Commemoration and Celebration

On Sunday a few hundred students of all the synagogues in Indianapolis gathered for the last of a series of events to commemorate the Shoah (the Holocaust) in connection to the annual Jewish day of remembering Yom HaShoah.  These students experiences lessons seeing not only the horror of the Shoah but also the hope, using the story of Janus Korczak, a polish doctor and educator who stayed with his children in a Warsaw ghetto orphanage he ran instead of saving himself.  He helped the children find a valued social role in the depths of despair and walked with them when the NAZIs cleared the ghetto and send the children with others to their deaths in the Treblinka death camps.  Korczak's work, before the war, was seen as a ground breaking view of childhood (which many argue was a 19th century invention but we will discuss that later) and his writing influenced great what would decades later become the UN Declaration of Children's Rights.  Korczak, for many, is seen as a hero who saved not lives necessarily but souls of people, especially children.  He kept despair from taking over.  And we don't truly learn about him.

For a long time Holocaust Education dominated Jewish education.  Look in any synagogue library and I would bet the largest single section is books about the Shoah.  Include novels about the war and youth fiction telling Holocaust stories and I would guess in most there are more books about Europe 1933-1945 then all the other circulation collection combined.  This is because it was a powerful reminder in the modern world (the Shoah occurred during the life time of my mother) of the kinds of atrocities that have visited on the Jewish people historically but the first time in a modern, Democratic member of a world community.  As the world globalized after WW1 there was a phrase that that war was the war to end all wars.  While Germany was highly punished for their role in WW! they were slowly being welcomed into this new world community.  They went in a different direction.  But we must remember Adolph Hitler was elected before he became the dictator he said he would.  This has also led American educators and politicians to make the Shoah a centerpiece of education to avoid this in the future.  For week each spring governments and schools hold ceremonies, invite speakers, and try to remember the history.  Even if the Jewish population is tiny or non-existent.  Some communities even turn this education into a project that defines them as seen with the documentary Paperclips.  But all this attention alone, while important and helps us understand the roots of hate that could lead to other genocides if also paints a less than complete picture of Judaism.  For Jews, this week we have another commemoration and a celebration.  We will remember the Israeli war dead in a day of remembrance but this week is also Israel Independence Day.  A day to recall and celebrate the return of a Jewish state in the land of Israel.  While politics plays a role in why this is not an important piece for non-Jews, I believe as Jews we need to embrace the temporal connection of the two days.  Not because the Nation of Israel is compensation for the horror of the Shoah, but that is part of a story beyond the camps.  I met a survivor once at a training who carries with her when she speaks a picture of her family, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.  Her story is that Judaism didn't end in 1945, we are a vibrant people who still live.  Am Israel Chai.  I agree.  When we as a people spent so much time talking about the people who try to kill us, our children will wonder what the upside is to remaining connected to the Jewish people.  The Shoah not only dominated education but was worked into the Seder at Passover, Yom Kippur, and is mentioned at various times throughout the year.  For a young child wanting to embrace their tradition they are struck with a history of hate.  But even worse is that if those outside of Judaism see us as victims of European hate we fall into the category of a past people not a modern one.  And that is a a real problem  If the only time Jews are mentioned in school curriculum is the Shoah, if high schools only read Night and Number the Stars, and if the only other connection to Judaism is the stereotyped characters on TV then we become an interesting anachronism and are not seen as a modern people.

I would like to propose a new holiday, Yom Shel Chai, a Day of Life, one day after Yom HaShoah.  It is a day to celebrate the Jewish accomplishments since 1945.  A day to see the regrowth of European Judaism, the rise of Western Jews in the American disapora and a holiday that could create new rituals that honor Hebrew school students, Adult B'nai Mitzvah or conversions.  Schools and museums could couple the two days, still teaching that we cannot forget the Shoah, but we still have room in our brains for the power of all that Judaism has given the world since.  Even if it is simply our own children's ability to read Torah.  Celebrating who we are as a people will remind ourselves and others that we thrive, despite a history with darkness and death, Am Israel Chai, the Jewish people live.

Pride and Triumph

Tonight I was blessed that I was able to attend a pinning ceremony for Medtech nursing school graduates.  A friend who I respect greatly had finished her course work and with her colleagues were being honored.   The ceremony goes back to the 1800s where a new nurse will receive a badge welcoming him or her into the community of nursing.  The auditorium at a local high school was filled with happy friends, families and colleagues who came to honor the graduates.  Graduates that will soon be embarking on a career of caring.  As  I watched the people cross the stage I could see the pride in their family and friends.  Some had parents, but many has also spouses, children, siblings and others.  Through the whole ceremony it was not uncommon to hear hoots, applause, names called, and literal screams.  The people who were there had so much pride in their new nurse. I didn't know the stories of the people involved but I gleaned that for some it seemed they overcame great odds.  For others it may have been the first professional in the family.  Even others, it seemed like it was a chance to start over, to follow a dream.  We all  knew this was an accomplishment, one that required sacrificing family and friend time and some comforts.  But even more astounding to me was the real sense of community that the faculty shared with this diverse group of graduate nurses.  Faculty and administrators called names of students to receive pins and seemed to get choked up.  Hugs, tears and inside jokes were common throughout the event and in the end some 50 people will join the front line in providing care to the sick, the injured and the elderly.  They seemed to already have a community of colleagues to help smooth what is for sure a difficult profession.  

As an outsider I am sure I only saw through the proverbial knot hole in the fence.  But I am happy I caught the glimpses I did.  Congratulations to all the graduates, and to my friend Lisa, who will always have my admiration.

 

False Equivalencies.

The Trayvon Martin case has captured the nation but for some it has become a way to make their own political points, and it is not who you think.  Yes, people like Al Sharpton dedicated the better part of the last month to the case, but he was invited in by Martin's parents.  But there has been a steady parade of false equivalencies.  The first came in the form of a gang related shooting in downtown Indianapolis, people like Abdul-Hakim Shabazz wondered aloud if there would be a march for dead black youth killed by other members of their own race.  Then some reached back into the last decade, when a white couple were brutally killed by a group of young African-American men and some asked "where were the marches".  (In fact I recall a few but there was a lot less national outrage), and once again today another call for some kind of march for black on black killing in Indy.  Some don't see the difference.  The marches in the Martin case had more to do with the lack of the police and district attorney's interest in following the evidence and at least investigating the crime.  In each other situation the police did their jobs and in at least two mentioned arrests were made.  Unlike the Martin case where there seemed to be more interest in the police smearing the victim's memory than finding cause to arrest the man who executed him.

So some say marches only occur when a black person is killed by someone outside of their community.  But this weekend two young white men were randomly shooting black people in Tulsa OK killing 3 and injuring 2.  The police did their jobs, there were arrests and while preliminary reports suggest that race played a role there is no call at this writing for protests.  Again the police worked with the community and did their jobs.  As the investigation moves forward as long as the law is used in an appropriate way in a week we will likely not be talking about it.  You see the protest is not that a young black man was killed in Florida when George Zimmerman stalked him and shot him.  It was that the authorities were not interested in justice.  Regardless of race we should all expect justice and frankly we should take to the streets when it doesn't come from those we hire to bring it.

While I agree we should be outraged by black and black crime, I believe that the very lack of value placed on the life of Trayvon Martin and many other African Americans by the authorities have helped lead the devaluing of life by the very young black men who throw shots at each other so comfortably.  Perhaps in the interest of moving forward we can organize a real discussion about this and not stand on soap box and scream at each other.

The Crowded Seder Plate

Recently I have noticed a real uptick in the number of items finding their way into the Passover Seder for contemporary Jews.  Last year I wrote about the orange, a symbol originally meant to remind us of the LGBT community's rightful place in Klal Yisrael, which quickly morphed into being about women, with its own apocryphal story.  We had already seen the Kos Miriam, Miriam's cup come to the table to remind us of her role in the redemption of the people. But lately we see more and more produce finding its way to the table.  Olives, a symbol not only of peace but a staple in the Middle East is said to be a symbol of hope for the end of the Arab/Israeli conflict. A few days ago I saw something from an influential colleague Amichai Lau Levi, (as Hadassah Gross) he requests we add an apple to the table to remind us being a good consumers (honestly I can't tell if Amichai is being serious here and am afraid to ask) and today I got a contact with someone asking for a tomato to be included to remind us of modern day slavery.

One could ask what it happening to us as a people.  We can think of the song Tradition, from Fiddler which pleads we do things because that is the way they have always been done.  That would be a wrong read of both the Seder and the development of what it means to be Jewish.  Tradition, which is not only something we receive from our parents but the gift we give our children, is and should be influenced by every generation.  In the Seder that has clearly been the case.  Look at any 3 Haggadot (Prayer book for the Seder) in any Jewish bookstore and you will see the influence of various times on the service. Things entered and exited over the history and of course important events in the lives of the Jewish people found a reminder and a home in meal.  (For example many Haggadot written after 1960 reference the Shoah [the Holocaust]).  Even I have rewritten the section of the service as we begin to close the evening and invite Elijah the Prophet into the home.  While some writers have eliminated the words from the Bible that include a call for God to "Pour out your wrath on those who do not believe".  I explore that section in context of history but have rewritten it as a call for a true multi-faith expression asking God to pour out God's love to all who seek Godness.

But I wonder about all these new things becoming so quickly institutionalized and will they in fact lose their meaning and/or take away from the meaning of the Seder historically.  The orange is a perfect example of how a meaningful act can be so easily be changed to do exactly what it was placed on the Seder plate to avoid.  The orange evolved from an attempt for a group of lesbian students to create their own Seder.  They put a crust of bread on the seder plate as a powerful message that they were seen as having no place in Jewish life.  Susannah Heschel suggested that gays and lesbians to not violate the community of Judaism as the bread would a Seder but add something different and suggested the orange, including creating a ritual of spitting out the orange's bitter seeds as a way of symbolically spitting out the bigotry and hate.  In less than 10 years the story was changed that a male rabbi was talking about women in the Rabbinate being like bread on the Seder plate and the orange became a symbol of women's roles in Judaism, completely disappearing the importance of the symbol to gays and lesbians.

I don't want to argue that the Seder can't be changed, modified, and added to, in fact I encourage it.  But there has to be meaning for you.  Being trendy about adding something because a famous Rabbi or your local cool Education Director did it doesn't make the ritual meaningful.  There is a reason we do the Seder in the home, the Seder is yours.  There are rituals far and wide that fit neatly into family Seders.  But in the end the ritual is empty without a clear meaning.  Add more fruits to your seder if you will, ask the questions that prompt us to think beyond ourselves, but do it with great concern and kavannah (intention).  Don't do it to be cool or because that is how it has to be done.  It doesn't.  Remember, we are all suppose to see ourselves as having personally come out of Mitzraim, what is your Mitzraim?

Will I bring Treyvon Martin to my college reunion?

I was thinking about what I was like when I was in college as my 25^th reunion approaches. Le Moyne College in the 80s was populated by a fairly conservative student body, and I wasn’t conservative politically which made for a fun time for this liberal, but there were some serious events that caused debate.  Apartheid, poverty, Reagan’s conservative muscle flexing and of course the constant racial divide not only on campus but around the country. 

 One story really brought some of those issues to the national awareness.  Bernard Goetz, a man who took a gun onto a New York City Subway and used it when menaced by some black youths.  He shot and injured the people he said tried to mug him.  Some say even he was hunting and fired into a severely injured assailant beyond a self-defense need.  There were many versions of the story but it didn’t take long that NYC and much of the country was divided along racial lines.  While Goetz was only convicted of an illegal gun charge, it refocused our attention on what is self-defense.  Some say this was revenge for previously being mugged.  That he was out hunting bad guys.  Debates were numerous and I even remember the Western Civilization Club at Le Moyne using the subway vigilante theme for a poster for a movie night featuring one of the Death Wish movies. 

I remember thinking many times that while racial issues were always bubbling that by the time of our 25^th reunion we would be beyond that.  I truly had hope which many times over the last 25 years seemed to be both bolstered with the pinnacle being the election of President Obama, as well as destroyed by the fall out of things like the OJ trial.  We are still a racial divided country and one that seems to at times be getting worse.  But in the last few weeks it appears the country is nostalgic for the days of Bernie Goetz. 

In late February a man who fancied himself a neighborhood watch captain shot and killed a young black man he suspected of being a criminal.  His suspicion seemed to be fueled by the young man’s race.  He stalked him and executed him.  Standing behind a law that allows someone attacked to stand their ground, he was not charged and in fact the police treated the dead body as that of suspect.  However what we do know happened that night was the George Zimmerman called the police for the 46^th time this year to report a suspicious person in the neighborhood.  When he was asked if he was following him, he said yes.  The dispatcher told him “we don’t need you to do that” a phrase that in many circles means, “Don’t follow him”.  There was a confrontation, someone yelled help and Treyvan Martin, a 17 year old boy with Skittles, Ice Tea and a cell phone was dead.   At first it went mostly unnoticed.  I read a paragraph about it in early March but the firestorm of interest began when it was discovered by the 24 hour news world.  We now have several versions of what happened that night, witnesses with conflicted stories and a police department under scrutiny for racial problems but now and in the past.  What we also have is the right wing noise machine trying to make the victim the problem while Mr. Zimmerman is still free, still has his gun and is being treated by some as a hero.

Like the Goetz case there is a racial divide here and that makes me sad.  Unlike Goetz however there is also a serious effort to see if this is a story beyond simply the racial issues but a larger concern about what it means to defend one’s self.  We have heard many things.  Glenn Beck wondered aloud on his echo chamber of a radio show if Mr. Martin may have been a murderer or a kidnapper (with no evidence of anything close to that).  Geraldo Rivera suggests the attire of Mr. Martin (a hoodie in the rain) contributed to his death.  Others blame Rev. Al Sharpton, another piece of 80s nostalgia is just pour gas on the flame as he was one of the first people to make this a national story.  But what I see and I see it sadly, it is a lot like Goetz.  Complex human psychology, a country willing to empower certain behavior even if sparked by some kind of racism, and the ubiquitous guns in the hands of people who may have series psychological problems.  The difference is that I truly do believe that our country is getting better,  that young white people seem to connect more to Mr. Martin than Mr. Zimmerman, that thousands are wearing hoodies in protest of the craziness of Geraldo’s and other’s attitude and there is a much better effort looking for justice. 

As I continue to think about how I will be seen in June in Syracuse maybe I will focus on how far we have come and not the stunted growth of our culture as I see it in this story.  But a part of me wants to show up in a hoodie.  I wonder how many people expect me to.

Elisha Ben Abuya

Elisha ben Abuya is a Talmudic character of high interest.  In fact the book As A Driven Leaf by Milton Steinberg is a fictional account of his life.  In one story about this Sage of the first century is in the Talmud (Hullin 142a) where the he witnesses a boy climb a tree at his father's request (honouring his father) to get eggs (and remembers to shoo away the mother bird). Fulfilling two commandments that the Torah declares the reward for is a long life.    Elisha remarks, 'This boy is surely going to have a long life.' No sooner than he says this, the boy falls from the tree, breaks his neck and dies. Elisha's faith in God and true judgement evaporates and in that moment declares there is no true Judge in reference to God.   Elisha becomes an apostate, and is given the name Ocher ( the other one ), and becomes the foil throughout the Talmud for teaching the right way to approach the text.  


I thought of this story this morning when a friend, filling me in on her life, told me of two recent deaths.  One, her father-in-law, a man of age but still even with grandchildren left this world too soon.  The other was harder.  A ten year old, sent to bed with what was diagnosed as a flu fell victim to the misdiagnosed pneumonia that stole his last breath.  Each story added to the other's tragedy for my friend.  But the more I thought about it I was reminded of the story of Ocher.   Sometimes we are confronted with the things in our lives that defy explanation.  We strive to find meaning and sooth ourselves with the phrases like "everything is for a reason".  Sometimes it is not.  Sometimes it is the randomness of the universe more dynamic that we can imagine.  Sometimes the branch breaks.  


I think about this when I hear friends talk about both the profound and the ordinary events in their lives.  They use language like "God has another plan".  It is a comfort and I would think a curse to live with that as a belief.  For Ocher it destroyed his faith so much he became at times a personification of every kind of evil, even in one myth getting to visit paradise only to pull up all the flowers.  I cannot believe in a God who has so much involvement in the little details and if I did I would wonder why a God would have let that little boy go to bed.  I think it too easy to see God in the every day set backs and the great tragedies of our lives.  I remember the moment when this struck me the most.  It was almost 25 years ago and those who know me know of Linda's story.  I remember a man telling me that her death was God's way of telling me to live differently.  How can that be a God I worship?   


I will never see God as a player and me a pawn in the game.  My God is one that I seek to bring and express in the world.  I still can't wrap my head around the death of a child, but it is easier to believe in a God created universe where children will die for a variety of reasons without meaning, than one who would take a child just to force a single person to think differently.  Ocher was right in one respect.  There is no true judge, that isn't God's job, it is our job to create a world where we don't need one.

Cars going round in a circle.

When Noah was 2 years old and we lived in the south we would spend some Sunday afternoon watching the NASCAR races together as we played games or hung out.  It was a fun way to get some knowledge about a sport that was important to some of the people I worked with and of course make Noah happy.  Before that time much of what I knew about NASCAR was from ESPN and Jim Rome who called it Neckcar.  But what I discovered was a science that seemed so amazing.  The engineers who build the engines and the cars, the way the drivers use simple physics to gain a few extra miles per hour or manage to squeeze into spaces a few inches bigger than their cars really was remarkable.  However I was not much of a fan of the fans of NASCAR.  My one encounter that I will never forget a time I was flying early on a Monday morning out of Atlanta.  The day before was the New Hampshire race and there were many fans going home on my flight.  I could easily tell them as they were dressed up like their favorite driver.  Apparently there was an encounter the day before between Jeff Gordan and the late Dale Earnhart.  Their fans were jeering each other.  But even more noticable was that many of these fine young gentlemen had with them a six pack cooler as their carry on.  So I assumed that I was on the party flight to Georgia, just what I needed for a flight at 8:30am.  But much to my surprise when we approached the jetway one of these men opened their cooler to pull out his ticket and what looked like it sat on was a pile of underwear and socks, folded into the cooler.  This was his luggage.  Bravo for ingenuity.

In the years since I find myself gravitating toward the weekly car races from February to November.  I even started to question the ever changing points system, and can talk about the car of tomorrow with the best of them.  I know what the center of corner is and sometimes am tempted to get someone on the highway loose and spin em into the wall.  I have become a fan.  Last week I settled in to watch the Daytona 500 only the have it delayed over and over again.  I really missed it.  I loved it on Monday night and stayed up too late to watch.  I think I didn't want to admit how much a fan I am, but I have sat in stockcar, gunned the engine, and may one day do the fantasy camp.  I want to be part of the crowd and see the race.  Perhaps and the track in Northern California, or at least a track with a sushi bar.

The Right is Never Satisfied

So while I was away the GOP completely imploded and we have Rick Santorum, the Christian solider who wants to outlaw contraception saying "One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country.... Many of the Christian faith have said, well, that's okay, contraception is okay. It's not okay. It's a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be."

So it wasn't a surprise that the right went nuts over a provision in the Health Care Reform bill that requires contraception coverage in health insurance.  While there were exceptions for houses of worship and those programs directly connected to the propagation of the faith, things like hospitals, charities, and other religiously affiliated programs were not.  The Catholic Church and the media went crazy.  They actually accused the President that he was trying to destroy the church.  The amazing thing is that the President was trying to do a lot and he did screw up on this one, but it seemed like there was a compromise in the works from the beginning.  The indigent church trotted out Arch-Bishops and self-described "good" Catholics who discussed the President's over-reach.  However 14% of the contraception medications prescribed are for important medical conditions that are not related to preventing pregnancy.  However the church didn't seem to care about that, they saw it as any compromise on this so-called value of theirs on this one issue.  The media loved the fight, but if they were doing their jobs they would have asked that the church also take a stand against insurance companies funding Viagra or penile implant surgery.  You see single men could get access to these medical enhancements along with the married ones.  Yet we don't see the Arch-Bishop on TV looking for and exemption for that.  Is the idea of encouraging sex outside of marriage okay, but contraception is a fight worth taking?  Sounds hypocritical to me, in part because a large percentage of American Catholics have used some form of artificial contraception.  

So now there is a compromise and of course there will be some who will still hate anything, but it also tells me that we cannot simply allow the right wing nuts to control the narrative.  We must continue to question the craziness that is driving the GOP and will be part of the Presidential race.  We cannot simply be complacent.  

On Leaving for Kenya

On Sunday I get on a plane in Indianapolis and 24 hours later I arrive in Nairobi for what will be a wonderful and eye opening experience.  While for 3 years I have been involved in the Global Interfaith Partnership and have read the stories of journeys to the region but I know I get to see it myself.  There is a part of my that has no idea what to expect.  I have been thinking a lot about the small nuisances of our daily lives and wonder how with all of those little nuisances my life is so easy.  I hope that my eyes will be opened to a new way to see the world.  But I still have no real notion of how things will change me.  What I do know is that I am excited to be able to go and I hope you will join me reading how my thoughts develop.

Stories help survival

This is a D'var Torah (like a sermon) given at my synagogue on the final chapters of the Book of Genesis.  Please enjoy:

In this week’s Torah portion the Children of Israel reach a crossroads and the question of their future survival comes up, a survival without a direct link to God through an individual. As we close the book of Bereshit (Genesis) and tie up loose ends we also find that the story takes a bit of a pause. Next week we are transported generations into the future and watch the Israelites enter into slavery in Egypt.

Two significant deaths occur in this portion. Jacob and Joseph both die. Their deaths mark the end of the time of the patriarchs, and for generations the Torah is silent about what happens with the people. We can only assume God’s silence as well through their time in Egypt. Throughout the Genesis narrative God seems to find someone to help instill the people with a sense of identity and reveal God’s own purpose for them. Now we find the Children of Israel thriving in Egypt without any record God intervening. When we do turn the page next week we find a stark change, with slavery being imposed. Then for the majority of the next 4 books, the Torah discusses the development of People Of Israel, through the Exodus and the wandering in the desert, the giving of the Torah and finally entering the land of Israel. It is as if the book of Genesis is simply prologue. Even Joseph hints at this when his brothers come to him after Jacob’s death. Fearing Joseph would take revenge for their treatment of him, they plead with him for mercy. But Joseph, not seeking revenge basically says, “no worries, this is all part of God’s plan”. His words suggest that all of this is leading up to something much greater than their current situation. That his suffering was simply part of a plan.

So closing out Genesis we move into a time with the Israelites having to move ahead without a direct connection to God. Jacob worried about what would happen to his descendants. Surrounded by the comforts of Egypt and far from the land of their ancestors Jacob was afraid they would forget God. He gathers his children to his bedside, and near death he wishes to tell them their future as a people, a vision he was shown by God, but when he tries to retell what he knows, no words come. This further brings fear to Jacob. He blesses each son, but is unsettled by the notion that he cannot instill in them the hope of the future. But his fears are not realized. For when they become aware of Jacob’s fear, the Talmud teaches us that Jacob's children responded:


"Sh'ma Israel Adonai Elohenu, Adonai Echad, Listen Israel,(Using Jacob’s name given to him when he wrestled with the mysterious figure in the wilderness) the Lord is Our God, the Lord is One." They said "Just as in your heart there is only One God, so, too, in our heart there is only One." At that moment Jacob responded whispering, "Baruch Shem Kevod Malchuto L'olam Va'ed, Blessed is the Name and glorious kingdom forever and ever." [Pesachim 56a]

With these words, they assure their father that they truly accept the One God and that the Jewish people will continue.

So before he dies he asks his family to bring his body back to Canaan and bury him in the Cave of Machpelah, with his ancestors. This reinforces the connection to the past in his children. They do this with all the fanfare of Egyptian royalty.

Joseph also dies but he is buried in an Egyptian royal ceremony in a Sarcophagus, in Egypt. But as he died he too asked that when the Children of Israel finally leave Egypt they take his bones with them, back to the land of his fathers and mothers following in the tradition of Jacob.

This connection to the land and to our ancestors is an important part of our people. In Egypt our people remembered the connection back to a time when God walked with the Matriarchs and Patriarchs. For us we link generation to generation through those stories we read every week in our Torah, a Torah handed down through the millennia. We repeat that handing down again today from one generation to another symbolically as Jordan becomes a Bar Mitzvah and takes on the responsibility of bringing Judaism into the future. Like Jacob’s descendants, he and his generation will do this by building on a foundation that has been planted in him by family and community. Judaism has always relied on looking back to where we came from while moving forward, forging a new definition of who we are in each generation, and building on that past. The Torah and the sages’ comments on it throughout history give us our foundation. Jacob’s children kept the burning ember of their identity alive in Egypt with the memory of what they knew of the God of Abraham and Sarah. These were the family stories, the history. This memory is symbolized in the Midrash in the person of Sirach bat Asher. Her name is listed in the Torah among those who went into Egypt with Jacob. Later the same name appears in the list of those who came out with Moses, generations later. The Rabbis tell us it was the same person, ageless and immortal. She takes on a mystical role in the story of our people, like a Forrest Gump or a Zelig type, who is there at important moments. Her duty is to carry the memories of the people and to remind them of what they might have forgotten. She is credited with remembering the promise to Joseph to take his bones when the people leave and even leads Moses to the place of his unmarked and long lost grave. While her legendary long life in some stories extends into modernity, she is a symbol of that which we should all strive for, to keep in mind the past. She is the keeper of the stories. Sirach’s voice reminds the people of what the ancient ancestors did in their time and how they encountered God. These encounters help us seek how we too can encounter God in our own time. We are a product of our past. The past is not a burden to carry but a wheel to help us move through our own time and allow our children to glide into the future.

It has helped sustain the Jewish people in good times and bad. We recently celebrated the holiday of Hanukah, a holiday that celebrates the success of a small group of zealots who fought against the Assyrians who wanted to end Jewish practice. What is often missing when we tell the story is that many Jews living under the rule of the Assyrians were happily giving up their traditions and adopting the Greek-influenced culture of the time. The Macabees, whether you like them or not, remembered the importance of being Jewish and fought back to maintain their identity. What is interesting is that this minor holiday has taken on a whole new meaning in the modern Diaspora as its proximity to Christmas has transformed it into a much more powerful statement of identity. For some elevating Hanukah is seen as an attempt at assimilation, but it can also be seen as a way of transforming our traditions to express identity publically and showing that we too can remember our past while living in the present. As long as the center of our celebration continues to be about our history and not a desire to share someone else’s.

We can see a similar and more significant response to modernity after the Enlightenment in Europe, Jews, having more opportunity to be part of the larger society transformed Judaism to create a balance between their present day experiences and our tradition of the past. Judaism survived the change because at the heart of the movement was an honoring of the fundamentals of Judaism, it was a thoughtful approach. The movements that developed gave birth to a way to continue to express a Jewish identity while not isolating ourselves from community and discovery. It was the outgrowth of that freedom of thought that helped to create the two movements this very synagogue affiliates with and allows us to express of Judaism in a way that matches our philosophy and understanding of God and the universe.

Our differences are still there, even as we blend more naturally today into the tapestry of our culture. It isn’t always easy to be part of the minority. Thinking back to Hanukah, often when faced with questions about our relationship to Christmas our response is “We’re Jewish, we don’t have Christmas we have Hanukah”. This sometimes is lampooned as a second rate holiday, nothing like the spectacular of Christmas. While our celebration of Hanukah is part of what defines us as a people, it is not our whole story. My friend and teacher, Ron Wolfson tries to look at that answer differently. He says.

“’We're Jewish--we have Hanukkah’ is only the beginning of the response. ‘We're Jewish, and we have Hanukkah, Sukkot, Passover, Shavuot, Purim, Simchat Torah, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Lag B'Omer, Yom Ha'atzma'ut, Tu B'shvat--and, most importantly, Shabbat every week.’


The child who has experienced the building of a sukkah will not feel deprived of trimming a tree. The child who has participated in a meaningful Passover Seder will not feel deprived of Christmas dinner. The child who has paraded with the Torah on Simchat Torah, planted trees at Tu B'shvat, brought first fruits at Shavuot, given mishloah manot at Purim, and welcomed the Shabbat weekly with candles and wine and challah by the time that child is three years old he or she will understand that to be Jewish is to be enriched by a calendar brimming with joyous celebration.”

Judaism survived the dark days of slavery in Egypt, the wandering in the desert, conquest after conquest, modernity, and our present day dilemmas because in our heart as a people we, like the Children of Jacob, The Children of Israel, we remember our stories and our fundamental connection to the One God, the God of Abraham and Sarah, so as we worry about the future of Judaism like Jacob did so long ago. When we remember who we are as a people, not in response to our neighbors but as a distinct part of our community we thrive. I think of those here today and especially the young people, our children, and I can say Sh’ma Yisrael, Adonai Elohenu, Adonai Echad and know that Baruch Shem Kavod Malchuto, L’olam Va’ed.


Have a happy and health 2012 and Shabbat Shalom.

Just trying to help....

So I took the day off, Noah had school and Dianne, well she just had energy.  So I was up early and then we got Noah to his Mom's house to take him downtown to school.  After a leisurely breakfast we had planned to go shopping when my cell phone rang. An electronic voice told me my Bank of America debit card had been reported missing and I had to push 1 to talk to security about reactivation.  Since I bank at the National Bank of Indianapolis and don't have a debit card I assumed it was a scam.  So I called Bank of America.  Of course I got a computer and after pushing several buttons and trying to avoid having to give them the account number I don't have with them I finally got someone.  After explaining the situation she seemed to question why I would call, so I explained that someone is using BofA's name to apparently fraud people she tried to transfer me to another division, she couldn't, then tried something else, only to have the phone cut me off.  Being the nice guy I am I tried again, called the fraud line, went through the phone menu, got ahold of someone who listened, looked up the number to make sure it wasn't a BofA number and then seemed to be clueless.  So I asked who would be contacting authorties to investigate.  He said he would pass it on to the right department.  What struck me was just how hard it was to report this.  This was not the first time I have had to investigate a phone call from someone who seemed to suggest that there was a problem with an account of mine.  But what really is amazing is how difficult it is to report such things.  I have called or emailed the Attorney General's office over calls received as we are on the no call list.  The form is mindnumbingly long and the only action they seem to take is to send a letter to you.  It doesn't stop the calls (but a low whistle into the phone does).  Law enforcement and the financial institutions want us to do our part about fraud and identity theft and many other crimes in which technology is used to glean information from others.  However it seems that when you want to help stop such things you are met with difficulties and red tape.  Why is it that they just don't make it easy to report such things.  If follow up is needed they could certainly call me.  But if someone were calling people, telling them he was me and trying to steal from them I know I would be interested in finding out who it was and if someone were to tell me I wouldn't play 20 questions to get the information.  Maybe BofA is just too big to be bothered with people getting robbed in their name.  Either way I may have to call the number that called me sometime from a public phone and see what I can find out.  You should too, the number is 701-509-8703.  Enjoy and stay legal.