On the Ethics of Public Shaming

I have often wondered how President Trump retains the support of so many orthodox and ultra-Orthodox Jews, most of whom are well-versed in the ethics and laws of the Talmud. I am also curious how President Trump retains the support of the Republican Jewish Coalition based on well-known Jewish ethics of speech (Thanks to my colleague Rabbi Leigh Lerner who shared the following passage on the Reform Rabbi list serve RAVKAV).

In the Babylonian Talmud (6th century CE) it is written in Baba Metzia 58b:

“Abaye said to Rav Dimi: In the West, i.e., Eretz Yisrael, with regard to what mitzvah [commandment] are they particularly vigilant [to avoid committing]? Rav Dimi responded: They are vigilant in refraining from humiliating others, as Rabbi Ḥanina says: Everyone descends to Gehenna [i.e. hell] except for three. … the ones who descend to Gehenna ultimately re-ascend, except for three who descend and do not ascend, and these are they: One who engages in intercourse with a married person, as this transgression is a serious offense against both God and a person; and one who humiliates another in public; and one who calls another a derogatory name. The Gemara [500 CE –  the rabbinic interpretation of the Mishnah – 200 CE] asks with regard to one who calls another a derogatory name: That is identical to one who shames him/her; why are they listed separately? The Gemara  answers: Although the victim grew accustomed to being called that name in place of his/her name, and he/she is no longer humiliated by being called that name, since the intent was to insult him/her, the perpetrator’s punishment is [nevertheless] severe…. one who humiliates another in public has no share in the World-to-Come. Rabbi Yoḥanan says in the name of Rabbi Shimon ben Yoḥai: It is more comfortable for a person to cast him/herself into a fiery furnace, than to humiliate another in public to avoid being cast into the furnace.”

Consider all the nasty and demeaning epithets that President Trump has called his political competitors over the years — Crooked Hillary; Sleepy Joe Biden; Little Michael Bloomberg; Alfred E. Neuman – Pete Buttigieg;  Slimeball James Comey; Lyin’ Ted Cruz; Sneaky Dianne Feinstein; Jeff Flakey; Al Frankenstein; Fat Jerry Nadler; Cheatin’ Obama; Nervous Nancy Pelosi; Mike Pounce; Little Marco Rubio; Crazy Bernie Sanders; Shifty [and corrupt] Adam Schiff, among others.

Granted, the President is neither Jewish nor a pastor nor the Pope, but ethical behavior in all western religious traditions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) demands that we treat every human being with dignity and infinite worth because we are created b’tzelem Elohim – in the image of God. Destroying the dignity of another and publicly humiliating any human being personally is forbidden in Judaism.

It’s time that the Republican Jewish Coalition and all religious Jews apply our fundamental Jewish ethics in the evaluation of our leaders and of ourselves in our own behavior towards others.

 

 

 

 

 

New Year Song – “Reset”

This is the new New Year Song “Reset” with lyrics by Abby Pogrebin and music
by Noah Aronson. I hope you find it uplifting and joyful and perfect for
this time.

Best wishes for a meaningful 5780

<https://www.facebook.com/92ndstreetY/videos/422639271717667/>

Be kind to your rabbi

We need our rabbis to speak to us as honestly, eloquently, and inspirationally as they can during this season. Doing so, however, is not easy. I hope that all congregants appreciate their rabbi’s efforts whether or not they agree with what their rabbis say.

If your rabbi inspires you to think and reflect deeply – if he/she elevates your spirit and helps you to see the world as if with new eyes – if your rabbi touches you and you feel renewed as a consequence of his/her words – tell them so and offer them your gratitude. They will appreciate that simple gesture more than you can know. They write for you and a good/great sermon is a veritable gift offered from heart to the heart and soul to soul.

For my complete Times of Israel Blog – see https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/be-kind-to-your-rabbi/

 

In Memorial: Rabbi Richard N. Levy, J Street

Rabbi John Rosove writes, “Richard was a once-in-a-generation rabbinic leader whose influence cut across denominational lines. His kindness is legion, his joyfulness ever-flowing, and his love for his family, friends, colleagues, the Jewish people and humankind a model for us all.”

In Memorial: Rabbi Richard N. Levy

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/

 

Moses and God’s Tears – A Poetic Midrash for Vayikra

I have written a poetic midrash based on the word “Vayikra…” And God called Moses. You can read on my Times of Israel Blog at https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/moses-and-gods-tears-a-poetic-midrash-for-vayikra/

Bezalel – Judaism’s First Artist

On the face of it, the verses from this week’s Torah portion Vayakehl describe the matter-of-fact building of a movable edifice. But this isn’t merely an architectural plan. It’s a description of the highest aesthetic vision of the ancient Israelites, a standard that would impress itself upon the hearts, minds, and souls of generations of Jews to come…

Not just any craftsman could design and build this sacred structure. Only someone with the right qualities of heart, mind, soul, skill, and communal attitude could do the job, qualities spelled out in the text.

To read the entire d’var Torah, go to https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/bezalel-judaisms-first-artist/

“Make for me a Sanctuary that I may dwell within them” – Parashat T’rumah

The Mishkan (i.e. Tabernacle) was a physical manifestation of God’s presence on earth as designed and built by human hands, just as the created world (through the twenty-two letters of the aleph-bet) is an emanation of Divine thought into the creation of the universe. In each case, the same verb asah (make) appears in the Biblical text. There being nothing of coincidence in the Hebrew Bible, the rabbis concluded that there was a direct correlation between the creation of the world by God and the creation of the Mishkan by the ancient Israelites.

For my full d’var Torah, please see my Blog at the Times of Israel at  https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/make-for-me-a-sanctuary-that-i-may-dwell-within-them-parashat-terumah/ .

The Aleph is the first letter of the Ten Words – Parashat Yitro

The first letter of the Hebrew Aleph-Bet and the the first letter in the first word of the Ten Commandments (lit. “words” – aseret ha-d’varim) is the Aleph (Exodus 20:1).

Commentators find deep meaning in the form and construction of the Aleph. It is made of two yuds, one pointing up (i.e. towards heaven) and the other pointing down (towards earth). The connector between these two yuds is a vav (the sixth letter of the Hebrew aleph-bet). The gematria (the number equivalent for the letters of the aleph-bet) of the three letters yud + yud + vav (10 + 10 + 6) equals 26. 26 is the number equivalent as well for the holiest Hebrew Name of God, known as the four-letter tetragrammaton (Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh — 10 + 5 + 6 + 5 = 26). Therefore, the number equivalent of the three internal letters that form the Aleph carries the same number equivalent as the holiest four-letter name of God.

The upper Yud of the aleph represents the absolute and transcendent realm of God. The lower Yud represents the corporeal and physical world of humankind. Moses’ role as  chief among the prophets is represented by the Vav which connects the lower Yud of humankind and the upper Yud of God. Moses therefore connects the lower and upper worlds, the transcendence immanence of God, the spiritual and metaphysical realm as opposed to the material and the physical world.

The number equivalence of the Hebrew vav (6), represents the six directions (north, south, east, west, heaven, and earth) signifying God’s ever-presence.

Thus, in the letter Aleph is the intimation of God’s unity with creation, the joining of the implicate and the physical, the merging of the world to come and the world that is, God’s pathos and Moses’ prophetic empathy.

Sources: I am grateful to Reuven Matheison and his article “The Inner Meaning of the Hebrew Letters” from Visions of the Psalms Through the Gate of Colors, by Moshe Tzvi HaLEvi Berger, p. xix. I am grateful also for the notes of the artist, Moshe Tzvi Berger whose primary sources were The Hebrew Letters by Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburg; Sparks of the Holy Tongue, by Rabbi Matityahu Glazerson; and Secret of the Holy Letters, by Rabbi Yehudah Ashlag (z’l)

 

Hearing God at Sinai again – Parashat Yitro

This week is the 5^th Torah portion in the Book of Exodus – Parashat Yitro – in which the Ten Words are uttered, inscribed in the tablets of the law, and brought down from Sinai by the prophet Moses to the people of Israel. As we consider this singular event in the history of Judaism and western religion, it’s worth our while to pause for a moment to consider the nature of the first and most transformative event in Moses’ life.

He was in Midian tending sheep when he came upon a bush that burned unconsumed. The sight of it was so unusual that Moses stopped to ponder the miracle. Then he heard God’s voice charging him to go to Pharaoh and free the Hebrew slaves and take them out of Egypt.

The portion begins by telling us about Jethro, a Midianite Priest and Moses’ father-in law, who rabbinic commentators suggest enjoyed a close mentor/mentee relationship together.

The Torah describes how Jethro taught Moses to govern the people – to delegate and decentralize, to appoint judges and give up control over smaller cases, to allow others to act, judge and lead, to relinquish many of the burdens he carried as prophet, judge, and military chieftain.

Moses did as Jethro advised and we might imagine that Moses became calmer, more intentional and self-reflective. In this relaxed state Moses could heard God’s voice – not as an audible sound but as an intuitive quiet murmuring sound, much like the sound that breath makes as it passes through the lips, like Elijah’s kol d’mama daka, the voice of conscience.

One commentary notes that we can read “Mi chamocha ba-eilim Adonai – Who is like you, Adonai, among the mighty?” another way – as “Mi chamocha ba-ilmim Adonai – Who is like You, Adonai, among the silent ones.”

This reading of the text suggests that Moses entered into a quiet internal dialogue with God!

We don’t know the exact location of the sacred mountain of Sinai, but where ever it was the experience of the divine transformed each individual there and the Jewish people as a whole.

Each time we learn Torah and interact with the sacred text, tradition teaches that we reenact the Sinai experience, that we join our ancestors as our people received Torah. If we listen carefully, perhaps we may be able to hear God’s voice echo from the mountain top through time to us.

To hear, however, we first must rid ourselves of the noise in our lives, pause, and listen. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said: “Only when we’re able to share in the spirit of awe that fills the world are we able to understand what happened to Israel at Sinai.”

Yitro teaches that the revelation of Torah filled the world with limitless potential for holiness and spiritual uplift.

Tradition teaches that whenever the Ten Words are read, the congregation stands in memory of the experience at Sinai when Moses brought down Torah.