Pesach: This Kept Us Standing

 

“And this Covenant is what kept our ancestors standing, and ourselves as well: That in every generation more than one enemy has arisen against us, to annihilate us, but the Covenant of the Holy One has stood and delivered us from their hands.”

--Vehi Sheamda, Hagaddah shel Pesach

“Rashi comments that this declaration of Vehi Sheamda is the reiteration of the promise that Ha-Shem made to Avraham of "V'gam as hagoi asher ya'avdu, dan anochi..." The nation that enslaves you will also be judged by Me..." This promise, which has stood for our forefathers, stands for us as well. Anyone who comes upon us, Ha-Shem judges them and saves us from their hands.” 

--R. Yehuda Prero, The Passover Hagaddah Commentary Part I: Maggid (torah.org)

Passover time seems to take me by surprise when it comes early in the solar year. This year, it begins this Monday evening, March 25, and getting myself motivated to do the cleaning, get the chametz out, and turn the kitchen over has been difficult. With everything that is going on in our lives right now, I kept hearing that voice in my head saying: “I don’t want to do it this year. This year, I think I’ll skip it. After all, how important is that I, a little person, observe all the rituals and complete the slaving cleaning for Pesach. Surely, the Universe will not be disturbed by my decision not to participate.”

 

And then a friend sent me this beautiful rendition of Vehi Sheamda with commentary by the chief rabbi of South Africa:

 

And when I saw the translation given for the first line of the Vehi Sheamda: “And this COVENANT is what kept our ancestors standing, and ourselves . . .” I got it. Of course it matters that I clean and remove the chametz from our little house, here on the edge of the Mogollon Rim, far from the centers of power in the world.

From the point of view of those who hate us, who denigrate the beautiful heritage of Torah, it does not matter what I do. In fact, they would rather that I did nothing. They would rather that I, that we, forget the Covenant and disappear like all the other nations, becoming a footnote to a footnote in the reaches of history.

“For in every generation, more than one enemy has arisen to destroy us.” This statement is undeniably true. Never in our long and tumultuous history, have the Jewish people been ignored and been allowed to freely exercise the observance of our Covenant unopposed. Although America has become home and our greatest sanctuary, it is uncertain at best, given the hatred directed at the Land of Free and the Home of Brave, and at those of us among her people who are Jews.

And yet we persist. Out of sheer cussed stubbornness, we insist on going on existing despite the depredations of our enemies. And why do we persist? That is a miracle of the most Hebrew kind. For no natural laws have been suspended for us, and many of Jews have gone up in smoke, or have had rockets rain down upon their heads in their own lands, or have been forced from their homes in Egypt, in Yemen, in Iran—from those days at this season, to this day when we live under the threat of being bombed back to the stone age by mullahs from the stone age.

But the signs and wonders are there, and the evidence of the mighty hand of the Eternal, for those with eyes to see them. Unlike Moses, most of the world has no patience to sit and watch a bush aflame until they can see that it is not consumed. And so most human beings miss the signs and wonders that they walk past every day.

Among them, is this sign. Once again, all over the world, Jewish women retrieve the mops and brooms, fill their pails with water, and begin the ancient ritual of clearing out the chametz—the leaven—from their homes. We kneel down to sweep it away with a feather, and our men take it to burn it on the eve of Pesach. All of us, every year, are enacting the journey from slavery to freedom, from the worship of idols to the service of the Covenant, from Jerusalem destroyed to Jerusalem rebuilt.

In these humble actions, unnoticeable and unnoted, we renew for ourselves the Covenant that began when we came forth from slavery, into freedom. Passover, like all other Jewish holidays, is a reminded of the Covenant. But Passover is also the story of how we came to be who we are, Am ha-Brit, the People of the Covenant.

“But the Covenant of the Holy One has stood and delivered us from their hands.” The sign and the wonder is not something that is shown to us as we continue to survive and thrive despite the wish of the most recent of our enemies to “wipe us off the map” of the world. Rather, the sign and the wonder is us, ourselves, keeping the Covenant. We have been taught that if even a remnant of Israel keeps the Covenant, that will be the salvation of us all. And for us, salvation is not some promise of life after death, rather it is the continuation of our people. Salvation is effected in our stubborn insistence that: Od Avinu Chai! Am Yisrael Chai! Our father yet lives! The People Israel lives!

“For as much as we keep the Covenant, the Covenant keeps us.” (Machzor). As Jews, as that obstinate Remnant of Israel, that goes on surviving when most of the world would rather we were dead, the meticulous observation of the laws of Pesach, and the arcane rituals from another time are a touchstone that reminds us who we are. On the surface, I am an ordinary ranch wife, an American woman living in the rump end of flyover country, a human being among millions, whose life and death will be little known and little noticed. But when I kneel down to sweep the chametz off the hearth, I am also a daughter of the Covenant, a child of Abraham and Sarah, a companion of Moses and Miriam. I am free woman, brought forth from slavery, with signs and wonders, awesome power, a mighty arm and outstretched hand. My liberty matters.

And what I do about that matters. It matters because it preserves an identity that has existed from Sinai until now, an eternal braid of ritual and remembrance, giving my actions a meaning and reality that transcends my place and time. And so, despite the whispers of the destroyers who have dogged our steps from Egypt until now, and despite the momentary whisper of not wanting to begin, I retrieved my mop and broom, filled my pail with water, and began to clean my house, remove the chametz, and tomorrow after Shabbat, I will turn over the kitchen for Pesach.

“For in every generation, each one is obligated to regard herself as having personally come forth from Egypt . . .”

It was not easy to come forth from the house of slavery, the fleshpots of Egypt. But some things are worth fighting for. Our existence and our identity as a people nurtured on freedom comes from this Covenant.
“And THIS COVENANT is what keeps us standing . . .”

 

Technorati Tags: Times and Seasons,Passover,Jewish Identity

 

Sukkot: The Liberating Insecurity of Freedom

The most important part of the Sukkah . . . is the s'khakh,
materials of vegetative origin such as evergreen branches
or marsh rushes that form the roof. . . Though completely
covering the top, the s'khakh should be loosely spread so as
to be open to the heavens, with the stars visible through it.
Thus, the s'khakh is the perfect expression of Divine Protection.
G-d is not a mechanical shield that protects from all evil; G-d
is the Presence who gives strength to persevere, to overcome."
--Rabbi Irving Greenberg, The Jewish Way

As surely as the harvest moon waxes from new to first quarter to full, so too does the month of Tishrei grow from celebrating the Birthday of the World on Rosh Hashannah, to returning again from the death of idolatry to life renewed at Yom Kippur, and growing full at Sukkot, the Ingathering Harvest, the Season of our Joy.

Picture: The CIT and friend throw hay from the trailer into the hayloft at Freedom Ridge Ranch, Catron County, NM; October 2011. EHL

At this season, we recount the harvest of the previous spring and summer, gathering the hay into barns, animal feed for the winter; the cans and jars and bottles into the pantry, food for our bodies; and we bask in the sweet and fleeting warmth of Indian Summer, taking rest and pleasure, experiencing joy to fuel our spirits through the dark and cold of winter.

Although the Sukkah--the harvest booth--that we are commanded to dwell in for the seven days of the Festival originated in agricultural practices of the ancient Near East, it has come to mean far more than that. It symbolizes the temporary shelters that our ancestors used on the long and arduous journey in the wilderness that marked their transition from slavery to freedom.

If at Pesach we celebrate the high of the liberating moment, at Sukkot we remember the first uncertain steps made in freedom. At Pesach we remember that our ancestors served idols, and at Sukkot we recognize the shaky sense of vulnerability that accompanies the refusal to worship that which was made by our own hands. The Sukkah itself is designed to be a symbol of that shakiness, of the impermanent nature of much of what we believe or fervently hope is permanent.

This year, thanks to my summer spent unpacking the library, we rediscovered an old friend, Rabbi Irving Greenberg and his book on living the Jewish holidays. In the way that the turning of the Torah year by year causes us to reveal and rediscover new meanings, so, too, does the turning of the seasons of the year, year by year, cause us to recognize and see anew the meanings of the Holy times and seasons, and how they relate to our lives in the world as it turns and changes. During the somnolent warmth of an Indian Summer Shabbat afternoon, as the dogs dozed and insects hummed, we read:

"The move into the sukkah is a movement from the certainty of fixed position toward the liberating insecurity of freedom. [Those who dwell in the sukkah] open up to the world, to the unexpected winds, to the surprise setback as well as the planned gain. The joy of Sukkot is a celebration of the privilege of starting on the road to freedom, knowing that to finish the task is not as decisive as the failure to start is."

At the table in the Sukkah, we looked at each other, and smiled over the sweet Sabbath wine in recognition of the reality of those words; the recognition that this entire year has been exactly that for us: a year of unexpected winds (and rain and mud!) and surprises, a year in which we have made the choice to start out on a new road to freedom in our lives, even as the world turns into the saecular winter, a season of uncertainty and crisis.

Moving into the Sukkah, even to celebrate Ha-chag, THE Holiday, the one in which we celebrate the joy of the harvest, is also to move into the recognition that nothing much in life is permanent, and that to attach our hearts too securely to the idea that what is now is what will always be is dangerous idolatry, bound to fail us. That is why the Sukkah is constructed to shake in the wind--it is to remind us that most of what we believe protects us is in fact, ephemeral. As Rabbi Greenberg writes:

"The sukkah . . . instructs Jews not to become overly rooted, particularly not in the exile. For thousands of years, Jews built homes in the Diaspora. Civilizations of extraordinary richness--culturally, religiously, economically and socially-- we created. But all such Jewish homes and civilizations have proven thus far to be temporary ones, blown away when the turn of the wheel brought new forces to power. Often, self-deception and the desire to claim permanent roots led Jews to deny what was happening until it was too late to escape."

Picture: The Engineering Geek in the Sukkah after Havdalah ended Shabbat Chol-ha Moed Sukkot 5772, Freedom Ridge Ranch, Catron County, NM; October 2011 EHL

Indeed. One need only to think of those Jews who believed that they were too assimilated, too German; that the high civilization of Germany would protect them, and that they had acquired too much to give it up , to flee with nothing, leaving everything, in the middle of the night. I remember wondering--as I studied the early days of the Shoah and the fall European civilization into darkness; as I read Hersey's The Wall, and as I watched Defiance--I remember asking myself, could I do it? Would I be able to leave everything for the sake of my life and those of my children? I would look around at my beautiful home, at the wealth bound up in fine furniture, at the Polish tea set passed down from oldest daughter to oldest daughter, at my mother-in-law's Passover china, and I would know how hard that choice would be.

But during the past year and a half, as we watched the world teeter once again on the brink of financial ruin and moral darkness, as we listened to the rising voices of antisemitism, and heard the voices of collectivism blaming the Jews, and talking of "eating the rich", we made a decision. We recognized that all of the things we value can be built again by those who place the highest value not the things themselves, but on the lives of those who made them. And so we chose to plan prudently, to remove our work from those who believe they own us, to "go Galt" and preserve ourselves and our values for a new turning of the wheel. And I left the home I loved for a new and more rugged place; and we left the retirement we planned for new challenges in self-sufficiency, in order to provide for ourselves and those we value a shelter in case of trouble. We cannot know the whole of what is coming, and we cannot guarantee for ourselves and those we love perfect protection from all evil. But we can find for ourselves and offer to others, a place to stand; one rooted not in a place and possessions, but one rooted in a Presence identified by the spirit of freedom and adventure, that One who gives us the "courage and strength to persevere."

Thinking of all of this, recognizing who we are are and why we are here, we held hands as we made Havdalah in the Sukkah, tasting the sweet wine, smelling the spices, and holding our hands out to the light of the twisted candle, we sang of our longing for redemption and of the sweetness of joy in the coming week, knowing that whatever may come, we will face it as free individuals who have chosen this path. This ability to choose and to act in the face of the uncertainties of life is the very thing by which we find happiness and fulfillment. In this way, freedom and openness to the world of unexpected winds and surprise setbacks still brings joy. At Sukkot we are commanded to enjoy ourselves, to take pleasure in the fruits of our action and in the harvest of our choices.

Picture: Setting the Table for Kiddush in the Sukkah, Freedom Ridge Ranch, Catron County, NM; October 2011 EHL

"One fundamental criterion of a life well lived is love of life. It is terribly important, therefore, to enjoy life as it goes along. Joy cannot be postponed. Life as it is, is of infinite value . . .The joy of Sukkot represents maturity. It is the happiness of a free person who chooses to live this way, who chooses this mission above all alternatives."

The openness of the Sukkah, the frailty of it before strong winds, the beauty of the sun and the stars shining through the s'khakh, all of these things reminded us again this year that the Journey to Freedom that Sukkot commemorates is long and difficult; that our recognition of the temporary nature of most of our experiences is part of the journey; and that the very insecurity of freedom itself fills our lives and choices with meaning. Happiness comes of our choosing freedom over the enslavement of idolatry, and it is in the choosing to love our lives as they are, with all of their challenges and adventures, that we find joy.

This is what we learned anew this year, in the midst of all the adventures here at Freedom Ridge Ranch, during this Harvest Festival, the Season of Our Joy.

Choose Now, Speak Now: Gematria for 5772

Ready or not, the Holy Days are upon us. They come right on time in the Jewish Calendar, and the middle of school life and busy family life, sometime during the fall of the year in relationship to the Western Calendar. They come, predictably each year, even when uncertainty reigns and chaos threatens on the stage of world events. This year, even as we try to put our own lives into perspective, hoping for a better year, a good and sweet New Year for ourselves, for family and friends, our hearts and minds turn inexorably to Israel, tiny Israel, threatened with annihilation.

In the early 1990's, when I was pregnant with the child who has grown to be the Catron Kid, (Cowboy in Training) I was serving briefly as Cantorial Soloist for our synagogue when we were between professional cantors. And one late summer Friday morning, when I was sitting in bed sipping my ersatz morning coffee, our rabbi called and with great jubilation said: "We are going to have peace! I want you to sing the Klepper Shalom Rav (the prayer that ends the Amidah) tonight." This was the Camp David Accords, when we really thought that trading land for peace would get us somewhere, and when we really hoped, irrationally, that in Yasser Arafat and Fatah, we really had a partner for talks. Our delusions lasted little longer than my musical career, and for some they have never ended. But by the beginning of the Terror War against Israel, I laid my own delusions to rest.

It was around the time of the High Holy Days 5761 (2000 CE) that the Terror War began in Jerusalem. It was framed by a complicit press as a popular uprising (intifada) against Israeli rule of territories won by the 1967 war. But it was not that, rather it was designed and orchestrated by terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hizbollah, funded by Syria and Iran. I remember crying on the morning of Yom Kippur, as we realized that stories unfolding in real time on the internet, stories intended to make Israel look like the aggressor and to make the IDF look like Nazis, were staged for the world media, and that the media was using them to vilify Israel.

In many ways, the beginning of the Terror War was the beginning of my own political awakening, when I began to understand that my parents had been right, and that the ideals of the left would lead inexorably to misery, poverty and war. I remember a heated exchange with an older, wiser friend which led me to admit to myself that the left is almost always and everywhere antisemitic. And so I cried that morning as I stood up on the bimah to chant the Yom Kippur morning Haftarah, which I began with an uncharacteristic personal whispered prayer: "For the sake of the unification of Avinu Malkenu (Our Father, Our King) and Shechinah Imeinu (The Presence of G-d Who dwells among us)." It was on that day, at that moment, that I understood exactly how tenuous the existence of Medinat Yisrael (the State of Israel) really is.

And over the ensuing years we have watched the systematic murder of Israelis by terrorist suicide bombings, and the creation of a terrorized citizenry by incessant rocket attacks, all accompanied by a propaganda campaign intended to delegitimize Israel in the eyes of the world. We have seen Holocaust denial spoken from the platform of the United Nations, and we have heard Islamicist thugs and terrorists speak in American universities, praying for the coming of the "Khalifa" (Califate) to thunderous applause. And we have come to understand that no amount of land given over will ever be enough to bring peace to Israel, that our enemies wish to destroy the Jewish state completely, and that not content with that, they will not rest until they have killed every last Jew on the planet, and destroyed the United States as well.

Each Jewish year has an accompanying Gematria, a kind of numerology that derives patterns and meaning from the fact that Hebrew letters are also numbers. Usually people use the patterns to derive some theme for the year that will connect their everyday, Western lives to their spiritual needs and aspirations. Often the Gematria is derived from numerical equation of one Hebrew word to another. For example, the Hebrew word for "nut" (the food, not the mental state) is egoz, which has the same numerical value adding up the Hebrew letters as the Hebrew word for "sin", which is chet. Thus Jews avoid putting nuts into their High Holy Days recipes, because one wants to focus on forgiveness of sin during this time.

The Gematria for finding the theme or meaning for the year is a more sophisticated playing with numbers and letters intended to provide an understanding of what the theme for the coming year is not on a personal level, but also for all the House of Israel and all the world. Human beings are meaning-makers, after all, and our brains are organized to find patterns. Where there are none, we look for them anyway, in order to help us understand not only what is happening and how, but the "why" of events in our lives and in our world. In this way Gematria is not fortune-telling, it does not attempt to reveal an unknown future, but rather it allows a human being to impose a pattern on his uncertainty and formulate a theme and a plan for dealing with it.

We are all dealing with uncertainty at some level. This is the way of the Fourth Turning of the Saeculum, when together we enter a Great Gate in History, and experience changes in familiar patterns of our lives at many levels. For the Jewish people, this time is fraught with more fear and uncertainty, because we see that as the crisis nears its turning point, "never again" is an empty promise, and that we are once again standing in the breech.

With all this in mind, though much of it unconsciously, I turned to my custom of finding a theme for the coming Jewish year. Usually, I find some virtue that I want to focus on, some Hebrew word or phrase that will help me put all of my inchoate longings and desires to improve my life, strengthen my weaknesses, into a plan for action. Last year, the Gematria led me to the Hebrew word Emunah, a reliance upon the goodness of G-d and of life in the face of all kinds of changes and challenges. It was small and very personal, and although it did have connections to what was happening in the world at some level, I did not realize it then. I thought that if I could improve to some degree on this for myself, that it would give me more resilience in dealing with certain personal relationships that have challenges that are beyond my control.

Yesterday I began looking at Gematria for the coming year with the same intent: to find a theme for the year that would challenge me to greater strength of spirit, address certain personal weaknesses, and allow me to move forward with as much grace and purpose and I can muster. In short, I was looking for a personal theme for the year that would match the likely challenges I would face inwardly, and within my family and my work.

That is not what I found. Instead I found this Gematria for the year:
וְאַתָּה, תֶּאְזֹר מָתְנֶיךָ וְקַמְתָּ וְדִבַּרְתָּ אֲלֵיהֶם אֵת כָּל-אֲשֶׁר אָנֹכִי אֲצַוֶּךָּ אַל-תֵּחַת, מִפְּנֵיהֶם פֶּן אֲחִתְּךָ לִפְנֵיהֶם
In English: "And you, gird up your loins, and stand, and speak to them everything that I will command you; Do not be broken (scared, dismayed) before them, lest I break (scare, dismay) you before them."

Although this Gematria can have personal implications, it does not really apply to one small person living on the nowhere side of flyover country, for herself. This Gematria cannot be about making small changes to grow virtue where there was none in personal affairs; it seems to be for the Jewish people, here in America and in the rest of the Diaspora, and for those who love liberty throughout the world. It speaks to each of us as individuals, yes, but it requires of us some courage beyond that required to mend our personal breeches in small ways. For this Gematria is from Jeremiah the Prophet, who was called as a young man to speak for the Eternal to Israel on the brink of Crisis, on threshold of one of the Great Gates of History.

The context of this text is the time at which Jeremiah understood that he must speak, he must say what he saw coming, knowing that it was altogether hard and unpleasant words that he had to speak. And he was afraid, knowing that, and knowing the fate of prophets. He was feeling small and young and unworthy of saying what he knew he had to say to the House of Israel. But as Jeremiah well knew, there comes a time in history when all of one's fears and all of one's sense of unworthiness must be disregarded, for the moment of choosing is at hand, and by refusing to choose a side, to lift up one's voice, one has decided anyway.

This is that time. For the past number of years, I have watched and waited, as something awful has been taking shape, and the dreams of those who wish to rule over us have seemed to come to fruition. And when we first raised our voices together, I believed that attending a tea party, holding a sign and banding together a few times a year was all that I had to do. It seemed exciting and yet happy and innocent. Even in 2008 and 2009, at least, I did not believe that raising my voice would become dangerous, that attempts would be made to shut us down--first by ridicule and now, with increasing stridency, by threat of force and chaos.

As I see what is taking shape, and understand that we must raise our voices and take action against it, I have every reason to be afraid. I understand Jeremiah. And yet, in the face of derision and increasing hatred directed against us, it is necessary that I--that we all choose, knowing full well that once we step across the line, there is no turning back. For this we need courage, lev chazach , the strength of heart to do so willingly and with reliance upon the knowledge that for those who are determined, strength will be given.

Through his fear and hesitation, Jeremiah knew that by making a choice, by raising his voice he would be strengthened. For he heard: " This day I have made of you a fortified city, a pillar of iron . . . and they shall fight against you, but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you." And he understood that once the step is taken, then the strength shall be made straight.

I do not know where this year will take me, and all of us. I know that great and awesome deeds are in the offing. War against Israel, thus far covert, will almost certainly become overt. World economies stand on the brink of destruction. To bring something good out of all of this at the end, to cherish and preserve the value of the individual, the preciousness of liberty and the goodness of life will take all of the courage and strength we can muster. And it seems more and more certain that if we do not choose now, speak now, our silence will rise up and speak against us. As small and weak and unworthy as each one of us may feel, we still are called to stand in breech and raise our voices.

We know that there are no promises that each one of us will come through unharmed, that the stakes are rapidly becoming frighteningly high; but we do have that one small but unwavering flame against the darkness: "I am with you." So long as we are standing on the firm foundation of righteousness, so long as we are unwavering in our commitment to our values and principles, that small flame will warm our hands and guide our heart whatever may come.

Be strong. Be strong. And may we all be strengthened.

More on Mixed Premises: Part II--Common Themes

This is part II of a discussion piece related to my Sunday July 18 blog entry entitled Mixed Premises: Glenn Beck, Collective Guilt and "the Jews". Yesterday, in More on Mixed Premises: Part I--Challenging Assumptions, I outlined the differences between Judaism and Christianity that I believe are the most important and most commonly misunderstood, so that they contribute to Jews and Christians in dialogue talking past one another. In today's post, I am going to discuss three common themes in the comments on the Mixed Premises post, found both here and on my Facebook link to it.

Part II: Discussion of Common Themes in Comments

כל מחלוקת שהיא לשם שמיים, סופה להתקיים; ושאינה לשם שמיים, אין סופה להתקיים

"All controversy waged in the name of heaven shall be of lasting worth,

but that not in the name of heaven shall not be of lasting worth."

--Pirkei Avot--The Ethics of the Fathers--5:20

My blog post on Sunday discussed Glenn Beck's anti-semmitic comment, an aside the appeared to assign collective responsibility for the death of Jesus to "the Jews." I used the example of this blunder--and I do think it was a blunder--to illustrate what happens when one does not examine, question and discard premises that are in conflict with one's bed-rock principles and values. Before I go further in this discussion, I want to emphasize two things:

1. I believe this is exactly the case for Glenn Beck. I don't think this clearly anti-semitic statement, made as an aside, can be used to claim that Glenn Beck is an anti-semite. I don't believe that the comment is a thoughtful expression of his position on the charge of deicide against "the Jews". Rather, as I wrote in the first essay on this issue, I think that his statement was the result of an unquestioned premise that he probably absorbed with his mother's milk, an unnamed collectivism that he applies reflexively and only in this particular context of his Christian religion; the context of his literal interpretation of the trial and death of Jesus as taken from a conflated version of the gospel accounts. Since I only know the man from what I have heard him say over the period of four years, I could be wrong. However, I do listen closely to what people say on a variety of issues and I don't think I am wrong in this instance.

2. I believe that this discussion is "for the sake of heaven." That is, it creates the opportunity for all who participate--including me--to examine our own premises, to question them, and to determine if any should be discarded in favor of the premises that are more consistent with our most deeply held values and principles. Therefore the discussion should remain on the level of ideas and concepts, and it should not deteriorate into attacks on persons, name-calling and other manifestations of sinat channam--causeless hatred.

Given that, I also believe that Glenn Beck has moved on with respect to this issue. That is, he is either unaware or unwilling to make himself aware of the real cause of the controversy, which has nothing to do with the politics of the people who tried to call him on it. I am sorry for him for this, because had he not been a celebrity, had he not conflated those who hate him with those who wished to see the matter corrected, he could have learned something important, something that would have made him a better man. "Who is wise?" asks Ben Zoma, "He who learns from all men."

We can learn from one another, even if Beck misses the opportunity.

The Discussion Its-Own-Self:

I. The most common response I received to my concern about Beck's remark, while varying in wording, went something like this: "I watched the whole video and I did not get that Beck made any mistake other than the use of a bad metaphor.

Response: The fact that this was the bad use of an example was part of my point. That it was so obvious to Beck--and to many of his listeners--that the charge of deicide is a fact, is my entire point. That Beck did not clarify this specific example, indicates that he did not see it as the problem. Rather, the problem to him was the entire idea of "collective salvation." And I agree that this is a problem, however, his lack of clarification made it possible for listeners to hear the remark either way. As I said, it was the fact that Beck approved Pat Gray's interpretation that "the Jews wanted him [Jesus] executed" on the Friday morning radio show that made the whole thing much more offensive. He never did complete the thought that began with "I'm saying that in a perverted world--", demonstrating that the remark was not important, that he never did understand the reason that many of us objected to the original remark. And this in turn demonstrates that Beck is indeed operating from mixed premises. That was the thesis that I was discussing.

II. The second most common objection to my essay was to my statement that Glenn Beck does not know the history behind the charge of deicide, and therefore he does not get how serious an issue it is to most American Jews. I was told by several people that they believed he does know the history, because he objects to National Socialism as a philosophy that leads inevitably to mass murder.

Response: I agree that 1) National Socialism (and all forms of collectivism) leads inevitably to mass murder; and 2) that Glenn Beck knows that history. However, I do NOT believe that he knows the extreme nature of the deicide accusation and the 1500 years of horror that it created. If he got that, he would certainly have hastened to clarify his example for his audience, if not immediately on the TV program, then certainly on the Friday program. Of course, I could posit the much more serious charge that Glenn does know the history of the deicide charge and refused to clarify in order to spare himself and other Christians a vicarious discomfort for the past, but that would mean that Glenn is willing to fudge on the truth. I certainly hope that is not the problem, although his defensiveness on the matter may indicate that it is.

I have noticed at various levels of Jewish-Christian dialogue that some Christians become as uncomfortable with a discussion of the truth about how Christian institutions treated Jews in the past, as if they were personally responsible for it in the here and now. Of course, that is also an indication of the very mixed premises we have been discussing. That is, if they feel guilty, they accept the premise that collective responsibility and guilt is correct. The answer is not that Jews should stop telling the truth about the history, but that those people who feel inappropriate guilt should discard such collectivist ideas. They can no more be guilty of persecution of Jews in the past, than Jews now can be guilty of the death of Jesus.

III. The third most common statement goes something like: "We all know that it was not the Jews that killed Jesus, it was the Romans that did it." Some people also stated that the Jews present in the crowd on the day of Jesus' death were responsible, even if present day Jews are not.

Response:

The short response to both of these statements is: Why is it so important to assign blame for the death of Jesus? Even if the gospel accounts are literally true in every detail, who killed Jesus should not matter to Christians because of their particular theology of the meaning of his death. The answer of a Christian should be: "We killed Jesus by our sins." Which illustrates that Christianity is itself mired in the premise of collective guilt and punishment, which seriously undermines the competing Christian claim of personal responsibility. There are the mixed premises again. And this is an issue that only Christians can sort out for themselves.

I am not a scholar of Christian scripture, but my knowledge of Jewish law and custom makes me doubt that the story is literally true. In fact, I did take a course in Christian scripture in which we used "The Synopsis of the Four Gospels" which lays out the same story from each gospel side by side in four columns on the page. It is quite interesting how many differences there are in the four accounts. My professor (a Catholic priest) taught that these accounts each had a larger theological point and should not be read literally. I realize that this will anger the literalists in Christianity, but there it is.

I don't think "the Romans" put Jesus to death any more than did "the Jews." Roman soldiers under the command of a Roman governor did. Most of the Roman soldiers doing occupation duty in Judea at that time were freed slaves from the wars with Gaul, and they probably had no clue about why they were executing Jews. Jesus was just one of the many thousands of Jews crucified during the time 'the Senate and People of Rome' governed Judea. Most Romans probably had little to no idea about where Judea was and why Rome was governing it. Even those in the Senate who did, probably thought of Judea as an abstraction and nothing more.

More to the point, no matter how much the governor supposedly abjured his own responsibility--"I did what the ubiquitous they told me to do"--it was his, not theirs. If he gave the order, he--and he alone--was responsible. With great power comes great responsibility. I doubt the literal truth of that portion of the story as well, because it would be a rare Roman who would care much about justice towards barbarians, and the history of Pontius Pilate indicates that he was a brutal governor to the point where even the Roman Senate--hardly the sensitive types--thought it was excessive and removed him from office.
So even if you take the gospel accounts to be true, an individualistic assessment of responsibility would require you to assign the blame to Pontius Pilate, and the over all responsibility to those who gave him power, the Roman Senate.

However, this belated excuse that "the Jews" are cleared from blame because "the Romans" killed Jesus, is in itself an evasion. Perhaps, the evasion takes place because present day Christians become very uncomfortable with the actions of previous Christians, which is also an error of assigning collective responsibility (see Response to Point I above). Or perhaps it is an evasion of the bloody history of Christianity, which was just as inevitable as the bloody history of any other religion or state that reasons from a collectivist philosophy or from mixed premises. But as an individualist, I do not assign responsibility to present-day Christians for the past sins of Christians against Jews or anyone else.

I think that blaming the Jews for the death of Jesus was just an excuse to rob, plunder, rape and kill the strangers living among the Christians of Europe. It has the same root as the excuses that Che used to kill dissenters in Cuba, or that Stalin used to starve the Kulaks off their land. That collectivism leads to this bloody end over and over again in history cannot be disputed. That is why I agree with Glenn Beck that collectivism is evil.

And this is why I wish that Beck would open his eyes and see past the accusers to the accusation itself, and acknowledge his mixed premises. He has a lot of influence, which gives him great power. And with great power comes great responsibility.

Confirmation: Judaism in a Time of Trouble

Last night, in a Havdalah Service, 17 teens from our synagogue completed their formal religious school education by confirming their Jewish identities. The Havdalah service is an innovation from the Shabbat evening or Shabbat morning services where Confirmation is usually celebrated, and our kids decided to do it that way to provide a service that would be more uniquely focused on their reflections of what it means to be confirming their Jewishness.

The Havdalah itself is a beautiful service in which we recognize the separation between the holy and the ordinary; such separations are the identifying characteristic of Judaism, which in turn separates it from other religions that have other focuses. The very word havdalah means separation, and at the end of every Shabbat, we pause to both say good-bye to the sabbath and to hold onto some of its sweetness and peace as we enter into the productive week ahead.
Because of these meanings, the Havdalah is a good gate through which to come to the celebration and confirmation of Jewishness that marks the end of our children's religious school years.

Confirmation as a life-cycle event was borrowed by the early German Reformers in the 19th Century from the Lutherans, and it fulfills a need that didn't exist in the traditional Jewish cultures of Europe before that. Bar Mitzvah, and in modern times Bat Mitzvah, is the traditional ceremony marking an individual's responsibility to the commandments. Confirmation in Christianity varies in its meaning, but in most cases serves as a coming of age lifecycle marker, as well as having the religious meaning of marking a mature statement of faith and conferring adult membership in the church. In Judaism, confirmation is not so much a statement of faith as it is a statement of identity. This is because no form of modern Rabbinic Judaism requires agreement with a specific creed or set of beliefs for membership; rather membership in the Jewish people comes by birth or by adoption as a child or adult into the People of Israel.

In Judaism, Confirmation marks the end of a period in the lives of a group of children; a period in which they studied and grew towards Jewish adulthood together, sharing in experiences that mark them as members of a distinct people, that mark them as Jews. But further, the experience of distinction, of belonging to a unique civilization within the larger culture, when it is shared in a small group of individuals brings them together in relationships that are nearly as close as siblings. And especially in places where there aren't many Jews, being brought up in two cultures and consciously choosing different moral perspectives and practices sets a child apart from the dominant culture shared by most of his schoolmates. As the Rasta-Jew put it in his Confirmation Reflection: "Sometimes I felt like I was the only Jew in the whole State of New Mexico. But when I came to Hebrew School every week, I knew I was not alone." His statement reflects the fact that being Jewish in the diaspora is an excercise in radical individuality; it requires a person to be very aware of why he does what he does. It is a kind of swimming against the stream that Christians in the West have not experienced until very recently, as anti-religious progressivism has begun to rise.

And in these times, when collectivism is once again on the rise, and when economic instability and fear for the future have led much of the world to embrace once again the modern antisemitism of Europe, watching one's child stand to confirm his Jewish identity evokes a certain solemn pride mixed with the joy of a son reaching toward manhood. This week especially, as we have watched the world condemn the State of Israel for having the temerity to defend the lives and property of her citizens, and as the collectivists of the world rush to delegitimize Israel not for her faults but for her virtues, this Confirmation ceremony served both as an oasis of peace and joy in the midst of trouble, and as a moment of realization that by bringing our son into the covenant we have placed him in danger. For as ever, when the state becomes god, the Jew becomes the first demonstration of what happens to those who will not bow down.

"The time is coming," said Dumbledore to Harry Potter, "When we all must choose between what is easy and what is right." Harry Potter, at much the same age as our children who stood to confirm their Jewish identity, grew to manhood in a time when evil was rising in his world. The time is coming for us now in America, when we must choose between the security of slavery to a universal collectivist state, and our Liberty as free men and women to forge our own individual lives. It is clear from the renewed demonization of Jews, that once again we stand as the canaries in the coal mine; the ones whose stubborn refusal to lose our distinctiveness, our right not to assimilate, will be attacked first. But what happens to us is what will happen to anyone who will not bow down.

Remember?
"First, they came for the Jews . . ."

The Value of a Life

In a free-wheeling discussion with a friend the other day, I was broadsided by a comment that did not seem to fit with his libertarian views. The subject had wandered around to the controversy about the Tebow ad during the Super Bowl. And he asked me what I thought about very late term abortions.

I said that I had real moral issues with that, because I could not imagine a situation in which delivery could not be attempted, with the hopes of saving the life of both mother and child. And I had looked but found no information that contradicted my conclusions. I pointed out that I had developed severe pre-eclampsia late in my pregnancy with the Boychick, a condition that required induction of labor in order to save my life and that of the Boychick. Fortunately for me, it was not a difficult decision because the delivery would be less of a risk for me than continuing the pregnacy would have been, and we were so close to term, the Boychick and I, that delivery was not likely to be risky for him either. As it turned out, with the help of modern medicine, we came through the delivery fine, both of us and the neonatal team that was standing by filed out of the room without making any interventions. That said, I told my friend, I would not have wanted a government official interfering with such a potentially life-altering decision. I would not want some bureaucrat to require me to undergo an induction of labor. However, I would expect that doctors would be rightly reluctant to perform late-term abortions.

With this as a jumping off point, my friend commented that he wondered if a murder should be prosecuted if no one cared about the death of the person who had been killed. After all, he said, the dead person would be dead, and if no one was left to be devasted, then it was if the life of the person was unimportant.

I was speechless. One can know a person reasonably well and still be surprised.

I probed. I asked, then does that mean if the parents of a six-month infant murder him, and there is no one else to be outraged, does this mean it is not murder? He said he would have moral concerns about such an action, but that it should not be illegal since no one was injured by the action except the child--who would now be dead.

Immediately, images of concentration camps and gas chambers began to roll across my mind's eye. My argument was that certainly someone has been harmed, and that is the person whose life had been taken unjustly. My friend argued that people die all the time.

Of course, we are mortal, I argued, but there is a difference between dying of disease or accident, and the purposeful taking of a life. Certainly, the person who is murdered values his life. And as we were speaking, I realized that my friend had wandered into a collectivist view of the value of a life. His value of liberty was not completely based on the principle of individual rights. Because if his values were firmly rooted there, he would realize immediately that the value of a life is not based on how useful to society, or how precious that person is to another. The value of a life is the ultimate value to person himself.

I was so disturbed that I stopped the discussion when I realized that all of my attempts to elucidate the principle had not penetrated my friends mind; that to him this had become a sophist's argument--made for the sake of continuing the discussion.

For me, the inheritance of the Holocaust makes these discussions more than argument for the sake of argument. As we spoke, the biblical injunction about the responsiblity of the nearby towns to adjudicate the death of a stranger on the road kept coming to mind.
Even the taking of the life of a stranger for whom no one cares must be treated with justice.

A Little Learning is a Dangerous Thing

Recently I had the experience of hearing a Catholic deacon give a talk regarding the issue of forgiveness. His overall message was a good one--one that I hope the principal audience will hear--but his discussion was marred by a mistaken statement of Jewish understanding of forgiveness that led in turn to an implied sense of superiority of Christianity over Judaism. I know from my years in Jewish-Catholic dialogue how often and uncounsciously such statements and the ensuing triumphalist implications occur as well-intentioned Christians say things about Judaism that make Jews wince.

For example, I have had more than one well-meaning Christian tell me that "Jews worship a god of laws and judgment" but that Christians "worship a god of love." In response, my gut wants me to respond by saying something like: "Huh? It was Christianity that invented the concept of hell and a god that condemns people to eternal torment and punishment. Doesn't sound particularly loving to me." But I don't say it. I wince and remind myself that the self-proclaimed Christian expert on Judaism has probably never been to a Jewish worship service and thus has never heard Jews pray "Ahavah rabba ahavtanu . . .With great love have You loved us, Eternal our G-d . . ."

When such statements are made as part of a sermon, I wince particularly hard because I am unable to respond to or correct the speaker. This is the experience that I had with respect to the deacon and his mistaken understanding that led in turn to a mistaken interpretation that led ultimately to the "wince factor."

In this case, the deacon was discussing the question of how many times one must forgive another, and he related it back to a story in the Christian scriptures. The relevant bit is this:
"Now the Jewish requirement is to forgive up to three times, isn't it? So the man decided to take the three and add four more to make seven. But Jesus said, 'Seventy times seven.'"
At the point where he said "isn't it?", he looked directly at the Engineering Geek and me, seated at the center aisle side of pew 3. We both shook our heads. But the good deacon ignored us, going on instead to a smug conclusion about the superiority of Christian forgiveness over the apparently antiquated practices of the Jews.

His mistake? There is no numerical limit to how often a Jew should forgive someone. That is entirely up to the judgment of the individual who can consider the offense and the circumstances that are unique to the situation. The deacon transposed the limit of three from the offender to the offended against. The actual question that this number is in answer to is this: "How many times must a person ask forgiveness of another and be refused?" The answer is three times.

Suppose that one person has wronged another person. Jewish tradition has it that one cannot request forgiveness from G-d* for a wrong against another person. Rather we are required to make good with the person we have wronged. To do so, a person must acknowledge the wrong, resolve not to do it again, and then go to person and ask pardon by stating those acknowlegments. But how should a person carry guilt if the wronged party refuses to forgive? The answer is that a person must ask forgiveness three times spread out over a period of time. If after the third attempt, no forgiveness is forthcoming, then provided that repentence is sincere, a person can go on with her life knowing that the problem now belongs to the other person. In this way, one person cannot forever withhold forgiveness from another out of spite and thus perpetuate the hurt and the harm.

*For this reason, murder essentially becomes unforgivable. The victim is dead and cannot forgive or withold forgiveness, and therefore a murderer must carry his crime to the grave with him.

So the deacon got the basic fact wrong, and from there completely misunderstood what the man in the story's answer meant. The man said that one should forgive seven times. In Jewish numerology the number seven symbolizes completeness. One must forgive completely. (This might sound difficult but if you think about it, forgiving a little bit is like being a little bit pregnant. Forgiveness, if it is forgiveness, is all or nothing. Either you forgive or you don't).

In any case, it does not appear that Christianity is superior to Judaism on the question of how often one must forgive another. In any case, the proof--as they say--is in the pudding. And it appears to me that forgiveness is a difficulty that people of all faiths and none at all have with each other.

"A little learning is a dangerous thing," wrote Alexander Pope in his Essay on Criticism. It can certainly create the wince factor in someone who has drunk more deeply of the Pirean Spring with regard to a particular subject or tradition.

Of course, this is not a danger limited to givers of sermons. Indeed, it applies to all humanity--including bloggers.

CC2009: What I Wish I Had Said

The religious zealots are at it once again. They are a very loud minority and are quickly becoming odious to many here. They have a peculiar theology in service of which they wish to claim everything in the name of their peculiar and narrow bibilical idolatry, currently dubbed Dominionism. (The link is to Wickipedia but the article is well cited and more information can be found from those cites). Sociologist Sara Diamond writes that the Dominionists in essence believe that "Christians alone are bibilically mandated to occupy all secular institutions until [their messiah] returns."

Thus the land of the free would become a land of Christian masters and the rest of us would be dhimmis.

Thus on Saturday afternoon we were treated to a half-an-hour of Dominionist propaganda from the pulpit, er, the lectern. One particular piece of incorrect propaganda read to us was this comment on the First Amendment:

"This meant that congress would not impose any Christian denomination as a state religion, such as Baptist, Presbyterian, etc. And that everyone would have the freedom to worship God and Jesus as they saw fit. It was not intended to include religions with other gods. Almost everyone of the founding fathers had a personal relationship through faith in Christ with God. We too have the freedom to worship the God of the Bible in our own way, but no member of that first congress would have allowed for the worship of any other God than the God of the Bible. To them that would have invited failure."

Essentially, this person (who shall remain nameless) is saying that the first amendment does not protect the first amendment rights of non- Christians, and was written only to prevent religious warfare among the Christian sects. And it appears that they need that prevention, although that is NOT what the First Amendment says in plain English. Rather it says:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Today, as the Continental Congress was presented with a Compact to work on, the zealots made a motion to replace the reference to "the Creator" (language from the Declaration of Independence) with what they called "more specific language." They once more sought to divide the delegations and dominate the group with their restrictive belief system.

I have been sitting in silence all week. There was so much religious yelling and arm-waving at the Saturday session that I hesitated to speak. And felt like a coward at that. So today I rose to speak my mind.

These late nights and early mornings, these five days without once seeing the sunrise or sunset, had taken their toll, and I was not eloquent.

I began by quoting Danny Perl, z"l: "I am a Jew and the son of a Jew." To the everlasting shame of the Continental Congress, when I pointed out that Jews do not use the Eternal Name, intending to continue that religion is a private matter, I was subjected to catcalls.
In shutting them down, I lost my train of thought and merely said that if the restrictive language was used, I would be unable to sign the document that I and others had worked so hard to produce thus far. And that not being able to sign would break my heart. And then I said that I have had enough of their religious bully pulpit, thanked the President of Continental Congress, yielded the floor and left the room.

I was tired, tired, tired. And thus I was not eloquent.
And you know how you always think of the right words later?
Here, if I had the chance at that mike again is what I would say:

"I am a Jew and the son of a Jew." These are the words of Danny Perl, z"l, uttered just before he was ritually slaughtered by Islamic religious zealots in 2002. Danny is one of millions of Jews who have died al-kiddush ha-Shem--for the sanctification of the Name at the hands of religious bigots who desire to claim the Eternal for themselves.

In the United States, our government is charged with protecting the religious Liberty of all Americans. The United States is not a Christian country. There is, thank Providence, no established religion in the United States. On these shores all of us have, by right, freedom of conscience, and may choose to express any religion or none at all.

I say to the small minority of the delegates who have been mounting the evangelical bully pulpit that you are unfriendly to the cause of Liberty in this respect. Your god is too small. And in insisting that all of us here and in our respective States bow to your narrow views, you are paving the way for tyranny. There is no such thing as having a little bit of freedom. One is either completely free or one is not free at all.

I cannot take a document back to New Mexico and ask friends and neighbors to sign it, when it excludes those who do not subscribe to these narrow views. If this Body wants to gain the support of 8 to 10 million people, then we must be able to appeal to Americans of all religious persuasions and walks of life.

Further I cannot sign any document that contains such restrictive religious language. If this motion carries, I will not sign. And that would break my heart.

I do not want to die al-kiddush ha-Shem at the hands of any religious zealots. Nor will I remain silent any more to the thousands of little martyrdoms inflicted by Christian religious zealots. You see, I, too, have the freedom of expression granted to ALL by nature and nature's G-d. Thus I say: "I am a Jew and a daughter of Israel."

There. I said it here even if I could not say it there.

Jews with Guns: The Other Partisans

"Zog nitkaymol . . . Never say that there is only death for you,

Though leaden clouds may conceal the skies of blue,

As the hour that we longer is now near,

And our marching feet beat out that we are here!"

--Lid Partizaner, The Partisan's Song by Hirsch Glick, Vilna Ghetto, 1943

Yesterday, I was reading through some blogs, in the comments on one, I came upon a statement that puzzled me. The commentor was replying to some discussion about Fiddler on the Roof, and then he mentioned the movie Defiance, about Bielsky Partisans of Beylorussia. He said:

"I can't recall a single instance in the film where an action is explicitly informed by religious values. They do some things that are Jewish in character but it's more of a cultural tradition . . ." Comment from "Der Hahn" at At Assistant Village Idiot .

So yesterday afternoon, the Boychick and I sat down to watch movie. At the end we looked at each and said, "That blogger does not understand."

The whole movie was religious in the Jewish sense. The Partisans, in their desire to save the lives of their people from the Shoah, also built a community in the forest that preserved their way of life. For most Jews, secular or religious, our faith is not something external to us, it dwells within. By saving lives, and by making mighty and awesome miracles with their own hands, by praying and marrying, teaching and healing, by music and argumentation--and chess--those partisans were being Torah, even while living on the edge of deluge.

Perfect, the Bielsky brothers were not. And yet, as a character acknowledged in the movie, they were "sent by G-d to save us." Like Moses, like Deborah, like Gideon, like David, Llke Judah the Maccabee. The greatest Jewish value is life. By living their lives as menschen--human beings--they defied the Nazis and all their evil minions. They said, "We are here!"



In the movie, when the partisans are in weapons training, one of the leaders says:
"Remember! This is not a gun. This is Saul's sword, this Gideon's spear, this is David's sling with which he killed the monster Goliath."

There is the idea in the United States that Jews don't do guns. And yet, if all of us were New York Jews who fight only with words, we would not be here. Consider what it took for the Partisans of WWII, for the American Jews who fought that war, for the IDF special forces, like Yoni Netanyahu, who died freeing the hijacked passengers of the Air France plane at Entebbe. They were all Jews with guns, warriors who go back to Moses, to Saul and Jonathan, to Gideon, to David. See the movie Defiance. Or watch the Israeli movie on Entebbe, Mivtsa Yonatan (Operation Thunderbolt). Then view thedocumentary Innocents Betrayed, which documents the use of gun laws to disarm the victims of nine different genocides. And then go to Jews for the Preservation of Firearm Ownership and make a donation in the name of the Partisans.

Eternal Vigilance is the Price of Liberty.

"This song was written with our blood and not with lead,

It's not a little tune that birds sing overhead;

This song a people song admidst collapsing walls,

With pistols in hand, they headed to the call . . ."

--The Partisan's Song

That Partisan Rosh Hashanah Sermon

In traditional Judaism, sermons are given during religious services twice a year. Once on the Sabbath before Passover, Shabbat HaGadol (the "Great" Sabbath), when the rabbi is supposed to instruct the holy congregation on the laws that apply to the Passover observance. The other time is on Shabbat T'shuvah (the Sabbath of Repentence), when the rabbi is supposed to instruct the holy congregation on the laws that apply to the "great white fast" on Yom Kippur. At other times during the year, there might be a short D'var Torah (words of Torah), which is supposed to be a short talk or study session related to the Torah portion of the week. There are also separate times for Torah study and discussion throughout the week.

The idea that a rabbi should get up and give a sermon each and every week during worship services, and that he has the knowledge and the right to instruct congregants on matters political in a forum in which they have no room to dispute his words or to reply, was borrowed from the Christians, and particularly from those Christians who imbue their priests and ministers with a quality of holiness that comes from their office and that is greater than the holiness associated with the congregation itself.

To be clear, in normative Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher and decisor of Jewish law, but otherwise has no more claim to holiness than the humblest day laborer who is a member of the congregation. A rabbi is learned in Jewish law, but is not to be regarded as one would a priest or prophet or king. Those three offices are considered to be in abeyance for Jews since the destruction of the second temple, and among orthodox Jews, it is believed that they will be restored only by the coming of the Messiah. Traditionally, being a rabbi, a teacher and decisor of Jewish law, was not a job, but a calling. The rabbi was supposed to make his living doing something else. Thus, rabbis were merchants, shoemakers, and in the case of the beloved Rabbi Akiba, a shepherd and revolutionary.

Of course, in the modern Jewish movements such as Reform, the synagogue has been unpegged from Jewish law to one extent or another, and so the primary responsibility of the rabbi has become that of "professional Jew"; a provider of religious services and religious-based counsel, roles that traditionally belonged to every adult Jew. This role-change has had the unintended consequence of making most adult Jews less than adult in their understanding of Judaism and of their rights and responsibilities in the synagogue. Add the political Vision of the Annointed to this mix, and the results are positively ugly.

And this (finally) brings me to the notorious (yes, already) Rosh Hashannah morning sermon that caused a number of congregants to walk out and those who were left to become very quiet indeed.

Unfortunately, I do not (yet) have a written text of the sermon, though I have looked for it online, and requested it from the rabbi. Since yesterday was still a holy day, there may be some delay in getting it. Therefore I will not be going through the sermon to discuss each point. In any case, I am not that interested in arguing specific claims the rabbi made, because the thing that made this sermon so egregiously wrong was the structure of the talk itself, which lead to a smear* made from the pulpit against those Jews who disagree with the healthcare proposals of the current president of the United States and his party.

*A smear is an implication of guilt by false association. It is a logical fallacy in the category of presumption. The art of the smear is the art of conflating an unpopular idea espoused by a person or group with a stigmatized group or idea, thus ruining the reputation of the first, without actually addressing the disliked idea. In this case the rabbi conflated opposition to Obamacare with Social Darwinism.

The rabbi began his sermon by telling us it was going to be about politics. At that point a number of people got up and walked out, and frankly, I should have done so as well. It would have saved me a great deal of aggravation. However, in my defense, last year he gave a very good sermon about political argumentation. The point of that sermon was an admonishment against the demonization of those with whom we politically disagree.

Unfortunately, the rabbi must not have gone back and read that sermon again before writing this one, because that is exactly what he proceeded to do. Oh, it was demonization by implication rather than direct insult, but the implication was made clear by the structure of the sermon. There were thus two overall problems with this sermon. One was the structure of it that led to that demonizing implication, and the other was with the lack of a rigorous defintion of a concept, which in turn allowed the smear. I will deal with the second problem first, and then turn to the smear itself.

The rabbi began by telling a joke in which a lost gorilla is found at the New York Public Library study room with both a Bible and a copy of The Origin of Species open in front of him. He says he is trying to figure out if he is his brother's keeper or his keeper's brother. Not terribly original, as we have heard it at least twice before, but it got a laugh. It was the last one of the morning. The rabbi then proceeded to a discussion of Social Darwinism, but he did so without defining it accurately. I do not have his exact words in front of me, but he did imply that Social Darwinism was an idea conceived to explain why the rich are rich and the poor are poor in the service of maintaining this status quo for some undefined period of time. (Because in the United States, people enjoy much social mobility, this statement itself is open to question, but that is a another essay). The rabbi then rather subtly implied that Social Darwinism is a fault of the political Right. (I detest that artificial political divide, but that's still another blog).

The rabbi's definition is woefully incomplete and a half-truth at best. The term Social Darwinism can be applied to any of a number of collectivist ideologies that posit that competition among groups or nations leads to "social evolution." This idea requires an acceptance of group selection, and it also requires a social definiton of fitness rather than a biological one. For the record, the modern synthesis in biology defines the unit of selection as the individual. (This is axiomatic because it is the individual that reproduces and passes on genes). Fitness is defined as the ability to survive to maturity and to reproduce oneself. On the genetic level, the fitness of each gene is measured by it's frequency in the breeding population, using the Hardy-Weinberg equation. On the individual level, it is measured by number of offspring because offspring are the carriers of the genes in the next generation. Evolution is measured in a population by the rate of change in the gene frequencies. To put it into one pithy statement: Natural selection acts on individuals but it is populations that evolve. A population has a strict definition in biology and should not be confused with the more nebulous term 'society'.

Social Darwinism is pseudoscience. Historically, the Social Darwinism pseudoscience has been the impetus for many of the social programs put forth by the progressives, including American programs such as eugenics, the principles of which were enshrined into American law by the Buck v. Bell SCOTUS decision written by the liberal and progressive jurist, Oliver Wendell Holmes. It was also the inspiration for the National Socialist (Nazi) race theory, and it is well to remember that this fascistic movement was statism, another form of collectivism. Sans the race theory, this same kind of nationalistic socialism in Italy was hailed as progressive by American progressives of both major parties until WWII commenced. Historically, constitutional conservatives, libertarians and constitutionalists have opposed Social Darwinism not so much on the grounds that it is not even wrong scientifically, but that it is inimicable to individual rights.

(For historical information, please see American Progressivism: A Reader by Professors R.J. Pestritto and W.J. Atto, or for a more popular but well documented account, see Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg. For information on the American eugenics movement from the perspective of an evolutionary biologist, see The Mismeasure of Man by Steven J. Gould. For information on the soft eugenics in American education, see An Underground History of American Education by J.T. Gatto, or go to his sources, such as Democracy and Education by the progressive John Dewey. From these you can follow the sources and read the American socialists and progressives in their own words).

Now on the structural problem in the Sermon of the Smear.

Essentially, the first half of the sermon was, as I have said, a poorly defined discussion about the Social Darwinism pseudoscience. The second half of the sermon was an argument in favor of two things: 1) federal health-care legislation (Obamacare by another name) and 2) that when Congress votes, opponents of the decision are obligated to "sit down and shut up." (A paraphrase of the POTUS and erstwhile messiah-in-chief). Since the rabbi's argument for Obamacare was in favor of a plan that doesn't exist all in one place, it was of necessity based on a collection of disputed statistics, and a number of generalities designed to appeal to emotion rather than reason. The second argument, so fallaciously counter to the American ideal of freedom of speech, speaks for itself. No American should ever be persuaded to stop speaking out against an unconstitutional (and thus unlawful) legislation. This is all objectionable in itself, and when I have the text of the sermon in front of me, I may write a second part to this entry, outlining all of these problems.

The big problem was that no clear transition was made (at least in the spoken sermon) from the first part on Social Darwinism to the second part about Obamacare. This left the listener to conclude that the rabbi was arguing that anyone who opposes Obamacare is not only a bad Jew who wants poor uninsured babies to die on the streets, but that we are also Social Darwinists. Here is the Vision of the Anointed in spades. Don't argue an idea on its merits or lack of them, argue it on the basis of your moral self-righteousness as opposed to your opponent's moral depravity-- a moral depravity determined by his opposition to your "enlightened" idea.

If I were a betting woman, I would bet that there was not one person in that sanctuary who wants poor uninsured babies to die for lack of care*. There was not one person in that sanctuary who would not give from his or her own largesse to help a neighbor or friend in dire straits. However, there were a substantial number of people in that sanctuary who are opposed to the federal government taking over healthcare because it is unconstitutional. But the basis of the rabbi's smear was not our argument, but the fact that we were opposed to a policy that he supports. Therefore, by definition, we must be the benighted ones who need to be enlightened. (I suppose that our enlightenment is to be accomplished by this rabbi's tacit approval of taking our own property away from us at the point of a gun to be used as he and his anointed colleagues in government see fit. We will be "free" to do what they tell us to do).

*For the record, for many years, my children were among those poor and uninsured children, and I did not qualify for the help my tax dollars funded. I was at that time a tax-paying member of the "working poor." But my kids did not die in the streets for lack of care. I insured myself--all I could afford--and then paid out of pocket for their rather ordinary medical expenses. The medical crisis I faced was a diagnosis of breast cancer, and I was darn lucky to have my own private medical insurance. Under Obamacare I would not have had the option to insure only myself without paying a bill of attainder tax (unconstitutional) for not insuring my children. With my private insurance I got excellent and timely medical care, care that has historically not been available to those dependent on socialized medicine.

Although there were people who nodded all through the rabbi's sermon, (either because they did not catch the logical fallacy of presumption but agreed with the conclusion, or because they agreed with the logical fallacy) there was relative silence after the sermon. I saw people sitting back with their arms crossed, and others fled the sanctuary at the first opportunity. I stayed for the choir anthem but I cannot remember what it was about. Certainly, my focus was no longer on Rosh Hashanah or on improving myself. Rather, I was contemplating civil disobedience at that particular point. I hate being placed in the position of seeing a false characterization and not being able to counter it. I fled right after the Kaddish, not being of a mood to participate in the rabbi's hand-holding "Kum-Ba-Yah" moment with him because of the ugliness of what he did when he smeared those who disagree with him on a political issue.

I badly wanted to stand up right then and there and challenge him to put his money where his mouth is**. If he really practices what he preaches, he should eagerly allow us to force him forgo his raise in order to "spread the wealth around" to those members of the congregation who are unable to pay full dues or religious school and/or pre-school tuition. Maybe we should vote not to raise his salary until all these needs are met. And maybe we should vote to impose a special temple tax on his salary for this purpose, because he makes far above the average income in New Mexico, being a member of the CCAR, which is essentially a rabbi's guild. If "soaking the rich" is morally superior in his eyes, shouldn't he be happy to comply? The majority rules, right? (My point is not that he does or does not choose to give to worthy causes, it is that he apparently believes that it is a moral virtue to force others to give to causes they would not choose).

**From my own personal experience, I know of once case in which he did not abide by his stated moral code with regard to a person experiencing financial difficulty due to a health issue.

Alas, I am either too polite or too lacking in the prophetic characteristics of my more fiery ancestors. And frankly, who wants to end up like Jeremiah?

The sermon ended with the rabbi's earnest assertion that "we are our brother's keepers." In the actual story in Genesis, Cain uses a different phrase in a question, asking, "Am I my brother's guardian?" But the meaning in the context of the story is clear. Cain is using the statement to evade responsibility for murdering his brother. In B'reshit (Genesis), the question is appended to a lie told in response to a direct question about Cain's dead brother's whereabouts. It is twisting the context to imply that it means that every individual should be forced to surrender the fruit of his labor for the support of every other. That would be involuntary servitude. In B'reshit, the Eternal does not bother to answer the question, but instead confronts Cain with the evidence of his act of murder. "Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground." Cain's crime was that he murdered his brother. It is not a crime to refuse to enter into involuntary servitude.

Enslaving someone is in itself an immoral act. Using the federal government as the agent of enslavement makes it no more moral. A majority vote by our representatives in Congress makes it no more moral and no more legal. One cannot vote away one's own rights or those of another. Individual rights belong to human beings by virtue of their nature, and are thus said to be given by G-d. This is why the Engineering Geek and I have agreed not only to walk out on any future political sermons, but also to seriously consider whether it is moral for us to continue to support the synagogue if our money is going to causes that support this rabbi's words. And even if not, should we pay to provide him the bully pulpit he is using to call us Social Darwinists?


Unfortunately, my daughter has mistaken the actions of this rabbi and the climate that he has created in our synagogue with Judaism in general, and that is why she is leaving the faith. (See Zichronot). She cannot imagine raising her children in that environment, where they will be taught that it is appropriate for a rabbi to practice or condone bullying and smearing. She is a smart, strong woman who sees through the twisting of justice that these practices entail. What she does not see is that they are also a twisting of Jewish values. She does not understand that this is a perversion of the Holiness Code of Leviticus.

I know better. Rabbis come and rabbis go, it is the congregation that is holy. Many important life-cycle ceremonies have taken place for me at that Bimah, and there are many people I love in the congregation. At the same time, the Engineering Geek and I believe that we have the moral duty to make our complaints known and to withdraw our support if they are not answered. This is not the first time this rabbi has used his pulpit to assert the moral superiority of the current adminstration's political policies. And it is not the first time he has said or implied that one particular political stance is the only proper stance for Jews. We know that this is not so.

I think that this rabbi needs to make amends with the holy congregation for the implications he has made in this sermon and in other such sermons that there is only one Judaically correct political viewpoint, and for making false statements using the art of the smear; that is bringing shame upon a person or group by conflating his/their position with that of a stigmatized group or idea. A smear is a lie.

In the meantime, I will not, I cannot sit still and listen to anyone who has a political viewpoint that differs from that of the rabbi being smeared from the pulpit. Although I can, and have, used my right as a Jew to interrupt services in the face of an egregious problem that affects the shalem--the wholeness--of the community, I do not think that this would be useful in the large High Holy Day gathering. Therefore, I will make public my opposition to such public smears through my blog and by other means.

And to get back to the beginning of this post, I really think we ought to revisit the role of the sermon and restore it to twice a year. I go to the synagogue to pray. I go to the synagogue to study. I go to the synagogue to talk to Jews. I do not go to the synagogue to be indoctrinated with the political dogma of a particular rabbi or even of a particular Jewish movement. And I certainly do not go to hear hard-working, tax-paying Jews smeared by the rabbi whose high salary (by local standards) our dues support.

Edited to add links and correct typos.