“The Syrians are on the fences” – An Israeli Reform Synagogue in Holon is committed to help

‘The Syrians are on the fences’ is a phrase used in Israel to describe the threat from Syria to Israel when the two countries were in an active state of war. Today this same phrase is being used to describe the Syrian tragedy, just beyond the Israeli border.

Kehilat Kodesh V’Chol, a Reform synagogue in Holon, Israel (near Tel Aviv) (and my own synagogue’s sister-Israeli Reform synagogue) is helping an Israeli organization called “Just Beyond Our Border” to raise money through a congregation-wide bake sale to help Syrian children traumatized by the seven-year Syrian civil War.

Click onto this video. I have posted a translation of the narrator’s words below.

https://www.justbeyondourborder.com/english

“Since 2011 there has been a bloody war, right here, beyond the Israeli border. In these years, 470,000 people were killed, nearly two million were injured, and 6 million people were exiled or fled their homes. We must see the truth as it stands before our eyes.

The Syrians are on the fences, homeless, starving for bread,freezing on the cold nights,getting up every morning to their own personal disaster.

We have to keep the children out of this tragedy. They need food, medicine and clothing for the harsh winter in the area. These children need us, all of us. They need good people to lend a hand.

It is our Jewish, human and moral obligation  not to stand by and reach out to them.

“Forever is mercy built.” (Psalms 89)

Look for the ‘Syrians on fences’ and contribute.

Together, we will be on the right side of history.

 

 

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‘Israel Is a Fortress, but Not Yet a Home’: David Grossman’s Memorial Day Speech to Bereaved Israelis and Palestinians – Haaretz

Author David Grossman, whose son Uri was killed in the 2006 Lebanon War and who on Thursday will be awarded the 2018 Israel Prize for Literature, addressed bereaved Israelis and Palestinians at an alternative Memorial Day event on April 17, 2018. Below is the full text of his speech.

“Dear friends, good evening.

There is a lot of noise and commotion around our ceremony, but we do not forget that above all, this is a ceremony of remembrance and communion. The noise, even if it is present, is beyond us now, because at the heart of this evening there is a deep silence — the silence of the void created by loss.

My family and I lost Uri in the war, a young, sweet, smart and funny man. Almost twelve years later it is still hard for me to talk about him publicly.

The death of a loved one is actually also the death of a private, whole, personal and unique culture, with its own special language and its own secret, and it will never be again, nor will there be another like it.

It is indescribably painful to face that decisive ‘no.’ There are moments when it almost sucks into it all the ‘have’ and all the ‘yes.’ It is difficult and exhausting to constantly fight against the gravity of loss.

It is difficult to separate the memory from the pain. It hurts to remember, but it is even more frightening to forget. And how easy it is, in this situation, to give in to hate, rage, and the will to avenge.

But I find that every time I am tempted by rage and hate, I immediately feel that I am losing the living contact with my son. Something there is sealed. And I came to my decision, I made my choice. And I think that those who are here this evening — made that same choice.

And I know that within the pain there is also breath, creation, doing good. That grief does not isolate but also connects and strengthens. Here, even old enemies — Israelis and Palestinians — can connect with each other out of grief, and even because of it.

I have met quite a few bereaved families over these past years. I told them, in my experience, that even when you are at the heart of the pain you should remember that every member of the family is allowed to grieve the way they want, the way they are, and the way their soul tells them to.

No one can instruct another person how to grieve. It’s true for a private family, and it’s true for the larger ‘bereaved family.’

There is a strong feeling that connects us, a feeling of a joint fate, and the pain that only we know, for which there are almost no words out there, in the light. That is why, if the definition of a ‘bereaved family’ is genuine and honest, please respect our way. It deserves respect. It is not an easy path, it is not obvious, and it is not without its internal contradictions. But it is our way to give meaning to the death of our loved ones, and to our lives after their death. And it is our way to act, to do — not to despair and not to desist — so that one day, in the future, the war will fade, and maybe cease completely, and we will start living, living a full life, and not just subsisting from war to war, from disaster to disaster.

We, Israelis and Palestinians, who in the wars between us have lost those dearer to us, perhaps, than our own lives — we are doomed to touch reality through an open wound. Those wounded like that can no longer foster illusions. Those wounded like that know how much life is made up of great concessions, of endless compromise.

I think that grief makes us, those who are here tonight into more realistic people. We are clear-eyed, for example, about things relating to the limits of power, relating to the illusions that always accompany the one with the power.

And we are warier, more than we were before the disaster, and are filled with loathing every time we recognize a display of empty pride, or slogans of arrogant nationalism, or leaders’ haughty statements. We are more than wary: we are practically allergic. This week, Israel is celebrating 70 years. I hope we will celebrate many more years and many more generations of children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, who will live here alongside an independent Palestinian state, safely, peacefully and creatively, and — most importantly — in a serene daily routine, in good neighborliness; and they will feel at home here.

What is a home?

Home is a place whose walls — borders — are clear and accepted; whose existence is stable, solid, and relaxed; whose inhabitants know its intimate codes; whose relations with its neighbors have been settled. It projects a sense of the future.

And we Israelis, even after 70 years — no matter how many words dripping with patriotic honey will be uttered in the coming days — we are not yet there. We are not yet home. Israel was established so that the Jewish people, who have nearly never felt at-home-in-the-world, would finally have a home. And now, 70 years later, strong Israel may be a fortress, but it is not yet a home.

The solution to the great complexity of Israeli-Palestinian relations can be summed up in one short formula: if the Palestinians don’t have a home, the Israelis won’t have a home either.

The opposite is also true: if Israel will not be a home, then neither will Palestine.

I have two granddaughters, they are 6 and 3 years old. To them, Israel is self-evident. It is obvious to them that we have a state, that there are roads and schools and hospitals and a computer at kindergarten, and a living, rich Hebrew language.

I belong to a generation where none of these things are taken for granted, and that is the place from which I speak to you. From the fragile place that vividly remembers the existential fear, as well as the strong hope that now, finally, we have come home.

But when Israel occupies and oppresses another nation, for 51 years, and creates an apartheid reality in the occupied territories — it becomes a lot less of a home.

And when Minister of Defense Lieberman decides to prevent peace-loving Palestinians from attending a gathering like ours, Israel is less of a home.

When Israeli snipers kill dozens of Palestinian protesters, most of them civilians — Israel is less of a home.

And when the Israeli government attempts to improvise questionable deals with Uganda and Rwanda, and is willing to endanger the lives of thousands of asylum seekers and expel them to the unknown — to me, it is less of a home.

And when the prime minister defames and incites against human rights organizations, and when he is looking for ways to enact laws that bypass the High Court of Justice, and when democracy and the courts are constantly challenged, Israel becomes even a little less of a home —for everyone.

When Israel neglects and discriminates against residents on the fringes of society; when it abandons and continuously weakens the residents of southern Tel Aviv; when it hardens its heart to the plight of the weak and voiceless — Holocaust survivors, the needy, single-parent families, the elderly, boarding houses for children removed from their homes, and crumbling hospitals — it is less of a home. It is a dysfunctional home.

And when it neglects and discriminates against 1.5 million Palestinian citizens of Israel; when it practically forfeits the great potential they have for a shared life here — it is less of a home — both for the minority and the majority.

And when Israel strips away the Jewishness of millions of Reform and Conservative Jews — again it becomes less of a home. And every time artists and creators have to prove — in their creations — loyalty and obedience, not only to the state but to the ruling party — Israel is less of a home.

Israel is painful for us. Because it is not the home we want it to be. We acknowledge the great and wonderful thing that happened to us, by having a state, and we are proud of its accomplishments in many areas, in industry and agriculture, in culture and art, in I.T. and medicine and economics. But we also feel the pain of its distortion.

And the people and organizations who are here today, especially the Family Forum and Combatants For Peace, and many more like them, are perhaps the ones who contribute most to making Israel a home, in the fullest sense of the word.

And I want to say here, that half of the money from the Israel Prize that I will be receiving the day after tomorrow, I intend to donate and divide between the Family Forum and the Elifelet organization, which looks after the children of asylum seekers — those whose kindergartens are nicknamed “children’s warehouses”. To me, these are groups who do sacred work, or rather — do the simply human things that the government itself should be doing.

Home.

Where we will live a peace and safe life; a clear life; a life that will not be enslaved — by fanatics of all kinds — for the purposes of some total, messianic, and nationalist vision. Home, whose inhabitants will not be the material that ignites a principle greater than them, and supposedly beyond their comprehension. That life in it would be measured in its humanity. That suddenly a nation will wake up in the morning, and see that it is human. And that that human will feel that he is living in an uncorrupted, connected, truly egalitarian, non-aggressive and non-covetous place. In a state that runs simply on the concern for the person living within it, for every person living within it, out of compassion, and out of tolerance for all the many dialectics of ‘being Israeli’. Because ‘These are the living words of Israel’.

A state that will act, not on momentary impulses; not in endless convulsions of tricks and winks and manipulations; and police investigations, and zig-zags, and flip-flops backwards. In general — I wish our government to be less devious and wiser. One can dream. One can also admire achievements. Israel is worth fighting for. I also wish these things for our Palestinian friends: a life of independence, freedom and peace, and building a new, reformed nation. And I wish that in 70 years’ time our grandchildren and great-grandchildren, both Palestinian and Israeli, will stand here and each will sing their version of their national anthem.

But there is one line that they will be able to sing together, in Hebrew and Arabic: “To be a free nation in our land,” and then maybe, at last, it will be a realistic and accurate description, for both nations.”

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/full-text-speech-by-david-grossman-at-alternative-memorial-day-event-1.6011820

 

Palestinian’s “March of Return” to Gaza Fence and Israel’s Response

Palestinians are now marching with the intent to enter Israel through the Gaza fence every Friday until May 15 corresponding to the 70^th anniversary of the establishment of the State of Israel and to their “Naqba” (The Great Catastrophe). They have done this twice already.

The first week’s demonstration included about thirty thousand Palestinians. Despite the demonstrations being billed as non-violent protests, some Palestinians (stirred up by Hamas) threw rocks at Israeli soldiers and set fire to tires thereby obscuring the view with smoke for Israeli shooters to see the perpetrators of violence. Israeli commanders told their shooters to fire warning shots in the air, then shoot in the dirt, and finally at Palestinian legs. Israeli snipers killed between 15 and 20 Palestinians and injured close to 1400.

On the second Friday there were fewer protestors, perhaps between ten and twenty thousand. The Palestinians called it a “Day of Tires” (note the photo of the massive amount of smoke). Israeli shooters killed nine Palestinians, including one journalist wearing a journalist vest.

To date, about thirty Palestinians are dead.

What’s going on? Israel has a right to defend itself but the death of unarmed Palestinians ought to be of great concern to all Jews in Israel and around the world.

The Israeli human rights organization B’tzelem called upon Israeli soldiers to defy orders to shoot unarmed Palestinians. All Israeli political parties refrained from protesting Israel’s actions except the Arab list and the left-wing Zionist party Meretz. Israel’s Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman charged that “Meretz has stopped representing the State of Israel and now represents Arab interests in the Knesset.”

What disturbs me is that Israelis and we American Jews have become so numbed to violence of this kind that we refrain from protesting the deaths of innocent Palestinians. We would not so refrain if the dead were Israelis.

Again, we don’t know if the shootings are wrong and we don’t know how difficult it is for the IDF to monitor the border, but B’tzelem isn’t wrong to encourage Israeli soldiers to refrain from firing on unarmed people even if they are ordered to do so.  There are lots of other means of crowd control available to Israel than shooting with live ammunition.

Is Israel’s sense of the threat these Palestinian protests pose exaggerated? It may be that the shootings are meant to discourage future non-violent Palestinian demonstrations because the Israeli government doesn’t quite know how to handle them.

The Israeli Defense Forces have the duty to protect the State of Israel, but is the IDF doing it the right way? In Israel, there’s an ethical code that encourages soldiers not to follow unethical orders, and especially when orders are given to fire on unarmed Palestinians.

I would hope that every Palestinian killing is investigated by the IDF and if wrong-doing is discovered, those guilty are punished.

“The Lonely Man of Faith” – New York Magazine

This is an important article not only because it profiles Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the President of the American Reform movement so well, but it articulates the progressive liberal Zionism that is the hallmark of Reform Judaism. The American Reform movement represents about 1.5 million American Jews.

This is an important read, and I hope you will take the time to read it.

The Lonely Man of Faith, New York Magazine

Abraham Riesman profiles Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism.

 

“Mr. Prime Minister – I am ashamed of you” – Rabbi Donniel Hartman

Note: The following is a blog posted today on the Times of Israel site. Rabbi Donniel Hartman is the Director of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. His integrity is beyond reproach and never takes partisan positions. Rather, he speaks from the heart of Jewish tradition and always with thoughtfulness and a moral sensibility. Rabbi Hartman’s letter is written in the spirit of the Biblical prophet who criticizes power when leaders of our people’s morality goes awry.

April 9, 2018, 3:19 pm

Dear Mr. Prime Minister:

It’s not easy to be both proud and ashamed at the same time. As a politician, it is particularly difficult, as protecting yourself from constant criticism is a prerequisite of the job.

As prime minister, you have much to be proud of, both personally and nationally. You have navigated our country through perilous times and circumstances. As we approach our 70^th birthday, we do so with confidence and joy, for Israel is strong and secure, prosperous and successful. The source of your political success and longevity is that so many Israelis feel indebted to you and feel secure because of your leadership.

However, together with your well-deserved pride, you should also feel a measure of shame. It seems like a lifetime, but it was less than a week ago, that you forged a new low. Instead of embracing the moral high ground on the issue of the African refugees in Israel and following through on what was your negotiated agreement with the United Nations, you chose the path of moral obtuseness, while making sure to lay the blame on others. Such actions, although common in our world, are not worthy of Israel and the Jewish people.

Shame on you for turning human rights discourse in Israel into a political football, dividing the Left and the Right. Shame on you for peddling fear to buttress your political standing. Shame on you for singling out false enemies for vilification to galvanize national loyalty and self-righteousness.

Your morally bankrupt rhetoric, branding all asylum seekers as “infiltrators,” instead of allowing that, at the very least, some are refugees, and supporting the false claims that they pose a danger to the Jewishness of Israel and the well-being of southern Tel Aviv, caught up with you. Or more correctly, infected us all.

When you propagate fear and hatred of so many different “others,” and employ fake enemies to encourage phony nationalist sentiments, it is indeed difficult to turn around and admit that the strong and vibrant Israel you helped to produce has nothing to fear from 16,000, 26,000, or even 36,000 refugees. It is difficult, even during Pesach last week, to speak of our people’s responsibility to remember that we were slaves in the land of Egypt.

Fear and hatred are cancerous, and once introduced into the national discourse, have a destructive life of their own. While you have mastered their political use, as we saw last week, they have become your masters.

For the sake of a short-term high as the proclaimed “protector of Israel,” “lover of Jews,” and “the one who cares about the disadvantaged neighborhoods,” you were willing to throw the lives of tens of thousands of human beings into chaos and turmoil and yet again divide the Jewish people. You know that the Supreme Court will challenge any policy of forced expulsion, further weakening it, and will also lead to extensive divisiveness, both within Israel and among the Jewish people.

Tomorrow’s problems, however, are not allowed by you to outweigh a bump in the polls, today. This is doubly true, when tomorrow you, or your coalition partners, can transform the Supreme Court itself into the enemy du jour of Israel and Zionism, and blame all of poor Government of Israel’s problems on all-powerful foreign conspirators, such as the New Israel Fund.

The Bibi of just a few years ago would be ashamed. It was you who in your previous terms served as the ultimate protector of the Supreme Court, the rule of law, and the unity of the Jewish people. In the past, these were values that you held as central to Israel. Today, outside of national security and preserving your coalition, it is difficult to identify anything that you hold as holy.

When you withdrew your support for your resolution, you knew that Friday was but a few days away, and that you could count on Hamas and Gaza to change the focus of our national discourse. You knew that the next car-ramming in Europe or gas attack on innocent civilians in Syria were but a few news cycles away. Who could reasonably criticize you for deporting a few Africans, when our country and soldiers are facing a new threat from Gaza? Who can criticize you as morally wanting, when such moral depravity surrounds us? Only an anti-Semite or an anti-Zionist, of course.

As Israelis we live in a macabre reality. Together with our well-deserved sense of strength, prosperity, and success, we know that danger and instability constantly threaten us. Be it Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iranians in Syria, or lone wolf Palestinian terrorists, we live with the ever-present sense that somebody wants to kill us. Someone sees our destruction as their principal mission. I don’t know of any other Western democracy whose citizens have to live with this consciousness, daily. Most Israelis trust you, Mr. Prime Minister, above all others, to help navigate us through this treacherous reality. In truth, much of that trust has been earned and well-deserved.

Israel, however, does not merely have to learn how to survive in the Middle East, but also survive the Middle East itself. Remaining a liberal democracy and a Jewish and democratic state and upholding our commitments to human rights and the Jewish values of peace, justice, freedom, and equality, as outlined in Israel’s Declaration of Independence, is a challenging task in today’s Middle East. It is difficult to achieve and even more difficult to continue to care. However, after survival, doing precisely that is Israel’s greatest challenge and responsibility.

Israel needs a leader and not merely a politician. A leader provides vision and challenges the people to expend resources for the sake of their values. A leader inspires sacrifice for a greater cause. A leader also experiences shame when they fail in their responsibilities.

There are voices in Israel and in the Jewish world who, after your debacle last week, expressed shame in Israel. I am not ashamed of Israel. Israel and Zionism transcend our political leaders and are not defined even by the current will of the majority. Israel embodies the mission to build a safe and secure homeland for the Jewish people which is committed to the noblest of Jewish, moral, and democratic principles. I am not ashamed of Israel, because we are in the middle of Zionism’s journey, a journey undertaken under the most challenging of circumstances.

Mr. Prime Minister, I am not ashamed of Israel. I am ashamed of you.

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/mr-prime-minister-i-am-ashamed-of-you/?utm_source=The+Times+of+Israel+Daily+Edition&utm_campaign=cea6605211-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_04_08&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_adb46cec92-cea6605211-55741261

 

Good news on Eritrean and Sudanese Refugees in Israel

This is a report from the Hotline for Refugees in Israel regarding the recent positive decision of the Israeli government vis a vis the Sudanese and Eritrean Refugees in Israel.

 

Human Rights Organizations in Israel in response to the cancellation of the deportation plan

It is symbolic that on the Passover holiday, the holiday of freedom, we were just informed that the State of Israel has cancelled their plan to forcibly deport asylum seekers from Israel to places of danger in Africa. Instead, the government has reached an agreement with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) under which 16,000 asylum seekers will be resettled through the UNHCR to safe countries, and 16,000 will be able to stay in Israel.

We will closely monitor the agreement signed to ensure that all asylum seekers receive status, rights and security in both Israel and other countries.

This could not have happened without the incredible mobilization of the Israeli and international public who joined us in voicing opposition to the deportation. We called for just solutions for asylum seekers and for the residents of South Tel Aviv, and the government heard us loud and clear.

However, it is regrettable that whilst the world is facing the greatest refugee crisis since World War II, Israel has not taken more responsibility for those who turned to us and sought protection here.

Hotline for Refugees and Migrants, ASSAF – Aid Organization for Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Israel, Physicians for Human Rights – Israel, Kav LaOved, Amnesty International – Israel, The Association for Civil Rights in Israel and ARDC – African Refugee Development Center

Believing in Miracles

When I think about God splitting of the sea I’m reminded of the story of Joey who when asked by his father what he learned in Sunday school explained that Israeli engineers laid pontoons across the sea so that the Israelis could cross over safely, attack the Egyptian army and win the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Then Joey told his father that the same Israelis snuck back and laid charges under the bridges so that as the Egyptians crossed the bridges, they exploded and the Egyptians drowned.

Joey’s father said: “You didn’t learn that in Sunday school?”

Joey confessed: “No Dad, but you wouldn’t believe me if I told you what my teacher really told us.”

To children and adults alike, the parting of the Sea of Reeds in the Exodus story is incredulous. What to make of it as it defies reason? Wouldn’t a more relevant liberation story be Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, Kings “I Have a Dream” speech, Natan Sharansky’s address to the sentencing Soviet court, or Israel’s Declaration of Independence?

The Kotzker Rebbe said: “Whoever believes in miracles is a fool; and whoever does not believe in miracles is an atheist.” Is there no middle ground?

How ought we to read the Exodus text?

Here’s another way.

Nachshon ben Aminadav, a little known figure in the Exodus story, took matters into his own hands and as the Egyptians advanced and Moses prayed Nachshon jumped into the waters and started swimming. The Midrash says that Moses’ faith and Nachshon’s activism persuaded God to split the sea.

I’m reminded of the story of the man caught in a flood. While standing on his roof he prayed that God would save him. In the next hour 3 helicopters and 3 boats arrived but he refused them all claiming that he’d rather wait for God to save him. When the flood waters engulfed him he complained bitterly to the Almighty: “I’ve been a good man my whole life, but when I prayed to You to save me, you ignored my plea!”

“Nebesh!” God screamed, “I sent you 3 helicopters and 3 boats. Next time, help yourself?”

So – what’s a miracle? Philosophers answer the question in the negative; what isn’t a miracle? Judaism teaches that a miracle isn’t the radical transformation of the natural world. Divine wisdom and goodness lie not in rupturing God’s reign of universal law, but in the reliability of the steady order of the world.

Rabbi Harold Schulweis put it this way: “Faith isn’t dependent on miracles….miracles depend on faith. And faith, far from blind, sees life’s deeper truths.”

However defined, no miracle without faith is possible. Rabbi Abraham Heschel noted that a miracle has less to do with great historical peak events as it does in our consciousness of what lies before us at all times: “To pray is to take notice of the wonder, to regain a sense of the mystery that animates all beings, the Divine margin in all attainments.”

Rabbi Akiba was challenged by the pagan Tineus Rufus: “Whose deeds are greater, those of God or humankind?”

Akiba replied: “Greater are human deeds.”

The pagan asked how he could make such a claim.

Akiba brought sheaves of wheat and loaves of cakes and asked, “Which are superior?” The great sage answered his own question: the loaves of cakes excel because they required a human being to take the wheat and make something life-sustaining.

The lesson of the Sea of Reeds isn’t in the splitting of the Sea. It’s in our conscientious capacity to take action and transform the world.

As we prepare Pesach this week, our nation’s teens marching for reasonable gun control this past week is a great example of how we humans can transform ourselves and our world.

THAT is a miracle.

Chag Pesach Sameach!

 

 

Pesach is coming – It’s time to ask the big questions!

To be curious is the first quality of the wise. Wise people know that they do not know and they learn something from everyone they meet (Avot 5:1).

The Passover Seder will soon be upon us, and there is much about the Seder itself that is a mystery. Nothing is as it seems. Everything stands for something else. Deeper truths are there for the seeker. Everything in the Seder suggests questions.

I have compiled a list of questions that might be sent in advance to your Seder participants or asked around the table during the Seder itself. These aren’t exhaustive. Add your own questions.

As no marathon runner would show up at the starting line without preparation and training, neither should we show up at our Seder tables without thinking seriously in advance about the themes and truths of this season. Now is the time to begin the questioning and probing.

Afikoman – When we break the Matzah

Questions: What part of us is broken? What work do we need to do to effect tikun hanefesh – i.e. restoration of ourselves? What t’shuvah – i.e. return, realignment of our lives, re-establishment of important relationships – do we need to perform to bring about wholeness? What’s broken in the world – i.e. what remains unfair, unjust, unresolved, in need of our loving care and attention – and what am I/are we going to do about it?

Mah Nishtanah – How is this night different from all other nights?

Questions: How am I different this year from previous years? What has changed in my life this year, for better and/or for worse? What ‘silver lining’ can I find in my disappointments, frustrations, loss, illness, pain, and suffering? What conditions in our communities, nation and world have worsened since last we sat down for the Pesach meal?

Ha-Chacham – The Wise Child

Questions: Who inspired you this past year to learn? Who has been your greatest teacher and why? What are the lessons you have learned from others that have touched you most in the year gone by?

Ha-Rasha – The Evil Child

Questions: Since Judaism teaches that the first step leading to evil is taken when we separate ourselves from the Jewish community and refuse to participate in acts that help to restore justice in the world, have we individually stepped away from activism? Have we become overcome by cynicism and despair? Do we believe that people and society succumb inevitably to the worst qualities in the human condition, or do we retain hope that there can be a more just and compassionate world? Are we optimistic or pessimistic? Do we believe that people and society can change for the better? Are we doing something to further good works, or have we turned away into ourselves alone and given up?

Cheirut – Thoughts about Freedom

Questions: If fear is an impediment to freedom, what frightens me? What frightens the people I love? What frightens the Jewish people? Are our fears justified, or are they remnants of experiences in our individual and/or people’s past? Do they still apply? Are we tied to the horrors of our individual and communal traumas, or have we broken free from them? What are legitimate fears and how must we confront them?

Tzafun – The Hidden Matzah

Questions: What have we kept hidden in our lives from others? Are our deepest secrets left well-enough alone, or should we share them with the people closest to us? To what degree are we willing to be vulnerable? Have we discovered the hidden presence of God? Have we allowed ourselves to be surprised and open to wonder and awe? If so, how has such recognition changed us?

Sh’fach et chamat’cha – Pour out your Wrath

Questions: Is there a place for hatred, anger and resentment in our Seder this year? How have these negative emotions affected our relationships with each other, the Jewish community, the Jewish people, the Palestinians, the State of Israel, with any “other”? Have we become our own worst enemy because we harbor hatred, anger and resentment? Do the Seder themes and symbolism address our deeply seated anger, hatred and resentment?

Ba-shanah Ha-ba-ah Bi-y’ru-shalayim – Next Year in Jerusalem

Questions: What are your hopes and dreams for yourself, our community, country, the Jewish people, the State of Israel, and the world? What are you prepared to do in the next year to make real your hopes and dreams?

Jaspar Johns’ Flags and American Aspirations

My wife, friends and I visited the Los Angeles Broad Museum’s exhibit of Jaspar John’s work last evening and over dinner we considered what the flag means to us in this era of Trump. I’ll offer my own view in a moment, but I want to put Johns’ work in context.

He produced these variations of American flags in the early-mid 1950s in the midst of the Cold War, and a number of galleriers in those years were hesitant to show them out of fear of reprisal from hard-right cold war warriors who might accuse Johns and the galleries of anti-Americanism.

As my wife and friends are all baby-boomers, we grew up in our teens associating the American flag with the Vietnam War. We were never flag burners, but the flag held very negative associations in those years with the Law and Order crowd of Richard Nixon and Vietnam Hawks.

Today, Donald Trump’s tyrannical and chaotic regime and the damage he is doing to the “American brand” could also tarnish the image of the American flag as a symbol of the United States in this country and around the world.

Today, I regard the American flag as an aspirational symbol of American democracy, the US Constitution, Bill of Rights, and the freedoms it promises. I regard it as the embodiment of the long march towards equality and justice for those who have been excluded from America’s mainstream since the Revolutionary War politically, racially, religiously, and socio-economically. This includes all minorities, peoples of color, Muslims, women, LGBTQ, and yes – us Jews too.

Those who know me forgive my eternal optimism even though I am not blind to the damage Trump and company are doing to America, the environment, and the good image of our country around the world.

My hope is that in the 2018 mid-term elections, that the masses come out to vote and that the democrats take control of both houses of Congress, and then impeach, convict and remove this President from office. Though we would be then stuck with our current Vice-President whose extremist vision of America is dangerous too, a Democratic Congress can stop the descent of these United States into the darkness of pre-enlightenment years while getting ready for a new President in 2020 who can reverse much of the actions of Trump by executive order.

As I stood looking at all Jaspar Johns’ works, not only was I stimulated, provoked, and inspired by his artistry and vision, but thoughts about who we are as a people and nation came flooding through me.

I recommend visiting the exhibit. Before going, be sure to download the Broad podcast so you can follow the commentary as you move through the galleries. You will need tickets and reservations in advance.

Elevating Speech – D’var Torah Ki Tisa

This week I spent an hour with 225 ninth and tenth grade students at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts talking specifically about why words matter. We discussed the ethics of speech, the dangers in social media, and how what we say privately and publicly have in the last several years coarsened to the detriment of civility our society.

I showed them a passage from the California Civil Code section 44 that defines “Defamation” as

“an act of communication that causes someone to be shamed, ridiculed, held in contempt, lowered in the estimation of the community, or to lose employment status or earnings or otherwise suffer a damaged reputation.”

We discussed the difference between someone who incessantly lies as opposed to calling out such a person publicly as “liar.” One young lady rightly explained that the first describes a bad behavior and the second attacks a person and fits the definition of “defamation.”

I began my talk with this elite group of young people (thousands applied to this school for 600 spots) by sharing with them language from a blog that followed an op-ed by David Brooks of the NY Times.

In his piece that he called “Respect First, Then Gun Control” (NY Times February 19) Brooks talked about the importance of civility as opposed to rudeness. In response, a blogger named Drew Magary went ballistic. I happened to agree with Magary’s position (which is not the purpose of me raising this matter here), but I found his piece offensive and defamatory (see “The Importance of Rudeness | GQ – https://www.gq.com/story/on-rudeness)

Here is some of what Magary wrote:

“So let’s talk about rudeness for a moment, because we live in rude times. The president is a pig. His underlings are nothing but a bunch of opportunists and enablers. And the rest of GOP is staffed by a wide range of scum, from camera-friendly establishment monsters like Paul Ryan to outright crackpots like this guy. When the president’s own little pukeson decides to endorse a conspiracy theorist truthering the motives of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas teenagers, I feel like that’s a much greater sign of the end of civilization than someone rightfully telling a lady at the Times that she should take the L.

None of these people deserve civility. In fact, civility only serves to enable them. The fact that Trump can go party at his f_ _ _ing country club on the same weekend 17 teenagers were slaughtered inside a school, and have NO ONE surrounding him say an unkind word to him, is damnable.”

Again – I happen to agree with Magary’s moral positions, but he went on using the vilest of language reflecting the vulgarization of this era in American life. His are angry words, and I understand that because I’m angry too, but uncontrolled rage can get us the opposite of what we really want besides an opportunity to vent.

This week’s Torah portion, Ki Tisa, highlights Moses’ anger at his people at the scene of the golden calf.

We learn that Moses had brought down the tablets from Mount Sinai after spending forty days and nights communing with God. As he was returning to the Israelite camp he heard the celebratory voices around a golden calf and then saw the revelry. Enraged by the idolatry, he smashed the tablets, burned the golden calf, ground it to powder, and force fed it to the guilty Israelites before he killed ten thousand Israelites who participated in this calumny. (Exodus 32:15-20).

In the next chapter we learn that Moses pitched his tent outside the camp (Exodus 33:7) “…because he was tired of the people’s constant complaining and criticism.” (Yerushalmi B’chorim 3:3)

God then approached Moses and said: “I want you to change your mind, go back to the camp, and deal with the people face to face.” (Midrash Rabbah (45:2) based on Exodus 33:11)

In other words, God was saying: ‘Moses – get it together and control your rage.’

Of course Moses was angry just as so many Americans are angry at Congress’ and this President’s inaction to curb gun violence in America.

I don’t at all blame Moses for his weariness and impatience with the people. He had dealt with their obstinacy since leaving Egypt. He’d had enough. God reminded him, however, that leading a community while angry is no way to lead.

I’ve learned that once leaders lose their temper they lose not just the argument they are advocating but the faith of the people in their leadership.

The worst thing a leader can do is to respond to others with whom we disagree intemperately, impatiently, angrily, and judgmentally. Inner calm is a virtue, and demeaning an opponent personally who we may dislike intensely is nevertheless from an ethical perspective the greatest sin.

I made this point loud and clear to these 225 students. ‘Use your words,’ I said, ‘but say what you say with calm and focused dignity, thoughtfully, and without demeaning the “other.”

Judaism ascribes Moses’ loss of the right to enter the Promised Land as a result of his hitting the rock from anger instead of speaking words to it as God had commanded him.

The Talmud says: “If a person loses his temper – If she is originally wise, she loses her wisdom, and if he is a prophet, he loses his prophecy.” (Babylonian Talmud, Pesachim 66b).

The coarsening of our society is a sign of our society’s demise, and I believe each of us should do everything we can to avoid being engulfed in that spirit. It’s bad for us and it’s bad for everyone.

Shabbat shalom.