April 2024 Message

Purim - Same as it Ever Was

This Shabbat is Shabbat Zachor, the Shabbat before Purim, the story of Esther. I would call The Book of Esther the truest fictional story in the Bible. It is the story of how one Diasporan Jewish community staved off annihilation, not through the plot device of deus ex Machina, or the sudden appearance of God, but through their own machinations and a little bit of lucky timing.

What makes this story feel so true are the various elements within it. The ease with which Jew hatred, especially from the masses comes about; that the success or demise of a minority Jewish community depends ultimately on the attitude of the sovereign; the initial reluctance of diasporan Jews to stand apart from their gentile neighbors out of fear of being rejected; and the courage of individual Jews to stand up for their people. Even though the story of Purim ends happily, we do not sing Hallel on this day for our Sages understood that the reality of Jewish life as a tiny minority in Diaspora meant that victories were temporary. Who knew when the next shift in power and sovereignty would occur and Jewish fortunes might once again deviate.

In preparation for Purim, we read the section called Zachor Amalek. In it we are reminded of the eternal enemy Amalek who attacked the weak and stragglers among Israel as they left Egypt. Amalek is related to Haman, the Purim enemy. Haman is a descendent of a Agag. Our Haftarah this morning told us of Agag at the time of the prophet Samuel and King Saul. Agag was an Amalekite. Thus evil Haman is in a direct line to Amalek, the eternal enemy of the Jews whom we are commanded to destroy. We have to be careful with the way we throw around the connections to Amalek. There is no Amalek today, though some would designate any enemy of the Jew by that title. Rather, the reason I think tradition connects Haman to Amalek is simply to make the point Jew hatred is a constant. It hides for a time, but resurfaces like a virus that lurks in the world’s consciousness. It never disappears completely, but it is always dangerous and harmful.

I make this point not to scare or depress you, but to return to the sermon I gave on Rosh Hashanah. Then I argued that antisemitism is not the problem for Jews today. Easy access to high-powered guns, ubiquitous social media, and the loss of confidence in liberal democracy is what endangers Jewish Americans today.

And then October 7 occurred. 1200 Jews butchered in the most barbaric inhumane fashion since the holocaust. Over 200 innocent people taken hostage and tortured. And within a week, instead of sympathy for Jewish victims, instead of shame among Arab and Muslim Americans for what Hamas did, the attacks began on Jewish institutions, Jewish-owned businesses, Jews on college campuses. It didn’t matter the attitudes such individuals had regarding Israel, it was their Jewish names, their Jewish affiliations, their Jewish noses to quote Leon Pinsker, the Russian author that Rabbi David Starr spoke about in his classes on Zionist.

Didn’t this disprove my assessment that anti-Semitism was not the problem? No, Jew hatred is always there like that virus that lurks under the skin and rises up at various moments. Haman’s description of the Jews while intending to hurt was correct– “there is a certain people scattered and dispersed, among other peoples, who are different from all others…” We Jews have always been different from those around us – whether we were monotheists in a pagan world, or a literate people in an unlettered world, we Jews are the consummate outsider.

Some may argue yes, anti-Semitism can be a problem but this time isn’t the real cause for its outburst Israel’s horrible treatment of Palestinians and the death of thousands of children in Gaza? Jewish American continued support for Israel justifies the animosity we are experiencing at this time. But as Jonathan Greenblatt the CEO of the ADL pointed out, blaming the victim is first of all, a classic defense of racism. Secondly, anti-Semitic attacks were on the rise under the last Israeli government that even included an Arab Muslim party in its government. But finally it is completely preposterous to argue it is in any way reasonable to attack Jews because of Israel’s actions. No one would tolerate the vandalism of Chinese restaurants or attacks on Chinese Americans because of Chinese human rights violations or the incarceration of 2 million Chinese Muslims. No one has nor would they defend attacking a Russian Orthodox Church as an acceptable act of resistance against Russia for killing hundreds of thousands of innocent Ukrainians. But defacing a Jewish owned café on the upper West side of New York is an appropriate response to Israel’s treatment of Palestinians?

In Franklin Foer’s cover essay in the Atlantic this month, he begins with a description of one family’s panic for their children in Berkeley, California. Both Jewish high school students and middle school students faced antisemitic threats. Her 16-year-old was pressured to join in a school walk out in support of Palestinians. Jewish kids were in tears, many with family in Israel, as the protesters chanted “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” What sounds like to some a call for liberation falls on Jewish ears as a cry for a second holocaust. At a middle school a similar protest occurred. A parent recorded it and one 12-year-old is heard asking another “are you Jewish?” The second one answered “no I hate them” while another joins in, “Yeah kill Israel”. No 12 year old calls out “kill Russians”, as a result of his teachers telling him about the deaths by of hundreds of thousands of innocent Ukrainians.

Franklin Foer’s article is called “The Golden Age of America Jews is Ending”. His understanding of a Jewish Golden age is similar to what the Jews of Mordecai and Esther’s period would have understood as a Golden Age. A time of safety and prosperity, a time of fitting in and being one with the majority. Mordecai serves in the palace, he thinks nothing of setting his cousin Esther up with the King. Jews join in the beauty pageant like anyone else in the Empire, the king never inquires into her background. We know her Jewish name is Hadassah but the king sees her as Esther or Ishtar, and Mordecai sees no need for her to admit her faith. Is it so different today in our nation when it is a non-story that both candidates for president have Jewish grandchildren?

Foer’s essay is not really an elegy to the American Jewish golden age as much as a requiem for the golden age of American liberalism. With the threat of authoritarianism under a second Trump administration and with it the end of an independent judiciary, it’s not surprising to see Jews once again, chosen as the scapegoat De jure. The right sees us as provocateurs who seek to undermine white Christian America’s hold on this country; while the left believe Jews are the epitome of ascending whiteness, representing all the negative qualities of white supremacy, wealth, power, and duplicity.

The only thing about which they are correct is that we Jews are not like everybody else . To be a Jew is to be different. Abraham was known as Avraham HaIvri. Often translated as Hebrew, but it can also mean on the other side as in “The world stood on one side, and Avraham stood on the opposite side, a majority of one.”

To be a Jew is to live among nuances. In traditional Jewish law, breaking the law of Shabbat is a capital crime. Yet to save a person’s life every Shabbos law can be broken. Senator Chuck Schumer expressed these nuanced views exquisitely when he spoke on the Senate floor as the highest ranking Jewish American elected official about his commitment to Israel’s security, the United States’ special relationship to Israel, and yet still called for new elections in Israel to replace the corrupt and disastrous Prime Minister.

I and so many Jews, who are politically left of center, are hurt and disappointed at how quickly we were abandoned by progressive friends, and our alliances with black, Latino, and other vulnerable minorities broken.

And yet I, and I believe other liberal Jews, will still support progressive causes. We will fight the resurgence of antisemitism the way we believe best – with education, rational argument, and outreach.

I’m sorry if you believe that antisemitism was on its way out of the American bloodstream. Anti-Semitism was over the same way racism was over with the election of a black president. We need to take a page from our Black friends and Black Lives Matter - Jewish lives matter too. And the way we make Jewish life matter is the way we always make Jewish life matter. We support justice for the world, and we vigorously pursue the wisdom of our Jewish forebears through Torah study.

Let me close with a positive affirmation from our Purim holiday. Just as the conditions for Jewish survival turn on a dime when Haman rises to power, so does the redemption. At the end of the Megillah, we read “on the very day on which the enemies of the Jews had expected to get them in their power, the opposite happened.

Things can change in the blink of an eye, but as Esther and Mordecai teach us it doesn’t happen without human effort, without planning, without wise strategies. We have to take it upon ourselves to respond to conspiracy theories, especially when fellow political travelers express them. We need to stand up to bullies. We must continue to network with allies even when they disappoint us. We must vote for and support democracy, unlike AIPAC’s approach to backing politicians who supported the January 6 insurrection as long as they are pro-Israel. And finally, we need to devote time to educating ourselves about our Jewish faith, history, and teachings.

The book of Esther tells us that at the end of the story, the Jews enjoyed light, gladness, happiness, and honor. We American Jews will continue to enjoy light and joy and honor, as long as we remain true to our heritage and our values.

March 2024 Message

They say ‘never count your chickens before they hatch’.  Just before the Israelites leave Egypt in liberation, they become aware that they are not leaving without resistance.  The Egyptians are drawing nearer and they scream Moses: Was it for want of graves in Egypt that you brought us to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us, taking us out of Egypt?  Is this not the very thing we told you in Egypt, saying, ‘Let us be, and we will serve the Egyptians, for it is better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness’?”

This is the way of the enslaved.  As bad as things are as a slave, it is safe.  You know your role.  It may be harsh, your life is forced to exist in most narrow of confines, but it is familiar.  Now liberated from that bleak reality into uncertainty, you lash out at the ones who insisted change was necessary and right. 

The people’s lack of faith is so human.  “What have you done for me lately’ is the extent of trust for most people.  Over the last months of their lives, 10 miraculous super natural plagues visited on Egypt by their God.  This God has protected them from the worst ravages of the terrors.  God has freed them and yet at the first sign of danger, they are ready to pack it in and go back to being slaves because God failed.  Every reader of this story knows it will not end that way, but their fear is real and palpable.

But Moses has come to believe in this God.  Moses has seen the miracles and actions on behalf of the people, and Moses knows the ending.  He calls out, as if he were Charlton Heston: “Have no fear! Stand by, and witness the deliverance which the LORD will work for you today; for the Egyptians whom you see today you will never see again. The LORD will battle for you; be still!”

And.  Nothing.

But then God calls out, “Why do you cry out to Me? Tell the Israelites to go forward!”

And in that moment, everything changed. 

For this was the true moment of liberation.  It was the beginning of a necessary change in the relationship between the Divine Being and the People of Israel.  This was the moment when the mourners leave grave side, and the shiva period starts.  Until this moment all one’s activities and focus is on the deceased, as the mourners leave the grave, the trajectory from loss to return to life begins.  This is the moment at a bar mitzvah when the traditional father’s prayer Blessed is the One who has freed me from the punishments of this one is recited, for after this moment the bar mitzvah is responsible for his behavior and making his own choices.

For in this moment, God was indicating to Moses and Israel that no longer would God do everything for them.  From now on, God would be partners with Israel.  They would have to be responsible for their actions and decisions. 

The experience at the Sea of Reeds blasted a new message into their consciousness – Do not be passive.

To be fair, the language of the text suggests Moses presented a confused message – He responds to their fears saying Al tiru, hityatzvu ‘Don’t be afraid and stand by’ – and all other examples of the phrase hityatzvu in the Bible express preparation for war.  And remember we are told that the people left Egypt hamushim , translated as armed. It sounds like he is saying, ‘don’t be afraid, defend yourselves.’  Yet Moses also tells them “God will fight for you”.  At this liminal moment, the transition is still awkward and clumsy. 

And you will say but God still provides the miracle of the splitting sea!  True, but the Israelites have to go forward.  Rabbi Shai Held notes that it is more accurate to say that this new relationship between Israel and God, in which Israel is no longer the passive, dependent minor partner, is one of interdependency.  He states that “God’s miracles, in some fundamental way, are dependent on prior human effort”.  

For the mystics, the mutual partnership was expressed in the Zohar as ‘be’itaruta d’la tata, itar hachi nami l’ela’  “Arousal from below, causes arousal up above.”  What we do in this world motivates the upper worlds, whose emanation then reverberates back on earth. 

The moment of the Exodus begins a new era of partnership between God and Israel.  This culminates in the Covenant at Sinai.

Three times on Friday evening we recite the verses from Genesis that describe the creation of Shabbat: “On the seventh day God finished the work that God had been doing, and God ceased on the seventh day from all the work that God had done. And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, because on it God ceased from all the work of creation that God had done”.    We recite the Vayachulu verses once in the Amidah, once after the Amidah and a third time before kiddush over wine at the Friday night meal.  According to the Kabbalist Isaiah Horowitz, in his encyclopedic Shnai Luchot Habrit, states that when we recite these verses testifying to God’s creation of Shabbat we become partners in Creation: How?  The word Vayachulu translated as “it was finished” as spelled in the Torah can be read Vayichalu, by changing the vowels around and Vayichalu is plural for “They finished the work of Creation.”  Horowitz explains, from a mystical point of view, when a person testifies to the reality of God’s creation, he or she binds together the spirit, the wisdom and the faith elements that made creation possible.  The recitation thus renews the creative energy of Shabbat.

To leave the psychology of slavery and ascend to partnership with God requires we Jews to take responsibility for our decisions, our choices, our actions.  These are the mitzvot. 

Our Talmudic sages instructed us “Do not rely on Miracles.  In the post Exodus world, the ultimate mitzvah is “do not be religiously passive”.  We each have roles to play and as God told Israel at the Sea of Reeds, each of us must find our way to go forward.

February 2024 Message

In the Torah, the word herem is a most interesting word.  We are familiar with its use as a term of banishment, a Jew put in herem was exiled from the community.  However it can also mean something sacred, no one but the priests are allowed to touch it. The connection between these apparently opposite meanings is the idea that a herem item is untouchable for the common person.

There are very few modern examples of Herem except perhaps for one word – the N-word, so atrocious that we don’t even say the whole word to point out it is atrocious. Yet if you listen to hip hop, the word is not uncommon.

One of the smartest and funniest shows on TV for the last 20 years has been South Park.  What is so clever about this show is that the viewer is never really sure if the creator’s on my side of the issue at hand or making fun of my side?

An outstanding example of this was an episode from 2007 called “With Apologies to Jesse Jackson” about the proscription of the N-word.  One of the adult main characters uses the word in an embarrassing attempt to solve a clue on a nationally live televised game show.  This leads to complete ostracism.  But like so many people who use insulting language, soon the character feels that he is the victim for suffering such contempt.  In a second story, the main child character, Stan, the son of the man who used the word, apologizes to the one black student in the school.  When the black student does not seem to be appeased, Stan gets frustrated, “My dad said he was wrong for using the word, and he apologized, so everything should be ok now.”  But the black student recognizes that Stan has no understanding of the pain such language used by white people inflicts on Black people.  Being South Park, while it is clearly criticizing white people who believe they should be exonerated after apologizing for using this word, the show also voiced the actual N-word 43 times.

But the creators do let you know what their message is at some point.  In this episode, Stan has tried every which way to convince Tolkien, the black student, to accept the apology and make everything okay again, but Tolkien repeatedly tells him you can apologize but I can’t let it go.  Finally, Stan screams out, ‘I don’t get it!’ And that is when he has his epiphany.  He turns to Tolkien and says, “Tolkien, now I get it.  I don’t get it.”  To which Tolkien finally says, “Now you understand”.  What he means is that the use of that term is hurtful to Black people in ways that a white person can never understand.  It is not as simple as saying, “I goofed, I should not have used that term”.  Because the pain such a term, coming out of the mouth of a white person, given the history of race and racism in this nation, cannot be appreciated by the white person.  The hurt is too deep, too layered for an apology, even a sincere one, to wash the hurt away.

Watching this show the other night, I had my own epiphany.  We Jews have been so hurt, have felt so abandoned, in the weeks since the October 7 massacre. Mass rallies attacking Israel, internet and social media arguing that Hamas was justified in their savagery because “resistance” of any kind is acceptable for liberation. We have been in shock to watch younger Jews stand with those who seek the destruction of Israel.  People who, in the face of growing intolerance in the country and around the world, have invoked the Holocaust to say they would stand with the vulnerable and the oppressed, shared platforms with Hamas supporters days after the massacre.  International women’s groups meeting the very week of the massacre, neglected to acknowledge the brutalization and sexual abuse of Jewish women by Hamas and the “innocent” Palestinians who joined in the pogrom.  And most recently, the farce before the International Criminal Court in The Hague that Israel is guilty of genocide as if Israel is not locked in a vicious war against a quasi-government terrorist organization that has vowed in its charter to exterminate the Jewish people.

And then, like Stan in South Park, I finally got it – they don’t get it.

Try as they might, non-Jews just don’t understand.  I have often fantasized what it must be like to be a part of a people or community that never worries about the possibility that their people might be exterminated, suffering real genocide.  What a sense of inner calm and existential confidence that must bring. What must it be like to go to your place of worship and not go through security guards?  Or not have to promote your congregation’s programming in private because it is too dangerous to let the public know. Or not to live your life checking for unusual cars near your home or packages you receive because - “just to be safe”.

Years ago, when our family travelled in Europe, we were advised not to wear kipot when we were out, it might cause a problem.  As if we were the problem.  And we marveled how Muslim families also travelling, had no fear of dressing in their traditional garb.  Only Jews were in danger.  If you are not a Jew, you just don’t get it.

Some have suggested that it is epigenetics –years of trauma from the Holocaust and pogroms which have affected the DNA of Jews – which cause Jews to react, based on that historic trauma, even if they themselves are living in a safe space.  Possibly, though not all Jews in the United States come from Holocaust-affected families.  Let me suggest another reason why non-Jews don’t get it when we Jews get anxious.  It comes from the world of sports betting – the trend is your friend.  If a team, that plays in a dome stadium, loses 8 games in a row playing in an outdoor stadium, bet on them to lose a ninth time playing outdoors.  When Jews who have been persecuted, oppressed, exiled from every Diasporan community that we have ever lived in, hear the chant “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, don’t be shocked that we don’t hear, as Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib would have us believe, that it means Palestinians and Jews living happily together in the same territory. We understandably hear ‘one holocaust was not enough.’

The hypocrisy of anti-Semitism is apparent to anyone who cares to look.  At the Congressional hearing on anti-Semitism, the three University presidents all condemned anti-Semitism but struggled with a very serious issue – how to allow free expression on their campus while protecting vulnerable groups.  What they did not acknowledge is that in cases on their campuses where free expression espoused views that were opposed to racial diversity, LGBTQ sexuality, or feminism such clubs or speakers were either punished or hounded out the door (NYTimes, Brett Stephens, December 8).  In calling for death to Israel, however, free speech must rule.

We know that anti-Semitism is a unique hatred.  Capitalists accuse Jews of spearheading socialism, Communists see Jews as the bearers of capitalism.  White racists hate Jews for polluting the white race, people of color see Jews incorrectly as the epitome of whiteness, despite the reality that we Jews constitute every hue made possible by melatonin.  We get it from all sides.  When Israel attempted to minimize civilian deaths and told civilians to leave in order to spare lives, they were condemned for ethnic cleansing and now genocide.  And while any number of innocent people killed in war is too many, if thousands of civilian Palestinians is genocide, where are the claims of genocide against 200,000 dead civilians in Ukraine or 500,000 dead in Syria, or 2 million Uyger Muslims enslaved in China.  And why is Israel the only one who can end the war?  Why doesn’t the International Court or the UN demand that the hostages be immediately returned to Israel unconditionally and then we can all agree to argue for a ceasefire. 

Ultimately, there is one source for the anti-Semitism in this post-State of Israel world.  Power.  Jews are not supposed to be powerful.  In both Christian and Muslim worlds, Jews are to be compliant and subservient.  We are allowed to exist, and if the overlords are decent, we are even allowed to succeed financially and professionally.  But we Jews are not supposed to be masters of our own history.  The state of Israel changed that. 

Sadly, that means Israel can be as pathetic and despotic as every other country in the world.  But it also means that Israel can rise up and be the kind of nation that makes Jews proud and proves to be a light unto the nations.  Israel over the past 75 years has done both. 

We just celebrated the holiday of Hanukkah.  Yes, the revolt led by the Maccabees against the dictatorial Seleucid empire was a victory for any small nation that wished to observe its culture and faith without oppression and imposition of foreign values.  But their revolution also led to corruption and internal persecution by their Hasmonean descendants, which led to welcoming the Roman conquerors in and 2000 years of painful exile.  We Jews have had this choice before so we know the consequences of power.  But there is a big difference between being the hammer and the nail. 

For Jews in Diaspora and in the Land of Israel, we no longer cower hoping that the anti-Semites will die out or go away or find a reason to like us.  Because Israel exists, we know that it is our choice how we respond to external events of history.  During Hanukkah this year 150 people openly celebrated Hanukkah in the middle of South Bend unafraid to share our joy and pride, along with many non-Jewish supporters.  When this war against Hamas is over the people of Israel and, yes, we in the Jewish Diaspora will also have a choice, to continue supporting an Israel whose government policies have clearly failed and is led now by corrupt politicians, with an actual Jewish fascist party as part of that government or to support a different approach to creating a viable and worthy Jewish state that respects the need for other peoples to establish their own national self-determination. 

Ephraim Kishon was an Israeli humorist.  Years ago, in the early days of the state he wrote a column in which he brings his European born father to the new state.  His father is unimpressed.  The state is poor.  There is nothing in young Israel that Jews don’t have better in the Diaspora.  They still live in danger.  What is the difference between Israel and any other country where Jews live?  Kishon is frustrated, he wants his father to appreciate the choice he has made to move to Israel.  Finally, he brings his father, a Holocaust survivor, to a Yom HaAtzmaut, an independence Day celebration in which an Israel Defense Forces  airplane flies over the crowd.  He turns to his father and is surprised to see tears streaming down his father’s face.  He looks at the planes and says quietly, Abba, that’s the difference.

Because of Israel, Jews are no longer the victims of history.  Our Non-Jewish friends just don’t get it.  But we do.  We get it.