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My Passover Haggadah Commentary for This Year

I just finished these thoughts. They are a combination of commentaries, reflection pieces, discussion prompts related to the Seder text, the Pesach Haggadah. You could read them before or after a Seder, or even during. Wishing everyone a good festival and a Zissen (sweet) Pesach.

https://images.shulcloud.com/544/uploads/Pesach/sederthoughts5780.pdf

Passover 5780 -- The Four Children of COVID-19

This is a version of the D'var Torah I gave on Saturday, April 4, 2020, Shabbat Hagadol 5780.

According to the Passover Haggadah:

“The Torah speaks of four children. One is wise, one is wicked, one is simple, and one does not know to ask. Echad chacham, v’echad rasha, v’echad tam, v’echad she-aino yod’ea lish’ol.”

I have been thinking about these four children as responses to COVID-19. The smart responses and the evil ones, the simplistic and the – what -- oblivious or simply dumbstruck. I think each of these children has two sides, a side that needs support and encouragement and a side that needs teaching and guidance.

The wise one asks: What are the specifics about this disease? What do we know about how it spreads? What steps have been effective in different countries or regions? What do the models say? Who are the chachamim, the experts and Sages, to whom we should be listening?

In the Seder, the wise child asks: Mah ha-eydot v’hachukim v’hamishpatim asher tsiva Adonai etchem? “What are the testimonies, the rules that you don’t ask questions about, and the rules whose reasoning is important, that Adonai has commanded?” What is based on well-attested research, what are the things we don’t have time to debate but simply all have to do, what are rules that will work better if we take the time to understand them?

That’s the chacham of today, and the more of this we have the better we will all be. We need to encourage more people to be both well-informed and trusting of the scientific policymakers and the officials who are listening to them.

The Haggadah says that you should give the chacham detailed answers, of the specifics of the laws of Passover. So too today, the chacham needs ways to be practical – things to know and to teach others, concrete ways of giving tzedakah and doing for people who are vulnerable in all the ways that people are at risk now.

Of course, it’s also hard to be chacham right now. The chacham is the one who knows more than most what there is to be frightened of, who has the burden of seeing the danger in a trip to the store or a walk in the park. Who worries about people who have no option of staying home to work safely, who has no one to go shopping for them. These aren’t reasons to avoid being the chacham. But the chacham needs support – so as not to become overwhelmed or burn out. So as not to become so worried or sad that it’s impossible to smile or laugh or share a good moment with someone.

The wicked one asks: What is the burden that you have all taken on? In most years at the Seder, we often call this rasha not wicked but rebellious, in a sort-of good way, and we have more understanding than the rabbis of old seemed to. We say it’s just a phase, or it’s a teenager, or there is value in critical thinking, and maybe we even admire the rasha for not going along with the crowd.

But today we can say that there are wicked people, and we see them all over. They are standing too close to other people in the supermarket. They are coughing without covering. Online they are suggesting that only older people will die and we shouldn’t all have to lose our jobs because of that. Or that this is all a hoax or a liberal conspiracy.

And the Haggadah’s answer to the rasha is no answer today – fling it in his teeth, fine, if that’s your position you will not be redeemed. That’s not going to work now. The hazard of their wickedness isn’t just to them but to the rest of us through them.

So we are in the position of what Judaism calls the mitzvah of tochacha, confronting and trying to correct someone’s behavior. Which means taking a stand in public and telling strangers to step back or get out of here, as evenly but firmly as we can.

And to anyone who expresses views that can make this all worse, we have respond calmly also – in the way we repeat the new mantras of safety, by  combating the bad reads with good ones that aren’t angry or ideological but sensible and factual.

I think too that today’s rasha needs understanding. There may be terrible fear at the heart of this: a fear of confronting what is really happening, or of having one’s worldview suddenly challenged or possibly irrelevant to the day. The rasha needs comforting.

And the online rasha who says it’s really not that serious a disease has long ago become deeply mistrustful of knowledge and of political authority.

Now is a time for us to show that knowledge works. People who value knowledge are creative and faithful and tireless and compassionate. Now is a time for us to key in on figures in authority who are relentless about human life; who show what it means to take responsibility and be advised by those who know more; who admit error and move on because they are committed to the people who chose them. We have to notice all these people now, and talk about them to people we know who are stuck in rasha mode.

The simple one says: What is this? This tam is the one who doesn’t keep close tabs on the news; who isn’t intentionally going out unnecessarily or willfully misbehaving but is making do with a minimum of information and precautions while out.

Or maybe the tam is the one of few words. Cooped up in the house with everyone, this is the one who doesn’t really want to fill the time together with talk, or doesn’t want to talk about feelings or worries.

And the Haggadah says: Open up to this one: “With a strong hand did Adonai bring us out of Mitzrayim.” Don’t overwhelm with more than they want to talk about. Start with the big picture: We are in a tough time and we are fortunate that there are strong powers out there doing their best to keep us safe and guide us through. And I will be here for you, to answer whatever question you have, about what’s going on or about what this is like. To talk to you when you do want to talk.

There is one who does not know what to ask or how to ask – she-aino yode’a lish’ol. The Hebrew could mean: One who does not know how to ask anything at all, or one who doesn’t know that it’s okay just to have questions, or one who doesn’t know which of the many questions would be appropriate to ask at this moment.

I think about our actual children, who will have this interlude in their formative years that will shape them, or who are aware enough that this time will be something shadowing their adult lives. They must be so full of questions, and it’s hard to have answers we don’t know what the next few days are going to be like.

And I think of the teaching of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev, who taught that the one who doesn’t know how to ask is the most profound of the four children: For who even knows what questions are worth asking?

What do we ask at a time like this? Sure, there’s a too-familiar script of questions from catastrophes past: Why is this happening, why did this person die, why did I get sick or why did I not, what kind of God is this?

Now on top of that: What will it be like to hug someone again, to be with a boyfriend or girlfriend, to put out a bowl of potato chips at a party? How do you talk if the only options are to be focused through a phone or screen, or not to talk at all? We used to sit around in a room, talk for bit, wander and in out, talk a bit and stop and talk again. If we spend two months seeing people only on screens except for those in our house plus the quickly cashier at the supermarket, what will be the impact on our friendships? On society?

What will be the effect of this big unplanned experiment in distance and togetherness? Will we find ways to be more close and more responsible for people we don’t usually see, but who are tied to us, who affect us, who feed and care for us? What will we discover that we cherish about our face-to-face, local communities?

You can go crazy thinking of questions. I am, a bit. Or you can be fascinated by them. I am, actually, a lot.

It’s appropriate to take time not to ask anything, just to deal with what is in front of you. It’s okay to be overwhelmed by so many questions that you just can’t ask anything.

It’s also important that we move from not-asking, or not-being able to ask, or knowing what to ask first.

The Haggadah says: When you don’t know what question to ask or answer, tell the story, and say: “This is something that Adonai did for me when I went out of Mitzrayim.” We’re going to have stories to tell. Don’t forget to put yourself at the center. How it affects you. How you are acting. Your part of the story matters no matter what. You are the person who deserves to be taken care of while we are in this Mitzrayim, and you are the person who deserves to be brought out from this Mitzrayim.

We are all children now, in the midst of a society of children who are wise and wicked, simple and overwhelmed. We will do our best to understand this story while we are in it, and to teach each child of any age according to the need they have right now. So that as many of us can come out as possible, as we once came out Mitzrayim.

May you all be well, Shabbat Shalom, and even in these times a Zissen (sweet) Pesach.

Temporary Work Available: Valves for Respirators

Passing along from Rev. Tanya Rasmussen:

Parker-Hannifin is a company in Hollis, NH, that makes valves that go into the life-saving medical ventilator machines that are in such short supply.

They are in need of temps right now. If you know someone that is looking to work 1st or 2nd shift on the production floor building valves, please have them call our Temp Agencies (listed below) to begin the temporary hiring process.

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Why I Am Voting for Sen. Klobuchar This Tuesday

#thinkinparagraphs

For my NH undecided friends, and for people out there in states voting soon who haven’t picked a candidate:

I’m not registered as a member of a political party, but on Tuesday I am going to take a Democratic ballot and vote for Sen. Amy Klobuchar.

I didn’t decide finally until about a week ago. I’ve been thinking about a small number of candidates, some of whom aren’t in the race anymore and some of whom are. I just posted about how it is that I go about choosing whom to vote for in general, and hopefully this post will look like an application of what I wrote there.

I have heard Senator Klobuchar speak twice now in person. Apart from the policy proposals, which she shares with some of the other candidates, Sen. Klobuchar has a combination of intelligence, forcefulness joined to openness, and humor. She has a record of accomplishment on matters large and small, first in her (my!) home state of Minnesota and then as a Senator in Washington in the most challenging legislative environment in recent memory. She feels a connection to people whose lives are affected by what public policy has and has not done, and that connection seems rooted in her biography and the story of her family. She has a record of building coalitions beyond the Democratic Party. She projects in her words and her public manner the qualities of decency, dignity, and empathy that belong in the Oval Office.

One of the hardest things in the campaign is going to be battling with President Trump and talking about divisive issues and where division is coming from, while also staying connected to as many Americans as possible. Even without President Trump, the political environment would be polarized. Solutions in Congress to complex problems like health care and immigration reform have been elusive. I am looking for someone whose whole package of leadership skills and experience under fire gives her a fighting chance to detoxify our politics and also make an impact. Of the candidates remaining, Sen. Klobuchar strikes me as the one with the best chance to do all of that.

It also means something to me that she has the support of people in my community whose wisdom and fundamental values I know and trust such as Joe Foster, Helen Honorow, Bill Barry, and Rep. Latha Mangipudi.

For people in the Jewish community who wonder about issues of special concern to us, Senator Klobuchar has a record of supporting Israeli security as an American national interest, and being part of what has been and should be a bipartisan consensus on Israel’s right to self-defense and the desire for a negotiated two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She has spoken out against anti-Semitism in our society.

I like to think I am not voting for Sen. Klobuchar just because of the Minnesota connection (though it doesn't hurt!)

I have thought about Mayor Buttigieg, whom I admire particularly for his reflectiveness and his willingness to talk about faith and about moral dilemmas in leadership. I think it says a lot about him that after Harvard and other experiences he chose to go back and try to make a difference where he came from even though it’s a small city, not the center of the world. Executive governmental experience is very important to the job of president. I think Senator Klobuchar has more experience and mettle for the job at hand in all its dimensions today.

I admire Sen. Warren particularly for her work on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was one of the most important actions with teeth that was created after the financial crisis. Exploitation in finance isn’t as easy to talk about as health care or education. The lessons Sen. Warren draws from her personal history are also compelling. What has put me off have been some of her attacks on people or groups who disagree with her. There is a way to disagree and to work strongly from one’s principles without mocking people or painting all opponents on an issue with the same brush, whether it’s a social issue or an economic one. Right now, we need a leader who is especially good at both winning and not-demonizing.

There is a lot of good in Vice President Biden’s record and his long experience, and also some bad policy judgment in that record. I admire the clarity of Sen. Sanders, and have been thinking more and more about his take on wealth and inequality and poverty than I have in a long time. I have in the past had less of a black-and-white approach about wealth (see my previous post, referring to philosopher John Rawls), but even if I agreed with Sen. Sanders, this is a moment when a politics that rebuilds the center is also necessary if we are really going to make headway on issues related to inequality (also see my previous post). Because of that, I haven’t done a lot of looking into his record or story.

If you’ve read some of my previous posts or blogs about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it won’t surprise you that I have issues with recent statements from both Sen. Sanders and Sen. Warren.

I thought briefly about taking the Republican ballot and voting for Governor Weld to make a statement about the president. But as I wrote in the other post, I do not vote for symbolism but to make an impact.

So I have made my choice. I will be voting for Senator Amy Klobuchar this Tuesday, after being undecided for longer than I can ever remember being. Good luck making your choice well, and see you at the polls.

How I Decide Who to Vote For

This is an attempt to write down something I’ve never written out before: how I decide whom to vote for in elections for national office. This is how I understand what I am doing. There’s plenty here to discuss or argue about.

Voting is in one way the most morally consequential thing we do. The outcome of a vote, especially for national office, has far more of an impact that the generous or committed acts of most individuals (myself, at least) or the money we give to nonprofits.

It’s worth approaching the vote in the spirit of Rabbi Moses Maimonides’ teaching that we should always regard the world as in a perfect balance between merit and guilt, such that our next act will decide whether we will earn a judgment of merit or a judgment of destruction. While most elections are not decided by our single vote, we know well that they can be. It’s important to vote with the thought that your vote could be the one that decides about budgets and military actions and how laws are implemented and enforced. Who will eat and who will go hungry, whose illnesses will be researched and treated, whose lives will be risked in battle, who will live or die in another land because America does or does not act in those places.

I am writing this as an American patriot, a lover of my country, who is also a Jew trying to follow the spiritual and ethical teachings of my Torah and aware of my place in the long history of the Jews. I have for a decade not been registered with a political party. Political acts and decisions are religious acts for me; the parties are practical instruments.

If I had to put this into a flow chart, this is how I break it down. I’m going to do all of this in theory, conceptually.

At the root for me is an idea that the political philosopher Michael Walzer puts this way: “[T]hink of the welfare of the most vulnerable people in the country. And then vote, gladly, for the candidate who minimizes their vulnerability.”

There is a lot here. Walzer (who is worth knowing a lot about, and I should write about him separately sometime) says right before this quote that it’s not about whether you like or inspired by a candidate, or whether you judge the candidate to be a good person in some fundamental way (more on this below). It’s about what that person can deliver in terms of the most vulnerable.

I think this would be an ethical imperative for me regardless of my Jewish principles. For me it’s a fundamental part of Torah. I generally apply this in the spirit of the political theorist John Rawls. Rawls argued that inequality, or something that increases inequality, can be justified morally so long as it also benefits the most vulnerable in society.

And Walzer argues that today, the first part of that is to minimize vulnerability. There is also a step beyond that, which is transforming the conditions that allow anyone to be vulnerable – but first, who minimizes their vulnerability.

The vulnerability I have always thought about first is economic vulnerability – whether it’s not being able to afford adequate shelter or food, or not being able to afford adequate medical care. With that, I have thought about economic vulnerability that comes from discrimination, on the basis of color and other bases, and the discrimination itself. More lately, I have come to think much more about the vulnerability of refugees.

1. So first I want to know – does the candidate even care? And not just about certain vulnerable groups, but about all of them. Everyone has blind spots, and many have come up through the ranks on the basis of work on behalf of a particular group. But caring only about vulnerable whites or vulnerable people of color, to the exclusion of other vulnerable people, isn’t enough.

This isn’t only about policies. I think certain policy approaches show more caring about vulnerability. But I’m always open to the candidate who argues for why another approach is also caring and is effective. Anyone who is sincere makes my first cut. Even if the policies being offered have been associated in the past, or are associated today, with people or groups who clearly don’t care about the most vulnerable.

2. Walzer argues specifically about our era that ‘[w]hat the most vulnerable people need right now is the protection afforded by a strong constitutionalism. The defense of civil liberties and civil rights… -- this is a centrist politics.” I would add another element to this “centrism”, which is a defense of the idea of America as a whole, made up of different groups with different origins and with different philosophies.

Some of this is about policies and the ways laws are enforced. It’s also about a political culture – the responsibility not to divide. I look for a candidate who speaks about America expansively and inclusively in her or his rhetoric, and who can disagree with passion without demonizing.

3. There are two things I think about next: Are the candidate’s policies reasonable approaches to minimizing vulnerability? Is the candidate someone who could actually accomplish something that minimizes vulnerability?

While these two don’t come in a particular order, I have been thinking more and more about the second question, the leadership dimension. One candidate might have a better set of policy ideas, but be a terrible leader – ineffective, bad at mobilizing people, wilting under pressure, and/or polarizing. Having that person in office hardly minimizes the vulnerability of the vulnerable.

The “How To Be President” initiative I helped found is about aspects of leadership beyond policy choices. I am looking for a leader who is clear-eyed about things like failure and compromise; who has forcefully, driven-ness and humility; who knows that not all your allies are good people and not all your opponents are evil; who has a way of thinking about how decisions at the top affect everyone; who has a way of knowing how to ache when policies fail or ignore some Americans, and when to push through in the face of that pain.

4. There are also Jewish issues, meaning issues of the interests of the Jewish community. A lot of Jewish issues are covered already in the earlier passes -- particularly with regard to hate, bias, discrimination, religious freedom for minorities. But other things being relatively equal, the candidate who has a blind spot about anti-Semitism will fall back in my line.

Then when it comes to Israel, I am looking for the candidate who believes Israel is a fundamentally democratic country; who understands the dangers Israelis live with in their region; who supports justice for both Jews and Arabs in Israel-Palestine and does not place the responsibility for the conflict solely on Israelis; who knows that most Jewish-American supporters of Israel have no truck with Muslim-haters, racists and the religiously intolerant just because those people might also support Israel.

5. Usually, these cover everything for me in the decision tree. Sometimes, in a given election, there is a specific issue of the moment. I reserve the right to figure out where it should fit in my general scheme.

I never get someone who is perfect on all these criteria. Elections are always choices between two or more actual candidates. Each time, I try to assess who is best overall on these criteria, and I figure out how I am going to weigh each consideration as I go. If the choices each have serious flaws, I don’t know how I am going to “dock” for them until I do it.

I don’t vote to feel good about what I believe or to have the satisfaction of “being right.” Lives are on the line. As long I keep my eye on why I am voting, whose lives depend on my vote, I believe I am doing the best I can.