A Sermon on Charlottesville and Hatred

This week’s Torah portion is Parashat Re’eh. It begins with a warning:

^11:26 See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse— ²⁷ the blessing if you obey the commands of Adonai your God that I am giving you today; ²⁸ the curse if you disobey.

What follows is a directive to stop worshipping in other places, places that were holy to the people of the land, important to other religious traditions. Only worship in Jerusalem.

Seek the place that Adonai your God will choose from among all your tribes to put his Name there for his dwelling. To that place you must go.

We usually leave this part of the Torah portion at that. But this week, the details are a bit more relevant.

12 These are the decrees and laws you must be careful to follow in the land that Adonai, the God of your ancestors, has given you to possess—as long as you live in the land. ² Destroy completely all the places on the high mountains, on the hills and under every spreading tree, where the nations you are dispossessing worship their gods. ³ Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and burn their Asherah poles in the fire; cut down the idols of their gods and wipe out their names from those places.

⁴ You must not worship Adonai your God in their way. ⁵ But you are to seek the place Adonai your God will choose from among all your tribes to put God’s name there for God’s dwelling. To that place you must go.

It’s a call for a purging, the destruction of the religious sites of others, the obliteration of the past. We usually read over it as if it is just a minor attachment to the command to worship in the place where Adonai chooses to place God’s name, which was understood already at the time to be Jerusalem.

We have generally assumed that directive to be about opposing other religious traditions. Then there were the events of this past weekend, centered on a protest against the removal by the City of Charlottesville, Virginia of a large statue of Robert E. Lee commissioned in 1917 and forged in 1924 that was placed in a city park named for the Confederate General, Lee Park. The entire sculpture, including its pedestal, is 26 feet high, 12 feet long, and 8 feet wide.

There are reasons that people argue in defense of historical markers and memorials. There is a value in remembering not only things that make us happy and proud, but things that remind us of what could have been and what was not good. If we are to avoid the mistakes of the past, it is important to remember the past. Yet, some reminders are painful, ones that poke open wounds or perhaps reopen healing ones. Rabbis have noted that one reason to argue for the removal of the pagan shrines was so that former idol worshippers would not be reminded of their old ways, perhaps made to feel inferior if they joined themselves to the Israelite people instead of being born an Israelite, nor tempted to follow harmful paths.

Some reminders, we might not want to have in places that we walk by every day or go to picnic with our children.

That is the discussion that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia over the past several years concerning the Robert E Lee statue, which the city council decided to remove from the site. But what actually happened in Charlottesville this weekend went far beyond protesting the removal of a statue.

First, there was what happened a week ago tonight. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am big fan of candlelight vigils. People sometimes hold candles and walk with them, often in support of peace. Such vigils can be quite beautiful. More than seven-hundred of us stood in solidarity in Cowles Commons on Monday evening. If there was no sound and no close up pictures of angry faces, the videos of the lights being carried through the University of Virgina Campus could have been part of another sort of demonstration… But there was sound and the close up images belied the lights amid the darkness.

The flames took on a different meaning and recalled memories of times that we would rather remain a part of the past.

As I noted at the vigil on Monday:

We Jews have seen those hate-filled faces before, marching with torches through many generations in many countries. Too often, historically, those torches have entered Jewish neighborhoods and set synagogues, businesses, and homes aflame. Most of the time, a small percentage of the local population was involved in the violence. The vast majority, including the local authorities, stood by and watched.

And so we come to what happened this past Shabbat morning.

In an article published by the Union for Reform Judaism on its website, Alan Zimmerman, the President of Beth Israel Synagogue in Charlottesville, Virginia described the events:

For half an hour, three men dressed in fatigues and armed with semi-automatic rifles stood across the street from the temple. Had they tried to enter, I don’t know what I could have done to stop them, but I couldn’t take my eyes off them, either. Perhaps the presence of our armed guard deterred them. Perhaps their presence was just a coincidence, and I’m paranoid. I don’t know.

Several times, parades of Nazis passed our building, shouting, “There's the synagogue!” followed by chants of “Seig Heil” and other anti-Semitic language. Some carried flags with swastikas and other Nazi symbols.

A guy in a white polo shirt walked by the synagogue a few times, arousing suspicion. Was he casing the building, or trying to build up courage to commit a crime? We didn’t know. Later, I noticed that the man accused in the automobile terror attack wore the same polo shirt as the man who kept walking by our synagogue; apparently it’s the uniform of a white supremacist group. Even now, that gives me a chill.

When services ended, my heart broke as I advised congregants that it would be safer to leave the temple through the back entrance rather than through the front, and to please go in groups.

This is 2017 in the United States of America…

Local police faced an unprecedented problem that day, but make no mistake, Jews are a specific target of these groups, and despite nods of understanding from officials about our concerns – and despite the fact that the mayor himself is Jewish – we were left to our own devices. The fact that a calamity did not befall the Jewish community of Charlottesville on Saturday was not thanks to our politicians, our police, or even our own efforts, but to the grace of God.

The community’s leadership stood idly by. Most of the rest of the community stood idly by.

Then a man drove his car into a crowd of counter protesters. It certainly appeared to be a significant escalation of the hatred and violence, an act of terrorism. Someone died, Heather Heyer. Many were injured. Then later two police officers who had been monitoring the violence in a helicopter died when it crashed, Berke Bates and H Jay Cullen.

We cried out, along with other targets of the hatred expressed in Charlottesville, to our national leaders, to our President, seeking understanding, seeking action. At first, in the morning, there was generic condemnation of violence on “many sides.”

Some were immediately angered at the equivocation of the protesters and counter protesters. Others responded. “Violence is bad, no matter who does it. Yes. But what of the hateful ideology of these groups? The threats? Isn’t this terrorism? Isn’t one side maybe a bit worse? A bit more, perhaps a whole lot more, deserving of direct and specific condemnation here? How do you respond to their arguments that you support them?”

For a while on Saturday afternoon and then through Sunday, the response was mostly silence. We waited incredulously. Bit by bit, leaders issued statements condemning neo-Nazis and white supremacists.

Finally, on Monday the President issued a statement which he read, condemning them. That was good. Of course, actions speak louder than words and unscripted words tend to be a more accurate representation of actual beliefs than are scripted ones.

The next day, in a press conference, the President, speaking about the violence that occurred in Charlottesville, stated that there were “fine people” on both sides. “Fine people?” Among Nazis and White Supremacists?

Leading white supremacist figures offered their thanks for the sentiments.

People across the normative political spectrum spoke out with incredulity and condemnation, Republicans and Democrats.

While he may well have been speaking without thinking of how his statement could be understood, there is no scenario in which it would be acceptable for him not to have clarified his statement--very, very clearly… believe me… that he in fact does not believe that there are “fine people” among Neo-Nazis and white supremacists. It is a moral and ethical obligation to make certain that no one could possibly interpret his statement in that direction. As several Republican leaders have suggested strongly, it is well past time for moral clarity and this is not difficult. There is nothing easier to do as a politician than to say that Nazis and White Supremacists are bad people.

When people wave Nazi flags & proclaim racist & hateful ideas while engaging in intimidation & violence, they are not "fine people."

It is a statement that could be tweeted. Under 140 characters. I checked.

On Monday, I spoke at the vigil downtown. I said that:

We are all God’s children. Jewish tradition tells us that we are all created in God’s image. Sometimes, too often if you ask me, that image is reflected with more than a bit of distortion, emphasizing the worst aspects of our nature.

It is not only in expressions of hatred and anger. Sometimes, the most problematic characteristic that comes to the fore is a willingness to stand by.

We often cite Maurice Ogden’s poem called “The Hangman,” when talking about standing by. Ogden’s poem is about a Hangman who comes into a town and begins to single out people for hanging. He begins with the weakest minority and then keeps dividing and dividing, singling out and singling out, until the very last person is finally hung upon the gallows.

"For who has served more faithfully?
With your coward's hope." said He,
"And where are the others that might have stood
side by your side, in the common good?"

"Dead!" I answered, and amiably
"Murdered," the Hangman corrected me.
"First the alien ... then the Jew.
I did no more than you let me do."

Beneath the beam that blocked the sky
none before stood so alone as I.
The Hangman then strapped me...with no voice there
to cry "Stay!" ... for me in the empty square.

Who helped the most? The one who helped by not helping the others to avoid their fate, the one who stood aside as hatred was raised and the Hangman pursued the weak.

We will not be like the Hangman’s faithful servant. We will not watch silently and allow age old hatreds against Jews to rise again unchallenged. We will not simply look on as Mosques are threatened. We will not stand by and allow people to be attacked because of the color of their skin or their sexual orientation. We will not allow immigrants to be persecuted.

Let us declare that we will not allow ourselves to remain silent as hatred is offered. We will not be cowed into silence. We will not tolerate the torches of hatred marching through our campuses or our streets… even if, as Tiki Torches, they may keep away the mosquitoes.

This is our country. This is our home. May it always be truly both the land of the free and the home of the brave… and let us be brave.

Speak out. Stand up.

We will not stand idly by. No more. Never again. 

Shabbat Shalom

We Are All Jews! A Sermon for Kol Nidrei 5777

It was several months before Fannie Rosenbloom's 80th birthday, and few
people had lived a more pious life.  She regularly attended services and performed any mitzvah she could.  She never had asked God for anything.

However, Fannie had become weary of struggling to find the money to support both her tzedakah causes and her grocery bills.  So she decided for the first time in her life to ask for something for herself.

Fannie began praying each Shabbat that God allow her to win the lottery. Months went by without her prayers being fulfilled, but she waited patiently. As the High Holidays approached it became difficult for her to contain her disappointment. 

Finally, on Kol Nidre, when the ark was closed, she slowly climbed the steps of the b'imah for her honor, with the help of the Rabbi on one side and the President on the other. She was to read the prayer for the congregation, which was given her because the whole community knew of her kindness to others. Few knew of her financial plight.

Fannie stood before the microphone with her prayerbook open to recite the prayer, but instead of speaking to the congregation, she turned around to face the ark and cried out:

Gott im Himmel… (that mean’s “God in Heaven.”)  I have been a righteous woman my whole life. Every extra penny went to the pushkah every day. Every penny. I love all your creations as much as you do. 

Now beginning to weep, she implored:

After 80 years, I ask for something for myself. Something! A little thing from the maker of the universe. Make me a lottery winner!

 Her hands trembled. Her legs trembled. People thought she was about to collapse in a heap.

The room was deathly silent as the rabbi walked over and put an arm around the distraught Fannie. But before the Rabbi could say a word to her, the entire Sanctuary shook and was filled with a presence that was indescribable.

A voice, obviously that of the Almighty, came from everywhere at once, and said in an exasperated manner:

Fannie, Fannie. Sheine Fannie! Help me out a little here… Buy a ticket!

For the most part, modern western Jews are not superstitious. And if we believe that God acts in our world, affecting people’s daily lives, we generally do not believe that God would be heard speaking aloud. But if it were it to happen, Yom Kippur would be the time. This day, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, we can joke about things like this. This day is awe inspiring and full of dread. This day? Just maybe.

Tonight, we come before God with humility and sometimes in distress. In ages past, Jewish men and women who were forced to convert to other faiths while under duress, sometimes at the point of a sword, came before God to plead forgiveness. Once the Kol Nidrei prayer became a regular part of this service, long ago, perhaps 1500 years ago, this evening connected not just to our faith, but to our being.

At the same time that it focuses on our relationship with God, specifically on our oaths, the Kol Nidrei prayer reminds us annually that we are inheritors of a multi-generational struggle, that many of us owe our lives, much less our Jewish identities, to people whose lives were embittered and who came to services on the eve of Yom Kippur to plead with God for themselves and their loved ones because of strife happening in their lives.

The Kol Nidrei prayer is like a DNA marker in our service, evidence of what happened to Jewish people time and again. We can imagine ourselves as those Jews. They may have felt lonely and afraid as they walked through towns and villages before hostile eyes, heading to synagogues. Perhaps, they felt the support of other Jews. Perhaps, they felt ashamed, before God or perhaps the Jewish community, as if they were betrayers, having sworn an oath to abandon outward Jewishness, yet feeling Jewish in their kishkes, in their guts.

It is said that the Kol Nidrei prayer is the prayer of those who were forced to say, “Yes,” when they meant, “No.”

For too many others, defiance was their last act. But not always.

When I grew up, reruns of Hogan’s Heroes were among my favorite tv shows. My colleague, Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin recently wrote about the show. He said:

As I look back, it’s hard to imagine doing this kind of show, a show about Allied POWs making fun of the Nazis. But this doesn’t even take into account the cast of the show.

The part of the commandant, Colonel Klink, was played by the German Jewish refugee, Werner Klemperer, who was the son of the famous conductor, Otto Klemperer. The part of Sargeant Schultz (“I know nothing!”) was played by John Banner, a Jew born in Vienna, Austria, who lost many family members in the Holocaust. Colonel LeBeau, the handsome French officer, was played by Robert Clary, who was himself a Holocaust survivor, deported to the concentration camp at Ottmuth in 1942, and then, to Buchenwald, where he was liberated in 1945. Twelve of his immediate family members died at Auschwitz.

They all knew what happened. They were all deeply affected. Their acting, their joking, about it all was a sort of defiance. Much in the same way that the movie “The Producers” which starred one of my favorite actors, Gene Wilder, who passed away at the end of August was; lampooning the Nazis with a musical entitled, “Springtime for Hitler – A Gay Romp with Eva and Adolf at Berchtesgarten.”

There were times that the acts of defiance weren’t fantasies and they are important for us to remember.

I attended the AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington DC in March. The American-Israel Public Affairs Committee is an organization that promotes the strengthening of the relationship between the United States government and Israel. Over 19,000 people attended this year and heard from many politicians, for some of us too many or too few, heard about and witnessed examples of innovative Israeli technologies such as a shock absorbing bicycle and wheel chair tire or medical advances, and heard stories from many people about why they support Israel.

When Christian politicians and ministers speak at the conference, they often reference Holy Scriptures and other religious connections. Almost always, they speak of common causes and shared values. Very few share a story like the one that Pastor Chris Edmonds of the Piney Grove Baptist Church in Maryville, TN shared with us. It was a story that his father, Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds, had written down in a diary about his experiences during the war, a story that he never shared with his family while he was alive. Pastor Edmonds discovered the diary and learned of the story while going through his father’s belongings after his death. The Pastor told us the diary recounted this story:

On January 27, 1945, his father, Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds, of the 422^nd Infantry Regiment in the US Armed Forces, was taken prisoner during the Battle of the Bulge, and was imprisoned in Stalag 9-A, a POW camp near Ziegenhain, Germany. He was the highest ranking NCO in the camp. The group of Allied prisoners there included approximately two hundred Jews.

The Wehrmacht had a strict anti-Jewish policy, singling out Jewish POWs from the rest of the POW population. It was known that Jewish soldiers would be subjected to harsh treatment, treated as slave laborers with little chance of survival, or simply killed outright.

Following that policy, the commandant of the camp ordered Master Sergeant Edmonds to separate out all of the Jewish soldiers in the camp the next morning and have them report to be sent elsewhere.

In the morning, Roddie Edmonds asked that all of the American prisoners of war under his command report. When the Commandant, Major Siegmann, saw all of the POWs standing in front of their barracks, he confronted the Master Sergeant about it.

Master Sergeant Edmonds stated simply, “We are ALL Jews.”

Siegmann exclaimed: “They cannot all be Jews!”

To this Edmonds repeated: “We are all Jews, HERE!”

Commandant Siegmann took out his pistol and threatened to kill Edmonds, pointing his pistol straight at the Roddie Edmonds’ head, but the Master Sergeant did not waver. Staring down the barrel of the gun, he retorted: “According to the Geneva Convention, we only have to give our name, rank and serial number. If you shoot me, you will have to shoot all of us, and after the war you will be tried for war crimes.”

It was reported that the commandant then turned around and left the scene.

“Surely, this is an apocryphal story, a Hogan’s Heroes-like myth,” you may be saying to yourself—but it is not. Another American soldier, Paul Stern, retold this encounter to Yad Vashem. Stern, one of the Jewish POWs saved by Edmonds’ courageous action, told Yad Vashem that he was taken prisoner on December 17, 1944, during the Battle of the Bulge.

He was one of the higher ranking soldiers and, therefore, stood very close to Edmonds during the exchange with the German camp commander, which, he later recalled was conducted in English. “Although seventy years have passed,” said Stern, “I can still hear the words he said to the German Camp officer, ‘We are all Jews!’”

Lester Tanner, another Jewish soldier captured during the Battle of the Bulge, recalled the incident in detail. Tanner told Yad Vashem that they were well aware that the Germans were murdering the Jews, and that therefore they understood that the order to separate the Jews from the other POWs meant that the Jews were in great danger.

“I would estimate that there were more than one thousand Americans standing in wide formation in front of the barracks with Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds standing in front with several senior non-coms beside him, of which I was one…

There was no question in my mind, or that of Master Sergeant Edmonds, that the Germans were removing the Jewish prisoners from the general prisoner population at great risk to their survival. The US Army’s standing command to its ranking officers in POW camps is that you resist the enemy and care for the safety of your men to the greatest extent possible.

Master Sergeant Edmonds, at the risk of his immediate death, defied the Germans with the unexpected consequences [the unexpected consequences] that the Jewish prisoners were saved.”

For that act of heroism, Master Sergeant Edmonds was posthumously awarded the Yad Va Shem Medal, Israel’s highest recognition of non-Israelis who risked their lives to save Jews and is recognized as one of the Righteous Among the Nations. Of more than 26,000 “Righteous” recognized to date, Edmonds is only the fifth United States citizen, and the first American soldier, to be bestowed with this honor.

What Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds did was an act of the utmost courage. He was willing and ready to die standing up to evil and protecting the lives of others. If the world were filled with people like Roddie Edmonds, it would be a far better place. But most of us aren’t that courageous and, unfortunately, there are many examples of times when the trigger was pulled. Countless numbers of people, during the years of the Shoah alone, gave their lives for what was right and good, standing steadfast in the face of evil, and suffering the consequences.

The history of our people is highlighted by courage in the face of danger, overcoming the most difficult of challenges, and surviving, sometimes barely, sometimes in strength, for another year, for another generation, for generations to come.

Some of us lived as crypto-Jews, hidden Jews, living in danger for many years, sometimes for generations, before perhaps coming to a land in which Judaism could be practiced in safety. Some of us fled from country to country seeking safety and prosperity. Some suffered where they were and survived through their own efforts. Others survived because of people like Roddie Edmonds, the righteous among the nations, people who, though not Jewish, helped the Jews in their midst survive.

And us? On this day, we call to mind the sin of silence, the sin of indifference, the secret complicity of neutrality.

Would we have had the courage to do what Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds did?

We are reminded during Passover each year that we Jews, even us today, our souls, were there in Egypt and at other places and times throughout Jewish history.

·      We were strangers.

·      We journeyed through the wilderness.

·      We stood at Sinai.

·      We entered the Promised Land with Joshua and shed tears by the waters of Babylon.

·      We rebelled against the Romans, were tortured and killed during the Crusades and were expelled from Spain.

·      We recited the Kol Nidrei prayer from a place of deep anguish in our hearts.

·      We hid our Jewishness from those who would harm us.

·      We rejoiced when we did not have to hide.

·      We were sent to freedom on the Kindertransport.

·      We fought in the Warsaw ghetto, crawling through sewers to survive.

·      We were there in Auschwitz and Treblinka, both surviving and perishing.

·      We too stood beside and behind Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds and heard him say, “We are all Jews!” and we saw the Commandant walk away.

The last is not simply a memory written in a diary; it is part of our memory as a people, joining these other events in forming who we are.

On Yom Kippur, we are bid to atone, to perform teshuva, turning ourselves in the right direction. This night, we are reminded that staying on the Jewish path is a privilege and not simply a commandment.

Kol Nidrei is a time when we remember those in generations of the distant, and perhaps not so distant, past whose struggles and sacrifices enabled us to be here today.

Let us remember that we are inheritors of a great legacy that has inspired generation after generation and may we do our best to preserve it and enhance it for generations to come. Often we have done and continue to do so with the help of committed family members and friends.

We all are Jews!

In the words of the traditional Yom Kippur greeting, “G’mar hatimah tova!”

“May you be sealed for good in the Book of Life, Blessing, and Peace!”

Kein yehi ratson! May it be God’s will!

Rosh Hashanah Morning 5777 - Why I am a Jew

Every four years, our nation elects a President. Most years, the choice that we make between candidates is mostly, or even wholly, focused on policy differences. Too conservative, too liberal. Too focused on business. Too focused on social policies. Too hawkish, too dovish. Perhaps, we find a candidate that is “just right.” Mah nishtanah? Why is this election different from all other elections?

In some ways, it is not. The election of the President of the United States is a big deal. The results will have a profound impact on the future of our nation and in many ways on our world. We could find ourselves with a female President for the first time in our nation’s history. Or we could find ourselves with the first President who has never before held public office. Much of the discussion about the upcoming election has focused on character. Many people are more afraid of what will happen if the candidate whom they do not support in this election wins than they are hopeful about what positive changes that the candidate whom they do support might bring.

There is a joke, “I remember when Halloween was the scariest night of the year. Now, it's Election night.” For many, this year it isn’t much of a joke.

There has been more than a little discussion among rabbis about if and how to talk about the many significant issues surrounding this election cycle. No, we cannot publicly support a candidate or party. We cannot make ourselves into a living SuperPAC commercial, providing a one-sided case. Neither can we, advocates for betterment of our world, remain silent and stand idly by. So what are we to do? We must talk about what we believe. I am going to do just that this morning in the context of “What it means to be a Jew and why I am a Jew.”

In 1927, Edmond Fleg, a French Jewish writer, wrote a letter to his future grandson which he entitled, “Why I am a Jew”:

People ask me why I am a Jew. It is to you that I want to answer, little unborn grandson. When will you be old enough to listen to me?... When will you be born? Perhaps in ten years' time, perhaps in fifteen. When will you read what I am writing? In 1950 or thereabouts? In 1960? Will anybody be reading in 1960? What will the world look like then? Will the machine have killed the soul? Will the mind have created for itself a new universe? Will the problems that trouble me today mean anything to you? Will there still be Jews?

Yes, he concludes. Yes, there will be Jews. Israel will live on, because being a Jew is meaningful. He goes on to list reasons which those choosing to become Jewish in our congregation recite at their conversion ceremonies and a version of which is part of the pledge taken by our Board members at their installation:

I am a Jew because the faith of Israel demands no abdication of the mind.

I am a Jew because the faith of Israel requires all the devotion of my heart.

I am a Jew because every place where there is suffering, the Jew weeps.

I am a Jew because in every age when the cry of despair is heard, the Jew hopes.

I am a Jew because the message of Israel is the oldest and the newest.

I am a Jew because Israel’s promise is a universal promise.

I am a Jew because for Israel the world is not finished; we must yet complete it.

I am a Jew because Israel places us and the unity of humankind above nations and above Israel itself.

I am a Jew because above human beings, the image of the divine unity, Israel places the unity which is divine.

This statement still resonates with us nine decades later. But I would add more.

We Jews know that human beings can and too often do act cruelly and inhumanely toward one another. Our tradition tells us that when we find ourselves among those not acting humanely, our job is to be a mensch, to be a human being. As Hillel taught, “Bamakom sh’ein anashim, hishtadeil li-hiyot ish.”

“In a place where there are no human beings, strive to be a person.”

It is said that Jews originated the idea of the Messianic figure, a single individual or in some texts a small group human beings, who would bring about changes that set things according to the intended divine plan. In ancient times, the messiah was a kingly figure, a descendant of King David, or a priestly figure, descended from Zadok, the High Priest during the time of King David. It was hoped that this king and this High Priest would be able to restore the world as God intended it to be. To an extent, Jews are responsible for the idea that the world can be fixed. This concept, with a few modifications in theology along the way, developed into the idea of Tikkun Olam, the concept that we Jews can repair God’s creation through our actions and bring nearer the perfection that God intended.

Yet, while pursuing perfection is part of our DNA, appreciating imperfection is more challenging for us.

Shimon Peres, for whom we are in mourning this week, once said that:

The Jews greatest contribution to history is dissatisfaction. We’re a nation born to be discontented. Whatever exists, we believe can be changed for the better.

And in line with this quote, we see ourselves in the joke about the mother who buys her son two shirts. When he shows up at dinner wearing one, she says, 'What's the matter? You didn't like the other one?” and we see it in the statement by the waiter to the group of picky Jewish diners, “Is anything alright?”

We have difficulty accepting that things cannot be better than they are.

Speaking of food, we are the people who not only may complain about the quality of the food we eat, but even when the food is fantastic, we question how it was prepared, where it was before it was prepared, and how it was acquired in the first place. That is who we are. It’s our nature.

Caring for those who are ill is a big deal for us. We see ourselves right there in Henny Youngman’s one liner, “A Jewish woman had two chickens. One got sick, so the woman made chicken soup out of the other one to help the sick one get well.”

We are interfaith friendly. As the Jewish reggae star Matisyahu noted, “The real reason Jews don't have more Hanukkah music is that, historically, American Jewish singer-songwriters were too busy making Christmas music. 'White Christmas,' 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,' 'Silver Bells' and 'The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting)' were all written by Jews.”

Stereotypes don’t work for us. We don’t accept that we or others should fit into roles. So Jews can write Christmas songs. Ralph Lauren has said, “People ask how can a Jewish kid from the Bronx do preppy clothes? Does it have to do with class and money?” His response, “It has to do with dreams.” 

And we are the people of Hillel’s dictum, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me.” We are Moses Seixas, a Jewish congregational president in Newport, Rhode Island, who wrote a letter to the first President of the United States, George Washington, checking to see if the new nation’s leadership would indeed “give to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.” And we expect that our government will live up to that ideal to this very day.

We are the people who take the time at the Passover Seder to mourn the deaths of those who tried to kill us, but were killed by God in the attempt, because we are all God’s children.

And every year, during that same meal, we take time to remember that we, ourselves, were slaves, oppressed in Egypt, and that we all were strangers in another’s land. The immigrant’s story didn’t begin to resonate with us when we came into this country in the last century or two, it has been part of our narrative throughout our people’s existence.

We are diverse. We are people like Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, the rabbi of Central Synagogue in New York City, one of America’s largest and most prominent congregations, whose father is an American Jew and whose mother is a Korean Buddhist.

We see ourselves in the stories of the refuseniks and of Natan Sharansky specifically, who, for the book commemorating the life of Daniel Pearl, I am Jewish, shared this story:

I was one of the millions of new human beings in the Bolshevik experiment, which was successful far beyond its maker’s expectations. Section five in my identity papers informed me that I was a Jew, but I hadn’t a clue as to what that meant. I knew nothing of Jewish history, language, or customs, nor had I even heard of their existence…Like all Soviet Jews of my generation, I grew up rootless, unconnected, without identity…

It was through the [Six Day] war that I became aware of the Jewish state, and of the language and culture that it embodied. I was suddenly exposed to the existence of the Jewish people, to the existence of tradition and culture. I was no longer a disconnected individual in an alienating and hostile world. I was a person with identity and roots.

Identity and a sense of belonging give life strength and meaning. A person who has his Jewish identity is not enslaved. He is free even if they throw him in prison, even if they torture him.

We believe that the measure of our lives is not in our wealth or power, morals and ethics matter. Right conduct matters. Justice matters. In the words of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, who in his response about why he is a Jew stated:

I am a Jew because our ancestors were the first to see that the world is driven by a moral purpose…The Judaic tradition shaped the moral civilization of the West, teaching for the first time that human life is sacred, that the individual may never be sacrificed for the mass, and that rich and poor, great and small, are all equal before God.

I am a Jew because, our nation, though at times it suffered the deepest poverty, never gave up on its commitment to helping the poor, or rescuing Jews from other lands, or fighting for justice for the oppressed, and did so without self-congratulation, because it was a mitzvah, because a Jew could do no less.

We are the Jews like Kerry Strug, Olympic Gymnastics Gold Medalist, who people might not think are Jewish, but are. She said:

I have heard the same question over and over since I received my gold medal in gymnastics on the Olympic podium. “You’re Jewish?” people ask in a surprised tone. Perhaps it is my appearance or the stereotype that Jews and sports don’t mix that makes my Jewish heritage so unexpected. I think about the attributes that helped me reach that podium: perseverance when faced with pain, years of patience and hope in an uncertain future, and a belief and devotion to something greater than myself. It makes it hard for me to believe that I did not look Jewish up there on the podium. In my mind, those are the attributes that have defined Jews throughout history.

And when we go to vote on election day, whether we remember the story from the Talmud, tractate Ta’anit or not, it’s essence will be part of our deliberation:

One day, a man walking down the road came upon Honi the Circle Drawer (known for performing miracles) as he was planting a carob tree.

The man asked, puzzled, “How long will it be before this tree will bear fruit?” [Perhaps, he thought that Honi would perform a miracle].

“70 years,” replied Honi.

The man asked incredulously, “And do you believe that you will be alive in another 70 years?”

Honi responded, “When I came into this world, there were carob trees with fruit ripe for picking. Just as my ancestors planted for me, so I will plant for my descendants!”

We will consider the kind of world that we hope to leave for those who come after us.

I am a Jew because of all of these things and more:

Because we believe in “Mishpat Tsedek,” “Righteous Justice,” and are commanded in the Torah to stress righteousness in our deliberation, “Tsedek, Tsedek Tirdof,” “Righteousness, Righteousness you shall pursue!”

Because we believe that no matter how we look, whom we love, how or if we pray, what language we speak…we were all created, B’tselem Elohim, in the image of the divine and that the righteous of all peoples will merit the best of the afterlife; whatever afterlife there may be.

Because in a world filled with darkness, where one need not look too far or too hard to face inhumanity and despair, not only do we shed a tear, not only do we hope, we bring light.. We can be, in the words of Isaiah, “a light unto the nations” and at our best a source of blessing for humanity, as we find in Genesis 12:3 in the blessing of Abraham, “All peoples of the earth will be blessed through you.” Through us!

Because no few of our holidays have the theme, “They tried to kill us! We survived! Let’s eat!” and, as many of you know, I like good food!

Because reading the story of the Akeidah, the Binding of Isaac, as we did this morning, we can see ourselves

·      As Abraham, following expectations and feeling tested,

·      As Isaac, affected by things out of our control and deciding whether or not to go along, or

·      As Sarah, whose entire side of the narrative, complete with extreme emotions, we must create,

·      But we cannot see ourselves in the place of the young men who, though concerned, watched Abraham and Isaac ascend the mountain, but did nothing.

·      We would not stand idly by.

I am a Jew:

Because though we may at times struggle to see how we can make a difference; we might wonder how our one vote might matter, our tradition tells us in the words of Rabbi Tarfon, “Lo aleikha hamlakhah ligmor, v’lo atah ben chorin l’hitbateil mimenah.” “It is not up to you to complete the work, but neither may you desist from it.”

Because some of us marched alongside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

And some of us went into Mississippi to help poor black women and men who had been kept away from the polling booths, register to vote, knowing that there was a threat of violence.

And two of us, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman died in the effort, alongside James Chaney,

Because we Jews understand that if no one speaks up, if no one stands up,

No change will come.

Because in the darkest of places and at the darkest of times, Jews made it through. In the words of Viktor Frankl, a survivor of Theresienstadt and Auschwitz, “Everything can be taken from [us] but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

Because we are a people that believes the words of Theodore Hirzl, “Im tirzu, ein zo aggadah,” “If you will it, it is no dream,” because we have seen “HaTikvah al shnot alpayim,” “The two thousand year hope,” become true, our people returned to its ancestral land and a Jewish nation reborn and thrive.

Because confronted time and time again with opportunities to join the majority, to bring an end to difficulty, oppression, and great suffering, we have remained true to our beliefs.

Before Kings and Priests, before soldiers with swords or guns and mobs with torches, who all wanted us to say something else, believe something else, or simply to vanish from the face of the earth, we bravely uttered, “Shema Yisrael, Adonai eloheinu, Adonai echad!”

Or in the last words of Daniel Pearl, “I am Jewish.”

I cannot tell you how all of this will affect my votes. Not because I do not know, but because I will not advocate for candidates or parties from this pulpit. But I can tell you that it will affect them.

Perhaps, what I have said will affect your votes too, but regardless, I hope that you will be true to yourselves, to vote the principles for which you stand.

May our choices, whatever they may be, bring to us and our nation blessings and not curses. May we choose life, that we and our descendants may live a life of peace and blessing on this land.

Shanah Tovah u’metukah! Have a Happy and Sweet New Year!

Enough! Balaam's Ass and Church Conventions

When we teach bible stories to the kids in the religious school, there are many that are difficult for the students to understand or which fail to hold their attention long enough to explain so that they might. This Torah portion contains one of the stories that belies those problems. This Torah portion is one during which they giggle when we discuss it. You see, it features a donkey. But of course, the text doesn’t use that term. It uses “Ass.” Giggle. Giggle. “The rabbi said ‘Ass!’” Yep, it’s even true for adults. The story of Balaam’s Ass is one of the best in the Jewish tradition and certainly one of my favorites, not because I get to say the word “Ass” from the pulpit, but because it is a meaningful story.

The story is about how Balaam riding his donkey encounters an Angel blocking the road. Of course, the donkey sees the Angel. Balaam, looking right at the Angel, doesn’t see it and gets angry with the donkey which does. Balaam then beats the donkey, which then speaks up to stop him. Of course, the fact that this is a TALKING ASS doesn’t register as strange for Balaam either.

By now, you’re all thinking “And I know a few of those…” That’s another reason that adults giggle. Regardless, this Torah portion speaks to us, for sure. But other than enabling us to giggle at its vocabulary and get a jab or two in at those we know who at times act like donkeys, how is this story relevant for us today?

To get there, I’ll ask a question. What does the donkey say to Balaam?

He says, “Look, I am the ass you have been riding all along until this day! Have I been in the habit of doing this to you?” And Balaam answered, “No.”

To what topic does this simple conversation apply? It occurred to me that it applies all too well to one that is important and problematic for Jews today.

Any guesses as to the one about which I speak?

How about if I rephrase what the donkey stated as follows, “Look, I am a Jew that you have known and interacted with years? Have I been in the habit of doing or supporting what you casually accuse other Jews whom you don’t know of doing and supporting?”

This is a good explanation of how antisemitism and anti-Jewish racism found its way to be commonplace at the national conventions of our progressive Christian friends. This story helps us understand how, knowing Jews in their personal lives who act nothing like the way that some in their movements are accusing Israeli Jews of acting, progressive Christians too often nonetheless ignore the Jews in their midst whom they know well and instead act as if even the most heinous accusations make sense of the entire population of Israel.

This week, the United Church of Christ, perhaps the Reform movement’s closest of all of our friends in the Christian community, with whom we regularly interact on almost every social issue that arises, chose to beat us without talking to us. That’s a bit blunt. What a significant majority of its national conference delegates did was to condemn Israel based on false testimony, to advocate for the spreading of falsehoods about Jews and Israel as facts, and to do so without making any effort to reach out to Jews who were loudly protesting their actions until after the fact, if at all.

My friend, Rev. Matt Mardis-Lecroy of Plymouth Congregation, the largest UCC affiliated church in Iowa, reached out to me yesterday to apologize for not conversing with me before the vote which took place earlier in the week. He also sent along comments which he will publish stating that this vote doesn't necessarily bind or represent his church. I appreciate those sentiments, especially since he is the only one of a number of UCC ministers who could have reached out. We have yet to meet to discuss the issues, but this far he, nor any other UCC minister here in Des Moines has offered any statement of significant disagreement with or outright rejection of the contemptible discussions and votes which took place at the UCC national convention.

And they were contemptible. Not only did the UCC vote to divest itself from companies that “profit from the occupation,” a significant majority of UCC voters actually supported a vote that would have deemed Israel an “Apartheid state,” AND the UCC is advocating that the basis of its education concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict be the “Kairos Palestine” document which the Central Conference of American Rabbis stated in 2009 was both full of falsehoods and outright antisemitism.

On Wednesday, the CCAR issued what is perhaps its strongest ever condemnation. I am going to read it to you:

With sadness and dismay, we condemn the action of the United Church of Christ (UCC) to target Israel with divestment and boycotts. With this vote, the UCC has now taken sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and has explicitly joined the global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, a contemptible effort to delegitimize the State of Israel and deny the Jewish people's right to statehood. We do thank and commend the small, brave, minority of delegates to the UCC General Synod who voted against the wrongful, self-defeating resolution.

[I add my appreciation for all those in our local UCC churches who would have done so if given the opportunity.]

We note with even greater revulsion the majority vote of the General Synod to brand Israel an apartheid state. We take cold comfort in the fact that the "apartheid" resolution failed for want of the two-thirds majority required for adoption. This vote most closely resembles the odious 1975 United Nations resolution equating Zionism with racism. Though later revoked, it marked the emergence of the U.N. as a venue of implacable anti-Israel hostility.

Reform rabbis are particularly saddened by this development, because of the long-standing and meaningful relationships that many of us and our communities have cherished, and will now be forced to re-evaluate with UCC clergy and congregations. We note with disgust that our UCC colleagues chose to consult a virulently anti-Israel organization, calling itself "Jewish Voice for Peace," rather than their trusted friends and allies who lead the organized Jewish community. Like our UCC colleagues, Reform rabbis are deeply engaged with the plight of the Palestinians, and we strongly support the peace process to achieve two states for two peoples.

We affirm what the CCAR resolved in 2005: "We deeply deplore efforts that blame [only] Israel for the failure of the peace process or that seek to use economic actions against Israel, including singling out for shareholder actions or divestment, companies working in Israel. These shareholder efforts are more likely to hinder rather than advance the peace process. Israel's adversaries may interpret them as endorsing continuation of their strategies of rejectionist and terror. In addition, the one-sided nature of these actions undermines their credibility [,. . .] thereby creating the perception that the sponsoring entities [in this case, the United Church of Christ] seek to delegitimize the very existence of the State of Israel."

This decision is a shameful episode for the United Church of Christ.

Yet, how more shameful was it to invite Rev. Mitri Raheb to offer a keynote speech the day before the UCC voted to support divestment?

Rev. Raheb, beloved by those who advocate for the Palestinian side, believes that Palestinian Christians have inherited all of the blessings offered to the people of Israel in the Torah, that the Jews who exist today are all people from Eastern Europe, descended from Khazars who converted to Judaism, and that today’s Jews have no historical connection to the land of Israel at all. Raheb always refers to Jesus as a Palestinian and not as a Jew.

These things are not representative of a difference in policy regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, they are representative of racism and antisemitism as well as utter ignorance and hate.

Let me be very explicit here. It is both ignorance and racism to argue that Jews as a race descend from Khazars. End of discussion. Racism. And antisemitism as well because this utter falsehood demeans Jews as people. It is therefore clearly anti-Jewish. Finally, the argument that Jews have no connection to the land, an obvious falsehood, is designed and used to instill contempt of the Jews by arguing that the Jews as liars have stolen what never belonged to them and therefore have no rights to any state at all.

My friend, Dexter Van Zile, wrote about Raheb’s speech at the UCC Convention. He said in a recent article for CAMERA.org:

No, Raheb is not a Nazi, but no one who knows about previous efforts to separate Jesus from Judaism can applaud Raheb’s sermon in good conscience. No one who knows anything about the impact of efforts to separate Christianity from its Jewish roots can applaud Raheb’s polemic.

But that's what UCCer's did at the denomination's 30th General Synod.

What makes Raheb’s sermon so much more troublesome is that when he did mention Israel in his sermon it was in reference to “the occupation.” Clearly, Israeli policies have an impact on Palestinians, but nowhere during his talk did he mention Palestinian violence against Israel, only the “suffocating Israeli occupation.”

In sum, Raheb removed Jews from the land of Israel, deprived them of their history and then portrayed the modern Jewish state as the singular source of suffering endured by the Palestinian people.

And for this he got a standing ovation.

Raheb, the people who invited him to speak, and the people who applauded after his sermon engaged in a sinful act of false witness against the Jewish people and their homeland.

Our friends, who have known us a long time, are blinded and are wrongfully beating us. It is time for us donkeys to speak up about it.

Rev. Matt Mardis-Lecroy and I will be meeting in a couple of weeks and I will make an effort along with others among the Jewish leadership in town to reach out to others.

Our message is simple:

We may disagree on the nature of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and in the possible ways in which it might be resolved, but the promotion of anti-Jewish racism and traditional antisemitism as well as Christian supercessionism are not an acceptable part of the conversation whether they are being discussed by known White Supremacists and Neo-Nazis, for whom they are standard tropes, or by Palestinian Christian religious leaders, or even by Nobel laureates. And furthermore, study materials concerning the history of the conflict and its possible resolutions, along with any discussion of the nature of the Jewish people or of Israelis as Jews, must be devoid of that racism, antisemitism, and Christian supercessionism to be meaningful and helpful in approaching possible resolutions.

It would be unfair to suggest that only the UCC is guilty of this type of behavior, though the extent of what took place at its recent convention deserves specific condemnation. Unfortunately, the UCC simply has added its advocacy to a number of other churches who have chosen to promote hateful Antisemitic tropes in their anti-Israel pro-Palestinian advocacy efforts. 

This week, as we read the story of the Ass, let us hope Balaam will stop beating us long enough to realize he’s wrong.

Shabbat Shalom!