The Pure Makes Impure

The Pure Makes Impure    Shabbat Parah

            There are two types of Jews-- if only two.

             It was exposed three centuries ago, in southern Poland and Ukraine, areas of poverty, when the Baal Shem Tov began to preach a new approach to Judaism, one that spoke from the heart. No sooner than he had begun to preach, and it raised the hackles of the classic leaders of the time, the Talmudic and highly logical, Rabbis of the northern lands of Lithuania, lands of comparable wealth. There arose, in time, the two camps, Chasidim, the Pious Ones, and Misnagdim, the opponents  It is not in truth a new development, as we have had, in previous generations, the mystical movements contrasted with the rationalists like Rambam, or, in thse times, very rational , anti-supernatural Reconstructionism as contrasted by New Age Judaism. A Judaism of the heart and a Judaism of the mind; two kinds of Jews and two kinds of Judaisms.

            We have a sense of this paradox in our special reading for today, Shabbat Parah. We add this reading because the Red Heifer was essential for the right of purification that would allow Jews to participate in the actual Pesah as it was carried out in the Temple grounds of Jerusalem.

            Most of the laws of the Torah can be explained based purely on reason; the great Sages believed that they could be derived from human experience but there were a few, very few, for which no logical explanation could be given. The Red Heifer was a prime example. Of this, the Rabbis said, even King Solomon could not find a reason despite all his wisdom.

            A pagan was once taken aback at this idea that a ceremony would “make the pure impure and the impure pure”.   Thus, it was said, a non-Jew once asked Rabban Johanan ben Zakkai about this ceremony. Rabban Johanan took a page from the typical practice of Roman psychiatry of the day. “ When someone is possessed by demons what do you do? “ We take some weeds , burn them, grind the ashes, mix with water, sprinkle it on the possessed fellow, and the demon flees.” To this the Rabbi answered,” Well, with us, it’s just the same thing.” The pagan was satisfied with this answer and walked away, but the Rabbi’s student were very much upset.” What answer do you give us?” He said to them, 'By your life!”[ In other words, he is stunned that they haven’t figured this out on their own] ”A corpse does not defile nor does water make pure , but it is the decree of the Holy One Blessed Be He who declared, I have issued an ordinance and enacted a decree, and you are not permitted to question My decree'" (Tanh., Ḥukkat, 8).

            In other words, there are certain mitzvoth that have no rational or logical purpose except to make us face G-d and respond. It is a mix of an answer between the purely logical aspect of Judaism and the mystery behind existence. The Red Heifer forces us to face things that don’t fit neatly in our mind, a round peg in a square hole. It takes us to the core of religious understanding, not to the irrational or crazy, but to those things beyond the rational.

            We are a very much quantifying and categorizing culture. We are even more business-oriented, quantity-oriented, means-oriented. Everything must be quantified, calculated, measured, and, most important, as we used to say,” It must compute” or in today’s word, we look at performance metrics . It must be able to fit into the yes-no, or the 0-1 measure of  bits and bytes. God does not program well on our platforms, whether Windows or Apple based. 

            But, we know very well that in life, not everything fits the standard equations. The ballerina, Anna Pavlolva, was asked to give the meaning of an exquisite performance she had just done." If I could say it, do you think I should have danced it?"

            We could plot every step and every movement on a computer screen, even in three-D live animation--yet we still could not understand what she meant as she danced--only Anna Pavlova herself could understand it.

            What about other aspects of human life. Love, for example. In Judaism love and religion are always compared to each other as perfect parallels. What can one say about love? Can anyone speak clearly and definitively about love? Can you measure it, quantify it, and compute it on a scale? Yet all of us, in some way or other have been in love. We have no trouble feeling and comprehending something that is ineffable, undefinable. Love does not compute, but we love, anyway.

            Just the same with religious belief-in this day of high technology and advanced sciences, we are beginning to realize that while we cannot define and quantify our beliefs, they are there. While we cannot define God, he-she-or that is there, but ineffable.

            For all of our business-like approach to much of life's issues, we do have a thirst for something spiritual, something that extends beyond us, something past our 9-5 routines.

            We Jews. as a whole, tend to be rationalist, we tend to be secular, and, we, more than any other segment of America, tend not to be affiliated with a formal religious organization.

            Nevertheless, I had a conversation some time ago with one of our congregants, who had attended some popular programs on Jewish mysticism. She was amazed to discover how many Jews had been involved in one mystic or spiritual movement or another.

            A noted guru for on oriental mystic group once noted indeed, that Jews must be very spiritual people, because all the seekers for truth that turned to him were Jews. This is, I suppose, in keeping with Jewish temperament, to presume that the grass is always greener in somebody else's yard, politics, religion, or what have you.

            We also have, in these past years, an unusual phenomenon, of some Jews so thirsty for religion that they make a gigantic leap from a life of no values and licentiousness to the utmost extreme branches of ultra-Orthodoxy, and reject everything, everything for which modern Jewry, even the modern Orthodox Jew stands for.

            There is a classic case, of Uri Zohar, one of Israel's most celebrated of Bohemian actors and movie stars, who committed no mitzvah and left no averah unturned. He became so devout, that he refused to make any television or movie appearances, with only one exception-- to make political commercials for an ultra- Orthodox party.

            For many, perhaps that is the route. It is not, however, the route to religion for me, and I suspect, for none of us here.

            However, one need not go the route of the mystics, it is not necessary to spend forty days and forty nights fasting and seated in a lotus posture to find religion. Nor must it be the route of immersion in ultra-Orthodoxy, be it Lithuanian, be it Hasidic, be it Habad.

            We do, however, need to make a beginning, when we realize, for the first time that we are thirsting for something that is greater than our own selves.

            What stands out, at this time, if not the sense of awe and wonderment of the Divine in the universe. It is in this that we make our first step.

                        The poets and prophets of our Bible wrote of their awe and wonderment at the workings of the universe--the marvels of this world and its creatures--this gave them their great religious inspiration. It was the perfection that they saw in nature that egged our prophets on to demand justice of their fellow humans. The creator of a perfect world can call us to task for our leading of very imperfect lives.

            Think of this, psalm, 104-Borchi nafshi et adonay''Bless the Lord ,o my soul"-the psalmist goes on to describe God at work and even at play in the universe" who stretches out the heaven like a curtain/ who layers the beams of the upper chambers in the waters/ who makes the clouds thy messenger/who walks on the wings of the wind/... how manifold are your works, O lord, in wisdom, you have fashioned them all."

            A prophet such as Amos , could base his challenge to justice: Seek the Lord and live--ye who turn justice into wormwood and cast righteousness to the ground-- Him that make the constellations the Pliades and Orion, who turns darkness into morning and darkened day into night, who summoned the waters of the sea and poured them over the earth, who makes Taurus rise after Capella, and Taurus set hard on the rising of the Vintager."

            Job finds his consolation for his suffering in the presence of a God of creation: Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare if you have understanding/ Who determined the measures thereof, if you know?/ or who stretched the line upon it? Who shut up the sea.. hast thou commanded the morning since thy days began? Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea  or walked in the recesses of the deep?

            Our world view has come a long way, it true. No longer doors to the sea, or God walking on the wings of the wind. We have replaced it with energy of fission and fusion, the DNA molecule, and we have filled the universe, in our understanding with galaxies, quasars, and black holes. We have discovered many more mysteries of the world than the Psalmist or Job could ever have dreamed of--more mystery, more wonder, more amazement, and no  answers in any textbook of physics, biology, or astronomy as to why, what reason, what meaning. Only amazement.

            I want to jump from the Red Heifer of Moses time to Albert Einstein, who gave us more insight into the nature of our physical existence than any thinker before him. He was not an observant Jew, certainly not a religious Jew in any conventional sense, yet he wrote:

            "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the God-faith. It is the source of all art and science. He to whom this emotion is no stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed. .. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms-- this knowledge , this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness.

 It is enough for me to contemplate the mystery of conscious life perpetuating itself through all eternity, ,,, and humbly try to comprehend an infinitesimal part of the intelligence manifested in nature."

Why the Bicycle Riders? Thoughts on Modern Anti-Semtism

Shabbat Zachor             Why the Bicycle Riders? Thoughts on Modern Anti-Semtism

Feb 28 015

            A story is told of an anti-semite who is maliciously slandering the Jewish people. He announces”-The Jews are to blame for the last war.”  To this someone responds,
“Yes, yes, the Jews! And the bicycle riders!”

             The speaker is taken aback. "Why the bicycle riders?"

            To which the  response is "Why the Jews"?

            Why the Jews? Why not the Jews? Somehow, we always seem to be in somebody’s gun sights as the cause of all the troubles.

            This is Shabbat Zachor and it always precedes Purim. It is marked by the additional reading from Deuteronomy:  Zachor et Asher asah lecha Amalek- Remember what Amalek did to you There will be a constant war against Amalek in every generation. The reference is to the attack by marauding brigands who attacked the weakest and defenseless among the children of Israel- for no reason, other than they were there to be attacked. From this, we have the usage of “Zachor” in regards to Holocaust memorials, for example. I have a photograph of my father , for example, as he dedicates a restored synagogue in Salzburg, Austria, and on the front in large letters, is just that reminder: Zachor et asher asah lecha Amalek.  

            We are told to remember that God delivered us from Egyptian slavery but not to have an eternal war. Four hundred years of slavery did not earn them eternal enmity of the Lord. What’s the difference?     

            For the Egyptian, it was not a matter of hatred. Slavery was a business; that’s how the Empire ran. It was practical, logical and it could be reasoned with, even if it took ten plagues and a Red Sea. But Amalek- there was no cause, no rhyme or reason- only the hate for the sake of hate, the attack for the sake of the attack.        

            This is why we connect Amalek with Purim. Haman is the embodiment of Amalek; his family name, if you pay attention, is the familyof the royalty of Amalek, Agag.

            What was the essence of Haman's hatred?

            Perhaps he had a rational motive at the start. After all, he was rising in power, all bowed down to him, but Mordecai refused. What better idea than to remove this opponent.

            But once one begins hating, all reason melts away. Haman must destroy his opponent, the opponents family, and all the nation,

            Like so  many haters, Haman was able to give reasonable arguments for his case: Yeshno am ehad==A unique people scatttered and dispersed, their laws are different from the laws of other nations. They do not observe the laws of the king.

            Contemporary events remind us that Amalek never vanished. Attacks on the synagogue in Copenhagen; the Kosher Market in Paris; the fact that Jews wearing kippot cannot walk in the streets of Europe for fear of provoking attacks.

            We are seeing a new version of an ancient malaise—this version is predominantly Moslem, but the previous versions were Communist-class based, or Nazi- race based, or Christian-religion based. The form changes but the target is still there. What is shocking is that here, in the US, we find strong streaks of anti-Semitism in quarters that we would expect to be the most understanding.

             A Professor of Afro-American studies, Leonard Jeffries, head of the Black Studies Department at City University, could declare that Jews controlled the slave trade and though their control of Hollywood, intentionally kept American blacks down.  Jewish students increasingly report feeling uncomfortable or being picked on in student forums if they don’t denounce Zionism. Swastikas were painted on a Jewish fraternity building and a Professor at Temple University could question if Jews were really killed en masse in the Holocaust.

            What goes on in Europe, among respectable circles, is much nastier and malicious, not just in Moslem circles, but in enlightened, so-called liberal or educated circles.

            It is amazing how much hatred one can spew, and still get away with it. What is worrisome is the willingness of otherwise well-meaning people to put aside such comments as PR stunts, attention grabbers, or a simple exercise in free speech or academic freedom. But words have consequences, serious consequences.

            82 years ago, the German conservative forces, the leftovers of the old Junker nobility, and the army officer cadres, looked at the threat to their standing and their power by the socialist forces. One man was drawing public attention and popularity away from those revolutionaries. He was preaching a national as opposed to international socialism.

            True, he preached against Jews, he preached against everybody, true, he had tried to overthrow the government in the Putsch in Munich--but, " trust us ,said the conservatives--we will bring him into our fold, we will use his political clout, and he will  mellow. " The head of State, Von Hindenburg then appointed Hitler as Reichskanzellor, and the power of the conservatives and the old guard was destroyed, and the rest is history.

            There can be no compromise with those who preach hate. There can be no consolidation; there can be no bringing in to the fold .

            There is the famous legend of a man who found a snake frozen. He had pity on it, and out it in his coat to warm it back to life. The snake then bit and poisoned the man. As he lay dying, the snake apologized." It is, after all, in my nature that I am a snake."

            There can be no compromise, and no understanding, of those who preach hatred. Is it any wonder that the Prime Minister of Israel is willing to risk insulting the President of the United States who is operating on the presumption that he can convince Iran to join the ranks of civilized nuclear powers.  Is it any wonder that the Prime Minister believes the Ayatollah Khamanei when he publicly announces his plans for the destruction of Israel?:

     What can the reason be for this longest hatred in history?

     Was it, as some have suggested, a peculiar pathological hatred of Jews endemic to the Germans?

Was it the outcome of centuries of Christian denunciation of Jews as Christ-killers?

Is it today the ongoing struggle of Israel and the Palestinians? Or the many denunciations of Jews founding the Quran?

Next week is my father’s yahrzeit, so if you will allow me, I will read from an essay he wrote just as Jewish leadership was scrambling all over Rome to get the new Pope, John 23^rd to redo historic Catholic doctrine. For sure, the Catholic Church of today is light-years away from the Church of yesteryear.

     Nevertheless, my father, from his experience, was skeptical of the value over the long-run of such begging and pleading.

My father wrote an essay on the topic of anti-Semitism, in the early 1960’s, which was published in the National Jewish Monthly of the B’nai B’rith, even though the editors disagreed with him.

This is an excerpt of what he wrote:

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Anti-Semitism Is Based On New Factors, Not Religion

Neither Hitler, nor the Dreyfusards, nor the anti-Semitic right-wingers who between the two World Wars grouped themselves around the daily “L’Action Francaise,” fought under the faded banner of the church. We must not be deceived by smuggled-in pieties. Nazism’s anti-Jewish ideology was not based on the theological antagonism between the Pharisees and Jesus. The Nazis did not adorn themselves with the symbol of the cross but with the swastika, which stood for many things but not for Christian myths or beliefs. Hitler was not a modern Torquemada, and the gas chambers were not regarded by him as auto-da-fe, a place for burning heretics.

It is wrong in our day and age to identify anti-Semitism, primarily, with religious intolerance, though the words are still used interchangeably, especially by Jews. The religious wall turned long ago into a “paper curtain.” If we are still excluded from some clubs or neighborhoods, it’s not for our disbelief in Jesus. The idea that hostility toward us is, mainly and directly, the result of religious intolerance, is a product of frustration. The seed of anti-Semitism is undoubtedly Christian; the root and branches are not. Creeds are not the insignia of our present-day civilization, and the Christ-killer myth rarely, if ever, pops up in conversations. To the best of my recollection, no Nazi ever threw the New Testament at me, nor did any Russian anti-Semite, during the four years I was a refugee in the Soviet Union. Anti-Semitism is essentially a-religious, thoroughly secularized and materialistic.

We are under a spell and look in the wrong direction. Out of fear of another Holocaust, we have put up a warm blanket of belief that if only the churches got less nasty, most Jew baiting would disappear. And yet I venture to say that if every trace of religious discrimination against us were wiped away overnight, it would have the same effect as a heart operation on a broken leg. In September 1938, Pope Pius stated clearly, “Anti-Semitism is…a movement in which we, as Christians, cannot have any part whatever…. Spiritually we are Semites.” Did this noble statement prevent the Germans, the Ukrainians, the Poles, and Lithuanians from slaughtering Jews? Does the contemporary left- or right-winger pay much attention to church statements? Does the average Catholic study them?

. In this context it is worth remember­ing that we in this country, as well as Jews in other democratically gov­erned countries, did not have to wait for the Ecumenical Council's "Declara­tion on Relations of the Church with Other Religions" to get our freedom to pray in accordance with the dictates of our conscience.

It is the First Amendment to our Constitution that guarantees us the free exercise of our religion, not the Vatican's Declara­tion that came out about 200 years later—and 25 years too late.

It is on the stubborn loyalty of the American to his Constitution that we pin our hopes for the continuance of freedom, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, not on church declarations

Modern anti-Semitism is primarily a secular movement, and large parts of it are anti-Christian…. We must look for friends who themselves are power factors, for men ready to protect their liberties, law, and peaceful procedures for the redress of their grievances—within the framework of our Constitution.

We need an increased realism and sobriety with which to approach the modern varieties of Jew hatred. This is a job for politicians, political scientists, criminologists, and psychopathologists rather than for theologians.

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Is this the right analysis? A half century has gone by since the Catholic Conclave that changes church teachings. Now, however, our fears stem, to a great extant, from the Moslem, not Christian world. We are right in the focus of an extremely intolerant and implacable form of Islam, for sure, whatever the label that one wants to give. It is also an attitude shared, as surveys show, by the great majority of the Moslem world. Perhaps it is not in as malevolent in tone and preaching, but it is certainly there. Certainly, the Moslem world is not a secular world for whom and certainly the Quran and Hadith have their share of statements that incite against us Jews.

     Nevertheless, we are facing a phenomenon that has deep psychological and emotional roots, based as much in a sense of the failure of the Moslem society to live up to its image of old the ideal Caliphates or a mythical Golden Age. Certainly much of the Israel-Palestinian issue is not a question of justice for the Palestinian as it is for the image of the lowly, despised Jew to raise his head over and above a Moslem. Recall that in Moslem tradition, the Jew had to pay protection money, the Jew could not ride on a horse that would make him higher than a Moslem, the Jews house and synagogue could not be higher than that of a Moslem. For the lowly subject to now have authority over Moslems and to be in control of what was seen as Moslem wakf, sacred territory, is hard to swallow, just it was hard for members of the KKK to swallow that black could vote and elect black officials .

These are the resentments that fuel the new anti-Semitism.

Will we see a resolution?

There were Moslems who saved Jews during World-War II, there were Moslems who put themselves on the line for Jews even today. But these are still few in numbers. When that will be the norm instead of the exception, that will be the time we can celebrate Purim once again. 

Giving of Yourself Parshat Terumah

Giving of Yourself   Parshat Terumah 

Do you know the story of the pig and the cow?

One day the pig and the cow went for a walk and they passed a supermarket. Please note that this was not in a Jewish neighborhood. The cow suggested to the pig,” Why don’t we go inside? After all we could be useful.”

The pig said, “ Oh, no! You can go in there. From you, they only want a contribution. From me, they want total commitment!”

All joking aside and this is really a kosher topic even if the pig made the comment, contributions and commitments have always been an important part of Jewish life. It’s very clearly goes back to our Torah portion of today, Terumah, in which Moses is to ask the people “asher yidveno libo” to give as his or heart wishes to give. The key word here is based on Nadav, which means to give something freely. Moses asks the people to provide the key supplies needed for the building of the sanctuary the desert: cloth, dyes, building supplies. That is in the sense of giving an object. The word also lends itself in the sense of “mitnadev”, volunteering, that is giving of one’s own energy and efforts.

That is very much in line with the ideal of Gemilut Chasadim, deeds of lovingdkindness, in which we give of our actions to others, as opposed to Zedakah where we give of our possessions, usually a nice check.

This idea of giving of ourselves freely, not only of our property, is as old as the hills. Indeed the first reference in the Bible and in Jewish history to people volunteer in mass for a cause takes place in the hills. Deborah, the woman prophet and the judge, as well as political leader, calls out from her hilltop to the people to the length and breadth of the land to rise up voluntarily to meet the challenge of defeating the oppressive Cannanite King and his general Sisera. We read this just three weeks ago at Shabbat Shira.

At the conclusion of the decisive battle when the enemy has been defeated she sings out praise of those who have thrown their lot in with the combatants, “ My heart is for the leaders of Israel and, “hamitnadvim b’Am”, the volunteers among the people. Bless the Lord!”

See this emphasis she places on volunteering, “my heart is with you” and “bless the Lord”.

Why such exuberance? Could it be that volunteers were hard to get in her day?

Look at what she says about those refused to volunteer! She did have problems. For example of the great tribe of Reuben the leader of the tribes at that time she said:

“in the ranks of Reuben, greater resolutions of the heart. Why then did you sit back among your she folds to hear the bleeding of your sheep!?”

Of the tribes of Dan and Asher, she complained “Why are you off sailing your boats? You spend the days by the seashore!”

You see how modern her problems were: too busy, couldn’t break away from sailboats or surfing on the waves.

She then let sit in for the passive bystanders ,” for they did not come to the aid of the Lord to the aid of the Lord against the mighty.”

So it is clear that volunteers are ancient and passive bystanders are just as ancient. No wonder the Devorah is so thrilled when she finally sees her volunteers to say “Boruch Hashem”.

To where would we be without volunteers? Devorah couldn’t do without them and Jewish communities could do without them. One of our ancient prayers is on behalf of just such people, which we chant right after the Torah service, is the Misheberach for the congregation it goes back almost 1500 years ago . In this prayer, we seek Divine protection for those who establish the synagogues of worship, those who provide the light for use in the synagogue and the wine for the Kiddush and Havdalah, those who care of food for the wayfarer and charity for the poor and those involved in the needs of the community. All of these tasks fell not upon government officials or anonymous bureaucrats but on volunteers.

A group of volunteers in Jewish law had a special name, a Chevra, a group of committed friends. To this it was appended the word Kadisha, holy, and then it would be a specialty, like Chevra  Kadisha  Chayatin, the sacred society of Tailors, for example.

Eventually Chevre Kadisha came to be associated with one voluntary society in particular the burial society. Remember that was a volunteer society that organized the burials, not a business. That’s a new development as we no longer live in tight cohesive communities.

Was very important to see that all these groups considered “ kadisha”, sacred. This embodied the Jewish idea of sanctity is been found not in meditating on one’s navel and not escaping to the hills to avoid the contamination of society. Sanctity means being physically involved in the day-to-day needs of our fellow human being.

So what kind of society’s did our old Jewish news have. They were specialties. Some specialized in davening, praying, so there were societies of those who prayed through the night and societies of those who prayed early in the morning. Keep in mind that it is old Jewish belief that is our prayers that keep the world going especially as we  pray for others. There were bikur cholim societies, members visited and look for the ill,Ner Tamid societies whose members made sure the temple lights were lit. There was Chevra Talmud Torah, whose members supported children and adult education.

It is said that in Amsterdam alone the year 1801 man left money in his will for some 210 organizations. Based on the Jewish population in Amsterdam at that time I assume it meant one society for every 40 adult Jews or more probably one society for every 20 adult Jewish males.

Why did our people join up and pay the dues?What was that the club or organization offered its members?

First as I said each was a sacred society. These were religious groups even while they were taking care of mundane matters such as free loans or matchmaking. As a religious group the members frequently prayed together and pray for each other. This was an outstanding source of comfort to the numbers for the sense that the care they receive extended far beyond their mortal lives.

Let’s also be practical. There were benefits to be reaped from belonging to a society: honors prestige of the community, choice Aliyot at the Torah on Shabbat. Finally the societies helped us keep ourselves in shape; they served as an extension of our inner police force.

Keep in mind that we Jews did not have police the lens of our dispersal, the Jews generally followed Jewish law. One of the functions of the societies was to support the average Jew and living up to his personal obligations. It served as a wonderful means of balancing and regulating society as a whole based entirely on volunteer commitment.

It is on this emphasis on voluntary society the Jewish culture and American culture greatly overlapped.

It has long been noted that Americans are society of joiners. It is sometimes  said as a put down, yet it is or was at one time the great strength of America. The various fraternities, clubs, social groups and the like in American culture and the nation were its warp and woof that held together over course of two centuries in ways that few other societies have,  certainly never before in a society as varied and mixed as ours.

This was remarked upon great amazement by the French scholar Alexis de Tocqueville came to these shores the beginning of our history to see where young nation gained its internal power and forcefulness. This is his description, in short: in no other country in the world has the principal of Association been more sparingly applied to a multitude of different objects than in America.

That this congregation is still stand is an example of that historic spirit of volunteerism of the ancient Jewish communities, of the chevra kadishas, of the example of community built churches, Moose and  Elks lodges, and home gardening clubs.

However in the past decades the whole idea volunteerism has been under great attack not by anyone’s dictation or by any official policy. We know however that we come to rely on official government organizations and private companies to do the things that we should ourselves be doing. We also know that this is a world in which our young people find themselves in virtual communities, dealing in virtual realities, and living virtual lives.

The Torah has a lot to say about official giving. We have half shekel, we have the tithing that supported the temple and the priests. Therefore, it is so fitting that we are introduced to the building of the sanctuary by a call for a contribution of the heart. It is so fitting also that Devorah would bless those who volunteer to come to the aid of the people. We need that spirit giving of ourselves to make our country flourish.

I want to close with the story that reflects our need:

A certain man is allowed a visit to the next world. He is taken on a grant to. He comes to an enormous banquet hall which thousands are seated. They are in an elegant and lavish surroundings, he is sumptuous food on the table. There is only one peculiarity, namely that their forks knives and spoons are too long there is no way they can put the food in their mouths with them. However the rules of the banquet that one can only eat with utensils given and no one can use their fingers to hold the food!

The guests are miserable, starting, and that sorts with each other, because no one has been able to have a single bite to eat of all the delicious food. This visitor understands is hell.

He is then taken to another banquet hall. The is the same lavish array of food and drink, the same exquisite décor and in the same stupid oversize utensils. Yet here everyone is smiling and having a good time and eating to their hearts content. How so? They have simply discovered that they can feed each other! They enjoy themselves and feel heavenly because each is helping the other to eat. That is heaven!

If you wish our synagogues, our town squares, and our common shared society to look like Dante’s Inferno then we need only to worry about ourselves and about our own little cubicles. If we wish to find Paradise Regained, then we break out of our cubicles, we break out of our shells and we find the opportunities share and care and pitch in together.

Halakhah and Society in the Portion of Mishpatim

Halakhah and Society in the Portion of Mishpatim  Feb 14 2015

            You surely know this old adage; two Jews go into the Rabbi with their case. The first pleads his case. The Rabbi says to the first one” You are Right”. The second pleads his case, the Rabbi says,” You are right”. The Rebbetizin jumps in, “How can both be right?”. To this the Rabbi replies,” You, too, are right.”

            Jokes about rabbis and jokes about lawyers aside, judgment and justice has been an integral part of Judaism form the first day that Abraham asked God,” Hashophet kol Haaretz Lo yaaseh mishpat.” Will not the judge of all the world do justice?”

            Last week, I spoke of the Ten Commandments and explained to you that “Ten Commandments” is actually a term used in, apparently late, in English translations at the end of the Middle Ages. We have “Aseret Hadibrot”, 10 Statements, commonly and more correctly termed, from the Greek, Decalogue. We speak in terms of 613 commandments, “ Taryag Mitzvot”, more a figurative term than a definite listing, but certainly, we know, there are plenty and the great Rabbis spilled countless ink trying to decide on a complete list which none agreed upon.

            The number 613 has its origins in a classic Midrash  in the Talmud and is built upon a very good description of the nature of Jewish laws: 613 is the combination of 248 positive and 365 negative commandments. 248 was the ancient Rabbinic count of bones and organs and 365 the count of days in the solar year. In sum, this Midrash comes to teach us that religious observances encompasses the entire body and is 24/7 year round.

            Of our Mitzvot, again, we noted that in the alignment of the Ten Statements, Aseret Hadobrot, they are aligned with those relating to G-d on the right column, and those relating to humans, on the left. However, the alignment is not so neat. Afterall, # 5 is respect towards parents, and number 4, Remember the Shabbat, is also a benefit to one’s household. If so, Jewish law tilts 70% towards the human need.

            Therefore, it is appropriate that this week’s portion, Mishpatim, which is heavily concerned with social order, follows immediately on the heels of the Giving of the Torah at Sinai and precedes the instructions to build a sanctuary in next week’s portion. Common Rabbinic interpretation is to indicate that the building of the holy and sacred can only be carried out by results of just and honest gain, not by oppression or thievery.

            So let’s look at some of these and see in what way these laws represented something new or earthshaking in its day. The most common example of law is the Code of Hammurabi, who lived as ruler of Babylon around the time of Abraham. It is usually the ancient code most compared to the Bible, both because of its antiquity, and similarity of phrases, but also because, like our commandments, they are described as given by a god, Marduk, to Hammurabi to establish justice.

            But there is justice and then there is justice. What happened in the Torah was a subversion of the prerogatives of the powerful and an elevation of the rights of the weakest and poorest in society.

            Look at our first rule, Ex 20:2-6. It is the rule of the status of slaves, specifically the “ Eved Ivri”, the Hebrew slave, which may have meant an indentured servant, rather than a true slave. In any event, the Eveb Ivri is offered his freedom at the end of the sixth year and if he refuses to go free, he is taken to court, and his ear is pierced, indicating that he has forgone his right of freedom.  Odd kind of punishment until we read what was done by the Babylonians:.

Line 282: If a slave say to his master: "You are not my master," if they convict him his master shall cut off his ear.

            This line is the very last of the rules of Hammurabi. In other words, denying one’s slavery leads to the whole ear being lobbed off. Try to be free and you lose your ear!

            In our portion, refuse to go free, and you also get punished through your ear.

            The Rabbis made a very telling comment on this: The ear that heard God declare at Sinai,” I am the Lord Your Good who brought out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” That ear that heard the call for freedom and rejected it, that ear is punished.

            What if the slave runs away and seeks shelter in someone else’s home. Again from the Code:

            Line 16.If anyone receive into his house a runaway male or female slave of the court, or of a freedman, and does not bring it out ( in other words, declare it)  the master of the house shall be put to death.

Line 19 19. If he holds the slaves in his house, and they are caught there, he shall be put to death.”

In American history, one of the most disgusting decisions of the US Supreme Court was in the Dred Scott case, in which it was decided that a slave could not gain his freedom by running away to a state where slavery was illegal. In short, the slave had to be returned to his master. It was the horrible decision that lit the fire of the Civil War. Hammurabi could have sat on the court.

            So what did the Torah state? Skip ahead to Deuteronomy( 23:16):

“You shall not return a slave who has run away from his master…he may live in your midst and you shall do him no harm.”

            Then ,we have the famous “ lex taliones”, eye for an eye.( Ex 21:24).This too has it version in the Code of Hammurabi, but with a clear distinction:

“196. If a man put out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out. [ An eye for an eye ]

197. If he breaks another man's bone, his bone shall be broken.”

So far, it sounds similar. However, since the codes also deal with goring oxen, as phrase goes, it all depends on whose ox is getting gored, or who it is that hits whom:

They eye of a freed man is worth one mina of gold, the eye of a slave is worth half-price of the slave. If it’s the tooth of an equal, then it’s tooth for tooth, but if it’s the tooth of a freed-man, then 1/3 mina of gold. But watch out if it’s someone noble in rank- then it’s 60 blows with an ox whip.

In other words, the value of eye for eye is very relative, especially if you are a slave or a commoner.

In the Torah, it is weighed differently. If the slave is hit and loses a tooth or an eye, the slave is rewarded with freedom ( Ex 21:26). In all other cases, the Torah makes clear, and the Rabbis carry it out in practice, there is one law, for all, the stranger as well as the native born, and no privileged class.( The language of the Torah, reinforced in Rabbinic teaching, implies financial equivalency, not physical equivalency).

      Finally, I want to touch on one rule in particular, that appears to us in our age as bizarre, the Rule of the female servant.( p. 307 Ex 21:7)

            Do any of you recall the book or the movie based on it, by Pearl Buck, The Good Earth? A young woman was sold off as a servant by a poor man when she was a child to serve in a nobleman's house. What else could one do in time of great poverty? That was true of pre-communist China. Modern communist China introduced the One Child Rule, which led in turn to families giving away, for adoption, hopefully under better circumstances, their daughters, so they could replace the daughter with a son. Certainly, the account of females being abducted and sold off is part of the on-going horror carried out by the fanatics of Boko Haram & ISIS.

            The Torah, too, had to address the reality of its day as well. If a father could be pressed into selling off his daughter to allay extreme poverty for the family, what protection did the child have?

            First, she could never be a slave in the same category as a man could be. She was brought in to the household with the intention of being a wife. Then, if the intended husband finds her to be a bad catch, offer her back, and he may never sell her off to a foreign people because he has abused her. If he brought her for his son, she must be treated with the status accorded a full wife, and he can not take another wife without denying her basic rights to food, clothing, and marital relations.

            Finally, if the owner fails in any respect to meet his obligations to her, he must then let her go, not at the end of seven years, but immediately, at no cost and no penalty to her and no refund from her father.

             In short, what was a system of slavery in other societies was transformed, by the Bible into a system eliminating women from servitude and guaranteeing the rights of a wife.

            However, it is not enough to take pride in the thought that our Torah was, in its day, more enlightened or more advanced. Our sages understood that the written Torah was never and end in and of itself. It needed an” oral Torah”, an ongoing teaching that could reinterpret the original principals in terms that were essential in each and every day. Rules of the conditions of the slave were reinterpreted to and reread to become the springboard for rules on the rights of the day laborer and his work conditions. The rules of the bond-woman were reexamined to become the foundation for the rights of the wife in marriage. “ Dor Dor ve dorshav”=Generation after generation, each with its interpreters.

            What was the one true factor underlying the works of sages in each generation  was the recognition that there could be no true piety and no true religion without addressing the needs of the human being on a day to day, practical basis. It is the natural continuation of the opening statement: Eleh hamishpatim: These are the ordinances that you shall set before them.

            

Which Way Conservative Judaism

Which Way Conservative Judaism

Jan 24 2015 

            Two weeks ago, the Torah portion mentioned the famous bush that burned but was not consumed, which has become the symbol of Jewish Theological Seminary and through it what we call Conservative Judaism. Last week, I recalled my experience at the Seminary with one of its best known luminaries, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel .

            It gave me an opportunity to think back to some of my experiences there as a student, and from that, to give thought to what we mean by “ Conservative “ Judaism, a topic that I began to speak on some weeks ago.

            So I will start with some of the oddities of the institute for Jewish learning that has been so instrumental in shaping American Judaism.

             When I was a student in undergraduate studies, JTS had an exceptional Outreach program for college students to immerse themselves in one month intensive Jewish studies and earn college credit at same time. One young man there, staying in the dormitory, was exceptionally good looking and all the young women at the Seminary were giving him the eye. But all was in vain.

            First he wasn't Jewish. But second, even if he were Jewish, had it somehow been possible, it wouldn't have helped; his name was Brother Jorge of the Order of the Servants of Mary, and he had taken a vow of chastity. He couldn't return the interest, even if he had wanted to.

            It was very typical for the Seminary; an academy dedicated to conserving Judaism did it best by dishing it out to non-Jews. Brother Jorge was one, Jacob Tashima, son of the founder of the Japanese Mikuya sect, was another example.

            Then, there was the faculty itself

            I spoke last week of Rabbi Heschel. Yet another dear teacher was  Prof. Moshe Zucker, the world's foremost authority on Islamic philosophy in the middle ages and its impact on Jewish thought and the influence of Jewish philosophy on Islam. Whatever I know about Islam, I learned from a Talmud scholar!

            Yes, Talmud scholar because that is how he saw himself. Recall that after Bible, Talmud defines Jewish observance and belief. The great scholars, such as Zucker, had full visual memory of Talmud (19 volumes, the fine  print when you look at the commentaries). He would never open the Talmud when teaching. This made the students very uncomfortable, since they could just barely understand what was written. “Please, “ the story goes,” bring a volume of the Talmud, so we won't feel so embarrassed.” Sure enough, the next day, he opens his “masechet”, leads the discussion and everybody feels good. He finishes, gets up, look at the cover, and says, ”Oops-I brought the wrong book. “ He had never looked at the pages.

            He was very caring. I spent a year in Israel and stayed at the Seminary’s dormitory in Israel. My roommate was an Israeli Kibutznik, who would from time to time be called up to military reserve service as a paratrooper.This was at the height of the war of attrition, a war of day to day fighting between Egyptian and Israeli forces along the Suez canal, a war that was bleeding the Israeli side. Prof Zucker , who was spending a Sabbatical year, took a personal interest in his well-being and he and his wife always brought him a treat when he came back from service.

            He took a personal liking to me because my grandfather and his father, it turned out, had been in business together in Vienna before WWII.

            There is a saying-“Kinat Sofrim marbeh hochmah”. Envy between scholars increases wisdom.

            He was in competition for the publishing of a correct edition of the philosophy of Rav Saadia Gaon, Judaism's first philosopher of the new Islamic world who was also a Rabbinic authority (c year 900). His competition was a known Rabbi of Yemenite origin, Rabbi Yosef Kafach. Yemenite Jews had access to some of the best preserved texts of Rabbinic scholarship and were masters of Hebrew and Arabic, and meticulous in their grammar.

            .Lo and behold, I introduced him and his wife to my wife, Ofra, shortly after we married, and I announced, quite proudly, that she was the niece of his rival, Rabbi Kafach. “Oh my”,he asked her,” How did you land one of our best young men.!” To this, his wife, Manya, turned to him and said,” Why don't you ask him how he landed one of Israeli's best young women!”

            I want to return to my original thought,  of how comprehensive my Rabbinical school intended itself to be, encompassing the spectrum from a Catholic Monk seeking to learn Judaism to an Orthodox Jewish scholar who was an expert on Islam. The same for politics; if Rabbi Heschel represented the anti-War movement, one of my other teachers, Prof Seymour Segal, was an early Jewish neo-Con, and gave the blessing at the inauguration of President Nixon.

            The Conservative movement, as a whole, is just about as broad, a big tent.

            My faculty could easily be divided into two camps by their academic specialty and their dinner preference, the Bible Camp and the Talmud Camp.

            The Bible faculty used critical method to pull apart Bible texts and focus much on Talmud. The Talmud faculty didn't focus on academic study of Bible, but would pull apart Talmudic texts with modern critical methods.

            They were divided into which restaurant they would eat in. Bible faculty would eat at V&T's Italian Restaurant-Cheese pizzas, eggplant parmesan- cheese & tomato sauce only of course. The Talmud faculty would eat only in JTS cafeteria, Glatt kosher, of course.

        The Dean of the Faculty and Rabbi of the Seminary Synagogue was the great Talmudist, Prof.Saul Lieberman. In the US, he would describe himself as Conservative, but in Israel, he would describe himself as Orthodox.  It was not unusual in a historic perspective. At one time the lines were very blurred. The  founder and first president of the Seminary, Sabato Morais, was also Orthodox  and also served on the examining board of Hebrew Union College, the flag ship of Reform in America.

            Because of this intentional diversity, the debates within the Seminary and the Conservative movement could get very hot.

.           The Talmud records a claim made by two contemporary sages. Each one said “ Whatever judge does not follow my opinion is not a judge.” The nature of debate has been so inbred in Jewish history that, at one point, the Talmud records  that it was assumed that the debates must have been about two very  different Torahs!

             Nevertheless “Elu  velu divrey elohim Chayylm,” This one and this one also speak the words of the living God. What was true of Talmudic discourse is true about Conservative Judaism as well.

            There were always distinct strains from the very founding:

            There were those who felt the Reform had gone too fa, for example, Benjamin Szold, whose daughter, Henrietta Szold went on to found Hadassah Hospital and the women’s movement. When the first graduation of the Hebrew Union College  (note the name ‘union’ intended to indicate a union of differing camps ) was feted with shrimp at the banquet, that ended the ‘union’ and drove these away.

            There were those within the Orthodox camp who felt that in order to preserve keeping all of Jewish observance and belief, some cosmetic changes were needed, such as English sermons or decorum in the service.

            That tension still existed in my day in the Rabbinical school, which used an Orthodox prayer book, and women sat separately from men ( but side by side, not behind a curtain).

            .For all the divisiveness there are certain central points that all Conservative Thinkers share, as was formulated by Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan  back in 1947, himself representative the more liberal branch of the movement ( before he went on to found his own Reconstructionist movement, while still being part of the Conservative movement:

             Love of Eretz Yisrael, as a central point of inspiration in Jewish history. The movement never had the anti-Zionist bent that characterized both Reform and Orthodox a century ago.              

            The primacy  of  religion as the expression of Jewish collective life. We could not suffice with cultural Judaism or socialist Judaism or Yiddish culture alone.

             The maximum plenitude of Jewish content( a mellifluous phrase for sure) which meant to get Jews to do more, or as much as possible, within the context of a secular society .

            With this came the emphasis on retaining the core format of Jewish worship, mostly in Hebrew, and an emphasis, then, on the knowledge of at least rudiments of Hebrew reading and key terms.

            The scientific approach to higher learning. We could not be afraid to take a magnifying glass to any aspect of Jewish wisdom and question it.

            Today, this movement has great challenges ahead, but the challenges themselves are a result of the movement’s success. Reform Judaism has to a great extent adopted many elements that were heretofore associated with Conservative, and the Orthodox, certainly in what is called the modern camp, have adopted critical approaches to halakhic texts, if not to Biblical texts, to solve issues in contemporary life.

            Our bottom line, however, is still this: the center, broad as possible, is essential in creating a vital and vibrant Jewish life in America, in Israel and wherever else Jews make their home.