September 28, 2014

I want to personally thank Vice President Joe Biden for helping me with this sermon.

Last week, Vice President Biden was talking about soldiers who had just returned home from active duty. He was describing the financial challenges that they face. And then, he started talking about unscrupulous moneylenders who take advantage of them.

He referred to those unscrupulous moneylenders as “Shylocks.”

This did not go over well. Within nanoseconds, the Anti Defamation League called upon Joe Biden to apologize for using that term – which he promptly did.

Joe Biden admitted that he should have known that the term Shylock plays into a vicious anti-Semitic stereotype that has appeared over and over again over the centuries.

Shylock is the Jewish moneylender in Shakespeare’s play, The Merchant of Venice. Antonio, the merchant of Venice, asks Shylock for a loan, and Shylock demands a pound of flesh as collateral. In an elaborate courtroom scene, Portia determines that while Shylock could collect his pound of flesh, he could not take a single drop of blood along with it.

Shylock delivered the most famous speech in all of Jewish history.

Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same
diseases, heal'd by the same means, warm'd and cool'd by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?

Shakespeare was saying something radical for his time and place. The Jew is not evil. The Jew has the same impulses and the same needs as everyone else.

Let us now move Shylock’s rhetorical questions – from the Jew, to the Jewish state.

It was not a good summer. It started with three Israeli teenagers, kidnapped and killed by terrorists.

And then, in perhaps the most despicable act of contemporary Jewish history, in a savage act of vengeance, a group of Jewish thugs kidnapped and burnt to death a young Palestinian boy, Mohammed Abu Khdeir.

There were hundreds of rockets a day, fired from Gaza. The Iron Dome system intercepted most of them. There were the constant sirens that sent everyone into bomb shelters. Israelis adjusted their daily habits so as to always be within fifteen seconds of a shelter.

Israel hit back at the places in Gaza where the rockets were coming from. Israel demonstrated abnormal caution and care for the citizens of Gaza. Israel tried to prevent civilian deaths whenever and wherever it could. A famous British general actually said that there had never been anything in history quite like it.

And, yes: even still, the human losses in Gaza were terrible. Let there be no Jewish soul too small to include the dead of Gaza within it.

And Israel defended itself and its citizens. Because, as Shylock understood: The weapons that hurt other people – we Jews are not immune to them. If you prick us, we bleed. We are real human beings.

Therefore, what should Israel have done? Not protect its citizens?

Sorry, world. We are not going to let more of our people die – just so that you can feel better about us, and just so that you can say nice things about us. 

The rockets were one thing. But the tunnels were something else.

Hamas created an elaborate underground system of tunnels that went into Israel. You could drive trucks through those tunnels. You could run trains through those tunnels.

Do you know who built those tunnels from Gaza into Israel?

Palestinian children.

Do you know how many Palestinian children died while building the tunnels?

At least 160.

Recall Leonard Cohen’s comment on the Torah portion: “You who build these altars, to sacrifice these children, you must not do that anymore.”

Let that become a memo to Hamas.

Let me tell you what the tunnels were for. Let me tell you about the Rosh Ha Shanah in Israel that could have been.

Hamas had planned to send 200 terrorists at a time through dozens of tunnels that are part of its intricate underground system – today – on Rosh Ha Shanah. They had planned to
kidnap and kill dozens of Israelis – mostly children.

And why? The purpose was not only to pull of the largest mass killing of Jews since the Shoah, and not only to perpetrate the largest single terror attack in the world since 9/11.

They were choosing one of the holiest days of the Jewish calendar for a mass atrocity.

That would have totally and permanently destroyed Rosh ha Shanah. It would have utterly demoralized the Jewish people for generations to come.

Let me speak in the tones of this season of repentance and moral introspection.

Israel is not perfect. Israel makes mistakes. In its recent incursion into Gaza, Israel made errors of judgment. That is why Israel has launched an official inquiry into some of what has happened in Gaza.

When we traded in exile for statehood, we left the world of moral purity.

That is why I wish that there were a second Jewish state – located in Scandinavia, or in a suburb of Boston, or California.

In that second Jewish state, there would be no disputed territories.

There would be no checkpoints for Palestinians to traverse. Eighteen and nineteen year old Israeli kids would not have to guard those checkpoints — in full uniform, in one hundred degree heat. They would not have to wonder if that pregnant Palestinian woman is really pregnant – or is she carrying a load of explosives beneath her dress, and is she on her way to a pizzeria, or a coffee shop, or a crowded shopping mall.

In that second Jewish state, there would be no anti-Muslim bigotry.

That second Jewish state would never disappoint anyone. That second Jewish state would require no moral angst, no struggle, no striving for perfection. Because it would already be perfect.

But, guess what: There is no second Jewish state. Israel is the only one we have. With all its dings and dents and imperfections.

That's what the Israeli singer meant when she sang: Ain li eretz acheret. I have no other country.

But it is not only the state of Israel that is under attack.

It is the people of Israel – the Jewish people itself.

• In England, a rally of 45,000 people, protested against Israel. Not against Israel’s actions in Gaza. Against Israel.
• In England, at a Sainsbury’s supermarket in central London, protesters outside the store called for a boycott of Israeli-made goods. The manager ordered employees to empty the kosher food section.
• In Paris, mobs scream “Death to the Jews!” This is exactly what happened 120 years ago at the Dreyfus trial. Herzl heard those screams and he concluded that there was no future for the Jews of Europe. 4000 French Jews have already made aliyah to Israel this year.
• In a Paris suburb, a mob surrounds a synagogue, preventing its worshipers from leaving.
• In Lyon, in France, two teenage Muslim girls, ages 15 and 17, were arrested for planning a suicide bomb attack on a synagogue.
• In Germany, mobs scream: “Hamas — Jews to the gas!”
• On the Upper East Side of New York, thugs wielding a Palestinian flag attacked a Jewish couple.
• In Philadelphia, at Temple University, pro-Palestinian activists attacked a Jewish student.
• In Los Angeles, a group of thugs attacked Elon Gold, an Israeli comedian, and his family.
• On numerous college campuses, there are calls to institute academic boycotts of Israel.

There are those who say that if only Israel changed its policies, anti-Semitism would disappear.

It is not that people are anti-Semitic because they are anti-Israel.

People are anti-Israel because they are anti-Semitic.

Rosh Ha Shanah comes to us – to teach us that we are not helpless; and we are not hopeless; and we are not hapless.

Each of us is an ambassador for Israel. That does not mean that you have to be a cheerleader. It means that you need to be able to interpret Israel and her situation: to your children; to your grandchildren – and especially to your non-Jewish friends and co-workers and family.

You need to remind them: Israel is not just what they read in the news. Israel is not just the conflict with the Palestinians and with her Arab neighbors. Israel is a multi-cultural democracy. Israel is a leader in the arts, and in science, and in technology, and in medical research.

You might want to mention that the latest medical advances in diagnosing head injuries in football players – is emerging out of Israel. And so much more.

Go beyond Israel. ISIS, or ISIL, or the Islamic State, or whatever it is calling itself this week, is an international Manson Family. It relies on beheadings, and mass rape, and mass crucifixions of Christians.

We dare not see the Islamic State in isolation. It is part of a huge terror network that goes from Boko Haram (remember the Nigerian schoolgirls who were kidnapped? Wonder what happened to them?) to Hamas to Hezbollah. While there are subtle differences in their ideologies, let’s remember what binds them together: they are anti-Semitic; anti-woman; anti-gay; anti-liberal; anti-everything that we believe in and cherish.

Israel is on the front lines of the war against Western civilization.

I am going to conclude by telling you about the latest Rosh Ha Shanah greeting that has become a minor fad in Israel.

This is what people are saying to each other: Shnat dvash. May it be a year of honey.

Now, of course, Rosh Ha Shanah is the time of apples and honey, which symbolize sweetness. And of course, Israel is the land of milk and honey.

But why “a year of honey?”

As you all know, honey comes from bees. Bees sting. Israel has endured too many stings. There should only be honey now.

And second: honey is sticky. Honey is messy. So is life.

So is the quest to be a people that strives for moral perfection.

As Shylock once said: Hath not a Jew eyes?

We Jews do have eyes. We Jews have eyes, and we see the world as it is – and we also see the world as it might be.

In this coming year, may our eyes see only goodness and blessing.

I would like to introduce you to a great poet. The poet’s name is Jonathan Reed. He won second place in AARP's U@50 video contest launched in 2007 for his video, Lost Generation. Contestants were asked to create a two minute video describing their vision of the future — what they believed that their lives would be like by the time they turned fifty.

This is a poem by Jonathan Reed.

I am part of a lost generation

and I refuse to believe that

I can change the world

I realize this may be a shock but
“Happiness comes from within”

is a lie, and

“Money will make me happy.”

So in 30 years I will tell my children

they are not the most important thing in my life

My employer will know that

I have my priorities straight because

work

is more important than

family

I tell you this

I will live in a country of my own making

In the future

Environmental destruction will be the norm

No longer can it be said that

My peers and I care about this earth

It will be evident that

My generation is apathetic and lethargic

It is foolish to presume that

There is hope.

Jonathan Reed’s poem is a pessimistic monologue about this current generation, about the fears that our own children and grandchildren harbor within themselves.

It is the voice of surrender to the future. It is the voice that says: I am not going to make a difference. We are not going to make a difference. There is no reason to even try. I will simply pursue a high status job, which I know will force me to sacrifice time with my children.

Or, not: Perhaps I will simply work at menial jobs, or at something that will allow me to express whatever is left of my creativity. It will not matter anyway, because the earth itself is doomed to ecological catastrophe.

And when you read that poem, do you have any doubt why there is such a spiritual hunger on the part of so many young people, who are tired of cynicism and who are searching for something that goes beyond themselves?

Is there any doubt why so many young people are coming to synagogues and churches, in a new way, with a new sacred agenda – to study sacred texts and to find meaning in their lives?

Now, perhaps, we can understand: why many young Jews find social justice to be the most appealing part of their own Jewish identities – because they don’t want to become the person in that poem.

In fact, Jonathan Reed actually intended for his poem to be read not only forwards, but backwards.

Here goes:

There is hope.
It is foolish to presume that my generation is apathetic and lethargic.
It will be evident that my peers and I care about this Earth.
No longer can it be said that environmental destruction will be the norm.
In the future I will live in a country of my making.
I tell you this – family is more important than work.
I have my priorities straight because my employer will know that they are not the most important thing in my life.
So in 30 years I will tell my children “money will make me happy” is a lie,
and “happiness comes from within.”
I realize this might be a shock, but I can change the world!
And I refuse to believe that I am a part of a lost generation.

You thought that life was meaningless? Wrong. Life is meaningful. You thought that we were stuck with the world as it is? Wrong. We can change the world into what it could be.

We come to synagogue looking for inspiration.

But that is because we are a people that has aspiration.

As Jews we cannot afford to simply look at the world and say: Oh, well. Whatever.

Jews don’t say: “whatever.”

Jews say: “what if?”

This evening of erev Rosh Hashanah begins the season of teshuvah.

We usually translate teshuvah as “repentance.” It means to feel a sense of contrition, to confess, to apologize, and to change. It means to go forward in your life.

And that is certainly one definition of teshuvah.

But I would like to offer you another definition of teshuvah this evening.

Perhaps teshuvah means: not that we move forward in our lives, but that we move backwards.

Because teshuvah comes from the word shuv, which means to return. To see where you are, and to feel a sense of discontent about where you are. It means to go back to the place where you once were – not geographically, perhaps, but spiritually. It means to retrace your steps. It means to go back to the inner place that really defines who you are.

It is like when you lose something. You lose your keys; what do you do? You retrace your steps, until you return to the place where you left them.

The same thing is true of faith. You lose your faith; you retrace your steps, until you return to the place where you left it.

And the same is true of your self. If you lose your self, you retrace your steps to the place where you lost it, and there you resolve to find it.

Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Kook, the first chief rabbi of Palestine in the 1930s, put it this way: “The primary role of teshuvah is for the person to return to himself, to the root of his soul, and from there to immediately return to God.”

Or, let me put it in quite a different way. There are times when our souls are so much in turmoil, that all we can do is (to use the imagery of the personal computer) hit control-alt-delete, and bring ourselves back to the way we were when we started. To return our souls to the original factory settings.

Or, to quote the Beatles, to get back to where you once belonged.

We are accustomed to thinking about the Book of Life. 

Now, imagine the Poem of Life.

Imagine that your life is a poem.

All of your life, you have been reading that poem going forward. And most of the time, that has worked out remarkably well.

But, perhaps, once a year during these Days of Awe, you don’t have to read that poem forwards.

You can read that poem backwards.

That could mean taking something negative, and turning it around, and making it positive.

Or, it could also mean: looking at your life; seeing where you are; not being entirely content where you are – and in your mind, going backwards.

Go back to the place where it was once all real for you.

Think of the ideals that you had.

Not the dreams, not the ambitions – this evening, just the ideals.

And go back to that place.

What would it mean for you to take the poem that is your life….and to read that poem backwards?

All of the good words of this sacred season are RE words.

Repenting of sin. Retracing your spiritual steps. Returning to who you really are. Renewing your faith. Renovating your sense of yourself.

And remembering: that this is the birthday of the world, and that it could also be the birthday of your soul.

Exterior, Rumbah st. synagogue, Budapest, December 2011

 

This post also appears on my J“>this item that I put up today on Jewish Heritage Europe, the web site that I coordinate as a project of the Rothschild Foundation Europe. It looks back over the past quarter century of Jewish heritage preservation and priorities — showing that despite progress that has been made and mind-sets that have changed, much still resonates:

Writing in September's Moment Magazine, Phyllis Myers posed the old question: “>“The Old Shuls of Eastern Europe: Are They Worth Saving?”

It’s worth reading again today to get a sense of the situation on the ground — and in people’s mind-sets — back then, just as the movement to document and restore Jewish built heritage in eastern and central Europe was getting under way. In a sense, her article represented a sort of blueprint for what could — and should — be the preservation priorities for the coming generation.

As more restoration takes place, the need for integrity and creativity in communicating the many dimensions of the Jewish experience will grow. The answer is not just a series of plaques on the buildings. Or more exhibit cases of Jewish ceremonial objects. Or lists of famous Jews. We must strive to evoke a unique encounter between visitor and place. We need to remember that as time passes a n d travel increases, visi­tors will want to know more about how Jews lived as well as how Jews died.

A quarter of a century later, the essence of what she wrote still holds true. The priorities she outlined are still priorities that should be addressed, and — despite the many successes and great strides accomplished — her message and the concepts she framed still have a powerful resonance. Indeed, one of the synagogues whose deteriorated condition she specifically mentioned in 1990 – the Rumbach st. synagogue in Budapest — still languishes in a sorry state despite sporadic efforts to restore it.

  Interior of Rumbach st. synagogue, 2011

“We preserve—buildings and places, the simple and the awesome—for many reasons,” Myers wrote in 1990.

We preserve to remember. For decades, Jewish preservation in Eastern Europe has focused primarily on places of death. Chasidim have tended cemeteries, especially the graves of Tzadikim (charismatic lead­ers), while other Jews have ensured that death camps remain as witnesses to a story that could otherwise become myth.

But preservation means Jewish life as well as death. When we walk in the footsteps of our forebears, contemplate their lives, stand in the places where they lived—and were betrayed—powerful linkages occur between their lives and ours.

We preserve to learn. American archi­tectural historian Carole Herselle Krinsky writes, “Synagogues…reveal especially clearly the connections between architecture and society.” Clues to self-perceptions of Jews over the centuries, the evolution of faith and culture and relations with Gentile neighbors abound in the shapes, materials, designs and settings of synagogues. Did a community choose Gothic or Moorish ar­ chitecture, site its synagogue on the street or set it back off a courtyard, retain a sepa­rate entrance for women or build a gallery in the main hall? Did it raise a dome high or low in the community’s skyline, place the bimah (pulpit) in the center of the main hall or on the east wall? Did it hire a Jewish, Gentile or Viennese architect? Why did poor Jewish artists in old Poland decorate their synagogue walls with colorful, representational frescoes and pious prayers?

We preserve to provide settings for dia­logue. It is true that in many places in East­ern Europe few, if any, Jews are left, and to talk about understanding, much less recon­ ciliation, would be glib. Yet a dialogue that goes beyond the “chamber of horrors” of the Shoah is clearly underway, fostered in special ways by sites embedded with memo­ries. […]

We preserve to transcend. On Simchat Torah, 1989, Cracow’s revered Remuh Synagogue, rebuilt but used continuously since the mid-1550s, re­verberated as 40 Israeli teenagers took over the service from a forlorn group of elderly survivors and vibrantly danced and sang “Am Yisrael Chat”—the people of Israel live. The benefactor who paid for the Szeged synagogue’s restoration put it this way: “I just want to know that the synagogue I remem­ber from my childhood is still there.” […]

We preserve to fulfill our commit­ ment to life. For preservation to play this role—or any successful role—in Eastern Europe, sites need to be acces­sible, marked and interpreted in com­pelling ways. […]

 

Revisiting an old question: should old east European synagogues be saved? Read More »