Rabbi Jon's Website and Blog

After Pittsburgh: A Narrower Bridge, A Net Like Never Before

Here is my D'var Torah from Saturday, Nov. 3, 2018, the Shabbat after the killings at Tree of Life Congregation in Pittsburgh. You can read it or download it as a pdf file here.

It is so good to be here together this morning. I know that it is a great comfort to our friends, our sisters and brothers in Pittsburgh, to know that people are gathered in synagogues all over, thinking about them, mourning with them, and doing something to live in the legacy of the eleven people who were killed at Tree of Life Congregation, while they were doing what we are doing. I have been in touch with Jewish professional colleagues in Pittsburgh, and they are exhausted, and also amazing. It means a lot to them that we care and that we are here in our congregations this Shabbat.

We are drawn here this Shabbat, at a time when we need to reach beyond ourselves -- for the divine, for each other, and deep into ourselves. I know for me, having Shabbat waiting during a difficult week helps me find my footing -- knowing there will be a chance to take a breath, that precious words will be set up for me to sing with other people and say alone, that we will celebrate.  We are drawn to a Bat Mitzvah, so we can be inspired, and I want to acknowledge and thank Lexi and her parents, Matt and Kyle, for being Beth Abraham’s partners in this particular Shabbat which suddenly became different from what any of us anticipated.

I want to welcome you who have come for the occasion of Lexi’s Bat Mitzvah, and you who have come to be with us because all over America people have decided to join with the Jewish community, in solidarity and in defiance.

I hope all of you know that our synagogue leadership has been focused this week on taking care of you -- thinking about how you can be safe here, being available for you. We have had children and staff and members and guests here from first thing Sunday morning throughout the week. Many people have spent a lot of time going over security decisions and listening to anyone who has reached out and needed to talk on any level. I want to say a thank you to the Nashua Police Department for being so responsive to us from last Saturday onward, even anticipating our needs.

Last Saturday at the Tree of Life Congregation, eleven people were murdered and six were injured by a man who wanted to wipe out Jews, because he believes that we and the other people we stand by are a threat to white America.

And despite what he did, we have seen the unbelievable spirit of the Jewish neighborhood in Squirrel Hill, and the unstoppable force of mitzvah, even in the midst of horror and exhaustion.

The shomrim who stay with bodies before a Jewish burial who had to fulfill that responsibility at an active crime scene.The chevra kadisha groups who prepare bodies for burial, and the chevras from elsewhere who came to help, in case it was too much for the local people to bear to prepare friends whose bodies had been torn by bullets. The Jewish medical staff who treated and stabilized the gunman and even talked with him. Mitzvot are relentless.

I have had to give too many sermons at times like these. I have reread them all in the past few days. I don’t want to say the same thing again and again, with just the locations and details changed. I believe we are at a point of tremendous power and risk -- when we could tip into disillusionment, about anti-Semitism and white nationalism in this country -- or when we could help fuel a cascade in the other direction, the direction of tikkun. That would take some courage, and an ability to look hard into the darkness in new ways, but I believe the opportunity is there. And to Lexi, to you and to your classmates, I say that being Bat and Bar Mitzvah has never been more important, being a mitzvah person, and we need every single one of you to get to work with us.

I put on the study sheet a teaching from the Mishnah,the first book of Jewish law after the Torah, from about the year 200. Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah said: I am like a man of seventy years, and I did not achieve an understanding of why the Exodus from Egypt is said at night until Ben Zoma explained this verse from the Torah to me: “In order that you will remember the going out from Egypt all the days of your life” (Deuteronomy 16:3) -- “the days of your life” means the days; “all the days of your life” means the nights. But the Sages say: “the days of your life” means this world; “all the days of your life” means to bring the messianic days. [Mishnah Berachot 1:5]

If you have been to a Passover Seder, you might recognize this paragraph -- it’s one of the paragraphs you might gloss over with discussion or event skip. But this week the passage called out to me all of a sudden, the way Torah does when we really need it.

The Talmud says Rabbi Elazar wasn’t actually old when he taught this teaching -- he was eighteen. But looking out on his world one day, he suddenly felt like he was seventy.

As though there would not be enough time in his life to see the world he was dreaming of. As though he couldn’t escape the trauma of the persecutions of Jews before his lifetime. One day at the age of eighteen, all his hair suddenly turned gray.

Rabbi Elazar was thinking about how we recall the story of the Exodus from Egypt. It’s is the original story of anti-Semitism, the first violent attack on Jews as a group for being Jews, the first time someone gives a supposed “reason” for that. Rabbi Elazar had seen this story as a story about the day of liberation -- about the march of the Jews into freedom at high noon, with their hands held high. As a story about light -- of a mighty God whose outstretched arm could overpower any worldly oppression.

Ben Zoma taught him that it wouldn’t be enough to tell that story that way -- you have to face the story of the night as well. The Exodus is the power of God on the side of the hated -- but it is also a story about that hate. The worry that it is not actually gone but just something we ran away from, that will find its way back to us again.

I used to think that there were two kinds of Jews: those who were obsessed by the darkness, and those who could see light and be inspired by it. And I had no patience once upon a time, for the Jews who chose to look at the darkness so much. But as my own hairs are slowly graying, I think I have started to get what Rabbi Elazar learned from Ben Zoma.

When you are basking in the light of Jewish freedom, don’t pretend there is no darkness. And when you are in the darkness, as we have been this week, don’t close your eyes to lights that might in fact be growing.

Yesterday, the front page of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette had, across the top, in large Hebrew print the words יתגדל ויתקדש שמה רבה Yitgadal V’Yitkadash Sh’may Rabbah, the opening words of the Mourners’ Kaddish. And every single page of the paper’s desktop website had those words at the top. The business page, the sports page. Even the page with an article about the downtown Pittsburgh Christmas tree lighting. When has that ever happened?

Our U.S. Senator, Maggie Hassan, made phone calls this week to each one of the rabbis in New Hampshire personally. We are a minority in a small state, but Chuck Schumer and Dianne Feinstein can’t do what she did.

It wasn’t for a perfunctory conversation. We talked for some 15 minutes, and she asked if there was anything specific we needed. We talked together about how all the different levels of hate and animosity today do or don’t interact. She said that I should tell you that tens of thousands of Granite Staters are thinking about us and standing with us.

Some of the most remarkable things have happened when Jews were not even around. I’ve been carrying with me all week these notes that the Unitarian Universalist Church took time in their service last Sunday to write us, adult words and some scribbles and pictures from children even. This is just one example of all the support sent to me and to us this week.

And at Christ the King Lutheran Church in Nashua, something happened last Sunday, which was a special day in their calendar, the anniversary of the founding of Lutheranism, of the day Martin Luther pinned his theses on the church door.

Pastor Dave said to the congregation that they could not just celebrate all the wisdom and leadership of Luther --  they also had to mention Luther’s anti-Semitism, and to mention how Luther’s words were later used by the Nazis. They didn’t talk about this because he and I had spoken, which we haven’t, or because we were there, because none of us were.

This is people who don’t know that many Jews being told that they have to reckon with their own religious group’s responsibility in the history of anti-Semitism. Not during an educational program, or a joint Holocaust remembrance. When has that happened?

I have long said that we live in a time when Jews have more more allies than ever before. And this week we can see that we are standing in a new daylight, as Jews in this country. This is not the same as what has been before. Somehow, even in the dark, we need to see that.

And yet, Rabbi Elazar learns from Ben Zoma that it is foolish to say this unless we have the honesty to talk about the night and face it. Night represents anti-Semitism lurking where we didn’t see it coming and we don’t expect it. Night is where the factors that drive anti-Semitism and white nationalism are hard to sort out, where the relationships among them are murky.

I was a person who shut my eyes to extent of American anti-Semitism especially in its white supremacist form, for years. Last week was the anti-Semitism of hate and violence, but there is also an anti-Semitism and a white nationalism of ideas that sound, like the new Pharaoh’s words at the start of Exodus, kind of reasonable to enough people.

This predates the president, and I said before the election from this pulpit that if he lost, I feared that we would think we were out of the woods. He is not an anti-Semite personally; the white nationalists revile him for having Jews in his family and his inner circle and his cabinet. And he is in the next room over, so to speak, calling his political opposition people who have “launched an assault... on the safety of every single American,” as he said in Texas the week before the shooting. That’s talking about born Americans, not even outsiders. It’s not surprising if someone who hears that, and already wants to intimidate or harm someone in a minority group, is emboldened. Not when so many people who we wouldn’t call white supremacists hear this kind of thing and cheer enthusiastically. In the dark, we don’t know how exactly how all of that stirs together, but it does.

I know a lot of you are on the very narrow bridge between hope and disillusionment. This week the bridge seems even narrower, and it takes courage to keep walking. We are in an unstable situation. It takes strength and balance not to fall off. But we have a net below us like we have never had. I no longer believe it’s enough to stand pat, just bank the relationships we have and grow them with interest. Now we will have to take some risks. But the chance of reward has never been greater.

Some of us have to risk a venture into the darkness. We have to go where people misunderstand us, or invite people who misunderstand us or haven’t thought about us, to come and talk with us. Even people who already have biases or stereotypes about us. Tomorrow I have a piece in the Nashua Telegraph inviting people to talk to me, to arrange to come to the synagogue or to invite me to speak somewhere, and any question is on the table, no matter how potentially offensive.

And some of us have to take the final step of the Mishnah, the argument that the Sages make against Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah -- that these stories have to impel us toward messianic days.

I ask myself -- when communities and churches were attacked in other places, why have I and why have we not responded with the kind of concern and love that others have shown to us this week? Where were our songs, our flowers, our offers of food? And truthfully, have we even been there this way when Israelis have been victims of terror?

And I remind us: that as tenacious as anti-Semitism and white supremcism have been, they are at least easy to denounce. But doing so does nothing about even more tenacious problems of poverty, suffering, and injustice in our society. Those can’t be solved by humanizing the other -- that just gets us, barely, to the starting line.

I do not want to feel old and spent, before I understand all of this.

If I am going to be old about these things, I want to be old like one of our oldest members. Where is Shirley?

Shirley is our fourth oldest member -- born in Europe, a person who knows what that world was that she and her family had to leave. She is 94.

When we had our service on Monday evening, with about 100 people, what Shirley wanted to say into the microphone most of all was this: that in the first day, the Muslim community in Pittsburgh took the initiative to raise tens of thousands of dollars to help the Jewish community. This is the same Shirley, who feels every act of anti-Semitism in the world, and every small bigoted insult about Jews where in the complex where she lives, piercing her inside.

I called her over after the service and remarked on that -- that you Shirley contain in yourself the most finely tuned sensitivity and worry about our place in the world as Jews, and also the ability to see generosity and support and possibility in that same world.

Shirley can tell you that this is a difficult place to live, almost unbearable. But that is precisely where we need to be. That’s the message of the Mishnah about Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, Ben Zoma, and the Sages. I say, let’s be old like our 94-year-old Shirley, and let’s be young like our newest mitzvah-people, like Lexi and all you B’not and B’nai Mitzvah. You young people already have a head start on these challenges of this world. Pull us with you back toward the idealism we need.

This week we have mourned, and we have looked at the darkness, but we can also tell a story of light, and even see to bringing our world toward messianic days. I will not let the gunman or the supremacists take my faith in America from me. I will be ever grateful for all of you here, for those who are with us, and for those who inspire us.

We will talk more and make plans. Anti-Semitism and white supremacism are violent, and they are largely built on words -- words that trick and deceive, words that bully, words on the web and words between people. We will fight it and we will defeat it with our own words -- words that love, words that encourage, words between people and even words on the web. Words that describe the real world and words that describe the world we dream of.

May God and may this gathering of ours bring some comfort to all those mourning those were killed in Pittsburgh, and may our lives make their memories a blessing.

Shabbat Shalom.

The Elul Love Your Neighbor Study Challenge

Dear Friends:

This Shabbat is the first day of Rosh Chodesh Elul, the new moon marking one month before Rosh Hashanah. I want to invite all of you into a challenge with me: the Elul Love Your Neighbor Study Challenge.

Part of the process of teshuvah (returning, redirecting ourselves) is studying what the Torah says about relationships between people and our responsibilities in the world. One of the unique ways the Jewish community can reshape the world in the new year is by bringing into action our teachings about compassion and justice.
 
What better way to start doing both of those things than to study this month a verse that is at the literal center of the Torah: וְאָהַבְתָּ לְרֵעֲךָ כָּמוֹךָ V’ahavta l’ray’acha kamocha “Love your neighbor as yourself”
 
The tradition of Jewish commentary on this phrase, each word within it, and its context in the Torah make clear that this is not some vague and gooey teaching. Rather, it opens up a set of challenges and questions that we have to figure out how to apply in our personal lives and as citizens.
 
The challenge:
I would like to study this verse during the month of Elul, between now and Rosh Hashanah, with at least 75 people. I hope many will be people who don’t already usually study Torah.
 
When and How:
If you are interested in hosting a study salon at your home, or setting up some study time with me for yourself or a small group at the synagogue or another place, contact me as soon as possible! Or, come to one of these ready-made opportunities:
 
Love Your Neighbor Café (coffee, tea, etc are on me!)
Thursday, Aug. 16 10:00-11:00 a.m. A&E Coffee Roasters, 135 Rte 101A, Amherst
Friday, Aug. 17 10:30-11:30 a.m. Buckley’s Bakery and Café, 436 Daniel Webster Hwy, Merrimack
Wednesday, Aug. 22 1:00-2:00 p.m. The Village Bean, 33 Indian Rock Rd (Rte 111), Windham
Tuesday, Aug. 28 11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. Riverwalk Café, 35 Railroad Square, Nashua
 
Lunch Hour Torah – call in or participate by video through the web
12:00-1:00 p.m. Aug. 14, 22, or 30
Just click https://zoom.us/j/5530075723 or call (929) 436-2866 or (669) 900 6833, use meeting ID 553 007 5723

Beit Midrash In-Depth Study Session – 2 Hours of Torah (With Snacks)
6:30-8:30 p.m. Thursday, August 16 and Tuesday, August 28
at Temple Beth Abraham (20 minute interlude for minyan at 7:30 p.m.)
 
I hope this sparks many conversations. I know I will learn a lot through this learning together, about ethics and relationships and even politics, and we will figure out ways to share what we learn. I'll post updates on how far we are toward the surface goal of the challenge, and include a small taste of the topic in my regular Elul e-blasts.

May this be a step toward a Shana Tova Umetukah, a good and sweet New Year!

Shabbat Shalom and Chodesh Tov, a good new month,
Rabbi Jon

Forward This to Your Rabbi or Pastor

There are a lot of important things happening in the real world this week. Still, you should forward the following to whoever delivers sermons in your place of worship, whatever their title and whatever scripture they preach about.

It's a scene from the West Wing TV show, and it's a withering critique of sermons. I post this in a spirit of self-flagellation, for the many times I have been what President Bartlet calls a "hack", not living up to the gift of a willing audience every week in the synagogue.

Thanks as always to Joshua Malina and Hrishikesh Hirway for their podcast, The West Wing Weekly. This week they discussed the episode of which this scene is a part. The whole episode, of the show and of their podcast, is amazing.

 

Copied from http://www.westwingtranscripts.com/search.php?flag=getTranscript&id=50:

The doors open. Bartlet and Abbey walk inside.

CHARLIE
Good afternoon.

ABBEY
Hi, Charlie.

CHARLIE
How was church?

BARTLET
[mumbles] It sucked.

ABBEY
It was fine. [to Bartlet] Stop it!

BARTLET
It sucked!

ABBEY
[sighs] You're talking about church.

BARTLET
Oh, like I'm not already going to hell.

CHARLIE
[follows them a pace behind] What was the problem?

ABBEY
He feels the homily lacked penache.

BARTLET
It did lack penache.

ABBEY
It was a perfectly lovely homily on Ephesians 5:21. "Husbands, love your
wives, as Christ
loved the church and gave himself up for her."

BARTLET
Yeah. She's skipping over the part that says, "Wives, be subject to your
husbands as to
the Lord, for a husband is the head of a wife as Christ is the head of the
church."

ABBEY
I do skip over that part.

BARTLET
Why?

ABBEY
Because it's stupid!

They walk in THE OVAL OFFICE.

BARTLET
Okay.

ABBEY
"Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up
for her, that
he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by washing of water with the word
that he
might present the Church to himself in..." something.

BARTLET
[behind his desk, puts on glasses] "In splendor." And I have no problem with
Ephesians.
And any time you want me to cleanse you with the washing of water, you know
I'm up for it.

ABBEY
Then what is your problem?

BARTLET
Hackery!

Abbey waves her arms at him and walks out to the PORTICO. Bartlet follows.

BARTLET
This guy was a hack! He had a captive audience! And the way I know that is
that I tried
to tunnel out of there several times. He had an audience and he didn't know
what to do
with it.

ABBEY
You want him to sing "Volare?"

BARTLET
Couldn't have hurt. Words...

ABBEY
Oh, God, no.

BARTLET
Words, when spoken out loud for the sake of performance, are music. They
have rhythm,
and pitch, and timbre, and volume. These are the properties of music, and
music has the
ability to find us and move us, and lift us up in ways that literal meanings
can't. Do
you see?

ABBEY
You are an oratorical snob.

BARTLET
Yes, I am. And God loves me for it.

They stop and face each other.

ABBEY
You said he was sending you to hell.

BARTLET
For other stuff, not for this. You can't just trod out Ephesians, which he
blew, by the
way, it has nothing with husbands and wives, it's all of us. Saint Paul
begins the
passage: "Be subject to one another out of reverence to Christ." [passionately]
"Be
subject to one another." In this day and age of 24-hour cable crap, devoted
to feeding
the voyeuristic gluttony of the American public, hooked on a bad soap opera
that's
passing itself off as important, don't you think you might be able to find
some relevance
in verse 21? How do end the cycle? Be subject to one another!

ABBEY
So... This is about you.

BARTLET
No, it's not about me! Well, yes, it is about me, but tomorrow it'll be
about somebody
else. We'll watch Larry King and see who. [shouts] All hacks, off the
stage! Right now!
That's a national security order.

 

Torah Reflection on Truth and Peace as of Right after Thanksgiving

I just wanted to get on record some reflections on what it's like as a rabbi and leader right now, a snapshot in time.

I have spoken previously about the prophetic verse Ha-emet v'ha-shalom ehavu -- "Love truth and peace." In the Talmud, the verse is quoted in the course of an exploration of a debate between the School of Hillel and the School of Shammai. They had some major, nontheoretical and nontrivial disagreements about the laws of marriage. And yet they allowed their children to marry each other. After trying without success to imagine scenarios when the disagreements didn't matter, the Talmud says that both schools of thoughts were loving both truth and peace. Yet they remain in tension, or at least in some cases truth seems to take a backseat.

I have certainly been living this tension for the past month. I am spending time, deliberately, with people who voted both for President-Elect Trump and Secretary Clinton. (The Talmud says that the School of Hillel is followed because they mention their opponents' arguments and positions before their own. That's why I am making it a habit to refer to the president-elect first.) I am trying, without straying from the truth about bigotries and sexism, to be a bridge of peace. It is not easy, but I am committed to it.

In the Torah this week, Rivka experiences twins fighting in her belly. She says, "If so, why is this that I am?" and goes to explore the issue with God. God tells her, "two peoples are in your belly, and two nations from your innards will separate." I read Rivka's question to be -- what is the meaning of "I", the unity of myself, my integrity, in a situation where two opposing forces are jousting, and they are both so connected to me that I feel the struggle in my body?

I have felt most days since Election Day this tension in my body. I seek not to lose my integrity, my I-ness, even as I listen carefully to the two or more perspectives that are vying with great energy.

I am grateful to the many congregants who have talked to me individually, in my office and on the phone and in coffee shops, and to the groups who have gathered with me too and let me structure some conversations. More to come. I will shortly post on a separate page a number of resources and ideas, to work against hate and division.

Three Things I Did As Soon As I Got To The Office

I made three phone calls this morning, in an attempt to do something to head off the hate crimes and discriminatory actions suggested by people connected to the incoming Trump administration, to call for the un-appointment of Stephen Bannon, and to show some solidarity with the local Muslim community.

I called and left messages for:

• the Islamic Society of Greater Nashua -- (603) 786-7586
• Rabbi Haskel Lookstein of Kehillath Jeshurun in Manhattan, who is Ivanka Trump's rabbi -- (212) 774-5650
• the Republican Jewish Coalition -- (202) 638-6688

The more such calls the better. Phone calls are better than e-mails if you can. You'll find the words.

An Open Letter to Speaker Paul Ryan

This is a letter that I am mailing and publishing, prompted by the appointment of Stephen Bannon as chief strategist for President-Elect Trump. It reflects my personal political perspective and my own read on what Mr. Bannon represents, which overlap but are not the same as many of my friends and readers. I will also be sending a version of this to other officials, Ms. Ivanka Trump, and Mr. Jared Kushner.

An Open Letter to Speaker of the House Paul Ryan

Dear Speaker Ryan:

I write you as an independent voter from New Hampshire, a religious person, a Jew, and a rabbi.

First of all, congratulations on your re-election to Congress, and your selection once again as Speaker of the House. Thank you for your service to this country. My hopes are with you, your colleagues on Capitol Hill, and President-Elect Trump, that you will all conduct the business of government in a way that addresses our overarching needs, restores the most vulnerable to the center of our community, and brings us honor in our own eyes and in eyes of the world.

This letter is prompted by the appointment of Stephen Bannon as chief strategist in President-Elect Trump's White House. I am asking you, as the respected leader of your party in Congress, to call on the President-Elect to rescind this appointment.

I can't know whether all the views often expressed through Breitbart News are Mr. Bannon's own or not, or those of the President-Elect or not. It's enough to know that Mr. Bannon has proudly taken on the role of giving a megaphone to hate groups, and his prominence has emboldened such groups to attack and harm other people with impunity. People I know and care about are afraid in ways I have never seen before. Mr. Bannon's appointment is a disgrace to our country and the office of the President. I hope you will do everything you can to reverse it.

I am writing you more broadly as someone who has had hopes about the direction of the Republican Party that you, Speaker Ryan, have been sketching out over the past few years. As a religious person and a Jew, I have committed myself to make Torah the measure of my political allegiance, and not vice versa. I know that you, like me, have been engaged by the social teachings of your religious tradition. I am in other words one of your potential followers.

One reason I am not a registered Democrat is that I believe our social welfare policies often settle for approaches that separate and stigmatize people in need, and do not build enduring relationships of partnership and dignity – true equality. Whenever I vote for Democrats, I do so to try to make sure that there is funding so that people are not punished for being poor, do not starve or go without basic medical care. But I have been hoping that you in particular would flesh out and explain a more robust version of your own health care and anti-poverty plans.

Many of us are looking to you as the national leader who can present a new option for us to consider -- combining a vision of an inclusive American community, conservative economic principles, and strategies that address the specific obstacles that the most vulnerable among us face. Real plans backed by sufficient resources, designed to lift up individuals and make possible a true community that spans socioeconomic class.

In this past election year I was open during the New Hampshire primary to any candidate in either party who had such a vision of justice through community. I took every last moment to decide which party's primary to vote in and which candidate to support.

What I am telling you is that if your party follows through with an alliance with or a tolerance of hate at the highest levels, then you will forfeit your claim on my attention or the attention of people like me. It will be harder, and sometimes impossible, for you to ask me to take a careful look at your proposals, as against those of the Democrats which, despite their flaws, fund a certain level of services and care. You won't be able to ask me to trust your compassion overall, if you institutionalize voices and forces of bigotry and abuse at the highest levels of your party's power.

Now is the time for you to present your case. But you will have to make clear who you are, Speaker Ryan, and who you want your party to be and what you want this country to be.

There's nothing you can do to prevent people like Stephen Bannon and his alt-right followers from hanging on with your party. I don't hold you to that standard. But you can certainly avoid installing them in positions of power. And you can do more than react to statements of bigotry, which you have often done during this past year to your great credit. You can get out front and proclaim a vision of conservatism that begins with: We are all of us Americans. You can, with each new proposal you make, make a point of explaining to us how it will bring us all together. There is no easier start than to make clear that Stephen Bannon has a right to free speech and freedom of the press, but he does not belong in the Republican White House.

Our own community of Nashua, New Hampshire, has many people trying to model the country as it should be. In September, in the middle of the contentious national election, our Board of Aldermen debated and approved a proposal to make Nashua an official “welcoming city”, in support of the work that is being done here by a wide coalition to welcome and integrate immigrants and people of different backgrounds.

Just watching the parade of speakers and supporters was an incredible cause for hope, on our small scale. The Democratic mayor and the Republican head of the Chamber of Commerce. The Chief of Police, who talked about work being done with communities of different colors – and a black man who told of nearly being beaten when he tried to register to vote down south in the 1950s. Two refugees, speaking in their brand-new, incomplete English. Ministers, social workers, educators, community organizers.

As a local leader, I am committed to that kind of work and coalition building. I am attaching for you a sermon about faith and politics, liberalism and conservatism, that I gave a year ago on Yom Kippur. I think it will speak to your mind and your heart.

Thank you for your time and consideration. May you find guidance and strength through the One Whose life-giving energy and wisdom flows through all.

 

L'shalom – Toward Peace and Wholeness,

Rabbi Jonathan Spira-Savett

Nashua, New Hampshire

 

Starting Over: What Is the Torah?

What is the Torah? This week we start reading it from the beginning on Shabbat. We usually think about the Torah one story at a time, or one teaching at a time. What is the Torah when we zoom back? If you've got seven and a half minutes to listen, here are some thoughts on the Torah as a whole:

Rabbi Jon's 7-1/2 minute overview of the Torah

Yom Kippur Sermon and Sukkot

I've posted my Yom Kippur sermon, a reflection related to the election year and my previous post. Also I have some material on the site here related to Sukkot, the festival that begins Sunday night. Chag Sameach!

What We Bring to High Holy Day Services

For most of my life, I spent Rosh Hashanah in small congregations. Sometimes about thirty people, other times maybe one hundred. These past few years at Beth Abraham, I am inspired when I look out and see several hundred people, together in the middle of the week.

In a world that pushes us so often to value superficial things – you take the time for the High Holy Days. In an era when people often skimp on the time it takes to reflect on our lives and our relationships – you take time on a workday to be at the synagogue.

Our High Holy Day services are much more than a script in a book and traditional melodies. Each of us – the rabbi, the cantors, each individual, and the community – has to bring something.

For me, the most important thing I bring is a conviction that these holy days matter. I couldn't lead us if I didn't believe that these days can transform us. I guide our services from the idea that everyone is ready for something. To be supported in a decision or direction, or to think hard about one. To be challenged about an aspect of life, or to learn an idea or a tool to heal a relationship.

From those beliefs flow a number of things. One is what in Hebrew is called kavvanah – a focus on the service and on all of you, no matter where you are sitting. Then there are the words I add to what is written in the book. There are printed materials, with explanations and questions. I pause the service periodically for a brief centering thought. I deliver a talk each morning on a theme I believe is important to our lives and our community.

You have to bring something as well. The most important thing is your own seriousness about the meaning of these days. Even though the cantors and I lead from the front, we don't alone carry the service. When people are not just going through the motions, it is palpable in our Sanctuary. You can feel it, you can hear it sometimes in our blended voices.

The energy of a group, all committed to reflection and growth, gives each of us more encouragement. None of us can learn or probe our lives on our own. We help each other when we are individually committed to the purpose of the High Holy Days. And I urge you, as well, to take some time to bring your attention outside yourself. Think about people near you, and far from you in our space. Offer a prayer of some kind that others, too, may find healing, comfort, and direction in the new year.

It helps to come to services prepared. The cantors and I prepare, both by going over the service and by thinking about our own lives. So too, you should prepare. The days and weeks leading to the Rosh Hashanah are times for cheshbon ha-nefesh, which means “soul-accounting” or self-reflection.

And you can prepare by orienting yourself to the prayer service. Further in the bulletin and also on our website is a brief explanatory outline of the flow of the service. Our synagogue's more detailed printed booklet is available online at rabbijon.com/high-holidays.html. It contains my explanations of each part of the services for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The booklet also has some thoughts on prayer and theology, which I wrote especially for those who struggle with belief in God or the purpose of prayer.

People assume that I am very busy getting ready for the High Holy Days. While I devote time to preparing for services, my time is always first and foremost for you. Call me or come by, to ask questions or for a conversation about the things on your mind this time of year. I will never be too busy for you.

I wish you all a Shana Tova U'metuka, a good and sweet year,
Rabbi Jon

Parashat Korach -- Docent, Cheerleader, Coach...Rabbi

Parashat Korach opens with a challenge to Moshe and Aharon, led by a Levite named Korach.  "You have gone too far! For all the community are holy, all of them, and the Lord is in their midst. Why then do you raise yourselves above the congregation of Adonai?"

On the face of it, the argument is pure politics.  It's about power and access (to God).

But in the midrash, Korach's challenge is described differently.  Korach is identified as a great sage!  But he has an interesting relationship with his own "rabbi", namely Moshe.  So for instance, Moshe teaches the community the concept of tzitzit.  On the corners of each garment, the Jews are to put fringes, and one thread is to be a particular kind of blue.  The tzitzit, Torah explains, are supposed to serve as a reminder to follow God rather than the temptations of the eyes.  (The blue thread eventually went out of practice because the dye was too expensive and it would have been out of reach of the average Jew.)

Upon learning the concept, Korach comes to Moshe and asks:  How about a tallit that is already entirely blue?  Wouldn't that be exempt from the requirement of tzitzit?  How about four threads with the special blue somewhere in the tallit?  Would that be good enough?

This gets Korach thinking.  From the last paragraph of the Shma to the first -- mezuzah.   A couple short passages from Torah at the entrance of my house.  Korach asks Moshe:  Suppose I have a house full of sacred books.  Would I really need a mezuzah on my front door?  How about if I keep a whole Torah scroll in there?  Surely that's at least as good as a little box with two little sections of Torah crammed in.

This midrash recasts the argument that begins the Torah reading.  It's about who gets to say what Torah means, what God's instructions are all about.  Does the rabbi or the religious leadership have a monopoly on that?  Doesn't the student or community member have a voice in how to apply Torah in her life?

I've been thinking about this midrash this week in light of my first anniversary next week with Temple Beth Abraham.  How should Torah be shared between a rabbi and a congregation?

I give Korach his due.  He is enthusiastic and wants to be empowered.  He goes past the level of mere obedience, toward real understanding.  He relates to the commandments in depth, in terms of their concepts and reasons.  Those are what Korach finds meaningful.  When he finds that meaning, Korach wants to go the extra mile to apply the concepts in his life.  He's ready to adapt Jewish ritual creatively if the traditions don't do it for him as received.

From this rabbi's perspective, that sounds like an ideal Jew!

According to the Torah, Moshe doesn't reject Korach's approach right away.  He falls on his face -- in awe, I would say, of Korach's commitment and the sense of holiness that he expresses.

It's true that Moshe is about halacha, the standard way of translating Jewish values into life.  But he's thinking about how to respond.

Korach reads Moshe's momentary silence differently.  As a lack of responsiveness.  So he immediately makes Moshe (and Aharon) the issue and attacks them, and it ends up being about egos rather than Torah.  Instead of creative tension -- between halacha and personal expression -- there is personal tension and conflict.  Their relationship devolves and dissolves, tragically.  To say the least -- Korach gets swallowed up by the earth.

From my reflections on this episode, I take away a few things about my role as a rabbi.

• One is to value and cheer Jewish commitment on the part of others, in any form.  My own example and choices will be traditional.  Shabbat, prayer, kashrut, holidays (not to mention Torah study and acts of chesed).  But that doesn't prevent me from being responsive when someone comes, like Korach in the midrash, with a different Jewish take on an idea or a practice.  I'm far more worried about Jewish apathy.  If someone has a different idea about prayer or Shabbat, for instance, I'm excited that they want to share it.  I'm eager to talk about how you would integrate that into your life, or how we could explore it in the shul.

• One important role I have is to be a docent of Jewish experiences and teachings.  I heard this metaphor at a conference and I love it.  Judaism has always been a vast gallery (not a museum!).  A docent makes selections.  What to present from among the infinite beauties of the collection.  So through my sermons, the courses I choose to teach, the links I post, etc. I can point you where I think there is something particularly valuable for you to think about or do.  Korach could think his thoughts about mezuzah and tzitzit because Moshe pointed those areas out, showed him where to look and find riches.

• In educational work, the phrase is "be a guide on the side, not (only) a sage on the stage."  A guide or coach is accepting, supporting, encouraging, empowering.  Also challenging and questioning, in the context of a real relationship.  Korach came with ideas, but didn't let Moshe come back with questions.  "Life coach" sounds a bit grandiose.  "Personal Jewish trainer", some call it.  I hope my teaching, on the stage or in smaller settings, is not only informative but helps you grow.

• Finally, it's not about me, it's about Torah and mitzvot.  Korach and Moshe ended up locked in a battle of egos, and no good can come of that.  In the end what I do is measured entirely by the mitzvot we collectively perform as a community.  Whatever I contribute to that, however I can, that's what matters.

As I write, I see that I have defined some guidance not only for a rabbi, but a congregant as well.  For the readers in and around Temple Beth Abraham, thank you for a good year.  May we learn and do much together in the year that's beginning.