The Jewish Holy Scriptures – The Torah

Yesterday I participated in an Interfaith Forum organised by a Korean organisation, HWPL, whose stated aim is to use such dialogue as a tool for achieving world peace.  Although there is cause to hold the organisation at arm's length as its leader is widely considered a cult leader in Korea, I didn't see any harm in participating as structurally, the event was similar to many that I've taken part in.  The 'assignment' for participants in the forum, was to speak about their particular religion's holy writings, answering the following questions: (1) Does your holy scripture contain history? (2) moral teachings? (3) prophecy? (4) fulfillment?

I thought my presentation was quite basic, but my words were well-received and Clara has suggested I share them with you.  Below, then, are the remarks I delivered at yesterday's forum, offered in the hope that they might be helpful to you in your own Interfaith Conversations:

Photo from a different HWPL gathering

We Jews call our Holy Scriptures, ‘the Torah.’  The word ‘Torah’ is Hebrew for ‘instruction.’  The name Torah refers to a specific series of scriptures, and more.  In its most limited sense ‘the Torah’ refers to the text that constitutes the first five books of the Bible for Jews, as well as for Christians.  That is, the books of Genesis through Deuteronomy.  But the term ‘the Torah’ can also refer to the larger body of sacred literature, what a Christian would call ‘the Old Testament.’  We Jews have a specific name for these scriptures in their totality:  ‘TaNaCH,’ which is an acronym for Torah; Nevi-im or ‘prophets’; and Ketuvim or ‘writings.’

If this is not complicated enough, the word ‘Torah’ also encompasses the traditional Jewish understanding as to what the words of these texts really mean.  And that traditional understanding has spawned an additional, larger set of texts.  There are, for example the Talmud, the Codes, and the Commentaries.  And all these texts – they form quite a library all together – are also considered ‘Torah.’

But more important than which texts constitute the Torah, is what they represent to the Jews.  They represent nothing less than the revealed will of the Living God.  Through Torah we discern God’s will for our way of life.  The way of life prescribed by the Torah is the way of peace and balance that everybody must have no matter what their life’s quest.  But Torah does not, of course, account for our specific life’s paths.  The Torah will not, for example, reveal to my son what profession he should pursue as his life’s work.  We Jews tend not to look for specific guidance from God as to the latter.  Rather, if we’re living a life of Torah and obedience, we should be able to discern through soul-searching and thoughtful consideration.

The five books that constitute the centerpiece of Torah – the aforementioned biblical books of Genesis through Deuteronomy – come to us in the form of a grand narrative.  It begins with the creation of the world.  It continues to God’s response to unbridled evil.  It chronicles the election of a man named Abraham and his offspring for a unique role among the nations.  And finally it tells of the preparation of those offspring through trials and instruction for that role.  In this sense, the books come as a sacred history.  But their purpose is always teaching morality.  We do not use the Torah quite as a history text.  Nor is it a geology text despite beginning with the creation of the world.  In every chapter, in every verse, we are supposed to draw out important lessons for living.

The Torah prescribes a way of life that encompasses interpersonal relations, marriage, child-bearing, work, dress, and food.  It orders our year by prescribing a calendar of festivals and observances for the entire community.  It orders our individual lives by prescribing the ways that we note life events and transitions.

For example. The Torah directs that each of us take a marriage partner and participate in the increase of the human race and the Jewish people.  We are to ‘be fruitful and multiply,’ to bring offspring into the world and educate them and help them to add to the goodness of the world.  For this reason, there is no Jewish monastic tradition.

The Torah directs a complex set of ethics in the way we live.  We are to honour our parents.  To neither murder not bodily harm our neighbor.  To respect our neighbour’s ownership of his material goods, not to mention his home and his spouse.  We are to keep and remember the Sabbath day as a memorial to the act of creation and of our liberation from servitude to the ancient Egyptians.  But we ae also to afford our families, our employees, and even our animals the same Sabbath rest that we enjoy.

It is therefore not surprising that a mastery of the texts that make up the Torah is the sine qua non of Jewish life.  We master the Torah so that we can live in its way.  Because there is no intermediary between the individual Jew and God, each Jew is expected to study the Torah.  And the ability to do so in its original languages, directly from the primary sources rather than translations, is highly prized. 

Much of Jewish life seems quite rationalistic because, for many Jews, it is.  There is an undisputable pragmatic essence to Jewish life.  The mystical, devotional aspects of religious faith, seem far more important to our neighbours in other traditions.  They are considered more personal in Judaism.  We do not tend to talk at length with one another about our individual spiritual practices.  We just do them.  Yes, we do have our share of mystically-inclined teachers and students.  And we have a rich mystical tradition which we call, ‘the Kabbalah.’  It consists of an additional set of texts, as well as a series of practices intended to bring the mystical-minded to a closer encounter with God.  But one doesn’t delve into the mystical world without a solid knowledge of the rational.

As I said, we Jews have a very specific, prescribed way of life.  It is nothing less than God’s will that we follow that way of life.  But it is not prescribed for every human being on earth.  Someone who is not Jewish, is not expected to live like a Jew.  The complex set of religious practices that make up our religious way are not incumbent upon others.  As an example, Jewish dietary practice precludes our eating pork or shellfish.  By we don’t imagine that God requires this discipline of others.  To put it another way, one does not have to be Jewish, to please God.  Each person chooses a specific path to holiness – or does not.  What God requires of each and every human being, according to Torah, is a basic ethical character that brings him or her to live within Seven Principles.  They are as follows.  Establish, or participate in, a system of courts to dispense justice, justly. Do not worship false gods.  Do not disrespect your Creator.  Do not murder or unjustly injure your neighbour.  Do not engage in incestuous, unnatural, dishonest or coercive sexual relationships.  Do not steal what belongs to another.  Do not practice cruelty o any of God’s creatures.  Any person who works to live by these principles finds God’s favour.  Judaism as a way of live, is God’s plan specifically for Jews.  The Torah teaches both paths.  It is therefore at once the guidebook for the Jews, and enduring wisdom for all.

It is a joy to me, to be invited to present these views to you, today, at this event.  By establishing, and maintaining a dialogue with one another, we offer insights into the wisdom that one another’s traditions offer.  We make ourselves better people.  We make the world a better place.  I wish you shalom - peace - and beracha - blessing.

Happy Mother’s Day…Anyway! A Drash for 8 May 2014

Every year, we celebrate Shabbat immediately before Mother’s Day.  After all, Mother’s Day comes always on a Sunday!  So every year, not just in my shule but in in most shules in the Jewish world, there are some special words said, some reflection, some unique observance to honour the mothers in the congregation.

          In the Reform Rabbis’ Facebook group this week, a colleague from the USA shared an article from a Christian website.  That’s not so remarkable; we rabbis understand that our world is limited in scope.  Our friendships with our Christian colleagues have shown us over time that many of the concerns that cloud their days, are concerns for us also.  I know that I have told you enough anecdotes over the years from my work, that you’re aware of this.

          The article shared by the colleague was from a website dedicated towards mutual support for pastors.  It was a letter from a woman in someone’s congregation.  The letter’s author begged her pastor to go easy on the acknowledgement of Mother’s Day in church this year.  The gist of the message was that hearing such words, and in particular watching the mothers in the sanctuary rise and be recognised was painful to her.  The letter did not explain why this particular woman was not a mother.  Reading it, I had the sense that she was infertile.  This, as opposed to unmarried or childless for any other of possible reasons.  She pled impassionedly about how remaining in her seat during the recognition of the mothers, year after year, had been painful.  So much so, that she had taken to not attending church on Mother’s Day at all.

          It was one of those posting which elicited few comments.  The comments that others did post were of the that’s so profound, that’s so true nature.  And now my confession:  my first reaction to the letter was:  Oh, give me a break!

          Nowadays, it has become the custom for people to take offense at just about everything.  So here was one more crybaby who, since she wasn’t going to be recognised, found someone else’s recognition to be painful.  So perhaps we should stop recognizing nonagenarians so that those whose parents passed away in their eighties won’t feel bad.  And stop recognizing 50^th wedding anniversaries to avoid hurting those whose spouse didn’t live long enough to reach that milestone.  Or who are divorced.  Or never married.  Or are gay, and therefore unable – in most places – to marry their chosen partner at all.  Or how about recognizing someone’s success in whatever endeavor, to acknowledge publicly the attainment of their goal?  Let’s not mention if someone in our congregation wins an election, since surely there is someone out there who lost the same, or another, election.  Or shep nachas over someone whose son graduated from medical school, since over there is surely someone whose child didn’t get admitted and had to choose another profession.  Or take delight in someone whose recent transaction netted a large sum of money, since surely there is someone out there who has only failed in business.  Every time we publicly recognise someone for some achievement, or whatever nature, there is possibly someone out there who did not succeed in the same endeavor.  So let’s just stop recognising people at all.  Because someone might be jealous, let’s just shut up about any kind of achievement and not express our collective delight.

          So, when I read this letter, I thought…more of the same!  Just one more reflection of the zeitgeist, where we’re ‘trained’ to take offense at almost everything we hear.  The human race today is so collectively unhappy that it as if we’re looking in everything we see and hear for the source of our unhappiness.  We cannot accept responsibility for our own happiness or lack thereof.  So we look for its source in everything outside of ourselves.

          We can’t seem to find happiness within ourselves for a number of reasons.  But I think the main reason is that we cannot seem to internalise the Tenth of the Top Ten Commandments:  Do not covet.  We have bought into the notion that life is a zero sum game.  Therefore, we find it difficult to see someone else’s success as not being at our own expense.  Every time we see someone else being favoured with success of whatever kind, we are apt to think of that success as something we should be enjoying.  I don’t think we do this deliberately.  But I challenge you to be sensitive to its manifestation.  The next time you hear about someone else’s success, in some area where success has eluded you, listen to your heart for your reaction.  If you’re being honest with yourself, you’ll very likely realise that your inner voice is wishing that person anything but well.

          Having said all that, I have reflected further on the issue of women whom motherhood has eluded, finding Mother’s Day difficult to endure.  And I’m inclined to afford such women a bit of slack.  Why is that?

          Because we make motherhood the sina qua non of womanhood.  And how can we not?  It’s true that, one might argue, the earth is full to bursting.  One could be forgiven for thinking that G-d’s commandment to be fruitful and multiply has been fulfilled, many times over.  And yet, we know that the various catastrophes worldwide that result from overpopulation are really caused by the various human follies that make resources not reach those who can best benefit from them.  There’s enough food and water to go around, but too much corruption hijacks too much of it.

          So, crowded as the earth might be, there really is room for many more babies.  And there is nothing that brings more joy than bringing children into the world.  This, despite the frustrations and pitfalls of parenthood.  So of course, one who is unable to have children is likely to feel profoundly left out.  And we should always remember to empathise with those who feel the loss that comes with not having the joy of children.

          I’m not going to refrain from honouring motherhood and mothers on this, the Shabbat immediately preceding Mother’s Day.  But at the same time, I’m going to be as sensitive as possible towards those women among us who have not experienced motherhood, and are feeling this loss especially this weekend.  For every childless woman who knows the pain of loss, we have no words to ease your pain, except to tell you that your childless status does not diminish your value to the rest of us.  But it is necessary even so, to look upon those who have experienced motherhood, and tell them:  there is no role on earth that is more sacred, more necessary than bringing children into the world and raising them to be good people.  We recognise what you have done, and what you are still doing.  We honour the contribution that cannot be likened to anything else in life.  Happy Mother’s Day and Shabbat shalom.

The Scapegoat...Additional Thoughts

This morning, in presenting the drash I shared on this blog yesterday, I had an extemporaneous flash of clarity that I'd like to share here.

Although I maintain that the ancient people Israel weren't really supposed to think that the goat for Azazel carried away their sins for the reasons I stated, it occurred to me that there might have been an additional purpose for the ritual.

Sometimes, our sins can weigh us down to the point that we are unable to face them.  If having the need to engage in repentance after dispatching their sins, as it were, on the back of the goat proved that the latter ritual didn't really dispatch their sins at all, maybe it accomplished something else.  It gave them breathing space with their sins, as it were, not breaking their backs as a necessary step toward facing them.

We often practice a distancing like this when we are in distress.  When some situation is weighing you down to the point where you can't cope, don't you sometimes lose yourself in something else in order to relieve the pressure.  When you return to the matter at hand, you find that it hasn't gone away.  But perhaps what you've down in putting it off for a while was a psychological necessity, if you were going to ultimately face it.

Perhaps placing their sins on the back of the goat to send to the wilderness, served this purpose for the ancient Israelites.  And perhaps it serves as a bit of wisdom of the ages for us.  When our sins and their consequences are weighing us down to he point of putting us into stasis, let's understand tht it's okay to push the matter aside for a time to give us a chance to regroup and  built up the energy we need to face it.

Who or What is Your Scapegoat? A Drash for 1 May 2015

We hear the term ‘scapegoat’ often.  In common use, as a verb, it means to blame one’s troubles on someone or something outside oneself.  As a noun, it usually means the object of one’s tendency to blame.  The Nazi Holocaust is often laid at the feet of ‘scape-goating’ of the Jews.  That is to say, blaming the Jews for all of Germany’s troubles in the period of economic depression between the wars.  There’s truth in this, but it’s a gross over-simplification.  The Nazi phenomenon was far more complex than an attempt to find someone to blame for Germany’s military and economic failures.  And Germans’ attitudes toward the Jews were far more complex and deep-seated than a simple need to blame someone, so why not they Jews.

            But the tendency to ‘scape-goat’ is very real and near-universal.  So many of us go through life, disappointed in the way things turn out for us.  And feeling a need to lay these disappointments at the feet of someone or something outside ourselves.  And doing so.  It is much easier, than looking for the cause of the disappointment within ourselves.  But if we’re honest, when disappointments come we will look within ourselves.  And there, we will find the major cause for our disappointments.

          Look at what’s happening in the USA this week, in the city of Baltimore.  It’s a wonderful, vibrant place with a great populace possessing a ‘can do’ attitude.  In the late 1970’s this city found creative ways to combat, and reverse the cancer of urban blight.  And it did so with aplomb!  In American urban studies, Baltimore is often studied as a success story.

          But this week, Baltimore – at least in certain neighbourhoods – looks like a war zone.  What happened?  What changed, if anything?  What was the cause of the malaise that led some of the city’s residents to destroy cars, businesses and other institutions in their own neighbourhood?  Scapegoating, that’s what.

          It’s been pointed out that, in the year 2015, there is still income disparity.  There are the poor, and the rich.  And the majority, who are somewhere in between.  Some declare that, with the passage of time, it only gets worse.

          Really??!  Still income disparity?  Please…say it ain’t so!

Okay, income disparity is no surprise.  But it’s also nothing to decry.  Some people, through a combination of skills and smarts, willingness to take risks and even luck, do better than others.  So what?  Is that an indictment of the world around us?  It should not be taken so.  The ‘utopia’ where everybody has the same amount of wealth does not exist, and never has existed.

The immediate cause of the recent violence in Baltimore is given as the death of a man in police custody.  As soon as that news came out, and the fact that the dead man was black, it became a cause for agitators in the community to explode in an outburst of violence.  Against businesses.  Against institutions.  Against the police.  Without waiting for an investigation into exactly what happened to Freddy Gray, some blacks in Baltimore reacted by extending their hands in anger.  Destroying.  And blaming.  Blaming anybody, blaming everybody.  And many well-meaning people, have responded thusly:  It’s not really about Freddy Gray.  It’s about a deep-seated resentment over a world where black people suffer from poverty.  It’s about tax codes that favour the rich.  It’s about an inadequate minimum wage.  It’s about poor people scrambling for their next meal.

In other words, it really doesn’t matter what actually happened to Freddy Gray, and who caused it.  More than that:  Freddy Gray is completely irrelevant!  What matters is that there’s an underclass of black people, for whom the ‘American Dream’ becomes ever more elusive.  Who, 150 years after the abolition of slavery, find themselves ever more in slavery to poverty.

Forgive me it this sounds insensitive or unsympathetic.  But scapegoating helps no-one.  It has never lifted anybody from the depths of the poverty of their disappointment.  It only masks the real causes of the disappointment.  Lashing out at others only puts off one’s ability to change things for the better.

My purpose here is not to single out Baltimore, or a group of its black citizens, as a particular offender in the tendency to scape-goat others rather than face one’s condition and apply oneself to improving it.  Each and every one of us has a little of the Baltimore agitators in us.  I see in myself, in the people around me…a reluctance at best to accept responsibility for our failures.  So we blame someone or something outside ourselves.  We look for a scapegoat.  And if we look for one, we will surely find it.

The very term ‘scapegoat’ comes from this week’s Torah portion:  Aharei Mot.  Most of us know the essence of the story.  It’s read every year on Yom Kippur.  The High Priest declares that all the nation’s sins are upon a goat.  And then the goat is led into the wilderness to carry away the people’s sins.  In other words, the Torah seems to be modelling the practice we’ve come to call ‘scape-goating’..and to justify it.  Or perhaps, there’s a different lesson to be drawn.

Immediately after the goat is sent to the wilderness, we find the instructions for the fast of Yom Kippur.  The people are to ‘afflict themselves’ to atone for their sins.  But if all their sins have just been carried away on the back of a goat, why would such affliction be necessary?

I think the real lesson of the story, is that one cannot dispatch one’s sins on the backs of others.  The ancient Israelites had to afflict themselves for their sins after supposedly dispatching them on the back of a goat.  After the ritual was over, then the real work began.  Perhaps this teaches that scape-goating never works.  After we have unfairly lashed out at someone or something else in hopes of overcoming our shortcomings, they remain.  And then, hopefully, we can begin the real work toward overcoming them.  Plus the additional damage caused by the scapegoating.

The Baltimore agitators and their apologists blame, among other things, decades of divestment by business for the economic malaise of the city’s poor.  So how do the agitators address their malaise?  By looting and destroying business that have chosen to remain in the city and provide employment, vital products and services.  So…get set for more divestment from the city of businesses.  Oy!

The inclusion of the account of the ‘scape-goat’ in this week’s Torah narrative, immediately before the instructions for the fast of Yom Kippur, provides an important lesson.  For the ancient Israelites.  For the disgruntled citizens of Baltimore.  For all of us today.  We can blame others for our problems.  We can lash out at them.  And then, when the dust has settled, we can get on with the hard work of moving forward.  One would think that, by this point in history, we would have learnt the lesson in all this.  Skip the first two steps.  Let your disgruntlement with your condition, lead directly and immediately to the step of getting on with the hard work of moving forward.  Maybe now, after watching with horror as actions and their consequences unfold in Baltimore, we can learn this.  Shabbat shalom.   

          

Anzac Day 2015: A Drash and Prayer for Saturday, 25 April 2015

I grew up during the Vietnam era.  I therefore came of age harbouring a certain amount of contempt for those who had heard their country’s call and went marching off to war.  Enlistment was for chumps.  Even if drafted.  Aside from ample deferments available, there was a whole cottage industry of ways to avoid the draft.

I remember once, sitting in my parents’ living room when an uncle and a second cousin were visiting.  They sat there, comparing notes on what dodges their lawyers had used to keep my two cousins, one from each coast from being drafted.  It wasn’t that either one was a conscientious objector.  It wasn’t that either one disliked, or saw himself as disloyal to his country.  But it was an age where draft call ups were selective.  And where the war was patently unpopular and mis-understood.  So only a chump – or someone whose parents could not afford the craftiest lawyers – would go to the service.

Because the Vietnam War was so unpopular, my country flexed its military muscles only with great reluctance during a very dangerous time of Cold War that followed.  But more than that, we entered an age where we began to judge all past conflicts according to our deep skepticism.  War is not the answer, we repeated mindlessly.  But we didn’t know what the question was. 

Since you likely know that I wore a uniform for 28 years, you already know that, at some point, my attitude toward military service changed.  I cannot pinpoint the moment.  But I did serve as a volunteer.  And I did volunteer repeatedly.  Until I found myself a career military man.  A lifer, to use the prerogative term popular during the days of the draft.  If, at eighteen someone had told me that I would be a lifer in the military, I would have told them in all seriousness:  Kill me now.

It’s hard for me to speak personally about Gallipoli and the ANZAC spirit, I who understand so little of Australia.  But the youth of Australia and New Zealand gave their all on that fateful April morning when they landed on the shores of Gallipoli.  They faced an opposition they could not have imagined.  And they faced off against the powerful opponent, who held the advantageous high ground, for the next eight months.  Some say that Australia was born as a nation, on the beaches of Gallipoli.  In other words, through the sacrifice of her youth, she found her purpose as a nation. 

I haven’t been to Gallipoli, but I’ve been to Gettysburg.  It’s a quiet town in southern Pennsylvania.  It’s perhaps, in a way, he Americans’ Gallipoli.  It’s where the United States was, if not born, then burnished and forged into a nation that would rise from the ashes of a destructive civil war.  And which would be a force for good in the world over the next century and more.  But when I strolled Gettysburg’s battlefields, I didn’t think such lofty and profound thoughts.  I only heard the dead soldiers cry out:  We were young.  We gave our all.  Now it is up to you to give meaning to our sacrifice.  I felt I was standing on holy ground.  Because I was.  I had brought along a copy of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.  Every syllable of the great President’s brief speech sang out to me that day. Fourscore and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation…

Australia is a nation at peace, but which is desperately searching for itself in this 21^st century of the Common Era.  As Australians try to forge an enduring identity for their nation, they are well-advised to think of the ANZAC’s and the spirit that motivated them to fight and die on foreign soil.  We in this room were not able to travel to witness the 100^th April 25^th sunrise over Gallipoli since that fateful day in 1915.  I daresay that those who have made the trek will, in a few hours when the sun rises on that side of the world, begin to emotionally connect with the young Australian men who landed that day.  And with those who never made it to the beach, cut down in the boats or in the clear waters of the Aegean Sea.

Avinu shebashamayim, Tzur Yisrael vego’alo

Barech et Medinot Australia ve’New Zealand

Zachor at chayaleihen

Shelachmu bemilchemet ha’olam harishona

Veshe nas’u mibeiteihem

Ad sof ha’olam

Lehilachem be’ad cherut

Veletakein ha’olam

Ana tih’yena nafshoteihem

Tzrurot bitzrur hachayim

U’tehi menuchatam kavod

S’va s’machot et paneicha

Ne’imot bimincha netzach

Amein.

Our Father in heaven

Rock and Redeemer of Israel

Bless the countries of Australia and New Zealand

Remember their soldiers

Who fought in the Great War

Who travelled from their homes

To the ends of the world

To fight for freedom

To make the world better

Let their souls be bound up in the bond of life

May their rest be with honour

May Your Presence sate them with joy

May the beauty of their sacrifice shine forever

Amen.

Happy Birthday, Israel! A Drash for Friday, 24 April 2015

Birthdays and Anniversaries are a funny thing.  Of course, they are a time for celebration.  But if we are really going to bring meaning to our lives, then we would be well-advised to use these milestones as an occasion for introspection as well.  Birthdays and anniversaries are a perfect time for taking stock and asking oneself:  Are things turning out the way I’d really like them to?  If not, what can I do to change things?  Looking ahead to the next year, what might I do differently?

          As with personal milestones, how much more so with collective milestones!  When a country celebrates its annual holiday, it is certainly a time for celebrating everything that’s good about that country.  All of her successes and achievements.  All the ways that the country’s very existence has enriched and improved the lives of her citizens.

          When approaching Israeli Independence Day, it is not difficult to celebrate in this way.  That the lives of most of her citizens are vastly better because of the outcome of the events of 1948 is, as the kids say today, a no-brainer.  In her earliest years, there were two predominant realities of the citizens of Israel.  One:  they survived the Shoah, the Nazi Holocaust and did so with their spirit, strength and initiative intact and even sharpened.  The second:  that they were forced out of the homes in the Arab World that their families had dwelt in for – in some cases – thousands of years.  And their host nations’ punishment to them for the Palestinian Jews’ daring to declare and found a state?  To force them to move en masse to that very state…a state set up in a homeland for which they had been praying for thousands of years!  So, whether a Jew found his or her way to the State of Israel as a refugee from the ashes of the destroyed civilization of the Jews of Europe, or from homes in the Arab World lost because of the state’s existence, here is no doubt that their moving to Israel represented an Aliyah – a going up – in every sense of the word.

          Go to Israel and the most outstanding feature of the landscape which you’ll note will be the extent to which she is, and I say this at the risk of using a phrase which has become cliché, a land of contrasts.

          Travelling through Israel, one cannot escape the reality that she is an ancient land; the physical reminders of past civilisations confront the traveler at almost every turn.  Never have I seen a country whose populace has such a passion for archeology, as Israel.  And I have also lived in Greece, where ancient ruins are everywhere.  But in Israel it’s not just the stones of the land that serve as a constant reminder of ages past.  Travel around, and one sees people whose dress and behavior hearkens to past centuries.  People who refuse to change their ways just because of the passage of epochs.  And I don’t mean only Jews; I think of communities of Christians, Muslims and others who live out a mindset for preservation.  And I also don’t mean this in a negative sense – it is wonderful to have a living link to the past.

          On the other hand the State of Israel is, at the age of 67, a relatively young country – barely through adolescence as these things go!  Not only is the country young; her population is relatively young.  The median age of Israel’s population is 29.3 years.  This compares to 37.5 years for Australia, 36.8 years for New Zealand, 40.5 for the United Kingdom, and 36.9 for the United States.  Given this fact, it is not surprising that there is in Israel a palpable vibrancy in the air.  It’s a young land, full of young people, who are full of energy and optimism.  And yet, Israel ranks 18^th in the world in life expectancy – 81.38 years.  She is just behind Switzerland, and ahead of Iceland.  For comparison, Australia is number nine at 82.15 years, New Zealand 25^th at 81.05 years, the UK 30^th at 80.54 years, and the USA 53^rd at 78.88 years.  

Israel is a country with one of the world’s highest standards of living.  According to the UN’s 2015 Human Development Index, Israel ranks 19^th of 187 nations in the world.  This is an incredible achievement and would seem counter-intuitive for several reasons.  First, so many of her citizens arrived as refugees, penniless and often without education, from places where they were severely persecuted.  One would think that the costs of absorbing, feeding, housing, educating and assimilating all these refugees would impose an economic cost that would drag Israel’s standard of living far lower.  And then there’s the crushing defence burden.  Per 1,000 population, 21.4 Israelis are serving on active duty in the defence forces – third highest in the world after North Korea and Eritrea.  And total military service – including reserves and paramilitary forces – is, at 78.8 per 1,000 the fifth highest in the world after North Korea, Armenia, Singapore and China.  And the percentage of the Gross Domestic Product that is spent on defence is the fourth highest in the world at 5.6 percent – behind Oman at 11.6, Saudi Arabia at 9, and Afghanistan at 6.4.  And the hidden cost of having so many men and women under arms at any given moment – and of paying and equipping them – should logically be a far lower national productivity and standard of living.  But Israel, in so many ways, defies logic.

Speaking of Gross Domestic Product, Israel ranks 32^nd in the world at $32,491.  This compares to Australia, 19^th in the world at $43,202; New Zealand, 28^th at $34,731; UK, 24^th at $38,259; and the USA 10^th at $53,042.

          Lists of achievements by Israel and her citizens frequently circulate the Internet; assuming that they are accurate, Israel is the world’s leader in so many critical sciences and technologies.  It is a country not only with an incredible amount of brainpower, but with a cultural climate which makes for the unleashing of an amazing amount of creativity in so many fields.

          I almost hesitate to use Nobel Prizes as a measure of a nation’s level of achievement, since the 2009 award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Obama, for the potential for peace that his election to the US Presidency offered to the world.  That was certainly an empty-headed gesture on the part of the Nobel Committee.  But that aside, 12 Israelis have won Nobel Prizes.  Whilst this is not a high number in absolute terms, it is important to note that Israel ranks 11^th in the world for Nobel laureates per capita.  And this, from a country that has only been a country only about half the years since 1here the annual awarding of Nobel Prizes began in 1895.

(It should be noted that Alfred Nobel was a Lutheran, not a Jew as is popularly, and erroneously thought.  But in any case, Nobel died a year after the institution of the prize bearing his name.  Furthermore, the Nobel Committee is made up of Swedes and Norwegians.  There are some 15,000 Jews in Sweden, 0.158 percent of the population.  And some 1,300 Jews in Norway, 0.026 percent.  So it is highly unlikely that successive Nobel Committees were inclined to load their choices with Jews or Israelis…more likely the opposite.)

 Having said the aforementioned, it is good to acknowledge the elephant in the room.  The Arab citizens of Israel, at least some of them, join the Arabs of the world in mourning Israeli Independence Day as an Nakhba, the Catastrophe.  This, opposed to the Miracle that the Jews are celebrating the same day.  The point is that the Arab world insists on seeing the birth of the State of Israel as a terrible thing for the Palestinian Arab people not to mention the Arab peoples as a whole and even all of the realm of Islam, imposed on them by the Western World as a way of placating their consciences for allowing the Holocaust to happen.  Ignoring the assertion that Israel was imposed on the Arabs as far too complex for the current drash, this raises the question:  by what objective measure is the establishment and existence of Israel a Catastrophe for the Palestinian Arabs?  Did Israel’s independence rob the Palestinians of their independence?  Hardly.  UN Resolution 181 of 28 November 1947, commonly called in Jewish circles “The Miracle of Lake Success” after the town on Long Island where the UN headquarters was located at the time, called for the partition of British Mandatory Palestine into two states:  one for the Jews and one for the Arabs.  The Palestinian Arabs rejected the UN vote and never declared or established a state.  In the wake of the Israeli War of Independence, most of the land that the Resolution 181 had ceded to the Arab Palestinians, were occupied by Jordan and Egypt, obviously two Arab nations.  They could have helped the Palestinians to set up a state anytime from 1948 until 1967, but they did not.  So there never was a Palestinian state, and during the 20 years that the Arab world had the ability to create one unilaterally, they did not.  So the ‘Catastrophe’ of the Palestinians’ not having a state, iff one can reasonably call that a Catastrophe, cannot be blamed on Israel or anyone else in the world.

That said, what is the living condition of the “stateless” Palestinians?  It is possible to take a very objective measure of this.  Remember the life expectancy of Israelis, 81.38 years?  The Palestinian territories come out considerably lower at 75.01 years.  But compare that to neighbouring Arab countries:  Egypt at 73.7 years; Syria at 75.59 years; Lebanon at 75.9 years; and Jordan at 80.54 years.  So life expectancy among Palestinians in the territories is on par with three of the four neighbouring Arab countries whilst Jordan is not far behind Israel.  And let’s go back to the Human Development Index, in which Israel ranks 19^th of 187 countries.  The Palestinian territories rate considerably lower at 107^th.  But compare that to Egypt at 110^th and Syria at 118^th.  Jordan ranks considerably higher at 77^th, whilst Lebanon scores an even better 65^th. 

So what are we supposed to learn from all these figures?  That the Palestinian Arabs enjoy a quality of life that is on a par with the other Arab countries in the neighbourhood.  And those countries did not experience a ‘Catastrophe’ in the sense of losing some territory that might have belonged to them, to Israel or anybody else.  On the other hand Jordan scores considerably higher on most indices of quality of life, than her Arab neighbours.  Why do you think that is so?  I would assert that it’s because Jordan has the most stable and free society, including constitutional government, of all the aforementioned Arab countries.  And Israel could be said to have one of the most stable, free, and constitutional governments in the world.  It is this atmosphere of stability and freedom that gives Israelis and Jordanians a better life than the citizens of Egypt, Syria, and the Palestinian Authority.  Lebanon is a different case; it has a legacy of legitimate government, but the ethnic coalition that flourished in the country in the past has been rent by the interference of Syria and the Palestinians.

One more statistic to cite, and then I’ll lay it to rest!  Remember the median age of Israeli citizens, 29.3 years, and how that is much younger than the countries that those in this room are likely to represent?  For the Palestinian territories, the median age is 20.7.  That implies a high birth rate, sign of a healthy and optimistic populace, combined with a low infant mortality rate, sign of excellent diet and health care.  As for the last item, that is primarily he Israeli health care system – and Israel’s generosity in giving access to it to Palestinians from the territories.  In fact, the Israeli health care system cares for any Arab from a neighbouring country who presents at Israel’s border.  If you did not attend the recent United Israel Appeal dinner at which Brigitte Gabriel spoke, you missed a living testimony to this.  More recently, since the outbreak of civil war in neighbouring Syria, Israel has treated thousdands of Syrians injured in the fighting.

I have focused on the secular aspects of Israel in assigning credit for her successes.  But to get the whole story, it is necessary to go to the sources of Judaism.  And to the unique relationship of Hashem to His people.  In Israel, even the completely secular are likely to be informed and infused by the spirit of rachmanut towards their neighbours and one another, not to mention towards the entire world.  In so many catastrophes and natural disasters that occur far from Israel’s borders, Israeli relief crews are the first to offer assistance.  And that assistance is often among the most robust on the scene.  This spirit did not come from a vacuum.  It came from the Torah.  

That said, there is no more unanimity regarding the role of Torah and Halacha among Israelis Jews, than there is among diaspora Jews.  The Orthodox think the country is not religious enough, whilst the secular think it’s too religious.  And the non-Orthodox religious think that Orthodoxy has far too much power and influence over the affairs of state, whilst the non-Orthodox sector often feels marginalized.  But in all this noise of disagreement, there is agreement on an all-important principle.  The State of Israel, whilst offering equal rights and opportunities to her non-Jewish citizens who comprise a fourth of her population, exists to serve as the haven and the centre of the Jewish world.  To serve as a focus for the manifold aspirations of the Jewish people, wherever they live.  The exact relationship of diaspora Jews to the State of Israel is a difficult path that will always be fraught rough spots.  But let’s be patient; remember that Israel, at 67, is barely out of adolescence!  For now, each Jew must make his or her own context for connection with the Israeli state.  Trust me, it will be grist for Jewish disagreement for a long time!  

I started my discourse tonight with the premise that an anniversary such as this should be an occasion for collective introspection.  And so it should be.  But not for the reasons that the Jew-hating world would have you believe.  Israel faces many difficult challenges as she enters her 68^th year.  How to bring about a better life for more of her citizens.  How to further open opportunities to all.  How to relate better to the Jewish, not to mention he gentile world.  How to tell her story to a skeptical world.  How to approach the immanent acquisition of nuclear arms by Iran, who has sworn to wipe Israel off the map.  Israel’s challenges for the future are far from trivial.

Celebrate Israel!  Celebrate the unique energies that have created such a successful state under very difficult conditions.  And pray that the Arab world will someday learn to stop reflectively hating Israel.  Because only then will they learn to find similar success for themselves.  Shabbat Shalom.    

Which Imitates Which? A Drash for 17 April 2015

I have been known to use this pulpit as a confessional of sorts.  Why do you think I do this?  Am I, at heart, some kind of exhibitionist?  I hope you don’t think so.  The truth is that I want to expose common foibles by noting that I am as guilty of them as you might be…maybe more!  If I have the courage to admit my idiosyncrasies and tell how I’m working on them, then maybe you will have the courage to admit your own to yourselves…and begin to work on them.

          So, what is tonight’s confession?  Here goes…I have taken to watching, and planning my day around, The Bold and the Beautiful.  Four-thirty every afternoon on Channel Ten.  And on those days when I miss it, there’s a reprise broadcast the next morning at seven-thirty.

          Yes, your rabbi watches the soaps – or at least, one soap in particular – regularly.  I’m completely fascinated by the show, whose meandering plot unfolds day after day at a near-glacial pace.  And what a plot!  Everybody in three large families is connected by marriages, divorces, betrayals, bed-shifting, incest, and cradle-robbing.  Sex, sex, and more sex!  Everybody works in the high-powered fashion industry.  Yet nobody ever seems to be working!  They spend their time creating interpersonal drama.  For all that, they clearly are paid well.  The women are dripping in jewels, the men in expensive boy toys.  All live in magnificent homes, dine out all the time and travel extensively.

          I remember when, as a boy, I first heard the term ‘Soap Opera’ applied to such programs.  My mother patiently explained to me that the ‘soap’ comes from their sponsorship by soap companies.  Such companies as Colgate and Palmolive, before they became Colgate-Palmolive.  Procter and Gamble.  And the ‘opera’ part of the phrase refers to the melodramatic quality of their plots. 

          Maybe you’re wondering just why I feel that I must apologise for having become a devotee of this program.  If so, I’ll tell you that I’ve always harboured a certain contempt for those who are.  Years ago, in the USA I remember reading about how there was an ‘epidemic’ of devotion to those daytime soaps on university campuses.  I remember questioning the value of higher education if that’s what students had time for, and were drawn to.  Having left school before finishing my degree and having completed it through off-duty courses and testing, I began to feel acquitted for the way I’d spent my early adult years.

          And now here I am, fascinated by this slowly-unfolding melodrama played out in half-hour daily instalments on daytime TV.

          Everybody is familiar with the declaration that art imitates life, which originates with Aristotele.  And perhaps also with its antithesis, life imitates art, whose source is an 1889 essay by Oscar Wilde.  The question is:  which one is more correct?  I think the latter, at least in our day and age.  Look at the eternal popularity of the soaps.  And then look at how people you know, tend to play out their lives as an ever-unfolding melodrama – similar to the soaps’ plots.

          So I have spent a number of hours of my life, hours that I will never get back, watching The Bold and the Beautiful.  What could I possibly have learned from it?  I mean, if I’m standing in front of you on Friday night and talking about it, there has to be a lesson in it…doesn’t there?  Never fear; there is!

          The characters in The Bold and the Beautiful are mostly good people with good intentions.  And yet they repeatedly hurt one another as they live out their dramas.  So why do they live their lives as scripted melodramas, if it hurts people who are dear to them?  Because they are driven by the excitement of the drama.  Instead of accepting that most of life is calm and even boring, the drama is like a drug.  Once hooked on it, one needs more and more.  And because it is like a drug, one is unlikely to be able to own up one’s dependence upon it.

          We can see this quality in ordinary human discourse.  People who are essentially good, with good intentions, engaging in dramas that are hurtful to others.  But the drama itself becomes a driving force where the actors are unable to see what they are doing.  And thus they hurt one another.  But there are no gains whatsoever to be had.  At the end of the day, there is only hurt to spread around.  But those addicted to the drama cannot see it, any more than most alcoholics can be honest about their addiction.

          The radio personality – and bestselling author – Dennis Prager offers insight into the nature of evil in our world.  He observes, most accurately, that the majority of evil in the world is introduced by people who mean well.  We already know this principle from the cliché:  The road to hell is paved with good intentions.  Prager meant to apply it to the macro, where great utopian movements are founded by those with good intentions yet cause much suffering.  But it is also true in the micro sense, where we see people hurting those they love or at least regard highly, with their interpersonal dramas.

          In The Bold and the Beautiful, everybody is fabulously wealthy.  But in real life, we all struggle to one degree or another to provide for ourselves and our loved ones.  Why doesn’t that stark difference serve, as it might, to help us to differentiate our own lives from those fantasy lives on TV?  Adrian Cronauer, of Good Morning Vietnam fame, once helped me to see why.  He told me about the intense jockeying for position that he’d observed as an enlisted man in the US Air Force.  He told me this very matter-of-factly, but I filed it away as a profound truth:  “The competition is most fierce when there’s so little at stake.”  If we look at the dramas that we see people we know playing out, we can see this principle in action.  When the stakes are low, the backbiting only seems to increase.  One might think that to be counter-intuitive.  But the truth is that, in life, the modesty of resources does not diminish the melodrama.

          The stakes in our lives are lower, at least in the material sense, than those in the lives of the characters on The Bold and the Beautiful.  But in reality, by being lower they are actually higher.  Economics is, at its heart, the science that explores the consequences of the scarcity of resources.  Interpersonal drama is a lot like economics.  At its heart it is all about competition for resources of a different kind.  Some of those resources are intangibles:  things like love and self-esteem.  But the drama hides an essential truth.  Such resources are not limited; they are available in abundance!  The quest for such things, is not a zero-sum game.  But turning it into a zero-sum game adds excitement.  And is therefore something that we do, despite its being counter-intuitive.

          Like Brooke Logan Forrester, played by Katherine Kelly Lang.  Her particular drama is a subplot this week, on The Bold and the Beautiful.  She has been away in Italy for some months.  Having returned to LA, she finds that three different men – Ridge Forrester, Bill Logan, and Deacon Sharpe – with whom she has had relationships in the past are now committed to other women.  Brooke, unable to cope with this, is falling into alcohol abuse to bury the hurt.  The watcher awaits what drama Brooke will create to provide the succour she needs.  Her mistake is the zero-sum fallacy.  She is busy competing with others for ‘limited’ resources – the men she already knows and with whom she has already had relationships and children.  This, instead of looking for love in new places, with the new people she would surely meet if she were trying.

          If we could see this and other fallacies hidden by the drama of such programs as The Bold and the Beautiful, perhaps we could see how we create real-life drama based on fallacies.  And then we would be able to rise above such dramas and relate to one another.  And assuming goodness of intentions, we would also see goodness of results.  I expose these fallacies for this purpose only.  That we would learn to recognise, and therefore transcend them.  Shabbat shalom.