Parashat Emor – Priests and Rabbis©

by Rabbi David Baum

I posted a bracha from the siddur on my twitter feed that one says when you see a head of stateon the morning before we were to see Vice President Biden speak:  God who gives his glory to flesh and blood.

This was not the first time I had heard a head of state speak in person. In fact, President Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke at AIPAC last year and this year, but I could only see him on a big screen as I was one of 10,000 people or more in the room. In this case, Vice President Biden came to us, the Rabbis of the Conservative/Masorti movement, not a large group of people.  We certainly aren’t the largest contributors so he wasn’t looking for money!  I was dumbfounded, I could not speak.

When I listened to him, I started crying. My feelings were not the result of the person or the political party in particular, but about the position.  I thought about having a conversation with my great great grandfather – asking him, would you believe if I told you that your descendent will be a rabbi in a far away and free land, and he will shake the hand of the Vice President of the greatest nation in the history of the world, who just gave a speech giving his undying devotion to Israel (oh yeah, there is a modern state for the Jewish people!) and in fact, the two political parties in the country are fighting to be the biggest supporters of Israel.  Do you know what he would ask me, do you live in the times of the messiah?

He told us these stories of being with great people, of having conversations with Golda Meir, Z’l and her executive assistant, Yitzhak Rabin, z’l. Thinking about being in a room with those two is almost unbelievable.  It seems like they are super human.

Unlike my colleagues, I did not tweet or post updates on Facebook during the speech, but I did look at my phone, at a picture of a brachah from the siddur that I took earlier:

Praised are you, Lord our God, Ruler of the Universe, who gives his glory to flesh and blood.

What a powerful brachah!  It was a perfect way to describe the way I felt.  At that moment, I felt like I was in the room with true power, and one can be at awe of this, but deep down, we cannot forget:  he’s just a man.  He had a mom like me, he has to eat like me, we breathe the same air, so why did I feel this way?

We look at our great leaders in different ways, and in many ways, we separate ourselves from them – we say, that will never be us. At moments like these, we ask ourselves a very basic question: what is a leader?  Are you born a leader, or is it by merit?

The parashah this week deals with this tension.  This is the story of the priest and the rabbi – in this parashah, the priest is born into it. This is almost un-American, and it is why America was formed! There is an apocryphal story that George Washington was asked by citizens to be kind and he turned it down. In America, we think one should earn success with hard work, not be born into it. In fact, in every presidential election, each candidate attempts to portray themselves as self made men because it appeals to us. We are a democracy in our very thoughts which makes this parashah problematic.

Parashat Emor primarily deals with priests, Cohanim. We read that they are a special group, with special rules, and special restrictions, but they are special, different. .

6They shall be holy to their God and not profane the name of their God; for they offer the Lord’s offerings by fire, the food of their God, and so must be holy.

And they are holy, that is made explicitly. Rashi makes a great comment when the text says, Kedoshim Yihu in verse 6 -

Make them holy – against their will, and the Beit Din will make sure of it. In other words, it is our responsibility as a community to make sure that they are holier than us!

21:8

ח  וְקִדַּשְׁתּוֹ–כִּי-אֶת-לֶחֶם אֱלֹהֶיךָ, הוּא מַקְרִיב; קָדֹשׁ, יִהְיֶה-לָּךְ–כִּי קָדוֹשׁ, אֲנִי יְקוק מְקַדִּשְׁכֶם.

8and you must treat them as holy, since they offer the food of your God; they shall be holy to you, for I the Lord who sanctify you am holy.

In verse 8, we are told to treat them as holy – Ibn Ezra says, in your speech and in your thoughts – so we have to treat them differently.

It sets up a hierarchy, and we do not like that.

But it is not just us, it is also Israelis. I have a friend who was in Med school in Israel, and they had to train them to be prepared to talk to real Israelis. Apparently, the Israelis did not have the respect that we do here for doctors, and they had to prepare them to be spoken to just like a garbage man would be spoken to…yes, he actually had to take a class on this.

It makes us uncomfortable to see someone born into royalty.

But what makes us even more uncomfortable is the fact that some of the priests are disqualified because they have physical limitations, disabilities.

Unfortunately, I could not find a commentator who truly looked at these disabilities in a metaphorical way, so I will be that commentator. How can disabilities disqualify people from leadership? An Iver, a blind person, cannot be a leader. In our prayers in the morning, we praise God as a Pokeach Ivrim – the One who gives sight to the blind. I like to interpret this as a metaphor – God opens our eyes to see the injustice around us. In this case, God demands that the leader ‘see’ what his people are going through, that they do not avert their eyes from suffering. A priest cannot have one limb too short or too long – Rashi says that it relates to any body part that is bigger than its matching part. What if your ear is larger for some people than for others? Should leaders listen to some people more than others, like for instance, those with more money than those with less? Is that what democracy is?

Hunchback, or a dwarf – Perhaps this is saying that a person who thinks of him or herself as small should not be a leader. Should a leader ever say, who am I to change this, I’m just one man or woman? Those are not the leaders we admire. I know little people who have acted taller than 7 footers. Nor can a leader be so overburdened that their back is hunched over – the right kind of leader shares leadership and power with others – for example, when Yitro told Moshe to appoint judges when the burden of judging everyone became too much for him to handle alone. Good leaders share responsibility, and share the glory of success as well.

Finally, a very tough one: crushed testes – in other words, the priest cannot have children. I like to look at this as someone who only cares about the present generation. A good leader must look the future and cannot make decisions just based on the present. Ultimately, we are leaving a world behind for our descendants in the broadest of terms – even if you do not have children, you must care for the future of humanity.

Lest you think all we care about is priests, in Leviticus, we also learn that we too, the people, are holy. Ramban has a great comment to the words, I the Lord who sanctify you am holy – I sanctify ALL of you. We are called a Mamlechet Cohanim, a nation of priests, but not all priests are leaders.

To be a leader we must use our eyes to see beyond the surface, to see the forest through the trees, to look not just at the present, but at the past, and more importantly, to the future. Our limbs must be equal so our the hand that reaches out to someone who might look more like us is the same that reaches out to someone who is different.

Our Rabbis evolved these priestly lessons as can be seen in this midrash:

Rabbi Abba bar Yudah, “Whatever blemishes God declared invalid in the case of a beast was declared valid in the case of a person.” Just as God declared invalid in the case of a beast “one that was blind or broken,” so God declared the same valid in the case of a person: “a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”

Our Rabbis knew that good leaders were ones who could empathize with those who follow them, and they aren’t perfect, but they strive for perfection.

Praised are you, Lord our God, Ruler of the Universe, who gives his glory to flesh and blood. We say this bracha because it helps us realize that great leaders are not perfect, they are flesh and blood, just like us. Some have more glory than others, but we are all made up of the same thing, and we too can become great and glorious, if we act great.

The Sefat Emet commented on the line, You shall sanctify him 21:8 with the following words: the holiness of the priests depends upon that of the people Israel. They, too, have to sanctify themselves. Even those who cannot become truly holy, when they take on a bit of holiness, add strength to the one who has been designated as holy, enabling him to be properly sanctified.

At some points in our lives, we are chiefs, or priests, sometimes we are indians, or Bnai Israel, but at all times, we must realize that holiness, acting in ethical ways, are what keeps us all going – leaders and followers need each other, and God’s glory is a part of it.

Let us all cultivate and exude the glory of God from within the flesh and blood of our own bodies and our fellow human beings.

Yizkor – Pesach 2012/5772 8^th Day

Delivered Rabbi David Baum, Congregation Shaarei Kodesh

One week ago last night, we gathered together in seders, Jews around the world. There are so many different types of Hagadot, but no matter the commentaries, how ancient or contemporary, they all have one thing in common: questions. Pesach of the holiday of questions highlighted by Mah Nishtana and the four questions by the four sons.

Questions are not only important, but holy. There is nothing more true to life than questions, we are far too many questions, and far too little answers. Today, many of us are remembering those we have lost. Some of us might be asking God, “Why did you take them from us? Why did you take them so early?” The answer that is usually given, Adonai Natan, V’Adonai Lakach – The Lord has given, and the Lord has taken. Forgive me, but it is an answer that leaves much to be desired if you are looking for meaning in loss. It is more of a fact, God gives life, and God takes it. What is another answer we throw around: Everything happens for a reason. From a rabbi’s perspective, let me tell you something, I do not think that it is sound theology.

These are not the answers that people want to hear. But I think we are missing a big point here, life is not about the answers. Answers change, and they often leave us unsatisfied. Life is really about the question and we have to ask ourselves, are we asking the right ones?

Last Shabbat, I spoke about comings and goings. In the famous Shabbat song, Shalom Alechem, we read three stanzas. First we begin with a greeting, Peace be upon you. This is what we wish for every person we meet, and every person who comes into this world: may peace, wholeness, be upon you. We do not wish anyone who comes into this world brokenness, God forbid.

The third stanza, tzetchem l’shalom, may you leave in blessing. Every person passes on, but the hope is that they pass over to the next world in peace, but not just peace, wholeness. That they lived a full life, a life where they made a difference, where they left the world better off than when they came.

And in the middle, Barchuni l’shalom, they bless us with peace. This is a point that is the hard part. What happens when its hard to find the blessing? What do we do then? What do we do with the negative? Do we ignore it? Do we live life with sweetness and blessing, or do we live life with the taste of maror in our mouths, of bitterness and suffering?

There is a magic fruit called the miracle fruit, has anyone tried one? It is a small little seed, or a berry. My neighbor gave me one, so I bit it, chewed it up, and swallowed it. Then he gave me a lemon, and wouldn’t you know it, the lemon tasted sweet. Everything that was bitter was sweet, it was a miracle. It’s a seed, a fruit, so I know it’s kosher, but to be honest, I did have a little guilt. It might be a kosher fruit, but it’s not kosher to live life without bitterness. There are no miracles in that type of life.

Memory is not about just the good times, but also the bitter times. Not only do we accept bitterness on this holiday, but we bless it. The hagadah tells us, whoever mentions these three things, Matzah, Maror, and the Pesach, has fulfilled the mitzvah of the seder. Not only do we mention it, but we taste it, and we bless it, al achilat maror. I even have a maror contest, trying to find as many bitter things possible for my guests to eat. So is this who we are? Do we focus too much on the bitter?

In the first blessing of Shacharit, we bless God by saying, Yotzer or U’voreh Hoshech, Oseh Shalom, U’voreh et ha Kol – Praised are you, Lord our God, sovereign of the universe, who fashions light and creates darkness, makes peace, and creates it all. Do you know that this is a typo? The original quote is actually found in the book of Isaiah, Oseh Shalom, U’voreh et ha rah – makes peace, and creates evil. But the Rabbis changed it. They knew that bad things happen in the world, and yes, God allows it, but we do not dwell on the evil, rather, we include it in the all – God creates it all.

On Pesach, before we eat the maror, we do something very interesting – we soften the bitterness with haroset, the sweet mix of apples and berries that represent the brick and morter of the pyramids that we built. It is a symbol of pain that we make sweet.

Today, we are gathered here to remember, Yizkor. Remembering is not always fond memories, but difficult ones, bitter ones. Who here has had a family member that has never let them down, that has never hurt them? None. Sometimes, we are bitter to each other, but is that all we remember?

So what do we do with Maror, bitterness? Do we take the miracle fruit and pretend it does not exist, or do we eat it, do we accept it, and realize that sometimes sweet things came out of it. We might be mad at a family member for saying an awful thing, for not accepting your lifestyle, for not being there for you when you needed them the most. Unfortunately, they are not here to defend themselves, they cannot explain why they did bitter things. So we are left with questions, but rather than find answers, we have to find blessings.

It may be the knocks on your head outnumbered the hugs you received, but does that mean you forget the hugs? It is ok to be angry, but you have to look at it all, not just the bad, but the good, the blessing. In Judaism, we taste bitterness so we know what sweetness is.

So today, you might try and block out the bitterness, but I ask you not to. You need to remember the bitterness so you can truly taste and experience the sweet. Your loved ones, in their lives, blessed you with their presence. Maybe it was a parent who gave birth to you, who sacrificed to raise you, who worked so hard to see you smile; maybe it is a sibling that made you laugh, that knew you better than you knew yourself, or a child left you far too early, but whose presence you still feel because they are still with you.

Today, we accept it all, maror, bitterness and sweetness, and we say with pride that this is what being a Jew is all about – it’s about blessing.

The only question that remains for you is, how will you be a blessing to people in your life? How will you sweeten the bitter, knowing that the bitter is needed at times? Today, we remember everything and we bless God for it, the good, the tov, and the bad, ha kol.

Why do we bless the bitter herbs, (maror), at the seder? Sometimes bitterness teaches us to grow, to transcend the past with new resolve. Today, let us Bless God for the gift of memory which brings both the bitter and the sweet.

Shabbat HaGadol – Parashat Tzav 2012 – delivered by Rabbi David Baum

This Shabbat, Shabbat HaGadol, signifies the last Shabbat that the Israelites were slaves in Egypt. This was when they began preparing, and so, we too begin preparing. For those who have been avoiding the great cleaning, the removal of hametz from your house, well, now is the time to get ready.

Today, I want to talk about why the removal of hametz, leavened products, is so important during this time and its effect on us.

Interestingly enough, Parashat Tzav is always read on Shabbat HaGadol. As we open this week’s Torah reading, Parashat Tzav, we read of the many different sacrifices – individual and collective- covering different times, occasions, and intentions.  Each sacrifice, according to the Torah, was to be offered by the Priests in specific ways and with specific detailed procedures.

But what I found most interesting is that the priests did not allow hametz on the alter. We see this in verse 6:9, “8 A handful of the choice flour and oil of the meal offering shall be taken from it, with all the frankincense that is on the meal offering, and this token portion shall be turned into smoke on the altar as a pleasing odor to the Lord. 9 What is left of it shall be eaten by Aaron and his sons; it shall be eaten as unleavened cakes, in the sacred precinct; they shall eat it in the enclosure of the Tent of Meeting. 10 It shall not be baked with leaven;

The question is, why? On Pesach, the reason is that the israelites had to leave Egypt in a hurry, so much so, that they had no time for their dough to rise. We abstain from having leavened bread during this time for memories sake. Not eating bread for eight days makes us feel a certain way.

I was thinking about how I feel on the eight days of Passover. To be honest, I can’t eat that much matzah, but I sure can eat a lot of bread. Without bread or pasta, or leavened wheat, I might be full, but its not the same type of full. There is something missing, and my body knows it. The truth is, I can never do Atkins because I love bread and pasta too much. One of our congregants shared what eating on Passover is like by saying, “I am constantly opening my fridge, looking around and closing it because I just don’t want to eat.” When you eat leavened products, you feel full, when you eat matzah, there is something lacking.

When I eat a lot of pasta or bread, I feel full, and I feel tired. On Pesach, even though I am supposed to be reminded of the rush of making the matzah, just 18 minutes, I don’t feel rushed, I feel hungry.

But sometimes hunger is a good thing, even on the altar, even on a day to day basis, not just on Passover. The Sefer HaChinuch written in the 13th century tries to explain why keeping hametz which was prepared over a long period of time away from one’s offering, “A person will attain the idea of acquiring the quality of altertness, lightness, and swiftness in deeds on behalf of God.” It reminds me of the famous line that Rabbi Hillel says in Pirkei Avot, “And if not now, when?” All too often, when we see holy work that needs to be done, whether it is feeding the hungry, giving a tzedakah to a Jewish cause, helping or visiting Israel, going to shul, having a shabbat dinner, giving our kids and ourselves a jewish education, we say, “I’m tired, I’ll do it later.” When we are hungry, we are alert, light on our feet, ready to do the work, now, because, really, when are you going to do it?

The Sefer Ha-Hinuch gives yet another reason – leaven puffs itself up, it rises, and it’s a metaphor for people. Haughty, arrogant people puff themselves up, but that is not what God wants out of us. God wants us to be humble, to realize that there is something greater than us, that we are not the only person that matters in the world.

If we combine the two, we see that we have to fast, alert, ready to act, but also humble.

God wants us to be matzah, lechem oni, a poor person’s bread.

In our seders, before we eat the matzah, we break it in half during the Yachatz, right before the Maggid section, the story telling. The Pesach story begins in a broken world, a world of slavery and oppression. When you tear a piece of bread, it doesn’t make a sound, but when you break matzah, you hear a crack. It gets us thinking back to when times weren’t so good. There is a story that I read by a holocaust survivor, Bina Talitman, who spoke about her first day in Israel as a child refugee. She arrived in Kibbutz Kedma together with other survivor children. They were orphans, they were hungry, they were poor, and exhausted from a long journey. She spoke about the first meal they had in the kibbutz mess hall, tables filled with vegetables, cheeses, breads, an all you can eat buffet of delicious foods. She thought about her days in the camps, when all she could think about was bread, but there was never enough to make her full. She would go to sleep hungry, and wake up hungry, but now, her dream came true, she would no longer be hungry!

But she did something peculiar. In the first few days, she would take the bread, and tear it in half, and hide it in her pocket. It was a reminder of the days when she had no bread.

The holy alter of the Mishkan and the Holy Temple was physically destroyed, but spiritually, it was brought to all of our tables. For one week out of the year, we strictly follow the lead of the alter by not allowing leavened products. By doing this, we remind ourselves that no matter how great we are, there were those before us who suffered, and there are still many who do. We cannot close our eyes to them because we want to take a nap after eating all that bread, rather, we have to be hungry. During Pesach, we say, Bchol dor va dor chayav adam lirot et atzmoh, kielu hu yatzah mimitzraim. Each generation must look at themselves as if they themselves had left Egypt, each one of us has to imagine that we too are hungry, we too are broken.

May we all spend our Pesach holiday hungry, missing something, and may we fill that void with Ma’asim Tovim, good deeds, our Torah, and each other, whether we are friends, family, or strangers. Let us all realize that there there is always someone in need, and we can help make them whole.

Amen.

Leviticus Is Like An Onion, It Has Layers, and So Do You © by Rabbi David Baum

Parashat Vayikra, Rosh Chodesh Nisan 5772 (2012)

I had an amazing moment a couple of years ago.  I had someone tell me the following, “I have been reading the siddur and I am disturbed by something.  What is all this stuff about animal sacrifices?   Do we really believe in this, do I really have to read about it?”  It wasn’t a bar mitzvah kid, or a child, it was my mother.  I asked her, what have you been doing when we were in shul all our lives.  She answered, “Just because it was always there doesn’t mean I was reading it!”  Now she began to understand something.  How do you think I felt when we came to this book, and I had to tell her that every dvar torah should would hear over the next 10 weeks was going to be about this subject?  Oh yeah, also the Musaf service on every Shabbat and holiday.

How do we, as 21^st century modern Jews, make sense of this bloody mess that is (Leviticus) Vayikra.  I like to quote Shrek at this moment, but substitute Leviticus/Vayikra for ogre, “Leviticus/Vayikra is like an onion; it has many layers.”  What we have to do is look beyond the surface because it is complicated.  This is not an easy answer for the KISS society, by KISS I mean, keep it simple sweetheart.  We like things that are in nice little packages.  We like meat, but we don’t like seeing where it comes from, rather, we like it in hermetically sealed plastic packages in the beautiful grocery store.  We are into cleanliness, in more ways than one.  Being clean and neat is great, but it comes at a price:  distance.  And it isn’t just about meat, but so many other things.  We like the idea of the perfect family, but we do not like to acknowledge the problems that families have behind closed doors.  We don’t like the airing of dirty laundry, that’s why we have dryers, to keep it in the house!

First, let us look at the word, Korban.  The root is k-r-v, the verb version of this word means ‘near’.  The Zohar teaches us why we use this word, which we call sacrifice, for the acts at the Temple.  They are gift offerings that imply closeness, and when we get close to something, it engenders compassion.  When we get close to something, when we get to know it, we warm up to it.  How many of us had people who we thought we hated, but once we came close to them, once we got to know them, we saw that we could actually like these people?  You know, after I got to know them, they aren’t that bad.  You know why?  Because humans are not beings made up of sound bites, with one identity.  Like Ogres and onions, we too have layers. 

As much as this parashah, this book even, is about animals, it is also about people.  That is what these offerings are all about.  Within each one of us, no matter how much knowledge we get about the world and how it works, is the realization that we are just small beings.  How do we deal with the fact that we are so small, and yet the planet, the universe is so large?  We do it by physically expressing humanity’s submission and recognition of God’s authority through the Olah offering.  When we make the blessing over bread, we say, HaMotzi Lechem min ha’aretz, who brings forth bread from the earth.  Has anyone ever seen a bread tree?  No, it takes God and us working together to create this food that keeps us alive, and so through the minha offering of flour and olive oil and baked goods, as a consecration of man’s work to God’s service.  How many of us have regrets?  No one is perfect, we all make mistakes.  How do we overcome regret, sin, a wrongful act?  We do tesuvah, and we clean ourselves through the sin offering, the Chatat, the sin, or the Asham, guilt  offerings.  Throughout this book, we are going to be learning about different types of sacrifices.  It isn’t just about animals, it’s about you as a human being.  How are you going to bring yourself closer to God, something greater than yourself? 

The sacrifices are complicated, with lots of details and movements, but so are you. 

When we look in the mirror, we do not just see a one-dimensional picture; we see layers.  The challenge is not to see the complexity within you, that’s easy, the challenge is to see the complexity in your fellow man and the world around you. 

Why is this important?  Because looking at people as caricatures or stereotypes can be a dangerous thing.  This week, we witnessed two atrocities, one at home, and one abroad.  At home, in our state of Florida, a teenager named Trayvon Martin was gunned down by a neighborhood watch captain, George Zimmerman, who was told by 911 operators to leave the child alone.  This will all be handled in the courts, and I hope the truth will come out, but if the truth is that this person tried to take justice in his own hands by shooting this young man because he looked suspicious due to his skin color and hoodie, then it is a tragedy of epic proportions.  This young, African American teen, had nothing but a soda and skittles in a bag.  I heard a story on the news about how black parents speak to their children about when people confront them.  They tell them not to make sudden movements with their hands, to follow everything the person says, because they do not want their child to die.  They have seen too many examples of young people of color dying because they were misjudged.  Can you imagine telling your child this?  Can you imagine thinking that you teen can die because they are looked at as suspicious?  We stereotype, and most of the time, we do it unintentionally, but, as our parashah tells us (5:17 -18), even unintentional sins are subject to punishment and need to be atoned for. 

When you get close to someone, when you get to know them, you realize that stereotypes are only the surface, that most of the time they are not true, or extremely exaggerated, and at best, are only one small percentage of who that person is. 

Another tragedy which hits even closer to home for us was the murder of four Jews, a 30 year old Rabbi, his two young sons, and an eight year old girl by a man.  They were killed by a terrorist, someone who views Jews as evil, as caricatures.  It is nothing new to us.  We have been looked at as caricatures throughout our history.  It is hard to kill a person, but it’s easy to kill an animal, something that is not human. 

When I thought about these children waiting at the school, in car pool or for the bus, I thought of my own child.  The evil that was committed in both cases, I believe, has a root, a disregard for God’s creations, a sin of distance.

Humans aren’t animals, we are onions, we have layers.  Life is not neat, its messy, just like the Mishkan was.  The Cohanim had to become experts in animal, in slaughter.  They knew the deepest layers of God’s creations.  If an animal is so complicated, how much the more so are people!  It’s a lesson for us all.  We cannot run away from complexity because we want to keep things simple.  When we keep things and people simple, we risk losing the humanity within them. We cannot be distant, but karov, close.

I’d like to end on a fun note.  In the movie, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, when a Greek girl ‘intermarries’ with a young man who would be considered a WASP with the last name of Miller.  At one point in the movie, her father described the Miller family as white bread, toast, in other words, no substance, but after getting to know them, he came to a different conclusion which he shared at their wedding.  He said, “You know, the root of the word Miller is a Greek word. Miller come from the Greek word “milo,” which is mean “apple,” so there you go. As many of you know, our name, Portokalos, is come from the Greek word “portokali,” which mean “orange.” So, okay? Here tonight, we have, ah, apple and orange. We all different, but in the end, we all fruit.”

Whether we are onions, apples, or oranges, let’s not forget that deep down, we are all human. 

Mom, that’s why I read Leviticus/Vayikra every year in detail, because it reminds me how human I and everyone else is, and because it brings me closer to you, and everyone else.  

Parashat Va-era: Being a part of Israel, not apart by Rabbi David Baum©

A couple of weeks ago, we had the opportunity to learn from a Rabbi who teaches at the CY. In each one of his teachings, he ended with his personal take on the issue, his personal take on pre-martial sex, his personal take on using musical instruments on Shabbat, and finally, his personal take on the redemption of Gilad Shalit. Who would have thought that out of those three topics, his take on the redemption of captives would have been the most controversial! The Rabbi said that he does not believe in prisoner transfers, and thinks the policy should be that the army should try and take our prisoners back by force.

A woman stood up and said, “We do not have a right to have an opinion as to what the Israelis should do.” This rabbi had served in the IDF, he was a reservist for 15 years, but he had an American accent. I think it was hard for her to imagine that American should have an opinion on Israel. I stood up and gave my answer to her, but the truth was, one sentence wasn’t enough, so today, I want to share that answer, in much longer form, through this dvar torah. It was a basic question:

Should we as Americans feel apart of Israel, or a part from Israel?

Obviously, the answer must be, apart of Israel, but herein lies the challenge, and an opportunity. When we speak about Israel here in the U.S., in the public sphere, it is usually about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Short end of it, with issues of security, we don’t know the full story. Security is the Guf, the body of Israel, and it is vitally important. This is where some of our Jewish organizations do a great job such as AIPAC.

But a Guf, a body, without a Neshamah, a soul, is just an empty vessel. It is our soul, our Neshamah, that make us who we are. I’m not a doctor, so I cannot tell you about your body, your Guf, but as a Rabbi, I can talk about your soul, our collective soul, our neshamah.

I want to speak about some events in Israel that affect the soul, and we have to ask ourselves, are a part of the soul of Israel, or apart FROM it?

Before we talk about this weighty issue, I want to talk about a plan that we see described in this week’s parashah. God finally unveils his plan to free the Hebrews from bondage. It is a blue print that is only a couple of lines long, but gives a plan for not only freedom from bondage, but also the creation of a people and redemption.

Exodus 6:6 – 8

6Say, therefore, to the Israelite people: I am the Lord. I will free you from the labors of the Egyptians and deliver you from their bondage. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and through extraordinary chastisements. 7And I will take you to be My people, and I will be your God. And you shall know that I, the Lord, am your God who freed you from the labors of the Egyptians. 8I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I will give it to you for a possession, I the Lord.”

There are four verses of liberation here:

1. I will free you
2. I will deliver you
3. I will redeem you
4. I will take you to be My people

These four actions are very important, and the midrash refers to these lines regarding the four cups of wine that we drink at the Passover sedar.

The commentators break each step down for us.

We look at the first promise – I will free you – the first step is physical freedom from external bondage. Usually, we think that this is what freedom is. When the American Revolution was over, we all know, it was just the beginning. We had a bit of freedom, but we still had a lot of work to do. So you go to the next step – deliverance, I will deliver you – your former oppressors no longer have any influence on you. You are no longer scared of them, you aren’t looking over your shoulders worried. This is almost a psychological aspect to freedom – its like after you beat the bully, now you aren’t scared of him or her any longer. They no longer hold free rent in your heads.

The third step is what I was fascinated with – Redemption – I will redeem you. Redemption is a powerful concept. I believe that the first two are very physical, but Redemption becomes a spiritual concept.

It is when we realize that the ways of our oppressors are empty and meaningless. The oppressed, because we are free, can develop our own identity, our own culture. It is when we realize our self worth, and find deeper meaning in our own existence as free people. I believe that this is the goal of our faith.

Before we continue, I want to read you the first part of the prayer for the state of Israel which we say every Shabbat. There is one line that is quite profound and I wonder how we make sense of it.

Reshit Tzmichat Geulatenu – the beginning, of the flowering of our redemption

Redemption comes in stages, and our work is not done, in fact, it is just beginning. We have done a good job with the body, the Guf, but we have neglected the soul, the Neshamah.

We say these words during every prayer service because we have not yet reached redemption, Geulah. I am sure many of you have heard the story of Naama Margolese, an 8 year old, the daughter of American immigrants who are observant modern Orthodox Jews. An Israeli weekend television program told the story of how Naama had become terrified of walking to her elementary school here after ultra-Orthodox men spit on her, insulted her and called her a prostitute because her modest dress did not adhere exactly to their more rigorous dress code.

The group of Ultra Orthodox, Haredim, who have taken the lead in Beit Shemesh call themselves the the Sicarii, or daggermen, after a violent and stealthy faction of Jews who tried to expel the Romans in the decades before the destruction of Jerusalem in C.E.. 70. Obviously, we know what happens when this group of extremists gains control of the soul of Israel.

This awoke something in Israel that has been dormant for a long time. Her soul is waking up from its slumber. We have heard of this before, but this is about extreme as it gets. Women are being separated on public buses, one woman, and IDF female soldier, was beaten by an Ultra Orthodox man because he saw tefillin marks on her arm (she is a Masorti/Conservative Jew). Recently, thousands of Haredim protested the government which took steps against them by dressing up in concentration camp garb complete with yellow stars of David. But now, the majority of the population is finally standing up and saying, this is our faith too.

We here in America should support the body, the guf, so criticizing Israel for protecting itself may not be the right thing, but we are one people, Am Echad, and the Haredim, the Ultra-Orthodox do not own our faith – we do.

It is time for us to care about our souls because if we don’t, we will lose then, and we will risk losing the greatest gift we have received in 2,000 years, the beginning of our redemption.

Rav Avraham Kook, the famous Zionist Rabbi, once said, “The hope for the return to the Holy Land is the continuing source of the distinctive nature of Judaism. The hope for the redemption is the force that sustains Judaism in the Diaspora; the Judaism of Ereẓ Israel is the very redemption”

So what is the Judaism of Eretz Israel?

I want to end with a story about my rabbinical school interview which occurred in Israel during my time at the Conservative Yeshiva. In my rabbinical essays, I mentioned that I was a member of Temple Beth Israel, and some of the rabbis during the interview asked me if I was Reform. Apparently, up north (America), the Reform synagogues called themselves Temples in order to act as a replacement for the Holy Temple. Then one rabbi asked me, “Do you think we should build the third beit Hamikdash (the Third Temple)?” I paused, collected my thoughts and said, “Yes. If all the streamlines of Judaism can live together in one place, worship in peace and accept each other as brothers, then yes, we should.” Of course, we all had a nice laugh because we knew it would take the coming of the Messiah for that to happen! But it got me thinking about our people.

Our faith needs more and diverse voices, not fewer. We need to support the Masorti movement in Israel, we need to learn about the philosophy of Zionism, to learn and engage the soul of modern day Israel.

We are in stage three right now, can we get to stage four?

1. I will take you to be My people

A famous commentator, the Bekhor Shor, says that this last line refers to the meeting of God and Israel at Mount Sinai. It is our union together, the beginning of our true relationship, of responsibilities to God, and to our people. So how do we get there? How do we worship in one Temple?

“The Village of the Messiahs”. In this Chasidic tale, there is a village that is sad and broken. A man from the village visits a wise Rabbi who says he can’t help but shares a secret. The Messiah is someone in this village. The man goes home and tells his neighbors this news. They all begin to treat each other with love and care because they don’t know which one of them it is. They begin to treat themselves with love and care because it might be them! The town becomes a place full of laughter, light and peace, and they realize that the Messiah has come.

We are most free, most fully human, when we help ourselves and others to live up to our best potential as caring human beings and as serious Jews.

We will be free, we will be redeemed, but we can accept each other, and realize that there is room for all Jews, not just one type.

Freedom comes in stages, and you can be a part of it. Today, I ask you to take that challenge that God laid before us. We are at the beginning of Geulah – help us achieve true redemption.

Being A Man/Woman In A Place Without Men - © Rabbi David Baum

Parashat Shemot, 2012/5772

Rabbi David Baum, Congregation Shaarei Kodesh

I recently returned from an annual retreat called the Rabbinic Training Institute. It’s a week of learning with some of the preeminent minds of the Conservative movement. But among all the famous rabbis and scholars, there was one that I had to speak to. His is name Rabbi Joshua Ben Gideon, the only Conservative Rabbi in Madison, Wisconsin, and I wanted to know what he did in the turmoil of the protests in the state capital. I hadn’t heard much from him at all. He did not write any articles, emails, blogs, or Facebook quotes about his experiences in Madison during this time.

So I asked him, what did he do? He told me he supported his interfaith clergy partners, pastors and priests, in their protests, and he protected his many congregants that were protesting as well. He went to the protests, and even showed me video from his Iphone of the scenes. I was amazed by his courage, the stories he told me of leading public prayers, and more. I told him, why not get your name out there, write articles, tweet, facebook, etc.

He said, I don’t know, I don’t think it’s that amazing, I’m just a guy.

Later on in the conference, I was sitting down with a former classmate who is now a rabbi at a small synagogue in Los Angeles. He sat down next to me and said, David, I’ve heard from so many people that you are doing amazing work in Boca. I told him, “amazing, not really, I’m just a guy.”

And so I caught myself. As much as many of us think we want attention for our actions, many more of us discount ourselves. Were just a guy, so today, I want to talk about the concept of איש/אישה in our parashah and in Judaism.

Today I want to talk to you about different ways of looking at the word and the concept of the איש (pronounced Eesh, translated as man, but for our cases, I include women in its definition for the purpose of this teaching).

The first ‘man’ is anonymous, and we find him first in parashat Vayeshev:

(טו) וַיִּמְצָאֵהוּ אִישׁ וְהִנֵּה תֹעֶה בַּשָּׂדֶה וַיִּשְׁאָלֵהוּ הָאִישׁ לֵאמֹר מַה תְּבַקֵּשׁ:

(טז) וַיֹּאמֶר אֶת אַחַי אָנֹכִי מְבַקֵּשׁ הַגִּידָה נָּא לִי אֵיפֹה הֵם רֹעִים:

“And a man came upon him – here, he was roaming in the field; the man asked him, saying:

What do you seek? (Mah Tivakesh)?

He said:  I seek my brothers, pray tell me where they are tending sheep.

The man said:  They have moved on from here, indeed, I heard them say:  Let us go to Dotan.”

Rashi among others says that this man was an angel sent to make sure that Joseph stayed on his path, but I like to actually think of him as how is described: a man, an anonymous man. All of you have met him, and most of you have probably been him without even knowing.

Rabbi Ethan Linden, who is serving the only Conservative synagogue in New Orleans, told us a story of this man. Ethan came to this synagogue about 2 years after Katrina, and one of his congregants told him his story about Katrina.

He was 80, on the 6^th floor of his building, and could not leave his home, etc. – man came by in a row boat and said, hey buddy, jump in. He calls his son and says, should I jump in this guys boat, I don’t even know who he is. The son answered, I don’t think anyone else is coming dad, this might be your only chance. So he jumped in, and the guy took him to safety, dropped him off, and he never saw him again, or even got his name. He told the Rabbi, I survived the holocaust because of pure will, but a guy in a boat saved my life.

I tell you these things because I believe men, who act in Godly ways, can change the world much more than angels can.

And then, there is a 2^nd type of man who we learn about in our parashah:

Chapter 2:11 – 14

(יא) וַיְהִי בַּיָּמִים הָהֵם וַיִּגְדַּל מֹשֶׁה וַיֵּצֵא אֶל אֶחָיו וַיַּרְא בְּסִבְלֹתָם וַיַּרְא אִישׁ מִצְרִי מַכֶּה אִישׁ עִבְרִי מֵאֶחָיו:

(יב) וַיִּפֶן כֹּה וָכֹה וַיַּרְא כִּי אֵין אִישׁ וַיַּךְ אֶת הַמִּצְרִי וַיִּטְמְנֵהוּ בַּחוֹל:

(יג) וַיֵּצֵא בַּיּוֹם הַשֵּׁנִי וְהִנֵּה שְׁנֵי אֲנָשִׁים עִבְרִים נִצִּים וַיֹּאמֶר לָרָשָׁע לָמָּה תַכֶּה רֵעֶךָ:

(יד) וַיֹּאמֶר מִי שָׂמְךָ לְאִישׁ שַׂר וְשֹׁפֵט עָלֵינוּ הַלְהָרְגֵנִי אַתָּה אֹמֵר כַּאֲשֶׁר הָרַגְתָּ אֶת הַמִּצְרִי וַיִּירָא מֹשֶׁה וַיֹּאמַר אָכֵן נוֹדַע הַדָּבָר:

11Some time after that, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his kinsfolk and witnessed their labors. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his kinsmen. 12He turned this way and that and, seeing no one about, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand 13When he went out the next day, he found two Hebrews fighting; so he said to the offender, “Why do you strike your fellow?” 14He retorted, “Who made you chief and ruler over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Moses was frightened, and thought: Then the matter is known!

And so I need to back up. I know we have all these stories of Moshe as the son of Pharoah, and memories from movies, but in the Torah, all we here about is Moshe is taken as a baby, and then the Torah says, וַיִּגְדַּל מֹשֶׁה, and Moshe grew up. One day, he goes out to his brothers (so he knows he’s a Hebrew), and the next says, “ וַיַּרְא בְּסִבְלֹתָם” And he looked on their burden. There are so many looks one can give, and unfortunately, the Torah is not a movie, we cannot see his expression. Rashi says, “He directed his eyes and heart to share their distress.”

The Torah doesn’t want us to know about his relationship with Pharoah as his son, or his adopted mother, or his education, the only thing they want us to know about him after he was born is this story. And I was struck by one line:

יב) וַיִּפֶן כֹּה וָכֹה וַיַּרְא כִּי אֵין אִישׁ

12He turned this way and that and, seeing no one about

So Rashi gives us two interpretations. The first is a masterful one that quotes midrashim, and the second? K’Mashmao – Just as it sounds, meaning, he looked around and saw no one. And I like this interpretation the best, because it reminded me of another line about an אִישׁ, Pirkei Avot,2:6, Hillel said:

ובמקום שאין אנשים השתדל להיות איש:

In a place where there are no men, strive to be a man.

I think Moshe was the inspiration for this teaching. Moshe sees his people’s burden, and he felt it in his heart, and through this he became affected. I don’t believe Moshe looked around to see if he wasn’t going to get in trouble, I think he looked around for men, and suddenly realized: there’s only me. And he goes on to try to intervene twice more, by intervening when two Jews are fighting. When he intervenes for the two Jews they tell him, “ Who made you chief and ruler over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” In other words, who the heck are you, you aren’t one of us.

His intervening in Egypt brought him great pain. He enters Midian as an Egyptian, an anonymous guy, and he intervenes again, but behalf of a non-Jew in Midian. He keeps trying to get out, but they keep pulling him back in!

But still, he seems lost. He names his son for his struggles: Gershom, for he said, “I have been a stranger in a foreign land.” Which land is he foreign in, Midian, or Egypt, where he is neither an Egyptian, nor truly a Hebrew as his brothers told him.

And it is only after these experiences that he finds his true purpose in life. It is when he is just a shepard, living a simple life, that he sees the burning bush, and you know the rest of the story.

Why did God choose Moshe? I think its because he proved himself to be a defender of the defenseless, and not only could he empathize with his people when he directed his eyes and heart to share their distress, but also to non-Jews, people he didn’t know and felt to kinship towards. Even though they looked different, Midianites, they shared a common bond with the Israelites: they were defenseless.

This week was both the birthday and Yahrtzeit of another איש, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, z”l. Heschel was a great man, who wrote many books. He changed the way both Jews and non-Jews looked at Judaism. And if he just wrote his books, just taught his students who are now the leaders of the progressive movements in Judaism, Dayenu, it would have been enough. But Heschel, who European man who probably had not met an African American until he came to the states, saw men, who different skin then his, different hair, different language, and different religion, and he saw himself in them. “He directed his eyes and heart to share their distress.”

So Abraham Joshua Heschel built a relationship with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., just another man. And together, locked arm and arm, a rabbi from Poland, and a preacher from they walked across the bridge at Selma and made history. Heschel later wrote, “When I marched in Selma, my feet were praying.”

It is only fitting that we are honoring Dr. King on Monday. Dr. King famously said, “We are not makers of history. We are made by history.” Meaning, there are opportunities that God puts before us to stand up and make a difference. If we act, we make history, if we don’t, then life goes on, but potential worlds are destroyed.

So today, as you leave this holy space, I want you to think about this line,

ובמקום שאין אנשים השתדל להיות איש:

In a place where there are no men, strive to be a man. Maybe it will be in Madison, Wisconsin, or in a row boat in New Orleans, or in a field in Austria, and you’ll help someone or even save a life, but you won’t receive any recognition. Or maybe, some Rabbi 30 years from now will be quoting your words, b’shem Omro, in your name.

When you are witnessing oppression, you can stand by, and you know what, life will go on. Heck, your life might even benefit from it!

But God wants something else from you. God wants you to see yourself in others, even if they don’t look like you, or speak your language, but they share your history: they are oppressed, just like you were in Egypt. God wants you to be a man in a place where there are no men.

Vayigash: Talking About God In Our Synagogues and on the Field – ©Rabbi David Baum

December 31^st, 2011, Rabbi David Baum

Congregation Shaarei Kodesh

When sports stars win a game, who is the first person they thank?  God.  The funny thing is when they lose, I never hear, “Well, it was God’s fault.”

It is safe to say that Jews do not feel comfortable with this type of speech.  In sports, when it comes to Jews, the big debate has been, should he play on Yom Kippur?  Every year, there is some Jewish baseball player who has to make that decision, whether it is Sandy Koufax, or Kevin Youkilis or Ryan Braun; but no matter whether they play on Yom Kippur or not, I never hear God talk.

Why do Jews feel so uncomfortable with ‘God’ talk?  That is what I want to talk about today, and I have my own theories about why we, Jews living in a heavily Christian country, might feel this way.

I want to start by talking about a controversial figure.  Some call him the son of God, others call him just a man.  In the town where he performed miracles, they have etched his words in stone, and built a statue in his honor.  People have given passionate speeches about him, both positive and negative.  If you are wondering, I am not talking about Jesus, I’m talking about Tim Tebow.

I was lucky enough to serve as the rabbinic intern at the University of Florida the year the Gators won their second national championship with Tim Tebow (I actually went to the game here in Miami).  Tim Tebow was a phenomenon that surpassed many great players and QBs, even Heisman winners.  Every game, he would come out with the traditional black tape under his eyes, but on his black tape, there were different Bible verses from his weekly Bible study.  Following a surprising loss in 2008, Tim Tebow made a speech called “the promise” to the Gator Nation. “The Promise”, was etched in stone and placed in front of the Swamp in Gainesville after the Gators won the National Championship that year.  It seemed Tim Tebow was giving Moses a run for his money with these stone tablets!  Still later, a statue was erected in his honor.

Lately, he has become both famous and infamous.  He took over a team, the Broncos, competing for the Luck Sweepstakes (the 1^st pick in the draft), to possibly winning one last game this Sunday to get his team into the playoffs.  He is not a typical NFL quarterback.  His throwing motion is all-wrong, but he just keeps winning.  If you watch ESPN any NFL football shows, you know that people either love him with a deep passion or hate him with that same passion.

I look at this as a metaphor for the God conversation in our country.  There seems to be no middle ground.  Maybe that is because we are looking at this issue from a Christian perspective.  According to Rabbi Neil Gilman, in his book Sacred Fragments, “Belief is a vital to being a Christian.  A Christian is not a Christian unless he or she believes that Jesus of Nazareth was God who became a human being, was crucified and resurrected, and will return at the end of days.”  Belief is very important for Christianity.  The Roman Catholic Mass, recited daily, includes a portion entitled the Credo – literally, I believe – which gives the essential doctrine of Christianity.  Our credo is not the Shema, rather, it is Yigdal or Adon Olam – which are at the very end of the service.  What does this show about how WE as Jews believe?

In our parashah today, we confront this very issue – God talk.  Many do not know this, but Joseph was a big God talker.

4 Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Come forward to me.” And when they came forward, he said, “I am your brother Joseph, he whom you sold into Egypt. 5 Now, do not be distressed or reproach yourselves because you sold me hither; it was to save life that God sent me ahead of you. 6 It is now two years that there has been famine in the land, and there are still five years to come in which there shall be no yield from tilling. 7 God has sent me ahead of you to ensure your survival on earth, and to save your lives in an extraordinary deliverance.8 So, it was not you who sent me here, but God; and He has made me a father to Pharaoh, lord of all his household, and ruler over the whole land of Egypt.

9“Now, hurry back to my father and say to him: Thus says your son Joseph, ‘God has made me lord of all Egypt; come down to me without delay.

When we read this, do we bat an eye?  There is a lot of mention about God.  When we were first introduced to Joseph, we didn’t hear much about the Holy One Blessed Be He.  Joseph did not even hint at God when he told about his first dreams to his brothers.  In fact, Joseph was the one who was being bowed down to.  This led to conflict with his brothers, and Joseph being sold into the slavery to Egypt.  God only comes into Joseph’s life when he goes to Egypt in Potiphar’s house.  The text states four times in chapter 39, “The Lord was with Joseph” but Joseph only mentions God once when he confronts Potiphar’s wife, “How then could I do this most wicked thing, and sin before God?”  Finally, we hear about God from Joseph.  It seems everyone else, Potiphar, the jailers, and Pharaoh, sees God’s influence on Joseph but Joseph himself!

It is not until Joseph is in jail that he mentions God’s name in the spirit of belief.  Rather than tell people about his dreams, Joseph becomes an interpreter of dreams, and when asked by the baker and cup barer to use what would seem to be his gift, he utters the famous line, “Surely God can interpret!  Tell me your dreams.”  When Pharaoh brings him in two years later to do the same, Joseph again does not claim this gift as his own, rather, he invokes God’s name again.

“I have had a dream, but no one can interpret it. Now I have heard it said of you that for you to hear a dream is to tell its meaning.” 16Joseph answered Pharaoh, saying, “Not I! God will see to Pharaoh’s welfare.”

To make a long story short, Joseph, a man who only mentions God once before prison, cannot stop talking about God.  He finally sees the light!  If he were Christian, maybe he would call himself “saved”!

So when his brothers finally see him in our parashah, they are shocked for more than one reason.  Here they see their brother who they thought was dead, and he is totally changed, both in appearance and in personality.  When they knew Joseph, he never talked about God, now his belief in God saves them from revenge.

The Rabbis looked at the line, “The Lord was with Joseph” which occurred so often and wondered, what could this mean?

There is a famous midrash that reflects on this line, “Joseph whispered God’s name whenever he came in and whenever he went out.”  By continually repeating God’s name to himself and regularly involving God’s love and involvement, Joseph trained himself to perceive the miraculous in the ordinary, to experience wonder in the mundane.

But the midrash makes sure to say that Joseph did not scream God’s name, but whispered it.   He kept his thoughts about his religious experience to himself, to his words, and he focused on his deeds.

It may seem like Tim Tebow is screaming about his faith out loud, but what he is really becoming famous for are his actions.  Tebowing (as you can see below) is a non-verbal statement, and he does it after every win, and every loss.  There is even a website of people Tebowing!  (http://tebowing.com/)

Yet another way to look at this idea of God being with Joseph is how Rashi explains it.  Rashi tells us, “the name of God was fluent in his mouth.”  Joseph spoke about God, not merely to God, and he was hardly whispering.  By speaking about God, he inherently got others to think about their relationship with God.  And he spoke about God often, God was fluent in his mouth.

So should we whisper about God or should God be fluent in our mouths?  We need both.  Whispering about God means that you internalize your theology.  Sometimes we whisper God’s name but we do it all too fast.  Think about every time you say the blessing over bread, the Hamotzi, “who brings bread from the earth” or even the She-Hakol, “through Whose word everything comes into being.”  When we perform mitzvoth, the actions that bind us to God, we begin the conversation internally.

In my experience, I have seen God’s presence strongest in two places – the synagogue and in the hospital.  Visiting the sick, praying with them is an uplifting and divine experience, more so than any class on theology.

But we also have to look at the other side:  Rashi’s view, of speaking about God.

Like Joseph, our relationship with God must change over time.  Many of us still have the same theology that we did when we were in Hebrew school in 4^th grade.  Judaism does a great job with learning about law, but theology is a different matter.  Alas, it is harder for us, more complex than just saying, I believe.  Jews are built a different way; we value doubt and questioning because that is how we spiritually grow.  When people come up to me and say that they don’t believe in God, I answer them with a question I learned at seminary, “What kind of God don’t you believe in?”

I’m a Tebow fan, not just because he went to the greatest University in the world, but also because he has offered us all a challenge:  how will you speak about God in your life?  The truth is, our ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, began the conversation, they passed it on to the rabbis of the Talmud, to the famous rabbis of the middle ages, to the Jewish theologians of the last 200 years, the Heschel’s, the Kaplan’s, the Buber’s, the Rosenzweig’s, and so on.

Joseph is an interesting model for our own personal relationship to God.  Joseph’s relationship with God changed and developed over time.  He kept at it, never giving up; this is what we must do, continue whispering to ourselves and speaking about God out loud.

Talking about God is not just for forefathers and Rabbis; it’s not just for evangelicals and the ultra-Orthodox – it’s also for you.

It’s time to begin the conversation.

Avoiding Pit Falls:  Vayeshev 5772/2011

Delivered by Rabbi David Baum, Congregation Shaarei Kodesh

Today, we stand here in simcha, happiness, as we welcome two young men into Jewish adulthood for their Bnai Mitzvah.  Bar/Bat Mitzvahs, baby namings, brit milah, weddings, and funerals and unveilings all fall under the classification of a life cycle event.  I was recently asked, which life cycle events do I as a Rabbi enjoy the most?  In my opinion, the best life cycle events are when there are people there to share in the simcha, or to comfort those who need comfort during a loss.

I have done weddings in living rooms, on beautiful beaches, in beautiful catering halls, and in ornate synagogues.  But it does not matter where they happen, but it is all about the who.  Who is surrounding the baby, the bar/bat mitzvah child, the young or older couple, and, unfortunately, who is surrounding the person whose soul has departed.

Life cycle events, as we call them, are very special, and to me, they are a way of avoiding a pit fall in our society today.  We have so many things that we can own, so many more comforts than we have ever had, so much more control over space and time than we have ever had, although that point is debatable, and yet, with all of this, it seems that there are more and more lonely people.  One of the pit falls of our world is loneliness.  I think that life cycle events are a solution to this problem.

Here is the thing, many of us choose loneliness, but it is loneliness in disguise.

In this week’s parashah, we see the son of Jacob, Joseph, who seems destined to be our next forefather.  The parashah opens with the verse

(א) וַיֵּשֶׁב יַעֲקֹב בְּאֶרֶץ מְגוּרֵי אָבִיו בְּאֶרֶץ כְּנָעַן:

…(ב) אֵלֶּה תֹּלְדוֹת יַעֲקֹב יוֹסֵף בֶּן שְׁבַע עֶשְׂרֵה שָׁנָה

Now Jacob was settled in the land where his father had sojourned, the land of Canaan.

2This, then, is the line of Jacob:
At seventeen years of age, Joseph tended the flocks with his brothers, as a helper to the sons of his father’s wives Bilhah and Zilpah. And Joseph brought bad reports of them to their father.

3Now Israel loved Joseph best of all his sons, for he was the child of his old age; and he had made him an ornamented tunic.

4And when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of his brothers, they hated him so that they could not speak a friendly word to him.

Basically, the text is telling us that the story of Jacob is over; now Joseph will take over from here.  The rest of the book of Genesis will focus on Joseph.  He is perhaps one of the most complex characters of this book.  The Torah introduces him as a 17 year old.  The midrash says that his young age was emphasized because they wanted us to look at him as an immature boy.  The Talmud tells us that Joseph would pencil his eyes, curl his hair, and lift his heels.  The Torah tells us that he took up his father Jacob’s time unfairly and he gave his father bad reports about his brothers.  He tells his brothers about his dreams of his family bowing down to him.  He thinks that in order to be beloved by his father, he has to set himself apart by putting others down, by separating from his brothers and family.  This all leads to Joseph’s being sold into slavery, but before this, we read an interesting line.

37:  23When Joseph came up to his brothers, they stripped Joseph of his tunic, the ornamented tunic that he was wearing, 24 and took him and cast him into the pit. The pit was empty; there was no water in it.

V’HaBor Rek, Ein Bo Mayim

Why does the Torah have to mention that there is no water in it?  Rashi says that it is to tell us that there are snakes and scorpions in it.  Clearly, two ideas are being conveyed here:  the pit is empty, and there is no water in it.  Perhaps the Torah is trying to convey a deeper message.  Joseph is alone and helpless in the pit.  His loneliness is so dire that it causes him to lack the basic element of life, water.  Being alone is not what God had envisioned for us.  In the book of Genesis, God tells Adam, “18 The Lord God said, “It is not good for man to be alone; I will make a fitting helper for him, Ezer K’Negdo.”  So God created Eve, and the human chain began.  From our beginnings, God never wanted us to be alone.

It is in this pit that Joseph finally realizes something that has been in front of him the whole time.  In his attempt to make himself better than his brothers, he separates himself, and puts himself in danger.  Rashi was right, being alone is like putting yourself in a pit with snakes and scorpions.

I read a story about literally avoiding a pit that I wanted to share with you. The story was told by the Grand Rabbi of Bluzhov, Rabbi Israel Spira

Rabbi Spira was a prisoner Janowska concentration camp in Poland. One cold night, the guards came on to the loud speaker and ordered the prisoners, “You are all to evacuate the barracks immediately and report to the vacant lot.  Anyone remaining inside will be shot on the spot!”  Exhausted and emaciated, the prisoners stumbled to the vacant field and saw before them a large open pit.

The voice commanded, “Each of you dogs who values his miserable life must jump over the pit and land on the other side.  Those who miss will get what they rightfully deserve – ra-ta-ta-ta-ta.”  The voice imitated the sound of a machine gun.

According to Spira, jumping over the pit would have been nearly impossible even under the best of circumstances.  The prisoners were “skeletons”, feverish from disease, and physically exhausted from bone grinding work.  Spira himself suffered from bruised and swollen feet.  Waiting for their turn to jump, he and a close friend watched prisoners die in a hail of bullets with each unsuccessful attempt. The pit was slowly becoming a pit of death.  Spira’s friend said to him, “Spira, all of our efforts to jump over the pit are in vain.  Let us sit down in the pit and wait for the end of our wretched existence.”  Spira looked at him and said, “My friend, man must obey the will of God.  If it was decreed from heaven that pits be dug and we be commanded to jump, pits will be dug and jump we must.  And if, God forbid, we fail and fall into the pits, we will reach the World of Truth a second later, after our attempt.  So, my friend, we must jump.”

They leapt into the darkness and found themselves alive on the other side of the pit.  Spira’s friend was amazed and could not stop crying.  He told him, “For your sake, I am alive!  Tell me, how did we make it across the pit?  Spira answered, “I was holding on to my ancestral merit,” said Spira.  “I was holding on to the coattails of my father, and my grandfather and my great-grandfather, of blessed memory.”

Spira then asked his friend how he reached the other side of the pit.  “I was holding on to you,” he said.

There are pits in this world that may not be full of death like the pit that Rabbi Spira and his friend jumped over.  The pits are filled with something worse than death; they are filled with nothingness, so empty, they do not even have water in them, so empty that they lack all meaning.  What we must recognize is that these empty pits, a life of loneliness, is not what God wants from us as Jews.  God wants us to do something that seems very hard, to jump over these pits with others, in other words, to let people into our lives and our hearts.  Joseph learned this lesson the hard way.  It is only when he is in another pit, the jail in Egypt, where he starts listening to others and helping them rather than helping himself.  And so all of us must do the same.  God told Adam, and through Adam each human being, “It’s not good for humanity to be alone.”  God wants us to share our lives with each other; this is the Jewish way.  Simchas are only simchas if we share them, the tough times in life are only pits if we fail to jump over them together.

All of us must realize the lesson that Joseph learned, the lesson that Rabbi Israel Spira’s friend learned.  We must learn to hold on to each other as jump over the pits in this world.

Israel Struggling with Israel: Va-Yishlach 5772/2011
Delivered by Rabbi David Baum, Congregation Shaarei Kodesh

Today, I would like to begin by describing two You Tube clips that I saw:
In one clip, we see a young man and woman who come home to their swanky apartment. The young man looks at the apartment which has candles lit and sad music playing in the background and says to his girlfriend, “Now I understand why you didn’t want to go to the party. Music, candles, why don’t we just stay home tonight.” Implying that, well, you can guess what he was implying. Then you see the young woman staring at her laptop with the words, Zachor, on the screen. The day, Yom HaZikaron. The young man asks, “Dafna, what is this?” Then, the message in Hebrew, “They will always be Israeli, but their partners outside of Israel will not understand you. Help them return to Israel.”
The next advertisement targets families (please note, this advertisement was taken down by the Absorption Ministry and replaced with this advertisement: http://youtu.be/glQDf8vXvkQ).
In this ad, we see a young couple with a cute little girl speaking to her grandparents in Israel by Skype. It is snowing in suburban America, we see a Hanukiah behind the grandparents. The grandparents ask the child in Hebrew, what holiday is it today? The little girl yells out, Christmas! The Israeli parents look at themselves with shock, and the voice over says, “They will always be Israelis, but their children will not…”
The YouTube clips are not secrets; in fact, they are part of an Israeli government initiative through the Ministry of Absorption, Klita, meant to convince Israelis to move back to Israel, lest they lose their Israeli identity.
I will publically admit that this advertisement angered me as a committed Jew, someone who has spent significant time in Israel, has many Israeli friends, but serves a Jewish leader here in the United States. I understand where they are coming from, and the evidence is here in South Florida. Growing up in South Florida, I did not see as many Israeli restaurants or here Hebrew spoken in public, but now, you don’t even bat an eye to it.
About 140,000 Israelis live in the United States, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, though Jewish and Israeli sources say the number actually is closer to 500,000. The advertisement was in Hebrew, directed towards them, but did the Absorption Ministry think we would not hear about it? Obviously, they underestimated our Hebrew language education! What this shows is something we do not often talk about out loud but we must.
When a Jew moves to Israel, we call it, Aliyah. Aliyah means rising up. When a Jew leaves Israel, it is called Yeridah, going down. Up and down is a value implication, going up is rising, it is a good, going down is considered a bad thing. We say these things, but do we really believe this? Do we feel less Jewish than Jews living in Israel?
As much as we say we are one people, Bnai Israel, we seem to be less like brothers and more like distant cousins. We know about each other, but do we care about each other? We speak about Israel a lot in our communities, but do they speak about us?
Our parashah deals with Jacob’s return home from Haran to Canaan. Jacob returns with a new family, two wives, two maidservants, a number of children, wealth and possessions, and even a new name along the way, Israel. But he is about to confront his brother Esau, a brother who he deceived, a brother who swore he would kill him.
The text states, 32: 8 Jacob was greatly frightened; in his anxiety, he divided the people with him, and the flocks and herds and camels, into two camps, 9 thinking, “If Esau comes to the one camp and attacks it, the other camp may yet escape.”
It does not take a Torah scholar to see what Jacob is doing – Jacob is dividing the camp for physical survival purposes. If one side dies, the other will live. We Jews have always been obsessed with physical survival, but I think we also struggle with spiritual survival.
It is only after this splitting that Jacob sends the two camps across a river, remains alone, and we see one of the most important parts of our Torah, so important that we receive our very name and identity from it.
25 Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the break of dawn. 26When he saw that he had not prevailed against him, he wrenched Jacob’s hip at its socket, so that the socket of his hip was strained as he wrestled with him. 27 Then he said, “Let me go, for dawn is breaking.” But he answered, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” 28 Said the other, “What is your name?” He replied, “Jacob.” 29 Said he, “Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel, for you have struggled with beings divine and human, and have prevailed.”
My experience with Israelis coming to the U.S. has been primarily through Camp Ramah. Every year, Camp Ramah brings close to 40 shlichim (delegates) each year to work at camp. Their name, the Mishlachat, the delegation, defines their mission – they are at camp to teach American Jews about Israel. They represent the Israeli citizens to American youth, both campers and staff, and they take this responsibility very seriously. But the interesting thing that I have seen is not only the impact that they have made on American Jews, but the impact that American Judaism has made on them.
Many of them grew up only knowing one form of Judaism. A Rabbi wears a black hat, women and men sit separately, you leave the religion up to the professionals while the secular Jews sit aside. Interestingly enough, some of my friends returned to Israel more religious than when they came! The reason: they interacted with Jews from the other camp, they struggled with us, and they finally saw the beauty of their Judaism. They found the Masorti movement in Israel, and rather then leave Israel, they stay and struggle.
I do not want to disparage Orthodoxy. As a Conservative Jew, I believe in pluralism and the need for all stream lines of Judaism. That being said, one form of Judaism is not enough.
The holy work that we do here, as the second camp, is vitally important. Not only do we ensure the Jewish people’s physical survival, but we help with our spiritual survival.
The idea of one people in two camps is nothing new. When we were taken into exile in Babylonia, the Jewish community thrived. When they returned to the land 70 years later, with Ezra and Nehemiah, Jews remained in Babylonia. It was these Jews in Babylonia who were untouched by the Roman conquest in 70 A.D., and the rebellion of 135 A.D. that led to a massacre of the Jewish population.
The Jews remained there in comparative security as a recognized minority headed by the Exiliarch, a descendant of the house of David, empowered by the Babylonian government to decree laws and appoint judges.
The prosperity and liberty enjoyed by the Jews in Babylonia was conducive to intellectual growth; thus the academies established in Babylonia were renowned for their scholarship, and their learning was held in a higher esteem in the fourth and fifth centuries than that of the Palestinian Rabbis.
Though the supreme authority was vested in the Sanhedrin in Palestine, the Babylonian rulings and decisions were invariably accepted and followed. For the sake of national unity, however, the Jews of Babylonia elected to submit to the authority of the Prince and the rulings of the Palestinian Sanhedrin.
We are Babylonia and Palestine, America and Israel. Now that Israel has been reestablished, we look to her in leadership, but we cannot forsake our own duty as the other camp.
We are two camps who have always needed each other. As two camps, we struggle with each other, with God, and we will continue to do so in the future.
We lament the fact that some Jews in America do not care about Israel, in other words, don’t struggle with Israel, but we must also lament the fact that far too many Jews in Israel fail to struggle with us, or even acknowledge our existence.
Bagels and locks, and falafel and humus are not enough to be Jews – we have to struggle. This is what the advertisement forgets to mention. Being Israeli is not enough, you have to be a descendent of Israel also, a Jew also, a struggler with God and man.
At the end of the episode with the angel and with Esau, Jacob is physically injured, less rich than he once was, and emotionally drained. And yet, when arrives in the city of Shechem, the text states, “V’yavo Yaakov Shalem…” Jacob arrived safe, or you can read the word Shalem in another way – whole, complete. It is only after his struggles that he is complete – I hope that we too can live up to our namesake. Not to avoid struggle, but to embrace it and in that way, we will be whole.

The Efficacy of Prayer:  Jacob’s Prayer and Ours-   Va’yetzei 2011/5772 – Delivered by Rabbi David Baum, Congregation Shaarei Kodesh

This week, I sat on a panel at Donna Klein Jewish Academy’s 8^th grade class program titled, The Lot (please see picture and description below).

Eighth-graders Learn in ‘The Lot’

Eighth-graders in Mrs. Gurspan’s Judaic Studies classes had an opportunity to participate in a panel discussion on Matters of Jewish Practice and Belief called The Lot. The Lot is an opportunity to discuss in-depth questions and subjects that may not be addressed in classroom discussions (and are then “parked” for a later time). Pictured from left to right are panelists Rabbi Bradd Boxman, Congregation Kol Tikvah; Rabbi Philip Moskowitz, Boca Raton Synagogue; and Rabbi David Baum, Congregation Shaarei Kodesh.

As you can see, the three rabbis present represented the three major streams of Judaism, Refor, Conservative, and Orthodox.  We were asked some deep and thoughtful questions, a testament to the quality Jewish education that these children are receiving at Donna Klein.  One question was asked of us that I want to share with you today:

If we pray to God for someone to get better and they die, what are we supposed to think?

The basis of the question is about prayer, and the basic question is, is prayer effective?  Is that why we pray?

Our parashah, Vayetzei, begins with Jacob, a person who is far from an ancestor.  Jacob is alone, and desparate.  In darkness, Jacob does what most of us do, he prays, and this prayer is the basis for our Maariv service.  He is searching out for light in darkness, for comfort and peace in turmoil.

But his prayer is somewhat troubling:

28:20 Jacob then made a vow, saying, “If God remains with me, if He protects me on this journey that I am making, and gives me bread to eat and clothing to wear,

28:21 and if I return safe to my father’s house—the Lord shall be my God.

On the surface, this vow reminded me of the question I was asked, “If we pray to God for someone to get better and they die, what are we supposed to think?

If God does not return me safe, from my journey, from my illness, will I believe that God exists?

There are a couple of ways to answer the question that the students asked me.  First off, there is the famous story of the little girl and boy who were playing with dolls.  The little boy takes the girls favorite doll and breaks its head off.  The little girl sits and prays and the boy starts laughing at her.  He asks her what she is doing.  She answers, “I am praying to God to put the doll back together.”  She places the doll with the head next to it and places it under her pillow, praying at bedtime for God to grant her this wish.  She wakes up and the doll was just as she left it.  The girl goes to her mother and says, “Mom, I prayed to God to put the doll back together, and He didn’t do it.  Does that mean that there is no God?”  Her mother says, “No, sometimes God says no.”

When I first heard this story years ago, I was touched by it, but as I thought more about it, I was a bit disturbed.  What happens when this little girl grows up and prays to God for her mother, who is on her death bed, to heal completely?  What happens when her mother dies, do we give her the same answer?

Do we view God as a being that picks and chooses what miracles He performs and for whom?  Ok, I may be able to buy that, but on what basis?  If you are good or bad?  We know that bad things happen to good people, so on what are we basing this on?  You see, this answer can be problematic.  Another answer is, there are mysteries in the world that only God knows?  Again though, this is not a settling answer.  You are left wondering, does God answer prayers?  I think God does, but not in the way we might think.

Later on in the parashah, Jacob is no longer alone.  He becomes a husband, and a father, and one of his wives, Rachel, is having fertility problems.

When Rachel saw that she had borne Jacob no children, she became envious of her sister; and Rachel said to Jacob, “Give me children, or I shall die.”

30: 2 – Jacob was incensed at Rachel, and said, “Can I take the place of God, who has denied you fruit of the womb?”

A little harsh, don’t you think?  How can you or better yet, should, you answer this type of question?  I believe there are a few ways.

1.  Empathy -

I want to share a short vignette from a book called, “Puppies For Sale, and Other Inspirational Tales”, which is a similar situation to the young girl who prayed for the broken doll.

A young girl was leaving for school, and her mother reminded her to come straight home when her last class ended. Thirty minutes late, she finally walked through the front door. Her mother scolded her. “Where have you been?” she asked. “I’ve been worried sick.”

With a concerned face, the daughter sweetly replied, “I walked home with my friend, Sally, and she dropped her doll and it broke all to pieces. It was just awful!”

“So you were late because you stayed to help her pick up the doll and put it back together again?” her mother asked.  “Oh no, Mommy,” she explained. “I didn’t know how to fix the doll. I just stayed to help her cry!”

Jacob could have prayed for his wife to conceive as his father Isaac prayed for Rebecca.  He could have answered her with empathy like Elkanah answered Hannah in the book of Samuel, “Hannah, why are you crying and why aren’t you eating? Why are you so sad? Am I not more devoted to you than ten sons?”

Or you can pray for people.  Jacob’s father Isaac did this last week (parashat Toledot) when his wife Rebecca was also infertile and he cries out, “I wish to have children only with this righteous woman.”

But what if that prayer doesn’t work?  Ibn Ezra, a famous medieval commentator, actually imagines that Jacob has been praying, but God has not answered his prayers yet.  Jacob answers her out of frustration that his prayer had not come to be.

Another commentator, Ramban (Nachmonides), looks at Jacob’s answer as a call to action, giving us an alternative to praying for others.

He reads this cutting remark, “am I in place of God?” as a deliberate move by Jacob to jolt Rachel into becoming more self-reliant. Realizing that Jacob will not be able to fix the problem, Rachel is left to pray on her own behalf, and now God hears her and opens her womb.

In other words, Ramban imagines that Jacob is helping Rachel help herself.  Those of you sitting in this room, Jews coming to shul on a random Shabbat, are regular shul goers.  I am sure that you have friends or family that say to you, “pray for me, you are the religious one.”  As if your prayers will be answered more than theirs!

In my opinion, prayers are not necessarily meant to be answered, that is not how I believe tefillah works.  The Talmud warns us against praying for things that are already set, for example, for a fetus whose sex is already determined to be a boy – God cannot change it.

Rather, praying, the act of tefillah, makes us stronger.  It helps us face things in life that we thought we could never face.  We may not pray that an amputated limb should spring to life, but we may pray for the inner strength to deal with that loss, or to give thanks for the prosthetic limb that takes its place.

Prayer does not cure the body, but it can help cure the soul.

Prayer can be empathy, or prayer can be empowerment, but prayer is always a promise, we are never alone, even in our darkest times.

At the beginning of the parashah, Jacob prays, ““If God remains with me, if He protects me on this journey that I am making, and gives me bread to eat and clothing to wear, and if I return safe to my father’s house—the Lord shall be my God.”

Rashi, the medieval commentator par excellance, adds something for us to read this after the words, the Lord shall be my God.  He asks us not to read it as conditional, if you do these things, then I’ll believe in you, but as a challenge – if you let me live, and survive, then the Lord shall by my God – to help me in all my works.

It is fitting that Jacob was the first Jew to pray Maariv when he recited this prayer at that vulnerable moment.

Maariv, the evening service, is a very special service.  One is more likely to pray this service alone, without others, than any other service.  Maariv was looked at as optional until we all took on the obligation – but the Amidah is said silently, the only amidah without a repetition.  It is a message to all of us, no matter how dark things are, God can be your light through tefillah, with yourself or with others, to empathize with others, or to gain a greater sense of mission, to become partners in creation with God.  Prayer is not magic, but it is moving.

Do our prayers move God?  Only if we who pray are moved to respond.

Amen.

Embracing Diversity: A Jewish and American Value
Delivered by Rabbi David Baum, Congregation Shaarei Kodesh
Parashat Toledot, 2011/5772

My brother hosted Thanksgiving this year for the first time.  It is a pivotal moment in our family – the next generation is now taking the lead.  Finally, we get to be in control of the menu!

As in every year, our Thanksgiving dinners are a bit of pot luck.  Every family member has something that they bring, their specialty, while the host family cooks the bird, the famous turkey that anchors every Thanksgiving table.

Alissa and my sister in law grew up in families that had ‘traditional’ Thanksgiving menus, turkey, stuffing, pumpkin pie, etc.  Our family had turkey, but also brisket, kasha varnishkes, latkes, shnitzel etc.  In other words, Jewish soul food, and a turkey.  So we had a debate the other night:  Should the dishes of Thanksgiving be traditional American, or be influenced by the cultures we live in?

For example, should kasha varnishkes be included in the Thanksgiving dinner?  As we were debating this, my brother started laughing.  He told us that our aunt had already asked him if she could make latkes.

The debate may sound silly to you, but it actually has great implications.  It revealed to me a basic question:  What is an American dish?  Is it apple pie, or apple strudle?  Furthermore, what is an American?

I thought more about this holiday of Thanksgiving.  I feel that Thanksgiving is the quintessential American holiday, even greater than July 4^th because it involves sitting together and breaking bread.  It is a metaphor that reminds us of the legend of the first meal:  Puritans who came to this country to find religious freedom, eating with Native Americans who taught them how to survive on the land.  I feel that it is the story of different peoples trying to live together, to eat on the same table.

But as we know, eating on the same table is not always easy.  Thanksgiving can be a magical time, but it can also be times of conflict as well as families come together after months or years of time away and rehash old feuds.

This week, we have a similar situation that plays out, two peoples, two brothers, and the ups and downs of their relationship.

Our parashah, Toledot, sort of skips over Isaac and goes directly to Jacob and Esau.  There is an interesting line, an oracle, a vague prediction of the future that portends how these two will be throughout their lives,

“Two nations are in your womb,
Two separate peoples shall issue from your body;
One people shall be mightier than the other,
And the older shall serve the younger.”

The beginning of the next chapter of the line of Abraham and Isaac seems to start off on a contentious note.  Right away, the infants are raised to more than babies, but forefathers of two peoples:  Jacob, who became the father of Israel, and Esau, the father of Edom, who became the Christians in rabbinic literature.

Every year we read the same story of two boys who are used by their parents for conflict.  Rebecca loves Jacob, Isaac loves Ishmael, and the prize is one – the birthright.  It is like they are both fighting for the same leg of turkey!

As I thought about their story, two peoples fighting for the same thing, I thought very much about the ‘old world’.

Over Thanksgiving, I had a conversation with someone at our table, a friend of a relative, who has a green card and is trying to become a citizen of the U.S.  She is 34, married, but her husband lives in her native country.  She will not see him for another 6 months.  I asked her, what is it about America that would make you put your life on hold?  She has no children and wants at least three of them, but she has to wait for her citizenship to go through.  She said that ever since she was a child, she had wanted to be a citizen of the U.S.  In the U.S., she can get a decent job, have a piece of land of her own, make a life for her family, and she could not do this in her home country.

When I read this parashah, I thought about a story I saw about the first Bialy store in the U.S. – Coney Island Bialy and Bagel.  http://blogs.forward.com/the-jew-and-the-carrot/145383

The store was founded 91 years ago by a Jewish immigrant from the town of Bialystok, Poland named Morris Rosenzweig.  91 years after its founding, the grandson of the original owner, Steve Ross, closed the kosher Bialy and Bagel store.  Two men who used to work in the store, but became cab drivers, heard about the closing and decided to buy the store from Steve Ross.  The new owners names, Peerzada Shah and Zafaryab Ali, both Pakistani immigrants, and both Muslims.  They have decided to keep the business exactly the same, including the kashrut supervision.

When the two were asked about the patchwork of neighborhood ethnicities that makes possible the Muslim ownership of a landmark kosher Jewish bialys store, Ali said with a smile, “That’s America.”

So I was brought back to our parashah, and the two brothers, Jacob and Esau, who were two different peoples.  For centuries, our Rabbis looked at Esau, the father of Edom, as an evil character, and Jacob as the righteous person.

The other morning, we studied the kitzur shulchan aruch, and we read about the laws of how we must separate ourselves from non-Jews.  We cannot dress like them, we cannot even wear the same color shoe laces as them!  We cannot pretend that these are not parts of our tradition, they are, but we have to look at them in their historical context. When this was written, we were forbidden to be the same as non-Jews, but it was because the non-Jews decreed it, in the old country.

But now, we are in a new land.  As I thought about the history of Thanksgiving, it really is the history of America.  The native people welcoming in immigrants who are looking for freedom and opportunity.  And then, the immigrants become natives and do the same.  It is not fool proof, and most of the time, the new immigrants are looked at as interlopers, but eventually, the new become the old, and the story repeats itself.

Perhaps the most fascinating account in the parashah happens when Esau returns to his father Isaac, and he hears that Isaac was fooled and had mistakenly given the birthright to his younger son, Jacob.  The Torah usually does not go into such detail to describe a scene, but here, the text tells us that Esau lifted his voice and wept.

“Have you but one blessing, Father? Bless me too, Father!” And Esau wept aloud. 39And his father Isaac answered, saying to him,
“See, your abode shall enjoy the fat of the earth
And the dew of heaven above.

I think there is great wisdom in Isaac’s opening life, “See, your abode shall enjoy the fat of the earth
And the dew of heaven above.”

Isaac points out to Esau that the fatness of the earth is God’s natural blessing that is abundant enough for both brothers.  Esau is furious, and the Torah states that he holds a grudge, but ultimately, he lets that grudge go and after years, the two brothers make up.

As immigrants came to this country to build a new world, they could have brought their old conflicts with them, but mostly, they realized that there is enough in the world for more than one people to live and be successful.  I feel that this is probably true in the old country as well, but sometimes, it takes a new place and time to see what is actually in front of you all along.

There was a famous Rabbi, Rav Avraham Kook, who was one of the early religious zionists in the modern state of Israel.  He famously said, הישן יתחדש והחדש יתקדש

“Make the old new, and the new holy.”

I believe that accepting diversity, accepting those who are different, is making the old new, and the new holy.  This is one of the major gifts that America has brought to the world.  Life is not a zero sum game, we can all share of the fat of the land.

Which one is more American:  Roast Turkey or Curry Turkey?  Stuffing or Farfel?  I believe they are all American, and when they are served on the same table, they become holy.

Sometimes, we fail to see what is front of us because of all the hate we may hear on our televisions and radios.  I believe we are closer to a Messianic world now than we ever have been because we are learning that we all might be different peoples, but we can all live in the same place and enjoy the world together.  On Monday night, I, along with my rabbinic colleagues, sat on the bimah of Bnai Israel with representatives of various Christian denominations and Muslims to sanctify Thanksgiving.  What other time in history could this have happened?

The beginnings of the story of Isaac and Ishmael, and Jacob and Esau, were tumultuous and bitter.  Each was fighting for what they thought was most important, the birthright, but at the end of each story, they always came together in peace.  Esau even says to Jacob, “I have seen you, and it is like seeing the face of God.”

Rav Kook read this line, and thought about the relationship between Judaism, Christianity and Islam.  He said, “the brotherly love of Esau and Jacob, Isaac and Ishmael, will assert itself above all the confusion that the evil brought on by our bodily nature has engendered.  It will overcome them and transform them into eternal light and compassion.”

We are all as humans, as Americans, as citizens of the world, just now learning what those who are different than us have beautiful things to share and teach us.  When we look at those who are different than us, we should see the face of God, as Esau saw in Jacob.  We should see light and compassion.

When I saw all the different types of food at my table, and the diversity of the faces that surround me everyday, I thank God that we are starting to learn this lesson.

The Shark and the Fish: Reflections of the Redemption of Gilad Shalit
Delivered by Rabbi David Baum, Congregation Shaarei Kodesh
October 29, 2011, Shabbat Bereshit

Today, I want to begin with a short story that was written by an 11 year old boy titled, “The Shark and the Fish”

A small and gentle fish was swimming in the middle of a peaceful ocean.  All of a sudden, the fish saw a shark that wanted to devour him.   He then began to swim very quickly, but so did the shark.  
Suddenly the fish stopped and called to the shark:  “Why do you want to devour me? We can play together!”

The shark thought and thought and said:   “Okay- fine: Let’s play hide and seek.”
The shark and fish played all day long, until the sun went down.  In the evening, the shark returned to his home.  His mother asked:  “How was your day, my dear shark?  How many animals did you devour today?”

The shark answered:  “Today I didn’t devour any animals, but I played with an animal called FISH”.   “That fish is an animal we eat.  Don’t play with it!” said the shark’s mother.
At the home of the fish, the same thing happened.  “How are you, little fish?  How was it today in the sea?” asked the fish’s mother.  The fish answered: ”Today I played with an animal called SHARK.”
“That shark is the animal that devoured your father and your brother. Don’t play with that animal,” answered the mother. 

The next day in the middle of the ocean, neither the shark nor the fish were there.  They didn’t meet for many days, weeks and even months.   Then, one day they met.  Each one immediately ran back to his mother and once again they didn’t meet for days, weeks and months.

After a whole year passed, the shark went out for a nice swim and so did the fish. For a third time, they met and then the shark said: ”You are my enemy, but maybe we can make peace?”  The little fish said:  “Okay.”

They played secretly for days, weeks and months, until one day the shark and fish went to the fish’s mother and spoke together with her. Then they did the same thing with the shark’s mother; and from that same day the sharks and the fish live in peace. 

This 11 year old boy grew up in Israel, and eventually became a soldier as all Israeli boys become. This author of this short story is Gilad Shalit. It is a story of optimism and a hope for peace, a peace that many thought was attainable in 1997 just a couple of years after the Oslo accords. Fast forward to 2011, and peace seems farther away than it ever has been. It has been a constant struggle of two peoples on one land, sharks and fish.

Our Torah portion this week is famous for the creation of the world. When we think of Eden, we think of peace, but the stories we read in this parashah seem to be much more about tovu va’vohu, chaos, than peace. Today, we read the story of Adam, Eve, and the serpent, and how humanity sinned against God and was kicked out of the garden, and we read about the story of Adam and Eve’s two sons, Cain and Abel. It is a short story, but its pretty shocking. After the first humans commit the first sin, against God, their child, Cain, commits an act, but it is unclear as to what is it is. It is the first murder, but it was actually more than murder, it was the first fratricide – the act of killing one’s brother.

The act itself is in one line: And Cain said to his brother Abel…And it was while they were in the field, and Cain rose against Abel his brother and killed him.

Even though there seems to be dialogue, we actually do not hear any words.

The midrash picks up on this lack of dialogue and tries to write their own story. They imagined a scenario where they two brothers were in the field arguing about how they were going to divide up the world. One brother took the land, and the other brother took the moveable objects. One brother said, the land you are standing on is mine, and the other brother said, the clothes you are wearing are mine! One said, get off my land, the other said, take off my clothes! At that point, one brother took the quarreling to a new level, and Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him!

There is another midrash that says that they were arguing over one piece of land where the holy Temple would be built. Yet another says that they were fighting over a woman!

Our rabbis here give us the various reasons why humans feel so strong to do what one would think would be the unthinkable, to actually kill someone, to go to war. The midrash gives us three reasons: economic reasons such as land and moveable goods, religious reasons, such as where the Temple should be built, and a third reason, sexual passions.

It seems like this is our destiny, fighting, war, bloodshed, disappointment. Humanity disappointed God by sinning against Him through Adam and Eve, and now we sinned against ourselves with murder.

But this parashah is not just about sin, it’s also about the opportunity for redemption. Before this whole incident, God confronts Cain about being upset. God says to him, “Why are you upset, why has your face fallen? Is it not that if you do well you’ll be raised, and if you don’t do well then sin crouches at the door? And its desire will be for you. And you’ll rule over it.”

Rashi tells us what he thinks this means, “If you do well you’ll be raised – if you mend your ways, God will forgive you.

Sin crouches at the door, and its desire will be for you – sin is near to you, and it wants you to stumble.
And you’ll rule over it – if you wish, you can over come it.

That is the hope of the parashah – that we can overcome the animal within us, to overcome all types of conflict – its in our hands.

But Cain fails the test – he lets sin take over. After the deed is done, and God asks him where his brother is, he famously answers –

‘Am I my brother’s watchman?’ HaShomer Achi Anochi? First God asked us to be Shomrim over his garden (2:15), but in the end, the cherubim take this job (3:24) when we fail Him, and they watch over it. Now, it seems humanity wants to give up on yet another task of watching, this time, over ourselves.

Later on, we, the Jewish people through Abraham, right this wrong. God says to Abraham, “all the nations of the earth will be blessed through your seed because Abraham listened to my voice and KEPT MY WATCH (26:4 – 5) Vayishmor Mishmarti.”

We Jews keep our watch in many ways, and we saw how we kept it this week. This week, Israel performed the mitzvah of pidyon shvuyim, the redemption of captives. This commandment tells us that captivity is worse than starvation and death. Maimonides rules that he who ignores ransoming a captive is guilty of transgressing commandments such as “you shall not harden your heart”; “you shall not stand idly by the blood of your brother”; and “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Additionally, some rabbis say that one who delays in ransoming a captive, is considered like a murderer. Of course, there is another side to it, there are limits to the price we pay. There are rabbis who say that paying too high of a price is a greater sin! Even today, we have two sides that are debating over this issue. I will be honest, I am glad that I am not the Prime Minister. I do not know what the right answer is, but that is not what I am moved by.

I am moved by the preciousness that we as Jews view life. For 5 ½ years, we alone fought for the world to know this young soldiers name, Gilad Shalit. He is just one soldier, but to us, he is our son.

We Jews believe in the sanctity of human life, the fact that each human life is a world in its own.

I am moved that we as Jews and Israelis still strive for peace. In our prayers, we ask God to spread a Sukkah of peace over us and over Jerusalem. We constantly say, Oseh Shalom B’imromav, May the One who brings peace to His universe bring peace to us and to all Israel, and to all peoples of the world. The traditional Jewish greeting is Shalom Alechem – peace be upon you. Our legacy is of Aaron, the high priest, who was known as a Rodeph Shalom, a pursuer of peace.

We have just completed the holiday of Sukkot. The Sukkah is the symbol of fragility. The Gilad Shalit situation was a Sukkah story. It reminds us of how fragile Israel’s situation is. Right now, there is great joy in the land, but as all of us know, this joy might be temporary. But it does not mean that we do not strive for a future where the Sukkah of peace is not temporary but permanent.

After Gilad Shalit was released, he was immediately interviewed by an Egyptian reporter. You see a weakened, thin, and pale young man. His breathing is labored. I do not now what I would have said had I been in his shoes, but here is what he said:
“I hope this deal will help achieve peace between Israeli and Palestinian sides and to promote cooperation between the two sides.”

The words that he wrote when he was just 11 years old came to my mind: “They, the fish and the sark met and then the shark said, ‘You are my enemy, but maybe we can make peace?’  The little fish said:  ‘Okay.’”
We have waited for this day for so long, the day that Gilad Shalit would be returned home. I do not know what the future will hold, but for now, let us enjoy the Sukkah of peace that we dwell under this week. There are so many reasons to fight, but let us find reasons to make peace.

Let us continue to keep the watch that God commands us to do. Let us strive for peace, as hard as it might be. Let us hope that those who strive for war and bloodshed hear the words of our Haftarah, “I will lead the blind by a road they did not know, and I will make them walk by paths they never knew. I will turn darkness before them to light, rough places into level ground.”

And let us say, Amen.

A Story of Two Brothers:  Not Friends, But Family

Yom Kippur Sermon 5772/2011

Delivered by Rabbi David Baum

Today, I would like to tell you the story of two brothers.

Once there were two brothers who inherited a farm and worked together for years in brotherly love.  After a time, one of them found a wife, so the brothers divided up the farm. The married one built a new house and lived with his wife, while the single brother lived by himself in the old house. The brothers farms flourished and became wealthy

The one who had a wife eventually had a large family, ten children, but the other brother was still looking for a wife; he was alone.

One day, the unmarried brother thought to himself: “I’ve got this whole farm and all this money, but I only have myself to take care of. My brother has the same amount as me, but he has twelve mouths to feed.” So in the middle of the night he took some bundles of wheat, climbed up the hill that separated the two farms, then over into his brother’s farm – putting the wheat in his brother’s silo.

One night the married brother was thinking to himself, “You know, I’ve got ten kids, I’ve got a wife. My world is rich. But my brother, he’s all alone. What does he have? All he has is wheat.” So, in the middle of the night, he took a bundle of wheat, climbed the hill, and carried it over to his brother’s silo.

Back and forth each of the brothers went. Every night each one would climb the hill, pass over to the other side and put wheat in the other’s silo. And the next morning each one always wondered, how come I have the same amount of wheat?

One night, while they were passing over to bring the other their bundles of wheat, the two brothers met at the top of the hill. And immediately they understood what had been happening. They fell into each other’s arms, hugging and kissing.

It is on this site that the Almighty chose to build the Holy Temple.

This story is an old Jewish folklore, but there is a modern version of this story told by Israelis. This story has the same characters, two brothers, one brother with a wife and 10 children, and one single.  During the night, the unmarried brother had a thought, “You know, I live alone, without company. I have nobody to help me farm or to console me when I’m tired; it is not right that my brother, who has a wife and large family should take as many bundles of wheat from our common field as I have.  In the middle of the night, I will get up, and take some of his bundles of wheat; he won’t suspect a thing, so he can’t blame me for it.’  The same night, the other brother awoke and said to his wife, ‘I have to feed you and 10 children. It is not right that his share should be as large as mine; I’m going to take some of the wheat out of his bundle and secretly add them to mine; he won’t suspect a thing, so he can’t blame me for it.’

Back and forth each of the brothers went. Every night each one would climb the hill, pass over to the other side and take wheat in the other’s silo. And the next morning each one always wondered, how come I have the same amount of wheat?

And, you guessed it, one night, while they were passing over to take the other’s bundles of wheat, the two brothers met at the top of the hill.  Immediately they understood what had been happening and they started hitting each other.

The story ends, “Now a place where so conniving a thought came at the same time to two brothers must be a very special spot.  And so they chose it to build the Knesset.”

In these two stories, we see two extremes. The story ends by telling us that it is was on that site that the holy Temple was built. It tells us that God chose that piece of land because it represents everything that we find to be the ideal. The first story is an idealistic story of Israel that many of us who live in America dream that Israel is.

It is an Israel of brotherly love, where everyone is unified in the pursuit of justice and peace.  The Rabbis called it ‘Yerushalayim shel Mala’, the Jerusalem that is on high. This Jerusalem is a Jerusalem of Gold as coined by the famous singer, Noami Shemer.

The second story, which is told as a joke in Israel, tells us about the reality of a real democratic nation. It is a story of mistrust amongst brothers, of conflict and messiness. The Rabbis also had a name for this Jerusalem, ‘Yerushalyaim shel Mata’, the Jerusalem that is below.

Today, on Yom Kippur, a day devoted to memories of the Holy Temple in Jersualem, we will find the answer to the question:  which one is the REAL Israel?

Many of us grew up seeing Israel as a miracle.  The land of Israel was barely habitable in the mid 1800’s, but after years of hard work and settlement by early Zionists, Israel had become a place where the dessert bloomed.  She has fought numerous wars against overwhelming odds.

Israel is also an economic miracle which we many of us read about in the book Start Up Nation by Dan Senor and Saul Singer.  It is home to more start up companies percentage wise than any country in the world.  Everyone’s cell phone and computer has a part that was invented in Israel.  Israel’s economy was barely touched by the global economic collapse because of its strong foundation.  A little country, just 7 million people strong, surrounded by enemies and isolated, is not only surviving, but thriving.

But there were some things that were left out of the book, but first, I want to share a story from the midrash.  There was once a rabbi during the 3rd century, Yehoshua ben Levi, who traveled to the mighty city of Rome, the greatest city of its time.  There were many amazing sites, as anyone who has been to Rome knows, but he was struck most by the marble pillars.  One day, he noticed that the marble pillars were covered by sheets to guard it from heat and cold.  Then he looked down and saw the poor people, naked, without even a sheet.  When he saw this he said, “a civilization whose statues are treated better than its poor will not last.”

Israel has a problem.  Israel has the fourth largest disparity in the world between rich and poor, unfortunately, America is ahead of Israel by one place, we are 3rd.  Prices of goods that we take for granted are out of control in Israel, and housing is unattainable for most youth.  All of this, and more, came to a head this summer in Israel.

The Arab world had its Arab Spring, where Arab dictators were overthrown and the fighting continues.  But do you know that Israel had its own ‘spring’ – it was called the Cottage Cheese Spring.  The Cottage Cheese Spring began with an ultra-Orthodox Jew named Itzik Elrov stormed out to his local grocery store, incensed at the jacked-up price of cottage cheese.   He ran home and set up a Facebook protest page, “Let’s boycott cottage cheese for a month.”   The boycott of the Cottage Cheese had almost 100,000 followers.  This led to another Facebook page that urged to pitch tents to demand affordable housing amid the million dollar apartments in Tel Aviv.  At first, these protestors were dismissed, but the tents grew, and more and more people came.  Nadav Eyal, a writer for the Israeli newspaper Maariv wrote, “The demonstrators, are not just ”sushi eaters” from Tel Aviv, as one Likud politician called them; they are middle-class Israelis — taxi drivers, doctors, and mothers who are angry about a variety of issues, including working hours, the rising cost of living, and the growing gap between rich and poor.”   Recent polls showed that 85% of Israelis supported the protests.  They culminated with a march where close to 500,000 Israelis, on a Saturday night in September, took the streets to demand social justice.  To put it into perspective, it would be the equivalent of 18 million Americans all protesting in one night.

So which one is the real Israel?  Israel as Start Up Nation, or an Israel of economic injustice, is it the Israel shel malah, an idealized and perfect Israel, or Israel shel matah, the nation like every other nation?

To answer the question, I would like to share my own story:

In 2006, when Alissa and I were living in Israel, we took a cab ride that along with my in-laws from the Old City of Jerusalem.  We were lucky to catch a cab driver, and even luckier for my family that he spoke English so they could experience the Israeli cab driver experience.  Cab drivers in Israel are not like in NYC, they actually talk to you… a lot.  They tell you about themselves, their lives, usually too much information.  So this cab driver picked us up and he told us his life story.  How he was set up by the police here, and he went to court, and he fought the corrupt government, and how the people are becoming so disconnected with their Judaism here that it scares him.  Mind you, this was a long cab ride and we couldn’t get a word in edge wise.  We finally arrived at our apartment and I asked him one question as I exited the cab:  If Israel is so difficult, why not go somewhere else?  He answered me, “I can’t live anywhere else, I love this country!”

This summer, we saw London being looted and burned by protestors.  In the Arab world, protesters were met by live bullets.

In Israel:  hundreds of thousands of people in the streets called for economic fairness and social justice.  Not one rock was thrown, no pepper spray or tear gas used, and there no arrests.  Furthermore, major protests did not take place on Shabbat so that religious could join hands with secular.

It is the love of Israel that the people have that make all of her many problems manageable.  I mentioned to you that over 500,000 Israelis protested.  This was in September, but the original date for the protest was in August, but the organizers cancelled the protest.  That weekend, there was a coordinated terror attack in the south that led to 8 dead and 30 wounded Israelis.  They knew that the police and army were needed elsewhere.  In a statement, the National Union of Israeli Students said the protest movement was “lowering its head on this difficult day, joins the families in mourning, and wishes the wounded a speedy recovery.”

I cannot imagine any other country, especially a country that should be numb from the many terrorists attacks perpetrated against them, acting in this way.

It is akin to a family.

That is the real Israel.

Rabbi Daniel Gordis told us the story of St.-Sgt. Dvir Emanuel.  Dvir was the first casualty of Operation Cast Lead, the operation launched by Israel in the Summer of 2009 to put an end to the 1000’s of missiles being launched from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel.  Dvir lost his life to Hamas mortar fire just as he entered Gaza early in the offensive. His mother’s name is Dalia. A year after his death, after a year of mourning, her family began to live again.

A week later, she found herself in the bleachers of a concert, waiting with her daughter for an Israeli rock concert to begin. Suddenly, Dalia felt someone touch her shoulder. When she turned around, she saw a little boy, handsome, with blond hair and blue eyes. A kindergarten teacher by profession, Dalia was immediately drawn to the boy, and as they began to speak, she asked him if he’d like to sit next to her.

By now, though, the boy’s mother had seen what was unfolding, and called over to him, “Eshel, why don’t you come back and sit next to me and Dvir.  Dvir was his little brother who was about 6 months old.  Stunned, Dalia turned around and saw the mother holding a baby. “What did you say his name is?” she asked the mother.

“Dvir,” responded the mother whose name is Shiri

“How old is he?” Dalia asked.

“Six months,” was the reply.

“Forgive my asking,” she continued, “was he born after Cast Lead, or before?”

“After.”

Whereupon Dalia continued, “Please forgive my pressing, but can I ask why you named him Dvir?”

“Because,” Shiri explained to her, “the first soldier killed in Cast Lead was named Dvir. His story touched us, and we decided to name our son after him.”

Almost unable to speak, Dalia paused, and said, “I am that soldier’s mother – I am Dvir’s mother.”

The young couple, Shiri and her husband Benny, had some medical problems with the baby, and although they intended to call Dvir’s mother Dalia, they never did.  Life took its course and they told no one about the origin of Dvir’s name, for they hadn’t yet asked Dalia’s permission.

These two women –Dalia -the mother of the slain soldier Devir – and Shiri – the mother of this six month old who was moved to name her child after that soldier – had an extraordinary bond. One woman was religious and the other one secular. One who had lost a son named Dvir and one who is raising a son named Dvir.

Unconnected in any way just a year ago, their lives are now permanently connected. A friend having heard the story from the two of them while sitting in the living room said – almost whispering, “This is an Israeli story, par excellence.”

As if they’d rehearsed the response, they responded in unison, “No, it’s a Jewish story.”

Israel is a small country, and we are a small people, but we have a story.

Our story is a story of unspoken and inexplicable bonds, of shared destinies – its more than people hood, its family.

In Judaism, we name our children after a deceased relative.  This family looked at this young soldier as their relative, and he is.  When we see a picture of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier who has been held captive by Hamas for over five years, we Jews cannot look at him as just another soldier.  If he grew up in the U.S., he would have gone to college, but he grew up in Israel, so he did his duty to defend our state.   Gilad Shalit is one of our sons.

When we read about Israel, the modern state, in the news, we sometimes forget that it is not a place in the heavens, nor is it just another country, it is our country, it is our family.

The American Jewish community is the most fortunate that has ever existed, living amid great wealth, safety, and security.  So what do we do with this gift?

Our Rabbis often played with the names of Yom Kippur and Purim and compared the holidays, calling Yom Ha-Ki-Purim – the Day that is like Purim.  On both days, we stood in limbo – will the Jewish people be destroyed or saved?

On Yom Kippur, the high priest approaches the holy of holies to beg for our communal safety knowing that he represents all of Israel.  But on Purim, Esther, the queen, fears approaching the king Ahasverosh.  She has riches beyond her dreams and she has access, lives in the palace.  Mordechai tells her that perhaps this was all given to her for this crisis, so she could act on our behalf.  All of us must emulate Esther.  We have tremendous influence in the most powerful country in the world.  In the Torah, there were two and a half tribes that did not wish to cross the Jordan with the rest of the tribes because they had land on the West Bank of the Jordan.  Moshe does not argue with them, but he tells them that they must fight alongside Israel.  As Jews, we have the freedom to settle where we want, but it doesn’t mean we are absolved of the responsibility for our family living in Israel.

Today, I come to you with a proposal; I want you to help your family.  This year, I want you to do at least two of these three things:  Give you time, talent and treasure to Israel.

You can give your time to Israel:

It is not cheap to fly to Israel, but there are many educational opportunities that you can find, and many missions that are subsidized.  If you are a young Jewish person under 26, or know a young Jewish person under 26, go on Birthright.  Any one of us can learn for a couple of weeks at the Conservative Yeshiva, an institution that is close to our family’s heart, or you can volunteer.  There is an even an opportunity for seniors to volunteer in the IDF.

Do not wait until the ‘right’ time to visit – now is the ‘right’ time.

If you cannot visit, you can learn about Israel.  This year, at Shaarei Kodesh, we will be watching and discussing Israeli films, having open and frank discussions about Israel on Friday nights, and learning about Israel as Holy Space as part of our spring adult educational program.

You can give your talent to Israel:

This year, I had the amazing opportunity to attend AIPAC’s National Policy Conference in Washington, D.C. along with close to 20 of our congregants.  At this conference, with over 10,000 people in attendance, we learned about the situations facing Israel today, but more than that, we advocated for Israel.  We visited our congressmen and lobbied for Israel in order to ensure that Israel receive the foreign aid it desperately deserves, and to help push our government to lay sanctions on Iran to prevent them from acquiring nuclear weapons.  Iran is led by a modern day Haman, Ahmidinajad, who has threatened to wipe Israel off the map on many occasions.

At the conference, I was amazed to see all the major leaders from both parties, Democrat and Republican, speak and pledge their support for Israel.  When Prime Minister Netanyahu visited Congress during the conference, he was applauded by both sides of the aisle.

Israel has achieved many miracles in her years, but perhaps its greatest miracle in our country is that it is the only bi-partisan issue in an increasingly divisive government.  This did not happen over night, and we need to help continue this cooperation.

Finally, all of us can give our treasure:

On Rosh Hashanah, Doug Bender gave a passionate appeal for Israel Bonds.  Each one of us can invest in Israel.  This is not giving charity, it is an investment.  There are also numerous Israeli organizations that need our help, including the Masorti Movement, the Conservative movement in Israel that is fighting to receive the recognition that it deserves.

Israel faces many challenges this year, she is surrounded by the uncertainty of the Arab Spring, will her neighbors in the Arab world who she has made peace with, mainly Egypt, stand with her?  The Palestinians have decided to forgo direct negotiations and attempt to create a state at the United Nations.  Israel has repeatedly said that she wants peace and is ready to negotiate, but the other side, as of now, refuses.  In this New Year, will Israel live in the peace she so desperately seeks?

Over this holiday, we look at our sins, but we also must look at our accomplishments.  Israel, this tiny country, is still the only stable democracy in the Middle East, a country that has helped other countries recover from huge disasters such as the tsunami and nuclear disaster in Japan this year, and the devastating earth quake Haiti last year.  Her people do their part as well as seen by Dan Shechtman, a professor of materials science at Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel, who just won the Nobel prize in science.

In so many ways, Israel has shown herself to be an Or LaGoyim, a light unto the nations.

Yom Kippur is a time of uncertainty – we do not know the future, no one does, but we can affect the future, the harshness of the decree, with our time, our talent, and our treasure.

There are many non-Jewish organizations out there that are called ‘friends of Israel’, but we are not friends of Israel, we are family.

At this time, we, the Jewish people, and Israel, admit we may not be perfect, but we are always striving for perfection, and we must do so together, as a family.

That is the Israeli story, that is the Jewish story

The Big Brother In You
Kol Nidre Sermon 5772/2011 – Congregation Shaarei Kodesh
Delivered by Rabbi David Baum

Who in here remembers reading the book 1984 for their high school summer reading?
In the book, George Orwell scared us with a view of totalitarian government suppressing the people by constantly watching them. In the book, there were ‘telescreens’ in every public area, hidden microphones, and informers who spied on others, even children spying on their parents, looking for people who might endanger the ruling Party’s regime. Everywhere the characters looked were these famous words: Big Brother is Watching You.

As I thought about it more, I looked around at my home – a screen in every room. I looked at my phone, a screen in my pocket, with a microphone and video camera. It makes you think, am I being watched? And if this idea of being constantly watched scares you, how do you feel now during this holiday?

Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is an uncomfortable time for so many because our liturgy is full of the image of God as Big Brother. One of the prayers we read on this holiday, HaOchez, Our Belief, states, “God examines the store of our hidden thoughts, we believe that God knows our deepest feelings.” In the Unetaneh Tokef prayer, we say that God recalls all that is forgotten, and will open the book of remembrance…”

On Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, we view God as a being who we walk in front of, one by one like sheep, in order to be judged. We acknowledge the power of God. He recalls all that is forgotten, and will open the book of remembrance, which speaks for itself, for our own hands have signed the page.

There is famous rabbinic work, Pirkei Avot, the Ethics of Our Fathers, gives us a way to live life to avoid sin. “Know what is above you–a seeing eye, a hearing ear, and all your deeds recorded in a book.” God seems to be Big Brother – He watches your every move, listens to every word you say, even the things you forget about, and worse than that, he records them all down in a book!

This seems to be one of the biggest fears we have, we feel uncomfortable with the notion of an overseeing eye. But then I realized something. These screens all over the place were not for others to view me, but the other way around.

I looked back on the events of this year and thought about all the things that we saw that 20 years ago we would have never seen or heard. We heard the voice of celebrities like Mel Gibson in drunken, anti-semitic tirades. We saw pictures of politicians on Facebook and Craigslist that we never imagined we would ever see, and never asked to see either, but there we were, watching.

Thankfully, we are not living in the world portrayed by Orwell, but we are living in the world of Big Brother.

Our version of Big Brother is much more like the reality television show than the book.

Big Brother is watching us. You cannot hide from ‘Big Brother’. I am Big Brother, and so are you.

We live in a time where privacy is slowly dying. Each one of us, through social media, are becoming reality stars.

On Rosh Hashanah, Yom Harat HaOlam, the day the world was created, we focused on time. Last week, we spoke about our unique gift, the Jewish calendar, and the mundane times, the minutes during the week that we might take for granted. But there is the other side, Holy Space. As Jews, we believe in Holy Space and on Yom Kippur, we focus on the rituals of Yom Kippur that occurred in and around our Holy Temple, the Beit HaMikdash, in Jerusalem.

We may think of space a room, or a house, but space is much more than that. I want us to bring holiness to a space where you’d least expect it, the virtual world, and speak about how we have to guard our space, how we should share less, and reflect more.

As we approach this New Year, we must acknowledge some truths that we might have been avoiding for quite some time. We have a privacy problem, a sharing problem.

In the real world, if you walked around naked in public, you would be arrested for indecent exposure. In the virtual world, this same act is called ‘sharing’. Whether in the real world, or the virtual world, the sin is the same.

As we will say in the Confessional service: We have sinned against you through sexual immorality, we have sinned against You openly and in private.

Not only are we careless about sharing our actions, but we seem to be even more careless sharing about others.

I want to tell you a story that might sound familiar to you. A man saw his Rabbi leaving a BBQ place. There was a big pig on the sign, so there was really no chance that this place could be kosher. He sees the Rabbi walking out of the restaurant with tins of food. The Rabbi puts it into his car and drives away.

So the man turned to his phone, took a picture of the Rabbi holding the tin, and posted it on twitter with the caption “Is this kosher?” People re-tweeted back questioning their Rabbi as a Jewish spiritual leader because he eats at Sonny’s BBQ. Minutes later, the picture spread to Facebook, and was re-posted on walls by many.

Two days later, this congregant went to the webpage of his local newspaper, he saw a picture that shocked him. It was his Rabbi, and a local priest, delivering BBQ tins to the local homeless shelter.

So the man called his Rabbi and set up a meeting. The man showed him what he wrote and apologized. And so the Rabbi told him he would forgive him if he did one thing. Delete all the postings about his Rabbi – and so he did. Then the Rabbi said, now I want you to find every instance where your words were posted, and take them down also. Then after that, I want you to delete every instance where someone commented on his words.

“But that’s impossible!” said the congregant. So the Rabbi told his congregant, “I might forgive you, but you can never truly right your wrong.”

Usually, Rabbis tell the story of the feather and the pillow, and how it is impossible to pick up all the feathers. But who has pillows made of feathers anymore? The truth is, these stories are more relevant today than they ever have been.

In many ways, the virtual world is much more permanent than the real world. In the real world, if you do something in public, the only way that it will be remembered is through peoples’ memories, but in the virtual world, these scenes and pictures are always there. I called this phenomena, the Etzbah haRah, the evil finger, rather than Lashon harah, the Evil Tongue, for it is with the click of a mouse, the touch of a finger, that can lead to the spreading of gossip that can crush someone.

When one is publically embarrassed, there is actually a physical reaction, their faces tend to turn red. Our Rabbis noticed this and the psychological effect that is has on the individual. They deemed that embarrassing someone is akin to killing them.

This year, we have seen a record number of teens who have committed suicide because a sexual picture or video was posted of them and spread to others, or because of cyber bullying through gossip. Too many lives have been lost due to ‘sharing’.

It does not matter how you started the rumor, whether by voice, text, picture or video; the sin remains the same:

As we will say in the Confessional service:
We have sinned against you by speaking ills of others, Lashon harah, we have sinned against you in everyday conversation,
We have sinned against you by rashly judging others.

One thing I have noticed that we have lost something in the virtual world is the concept of tznuit, modesty. Usually, when you think of tznuit, you think of how long a girls skirt should be, or how low cut a shirt should be. But tznuit is more than clothing.

Let me ask you something, if we wanted to make a Torah scroll most accessible, wouldn’t it be sitting out on this table at all times? Instead, our Rabbis built an ark to house the Torah, just as the ark of the covenant was held in an ark in the Holy Temple. The Holy Temple had different places within that only certain people were allowed at different times. The holiest part of the Temple, the Kodesh HaKodashim, the place where the actual tablets of the Ten Commandments were held, could only be visited by the High Priest, and it only occurred once a year, on Yom Kippur. There was one thing that separated the holy of holies from the rest of the Temple, it was the Parochet. It is a piece of cloth that we have taken and placed on our holy arks, separating the Torah scroll from us.

A Torah scroll is a special item. It is made of parchment, the skin of a cow. What separates a Torah scroll from a leather belt is what is written on it.

Our Rabbis looked at humans in a special way, some Rabbis even called each person a Torah scroll. Each one of us has the potential to be holy, if we use the right words, the right tools.

The separation of the Torah from the rest of the world through the parochet teaches us a valuable lesson: tznuit, modesty, does not only apply to the clothes we wear, but the information we share.

There is another example of tznuit in our tradition that we often do not think about: the Yihud room. After a Jewish marriage ceremony, the couple must immediately go into a small room and have a number of minutes alone, without interruption. To guarantee this sacred time, the couple appoints two shomrim, two guards. I have been asked to be a shomer on numerous occasions, and almost every time I have served a shomer, someone, whether it was a relative, or a photographer, or wedding planner, has tried to enter the room. They all say the same thing, “It’s ok, I’m the…” Each person, no matter who, is amazed that they are not allowed access to the couple of the day.

The Yihud room is a metaphor for us all: there are some things we should know about others, but some things we should not know. It’s not ok to enter into someone else’s sacred space.

We justify speaking about celebrities and politicians because we say they are ‘public’ people, but what happens when we all become ‘public’ people?

How many of us have used the word, Nu, when speaking to a friend or relative? When you approach a young man or woman, this usually happens at weddings, and say, Nu, when are you going to meet someone and get married already? Do you really think that they just have not been trying until now?

What about a young couple, Nu, when are you going to have children? Do we really think they have not discussed the idea of having children yet, that we are the first people to have brought this up to them?

We may think we are doing them a favor, but are we doing it for them or for our desire to enter into their space? Sometimes, we can unintentionally hurt the young childless couple if they are trying to have a child, but are struggling with infertility.

Sometimes the NEED to know can be a tortuous experience for people. Everyone has their own yichud room, and we have to realize when we cannot step in to that holy space.

And there is the other side. All too often, we don’t talk to people when they NEED it. When a couple goes through a public divorce, but we do not call because it is awkward. A family loses a loved one, and all we can think about talking to them about in the shiva house is the game of the week.

We think we don’t have the right words to say, and the truth is, we don’t. We do not have to say anything, but we NEED to listen, we need to be there for them.

As we will say in the Confessional service:
We have sinned against you through foolish talk.
We have sinned against you by not knowing our boundaries.

Right now, we are deciding the future of humanity and the world. We need to figure out, will our virtual space be filled with Kodesh, with the influence of God, or will it be void of it?

As a people, we faced a dilemma after the Temple was destroyed. The Temple is where God’s physical presence dwelled, so where would God dwell if there was no physical place. The answer was a combination of space and time, and it depended on our deeds. The midrash says that if 10 Jews occupy themselves with Torah, than God dwells there, and even if there are 5, and even 2, and finally, even 1. If one Jew is occupying him or herself with Torah and mitzvoth, than God will dwell there.

Now is the time to bring God into places we never thought God would dwell. It is time to lead another revolution, the Jewish Virtual Revolution.

On this holiday, if we can walk away with anything, let us walk away knowing that God does not want us to be Big Brother, that’s his job. God does not want us judging others, because, let’s face it, humans make awful judges. Rather, God wants to emulate other aspects of him that we talk about so much on this holiday but seem to over look in our lives.

God wants us to bring His attributes, 13 of them, to our spaces.

We need to be merciful and compassionate, patient, abounding in love and faithfulness.

In our Amidah, we say that God is ‘Somech Noflim’, someone who raises those who have fallen.
When we see a post that we should not have seen on the internet, do we share it, do we laugh, or do we help raise that person back up again by calling out to them.

This year, in our space, we need to act godly.

I began this talk speaking about telescreens and our tendency to people watch. The essence this season is not watching others, but watching ourselves. This year, let us ask for God to help us in these holy endeavors:

May we pay more attention to our own Facebook profiles rather than someone else’s.

May our virtual screens transform from monitors into mirrors, tools that allow us to look at our own actions.

And when our screens are used to look out, to monitor, let us use them to reach out to those who need to be lifted up. Let us realize that these devices are just tools to help us connect with each other, a means to the end, not the end itself.

Help us share less, and reflect more.

Please God, help us differentiate between the things that we NEED to know, and when we find them, help us reach out to help our fellow man.

This year, help us become the right type of Big Brother, a brother that looks at his fellow human being as a little brother looking for help and guidance.

How Will You Measure the 525,600 Holy Minutes in Your Life?
Rosh Hashanah Sermon, 5772
Delivered by Rabbi David Baum, Congregation Shaarei Kodesh

Five Hundred Twenty-Five Thousand
Six Hundred Minutes
Five Hundred Twenty-Five Thousand
Moments so dear
Five Hundred Twenty-Five Thousand
Six Hundred Minutes
How Do You Measure – Measure A Year?
In Daylights – In Sunsets
In Midnights – In Cups Of Coffee
In Inches – In Miles
In Laughter – In Strife

In – Five Hundred Twenty-Five Thousand
Six Hundred Minutes
How Do You Measure
A Year In The Life?

In – Five Hundred Twenty-Five Thousand
Six Hundred Minutes
How Do You Measure
A Year In The Life?

This song talks about something that we might take for granted and yet we see them go by every day of our lives.  Minutes, Five Hundred Twenty Five Thousand Six Hundred minutes in a year.

As you came into this room today, I am sure you were greeted with the words, Shanah Tovah U’Metukah, A Happy and Sweet New Year.  But there is another greeting for today that ends the sentence:  Shanah Tovah V’Tikateivuh.  Happy New Year, and may you be written in the book of life.  During this New Year, we enter in happiness, but with that happiness comes another side, the realization that we are mortal.

Today, Yom Ha’rat HaOlam, we commemorate the creation of the world and humanity.  In the creation story, we learn how humanity sinned by not following God’s orders.  Their punishment is said to be leaving the Garden of Eden, but the real implication of leaving the Garden was that humanity was now subject to time.

How do we deal with this condition?  As I was walking in the room today, a congregant came up to me and asked:

Rabbi Baum, if I gave up drinking, staying up late, and chasing women, and instead I spent all of my free time at Shaarei Kodesh, will that help me live longer?

Alas, I had to tell him the truth, “No, but it will feel longer.”

In all seriousness, we live with this condition everyday; but we cope with it by thinking that we are not ‘supposed’ to die until we have lived a long time.  But there is a price to this ‘coping mechanism’.  We often take a minute, day, a month, or even a year for granted when we are healthy.   

What you just heard was a song from the musical “Rent” which tells the story of impoverished young artists struggling to survive in New York City under the shadow of HIV/AIDS in the 80’s and 90’s.  Hundreds of thousands of people lived knowing that their life would end within a couple of years, so they had to deal with their reality by realizing the special gifts they had in each moment of life.

Every year, we come together, as a holy community, and we confront the things that we try and set aside all year.  All of us know that we are going to die, but do we pay enough attention to our precious minutes on earth?

Today, there was something that was created that we do not usually think about because it is something that we cannot see or touch.

Today and tomorrow, I will speak about a treasure that is more precious than all the money in the world and all the possessions that you can think of:  the treasure of time.

“Bereshit Bara Elohim”  “In the Beginning” states the opening and perhaps the most famous verse of the Torah, “God created the heavens and the earth.”

Nothing preceded this moment, but after that moment, God created time itself.  At that time, we began the counting of the days, our calendar.

The calendar brought order to chaos.

Time and how we organize it is of vital importance to the Jewish people.

The first mitzvah, the very first commandment that was given to the Jewish people alone from all the other nations is the mitzvah of setting the Jewish calendar.  This mitzvah occurred when the Jewish people were in their infancy, slaves waiting for freedom in Egypt.

This mitzvah was much more than a gift; it was a challenge.  Rather than be forced to live under the calendar of their oppressors, the Egyptians, they began to live under their own calendar.

It was their first steps into the freedom, but with freedom comes responsibility.

Without our calendar, without a concept of Jewish time, there can be no holidays, no opportunities to gather together in worship and happiness.  Without the calendar, there can be no Sabbath; there can be no rest.

One Thousand Five Hundred minutes (1500) – or 25 hours, the length of our weekly Shabbat.

As we look at the creation story, and the many things that God created, we often forget that there was one last creation.  The Torah tells us that on the 7^th Day, God rested.  By resting, by choosing not to create, God created something.

Our creation story is not the only creation story.  In fact, there are similar creation stories that were written in the Ancient Near East such as the Epic of Gilgamesh.  At the end of these stories, the gods who created the world also have one last creation.  Their last creation is a palace, a structure, where the people will come to worship them.

In our story, there was no physical structure that was created; but God did create a Temple.  This Temple is Shabbat, our Cathedral in time, and every week, God calls us to enter His sanctuary.

Our Shabbat and our holidays are when we dwell in God’s Temple.  No matter where we are in the world, our Temple, our Cathedral in time, is built, but we have the choice to enter its gates.

Our Sabbath is one of the most important parts of who we are.  Ahad Ha-Am, the famous Zionists writer, the famously wrote, “More than the Jews have kept the Sabbath, the Sabbath has kept the Jews.”

The Sabbath and I have a relationship, with ups and downs.  As a child growing up in South Florida, I had a connection with Shabbat that involved my whole family.  My grandparents, who took care of us during the week, would cook all day Friday for the Shabbat meal that we would have that night.  My parents worked hard to provide for us all week, but on Friday night, they put that work aside.  My Polish grandmother dressed us in fine clothing and sat us at the Shabbat table which transformed into an altar to worship God.

On this altar, we sanctified the night with wine or grape juice, and we had two challot that signified the two portions of manna that God told the ancient Israelites to collect on Friday so they did not have to work on Shabbat.

My grandmother came to each of us and washed our hands to prepare for this holy bread.  Then, we thanked God for this gift:  Praised are you, Lord our God, King of the Universe, who has brought bread from the earth.  We salted the bread as our ancestors did in the Holy Temple, as an offering to God, and shared the meal together with our creator.

As my grandmother approached me to wash my hands, I remembered seeing numbers tattooed on her arm.  Those numbers were a constant reminder of their struggle in life.

My grandparents were survivors of Auschwitz.  They spent nearly four years as prisoners in this death camp, but prisoners isn’t even the right word to describe what they went through.

To them, bread was a gift.  For many years of their lives, the bread that we took for granted was denied them.  Each day, they would receive only a sliver of bread from their cruel masters.  For years they were slaves, but now, this challah that we ate every week symbolized our freedom, and our desire to live under the one true ruler:  our God.

After the war, my grandparents met and started building a life together in Poland.  Soon, they realized that they were living under a new slave master, the Communist Polish government.  Years later, they were allowed to leave Poland with their three children, but there was a stipulation.  The government would only allow them one wicker basket for all their belongings and $5 a person.

But their task masters did not realize that they let them leave with a treasure that was priceless:  the traditions of their ancestors and their day of rest.  This was the gift that my family received every Friday night living in freedom in America.  It is a gift that has endured.

When I left home for college, I decided that I wanted to taste other the things in life that I thought I was missing out on.  I started going out on Friday night with friends.  I purposely let go of Shabbat, not realizing the gift that it was in my life.  Months later, I realized that the days were seeping into each other, the weeks became indistinguishable.  I seemed to be free, but I had a thirst for something that no night out could quench.  I became unhappy and unfulfilled, and so I ventured back into the Sabbath.

I remember my first Shabbat dinner at Hillel.  The friends that I made, the food that I tasted, and the words that I sang in prayer and in zmirot, Shabbat songs.  After that moment, I was healed.  Shabbat became a part of my adult life, and I never lost it again.

At that Friday night service, I suddenly remembered my trip to my mother’s birthplace, Poland when I was 16.  I remembered the beautiful synagogues that were restored.  None were as large as any actual cathedral, but they were beautiful in their own way.  But, I remembered sitting on the benches, and realizing that I wasn’t sitting in a shul, but in a museum.  The Jewish life that once flourished had now vanished.  The real cathedral, the cathedral in time, had moved to my grandmother’s dining room table, and to the Hillel house that I was sitting in.

It was at that moment that I reclaimed my birthright, the gift my ancestors gave to me:  our Shabbat.  God commanded us both to keep and to remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, for all generations.   Now I am lucky enough to pass it on to my own son, and God willing, he will pass it on to his children, just as God intended.

The Sabbath is about freedom, zecher l’tziat mitzraim, the remembrance of the exodus from Egypt, from slavery, to freedom.  In the ancient world, slavery was a question of who owned your body, but in the modern world, slavery is about who owns our souls and our time.  Sometimes, we feel we must work, 7 days a week.  24/7 may be a great expression, but it doesn’t make a great life.  Once a week, we need to cease from work, take a breath, refresh our life essence, just as God did during creation, Shavat, Va’yinafash.

Shabbat is about quality, not quantity.  The gift of our communication devices is great; now we can connect with many more people than we ever have before.  Now you can have hundreds of friends on Facebook, but never actually see their faces.  Technology may give us quantity, more so called friends, but we need quality, more friendships.

In my life, Shabbat is a time when I look at the people in front of me, and not those in other places.  It is a time of face-to-face interaction, of speaking to someone, being with them in their presence without the worry of my next appointment.  For one day out of the week, I focus on quality of companionship with family, friends, and community.  Shabbat is the pinnacle of our calendar, visiting us each week.  Our Shabbat reminds us of our constant movement from slavery to freedom and redemption.

Shabbat and our holidays have kept me in my life, and our people for generations.

I know what you may be thinking, I have enough calendars in my life, why do I need this one?

Because this calendar has one day of the week that doesn’t demand that you sell more to make more money, or to work harder – this calendar wants you to rest, this calendar wants you to spend holy time with family and friends.

Today, I ask that you give it a try.  Let Shabbat and our holidays keep you.  Not only will it bring God into your life, but it’ll create life long memories.

Prepare a dinner on Friday night and invite friends and family over to begin your own traditions.  Come thank God with us on Friday night and Saturday as part of a holy community.

Join us for one of the many meals that we have open to the whole community, or for our Shabbat Across Shaarei Kodesh when congregants open their homes each other to share a special meal.  Sit with us in our Sukkah in a couple of weeks, light the Hanukah candles with us, let us invite you to our homes for Passover sedar, learn all night with us on Shavuot, mourn with us as we commemorate Holocaust Remembrance Day and the 9^th of Av when we lament the destruction of the Temple, and celebrate with us on Israeli Independence Day.

On Rosh Hashanah, we celebrate our lives and accomplishments, but we also look to the future with worry.

Will our economy rebound?  Will I be able to afford my mortgage?  Will I have a job?  Will I be healthy this year?

Will my life be saved this year?

In the famous Unetaneh Tokef prayer, we struggle with the unknown of our future in this same way, with questions; and we search for answers.

As we look to Judaism for answers, I can tell you this:  it cannot keep you from dying; no religion can do that, but Judaism can save your life from being wasted.

Today, I come to you with a simple request, but it’s a big one.

Add our calendar to yours; Start living a Jewish life.  As I told the gentlemen earlier, I can’t guarantee you’ll live longer, but our way of life has the power to save the quality of your life, to give it meaning.

There is a famous Jewish story about a king who summoned two of his subjects to his court.  He entrusted each farmer with a bundle of wheat and instructed them to return to his chambers in one year.  A year later, the king summoned them back and asked them for the wheat.  The first farmer returned the untouched bundle of wheat. The second farmer returned, but entered the chamber with loaves of bread and sweet cakes.  The king delighted in the second farmer, for he made something great out of the gift that he gave him.

Every year, God gives us something much more precious than wheat; God gives us time.  If we are lucky, we come back in a year before God and he asks us, where is the time that I gave you?  Every year, we have the opportunity to show God what we have done.  Have we been inventive with our time?  Have we created holy things?  Have we visited God’s Temple in time?

Have we let our calendar change us or did we spend our time trying to change it?

How do we measure and judge our moments?

We measure them in Shabbatot, 52 of them, 78,000 minutes times to dwell in God’s sanctuary.

We measure our lives in holidays, so many Jewish holidays that the only month without a holiday begins with the word bitter!

We measure our lives in Jewish New Years, times when we realize the importance of our physical environment, and the food we eat, the freedom we were given by God when we were redeemed from Egypt, and today, we celebrate another year of life.

525,600 minutes.  Don’t waste one minute.  Make sure that in 525,600 minutes, when you sit here next year, that you are a different person, a better person.

How do we measure a life well lived?  How will you measure a year in your life?

The first mitzvah, the first opportunity to connect with God, was the mitzvah of setting a calendar, to let God into our lives, every day, every minute.  On this day, make the decision to make every minute count.

They are the most precious gifts that God has given us.

Ki Tavo 5771– Living the Life of a Farmer

Rabbi David Baum, Congregation Shaarei Kodesh

There is a scene from the movie Easy Rider that really sticks out to me at this moment.

We have planted our seeds.

We ask…

…that our efforts be worthy…

…to produce simple food…

…for our simple taste.

We ask that our efforts…

…be rewarded.

We thank You for the food

we eat from other hands…

…that we may share it

with our fellow man…

…and be even more generous…

…when it is from our own.

Thank You for a place…

…to make a stand.

Amen.

The scene goes around to see the faces in a circle. This circle is of people in a commune, they are tired, weary, and worried about their crops.

In this scene, the two bikers visit a commune made up of hippies in the 60′s. These hippies were city folk, young people who didn’t plant seeds, but bought fruits and vegetables in a market. Now, they became farmers, and they are living the harsh reality of a farmers life.

When we eat food, most of us buy it in a supermarket. We have no idea what it is like to be a farmer.

Our parashah opens up with the prayer that the farmer gives, not on his planting, but upon producing his first fruits. This must have been a time of great joy and jubilation, the opposite of the scene of planting.

There is a ritual that each Jew, in every generation, must perform:

Deuteronomy 26:1 – 10

1. When you enter the land that the Lord your God is giving you as a heritage, and you possess it and settle in it, 2you shall take some of every first fruit of the soil, which you harvest from the land that the Lord your God is giving you, put it in a basket and go to the place where the Lord your God will choose to establish His name. 3You shall go to the priest in charge at that time and say to him, “I acknowledge this day before the Lord your God that I have entered the land that the Lord swore to our fathers to assign us.”4The priest shall take the basket from your hand and set it down in front of the altar of the Lord your God. 5You shall then recite as follows before the Lord your God: “My father was a fugitive Aramean. He went down to Egypt with meager numbers and sojourned there; but there he became a great and very populous nation.6The Egyptians dealt harshly with us and oppressed us; they imposed heavy labor upon us. 7We cried to the Lord, the God of our fathers, and the Lord heard our plea and saw our plight, our misery, and our oppression.8The Lord freed us from Egypt by a mighty hand, by an outstretched arm and awesome power, and by signs and portents. 9He brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.10Wherefore I now bring the first fruits of the soil which You, O Lord, have given me.”
You shall leave it before the Lord your God and bow low before the Lord your God. 11And you shall enjoy, together with the Levite and the stranger in your midst, all the bounty that the Lord your God has bestowed upon you and your household.

What fascinates me about this prayer is that no other Israelite has to bring their first fruits in every season to Jerusalem. The overwhelming majority of the prayers in the Torah are spontaneous, but this prayer is written out word for word. The farmer, in every generation, must say these words.

The farmer is a lonely profession. The farmer, day after day, tends to his fields, and is at the mercy of the soil. We are so used to immediate results, but farmers do not have that luxury. He cannot make his crops grow faster, he is at the mercy of time.

The Mishnah in tractate Bikkurim tells us how the scene of the farmer and his trip to Jerusalem played out.

After they have worked alone for the whole season, and after they have harvested their well earned crops, the farmers of each region would assemble and then parade in unison to Jersualem. The residents and even the king would come out to greet these farmers with open arms with the words, “Brothers, come in peace.” Once a year, the lonely farmer is now the hero to all.

What might the farmer be thinking? What would the farmer say if he could say anything?

This is where the Torah steps in and guides them.

First, as the Ramban says, the farmer declares that he has entered the land that God promised Israel’s ancestors, and thereby acknowledges that God has fulfilled His promise.

The language is in the first person, the “I” form. Just as we do during the Passover sedar, “In every generation one must look at oneself as if he himself had been freed from Egypt,” so too does this farmer look at himself as if he himself with the first generation of Israelites who entered the land.

Rather than talk about the fertility of the land, the farmer now recites the story of the Israelites. Our father, a fugitive Aramean, probably Jacob, went down to Egypt with his family, they became great and populous, they were oppressed and taken as slaves, and God saved them and brought them to this promised land, a land flowing with milk and honey.

Why the history lesson?

Rambam says that it is to instill humility to the farmer. He goes on to say that this ceremony teaches us that in good times, times of comfort, we should recall our experiences of pain and suffering. He says that the wealthy and rich are more prone to become haughty and insolent, and abandon all good principles.

In bad times, we look to God to save us. We tend to blame God and ask why He did this to us. But I’ve never heard the question in good times, why did God do this for me?

This ceremony teaches us that especially in good times, we must look to the true source, even if we think we did it all ourselves.

As we approach the holiday season, we have to be like these farmers. As we look upon the last year, and rejoice at our accomplishments, we must realize that we did not do it all alone.

We are now within the month of Elul.

Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi explains the month of Elul with the following story:

The king’s usual place is in the capital city, in the royal palace. Anyone wishing to approach the king must go through the appropriate channels in the palace bureaucracy and gain the approval of a succession of secretaries and ministers. He must journey to the capital and pass through the many gates, corridors and antechambers that lead to the throne room. His presentation must be meticulously prepared, and he must adhere to an exacting code of dress, speech and mannerism upon entering into the royal presence.

However, there are times when the king comes out to the fields outside the city. At such times, anyone can approach him; the king receives them all with a smiling face and a radiant countenance. The peasant behind his plow has access to the king in a manner unavailable to the highest ranking minister in the royal court when the king is in the palace.

The month of Elul, says Rabbi Schneur Zalman, is when the king is in the field.

As moderns, in a culture where we can attain everything instantly, we forget that real growth, real transformation, cannot happen instantly. We cannot parachute into our high holiday services and expect that we will be transformed without preparation, without real effort.

As we think and pray during Elul, let us at our shortfalls, and let us realize that it takes time to make amends and do tesuvah.

We still have that time.

During Elul, God comes to us as a father, Avinu, before He sits upon his throne on Rosh Hashanah, and Yom Kippur as our king, Malkeinu. We must begin our introspection, to gain some humility in good times, and comfort in bad times.

Now is the time to bring our first fruits to God and know that our ancestors before us did the same, that we are a part of their covenant, and that we will pass this covenant on to the next generation.

The Meaning Of Simcha:  Parashat Re’eh 5771/2011

Delivered by Rabbi David Baum, Congregation Shaarei Kodesh

In many ways, we are a culture that strives to be happy. We think that the more things we buy, the more things that we can afford, the happier we can be. Today, we are going to look at how Judaism tells us to be happy, or in Simcha.

This a question is indirectly posed to us in our parashah: “Together with your households, you shall feast there before the Lord your God, happy in all the undertakings in which the Lord your God has blessed you.” The word used for feast is ושמחתם– as you can see, the root for a word that many people know, Simcha – a happy occasion.

Our Parashah this week primarily centers around the concept of one central place, a place where God will choose, where worship will occur. What do we do in this place?

12:6-7: 6 and there you are to bring your burnt offerings and other sacrifices, your tithes and contributions, your votive and freewill offerings, and the firstlings of your herds and flocks. 7Together with your households, you shall feast there before the Lord your God, happy in all the undertakings in which the Lord your God has blessed you.

We generally write laws because there are some people who are doing the opposite; so we see here that the centralization of worship was important to them because people were doing otherwise. We see in Parashat Re’eh this pasuk:

8You shall not act at all as we now act here, every man as he pleases, 9 because you have not yet come to the allotted haven that the Lord your God is giving you.

According to this pasuk, there were people who worshipped God as they wanted. It asks a more general and important question: Can you truly be happy alone?

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel once said, “Happiness is not a synonym for self-satisfaction, complacency, or smugness. Self-satisfaction breeds futility and despair. Self-satisfaction is the opiate of fools.” Here, Heschel tells us, you cannot be happy by being alone – you need others.

Who is invited to be a part of the celebration?

12And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God with your sons and daughters and with your male and female slaves, along with the Levite in your settlements, for he has no territorial allotment among you.

It is not just your family, but everyone, those who are fortunate to have as well as the have nots.

This teaches me that to truly rejoice, we have to invite all types of people – communities cannot be made up of just one type of people. Diversity is the beauty of community. At Shaarei Kodesh we value diversity because we feel it brings more happiness. Diversity is intergenerational, and inclusive of all different backgrounds and families.

This week’s parashah, Re’eh begins with famously with the words:

26See, this day I set before you blessing and curse: 27blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I enjoin upon you this day; 28and curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God…

The language of the text is in the plural, a blessing if you all choose it, a curse if you all do not obey the commandments, and it is conditional.

Ultimately, we choose whether we want to be part of a community – you who stand here have chosen blessing. Being a part of a community is a blessing even when you are living through a curse like a loss or illness. But being a part of a community is a blessing especially when you are living through a blessing. We, Congregation Shaarei Kodesh, are an interesting community in Boca Raton – we are not necessarily centered around a place just yet. One week, we had two smachot at one time, but in two places – here and in Delray

Next week, we will be celebrating a bar mitzvah of one of our sons across the street at Temple Beth Shalom. Although we are inviting others who we do not know into our simcha, I believe that sharing our joy with others is an amazing gift not only to others but to ourselves.

When talking about the place where God will choose to put His name in our Torah portion, it never mentions where this central place will be, rather it says, you shall seek out His (God’s) resting place and come there. In the Israelite camp, God’s presence was found hovering over the Mishkan (the Tabernacle), but this structure moved with the people; it was portable.

I like to look at this shul, this community, as a mishkah – it is portable, and where we are as a community, God dwells over us, and with us. Our community becomes the place where God places His name, where God seeks His resting place.

This teaches us something: you need a community, a place for God to dwell, to truly rejoice with God.

Our, Parashah ends with Sukkot which is the only holiday called, Zman Simchatenu, the time of our happiness. During Sukkot, our Rabbis teach us that we make our temporary homes our permanent homes. We leave the comforts of a roof and live in the uncertainty of a roof made of Skach – a structure that reminds us that there is nothing permanent in the world except for the presence of God upon us.

Today, we gather together in happiness to bid Fanny farewell here in our sanctuary, and next week, we will gather together to help the Pessahs rejoice their son reaching the age of Jewish responsibility, and the week after, we will gather again to rejoice with the Lubin family as we welcome Emily to Jewish adulthood.

On all these occasions, each family has invited the congregation to feast together, as a community.

Sacrifices were meals in a way – the whole community ate, and most importantly, God ate with them – this is the true meaning of the sacrifices – it is a meal with God, and God always invites everyone to share in the joy and in gratitude of life.

No matter if you are in The Holy Temple (or a building so large that it could be a replica!), or a small tent, if you have a community to worship God with, then you are in true Simcha. Where God chooses to place His name is where we choose to gather in Simcha.

Loving God and Each Other, When We Lie Down, When We Sleep
August 13, 2011, Parsahat Va’etchanan

It has been a truly tumultuous week in the world, whether it was riots, or financial disaster. I don’t know about you, but there is only so much that I can take of this bad news. The truth is, sometimes, you have to look around at your own life rather than watch these things on television. The real news that should matter is, what is happening in my life?

As you know, the news in my family’s life this week is that it is our 5th year of marriage. So I thought back to even before then, the day that we got engaged. It was a Friday afternoon, and I decided to ask Alissa at the beach over a small picnic.

I gave her a card and when she opened it, there was an Aramaic phrase written on it. Of course, she was puzzled, I mean, it wasn’t even in Hebrew.

So I translated for her. It was a line that I learned in Talmud class that semester, and it stuck with me, and I think it will stick with you:

“When our love was strong, we could sleep on the edge of a sword; now that our love is not strong, a bed sixty cubits wide is not big enough for us.” (Sanhedrin 7a)

I told her that our lives now are like the first half of the statement. We were living across the country from each other, seeing each other once a month, and both of us in intense educational programs as well as working. That was the edge of the sword that we were sleeping on, but our love is strong, so we could get through it. I told her that I knew our love would develop and become stronger, and we could sleep anywhere, in New York, Florida, Israel, or even on this beach, but it doesn’t matter.

So we decided to get married, and a year and a half later, on August 13th, 2006, the 19th of Av, we sanctified our relationship. Now, here we are, 5 years later, and we have learned a lot more about love.

In our parashah this week, we see the word, Ahavah, only a couple of times in the first four books of the Bible. We see romantic love between people, like between Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and Rachel, and we see love from parents to children, like Abraham to Isaac, Rebecca to Jacob, Jacob to Joseph. We also see love between peoples, between neighbors, and the love of strangers, orphans, and widows. And in our parashah, we see a command to love God. It is the most famous phrase we can find, and we say it numerous times a day, when we wake up, and when we lie down: The V’ahavta paragraph.

5You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6Take to heart these instructions with which I charge you this day. 7Impress them upon your children. Recite them when you stay at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up. 8Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a symbol on your forehead; 9inscribe them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

As you can imagine, many commentators want to know, what does it mean to ‘love’ God? How can you command someone to feel a certain way? I think back to pre-marital counseling, and one thing that is awkward to tell a couple is, you have to love your spouse. What does it mean to ‘love’? The JPS commentary by Dr. Jeffrey Tigay informs us that the Torah does not shy away from commanding feelings, for example, in Leviticus 19:17 – 18, the Torah says that you cannot hate your kinsfolk in your heart. Tigay writes, “Nevertheless, love of God in Deuteronomy is not only an emotional attachment to Him, but something that expresses itself in action. This is in keeping with the fact that Hebrew verbs for feelings sometimes refer as well to the actions that result from them. For example, when we are told to love the stranger, we are also told that we have to provide food and clothing for them.

Tigay continues, “Israel’s duty to love God is likewise inseparable from action; it is regularly connected with the observance of His commandments, to love means to act lovingly.”

The following verses after the command to love God talks about each one of us following His mitzvoth. This shows us that the commandments are not just orders, but they are the ways in which we come closer to God. If you do them, you will find yourself in love, if you don’t you step away from the relationship.

In chapter 5, Moshe tells the people to be ‘watchful’ of the commandments. Dr. Richard E. Friedman points out that this verb, Shamor, has taken on many meanings in the Bible. When God places Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, he tells them “to watch over the way to the tree of life.” In the next story, Cain lies to God telling God, “Am I my brother’s watchman?” The word watch turns from a closeness to God into a gradual descent away from God. But humanity begins the journey back with Abraham when God says that Abraham, “kept my watch.” Now, the concept comes full circle. We see that the key to coming back to God to watch, Shamor, his commandments.
These acts, these actions that we do, are not easy.

I heard an interesting way to look at the word Ahava from a writer named Ahuva Bloomfield.  She took the word AHAVA apart.  The root is ALEPH, HEY, BET.  If you take away the aleph, you have the root for the word, to give, ya hev.  The aleph acts as a modifier to say, “I give”.
We see here that love is not a noun, it is a verb:  I give. This paragraph is written to each person, in the singular, each person has to give in order to be in relationship with God. Each person has to make that choice.
When Alissa and I spent our year in Israel, we took a picture in front of the big letters at the Israel museum that spell out the word, AHAVA.

Amy Pessah once told me an interesting interpretation to this word from this sculpture. She said that as she was staring at the picture of this sculpture she noticed something. In Hebrew, the letter aleph is the number 1, hey is the letter that signifies God, bet is the number 2.  In Judaism, God must be between us to bring us together.”
I thought about that and like any good chevrutah, learning partner, added my own thoughts:  God, the hey, brings one and two together, making another being altogether, a whole word – ahava.
Love, between humans and between us and God, makes us whole.
When I gave Alissa that card with this Aramaic quote written on it, she needed me to translate it for her. But in our five years together, Alissa, like the good chevrutah that she is, has taught me what this quote actually means.
To build a love strong enough that you can literally sleep on the edge of a sword, you have to give of yourself, you have to work for each other. Our relationships cannot be depend on how big our beds are, or our bank accounts. The bed, no matter how big or small, is not the foundation of our relationships, it is the love that is the foundation.
The key to a loving relationship between you and God, and you and your partner is one and the same. Over and over again, Moshe tells us to listen, Shema, in this book. We have to listen to each other. God tells us to Shamor, to watch, to make sure you fulfill your responsibilities toward each other. Finally, when do we have to do this? Constantly, when you lie down, b’shochbecha, and when you rise, u’bekumecha.
Shabbat Shalom, and a Happy Tu B’av to all of you. May all of you loves flourish this year and beyond.

Osama Bin Laden – Past, Present, and Future

Rabbi David Baum, Congregation Shaarei Kodesh

On Sunday night, I was watching television, waiting for a press conference.  Sunday night seemed odd, but I didn’t think it was going to be anything that special.  How many times do we see “Breaking News” and it something about Lindsey Lohan or Charlie Sheen, or maybe the both of them together! The news personalities were stumped on every channel.  They had no idea what President Obama was going to say, and it was fun to watch.  Finally, the moment came:

“Good evening. Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al Qaeda, and a terrorist who’s responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women, and children.”

Minutes later, there were already opinion pieces about the event.  All too often, we feel we have to say something right away, and, wouldn’t you know it, but just one hour later, a rabbi friend of mine wrote a sermon.  It took me longer to digest this news, because it wasn’t just about now, but also about the past and the future.

So today, I want to speak about three aspects of this event, past, present and future.

It is hard to imagine, but we are approaching 10 years from the events of 9/11.  10 years ago, I was a 21 year old undergraduate at UF.  I was woken up at the early hour of 9:00 am on 9/11/2001 (I haven’t slept until 9 am in 21 months!) by my roommate in a small bachelor pad apartment.  As I sat up in my tiny room on my futon, I turned on the television.  Little did I know that the horrible scene that I watched would shape the next ten years of our lives.

Few of you probably remember, but there was supposed to be a major Israel rally planned in New York City on September 23rd.  I already had the plane ticket, and even though the event was cancelled, I thought it important to go.  Instead of rallying to support Israel, I went to support and comfort friends and family who were in New York during 9/11, who were sick, holim, depressed, and I went to comfort those who lost family and friends on that day, avelim.   I sat on the plane, with very few people.  What happened on that flight was much more indicative of the next 10 years than the moments of unity after 9/11.  The travelers had to get used to the new way to travel with much more extensive searches, no liquids on board, and of course, the fear.  Passengers sized each other up, and all of us looked at the passenger with the brown skin.  We were angry, but most of all, scared.

After the events of 9/11, I think we all thought that we would be a united nation, all sides brought together.  But during the subsequent years, our country engaged in two wars that we are still fighting today, terrorism became central on everyone’s minds, and the world seemingly went into chaos.  It seems we are more divided then ever.

On Sunday night, I sat on a couch, this time going to sleep instead of waking up.  No longer a bachelor college student, now I am a 31 one year old Rabbi with a wife and child.

So much has changed.

I thought about the past, what Bin Laden was to us, what was his crime?

For his crime, I have to look at this week’s parashah, Emor.  In our parashah, we read about an interesting case of someone who curses or blasphemes God.

The story is that we have a person, the son of an Israelite woman, who curses God’s name, and the Torah gives us the consequence – death by stoning.  This seems like an extreme penalty for an a verbal act.  It’s not like he killed someone right?

And this is not just any stoning, it’s a stoning by the whole community!

Rashi asks an interesting question, “How can the whole community stone him?”

“Since this is not physically possible, we understand that it must mean he is to be stoned in the presence of the whole community.  So we learn that one is legally responsible for the actions of one’s representatives.”

This person who curses God led others to follow in his path, and so the whole community had to see that cursing God brings you only one result – death.

Osama Bin Laden was not only responsible for the death of 3,000 people in the twin towers on 9/11, not only responsible for the deaths of thousands of others who died in terrorist attacks that he helped plan around the world, but he was most guilty for blaspheming God.  He took God’s name and made it stand for hate and murder.

It just so happens that Osama Bin Laden died on Yom Hashoah, and this year, the English date corresponded with another ominous anniversary – the date of Hitler’s, Yimach Shemo’s, death.  Hitler killed millions more people, but these two were cut from the same cloth.  They blasphemed God’s name by spreading hate and murder.  They cursed God’s name by saying there was no value to human life.  The Talmud says that to kill a life is to destroy the entire world – these two had no issues destroying the world, in fact, it was their mission in life.

It is our responsibility to stop those rare human beings who curse God in this way, and this week, our country did just that.

This week, in the present, we saw a series of events.  First, we saw a couple of people gathering in front of the White House with American flags, then in Time Square, then more and more people until people were cheering.

Some people looked at this celebration as at best tacky, and at worst embarrassing and dangerous, celebrating death while showing us as vengeful people.  Judaism deals with this issue in two ways.  First, the midrash tells us that after the Egyptians died after Kriyat Yam Suf, the splitting of the Sea of Reeds, the angels started singing and God quickly told them to stop because His creations were killed and it was not a time for celebration.  On Pesach, we take drops of wine out of our glasses during the recitation of the 10 plagues to lessen our happiness in the face of Egyptian suffering.  But there is another side.  Even though our angels did not sing, we, the people who suffered did sing out of joy and we sing it during every morning prayer service.  We also have a holiday where we rejoice the death of a tyrant, Purim, where we celebrate the death of Haman.  This teaches us that celebration during these times are acceptable, but then again, but Purim is only one day a year, so we also learn that we should limit these celebrations.
A lot was made about the celebrations, but keep in mind that there were only celebrations on a late Sunday night, so they were limited.  As the midrash points out, we are not angels, and at times, we have to let our more human side out.    My opinion is, just this time, I think we deserve a pass to mark the end of this evil man.

On September 12, 2001, we lived in the post-9/11 world.  A world full of fear, terrorism, war, and uncomfortable searches at the airport.  Despite coming together for a short time, we quickly separated from each other and became more partisan than we ever had before.  It became a time of sharp divisions in our society.

Now, in May of 2011, less than one week after this momentous event, we are in the Post Bin Laden world.  The wars seem to be slowing down, the Arab world seems to want freedom and democracy, and it seems that one week after, seeing few ‘funerals’ for Bin Laden, the majority of people over the world are ready to move on.

I wish I could tell you what 10 years from now will be like, but I cannot.  That’s actually good news because it teaches us that the future is not yet written; that’s our job.

In last week’s parashah, I spoke about the famous line, and I have to speak about it again this week:

17  You shall not hate your kinsfolk in your heart. Reprove your kinsman but incur no guilt because of him.

18  You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against your countrymen. Love your fellow as yourself: I am the Lord.

Rashi’s grandson, Rashbam, makes an important distinction as to what a countrymen is and the limit to loving your fellow as yourself.  He writes, “If he is your fellow, that is, if he is good to you.  But if he is evil to you – well, “To fear the Lord is to hate evil.” (Proverbs 8:13).

We must be vigilant.  Osama Bin Laden was not our only enemy, and there are plenty more – we must continue to hate evil and fight against it.  But this might also be a time for peace.

There is a famous story about non-Jew who sought conversion to Judaism from the two great sages, Hillel and Shammai.  He asked Shammai, can you teach me the entirety of the Torah on one foot?  Shammai shoed him away, and he went to Hillel and asked him the same thing.  Hillel famously said, “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow man.  This is the entire Torah, the rest is commentary, Go and study it,”

We are a people who ultimately seek peace, not hate.  Peace is much harder to make than war because you have to reach out to those who you fundamentally disagree with.  It is easy to drop a bomb, but it’s harder to build a school.  It’s easy to say something racist to a group of friends, but it’s harder to listen to a racist comment and speak against the friend who made it.  It’s easier to hit, much harder to hug.

I do not know how to bring about world peace, but I know that peace begins in one place – our hearts.  Perhaps this is why we are told that we should love our God with all of our hearts first before any other parts.

Now is the time to start loving ourselves more by letting peace in, not hate, so we can start loving our neighbors.  The next ten years are up to us.

As we say so often in our service -

Oseh Shalom B’Mromovav, hu ya’aseh shalom alenu, v’al kol yisrael

In this prayer that we say, we ask God to bring peace upon us, but the prayer does not tell us how this will happen. The truth is, God needs our help to bring this peace to the world, and God needs us, each one of us, to take that first step.

As a songwriter once wrote, “Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.”

–
Rabbi David Baum – JTS 2009
Congregation Shaarei Kodesh
Cell: 561-865-6680
www.shaareikodesh.org

Passover Sedar Memories

Yizkor – 8^th Day of Passover 5771/2011

Rabbi David Baum, Congregation Shaarei Kodesh

There are many blessings that we have living with extended family close by. For years, we often had the same meals, with the same family members. When I was young, it seemed like nothing would ever change. But as time went on, we lost family. Our first major loss was my grandmother, Eta Baum, whose memorial board is now in my own shul. She died in 1989, long before my bar mitzvah, long before I even thought to become a rabbi.

My memories of her were very strong as she had a very strong personality. But, as time went on, the memories fade. This past Shabbat was her Yahrtzeit, the 19^th of Nissan.

I found myself trying to remember something that happened in 1989, when I was just 10 years old.

After our snack and learn, my cousin Aaron and his fiance came over our house for more lunch. My cousin is 25, although I always thought of his as much younger. And so I asked him, What do you remember about Grandma Eta? He said, “I remember her cooking a lot.” Of course, he was just 4 years old when she passed away. Fortunately, I had six more years with her, so I had many more memories from our visits, but I too remembered the food, but very specifics, I remember the chicken soup, how it looked, smelled, and tasted. I remember the stuffed cabbage, even to this day.

This past week, I had the honor of hosting our family for the 1^st night of our Pesach sedar. As is tradition, each family member brings a different dish, and my aunt, my grandmother’s daughter, brought over the famous stuffed cabbage. As I tasted the stuffed cabbage, my grandmother’s recipe, I thought about her. I know it’s just food, but it’s one way that I remembered her.

Pesach is a very special time for our people. Its message of freedom from bondage is timeless and has shaped us as a people even until today. It has also shaped the Western world, showing us both Jew and non-Jew that what passes for the norm of human existence, oppression by slavery, a low value on human life, is actually not the way things are supposed to be. Human beings, all human beings, are meant to be free.

The high holidays are experienced in our synagogues, Sukkot in our temporary booths, and Shavuot in the Beit Midrash (the house of study), but Pesach is at the family table. In fact, an overwhelming majority of Jews go to some form of a Pesach sedar.

We eat together, and it is the food that makes Pesach memorable. If we look at the four questions, they are based around food, what we eat tonight that is different than on all other nights.

As Jews, we have interesting commandments. Some are good deeds, but all are commandments – things we have to do or things we shouldn’t do. Some of our actions are physical such as giving tzedakah to the poor, or lighting Shabbat candles, but one ‘act’ is very interesting because it is a mental act that no one can see – Zachor – Remember.

The foods we eat are a tool to help us with this mitzvah, Zecher L’Tziat Mitzraim, the remembrance of of being taken out of Egypt. This commandment is a part of every week of our lives as Shabbat is observed in order to remember leaving Egypt.

On Pesach, we eat matzah and maror in order to trigger something within us, to wake up a deep memory that is in our blood for thousands of years. Every year, we have eaten matzah and maror, it is a part of us. This food is special. When we eat the matzah, we remember how little time our ancestors had to prepare for freedom, when we eat maror, we remember the bitterness of slavery that they endured. But these foods also relate to our own family stories. My grandmother, the one who made the stuffed cabbage, learned how to be an amazing cook when she hid as a Christian during the Holocaust. Even though it is delicious, I know that there is bitterness in it because I know her story.

One of my favorite lines in our Hagadah is found right after we introduce the idea of Matzah and Maror. We lift up these items to explain why eat them, and then our Hagadah gives us a charge:

“In every generation one is obligated to see oneself as one who personally went out from Egypt. Just as it says: “You shall tell your child on that very day: ‘It is because of this that God did for me when I went out from Egypt.” (Exodus 13:8).

How is it possible to see yourself as if you yourself left Egypt? You do it with the sacred act of remembering.

Today is the last day of Pesach. The left overs, the last semblance of our sedars are dwindling, the matzah boxes are hopefully empty; but there is something left over.

Today, we remember those loved ones who graced our sedar tables over time, but this year, were not there. Physically, they were not there, but how many of us taught others something that they learned from a grandfather who passed away? How many of us made our grandmother’s chicken soup? How many of us remembered their stories as we ate these foods? They are physically gone, but a part of them lives on.

A part of our people that are physically lost, people spanning back from thousands of years, the matzah, the maror, the Pesach, the words of the Hagadah, the songs we sing, are alive today because we actively remember them.

We come together numerous times a year to do this sacred mitzvah – Yizkor, remembrance. As long as we come together to remember them, we ensure that our people and our holy values, our customs, our way of life, will live on.

Yizkor, remembrance, is about those who have left us behind, but it’s also about you. You have to remember them – and so what will you remember about them?

Remember every aspect of them – the smell, the tastes, the sights, the words of wisdom, the touch of a warm embrace

To remember is a unique mitzvah, but there is another mitzvah that we often do not think about – how to make yourself memorable for your loved ones.

Often times, we deify our ancestors, and this goes to our grand parents, parents, etc. But when we do this, when we say that we could never be them, than we separate ourselves from them. Rather, let us look to them for guidance – how did they make themselves ever lasting to us – what were the little things that they did? The little sayings, the actions, the things that we still cherish today?

And as you leave today, what are you doing to make yourself memorable to your descendants? Perhaps this is why Yizkor is left until the final day of Pesach. We will not bring the matzah with us tomorrow, but the lessons we learn from remembering will stay with us for the entire year.

As we come together to remember our ancestors, let us take a lesson from them – be memorable – create memories for those who are alive today – your descendants – give them something to treasure, to savor, to learn from.

Our Haftarah contains the famous great vision of the Messianic Era when peace and harmony will reign supreme among all people. Because the Haftarah contains several allusions to the redemption from Egypt, it was especially chosen to be chanted on the last day of Passover.

Our final redemption will not be brought by God alone, but by us as well. Let us act in ways to do what our ancestors could not, but tried so hard to do. Let us work for our descendants, just as our ancestors did.

We ask for God’s help today to remember those who we have lost, and for tomorrow, we ask for God to help us be memorable for those who we love, just as our ancestors did for us.