Retirement into Re-fire-ment

I’ve been preparing for retirement for some time, and I’m now days from leaving the position I’ve held for 30 years and the profession in which I’ve worked for 40 years. I’ve read many books about this “encore” period of one’s life as well what this new life stage means and might be.

This past week a friend sent me a link to an essay in The Atlantic called “Your Professional Decline Is Coming (Much) Sooner Than You Think – Here’s how to make the most of it” by Arthur C. Brooks (July, 2019).

Brooks describes life’s trajectory from one’s 30s to 80s, when we peak intellectually and professionally, and when the capacities upon which we depend for work success begin to decline. He describes as well the nature of success at different ages, and what brings us the greatest happiness in each life stage.

See my complete blog at the Times of Israel – https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/retirement-into-re-fire-ment/

Tristan and Iseult – Courtly Love and Covenant

The Jungian therapist Robert Johnson wrote in a little book called “We”:

“Here we are confronted with a paradox that baffles us, yet we should not be surprised to discover that romantic love is connected with spiritual aspiration – even with our religious instinct – for we already know that courtly love, at its very beginning so many centuries ago, was understood as spiritual love, a way of loving that spiritualized the knight with his lady, and raised them above the ordinary and the gross to an experience of another world, an experience of soul and spirit.”

I discuss the medieval myth of Tristan and Iseult the Fair in the context of this week’s Torah portion Bamidbar, the Biblical prophet Hosea, and the Festival of Shavuot that begins this Saturday night as similar expressions of spiritual love.

To read my d’var Torah, you can find it on my blog at the Times of Israel at https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/tristan-and-iseult-courtly-love-and-covenant/

 

My blessing for Pearl Berg at her 109th Birthday

 

At the end of an amazing Shabbat morning service at Temple Israel of Hollywood that celebrated my 30th and final year as Senior Rabbi, I had the honor of invoking a blessing upon Pearl Berg who celebrated on February 14 her 109th birthday!

 

She still knows what’s going on and knew me immediately.

 

Her son, Robert, told me that on her 107th birthday the family invited KTLA television to interview her. The anchor asked: “Mrs. Berg – how were you able to reach 107 years?”

 

She answered: “First, you have to reach 106 years!”

 

I told her that she should live to 120! She said “Please no!” The room cracked up!

 

She’s still got “IT!”

Kotzeir Ruach and the Creative Mind

Image thanks to Shutterstock

Recently, I was talking with a good friend and colleague when he said, “John – I’ve been really irritable lately. Everything people do and say bothers me.”

I asked if anything particular was wrong. “No. Everything’s fine,” he said. His marriage is happy and strong, his children well, and his work satisfying.

“Yet, I feel impatient all the time. Things that normally don’t bother me now do.”

Knowing the way he works I suggested that he was likely exhausted. “Perhaps,” he said, “but I don’t feel any more tired than normal!”

That’s the rub. My friend’s “normal” isn’t normal at all. Though he does what many rabbis do, such work is so often overwhelming. When I spelled it out for him, he acknowledged that I was probably right.

Certainly, the rabbinate isn’t the only occupation that exhausts its practitioners. No one is immune in any walk of life.

In this week’s Torah portion Vaera (Exodus 6:2-10:1) we see the deleterious impact that relentless demands can have upon us.

The pivotal scene puts Moses talking with God. He and Aaron had appeared before Pharaoh to demand the people’s liberation; but, every request turned Pharaoh’s heart harder.

God responded by promising the people the greatest reward:

“I will take you out from under the burdens of Egypt and I will rescue you from their bondage and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great retributions. And I will take you to Me as a people and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God Who takes you out from under the burdens of Egypt. And I will bring you to the land that I raised My hand to pledge to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, and I will give it to you as an inheritance. I am the Lord. And Moses spoke thus to the Israelites, but they did not heed Moses out of (kotzer ruach) shortness of breath and hard bondage.”  (Exodus 6:6-8 – translation, Robert Alter)

What’s the meaning?

Rashi’s comment: “The people didn’t accept consolation [i.e. Moses’ message of their impending redemption] for they were too much under stress.”

Though we are no longer “slaves,” our schedules control us, people to whom we’ve given influence over our lives oppress us, obligations we’ve taken on weigh us down, and the legitimate needs of others burden us.

In thinking about the deleterious impact of being constantly burdened, I recall Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind: Why Right-brainers Will Rule the Future. He showed that in business, manufacturing, construction, law, medicine, the sciences, education, religion, and the arts, creativity will be the competitive difference that distinguishes one thing from another.

Speaking personally, my synagogue is a center of intense productivity, but for me, when I’m in my synagogue study almost nothing creative comes because of the constant demands made upon me in the building by young and old, staff and lay leaders. That’s a central part of my work, so I’m not complaining. Creativity, however, happens for me at home when I’m alone studying, reading, thinking, and writing.

The novelist and Nobel laureate Pearl S. Buck wrote:

“The truly creative mind in any field is … a human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. To him[her]… a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create – S/he must create, … s/he is not really alive unless s/he is creating.”

We need to be able to create environments that catalyze the greatness within us. An essential element to creativity is our solitude.

My rabbinic friend is not me disguised, but like him I too feel the effects of kotzer ruach, shortness of breath. Necessary breaks in our routine encourage ruach shalem, wholeness of spirit.

In this new secular year, I hope for each of you that measure of wholeness leading to your own creativity and expression.

Shabbat Shalom.

 

 

Jews, Muslims and Christians serve Christmas dinner to 1000 people in Hollywood

Volunteers preparing Christmas Dinner for 1070 people

For the past 33 years, my synagogue, Temple Israel of Hollywood, has served a full Christmas Dinner to the poor and homeless of Hollywood. We distributed this year toys, children’s books, hygiene products, blankets, and sox to more than 1000 people. We began the project in the mid 1980s to relieve our Christian brothers and sisters of the responsibility of helping the people in their neighborhood so they could celebrate their holyday with their communities and families.

The Hollywood United Methodist Church has graciously offered their facility at Highland and Franklin (a block north of the famed Hollywood-Highland Center and Academy Award Theater) these past 28 years. This year Temple Israel co-sponsored this effort not only with the Church but with the ILM (Intellect, Love, and Mercy) Foundation which has roots in Islam. Umar Hakim (the ILM Director) and the Reverend Cathy Cooper Ledesma (HUMC’s Senior Pastor) joined me as “siblings in faith” from the three great monotheistic traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

This is the largest interfaith Christmas Dinner in Los Angeles County.

Volunteers served over 100 roasted turkeys with stuffing, mashed potatoes, vegetables, cranberry sauce, and a number of desserts. Retirees, homeless, working families with young children, and other hungry and needy individuals and families came to eat and enjoy their holiday.

Our congregation (Temple Israel of Hollywood) signed a Brit Olam, “a covenant with our world,” via the Reform movement’s Religious Action Center in Washington, D.C. to address the epidemic problem of food insecurity (40 million people in America) who do not know from where and when their next meal is coming. The problem of hunger is particularly acute in the closing days of the month. The number of homeless individuals in Los Angeles (though down 4% this year due to an aggressive effort by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti to house homeless individuals) still hovers around 45,000 people of whom 1/3 are children.

Shelter Partnership provided us with blankets, hygiene products, toys and socks. NBC Universal and Big Sunday provided toys. The Book Foundation provided 250 contemporary books for children. Big Sunday (originally a project of Temple Israel and now its own 501C3 non-profit organization serving the greater Los Angeles area 365 days a year) connected us with a number of non-profit organizations to get the word out to the community that this dinner welcomed everyone.

The chairs of this year’s effort are Temple Israel members Ilyse Pallenberg, Sophie Grossman-Sartain, and Ken Ostrove. They led nearly 300 volunteers for the past few months culminating on Christmas Day.

I was asked by the media at the event why we Jews were doing this. I told them two things; first, there is the dire challenge of hunger that we all have to address actively in projects like this and in advocating public policy efforts in local, state and national government, and second, this co-sponsored dinner is a powerful response to the toxicity and polarization that has infected America in the last several years since President Trump began his presidential campaign of hostility and division pitting one group against another to inspire fear and hate.

Good people, I said, can bridge differences, reach across divisions in class, race, ethnicity, religion, and national origins and reaffirm the oneness of humankind and the principle that we are accountable to and responsible for each other, that walls should be torn down and paths forward together be forged.

That is what we did together yesterday. One interviewer asked me if this was a reflection of the spirit of this season. I responded “yes” but also that this is what we all ought to be doing 365 days a year.

Rahm Emanuel’s Advice to Democrats leading to 2020 Elections – The Axe Files

I am a regular listener to the “Axe Files” (David Axelrod’s podcast). It is always excellent. David interviews newsmakers, politicians, government officials, journalists, and anyone in the news from his perch at the University of Chicago and CNN.

A couple of weeks ago, David interviewed his longtime friend and retiring Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, among the most insightful political operatives in our generation. This podcast is worth listening to. I hope that Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic leadership in Congress heard it or will listen to it. Everyone should!

Read more on my blog at The Times of Israel – https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/rahm-emanuels-advice-to-democrats-leading-to-2020-elections-the-axe-files/

“Few and hard have been the days of my life”

This week Jacob, the inveterate victim, meets Pharaoh after discovering that Jacob’s favorite son Joseph is not only alive but had become second in power only to Pharaoh in Egypt. (Parashat Vayigash)

Every Jewish parent I know would be thrilled to experience anything close to this, but read the conversation between these two old men:

“Pharaoh asked Jacob, ‘How many are the years of your life?’ And Jacob answered Pharaoh, ‘The years of my sojourn on earth are one hundred and thirty. Few and hard have been the years of my life, nor do they come up to the life-spans of my fathers during their sojourns.” (Genesis 47:8-9).

Poor Jacob! No matter what good might have come to him in his life, he defaults to negativity. The rabbis put these words into God’s mouth in response (B’reishit Rabbah 95):

“God said: ‘I saved you from Esau and Laban. I brought Dinah back to you, as well as Joseph – and you complain that your life has been short and evil? I’ll, therefore, count the words of Pharaoh’s question and add that number to the number of words in your response (33 words total) and then shorten your life by exactly that much so that you’ll not live as long as your father Isaac. [Isaac lived to 180, whereas Jacob lived only to the age of 147 – i.e. 33 years less].”

Jacob’s negativity is surprising given all the good he had experienced in his life including twice encountering God. The first time was in his vision of angels ascending and descending a staircase to heaven at Beth El (Genesis 28) and waking to realize that God had been with him all along and he hadn’t known it. The second was in his struggle with a being described as both divine and human at the River Jabok where he emerged with a new name – Yisrael (Genesis 32).

We might expect more gratitude from Jacob instead of his complaining especially since this conversation with Pharaoh occurred at the reunion of Jacob with his cherished son Joseph.

We all know people like this who see the world as if through a negative prism? Are we those people? Do we put greater emphasis on the half-empty glass or the glass that’s half-full?  Are we “Debbie Downers?” (ala SNL)

There are so many examples of people who focus on the negative: parents who pay too much attention to their children’s weaknesses and failings – marriages that dissolve because one or both partners refuse to let go of the breeches, the bad times and flaws of the other – our inability to transcend disappointment, frustration, aggravation, and failure.

In his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey notes that the most well-balanced, positive and proactive people, those who live happily and well with others at work and at home, tend to balance continually four dimensions of their lives;  the physical, spiritual, mental, and social/emotional.

As we prepare to conclude the secular year 2018, we might take this time to take stock and make adjustments, to tackle one or more of these four aspects of our lives and thereby improve our lot.

We may need mostly to better care for our bodies, eat the right foods, lose weight, get sufficient rest, keep stress at bay, and exercise more.

Perhaps spiritually we may need to find ways to sense more keenly the Ineffable in life’s mysteries, spend more time in communal prayer or by ourselves in meditation, relish the genius of the great artistic masters, spend more time on our own creative process and in the natural world.

Perhaps we’ve allowed our minds to atrophy and our curiosity to languish by learning little that’s new and stimulating.

Perhaps socially and emotionally we could strive to become more empathic, less self-centered and self-referencing, and to serve others more selflessly without a quid pro quo.

There’s one more area that Covey doesn’t mention specifically but includes the physical and mental and is epidemic in our society – depression, a miserable scourge in the lives of millions. If this is your malady or someone near and dear to you suffers from depression, there is redress. Seeking bio-chemical help from qualified physicians is neither shameful nor a sin. To the contrary, doing so is wise and potentially efficacious in addressing the misery that those suffering from depression feel every day and every hour of the day.

The Midrash notes that Jacob’s negativity shaved years off his life. I would hope that each of us not allow ourselves to follow his example and fall into the same trap.

Shabbat shalom.

 

Letter from Temple Israel Leadership on the tragic events in Pittsburgh Shabbat morning

Our hearts break at the murders of eleven worshippers at Shabbat services at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh and of the shooting of the police sent to protect them this morning. We express our horror and grief at this hate-filled act that strikes at the heart of our American tradition of compassion and respect for the dignity of every human being.

The killer used the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) that historically has reached out to immigrants and settled refugees in the United States as his foil for his anti-Semitic outrage, the worst attack on Jews in American Jewish history, but we express our pride in the good work that HIAS has done over the past century in fulfilling Emma Lazarus’s expression of our national commitment to welcome the tempest tossed to our country.

We want to assure our community that we have tightened security and had the LAPD in addition to our own security with us this morning at services. Our first obligation is to the safety and security of our community.

Recent events in our country have challenged our democratic values and institutions and our nation as a force of love and goodness in the world. Our community at Temple Israel is committed to combatting this destructive negativity and indecency. Please know that all of us are here for you as a source of comfort and moral support.

We will convene together at 9:30 am tomorrow at Temple Israel for prayer and solidarity if you would like to join us.

We send our condolences to the families of the victims and hopes for the complete healing of those injured.

May the souls of those lost today be bound up in the bonds of eternal life.

Signed,

Senior Staff of Temple Israel of Hollywood and our Board President

 

Ha’azinu – A World with Teshuvah and Messianic Expectancy

“Give ear, O heavens, that I may speak, / Hear, O Earth, the utterance of my mouth. / Let my teaching drip like rain, / Let my words flow like dew, ‘ Like droplets on new growth, / Like showers on grass.” (Deuteronomy 32:1-2)

“Like an eagle protecting its nest / Over its young-birds hovering, / He spread out his wings, he took him, / Bearing him on his pinions.” (Deuteronomy 32:11)

“See now that I, am he / I myself bring-death, bestow-life / I wound and I myself heal, / And there is from my hand no rescuing! / For I lift up my hand to the heavens, / And say: As I live, for the ages.” (Deuteronomy 32:40)

These are among the fifty-two verses in this week’s Torah portion Ha’azinu (Deuteronomy 32), one of the shortest portions in the annual Torah reading cycle.

Though these verses are magnificent poetry, the Torah isn’t largely a poetic text. Rather, it’s a series of legal texts set in a narrative context. For poetry we have to search elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible – the soaring visions of the prophets, the yearnings of the Psalms, the saga of Job, and the eroticism of the Song of Songs.

Despite the Torah’s narrative and legal style, this portion closes in a burst of poetry as Moses nears the end of his life.

Essentially, Parashat Ha’azinu is a poetic meditation on the covenantal relationship between God and Israel. It’s graphic and written from the prospective of God, not Moses. Its themes dwell not upon the strength of the divine-human bond, but upon its weakness. Israel is characterized not as a covenantal lover, but as a treacherous adversary prepared to smash the covenant and cavort with other gods.

Towards the end of the poem, Moses shifts suddenly from speaking as a third-person narrator into the first person as God’s prophet. We envision an enraged God Who intends to hand Israel over to its most vicious enemies and its ultimate devastation. Fearing Israel’s demise to polytheism and oblivion, God reverses the divine decree, vanquishes Israel’s enemies and renews the covenant.

One scholar suggested that this poem is a CAT scan of God’s mind embracing the totality of divine rage, longing and love. Though God did indeed reverse the divine decree, it wasn’t because of divine compassion; rather, it was the consequence of divine pride.

There is something especially shocking about this poem, and that it’s missing utterly the idea of Teshuvah.

One would think that at the end of the annual Torah reading cycle that coincides each year with the close of the Yamim Noraim that Torah would affirm the covenantal bond between God and Israel as a consequence of Israel’s Teshuvah and return to God. But, the poem ignores the possibility of Israel’s repentance and presents a world devoid of the capacity of the people to alter God’s will through its contrition and Teshuvah.

It’s difficult to imagine living our lives without Teshuvah. Perhaps, that’s the point of the poem, to show us what such a world would be like without the possibility of our return, without the life-sustaining value of hope.

Judaism understands that Teshuvah is so indispensable for human welfare that the Talmudic sage Resh Lakish insisted that God conceived of Teshuvah before creating the world and wove Teshuvah into the fabric of creation itself.

The prophetic and rabbinic concept of repentance is among Judaism’s most ennobling and inspiring affirmations. Judaism rejects a fatalistic world, one in which what was will always be without the possibility of personal and communal evolution. Judaism affirms that we do indeed have a measure of control over our lives, that we can improve ourselves and be better morally and spiritually than we were. Though perfection isn’t the goal of the Yamim Noraim, self-improvement is.

Since our beginnings as a people we Jews have been buoyed by hope and messianic expectancy, all made possible by Teshuvah.

And so, perhaps, Ha’azinu is a warning about what our lives really would be like without the covenant and without our capacity to be better than we were.

Shabbat Shalom.

Note: Translation of the Hebrew are from “The Schocken Bible: Volume 1 – The Five Books of Moses” with a new translation and Introductions, Commentary, and Notes by Everett Fox

 

 

 

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?