Korach Sermon: are you sensing a theme?

Ten years ago last week, I stood on the bimah of the Plum Street Temple with my classmates on a perfect Saturday morning. In that breathtaking room, filled literally to the gills, each of us stepped before the ark, and received the blessing—and the charge—of the rabbinate. I was fortunate enough to have both my teacher David Ellenson and my father ordain me. It was among the three most powerful moments of my life, and before my son was born, the most humbling.
Let me give you a little context. I had known my entire life that I wanted to be a rabbi. I tell people that I made up my mind when I was 15 and attending the Reform Movement’s Kutz Leadership Academy, but that’s only partially true. I began thinking about it when I was 11, and by the time I was 13 I truly couldn’t imagine doing anything else. I was, to use a Christian term, called. The Still Small Voice within me told me that for this I was created. Which meant that, until that moment On May 30^th 2003, every fiber of my being was pointed to that day, in that direction. And as I stood on that bimah and waited my turn, I knew it would be transformative. I expected the ruach elohim, God’s presence, to permeate me, empower me. Instead, as I felt my father’s hands on my head, as I heard the words of that blessing, I felt smaller than I ever had. And that feeling has never left me. Not for one moment of my 10 years in the rabbinate.
Why do people go into leadership? Why do they step forward instead of backward? Why would someone choose to speak out or speak up? Is it about ego, about loving the sound of their own voices? Is it because they have some kind of agenda? In our most cynical moments, each of us has had those thoughts, haven’t we? And in this week’s portion, we hear something of that alienation, that suspicion. Vayikach Korach: Now Korach, son of Izhar son of Kohath son of Levi, betook himself, along with Dathan and Abiram sons of Eliab and On son of Peleth—descendants of Reuben—to rise up against Moses, together with two hundred and fifty representatives of the Israelites; chieftains of the community, chosen in the assembly, with fine reputations. They combined against Moses and Aaron and said to them, “You have gone too far! For all the community are holy, all of them, and the Eternal is in their midst. Why then do you raise yourselves above the Eternal’s congregation?”
 Listen to Korach’s accusation—who do you think you are Moses? What self-interest are you pursuing? What agenda do you have? Who do you think you are? What’s your angle? Korach and his cohort assume ill intent on Moses and Aaron’s part. They assume Moses and Aaron are imposing some alien vision, some hostile intent upon the congregation. We’re already holy, and God is in our midst. We don’t need what you’re selling.
 Why do people go into leadership, when there is so much doubt, when there are so many questions, when there’s so much skepticism? Why do these people step forward? Each would answer in a different way, but I would guess that there would be a common thread, one that stands counter to Korach’s assertion, his boast of present holiness. For as Yeshayahu Leibowitz reminds us, Leviticus 19 proclaims that Israel will be holy, future tense. Israel is not yet holy, but open to the possibility. We are challenged to be holy, we aspire to be holy, but to claim that we are already holy, to accept the status quo, to hang a sign proclaiming ‘Mission Accomplished’, is to sell ourselves and our community short.
 Real leaders lead not out of self-interest, but because they believe in the community. They accept the challenge, they respond to the call, because they aspire for all to go up, for the whole community to move forward, toward holiness. This doesn’t make them perfect; quite the opposite! They’re still human beings, who make mistakes, who get upset or hurt or angry, who have trouble hearing clear signals instead of noise. But, in the words of Carey Nieuwhof, they don’t ask “Why is this happening?” “How come this doesn’t seem to happen to other people?” “What I have I done to deserve this?” “Is this ever going to end?” Instead they ask the hardest and most essential question of community and leadership: What does this experience make possible? Which doesn’t mean they don’t get scared, or get it wrong. But it does mean they move past self-interest and toward the sacred.
Deuteronomy Rabbah reminds us that a community is too heavy to carry alone. Too often we try to do so, and we think either only we—I—can do what needs to be done, or the exact inverse—it’s someone else’s problem. But as my teachers Terry Bookman and William Kahn remind us: God created the covenant with the Israelites not simply as a means by which to keep them by His side, but also as a model for how they can be with one another.” We installed a new board tonight. Their success depends on us—our love, our support, our truth, our assumptions, our graciousness, our responsiveness. They step forward to share the best of themselves, may we respond in turn. Amen.
 

 

Not my Sermon from Shelach Lecha

So this isn't the sermon I gave two weeks ago. Same themes, but I decided to speak extemporaneously about my experiences rather than read from the script. Since that means I don't have a script, I make you suffer through this instead.

 (If you want the actual sermon, you can find the recording of it here). 

There’s a famous joke about a man who’s just got a brand new sports car. He takes to a coastal highway, opens up the throttle, and speeds along, but while driving alongside a steep hill, he hits a sharp turn too fast, and has to jump out of his car as it plunges into the rocks below. Even then, he’s dangling, cartoon-like, from a branch on the side of the mountain. “God!” He cries, “Please help me!” He’s startled when a voice responds, “here I am, my son.” Oh, thank God!” He cries again. “Save me, God. I’ll do anything!” “I’ll save you,” Replies God. “you only have to do one thing.” “Yes, anything!”  “Let go”.
We all know the joke. What makes it funny is thinking about our own reactions. How many of us, clinging for dear life to the side of a cliff, would trust a voice and let go? Would you trust the voice? Or would you trust your own eyes and experience: that voices do not defy gravity, and that the only thing keeping you from plummeting to your doom is your hands on the branch?
The same question is raised by our Torah portion. In Shelach Lecha, Israelite spies enter the land, scout it, and return to inform Israel that, while it is a good land, it’s occupied, and the residents are veritable giants, or so it seems to them. Despite Joshua and Caleb urging the People to trust in God, the Israelites despair and actually turn around to go back to Egypt, back the way they came. It’s such a catastrophic response, such a terrible lack of faith, that the generation that left Egypt is cursed to die in the wilderness, rather than enter the land promised them. What’s curious, though, is how the portion ends—not with Israel’s banishment, not with death and more death as described throughout the verses, but a peculiar mitzvah, a singular commandment. Last week’s portion ended with the commandment to wear tzitzit, or fringes on the corners of our garments. The text reads:
The Eternal said to Moses as follows: ³⁸Speak to the Israelite people and instruct them to make for themselves fringes on the corners of their garments throughout the ages; let them attach a cord of blue to the fringe at each corner. ³⁹That shall be your fringe; look at it and recall all the commandments of the Lord and observe them, so that you do not follow your heart and eyes in your lustful urge. ⁴⁰Thus you shall be reminded to observe all My commandments and to be holy to your God. ⁴¹I the Eternal am your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God: I, the Lord your God.
Wait, Fringes? Why fringes? I think we could all agree that this is a strange commandment. Rabbinic and proto-rabbinic texts, like Josephus, suggest that it was the tzitzit, the fringes, so seemingly arbitrary, that finally caused Korach, Dathan and Abiram to throw his hands up and rebel a few verses later. That one more oddball mitzvah that had no rhyme or reason pushed them over the edge. Scholars believe they were the pockets of antiquity, used to tie signet seals or other important objects to one’s cloak. Others suggest they were a form of ethnic differentiation: dressing in a way that separated them from others. But what do fringes have to do with Mitzvot, or sacred obligations? What do fringes have to do with the rebellion of the spies, or Egypt for that matter?
Apparently, everything. Let’s look again at our Israelite ancestors. Despite being liberated from Egypt, receiving the Torah at Mount Sinai, building the Mishkan, the tabernacle, eating manna along their journey, witnessing untold miracles, and being brought to the cusp of the Land, Israel still didn’t appreciate their relationship with God, or their own holiness. They were still a slave people, still ready to go back to Egypt whenever the going got tough, and no amount of blessings by priests or fancy rituals or awe-inspiring miracles were going to change the way they saw themselves: as grasshoppers. They didn’t see with their faith; they saw with their eyes and heart, they saw through the lens of FEAR. And Fear will always lead us backwards, always lead us backward.And that’s as true today as it was then. Are we really any different?  “Everybody on earth deals with fear” says the lawyer in the movie Defending Your Life. “Fear is like a giant fog. It sits on your brain and blocks everything. Real feeling, true happiness, real joy, they can't get through that fog.”
Special effects are nice, rallies and speeches—words-- may give us warm fuzzies, but at the end of the day, they don’t change us or our condition, they don’t reduce our fear. We need those tangible reminders—an embrace, a memento,  a cloak with a thread the color of the sky as the sun sets—blue and purple and green all at once—that would remind us, to follow not our eyes or our hearts, but God. To put it another way: when our inclination is to ‘go back to Egypt’; that is, to turn in fear. We cling to the ledge because we think there is no alternative. The Israelites—and we—need a physical reminder to trust in God, WHO LED US OUT OF EGYPT. That is, a physical reminder that we can't go backward, only forward; we cannot hold on forever, we need to let go of the past and have a little faith. Ibn Ezra says that if we do so, we will be holy and our rational soul will not be stained by the polluted lusts of the heart. Israel thinks it's acting rationally; really it's being irrational; driven by fear of the future, of the unknown. They are full of fear. We need reminders not to be afraid. No, that’s not quite right. We need something to hold onto that says “I acknowledge your fear, and while holding onto me won’t give you the answers, I’ll remind you why you’re here, and that will help you get through your fears.”
Because that’s the missing piece, isn’t it? When we’re afraid, it’s because we’re not sure what to do, not sure of our role, or of our relationships. When we’re afraid we don’t know who we can trust. We curl inward, instead of outward. But when we remember that we have a mission, a purpose, a reason—when we remember we are valued and holy—then the fear moves backward, and our sense of meaning forward. Fear moves us to think only of ourselves; we need reminders to think of others, to move from a focus of “my” needs to “our” needs.
So, what are your fears? What sends you back to Egypt? And what are your Tzitzit, the tangibles that reassure you and reaffirm you? What forces you to cling for dear life to the edge? Is it fear of loneliness, of change, of not mattering? For me, it’s fear of failure. And I know I need my tzitzit—real and metaphorical—to remind me of my sacred obligations. And when I hold onto those personal tzitzit, I remember my family, my circle, my congregation and my community, my world my God, and I am renewed. The challenges aren’t any less challenging, the object of my fear isn’t any less daunting, but for a moment I can move outside myself. I can stop listening to my eyes and the racing of my heart. I can let go.
Teach us, O God, to always look toward our personal tzitzit, to see in each person a reminder of You, and so be led back to You and your Torah, lest our hearts lead us astray. Amen. 

Memorial Day

As I did last year, I'm reposting the eulogy given by Rabbi (chaplain) Roland Gittelsohn at the dedication of the Marine cemetery on Iwo Jima. A meaningful day to all.

For this Memorial Day I present the full eulogy at the dedication of the 5th Marine Division Cemetery at Iwo Jima in March of 1945 by Roland Gittelsohn z'l, my father's childhood rabbi and the first rabbi to serve as a chaplain in the Marine Corps. His words resonate for us today. 

"This is perhaps the grimmest, and surely the holiest task we have faced since D-Day. Here before us lie the bodies of comrades and friends. Men who until yesterday or last week laughed with us, joked with us, trained with us. Men who were on the same ships with us, and went over the sides with us as we prepared to hit the beaches of this island. Men who fought with us and feared with us. Somewhere in this plot of ground there may lie the man who could have discovered the cure for cancer. Under one of these Christian crosses, or beneath a Jewish Star of David, there may now rest a man who was destined to be a great prophet–to find the way, perhaps, for all to live in plenty, with poverty and hardship for none. Now they lie here silently in this sacred soil, and we gather to consecrate this earth in their memory. 

It is not easy to do so. Some of us have buried our closest friends here. We saw these men killed before our very eyes. Any one of us might have died in their places. Indeed, some of us are alive and breathing at this very monent only because men who lie here beneath us had the courage and strength to give their lives for ours. To speak in memory of such men as these is not easy. Of them too can it be said with utter truth: "The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here. It can never forget what they did here." 

No, our poor power of speech can add nothing to what these men and the other dead of our Division who are not here have already done. All that we even hope to do is follow their example. To show the same selfless courage in peace that they did in war. To swear that by the grace of God and the stubborn strength and power of human will, their sons and ours shall never suffer these pains again. These men have done their jobs well. They have paid the ghastly price of freedom. If that freedom be once again lost, as it was after the last war, the unforgivable blame will be ours, not theirs. So it is we the living who are here to be dedicated and consecrated. 

We dedicate ourselves, first, to live together in peace the way they fought and are buried in this war. Here lie men who loved America because their ancestors generations ago helped in her founding, and other men who loved her with equal passion because they themselves or their own fathers escaped from oppression to her blessed shores. Here lie officers and men, negroes and whites, rich men and poor–together. Here no man prefers another because of his faith or despises him because of his color. Here there are no quotas of how many from each group are admitted or allowed. Among these men there is no discrimination. No prejudices. No hatred. Theirs is the highest and purest democracy. 

Any man among us the living who fails to understand that will thereby betray those who lie here dead. Whoever of us lifts up his hand in hate against a brother, or thinks himself superior to those who happen to be in the minority, makes of this ceremony and of the bloody sacrifice it commemorates, an empty, hollow mockery. To this, then, as our solemn, sacred duty, do we the living now dedicate ourselves: to the rights of Protestants, Catholics and Jews, of white men and negroes alike, to enjoy the democracy for which all of them here have paid the price. 

To one thing more do we consecrate ourselves in memory of those who sleep beneath these crosses and stars. We shall not foolishly suppose, as did the last generation of America's fghting men, that victory on the battlefield will automatically guarantee the triumph of democracy at home. This war, with all its frightful heartache and suffering,is but the beginning our our generation's struggle for democracy. When the last battle has been won, there will be those at home, as there were the last time, who will want us to turn our backs in selfish isolation on the rest of organized humanity, and thus to sabotage the very peace for which we fight. We promise you who lie here: we will not do that! We will join hands with Britain, China, Russia in peace, even as we have in war, to build the kind of world for which you died. 

When the last shot has been fired, there will still be those whose eyes are turned backward, not forward, who will be satisfied with those wide extremes of poverty and wealth in which the seeds of another war can breed. We promise you, our departed comrades: this too we will not permit. This war has been fought by the common man; its fruits of peace must be enjoyed by the common man! We promise, by all that is sacred and holy, that your sons, the sons of moners and millers, the sons of farmers and workers, the right to a living that is decent and secure. 

When the final cross has been placed in the last cemetery, once again there will be those to whom profit is more important than peace, who will insist with the voice of sweet reasonableness and appeasement that it is better to trade with the enemies of mankind, than by crushing them, to lose their profit. To you who sleep here silently, we give our promise: we will not listen! We will not forget that some of you were burnt with oil that came from American wells, that many of you were killed with shells fashioned from American steel. We promise that when once again men profit at your expense, we shall remember how you looked when we placed you reverently, lovingly, in the ground. 

Thus do we memorialize those who, having ceased living with us, now live within us. Thus do we consecrate ourselves the living to carry on the struggle they began. Too much blood has gone into this soil for us to let it lie barren. Too much pain and heartache have fertilized the earth on which we stand. We here solemnly swear: this shall not be in vain! Out of this, and from the suffering and sorrow of those who mourn this, will come–we promise–the birth of a new freedom for the sons of men everywhere.       Amen."

Naso: On PIckup Trucks And The Blessings We Miss.

So the other day I’m driving into the office and I’m behind a pickup truck, the kind that clearly gets used as a pickup truck. In other words, this isn’t a squeaky clean vanity vehicle or ersatz SUV; there’s wracks with equipment, piles of stuff, and years of grit on this truck. It’s the kind of truck that is often idealized in our culture of independence and personal can-do spirit; the kind of truck you’d picture a Louis L’amour character driving if no horses were available.

So I’m behind this truck, and I notice a bumper sticker. It says, “yes, this is my truck, and no, I won’t help you move.

Yes, it’s just a bumper sticker. Yes, it’s meant to be funny, to be snarkey—that particular blend of sarcasm and entertainment. And yet, this bumper sticker made me sad. Is this what we’ve come to? I thought to myself. Those of us who have ability, who should be among the first to offer help, are now refusing, because being asked to help is annoying.

The answer is, of course, yes. Barring a crisis, our focus is nearly entirely on ourselves. Or, as David Foster Wallace said before his death, “everything in [our] own immediate experience supports [our] deep belief that [we] am the absolute center of the universe, the realest, most vivid and important person in existence. “ That, he writes, is our default position; that everyone else is merely in the way, an annoyance, in our way. You can find that speech, by the way, in the form of a short film called “This is Water” on Youtube.

Is it? Does that have to be our default position? Must we fail again and again to recognize and help each other, instead of thinking only of ourselves?

The answer is, sadly, probably. But we are given opportunities to break out of that rut, to realize what we’re doing and to have at least a moment of self-correction. This week’s portion describes the act by the Priest of blessing the people Israel; we’ve seen Aaron bless the Israelites but never had a formula for the blessing. Here we have it presented and we know this blessing well—it’s birkat Kohanim, sometimes called birkat shalom, the priestly benediction, a text that was powerful enough that archeologists have found medallions and amulets with the text of it in graves around Jerusalem dating to the early second temple period at least. But then, after giving the blessing, the text continues: “And they [the priests] shall put my name upon the people Israel; and I will bless them.”

What does that even mean “They shall put my name upon the people Israel”? How is God blessing the people if the priest just did the job? The Rabbis of old suggest the answer is in how we see the priest. Is it the priest’s blessing? What if the priest is lousy at his job? What if you’ve just had a fight with him? What if you doubt his integrity? In other words, what if you experience the priest as we experience the people around us; that is, he’s in our way? He’s the dopey guy in front of us in the checkout line, he’s the petty bureaucrat or clerk who makes us redo the form because of a typo, the one who wants to borrow our truck to help him move.  None of that, the Rabbis suggest, is relevant. To quote the Talmud, “For the Holy One, blessed be God, says: "Who blesses you? Am not I the one who blesses you, as it is written: "Let them place My name upon the Israelites, and I will bless them?”

The priest, therefore, becomes the vessel of the blessing, not the provider of blessing. The priest is klei kodesh, a holy vessel, and surely, as Rashi suggests, should give the blessing with due reverence and feeling, with appropriate kavvanah. But it’s not about the Priest. It’s about connecting with the sacred, with what is holy. And what does it mean to connect with the holy? It means having an awareness—having God’s name placed on the people—and waking up to the reality that, while we may be the protagonist in our own narrative, we are also not the center of the universe, those around us are not in our way, do not exist to be mere annoyances. No, they are klei kodesh, vessels of holiness, just like us, but only when we open ourselves to the possibility that we may receive a blessing from them; that our encounters need not be meaningless and aggravating, but full of potential.

In the end, Wallace reminds us that it’s our choice, how we want to encounter the world; do we want to see the world as filled with people who merely want to get in our way, borrow our stuff, or do we want to see others as bestowers of blessing, vessels of holiness? Certainly the latter is harder; it’s much easier to see ourselves as essential and others as inconsequential. Perhaps, even in our better moments, we won’t be successful. But then sometimes we will be, we will recognize that we are the ones in the way, not them. And because of that, I would argue that choice is the most consequential choice we make, for it gives us opportunities to be the kinds of people we want to be, the kind God wants us to be, and reminds us that the blessing is around us and open to us, even in the simple act of borrowing—or lending out—a truck. 

On Divestment: An Open Letter To the Oberlin Student Senate

Dear Fellow Obies: 

Congratulations on the completion of the spring semester. I know many of you have been challenged tremendously--in your academics, your extracurricular activities, and your activism. I know because not long ago (though it feels like an eternity) I was there. I was one of you--long hair flowing behind me, cursing the copier in Mudd, sitting out class on Wilder Bowl on too-beautiful spring days contemplating life and my place in it, going to the 'Sco and complaining about the food at Stevenson and walking through the cigarette smoke to meet my girlfriend at the Con, and mostly wondering how I was going to make a difference in this world I and my generation had inherited. 

See, I went to Oberlin because it was unique. It was--and remains--the kind of place where people take social justice very, very seriously. Combining a cloistered Midwestern study ethic with endless petitions, protests, sit-ins and other acts of political courage, Oberlin was exactly the place I needed to be. I'd always been passionate about Tikkun Olam (Hebrew for 'repairing the world'), and when I got the application for Oberlin in the spring of 1993 I knew I had found my people. On the cover it was an image of earth from space with a question printed in white Helevicta font: "Think one person can change the world?" It was stunning and possibly cynical, until you opened the cover to find the same image, with new words written in white: "So do we." It was a bold statement, and fit Oberlin's ethos perfectly. And, I thought at the time, it was a profoundly Jewish idea (I still think so). I arrived wide-eyed to hear seniors talk of sit-ins in S. Fred Starr's office protesting our investment in South Africa's Apartheid state, women attached to the side of Mudd Library by spelunker equipment to protest animal testing, intense debate about colonialism, feminism, the food we eat, the music we listen to, poverty, Israel, race, and every subject under the sun. It was a place to be challenged. 

That's why I wasn't surprised, but was saddened  by your vote in favor of divestment of Israel. Without a doubt, Israel has been a challenging topic at Oberlin since long before I was a student there, and probably long before the 1987 intifada (which I remember quite well, living in Jerusalem at the time). I remember more than one speaker (the former Stokey Carmichael) coming to Oberlin to fan anti-Zionism, and at least one provocative Oberlin Alumni magazine several years ago (in the Nancy Dye era) that treated Israel essentially as a police state. And Israel's complex relationship with the settler movement and the West Bank and Gaza strip, her insistence on military solutions to political problems, and the often disappointing (from a liberal perspective, anyway) internal conversation in the Jewish state hasn't made anything easier. Is Israel an apartheid state? Most would argue it isn't--Israeli Arabs have equal rights under the law, and are represented in all facets of Israeli life. Israel is a western-style democracy with freedom of speech and the press, freedom to gather and protest, and despite the efforts of some, robust rule of law. But it's clear that there are those who are more equal than others, and that the situation in the Palestinian territories  is, while certainly not Apartheid, also not good. 

In other words, there's lots of reasons to engage in vigorous debate about security, about freedom, about national destiny and racism and Zionism and Palestinianism and what they all mean. And if any place is going to engage in that kind of dialogue, it's Oberlin. Oberlin was MADE for that kind of hard, provocative, robust conversation. Divestment, however, is the opposite of engagement. It is a provocative statement to be sure, but it also closes the door to further communication. It presents an answer without asking any questions. It makes assumptions that, on any other subject, would rouse terrible invective on the part of the injured party, and rightly so. 

As this letter, circulated by alumni and students (and thanks to Anna Band), 

• BDS stands in the way of constructive initiatives for peace. It employs politics of blame rather than politics of cooperation. Furthermore, it ignores serious impediments to the peace process including terrorism, and refuses to denounce anti-Israel and anti-Jewish violence. This demonization and delegitimization of Israel hinders the possibility of peace.  There is common concern that opponents of BDS view Israel with uncritical, unconditional support. This fear is unfounded. One can have a nuanced, critical view of Israel and still recognize the dangers of BDS. In fact, it is BDS, with its policies of delegitimization and censorship, that leaves no room for critical thinking. “Criticizing Israel is not anti-Semitic, and saying so is vile. But singling out Israel for opprobrium and international sanction out of all proportion to any other party in the Middle East is anti-Semitic, and not saying so is dishonest.” (Thomas Friedman, “Campus Hypocrisy,” New York Times, 10-16-02).
  BDS advocates boycotts of Israeli sporting, cultural and academic institutions. Academic and cultural boycotts of Israeli citizens undermine academic freedom and inhibit open and honest dialogue. Discrimination against scholars, artists, or athletes based solely upon their country of origin is reprehensible.
  BDS calls for the “right of return” of millions of Palestinians, born outside of Israel but claiming refugee status. This unprecedented step would spell the end of the Jewish State, replacing it with a Palestinian “one state solution.” While BDS accepts Israel’s right to exist as a state, it categorically rejects Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.

  
  My guess is that many of you struggled with this. Oberlin--and Oberlin students--are some of the smartest, most knowledgeable, most politically active people in the world (who else was talking about East Timor in 1996 outside Australia and Indonesia? Only Oberlin). It is a place where people struggle with their own assumptions and suppositions. That's why you tried to change the language of the resolution, tried to make it clear this was a political statement, not an antisemitic one--because this issue required a politcal statement. That's what Oberlin does, right?
  
  So now let me make an alternative suggestion: what Israel needs right now is not divestment but engagement. More than ever, Israelis and Palestinians need to see that they are not hated and threatened, but are loved and supported.  These two groups live in permanent existential crisis; BDS exacerbates that. But engagement, dialogue, sharing, letting go of one's own viewpoint to see the Other not merely as Other, this is what Oberlin excels at, and what is called for across campuses and academia throughout North America and worldwide. I made this argument regarding Alice Walker last year as well, and I'll tell you what I said then: You're bigger than this. You're better than this. But by choosing to divest, you choose, essentially, to remove yourselves from a conversation that, granted, is hard, impossibly hard, but essential. By joining the BDS movement, you silence yourself.
  
  So, the summer is upon us. Many of you are graduating next weekend. Some of you are sticking around for Commencement, then running off to study abroad, to internships, to work and family. Let me give you further summer homework: engage. Read about Israel from a perspective not your own. Travel to Israel--and not just the easy places. Go to Sderot, to Ashkelon, speak to people from those areas. Talk to Zionists and listen, really listen. Anais Nin said "you cannot save people, only love them." Stop trying to save people, for a change, and love them. Then you will truly save the world.
  
  Sincerely,
  
  Yair Robinson, OC 1998

Emor, Choir Appreciation and The Power of Music

This week's sermon. Shabbat Shalom!

When I was a kid, I remember these most haunting images that would appear on the news, images I couldn’t understand as a child. They were women of all ages, with pictures pinned to their clothing, dancing alone in a public square. There was something very moving and very sad about the voice, and very powerful in ways I couldn’t possibly comprehend as a child.

This was, of course, the cueca sola, women whose husbands and sons  and fathers had been ‘disappeared’ by the regime of the dictator Augusto Pinochet. They took the national dance, a dance that Pinochet himself had co-opted,  and danced alone. As the musician Sting wrote in his song They Dance Alone:

Why are these women here dancing on their own? Why is there sadness in their eyes?
Why are the soldiers here, there faces fixed like stone; I can’t see what it is they despise.They’re dancing with the missing, they’re dancing with the dead. They’re dancing with the invisible ones, their anguish left unsaid.

That dance, to beautiful music, was as powerful a protest as any. And, arguably, the Cueca Sola did more to topple the regime and bring about free elections than any other form of protest.

The idea of protest music isn’t new, of course. Every revolution and movement has had its songs and anthems, but we as Jews have been especially keen on the idea. From Bob Dylan, Peter Yarrow and Leonard Cohen to the music of Rogers and Hammerstein in such shows as South Pacific, to Kol Nidrei, a protest song if there ever was one, to the Ramones and Scott Ian and Adam Yauch, we as a people have been attuned to the idea that music conveys a message beyond mere entertainment, and more powerfully than any blunt instrument. Music has the power to change and move the individual, to be transformative. We see it when kids go to camp and the songleader starts playing her guitar, or in our sanctuary when we join in Mi Shebeirach. Music can challenge, as unetaneh Tokeph does at the High Holy Days. Or Music can teach and explain—think of the English verses of most Jewish camping songs, translating the Hebrew. Or music can comfort, as the words of psalms so often do.

As Activist Rabbi Sharon Brous of IKAR recently put it: we should sing a song that reminds us of our vision and what we can do. When we are paralyzed and need to move forward, music becomes the push that unifies, that elevates, that sanctifies, that engages. And it is those who sing, those who make music, who move us forward as well. And everyone can make music. Each of us has a voice that brings the words of prayer—be they words of challenge or comfort—come alive! As Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote: “A few can touch the magic string, and noisy fame is proud to win them: Alas for those that never sing, but die with all their music in them!” Our choir reminds us that our voices are necessary, important messengers of holiness.

So, we say thank you to our choir, and invite you to join their ranks. And we say thank you to their leaders, our cantor, our music director. We thank them for the beauty of their instruments, to be sure, but especially for their leadership of us, their encouragement for all of us to join in song. Because only when we sing together can we transform one another; only when we sing together will we remember our vision of holiness, and remember what we are called to do. Amen.

Kedoshim: The Promises We Keep

Sorry for the Delay. Here's my sermon from this past week. 

Hoping to blog about the Consultation On Conscience before Shabbat!

If you want the ultimate image of disappointment, or if you decide you really need to feel like a failure, imagine a child or your spouse or someone you love looking at you with a hurt expression on their face and say, “but you promised.”  

When I woke up this morning, I didn’t think to myself, “I wonder if I’ll be a husband today?” “I wonder if I’ll be father today?” or even “I wonder if I’ll be a rabbi today?” Why? Because I promised. When I married Marisa, when Elishai came into this world, when I stood on the bimah of the Plum Street Temple, I swore an oath, I made a promise, one that changed my identity radically and permanently. I made a commitment to something larger than myself—marriage, fatherhood, the rabbinate.
Each of us has, in one way, shape or form, reaffirmed a promise made by our ancestors. We read this week, “Kedoshim Tihiyu”, you shall be holy. We assume it’s a mitzvah, a commandment, but really, it’s an affirmation by God of something we as a people had already said at Sinai. We said, “kol diber Adonai na’asei”, all that God has said, we will do. Only by making that commitment, that promise, was God able to proclaim our holiness. By affirming and reaffirming our connection to Judaism, we are making the same promise our ancestors made on that desert morning long ago.
Likewise, gathered in this room, are people—each of us—who has sworn an oath. We think joining a synagogue is like joining a country club, or a gym, but it’s not. It’s making a commitment to a community, to our family ,to our people. It’s swearing an oath, to support others in time of trouble, to celebrate with others in times of joy. To worship and study and gather and break bread with and party with and raise kids and grandkids with others. Because we promised. We made a covenant.

Sounds too simple, right? That’s not how our world works, right? To join a synagogue is a consumerist activity, we choose a synagogue by going ‘synagogue shopping’. We decide that our connection is tenuous: how often we’ve heard people say, “oh, I quit because my friends weren’t there anymore” , “we weren’t using it”, “our kids are grown.” But we are not consumers—we are CONGREGANTS. And congregants congregate. Because we promised.

Each of you, members of this congregation for 18 years or longer—a lifetime—understand what it means to make a commitment—not merely to a place, but to PEOPLE, not to an idea, but to GOD, not only your generation, but the generations that follow. People tell us it’s hard to get people to join synagogues, to retain membership, that it’s too threatening, too expensive, too much. Perhaps. But perhaps we’re asking the wrong question. Rather, we should be asking—what is your promise worth? Because when you join a congregation, when you come into a community that embraces you with open, outstretched arms, you make a commitment for life. For yourself, for your family.
A Promise is sacred. It is through promise that we became holy, and become holy again. It is through your promises that we become sacred community. It is why we’re here, and why we’ll be here eighteen years from now, and eighteen years after that, and eighteen years after that. Because we promise.