Over the past several weeks we have been offered a litany of blessings and curses from Moses as he prepares the new generation of Israel to enter the land promised to them by God.  He tells them that if they follow in God’s ways, they will be rewarded on the land; however, if they stray from the laws set before them they can expect numerous curses to challenge their existence in Israel.  The words are not meant to be taken literally.  Rather, they are meant to be understood in their spiritual sense on what it means to create a life of meaning by “choosing life” – choosing those things in life that will serve our greater purpose as God’s partner in working towards perfecting the world entrusted to us.  As we all know, from our own life experiences, this is not an easy task.  We indeed stray despite our reminder twice each day in the Shema to not be fooled by our eyes nor by our heart’s desires when tempted to go in the opposite direction of “doing good.”

Penina Adelman wrote in an old issue of Sh’ma magazine, in an article titled “What Life Gives”:  “Each year the divine voice deep inside me calls out to the rest of my being stuck in the everyday mud of things to look, listen, and learn from my deeds.  Each year I strain to hear that voice the best I can, even though I am distracted as I sit in shul by the colors and textures of new clothes and the many, many pages left in the prayer book.” (September 2005)  What seems to wake her from that reverie are the words of the Unetaneh Tokef prayer that appear to connect her to something much larger than herself, as well as reaching down deep into her inner reservoir.

She is not alone in that regard.  I, too, feel a tugging deep inside of me as I hear these words being chanted in the same way that each morning I feel the rope tug when I recite the opening words to Psalm 30, “I extol You, O Lord, for you have lifted me up…”  The Hebrew word for “lifting up” is related to the Hebrew word for “pitcher” – “d’lee.”  I am the pitcher at the end of the rope that has been sent down into the pits of my despair and asked to reach into that well of water that resides inside of us so that God can tug on our rope and wheel us up.

As the words begin to unfold, “who shall live and who shall die, who by fire and who by water…”, Penina shares with us, “I can see the past year before me unwinding like a scroll.  I see people I knew and loved who have died.  I see people who were struck by illness, and people who got better.  I see people who lost their jobs or failed in their work, and I see people who were recognized for their work and their humanity.  I see women who gave birth, and women and men who became parents…  (and) I think about how I have no control, ultimately over the duration of my life, but not over its quality.”

Despite what we may believe the Unetaneh Tokef prayer may be trying to teach us about God as judge and jury over the fate of our lives, even Moses claims in the Torah reading for this week, “lo bashamayim hu” – “it is not up to heaven” – to decide for us what the ultimate outcome of our lives might be.  According to the author of this piyyut, this liturgical piece, there are parts of our life where we do have some control.  By engaging in these activities we have a path to follow that will enable us to look back on our lives with a greater sense of meaning and happiness.  “U’teshuvah, u’tefilah, u’tzedakah ma’avirin et hagezierah. Teshuvah (connecting to one’s inner core), Tefilah (connecting to a force outside of ourselves who can be our spiritual authority and guide) and Tzedakah (connecting to those in our lives who can benefit from us and our attentiveness) are the pavers that will give us the firm foundation we seek to build lives that have purpose and meaning.

I was reading an article in my bimonthly issue of Spirituality & Health that sheds light onto why these three values might lift us up each year when we confront ourselves on the Yamim Nora’im, the Days of Awe, as they are referred to by the sages.  Steve Lawler, who is an Episcopalian priest, has spent a lifetime noticing patterns in people’s behavior.  In this article he introduces his ideas on “The Pattern of Fulfillment.”  As a sociologist, he has come to the conclusion that the people who enjoy life most, and who regularly express vitality and creativity are those individuals who exhibit a pattern of life that includes “knowing yourself, being yourself, and giving yourself away” – “u’teshuvah, u’tefillah, u’tzedkah”!

According to Steve Lawler, throughout our lives we discover who we are through our many relationships, whether it be “with the universe, God, nature, one another, even with the various selves we are through the course of a day.  It is variability of these relationships that provides the many vectors we can use to identify whom we are.”  Teshuvah is the process that we use to reconnect to these elements of who we are by turning back to the source within ourselves that needs honoring.  Not only do we express our regret and our grief at having strayed from the path of righteousness that identifies us as who we are, we pledge to make restitution in our efforts to go back to that place of purity, in order to be replenished through our relationships once again, healed and restored. In the process “we deepen our awareness of the many versions of self (that we have portrayed to others) and (try to) integrate those facets into a (more) cohesive self (that) leads us to the fullness and richness of what (life has to give us).”

When we are sincere about our efforts, we create a written record.  It is this record that the Unetaneh Tokef refers to when it mentions the Book of Life that is introduced on Rosh Hashanah and goes to print at the end of Yom Kippur.  We write the words and then sign our name to them before they are presented to the general public.  As we write, paint, sculpt, blog, twit, text – or whatever other means we wish to record our lives – Steve Lawler encourages us to ask ourselves three questions:

“Who am I to me?  Who am I to you?  Who am I to us?”

The questions are not much different than the ones that we recite as part of our morning practice as we begin our day in prayer, words lifted from the Yom Kippur service so that they become a more regular part of our waking up each day not only to the universe but more importantly to ourselves.  As we begin to answer these tough questions, we begin to realize we are less what we do and more what are being that counts.

Tefilah is related to Steve Lawler’s second characteristic, “Be Yourself.”  He says that this attribute of achieving a life of happiness “comes form identifying those regular habits and behaviors that keep you centered in your self, in your being.”  Being in reflection is what enables us to reach into ourselves and connect with that force greater than ourselves enabling us to see who we really are in that reflection of the Divine Spirit.  Praying is not the only path to achieving a sense of inner peace with one’s self.  We can connect with “God” or “the spirit” in other ways.  For some people, it may be jogging.  For others it may be time spent in a hobby such as woodworking, knitting, reading to another person or child, painting, sculpting, walking in the woods.  “Whatever keeps you faithful to yourself” is a valid path towards developing a better self in connection to that higher force that guides us in our actions.  Finding that source that is unique to our biorhythms is what ultimately leads us live “healthier, happier, and more effective lives.”

Tzedakah, “Giving Yourself Away,” is the third element that Steve Lawler claims will bring us a sense of contentment.  I have read from several different sources how we become more generous in our older years because we have discovered how truly life affirming it can be to give of yourself to others – and not expect anything in return.  So, what does “giving one’s self away” look like?  It is difficult to define since there are any number of ways to become involved in tikkun ha’olam, fixing the world.  Whether it is becoming involved with a cause, or lending a hand to an individual in need, volunteering for an organization… each has its merits.  When we open ourselves to others with the intent to give, it is we who grow as well from the gift, as we discover what it means to live a richer and more meaningful life that involves a deeper sense of self.

Teshuvah, tefilah, and tzedakah – in this realm of the heaven and earth relationship – take on an even greater significance in the light of this Torah reading as we prepare ourselves for Rosh Hashanah and the work that lies ahead on developing a plan on how each of us can lessen the severity of our decrees by leading a richer, deeper, and more attentive life style.

“Tzedek, tzedek tirdof” – A Matter of Law and Order

Ever notice how many television shows are dedicated to “pursuing justice”?  Perhaps one of the longest-running shows was Law & Order, which experienced a 20-year run of apprehending villains in the first half of the show and then prosecuting them in the second half of the show.  Not only did it introduce a new vocabulary to its television audience that is just as familiar as sports terminology, it has also played into our desire to punish certain segments of society for their belief that the law does not relate to them in the same way that it does for others.  The original show had become so successful over the years, there are any number of spinoffs that are continuing to entertain those of us who want to see “the scum of the earth” get their “just rewards” in life.

Among those whom the writers admired most in their weekly scripts were “the rich people,” according to Stanley Fish in an Op-Ed piece in the New York Times (on August 2, 2010).  He wrote that Law & Order hated rich people because “they are arrogant, they are condescending, they consume conspicuously, and worst of all, they believe they are above the law. …  Time and again wealthy people manipulate the system by getting well-connected friends to intervene in cases or by hiring high-priced lawyers who know how to put up procedural road blocks forever.”

According to Mr. Fish, the rich are not the only targets that this popular show has aimed its sights on.  Children of rich folks, who attend private schools, consider themselves just as privileged as their parents, justifying their cruel behavior towards the poor  and the indigent as something that the psychiatrist can explain away with a diagnosis and a few sessions that will lead to a cure.  Doctors who mistreat their patients and violate their trust as well as their personal privacy fare no better in numerous episodes.  Even clergy have their difficulties coming clean in various scripts, both priest and rabbi!  Then there are the bankers, and the CEOs, and other business types who hold themselves in such high esteem as they carry out their day-to-day schemes on how to cheat others, defraud the public, betray our trust, and endanger others with their practices.

So, who’s left?  The show praises the men in blue and the detectives who represent the common folk as they come to work each day prepared to battle the streets of New York, which isn’t quite Gotham City or the universe as a whole, but certainly qualifies as being close enough!  They spend their time as heroes, ridding our cities of bad people in the same way that a soldier takes down the enemy with such grit and determination that sometimes you need to get dirty.  In a sense, they are sometimes given a free pass on their actions, as well as the lawyers who work for the District Attorney’s office despite the fact that the higher-ups may need to address the political agendas of an even higher authority, disrupting the balance of justice in the courtroom.

In his astuteness of what is happening in this television drama, Mr. Fish notes that “McCoy’s bending of the rules is forced on him by the ever rising tide of corruption and influence; the legal system is always in danger of being overwhelmed; and in order to save it, he reasons, one must violate its principles of fairness, impartiality, and transparency.”

What I admire most, however, is the complexion of the jury pool, which, in contrast to the perpetrators, was composed of hard-working, lower economic class men and women who knew the value of a day’s work.  We can always count on them getting the verdict right, by the end of each episode.

Our Torah portion for today begins with the words, “You shall appoint magistrates and officials for your tribes … and they shall govern the people with due justice. You shall not judge unfairly; you shall show no partiality; you shall not take bribes …” (Deuteronomy 16:18-19).  It points us in a slightly different direction than the one that I have just described at rather great length.  We are told by Moses as he speaks to the younger generation, that they need to be especially careful when rendering a decision on public matters, to not let themselves be fooled by a person’s wealth nor their poverty.  Justice NEEDS to be blind.  Yet, we all realize that in all practicality that justice is not always blind to the truth.  Sometimes, it is difficult for us to set aside our prejudices between rich and poor.

The next verse hints at that possibility when Moses says, “Tzedek, tzedek tirdof” and we speculate what he meant to say to us about what is fair and equitable in our world.  The word “tzedek,” meaning “Righteousness” or “Justice,” is mentioned twice when once is all that is necessary.  If the Torah rarely repeats itself, there must be a hidden message in the Torah.

According to some interpreters, the two words refer to the double world that the majority of us live in when it comes to handing out justice.  During the High Holidays we appeal to God who is the executer of both “din and rachamim” – “judgment” and “mercy.”  God is both objective in His evaluation of our behavior when it comes to the merits of our case before the Heavenly Tribunal, as well as being compassionate and understanding when it comes to handing out our decree, being merciful in our evaluation.  What is expected of us is that we, too, will be like God when handing out verdicts.  While the people who are involved with the justice system are never blindfolded to both the perpetrators and the victims, perhaps this is a blessing of humility in our ability to be fair and equitable while overcoming whatever prejudices we may hold to certain “groups.”  This plays into the fact that all people are created in the image of God, and that image comes in various colors, as well as numerous economic groups, and certainly national origins.  Favoritism, whether it is towards the elite and their powers of influence, or towards the poor who draw our sympathy, should never have a place in any legal system if it is to be held accountable to what is right and just!

As we enter the second week of Elul, let us ponder how our decisions and judgments may have been swayed in the past year, because of things we heard or things that we saw – that caused our heart and mind to go astray – and evaluate how we might be more fair and equitable in the coming year when judging others as well as judging ourselves.  May the world be as just with us as we are merciful to others.  May we live with peace and security knowing that we share with others a world where there is both law and order to our universe.

What A Sight!

In the teaser to get us to watch the reruns of Grey’s Anatomy, we hear Meredith Grey pleading to her former lover, “So pick me, choose me, love me.”  All that she desires is for someone to recognize her for who she is, a woman worthy of being embraced and cherished for the blessings that she can offer to another.  This week’s Torah portion coincides with the announcement of the new, and final month, of the year, Elul, which the sages teach us is an acronym for the phrase, “Ani L’dodi Vi’dodi Li”: “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine.”  It is a phrase that comes to us from the Song of Songs, which is a love poem in humanized form that is a metaphor of the love between God and Israel.  They are the words that a bride often speaks to her groom underneath the chuppah as her vow of love.  In regard to God, Elul is considered by many to be a time of heightened awareness and spirituality in which God is closer to us, and more approachable than at other times of the year.  God sees that we are working on mending our relationships in preparation for the High Holidays.

Re’eih speaks to us about the value of “seeing” in our tradition.  Three times a year we are instructed to appear before God (Deuteronomy 16:16).  When someone says to me, “It is good to see you!” I often respond with the words, “Glad to be seen!”  “To be seen,” from my own experiences, makes the interaction between people something that goes beyond the personal, private, and introspective.  I have often wondered how personable it is to tweet and to text, or even e-mail another and call it a communication.  Information may be conveyed, but the emotional element needs to be inferred.

When God commands us to come to Jerusalem for the three pilgrimage festivals, it is because this is what God sees as beneficial to the Divine relationship that exists between the Spirit and the human world.  Being seen by others reminds them and us that we are a part of a community that shares in a certain destiny.  It reminds us that we are indeed responsible not only for our own behavior and actions, but also we are responsible for more than just ourselves.  Doing gemilut chesed is an integral part of our commitment to this world.  Opening our hands to the needy when we see that it is necessary to do so is just one way in which we fulfill the mitzvah, the obligation of feeding the hungry and clothing the naked.  What we overlook by our absence when we do not show up at the synagogue for the holidays, outside of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, is that God needs to see us as much as we need to see God as a spiritual community.

Another value that is of similar importance was introduced to us a couple of weeks ago, “Sh’ma – listen, pay attention.”  Is “seeing” the same as “hearing”?  If not, what is the difference between them?  Is one greater than the other?  At times we are commanded to “hear” and at other times we are told to “see” – “Open up your eyes”!  Just as the people who live in Swampscott and Marblehead swear that it is a greater distance to cross the bridge connecting Salem to Beverly, we in Beverly know in reality that it is a far shorter distance to cross that same bridge going from Beverly to Salem.  According to Rabbi Salanter, the founder of the mussar movement of Judaism that focuses on a person’s ethics, “the distance between the mind and the heart is greater than the distance between the sun and the Earth.”  When we think about this statement, what affects us more, an event that we heard about, or an event that we witnessed?

The eyes are the windows to the soul, because they allow the heart to be exposed to the world.  The mind closes us off with our thoughts that often try to hide us from the truth.  When we learn something, it stays in our minds and is useless – until we can move it into our hearts and then act upon it.  I recently read a Talmudic adage that claims that a wise man is one who can foresee the outcome of his actions.  During the Torah reading for this week we are asked by Moses, and by God, to individually “see” what a different world this planet can become when we follow the teachings of the covenant with God.  For example, we are told in Deuteronomy 15:7-19 that “if there is a poor person among you, you should not harden your heart to that person.”  Rather you should give him what he needs based upon what he was accustomed to having, so that he should not suffer an embarrassment of living on less than what he was used to.  More specifically, “you should surely give to him, and you shall not harden your heart when you give to him.”

Why does the Bible say “to him” twice?  According to Rabbi Segal, there are two parts to giving tzedakah – the donor and the recipient.  Many times the one does not know the other.  A prime example was when I was called by the Gift of Life foundation about my willingness to donate my marrow to an individual – if I was considered to be their “best fit.”  After going through a thorough investigation that took two months to receive the needed results, I was told that the recipient was considering another individual for the actual transplant, but was wondering if I would consider remaining in line if my marrow was needed by him.  According to their guidelines, neither the donor nor the recipient knows one another for at least three years.  After that time, the recipient then has the privilege of deciding whether or not to reveal him/herself to the donor.  I find this exercise that had me on edge for several months to be a most humbling experience in regard to “seeing” versus “hearing” and the difference in intensity between them.  While being detached may protect both parties, putting someone at a distance does have its emotional implications.

Another important lesson that I wish to share with you comes from an analysis of the first two words of today’s Torah reading:  “Re-eih ani notein lifneichem…  See (singular) I place before you (plural) blessing and curse.”  According to the sages of the Talmud in Tractate Kedoshim 40a, each person should see the world as if it is half good and half bad, half meritorious and half lacking.  In this way an individual is much more receptive to seeing that he or she can make a difference by doing tzedakah and tilting the entire world toward good.  Even though Moses speaks to us as individuals, and the choice of blessing and curse is up to us as individuals to choose, the fate of the world rests on us as a whole.  Whenever we perform an individual act in which we repair our world – we see the injustice, we feel it in our hearts, and we act upon it – we discover how much we are truly connected in life.

It has been suggested that the single flitter of a butterfly’s wings has a rippling effect on our environment.  When one butterfly is paired with millions of butterflies, the effect on the weather in a different part of the world can be felt most remarkably.  How we choose to act, whether it be a blessing or a curse that is released, can have major consequences for the rest of us.  One selfless act can have a great impact on a person.  It doesn’t have to be something big.  Jewish law says that if you have $100 to give as tzedakkah, it is better to give one dollar to one hundred individuals than to give all of it to one person.  By learning how to give to so many will help an individual to open their heart more easily in the future.

One sage observed that the word for “heart” came before the word for “hand” in the commandment to give to those who are less fortunate than ourselves.  He asked, “Do the poor not benefit from our hands rather than from what is in our hearts?”  The response that is offered to us is that “one should give charity with a smile, so that even if you have nothing to give, you should at least give kind words to the poor.”

As we open our eyes to the world that we inhabit, may we be fortunate to realize the many choices that we face.  Let us not turn from the blessings that await us in this month of Elul, as we prepare ourselves for a new year of health, happiness, and prosperity, seeing others as well as being seen!

“I Do Thee Wed”

In this week’s Torah portion, Moses revisits what happened when he was on the mountain with God, the two of them carving the initial laws that would guide the Israelite nation in their new status as a freed people.  What ensues can only be described in terms of a marriage that had been in danger of divorce.  The people below had become unfaithful to God, and to Moses, when they failed to return to them at the appointed time.  So, they took upon themselves a new “lover,” so to speak, in the shape of a Golden Calf.  Fidelity is what God expects of the Jewish people in their covenant with the Divine Source of Creation and Redemption.  God expresses His/Her love and devotion to Israel in so many different ways – the cooking, the cleaning, the washing … protecting them from their enemies, and occasionally giving them the cold shoulder when they have strayed from their relationship.

In his new book, “Renewal: A Guide to the Values-Filled Life,” Rabbi Rami Shapiro discusses the significance of marriage in Jewish life.  He begins his discussion on the matter by looking at the other cultures that affected the Israelite nation.   Each of them had their heroes, men or gods that they could look up to, with powers that surpassed that of mortal man.  For those who lived an ordinary life watching the herd or tilling the soil, they were able to live vicariously through these stories of extraordinary people who lived lives of glory and triumph, vanquishing enemies with their sword and their arrows.  The reason why these stories were so effective, according to Rabbi Shapiro, is because “war was everything that everyday life wasn’t – exciting, dramatic.  Success in war asserted your authority and proved your manhood.”  In addition, “they had women whom men would risk everything for.  We just had wives.” (page 58)

At a time when the ancient world exalted their warriors, the prophets of the Jewish nation insisted that it was an obligation to marry and to promote peace between people, for this is the ultimate way in which the world would survive.  The sages of the Talmud are recorded as saying, “If a man is not married by 25, God says that he has destroyed my world.”  OK, 25 might by young by our standards.  However, the idea that the word of God is perpetuated when we bring children into the world as its inheritors, one must begin at an early age to fulfill that commitment or obligation.  Not all religions agree.  Christian leaders, on the other hand, practiced celibacy because they considered themselves wedded to God.  In another place in the Talmud, the sages declared, “If you have found a wife, you have found good.”  However, the same statement is never applied to God nor the Torah.  One wonders, what makes “women” so special in that regard?

Rabbi Shapiro points out several studies to support his theory that men cannot live, at least well, without women.  He claims that the “evidence that men need women is everywhere…  The way men live when there are no women to hold them to higher standards of graciousness and consideration can often be appalling.” (page 61)  He notes for us that it should come to one’s surprise that Hitler did not have a single woman in his leadership.  Without the softening influence of women, the men could conduct their brutal assault on humanity with unmitigated ease and comfort.

In a democracy such as ours, we welcome the input of women in roles of leadership because we now recognize the need for nurturing that is sometimes missing in masculine environments.  Perhaps this is why we have references in Judaic literature to a female presence of God known as the Shechina that hovers over Israel.  The Kabbalists of Tzfat sexualized our relationship with God when they practiced going out to the fields on Friday afternoon to literally greet the Shabbat bride into their hearts and into their homes.  Going back to the Bible, when God lifted the mountain at Sinai over the Israelite nation when God spoke to them about the covenant, one midrash disclaims the notion that Israel was forced into the relationship by proclaiming that the mountain became their “chuppah,” their “wedding canopy,” as a sign that Israel accepted willingly her new role in her relationship with God.

In another example, the mystic, Rabbi Isaac Luria, wrote that the Mashiach would not come until husbands began to obey their wives.  What a bold statement to make in any generation.  Imagine if he were to make that same claim in today’s world!  What he actually meant by these words was a reference to the time when the men insisted that they build a golden calf when Moses failed to show up on time from his first visit with God on the mountain.

It was the women who admonished their husbands for forgetting the God who had just redeemed them from their slavery in Egypt.  For their role in supporting God, we are told that Rosh Chodesh was given to the women as a holiday for them to celebrate because they refused to give up their jewelry to their husbands to forge the Golden Calf.  What Rabbi Luria meant by his statement is that the men of that generation, and subsequent nations, would need to learn how to give up their competitive behavior that was a part of their slave mentalities, and replace that behavior with actions that would lead to supporting one another as a means of nurturing our characteristics for peace and harmony.

As we enter these final weeks of the year in the Jewish calendar, what better time is there to examine our relationships, not just our marriages to our spouses, but also our relationships to our family, friends, community, and employers, as well as to God, and search for the meaning and purpose that can be found in competing less and nurturing more and see what happens in relation to our sense of gratitude and satisfaction.

And You Shall Bind Them As a Sign

One of the most famous lines of the Torah is a part of our reading for this week.  We read, “Shema Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai echad” (Deuteronomy 6:4). Volumes have been written as sage and scholar alike try to unravel the meaning of these words for their generation.  We recite these words as part of our worship twice each day, both morning and evening, reading the words of the first paragraph literally.  The Shema became the first words we recited in the morning and the last words we recited each night.  In time, they were incorporated into the morning and evening services at the synagogue.  In the Talmud, in Tractate Berakhot, the opening scenario asks when is the most opportune time to recite the Shema.  What ensues is a conversation among the sages of different generations, each one offering their opinion on how early is early enough to start the day with these words on their lips.   Perhaps this is why we find a version of the Shema, not the official one, following the recitation of the morning blessings, preceded by these words of praise:

“How happy are we! How blessed our lot! How sweet our destiny! How magnificent our heritage! How happy are we that as we rise and as we lie down, morning and evening, twice every day we proclaim: Hear oh Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.”

Our ancestors understood intimately the power of these words and how they affected their daily lives.  When they inserted the Shema into their mezuzot before attaching them to the doorposts of their homes, they wrote their own personal incantations on the back side of the klaf to insure their personal safety and prosperity as well as the other members of their household.  In the Torah itself, the letter “ayin” of Shema and the letter  “daled” of Echad are enlarged by the scribes.  We speculate that the two letters were written in this way to remind us that each of us is an “eid” or “witness” to God’s One-ness in the world.

As Jews, we are asked to testify to the role that God plays in our lives, beginning with the moment we wake and ending with the moment we place our heads on our pillows before falling asleep.  Testifying means being a witness to all of the miracles that are a part of the world in which we live, and honoring the one responsible for them.  When God gave Moses the Ten Commandments, the very first “rule” asked us to place our faith in God who was responsible for our liberation as well as our redemption.  Honoring God means that we respect one another as well as the world in which we live.

We are taught at a very early age the first paragraph that accompanies the first line of the Shema.  “V’ahavta et Adonai, bekhol levavkha… You shall love God, with all of your heart…”  The word for “heart” contains an extra letter.  It has two “beits” rather than the normal spelling of “leiv.”  The sages, also, teach that the heart, in the ancient world, was a metaphor for the seat of our cravings and our aspirations.  The double letter is a symbol of the two inclinations that make us human.  To be human is to battle between the urge to do good and the urge to do evil.  Both are necessary.  Without the urge to do evil, we would not have the impulse or the inclination to desire food, drink, wealth, sex…  The Shema encourages us to channel these urges in a positive direction.

Just as we are asked to bring the evil inclination and the good inclination in line with one another, we announce that God is One as well.  I have often wondered what we mean when we make this declaration of faith or belief.  The God that I have “witnessed” as a part of the Bible that we read each week has demonstrated that the Lord can be just as angry as He can be loving and compassionate, and he can be just as judgmental and punitive as he can be merciful and kind.  In the ancient world, many cultures had a different God for each of these attributes.  The Jews, however, declared that a single God is capable of encapsulating all of these characteristics into a single entity, as One.  The goal is for us to reach the inner harmony that is a part of the God that we see in the Bible and whose beneficence is reflected in the prayers of our siddur, for God is the “true judge” who is called upon to comfort the bereaved when we bless God at the tearing of the ribbon to begin the process of mourning.  No matter what may happen to us, we discover a way to praise God.  Being able to do this at our most vulnerable times pays tribute as well as testimony to our ability to endure under God’s providence and the words of the Shema.

In that first chapter of Tractate Berakhot, the sages of the Talmud debate in a sidebar what it means to recite the words of the Shema and the first paragraph with “kavannah” – a sense of attentiveness or spiritual intent.  They agree that it is better to say an abbreviated prayer in one’s spoken language with “kavannah,” than to complete the Shema in Hebrew in a hurried manner.  How do the sages define “kavannah”?  According to one Chasidic rebbe, “kavannah” is singing “Adon” in Adon Olam (Master of the Universe) without having given thought to the next word!  Perhaps, this is why we ought to consider as a congregation, the custom of slowing down this one line so that we can concentrate on each of the words with “kavannah” – rather than rushing through them!

Throughout my years here at TBA, I have made several attempts to teach a class that I called “Surfin’ Thru the Siddur.”  The subtext has always been that it is more like wading that surfing when we begin to look at the individual prayers and their constructions and our attachments to the message they wish to convey.  In regard to the Shema, the sages claim that we should not accept the words of the Shema on faith alone.  We need to internalize them.  This is the purpose of reciting them with “kavannah” – understanding for what we are saying, and being able to say them with conviction and meaning.  When it comes to reciting the Shema, we ought to be able to say these words not only with our tongues, but more so with our heart.

The real question then becomes:  How do we do this when we doubt the existence of God?  Or our hearts are void of any knowledge of God operating in our own lives?  Where do we stand in our relationship with God, when there appears to be NO relationship there? Where is God’s unity, here?

Has anyone noticed how the Reform tradition is to stand every time that the Shema is recited and the rest of the world remains seated?  The issue of whether to sit or stand is a matter of debate in the Talmud, between the schools of Hillel and Shammai.  According to the students of Hillel, one should remain seated when one recites the Shema in order not to destroy the kavannah that is already in place.  Shammai’s students, however, argued that one should rise when making a public declaration of our belief in the tenets of Judaism.  As usual, the sages agreed with Hillel – for the time being.  We, also, believe that all disputes will be resolved when the Messiah arrives, and rumor has it that all of Hillel’s rulings will be overruled in the end of days!

Stand or sit!  Sit or stand!  Does either action make sense when we treat one another with such disrespect?  How often do we talk about someone behind their backs and then smile at their faces?  Worse yet, how often do we snub people to their faces?  It hurts when people talk around us rather than talking to us.

As Rabbi Arthur Segal notes in his d’var torah for this week:

“If we really believed in the Shema and the commandment to love God that immediately follows it, I would hope that we as Spiritual Renewed Jews could truly accept the yoke of this one commandment. If we did accept this mitzvah, so many other paths to help our fellow and treat him with love would flow naturally from our hearts. Tikun Olam (repair of the world) would not be just a slogan, but it would already be an accomplishment.”

On Tisha b’Av, which we commemorated this week, the sages admitted that the Temple was not destroyed by Israel’s enemies, whether it be the Babylonians or the Romans who exiled the Jewish people when they were victorious.  Rather, the Temple was weakened when one Jew dishonored another Jew.   When we failed to honor the Shema and its tenets of loving God by embracing our neighbor, the walls of the Temple were weakened.  How many synagogues become weakened when factions arise from within the community?  Now is the time to strengthen our resolve, to honor the words of the Shema, to be present for its recitation, and be a witness to the idea that we hold so dearly that we are a welcoming community that honors the diversity that is a part of our generation and the way in which we express our spiritual nature.

On this Shabbat, may the words of the Shema be our guide as we learn from the inclinations of our heart, what it means to hear the words of God and to then teach them to our children, what it means to be at One with God and our inner selves, as well as to honor the relationships that bind us and connect us to one another as individuals and as a community.

Changing of the Guard

I wonder what Moses would have done if he had been forced to retire at an earlier age than 120.  I realize that he had a lot on his plate in those closing years of his life, trying to keep the people together on the same page as they wandered from one place to another in the wilderness outside of the land of Canaan, where God intended them to settle.  What a burden it must have been to ensure that everyone was taken care of appropriately as he waited for a sign from God that they were ready to cross the Delaware River into New Jersey, the Goldine Medina, as they say!In Devarim, the opening chapter to the last book of the Bible, Moses prepares a number of statements or reports for the Jewish people.  At times they read like the Annual Prospectus from my mutual fund investment accounts, detailing every transaction in the past year.  In the case of Moses, he chronicles the major highlights of what happened while the Israelites were in the wilderness.  Perhaps his memory was hazy, or Moses was given the liberty of having some revisionist history by the redactors of the Bible so that he could prove certain points about the behavior of the Israelite people – in retrospect.

I am currently reading a book about the catcher as an American hero and in the opening chapter, the author talks about how American society developed a definition for a hero in the late part of the 1800s following the Civil War.  At that time in our history a hero was someone who was Puritan in nature – work hard and you receive your rewards.  Those individuals who attempted to seek that same fortune by moving west and taking risks was seen through eyes of skepticism.  For several generations we embraced the notion that son should follow in the footsteps of the father, taking over the family business that was built from the bottom up.  There was a sense of pride that seems to be missing in today’s society, when the name on the front window or above the front door meant something not only to the owners but also to those who frequented their business.   Customer service meant everything, because people were important.  Now it is the product that takes precedence, even when it is meant to be obsolete before you reach the front door because there is somebody in R&D who is perfecting the next generation of what we buy as bigger and better than before.

There was a time when insurance agencies placed a mandatory retirement age on their agents.  When it came time for a person to retire, after building up the business through his personal attention to details to his customers, many men expected to pass along the business with their name in the agency’s title to their sons – to keep the business in the family and to prevent the name from disappearing altogether.  In his d’var Torah for this week Rabbi Simon Rosenbach shares these observations from his own life (AJR, Devarim 5771):

“Anybody who builds an institution wants to see it perpetuated. If somebody builds a business, he wants to ensure its continuity, because he thinks that that business has something to offer to people. So imagine if somebody were to build not a business, but a whole people? What if somebody were to build a whole way of life, a whole new way of looking at the world and a whole new way of looking at God, and saw that way of life as bettering not merely that somebody’s family, but rather the entire world? To rephrase the old saw, anything worth doing is worth doing forever, and that brings us to Moses.”

Moses is about to hand over the business of guiding the Jewish people, not to his son, but to another person whom he trusts can handle the transition.  Just like many men who are forced to retire “before their time,” Moses is reluctant to let go at the age of 120.  While this is not unusual, it does address the tension that he expresses in revising the history of his travels with the previous generation, and his desire to come across as a person to be valued for his contributions, despite the death sentence that has been given to him – both physically and figuratively.

Moses has a legitimate right to be concerned about the future of the business that he has spent the past forty years maintaining.  Even when things were going well the people strayed from the guidelines that he and God had established.  How could he rest easy knowing that what he had spent a life-time developing was in the right hands?  Surely, in a new place with an even greater opportunity for interacting with the local population there would be further changes in the business – and not always good ones in his estimation.  Will Joshua be a strong enough leader to keep the people together despite their dividing themselves into individual tribes and settling in various regions of their new country, no longer being held together as a cohesive group in the same way that they were when traveling in the wilderness?  God seems to think so!  However, as we all know from our own experiences, when people are given certain freedoms, we tend to relax our values and our standards.

Moses is concerned.  How will it all end up.  Stay tuned for next week’s episode – same “bat time,” same “bat channel”…  Wait!  Before we break, let me add one last word on this week’s Torah portion which is all about words, the words that Moses spoke to the Israelite nation before entering their new homeland.  In verse one we are told that Moses spoke to “kol yisrael” rather than to the usual construction “b’nei yisrael.”

It is important for us to take note of the change.  “B’nei,” as we all know, means “children.”  Are we to assume that the Israelites who are now entering a new phase of their journey are no longer “youngins” – “they’s all growed up now”?  That is one legitimate opinion that can be made.  As adults they are now ready to accept responsibility for their own behavior in the same way that we tell our teenagers when they reach age 13, “You are an adult now!  It’s your life, make the most of it.  You are responsible for your own religious behavior.”  And the first decision that they get to make as an adult is not “should I fast this Yom Kippur?”; rather, “Should I continue to attend religious school?”

Is Moses addressing them as adults who are ready to make their own decisions?  I wonder.  Perhaps “kol yisrael” is suggesting something different.  Maybe Moses is not only addressing the generation of Israelites that are seated in front of him.  One could argue that “all of Israel” suggests that Moses is speaking to us as well, for he is addressing himself to the future generations in addition to the current one.  The message that he delivers is relevant not only to one generation of Israelite, but to all of the generations of the Jewish people.

He is genuinely concerned about the perpetuation of the business that he built with the help of God.  We, too, are just as much concerned about the leadership of our own Jewish community and the future direction of Judaism, not only in our local community and in America, but also in Israel.  We have a Conservative Movement that is in the midst of finding an identity of itself that will preserve its place in the scheme of American religious life from a traditional, but moderate standpoint.  We have synagogues that are moving from affiliation to independent status as they try to cater to a diversity or pluralistic approach to spiritual life in a free society that is growing more secular.  And we have an Orthodox political group that is attempting to control the conversion process in Israel, which will eliminate the ability of other denominations the legality of confirming non-Jews as Israelites “according to Moses.”

As we look towards beginning a new year in the Jewish calendar, and we have the establishment of a new board, in which the leadership is being entrusted to a new generation, what direction will we take in our own community?  What changes do we wish to see in our worship, our education, our inner selves?  Who will be our source of wisdom as we cross that threshold into a new place?  What values of the past will be our guide?  What will be the new values that we embrace as we anticipate change?

Let us not become complacent in what is going on around us.  Judaism encourages us to take responsibility for ourselves and our connection to others.  In what ways will we not only reach in, but also reach out to these changes?

I Swear to God

How many times have we heard the words of the bailiff instructing a witness to respond to his or her declaration: “Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me, God?”  In the Orthodox world, when someone makes a formal declaration that they will do something, and they do not want to suffer the consequences of not fulfilling their promise, they may utter under their breath the formulaic words, “b’li neder,” which means “without a vow.”  For example, when I promise my wife that I will clean up the office in the house, I might say, “I’ll get to it this weekend, honey – b’li neder!”  I may be committed to fulfilling my words, but this one little phrase prevents me from suffering any consequences should I not get to what I promised.I find it quite convenient that Judaism, or should I say rabbinic Judaism, has found a way to relieve us of any anxiety regarding the things we say and our lack of a commitment to follow through on our words.  At the same time, I am uncomfortable with the fact that my words of promise can be so easily nullified in this way.  I am reminded of Yom Kippur when the chazzan recites three times the Kol Nidrei prayer and how much fear and awe it evokes as the community stands in judgment at the beginning to a new year, and we ask that our sins be forgiven.  When it was originally recited, the chazzan, in Aramaic legal language, asked God to nullify all of the vows, renunciations, bans, oaths, formulas of obligation, pledges and promises made by us during the year that just ended.  Babylonian Jewish leaders opposed its recitation because it encouraged people to do what they wanted, knowing that they would be forgiven.  So, the language was changed from past tense to future.  Now, the Kol Nidrei prayer expresses our fear that with our best intentions, the “vows” that remain unfulfilled will be forgiven because we regret what we are unable to accomplish in advance of our doing so.

Just as berakhot make certain things acceptable by our words of praise to God, our “vows” nullify those things that we declare to be unacceptable to us.  The seven different words that are a part of the Kol Nidrei prayer express a certain completeness in our endeavors, considering the special qualities of the number “seven” in Judaism, e.g, the seven days of the week.   This week’s Torah portion opens up with laws regarding the making of oaths, in relation to men and women.  The laws are different between the two.  But let us not go into that.  What interests me on this Shabbat is the nature of the vows that we take and their significance.  The sages who formulated Jewish law state that one should NOT make a vow UNLESS you are qualified to do so.

Who is qualified and what are the necessary requirements for being able to swear an oath?  According to one midrash, a person is forbidden to make an oath unless they possess the following personal character traits:  (1) They must fear God in the same way that Abraham, Job, and Joseph had a healthy dose of reverence for the Divine Spirit who guided them in their journeys.  (2) You must be able to serve God without interference.  (3) You shall cleave to God – engaging in a life of mitzvoth and learning Torah.  (4) The first three are enough to discourage anyone from making a vow.  However, if you feel compelled to do so, and do not possess these qualities, you may do so – at your own peril – as long as you are not trivial about your swearing! At this point in the midrash, our sages introduce a story to help illustrate what they mean by their comments regarding trivializing our oaths.  With some poetic license I share it with you:

“A story is told of King Jannai who owned two thousand towns, and they were all destroyed on account of true oaths. How? A man would say to his friend: ‘I swear to God, I am so hungry that I am planning on going to eat at McDavid’s and order a super-sized shwarma and falafel meal.  I think I will also order one of their new pareve Sabra McFrappes!’ They would go and fulfill their oath and would be destroyed (for swearing to trifles). If this is the fate of one who swears in truth, how much more so of one who swears to a falsehood.”  (Midrash Rabbah – Numbers XXII:1)

Although the example provided by the sages may seem trivial, what it highlights for us is the seriousness with which they honored their words or their oaths.  They went to such great lengths to express the truth that they added a phrase to their sentences in an effort to protect them, such as “Im yirtzah ha-Shem” (“God be willing or With God’s help”).  In all seriousness, what they did by doing this is connect their words to God while putting God’s reputation on the line.  No wonder they proposed that only certain individuals of impeccable reputation ought to make a vow!  No wonder we rely on the pleading of the chazzan on Yom Kippur Eve to disavow our promises in the coming year in an effort to save us from our own mis-directions!

In another example that is not so trivial, we recently read a haftarah in which the great military leader, Yiftach, made an oath to God that if he were to be successful in battle, he would sacrifice the first thing to greet him upon returning home safely.  How could he anticipate that his only daughter, in her enthusiasm to greet her father, would be the first to cross the gate to his property?  Our Torah portion for today teaches us that it is possible to annul a vow once it is uttered.  The sages wondered why Yiftach did not annul his vow in order to save the life of his child!  Certainly, the High Priest, Pinchas, had the power to change the severity of the decree.  According to a certain midrash, each man had such a great ego that each waited for the other to approach him to initiate the ceremony that would undo what was uttered in the passion of battle.  As a consequence of protecting their individual honors, the life of an innocent child was lost.  And each of the men suffered a terrible death.  Yiftach developed a disease in which he lost each of his limbs.  When he died, his limbs were planted in different places.  As for Pinchas, he lost his ability to hear God speak to him.

There are things that we do to protect our honor.  We make oaths that we later regret, but are unable to see beyond our own egos.  It is important to take pride in what we do.  But it is also just as important for us to know when to humble ourselves and admit our shortcomings, promises we made, vows we uttered.

We are entering the month of Av when we remember the two Temples in Jerusalem and what they meant to the religious life of the Israelite community of long ago.  The sages remind us that it was not our enemies that brought on the destruction.  Rather, it was the way in which we treated one another with such disrespect with our words towards each other that was the ultimate culprit of our demise and our exile.  When we do not respect what we say to our family and friends, how much more so are we to be trusted when we talk to strangers or try to convince our enemies of our peaceful intent.

The sages inform us that our preparations for the Yamim haNora’im begin not with the month of Elul, but rather with Av and our exile into Babylon and later, Rome.  We ask for comfort and consoling in the weeks following Tisha b’Av when we read the Scroll of Lamentations.  However, how can there be any consolation when we become introspective of our behavior in the past year and we discover how much we have fallen short in our expectations expressed last High Holy Day season.  From one year to the next we wait with trepidation and fear, as well as awe and wonder, to listen to the voice of the chazzan to carry us on his (or her) shoulders as the prayer leader asks God for forgiveness in advance for any vows that we may make and not carry through in earnestness.

May this year’s efforts be rewarded with a sense of “being happier” as we seek out ways to piece the puzzles of our life back together, finding the interlocking pieces that help us to see a more complete picture of ourselves and our experiences and the meaning that they create.  May we find the words to express our gratitude with life, as we learn from our hardships.  May this year that we enter be one of continued growth as we honor the seeds we planted last year with our promises, and give new life to the things we plan to do to make this year a richer and more fulfilling one for ourselves, our loved ones, and our community – “so help me God” – “B’ezrat ha-Shem”!

Wrestling with the Challenges of Diversity

Vince McMahon could not have written a better story line for this week’s Torah reading regarding Pinchas the Priest as a “piercer” of men and women alike. I wonder if Pinchas had been around for our generation to witness, would he have measured up to the likes of WWE champion Shaemus, who has no shame, or former champions, Massachusetts-born John Cena (a fan favorite) and Randy Orton, who is a third-generation wrestler with a mean reputation.

Pinchas, who is most noted for his dexterity with a spear, spearheaded single-handedly a campaign to rid the community of Israel of any foreign influences introduced by the prophet Bilaam, who brought women from Midian into the ranks in order to weaken the men with their charms, after failing to weaken them with a curse in his previous mission.  Much like Monday Night Raw on prime-time television, Bilaam returns to the scene to reclaim his reputation as the Hit Man for Hire that his manager King Balak hypes him to be.  As Rabbi Arthur Segal concludes in his d’var torah for this week, “We read how Bilaam, not to be outgunned by God, convinces Balak to take one last stab at the Jews.”

As we all know, according to the Torah, God rewards Pinchas, the grandson of the deceased High Priest Aaron, for his act of zealotry.  He is given a promotion in the company and given the new title of High Priest along with the championship belt tied to his tunic and his tzitzit!  Thus we begin a new story line in the competition for survival of the fittest.  There will not be a new world order established with the Midianites at the helm.  To ensure that the Israelite community retains the title, a new general is sought to lead them into battle.  Moses, who is aging rapidly, and losing control of the troops as well as the tribes at an alarming rate, calls upon a young Joshua to be his successor.

What I have just described in modern language and imagery demonstrates some of the difficulties that the sages and interpreters of the Bible have revealed in conjunction with Pinchas and his form of vigilante justice.

Judaism prides itself on its civility towards others, especially when human rights are involved.  No man, or woman, is to be condemned to death without witnesses and a trial.  Unfortunately, this did not happen in the scene that opens our Torah reading for this week.  Pinchas acted without due process – and is not punished for his actions.  We are forced to ask, “Why is he not reprimanded?  Does the silence of those in leadership positions turn a blind eye to what he did, knowing something had to be done despite it being done so in such an improper manner?  But is this not the way of the world in which live?”

One sage apologizes for the new High Priest, proclaiming that on the day that Moses taught torts to the new recruits, Pinchas was sick.  He did not know that two witnesses were necessary before carrying out justice.  Therefore, we shall give him some slack on this minor mistake!  Only afterwards will he be held accountable for the material that he missed on that day that he was absent!

Here’s looking at the law…with Neal Chayet.  According to the mystics, the Hebrew word for “spear” (“romach”) has the numerical value of 248, which is the number of positive mitzvoth in the Torah.  One can only conclude from this close association that what Pinchas did was a positive thing in the eyes of God whose justice is usually blind.  However, in the eyes of the people, they did not know quite yet that what they did was wrong, because it had not yet been told to the young men of the community not to have a physical relationship with the native women because it will weaken them as a military unit.

Even though Pinchas was indeed aware of the law, he was in his legal responsibility to demonstrate the state’s disapproval of such actions by making an example of Zimri the Israelite and his cohort, the Midianite princess, Cozbi.  Pinchas did what God wished He could do Himself when Israel acted with infidelity, lusting after other gods!  As for the sages, it wasn’t Pinchas who missed class on the day that Moses taught the laws concerning Israel’s relations with foreign women, it was Zimri who was absent!  The moral of the story, we should miss classes of instruction spear-ingly in the future…

In the time of the Bible, the punishment for having a physical relationship with a heathen was not as Pinchas had executed.  Rather, we are told elsewhere that such a sin was to be met with “karet,” which is God’s way of delivering “death” through “excision.”  To be “cut off” from the blessings of society certainly brought fear into the hearts of the most bold, knowing that one’s spiritual life was in jeopardy.  However, “karet” is not something that man can do to one another in the same way that the leper is quarantined in a different place.  “Karet” is between the sinner and his God.  The problem that we face in modern society is that “karet” no longer causes such fear in a pluralistic society.  I wonder if there is indeed a place for what the sages declare “God’s jealousy” when an Israelite loves an outsider to the faith.

Let’s face it, Moses married a Midianite woman named Tziporah.  What are we to make of this in relation to what transpired back then?  If Moses had commanded that all of the Moabite women be treated in the same way as the Midianite maidens, then what would have become of Ruth, who is the maternal founder of the kingship of Israel through David?  We recall how Miriam was admonished by God for spearing her brother with her words of criticism.  The Torah teaches us that we must always be mindful of the things that we say and how they have the ability to be more deadly than the sharpest spear that pierces the body.  Most wounds to the body can be healed.  There may be a scar as a reminder, but recovery is possible.  Most wounds to the soul of an individual, however, are less likely to be healed given the difficulties in taking back the things we say once they are evoked.

As I look at our synagogue and others like it across the nation, there is no room for such improper behavior that was exhibited by Pinchas, despite his motives.  Spearing others with a tongue lashing – calling others names, criticizing their actions or inactions – is what pushes people away from considering a religious life.  We need to address the fact that people feel fractured enough by their time constraints.  Synagogues need to become spiritual centers where individuals can feel comfortable with their fragility, and not be afraid of being “speared” because of their inabilities – inability to pray, inability to understand, inability to participate wholeheartedly.  God tells Adam that we are connected to one another.  Our responsibility to those who are different is to welcome them into our midst and to embrace them.  It is no longer acceptable behavior to criticize those who marry out of the faith.  Their children are Jewish, and we need to support that decision to raise them in the Jewish faith.  Like the spokes of a wheel in which there is a common center, each branch has equal access to what lies in the middle.

Rabbi Arthur Segal makes note of what happened to Newsweek correspondent Tom Ross in his article dated July 17, 2000.  After 60 years of writing, he decided to change his name back from Ross to Rosenberg.  In testimony to his revelation, Mr. Rosenberg made the following statement:  “Every time I step into a temple, I’m reminded that Judaism has survived for 4,000 years. It survived because it is a positive religion. My parents, your grandparents, changed their name out of fear. I’m changing it back out of pride. I chose the name Tikvah because it means hope.” The Hope of Israel rests with a loving, open compassionate way of being and not with hateful, exclusive, malevolent bigotry disguised as religious zealotry.

Isaiah teaches us to throw down our swords and to make them back into plough shears once again.  May this Shabbat be the beginning to our search for others to join our community, and to embrace the diversity that we are building, as we seek to fashion a place where all will feel welcome.

Opposites Attract

Who’s the smart one? Is it the donkey that has words of wisdom to share with a prophet who sells his blessings and curses for a price? Or is it the person who says that he can tell you what type of oil was used to fry up the chickpeas in a falafel pita pocket, by merely looking at the hummus that it rests in?

The Torah readings for this week and last week are sometimes read together on a single Shabbat. In some ways the two parashiot are tied together. They share the common theme of paired opposites. There is the general idea that good and evil are tied together, as well as holiness and defilement. The wells of water in the wilderness dried up when Miriam died, and a well was formed when Moses hit a certain rock wrong, disobeying God, who told him to speak to the rock. We are told that those who were bitten by snakes for praying to a graven image will be relieved of their poison when they stare into the eyes of a bronze snake on top of the staff of Moses. In this week’s Torah portion, a curse becomes a blessing when God decides to get involved in what his prophets are allowed to say in public.

The sages made comparisons between Abraham and this week’s flourishing fool of a prophet, Bilaam. In Pirkei Avot 5:22 we read:

Whoever possesses these three qualities is a disciple of our father Abraham, and whoever possesses these three qualities is a disciple of Bilaam the wicked: The disciple of our father Abraham has a generous spirit, an unassuming manner, and is humble. The disciple of Bilaam the wicked has an ungenerous spirit, an overbearing manner, and is arrogant.

When Abraham got up early and saddled his donkey for an extended trip, he conquered (Yach’vosh – related to “saddled”) his physical drives of fear. When he went up Mount Moriah, he left his donkey and his physical needs behind.

When Bilaam gets up early, it is with the intent to make money with his blessings and his curses.

Both Abraham and Bilaam are tested ten times by God. Abraham passes each test.  Bilaam fails each test.

Both Bilaam and the Donkey hear the word of God. The Donkey speaks the truth for a bag of feed. Bilaam speaks whatever people want for a bag of gold and silver.

Avraham is known as the “av” or father of a multitude (of nations). Bilaam’s name is a contraction of “bi’lo am,” which means “without a nation.”

(According to the Zohar the last two letters of Balak and the last two letters of Bilaam spell “Amalek,” Israel’s eternal enemy whose name we are required to wipe out. The remaining letters spell “Bavel,” the Hebrew name for Babylonia, where the Israelites of Judea were exiled following the destruction of the first Temple in Jerusalem. In Genesis, the Hebrew word “bavel” means “to confound” as in the story of the Tower of Babel. )

Abraham was known for his moral integrity, kindness and loyalty to God. Bilaam was known as a prophet for hire whose loyalty went to the highest bidder.

Bilaam is also compared to Moses. Both men were considered by the Torah as prophets of Israel who “knew” God’s holy knowledge. However, this is where the comparison ends. In Tractate Berachot 7a we learn an interesting fact that both men were aware of.  The sages teach us that there is an instant each day when God is angry. If you are able to curse someone in that exact moment, your curse will work. According to their calculations, the sages say that the moment is no longer than one-sixteenth of a second in length. So they ask, “What curse could possibly be pronounced in such a short period of time?” They respond, “Kalehm,” which means “Destroy them!”  Bilaam knew exactly when this time would occur – during the first three hours of the day “when the comb of a rooster pales as it stands on one leg.”

This is the same rooster whom we bless each morning as part of our daily routine, praising God for reawakening us to a new day of creation, granting the rooster the wisdom to know the difference between day and night. The sages tell us that Rabbi Yehoshua came close to succeeding in cursing a heretic who was harassing him. He tied a rooster to his bed and stayed up all night waiting for the moment when the bird’s comb turned from red to pale. However, he drifted off at that exact moment. From his experience he teaches us that God never wants us to ask the Divine Presence to curse others. We must praise God that Bilaam failed to do so as well.

In a d’var torah from the Salantar Foundation that deals in Mussar or ethical education, the following comment is made regarding the Torah portion for this week:

“Life really is not a battle of God versus man or good versus evil. Life is an eternal battle inside each of us between what we know is right and what we know is wrong. It is man’s battle against himself. We all have the power to curse and the power to bless.”

When God spoke to Abraham, God said that all who bless you shall be blessed.  Debbie Friedman wrote a song in which we praise Abraham for his deeds of loving-kindness, singing “And you shall be a blessing” – referring to others. When someone has passed away and we talk about them, it is common to mention their name and the words “zikhron li’verachah,” meaning, “may their memory be for a blessing.”

“Mah tovu ohalekha…” is how Bilaam begins his curse gone wrong. Rather than sharing words of hate to debilitate them in the spiritual world, as instructed by Balak, the non-Israelite prophet ends up reciting words of blessing in that moment when God’s anger is accessible. Timing is everything is what we hear from the world of sports! Perhaps there is a lesson to be learned by us in regards to turning curses into blessings, by seeing the potential for growth from the difficulties that one may face in this world. On the 17th of Tammuz (June 29 this year) we commemorate a fast day. It is the day when the Romans breached the outside wall to Jerusalem, leading to the destruction of the Temple three weeks later on the 9th of Av. But this is not the only sadness that we recall on this date.  The sages tell us that Moses went up to the Mountain of God on Shavuot, and 40 days later, returned on the 17th of Tammuz with the tablets in hand, shattering them when he found his people dancing around a golden calf.

Despite both tragedies in Jewish history, events that could have crippled a people permanently into submission, the Jewish people have turned out to be most resilient. We have learned our lesson well, turning our adversities into opportunities for both reflection and growth. Even though many will say that our numbers have diminished, and the strength of religious life has been watered down tremendously, others would argue that the diversity of religious and spiritual life in the modern age has strengthened Judaism for the next several generations. While it is true that we may have lost a part of our identity, we, as the guarantors of the Jewish heritage, have a tremendous responsibility of not only preserving a past, but also crafting a future.

I began my remarks by saying that this is an interesting portion because of its paradoxes – good can be found in the evil remarks that were to be said by Bilaam, and the evil that is within us can be eradicated by doing good deeds. We know right from wrong. And we know how to make each day a blessing by choosing life, even when it seems as though our lives may be cursed for doing so. Despite it all, we have a mission to complete. As we are reminded by the sages in Pirkei Avot 2:6: “In a place where there are no leaders, strive to be a leader.”

On this Shabbat, let us all follow the lead of the Prophet Micah whose words are a part of our learning for today: “All that God asks of us is to be just, do acts of loving-kindness, and be humble…”  (6:8) Let us, also, follow in the footsteps of our ancestor Abraham who has taught us about the attributes of having a good eye, humility, and contentedness. Even when it may not be the easiest thing to do, in the end, we know that is the more spiritual way to a richer and more meaningful life.

The Imperfection of Perfection

It is difficult for me to restrain myself from writing another baseball sermon when the season is so long and there are many lessons to be learned from the way the game is played and how I can draw a Jewish connection to most things that happen on the field, and sometimes off the field as well.  This week provides us with a “perfect” example of what I mean.  According to Major League Baseball records, only twenty times has there been a perfect game recorded in the annals of the history of this sport.  Cy Young, in 1904, is the only Red Sox pitcher to have accomplished such a feat.  And Sandy Koufax is the only Jewish pitcher to have recorded such perfection in 1965 at the age of 29.  Just last month, Roy Halliday achieved perfection – twenty-seven up, twenty-seven down; not a single batter to reach first base!

There have been others who have come close to achieving perfection.  Several more pitchers have recorded an official game without letting an opposing player to cross home plate, despite getting on base via an error or a walk.  Just as worthy as a perfect game, such accomplishments are no less admirable.  In recent Red Sox history, we saw a rookie Clay Bucholtz throw a no-hitter, as well as a young Jon Lester coming back from cancer achieve a similar experience.  Again, Sandy Koufax threw a number of no-hitters during the course of his illustrious career.

During last week, we were witness to a no-hitter when Detroit’s Armando Galarraga was pitching against that infamous twenty-first batter.  With a perfect game on the line, and his name in the history books of MLB, the ball was put in to play.  A slow grounder to second and a hard throw to first should have ended the game.  However, to the dismay of everyone, the umpire called the runner safe.  Let’s go to the replay!  The runner was out by a step.  How could he get it wrong!  Surely, he should be put under investigation and admonished for what he did!  At the very least, he should have his head examined…  What was he thinking?  God, Almighty, how can we fix such an injustice.  Do you think that the commissioner might step into the fray and change the call after the fact?  “Bedi’avad” is what the Jewish sages would institute as their halachic ruling on this matter.  “Ex post facto” is what the lawyers of the world might say.  “After the fact” the runner should be judged out and the game declared a perfect endeavor.

Yet, despite our best efforts as human beings, to get things right, we make mistakes.  Bad calls are part of the game in sports.  Sometimes, with the help of instant replay, we can correct a mistake before it results in a grave injustice occurring, affecting the outcome of the game itself.  However, as in life itself, there is no instant replay to correct a wrong once it has been committed, and we must live knowing that we made a mistake.   To this, Judaism has a response to help us heal the hurts and to mitigate the emotions  — something that will keep us within the base lines, so to speak.

If anyone had reason to lose his cool, and become upset beyond measure, Armando Galarraga o had an excuse to do so.  The umpire robbed him of his perfect game.  He knew it.  His teammates knew it.   The fans knew it.  And most certainly, the runner knew it as well.  Yet, when an umpire makes a call, there is no going backwards.  Even if he knew he had made a tragic error in judgment (which he did), he also knew that he could not go back in time to change that mental lapse.  Once something is uttered from our lips, there is no way to retrieve what we have said.  This is one of the most important lessons the sages teach us in regard to our preparations for the High Holidays each year.  It isn’t just “lashon hara” (evil speech, idle gossip, words of hate, etc.) that we must defend ourselves against doing.  We must, also, be aware of the things that we say that affect others, in judgment.

What could the pitcher have done?  He could have thrown a temper tantrum, but he didn’t.  He could have called the umpire ugly names, but he didn’t.  He could have voiced his outrage in a press conference after the game, but he didn’t.  What did he do, instead?  He smiled, and then returned to the pitcher’s mound to face the next batter, getting the final out of the game.  According to Umpire Joyce who admitted later to his mistake, “I would have been the first person in my face, and he never said a word to me.”  Galarraga never said a derogatory world!

From a Jewish perspective, what makes this event such an interesting one is the way in which the two men reconciled following the game.  The veteran umpire asked to meet with the pitcher, who welcomed the meeting.  During the conversation, we are told by Galarraga that he does not bare any hard feelings because “he feels really bad and I know that nobody’s perfect.  I understand.”  What is that he understands?  He understands that when we are sincere, it is our responsibility to accept a person’s apology and offer forgiveness.  How did Galarrage respond to the apology?  He saw the tears in the umpire’s eyes and responded, “I don’t know what to say.  I can give you a hug!”

Although Armando Galarraga may be forgiving, many fans of the sport are less enthusiastic in their remarks in the hours that followed what they considered to be a travesty of baseball – especially when we have the technology to replay the past and correct a call that was wrong.  Many individuals shouted that the Commissioner of Baseball, who is the highest authority that one can go to in these matters of dispute, has the obligation to change the call.  In his role as the protector of the game, there are many passionate fans of the game who claim that he has done a lousy job.

Unlike the majority of those who clamor that the Commissioner of Baseball should be relieved of his position for his decision not to overrule the umpire, despite an admission of guilt, I admire Bud Selig for his tenacity and his respect for the game and the players – in this scenario. In baseball, as in life, there are hits, there are runs scored, there are putouts and strikeouts as well as free rides to first, and there are errors by both the players and the umpires.  If the integrity of the game is to be kept intact, when cameras are not considered legal witnesses to the play on the field, then it is imperative that we have an authority figure who is unwavering in His judgment of what is right and what is wrong – for baseball.  The rules are clear.  The ruling on the field as established by the umpire is final.  There is no arguing that will lead to change.

What does change, however, is the way in which we treat one another with respect despite our differences of opinion.  What inspires me most is how the manager of the Tigers, Jim Leyland, instructed his players to respond.  We accept our mistakes and we move on in life.  Tomorrow is another opportunity – to grow towards perfection.  It is a part of Judaism, as well as other religious traditions, that we accept our human imperfections and failures, because we understand the significance of striving to become better.  One of the ways in which we can accomplish “perfection” is by redeeming our “imperfections.”  Mistakes will be made, because we are human.  There will be times when the impossible does become possible.  In the meantime, we applaud the effort of those who play the game alongside those who protect its integrity by calling things as they see them!

In this week of challenges to the law and to leadership, when Korach questioned the judgment of Moses, we take a step back to recognize the merit of our protests. Korach was ultimately destroyed by his own passions.  It is so easy for us to burn up in our own pursuits for justice when we lose sight of the importance of the greater meanings in life.  When Korach was swallowed up by the earth, the sages instruct us that this is a lesson to all that it is possible to go too far in our protests for fairness.  By going beyond his limits allowed by an ordered society, he endangered the rest of society.  By clamoring for the Commissioner of Baseball to change the call and not the rule as it exists today, we also risk something.  We risk being arrogant in relation to a greater truth to be told.

We risk sabotaging the integrity of the laws that we have created for us to live by, when we attack the decision-maker rather than the law itself, or the method in which decisions are adjudicated.

I feel as though I must give the Detroit Tigers as a team, and their pitcher, especially, Armando Galarraga my most sincere congratulations for having the courage and the awareness not to argue the call on the field, leading to more negative energy off the field.  Rather, they took the high road, and not sabotage the integrity of the game nor their own internal values, robbing the game of its soul, by doing what they do best, come back then next day and start anew.  For, in forgiveness, this is all that we can do to put our best foot forward and grow in our skills and our enthusiasm for another perfect day on the mount or at the plate or in the field.

May the God of baseball and of other sporting endeavors, give us the courage and the strength to continue our battles in the field of life with the same integrity and tenacity that was demonstrated to us this week, as we all strive to overcome our imperfections for perfection, enjoying the journey rather than worshipping the destination, for this is the true meaning of “perfection.”