Shedding Some Light on the Shema
Commentary on Parshat Vayehi: Genesis 47:28-50:26
Try this if you are a Jewish parent. Teach your child to recite the Shema to you, but instead of the word “Yisrael”, have them read your name instead. Say that your name is David. So your child should say to you, ” Shema David, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad.
Does this sound preposterous? Actually, there is a basis for this practice in Jewish tradition.
The Shema Yisrael passage is a central passage in Jewish tradition. The text, “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One” is found in the Torah in the Book of Deuteronomy 6:4. Rabbinic tradition understood the recitation of the passage as a Mitzvah — a commandment to be done by a Jewish adult twice a day. The passage made its way to the core of the Jewish prayer book. Over the generations, Jewish children associated the Shema with bedtime as parents recited these words lovingly before bedtime in the “Shema At Bedside” ritual (Shema Al Hamitah).
According to a Midrash (a rabbinic commentary) on this week’s portion, Vayehi, the original recitation of the Shema took place at the deathbed of Jacob, the patriarch.. Jacob’s sons, who are reunited in Egypt with their brother Joseph, gather around his bedside and pronounce the Shema. Yisrael is Jacob’s other name, the name he was given after wrestling with God’s angel (Genesis 32). The Midrash suggests that the sons of Jacob who had been driven by sibling hatred and plotting had come together in unity and said to him, “Hear Yisrael, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.”
As the Midrash sees it, this original recitation of the Shema was directed at Jacob by his sons to assure him that all his children recognized that they shared the same God and that this God was One. In saying this they included themselves in the ancestral covenant (Brit) first made with Abraham, their great grandfather. In the previous two generations, there had been a terrible sibling rivalry in which only one sibling would inherit the Covenant of Abraham. But in reciting the Shema the sons wanted to convey to their father that the Covevenant would continue with them. This gave him comfort.
Jewish tradition engages parents to teach their children the Shema to convey a love of God and a loyalty to the Jewish tradition. Yet we have another tradition that children should recite the Shema to parents as an assurance of their embrace of the Brit-the covenant and their commitment to living within the Covenant, living their lives as Jews.
This Midrash presents challenges for our times, when we struggle to figure out our Jewish identities, and as we often share mixed identities within our families. In today’s world, I distinguish between two types of Jewish identities: an identity of legacy and identity of purpose. The identity of legacy builds on the fact that “I am Jewish because my parents, grandparents, and ancestors were Jewish. They have handed me a legacy.” The identity of purpose is embodied in the belief that “I live my Jewish life with purpose based on the highest values and commitments that Jews have carried from generation to generation. “ This is true even whether or not I received them from my parents or not.
My view is the Jewish identity of purpose is more crucial in our times than the identity of legacy. I say this because to identify as a Jew based on the purpose of being Jewish demands that we engage with the teachings of our tradition and their relevance for our lives. Jewish tradition comes alive through study and interaction with the tradition.
The identity of legacy by itself is admirable and builds on our loyalty to our ancestors, but in the age of the great mixing of identities we will have multiple ancestors and multiple paths will lie before us. Judaism will have to be meaningful to our children, not just for what their parents or grandparents did, but also by how we engage its teachings and apply them to our lives and our world.
It is not preposterous to teach our children to say the Shema to us only if we work hard to make Judaism meaningful to them and ourselves. It won’t suffice anymore to shout “Tradition” like Tevya does in “Fiddler on the Roof”. It is when our children find meaning in Judaism that they will freely say Shema to us and even thank us for starting them on the great journey of inspiration and understanding that is the way of Torah — the way of Judaism.
Judaism: A Religion of Engagement
In our portion we read about events that shape the character of the Jewish people. Yakov’s life becomes a template for the Jewish character. I continue to share with you from the superb insights of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks whose weekly Torah commentaries I am reading through 5771.
“Alone and afraid at the dead of night, Jacob is assaulted by an unnamed stranger. They wrestle. Time passes. Dawn is about to break:”
Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”
But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go until you bless me.”
The man asked him, “What is your name?”
“Jacob,” he answered.
Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome.” Genesis 31
“So the people Israel acquired its name, surely the strangest and most haunting in all the religious experience of mankind.
Religion, faith, spirituality – these words conjure up many ideas and associations: peace, serenity, inwardness, meditation, calm, acceptance, bliss. Often faith has been conceived as an alternative reality, a “haven in a heartless world,” an escape from the strife and conflict of everyday life. There is much to be said for this idea. But it is not Judaism.
Judaism is not an escape from the world but an engagement with the world. It is not “the opium of the people,” as Karl Marx once called religion. It does not anaesthetize us to the pains and apparent injustices of life. It does not reconcile us to suffering. It asks us to play our part in the most daunting undertaking ever asked by God of mankind: to construct relationships, communities, and ultimately a society, that will become homes for the Divine presence. And that means wrestling with God and with men and refusing to give up or despair.”
Rabbi Sacks gives felicitous expression to the spirituality of relationship that is at the heart of Judaism. I believe that building good families, congregations, and communities is at the heart of what it means to be Jewish. A Jew thinks carefully about “what is good for my family?”; What is good for my shul?” “What is good for my city?” What is good for my nation or people?” What is good for the earth I live on?” Our tradition discourages self absorption. Rather it helps us to transcend ourselves.
TBS is now launching a search for a new spiritual leader. During this time people members should ask the question, “What sort of Rabbi would be good for our community?” Who will facilitate the building of relationships within families, between congregants, and between TBS members and the wider community? Who will help lead us to goodness, to realize our spiritual potential as Jews. Each person must think beyond his personal needs and pet peeves to consider the best for the whole. No Rabbi will be able to meet all the personal needs of the individuals of a congregation. However, a good rabbi will be able to lead the whole congregation as a whole to greater goodness and inspire individuals to serve the greater good. I pray that the congregation finds a “Ro’eh Neeman” a trustworthy shepherd as TBS begins its search process. . I wish the best to TBS as it moves ahead in its transition.
Rabbi Dov Gartenberg
PS. Please save the date of our Aufruf, on Shabbat morning 12/18/10 at 10am. We thank the Sisterhood for sponsoring the Kiddush in our honor.
Surfing Gnarly Waves
Surfing Gnarly Waves
Yom Kippur Day Sermon, 5771/2010
Rabbi Dov Gartenberg
One of my favorite passages in the Talmud reminds us of an important quality to call on during hard times. The passage is commenting on the obligations of a father toward his son. ”A father is obligated regarding his son: to circumcise him, to redeem him, to teach him Torah, to find him a spouse, to teach him a craft. Some say Af l’hashito b’mayim.” (Tractate Kiddushin)
When the Talmud tells us what we need to teach our children, it reveals to us the values that we should all cultivate whether we are in child rearing mode or not. The question then is what is the value that our text is identifying in that last phrase? ”And there are those who say, Af l’hashito b’mayim.
The phrase is not exactly clear. Some translate it as “To swim”, “to tread water”, “to sail”. I am going to take some liberty because we are in the South Coast and translate it as “to surf the waves” (not surf the internet).
What does it mean to teach your child to surf?
Surfing is a unique athletic activity. Not only does it require a person to be in excellent shape, blessed with fine balance, and elastic flexibility, but surfing demands attentiveness to the changing conditions of the waves and the surf. A surfer is surrounded by enormously powerful natural forces that would easily overwhelm him if he did not know how to adapt. Even the best crusher (top surfer) will wipe out in the surf if he cannot respond to the distinct curl of the wave or anticipate the rapidly approaching crest.
The surfing metaphor best describes the value the Sages are trying to teach us. The art of surfing in life is how to adjust to a new environment we find ourselves in. It is the ability to face adversity and challenges, and make the necessary adjustments to survive what is coming upon us.
This historic moment in America, even the whole world, we face an economic challenge not seen since the Great Depression. Everyone is impacted. Every community is impacted. While economists cite examples of some improvement, most people don’t feel it. The most obvious manifestation of these hard times is the fact that so many Americans don’t have, cannot find, or fear losing work.
Scott Simon of NPR commented recently about the realities faced by many Americans and some within our own congregation.
“About 1 in every 10 Americans in the work force — 15 million, the population of New York, Los Angeles and Chicago combined — doesn’t have a job. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says there are 3 million more that have just stopped looking for jobs after a year because they can’t find one.”
What is the impact of not having a job for many people?
“Having no job does not mean having no work. Your children must still be fed, bathed and ferried to school, which is a lot of hard work. But you have less money for food, gas and the new shoes your children need for school.
It means that if you have a toothache, you might pretend it will go away, until it becomes a sharp pain. Then you have to see a dentist, but may not be able to buy a new winter coat.
Scott Simon tells the story of a man who told him of not having bought a stitch of new clothing in more than a year; his shirts were beginning to fray. When he got his first job interview in months, he bought a new shirt, so he wouldn’t look tattered and defeated. And when he didn’t get that job, he was ashamed that he’d bought a shirt, instead of food for his family.
You may be sure that your family loves you, but worry that they’ll start feeling sorry for you, and wonder why you have to be the one person in 10 who doesn’t have a job. You may blame politicians, brokers and bankers, but in the middle of the night, you might turn your eyes to the sky and wonder what you did, didn’t do or should have done.”
I share this difficult subject with you because it is not an abstract issue. It has impacted people in this room. Some time ago a person I know from outside the congregation came to me who had built up a successful housing business. He was a family man, a confident person, well-liked by many. He shared with me that his business had not made money since the collapse of the housing market. He had to figure out some other way to gain a livelihood and wanted to run his thoughts by me.
This is only one of many conversations I have had over the past couple of years.
Some of us have been able to get through this with minimal damage and even a few of us have had success, but all of us have been impacted. Our congregation has been impacted. Our wider community has been hit. As you know even if you have a job or a business in this uncertain economy you know that it is not guaranteed.
Powerful forces are changing our world. Our politicians are in stalemate on the policies required to repair the economy. This creates a paralysis and hyper partisanship in our political system. There appears to be no end in sight to the political impasse. A great anger is seen in the land. People in their rage wave flags that say don’t tread on me. But they have no answers on how to deal with the challenges before us. They turn to political celebrities who make irresponsible promises and feed demagogically on the anger and frustration felt by so many.
It is not my place to hold forth on politics or policy. Instead my question is how to surf through these hard times? How do we keep our balance as that huge wave crashes over us?
As Jews we belong to a people that can say with pride that we have survived the vicissitudes of history for over 3000 years. That fact continues to amaze me. The Jewish people are good surfers. We have been around to see all sorts of conditions including a few historical tsunamis that nearly wiped us out in history.
In this room there are precious people who have endured much crueler times. Nothing can compare to what you went through. You have a lot to teach us about determination and survival.
Let us then take heart and turn to the wisdom of the Jewish people and our spiritual tradition for wisdom and guidance.
In my sermon, The Audit, on Rosh Hashannah I spoke about the great Unetaneh Tokef prayer that we chant four times over these Days of Awe. This powerful prayer offers a very important teaching on how to face the uncertainty of our future.
Uteshuvah, Utefilah, Utzedaka maavirim et roa Hagezera. Teshuvah, tefilah, tzedaka averts the harsh decree.
In the context of the prayer, this passage lays out how we can respond to the prospect of divine judgment. The Gezera-the decree-is what God has in store for us. Teshuvah, tefilah, tzedaka are Hebrew terms embedded in our tradition as ideal religious behaviors.
But let me take this line out of the context of divine judgment and reread the expression, Roa Hagezerah-the harsh decree, as referring to our current economic predicament.
Teshuvah, Tefilah, and tzedaka are the authentic Jewish responses to coping with hard times. It is the way we surf.
How do we understand Teshuvah in our historic circumstance: Teshuvah in the Great Recession means to acknowledge our excess and our selfishness. As one commentator wrote recently, “We had a values breakdown — a national epidemic of get-rich-quickism and something-for-nothingism. Wall Street may have been dealing the dope, but our lawmakers encouraged it. And far too many of us were happy to buy the dot-com and subprime crack for quick prosperity highs.”
During these hard times we must examine our values and what is important to us. Teshuvah means coming back to basics, living more simply, prioritizing what’s important. These values include sacrifice, pulling together to support each other, generosity, and self-control.
Parents take in a child who after graduating college cannot find a job. An out of work spouse takes care of a partner who now bears the financial load. A family rallies to overcome strained relationships to stay together to support each other. Another family makes a dinner table a gathering place for the family to reconnect and to pool resources.
This is true for shuls as well. The question has to be asked about how shuls get back to basic values during a time of economic crisis? We cannot put our heads in the sand. Rather we need to find out how to be supportive of those who face great challenges. How do we create a sense of community during a time of crisis for many of our members? What is our relationship to the community around us? Do we remain focused on our own community or do we also engage in helping others beyond the walls of this synagogue?
Tefilah-Prayer. Prayer is a great resource during hard times. When we are starkly aware of our vulnerabilities and insecurities we turn to God. God is a tremendous help if we let God in. In our most fearful and anxious moments, a turn to God can provide solace and hope. God is our rock which we can hold onto during the most difficult challenges.
Tefilah also goes beyond our private turns toward God for help. As Jews we understand that prayer is not just an individual pursuit, but also a communal activity and expression that offers meaning and comfort. Prayer can be a powerful and comforting resource. When we find community in prayer, we diminish our isolation and our worry. We gain perspective, discover renewed energy, and find hope.
Does our communal worship during the year provide support, solace, or meaning during hard times? Where do you find solace during these hard times? Have you thought of coming to services at the synagogue as a place of solace and meaning? If you do not think of a service as a source of solace, then what does it feel like for you? What would a solace giving service look like, feel like? Talk to me about it or talk to other people in the community about it.
Tzedaka-Acts of Righteousness. We know that a lot more people are in need. These times require a higher level of tzedaka than normal times.
The greater burden of tzedaka falls on those of us who have been fortunate to have resources during hard times. Many have stepped up. More need to.
How does our community respond to people who are suffering? People feel they cannot join or they must resign because they can no longer afford Temple dues. Doesn’t the present time call out for the synagogue to establish a ‘hard times fund’ that will make it possible for the Temple to subsidize the increased number of members on reduced dues, to provide scholarships for school, camping, and youth activities. Such a fund gives those more fortunate in our community an opportunity for tzedaka that both helps families and helps the Temple to get through this challenging time.
Tzedaka, like powerful prayer, is a source of solace and hope. Unlike prayer which we do for ourselves, tzedaka is what we do for others. One of the most impactful activities I have seen shuls do is a Mitzvah day-where the entire congregation engages in specific projects to aid those in need in their local communities. Imagine if our synagogue had a mitzvah day where we identified projects where we can help people in the Long Beach area.
For example, our local Jewish Federation has developed a campaign to counter hunger in our community with direct action by synagogue volunteers at local food banks. By emphasizing this as a congregational activity-we build community by shared selfless acts and soften the blow of these devastating times.
Teshuvah, Tefilah, and Tzedaka together will not calm the crashing waves around us, but will help us to surf them and come through intact. Most important we need to help each other, to support each other, to seek out each other during these rough times.
Surfers have a word for heavy, big, and intense waves: Gnarly. We are surfers in the midst of a series of gnarly waves, struggling to avoid being overcome by the powerful forces around us. Yet we have to remember as individuals and as a community that we have the resources to come through this great challenge we are in the midst of. I pray that each of us find the inner strength to surf safely through these ebbs and flows. May this community, find the strength to find its way through the cascade of waves. Let us respond as Jews have responded through the ages with a personal and communal Teshuvah, Tefilah, and Tzedaka.
The Imperfect Game
The Imperfect Game
Kol Nidre Sermon, 5771/2010
Rabbi Dov Gartenberg
I dedicate this sermon to Moe Fox, zichrono livracha, a member of this congregation who died at the age of 90 just 6 months short of his 70th anniversary with his beloved wife, Helen. He was a baseball lover and devoted Jew.
Some of the great religious traditions of the world have a notion of perfection attainable by human beings. Human perfection in a religious sense is the capacity of a person to reach a very high state of consciousness or to fully realize the saving power of a deity. In Buddhism there is nirvana in which the adherent has freed his mind of illusion and has released himself from the cycle of rebirth. In Christianity a believer can attain salvation by accepting in her heart certain fundamental beliefs. What does Judaism say about the perfection of the human being?
Judaism’s insight about perfection can be seen in its sister religion, baseball.
A few weeks before Moe died, a pitcher from the Detroit Tigers, Armando Gallarga, came ever so close to the 21st perfect game in major league baseball history. A perfect game is when a pitcher pitches a victory that lasts a minimum of nine innings and in which no opposing player reaches base. Thus, the pitcher cannot allow any hits, walks, hit batsmen, or any opposing player to reach base safely for any other reason—in short, “27 up, 27 down”.
By definition, a perfect game is both a no-hitter and a shutout. Since the pitcher cannot control whether or not his teammates commit any errors, the pitcher must be backed up by solid fielding to pitch a perfect game. (Wikipedia article on “Pefect Game”.)
Gallaraga was on the verge of a perfect game. He had retired 26 straight batters. Then Cleveland’s last hitter in the ninth inning, Jason Donald, hit a grounder to Detroit’s first-baseman. The first baseman tossed the ball to Galarraga covering 1st base, who had beaten Donald in a routine race to the bag. Galarraga began to celebrate but was stopped in his tracks when he realized that the Umpire, Jim Joyce, had called Donald safe.
Everyone else in the ballpark knew and the instant replays showed that the umpire had completely botched the call. There was uproar at the park and a national uproar after the game for several days. Meanwhile, after the call, the pitcher, Gallaraga, calmly returned to the mound without complaint and retired the next batter to finish the game. He did not challenge the ruling of the umpire. A few hours later in another rarity in baseball, the umpire apologized to the pitcher for making an errant call and deprived him of a perfect game. The pitcher graciously accepted his apology without whining or starting a campaign to reverse the call. He demonstrated another rarity in today’s era of narcissistic sports personalities: sportsmanship and grace.
Ultimately the commissioner of Baseball despite intense pressure and popular sentiment to reverse the umpire’s call, refused to do so out of a sense of tradition that umpire’s calls, even if errant, are not reversed.
So perfection was lost.
There is something about baseball and what it reveals about the nature of judgments and justice.
One commentator offered this perceptive observation: “Sure, unjust officiating is evident in all sports, but not the way it is in baseball. For one thing, baseball offers unrivaled opportunity for injustice. Judgment calls pervade the sport. An umpire passes binary judgment — ball or strike — on every pitch that isn’t swung at. And without these judgments, the pitches have no meaning. In baseball, official judgments mediate your moment-by-moment perception of the game, defining success and failure. In baseball, the big calls take place at center stage — not just when a pitch crosses home plate, but when a line drive lands right on the foul line, when a pitcher balks or when a runner barely beats a tag at second. Everyone in the ballpark is watching.” (Robert Wright, 6/8/10 NY Times)
Imagine the moment when the 27th batter, Jason Donald, hit the ball to first base and scurries down the base path as the pitcher converges with him at first base. The umpire’s makes a judgment call on a close play at first base, the fans in the seats are riveted on the action, the players on both teams look on in tense expectation. With the call comes screams of astonishment and howls of execration. The umpire botched the call and destroyed the perfect game.
Baseball teaches us that life isn’t fair.. People make imperfect judgments. We make them about people in our lives and others make them about us. The judgments seem unfair, especially when we feel that we are a victim to them. Imagine you lose a job because of an unfair evaluation. Think about a time when you were unfairly criticized by a loved one. Reflect on a time when your own unfair negative judgment impacted another person.
Baseball teaches that even trained umpires are liable to faulty judgment. And so it is with us. Life is filled with many little and some big injustices. Now listen how Judaism parallels the truths of baseball.
The commissioner’s decision not to reverse the botched call and give Gallaraga a Perfect Game may also give us some insight about how God acts toward us in this world. God does not swoop down and reverse the injustices that take place in our lives. Judaism teaches that God saves His interventions for the most consequential of moments. That is what we celebrate on Pesah-that special intervention when God came down and reversed the call. Our tradition preserves the hope, but urges us not to depend on the illusory expectation of God intervening whenever we have tzuris. God is most interested in how we handle what happens to us, how we respond, how we gain wisdom about it.
So the other lesson from the botched perfect game is the question of how we deal with the imperfections that we experience. Both the pitcher and the umpire displayed exemplary behavior in a remarkably vulnerable and stressful situation. The pitcher, Gallaraga, exemplified the teaching in Pirkei Avot. “Azehu Gibbor-Hakovesh et Yitzro-Who is heroic-a person who conquers his impulses.” The pitcher did not blow up in a volcano of anger or whine to the press about the unfairness of it all. He accepted the decision of the umpire with equanimity, dignity, decency. This was the epitome of sportsmanship and what we call mentshlishkeit.
As for the umpire, we learn the power of Teshuvah, of repentance. The first step in making teshuvah is to acknowledge the truth, especially the truth about ourselves and our actions. Pirkei Avot also describes this quality of wisdom-A wise person- Modeh al Ha’emet-admits the truth. The umpire apologized to the pitcher for the botched call. He admitted his mistake not only to the players but to the entire nation that was captivated by this unique and confounding outcome.
What was their reward? The game was not reversed. The pitcher did not make the record books. The commissioner did not intervene. The fans remained enraged. It is an unlikely statistical chance that Gallaraga will ever pitch a game like this again. This is life.
But our tradition teaches that what we do in the face of imperfection is what defines us. That is why Judaism places little or no emphasis on states like Nirvana or Salvation. God wants us to engage in mitzvot, make efforts for teshuvah, seek to live with self-control, and strive to be a mentsch. God does not expect us to be perfect; rather God desires that we work hard to improve our imperfections. Our tradition appoints a time every year when we need to engage in moral and spiritual fine tuning, what we call the Days of Awe. Every year we try to throw our perfect game and every year we make botched calls, that of others or our own. How we use this holy time to respond makes all the difference.
The irony of the botched perfect game is that it is likely to be remembered as much or even more than the other 20 perfect games. We will remember the graciousness and dignity of the player, the true remorse of the umpire, and the unique circumstances of this perfectly imperfect game. One of the themes of these Days of Awe is that God remembers. God remembers the botched calls of our lives and looks to see how we respond. The ball now is in our breast beating hands. Play ball!
Too Many Friends
Too Many Friends
First Day Rosh Hashanah Sermon, 5771/2010
Rabbi Dov Gartenberg
The other day I looked at my Facebook page. Facebook, for those who do not use computers, is an internet social network website with 500 million users. Facebook users can add people as friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves. On a Facebook page you receive suggestions about people, using the parlance of our time, that you can ‘friend’.
The singer-songwriter, Debbie Friedman, appeared on my Facebook page as a prospective friend. Debbie and I have many ‘Facebook Friends’ in common. Since I have known Debbie since the 80s, I clicked on her photo to add her as a friend and got this message from Facebook. “Debbie Friedman has too many friends.”
It certainly is a milestone in the internet era when Facebook decides you have too many friends. That means you have 5000 friends, the trigger for the “too many friends” message. While social scientists tell us that the human brain can only sustain approximately 150 stable social relationships, friendship in the Facebook age has been totally redefined. One feature of the Facebook age is the rise of the social network of friends, a group of dozens, hundreds, or thousands who you communicate and share information with over the internet on a regular basis.
This change in the way people see social relations is aided by the ease in which we can maintain social relations with modern technology. Consider these advances.
- I can skype my family and friends across continents. The limit of voice only communication has been overcome with the widely available technology to see and hear the person on your computer screen wherever she is. Connections are instantaneous, virtual, and visible and soon coming to your cellphone. (Imagine if Yosef and Yaakov had Skype during those 21 years of separation)
- I can meet, befriend, and even establish relationships on the internet with its unique power of sites to filter and organize information. Most of the weddings I do these days are with couples who met on internet dating sites like Jdate or match.com. Sites like Jdate create a virtual social gathering where you meet people with likeminded interests. (Imagine if Samson had Jdate. He would have not had to date hostile Phillistine femme fatales.)
- I can send tweets of 140 words about anything I want to my followers. This is why we had such a large counter rally earlier this year when we were picketed by a virulently anti-Semitic group, the Westboro Baptist Church. The hundred plus counter demonstrators used Twitter and Facebook to notify people of the picketing. Text messaging enables instantaneous organizing which explains why repressive governments make this technology illegal. (What would have happened if Moshe could tweet during his confrontations with Pharoah. “Frogs hopping, stay inside!”)
- Speed Friending: It easy to make friends and to make them fast. The Facebook age is the quickened process for meeting, friending, and relating to others. Previous impediments of place, social circles, age hardly matter.
- Friendship as a commodity. With Facebook we have the ability to quantify our friendships. Like anything quantifiable, people attach prestige and the aura of success based on accumulations like we do with money and things. Therefore a person who has 3000 friends is somehow better than someone who has 25.
- Friendship can even become a fantasy. I can create a new identity on sites like Second Life in the form of an avatar and seek out virtual relationships with other avatars. We can now have fantasy friendships.
Even with all the social benefits that come with the Facebook Age, our tradition teaches us to be skeptical of the false gods that are promoted in every generation. Our generation is no different. Jewish teachings on friendship question the promises and allure of connection in the Facebook age. The Jewish understanding does not stem from a Luddite hatred of technology, but a wise view on the nature and limits of true friendship.
Consider this passage in Pirkei Avot (The Ethics of the Sages), “Get yourself a friend.” Kneh Lecha Haver.
Pirkei Avot is a compendium of the moral and spiritual wisdom from the Rabbis of antiquity. It establishes a fact about friendship. You have to make an effort to make and sustain friendships. The attachment of friendship is a good. But how do we acquire a friend?
A commentary to Pirkei Avot elaborates. To acquire a friend “implies that a person is to get himself a companion who will eat with him, drink with him, read Scripture with him, study Mishnah with him, sleep next to him, and disclose all his secrets to him, secrets of Torah and secrets of worldly matters. Thus, when the two sit and occupy themselves with Torah, if one errs in Halakhah or in the substance of a chapter……his companion will bring him back [to right thinking], as is said, ‘Two are better than one, in that they have greater benefit from their labor’ (Eccles. 4:9). Avot 1:6; ARN 8.
The first on the list is eating and drinking together. That’s hard to do on the internet. What it means is face time. This seems obvious to us Neanderthals who lived before cyber reality, but no champion of virtual relationships can convince me that you can really befriend someone without face time. Physical presence is necessary for friendship to blossom.
This is how we can understand our text’s comment about the need to sleep next to one another. I don’t understand this in the erotic sense, but rather that friendship develops only after significant time, not just high moments, but of long hours of low energy, or simply being around each other in the unfolding of daily life.
Friending takes time. You can’t get around this. This text suggests that friending is a slow process of accumulated time spent getting to know another. Perhaps you have heard of the ‘Slow Eating’ Movement. The idea is to create an alternative to the fast food culture with the intention of restoring relaxed, healthy, and social gathering to the act of eating. Judaism offers the way of slow friending as an alternative to the contemporary culture’s embrace of fast friending or instantaneous social networking.
A friend according to the text is someone who sharpens my understanding. Thus the Havruta, the study partner, has the role of correcting his or her partner. But this correcting is face to face. One of the unfortunate features of the internet age is the ease, in which we can criticize, berate, and flame people without seeing their faces.
I read a story recently about the decline of social amity among college freshman roommates. It appears that the internet generation has lost the ability to resolve roommate conflicts through face to face discussion. The article reports that more often than not roommates in conflict resort to email or Facebook page confrontations. College officials note that this reliance on internet communications leads to higher rates of conflict in which dorm RAs are forced to intervene to resolve.
The power of internet communications to create havoc and destroy relationships is all around us, even in synagogue life in which I have seen all too many times relationships torn asunder by nasty and accusatory emails. The Internet is as destabilizing of relationships and communities as it is constructive in speeding communications and collaboration.
People use the internet to express anger or criticism, because it is easier to communicate this way than face to face. But real friendship or resolution of conflict is best resolved face to face as the commentary to Pirkei Avot points out. Face to face correction allows people in strained relationships to take in all emotional and sensory inputs and to apply some self-restraint in the delivery of criticism and the response to it.
What have we learned about Jewish views of friendship?
- Friendship doesn’t just happen. It requires effort, significant together time, and physical presence. Friendship requires periods of unrushed, non-instrumental time, the suspension of the regular marketplace and working conditions we live in during most of our week and most of our lives. Jewish tradition teaches that when we alter our pace of life on a regular basis we create the conditions for true friendship to flourish.
- True friendship involves the ability to lovingly disagree or criticize our friends. Jewish sources see friendship as more than sharing information or personal chemistry. Friendship develops from time spent together engaged in a mutually shared common pursuit in which two persons acquire wisdom, pursue a common cause, or share a common life. To really live we must be open to challenging and questioning each other in the pursuit of truth and understanding.
The internet technologies of the 21st century are truly amazing and bring many benefits. Many of us love our gadgets and the amazing things they do. But I am a great believer in the Jewish teaching of slow and honest friendship remains true despite all the allure of new social technologies.
Jewish notions of friendship should instill in us wariness about the claims and promises of technologically driven relationships. Our tradition wisely identifies the conditions for establishing enduring, deep, and meaningful relationships and friendships.
On this Rosh Hashannah we begin the effort to make Teshuvah-to repair the most important relationships in our lives. This is the time when we should also give attention to our dearest friends. Perhaps we have neglected them. Perhaps we have been unkind. Perhaps we have taken them for granted. Make Teshuvah with your friends, not by email or Facebook, but face to face if you can, or at least with a phone or a skype call. This is no idle matter. The Rabbis were fond of saying. Havruta or Mituta. Friendship or Death. Without true friendship it is as if we are dead.
It is therefore not surprising to understand that Jewish tradition conceives of the human and divine relationship as a friendship. True, on the Days of Awe we depict God as a King or a Father, but on Shabbat we sing to God as a Yedid Nefesh-the friend of our soul. Can we indeed ‘friend’ God? Not on Facebook and not in the impoverished way our age understands friendship. Rather to friend God is to know that God desires true and enduring human fellowship and friendship. By cultivating authentic friendship we imitate God and also create the opportunity to friend God in our quest for the most enduring relationship possible.
The Audit
The Audit
Erev Rosh Hashanah Sermon, 5771/2010
Rabbi Dov Gartenberg
This year I got audited by the IRS. I had to gather records for a particular year and submit them for review. I had to appeal the initial decision by the IRS concerning their assessment of back taxes owed. All this culminated with a face to face meeting with an IRS auditor who went through every statement and expense receipt with me. I provided explanation and justification and awaited the verdict of the auditor as he painstakingly reviewed my finances for one year of my life.
It is actually quite anxiety provoking to reconstruct a year based on one’s spending and financial dealings. I would end up second guessing myself. “Why did I choose that particular charity?” “What illnesses or conditions required those medical expenses?” “What made this a business trip as opposed to a vacation?”
A felt a lot of trepidation and frustration during the 2 and 1/2 hour interview with the IRS auditor. “Why is the IRS picking on me instead of some Wall Street banker?” “Would I be judged wanting?” “Had I forgotten something that would assure me of a favorable judgment?” I was nervous wondering if I would be assessed higher taxes. How much would the penalty be? Would they audit me more often?
I felt relief when the long session ended with a satisfactory conclusion. The decree was not harsh. The IRS officer heard my appeals and accepted justifications. But the memory of the anxiety of the audit has stayed with me.
During the audit I kept on coming back in my mind to the vivid imagery of the Unetaneh Tokef prayer that is so prominent on Rosh Hashannah and Yom Kippur. In that prayer we read,
“You, indeed, judge and admonish, discerning our motives, and witnessing our actions. You record and seal, count and measure. You remember even what we have forgotten. You open the Book of Remembrance, and the record speaks for itself, for each of us has signed it with our deeds.” (p. 282, Mahzor Hadash)
The Mahzor depicts a God who audits our actions and judges our fate. Instead of bills, the subject of review is our actions. A heavenly clerk has opened our file and gathered our actions from the last year. We are thoroughly scrutinized and the bill we have to pay is decided.
The audit of the Days of Awe culminates with a listing of the possible consequences of this scrutiny. “How many shall leave this world and how many shall be born; who shall live and who shall die; who in the fullness of years and who before…….” (p. 284, Mahzor Hadash)
No matter how the Rabbis try to dress up the high holidays, I do think this sense of existential audit hangs over the day. If we take the prayer seriously we cannot help feel some guilt or a sense of lack about our actions of the past year. There is a natural anxiety to this day. For some this is the draw to High Holidays. For others the stark imagery is very troubling.
Our current life situation influences how we experience this depiction of the Divine Audit. If I am suffering, the prayer seems punitive and overly judgmental. On the other hand if I have gotten stuck in my life, there is something to be said about being held accountable. There is value to feeling the audit, for entering the sense of scrutiny. Even if you don’t believe in God, the intent of the prayers of these days is to provoke self-scrutiny, a self-audit. It is time to be truthful to ourselves, to see our actions in their true light.
Just as the Mahzor tries to lead us into self-scrutiny, it also guides us into a way of responding to the burdens of insight we discover about ourselves.
“But repentance, prayer, and deeds of kindness can remove the severity of the decree.” (p. 284, Mahzor Hadash)
This is the message put simply: Yes, you will be audited whether you like it or not. Yes, you will be found lacking. But there are three ways to soften the impact of our failings and our flaws.
Teshuvah-repentance. The audit gives us the truth: Here are the facts. But the facts are not destiny. There is a path to change if we choose. Teshuvah is the act of hope, initiative, and determination to change. Most of all it requires honesty to look at our own limitations and failings without deception. This is very hard to do. But if we can accomplish this we can begin to the process of Teshuvah. Teshuvah is a courageous act to look inside and see what is really there.
Tefillah-Prayer. Prayer is essentially the appeal of the audit. It is our way of letting God know that we accept our accountability just as we request leniency as the consequence. But prayer is also the awareness that we should not endure the heavenly audit alone. God wants our hearts. The connected heart is made through prayer. Prayer not only connects us to God, but to others who join us together in prayer. In prayer, we transcend loneliness and alienation and discover the consolation of shared community.
Tzedaka-Charity. We cannot avoid the audit, but we can make the world a more selfless place. The first Lubavitcher Rebbe, Shneur Zalman taught that there are moments in every spiritual life when we lose faith, lose touch with the divine, lose hope. What does one do at such moments? Perform one selfless act of goodness.
Unlike the IRS audit, the audit of the Days of Awe is reason for us to go beyond ourselves. God is auditing us not for any payback or severe accounting, but in order to spur us to acts of unselfishness and self-transcendence. The image in the Unetaneh Tokef prayer of the Severe Judge and Stern Accountant is a sort of Shock and Awe tactic of the liturgist. Fear and Awe sometimes move us to do the right thing or to choose the proper path. But that is not the end of the matter.
Rather it is a God who delights in our caring, our kindness, and our goodness to others. The most powerful image of God in the Mahzor is toward the end of Yom Kippur in the Neilah service which describes God with this comforting image:
“You reach out your hand to transgressors, and your right hand is extended to accept the penitent.” (p.794, Mahzor Hadash)
The image of the tight faced auditor melts away and the compassionate God is revealed. Like God, we must move from the seat of severe self-judgment to the seat of self-compassion. Likewise we see the response to the divine audit as a renewal of commitment to caring for others in place of judgment.
My IRS audit helped me to understand one of the key metaphors of the High Holidays. The audit of the High Holidays is for the purpose of moral and spiritual renewal which must start by a deep reflection on how we conducted our lives in the past year. The scrutiny of my IRS audit made me realize the seriousness which our tradition places on the moral-spiritual audit of these 10 days in the fall. Like a real IRS audit, we must review the books and clear our names. But unlike the IRS we stand before a God who is forgiving and patient. If we move toward God, God will move toward us.
May all of us succeed in going through the ERS audit this year. You ask, What is the ERS?-It is the Eternal Responsibility Service. The ERS conducts the annual audit we are about to undergo. Please send your Teshuvah, Tefilah, and Tzedaka to PO Box 613, Heavenly Heights Ave, Heavenly Jerusalem. And do so before the end of the 10th of Tishrei, the late afternoon of Yom Kippur.
Bhatzlacha, Good luck.
Shanah Tovah.
A Reflection on a Rabbinic Milestone
A Reflection on a Rabbinic Milestone
Yesterday I received a Doctor of Divinity for over 25 years of service as a Rabbi of the Rabbinical Assembly, the International Organization of Conservative Rabbis. The convocation took place at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York where I finished my rabbinical training in 1981 after years of study at the University of Judaism (now know as the American Jewish University) and Israel campus of the Masorti movement at Neve Schechter. I was fortunate to have many family members and friends there to share in this professional milestone in my life. I am grateful to them for supporting my rabbinic calling over these many years. It was also lovely to share this moment with a wonderful group of colleagues and teachers. I respect them greatly and am so grateful for their teaching and mentorship over the years.
The rabbinate is a very demanding profession. Yesterday, I reminisced with my colleagues about our student days and the hopes and dreams we drew on to launch our careers. Everyone’s journey was unique and has it’s twists and turns. Everyone of my colleagues spoke of successes and disappointments along the way. But the feeling that I carried away from this wonderful day was the special joy of the unique collegiality of the rabbinate in general, and the Conservative rabbinate in particular. I felt a special closeness with my colleagues who share the same profession, educational experiences, and commitments over these two decades plus of service of God and the Jewish people.
Several members of my family commented about how moved they were by the closeness of colleagues to one another, something unique to the seminary rabbinate among the professions. This may be so because we are relatively small as a professional group and the unique challenges that the rabbinate entails. This closeness is not only with those who we share in this life’s journey, but with all previous generations of rabbis who came before us. We feel a closeness to the colleagues whose words are embedded in Talmudic discourses or Midrashic flights of fancy. We connect to colleagues whose stories are told in Aggadot (rabbinic folklore) and whose opinion is registered in a Mishnah (a core rabbinic work of 200 CE). They are very much of our Hevrah. This sense of tradition is one of the main qualities that led me to the rabbinate.
The title of ‘Doctor’ is quite insignificant compared to the feeling of fellowship with other Rabbis that I feel as I move through the years. The privilege to be close to the brilliant legacy of Jewish teaching and learning is moving to me and continues to inspire me.
In this week’s portion, Behaalotcha, Joshua is disturbed by the unauthorized prophetic ecstasy of Eldad and Medad. The Torah records Moshe’s reaction to Joshua’s call to restrain them, “But Moses said to him, ‘Are you wrought up on my account? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets (N’vi’im) , that the Lord put His spirit upon them. ‘”
This reaction of Moshe Rabbeinu (Moses, our Rabbi) gets at one of the most moving aspects of being a Rabbi. Following Moshe, a Rabbi wants everyone around him or her to be a Rabbi. Not only do we want to share the Torah we have learned, but we want to learn from every Jew who has drawn from the well of Torah. The Torah is not the private property of trained scholars, it is the heritage of all the Jewish people. The Talmud teaches that everyone is jealous of another’s success, except a father of his child and a teacher of his pupil (BT Sanh 105b). I so much enjoy to see those I teach become students and lovers of Torah and fervently hope that each of those I have touched will exceed me in learning.
Thank you for the opportunity to serve you and to share my joy of this professional milestone in my life and my calling.
Rabbi Dov Gartenberg
Weekly Message on Parshat Naso by Rabbi Dov Gartenberg May 21, 2010, 8 Sivan, 5770
Weekly Message on Parshat Naso by Rabbi Dov Gartenberg May 21, 2010 Sivan 8, 5770
In this week’s Haftarah for parshat Naso, a couple have been promised by an angel that they will have a son. Manoah, who will be the father of Samson, asks the angel, “What is your name? We should like to honor you when your words come true. The angel said to him, “You must not ask for my name; it is unknowable.-in Hebrew ‘vhu feli” (Judges 13:17-18 ) The root peh, lamed, alef can mean wondrous, inscrutable, baffling and is translated by Michael Fishbane as ‘unknowable’. This passage recalls a more famous encounter in the Torah between Jacon and an angel at the Jabbok ford. After wrestling the angel all night, Jacob, victorious, asks his name. He is told “you must not ask for my name.” (Gen. 32:30)
The story of Samson’s birth and the annunciation by the angel is a mystery. The sense of mystery in this biblical story is deepened by the next verse: “Manoah took the kid and the meal offering and offered them up on the rock to the Lord; and a marvelous thing happened-u’mafli la’asot (the same root, peh, lamed, alef)-while Manoah and his wife looked on. As the flames leaped up from the altar toward the sky, the angel of the Lord ascended in the flames of the altar…..” Judges 13:19-20) The word unknowable and marvelous are of the same root in Hebrew and convey a strong sense of utter mystery and an intense bafflement.
The use of the Hebrew phrase, “mafli la’asot” migrates into our prayer book. It is found in the “Blessings of the Dawn-Birchot Hashahar” section of the weekday and Shabbat morning service. The entire text of this beautiful blessing is: “Praised are You, Lord our God, King of the universe who with wisdom fashioned the human body, creating openings, arteries, glands, and organs, marvelous in structure, intricate in design. Should but one of them, by being blocked or opened, fail to function, it would be impossible to exist. Praised are You, Lord, healer of all flesh who sustains our bodies in wondrous ways-u’mafli la’asot.” (Siddur Hadash Prayer Book, p. 144)
The exact expression found in our Haftorah comes to our lips via the traditional text of the Siddur. The blessing than helps us to marvel at the miracle and mystery of our bodies, which Judaism affirms as positive and worthy of our mindful care and attention. It is so fascinating to me to track a phrase that originally is used to describe a scene of an angel’s fiery ascent to heaven to a marveling words about the functioning of our living bodies. It is also noteworthy that this blessing is said according to our tradition after we go to the bathroom. This is a lovely illustration of how Judaism brings mindfulness to aspects of life that otherwise might be kept at the margins of consciousness. The Torah teaches us to be mindful of everyday miracles, not just the one’s described in our Haftarah.
Please join us this Shabbat morning as I give a running commentary on the Haftarah. I know you will find it stimulating and inspiring. Shabbat Shalom, Rabbi Dov Gartenberg
