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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Sabbath of Leadership? A Drash for Parashat Beshallah

Part One:  Friday, 10 January 2014

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Part Two:  Saturday, 11 January 2014

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

High Esteem, Slaves: Mutually Exclusive? Understanding our Story; A Drash for Parashat Bo, Friday 3 January 2014

I have suggested, more than once, that the Hebrew avadim, slaves, as in we were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, needs to be understood in its nuance.  It’s clearly different from the slavery that comes to mind when we think of, for example, the institution in America through the mid-nineteenth century.  The slavery of plantations and of human beings being sold and traded as property.  If the slavery of the people Israel in Egypt had been of this nature, how could the people possibly have petitioned Moses repeatedly to let them return to Egypt?  No, the slavery of Egypt must be understood differently.

          Something in this week’s Torah reading, something that I never before noticed, helps make my case.  In chapter 11, verse three we read:  God gave the people status among the Egyptians.  Moses was also highly respected in Egypt, both by Pharaoh’s officials and by the people.

          Imagine that!  In America, we understand that slavery’s greatest insult, and its most lasting ‘gift,’ is the contempt it fostered for black Americans by their countrymen.  Each African-American felt they had to overcome it if they were going to function normally in society post-slavery.  Generations after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, blacks were still feeling the effects of this contempt.

          In contrast, God gave the people status among the Egyptians.  Moses was also highly respected in Egypt.  How do you hold in high esteem, a group of slaves?  To understand this, I think it is important to understand the huge difference between how black Africans came to be slaves in America, and how the Israelites came to be slaves in Egypt.

          In the former case, the European settlers in America needed cheap and hardy labour for southern agricultural cash crops.  Crops such as indigo, rice, tobacco, and especially cotton.  They were not only labour-intensive but required hard, back-breaking labour in the relentless sun.  Africans were imported in order to build thriving agribusinesses that would otherwise never get off the ground.

          The enslavement of the Israelites in Egypt was a different sort of animal.  As we read in the first chapter of Exodus, the Israelites were systematically oppressed because the Pharaoh, the infamous king-who-knew-not-Joseph, was afraid of them.  It was really out of a deep respect for the Israelites and their abilities, that the Pharaoh made the case for subjecting them to spirit-crunching labour. 

Africans were imported into the Americas because they were thought of as little more than animals.  The Israelites were enslaved in Egypt in order to make them little more than animals, lest they take over.  While it’s true that both cases result in a people used and abused, the difference matters.

          It’s interesting how these perceptions persist through history.  Most periods of atrocity towards Jews in later history can be seen as attempts to take a people of undeniable status and drag them down.  I would argue that it was precisely because they imagined the Jews as a superior ‘race’ that the Nazis created a fiction of Jews as an inferior race.  Today, scratch a Jew-hater and you’ll often find that despite their antipathy, they tend to hold at least a grudging respect for what they see as the Jews’ abilities.  So throughout our history, others have seen us as ‘superior’ and have, as a result, worked hard to marginalize us.  Strange paradox, but arguably true.

          When, then is the take-away from this?

          In the wake of the Holocaust many Jews have internalized the contempt publicly expressed towards Jews, while not recognizing the esteem that – I am arguing – is really at its root.  We know that this internalizing of the ‘stain’ of Jewishness drives many Jews away from active Jewish life.  In today’s society, where nonconformity to any religion is seen as the norm, it is very easy to simply walk away from Jewish life without worrying about replacing it with something else.  But if you’ve known Jews who did make this withdrawal from Jewish life as an attempt to escape the ‘stain’ of Jewishness, you’ve probably noticed that they still internalized some of the ‘contempt’ toward Jews and Jewishness.  Chances are, they were unable to escape it just by withdrawing from Jewish life.

It is easy to mis-understand the atrocities that have been systematically imposed upon our people throughout the ages.  Does a ‘correct’ understanding change anything?  I think it does.  We still get beaten up by others.  But if we understand the root of this obsession with beating up the Jews, then we can avoid letting it beat us down.  And in any case history – our own and others’ – also teaches us of the resiliency of the human spirit.

If we can recognize Jew-hatred for what it often is, then we can find it easier to empathise with other beaten-down groups.  Even if the contempt of white people for those of colour was at the root of the importation of thousands and thousands of slaves from Africa to the Americas and elsewhere, we can respond by transcending that contempt.  By seeing the positive aspects of each people’s culture and considering them worthy of emulation.

The truth is that we Jews have been singularly inclined to do exactly what I’m talking about.  Wherever we have dwelt, we have served as forces for good, far out of proportion to our numbers.  But when we allow a flawed perception of our history to drive people away from Jewish life, we weaken the possibility of making a difference.  This is why it is so important for us Jews to know our history.  This is why I invite you to join me on Saturday evening 01 February, and Sunday afternoon 16 February, to view and discuss the BBC series Simon Schama:  The Story of the Jews.  Watch your Gates of Peace newsletter, and pay attention to announcements from this bimah for details.

I know I have gone on long enough for a Friday evening drash.  But I have one more point to make.  What is at the root of the unique abilities of the Jews, in Egyptian exile, and everyplace else we have sojourned?  It’s explicit in the verse that I originally quoted.  God gave the people status among the Egyptians.  It was the attachment of the people Israel, the Israelites, the Hebrews, to the One God of the Universe that made them special.  It was Torah, not yet existing as a book but nevertheless manifesting in principle in the mindset of the people, the set them apart.  After Jacob struggled with God, he took on the name Israel, carrying in his new given name the name of the God with whom he had striven.  Now his progeny, by extension, carried that name.  Throughout our history, it is that identification with God that has made the enterprise of being Jewish meaningful.  Jews, when they cease to identify with God, cease to be distinctive.  Perhaps not for a generation or two, but it happens.  That’s why it is important to teach young Jews about our history.  That’s why it is important to make the case for Jewishness as a positive part of one’s makeup.  That’s why you need to twist arms and get your offspring who wouldn’t imagine themselves attending shule, to come and see The Story of the Jews.  The Story is actually a conversation.  It needs new principals to join in.  Let’s do what we can to make sure that happens.  Shabbat shalom.

Of Gods and Prophets; a Drash for Parashat Va-eira, Saturday 28 December 2013

Moses and Aaron

If you know anything about the Torah’s essential teachings, you know this.  Adonai is God, and Adonai alone.  This is the principle that, more than any other, makes so many Jews cling to their ancient faith.  This, even when new faiths with all sorts of attractions present themselves to us.  Why not adopt this new faith?  Because, by and large, this new faith would require Jews to violate the Second Commandment:  You shall have no other gods besides Me.  It’s kind of hard to get around that one; there’s no ‘wiggle room’!  Even if you like eating prawns and wouldn’t mind having religious sanction to do so, it is difficult to worship some other god who is pleased with prawns with that echoing in your head.

          Some other religions will tell you that they worship the God of Israel, but that they accept others as prophets – even as The Prophet.  But Jewish Tradition, as expressed through the Rabbis, has long held that Malachi, who lived in the late fourth century before the Common Era, was the last of the Prophets.  Many Jews, even if they cannot cite the exact places in the Talmud where this idea is presented, internalise it.  Even if you hear a later voice express some idea that you find attractive, and want to consider that idea as prophecy, there is the knowledge of this principle getting in the way.  This is why Jesus and Muhammad, to offer just two examples, can never be Jewish prophets.

          Given this, how are we to understand the first verse of the seventh chapter of the Book of Exodus?  Look, I will make you a god to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron will be your prophet.  It would seem that God is instructing Moses, concerning two principles that are treif, beyond the pale, in Jewish tradition.  How are we supposed to take this statement? 

          Well, first we need to understand the principle of Rabbi Ishmael, Torah speaks the language of man.  In other words, even if you agree that the Torah’s origin is Divine, then you accept that it speaks in words that we can apprehend and understand.  As we read in the 30^th chapter of Deuteronomy:  Surely, this instruction which I enjoin upon you this day is not too baffling for you.  The Torah is written in simple language that should not trip us up at all.

          So how are we to understand the word ‘god,’ Elohim?  When we hear Elohim, we think only of the God, the one that we spell with an uppercase ‘G.’  But Elohim has a broader meaning.  It means someone or something that others approach as a deity, plain and simple.  Pharaoh would have accepted the existence of multiple deities.  He himself was one of them!  But in the Egyptian pantheon there were a number of deities, to whom various powers were ascribed.  Various gods, to whom temples were built and maintained.  In this way, the statement I will make you a god to Pharaoh, means, Pharaoh will consider you to be a god.

          But why would Adonai want that to be so?  Wouldn’t He want Pharaoh and all Egypt to accept Him as the only God?  Of course He would.  But I think that the point of the statement is that Adonai wants Pharaoh to sit up and take notice of what Moses says and does.  This is, I think, how we should understand the statement.

          And what about Aaron’s being a prophet to the god, Moses?  Now our tradition, as expressed by Rashi in his commentary to the Talmud, does consider Aaron to have been a Prophet, uppercase ‘P,’ in the most real sense.  A Prophet of the God of Israel.  But doesn’t your brother Aaron will be your prophet, cheapen that in some way?  I don’t think so, when you consider that the word ‘prophet’ has a number of different meanings just as any word, in any language, does.  ‘Prophet’ with an uppercase ‘P,’ in the Jewish context, means that the individual merits inclusion in the list of people whom our tradition was given the status of ‘Prophet.’  But ‘prophet,’ spelled with a lowercase ‘p,’ simply means someone who has an enduring message, an important truth, to offer.  In that sense, calling Aaron a prophet of Moses, is simply a way of understanding how Pharaoh will see the relationship of one to the other.  God is instructing here, that Moses will confront Pharaoh, challenge him to let the Israelites go, and threaten the imposition of plagues if Pharaoh does not comply.  In chapter six, verse 12, Moses has already tried to demur from this role on the basis of having, literally, uncircumcised lips.  Most commentators understood this to mean that Moses has some kind of serious speech impediment, that he stuttered severely or something like that.  So God instructed that Moses should take his brother, Aaron, with him, that Aaron would repeat everything Moses said in a clear and eloquent voice.  Aaron would serve as Moses’ mouthpiece.  And that is the literally meaning of the word navi, Prophet.  Some of us mistakenly think it means seer or something like that, the the point of prophecy is to see the future.  But that’s not really the meaning of navi.  The Hebrew word we translate as ‘prophet’ means a mouthpiece, or spokesman, for God.

          Given this, it is clear that Moses is not supposed to actually present himself to Pharaoh as God, and Aaron as a prophet of the god, Moses.  God does not wish for Pharaoh, or anybody else, to deify Moses.  Rather, He wants Pharaoh to sit up and take notice of Moses.  To not dismiss him as his wayward adopted brother, come back to make trouble.  To not let familiarity get in the way of his hearing God’s voice and God’s will expressed through Moses.  We should take the statement I will make you a god to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron will be your prophet to mean, I will make Pharaoh take you seriously.  Because if Moses was truly serving as an agent for the Living God, then it would have profited Pharaoh to take him seriously.  That he did not, brought unnecessary disaster upon the Egyptian people.  Shabbat shalom.