A Short Entry

In rabbinical school I had a brilliant professor of medieval Jewish philosophy.  He was hard, demanding and incredibly knowledgeable.  He simply knew about everything.  He used to say that he would run away from relevance as if he were running away from the plague.  I feel so differently.  If it is not relevant to the challenges of life, faith, hope, honesty, humor and the ability to have fun-- I find that I am not interested in it.  I want everything I study and read to be relevant to the lived life.

As the sun sets on Wednesday evening we will begin 5772 and with it our holiest days, an annual intense period of self examination and renewal.

This has been a hard year for our nation and the Jewish People. Our nation is politically divided, the country not nearly recovered from the deep economic downturn of 2008-2009 seems poised to head into another recession. Major policy issues bring more division with no seeming way forward. There is work to be done everywhere we turn.

In the Middle East the Arab Spring with its hopes for personal freedom, enlightenment and democracy also brings with it the dangers of wanton sectarian violence and a renewed anti Israel vehemence. Israel itself is at a crossroads like almost no time in its history. The Palestinian leadership talks peace but will not sit and negotiate and the current government of Israel is unable to commit itself to doggedly pursuing a policy that will lead to a Two State Solution. The fear of a nuclear Iran hovers over the entire horizon.

We are Jews and if there is one overriding message of this season it is that Jews do not despair. We are a small, yet strong and determined people who transform realistic assessments into inspirational hopes. That is our purpose in history--our sacred gift. The crises of this moment will not deter us from our path.

As you all know, for me, Israel, despite the challenges and the heartache is itself a symbol of hope-- a miracle in our time.

In these last days before the holidays begin, I invite you to watch this video link from Israel. Celebrate 5772 and feel the vitality, energy, and hope of Israel's next generation of leaders.

Shannah Tovah! 

Holy Days

Meir Shalev, in his brilliant book Beginnings: The First Love, the First Hate, the First Dream… Reflections on the Bible’s Intriguing Firsts suggests that self forgiveness is perhaps even more difficult than forgiveness by the injured party. Commenting on the biblical tale of Esau and Jacob he writes, “The two stories prove that someone who has injured his fellow man with brutality or deception thinks that everyone acts that way. Thus Esau… returned from his meeting with his brother with his heart pure and whole, whereas Jacob continued to suffer fear and suspicion.”

And of Joseph he writes, “Joseph cried and got emotional and even claimed that the evil perpetrated by his brothers was planned from above to lead to a happy ending. But the brothers remained the same violent and hateful shepherds who threw him in the pit, and they never stopped being afraid.”

Shalev thus raises the bar for the challenge our approaching holy days bring to each of us. We are commanded to seek forgiveness and we are commanded to forgive. There are steps we follow to make our apologies to others—acknowledging our actions, acknowledging the pain we wrought, trying to make restitution, seeking forgiveness etc.

This question is how do we make it right with ourselves? This is more than not committing the same offense again. How do we make ourselves whole after causing hurt to others? Perhaps this is one reason that these days of soul searching come annually. It is an ongoing process—part of the cycle of growth—forgetting, forgiving and renewal.

The good people at Behrman House asked me to post a blog on their web site reflecting my thinking on Jewish education. I have written such a piece and would like to direct you to it. http://www.behrmanhouse.com/blog/what-jewish-education-should-do

In this piece I make reference to David Brooks wonderful book The Social Animal, and how I believe it applies to the requirements of Jewish education today. The phrase is “character education.” How do we live it, embody it in the Jewish educational setting?

“Wittgenstein once wrote: ‘I think I summed up my attitude to philosophy when I said: philosophy ought really to be written only as a poetic composition.’ His admiration for (poetry), I think, gives us a clue as to what he had in mind. If philosophical understanding is to be conveyed, then it cannot be conveyed in the same way that scientific knowledge is conveyed—i.e. stated directly in literal language—it must be through something more analogous to poetry. The philosopher has to bear in mind always that what he or she really wants to say cannot be said, and , therefore, it has to be conveyed another way: it has to be show. In this way, as Wittgenstein out it…the unutterable will be, unutterably contained in what has been uttered.” (Ray Monk, How to Read Wittgenstein)

What Wittgenstein says holds for philosophy is even a starker and greater challenge for faith. Religion operates in the realm of the unutterable, unknowable, unsayable—“No one can see my face and live…” Who can pronounce God’s name? What is indicated by one of God’s names—“Ein Sof” (the infinite)?

Liturgy is the realm where we struggle to give voice to the unsayable—to reach the unknowable through poetry, music, drama, and movement.

We err greatly when we see prayer as a rational activity. Prayer is a struggle because it seeks to engage the realm that upon which Wittgenstein reflected philosophically. The struggle of prayer is the struggle to understand ourselves, our place in the world and the God who we affirm can somehow make sense of it all.

Avoiding Sodom

I wonder and worry frequently whether Jewish literature and Jewish teachings have anything at all useful to say about the great issues facing our nation. The President and Congress are currently embroiled in, what for me anyhow, is a rather depressing negotiation on raising the national debt ceiling and working towards a more balanced federal budget.

The broad contours of the debate, as you all know, are how much and where to cut from the federal budget and how much and where to raise taxes. Republicans in Congress are adamantly opposed to any tax increases.

As I seek to think about this through a Jewish prism, I find myself asking to what extent does Judaism teach or advocate a self reliant society and to what extent does Judaism teach or advocate a society where we are all interrelated and interdependent?

Hillel in Pirke Avot/The Ethics of the Fathers asked, "If I am not for myself, who will be for me, if I am for myself alone, what am I?" Hillel clearly seeks to strike a balance between self, self reliance, and interdependence. This same text teaches, "He who says, what is mine is mine and what is yours is yours is a neutral character but some say this is the character of Sodom."

I cannot help but think about this last line. It haunts me--"this is the character of Sodom-"-- that city that had to be destroyed by God because of the evil within it. That city that was so far beyond redemption that it simply could not endure. In this reading, the evil was a city with no sense of responsibility of one for the other-- no sense of giving to the commonweal for the common good.

The very idea of living in a nation that takes care of its elderly, its disabled, its young, its orphans and widows inspires me. The very act of paying taxes in order to lift us all up is what makes us "one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all."

Our elected officials would need only read our nation's sacred texts through the prism of Jewish religious guidance in order to fashion a worthy public policy.

In honor of July 4th weekend

In honor of July 4 weekend, I dedicated my Shabbat remarks last week to that great American game of baseball—more pointedly—to A. Bartlett Giamatti’s wonderful essay “Self Knowledge” wherein he compares playing games and watching games to paradise, “All play aspires to the condition of paradise.” Giamatti invokes Milton as he so beautifully demonstrates that games are a momentary taste of what the Gods once offered us and what the imagined life of the Gods actually is.

When we enter a ballpark on a summer’s eve and first see the green field glowing under the lights, many of us know that this is where we are meant to be—even for a moment.

In my remarks last Shabbat, I compared Giamatti’s brief taste of paradise in the moment of the game with Peter Berger’s “sacred canopy” in his description of what religion offers. Religion invites the faithful into a sacred canopy to taste of a finite province of a different reality—an alternative world where life can be sacred, beliefs are noble, the good life counts for something lasting and the way we live really matters.

After services some one that was following my remarks closely asked about how we extend the sacred canopy and make it more durable—more than just a finite province. That is the challenge that modernity brings and that is the worthy goal of struggling to create sacred community. I will continue with these thoughts this coming Shabbat.

The Protestantization of Judaism

My friend Daniel Gordis in a recent piece refers to the Protestantization of  American Jewish life.  By this, he means a Judaism that emphasizes personal journey, personal spiritual growth, and personal meaning.   Even as I believe strongly in the power of these metaphors and experiences, I share Gordis’ concern.

I think of Princeton sociologist and one of the foremost experts on religion in America, Robert Wuthnow who has written widely on this subject.  Wuthnow suggests that the metaphor of “journey” has replaced the metaphor of “home” as the motivating animator of the religious, spiritual life.  Whereas once the home and all associated feelings and experiences was the place where the religious feeling was nurtured and shaped now the personal journey—leaving home to discover the true inner soulful self is the more powerful metaphor.

In Judaism we have strong associations with both.  Home is symbolized by the family table—the shulchan, where we gather for Shabbat, holidays and other celebrations.  This is where Jewish life is transmitted and most deeply felt.  This is where the songs are sung, the stories are told, the generations come together. We also have strong metaphors of journey—Abraham and Sarah, Moses, the entire Israelite people, Elijah, Jonah—just to name a few.

I think a strong Jewish community as well as an engaged Jewish self requires both a sense of home as well as a strong sense of personal journey.  If we do not feel rooted to our past, we are nothing.  If we are not ever in search of a better, deeper, promised land our homes become isolated and self serving.  A vibrant Judaism requires both historical continuity—a strong mooring to our people’s journey through history as well as an animated quest for meaning and discovery.  Then we need not fear the Protestantization of American Jewish life.

My first blog—

Several people have been asking me to start a blog for some time now.  I don’t really see myself as a blogger—but here goes my first.

The move to ban circumcision in San Francisco has gathered enough petition signatures to be included on the November ballot in that city.  The measure’s proponents claim to be acting out of ethical and humane interest as opponents of genital mutilation.  This web site link indicates at least some anti-Semites within their ranks-- http://pajamasmedia.com/tatler/2011/06/03/proof-that-s-f-s-circumcision-ban-is-anti-semitic/

My own feelings on circumcision as a Jewish ritual are very mixed. 

1. The claim of this ritual on our people’s psyche is very strong. It reaches back to our mythic biblical past.  It is a defining ritual—perhaps THE defining ritual.  Therein lays also part of the difficulty.
2. Circumcision as a Jewish ritual is intrinsically sexist.  If this is the rite that defines who is a full covenanted member of the Jewish people—no women need apply.
3. Medical evidence now seems to be neutral as to whether it is medically advisable or preferred.
4. There are strong moral qualms.  It is a form of genital mutilation that causes pain to the infant.

I therefore have a small degree of sympathy with those who would oppose this rite yet at the end of the day I stand strongly against the San Francisco movement. It would have government forbid the most ancient of religious practices.  How can this be a pressing item of concern in today’s America?