Truth be told: I never got into wrestling. It was just never for me. No disrespect to those of you who did or perhaps still do. I had friends growing up who would come into school on Tuesday chomping at the bit to unpack all the drama of Monday Night Raw. A close friend of my brother’s would always play Jeopardy on the computer with us using the name Ric Flair. And my cousin David, as a little boy, would refer to his younger brother Jacob as Jake the Snake, while adoring, as he would say it, “Bwutus the Barber Beefcake.”
So I get it. I get the appeal as kind of a soap opera for men and boys. But it’s not for me.
The one time a year where I get into wrestling is this week. It’s this week on the Jewish calendar where we read one of the most well-known passages in all of Torah, in Parashat Vayishlach. It has been twenty years since Jacob last saw his twin brother Esau, when Jacob and his mother Rebekah conspired to steal from Esau the innermost blessing of their father Isaac. Not the first time Jacob increases his gains at his brother’s expense, Esau is a crushed and broken man, who vows to kill Jacob once their father dies.
And now, it is the night before the brothers are to see each other for the first time since that fateful day twenty years earlier. They each have brought with them all of their families, all of their servants, all of their soldiers, all of their sheep and cattle and belongings. Uncertain of Esau’s intentions, of whether he still bears on his shoulders the weight of that terrible, yet justifiable grudge, Jacob lays down to sleep by himself near the Jabbok River. But he doesn’t sleep much. Instead, we read that “a man wrestled with him until the rise of dawn.” Talk about a steel cage match; Monday Night Raw is only three hours! And it would have gone on even longer. The man says to Jacob, “Let me go, for dawn is breaking.” But Jacob refuses, saying, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” Learning Jacob’s name, the man says, “No more shall you be called Jacob, but Yisrael, Israel, for you have struggled with God and with human beings, and you have prevailed.”
This is it. This is the moment where we, as the Jewish people, get our name. We are bnei Yisrael, the children of Israel. The land promised to our ancestors as a holy land, a land flowing with milk and honey, is Eretz Yisrael, the land of Israel. And, of course, the modern Jewish state on that land, M’dinat Yisrael, takes its name from this story as well.
So you can imagine how recent events in that part of the world have added new layers to this powerful, seminal moment from our Torah. In the three weeks since we last gathered together, the government of Israel decided enough was enough, that 12 years and more than 12,000 long-range rockets fired upon its citizens, upon its men, women, and children, could no longer be tolerated. And so Israel launched Operation Pillar of Defense, a series of intricate military strikes on the storehouses of Hamas’s weapons and ammunition, as well as those masterminding and executing these terror attacks on Israeli civilians.
On the one hand, let me say this: I fully and completely support Israel’s right to defend herself and her citizens, just as I would support that same right for any nation of the world. If right now, here in New York City, we were being assailed by dozens of rockets fired from a specific location we knew, by people we had identified as terrorists bent on our destruction, do you think people here would simply turn the other cheek and let it go for 12 days, let alone 12 years? Not a chance. Imagine several times a week hearing sirens go off in your town, disrupting your attempts at making a living, your children’s schooling, your infants’ daycare, allowing you and your family, in some places, just 15 seconds to get to the nearest shelter. Imagine the onset of facial twitches and tics caused by the blare of those sirens, a post-traumatic stress disorder that never goes away because of each day’s fresh trauma, teenagers who wet their beds because over a decade of fleeing rocket attacks to a shelter has so stunted their growth that they are developmentally equivalent to toddlers. Would you want your government to sit back and do nothing beyond just hoping and praying that, somehow, it all just blows over? No. Way. Yet, in a display of astounding hypocrisy, that is exactly what so much of the world expects Israel to do. And by the way, it should be noted that Israelis, famous for not being able to agree on much of anything, were overwhelmingly in favor of this operation, to the tune of almost 90 percent.
On the other hand, there is the ever-important question underlying it all: will this help Israel make peace? Is this, in the long run, the right move? Or is the current pattern of rockets-rockets-IDF operation-cease-fire one that will beleaguer Israelis and Palestinians for years to come? After all, as my favorite music group says, “If you can heal the symptoms, but not affect the cause, you can’t heal the symptoms.” Is Israel trying to heal the symptoms without going to the heart of the issue? Will anything really be accomplished if we can’t move beyond the status quo? How can there be progress while fingers are endlessly pointed, where each side paints the other as unwilling to negotiate at best and the spawn of evil at worst?
The answer? I don’t know. But perhaps the first Israel can help us out. See, the Rabbis wanted to know, like we do: just who is this man who wrestles with Jacob? Is it some sort of messenger of God? Is it the guardian angel of Esau? Esau himself? Maybe Jacob’s entreaty to be blessed hints that it’s his father Isaac, from whom he stole the blessing meant for Esau. Maybe it’s a dream in which he grapples with all of these ghosts of his checkered past conflated into one daunting opponent.
But what I believe, what I see when I read this text, is that the man with whom Jacob struggles so passionately is none other than Jacob himself. At this crossroads of his life, both figuratively and literally, Jacob is blessed with the opportunity to reflect upon his life until now, to put himself and his deeds on trial, so to speak. His wrestling is a coming to terms with the motivations behind and the results of his actions—good, bad, and everything in between. It’s an honest and thorough evaluation of who he’s been, who he is, and who he hopes to be, in which everything is on the table and nothing is hidden away. And while he comes away physically injured, walking with a limp, we read in the verses immediately following the beautiful reunion with Esau that Jacob arrived in Shechem, the next city of his journey, shalem—whole, intact, complete, and at peace.
And so I pray that it is for us: for the State of Israel and her people to struggle amongst themselves and with their neighbors to eventually achieve a true and lasting peace. But also for all of us, all of b’nei Yisrael, the children of Israel, to learn from our shared namesake, and remember, no matter how vehemently we may disagree on the paths to peace, no matter how heated our debates and arguments may be, that it stems from the passion and fervor and love for Israel that we all share, that common bond we all feel to the depths of our hearts and souls. And I pray that, like Jacob becoming Israel, each of us, all of us, will be strengthened by the struggle, within and without, so that we arrive at our destination shalem—whole, intact, and at peace, with ourselves, with our community, and with our neighbors.
AMEN.
Friday, November 30, 2012
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Supplication for Days of War
In light of the current situation of Israel and Gaza, I wanted to share these beautiful words of prayer composed by an Israeli colleague.
"A Supplication (Tachanun) for Days of War"
By Rabbi Yoram Mazur
Our God, Who blessed our Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and our Matriarchs, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah, bless the soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces and all those defenders of our people who stand on guard. Protect them and save them from all distress and anguish and grant blessing upon all the deeds of their hands. Hear our prayer and their prayer and save them.
Send Your blessing upon Your people, Lord of all worlds, to concerned mothers and pained fathers, to citizens who are banished from their homes and to children who have ceased their play. Show Your compassion for the sake of schoolchildren who sit in bomb shelters. Please remember us favorably, grant us Your salvation, and offer us Your mercy, for in You we trust.
Please, merciful God, set Your mercy upon us, and remember Your covenant, with Abraham our father, Your beloved. Spread Your shelter of peace upon the seed of Ishmael the son of Hagar and upon the children of Isaac the son of Sarah, and may the prophecy inspired by the verses in Zechariah 8:12-13, ‘But what shall be sown will prosper – The vine shall produce its fruit, the ground shall produce its yield, and the skies shall provide their moisture. I will bestow all these things upon all of them … and you shall become a blessing, have no fear,' be established for them and for us, and let us say, Amen.
"A Supplication (Tachanun) for Days of War"
By Rabbi Yoram Mazur
Our God, Who blessed our Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and our Matriarchs, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah, bless the soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces and all those defenders of our people who stand on guard. Protect them and save them from all distress and anguish and grant blessing upon all the deeds of their hands. Hear our prayer and their prayer and save them.
Send Your blessing upon Your people, Lord of all worlds, to concerned mothers and pained fathers, to citizens who are banished from their homes and to children who have ceased their play. Show Your compassion for the sake of schoolchildren who sit in bomb shelters. Please remember us favorably, grant us Your salvation, and offer us Your mercy, for in You we trust.
Please, merciful God, set Your mercy upon us, and remember Your covenant, with Abraham our father, Your beloved. Spread Your shelter of peace upon the seed of Ishmael the son of Hagar and upon the children of Isaac the son of Sarah, and may the prophecy inspired by the verses in Zechariah 8:12-13, ‘But what shall be sown will prosper – The vine shall produce its fruit, the ground shall produce its yield, and the skies shall provide their moisture. I will bestow all these things upon all of them … and you shall become a blessing, have no fear,' be established for them and for us, and let us say, Amen.
Friday, June 8, 2012
Getting Racy - B'ha'alot'cha 5772
C. It’s for “cookie.” It’s good enough for me.
Ok. It’s not just “good enough.” It’s good. I love me some cookies. Not sure who these people are who think there’s a point beyond which we’re too old for milk and cookies before bed. But whoever they are, they’re wrong. And when I channel my inner Cookie Monster, my favorites, without a doubt, are Oreos and black-and-white cookies. When I eat an Oreo, I’m not one to twist it open or anything like that; the perfection of the Oreo lies in it being so much greater than the sum of its parts, so why mess with that? And yet, when it comes to black-and-white cookies, I choose, like the Offspring, to “keep ‘em separated.” Since I prefer the white side to the black, I eat the black first, and enjoy the white side last.
So does that make me a racist? Maybe. Maybe how I eat an Oreo represents a forward-thinking, melting-pot-esque, integrationist perspective, while the way I eat a black-and-white cookie renders me more Strom Thurmond than Rabbi Strom. I don’t know. But I do know that I spent a lot less time this week wondering if I’m a white-icing supremacist, and a lot more time struggling with the ugliness of real racism.
And where was I first confronted with it? In the Times? The Nightly News with Brian Williams? Did I catch The Help on Netflix or Driving Miss Daisy on cable? No. Try the Torah. Try Miriam. Try Aaron.
You see, tucked away at the end of B’ha’alot’cha, this week’s parashah, is an episode many of us choose to look past. Overcome with jealousy for their brother Moses, none other than Miriam and Aaron themselves start talking some serious smack, writing checks with their mouths that their prophetic skills can’t cash. They “spoke against Moses,” we read, “because of the Cushite woman he had married, [exclaiming], ‘He married a Cushite woman!’” For speaking out, Miriam is stricken with snow-white scales on her flesh, until Moses intercedes, praying, El na r’fa na la, “O God, pray heal her.”
As the Cushites were dark-skinned Africans, likely from the area now known as Sudan, what we have here, it seems to me and many others, is unabashed bigotry. The scales on Miriam’s skin, then, are symbolic of a much deeper affliction: that of racism.
You might think I’m taking the Torah verses out of context, or stretching them to fit my message here. I’m not. And the proof, unfortunately, lies in Israeli culture today. The same word used derogatively right here in our parasha is exactly the same word used in modern Hebrew as a racial epithet towards immigrants and refugees to Israel from Sudan, Ethiopia, and Eritrea. So Miriam and Aaron may as well have called her the n-word, because for all intents and purposes, that’s exactly what they did.
And you think we would have learned by now. You’d have hoped things have changed over, say, a few thousand years. But if you’ve been watching what’s been going on in Israel the last couple of weeks, you know that it hasn’t. Not much at least. As the tensions have been rising for years between long-time residents of the poorer neighborhoods of Tel Aviv and the clustering of refugees in those same neighborhoods, racism continues to rear its ugly head once again. A demonstration from a few weeks ago turned violent, the huddled masses incited by politicians and speakers, including but not limited to Knesset member Miri Regev calling the refugees “a cancer in our body.” The result of the demonstration? A mob that smashed windows and attacked bystanders. And it’s still going on right now. Earlier this week three African refugees were hospitalized after their apartment was torched, leaving the words “Get out of the neighborhood” graffiti’d on the door.
This isn’t Germany or England. This isn’t the former Soviet Union. This isn’t Iran or Pakistan. This is Israel. The democracy of the Middle East, the beacon of hope for a troubled region. This is Tel Aviv, the modern, progressive, vibrant symbol of Israeli life. Instead, "appalling," "horrendous," and "terrifying" are the words that come to mind.
But perhaps we are throwing stones across the world from our American glass houses. After all, we are still reeling from the shooting of Trayvon Martin just a few short months ago. Though the story of what actually happened remains unclear to date, what is clear is the fragile nerve it touched upon, for so many people on all parts of every sociopolitical spectrum. What is clear is that if our country’s reactions to Martin’s killing were some kind of barometer or litmus test on where we stand in regard to race relations, I'm afraid we failed.
Right here in New York City, we have the NYPD’s controversial “stop-and-frisk” policy, where 84 percent of those stopped were black or Latino, though they comprise 23 and 29 percent of the city population respectively. The NYPD claims the policy keeps weapons off the streets, but as weapons were recovered in only 1 percent of the stops, we have the obligation to ask if something else is at play here.
So what do we do? The honest answer is: I don’t know. But perhaps the beginning of an answer lies in the same section of this week’s Torah portion. Defending Moses to his brother and sister, God says to them, “When prophets of the Eternal arise among you, I make Myself known to them in a vision, I speak with them in a dream. Not so with My servant Moses; he is trusted throughout my household. With him I speak directly, mouth-to-mouth, face-to-face, and he beholds the likeness of the Eternal.”
When we see the person in front of us as a living, breathing person, with hopes and thoughts and dreams all their own, with whom we can speak directly, face-to-face, and not as an image, a vision, something other than a human being, it is then that we can find holiness, a spark of the divine within, in everyone, completely irrespective of the color of their skin. Then, and only then, will we be healed of the affliction of racism, just as Miriam was healed of the scales on her skin.
So I pray:
El na r’fa na lanu. O God, pray, heal us.
AMEN.
Ok. It’s not just “good enough.” It’s good. I love me some cookies. Not sure who these people are who think there’s a point beyond which we’re too old for milk and cookies before bed. But whoever they are, they’re wrong. And when I channel my inner Cookie Monster, my favorites, without a doubt, are Oreos and black-and-white cookies. When I eat an Oreo, I’m not one to twist it open or anything like that; the perfection of the Oreo lies in it being so much greater than the sum of its parts, so why mess with that? And yet, when it comes to black-and-white cookies, I choose, like the Offspring, to “keep ‘em separated.” Since I prefer the white side to the black, I eat the black first, and enjoy the white side last.
So does that make me a racist? Maybe. Maybe how I eat an Oreo represents a forward-thinking, melting-pot-esque, integrationist perspective, while the way I eat a black-and-white cookie renders me more Strom Thurmond than Rabbi Strom. I don’t know. But I do know that I spent a lot less time this week wondering if I’m a white-icing supremacist, and a lot more time struggling with the ugliness of real racism.
And where was I first confronted with it? In the Times? The Nightly News with Brian Williams? Did I catch The Help on Netflix or Driving Miss Daisy on cable? No. Try the Torah. Try Miriam. Try Aaron.
You see, tucked away at the end of B’ha’alot’cha, this week’s parashah, is an episode many of us choose to look past. Overcome with jealousy for their brother Moses, none other than Miriam and Aaron themselves start talking some serious smack, writing checks with their mouths that their prophetic skills can’t cash. They “spoke against Moses,” we read, “because of the Cushite woman he had married, [exclaiming], ‘He married a Cushite woman!’” For speaking out, Miriam is stricken with snow-white scales on her flesh, until Moses intercedes, praying, El na r’fa na la, “O God, pray heal her.”
As the Cushites were dark-skinned Africans, likely from the area now known as Sudan, what we have here, it seems to me and many others, is unabashed bigotry. The scales on Miriam’s skin, then, are symbolic of a much deeper affliction: that of racism.
You might think I’m taking the Torah verses out of context, or stretching them to fit my message here. I’m not. And the proof, unfortunately, lies in Israeli culture today. The same word used derogatively right here in our parasha is exactly the same word used in modern Hebrew as a racial epithet towards immigrants and refugees to Israel from Sudan, Ethiopia, and Eritrea. So Miriam and Aaron may as well have called her the n-word, because for all intents and purposes, that’s exactly what they did.
And you think we would have learned by now. You’d have hoped things have changed over, say, a few thousand years. But if you’ve been watching what’s been going on in Israel the last couple of weeks, you know that it hasn’t. Not much at least. As the tensions have been rising for years between long-time residents of the poorer neighborhoods of Tel Aviv and the clustering of refugees in those same neighborhoods, racism continues to rear its ugly head once again. A demonstration from a few weeks ago turned violent, the huddled masses incited by politicians and speakers, including but not limited to Knesset member Miri Regev calling the refugees “a cancer in our body.” The result of the demonstration? A mob that smashed windows and attacked bystanders. And it’s still going on right now. Earlier this week three African refugees were hospitalized after their apartment was torched, leaving the words “Get out of the neighborhood” graffiti’d on the door.
This isn’t Germany or England. This isn’t the former Soviet Union. This isn’t Iran or Pakistan. This is Israel. The democracy of the Middle East, the beacon of hope for a troubled region. This is Tel Aviv, the modern, progressive, vibrant symbol of Israeli life. Instead, "appalling," "horrendous," and "terrifying" are the words that come to mind.
But perhaps we are throwing stones across the world from our American glass houses. After all, we are still reeling from the shooting of Trayvon Martin just a few short months ago. Though the story of what actually happened remains unclear to date, what is clear is the fragile nerve it touched upon, for so many people on all parts of every sociopolitical spectrum. What is clear is that if our country’s reactions to Martin’s killing were some kind of barometer or litmus test on where we stand in regard to race relations, I'm afraid we failed.
Right here in New York City, we have the NYPD’s controversial “stop-and-frisk” policy, where 84 percent of those stopped were black or Latino, though they comprise 23 and 29 percent of the city population respectively. The NYPD claims the policy keeps weapons off the streets, but as weapons were recovered in only 1 percent of the stops, we have the obligation to ask if something else is at play here.
So what do we do? The honest answer is: I don’t know. But perhaps the beginning of an answer lies in the same section of this week’s Torah portion. Defending Moses to his brother and sister, God says to them, “When prophets of the Eternal arise among you, I make Myself known to them in a vision, I speak with them in a dream. Not so with My servant Moses; he is trusted throughout my household. With him I speak directly, mouth-to-mouth, face-to-face, and he beholds the likeness of the Eternal.”
When we see the person in front of us as a living, breathing person, with hopes and thoughts and dreams all their own, with whom we can speak directly, face-to-face, and not as an image, a vision, something other than a human being, it is then that we can find holiness, a spark of the divine within, in everyone, completely irrespective of the color of their skin. Then, and only then, will we be healed of the affliction of racism, just as Miriam was healed of the scales on her skin.
So I pray:
El na r’fa na lanu. O God, pray, heal us.
AMEN.
Friday, February 24, 2012
Seeing Eye To Eye - T'rumah 5772
You probably don’t know this about me, but I’m basically blind. Probably not legally, but I don’t actually know for sure. Maybe I’m exaggerating slightly. But only slightly. With the possible exception of my father, from whom I clearly got this, I am the most near-sighted person I know. Right now I’m wearing contact lenses that are minus-8.5 and minus-10, while most of the rest of the myopic crowd hovers somewhere between 1 and 3, maybe 4 if it’s really bad. And I hate my glasses. I mean, I hate my glasses. My featherweight lenses, the absolute lightest lens available when I bought them, are still as thick as ice cubes, so that I wonder if they would actually weigh my face down if they were of the normal kind. And whenever I wear them, there’s an insecure part of me that travels right back in time to elementary and middle school, when the typical “four-eyes” and “nerd” and “geek” and all of their mean-spirited relatives were thrown at me with upsetting regularity. I got the gift of contact lenses just before my bar mitzvah and, if you’ll pardon the pun, I haven’t looked back since. I pretty much avoid wearing my glasses in public at all costs. In fact, I’m guessing that virtually no one in this room has ever seen me wearing them. And now you know why.
So you can imagine my mixed reaction when I was reading through the amNY, my free paper of choice, and I came across this article. See, Google will soon be coming out with a special pair of glasses. According to the description, it is essentially an uber-smart-phone device, and the onslaught of information it deems relevant to what you’re looking at will suddenly appear perfectly in your line of vision, perhaps overhead, perhaps on the sidewalk in front of you. Wanna know where the nearest pizza place is and how to get there? Directions, distance, and arrows will magically appear in your lens, and within minutes you’ll be folding up that perfect slice. See a book or a shirt or a pair of jeans you like and you want to compare prices before you buy it there? Miniature screens will open up, as though from the corner of your eye, and you’ll know almost instantly if you should get it there or somewhere else.
I get it. If we’re already doing some or most of these things using our phones, looking down or away from where we probably should be, this would, in theory, cover all of those bases in the periphery, so that we can still walk to where we’re going. And plus, I have to admit, the technology of the whole thing sounds pretty awesome. You think about the changes our grandparents have seen in the way the world works over the course of their lifetime, and then you think about the world our children are being born into, it absolutely boggles the mind.
But there’s a problem here. And it’s a big one.
It’s not technology itself. It’s easy to hurl the blame squarely and entirely on the “evil machines.” Because if that’s the problem, then the answer’s even easier: just turn it all off. Unplug yourself from your electronics. But deep down we know that’s just not true. A recent article in the Atlantic cut right to the heart of the matter, saying that, while we think the solution is to try to divorce ourselves completely from our devices, if only for small pockets of time, that is, at best, an avoidance tactic for the modern world. The peace of mind we may achieve is short-lived and ultimately of little significance because, for better or worse, to be a functioning member of society requires our being plugged in, even when we make the concerted effort on vacation to be “off the grid.” Rather, what we need to do is to focus ourselves, to be purposeful in our use of technology, for the mental welfare of ourselves and our families.
So technology’s not the problem. It’s a matter of what we use those advances for, what we as humanity choose to do with this newfound and seemingly infinite power we’ve discovered. And like with any measure of power, the choices we make with it ultimately reflect back on us as a society.
And I’m no different than anyone else. I won’t lie: I’m a huge fan of my iPhone. One of our friends over for the Super Bowl wonders aloud how old Madonna is or where Tom Brady went to college? I’ll ask Siri. I’m out at a bar and that Gorillaz song comes on but I’m drawing a blank on the actual title, I open Shazam, hold my phone up to the speaker, and seconds later it reminds me that, for whatever reason, the song’s called “Clint Eastwood.” I’m sitting on the couch with Tali, watching television, but trying to stay clued in to what’s “trending,” finding interesting articles, sound bites, or trivia along the way. After all, how do you think I saw that Atlantic article in the first place? I have certain text alerts from ESPN, so as I was at home today, writing this sermon, at 12:56, I get a text saying that Ryan Braun will address the media at 1:00, and that I should tune in to watch. And you know what? I did.
So what does this invention, this pair of GoogleGlasses, say about us?
It says that we, as human beings, are completely insatiable. It says we are information-hungry, to the point of starvation, and it’s all stuff we need to know right now, because pausing to prioritize, would simply be a waste of time. It says our individual curiosity, the random question that pops up in our mind that we can’t immediately let go of, has to be resolved immediately, because it trumps whatever moment, whatever personal connection, is happening, or could be happening at that point in time.
And that’s the problem. Whether it’s iPhones, Blackberrys, Droids, whatever. The issue is that we make them extensions of ourselves, rather than merely incredibly capable and helpful tools. And when we do that, we make it all about ourselves. We see the world through something like Googleglasses, so that the world is a bubble with us and our wants at the center, and everything else—most notably personal connection with other human beings—is tossed aside, x’d out like the distraction of a pop-up advertisement.
In this week’s portion, Parashat T’rumah, the Israelites are given the initial instructions for building the Mishkan, the portable synagogue for the wanderings of the desert, and the first sanctuary in our history. And in what is probably my all-time favorite piece of Torah, we read the details of how the cover of the Ark of the Pact—the front of basically the holiest chamber that has ever existed for the Jewish people—is to be made. God says, “Make one cherub at one end and another cherub at the other end, and have their wings spread out above, shielding the cover. They shall confront each other, both of them face-to-face with the other." They're not looking up, they're not looking out at you. They're looking at each other. "There, from above the cover, from the exact place right between the faces of the cherubim, there will I meet with you.”
Being with each other in the moment, meeting on a deep, intimate level with another person, looking him or her in the eye and feeling that undeniable, almost mystical sense of connection—that, my friends, is the stuff of life. That is why God created us and, ultimately, why we are here in the first place: to use our eyes, to use our glasses, not to further our individual selves, but to look deep and look hard to see what really matters. And that, at the end of the day, is our relationship, our connection, with each other.
AMEN.
So you can imagine my mixed reaction when I was reading through the amNY, my free paper of choice, and I came across this article. See, Google will soon be coming out with a special pair of glasses. According to the description, it is essentially an uber-smart-phone device, and the onslaught of information it deems relevant to what you’re looking at will suddenly appear perfectly in your line of vision, perhaps overhead, perhaps on the sidewalk in front of you. Wanna know where the nearest pizza place is and how to get there? Directions, distance, and arrows will magically appear in your lens, and within minutes you’ll be folding up that perfect slice. See a book or a shirt or a pair of jeans you like and you want to compare prices before you buy it there? Miniature screens will open up, as though from the corner of your eye, and you’ll know almost instantly if you should get it there or somewhere else.
I get it. If we’re already doing some or most of these things using our phones, looking down or away from where we probably should be, this would, in theory, cover all of those bases in the periphery, so that we can still walk to where we’re going. And plus, I have to admit, the technology of the whole thing sounds pretty awesome. You think about the changes our grandparents have seen in the way the world works over the course of their lifetime, and then you think about the world our children are being born into, it absolutely boggles the mind.
But there’s a problem here. And it’s a big one.
It’s not technology itself. It’s easy to hurl the blame squarely and entirely on the “evil machines.” Because if that’s the problem, then the answer’s even easier: just turn it all off. Unplug yourself from your electronics. But deep down we know that’s just not true. A recent article in the Atlantic cut right to the heart of the matter, saying that, while we think the solution is to try to divorce ourselves completely from our devices, if only for small pockets of time, that is, at best, an avoidance tactic for the modern world. The peace of mind we may achieve is short-lived and ultimately of little significance because, for better or worse, to be a functioning member of society requires our being plugged in, even when we make the concerted effort on vacation to be “off the grid.” Rather, what we need to do is to focus ourselves, to be purposeful in our use of technology, for the mental welfare of ourselves and our families.
So technology’s not the problem. It’s a matter of what we use those advances for, what we as humanity choose to do with this newfound and seemingly infinite power we’ve discovered. And like with any measure of power, the choices we make with it ultimately reflect back on us as a society.
And I’m no different than anyone else. I won’t lie: I’m a huge fan of my iPhone. One of our friends over for the Super Bowl wonders aloud how old Madonna is or where Tom Brady went to college? I’ll ask Siri. I’m out at a bar and that Gorillaz song comes on but I’m drawing a blank on the actual title, I open Shazam, hold my phone up to the speaker, and seconds later it reminds me that, for whatever reason, the song’s called “Clint Eastwood.” I’m sitting on the couch with Tali, watching television, but trying to stay clued in to what’s “trending,” finding interesting articles, sound bites, or trivia along the way. After all, how do you think I saw that Atlantic article in the first place? I have certain text alerts from ESPN, so as I was at home today, writing this sermon, at 12:56, I get a text saying that Ryan Braun will address the media at 1:00, and that I should tune in to watch. And you know what? I did.
So what does this invention, this pair of GoogleGlasses, say about us?
It says that we, as human beings, are completely insatiable. It says we are information-hungry, to the point of starvation, and it’s all stuff we need to know right now, because pausing to prioritize, would simply be a waste of time. It says our individual curiosity, the random question that pops up in our mind that we can’t immediately let go of, has to be resolved immediately, because it trumps whatever moment, whatever personal connection, is happening, or could be happening at that point in time.
And that’s the problem. Whether it’s iPhones, Blackberrys, Droids, whatever. The issue is that we make them extensions of ourselves, rather than merely incredibly capable and helpful tools. And when we do that, we make it all about ourselves. We see the world through something like Googleglasses, so that the world is a bubble with us and our wants at the center, and everything else—most notably personal connection with other human beings—is tossed aside, x’d out like the distraction of a pop-up advertisement.
In this week’s portion, Parashat T’rumah, the Israelites are given the initial instructions for building the Mishkan, the portable synagogue for the wanderings of the desert, and the first sanctuary in our history. And in what is probably my all-time favorite piece of Torah, we read the details of how the cover of the Ark of the Pact—the front of basically the holiest chamber that has ever existed for the Jewish people—is to be made. God says, “Make one cherub at one end and another cherub at the other end, and have their wings spread out above, shielding the cover. They shall confront each other, both of them face-to-face with the other." They're not looking up, they're not looking out at you. They're looking at each other. "There, from above the cover, from the exact place right between the faces of the cherubim, there will I meet with you.”
Being with each other in the moment, meeting on a deep, intimate level with another person, looking him or her in the eye and feeling that undeniable, almost mystical sense of connection—that, my friends, is the stuff of life. That is why God created us and, ultimately, why we are here in the first place: to use our eyes, to use our glasses, not to further our individual selves, but to look deep and look hard to see what really matters. And that, at the end of the day, is our relationship, our connection, with each other.
AMEN.
Friday, February 17, 2012
Kicking It Upstairs - Mishpatim 5772
As I was studying this week’s parashah, Mishpatim, I found myself thinking of Christo-phah. Remember Christo-phah? Not Christopher. Christo-phah. If you’re asking, “Christo-phah who?” then the answer’s no, meaning you probably weren’t a big fan of the Sopranos. But in any event, Christo-phah is a wiseguy, a soldier working his way up through the Mafioso crime family headed by his uncle Tony. And as a soldier, slogging his way through the day-to-day operations of the family, Christo-phah has a big problem. He starts to resent the fact that he’s doing so much of the work, yet getting very little of the reward. He is embittered when the capos rack up restaurant and bar tabs in the thousands of dollars and he’s stuck footing the bill. Even knowing that that’s the system, that that’s just how it works, that if and when he makes it up the ladder, he will be on the receiving end of the hierarchy, this awareness does nothing to blunt his resentment. Christo-phah wants the goodies for himself. He doesn’t want to kick it upstairs.
And that’s what they call it: kicking it upstairs. You see it in Godfather, Goodfellas, Donnie Brasco, and the Sopranos. The concept of remembering who came before you, who put in the work and paid their dues to sit where they sit, at the head of the table, and to remember why they’re there in the first place, is not such a bad thing, removed, of course, from the Mafia context. At the end of the day, I’m guessing that a lot of the organizations and businesses in which we work and spend so much of our lives function in a similar manner.
So if that’s true, if that concept makes sense to us with regards to human beings, shouldn’t it be all the more so with God?
The Torah says “yes.” Over and over again. And we find it here, among the many laws and ordinances prescribed in Parashat Mishpatim. In Exodus 22:28 and 29 we read, “You shall not put off the skimming of the first yield of your vats. You shall give Me the male first-born among your children. You shall do the same with your cattle and your flocks; seven days it shall remain with its mother; on the eighth day you shall give it to Me."
While modern scholars may be uncertain as to the execution of this mitzvah, the underlying concept is crystal clear. And that concept is of such significance that it appears, in various permutations, dozens of times throughout the Torah. We might easily dismiss it, throw it on the heap of biblical commandments and constructs we conveniently consider “outdated.” But this one, to be sure, is anything but.
Your first child, first calves of the herd, first lambs of the flock, first fruits and grains of the harvest, even, as we see here, the first yield of your vats—all of it, we kick upstairs. Why? Because it doesn’t matter how hard we’ve worked to farm the land, or take care of the cattle and the sheep; it doesn’t matter how well we did with our report or case or presentation or lesson. Sure, we may have done the work on the ground, on the front lines, so to speak. But who is it that makes all of it possible? Who miraculously created the entire world and everything in it, most especially the extraordinarily talented human being? That’s right: God! Adonai Eloheinu, Ribono shel olam, the Alpha, the Omega, the Master of the Universe, known to some of my rabbinic classmates as Sweet Holy Ha-Shem. And not one kind, important word we say, not one good deed we’ve done for ourselves or others, not one triumphant moment we’ve shared or experienced—absolutely none of it would ever have occurred if it weren’t for God. Even if you call yourself an atheist, or you don’t like using the word “God,” I sincerely doubt that you really take all of the credit for the things you do well, and naturally at that. At least I hope you don’t. Because if you really think about it, those skills and talents that seem to have come from within you, that more often than not simply cannot be taught in a classroom or a seminar, they point to something beyond our physical selves, something that accounts for their existence, regardless of what you choose to call it.
And that’s how it is for me. I confess that Tali hates it when I occasionally come home from teaching or giving a sermon and I say something like “I think I did well tonight” or “I feel really great about how that went.” But for me, while I certainly feel it’s important to have a sense of self-worth and self-esteem, I’m okay saying those things because they’re not really about me. They are, ultimately, a tribute to God. At the end of the day, I chalk it all up to the Holy One, the Source of any talents and gifts with which I have been blessed.
More than that, I can’t tell you how often, in just these first few years of my rabbinate, that I’ve found myself in challenging, deeply intense conversations with many of you—about life and death and illness touching your lives, things you’re struggling with that keep you up at night—where I just don’t know what words I can possibly offer to be of help or guidance. Yet, somehow, some way, something comes out of me. And somehow, time and time again, it’s just right, and people will tell me later that I said just the thing they wanted and, more importantly, most needed to hear.
My friends, that’s not me. That’s ruach Elohim, the spirit of God, coming over me, speaking through me. And without that, without God, I am nothing but dust and ashes. Without God, what I achieve in this world amounts to precious little.
So unlike Christo-phah, I have no problem kicking it upstairs. And maybe, just maybe, you won’t either.
SHABBAT SHALOM.
And that’s what they call it: kicking it upstairs. You see it in Godfather, Goodfellas, Donnie Brasco, and the Sopranos. The concept of remembering who came before you, who put in the work and paid their dues to sit where they sit, at the head of the table, and to remember why they’re there in the first place, is not such a bad thing, removed, of course, from the Mafia context. At the end of the day, I’m guessing that a lot of the organizations and businesses in which we work and spend so much of our lives function in a similar manner.
So if that’s true, if that concept makes sense to us with regards to human beings, shouldn’t it be all the more so with God?
The Torah says “yes.” Over and over again. And we find it here, among the many laws and ordinances prescribed in Parashat Mishpatim. In Exodus 22:28 and 29 we read, “You shall not put off the skimming of the first yield of your vats. You shall give Me the male first-born among your children. You shall do the same with your cattle and your flocks; seven days it shall remain with its mother; on the eighth day you shall give it to Me."
While modern scholars may be uncertain as to the execution of this mitzvah, the underlying concept is crystal clear. And that concept is of such significance that it appears, in various permutations, dozens of times throughout the Torah. We might easily dismiss it, throw it on the heap of biblical commandments and constructs we conveniently consider “outdated.” But this one, to be sure, is anything but.
Your first child, first calves of the herd, first lambs of the flock, first fruits and grains of the harvest, even, as we see here, the first yield of your vats—all of it, we kick upstairs. Why? Because it doesn’t matter how hard we’ve worked to farm the land, or take care of the cattle and the sheep; it doesn’t matter how well we did with our report or case or presentation or lesson. Sure, we may have done the work on the ground, on the front lines, so to speak. But who is it that makes all of it possible? Who miraculously created the entire world and everything in it, most especially the extraordinarily talented human being? That’s right: God! Adonai Eloheinu, Ribono shel olam, the Alpha, the Omega, the Master of the Universe, known to some of my rabbinic classmates as Sweet Holy Ha-Shem. And not one kind, important word we say, not one good deed we’ve done for ourselves or others, not one triumphant moment we’ve shared or experienced—absolutely none of it would ever have occurred if it weren’t for God. Even if you call yourself an atheist, or you don’t like using the word “God,” I sincerely doubt that you really take all of the credit for the things you do well, and naturally at that. At least I hope you don’t. Because if you really think about it, those skills and talents that seem to have come from within you, that more often than not simply cannot be taught in a classroom or a seminar, they point to something beyond our physical selves, something that accounts for their existence, regardless of what you choose to call it.
And that’s how it is for me. I confess that Tali hates it when I occasionally come home from teaching or giving a sermon and I say something like “I think I did well tonight” or “I feel really great about how that went.” But for me, while I certainly feel it’s important to have a sense of self-worth and self-esteem, I’m okay saying those things because they’re not really about me. They are, ultimately, a tribute to God. At the end of the day, I chalk it all up to the Holy One, the Source of any talents and gifts with which I have been blessed.
More than that, I can’t tell you how often, in just these first few years of my rabbinate, that I’ve found myself in challenging, deeply intense conversations with many of you—about life and death and illness touching your lives, things you’re struggling with that keep you up at night—where I just don’t know what words I can possibly offer to be of help or guidance. Yet, somehow, some way, something comes out of me. And somehow, time and time again, it’s just right, and people will tell me later that I said just the thing they wanted and, more importantly, most needed to hear.
My friends, that’s not me. That’s ruach Elohim, the spirit of God, coming over me, speaking through me. And without that, without God, I am nothing but dust and ashes. Without God, what I achieve in this world amounts to precious little.
So unlike Christo-phah, I have no problem kicking it upstairs. And maybe, just maybe, you won’t either.
SHABBAT SHALOM.
Friday, January 27, 2012
We Will All Go - Bo 5772
It is yet another of my favorite movie moments. In their efforts to reunite their amazing rhythm and blues band of yesteryear, Jake and Elwood Blues, played of course by John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, have invaded the posh Chicago restaurant, Chez Paul, where the former “Mr. Fabulous” now serves as maitre d’. The brothers proceed to be as crude and offensive as possible, a sort of twisted blackmail attempt to have Mr. Fabulous come back to the band, enjoying shrimp cocktail by tossing it into each other’s mouths, refusing to remove their sunglasses, and filling the restaurant with their rancid B.O. Kicking it up to an entirely other level, Belushi’s Jake sidles up awkwardly to a well-dressed family of a man, his wife, and their three daughters, and says, in a horrible French accent:
“How much for the little girl? The women? How much for the women?” Incredulous, all the man can muster is, “What?” to which Jake responds, “Your women, I want to buy your women. Your little girl. Your daughters. I want to buy them. Sell them to me!”
Which is funny. At least, I think. The scene always cracks me up, no matter how many times I’ve seen it. Because we know the character doesn’t mean it. We know that this is part of a ruse merely to get the undivided attention of the former band member.
But here’s the problem: there are really people who feel this way. There are really people who think that women are second-class citizens. There are really people who feel that women are owned by men, who thus reserve the right to make unilateral decisions on their behalf. And this week, as we mark the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court case ensuring women the legal right and access to safe abortion procedures, there are still so many people fighting to overturn it, people for whom their personal religious conviction is a trump card, held up over a woman’s right to govern her own body and what happens to it. This, even in a country filled with diverse, often directly conflicting religious convictions, where none is given any priority over any other. This, even though the separation of church and state explicitly prohibits a faith-based argument to impact legislation at any level of government.
This week’s Torah portion is Parashat Bo, which is the conclusion of the Moses-Pharaoh-Ten Plagues saga. After the seventh plague of thunder and fiery hail, when Moses once again says those famous words, “Let my people go that they may worship the Eternal,” Pharaoh asks, Mi va-mi ha-holchim? “Who will be the ones to go?” And Moses answers immediately, “We will all go. Young and old, men and women, our sons and our daughters.”
We will all go. Every single one of us. So what does that mean?
It means we need to take action. It means we need to get involved, to ensure the ongoing existence of women’s reproductive health care rights. It means we need to speak out and make sure our voices are heard, so that any and all attempts at eroding these rights are soundly defeated. And I put forth to you this evening that there is no better organization or vehicle through which to achieve these goals than Planned Parenthood.
For more than 90 years, Planned Parenthood has been among the leading reproductive health care providers in New York City, offering accessible, quality, and affordable care to nearly 50,000 New Yorkers a year. Just some of the many services provided by Planned Parenthood include lifesaving breast and cervical cancer screenings, birth control, pregnancy testing and options counseling, surgical and medication abortion, STD testing and treatment, HIV testing and counseling, and help in obtaining public health insurance. In addition, they serve as tireless advocates for women’s health and reproductive freedom, reaching another 20,000 New Yorkers through their Education, Training, and Outreach programs, and working with policymakers and like-minded organizations to advance reproductive health and rights within a social justice framework. And we are proud to have with us as our guests this evening Rachel Strauber and Stephanie Demmons from Planned Parenthood of New York City.
So what can you do? Speak with Rachel and Stephanie at our oneg upstairs in the Davis Auditorium following the service. Take the color handout on PPNYC’s mission and legislative agenda at the local, state, and federal levels. Educate yourself and stay up to date on what’s going by putting your e-mail on the sign-up sheet that will be upstairs, checking out ppnyc.org, or, of course, finding them on Facebook and Twitter. Become a member of the Activist Council to get more in-depth information about current issues and get more involved in Planned Parenthood’s advocacy work. Join their workgroups such as the Sex Ed Advocacy Group, the Political Action Group, Boot Camp Trainers, Health Center Escorts, or the Fundraising Group. And you can take action today by signing a postcard encouraging your state representatives to protect women’s health and pass the Reproductive Health Act this legislative session.
So many ways to get involved, and I really hope that you will. Because silence is not a viable option. Martin Luther King, whose 83rd birthday we marked just two weeks ago, once said, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” The modern-day Pharaohs of the world are coming to ask us, Mi va-mi ha-holchim? “Who will be the ones to go?” And when they do, we will answer like Moses, with one accord, in one unified voice, “We will all go. Our young and our old, our sons and our daughters, our men and our women.”
All of us.
AMEN.
“How much for the little girl? The women? How much for the women?” Incredulous, all the man can muster is, “What?” to which Jake responds, “Your women, I want to buy your women. Your little girl. Your daughters. I want to buy them. Sell them to me!”
Which is funny. At least, I think. The scene always cracks me up, no matter how many times I’ve seen it. Because we know the character doesn’t mean it. We know that this is part of a ruse merely to get the undivided attention of the former band member.
But here’s the problem: there are really people who feel this way. There are really people who think that women are second-class citizens. There are really people who feel that women are owned by men, who thus reserve the right to make unilateral decisions on their behalf. And this week, as we mark the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court case ensuring women the legal right and access to safe abortion procedures, there are still so many people fighting to overturn it, people for whom their personal religious conviction is a trump card, held up over a woman’s right to govern her own body and what happens to it. This, even in a country filled with diverse, often directly conflicting religious convictions, where none is given any priority over any other. This, even though the separation of church and state explicitly prohibits a faith-based argument to impact legislation at any level of government.
This week’s Torah portion is Parashat Bo, which is the conclusion of the Moses-Pharaoh-Ten Plagues saga. After the seventh plague of thunder and fiery hail, when Moses once again says those famous words, “Let my people go that they may worship the Eternal,” Pharaoh asks, Mi va-mi ha-holchim? “Who will be the ones to go?” And Moses answers immediately, “We will all go. Young and old, men and women, our sons and our daughters.”
We will all go. Every single one of us. So what does that mean?
It means we need to take action. It means we need to get involved, to ensure the ongoing existence of women’s reproductive health care rights. It means we need to speak out and make sure our voices are heard, so that any and all attempts at eroding these rights are soundly defeated. And I put forth to you this evening that there is no better organization or vehicle through which to achieve these goals than Planned Parenthood.
For more than 90 years, Planned Parenthood has been among the leading reproductive health care providers in New York City, offering accessible, quality, and affordable care to nearly 50,000 New Yorkers a year. Just some of the many services provided by Planned Parenthood include lifesaving breast and cervical cancer screenings, birth control, pregnancy testing and options counseling, surgical and medication abortion, STD testing and treatment, HIV testing and counseling, and help in obtaining public health insurance. In addition, they serve as tireless advocates for women’s health and reproductive freedom, reaching another 20,000 New Yorkers through their Education, Training, and Outreach programs, and working with policymakers and like-minded organizations to advance reproductive health and rights within a social justice framework. And we are proud to have with us as our guests this evening Rachel Strauber and Stephanie Demmons from Planned Parenthood of New York City.
So what can you do? Speak with Rachel and Stephanie at our oneg upstairs in the Davis Auditorium following the service. Take the color handout on PPNYC’s mission and legislative agenda at the local, state, and federal levels. Educate yourself and stay up to date on what’s going by putting your e-mail on the sign-up sheet that will be upstairs, checking out ppnyc.org, or, of course, finding them on Facebook and Twitter. Become a member of the Activist Council to get more in-depth information about current issues and get more involved in Planned Parenthood’s advocacy work. Join their workgroups such as the Sex Ed Advocacy Group, the Political Action Group, Boot Camp Trainers, Health Center Escorts, or the Fundraising Group. And you can take action today by signing a postcard encouraging your state representatives to protect women’s health and pass the Reproductive Health Act this legislative session.
So many ways to get involved, and I really hope that you will. Because silence is not a viable option. Martin Luther King, whose 83rd birthday we marked just two weeks ago, once said, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” The modern-day Pharaohs of the world are coming to ask us, Mi va-mi ha-holchim? “Who will be the ones to go?” And when they do, we will answer like Moses, with one accord, in one unified voice, “We will all go. Our young and our old, our sons and our daughters, our men and our women.”
All of us.
AMEN.
Friday, December 16, 2011
The Power of One - Vayeshev 5772
Harry Truman. Doris Day. Red China. Johnnie Ray. South Pacific. Walter Winchell. Joe DiMaggio.
These are, of course, the opening lyrics of the famous 1989 song “We Didn’t Start the Fire” by Billy Joel. And I’d like to begin tonight at the beginning—naturally—of this song: Harry Truman.
On a trip to the Religious Action Center in Washington a few years ago with our high school students, we were able to visit the then-brand-new American History Museum. In touring the beautiful facility, I learned something fascinating about President Truman I never knew: namely, that while in office, there was a serious attempt to assassinate him. As I continued to read the short blurb accompanying his picture, I was struck by the story behind it. It told of how President Truman escaped unharmed because of the actions of one Secret Serviceman whose life was taken that day. And I thought, This man made the ultimate sacrifice, giving his life for that of his president and his country, and they don’t even mention him. This man was the reason why President Truman lived out his term, effectively altering the course of history, and here, he doesn’t even have a name.
And so it is with my favorite biblical character, Joseph, introduced this week in Parashat Vayeshev. We know the story, from Broadway or wherever. He’s given a “dazzling coat of many colors” by his father, and foolishly shares megalomaniacal dreams with his overlooked brothers. They hate him with such a passion that even our usually sparse biblical text can’t play it down. And Israel sees that the time has come for Joseph to face the music, to confront his brothers and deal with the consequences of his actions. He sends Joseph to his brothers, pasturing at Sh’chem, and with the utterance of that powerful one-word phrase, Hineni, “here I am, I am ready,” Joseph is on his way. But when he reaches Sh’chem, he finds no one, and, we read, a man comes upon Joseph, asking him, Mah t’vakeish? “What do you seek?” And Joseph says, “I seek my brothers. Can you tell me where they are pasturing?” And this man, never given a name in our text, shares what he overheard them say, that they were heading to Dothan. And Joseph continues on his way.
We know how this chapter ends. Joseph is thrown into a pit by his brothers, who sell him into slavery as a vicious compromise rather than simply murdering him. What we often overlook is how the whole Joseph story, not only the final 14 chapters of the book of B’reishit, but essentially the rest of our biblical history, hinges entirely on this anonymous man and his singular action. The downfall, rise to greatness, and ultimate redemption of our hero never happens without him. The poignant culmination of the first book of our Torah rests completely in his hands.
One man. One voice. One piece of information, and one decision to share it. We never hear from him again. We never learn his name. But his impact is quite literally immeasurable.
Many of our sages and commentators have tried to identify this man. But I think they’re missing the point. The point is not to figure out who he is. What’s important here is that he is the Everyman, you and I, capable of changing the course of a life, and perhaps human history, with the simplest of actions. We know some of the grander examples: The one vote that made English and not German the official language of the United States of America. Abraham Lincoln’s decision to grant amnesty to the seceded states following the Civil War. Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat on a segregated Montgomery bus in December of 1955. One person, one act that, simply put, changed everything.
And chances are someone you know played a similar role in your life. Someone who inspired you, who showed you that anything was possible. Someone who dreamt like Joseph, who made their dreams a reality, and taught you that you could dream too. Someone who took the time to nurture or mentor you. Someone who saw some spark of something special in you that you may have never have seen yourself.
For me that was Mrs. Hohweiler. Aside from having a strange and perhaps even unfortunate name, Mrs. Hohweiler was the chorus teacher for 9th and 10th grade and musical director of the theater program. After feeling like I absolutely bombed my audition for Fiddler on the Roof, I thought she was only trying to make me feel better when she said she needed my strong voice in the company, and wanted me to join chorus for the following year. See, I thought I could carry a tune, but I didn’t know that somewhere within me was the ability—and the desire—to really sing. I made the company, had a small speaking role, joined chorus, and even had my own song in the following year’s musical. From that point on, through high school, college and into my life today, singing, music has been one of my greatest joys and passions. It is at the very core of who I am. And I may never have discovered it if Mrs. Hohweiler hadn’t seen it within me first.
Who is that person in your life? Who said the kind word, reached out a hand of support, smiled at you to redeem a miserable day, changed your entire outlook on the world in a brief moment? Who saw that divine spark within you and wanted nothing more than to set it aflame inside of you? Who was that for you? And how can you be that for someone else?
On Tuesday night we begin the festival of Chanukah, lighting one more candle each night, until we conclude with a chanukiyah of nine candles all aglow. On this Shabbat, may we remember those who lit our candle, who started the fire within us. And may we use that light, that warmth, that glow to kindle a flame within someone else.
AMEN.
These are, of course, the opening lyrics of the famous 1989 song “We Didn’t Start the Fire” by Billy Joel. And I’d like to begin tonight at the beginning—naturally—of this song: Harry Truman.
On a trip to the Religious Action Center in Washington a few years ago with our high school students, we were able to visit the then-brand-new American History Museum. In touring the beautiful facility, I learned something fascinating about President Truman I never knew: namely, that while in office, there was a serious attempt to assassinate him. As I continued to read the short blurb accompanying his picture, I was struck by the story behind it. It told of how President Truman escaped unharmed because of the actions of one Secret Serviceman whose life was taken that day. And I thought, This man made the ultimate sacrifice, giving his life for that of his president and his country, and they don’t even mention him. This man was the reason why President Truman lived out his term, effectively altering the course of history, and here, he doesn’t even have a name.
And so it is with my favorite biblical character, Joseph, introduced this week in Parashat Vayeshev. We know the story, from Broadway or wherever. He’s given a “dazzling coat of many colors” by his father, and foolishly shares megalomaniacal dreams with his overlooked brothers. They hate him with such a passion that even our usually sparse biblical text can’t play it down. And Israel sees that the time has come for Joseph to face the music, to confront his brothers and deal with the consequences of his actions. He sends Joseph to his brothers, pasturing at Sh’chem, and with the utterance of that powerful one-word phrase, Hineni, “here I am, I am ready,” Joseph is on his way. But when he reaches Sh’chem, he finds no one, and, we read, a man comes upon Joseph, asking him, Mah t’vakeish? “What do you seek?” And Joseph says, “I seek my brothers. Can you tell me where they are pasturing?” And this man, never given a name in our text, shares what he overheard them say, that they were heading to Dothan. And Joseph continues on his way.
We know how this chapter ends. Joseph is thrown into a pit by his brothers, who sell him into slavery as a vicious compromise rather than simply murdering him. What we often overlook is how the whole Joseph story, not only the final 14 chapters of the book of B’reishit, but essentially the rest of our biblical history, hinges entirely on this anonymous man and his singular action. The downfall, rise to greatness, and ultimate redemption of our hero never happens without him. The poignant culmination of the first book of our Torah rests completely in his hands.
One man. One voice. One piece of information, and one decision to share it. We never hear from him again. We never learn his name. But his impact is quite literally immeasurable.
Many of our sages and commentators have tried to identify this man. But I think they’re missing the point. The point is not to figure out who he is. What’s important here is that he is the Everyman, you and I, capable of changing the course of a life, and perhaps human history, with the simplest of actions. We know some of the grander examples: The one vote that made English and not German the official language of the United States of America. Abraham Lincoln’s decision to grant amnesty to the seceded states following the Civil War. Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat on a segregated Montgomery bus in December of 1955. One person, one act that, simply put, changed everything.
And chances are someone you know played a similar role in your life. Someone who inspired you, who showed you that anything was possible. Someone who dreamt like Joseph, who made their dreams a reality, and taught you that you could dream too. Someone who took the time to nurture or mentor you. Someone who saw some spark of something special in you that you may have never have seen yourself.
For me that was Mrs. Hohweiler. Aside from having a strange and perhaps even unfortunate name, Mrs. Hohweiler was the chorus teacher for 9th and 10th grade and musical director of the theater program. After feeling like I absolutely bombed my audition for Fiddler on the Roof, I thought she was only trying to make me feel better when she said she needed my strong voice in the company, and wanted me to join chorus for the following year. See, I thought I could carry a tune, but I didn’t know that somewhere within me was the ability—and the desire—to really sing. I made the company, had a small speaking role, joined chorus, and even had my own song in the following year’s musical. From that point on, through high school, college and into my life today, singing, music has been one of my greatest joys and passions. It is at the very core of who I am. And I may never have discovered it if Mrs. Hohweiler hadn’t seen it within me first.
Who is that person in your life? Who said the kind word, reached out a hand of support, smiled at you to redeem a miserable day, changed your entire outlook on the world in a brief moment? Who saw that divine spark within you and wanted nothing more than to set it aflame inside of you? Who was that for you? And how can you be that for someone else?
On Tuesday night we begin the festival of Chanukah, lighting one more candle each night, until we conclude with a chanukiyah of nine candles all aglow. On this Shabbat, may we remember those who lit our candle, who started the fire within us. And may we use that light, that warmth, that glow to kindle a flame within someone else.
AMEN.
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