Climate, Shmita and Consumption

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There are times when even atheists have trouble denying that there is a “hand of God” at work in history. How else to explain the coincidence of the largest ever gathering of humanity to assemble around the world to highlight the urgency of global action on climate change the week before Rosh haShana 5775, a shmitah (Sabbatical) year.

Organizers will tell you that the motivation for setting the September 21, 2014 date for the Peoples Climate March in New York City was the convening in that city of the U.N. General Assembly. Indeed U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon offered his support for the march, keenly aware of the abysmal failure of the U.N. Global Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in 2009 and hoping for better results at the next such conference scheduled for Paris in 2015. If we can take one message away from over 300,000 marchers in New York and an estimated 600,000 people mobilizing on the same day in 162 countries it should be that world leaders have to get past the “blame your neighbor” mentality that has prevented meaningful policy action by the international community on the issue of global warming.

Note: This article appeared in The Peoplehood Papers, Issue 14 November 2014.

One would hope that Jews who gathered for the yamim noraim might have heard their rabbis connecting these non-violent citizen-led demonstrations to Jewish themes. The most obvious connection was that 5775 is a year of shmita. Thanks to the leadership of organizations like Hazon in the United States and Teva Ivri in Israel, more than any time in my memory, this year shmita was elevated from an obscure Biblical practice to a Judaic principle that could hardly have more relevance to the world in which we currently live.

In the diaspora, where few Jews derive their livelihoods from agriculture, there has been a wider framing of how Jews might observe the Sabbatical year. In a brilliant and creatively conceived manifesto called Envisioning Sabbatical Culture, author Yigal Deutscher sets out specific action items focused on three areas: community food systems, community economic systems and community design systems, the latter essentially ideas of how we can rebuild the ethos of “the commons” in western societies that are so much driven by individualism.

Because Israel provides a laboratory for how we might actually implement the Jewish concept of shmita throughout an entire society there are even more exciting possibilities emerging. Under the banner of the Israel Shmita Initiative the Ministry of Welfare is considering how debt forgiveness can be extended to the poorest sectors of Israeli society so that they can have an opportunity to become full partners in Israel’s robust economy. The Ministry of Education is implementing curricula about shmita in the school system. And the Ministry of Environment is calling for a moratorium on open sea fishing so fish stocks can regenerate for the future. Fisherman affected by this moratorium can receive compensation from the government, an example of a State’s ability to incentivize certain kinds of behavior.

Of course it is one thing for organizations to mount messaging campaigns, put out manifestos and issue action plans. It is another thing to get people to change behavior. While we can take pride in the number of Jewish organizations that have taken leadership roles in different facets of the environmental movement we need to confront the one “dirty” little secret of our community. There is no single bigger threat to ongoing environmental degradation than consumption and the affluence of the Jewish community makes us among the world’s most avid consumers. In the same way that the United States is poorly positioned to lecture China and India on their rising levels of industrialization, Jews cannot lead by example on the planet’s existential challenge unless we start addressing our community’s excessive rate of consumption.

America represents only 5% of the world’s population but it consumes more than 20% of the world’s food, water and energy. Because consumption is directly correlated to wealth, we know that Jews make up the highest category of consumers in America. Jews will take pride in Israel’s booming economy but that economy also has given rise to the fourth highest rate of income inequality in the industrialized world. The proportion of income earned by Israel’s most wealthy is 14 times greater than Israel’s poorest citizens. The average proportion in the rest of the industrialized world is 9 to 1.

It is time for us to assign a moral value to the consequences of our over-consumption of everything, both as individuals and as a people. The best morality play for this lesson comes in the book of Numbers ch. 11. The Israelites are, at this point in the Biblical narrative, wandering in the desert and romanticizing their recollections of Egypt as a place where food, particularly meat, was abundant. In the desert God was providing a vegetarian option—Manna- on a daily basis, and a double portion on Friday so that no collection had to be done on Shabbat. But the Manna had become stale (pun intended) and the people called for a return to Egypt just so they could eat meat. Consumption had become more important than freedom.

Moses looks to God for some relief from the ongoing complaining of the people and God complies by sending a flock of quail that conveniently drop out of the sky in the vicinity of the Israelite encampment. The quail is both a response to an outcry and a test. And the Israelites fail the test. They consume so much quail so quickly that a plague overtakes the tribe and thousands die, many with the meat of quail still in their mouths. Our ancestors ate themselves to death. The Torah calls the place of this incident, Kibrot Taavah, the graves of consumption. It may foreshadow our own future. The graves of consumption, indeed!

It is exciting to think that one way that the Jewish people might be linked across national and geographic boundaries might be with an old/new ethic built around the ideas embedded in the concept of shmita. But part of this effort needs to include learning that the key to following a more sacred and ethical life is the discipline that comes from accepting limits to indulging our voracious appetites for whatever we want, whenever we want it. As we see more and more evidence of the world’s ecosystem spinning out of control in a way that might be irreversible we must realize that most of this is a result of human activity. Both human beings and the planet pay a steep price for a life without limits. We are digging our own graves of consumption.

We live in a world of great wealth and great poverty. The gap between the haves and the have-nots continues to grow. Jews have a long and proud tradition of carrying forward the ethic of the Biblical prophets calling us to ally with “the stranger, the orphan and the widow”, essentially the most vulnerable among us. But if we are to “walk the talk” in the realm of living more gently on the planet so as to preserve the beauty and abundance of God’s creation we must be prepared to adopt lifestyles that are more modest, more humble and more sustainable.

There are times when even atheists have trouble denying that there is a “hand of God” at work in history. How else to explain the coincidence of the largest ever gathering of humanity to assemble around the world to highlight the urgency of global action on climate change the week before Rosh haShana 5775, a shmitah (Sabbatical) year.

Note: This article appeared in The Peoplehood Papers, Issue 14 November 2014.

In several of my presentations to Haitians, my translator was a young minister named Johnny Felix. In his early 30s and with a smile that can light up a room, Pastor Johnny founded a church and a school in Leogane, literally out of nothing. I spent some time in his community and with the students in his school, and felt that with a little help, Pastor Johnny could actually make a big difference in the lives of these children. Less than 50 percent of Haitian children go to any elementary school at all!

Upon return home, I spoke about my experience from the bimah of the congregation where I am the founding rabbi: Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation in Bethesda, Md. I proposed that we undertake a project related to Haiti with the primary mission of supporting Pastor Johnny’s NICL School, which at the time served 150 children in kindergarten through sixth grade (the school has now grown to almost 200 students). So as not to repeat the mistakes of so much post-disaster aid that is common in our society where tons of money comes into a poor country and then, within a year, all aid dries up, the requirement was that families commit to five years of funding at a relatively modest level of $100 annually.

Adat Shalom’s “Haiti Project” is now going into its seventh year. More than 100 Adat Shalom households now contribute $100 a year for five years, which allows us to support Pastor Johnny’s NICL School in Leogane. We call them “Haiti Partners.” As a result of this generosity, we are able to send between $5,000 and $8,000 per year to fund scholarships for student tuition, purchase equipment for the school and underwrite the school’s core budget. Pastor Johnny, who has almost single-handedly created the NICL school and a congregation in Leogane, said to me that Adat Shalom was sent to him by God. As much as that might hit our ears a bit strangely, there is no way to do the work that Pastor Johnny does day in and day out against overwhelming odds without such a “leap of faith.”

But what started out as a fundraising project with an interesting “development world” angle to it changed markedly a few months into our first campaign. A member of Adat Shalom named Pam Sommers approached me and said: “I already signed up to be a ‘Haiti Partner.’ I want to go to Haiti and do hands-on work on the ground like you did, Rabbi Sid.”

I responded: “You find a minyan of Adat Shalom members who are willing to go as well, and I will commit to lead the trip.”

Wouldn’t you know it? Pam got 16 people to go, a combination of adults and young people between the ages of 14 and 30.

In December 2018, I accompanied the fifth Adat Shalom Service Mission to Haiti. We now go every other year during winter break, when the weather is bearable in Haiti and kids in the United States are out of school. Every mission has had a wonderful mix of youth and adults. The families who have brought their children talk about it as the best thing they ever did with their family in terms of values learned, time spent and sense of fulfillment achieved. One family signed up with a bit of anxiety since this was going to take the place of their annual family trip to Cancun during winter break. Several years later, the family still talks about their Haiti experience. The trips to Cancun are more or less forgettable.

We have brought Pastor Johnny to Adat Shalom twice for visits to interact with our community and with our Torah School. His first visit in 2014 was the first time he had ever been on an airplane. Each time he joined me on the bimah, he taught some songs in French and English, and shared with our community how much Adat Shalom was a lifeline for the students of his school. In turn, Adat Shalom members are extremely proud of the project. In our foyer, there is a wall dedicated to the project with photos from our missions. One member wrote me a note saying that she herself could never participate in a mission because of the physical demands of the mission, but she is so proud to be a member of a synagogue whose social action was as expansive as supporting a Christian school in Haiti.

The conditions in Haiti are not for the faint of heart. Our accommodations are very modest. The work is hard—hauling cement, moving rocks, painting, bending rebar. Even in December, it is well into the 90s and humid. But we have accomplished so much. During our 2011 and 2012 missions, we worked side by side with Haitians to build houses in Lambi Village to provide shelter for those whose homes collapsed during the 2010 earthquake. In 2014, we went back to Lambi Village to visit. The community was thriving. We were greeted like royalty, each family eager to show us their homes. During the construction, we made makeshift mezuzot of plywood to give to each homeowner. Wouldn’t you know it? The mezuzot were displayed prominently in each home! Guess how that made us feel? Oh. And they also kicked our butt in a game of soccer.

At Pastor Johnny’s NICL compound, we have accomplished a minor miracle. Over the course of two discreet missions, we broke ground and then finished a third structure on the school’s modest campus. Half of it will serve as a dining hall for the students. The second part became a computer lab with 15 work stations—something almost unheard of in this rural part of Haiti. It was made possible because we first funded a solar tower to provide the school with a constant source of electricity. When we first started working there, the school was making do on three to five hours of electricity a day. One of our mission participants had been inspired to fund the creation of the computer lab, which was a major boon to both the students and faculty of the school.

Another proud creation of our Adat Shalom mission was the creation of a vegetable garden that we dedicated and named “Gan HaMazon.” When we dedicated it, Pam Sommers’s husband, Fred Pinkney, actually made the dedication speech in front of the students of the school in their native language, Creole. Many of the 200 students in the school are food insecure, so we focused our attention on that aspect of community development. On our 2016 mission, we ran a day camp from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. every day for 50 students of the school since it was vacation time. (These families are not going to Cancun). The focus was on how to work in the vegetable garden and food preparation.

On each mission, in a variety of settings, we work side by side with Haitians, and we use that opportunity to gain insight into the challenges they face in their lives. In so many cases, we walk away inspired by the dignity of the Haitians who live in circumstances that are close to what would be our worst nightmare.

The experience is always a deeply spiritual one for us. Every evening after dinner, we gather in the dorm where we stay. We use the time to share the highs and lows of our very intense days, and then to enrich our experience by studying Judaic texts and values from a sourcebook that I put together specifically for our mission. The conversations are wide-ranging. How can Americans be most helpful in a country where poverty, illiteracy and illness are so widespread? How can we help Pastor Johnny and the NICL school become self-sustaining? What are the ethical ramifications of our lives of privilege when compared to the deprivation that is the lot of most Haitians? On our last day, every person has a chance to share something they learned during our mission: a) about how to be most helpful to people in a developing country like Haiti; b) about Judaism and their Jewish identity; and c) about themselves. More than a few of the mission participants talk about the experience as “transformative” and “life-changing.”

When all is said and done, spiritual practice is about connecting to something greater than ourselves. Our mission participants, who may or may not be interested in prayer or meditation, feel much more deeply connected to the Haitians with whom they work, with all of humanity, with the mystery of being by engaging in the practice of literally loving their neighbors as themselves. I know that I, too, have grown immensely from the experience. Much of my activism has focused on tzedek—trying to effect changes in programs and policies through political advocacy. Yet to ground that commitment in acts of hesed (lovingkindness), spending time face to face with some of the most vulnerable people on the planet, is to understand something about one’s own humanity and the common struggle for human dignity that crosses all lines of race, nationality and religion.

I believe that our service missions represent the very best of what we can and should be doing as a Jewish community. The participants become a tightly bonded team during our challenging days on the work site, and we became a family in our “down time” at the dorm. With each passing day, we become more inspired to give of ourselves to help those who have so little, but who live their lives with great dignity and with deep faith.

Finally, we take great pride in “walking the talk” of Torah. We aren’t just talking about Jewish values; we are living those values every day. In a sermon I once delivered at Pastor Johnny’s church on Sunday morning, I said that despite the differences in nationality, race, religion and socio-economic status that separate us and the Haitians who were our hosts, three things tie us together. Both communities are faith communities committed to hesed, acts of lovingkindness; tzedek, acts of justice; and shalom, acts that advance spiritual wholeness and peace.

At a time when synagogues are losing market share and Next Gen Jews are deeply ambivalent about how much they are prepared to identify as Jews, I can testify that this kind of service mission is a game-changer. Synagogue leaders should think seriously about sponsoring both domestic and international service missions. It allows Jews to act on their values and also serves to connect Jews with the most vulnerable people in the world, a central teaching of Torah.

Judaism’s Moral Imperative to End Poverty

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This talk was delivered at the annual meeting of the World Bank held in Washington D.C. in October 2014. Rabbi Sid was part of a panel of clergy that was invited to offer their respective faith tradition’s approach to poverty
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Judaism is a tradition of text and interpretation. The Torah, or the Five Books of Moses, is our core sacred text. But for centuries following, rabbis of every age added layer upon layer of commentary to apply those core principles to the circumstances in which people lived. In the short amount of time I have to share a Jewish perspective on poverty with you I’d like to use that methodology to summarize a voluminous literature into three core principles.The text is from Deuteronomy ch. 15. I will break it into three parts, each yielding a different, important principle.v. 4-5: “There shall be no needy among you—for God will surely bless you in the land which God gives to you as an inheritance as long as you observe and do all the commandments that I command you this day”.

The first principle is that we must always attempt to move the world towards a utopian ideal. The opening of verse 4, “there shall be no needy among you” is not intended as a description of any reality. It is rather a prescription of what we need to work towards. The Land of Israel is called “the promised land” not just because God promises it to Abraham in the early chapters of Genesis. It becomes a metaphor for all peoples of a place where justice and equality exists. Negro spirituals invoke the metaphor because African-Americans identified with the Children of Israel who were led by Moses taking them from a land of enslavement—Egypt—to a land of freedom—Israel.

So much of the world’s population lives in a state of deprivation, lacking the basic necessities of life: clean water, sanitation, nutritious food, health care, education. This state of poverty is often exacerbated by political instability which makes the predicament of the poor seem virtually hopeless. Yet the message of Judaism is that even though the years in the wilderness may be many—40 years in the Biblical story—there is always cause for faith and hope in a better future.

In Judaism, despair is not an option. Surrender is not an option. Resignation is not an option. The arc of Jewish history moves again and again from slavery to freedom, from oppression to redemption. This lesson is as important to the people in this room as it is to the bottom billion in the world. We cannot rest until we cross the River Jordan and get to the Promised Land of abundance.

 v. 7-“If there is among you a needy person, one of your brethren, within your gates, …you shall not harden your heart nor shut your hand from your needy brother.”

The second principle is that we are commanded to respond both materially and spiritually to our needy neighbors. Jewish law mandated the giving of charity, a minimum of a tithe or a tenth of one’s income but it could be more than that. There are many ways that this verse got legislated in Jewish societies. When Jews lived in ancient Israel they were an agrarian people. The rabbis required that landowners leave the corners of their field unharvested. Those corners were then made available to the poor of the community to harvest. Similarly, any parts of harvested bundles that fell off of the animals or wagon had to be left for the poor.

Embedded in these laws was a principle that would be considered quite radical in a world of capitalism and private property. It implied that land was not “owned” by any person, available only for their use. The land belonged to God, it was part of the commons. The “owner” was, at best, a temporary steward of God’s land. Therefore allowing the poor to enjoy some of its produce was not a function of the owner’s generosity, it was a matter of justice. It was the way the world was supposed to work because God’s design would not allow some to live in great plenty while others starved.

In the verse the word “brother” is used. The Hebrew is achecha. The rabbis were troubled by this. Even moreso because Jews lived in communities where there were both Jews and non-Jews alike. The million dollar question in Jewish ethics is: “How extensive is your universe of responsibility?” The rabbis solved this by saying that it is permissible to prioritize the needs of those closest to you, by virtue of being part of your family, your tribe, your religious community or your geographical area. But the Talmud also says: “You are required to support the poor of the non-Jews just as you must support the poor of the Jews.” Prioritization of those closest to you does not exempt you from extending your aid to others in need even if they are not part of your immediate circle of associations.

The first century sage Hillel resolved this seeming paradox with the famous saying: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, what am I?” This principle has clear implications for how we think about a world that is increasingly becoming a global village because of the ease of travel and communications.

Thus we have addressed material support. Then what does spiritual support mean? It means that we must give with a full heart. Rabbi Isaac taught: “One who gives a small coin to a poor person obtains six blessings; but one who addresses him with words of comfort obtains eleven blessings”. Not only do we know that an open heart is a pre-requisite for generosity but we are being taught something else as well. Helping a person’s spirit may be even more important than giving them direct financial aid. Poverty is sometimes a function of a broken spirit. You can’t heal a spirit with money; you can only heal a broken spirit with chesed, the Hebrew word for compassion.

v. 8- “You shall surely open your hand unto the poor and lend that person sufficient for his need.”

The third principle being taught here is that in helping the poor, we must keep in mind how to do so in a way that preserves their dignity. The rabbis have a field day with interpreting the word, “sufficient”, in Hebrew, dai machsoro. One rabbi taught provocatively, “If a poor person once rode a horse with a servant going before him, you must acquire for him a horse and servant.”

How is this possible? In a world of finite resources and seemingly infinite need, isn’t this excessive. If Donald Trump lost everything, is society obligated to get him back his chauffeured limousine? It defies logic. But the teaching is not to be taken literally. Rather it teaches us that a person’s dignity is not only about money. It is about helping the poor person feel spiritually whole and respected.

The 11th century sage, Maimonidies, created an eight-level hierarchy of giving. The lowest rung is when you give aid to a poor person with a bad attitude. The seventh rung is when you see to it that the support is given in total anonymity. The recipient does not know who gave the money and the donor does not know who receives it. In that way, there is no loss of respect, no loss of dignity. The highest rung, according to Maimonidies, is when you help to make a poor person fully self-sufficient.

Judaism teaches that every human being is made in the image of God. Every person has infinite worth; infinite dignity. This is the ethos underlying the teaching of Maimonidies. It is a radical teaching and it has policy implications.

If we make a person (or a whole society) feel like they are inferior to us because they can only survive because of the aid we give them, they will be forever impoverished, no matter how much money they receive. If however we help them become self-sufficient, then no matter how little they receive they will feel like a child of God, deserving of blessing, of hope and of a brighter future for their children.

Americans are very doctrinaire about keeping religion and state separate. But I hope and pray that some of the principles that I shared with you today might inform your important policy work as you work in your respective countries and on various international platforms to help all God’s children enjoy a life of dignity and blessing.

Hanukkah and Human Rights

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Normally we think of human rights in an international context. But recent events in our country have highlighted how the human rights of African Americans are routinely violated by police departments all around the country. White America may now be waking up to a reality that Black America has lived with for decades. Some of the issues mentioned in this column have been replaced by others. But with Human Rights Day taking place this Wednesday, December 10th, it seemed like a good time to circulate this message.

This column initially was published in The Washington Post on Dec. 20, 2008.

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Hanukkah is the Jewish festival of religious liberty and freedom. Some rabbis have cynically commented that the popularity of Hanukkah is the Jews’ attempt to copy their gentile neighbors’ observance of Christmas.

But motivations for observance notwithstanding, just as serious Christians try hard to put the Christ back into Christmas, Jews, too, must drill down to discover the power of the Hanukkah message. They will discover a message as central to Jewish teaching as any in our tradition. It is also a message desperately needed in the world.

In 169, Antiochus Epiphanies, king of Syria, devastated Jerusalem, massacring thousands of Jews and desecrating Judaism’s holiest shrine, the Temple in Jerusalem. Under the military leadership of Judah Maccabee, Israel gradually rallied against Antiochus. On the 25th day of Kislev, the Maccabees retook Jerusalem and rededicated the Temple for Jewish worship. The Hebrew word Hanukkah literally means ’’dedication.’’

The custom of celebrating eight days of Hanukkah stems from the belief that the small amount of oil available to rekindle the Temple’s menorah (sacred lamp) burned for eight days, even though the amount of oil was barely sufficient for one. Whether one believes literally in the miracle of the high-octane oil, on a spiritual level Hanukkah is about a much bigger miracle. It is the miracle of faith conquering fear, of the few overcoming the many, of liberty winning out over oppression.

Hanukkah falls close to Human Rights Day, which we celebrate every year on Dec. 10. We ignore the day at our peril. The date was set based on the 1948 ratification of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the General Assembly of the United Nations.

Enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are principles at the core of democracy: the right to life, liberty and security of person; equal justice before the law; protection against cruel and degrading forms of punishment; freedom of thought, conscience and religious practice.

These principles are also at the core of Judaism. Genesis 1:27 articulates the principle that every human being is made in the image of God (tzelem elohim). Tzelem elohim is the most radical teaching in the Torah. If we internalized the message in our own behavior and got societies and nation-states to abide by it, we would be well on our way to the Messianic era. But we are far from that place!

In violation of the teachings of Torah, we stand as idle witnesses to the ongoing genocide in Darfur.

We stand as idle witnesses to the ongoing repression in Burma.

We stand as idle witnesses as the United States ignores massive violations of human rights in China so that it can advance a profitable trade agenda.

In the Hanukkah story, the Maccabees fought for liberty, for the right to practice their religion, for the dignity of human freedom. Who are the Maccabees who stand for human rights in our world today?

Nelson Mandela is a Maccabee for helping South Africa emerge from a history of apartheid. He ensured that his society would be ruled by forgiveness and reconciliation, not by vengeance over the past.

The Dalai Lama is a Maccabee for representing peaceful resistance to the Chinese occupation of his native Tibet and has become a peace emissary to the world.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a Maccabee by helping this country face its racism and showed us a path to a better America.

Recently, I participated in a national conference sponsored by Rabbis for Human Rights (now called Truah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights) in Washington, D.C. The conference was infused with the Maccabee spirit because the organization understands that truth and honesty demand that we not only act on violations of human rights around the world, but that we need also look in our own back yard.

It is now common knowledge that our own country has been involved in state-sponsored torture of detainees, not only in Guantanamo but in prisons all around the globe. It has been documented that the prisoners range in age from 14 to 80. Most have been denied access to legal representation.

Not only do military experts tell us that the use of torture is ineffective in extracting information from prisoners, but the practice has made a mockery of America’s claim to be fighting to protect democracy and human rights around the world.

Hanukkah coincides with the winter solstice. It is the darkest time of the year. And into that darkness, we are commanded to bring forth light.

We live in a dark time. In a world ravaged by war, prejudice, disease and racial injustice, we need to bring more light. Every day, we need more light, just like on Hanukkah. And to bring light, we need to become Maccabees — people of faith who believe that liberty is worth fighting for, that human dignity is worth fighting for and that justice is worth fighting for.

Memory and Identity-A Kol Nidre sermon

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I’ve been thinking a lot about memory recently, but I can’t remember why. Sorry. That is a cheap laugh. Here is a better one. Three elderly people are sharing with one another the trials of aging. One says: “Sometimes I catch myself standing in front of the refrigerator with a jar of mayonnaise in my hand and I can’t remember if I need to put it away or start making a sandwich.” The second person chimes in: “I sometimes find myself on the landing of my stairs and I can’t remember if I am on my way up or on my way down.” The third one speaks up: “Well I am sure glad that I don’t have those problems, knock on wood.” … “That must be the door; I’ll get it.”

It actually is not only older people who are at risk of memory loss. New studies are revealing that our newfound habit to store and retrieve information via our laptops and smartphones is seriously compromising our ability to memorize things. I believe it. At the Conservative shul of my childhood, Mr. Drexler, an elderly Holocaust survivor, read Torah every Shabbat. We did the full parsha. It turns out he had memorized the entire Five Books of Moses along with the appropriate trup. I don’t think Mr. Drexler even finished high school. Compare that to the following: A few weeks ago Sandy and I rented bikes in Central Park from the bike share dock and we could not remember the five digit passcode the kiosk spit out without writing it down. We have fallen a long way baby!

What fascinates me about memory is how powerfully it shapes our identity. It shapes how we behave. It shapes who we want to be. It shapes how we want to grow and change. I’d like to explore the idea with you in three dimensions: group identity; family identity and personal identity. For each, I will suggest some action items that will be your take-home assignment for the coming year.

Group Identity

Each of us identifies with multiple groups—political, cultural, gender and many more. Tonight, for obvious reasons, I want to focus on how we identify as members of the Jewish people.

The Rabbis of the Talmud understood how important it was to have Jews of each generation identify with the historical story of the Jewish people. This is why they taught that every Jew, in every age, must see themselves as having stood at Mt.Sinai, receiving the Torah from God. I identify with this teaching even though I do not believe that Exodus ch. 19 is an accurate rendition of the event. I relate to the story instead because it tells me that core to being a Jew is to feel commanded by an aspirational sacred text that we call Torah. And even as we must re-interpret parts of that Torah to make sure that it is consistent with the highest standards of ethical and moral behavior of our time, to be a Jew means that I am not free to ignore that founding document of our heritage.

Similarly, there is a teaching from the Rabbis that is central to the Haggadah of Passover. Each Jew must see himself/herself as if they experienced the exodus from Egyptian slavery. Now historically, that is patently false. But psychologically, it is brilliant. To be a Jew is to identify with a history that moves from slavery to freedom, m’avdut l’cherut, from oppression to redemption.  And that historical arc, an arc that in the words of Martin Luther King, “bends towards justice,” did not only happen once in our history, but it has happened again and again. The fact that so many Jews have been in the forefront of efforts to advance social justice in the world is because Jews took a memory that was intended to be descriptive of the Jewish historical experience and they sought to make it prescriptive of how we need to behave in the world.

We should take pride in the fact that the imperative to advance peace and justice in the world has become part of the Jewish DNA. I am convinced that this is one of the reasons why in a recent study of American religion, Jews emerged as the most highly admired religious community in the United States. We walk the talk, at least most of the time.  

But it also explains why we become so acutely uncomfortable when Jews act in ways that violate our collective memory of being a people committed to justice. This happens when we read that 7 out of the 10 worst slumlords in New York are Jewish; or when a Jewish organization honors a Jew who has gotten wealthy through questionable financial transactions; or when Israel acts in a way that violates our sense of justice and fairness.

Let me suggest four action items that will strengthen this memory muscle: We can actually “create memories” that will add to our identification with the Jewish people.

1-      Make Jewish-themed books, songs, theatre and cinema part of your regular cultural habit;

2-      Develop innovative, fun and creative ways to observe Jewish holidays in your home with others you invite to your home;

3-      If you travel to a foreign country make a point to visit the local synagogue and connect with the local Jewish community; and

4-      Visit Israel regularly and, if that is beyond your budget, find ways to stay abreast of Israeli news and culture.

Family Identity

Families are complicated. I say that aware that a lot of people are here today with extended families. As with Thanksgiving, Passover and other major times of family gathering there is a lot of drama around whom to invite, who will eventually attend and with what kind of attitude they will show up. In every family there are layers of emotional baggage that keep half this room employed.

I remember in the early years of Adat Shalom I gave a sermon entitled: “Families: Surviving the Relationship”. The message was essentially how important it is that we seek to heal the breaches that happen in our families. On the receiving line a female guest pulled me close with a firm handshake and said in my ear, “If you knew what my mother did to me you would not have given that sermon!” Live and learn.

But in fact, that is the point. We are shaped by things said and done by our parents and how we remember those words and events. Sometimes a memory scars us for life; other times a memory can give us the inspiration to do great things. Sometimes we seek to follow in the footsteps of our parents. Sometimes we consciously try to move in other directions. When many of us started to have kids we became aware that parenting is one tough job. It is challenging to know how to give our children sufficient direction but also to allow them enough space to become who they are destined to be.

I know of a female rabbi who grew up attending shul with her grandmother. Her grandmother’s piety inspired her decision to pursue the rabbinate, a choice unavailable to her Bubbe. When her grandmother died the rabbi, who did not serve a congregation, decided to buy an extra seat on the High Holidays for her grandmother. The seat stayed empty of course but it was the rabbi’s way of honoring the powerful role model that her Bubbe was for her. The empty seat became a memory trigger for something very special. I suspect that for many of you there is an empty seat next to you right now, maybe not actually, but in your heart. And in that seat is a loved one who is no longer alive whose life offered you comfort, direction and love. Take a moment to remember and honor that person now.   

Some of you know that my father died this past year. When I was a child, my dad would pull me aside before Kol Nidre and ask forgiveness for anything he might have said or done that was hurtful to me. It was pretty powerful. At age 8 your dad is next to perfect. When I got a bit older, I understood how my dad’s practice connected to the spirit of the High Holydays and I reciprocated the gesture. It became an annual ritual for us in the hours before the start of Kol Nidre. Tonight is the first time I didn’t have that conversation with my father in 52 years. But I did it with my children, which is exactly how family legacies get passed down.

The Jewish tradition understood this long before I caught on. It is no coincidence that on every major holiday we add the Yizkor service to remember loved ones who have passed away. We do so both to recall what they meant to us when they were alive but also to make them more present at a time when our hearts are open to self-reflection, gratitude, forgiveness and a desire to become more righteous people. Indeed memory is what keeps our loved ones alive and present, even years after they died. Sometimes it takes the form of an empty seat.

Let me suggest three action items that can strengthen this memory muscle: We can “create memories” that will make our families stronger forces in our lives, helping us to pass down legacies and enjoy deeper roots in an all-too transient world.

1-Encourage parents and grandparents to make video or audio recordings of their lives. Consider using the NPR StoryCorps format with you as the interviewer;

2- Create a routine of a family dinner, attendance mandatory, with no technology allowed. Do it at least once a week. Friday night is a good place to start. Candles, wine and fancy bread encouraged. If you want, you can call it “Shabbat”;    and

3- Instead of a family vacation, consider taking your family on a service mission where you do hands-on work to help people in need. This December will be Adat Shalom’s third service mission to Haiti and next summer Adat Shalom will be introducing a 5-day domestic service mission for families. Consider joining one of these. It will be life-changing for your family and a memory that will last a lifetime.

Personal Identity

There is a section of the Rosh haShana musaf service that is called Zichronot, “rememberances”. It starts out as follows: “You (God) remember all the events that ever happened in the world and the deeds of all humans since the dawn of creation.” Gee whiz! And we are worried about the NSA!

Of course this is classic rabbinic theology that most of us do not accept literally—a belief in an all-knowing, omniscient God who knows our every thought and action. Yet non-Orthodox Judaism has often been too quick to dismiss a traditional Jewish idea just because it does not accord with our modern sensibilities. I prefer to ask the question: What is behind this teaching that may have value for us?

The answer to that question is accountability. Judaism teaches that nothing escapes God’s attention and the Rabbis believed that that realization made Jews more ethical, more moral and more observant people. Guess what? It works.

Let’s do a survey. How many of you have gotten a ticket this year based on a photo that a speed camera took of your car? Raise your hands. How many of you have been mindful of slowing down in the subsequent times you drove by that camera? Raise your hands. I rest my case. Accountability works.

One of the great moral failings of American society is that we have allowed personal autonomy to trump personal accountability. The people who make a difference in the world take accountability very seriously. Some feel accountable to God but others feel accountable to causes that seem Godly. You make certain life decisions if you feel accountable to making the world more ecologically sustainable; you make certain life decisions if you feel accountable to people in our community who don’t have a roof over their heads; you make certain life decisions if you feel accountable to people in our community who don’t have enough food to give their children three meals a day. That is the kind of accountability that matters!

In our machzor there is a list of sins that we recite several times during Yom Kippur. It is called the viddui, the confessional. For each line we beat our breast upon reciting the first words: “For the sin we have committed by…”. The list may not cite every sin but it is a pretty darn good start. It helps us remember what our psyche would prefer to forget. In the same way that an alcoholic can only start on the path to recovery if he or she admits that they are an alcoholic, we can only become better people if we are reminded of our sins. The viddui is the speed camera for our souls.

What does this have to do with personal identity? We engage in a ritual focused on sin, confession and repentance not to suggest that we are bad people. We do so because we understand that the human condition is such that we all screw up, we all make mistakes, we all say things that offend and hurt and wound others. Ironically, we tend to do it big time to those whom we love the most. To be a mensch, you have to remember the action, own it and then seek the forgiveness of the person you hurt.

This brings us to the talent that all of us are challenged to get right. In the realm of interpersonal relations, each of us is alternately on the apology side of the equation or on the forgiveness side of the equation. To get the apology piece right, you need to remember what you did. But to get the forgiveness piece right, you need to forgive and then forget what was done to you. Put it behind you. To hold onto the hurt and offense too long will inevitably poison your own soul and undermine your ability to maintain good relationships.

For this personal identity dimension I offer only one action item to strengthen your memory muscle: Don’t wait for Rosh haShana to engage in Zichronot, memory work. Create a weekly, if not a daily routine of writing down things you are a grateful for. Someone does something nice for you, be sure to express your gratitude verbally and then record it to remember all the kindnesses that are extended in your direction. You will be amazed at how much goodness there is in the world. We sure can use a healthy dose of that consciousness in these troubled times!

In the same journal also write down the things for which you may need to make amends. You make a joke at someone else’s expense; you cause hurt by excluding someone from a social get-together; you are short-tempered or impatient with a loved one.  In each of these situations and others like them, find the time to say you are sorry and then pray that they passed the “forgive and forget” test.

The practice I am suggesting is not new. Long before Dale Carnegie, the rabbis who created the ethical literature of the Musar movement taught that a daily regimen in which people routinely express gratitude to others and ask forgiveness of others was the secret to winning friends, influencing people and maintaining healthy interpersonal relations. It is like installing a speed camera for your soul and it can change your life.

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I know. This was a lot to remember. Anticipating that, I created Cliff Notes for this sermon that you can take home with you. On the table in the foyer you will find a 1-pg. summary of all the action items I mentioned tonight and it will remain there throughout Yom Kippur. It is your homework for the New Year. I hope it will find a prominent place in your home that you look at often. Like a refrigerator. Not only will you look at it many times a day but people coming to your home may look at it and ask you about it. All the better. Maybe it is a way to have Jewish character improvement go viral without the internet.

Life seems to be coming at us faster and faster every year. As we instinctively react to world events, changes in the workplace, developments in our family, in our community, in our circle of friends, it is very easy to lose perspective on who we want to be. Like a car that needs an occasional tune up, may these High Holydays provide an opportunity to remember the lessons of our people, the legacy of our respective families and a vision of our best selves. And with that may we make the year ahead one that is more meaningful, more joyful and more fulfilling.

Shana tova.

This sermon was delivered on Kol Nidre 2014 at Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation in Bethesda, MD where Rabbi Sid is the founding rabbi.

Israel: A Season of Reckoning

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The season of reckoning is upon us. For Jews, the sentiment will likely evoke thoughts of the upcoming Days of Awe. Both the Hebrew month of Elul and then the ten days of repentance that starts with Rosh HaShana and ends with Yom Kippur is the time when Jews are called upon to go into introspection mode. Where we identify particular sins of commission or omission the Jewish tradition calls upon us to repent and to make amends.

These are also days of reckoning for Israel which has the excruciatingly difficult task of trying to live up to the aspirational language of its Declaration of Independence to be “a society of freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel” while living under unrelenting threats to the safety and security of its citizens. This is something worth remembering as over the next few months Israel will be under scrutiny by several different human rights bodies.

Note: This article appeared in the New York Jewish Week on October 1, 2014.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) just issued a report on Israel’s treatment of Sudanese and Eritrean nationals who made their way into Israel. The report is titled “Make Their Lives Miserable”, a quote from former Israeli Minister of Interior, Eli Yishai. Indeed, that phrase has characterized Israeli policy towards the 50,000 plus Africans who have come to Israel in the last few years. HRW found that Israel has “coerced” some 7000 Sudanese and Eritreans to return to their countries even as that repatriation exposes the refugees to torture, imprisonment and charges of treason for setting foot in Israel. Israel’s asylum procedure—for those Eritreans and Sudanese who even manage to gain access to it—has resulted in a 100 percent denial rate for Sudanese, despite any Sudanese being liable for up to 10 year’s imprisonment for having set foot in Israel, and a 99.8 percent denial rate for Eritreans, despite their global refugee approval rate of 83 percent. The vast majority of the Eritreans and Sudanese still in Israel are living in detention centers where prospects of finding work and getting residence papers are next to impossible. Israeli officials deny that they are engaged in forced repatriation, although they do say they encourage repatriation to a third country.

The vast majority of the Eritreans and Sudanese still in Israel are living in detention centers, where prospects of finding work and getting residence papers are next to impossible. Last week, Israel’s Supreme Court ordered the Holot detention facility in the Negev to be closed in 90 days, and it struck down a section of the Anti-Infiltration Law that allowed illegal migrants to be held in closed detention for a year.

As tragic and ironic as the African refugee situation is in Israel, it pales in comparison to the attention that will attend several inquiries that will take place investigating this summer’s war in Gaza. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) itself has started an internal investigation of 99 separate incidents that took place during the Gaza war. They include Israeli military actions that resulted in the killing of civilians, the bombing of UNWRA facilities that were serving as safe havens for women and children and the use of Palestinians as human shields during ground operations. While several human rights organizations, both in Israel and abroad, have claimed that such internal investigations are not sufficiently rigorous or objective, this internal review process has resulted in some indictments in the past.

Even more attention will focus on the panel appointed to develop a report on this summer’s Gaza war by the UN Human Rights Council to be headed by Canadian jurist William Schabas. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that he will refuse to cooperate with this commission though a final decision has yet to be made. Informing the threatened boycott are statements that Schabas has made in the past critical of Israel and specifically, of PM Netanyahu. If Netanyahu follows through on his threat to boycott, the action will parallel Israel’s boycott of the UN panel of inquiry led by Richard Goldstone investigating the 2012 Operation Cast Lead in Gaza.

No comment has yet been made by the Israeli government about another inquiry that UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has proposed to specifically look into Israel’s shelling of UNWRA facilities during the Gaza war this summer. This body will be in addition to the Schabas panel and the report will likely be juxtaposed to the IDF inquiry of the same incidents. One can easily predict that the contrast in the findings will make headlines.

All together this season of reckoning promises to be difficult not just for Israel, but for Jews who are torn between their liberal, humanitarian values and their identification with and affection for the state of Israel. The double standard by which Israel is judged by human rights organizations, by the UN and by the media is well documented. Two hundred thousand civilian deaths in Syria, the imprisonment of thousands of political dissidents in Egypt and the summary executions of suspected collaborators without due process in Gaza by Hamas will get a fraction of the attention that will attend Israeli human rights abuses. It is even harder to accept the irony that sitting in judgment of Israel on the UN Human Rights Council is China, which harvests the organs of imprisoned Falun Gong practitioners, Saudi Arabia where homosexuality is a capital offense and Pakistan which executes people for religious blasphemy.

Notwithstanding all this, I believe that Israel would be making a serious strategic mistake if it again chooses to boycott or disregard the international human rights community. Judge Richard Goldstone, in an op-ed in which he reflected on the report he issued on Gaza (which the Jewish community characterized as his “apology”), made clear that the report would have been far more balanced had Israel cooperated with the investigation. He was left with no choice but to talk to the sources available to him—primarily Hamas.

In addition, in the court of world opinion Israel hurts its own cause by thumbing its nose at the only instruments that we have to insure some kind of sane world order. The instruments are flawed, to be sure. But do we believe that the world would be better off without them? Even the U.S. has learned that it has no choice but to work with these trans-national institutions and state actors. The Jewish community is complicit in this counter-productive strategy when it takes out full page ads to discredit respected international jurists like William Schabas even before he begins his work.

Israel’s human rights record is far better than most of the world believes it is but it is far worse than the organized Jewish community would have us believe. In the rabbinic tradition, one of the names for God is emet, the Hebrew word for truth. At this season of reckoning, neither individuals nor nations can afford avoiding hard truths.

Can Zionism be the Answer?

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Students of American Jewry often point to 1967 as a watershed in the evolution of the American Jewish community. The anxiety that American Jews felt in the weeks leading up to the Six Day War was palpable. There was no evidence that Israel could defend itself against any concerted Arab military assault, no less a multi-front war.

Because people most treasure that which they are on the verge of losing, identification with and sympathy for Israel skyrocketed. With Israel’s surprising and convincing military victory, Jews had much to celebrate. Sympathy turned quickly to pride and in the years that followed and American Jewry enjoyed a surge of ethnic, religious and Zionist identity.

Note: This article originally appeared in the New York Jewish Week on June 3, 2014.

By the middle of the 1980’s there was a growing chorus of voices that warned that Jewish identity could not be built exclusively around the commemoration of the Holocaust and pride in the state of Israel. It is worth noting that the Jewish community did a brilliant job of using those two events as drivers of Jewish identity. But questions were raised about whether identity built around a trip to Auschwitz or a mission to Israel would last. How healthy is a Jewish identity that is built on a story of Jewish victimization? What are the implications of having one’s religious identity tied to a nation-state whose decisions are driven by domestic politics and changing geo-strategic considerations?

These questions linger. But however valid the questions are, the alternative to building Jewish identity around the tragedy and triumph of 20th century Jewish history is to create a community deeply devoted to Torah (Jewish learning), Avodah (prayer, God and matters of the spirit) and Gemilut Chasadim (acts of lovingkindness towards one another and a commitment to heal a broken world).  Non-Orthodox American Judaism has yet to build that type of community (and the Orthodox fare only slightly better). So it is that our community builds Holocaust museums and memorials in city after city and invests hundreds of millions of dollars in Birthright Israel. As expensive as these projects may be, they are infinitely easier to make happen then getting Jews serious about actually living a Jewish life.

Now I happened to grow up as an observant Jew and was the beneficiary of a day school education. Yet what made me most passionate about Jewish life and what eventually led me to want to become a rabbi was my activism in the Soviet Jewry movement and my love for the state of Israel. These “tribal” elements of my Jewish identity are becoming increasingly anachronistic.  More and more Next Gen Jews see such loyalties as offensive. In the Pew study, only 43% of those surveyed felt that caring about Israel was essential to being a Jew. Among those who were under the age of 30, that number drops to 32%. In a more recent study conducted by Steven M. Cohen, close to 20% of non-Orthodox Jews aged 18-29 were “Israel-alienated”.

Perhaps Birthright will make a difference. Evaluation data from past participants show a marked difference in the likelihood that Birthright alumni will marry other Jews and find ways to connect with the Jewish community. Still we know that without high quality follow up much of the initial impact of a first trip to Israel will weaken. Birthright Next has not yet found a way to capture high percentages of Birthright alumni with Jewish content programming. The Jewish Agency’s Masa program has provided financial incentives for longer term Israel program for young adults, from five months to a year. In the wings is a new project coming out of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office. Dubbed the “Prime Minister’s Initiative” it promises to dwarf Birthright in size and scope and the goal is to engage Next Gen Jews in some serious Jewish identity programming with Israel as a centerpiece of a range of experiences.

One has to admire both the ingenuity of Jewish organizations for creating such innovative responses to the challenge of insuring Jewish identity on the part of Next Gen Jews as well as the generosity of Jewish philanthropists who help foot the bill for these programs. Yet I am concerned that one piece of the puzzle is missing. Since the vast majority of the American participants in these programs will live their lives in America, these programs must make a connection between an Israel experience and the heritage called Judaism. When I was a young adult the link between the two was called Zionism.

Zionism is the meeting point between Jewish history, Jewish heritage and the aspirations of the Jewish people to establish a sovereign nation-state in the community of nations. Because I deeply resonate to that synthesis I am both willing and proud to call myself a Zionist even when I find myself in deep disagreement with the policies of one Israeli government or another. At its best Zionism is nuanced and allows for a variety of interpretations of the kind of society that is created in Israel and the relationship between that State and Jews who live throughout the world.

Our dilemma today is that at the very time that we desperately need an ideological linkage between powerful Israel experiences and the creation of robust Jewish communities for Next Gen Jews in America, “Zionism” is absent from the mix. The term has been hijacked by the left and by the right. Among Next Gen Jews I hear arguments that echo the claim of the political left that Zionism is form of racism. I also hear other arguments that echo the party line of much of the Israel advocacy establishment that to be a Zionist means that Jews need to provide unqualified support for Israel because the world is so hostile to the national aspirations of the Jewish people. Even if I accept the second part of that statement, there are very few Next Gen Jews who are prepared to simply be Israel flag wavers.

I believe that the state of Israel is the single most important project of the Jewish people of the 20th and 21st centuries. There is much to be proud of after 66 years but much work left to be done—finding a suitable political agreement with the Palestinian people; strengthening Israel’s democratic principles; achieving true religious pluralism; eliminating institutional discrimination that negatively impacts Israel’s Arab citizens; supporting the renaissance of Jewish culture and learning; incubating new forms of communal life that reflect Judaism’s highest values. This effort should excite, inspire and engage the best minds and hearts in the Jewish world. That would be a Zionism worthy of the term.

Loyalty, Truth and Freedom of Expression

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Given the controversy surrounding Theater J’s production of Motti Lerner’s play, The Admission, at the DCJCC, I expected a full scale indictment of Israel’s conduct during the 1948 War of Independence. Instead I encountered a play that probed the complexity of war, politics, memory, ethnic identity, love and survival with astounding sensitivity and nuance.

Ever since the play was scheduled last summer a small group of Washington area Jews organized themselves into a group called Citizens Opposed to Propaganda Masquerading as Art (COPMA). COPMA exerted enormous pressure on the local Jewish Federation to cut funding to the DCJCC because its Theater J had sponsored plays that ask uncomfortable questions about the state of Israel. The effort is similar to actions taken in New York and San Francisco to shut down Jewish Film Festivals because some of the films are critical of Israel. In a display of Jewish communal courage all too rare these days, the executive director and president of the Washington Jewish Federation issued public letters declaring that the community would not cave to the pressure exerted by COPMA even though that action will likely cost the Federation tens of thousands of dollars in contributions.

This article originally appeared in The Washington Post on March 30, 2014.

In fact, the DCJCC did make a concession to the protesters. They downgraded The Admission from a full production to a “workshop” and then inserted into the spring schedule an additional production of Golda’s Balcony, a play about former Israeli prime minister, Golda Meir.

The incident is but one of dozens of examples of how the Jewish community currently labors under a not so hidden loyalty test as it relates to what one can and cannot say about the state of Israel. National Hillel is under increasing criticism for its attempt to enforce standards that would keep certain kinds of anti-Israel speakers from being sponsored by their campus chapters around the country. Jews who associate with J Street have been accused of disloyalty to the Jewish community despite the fact that J Street’s policy explicitly endorses a safe and secure Israel as well as advocates for a two state solution to the Middle East dispute. A recent study found that one-third of American rabbis are not comfortable speaking the truth as they see it as it relates to Israel out of fear for their jobs. Recently, the rabbis of B’nai Jeshurun, the famously liberal synagogue on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, were called to task for signing an ad that was seen as critical of Aipac.

I understand what is behind this atmosphere of fear and retribution. Israel is increasingly treated as a pariah nation in the international community despite being the only democracy in the Middle East and having a far better human rights record than any of its neighboring countries. While powerless to change the antipathy of so much of the world to Israel, some Jews try to demand of their co-religionists a loyalty to the country that allowed the Jewish people to reconstitute itself after the Holocaust. Yet with the passage of time fewer and fewer Jews carry these memories and their ties to Jewish communal solidarity weaken. Attempts to enforce communal discipline and require a non-critical assessment of the state of Israel not only cannot succeed in America, it is likely to alienate the very Jews the community hopes to engage.

Ironically a play like The Admission may do more to engage Jews with the issues at the heart of the Middle East conflict than foolhardy attempts to enforce loyalty. The play portrays an overly self-righteous son trying to come to grips with the fact that his father may have been complicit in the killing of Arab civilians during the 1948 War of Independence. The father, perhaps altruistically and perhaps out of a sense of guilt, has devoted his life to improve the quality of life of Arab Israelis. The Arab/Palestinian Israelis in the play are torn between their desire to stay out of trouble, get an education and improve the quality of life for themselves and their children and their desire to unearth evidence of an injustice done to their parents and grandparents a generation earlier.

Hovering over the play is the recognition that war has no victors. All in its wake are victims, even, to quote the Bible, “unto the tenth generation”. Those in the Jewish community who seek to stifle freedom of expression are no less living out the trauma of the Holocaust than those in the Palestinian community who say that there can be no peace in the region until they can return to the villages of their grandparents which are now inside the borders of the state of Israel.

One of the great gifts that Nelson Mandela gave the world was the understanding that no healthy nation can be built on back of an historical injustice without a process of truth and reconciliation in which all parties come to grips with the transgressions of the past. There is plenty of blame to go around, on all sides. Until the parties to the Middle East conflict are ready for such a process, perhaps art will have to suffice.

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Rabbi Sid Schwarz is a senior fellow at Clal. He is the author of Jewish Megatrends: Charting the Course of the American Jewish Community (Jewish Lights). He also serves as the director of the Rene Cassin Fellowship Program, a fellowship on Judaism and human rights with hubs in New York, London and Jerusalem for Next Gen Jews.

A Jewish Approach to the “Differently-Abled”

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I did not know a thing about Jewish Disability Awareness Month (JDAM) until a member of my synagogue called and told me that she was going to make it happen at our congregation. As the founding rabbi of Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation in Bethesda, MD, I still periodically lead services. It was determined by the powers that be that my shabbat was the best suited to mark JDAM.

It is easy to mock the way that every issue under the sun gets a day or a week or a month in somebody’s calendar but there is no question that it succeeds in raising consciousness. In the weeks leading up to the shabbat, many members of the congregation came forward because their families were in some way affected by disability. This was a good thing; why should people who have so much to deal with feel that they need to hide their personal struggle with their disability or that of someone in their family? Some years ago I delivered a Yom Kippur sermon called ”Healthy, Wealthy and Wise” in which I challenged synagogues to pay more attention to the people in our midst who were ”none of the above.”

This article originally appeared in The Huffington Post on Feb. 27, 2014. JTA syndicated an edited version of the column on Feb. 28, 2014.

It is precisely because our institutions tend to privilege the ”abled” that we essentially make the disabled invisible. Even if the disabled do not experience outright exclusion because our synagogues are not handicap accessible or wired for those with hearing impairments, many feel shunned when they do show up. Staying invisible is just easier for those who are disabled but it doesn’t lessen the sense that the Jewish community is a private club catering to those who are indeed, ”healthy, wealthy and wise.”

The most radical teaching in the entire Torah emerges from Genesis 1:27, the idea that every human being is made in the image of God. The problem is that the phrase is more likely to be reduced to a phrase put on a poster than it is to be employed as it was intended by our sages — to serve as a guide for our behavior with other human beings. The default behavior of human beings is to judge others based on how similar or different they are from us. The more different they are, the less likely we are able to really see them as ”images of the Divine.”

We turn many categories of people from ”images of the Divine who we treat with respect” to those who we make into ”the other.” We do this based on age, gender, sexual preference, race, religion, ethnic/national loyalties and political ideology. And while many of us would most likely respond to an encounter with a disabled person with appropriate expressions of compassion, treating such a person as an equal or insuring that the institutions of which we are part make every possible accommodation so as to allow for the full inclusion of the disabled is well beyond our standard modus operandi.

As with so many categories of Jewish wisdom, the ”Jewish approach” to disability is a mixed bag. Several categories of the disabled, like the cheraysh (deaf-mute) and the shoteh (mentally deficient and/or insane) are neither obligated by the body of mitzvot (Jewish commandments) nor qualified to serve as witnesses in legal proceedings, essentially being in the same category as minors. The blind are obligated by the mitzvot but are not allowed to bring testimony in a trial.

In other places in our tradition, a disability or a disease is seen as a punishment from God for bad behavior. Leprosy is the punishment for talebearing. In the Talmud (Taanit 21a) a story is told of one, Nahum Ish Gam Zu, who had no hands, no feet and was blind in both eyes. These disabilities were not birth defects but brought about as a result of Nahum not being quick enough to feed a beggar before he died.

A third way that the Jewish tradition discusses disability is essentially used as a theological trump card. It is a way of saying that God’s agency in the world is far more significant that human agency. Thus despite the fact the Moses is said to be ”slow of speech”, possibly a person with a speech impediment, he nonetheless offers the most important words in the Biblical story. The rabbinic commentators use this to make the point that Moses is simply an agent for God, serving as God’s spokesperson in the earthly realm.

None of the above three Judaic treatments of disability are particularly sensitive by 21st century standards. I also fear what a disabled person, one who takes Judaism very seriously, concludes from such treatment in our sacred texts. From a theological perspective I am far more comfortable with the theology implicit in Harold Kushner’s When Bad Things Happen to Good People, than I am with theological assumptions of the Biblical and Rabbinic texts. For Kushner, God does not cause disability, orchestrate natural disasters nor punish human transgression with disease. Rather God is the source of comfort to which we turn when trying to cope with such setbacks. God is a source of healing, not of affliction.

Many parts of classical Judaism are products of the thinking of earlier generations that may not fully reflect the most enlightened understanding of our time. Yet there is one insight on the issue of disability where Judaism was not only centuries ahead of its time, but where the insight is still well beyond the way most of us behave in the realm of disabilities.

The Jewish tradition prescribes a blessing upon meeting different kinds of people: a king; a wise person; a Torah scholar. The prayer prescribed upon meeting a person who is disabled or who suffers from a deformity is: ”Praised are You, Creator of the Universe, who makes people different, one from the other.” Amazing!

The insight inherent in this bracha is that no two people are alike, that each of us is ”differently-abled.” One person can play piano; another might be skilled at computers; another can fix a toilet. A young man who was a member of my first congregation had Down Syndrome. Every week when he greeted me at synagogue he offered me the most wonderful smile and the biggest hug that any person has ever given me. I came to look forward to Ben’s expression of unqualified love that was not the least bit calculated or contrived. It was his gift.

I suspect that our discomfort with people with disabilities may have something to do with our fear of being in that situation ourselves one day. One might imagine that it would make us more compassionate. But denial may be an even more powerful emotion that we trigger when confronted with a circumstance that we are not prepared to confront. If we take to heart the Jewish teaching about every person made in the image of God and recall that one person is no better nor worse than the other, simply ”differently-abled” we might be better able to open up our hearts, and our institutions to a wider swath of humanity.

We’d all be better for it.

Postscript: In a notable departure from the minhag (custom) of our congregation, I introduced my dvar torah on the differently-abled with a video which I described as a midrash on Genesis 1:27. I suggested that given the theme of the morning we needed to go beyond the typical left brain, intellectual analysis of an issue based on the teachings of the Torah. Some things are learned through the head; others are learned through the heart. Jewish Disability Awareness Month seemed a ripe time to validate alternate ways of learning and knowing, which is one of the ways that the disabled are distinguished from those of us who are ”temporarily-abled”. I highly recommend that you view the linked video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8umFV69fNg

Limiting Debate on Israel Will Only Hurt Us

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The current controversy brewing in the Hillel universe is only the latest example of a Jewish community polarized over how we can or can’t talk about Israel. The guidelines, developed by national Hillel in 2010, were designed to provide a basis upon which a local Hillel could prevent overtly anti-Israel groups from speaking under the Hillel banner.

Of course it is not surprising that Jewish students at Swarthmore and Harvard rebel at the attempt to limit who can be invited to speak about Israel. However well-intentioned the policy might have been, it runs counter to the ethos of free inquiry that is the essence of university culture. Not only will Hillel not succeed in stemming the growth of a movement afoot for campuses to declare themselves “Open Hillels” in defiance of the Hillel speech guidelines on Israel but the net result of the controversy will be that thousands of students will be convinced that the Jewish community has a “party line” on Israel that cannot be crossed. There is no surer recipe to drive Next Gen Jews away from identification with the Jewish community.

Note: This article appeared in the New York Jewish Week on February 2, 2014.

Sadly, this is not a phenomenon that is restricted to the college campus. The controversy at Hillel is simply a symptom of a Jewish community that has allowed a McCarthy-like atmosphere to overtake our communal life under the banner of defending the state of Israel. The examples are legion of thoughtful, committed Jews and lovers of Israel who have been declared “traife” because they spoke, wrote or acted in ways that challenged policies of the state of Israel. Richard Goldstone, an internationally renowned South African Jewish jurist, got the treatment for the U.N. report he authored on the Israeli incursion into Gaza in which he said that both Hamas and the state of Israel may have been guilty of war crimes. Peter Beinart, who asked hard questions in his book, The Crisis of Zionism, has been disinvited from Jewish communal forums due to pressure from influential and wealthy Jewish donors. Jeremy Ben-Ami and J-Street experienced a full-on communal assault on their legitimacy even though their position on a two state solution to the Middle East conflict is endorsed by a large majority of American Jews.

In Washington D.C. a group of communal activists formed a group called Citizens Opposed to Propaganda Masquerading as Art (COPMA) which has exerted enormous pressure on the Jewish Federation to cut funding to the DCJCC because its Theatre J has sponsored plays that ask uncomfortable questions about the state of Israel. The effort is similar to actions taken in New York and San Francisco to shut down Jewish Film Festivals because some of the films are critical of Israel. In a display of Jewish communal courage all too rare these days, the executive director and president of the Washington Jewish Federation issued public letters declaring that the community would not cave to the pressure exerted by COPMA even though that action will likely cost the Federation tens of thousands of dollars in contributions.

In a survey of over 500 American rabbis conducted by the Jewish Council of Public Affairs conducted in October 2013, over a third indicated that they were fearful of expressing their real views about Israel in public. While the majority of those rabbis indicated that they feared consequences for expressing views more dovish than the mainstream, a significant number of rabbis engaged in self-censorship because their views were more hawkish than the mainstream.

Just as a healthy democracy relies on a free press to insure rigorous pursuit of truth, so too a healthy faith community needs spiritual leaders who can speak the truth as they see it. The principle is called “freedom of the pulpit”. It is sad to observe the extent to which this principle has been so seriously compromised.

The irony, of course, is that debate about Israel policy is far more open and robust in Israel than it is in North America. Evidence the film The Gatekeepers in which former heads of Israel’s Shin Bet speak in great detail about how Israel’s political leadership bears a lot of responsibility for the failure to reach a peace agreement with the Palestinians. Or for that matter Ari Shavit’s new book, My Promised Land, which validates the claims of Palestinians that in the creation of the Jewish State, tens of thousands of Arabs were forcibly displaced and their property confiscated as a result of explicit policies of Ben-Gurion’s government. The implications of Shavit’s book have far more serious implications for the state of Israel than anything Peter Beinart has ever written.

Of course, that is the hallmark of a democracy. That is why, despite its faults and shortcomings, there is so much reason to celebrate the miracle of Israel and what it represents in the history of the Jewish people.

I wish I could be equally proud of the American Jewish community. We have become a community that is scared of the truth and we have allowed intimidation and censorship to take the place of civility and respect for divergent views. We have no chance at success with outreach to Next Gen Jews if we tolerate an atmosphere that is antithetical to the very values that Jews hold dear.

One of the hallmarks of the American principle of free speech is insuring the right of citizens to speak their mind even if the views expressed are repugnant. Now is the time for Jewish leaders of courage to take a similar, principled stand.
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Rabbi Sid Schwarz is a senior fellow at Clal. He is the author of Jewish Megatrends: Charting the Course of the American Jewish Community (Jewish Lights). He also serves as the director of the Rene Cassin Fellowship Program, a fellowship on Judaism and human rights with hubs in New York, London and Jerusalem for Next Gen Jews. Additional articles and information about bringing Rabbi Sid to your community can be found at www.rabbisid.org

Does Jewish Renewal Have a Future?

Articles, Featured, Megatrends Book Tour

I recently had the opportunity to spend some time at the annual gathering of Ohala, the rabbinical association of the Jewish Renewal movement, and at a shabbaton led by students studying at Aleph, the rabbinical training program of the movement.

Although I knew quite a few people at the conference, I came as an outsider. I was invited to deliver the keynote to the Ohala national convention based on the work that I do with rabbis and congregations around re-imagining these institutions. A fairly comprehensive summary of my keynote appeared in a blogpost by the Velveteen Rabbi. Here I want to share a few impressions that I took away from my visit.

Note: This article appeared in eJewishPhilanthropy on February 2, 2014 and was subsequently syndicated by JTA.

Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi continues to be a powerful presence in the Jewish Renewal movement. The conference takes place near his home in Boulder, CO so as to make it easier for him to be present. People approach Reb Zalman with great respect and reverence. When he speaks, he fully commands the attention of the room. He has earned this status. Reb Zalman is one of the most important voices of Judaism in our time. Though he has had conventional jobs as a Hillel rabbi, University professor, author and lecturer, he is anything but conventional. In fact he is the ultimate boundary crosser. After escaping Nazi Europe in 1941, he was a Lubavitcher working on college campuses. But he soon made his reputation as a spiritual teacher who made company with the likes of Shlomo Carlebach, Ram Dass and the Dali Lama. I know of no other teacher who can move so seamlessly between Chasidic texts, Eastern religious traditions, Native American heritage and secular American culture. His groundbreaking work in what he terms, ”davvenology” permeates all the work done in the movement.

For anyone who finds worship in American synagogues boring, a small dose of Jewish Renewal prayer is worth a try. It isn’t for everyone but the use of chanting, meditation, movement, unconventional readings and personal sharing does provide much of what so many Jews are chasing in non-Jewish spiritual settings. Not surprisingly the rabbis who have been ordained by Reb Zalman and now the more formal rabbinical training program they have called Aleph, are classic spiritual seekers themselves. As the program for ordination and other spiritual leadership programs have become more rigorous it is clear that those training with Aleph are selecting this path with great intentionality.

It is ironic that much of what Reb Zalman and Jewish Renewal were developing 30 years ago and more is now making its way into mainstream American synagogues. Congregations of all denominations can now be found experimenting with meditation, yoga, drumming, chanting and movement, if not in their main services than in alternate venues that are sanctioned by the rabbi. This “borrowing” has led to some degree of resentment among the longtime leaders of the movement although I did not hear any such complaint from Reb Zalman himself.

The sentiment expressed is that mainstream Jewish denominations take advantage of the R and D work of Jewish Renewal without any attribution while, at the same time, Jewish Renewal struggles to gain acceptance and financial support. Frankly, Mordecai Kaplan and the Reconstructionist Movement can tell exactly the same story as fifty years ago non-Orthodox movements cherry picked Kaplan’s most attractive ideas and made them their own even as the movement that Kaplan helped to launch struggled for recognition and support.

One hears within the confines of the Jewish Renewal movement some anxiety about their future. While there were some young faces at the national gathering, most of the audience was made up of people in their 50’s, 60, and 70’s. While second career rabbis are becoming more common across the denominational spectrum, the Renewal rabbinate clearly skews older than most. The number of congregations in the Renewal network is growing but very few seem to be able to support full time rabbis no less a full complement of other professionals.  Renewal rabbis are also competing in a shrinking synagogue market place. Yet if there is growth in that sector it is likely going to come from independent, non-denominational groups of Jews who are drawn to the leadership and style of a given rabbi. This is a trend that Renewal rabbis may be able to capitalize on.

In Renewal circles there is a lot of excitement about the explosive growth of Romemu, a new congregation founded by Rabbi David Ingber on the Upper West Side of Manhattan which has grown to 500 households in less than two years. The charismatic Ingber was ordained by Reb Zalman and he is candid about the debt he owes to Jewish Renewal in shaping his approach to Jewish life. Yet he himself is unsure whether the Jewish Renewal label will be an asset or a liability in growing his congregation.

Perhaps the biggest challenge facing Jewish Renewal in the coming years is the extent to which they try to build the infrastructure of a denomination. For decades they reveled in their outsider status, suggesting that their post-denominational approach to Jewish life was more consistent with the ethos of a post-modern Jewish community. Yet today there are several post-denominational seminaries including Hebrew College in Boston and the Academy of Jewish Religion in New York and Los Angeles(independent of each other though bearing the same name). In addition, both United Synagogue (Conservative) and the URJ (Reform) broke all the old rules of denominational Judaism at their recent, respective national conventions as they invited in a broad array of rabbis and teachers who were not card carrying members of their movements. When even the biggest denominations of American Judaism go post-denominational, it makes it harder for Jewish Renewal to make a case to foundations and potential funders.

All this is not to say that Jewish Renewal has no future. At a recent retreat that I led for rabbinical students from eleven seminaries across the denominational spectrum (I do this regularly under the auspices of the Rabbis Without Borders program of Clal), a student from the Orthodox seminary, Chovevei Torah, commented that the teffilah he experienced at the retreat opened him up to levels of kavannah (deep, intentional spirituality) that he rarely experiences in Orthodox settings. Clearly this was the influence of the Aleph students who pushed the boundaries of what can happen in prayer space. I will also say that the four days I spent in the Jewish Renewal community were filled with a level of heartfulness, compassion and spiritual depth that is hard to come by in most Jewish settings today.

I’ve spent the past two years traveling the country first writing and then discussing Jewish Megatrends and the future direction of the American Jewish community. From what I can see, the Jewish community can use a healthy dose of what Jewish Renewal has to offer. I never bet against heart.

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Rabbi Sid Schwarz is the director Clergy Leadership Incubator (CLI), a program of Clal that helps to train rabbis to be visionary spiritual leaders. He is also the author of Jewish Megatrends: Charting the Course of the American Jewish Community (Jewish Lights). Additional articles and information about bringing Rabbi Sid to your community can be found at www.rabbisid.org 

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