Originally posted on Sunday, August 9, 2009
The Health Care Debate and the Usage of Nazi Imagery and Propaganda
About twelve days ago, I received a call from the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. The RAC had been contacted by the White House about President Obama’s upcoming trip to Raleigh to speak about heath care, and they requested a few rabbis attend. They had three tickets and wanted to know if I was interested.
I, of course, said yes and had the incredible chutzpah to ask if they could get another ticket for me. Two hours later, I received an email from the White House itself to inform me there would be an extra ticket which I promptly gave to our Associate Rabbi, Rabbi Andy Koren!
Sometimes, it just does not hurt to have the audacity to ask!
We enjoyed our time there. The discussion was thoughtful.
However, on the way out, we passed a demonstrator who was holding a sign which said, “ObamaCare = National Socialism”. The other rabbis stood by in amazement as I confronted the person holding this sign. I told them that, as a rabbi and as a Jew, I found this sign to be particularly offensive.
If you are not aware, National Socialism is a code word for Nazism and the holder of the sign understood this very well. The word “Nazi” is actually an acronym for the words “National Socialist Workers Party.”
I mentioned to the demonstrator that I accepted his right to disagree with the President and to express such disagreement. However, comparing Obama’s health care plan to the rule of the Nazi party in Germany was terribly hurtful to Jews who had lost one third of their population, six million souls - of whom one and a half million were children – to the Nazi death machine. As a matter of fact, as far as Jews are concerned, the Nazi party is about as far away from healthcare as one could get. Using this imagery seemed to me to be quite hurtful.
But more is involved here.
When I lived in Israel, I had to opportunity to meet on several occasions with a woman named Ruth Eliaz. Ruth was a survivor of Auschwitz. Ruth’s story is extraordinary.
Ruth was pregnant in Auschwitz. Most of the time pregnant woman and women with young children were sent directly to the gas chambers as soon as the cattle car transports arrived. Ruth was chosen in the selection to be a worker. As her pregnancy continued, she tried her best to cover her stomach knowing full well that if she were to be discovered, she would be sent directly to the gas chamber. Eventually the pregnancy could not be hidden any longer. Ruth was taken to the infamous Nazi doctor, Doctor Josef Mengele.
In Auschwitz, Mengele conducted horrific experiments on Jews, especially on Jewish twins. Mengele told Ruth that he had something special in mind for her and that he would allow her to continue the pregnancy to term. After Ruth gave birth to a baby boy, she began to breast feed the child. Mengele had her brought to him whereupon he strapped her to a gurney and injected her breasts with poison so that she would not be able to feed her baby. The purpose of this “experiment” in his mind was to see how long a new born baby could live without being fed. Of course, in the women’s section of Auschwitz, there were no other women who could breast feed Ruth’s baby. Eventually, after several days of seeing her child suffer, Ruth could stand it no longer and she smothered her own child.
This terrible story actually has somewhat of a decent ending in that Ruth did survive Auschwitz and after the War made it to Israel where she married, and they had two children of their own. Both of the children served in the Israeli army, one of them was a pilot in the Israeli Air force.
After the war, the infamous Dr. Mengele escaped to South America and was never brought to trial as a war criminal.
I tell this story to your tonight because we need to truly understand what “health care” meant for Jews who had the misfortune of living under the rule of National Socialism.
Two days ago, Rush Limbaugh compared grassroots supporters of President Obama as "the real brownshirts" and on his website an Obama healthcare logo is put side-by-side with a Nazi symbol.Representative Steve Israel (D-NY) wrote the following in response to Limbaugh:
“As a Democrat who founded the Institute On The Holocaust and The Law, I have a lesson for Rush Limbaugh. Today, there are survivors of the Holocaust with tattoos stenciled on their arms who are registered Democrats. And he's treated them with vile contempt. Limbaugh has the right to be the buffoon that he is. He has no right to compare Americans to Nazis who exterminated 6 million Jews. I know he won't apologize. I do expect my Republican colleagues to denounce his comments. The Holocaust taught us that silence in the face of evil expression becomes acquiescence to evil. And what Limbaugh said is pure evil.”
Again, while it is perfectly legitimate to agree or disagree with the proposals on the table, comparing a proposal to Nazi policies is really beyond the bounds of proper political discourse.
In 1996, I met Leah Rabin, the wife of Prime Minister Rabin who a year earlier had been assassinated by a lone Jewish gunman. Prior to his assassination, Rabin’s opponents had held demonstrations wherein signs were held up of his face pasted on a picture of a Nazi SS uniform. Ms. Rabin blamed her political opponents for not forcefully condemning such hysterical propaganda and she felt that this propaganda had created the atmosphere necessary for the crazed assassin to be cultivated.
This demonization of political opponents is currently taking place in our country, and it is a disturbing phenomenon. By the way, in the 1930 and 1932 elections, Nazi Brown Shirts would often go to the rallies and meetings of their political opponents with the expressed purpose of making enough noise to totally disrupt the meeting.
Folks, we as Americans are dealing with fire here. I have heard a rumor that the Secret Service was processing three times the amount of threats against President Obama when compared to recent presidents. If true, some of this may be accounted to the positions for which he advocates, but some of it could also be attributed to overt racism. Regardless, the demonization of the president and his positions by the extreme right is, in my opinion, a contributing factor to threats against his personal safety.
You might remember that last summer, then candidate Obama went to Israel and placed a prayer in the Western Wall, the holiest site in all of Judaism. When asked what the contents of the prayer were, he answered that he asked God to protect him and his family. In the current atmosphere, this prayer has even greater meaning, and it should not only be his prayer but ours as well!
The health care debate in our country is at a critical crossroad. A lot is at stake for our future, but the way in which we need to find a solution to this problem needs to be civil and respectful.
I would like to suggest a few additional assumptions upon which the current discussion needs to be based. These are:
1. Scare tactics based upon false information have no place in this discussion. The Nazi’s called this the “Big Lie” technique. What this meant is that if one continued to tell the same lie over and over, no matter how outrageous it was, the gullible public would eventually begin to believe it. In this case, the extreme right accuses proposed policies of giving the government power to kill the elderly by requiring living will documents. However, encouraging doctors to speak with their patients about a living will makes good sense. It is the ethical thing to do and, economically, it is a prudent thing to do if it prevents people who do not wish to be kept alive in vegetative states from being sustained for months or even years connected to sophisticated and expensive machines. It is a gross statement to say that this policy will lead to the government deciding to kill elderly people. This is not a "slippery slope" argument, but an example of grotesque propaganda in the tradition of the “Big Lie” Technique.
2. Our current system of health care is not as good as we think it is. According to the World Health Organization, while the United States spends more money on health care than any other nation, our overall rank is thirty-seventh in terms of the quality of healthcare for the entire population. People in other countries do live longer than we do and our ranking in infant mortality is thirty seventh.
3. Doing nothing is not an option. Currently 18% of the GNP is siphoned toward health care – the highest rate in the developed world. By doing nothing to curb this growth, figures may climb 30% or more. Health care premiums and deductibles will continue to rise and fewer small businesses will be able provide health care as a benefit to their employees.
4. Finally, the figures for the cost of health care from the Congressional Budget Office need to be taken seriously. Current plans in the House which could add a trillion to the deficit are not acceptable. Cost-cutting measures are a critical component of any heath care reform or expansion of coverage. By the way, the president himself has stated that he will not sign a health care bill which is not revenue neutral.
Almost one thousand years ago, the great Jewish scholar, Moses Maimonides, listed health care as the number one item on his list of services which a community must provide for its people. Emphasis on the community and its needs, as opposed emphasis fulfillment of self gratification and greed, is a fundamental Jewish value.
We are living during a very difficult time as far as health care costs are concerned. It is important for us as a nation to find a solution to this problem if we want our nation not only to have better health care, but to be economically competitive in the coming decades. Finding this solution will necessitate not only a lot of creative thinking, but will also require a lot of civility and respectful debate. Perhaps most important, it will require a lot of prayer, for we will need God’s help as a nation to take us from where health care is today to the place where it ought to be, a place wherein all of us, as holy manifestations of the Divine, will have access to high quality and affordable health care.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Israel, Iran the Obama administration, and the Future of the Middle East
Israel, Iran the Obama administration, and the Future of the Middle East
Kol Nidre 5770
Some of you might know that the most popular sport in Israel is called football, which is really what we call soccer. The second most popular sport is basketball. The third most popular is tennis and, believe it or not, the fourth most popular sport in Israel would have to be archeology. “What?” you say, “how can archeology be a sport?” And yet, for many Israelis, this is the national sport. Kids go out in summer and work on archeological digs. Particularly significant finds are put on the front page of Israeli newspapers.
For example, 3,000 years ago there was a boy in the town of Gezer, who wrote a little ditty about the agricultural seasons on a writing tablet. That writing tablet was later found. The significance of the tablet is that is perhaps the oldest original Hebrew document that we have, going back some 3,000 years. In the last few months, archeologists have discovered the largest ever collection of rare coins from the time Bar Kochba revolt against the Roman from 132-136 C.E. The coins were found in a place where Jewish fighters hid from the Romans during the revolt. Elsewhere in the Galilee, archeologists recently discovered a synagogue from the Second Temple period. The middle of the synagogue was a stone engraved with the seven branch menorah. The significance of this is that it’s the only engraving of a menorah that actually comes from the period when the Second Temple stood. All three of these finds made the front page of the Israeli newspaper.
I mention this because part of anti-Israel propaganda during the current time is to say that Jews only came to Israel as a result of the Nazi holocaust during World War II. The truth of the matter is that Jews have lived continuously in Israel for more than 3,000 years. The reason why archeology is a national sport, therefore, is because the deeper the Jewish people dig the more we learn about our history.
Even those who lived in the Diaspora understood how precious Israel was. After my grandfather died, we found an olive wood booklet with pages on the inside consisting of pressed flowers from the city of Jerusalem. This booklet belonged to my great-grandfather Jacob. We do not know to this day why he had such a book, but I would like to think that he had it that it was his hope that someday he as a Jew would go to Israel. This was not to be. I wonder, as well, if he could have ever imagined that his great-grandson would be a citizen of Israel and serve in the Israeli army and that his great-great grandson would currently reside in the Tel-Aviv region.
But it was not only in my family that there was a connection to Israel. There was a rabbi in the Warsaw Ghetto, who once showed his student a precious Megillah, a scroll of Esther. The scroll of Esther as you know tells of the story of Esther, Mordechai and the wicked Haman who sought to destroy the Jews. The rabbi proceeded to bury that scroll and tell his students there was a very good chance that the current Haman, none other than Adolf Hitler, would succeed in killing him and most of them. But he told them that if any of them survived, this scroll about persecution and Jewish redemption should be dug up and brought to the land of Israel. After the war, some of the people did survive. The scroll of Esther, the Megillah, was dug up and brought to Israel and is found in the Israel museum.
The connection of Jews to Israel, regardless of whether or not we were actually living in Israel or in the Diaspora, is more than 3,000 years old. For the Jewish people, this connection is eternal – even to the point that here in Greensboro, when we bury our loved ones, we sprinkle over there grave dirt from the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. For us Jews, it is not only the land of Israel, but the state of Israel which is indeed very precious.
The aftermath of the Nazi Holocaust did not lead to the creation of the state of Israel. Tragically, had the state of Israel existed, perhaps as many as one million Jews could have found refuge from the Holocaust. The real tragedy of the Holocaust therefore, is not only that Jews were murdered by the Nazis, but that they had no place, including the United States of America and including the land Israel, to which to flee.
The state of Israel, wherein live some 6 million of our fellow Jews, has led to a revitalization of Jewish life both in Israel and throughout the world. If you have never been to Israel, please consider this a personal invitation. If you would like to go, there are adult spaces available this year on the March of the Living to Poland and Israel. We will be living on April 7th and returning on April 21st – if you are interested please see me. The experience of the land and the country of Israel is a life-changing one for Jews, and it is an experience that existentially changes how we view being Jewish.
There are three aspects of the Middle East right now which cause us in the pro-Israel, pro-peace, pro-American community great concern.
The first was the presentation last week of the UN Human Rights Commission report criticizing the state of Israel for its actions last year in Gaza. A little background is in order. In 2005, the Israeli government withdrew from every square inch of Gaza. Shortly thereafter, a reign of terror began with more than 12,000 rockets being fired into southern Israel. Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier whose picture sits on the chair to your right was kidnapped within Israel and has been held for now more than three years by Hamas. The International Red Cross has not been allowed to visit him, an egregious violation of international law. Hamas now rules Gaza, having overthrown the legitimately elected government there. In doing so, they were responsible for murdering many leaders of Fatah, their opposition. The world said nothing as this took place.
In contrast to this, the Human Relations Commission at the United Nation has issued 33 resolutions since 2006, 26 of these have been anti-Israel. Israel is the only country on the Human Rights Commissions’ permanent agenda.
The report issued last week libels Israel by saying from the very beginning its desire was to inflict great harm upon the civilian population of Gaza. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am glad to report that the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, has vehemently criticized this latest smear attempt against Israel. The report fails to acknowledge Israel’s right to defend itself against terrorism and other external threats. The report accuses Israel of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The United States administration has said that it will veto any resolution coming to the Security Council from the Human Relations Commission dealing with this report. Apparently the US is unable to prevent the report from being referred to the International Criminal Court – which means that Israelis who fought in that war could be rather indiscriminately arrested by Interpol should they travel outside of the country. In the Senate, Senators Gillibrand-Isakson have introduced a letter criticizing the Human Relations Commission report. Their letter insists that Israel must have a right to defend itself against terrorism. This latest attempt to smear Israel through the United Nations is another in the pernicious cycle of denying the state of Israel its right to exist.
The second issue of great concern to me concerning Israel and the Middle East concerns the status of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. The summit meeting last week between President Obama, President Abbas of the Palestinian authority, and Prime Minister Netenyahu seems to have accomplished very little. But here we need to pause for a moment and consider what has gone on within the past nine months.
When the Obama administration came into power, the strategy was that by seeming to adopt a hard-line toward Israel, the Arab nations and the Palestinians would come to the table and be more inclined to making peace. This pressure on Israel was accomplished in two ways. First, there was to be an absolute freeze on all sorts of settlement construction activity. In truth, the settlement issue, as much as it is problematic was not the real problem. The problem here was the Arab-Palestinian refusal to accept Israel as a legitimate partner for peace and as Jewish state.
The second way in which President Obama reached out to the Palestinians and Arabs was through his Cairo speech. The speech was an important overture toward the Arab world. It was not all that well-received in Israel.
Now what were the results of these overtures?
Well, first of all, there has not been one single achievement as far as decreasing Arab intransigence is concerned. As a matter of fact, the opposite has taken place. Now, additional pre-conditions have been set by the Palestinians for negotiations with Israel. These include an absolute settlement freeze and a return to the 1967 lines. Because of the reaction to the overture, we are seeing increasingly hard line position pushing direct negotiations even farther away.
In addition, President Obama had hoped to get some sort of concession from the Saudi Arabia. Not one was to be forthcoming – not diplomatic recognition, not even fly-over rights for El Al jets, nothing.
Now I am not going to sit here and tell you that I think the strategy pursued by the Obama administration was a mistake. However, what I am glad to report to is that, as of this week, due partly to pressure from those in Congress who are pro-Israel, the Obama administration has declared that at the beginning of negotiations, there need not be a one hundred percent freeze on all settlements. President Obama stated that the time has come for the parties to come to the table without preconditions.
Prime Minister Netanyahu has indicated his readiness to speak about all issues, President Abbas and the Arabs have not shown such willingness.
In Israel, this change in American approach will be most welcome. A recent public opinion poll showed that only four percent of the Israeli population feels that President Obama is friendly to Israel.
In addition, it is worth noting at this time that Israel has taken significant steps to improve the life of the Palestinians on the West Bank. These include the removal of check points and the easing of economic restrictions. The result has been that in the past year there has been a seven percent increase in the Gross Domestic Product in the West Bank.
Clearly, events of the last week have shown that it is now the responsibility of the Arab-states and the Palestinians to come to the table. It is now time for the Saudis to exert their influence to bring about recognition of Israel and to encourage the peace process. Hopefully, the United States will continue the current level of foreign aid to Israel, realizing that only a strong Israel will be able to take the steps necessary for peace.
And this brings me to the third issue of concern, and it should be no surprise to you – the issue of Iranian nuclearization. Whatever sermon I had planned to give tonight, drastically changed Friday morning when it was revealed that the Iranian government has another nuclear enrichment plant which they had been keeping secret from the International Atomic Energy Commission and from the West. Within the past year, Iran has lied to the United States three times and has now been caught three times. According to recent Western intelligence, Iran has now succeeded in designing a missile column to fit a nuclear warhead. It has during the past two years, doubled the number faster centrifuges to work on uranium enrichment. The Iranians have stockpiled enough low enriched uranium (LEU) that if it chose to further enrich it, could within a matter of months have enough highly enriched uranium (HEU) for a weapon. As far as we all know, they have not made the decision to further enrich but, rather, are adding to their stockpile of LEU. Iran has also gone into home production of nuclear fuel rods for plutonium.
Make no mistake about it, as strong as Israel is, this is potentially an existential threat to Israel as well as to the West.
Here you have an Iranian theocratic administration which not only denies the Holocaust, but has announced its intention to wipe Israel off the map. Here you have an administration that stole and election in June and has brutally cracked down on its own people. The Iranian administration is making a mockery of human rights as it has arrested and murdered its own people, including the young woman Neda Agha-Soltan who was brutally murdered in an anti-government demonstration.
Discussions are to begin October 1st between the permanent members of the Security Council, Germany, and Iran. The purpose of the negotiations is to help the Iranians understand that they have a choice of joining the nations of the world in pursuit of peace or continuing down their very dangerous road toward nuclear proliferation. If these fail, additional sanctions could be forthcoming. The United States is now trying to lay the ground work for sanctions. The Chinese have been resistant, but on Thursday, the Russian President Medevadev announced that Russia might possibly support them.
The US strategy for the next three months should be the prevention of Iranian nuclear capability and a commitment that Iran will stop its refinement of enriched uranium and open up all of its facilities to inspection by the International Atomic Energy Commission.
Our part as Americans and as people who support Israel is to help our fellow citizens understand that a nuclear Iran will lead to increased nuclear arms race in the Middle East. It will severely damage Middle East peace process. It will be an immediate threat to Europe and a potential threat to the United States. A nuclear Iran will increase the chance that world terrorist organizations such as Hizbullah, Hamas, and even al-Qaeda will receive nuclear weapons and use them against Israel, the West, or the United States. In the next weeks and months, we should be in touch with the Whitehouse and with our members of Congress via letters, emails and phone calls to let them know that we support sanctions and American efforts to prevent Iranian nuclearization.
It is up to us to state that as important as the health care debate is, the discussion of Iran nuclearization is even more pressing for it does nothing less than threaten the security of the free world.
The points that I have made today are indeed very serious and part of me thinks that this may be one of the most important sermons I have ever given in my life. One of the greatest Conservative Rabbis of the 20th Century, Arthur Hertzberg, once gave a sermon in the 1930s warning his congregation on Yom Kippur of the threat of Nazism. He was roundly excoriated for this sermon by his congregants and later asked to leave the congregation. I do not believe, thank God, that this is about to happen to me – but I do hope that you will take these concerns of mine, concerns reflected by most of the pro-Israel community in the United States, very seriously. In order to address these concerns, we will all need to work together.
Recently I asked a young girl in our congregation what if a bird which had a broken wing could fly. She answered me that it most certainly could not. I then asked her what would happen to such a bird. She answered that it would eventually fall out of a tree to the ground where it would be eaten by another animal.
We need both wings to fly!
Dealing with the Iranian threat will require that those on both the left and the right, liberals and conservatives, Republicans and Democrats, put aside their political pettiness and disagreements in order to come together. We need to reach out to people of all faiths and races, in order to help them understand just how serious this problem is.
The Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hassidism, told a story about another bird. In his story, a young student came to his rabbi with the intention of proving that the rabbi was not as wise as everyone thought. He was going to ask the rabbi if a bird that he was holding in his hand was alive or dead. If the rabbi said the bird was alive, he would immediately crush it. If he said it was dead, he would open his hand and show the rabbi the living bird.
The rabbi understood when approach by the student what was going on and answered, “Son, I am not sure whether or not the bird is alive or dead or will live or will die – but I am certainly positive that the future of the bird lies within your hands.”
Now more than ever, my dear friends, I am convinced that the future of the free world lies in the ability of the United States to provide significant leadership for peace while making sure that terrorists and rogue states such as Iran do not possess nuclear weapons.
Earlier in this speech, I mentioned a rabbi who, together with his students buried the Megillah, the scroll of Esther in the Warsaw Ghetto. They buried it because the Haman of their time, Hitler, was threatening to kill all of them. They hoped that one day they would dig up the Megillah and take it to Israel and some of them did so.
If there is any lesson in that story, if there is any message that needs to be taken from this sermon, it is that the time has passed when we are going to bury our holy texts. The time has passed for us as Jews to bury our heads in the sand while Hamans, Hitlers, or Ahmenidijahads threaten our people and threaten the free world. In the words of Elie Wiesel, “We have learned to trust the threats of our enemies more than the promises of our friends.”
In the spirit of the famous twenty third Psalm, we “have walked though the valley of the shadow of death.” Our answer to those who would deny this fact would be to say that all it takes for memories to be erased is for lies to be unopposed. We have walked through the gas chambers of Auschwitz and the fields of Babi Yar, but this time more than sixty years later, “we will fear no evil.”
The time has passed when Jewish people are powerless. The state of Israel is indeed strong and the ability of American Jews to influence the current administration has perhaps never been stronger.
On this Yom Kippur, on this night of Kol Nidre, the holiest night of all the Jewish year, it is time for us to recommit ourselves to our God and to our People. It is time for us to recommit ourselves to the pursuance of peace and security for Israel and for our country.
The time has passed when Jews will bury Holy texts in the face of evil!
May God bless Israel, bless the United States of America, and bless us with a year of health, security and above all peace.
May the One who causes peace to reign in the high heavens, let peace descend on us from all of the people of Israel and all of the world, and together we say, Amen.
Kol Nidre 5770
Some of you might know that the most popular sport in Israel is called football, which is really what we call soccer. The second most popular sport is basketball. The third most popular is tennis and, believe it or not, the fourth most popular sport in Israel would have to be archeology. “What?” you say, “how can archeology be a sport?” And yet, for many Israelis, this is the national sport. Kids go out in summer and work on archeological digs. Particularly significant finds are put on the front page of Israeli newspapers.
For example, 3,000 years ago there was a boy in the town of Gezer, who wrote a little ditty about the agricultural seasons on a writing tablet. That writing tablet was later found. The significance of the tablet is that is perhaps the oldest original Hebrew document that we have, going back some 3,000 years. In the last few months, archeologists have discovered the largest ever collection of rare coins from the time Bar Kochba revolt against the Roman from 132-136 C.E. The coins were found in a place where Jewish fighters hid from the Romans during the revolt. Elsewhere in the Galilee, archeologists recently discovered a synagogue from the Second Temple period. The middle of the synagogue was a stone engraved with the seven branch menorah. The significance of this is that it’s the only engraving of a menorah that actually comes from the period when the Second Temple stood. All three of these finds made the front page of the Israeli newspaper.
I mention this because part of anti-Israel propaganda during the current time is to say that Jews only came to Israel as a result of the Nazi holocaust during World War II. The truth of the matter is that Jews have lived continuously in Israel for more than 3,000 years. The reason why archeology is a national sport, therefore, is because the deeper the Jewish people dig the more we learn about our history.
Even those who lived in the Diaspora understood how precious Israel was. After my grandfather died, we found an olive wood booklet with pages on the inside consisting of pressed flowers from the city of Jerusalem. This booklet belonged to my great-grandfather Jacob. We do not know to this day why he had such a book, but I would like to think that he had it that it was his hope that someday he as a Jew would go to Israel. This was not to be. I wonder, as well, if he could have ever imagined that his great-grandson would be a citizen of Israel and serve in the Israeli army and that his great-great grandson would currently reside in the Tel-Aviv region.
But it was not only in my family that there was a connection to Israel. There was a rabbi in the Warsaw Ghetto, who once showed his student a precious Megillah, a scroll of Esther. The scroll of Esther as you know tells of the story of Esther, Mordechai and the wicked Haman who sought to destroy the Jews. The rabbi proceeded to bury that scroll and tell his students there was a very good chance that the current Haman, none other than Adolf Hitler, would succeed in killing him and most of them. But he told them that if any of them survived, this scroll about persecution and Jewish redemption should be dug up and brought to the land of Israel. After the war, some of the people did survive. The scroll of Esther, the Megillah, was dug up and brought to Israel and is found in the Israel museum.
The connection of Jews to Israel, regardless of whether or not we were actually living in Israel or in the Diaspora, is more than 3,000 years old. For the Jewish people, this connection is eternal – even to the point that here in Greensboro, when we bury our loved ones, we sprinkle over there grave dirt from the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. For us Jews, it is not only the land of Israel, but the state of Israel which is indeed very precious.
The aftermath of the Nazi Holocaust did not lead to the creation of the state of Israel. Tragically, had the state of Israel existed, perhaps as many as one million Jews could have found refuge from the Holocaust. The real tragedy of the Holocaust therefore, is not only that Jews were murdered by the Nazis, but that they had no place, including the United States of America and including the land Israel, to which to flee.
The state of Israel, wherein live some 6 million of our fellow Jews, has led to a revitalization of Jewish life both in Israel and throughout the world. If you have never been to Israel, please consider this a personal invitation. If you would like to go, there are adult spaces available this year on the March of the Living to Poland and Israel. We will be living on April 7th and returning on April 21st – if you are interested please see me. The experience of the land and the country of Israel is a life-changing one for Jews, and it is an experience that existentially changes how we view being Jewish.
There are three aspects of the Middle East right now which cause us in the pro-Israel, pro-peace, pro-American community great concern.
The first was the presentation last week of the UN Human Rights Commission report criticizing the state of Israel for its actions last year in Gaza. A little background is in order. In 2005, the Israeli government withdrew from every square inch of Gaza. Shortly thereafter, a reign of terror began with more than 12,000 rockets being fired into southern Israel. Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier whose picture sits on the chair to your right was kidnapped within Israel and has been held for now more than three years by Hamas. The International Red Cross has not been allowed to visit him, an egregious violation of international law. Hamas now rules Gaza, having overthrown the legitimately elected government there. In doing so, they were responsible for murdering many leaders of Fatah, their opposition. The world said nothing as this took place.
In contrast to this, the Human Relations Commission at the United Nation has issued 33 resolutions since 2006, 26 of these have been anti-Israel. Israel is the only country on the Human Rights Commissions’ permanent agenda.
The report issued last week libels Israel by saying from the very beginning its desire was to inflict great harm upon the civilian population of Gaza. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am glad to report that the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, has vehemently criticized this latest smear attempt against Israel. The report fails to acknowledge Israel’s right to defend itself against terrorism and other external threats. The report accuses Israel of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The United States administration has said that it will veto any resolution coming to the Security Council from the Human Relations Commission dealing with this report. Apparently the US is unable to prevent the report from being referred to the International Criminal Court – which means that Israelis who fought in that war could be rather indiscriminately arrested by Interpol should they travel outside of the country. In the Senate, Senators Gillibrand-Isakson have introduced a letter criticizing the Human Relations Commission report. Their letter insists that Israel must have a right to defend itself against terrorism. This latest attempt to smear Israel through the United Nations is another in the pernicious cycle of denying the state of Israel its right to exist.
The second issue of great concern to me concerning Israel and the Middle East concerns the status of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. The summit meeting last week between President Obama, President Abbas of the Palestinian authority, and Prime Minister Netenyahu seems to have accomplished very little. But here we need to pause for a moment and consider what has gone on within the past nine months.
When the Obama administration came into power, the strategy was that by seeming to adopt a hard-line toward Israel, the Arab nations and the Palestinians would come to the table and be more inclined to making peace. This pressure on Israel was accomplished in two ways. First, there was to be an absolute freeze on all sorts of settlement construction activity. In truth, the settlement issue, as much as it is problematic was not the real problem. The problem here was the Arab-Palestinian refusal to accept Israel as a legitimate partner for peace and as Jewish state.
The second way in which President Obama reached out to the Palestinians and Arabs was through his Cairo speech. The speech was an important overture toward the Arab world. It was not all that well-received in Israel.
Now what were the results of these overtures?
Well, first of all, there has not been one single achievement as far as decreasing Arab intransigence is concerned. As a matter of fact, the opposite has taken place. Now, additional pre-conditions have been set by the Palestinians for negotiations with Israel. These include an absolute settlement freeze and a return to the 1967 lines. Because of the reaction to the overture, we are seeing increasingly hard line position pushing direct negotiations even farther away.
In addition, President Obama had hoped to get some sort of concession from the Saudi Arabia. Not one was to be forthcoming – not diplomatic recognition, not even fly-over rights for El Al jets, nothing.
Now I am not going to sit here and tell you that I think the strategy pursued by the Obama administration was a mistake. However, what I am glad to report to is that, as of this week, due partly to pressure from those in Congress who are pro-Israel, the Obama administration has declared that at the beginning of negotiations, there need not be a one hundred percent freeze on all settlements. President Obama stated that the time has come for the parties to come to the table without preconditions.
Prime Minister Netanyahu has indicated his readiness to speak about all issues, President Abbas and the Arabs have not shown such willingness.
In Israel, this change in American approach will be most welcome. A recent public opinion poll showed that only four percent of the Israeli population feels that President Obama is friendly to Israel.
In addition, it is worth noting at this time that Israel has taken significant steps to improve the life of the Palestinians on the West Bank. These include the removal of check points and the easing of economic restrictions. The result has been that in the past year there has been a seven percent increase in the Gross Domestic Product in the West Bank.
Clearly, events of the last week have shown that it is now the responsibility of the Arab-states and the Palestinians to come to the table. It is now time for the Saudis to exert their influence to bring about recognition of Israel and to encourage the peace process. Hopefully, the United States will continue the current level of foreign aid to Israel, realizing that only a strong Israel will be able to take the steps necessary for peace.
And this brings me to the third issue of concern, and it should be no surprise to you – the issue of Iranian nuclearization. Whatever sermon I had planned to give tonight, drastically changed Friday morning when it was revealed that the Iranian government has another nuclear enrichment plant which they had been keeping secret from the International Atomic Energy Commission and from the West. Within the past year, Iran has lied to the United States three times and has now been caught three times. According to recent Western intelligence, Iran has now succeeded in designing a missile column to fit a nuclear warhead. It has during the past two years, doubled the number faster centrifuges to work on uranium enrichment. The Iranians have stockpiled enough low enriched uranium (LEU) that if it chose to further enrich it, could within a matter of months have enough highly enriched uranium (HEU) for a weapon. As far as we all know, they have not made the decision to further enrich but, rather, are adding to their stockpile of LEU. Iran has also gone into home production of nuclear fuel rods for plutonium.
Make no mistake about it, as strong as Israel is, this is potentially an existential threat to Israel as well as to the West.
Here you have an Iranian theocratic administration which not only denies the Holocaust, but has announced its intention to wipe Israel off the map. Here you have an administration that stole and election in June and has brutally cracked down on its own people. The Iranian administration is making a mockery of human rights as it has arrested and murdered its own people, including the young woman Neda Agha-Soltan who was brutally murdered in an anti-government demonstration.
Discussions are to begin October 1st between the permanent members of the Security Council, Germany, and Iran. The purpose of the negotiations is to help the Iranians understand that they have a choice of joining the nations of the world in pursuit of peace or continuing down their very dangerous road toward nuclear proliferation. If these fail, additional sanctions could be forthcoming. The United States is now trying to lay the ground work for sanctions. The Chinese have been resistant, but on Thursday, the Russian President Medevadev announced that Russia might possibly support them.
The US strategy for the next three months should be the prevention of Iranian nuclear capability and a commitment that Iran will stop its refinement of enriched uranium and open up all of its facilities to inspection by the International Atomic Energy Commission.
Our part as Americans and as people who support Israel is to help our fellow citizens understand that a nuclear Iran will lead to increased nuclear arms race in the Middle East. It will severely damage Middle East peace process. It will be an immediate threat to Europe and a potential threat to the United States. A nuclear Iran will increase the chance that world terrorist organizations such as Hizbullah, Hamas, and even al-Qaeda will receive nuclear weapons and use them against Israel, the West, or the United States. In the next weeks and months, we should be in touch with the Whitehouse and with our members of Congress via letters, emails and phone calls to let them know that we support sanctions and American efforts to prevent Iranian nuclearization.
It is up to us to state that as important as the health care debate is, the discussion of Iran nuclearization is even more pressing for it does nothing less than threaten the security of the free world.
The points that I have made today are indeed very serious and part of me thinks that this may be one of the most important sermons I have ever given in my life. One of the greatest Conservative Rabbis of the 20th Century, Arthur Hertzberg, once gave a sermon in the 1930s warning his congregation on Yom Kippur of the threat of Nazism. He was roundly excoriated for this sermon by his congregants and later asked to leave the congregation. I do not believe, thank God, that this is about to happen to me – but I do hope that you will take these concerns of mine, concerns reflected by most of the pro-Israel community in the United States, very seriously. In order to address these concerns, we will all need to work together.
Recently I asked a young girl in our congregation what if a bird which had a broken wing could fly. She answered me that it most certainly could not. I then asked her what would happen to such a bird. She answered that it would eventually fall out of a tree to the ground where it would be eaten by another animal.
We need both wings to fly!
Dealing with the Iranian threat will require that those on both the left and the right, liberals and conservatives, Republicans and Democrats, put aside their political pettiness and disagreements in order to come together. We need to reach out to people of all faiths and races, in order to help them understand just how serious this problem is.
The Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hassidism, told a story about another bird. In his story, a young student came to his rabbi with the intention of proving that the rabbi was not as wise as everyone thought. He was going to ask the rabbi if a bird that he was holding in his hand was alive or dead. If the rabbi said the bird was alive, he would immediately crush it. If he said it was dead, he would open his hand and show the rabbi the living bird.
The rabbi understood when approach by the student what was going on and answered, “Son, I am not sure whether or not the bird is alive or dead or will live or will die – but I am certainly positive that the future of the bird lies within your hands.”
Now more than ever, my dear friends, I am convinced that the future of the free world lies in the ability of the United States to provide significant leadership for peace while making sure that terrorists and rogue states such as Iran do not possess nuclear weapons.
Earlier in this speech, I mentioned a rabbi who, together with his students buried the Megillah, the scroll of Esther in the Warsaw Ghetto. They buried it because the Haman of their time, Hitler, was threatening to kill all of them. They hoped that one day they would dig up the Megillah and take it to Israel and some of them did so.
If there is any lesson in that story, if there is any message that needs to be taken from this sermon, it is that the time has passed when we are going to bury our holy texts. The time has passed for us as Jews to bury our heads in the sand while Hamans, Hitlers, or Ahmenidijahads threaten our people and threaten the free world. In the words of Elie Wiesel, “We have learned to trust the threats of our enemies more than the promises of our friends.”
In the spirit of the famous twenty third Psalm, we “have walked though the valley of the shadow of death.” Our answer to those who would deny this fact would be to say that all it takes for memories to be erased is for lies to be unopposed. We have walked through the gas chambers of Auschwitz and the fields of Babi Yar, but this time more than sixty years later, “we will fear no evil.”
The time has passed when Jewish people are powerless. The state of Israel is indeed strong and the ability of American Jews to influence the current administration has perhaps never been stronger.
On this Yom Kippur, on this night of Kol Nidre, the holiest night of all the Jewish year, it is time for us to recommit ourselves to our God and to our People. It is time for us to recommit ourselves to the pursuance of peace and security for Israel and for our country.
The time has passed when Jews will bury Holy texts in the face of evil!
May God bless Israel, bless the United States of America, and bless us with a year of health, security and above all peace.
May the One who causes peace to reign in the high heavens, let peace descend on us from all of the people of Israel and all of the world, and together we say, Amen.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
“The Eternal One, the Eternal God is merciful and gracious,
“The Eternal One, the Eternal God is merciful and gracious,
endlessly patient…” Part II
Rosh Hashanah Morning 5970
Last night we looked at the prayer which immediately follows the Avinu Malkaynu during the High Holy days. Later this morning we will hear this prayer sung by Lane. Please take a look at the prayer now on page 122.
The prayer reads “The Eternal One, the Eternal God is merciful and gracious, endlessly patient, loving and true, showing mercy to thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin and granting pardon.”
I mentioned last night that when this prayer is recited we are asking God to forgive us of our sins and misdeeds. However, I feel that in a way we are reliving two occasions in the Torah wherein this prayer is to be found. Last night I spoke of how the prayer is found after the incident with the Golden Calf and after Moses receives the second set of the tablets containing the Ten Commandments.
Let us now turn to the second time that the phrase (although not in its entirety) appears in the Torah and let us see what lessons we might be able to learn from this occurrence.
The people of Israel have been wandering in the desert. It had been a year since they had been liberated from Egypt. Being close to the Promised Land, Moses decided to send out twelve spies to check out the land. The twelve spies were men of renown, one representative of each tribe.
The spies return from the land carrying a cluster of grapes that was so large that it needed to be carried on a pole by two men. All seem to agree that the land is indeed a land of milk and honey, a land with good grazing and good agricultural potential.
From here, however, the twelve spies break into two groups. Ten of the spies say “The people who inhabit the country are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large; moreover, we saw the very large men, giants, there. 29Amalekites dwell in the Negev region; Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites inhabit the hill country; and Canaanites dwell by the Sea and along the Jordan.”[2][1]
A commotion must have broken out. One of the remaining spies, Caleb, says, “Let us by all means go up, and we shall gain possession of it, for we shall surely overcome it.”
But according to the text: “The men who had gone up with him said, “We cannot attack that people, for it is stronger than we.” Thus they spread lies among the Israelites about the land they had scouted, saying, “The country that we traversed and scouted is one that devours its settlers. All the people that we saw in it are men of great size ….. we looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and so we must have looked to them.”
Notice that they not only referred to themselves as grasshoppers, meaning that they viewed themselves as small and insignificant, but that they also said that they felt that others perceived them in such as way as well!
At this point, “The whole community broke into loud cries, and the people wept that night. 2All the Israelites railed against Moses and Aaron.
“If only we had died in the land of Egypt,” the whole community shouted at them, “or if only we might die in this wilderness! 3Why is the Lord taking us to that land to fall by the sword? Our wives and children will be carried off! It would be better for us to go back to Egypt!” 4And they said to one another, “Let us head back for Egypt.”
Last night, when God was giving Moses the second set of commandments, it was God who described himself as “merciful and gracious, endlessly patient, loving and true, showing mercy to thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin and granting pardon.” This time however, it is Moses who uses God’s words to ask God to forgive the people. God answered that he will forgive the people but only their children, and not them, will enter the Promised Land.
Now when you ask most people what, according to the Torah, was the worst sin done by the Israelites while in the desert, most people will answer that it was the incident of the Golden Calf which we discussed last night. However, according to the Torah, this reaction of the Israelites to the report of the spies is the very worst sin. We know this because the punishment is not merely a plague, but a declaration that because of their slave like mentality, they would not be able to enter the Promised Land. Because they were still thinking like slaves in Egypt, they were not worthy or prepared to enter the land as a free people.
This story shows that like slaves, they did not have three critical ingredients necessary to proceed. First, they had lost confidence in their own abilities even to the extent that they transferred their own lack of self confidence to others by saying that others too perceived them as grasshoppers. Second, they had lost their faith in God, the very God who had liberated them from Egypt with “a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.” Third, they had lost their vision as to what life in the Promised Land could be.
I would maintain that we are like them in that these are three sins of which many of us are guilty.
Many of us do lack self confidence. We do lack faith in our own abilities. Like the people in the desert, this is a great sin. Now in Judaism, sin is referred to as “het.” In modern Hebrew, it is the root to describe a missed free throw. It literally means “missing the mark” as though we were an archer who missed the bull’s eye on a target.
An earthly king came to a village and noticed that there were targets on the side of the barns of the building and that in the center of each target was an arrow. The king had never seen anything quite like this. He inquired as to whom the archer was for he wanted the marksman for his own army. The people of the village proceeded to inform him that the man that he was looking for was the meshugenah Yankele who went around firing arrows at barns and then painted targets around the arrows. Of course, at this point the earthly king lost all interests in Yankele.
The story intrigues me for two reasons. First of all, it shows me that one way to view repentance or teshuvah is to admit our wrong and then make the wrong into a right. This is turning something bad into something good. The arrows have been fired by us in a haphazard, helter skelter way, and now it is our task to paint the target around them!
Second, let us realize that unlike the earthly king, the heavenly king still desires that we be soldiers in his army. God still desires that we become agents of healing and repair. God still desires that we become (in Al Vorspan’s immortal words) “nudniks for justice!”
The second sin of the desert generation was that they had lost their faith in God. God had not only brought them out of Egypt, but it was God that had given them manna and protected them along the way. It is not easy to tell someone how to renew their faith in God, especially when, personally, I see the presence of God in so many ways. Recently, I have seen God’s presence in the mother who with a tear in her eye is trying to breastfeed her baby in an intensive care unit at the hospital. I see the presence of God in the son who stood by his mother’s bed constantly for two weeks until she drew her last breath.
I see the presence of God in the waves of the sea and feel it in the clear mountain air of the Blue Ridge or Rockies.
I see the presence of God in the way in which our young people cared for and nurtured the survivors who went with us on last year’s March of the Living. On that trip, one of our survivors, Rabbi Larry Berkowitz, was a survivor of Auschwitz. While we were standing at the steps of the gas chamber and crematorium number two, the steps from which people went down to change their clothes prior to gassing, Larry descended one of the steps and then said the following. “This is the place. This is the place where my mother and my younger brother and sister died. This is the step on which my mother saw her last bit of daylight or her last view of the moon and stars.”
In today’s Torah portion, an angel intercedes and acknowledges Abraham’s faith and prevents him from sacrificing his son. There would be no angel to rescue Larry’s mother, but less than five minutes later, Rabbi Berkowitz chanted the El Male Rachameem prayer for his mother, siblings and all of the victims and then led us in the Kaddish. It does not make a lot of sense to me even today, but at that moment I sensed in him some special meaning. Perhaps it was healing. Perhaps it was closure for him as an eighty two year old man who had been a sixteen year old adolescent with working hands in Auschwitz. I am not sure what it was, but even in that moment I felt the presence of God.
So I am not sure what the exact recipe is for getting back one’s faith, but I am convinced that getting it back can be quite important in helping us heal, in helping us to regain vision and in helping us to become healthy.
Recently my friend and our fellow congregant, Dr. Jim Adelman, loaned me a book entitled “How God Changes Your Brain” by Dr. Andrew Newberg and Mark Waldman. For those who do not know Jim, he is a prominent neurologist in Greensboro and is really such an upbeat guy. I was visiting him as he was recovering from a hip replacement at which time he said to me, “Fred, you gotta read this book!”
Well, he was correct. The book is fabulous. The authors, both of whom are scientists and one of whom is a physician, demonstrate that functional brain scans show that certain positive things happen to our brain when we have faith in a loving God. Studies have shown that a belief that God will give us the strength and courage to face the vicissitudes of life may also improve our health, or at least the health of our brains. Our brains seem to me more dynamic than previously thought. Studies have shown that those who frequently pray or mediate are less susceptible to dementia and seem to be able to slow the onset of Alzheimer’s, apparently by actually changing the hardwiring of our brains!
Newberg and Waldman list eight ways to exercise your brain. They are, in descending order.
8. Smile
7. Stay intellectually active
6. Consciously relax
5. Yawn (though hopefully not during this sermon!)
4. Meditate
3. Aerobic Exercise
2. Dialogue with others
And the number one best way to exercise one’s brain is to have faith. In the words of Newberg and Waldman “Faith is equivalent with hope and optimism, and the belief that a positive future awaits us.” (p.164)
So today, let us not be like the Jews of the desert who when facing despair, lost their faith in a loving God. Rather as difficult as it might seem, let us maintain the faith that God can be a source of strength, courage and serenity and let us do so by looking for evidence of God’s presence in our world.
Finally, the third sin of the desert generation was that they had lost their vision of the Promised Land. A proverb in the bible states: “18For lack of vision a people perish.” (Proverbs 29:18) What the verse literally means is that without vision, there is anarchy. The word for anarchy used here ironically comes from the same root as the word for Pharaoh. In other words, one could interpret the verse to mean that without vision we are slaves. Without vision, we re-enslave ourselves.
Those who are facing tough times need not only to get their “groove” back, they need to regain their vision. Those of us in their families and in their community need to become agents who help those who need it regain their sense of their own personal Promised Land.
Above all, the passage is telling us that God desires that we envision a better future in order that we might work towards its fulfillment.
In Judaism, there is a concept called, “Yeridah le tsorech aliyah” which translated means, “We go down only to ascend.” The Psalmist says: “From the depths I cry to you,” meaning that from the depths I cry to God to help me ascend! Therefore, our attitudes need to be that there is no such thing as “down.”
Yes, there are times of despair for many of us, but the sages tell us that despair is an essential part of Teshuvah. Despair needs to give us the power to move toward change, to break through the chains of what is holding you down or back. Despair is a birth pang to something else.
You may have lost your job. You may have suffered financial set backs. You may be ill. You may be worried about your children, parents or another loved one. You may be dealing with a difficult time at work and all of these can cause you to despair.
Yet the story of the spies is one that tells us not to despair, but to have faith that although we are down at this moment, we are about to ascend at the next moment. It is because of this that I have always felt that a Jew is a pessimist with hope!
So if this applies to you, listen to the following phrase, learn this phrase and share it with someone who needs it. The phrase is: “Every setback is a setup for a comeback.” Listen to it again. “Every setback is a setup for a comeback.” Now say it with me: “Every setback is a set up for a comeback.”
So once again the three most serious sins in the Torah done by the generation of the desert were:
1. Loss of confidence in their own abilities.
2. Loss of faith in God and
3. Loss of vision as to what life in the Promised Land could be.
In just a few moments we will stand before the open ark and Lane will chant the prayer that Moses asked of God when he asked God to forgive the people of these three sins. As we hear this, let us remember that all too often many of us have been guilty of the same three sins. Let us ask for God to help us regain our confidence in our own abilities, our faith in God and our vision as to what our personal “Promised Land” would look like.
Moses in our story says to God “7Therefore, I pray, let my Lord’s forbearance be great, as You have declared, saying, 18‘The Lord! slow to anger and abounding in kindness; forgiving iniquity and transgression; ….
19Pardon, I pray, the iniquity of this people according to Your great kindness, as You have forgiven this people ever since Egypt.”
God’s answer is “סָלַ×—ְתִּ×™ ×›ִּדְבָרֶֽךָ”
“I pardon, as you have asked.”
May God pardon us for losing our vision and faith and may we all be blessed with a renewal of faith and vision, a year of blessing, health and peace.
May God bless us with peace in our lives and the lives of our families, our congregation and community, our nation and our world.
Leshanah Tovah tikatayvu – May we be inscribed for a blessing in the Book of Life! Amen
endlessly patient…” Part II
Rosh Hashanah Morning 5970
Last night we looked at the prayer which immediately follows the Avinu Malkaynu during the High Holy days. Later this morning we will hear this prayer sung by Lane. Please take a look at the prayer now on page 122.
The prayer reads “The Eternal One, the Eternal God is merciful and gracious, endlessly patient, loving and true, showing mercy to thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin and granting pardon.”
I mentioned last night that when this prayer is recited we are asking God to forgive us of our sins and misdeeds. However, I feel that in a way we are reliving two occasions in the Torah wherein this prayer is to be found. Last night I spoke of how the prayer is found after the incident with the Golden Calf and after Moses receives the second set of the tablets containing the Ten Commandments.
Let us now turn to the second time that the phrase (although not in its entirety) appears in the Torah and let us see what lessons we might be able to learn from this occurrence.
The people of Israel have been wandering in the desert. It had been a year since they had been liberated from Egypt. Being close to the Promised Land, Moses decided to send out twelve spies to check out the land. The twelve spies were men of renown, one representative of each tribe.
The spies return from the land carrying a cluster of grapes that was so large that it needed to be carried on a pole by two men. All seem to agree that the land is indeed a land of milk and honey, a land with good grazing and good agricultural potential.
From here, however, the twelve spies break into two groups. Ten of the spies say “The people who inhabit the country are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large; moreover, we saw the very large men, giants, there. 29Amalekites dwell in the Negev region; Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites inhabit the hill country; and Canaanites dwell by the Sea and along the Jordan.”[2][1]
A commotion must have broken out. One of the remaining spies, Caleb, says, “Let us by all means go up, and we shall gain possession of it, for we shall surely overcome it.”
But according to the text: “The men who had gone up with him said, “We cannot attack that people, for it is stronger than we.” Thus they spread lies among the Israelites about the land they had scouted, saying, “The country that we traversed and scouted is one that devours its settlers. All the people that we saw in it are men of great size ….. we looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and so we must have looked to them.”
Notice that they not only referred to themselves as grasshoppers, meaning that they viewed themselves as small and insignificant, but that they also said that they felt that others perceived them in such as way as well!
At this point, “The whole community broke into loud cries, and the people wept that night. 2All the Israelites railed against Moses and Aaron.
“If only we had died in the land of Egypt,” the whole community shouted at them, “or if only we might die in this wilderness! 3Why is the Lord taking us to that land to fall by the sword? Our wives and children will be carried off! It would be better for us to go back to Egypt!” 4And they said to one another, “Let us head back for Egypt.”
Last night, when God was giving Moses the second set of commandments, it was God who described himself as “merciful and gracious, endlessly patient, loving and true, showing mercy to thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin and granting pardon.” This time however, it is Moses who uses God’s words to ask God to forgive the people. God answered that he will forgive the people but only their children, and not them, will enter the Promised Land.
Now when you ask most people what, according to the Torah, was the worst sin done by the Israelites while in the desert, most people will answer that it was the incident of the Golden Calf which we discussed last night. However, according to the Torah, this reaction of the Israelites to the report of the spies is the very worst sin. We know this because the punishment is not merely a plague, but a declaration that because of their slave like mentality, they would not be able to enter the Promised Land. Because they were still thinking like slaves in Egypt, they were not worthy or prepared to enter the land as a free people.
This story shows that like slaves, they did not have three critical ingredients necessary to proceed. First, they had lost confidence in their own abilities even to the extent that they transferred their own lack of self confidence to others by saying that others too perceived them as grasshoppers. Second, they had lost their faith in God, the very God who had liberated them from Egypt with “a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.” Third, they had lost their vision as to what life in the Promised Land could be.
I would maintain that we are like them in that these are three sins of which many of us are guilty.
Many of us do lack self confidence. We do lack faith in our own abilities. Like the people in the desert, this is a great sin. Now in Judaism, sin is referred to as “het.” In modern Hebrew, it is the root to describe a missed free throw. It literally means “missing the mark” as though we were an archer who missed the bull’s eye on a target.
An earthly king came to a village and noticed that there were targets on the side of the barns of the building and that in the center of each target was an arrow. The king had never seen anything quite like this. He inquired as to whom the archer was for he wanted the marksman for his own army. The people of the village proceeded to inform him that the man that he was looking for was the meshugenah Yankele who went around firing arrows at barns and then painted targets around the arrows. Of course, at this point the earthly king lost all interests in Yankele.
The story intrigues me for two reasons. First of all, it shows me that one way to view repentance or teshuvah is to admit our wrong and then make the wrong into a right. This is turning something bad into something good. The arrows have been fired by us in a haphazard, helter skelter way, and now it is our task to paint the target around them!
Second, let us realize that unlike the earthly king, the heavenly king still desires that we be soldiers in his army. God still desires that we become agents of healing and repair. God still desires that we become (in Al Vorspan’s immortal words) “nudniks for justice!”
The second sin of the desert generation was that they had lost their faith in God. God had not only brought them out of Egypt, but it was God that had given them manna and protected them along the way. It is not easy to tell someone how to renew their faith in God, especially when, personally, I see the presence of God in so many ways. Recently, I have seen God’s presence in the mother who with a tear in her eye is trying to breastfeed her baby in an intensive care unit at the hospital. I see the presence of God in the son who stood by his mother’s bed constantly for two weeks until she drew her last breath.
I see the presence of God in the waves of the sea and feel it in the clear mountain air of the Blue Ridge or Rockies.
I see the presence of God in the way in which our young people cared for and nurtured the survivors who went with us on last year’s March of the Living. On that trip, one of our survivors, Rabbi Larry Berkowitz, was a survivor of Auschwitz. While we were standing at the steps of the gas chamber and crematorium number two, the steps from which people went down to change their clothes prior to gassing, Larry descended one of the steps and then said the following. “This is the place. This is the place where my mother and my younger brother and sister died. This is the step on which my mother saw her last bit of daylight or her last view of the moon and stars.”
In today’s Torah portion, an angel intercedes and acknowledges Abraham’s faith and prevents him from sacrificing his son. There would be no angel to rescue Larry’s mother, but less than five minutes later, Rabbi Berkowitz chanted the El Male Rachameem prayer for his mother, siblings and all of the victims and then led us in the Kaddish. It does not make a lot of sense to me even today, but at that moment I sensed in him some special meaning. Perhaps it was healing. Perhaps it was closure for him as an eighty two year old man who had been a sixteen year old adolescent with working hands in Auschwitz. I am not sure what it was, but even in that moment I felt the presence of God.
So I am not sure what the exact recipe is for getting back one’s faith, but I am convinced that getting it back can be quite important in helping us heal, in helping us to regain vision and in helping us to become healthy.
Recently my friend and our fellow congregant, Dr. Jim Adelman, loaned me a book entitled “How God Changes Your Brain” by Dr. Andrew Newberg and Mark Waldman. For those who do not know Jim, he is a prominent neurologist in Greensboro and is really such an upbeat guy. I was visiting him as he was recovering from a hip replacement at which time he said to me, “Fred, you gotta read this book!”
Well, he was correct. The book is fabulous. The authors, both of whom are scientists and one of whom is a physician, demonstrate that functional brain scans show that certain positive things happen to our brain when we have faith in a loving God. Studies have shown that a belief that God will give us the strength and courage to face the vicissitudes of life may also improve our health, or at least the health of our brains. Our brains seem to me more dynamic than previously thought. Studies have shown that those who frequently pray or mediate are less susceptible to dementia and seem to be able to slow the onset of Alzheimer’s, apparently by actually changing the hardwiring of our brains!
Newberg and Waldman list eight ways to exercise your brain. They are, in descending order.
8. Smile
7. Stay intellectually active
6. Consciously relax
5. Yawn (though hopefully not during this sermon!)
4. Meditate
3. Aerobic Exercise
2. Dialogue with others
And the number one best way to exercise one’s brain is to have faith. In the words of Newberg and Waldman “Faith is equivalent with hope and optimism, and the belief that a positive future awaits us.” (p.164)
So today, let us not be like the Jews of the desert who when facing despair, lost their faith in a loving God. Rather as difficult as it might seem, let us maintain the faith that God can be a source of strength, courage and serenity and let us do so by looking for evidence of God’s presence in our world.
Finally, the third sin of the desert generation was that they had lost their vision of the Promised Land. A proverb in the bible states: “18For lack of vision a people perish.” (Proverbs 29:18) What the verse literally means is that without vision, there is anarchy. The word for anarchy used here ironically comes from the same root as the word for Pharaoh. In other words, one could interpret the verse to mean that without vision we are slaves. Without vision, we re-enslave ourselves.
Those who are facing tough times need not only to get their “groove” back, they need to regain their vision. Those of us in their families and in their community need to become agents who help those who need it regain their sense of their own personal Promised Land.
Above all, the passage is telling us that God desires that we envision a better future in order that we might work towards its fulfillment.
In Judaism, there is a concept called, “Yeridah le tsorech aliyah” which translated means, “We go down only to ascend.” The Psalmist says: “From the depths I cry to you,” meaning that from the depths I cry to God to help me ascend! Therefore, our attitudes need to be that there is no such thing as “down.”
Yes, there are times of despair for many of us, but the sages tell us that despair is an essential part of Teshuvah. Despair needs to give us the power to move toward change, to break through the chains of what is holding you down or back. Despair is a birth pang to something else.
You may have lost your job. You may have suffered financial set backs. You may be ill. You may be worried about your children, parents or another loved one. You may be dealing with a difficult time at work and all of these can cause you to despair.
Yet the story of the spies is one that tells us not to despair, but to have faith that although we are down at this moment, we are about to ascend at the next moment. It is because of this that I have always felt that a Jew is a pessimist with hope!
So if this applies to you, listen to the following phrase, learn this phrase and share it with someone who needs it. The phrase is: “Every setback is a setup for a comeback.” Listen to it again. “Every setback is a setup for a comeback.” Now say it with me: “Every setback is a set up for a comeback.”
So once again the three most serious sins in the Torah done by the generation of the desert were:
1. Loss of confidence in their own abilities.
2. Loss of faith in God and
3. Loss of vision as to what life in the Promised Land could be.
In just a few moments we will stand before the open ark and Lane will chant the prayer that Moses asked of God when he asked God to forgive the people of these three sins. As we hear this, let us remember that all too often many of us have been guilty of the same three sins. Let us ask for God to help us regain our confidence in our own abilities, our faith in God and our vision as to what our personal “Promised Land” would look like.
Moses in our story says to God “7Therefore, I pray, let my Lord’s forbearance be great, as You have declared, saying, 18‘The Lord! slow to anger and abounding in kindness; forgiving iniquity and transgression; ….
19Pardon, I pray, the iniquity of this people according to Your great kindness, as You have forgiven this people ever since Egypt.”
God’s answer is “סָלַ×—ְתִּ×™ ×›ִּדְבָרֶֽךָ”
“I pardon, as you have asked.”
May God pardon us for losing our vision and faith and may we all be blessed with a renewal of faith and vision, a year of blessing, health and peace.
May God bless us with peace in our lives and the lives of our families, our congregation and community, our nation and our world.
Leshanah Tovah tikatayvu – May we be inscribed for a blessing in the Book of Life! Amen
“The Eternal One, the Eternal God is merciful and gracious,
“The Eternal One, the Eternal God is merciful and gracious,
endlessly patient…” Part I
Erev Rosh Hashanah 5970
Greensboro, North Carolina
During the High Holy days before we take the Torah out of the ark, there are two additional pieces of liturgy which are recited. These are not recited on Shabbat. The first is called the Avinu Malkenu. When we recite this prayer, we ask God to hear us and we acknowledge that we have sinned. We ask that we should be blessed with a good year and that the world should no longer be plagued by war and oppression. Finally, we ask that we all be blessed for inclusion in the book of life.
This year we will hear Max Janowski’s incredibly beautiful version of Avinu Malkenu four times and thanks to Janet and Brooks, we have added a violin and a cello part. The Avinu Malkenu soloists will be Emily Siar, Debbie Thacker, Jeanne Fischer and Lane Ridenhour.
The second piece of liturgy occurs immediately after the Avinu Malkenu and is sung by Lane. Turn to page 122 and you will see this prayer. The prayer reads: “The Eternal God is merciful and gracious, endlessly patient, loving and true, showing mercy to thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin and granting pardon.” Biblical commentators have viewed this phrase as the closet description of God’s attributes found in the Torah.
We hear this after the Avinu Malkenu as if to remind God that God should have mercy on us because of our sins and transgressions. By itself it is a very powerful moment. Immediately after it is sung, we proceed to take the Torah out of the ark.
However, I would like for us to consider that if we delve into the biblical background of this phrase, we might find that its awesome quality during this season is heightened and that it can have an additional meaning to us.
The phrase occurs twice in the Torah. The first time is in Exodus 34 and is said by God to Moses as God is granting to Moses the second set of tablets of the Ten Commandants. The second time occurs in Numbers in a slightly abbreviated form and is said by Moses to God towards the end of the incident of the spies.
Tonight, we will examine the story of the second tablets and tomorrow we will examine the story of the spies.
The first time the phrase “The Eternal God is merciful and gracious, endlessly patient, loving and true, showing mercy to thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin and granting pardon” is at the end of the story of the Golden Calf. You will remember the details. Moses is on Mt. Sinai receiving the Ten Commandments and he seems to be delayed in coming down. The people, feeling insecure and abandoned, make a golden calf to replace Moses. When Moses does come down from the mountain, he finds people dancing in ecstasy around the calf. In anger, Moses throws down the original two tablets. A plague follows. God does not destroy the entire people. God will give Moses a second set of tablets during which God proclaims to Moses the phrase: “The Eternal God is merciful and gracious, endlessly patient, loving and true, showing mercy to thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin and granting pardon.”
So imagine that we are standing before the open ark and the terrible sin of building the Golden Calf is on our consciences. This is rather difficult to do, but while we may not have built an actual golden calf, there are certain things that we have done during the past year that remind us of their sin.
The first of these is how we have been reactive to others and to situations. For the people, they reacted to the insecurity caused by the delay in Moses’ return by doing something incredibly stupid; namely, rejecting the God who had freed them from Egypt and building a golden calf. For Moses, his reactivity occurs when in anger he smashed the tablets. How could he have possibly known that these precious tablets, the most precious thing ever given by God to humans, would be given a second time? In his anger, he has potentially done a catastrophic deed in terms of the future of humanity.
Friends. There is not one of us here who has not reacted either with stupidity or in anger when we feel threatened or insecure. These are not the moments in our lives that we would like to remember, but this is the time of year when we, as Jews, do remember these times, even if their remembrance is painful. Perhaps we were short to our children or to our parents? Perhaps you can remember a time when you overreacted to something a spouse or a loved one said? Perhaps there was a time when you answered a colleague at work with a short temper or thought ill of someone without pausing to think of their motivations or to understand the facts that led to their behavior. In all of these cases, being reactive instead of responding with calm and pensive thought, leads to wrong decisions and actions on our part and so often these decisions and actions are made out of anger.
The rabbis felt that when we respond in such a way, we are giving in to our Yetzer Hara, our inclination to do evil. Eighteen hundred years ago, a great teacher named Ben Zoma was asked “Who is mighty?” The answer given was than the mighty person is the one who can subdue his or her evil inclination. For the Jew, the ideal is not to be reactive but to be in self control. To the outside world, we seem to focus too much on our commandments and behavior and not enough on our theology. But this is not entirely true. Look once again how God is described in the verse. God is described as Erech Apayim which is translated as “endlessly patient” but can also mean “slow to anger.” When we are contemplative and non-reactive in our behavior, we are imitatio dei, imitators of God.
There is an incredible verse in Proverbs which reads, “It is better to be slow to anger than to be mighty and it is better to have self-control than to conquer a city.”
So the Jewish ideal of power is to be slow to anger, contemplative instead of being immediately reactive to situations.
So in this respect during the past year, there have been few if any of us who have not been like those standing at the base of the mountain waiting for Moses’ to come down. In our fear and insecurity, we have chosen reaction over thoughtfulness, weakness over true might.
So close your eyes for a few seconds and think of one instance during this past year when you have been overly reactive to something or someone else. Now open your eyes and let us continue.
* * * * * *
The second sin that plagued the generation who built the calf, as well as us, is the idea that if we have the gold, we will be happy. As a matter of fact, going for the gold, accumulating wealth, though not necessarily bad does not necessarily lead to happiness or to a life of meaning.
Anecdotally, we have heard that people who win the lottery are more prone to suicide and other self-destructive behaviors than they were before they won. If you want to see a miserable, but wealthy bunch of people, pick up one of the celebrity magazines the next time you are standing in a checkout line at a grocery store. This one is sleeping with that one. This one is an alcoholic. That one is overweight. You get the idea.
In a recent interview, Bernie Madoff’s secretary mentions that he was a quite irascible and demeaning man to work for.
But this desire for gelt as in the Madoff case has also done incredible damage to our country. It has led us to believe that it is all about “me” and not about the community. Madoff’s egregious crime, in addition to robbing retirees of the retirement funds, has caused incredible damage to Jewish educational institutions, federations and Jewish philanthropic funds. Being a psychopath, he did not hesitate to steal money from anyone, his best friends or even Eli Weisel.
While Madoff may be the extreme, I would maintain that a large part of the problems facing our country come from the desire of people to obtain more and more money without thinking of the consequences of their actions on the country or the world. Prime lenders and banks lent to get large commissions up front on their loans, without thinking what the harm could be if millions started defaulting on their loans. American car manufacturers continued to build large gas guzzlers because the profit margins were larger without thinking about the fact that these cars would increase our dependence on foreign oil and would adversely affect our trade deficit. The oil companies themselves lobbied against electric cars and alternative fuels, again, in order to maintain profits. Last year, our hardly benevolent pharmaceutical companies spent four times the amount on advertising drugs like Viagra and Levitra, than they did on research.
Going for the gold, going for the gelt, at the expense of others has really damaged this country by increasing unemployment and causing the value of investments to decline.
However, I would maintain that this too is a function of our Yetzer Hara, our inclination to do evil. The problem is not merely Madoff and the big corporations, it is us. What did Pogo, the legendary opossum of the famous Walt Kelly comic strip of yesteryear say, “WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY AND HE IS US?” There are times when we have placed money before family. There are times when we have placed luxury ahead of being charitable. There are times when we have placed gelt ahead of learning, materials ahead of values. There are times when we too have built golden calves and caused the commandments to be smashed.
So now for a second time, close your eyes for a few seconds and think of one instance during this past year when you have placed the chase for material well being ahead of family, community, country or God. Now open your eyes and let us continue.
* * * * * *
The third sin that befell the generation that built the golden calf may be seen in Aaron. Listen to the actual text and focus your attention on the role of Aaron, the high priest and brother of Moses. Aaron is to be spiritual leader of the people and remember that in Moses’ absence, Aaron is also the head of the community. The text reads:
“When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, the people gathered against Aaron and said to him, “Come, make us a god who shall go before us, for that man Moses, who brought us from the land of Egypt—we do not know what has happened to him.” 2Aaron said to them, “Take off the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” 3And all the people took off the gold rings that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. 4This he took from them and cast in a mold, and made it into a molten calf. And they exclaimed, “This is your god, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt!” 5When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron announced: “Tomorrow shall be a festival of the Lord!” 6Early next day, the people offered up burnt offerings and brought sacrifices of well-being; they sat down to eat and drink, and then rose to dance.[1][1]
What was Aaron thinking of? Why did he jettison his values so easily? Why was he such a failure as a leader?
The answer given by the rabbis is certainly an interesting one. The rabbis viewed Aaron as a peacemaker. He apparently would do anything to make peace, even if it involved a rejection of the covenant between God and the Jewish people.
So as we stand before the open ark tomorrow, let us contemplate how many times we too have taken the easy road. Maybe we just wanted to avoid conflict? May we just want to be well liked? When were those times when we did not stand up for what we know to be just and right?
For all of us, expediency sometimes comes at the cost of sacrificing our values. We know that Judaism is important and that it has a lot to teach us, yet there are so many other things that demand our time. A rabbi was once asked by a parent, “Rabbi, how can I be sure that my child will study Torah?” The answer that the rabbi gave was, “Your child will study Torah when he sees you studying Torah.”
Our children will emulate our values. If they see that Judaism is not all that important to us, then it will not be all that important to them. If they see Sunday after Sunday that we drop them off for religious school, instead of coming in to temple to be a part of the community and learn as adults, then we ought not to be surprised when they grow up to be like us. Indeed, the carpool tunnel syndrome is one of our greatest problems!
So now for a final time, close your eyes for a few seconds and think of one instance during this past year when you have sacrificed your values and chosen the easy or expedient way just because you wished to avoid conflict. Now open your eyes and let us continue.
* * * * * *
So tomorrow morning as we are about to take out the Torah and as we hear Lane sing the words, “The Eternal God is merciful and gracious, endlessly patient, loving and true, showing mercy to thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin and granting pardon,” let us remember the people who built the golden calf. Let us also remember the three sins we have silently recalled tonight and ask God for forgiveness. Like the people who built the calf, we have been needlessly reactive to stress, uncertainty and fear. Like them, we have all too often felt that riches could solve all of our problems and all too often have ignored how our own greed could be detrimental to the community. Finally, let us recall the times when we have sacrificed our values on the altar of expediency and popularity.
But then, let us listen to the words of the prayer. God is merciful to us. God is saying to us that we can be forgiven for these sins. If Moses can receive a second set of tablets, we can receive a second or third chance to repair our lives. God is acknowledging that we can change and become the individuals, the people, the nation and the world that God means for us to be. It is as though God is saying to us, “Go for it. Yes, you can and yes, you will. Come back to me. Learn Torah. Straighten out the crookedness of your life and be assured of My love for you!”
Thus assured of God’s love, may we all be blessed with a year of sweetness, goodness, love and peace.
AMEN
Friday, September 11, 2009
9/11 2009, Why is this day different?
I think there is not one person here who does not remember exactly where he or she was when they first heard about 9/11. The trauma of almost 3,000 Americans dying on that day is indeed still with our nation. The number of Americans who died on 9/11 is actually greater than the number who died during the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Bin Laden still has not been captured. The six years of war in Iraq has proven to be an unwise and unnecessary diversion from the fight against Al-Qaeda. The threat of international terrorism is still great and, frankly, I find little comfort in the fact that another major attack has not yet occurred.
With all that being said, there are certain things that make this anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy quite different. Allow me to explain.
Approximately 100 days after 9/11, I went to the leaders of the community with a proposal. My proposal was that on the year anniversary of 9/11, there should be a community memorial service. I mentioned to them that this might be done in one of two ways; either a large interfaith memorial service in a place like the Coliseum, or that we could encourage every religious institution to have some sort of commemoration on that day. Subsequently a meeting was held, at which time the response was less than enthusiastic. The neighboring churches said that they planned to ring bells in commemoration of the tragedy, but not much more was to be done and that year there was no community commemoration.
Nevertheless, Temple Emanuel organized a community commemoration of its own on the anniversary of 9/11. We created a wonderful memorial service. Some of the readings for that service are to be found in our service tonight. We lit the two candles like the ones that you see in front of you. We invited the entire Jewish community. Students from the American Hebrew Academy also attended. We parked a police cruiser outside of the entrance to the Temple and at the exact moment the first plane struck the World Trade Center, the police cruiser put on its siren. We stood in silence for two minutes to commemorate the moment.
This, by the way, is a memorial custom that comes directly from Israel. In Israel on Holocaust Memorial Day and on the Memorial Day for the Israeli soldiers, an air raid siren goes off and people stand at attention for two minutes.
The entire experience gave me an appreciation of just how wonderful Jewish tradition is in commemorating deaths of loved ones. The idea of saying Kaddish for loved ones on the anniversary of the death apparently has no parallel in Christianity. Here, we very quickly put up a memorial plaque on our Yahrzeit memorial just outside the sanctuary. The plaque reads, “For our brothers and sisters,” with the date September 11, 2001.
After the first year, other than mentioning collectively those who were tragically lost, there was no special commemoration. We lit the plaque on the board and we said Kaddish for the victims. I was rather amazed at the fact that, year after year, including most especially the 5th anniversary of 9/11, there seemed to be very little ceremony for this tragedy in our country. Yes, there were commemorations at the Pentagon, at the Pennsylvania Flight 93 crash site, and at the World Trade Center site. Other than this, there seemed to be little or no local commemorations of the tragedy.
All that was true until this year, it is my impression that this year there is greater awareness of the tragedy of 9/11 than there has been in any year since the first. People are posting on Facebook. Emails are flying across the internet. Words of memorial can be found in many places. A day of service has been planned by many. There is much greater press coverage than in the past.
So the question that I would like to ask is why? What makes this year different from the past years?
I’ve only been able to come up with one answer, and that is that we have a new President. During the time of the Bush presidency, there did not seem to be the same motivation to commemorate this tragedy as there is now. In my opinion, this motivation comes from two sources. First of all, it comes from the left in our country. The left in our country is very much interested in commemorating 9/11 this year in order to make a statement that the left remembers and has confidence that President Obama will be a sufficient steward of the security of the United States.
There was no reason to do this in the aftermath of 9/11 as long as Bush remained as president. People united behind the president during those first few months after the attacks, and expressing their confidence in his ability to defend our nation. But now with President Obama, the left needs to make a new statement.
But there is also a need by the right to make a statement. The right in our country wants to say the following, “During the past eight years, there has been no additional attack on American soil, and this was due to the stewardship of the Republican president.” Now it seems to me, there is a political move afoot that through the increased commemorations of 9/11, doubts about President Obama’s ability to protect America will be increased.
In other words, what we’re seeing is both on the left and the right attempts to politicize today’s commemoration. I have to tell you that from a Jewish point of view if this is true, then we would condemn both approaches. In our opinion, we have been remembering 9/11 every single year because that’s what we as Jews do.
Every single person who died on 9/11 was like a star in the sky whose light continues to shine through the blessing of their memory. Every single person who was murdered that day was unto himself or herself a world complete. Each one of them is mourned by their loving family. Each one of them had hopes and aspirations that were taken away by murderous terrorists. Each one of them was a blessing to those that knew them, and through the good deeds they performed while alive each one of them was a blessing to humanity.
So what does this 9/11 really mean to us today?
It means for us that we as Jews, and we as Americans, should remember – every single year. Politics should not color the shape of our remembrance. It also means that we need now to think about special anniversaries and the way in which we will remember. For example, we’ve had here at Temple Emanuel the discussion that on the 10th anniversary we are going to try to host a large and significant commemoration of this tragedy.
Unfortunately, the second thing that 9/11 means today is that the fight against Al-Qaeda is still not complete. As a matter of fact, the murderous terrorist influence of Al-Qaeda and radical Islam seems to have increased since 2001. Osama bin Laden has not been captured, and the influence of Al-Qaeda is to be felt throughout the world, particularly in the Arab world. We know especially that there are cells of Al-Qaeda in both southern Lebanon and in Gaza. Again, the fact that no attack has occurred on American soil is not one that particularly gives me comfort given the dedication of Al-Qaeda and other radical Islamic cells to do harm to American citizens.
The significance of 9/11 is also one that needs to be considered in light of the current efforts of the government of Iran to create a nuclear bomb. Two days ago, the United States’ government announced that Iran now has enough refined uranium to create a nuclear bomb. The International Atomic Energy Agency has indicated that with the current level of centrifuge refinement that Iran could create two nuclear bombs a year. The potential to create numerous bombs is there.
All of this power will soon be in the hands of a government that has sworn to wipe Israel off the map, and to do great harm to the West.
I applaud the attempts of the Obama administration to engage the Iranians in dialogue. Up to now, these attempts have been met without much success. The purpose of such engagement should be to present to the Iranian leaders that they have a choice. They cannot have their cake and eat it too. They face two radically different futures. One is a future where if they give up their nuclear aspirations, they will receive significant aid from the West and will be able to create prosperity for their people. In this vision, the Iranian people, proud of their Persian heritage, will indeed take their place among the community of nations.
Their second option would be to face severe economic sanctions, sanctions which could wipe out their already stressed middle class. In addition to that, there is always the possibility of some sort of military intervention by the United States or Israel or both.
In addition, this engagement could increase the American leverage to draw others into sanctions against Iran in the future. The others that we are speaking of here are particularly Germany, Russia, and China.
Finally, the purpose of engagement could be to serve as a justification to the world in case harsher measures against Iran are needed.
Recent elections in Iran have shown that democracy there is an illusion. Human rights for those that oppose the regime are indeed imperiled. A nuclear Iran would be an absolute nightmare for the United States and the free world. In the midst of all of the attention paid to issues such as the economy and healthcare, we must not forget the issue of Iranian nuclearization – an issue which threatens our country and its allies.
Our Arab allies are no less concerned a nuclear Iran would set off an arms race in that part of the world. The chances of terrorist organizations getting their hands on a nuclear weapon would be much greater. A nuclear Iran would seriously undermine our efforts to achieve a comprehensive Middle-East peace agreement, because it would undermine moderates in the region. Iran would become the bully of the neighborhood as it seeks to exert force over that part of the world.
Our window of opportunity is rapidly closing on this, negotiations cannot be open-ended. Iran cannot “rope-a-dope” the United States.
On September 24, Ahmandinejad will speak at the United Nations. A huge demonstration is planned. The demonstration is sponsored by a coalition of Iranian, Labor, Jewish and other organizations.
This is the month that President Obama has said is the key month. Either Iran comes to the table to seriously negotiate, or other stronger measures will need to be taken. An bill could be introduced into Congress next month entitled the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act of 2009. Currently in the House, Congressmen Miller and Coble are co-sponsors of this, as are Senators Hagan and Burr in the Senate.
It is indeed important to remember this new threat on this commemoration of September 11th, 2009. The potential for mass murder is indeed greater at this juncture than in recent memory, because of activities of the Iranian government.
This is the weekend in which we read from a passage from Deuteronomy that begins, “We are standing here this day,” at the end of the passage we are encouraged to choose life so that we and our children may indeed be blessed. The text says that God has given us the choice between good and evil, the choice between life and death.
The events of 9/11 and its aftermath present us with the same choice. We must, as a country, choose to remember those who died. We must avoid politicizing this tragedy by means of internal American politics. We must as a country and as the free world find a legitimate way to effectively combat the threats of mass murder that still exist.
We must not hide our heads in the sand or pat ourselves on the back because no additional attack has occurred.
We must above all be those who choose life by not only protecting our security, but also by loving God and witnessing to humanity that God wants us to love one another. May we be blessed to see the fulfillment of the vision of the Prophet Isaiah who wrote, “Nations shall not live to up sword against nation.”
May this be not only our vision, but our blessing for the United States and for the world.
Bin Laden still has not been captured. The six years of war in Iraq has proven to be an unwise and unnecessary diversion from the fight against Al-Qaeda. The threat of international terrorism is still great and, frankly, I find little comfort in the fact that another major attack has not yet occurred.
With all that being said, there are certain things that make this anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy quite different. Allow me to explain.
Approximately 100 days after 9/11, I went to the leaders of the community with a proposal. My proposal was that on the year anniversary of 9/11, there should be a community memorial service. I mentioned to them that this might be done in one of two ways; either a large interfaith memorial service in a place like the Coliseum, or that we could encourage every religious institution to have some sort of commemoration on that day. Subsequently a meeting was held, at which time the response was less than enthusiastic. The neighboring churches said that they planned to ring bells in commemoration of the tragedy, but not much more was to be done and that year there was no community commemoration.
Nevertheless, Temple Emanuel organized a community commemoration of its own on the anniversary of 9/11. We created a wonderful memorial service. Some of the readings for that service are to be found in our service tonight. We lit the two candles like the ones that you see in front of you. We invited the entire Jewish community. Students from the American Hebrew Academy also attended. We parked a police cruiser outside of the entrance to the Temple and at the exact moment the first plane struck the World Trade Center, the police cruiser put on its siren. We stood in silence for two minutes to commemorate the moment.
This, by the way, is a memorial custom that comes directly from Israel. In Israel on Holocaust Memorial Day and on the Memorial Day for the Israeli soldiers, an air raid siren goes off and people stand at attention for two minutes.
The entire experience gave me an appreciation of just how wonderful Jewish tradition is in commemorating deaths of loved ones. The idea of saying Kaddish for loved ones on the anniversary of the death apparently has no parallel in Christianity. Here, we very quickly put up a memorial plaque on our Yahrzeit memorial just outside the sanctuary. The plaque reads, “For our brothers and sisters,” with the date September 11, 2001.
After the first year, other than mentioning collectively those who were tragically lost, there was no special commemoration. We lit the plaque on the board and we said Kaddish for the victims. I was rather amazed at the fact that, year after year, including most especially the 5th anniversary of 9/11, there seemed to be very little ceremony for this tragedy in our country. Yes, there were commemorations at the Pentagon, at the Pennsylvania Flight 93 crash site, and at the World Trade Center site. Other than this, there seemed to be little or no local commemorations of the tragedy.
All that was true until this year, it is my impression that this year there is greater awareness of the tragedy of 9/11 than there has been in any year since the first. People are posting on Facebook. Emails are flying across the internet. Words of memorial can be found in many places. A day of service has been planned by many. There is much greater press coverage than in the past.
So the question that I would like to ask is why? What makes this year different from the past years?
I’ve only been able to come up with one answer, and that is that we have a new President. During the time of the Bush presidency, there did not seem to be the same motivation to commemorate this tragedy as there is now. In my opinion, this motivation comes from two sources. First of all, it comes from the left in our country. The left in our country is very much interested in commemorating 9/11 this year in order to make a statement that the left remembers and has confidence that President Obama will be a sufficient steward of the security of the United States.
There was no reason to do this in the aftermath of 9/11 as long as Bush remained as president. People united behind the president during those first few months after the attacks, and expressing their confidence in his ability to defend our nation. But now with President Obama, the left needs to make a new statement.
But there is also a need by the right to make a statement. The right in our country wants to say the following, “During the past eight years, there has been no additional attack on American soil, and this was due to the stewardship of the Republican president.” Now it seems to me, there is a political move afoot that through the increased commemorations of 9/11, doubts about President Obama’s ability to protect America will be increased.
In other words, what we’re seeing is both on the left and the right attempts to politicize today’s commemoration. I have to tell you that from a Jewish point of view if this is true, then we would condemn both approaches. In our opinion, we have been remembering 9/11 every single year because that’s what we as Jews do.
Every single person who died on 9/11 was like a star in the sky whose light continues to shine through the blessing of their memory. Every single person who was murdered that day was unto himself or herself a world complete. Each one of them is mourned by their loving family. Each one of them had hopes and aspirations that were taken away by murderous terrorists. Each one of them was a blessing to those that knew them, and through the good deeds they performed while alive each one of them was a blessing to humanity.
So what does this 9/11 really mean to us today?
It means for us that we as Jews, and we as Americans, should remember – every single year. Politics should not color the shape of our remembrance. It also means that we need now to think about special anniversaries and the way in which we will remember. For example, we’ve had here at Temple Emanuel the discussion that on the 10th anniversary we are going to try to host a large and significant commemoration of this tragedy.
Unfortunately, the second thing that 9/11 means today is that the fight against Al-Qaeda is still not complete. As a matter of fact, the murderous terrorist influence of Al-Qaeda and radical Islam seems to have increased since 2001. Osama bin Laden has not been captured, and the influence of Al-Qaeda is to be felt throughout the world, particularly in the Arab world. We know especially that there are cells of Al-Qaeda in both southern Lebanon and in Gaza. Again, the fact that no attack has occurred on American soil is not one that particularly gives me comfort given the dedication of Al-Qaeda and other radical Islamic cells to do harm to American citizens.
The significance of 9/11 is also one that needs to be considered in light of the current efforts of the government of Iran to create a nuclear bomb. Two days ago, the United States’ government announced that Iran now has enough refined uranium to create a nuclear bomb. The International Atomic Energy Agency has indicated that with the current level of centrifuge refinement that Iran could create two nuclear bombs a year. The potential to create numerous bombs is there.
All of this power will soon be in the hands of a government that has sworn to wipe Israel off the map, and to do great harm to the West.
I applaud the attempts of the Obama administration to engage the Iranians in dialogue. Up to now, these attempts have been met without much success. The purpose of such engagement should be to present to the Iranian leaders that they have a choice. They cannot have their cake and eat it too. They face two radically different futures. One is a future where if they give up their nuclear aspirations, they will receive significant aid from the West and will be able to create prosperity for their people. In this vision, the Iranian people, proud of their Persian heritage, will indeed take their place among the community of nations.
Their second option would be to face severe economic sanctions, sanctions which could wipe out their already stressed middle class. In addition to that, there is always the possibility of some sort of military intervention by the United States or Israel or both.
In addition, this engagement could increase the American leverage to draw others into sanctions against Iran in the future. The others that we are speaking of here are particularly Germany, Russia, and China.
Finally, the purpose of engagement could be to serve as a justification to the world in case harsher measures against Iran are needed.
Recent elections in Iran have shown that democracy there is an illusion. Human rights for those that oppose the regime are indeed imperiled. A nuclear Iran would be an absolute nightmare for the United States and the free world. In the midst of all of the attention paid to issues such as the economy and healthcare, we must not forget the issue of Iranian nuclearization – an issue which threatens our country and its allies.
Our Arab allies are no less concerned a nuclear Iran would set off an arms race in that part of the world. The chances of terrorist organizations getting their hands on a nuclear weapon would be much greater. A nuclear Iran would seriously undermine our efforts to achieve a comprehensive Middle-East peace agreement, because it would undermine moderates in the region. Iran would become the bully of the neighborhood as it seeks to exert force over that part of the world.
Our window of opportunity is rapidly closing on this, negotiations cannot be open-ended. Iran cannot “rope-a-dope” the United States.
On September 24, Ahmandinejad will speak at the United Nations. A huge demonstration is planned. The demonstration is sponsored by a coalition of Iranian, Labor, Jewish and other organizations.
This is the month that President Obama has said is the key month. Either Iran comes to the table to seriously negotiate, or other stronger measures will need to be taken. An bill could be introduced into Congress next month entitled the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act of 2009. Currently in the House, Congressmen Miller and Coble are co-sponsors of this, as are Senators Hagan and Burr in the Senate.
It is indeed important to remember this new threat on this commemoration of September 11th, 2009. The potential for mass murder is indeed greater at this juncture than in recent memory, because of activities of the Iranian government.
This is the weekend in which we read from a passage from Deuteronomy that begins, “We are standing here this day,” at the end of the passage we are encouraged to choose life so that we and our children may indeed be blessed. The text says that God has given us the choice between good and evil, the choice between life and death.
The events of 9/11 and its aftermath present us with the same choice. We must, as a country, choose to remember those who died. We must avoid politicizing this tragedy by means of internal American politics. We must as a country and as the free world find a legitimate way to effectively combat the threats of mass murder that still exist.
We must not hide our heads in the sand or pat ourselves on the back because no additional attack has occurred.
We must above all be those who choose life by not only protecting our security, but also by loving God and witnessing to humanity that God wants us to love one another. May we be blessed to see the fulfillment of the vision of the Prophet Isaiah who wrote, “Nations shall not live to up sword against nation.”
May this be not only our vision, but our blessing for the United States and for the world.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Repeal Prop 8 video
The following is an unusual video calling for the repeal of Proposition 8 in California. The video presents an interesting historical perspective. The background music is from the Christian hymn "Agnus Dei" (Lamb of God) as sung by Rufus Wainwright. If you like this as much as I do, please feel free to pass this link along to others.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjHHklgnbXQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjHHklgnbXQ
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Nazis in Greensboro- Our Response August 28, 2009
Tomorrow the National Socialist Movement will hold a closed-door business attire meeting at a downtown hotel. Somewhere between 50 and 150 people will be coming. The purpose of this National Socialist Movement meeting, as I understand it, is to increase their activities and their recruitment efforts in some twelve states in this part of the country.
I went on the National Socialist Movement website and there I found 25 core beliefs. Some of them are:
“We demand the union of all Whites into a greater America on the basis of the right of national self-determination.”
“Only members of the nation may be citizens of the state. Only those of pure White blood, whatever their creed, may be members of the nation. Non-citizens may live in America only as guests and must be subject to laws for aliens. Accordingly, no Jew or homosexual may be a member of the nation.”
“The right to vote on the State government and legislation shall be enjoyed by citizens of the state alone.”
In short, the National Socialist Movement is nothing more than a reconstituted Nazi Party here in America, and it is this movement that is meeting tomorrow here in Greensboro.
On Monday, I was asked to attend a meeting of 35 community leaders from Greensboro. At that meeting, we decided on a course of action. The main thing that we decided upon was that there would be no direct confrontation of the Nazis. We were concerned that people would get hurt in the course of a direct confrontation. We were concerned, as well, that direct confrontation would lead to greater publicity for the Nazis – which then could lead to increased interest by recruits to the Nazi effort. In other words, our thoughts were that we did not want to do anything which would provide them with even more publicity than they were already getting.
So what did we decide?
We decided to get the word out and make a petition for the community. The statement is entitled “No Hate In Our Town,” and is available by visiting the Temple Emanuel website at www.tegreensboro.org and clicking the link to sign the petition. The statement reads "In response to the National Socialist Movement (neo-Nazi) conference in our city, we reaffirm our absolute commitment to continuing our community's efforts to build a Greensboro free of bias, bigotry and racism. We encourage all people to signify their commitment to building bridges of understanding by wearing a multicolored unity ribbon beginning this weekend.
Together, we will build a community that is safe, just, inclusive and respectful of all." If you wish to sign the statement, I urge you to do so this weekend.
We decided, also, to encourage people to wear a multi-color ribbon to express our approval and appreciation of diversity in Greensboro and of America. We are doing our best to encourage churches, particularly, to hand out ribbons at their services on Sunday and have their clergy make statements about condemning the meeting of the Nazis here. To any of you who are not members of our congregation and who regularly attend church services on Sunday, I encourage you to contact your ministers first thing tomorrow morning and encourage them to participate with ribbons. As you can see, it is very simply done, the ribbons are about 5 inches long and all you need is a straight pin and some ushers to hand them out.
Some people have asked, is this enough?
Quite frankly, I have had people call and email me saying that even this is too much, that the more that we do, the more we will help the Nazis spread publicity. On the other hand, I’ve had people tell me that this is not enough. Therefore, because I am being criticized on both sides, I feel that we might be doing the right thing!
I do not know how the students at our local universities will react? I know that tomorrow there is a demonstration at 3:00pm on South Elm Street, and I imagine that many of our young college students will attend that demonstration. I will not be attending because it is Shabbat, and because, despite my reservations, I feel that making a statement, giving interviews, and handing out these ribbons is where I should be at this time.
Why are they coming to Greensboro?
Some people think that it might have to do with the sit-in movement. This year will mark the 50th anniversary of the four young men from North Carolina A&T University who sat-in at Woolworth’s lunch counter. This sit-in led to more than fifty other sit-ins which occurred in the following weeks throughout America. I am delighted to tell you that the International Civil Rights Museum will open the 1st of this coming February. I am hopeful that people from all over the United States, especially young people, will visit the museum and see the four stools where these four young men sat. By the way, one of those four, Dr. Franklin McCain, will be our featured speaker at our Martin Luther King service in January this year. Dr. McCain and his three friends sat down in order that others could stand-up for freedom and justice in our country.
Still other people say that the reason for this event in Greensboro has to do with the Klan-Nazi shootings of 1979. In those shootings, five demonstrators, three African Americans and two Jewish doctors were savagely murdered by the Nazis. Those who perpetrated this murder were never brought to justice. This is a controversial, and extraordinarily sad, part of Greensboro’s history.
The leaders of the National Socialist Movement say, however, that the reason why this is being held in Greensboro is because of the city’s central location.
More important to me is why the National Socialist Movement, the Nazi Party, is making such an effort to organize recruitment. In my opinion, this has to do with several disturbing things that are happening right now in the United States.
I believe that as a white supremacist group, the National Socialist Movement is tapping into a segment of racist America that is very ugly in its tenor and tone. I do believe that there are people in the United States who cannot accept, and will not accept, that our country has elected an African American President. Such people feel that control of the country is slipping out of the hands of white people.
The second thing that I think is important is the debate over healthcare. The outpouring of millions of dollars by insurance companies to lobby against any sort of healthcare reform in Congress has led to the creation of an atmosphere of worry and fear in our country. Earlier this month I spoke and wrote about the usage of Nazi imagery among the anti-healthcare demonstrators. I would like to remind you that when Rabbi Koren and I attended a healthcare briefing in Raleigh at which President Obama spoke, we saw a man at the outside of the center holding a sign which read, “Obamacare = National Socialism.” It is incredibly disturbing that some of our politicians have actually sought to demagogue this issue and to increase the amount of fear and worry in our country. The idea that any sort of healthcare reform would include death panels that would put our grandmothers in danger is absolutely absurd.
It is not the role of Temple Emanuel or this Rabbi to take a specific position on healthcare legislation. I would like point out that there are many different versions of healthcare resolutions in Congress, one in the House and at least three in the Senate. What I think is important to understand is that, from a Jewish perspective, it is absolutely immoral in society for some people to be denied proper healthcare due to lack of financial resources. From our perspective, the current situation of health care in our country is untenable financially and questionable morally.
Therefore, without being specific, we in the Jewish community support all efforts towards health care and insurance reform in the United States. The details need to be worked out, but again the status quo is untenable.
It is disturbing to me there is usage of Nazi propaganda and that the Nazis in the guise of the National Socialist Movement are using the frustration some people feel to increase their recruitment efforts. Theirs is an America that is ugly. Theirs is an America that is only for white people. Homosexuals, Hispanics, Jews and Asians and others are not welcome in their America. The America of the neo-Nazi party is an America which is filled with bias, bigotry and racism. It is an America that is filled with hate.
As Jews we have been the victims of such Nazi hatred in the past. Six million of our brothers and sisters, including one and a half million children, perished because of the Nazi Party. More important than this, the lesson for all of us is that we will not only fight against the Nazis and what they represent, but that we will take a firm stand for what is important to us as Jews.
Tonight, we are not only saying that hatred, bigotry, and racism have no place in our community, but we are also saying that we stand for justice.
As Jews, we believe, as did the biblical prophets, that a society that is not based upon justice is a society that is not secure for anyone – particularly minorities.
We, as Jews, are taking a stand tonight to say that society must be built on compassion, that economic inequity and inequality should have no bearing on whether or not a person receives proper medical attention.
We, as Jews, tonight are taking a stand for tolerance and for diversity. We are wearing these ribbons to say that our vision of America is one where within each ethnic and racial group, each person is a divine manifestation of the image of God and they bring forth that which is best, that which is most godly within their very being. That’s why we’re wearing these ribbons tonight.
We are making a stand for brotherhood, sisterhood and above all peace.
We believe in an America built upon justice, compassion, tolerance and peace where people work together for the common good. We believe that when we work together and create coalitions for goodness we not only bring more peace to our world, we bring more of the presence of God.
I went on the National Socialist Movement website and there I found 25 core beliefs. Some of them are:
“We demand the union of all Whites into a greater America on the basis of the right of national self-determination.”
“Only members of the nation may be citizens of the state. Only those of pure White blood, whatever their creed, may be members of the nation. Non-citizens may live in America only as guests and must be subject to laws for aliens. Accordingly, no Jew or homosexual may be a member of the nation.”
“The right to vote on the State government and legislation shall be enjoyed by citizens of the state alone.”
In short, the National Socialist Movement is nothing more than a reconstituted Nazi Party here in America, and it is this movement that is meeting tomorrow here in Greensboro.
On Monday, I was asked to attend a meeting of 35 community leaders from Greensboro. At that meeting, we decided on a course of action. The main thing that we decided upon was that there would be no direct confrontation of the Nazis. We were concerned that people would get hurt in the course of a direct confrontation. We were concerned, as well, that direct confrontation would lead to greater publicity for the Nazis – which then could lead to increased interest by recruits to the Nazi effort. In other words, our thoughts were that we did not want to do anything which would provide them with even more publicity than they were already getting.
So what did we decide?
We decided to get the word out and make a petition for the community. The statement is entitled “No Hate In Our Town,” and is available by visiting the Temple Emanuel website at www.tegreensboro.org and clicking the link to sign the petition. The statement reads "In response to the National Socialist Movement (neo-Nazi) conference in our city, we reaffirm our absolute commitment to continuing our community's efforts to build a Greensboro free of bias, bigotry and racism. We encourage all people to signify their commitment to building bridges of understanding by wearing a multicolored unity ribbon beginning this weekend.
Together, we will build a community that is safe, just, inclusive and respectful of all." If you wish to sign the statement, I urge you to do so this weekend.
We decided, also, to encourage people to wear a multi-color ribbon to express our approval and appreciation of diversity in Greensboro and of America. We are doing our best to encourage churches, particularly, to hand out ribbons at their services on Sunday and have their clergy make statements about condemning the meeting of the Nazis here. To any of you who are not members of our congregation and who regularly attend church services on Sunday, I encourage you to contact your ministers first thing tomorrow morning and encourage them to participate with ribbons. As you can see, it is very simply done, the ribbons are about 5 inches long and all you need is a straight pin and some ushers to hand them out.
Some people have asked, is this enough?
Quite frankly, I have had people call and email me saying that even this is too much, that the more that we do, the more we will help the Nazis spread publicity. On the other hand, I’ve had people tell me that this is not enough. Therefore, because I am being criticized on both sides, I feel that we might be doing the right thing!
I do not know how the students at our local universities will react? I know that tomorrow there is a demonstration at 3:00pm on South Elm Street, and I imagine that many of our young college students will attend that demonstration. I will not be attending because it is Shabbat, and because, despite my reservations, I feel that making a statement, giving interviews, and handing out these ribbons is where I should be at this time.
Why are they coming to Greensboro?
Some people think that it might have to do with the sit-in movement. This year will mark the 50th anniversary of the four young men from North Carolina A&T University who sat-in at Woolworth’s lunch counter. This sit-in led to more than fifty other sit-ins which occurred in the following weeks throughout America. I am delighted to tell you that the International Civil Rights Museum will open the 1st of this coming February. I am hopeful that people from all over the United States, especially young people, will visit the museum and see the four stools where these four young men sat. By the way, one of those four, Dr. Franklin McCain, will be our featured speaker at our Martin Luther King service in January this year. Dr. McCain and his three friends sat down in order that others could stand-up for freedom and justice in our country.
Still other people say that the reason for this event in Greensboro has to do with the Klan-Nazi shootings of 1979. In those shootings, five demonstrators, three African Americans and two Jewish doctors were savagely murdered by the Nazis. Those who perpetrated this murder were never brought to justice. This is a controversial, and extraordinarily sad, part of Greensboro’s history.
The leaders of the National Socialist Movement say, however, that the reason why this is being held in Greensboro is because of the city’s central location.
More important to me is why the National Socialist Movement, the Nazi Party, is making such an effort to organize recruitment. In my opinion, this has to do with several disturbing things that are happening right now in the United States.
I believe that as a white supremacist group, the National Socialist Movement is tapping into a segment of racist America that is very ugly in its tenor and tone. I do believe that there are people in the United States who cannot accept, and will not accept, that our country has elected an African American President. Such people feel that control of the country is slipping out of the hands of white people.
The second thing that I think is important is the debate over healthcare. The outpouring of millions of dollars by insurance companies to lobby against any sort of healthcare reform in Congress has led to the creation of an atmosphere of worry and fear in our country. Earlier this month I spoke and wrote about the usage of Nazi imagery among the anti-healthcare demonstrators. I would like to remind you that when Rabbi Koren and I attended a healthcare briefing in Raleigh at which President Obama spoke, we saw a man at the outside of the center holding a sign which read, “Obamacare = National Socialism.” It is incredibly disturbing that some of our politicians have actually sought to demagogue this issue and to increase the amount of fear and worry in our country. The idea that any sort of healthcare reform would include death panels that would put our grandmothers in danger is absolutely absurd.
It is not the role of Temple Emanuel or this Rabbi to take a specific position on healthcare legislation. I would like point out that there are many different versions of healthcare resolutions in Congress, one in the House and at least three in the Senate. What I think is important to understand is that, from a Jewish perspective, it is absolutely immoral in society for some people to be denied proper healthcare due to lack of financial resources. From our perspective, the current situation of health care in our country is untenable financially and questionable morally.
Therefore, without being specific, we in the Jewish community support all efforts towards health care and insurance reform in the United States. The details need to be worked out, but again the status quo is untenable.
It is disturbing to me there is usage of Nazi propaganda and that the Nazis in the guise of the National Socialist Movement are using the frustration some people feel to increase their recruitment efforts. Theirs is an America that is ugly. Theirs is an America that is only for white people. Homosexuals, Hispanics, Jews and Asians and others are not welcome in their America. The America of the neo-Nazi party is an America which is filled with bias, bigotry and racism. It is an America that is filled with hate.
As Jews we have been the victims of such Nazi hatred in the past. Six million of our brothers and sisters, including one and a half million children, perished because of the Nazi Party. More important than this, the lesson for all of us is that we will not only fight against the Nazis and what they represent, but that we will take a firm stand for what is important to us as Jews.
Tonight, we are not only saying that hatred, bigotry, and racism have no place in our community, but we are also saying that we stand for justice.
As Jews, we believe, as did the biblical prophets, that a society that is not based upon justice is a society that is not secure for anyone – particularly minorities.
We, as Jews, are taking a stand tonight to say that society must be built on compassion, that economic inequity and inequality should have no bearing on whether or not a person receives proper medical attention.
We, as Jews, tonight are taking a stand for tolerance and for diversity. We are wearing these ribbons to say that our vision of America is one where within each ethnic and racial group, each person is a divine manifestation of the image of God and they bring forth that which is best, that which is most godly within their very being. That’s why we’re wearing these ribbons tonight.
We are making a stand for brotherhood, sisterhood and above all peace.
We believe in an America built upon justice, compassion, tolerance and peace where people work together for the common good. We believe that when we work together and create coalitions for goodness we not only bring more peace to our world, we bring more of the presence of God.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
On the Passing of Senator Edward Kennedy
Today, along with many Americans, I mourn the passing of Senator Ted Kennedy. The pursuit to repair the world and social justice is a core value in Jewish tradition. Because of this, the Jewish community found itself allied with Senator Kennedy on several of his legislative initiatives. Despite the fact that Senator Kennedy encountered fierce opposition on many of these initiatives, he, always the “lion,” was undaunted in his pursuit of a more compassionate, equitable and just country.
Specifically, we in the Jewish community allied ourselves with Senator Kennedy on the Voting Rights Act, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Mental Health Parity Act, the State Children’s Health Act (SCHIP) and others. It is difficult to imagine our country today without these critical pieces of legislation initiated by Senator Kennedy.
Senator Kennedy was a staunch supporter of Israel, as well as a very strong voice for freedom for Jews in the former Soviet Union. Many Jews who possess this freedom today and who live outside of the former Soviet Union owe a debt of gratitude to “Teddy” for their freedom.
The Senator was well known as a passionate advocate for health care reform in our country. In our congregation, we do not favor a particular bill or approach. Most of us believe that the status quo is untenable financially and from a moral and religious perspective, highly unethical. Personally, I believe that I am on firm ground in my belief that the biblical prophets, particularly Amos and Isaiah, would be appalled at the status quo and would preach against it.
For so many years in the United States Senate, Senator Kennedy was the embodiment of social justice. While not all Americans agreed with Senator Kennedy all of the time, he will be remembered as a valiant fighter for greater access to health care, more compassion for the poor and the elderly, student loans so that more could afford college tuition, funding for stem cell research, and the rights of minorities and women.
Our country will miss his voice and spirit of justice. May his memory be a blessing!
Specifically, we in the Jewish community allied ourselves with Senator Kennedy on the Voting Rights Act, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Mental Health Parity Act, the State Children’s Health Act (SCHIP) and others. It is difficult to imagine our country today without these critical pieces of legislation initiated by Senator Kennedy.
Senator Kennedy was a staunch supporter of Israel, as well as a very strong voice for freedom for Jews in the former Soviet Union. Many Jews who possess this freedom today and who live outside of the former Soviet Union owe a debt of gratitude to “Teddy” for their freedom.
The Senator was well known as a passionate advocate for health care reform in our country. In our congregation, we do not favor a particular bill or approach. Most of us believe that the status quo is untenable financially and from a moral and religious perspective, highly unethical. Personally, I believe that I am on firm ground in my belief that the biblical prophets, particularly Amos and Isaiah, would be appalled at the status quo and would preach against it.
For so many years in the United States Senate, Senator Kennedy was the embodiment of social justice. While not all Americans agreed with Senator Kennedy all of the time, he will be remembered as a valiant fighter for greater access to health care, more compassion for the poor and the elderly, student loans so that more could afford college tuition, funding for stem cell research, and the rights of minorities and women.
Our country will miss his voice and spirit of justice. May his memory be a blessing!
Monday, August 24, 2009
Gun Violence Against children
I do not know if you saw the program on gun violence in Chicago recently on CNN.
So many children have been murdered in Chicago due to random gun violence. I cannot imagine the depth of grief that these parents have.
I have become aware of the following letter which has been drafted by Father Michael Pfleger of Chicago. I subsequently signed the letter. The letter calls for
1) Re-instate the Federal Assault Weapon Ban as a permanent law.
2) Call a National Summit to address the national gun violence epidemic, highlighting problems and possible solutions to the problems.
3) Call for a Federal Agency to collect, track and disseminate national data on firearm violence to youth.
Below is the letter. To sign the letter, contact Pastor Pfleger at
pastorpfleger@ameritech.net
FUTURES NOT FUNERALS
A coalition of people of faith dedicated to demanding peace and ending violence
Dear Mr. President,
During your historic run to the White House, you challenged us to act within the urgency of the moment and urged us to be the change that we wished to see in the world. As you most certainly know, we live in a very urgent time in our country. The loss of jobs, the loss of homes, and the instability of the stock market have made times troubling for all Americans. But there is a problem that most people have overlooked. Our children are dying at highly alarming rates, but not due to swine flu or due to other diseases like pneumonia. Our children are being killed by another epidemic-scale disease known as gun violence.
This is a preventable illness, but we are doing all that we can as parents, as community activists, and as faith leaders. We are being the change that you asked us to be. But, Mr. President, we need you to act in the urgency of the moment. There is not a minute to waste. We are now faced with the fact that our children are no longer being killed solely by bullets, but by the unwillingness of others to act on their behalf. It is not enough for us to rely upon the personal responsibility of our citizens. It is also the legislative and executive responsibility of our Government. With that being said, our coalition is asking for three main initiatives from your Administration:
1) Re-instate the Federal Assault Weapon Ban as a permanent law.
2) Call a National Summit to address the national gun violence epidemic, highlighting problems and possible solutions to the problems.
3) Call for a Federal Agency to collect, track and disseminate national data on firearm violence to youth.
We do not have any time to waste. Every three hours in the US, a child is killed by gunfire. We need Federal intervention. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said that the ultimate measure of a human being is not where that person stands in times of comfort and convenience, but where that person stands in times of great challenge and controversy. Thank you for your consideration. We need your vision, we need your support, but we also need your action.
So many children have been murdered in Chicago due to random gun violence. I cannot imagine the depth of grief that these parents have.
I have become aware of the following letter which has been drafted by Father Michael Pfleger of Chicago. I subsequently signed the letter. The letter calls for
1) Re-instate the Federal Assault Weapon Ban as a permanent law.
2) Call a National Summit to address the national gun violence epidemic, highlighting problems and possible solutions to the problems.
3) Call for a Federal Agency to collect, track and disseminate national data on firearm violence to youth.
Below is the letter. To sign the letter, contact Pastor Pfleger at
pastorpfleger@ameritech.net
FUTURES NOT FUNERALS
A coalition of people of faith dedicated to demanding peace and ending violence
Dear Mr. President,
During your historic run to the White House, you challenged us to act within the urgency of the moment and urged us to be the change that we wished to see in the world. As you most certainly know, we live in a very urgent time in our country. The loss of jobs, the loss of homes, and the instability of the stock market have made times troubling for all Americans. But there is a problem that most people have overlooked. Our children are dying at highly alarming rates, but not due to swine flu or due to other diseases like pneumonia. Our children are being killed by another epidemic-scale disease known as gun violence.
This is a preventable illness, but we are doing all that we can as parents, as community activists, and as faith leaders. We are being the change that you asked us to be. But, Mr. President, we need you to act in the urgency of the moment. There is not a minute to waste. We are now faced with the fact that our children are no longer being killed solely by bullets, but by the unwillingness of others to act on their behalf. It is not enough for us to rely upon the personal responsibility of our citizens. It is also the legislative and executive responsibility of our Government. With that being said, our coalition is asking for three main initiatives from your Administration:
1) Re-instate the Federal Assault Weapon Ban as a permanent law.
2) Call a National Summit to address the national gun violence epidemic, highlighting problems and possible solutions to the problems.
3) Call for a Federal Agency to collect, track and disseminate national data on firearm violence to youth.
We do not have any time to waste. Every three hours in the US, a child is killed by gunfire. We need Federal intervention. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said that the ultimate measure of a human being is not where that person stands in times of comfort and convenience, but where that person stands in times of great challenge and controversy. Thank you for your consideration. We need your vision, we need your support, but we also need your action.
Friday, August 14, 2009
God as a Role Model
One of the most central teachings of Judaism is that we are to try to emulate what God does. Imitating God is one of the highest acts of holiness. The basis of this belief is to be found in Deuteronomy chapter 11, verse 22 wherein the Torah commands us “to walk in Gods ways.”
The rabbis then asked, "What is it that God does that we should imitate?" Several examples are given.
In Genesis, God makes clothing for Adam and Eve. Thus according to the sages, we too should clothe the naked. But even this is open to interpretation. On one level, it means that we should put clothing on our children. It could also mean that we should give clothing to the needy. Giving old but usable clothing to Goodwill comes to mind here. Yet there is even a higher level. It is only humans who wear clothing. Therefore clothing the naked could mean that we are to do anything that will make people more human. This means anything that we can do to educate people to become more civil and more educated, especially in Torah and in ethical and human values. This lesson is one that really needs to be learned by those who are currently attending healthcare forums for the expressed purpose of shouting their anger and preventing legitimate discourse.
What else does God do?
Well God visits the sick. After Abraham’s circumcision, the Torah states that "And God appeared to him by the Oaks of Mamre." Therefore, we too should visit sick people. Often, there are many other things that come into our lives which seem to give us an excuse why we do not have enough time to visit the sick. This I call the tyranny of the calendar or lately in my case, the tyranny of the blackberry.
Nevertheless, we are to make the time to go and visit the sick. We are to go and listen to them, cheer them up, pray and meditate with them and simply to “be there” to let them know that they are loved. The rabbis even tell us that one who visits the sick relieves some of the pain of the illness.
God also comforts mourners. The Torah states: "And it came to pass after the death of Abraham, that G-d blessed Isaac his son" (Genesis 25:11). Therefore we too should comfort mourners. We should go and visit their home after the funeral. There too we should be good listeners and we should pray with them that God out of the “valley of the shadow of death,” they should find the light of healing.
God also buries the dead. At the end of Deuteronomy, the Torah states that God buries Moses in a valley. (Deuteronomy 34:6). If God buries Moses, even the more so, we are to participate in the actual burial of our dead. This is the basis for the Jewish belief that at the end of a funeral, each individual actually shovels three spades of earth into the open grave. This is actually called a “Hesed shel Emet,” an act of loving kindness. This is such a holy act because of the fact that it is something for which the person from whom it is done can never repay us. Giving a loved one or a member of the community and honorable burial is as it were a great favor, and honorable deed, a favor which the diseased cannot return.
I have always loved this ritual. It provides a sense of closure and it seems to give such great honor to the dead. At my father’s funeral, I watched as some one hundred and fifty people participated in this Mitzvah. There were people there that I had not seen in years. It was a though I was watching my father’s history and the history of my childhood pass by in front of my eyes. I felt a sense of gratitude towards those who had come to his funeral and who were participating in his actual burial.
For this reason, I have also found it rather strange to attend a funeral when the community leaves before the casket is lowered and there is no opportunity to shovel dirt into the grave. I often find myself asking, “When are we going to finish what needs to be done?” I also think that it is a little strange that we allow grave diggers who did not know the person to complete this task. I imagine that one hundred years ago in North Carolina, everyone helped bury the person who had died. In modern times for some reason, we find this to be too distasteful. In so doing, we have lost an opportunity to imitate God, to do what God did when God burying Moses more than three thousand years ago!
One of the strangest passages in the entire Talmud seems to imply that God even prays! This is really problematic. To whom does God pray?
We Jews are absolute monotheists. Earlier in the service we recited Shema Yisrael Adonai Elohaynu Adonai Echad. Listen Jews! There is only one God. Listen people the God who created the universe is also the same God who is found within each one of us.
The passage in question begins with Rabbi Yochanan saying that he once heard Rabbi Yosi once ask the question “How do we know that the Holy One, blessed be He, says prayers?” A verse is quoted from the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 56:7) the verse states "I, meaning God, will bring them to My holy mountain and make them joyful in the house of My prayer". However, the words My house of prayer could also be translated as the house of My prayer.” If so Rabbi Yosi asks, what is God’s prayer?
Rabbi Zutra answers that the prayer of God is “May it be My will that My mercy may suppress My anger, and that My mercy may prevail over My other attributes, so that I may deal with My children in the attribute of mercy and, on their behalf, stop short of the limit of strict justice.”
Why would God need to say such a prayer? The answer is not so simple.
Elsewhere in the Talmud (B. Rosh Hashana 17b), there is a passage wherein God actually teaches Moses how to put on a prayer shawl or a tallit in order to pray for the forgiveness of the people. The passage in question occurs after the sin of the Golden Calf and God is showing Moses by example how to ask for forgiveness on their behalf.
So now if we go back to the original passage of God’s prayer – Following that passage, there is a scene is described wherein Rabbi Ishmael ben Elisha once entered the innermost part of the sanctuary and saw God. God asked the Rabbi Ishmael to bless whereupon Rabbi Ishmael said, “May it be Your will that Your mercy may suppress Your anger and Your mercy may prevail over Your other attributes, so that You may deal with Your children according to the attribute of mercy and may, on their behalf, stop short of the limit of strict justice!”
What had Rabbi Ishmael done here? He had repeated the original prayer of God!
The great medieval commentator Rashi says that the verse, “To walk in all His ways (Deut 11:22),” means that just as God is merciful, so too should we be merciful. Just as God does acts of kindness, so too should we do acts of kindness.
So the importance of this is that God is the ultimate role model. God clothes the naked, visits the sick, comforts the bereaved, buries the dead, teaches us how to pray and how to put on a talit and, most importantly, deals with the world through kindness, compassion and love.
For those of us who are parents, let us realize that for our children, we too are the ultimate role models. If they see us being angry, they will be angry. On the other hand, if we are compassionate, they will be compassionate. If they see us taking care of our elderly parents, then they will take care of us when we are elderly and in need of care and love. If they see us praying, they will take prayer seriously.
The list could go on and on.
Rabbi Levi Cooper of the Pardes institute in Jerusalem writes: “Education is not just about telling someone else what to do, how to act or when to speak. Education is more about modeling worthy conduct. In truth, the educator teaches the self. The passion of the educator breeds enthusiasm in the student; conversely the student can "smell" an educator who lacks fervor or who has lost eagerness. Our sages paint the image of God as an educator teaching by example, passionately praying. God does not just command: "Pray!" The pedagogic lesson that the sages suggest is more refined; God encourages us: "Pray as I do." If God teaches by modeling desired behavior, surely when we educate - as parents, as community leaders, or in any setting - our first order must be to teach by example.”
Friends. On this holy Shabbat, may it be God’s will that we will become imitators of God that we will do what the Torah says that God does. Above all, may we, especially those of us who are parents, accept the challenge of being good role models for our children.
The rabbis then asked, "What is it that God does that we should imitate?" Several examples are given.
In Genesis, God makes clothing for Adam and Eve. Thus according to the sages, we too should clothe the naked. But even this is open to interpretation. On one level, it means that we should put clothing on our children. It could also mean that we should give clothing to the needy. Giving old but usable clothing to Goodwill comes to mind here. Yet there is even a higher level. It is only humans who wear clothing. Therefore clothing the naked could mean that we are to do anything that will make people more human. This means anything that we can do to educate people to become more civil and more educated, especially in Torah and in ethical and human values. This lesson is one that really needs to be learned by those who are currently attending healthcare forums for the expressed purpose of shouting their anger and preventing legitimate discourse.
What else does God do?
Well God visits the sick. After Abraham’s circumcision, the Torah states that "And God appeared to him by the Oaks of Mamre." Therefore, we too should visit sick people. Often, there are many other things that come into our lives which seem to give us an excuse why we do not have enough time to visit the sick. This I call the tyranny of the calendar or lately in my case, the tyranny of the blackberry.
Nevertheless, we are to make the time to go and visit the sick. We are to go and listen to them, cheer them up, pray and meditate with them and simply to “be there” to let them know that they are loved. The rabbis even tell us that one who visits the sick relieves some of the pain of the illness.
God also comforts mourners. The Torah states: "And it came to pass after the death of Abraham, that G-d blessed Isaac his son" (Genesis 25:11). Therefore we too should comfort mourners. We should go and visit their home after the funeral. There too we should be good listeners and we should pray with them that God out of the “valley of the shadow of death,” they should find the light of healing.
God also buries the dead. At the end of Deuteronomy, the Torah states that God buries Moses in a valley. (Deuteronomy 34:6). If God buries Moses, even the more so, we are to participate in the actual burial of our dead. This is the basis for the Jewish belief that at the end of a funeral, each individual actually shovels three spades of earth into the open grave. This is actually called a “Hesed shel Emet,” an act of loving kindness. This is such a holy act because of the fact that it is something for which the person from whom it is done can never repay us. Giving a loved one or a member of the community and honorable burial is as it were a great favor, and honorable deed, a favor which the diseased cannot return.
I have always loved this ritual. It provides a sense of closure and it seems to give such great honor to the dead. At my father’s funeral, I watched as some one hundred and fifty people participated in this Mitzvah. There were people there that I had not seen in years. It was a though I was watching my father’s history and the history of my childhood pass by in front of my eyes. I felt a sense of gratitude towards those who had come to his funeral and who were participating in his actual burial.
For this reason, I have also found it rather strange to attend a funeral when the community leaves before the casket is lowered and there is no opportunity to shovel dirt into the grave. I often find myself asking, “When are we going to finish what needs to be done?” I also think that it is a little strange that we allow grave diggers who did not know the person to complete this task. I imagine that one hundred years ago in North Carolina, everyone helped bury the person who had died. In modern times for some reason, we find this to be too distasteful. In so doing, we have lost an opportunity to imitate God, to do what God did when God burying Moses more than three thousand years ago!
One of the strangest passages in the entire Talmud seems to imply that God even prays! This is really problematic. To whom does God pray?
We Jews are absolute monotheists. Earlier in the service we recited Shema Yisrael Adonai Elohaynu Adonai Echad. Listen Jews! There is only one God. Listen people the God who created the universe is also the same God who is found within each one of us.
The passage in question begins with Rabbi Yochanan saying that he once heard Rabbi Yosi once ask the question “How do we know that the Holy One, blessed be He, says prayers?” A verse is quoted from the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 56:7) the verse states "I, meaning God, will bring them to My holy mountain and make them joyful in the house of My prayer". However, the words My house of prayer could also be translated as the house of My prayer.” If so Rabbi Yosi asks, what is God’s prayer?
Rabbi Zutra answers that the prayer of God is “May it be My will that My mercy may suppress My anger, and that My mercy may prevail over My other attributes, so that I may deal with My children in the attribute of mercy and, on their behalf, stop short of the limit of strict justice.”
Why would God need to say such a prayer? The answer is not so simple.
Elsewhere in the Talmud (B. Rosh Hashana 17b), there is a passage wherein God actually teaches Moses how to put on a prayer shawl or a tallit in order to pray for the forgiveness of the people. The passage in question occurs after the sin of the Golden Calf and God is showing Moses by example how to ask for forgiveness on their behalf.
So now if we go back to the original passage of God’s prayer – Following that passage, there is a scene is described wherein Rabbi Ishmael ben Elisha once entered the innermost part of the sanctuary and saw God. God asked the Rabbi Ishmael to bless whereupon Rabbi Ishmael said, “May it be Your will that Your mercy may suppress Your anger and Your mercy may prevail over Your other attributes, so that You may deal with Your children according to the attribute of mercy and may, on their behalf, stop short of the limit of strict justice!”
What had Rabbi Ishmael done here? He had repeated the original prayer of God!
The great medieval commentator Rashi says that the verse, “To walk in all His ways (Deut 11:22),” means that just as God is merciful, so too should we be merciful. Just as God does acts of kindness, so too should we do acts of kindness.
So the importance of this is that God is the ultimate role model. God clothes the naked, visits the sick, comforts the bereaved, buries the dead, teaches us how to pray and how to put on a talit and, most importantly, deals with the world through kindness, compassion and love.
For those of us who are parents, let us realize that for our children, we too are the ultimate role models. If they see us being angry, they will be angry. On the other hand, if we are compassionate, they will be compassionate. If they see us taking care of our elderly parents, then they will take care of us when we are elderly and in need of care and love. If they see us praying, they will take prayer seriously.
The list could go on and on.
Rabbi Levi Cooper of the Pardes institute in Jerusalem writes: “Education is not just about telling someone else what to do, how to act or when to speak. Education is more about modeling worthy conduct. In truth, the educator teaches the self. The passion of the educator breeds enthusiasm in the student; conversely the student can "smell" an educator who lacks fervor or who has lost eagerness. Our sages paint the image of God as an educator teaching by example, passionately praying. God does not just command: "Pray!" The pedagogic lesson that the sages suggest is more refined; God encourages us: "Pray as I do." If God teaches by modeling desired behavior, surely when we educate - as parents, as community leaders, or in any setting - our first order must be to teach by example.”
Friends. On this holy Shabbat, may it be God’s will that we will become imitators of God that we will do what the Torah says that God does. Above all, may we, especially those of us who are parents, accept the challenge of being good role models for our children.
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