phase of grief recovery on a mass scale.

I’m not sure that denial on that scale is a reality anymore.  It was not only the scandal of sexual abuse by Catholic priests that took away our innocence in this regard.  Starting with the Watergate break-in and cover-ups that called into question the integrity of the President of the US, it seems that my whole life has been spent against a backdrop of the fall of one institution after another.  No sector of society has been untouched by it.  And the Catholic Church has not been the only religious institution to show itself as wanting in this area.  A number of the most prominent Protestant ministers and evangelists have suffered moral failures.  And in our own Jewish circles there have been such scandals.  Orthodox Rabbis accused and convicted of child sexual abuse.  Recently, a Reform Rabbi in Seattle accused of serial inappropriate relationships with minors and women under his pastoral care.  And lest you think that it is sexual behavior that is everybody’s downfall, note that Rabbi Yoshiyahu Pinto, an Israeli Orthodox Rabbi who ran a worldwide empire, was recently sent to prison for bribery.  Ehud Olmert, the onetime Prime Minister of Israel, was also sentenced to jail in the scandal.

The level of cynicism directed towards almost any institution today, religious or otherwise, is a result of generations of leaders of institutions losing sight of the values, for which they were formed.  Developing an inflated sense of themselves.  Justifying their moral failings by the good that they do.  And by others denying the evidence of their wrongdoings.  Sometimes in concert with the leaders of those institutions.  Sometimes inadvertently.  When an institution does so much good, how can it be so affected by rot from the inside?  So even when reporters were presented with convincing evidence, they did not want to believe it.

I’ll let others come away from seeing Spotlight, thinking negatively about the Catholic Church.  For me, the takeaway is that we are all accountable for our moral failings.  Accountable to Hashem, no less.  When we claim to represent the Holy One, we should expect close scrutiny.  And we’d best behave in such a way that we can stand up to that scrutiny.  Shabbat shalom.   

Time, Chaos, and Management: A Reflection for Parashat Tetzaveh, Saturday 20 February 2016

Anybody ever take a course in time management?  Large organisations and corporations often offer the training for their employees.  Most busy people need some help in this area.  It is easy to feel overwhelmed when one has different tasks or projects to complete.  When we have plenty of time, no tight deadlines looming, we can relax and think deeply about how we want to accomplish each task.  And if someone comes into our office needing help, or just wanting to chat?  Or a certain someone phones and suggests a quiet lunch somewhere?  We need not worry about everything else.  But this idyllic picture does not describe most of us, most of the time.  The rest of us struggle, at least sometimes, to fulfil all our obligations.  It is a common wish to wonder if one could acquire better time management skills.

One time, in the US Air Force, I did sign up for a three-day course in time management.  Or at least, I thought I was signing up for such a course.  It was The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.  Based on the book by that name by Dr Stephen Covey, it was all the rage back then.  Several people I worked with, had already taken it.  Afterward they always walked around with those big leather binders holding their calendars and everything else they needed to complete their daily tasks.  You know, it’s funny today, when everything I need to run my life is on the iPhone in my pocket, to remember those Franklin Planners that everybody bought after taking the Seven Habits course.  Before the course, almost everybody used the free planners one could get by picking it up at the supply centre.  But after taking Seven Habits, most people ran out to buy the Franklin Planners which were relatively expensive but an important tool for managing one’s life better.

So I took the course, and yes, afterwards I started walking around with one of the big planners in my hand.  But at the end of the day, Seven Habits wasn’t about time management at all.  Rather, it was about clarifying one’s values, and letting those values determine how one runs one’s day, or one’s life.

That was a revelation.  For many years I, like most people, had felt myself losing control of my own life.  My days and weeks were full of others’ demands.  I tried to protect an ever-shrinking part of my time, to place a fence around it.  But otherwise I felt more and more that my time was out of my control.

If you’re worried that I’m winding up to lecture you on the Seven Habits now, you can rest easy!  I actually did base a sermon series on the Seven Habits once.  It provided fodder to keep me going for the entire High Holy Days.  If you’re interested, you can find the sermons on my blog, posted in September 2013.

All I want to say about the Seven Habits now, is this.  When we have clarified our values, and prioritised them, we can order our lives according to those values.  And when we do that, we will see our daily and weekly schedules change.  Because few of us, if we are not being intentional about it, order our lives according to our values.  We prioritise by what is easy.  Or fun.  And then we wonder where the days, the weeks, the months, and the years went.

The section of the Torah that we’ve reached, lays out the organisation and operation of the Holy Cult.  Of the sacrifices which were the religion of Israel from the wanderings in the desert until the destruction of Herod’s Temple.  How exacting the instructions are!  This week we focus on the priests.  The priestly vocation was hereditary; the sons of Aaron, brother of Moses and their offspring were set aside for this function.  But they could fulfil it only if they were worthy in every respect.  This week’s reading describes the fashioning of the priests’ vestments.  And the procedure for the sacrifices for the ordination ceremony.  The point is that, if these priests are to serve as the conduit between Hashem and Israel, they must be prepared and worthy and everything must be done according to an exacting standard.  In Judaism today we do not have that same sense of precision.  We understand that our service today is not ordained directly by G-d but is a substitute that we do because we cannot do the one described in the Torah.

In Orthodox Judaism, the exacting instructions in the Talmud take the place of what’s written here in the Torah.  But often the service proceeds with little concern for grandeur and evocation.  It follows a strict order and script.  But the quibbling that often attends the running of the service often robs it of its ability to uplift.  This effort to follow the script and instructions exactly should make it easy for the individual Jew to participate in the service wherever he might go in the Jewish world.  But there are so many variations of custom as to make that unlikely.

Since we make no claim to be Orthodox, we take some liberties with order and procedure.  Given this latitude, I can hone it to make it more evocative.  Even so, I try to keep changes small and gradual.  I know that there is comfort in routine.

My takeaway from this part of the Torah is not that we must try to recapture the procedures and standards herein, in the service that we share today.  We can let it evolve, as it has over the centuries to reach the form that we follow now.  Rather, as our particular practice evolves, we should always keep in mind the values that motivate it in the first place.  And let it evolve in a way that supports those values.

The first of Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits is, Be Proactive.  Covey himself coined the term.  Some take it as meaning, anticipate needs before they arise.  But Covey wasn’t thinking about time.  What he meant is to let one’s values guide one’s actions and decisions.  Not the emotions.  Not some pragmatic consideration.  If we use our values, our efforts will seem less chaotic.  Because they will be.

Here in shule, of all places it is important to act according to our values.  In our individual actions, and those of the congregation.  If we do, our service will seem less chaotic and will be.  That’s not to say it will be as rigid as the steps to prepare the sons of Aaron for G-d’s service.  Even without an unchanging script, it will seem that the needs of the day will yield to timeless needs.  Shabbat shalom.

To Whom am I Speaking? A Reflection for Friday, 19 February 2016

A number of the tasks I must accomplish in the course of my job, are challenging.  But I don’t think any task is more so, than preparing my weekly drashes, or sermons.  As you know, I prepare two per week:  one for Friday evening, and one for Saturday morning.  It isn’t difficult to think of two messages per week.  But it is sometimes difficult to find two messages in the weekly Torah and Haftarah readings.  It is not an ironclad requirement to use the weekly readings as my jumping-off point.  But if I can, it is a feather in my cap.  Just about anybody can imagine two things to say on any given week if one can choose freely from the happenings in the world.  But to use the weekly readings, over which we have no control, and tie in our thoughts to those texts…that’s a challenge for the brave!

          In reality, no matter what I use as the jumping off point there is bravery necessary.  We all know the joke about the Rabbi and the cab driver who arrive at the gates of heaven together.  The cab driver is ushered in immediately.  The Rabbi must wait.  The Rabbi takes issue and demands to know why the cab driver is given priority.  The answer?  When you were giving sermons, everybody was falling asleep.  When he was driving, everybody was praying.

The least of my worries is that my drash will put you to sleep because it isn’t immediately relevant to you.  The worst danger is that it will be relevant.  You’ll think I’m talking to you directly.  And you’ll take issue with that.  This happens repeatedly.  In what I was saying, I ‘hit the nail on the head’ for one of my listeners or readers.  And they resented it.  And then lashed out at me in some way.

   Look, I’m not saying this to whine about my lot.  This is simply one of the occupational hazards I face.  It goes with the territory.  Many of my colleagues work hard to sidestep it.  They try to keep their finger on the pulse of their congregations.  And then deliberately avoid saying anything that might evoke a strong reaction.  Many of these colleagues are highly successful, in conventional terms.  They enjoy long-term contracts at large, wealthy congregations.  And…many of their sermons are as evocative as a weekly book review.

Wouldn’t you rather be challenged by what your Rabbi says?  I would think so.  My mission statement?  To comfort the afflicted.  To afflict the comfortable.

When I give a drash that resonates deeply with you.  You need not wonder if I’m speaking directly to you.  If you react that way, then I am!  Whether by design, or consequence.  But it shouldn’t matter which.  If I am, it’s because I’m addressing an issue that I see around me, that requires addressing.  It doesn’t mean that I want to call you out publicly.  I don’t to that, because it is not what I do.  Rather, I address conditions that I observe to beset many people in front of me.  If what I say resonates with you, it simply means you are one of them.  I am not trying to make anybody feel exposed or ashamed. 

If what I say hits close to home, it means that I have succeeded – at least for you – to address a relevant topic.  It doesn’t mean my words are Torah.  It simply means that you might do well to take my words into consideration.  To mull over them.  If I’m addressing something that is an issue for you personally, then my purpose is to get you to think about it.  Not to prescribe a solution.  If you would like assistance addressing an issue as you reach for a solution, you may call upon me for a private consultation.  My drashes should never be taken in that spirit.

Many of us have heard the teaching of the Hassidic master, Simcha Bunim of Peshischa, in Poland.  He taught that one should carry around two slips of paper in two of one’s pockets.  On one should be written:  For my sake was the world created.  On the other:  I am but dust and ashes.  Both maxims are necessary, if one is to achieve and maintain balance.  When we’re feeling oppressed or depressed, we should remind ourselves that for my sake the world was created.  And when we’re feeling high and mighty and full of ourselves, we should remind ourselves that I am but dust and ashes.  The two are necessary counterpoints.  If we only remember that we are but dust and ashes, we be locked into depression and dysfunction for lack of energy to invest in anything.  If we only remember that for our sake the world was created, we are in danger of thinking that the world revolves around us.  Each one of us knows someone in each of the aforementioned conditions.  We might be the one in either condition.  We must focus on the maxim that will help to get us out of our condition.  But to never forget its opposite.

Have I said something in a drash that makes you think that I’ve written that drash specifically for you?  If so, I recommend you think I am but dust and ashes.  In other words, the world does not revolve around you.  No one of us should feel so central to everything that the Rabbi would give a drash to the community based solely on one person’s needs.  If you keep that in mind, then maybe you can take my words as addressing general principle.  If it speaks directly to you, know that you are one of many.  Try to step back in this fashion.

But that done, remember the other maxim:  For my sake was the world created.  If I did hit the nail on the head for you, accept the personal applicability of the message as a gift you richly deserve.  Because even if I’m not intentionally speaking to you personally, it is likely that at some point, something that I say in my drash will be directly applicable to what you’re experiencing in real life.  If that’s the case, don’t just dismiss my words.  But don’t take them as Torah mi-Sinai either.  Instead, take my words on board for further reflection.  If it is true that for my sake the world was created, then it is important that each one of us overcome the issues that beset us at any given time.  Rather than wallow in our misery, we can be assured that it is important to the greater scheme of things that each one of us finds wholeness.  Shabbat shalom.  

Build me a Sanctuary: A Reflection for Parashat Terumah, Saturday 13 February 2016

A Replica of the Mishkan According to the Torah

When I was young, my parents belonged to a medium-sized Conservative shule.  With an attached afternoon religious school, which I attended, and an in-house day school which I did not.  It wasn’t the largest nor the most opulent shule on Miami Beach, but it was nice enough.  I remember feeling a sense of holiness when I attended services, between the décor and the cantor and the choir.

          Not long after I graduated from high school, I had a girlfriend who was religious.  She liked to go on occasion to a youth congregation that met in one of the extra rooms in another shule.  At first, the idea of attending a service in a classroom seemed funny.  But despite the more austere surroundings, the service left me feeling just as uplifted as the one in the main sanctuary.

          When I was in the military, we often held services in makeshift sanctuaries.  There were the exceptions.  Such as my three years at the Air Force Academy where the dedicated Jewish chapel was beautiful and had museum-quality décor.  And my time in Ramstein, Germany, where my Muslim colleague and I actually built a dedicated chapel for our two communities.  Many of my own ideas went into the design of the building and the furnishings.  But the rest of those years, we were as likely to meet in a conference room or a social hall.

          After I retired from the Air Force, I led a small congregation using quarters that had been purchased from a Baptist church whose ageing and shrinking congregation decided to disband themselves.  It wasn’t bad; my biggest complaint was that the design of the bimah put me too far above and away from my congregation.  When I offered my drash, I would often step down off the bimah and speak without notes whilst standing amongst the people.

          Then there was Temple Shalom, here on the Gold Coast.  A nice enough small sanctuary.  But one Saturday morning, the intrusion alarm was tripped and we couldn’t get the technician to come out to reset it before the service.  Because the alarm was loud in the sanctuary but barely audible in the social hall, we made a snap decision to set up and do the service there.  Several people told me after the service, that it was the nicest, most spiritual service they remembered attending.

          Since we started Jewish Journeys we’ve held services in my living room.  A community center classroom.  And here in the Country Women’s Association hall.  All makeshift sanctuaries, with a minimum of what one expects to see in a shule.  I’ve never felt that we were missing anything by not having a dedicated space.  I’ve thought that it was the mindset and mutual regard of those joining together to be a congregation, not the physical surroundings, that make the sacred space.

          Given this experience, I struggle with this week’s Torah reading, Terumah.  As our parashah opens, Hashem tells Moses to have the people Israel bring gifts of various materials.  Precious metals.  Fine textiles.  Animal skins.  Timbers.  Precious and semi-precious stones.  The purpose of all these gifts?  Chapter 25, verse 8 explains:  Let them build me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them.

          The materials are necessary for the construction of the Mishkan, the place where Hashem and the people will meet.  The exacting instructions on how to build it are given.  It is not only to be opulent materially; it is also to a very specific design.  The Torah tells us that all of this is necessary if Hashem is to dwell among us.  We must have a place holy enough for the nexus between man and G-d.

          So every year I read these verses and am conflicted.  I know what the Torah says.  Yet my experience tells me that the specifications of the sanctuary – even the fact that it is a dedicated sanctuary – is extraneous.  Or even gets in the way.

          There are those hearing, or reading these words who disagree with me.  They tell me that it enhances their experience, uplifts them, if they are surrounded by the symbols and accoutrements that they expect in their shule.  And they tell me that they cannot be uplifted in a classroom, a meeting room, or someone’s living room.  If your own sensibilities run in that direction, I’m not here to call you a liar.  But in my very varied experience, as I’ve just recounted, it has been otherwise.

          If you do agree with me, then how are we to understand the Torah’s words?  They can be understood a number of ways, but I think the key is intentionality, or kavvanah in Hebrew.  The passage tells us that the Mishkan and G-d’s dwelling among us won’t just ‘happen.’  We must take specific steps to make it so.  The steps to be followed by the people Israel in the wilderness, include the gathering of specific materials and constructing the sanctuary to a specific design.  But for us, the equivalent might be to express that same degree of intentionality in the way that we ‘construct’ a place within ourselves for worshipping G-d.  To set aside the cares of everyday life for an hour.  To look at the Jews and others around us, and transcend any negative feelings about them we may harbour.  To suspend our skepticism, and our cynicism, even if just for an hour.  To forget the pride of intellect and find a place within ourselves where we focus on the eternal.  It doesn’t happen just because we step into some place, dedicated or temporary.  It happens because we find space within ourselves, when we push aside our egos for just a bit, when we focus on G-d.  With intentionality, kavvanah.

          No, I won’t call you a liar if you tell me you need the ‘right’ physical surroundings to achieve that.  But I can tell you of many times when I have been in beautiful sanctuaries and could not focus on G-d because people were sitting and gossiping.  Or hating others.  Making it all about themselves.  I have been in the most aesthetically pleasing surroundings where the human spirit hampered the worship.  And in the most utilitarian quarters where the worship flowed like water.

          The Mishkan didn’t just happen.  It required a lot of investment and a lot of work to make a fitting place for Hashem to dwell amongst His people.  It also doesn’t just happen for us.  It requires investment and work to make a fitting place.  But sometimes, that investment and work is of a different sort.  It’s something to think about.  Shabbat shalom.

To Make a King: A Reflection for Parashat Terumah, Friday 12 February 2016

This has been a good week to be an American, and I’m enjoying it thoroughly.  An American doesn’t get too many such weeks these days.  Since my arrival in Australia four years ago, I’ve had to repeatedly explain why my country seems so inept.  It’s an ambassadorship, for which I never intentionally signed on.

          But this week has been good.  First, my favoured team won the NFL Super Bowl.  Decisively.  I feel acquitted for routing for the Denver Broncos in the Super Bowl two years ago.  And watching them get trounced by the Seattle Seahawks.  On Monday I watched the Broncos bust the Carolina Panthers, and it felt good.

          (I should add here, that I’m not much of a gridiron fan at all.  But after all, the Super Bowl is…the Super Bowl!  To not watch the game, and care about its outcome, would seem, well, un-patriotic.  And to not rout for Denver’s team when my last home in the ‘States was in Colorado Springs, would seem…disloyal.)

          The second event that made it good to be an American, was the New Hampshire Primary Election.  Each of the 50 states chooses through a caucus or primary, its choices for the Democrat and Republican parties’ candidates for the nation’s highest office.  And then, in July and August, the parties will hold their conventions.  They will either serve as a rubber stamp if the voters have chosen decisively.  Or as an open-floor brokerage if none of the candidates has the required number of delegates.  Then, each party having chosen its standard-bearer, the two will run for November and the General Election.  Occasionally, a Third Party of Independent candidate enters the final race to stir things up.  With the Iowa Caucuses and the New Hampshire Primary now past, they’re off and running.    

The opening verses of this week’s Torah reading, Terumah, tell Israel to bring forth gifts of various materials for the construction of the Mishkan.  Call that the preamble to the parashah of three chapters, which gives in exacting detail the specifications for the construction of the Mishkan and its furnishings.  Then, in next week’s reading, Tetzaveh, the text turns to the Priests, to their vestments and the preparations necessary to purify them for their role.  And so forth.

          All of this is preparation for the governance of the People Israel.  The rituals that will be conducted in the Mishkan are not just divine theatre, something to satisfy and comfort the people and make them feel that G-d is near them.  G-d’s constant presence is a necessity, because Israel is being organised as what we would call a theocracy.  The tribes will be self-governing in routine matters, and major questions of G-d’s will for the Nation will be addressed directly to the Deity through His representatives, the sons of Aaron, the Kohanim.

          But history, and our Tanakh, tell us that this wasn’t good enough for the people in the end.  After a period of autonomous tribes, rallied together at times of danger by ad hoc Judges, the people demanded a king.  They wanted the same sort of trappings that other nations had.  Their unseen King, Hashem, wasn’t enough.  They wanted an earthly king to represent their G-d and them, to engage in statecraft among the nations.  They wanted the pomp and pageantry of a court and courtiers to make the Israelites feel themselves the equal of other nations.

          Later generations of Israel would come to regret this demand.

          The first King, Saul, was a transitionary figure.  The second King, David, was amazing on many levels.  He was a brave and mighty warrior, strengthening the Nation.  He was a tireless builder, creating a capital city of great splendour.  And he was an eloquent poet, writing songs to G-d that are preserved today in the Book of Psalms.  David was a flawed man, to be sure.  At times he let his passions make him behave in ways that were extremely unethical.  But at the end of the day, he was a great King.  So much so, that later doctrine has held the ultimate redeemer – the Messiah – will be from his direct bloodline.

          The third King of Israel, Solomon, David’s son, was more problematic.  Don’t get me wrong, Solomon was in many ways a wise and effective King.  Three books of the Tanakh are attributed to him:  Song of Songs; Proverbs; and Ecclesiastes.  He was a man of peace and was thus merited to build the Heichal, the Beit Mikdash, the permanent sanctuary in Jerusalem which replaced the Mishkan.  Instructions for building the Mishkan fill our Torah reading this week, and those for the Heichal fill the Haftarah reading, from First Kings.  Today, Jews tend to rhapsodise about Solomon’s Temple.  They joyfully predict that the Messiah’s coming will pave the way for its re-establishment for eternity.  They flock to the Western Wall, the only remaining trace of the Temple that isn’t subterranean.  And there they cry genuine tears for the sanctuary that is no longer, and utter sincere prayers that this historical inequity will someday soon, be righted.

          I get no joy from being an iconoclast.  But it is important to remember that the opulence of Solomon’s court, and the wealth and corvee labour spent on the construction of the Temple, broke the back of the United Kingdom.  It caused the split into the Northern Kingdom, Israel, and the Southern Kingdom, Judah, after Solomon’s death.  This split, and the resulting conflict and wars between the two kingdoms which had been one, led to their conquest.  Of Israel by the Assyrians, 210 years after Solomon’s death.  Of Judah by the Babylonians, 143 years after that.  The people got their royal trappings.  But they lost their way.

          Many have said that the American People, similarly, had lost their way.  The Nation, founded 240 years ago as a complaint against royal privilege, had been organised specifically to avoid this pitfall.  The US Constitution helped the young nation avoid it by prescribing a series of checks and balances between the three branches of government:  Executive; Legislative; and Judiciary.

          But later generations allowed the system to slip towards old patterns.  By the 20^th century, the Presidency of the US was often being referred to as an ‘Imperial Presidency,’ a position of unbridled power unimaginable to the Founding Fathers.  This has led to the Obama Presidency which many have called the least democratic ever.  And now, America begins the protracted process to elect its next leader.  Early in the process, perhaps half a year ago, pundits were predicting an ultimate contest between heirs to two political dynasties:  Hillary Clinton for the Democrats; and Jeb Bush for the Republicans.  The next King of America would be from one of the two most powerful political families of our age.

          Tuesday’s New Hampshire Primary has put that fear to rest.  Hillary’s candidacy is in danger of imploding.  And Jeb is looking more like an also-ran.

          I’m not cheering the possibility of a Bernie Sanders Presidency.  For that, I’ll shrey gevalt!  Nor am I enthused about the idea of a Trump White House.  There are other Republican candidates I would much prefer.  Although it is early in the race, it is looking like The Donald has the Republican field.  But I am heartened that the process that is confounding all the so-called ‘experts.’  That the electorate is not in the mood to bless either party’s heir apparent.  It looks like a real contest.  And maybe, just maybe, my countrymen will choose well!

          It is arguable that the People Israel, in demanding a king, took a wrong turn.  We Jews have influenced the course of history out of proportion for our meager numbers.  Much of that influence has been for the good.  What if we’d stuck to the organising principles taught by Moses, recorded in the Torah?  How much more goodness could Israel have brought to the world?  The whole vision of a Messianic Era is, in effect, a desire to right the wrongs of history:  more than the wrongs committed against Israel, the wrongs that Israel has committed.

          Maybe, just maybe, the Americans will restore the glory of their republic’s promise.  And maybe, just maybe, the People Israel will stop their internal squabbling to begin to be a force for Good in the world again.  And maybe, just maybe, the Messiah will come.  Shabbat shalom.  

The Torah and Slavery: A Reflection for Parashat Mishpatim, Saturday 5 February 2016

Slave Workers in their Quarters in Dubai

Slavery is an ancient institution which existed for thousands of years before finally ceasing to exist in much of the world.  The United States of America eliminated it only in 1863 with President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.  Now, over 150 years later, we Americans still discuss the lasting effects from allowing slavery in parts of the country for its first 87 years. 

In the west, many countries eliminated slavery earlier, but not much earlier.  Mexico ended it upon achieving its independence from Spain in 1810.  Spain itself ended it in its home territories and its overseas colonies, except Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Santo Domingo, in 1811.  It was abolished in most of the British Empire in 1834.  Most European and South American countries outlawed it in the decades before the USA did.  But in much of Asia and Christian Africa, slavery survived until the early 20^th century.  And in the Islamic world, especially Iran, Arabia and the Emirates, it survived until the 1960’s.  Officially, that is.  Having spent some time in Kuwait and Qatar, I can tell you that slavery thrives even today in those places.  Their governments conveniently look the other way.  Don’t get me wrong; human rights abuses, including human trafficking exist in much of the world.  But it is in the Persian Gulf where it exists openly in an ostensibly modern society.

          I offer this background on the elimination of the institution of slavery, having been involved this week in an interesting discussion regarding the apparent cruelty of G-d as depicted in the Torah.  The context was that the initiator of the conversation knew someone who had rejected a different religion.  And he was interested in learning more about Judaism, but the cruelty of the G-d of the Torah was serving as an impediment.  Slavery wasn’t mentioned specifically, but I thought of it because this week’s Torah portion, Mishpatim, includes laws concerning how one must treat one’s slaves.  That is to say:  the Torah regulates slavery but does not eliminate it.

          One wonders why the Torah didn’t eliminate slavery.  This, since it repeatedly invokes the experience of the Israelites as slaves in Egypt.  The Torah does not condemn slavery itself.  Rather, its complaint is against the unbounded cruelty it produces.  And its emphasis is the amelioration of that cruelty.  Rather than elimination of the institution that ostensibly feeds it.  Some would complain that that is tantamount to treating the symptoms, and not the underlying disease.

          But it isn’t really.  Slavery does not cause cruelty.  The ownership of human beings as chattel gives an opportunity for the unbridled expression of cruelty.  The Torah’s laws regulate that.  As they regulate cruel behavior in many other contexts.

          As I’ve said many times, it is important to look at the Torah’s legislation through a particular lens.  And that lens is a knowledge of the social context of the people Israel.  Their prior experience, before the wanderings in the wilderness.  And their destiny, to create a society based on the rule of G-d that will be a beacon of justice for all the neighbouring peoples to see and desire.  Things didn’t quite turn out that way.  But that’s another sermon, for another day.

          The elimination of slavery in much of the world has made life better.  When it is completely eradicated, life will be better still.  Tragically, a robust trade in household servants, and young women for prostitution, thrives.  There’s no question that it creates a stain on humanity that we do not approach eradicating such trade with more vigour.  It is heartening that awareness of such practices has increased in recent years.  When a man seeks the services of a prostitute in much of the world, he cannot do so without knowing that that woman was almost certainly trafficked – that she is in effect a slave.  Of course the ultimate goal would be for the trade to shut down for lack of customers.  That seems like an impossible goal.  But that does not absolve us of responsibility to pursue it.

          The sex trade aside, there are places where an apparent prosperity feeds on practices that approach slavery and often cross the line.  For example, some of the Persian Gulf states.  One goes to Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, or the UAE and sees towering, glittering cities where one can live a lavish lifestyle, attended by fawning servants.  It’s true that oil and gas wealth feeds this opulence.  But it is also the servitude of vast numbers of third-world citizens who do all the hard and unskilled labour to make such opulence possible.  They sign long-term work contracts, hoping to find a better life than their lot in Bangladesh, or Pakistan, or the Philippines.  And they are often cheated, paid far less than they were promised, and held virtually hostage for years whilst being treated with grinding cruelty.  

When we fly on their airlines, vacation in their oases, or take jobs running their countries, we feed this cruelty.  Everybody knows someone who has gone to live in the Gulf and has made a killing, tax-free, working there.  Once, I attended a conference on the subject of religion helping to bring about a better economic order.  The conference’s sponsorship by the Emirate of Dubai ruined the whole thing.  It made a mockery of the good intentions expressed during the three days.

          The evidence before us shows that the world has a long way to go, to eliminating cruelty.  And whilst slavery is one source of that cruelty, it obviously is not the only one.  But the final and complete elimination of slavery in all its forms would, inarguably, make the world a far better place.

          It is easy to criticise Hashem because His Torah did not call for an elimination of slavery in its time.  But it is important to acknowledge that the Torah’s laws regulating the cruelest aspects of slavery did much to ameliorate the institution.  And set into motion a trajectory toward seeing human beings, even when in indentured servitude, as individuals deserving of compassion and dignity.  And that’s important.  Shabbat shalom.    

The Torah and Parenthood: A Reflection for Friday, 5 February 2016

I have a confession to make.  Clara and I like Judge Judy.  No, we are not like 10 percent of university graduates in the USA who, according to a study done a few months ago, think Judge Judy sits on the US Supreme Court.  But if you ask us, appointing Judge Judith Sheindlin to the next vacancy on America’s highest court wouldn’t be a bad idea.  It would drastically increase the common sense quotient on the high court.

          The other day, Judge Judy drew a few laughs – including ours – on the subject of grown children coveting their ageing parents’ possessions.  She told her audience that she’d taken to visiting her children and grandchildren naked.  Now, we understood that she really didn’t mean she parades naked around her grown offspring!  She meant, rather, that she avoids flaunting expensive clothes and jewelry in front of them.  Because the result, she opined, would be them shouting ‘Dibs on the bracelet!’ ‘Dibs on the necklace!’ ‘Dibs on the handbag!’  In other words, the kids were already counting what they might get when Judge Judy, who is not young but hardly infirm, passes on.

          Sheindlin meant it as a joke.  But the joke reflected what, for many, is a stark reality.  And that is that grown children often think of their parents primarily in terms of what they stand to inherit from them.  I encounter more and more families where this is a significant part of the relationship dynamic.  Grown children who measure their parents’ worth by what they might inherit from them. 

I have met a number of older couples who were – there’s no other way to put it – bullied by their grown kids.  This, to get them to preserve their assets lest they decrease the inheritance that their children will eventually get.  Stories abound of a widowed parent pressured not to re-marry lest a big slice of the inheritance ultimately go to the new spouse.  I’ve also known grown kids who objected to their parents’ support of some charitable work.  In many of the above cases, we’re talking about kids who will ultimately inherit considerable amounts even after the new spouse or charitable work is taken care of.  But this is completely beside the point.  The point is, the kids see their parents’ worth in terms of what they will inherit from them.  And their sense of entitlement of that inheritance is absolute.  Which is dismaying to say the least.

Some older adults have an answer to this.  I have seen more than one older couple driving around in a particularly expensive automobile, or perhaps a luxurious RV.  And affixed to the bumper was the sticker:  I’m Spending My Kids’ Inheritance.  I’ve seen yachts named, My Kids’ Inheritance.  Such sentiments don’t give me the warm and fuzzies.  In reality, there is no ‘inheritance’ until someone dies.  Until then, it is their money, do spend or save or do good works with as they wish.  Full stop.

So I’m not saying that these kids’ behavior – and their parents’ concern to honour of their wishes – is so unusual.  That’s really the crux of the tragedy; this mindset of entitlement, and older adults’ accepting it, is very common.  It speaks volumes, and not only of the greed of the next generation.  That attitude did not get there spontaneously.  The parents likely fed it.  Perhaps by a constant messaging to their children of what they stood to gain.  Using that inheritance as a kind of ‘bribe’ to influence the kids to behave in certain ways.  In reality, children value their parents according to their bank balance because parents often teach them to.

What is so tragic about the way that we value one another by our assets, is that that is not what the Torah teaches.  Last week we read the ‘Top Ten’ Commandments, one of which as everybody knows is, kibud et avicha ve-et imecha – Honour thy father and thy mother.  I can’t tell you how many I’ve counseled over the years, who found that commandment problematic.  Tensions between parents and grown children are as common as sniffles in the winter.  And I’m not talking about the few tragic instances where the parent’s behavior towards their child was patently abusive.  I’m just talking about children who harbour a grudge towards their parents.  Remember the 1971 song, That’s the Way I’ve Always Heard It Should Be, written by Jacob Brackman and recorded by Carly Simon?  Their children hate them for the things they’re not / They hate themselves for what they are.  Mr. Brackman’s genius for spinning lyrics that speak of the human condition, really hit the nail on the head with that one.

Thus, I’ve been asked many more times than I’d like to think, by grown children who felt aggrieved in some way by their parents, whether Thou shalt honour thy father and thy mother means that they have to tolerate their parents’ interference in their lives.  At first, I didn’t know how to answer such enquiries.  But now that I’ve studied the mefar’shim, the commentators on the Torah, I can answer the question with considerable confidence. “No,” I now tell them. “The Torah doesn’t require that you tolerate your parents’ interference at all.  It only requires that you support them in comfort until the day they die.”

It’s interesting that for so many today, and sadly for many Jews, the responsibility is seen as running in the opposite direction.  Parents are considered as being required to amass wealth, then preserve it through retirement so that their grown children, in middle age, will enjoy a financial windfall.

The Torah gives us a lot of laws; the traditional accounting is 613 Commandments.  Of course, the 613 Commandments are not just a religious code; they constitute the laws by which the people Israel would be responsible to live by, when they entered and possessed their land.  In that context, they can be seen as a social order, an ancient formula for a diverse people to live unafraid in their land.

The purpose of the commandment to honour one’s parents – that is, to support them – is not hard to intuit.  It is an important part of the social order that one should be able to grow old in confidence, knowing that the debt of one’s progeny for life and the upbringing received, is recognised and honoured.  Of course modern civil society, with old-age pensions and other schemes that often effectively break ageing parents’ financial dependence upon their grown children, has changed that order.  But I can’t imagine the opposite mindset – that grown and ostensibly mature children, having been given everything by their parents in all their imperfection could give them, are still supremely entitled to whatever their parents have worked hard to amass – is an appropriate response to this shift in reality.  Some changes that modernity have wrought, have been for our societal benefit.  This one is not.  Shabbat shalom.