The Three Advisers – Erev Rosh Hashanah 5778 2017

This is a time of considering what should be our priorities in life and being mindful of how well we have been acting in relation to them.

What should fill our lives? What actually does fill them?

If we imagine our lives as a home, what would we like to fill it?

Let me begin with my version of a classic Jewish tale:

Once there was an old, wise, and prudent king who had no children. As the king grew older, he decided it was time to confer his kingdom upon one of his loyal advisors. So he called to them and said, “I am getting older my friends. Soon, I will pass away. But before I die, I will anoint one of you to be the next ruler. I know that all of you are good people, so I am going to give you a test: I will give each of you four gold coins to take to the market to bring back things that will fill my house with beauty and make it a nicer place to live.” He told them to come back the next day with what they had found.

The three advisers went to the marketplace. It was full of all kinds of things that were interesting and beautiful. The smells of delicious baked goods filled the air. You could find anything you needed or wanted.

The first advisor was a big fan of rugs. All he could think about when he received the assignment was finding the best ones. He glanced at the rugs in the market that day. He thought they were very beautiful and of how nice it would be to be able to stand on one of them instead of upon the cold stone floors of the castle. The rugs were useful and beautiful—but also expensive. He could only buy a couple at most. Yet, the task was to help to fill the house with beauty and make it a better place to live. The rugs would be a good start.

The second advisor slowly wandered through the market. He was becoming very discouraged. He thought about buying rugs too, to help with those cold castle floors, but saw another advisor doing that. Perhaps, some nice furniture? If he got a chair that was too small, it wouldn’t work. If he got one that was too big, the king might even be insulted. Could he find the Goldilocks chair?

He imagined an embarrassed and angry king stuck in his chair. Perhaps, I should not get something that would go on the floor? Then he saw a large and wonderfully beautiful tapestry that could be hung on one of the walls. It would not fill the whole house with beauty, but it would help.

The third advisor was contemplative. She walked around the marketplace all day, looking and looking. Once she stopped to help a lost little girl find her mother. Another time she helped an old woman load her donkey with bundles of firewood. She talked with the shoppers and laughed with the children playing games. But her search for something that could fill the King’s house with beauty and make it a nicer place to live seemed in vain. She had almost given up finding anything. It was getting dark and the market was closing.

And as she passed a small shop for the last time, she saw exactly what she needed! “Why didn’t I think of that before?” she said out loud.

The first advisor, arriving early the next morning, brought in the gorgeous rugs. They brought beauty to two of the rooms. “Those rugs are quite a nice addition to the castle,” said the king.

The second advisor, arrived shortly after lunch. He brought in the work of art, a tapestry of the setting sun that would hang on the wall of the entry hall. “Amazing details,” said the king. “Again a nice addition.”

Standing on the rugs helped to take a bit of the chill away. The tapestry of the setting sun brought a bit of color, when the light shone through the windows, but as the light was fading outside, it was becoming difficult to see.

Finally, as it was becoming dark, the third advisor came in. In each room of the house she set out candles which she lit. A soft, warm glow filled the corners and hallways. Everyone began chatting amiably as they busied themselves around the house, for the light had chased away the shadows. Now, you could see the tapestry and the rugs. She put wood into all of the fireplaces and heated the whole house. While she was going about her work, she sang a beautiful song. As she sang, other people came to the house and joined their voices with hers.

The king sighed a happy sigh and smiled with contentment. He knew that he had found his successor, the woman who had filled the castle with light, with warmth, with the beauty of song, and with friends and family members of the king who not only increased the beauty of the song they sang, but filled the home with the beauty of friendship and love as well.

Sometimes, we focus on our possessions. “The one with the most toys wins.”

Sometimes, we focus on what we lack. “If only I had a bigger house, a nicer car.”

Sometimes, we focus on what others have. “I wish I was like them.”

“$1,000 really isn’t THAT much for an IPhone X is it? It has facial recognition!”

Sometimes, we focus on what we perceive that others have,

“The grass must be greener on the other side of this fence.”

Sometimes, we go through our lives half asleep, not even aware of our surroundings.

Today, the great shofar has been sounded, waking us from our slumber, calling us to attention. The High Holidays are upon us.

Let us take time to turn our attention from the complexities of the world around us to the complexities of the world within us, to the needs and desires, the longings of our souls.

What do we want in our lives?

With what will we fill our homes?

We would begin with love, happiness, health, and warmth.

Some would say beauty, interesting and pleasing artwork, pleasant scents perhaps from flowers, though for allergy sufferers maybe not.

Some would say the smells of good food wafting from the kitchen and chocolate, lots of chocolate.

Some would add good music.

Some would say laughter, sounds of joy, and the voices of family and friends.

Some might say light, perhaps sunlight shining through the windows, perhaps, in the more abstract, rays of hope filling every room.

Some might add feelings of compassion toward others, of tolerance and welcoming, “let all who are hungry come and eat,” with that hunger perhaps being for food, perhaps being for companionship, compassion, or love.

Some would say, Shalom, an absence of violence, a sense of well-being, feelings of completion and wholeness.

For a moment, let’s consider a different ending to the story that I told. For a moment, let us consider this:

In the middle of the night, when the King awakened, he sat up in bed, swung his feet off of the side of the bed, and right into standing water up to his knees and rising.

Last month, when hurricane Harvey struck Houston, many people woke up to find that their homes were flooded by rapidly rising water. One of my rabbinical colleagues and his family found their home flooding rapidly and realized that their best hope for survival until a rescue boat could arrive was to break into the neighbor’s taller home and seek higher ground.

Rugs? Tapestries? Furniture? Candles? Cars? Family heirlooms? People were lucky to escape with their lives, a few of their most important possessions as long as they were small, hopefully their medications, and perhaps a change of clothes. That happened, in many cases, only because people came from long distances away with boats, kayak, and even giant rubber duckie pool floats to help with rescue.

We have a tendency to believe that disaster brings out the worst in people. In some people, perhaps. There have been plenty of reports of looting and no few of price gouging. Yet, for most people, studies have shown, disaster causes us to elevate communal good over personal good and saving lives over maintaining prejudices and seeking gain. We share our food, our clothing, our transportation, and our shelter.

Some people invited dozens of people seeking higher ground, electricity, or perhaps simply a roof over their heads into their homes. They picked up strangers in their cars or trucks. They dove into raging waters and formed human chains to save both people and animals. People like you and me. Not trained emergency responders. Not soldiers. People who happened to be at the right place at the right time. In many cases, people who went out of their way to try to be in the right place at the right time. Leaving the safety of their homes to seek what kind of help they could bring to those in need. One business owner, Mattress Mack, turned his Gallery Furniture store into a shelter.

In spite of the attitudes of some preachers who want to argue that hurricanes are punishment for sin, very few people affected by such events treat anyone they encounter as if they deserved to have their homes flooded, their possessions destroyed, their lives threatened by violent winds. We do not believe that anyone deserves that.

Amid the floodwaters, there are no arguments that someone is homeless or hungry because they’d rather not work or don’t have the fortitude to quit drugs or any of the other arguments that people often use to excuse an unwillingness to help. If everyone is endangered, nothing differentiates anyone from anyone else. The winds and floodwaters from hurricanes strike rich and poor, people of all colors and ethnicities.

Amid the floodwaters, someone being cold and wet and shivering and endangered isn’t the result of punishment for bad behavior. It’s as good as a commandment for us to enact Tsedek: to enact righteousness, to correct the wrongs that are going on around us, to respond to needs, to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, heal the sick, house the homeless, lift up the fallen. And we tend to appreciate what is most important in our own lives.

If watching the news about all of the horrible things going on in our world, you ever find yourself wondering how humanity has survived to this point and wondering what hope there is for the future, the answer is that human beings rise in support of one another at times of true adversity. At times of disaster, we are more likely to see strangers as B’tselem Elohim, in the image of God, in our image. We are more likely to see commonalities instead of focusing on differences.

We are told that God created the world from Tohu and Vohu, a swirling mass of water and earth, and brought order to it all. Human beings standing in the midst of great floodwaters take on a similar task.

When our world is tohu va-vohu, a swirling mass of chaos, our task is to help bring order and a sense of shalom. Let us bring light and hope into places of darkness and despair.

May the New Year 5778 be a year of light and hope, of warmth and security, of health and prosperity. Should there be times of difficulty for us, may the coming year be a year wherein caring arms embrace us and lift us up. May the new year be a year in which joy and laughter, love and kindness, health and prosperity, fill our homes and our community.

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

And let us say, Amen.

Shanah Tovah

We Look On In Awe - A Dvar Torah on the Power of Nature

This weekend, Florida faces Hurricane Irma. It is striking as one of the strongest hurricanes ever to strike the US mainland and has already devastated a number of islands in the Caribbean. In Florida, millions of people have been asked to evacuate to more secure locations, hundreds of thousands more are joining them. Million more people will be impacted. This morning, the first ever tropical storm warning was issued for Atlanta, Georgia.

Hurricane Irma is hitting just after Hurricane Harvey brought extensive damage and extreme flooding to southern Texas, almost certainly causing the most damage of any weather event in the history of the United States, dwarfing the damage done by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. It hasn’t been a good few weeks.

On Monday, people in Iowa woke up to a bizarre sky. It was as if the light spectrum had shifted. Everything was tinted orange. This strange situation was caused by the jet-stream carrying the vast quantity of smoke from wildfires in Montana and Canada eastward across the nation. The wildfires have been so substantial that one could easily see them from space.

Speaking of space, last month, we looked into the sky and saw the sun blotted out, a full solar eclipse. Day turned to night. It has been quite a month of special events, most, unlike the eclipse, ones that we would rather not have had.

Last night, one of the most powerful earthquakes to strike Mexico, registering 8.1 on the Richter Scale. An unknown but substantial number of people were killed. Tsunami warnings were issued, fortunately, not coming to fruition.

In Southeast Asia, in India, Bangladesh, and Nepal, at the same time that Harvey was inundating Texas, many thousands of people were killed by flooding.

In our modern world, we often feel like we have mastered nature. Indoors, our air is conditioned. We can keep it 72 degrees Fahrenheit all year round, if we’d like. We have weather forecasts that can tell us well in advance whether or not it would be a good idea to go camping over the coming weekend. We can see hurricanes coming from a thousand miles away and offer cones of probability of exactly where they might strike. We even have some ability to estimate when earthquakes might strike or volcanoes might erupt, though usually within a much longer period of time. We can institute flood control measures and build our buildings, bridges, and roads to adapt to wind, water, rain, and the shaking caused by significant earthquakes.

But for all of these things, the hurricanes, the great floods, the fires, and the earthquakes, the primary things that we can do are the same things we have always been able to do, namely get out of the way or hunker down before or during an event and deal with impact as best we can after it is over. Today, we simply have a much better ability to effectively do those things.

The power of the natural world is far beyond our own. In truth, we are not all that unlike our distant ancestors, looking on in awe. We see in Psalm 29:

¹ Ascribe to Adonai, you heavenly beings,
    ascribe to Adonai glory and strength.
² Ascribe to Adonai the glory due God’s name;
    worship Adonai in the splendor of God’s holiness.

³ The voice of Adonai is over the waters;
    the God of glory thunders,
    Adonai thunders over the mighty waters.
⁴ The voice of Adonai is powerful;
    the voice of Adonai is majestic.
⁵ The voice of Adonai breaks the cedars;
    Adonai breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon.
⁶ God makes Lebanon leap like a calf,
    Sirion like a young wild ox.
⁷ The voice of Adonai strikes
    with flashes of lightning.
⁸ The voice of Adonai shakes the desert;
    Adonai shakes the Desert of Kadesh.
⁹ The voice of Adonai twists the oaks
    and strips the forests bare.
And in his temple all cry, “Glory!”

¹⁰ Adonai sits enthroned over the flood;
    Adonai is enthroned as ruler forever.

Our tradition sees these powers of God as part of God’s nature. The nearer to God’s presence, the more powerful the natural wonders.

We find in 1 Kings 19, where Adonai is speaking to Elijah:

¹¹ Adonai said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of Adonai, for Adonai is about to pass by.”

Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before Adonai, but Adonai was not in the wind.

After the wind there was an earthquake, but Adonai was not in the earthquake.¹² 

After the earthquake came a fire, but Adonai was not in the fire.

And after the fire, a still small voice. 

God is in that voice, the feeling of compassion that we feel when we look upon all of those suffering in the aftermath of the great winds, the shattered rocks, the quaking, and the fires, [the flooding too, that’s not in the story of Elijah because it takes place on a mountain].

The powers of the natural world inspired awe, fear and trembling. We are mere mortals, as we are reminded this time of year. Life is so precious. Our blessings so fleeting. The winds and water, the fire and the quaking, can take all of them away. They can wipe entire cities from the face of the earth. As we see the images of the events ravaging our nation and our world, we are humbled.

We can see the hurricanes approaching on radar. In Texas, friends received text messages about the rising water and the evacuation. Several streamed video live on Facebook pages as the waters were rising. But in the end, when the real flooding came, for one friend, after he had been told to shelter in place and the waters rose above the first floor of his home, it was a boat that saved him and his family. It was as if he was living in an ancient story, rescued by a boat amid a flood. Indeed, the natural world humbles us as it did our ancestors.

Today, we think of all of those continuing to suffer from the aftereffects of Hurricane Harvey, whose homes and communities were devastated by flooding. We think of those whose communities were impacted by the earthquake in Mexico or which are affected with the wildfires that continue to burn in the western portion of our nation. Most of all today, our thoughts are with the people of Florida facing Hurricane Irma.

May our prayers for their safety be joined with theirs.

Right after Psalm 29 notes that God is enthroned above the flood, that God controls the awesome power of the waters, to use to concept from the creation narrative, the waters above and waters below the land upon which we live, the Psalm concludes with words with which we traditionally conclude the blessing after meals:

“Adonai oz l’amo yitein, Adonai yivarekh et amo va-shalom.”

¹¹ Adonai gives strength to God’s people;
    Adonai blesses God’s people with peace.

God can manipulate the waters, even, according to our tradition, parting them and holding them at bay. God thunders. God can bring the winds. God can cause the world to shake. God is the one who controls the great floods being held back so that we might live and thrive in their midst. All of this is beyond us.

Yet God also helps to give us the strength to deal with the aftermath and bring peace into our lives. Tonight O God, we hope and pray that you’ll bring shalom into the lives of all of those whose homes and lives are endangered. May our prayers be as that still small voice for them, echoing across the vast expanse, helping those who suffer know that others care.

Kein Yehi Ratson, May it be God’s will.

And let us say, Amen. Shabbat Shalom

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

Take A Census - Everyone Matters

“Take a census.” With those words, this week’s Torah portion, BaMidbar, and the Book of Numbers as a whole begin.

“Take a census.” Count all of the people.

It is said in a quote that is often, but questionably, attributed to Joseph Stalin that, “The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic.” No matter its origin, there is more than a grain of truth in that statement.

When we deal with millions of deaths, like we do when we discuss the Shoah, it is difficult to conceptualize the numbers and certainly to connect. Learning stories of individuals, as opposed to a sweeping narrative of an entire conflict, becomes important. Those stories are what humanize the numbers.

This is one of the primary reasons why people are given a passport, a name and a story, when they tour the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC. It is also the reason that Steven Spielberg colorized the dress of a young girl in Schindler’s List. In the movie, a wide array of violence occurring in the background to dozens of people shown on the screen, much less to the many tens of thousands of people who lived in the ghetto, doesn’t have the impact of seeing a single girl in a red dress walking down the middle of the street amid the violence and chaos going on around her.

Hearing that tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people have died in the Syrian Civil War is difficult to conceptualize in a way that makes it seem real. I remember as a child being awed by the crowd at the Cardinals’ baseball games. 45,000 people. Let’s round up to 50,000.

Roughly, ten times that number have died in Syria. Eighty times that, maybe more, four million people or so, are refugees. Can you picture 80 stadiums full of people in your head at the same time?

Rwanda, would require multiplying our stadium by sixteen.

The Shoah? 120 times the largest crowd that I could reasonably imagine as a unit and that only includes the Jewish victims, six million.

Moreover, that crowd at Busch Stadium? I didn’t count it. I experienced it. I heard it. I saw the sheer mass of humanity and was told it was 45,000. Families watching the game together, the diehard fans wearing everything Cardinals, the hawkers selling food and drink, shouting above the din, the roar of the crowd as the ball flies toward the outfield wall, the sigh as it goes just foul. That is how I conceive of 50,000 people. I can more or less comprehend that number, envision what that number of people would be like, as an experience. But 120 of those? Not for a moment. Realistically, not even a small fraction of that 120. How can I multiply an experience?

“Take a census,” we are told. Numbers. Large numbers. Tens of thousands here and thousands there.

When we watch the news, especially the most difficult stories, we’re often simply given statistics. In 2004, a Tsunami struck Southeast Asia. Approximately a quarter of a million people died. Five stadiums full, spread over the shorelines of a number of nations. Hard to imagine that scale

Sometimes, the numbers are all we’re told. Another shooting happened. Sometimes, they tell us the skin color of the victim. Sometimes an age. Usually, they give us a name. Rarely, are we given more, a story.

When things like the terrorist attack in Manchester, England occur, at first, we’re simply given casualty figures, cold stark statistics. So many dead. So many injured.

And then, used to seeing and hearing stories like that, we often tune out.

The names, faces, and the stories come to us too late to help us truly feel what we should feel. We get angry at hearing or seeing the numbers, but we don’t feel the numbers. We’re angry at the idea of the numbers, “more,” “so many,” and then we move on.

We watch the new episode of our favorite sitcom or perhaps the latest episode of our favorite reality TV show, depicting some other reality, some artificially created alternative reality, the stories of others.

When we see our reality depicted on the news, how quickly do we respond to the news? “Again!” “Another one!” “When will it stop???” Shootings, terrorist attacks, even genocides. “Never again!” And then we change the channel. Statistics.

Yes, many of the stories of survivors of the Shoah are similar to one another. The stories blur together—if you try to learn them all together. It is important to learn individual stories.

You may remember Peter Pintus, the former Assistant to the Rabbi of the Temple. Here’s a part of his story. Peter Pintus grew up a Reform Jew in Berlin, the son of a wealthy industrialist Jewish father and a Christian mother. On Krystalnacht, his father rode the subway train all night, staying safe. Eventually, both Peter and his father were arrested. Peter served in a work camp in a salt mine and was one of only a handful of survivors of the camp, having escaped into the woods on the last day of the camps existence, when the power to the fence was turned off. Eventually, he came to Iowa, became a part of the Jewish community and this congregation. And he shared his story with countless people over the years.

Each story is unique. Each person is more than a number. That is especially true when remembering the Shoah and the fact that so many people were treated as if they were merely a number, a number often tattooed on their arms.

“Take a census,” we are told. Not just the numbers, know the stories.

If I told you that 22 people were killed in Manchester, England the other night, you might well compare that number to some other event. How many died in Paris? How many are dying in Syria? How many died in Egypt today? How many this year in Chicago?

But if I told you about individuals, the numbers wouldn’t matter. Each life is precious. One, each one, matters. Our tradition says that each life is as the entire world. We do not mourn statistics. We mourn for people.

The news showed pictures of a young girl wearing an oversized police jacket that almost reached her feet being hugged by a policewoman as she stood outside the arena. It was cold outside. Millie Kiss, age 12, survived. Her mother, Michelle did not.

Several victims were parents waiting to drive their children home from the concert. Marcin and Angelika Klis both in their early 40s as well as Polish immigrants to England, and Alison Howe, 45, and Lisa Lees, 47, were all there to pick up their daughters.

Saffie Roussos was attending the concert with her older sister and mother, both of whom were injured by shrapnel and are being treated in hospitals. Saffie was 8 years old.

I could go on, but I think you get the point. Without these stories, we only have a number, 22. And these aren’t even the full stories, just snippets of who they were.

Our Torah portion commands, “Take a census.” But don’t just count, adding one to the next. Every individual’s story matters. If every individual matters, if each story matters, we matter—you matter—I matter.

That is the bigger lesson of the Jewish tradition. Every individual matters. Every person is important. We are not just Numbers.

Each of us is created in the image of God.

Each holy.

Each a universe.

Every person matters.

"We are not enemies, but friends." A prayer for the Iowa Senate.

Prayer for Iowa State Senate – Presidents’ Birthday Week

February 16, 2017

It is an honor to be with you all this morning, to speak in this august chamber and among so many friends, members of both political parties, whom I know to care deeply about their constituents and about the present and future well-being of the State of Iowa.

O God, today, we find ourselves often defined by our differences and those things that divide us, sometimes with a heated passion, [As exemplified by the ongoing debate in this very chamber.] May we recall during this Presidents’ Day week, the words spoken by President Abraham Lincoln as he closed his First Inaugural Address, “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies.”

O God, may partisan division pale in our minds and hearts in the face of the need to address the needs of the people of our state, especially the urgent needs of those who are suffering and vulnerable. As our tradition teaches us, when we consider how to solve problems that go well beyond our personal ability to resolve, “It is not up to each of us individually to complete the task, but neither can we avoid doing the work.” Let none suffer because we did not do what we could do to help.

Too often, today, we are divided by identities and focused on our differences. Many see the world as “us” vs. “them” and anxiety increases. In this context, let us recall the words of reassurance offered by George Washington in response to an inquiry by the Jewish President of the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island wondering how his minority community would be treated by the new government:

It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for, happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.

May all work for the betterment of our communities, our state, and our nation together.

God, I ask you today to bless the members of the Iowa Senate, to bless the people of our state, and of our nation.

Scatter light and not darkness upon us, grant us the wisdom to see the best paths forward and the courage to take them. Then will blessings flow forth from us and we will make our world a better place for all of your children; a place of prosperity, happiness, and Shalom, of peace and well-being. 

And let us say, Amen.

The Interrupted Journey

This week’s Torah portion begins our narrative, not the narrative of creation, not the narrative of humanity, but the narrative of our extended family. In Lekh-Lekha, we first meet Abraham, back when he was called Abram. What we first learn about Abram is that he was one of three sons of a man named Terach. His family was from Ur. Abram was married to Sarai. And Sarai had conceived no children. She was barren.

Terach begins to move his whole clan with the intention of going from Ur to Canaan, but, along the way, the family stopped in Haran and built a life there, acquiring more servants, animals, and other wealth. Then Terach died and the family simply remained there.

It was a journey interrupted and largely forgotten by the tradition. It was Terach, not Abram, who began the journey. Terach, not Abram, got up and left and took everyone with him from Ur. In fact, it is potentially the case that Abram, as head of the family, decided to remain settled where he was because, unlike his father, Abram was uncertain as to which direction the family should be led. That is the context in which Abram hears “Lekh Lekha.”

The unspoken questions to which God responded were perhaps ones in Abram’s mind.

“Which way should we go? What should we do now?”

And God responded:

“Get up and go.”

“From where?” Abram might have thought, “From my tent?”

“From your land, from the place of your birth.”

I am already no longer there. Shall we live here? In Haran, where my father died?

“From the house of your father.”

“Ok. To where then?”

“To the land that I will show you!”

“What will I find there? What will become of us, if we go there?”

“I will make you into a great nation,
    and I will bless you.
I will make your name great,
    and you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you,
    and whoever curses you I will curse.
And all peoples on earth
    will be blessed through you.

“This change will bring blessing. Of course, we will go!”

Nothing like having the Torah portion, this week of all weeks, talk about God making our nation great.

Not everyone among Abram’s number must have felt that, at the end of their journey, in an unknown distant place, there would be blessings and not curses waiting for them. To suggest that not everyone in America is confident that the direction of our national journey today is toward increased blessing is an understatement. There is much fear, anxiety, and, among no few, even despair.

On this Veteran’s Day, I thought of the founding of our nation. I considered how its founders would feel about the events of our day. On July 15, 1777, President George Washington wrote a letter to General Philip Schuyler regarding the fall of Fort Ticonderoga and the difficult circumstances the nation faced during the ongoing war for independence. Washington wrote:

We should never despair, our Situation before has been unpromising and has changed for the better, so I trust, it will again.

If new difficulties arise, we must only put forth new Exertions and proportion our Efforts to the exigency of the times.

In my own words:

When we face difficulties and challenges in our lives, we need to work harder to overcome them. If the difficulty is great, so must our efforts. We do not have the ability to live in different times. We live today, where we are. Our sole choice is how we respond to what is required of us here and now.

To quote the most appropriate Jewish maxim for times when we are faced with daunting challenges that we cannot fully resolve on our own; in the words of Rabbi Tarfon, “It is not up to you to complete the work, but neither may you avoid doing it.” And in the words of the US Holocaust Memorial and Museum’s motto, “What you do matters.”

I know that many here and around our nation are anxious, even fearful, about the future tonight. There is much uncertainty and discontent, so much anger and hate, far, far too much. And we are focused on the hatred.

Many of us, forget the fact that the vast majority of people in this country and the overwhelming majority of those who voted for each candidate, each candidate, are good people. For some of us, the election did not go our way. We have made political opponents into hated enemies. But good people can disagree with one another and still care for one another. We live in this country together, in our communities together, and we are stronger when we can act together. That isn’t a goal. It is a truth. For no few of us, achieving the goals that we would like our nation to achieve will be more difficult today than they might have been. The journey toward those goals—especially toward the day when we will at last be able to hear, “Madam President” while not watching a TV show—is now one delayed.

The journey toward our longed for Promised Land was interrupted. The one whom was thought to lead us there was unable to do so. The movement paused with us remaining in Haran instead reaching Canaan.

Perhaps, alternatively, we’re in Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee on April 3^rd, 1968 listening to the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s last address, given the day before his death:

If I were standing at the beginning of time, with the possibility of taking a kind of general and panoramic view of the whole of human history up to now, and the Almighty said to me, "Martin Luther King, which age would you like to live in?" I would take my mental flight by Egypt and I would watch God's children in their magnificent trek from the dark dungeons of Egypt through, or rather across the Red Sea, through the wilderness on toward the Promised Land. And in spite of its magnificence, I wouldn't stop there.

I would move on by Greece and take my mind to Mount Olympus. And I would see Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Euripides and Aristophanes assembled around the Parthenon. And I would watch them around the Parthenon as they discussed the great and eternal issues of reality. But I wouldn't stop there.

I would go on, even to the great heyday of the Roman Empire. And I would see developments around there, through various emperors and leaders. But I wouldn't stop there.

I would even come up to the day of the Renaissance, and get a quick picture of all that the Renaissance did for the cultural and aesthetic life of man. But I wouldn't stop there.

I would even go by the way that the man for whom I am named had his habitat. And I would watch Martin Luther as he tacked his ninety-five theses on the door at the church of Wittenberg. But I wouldn't stop there.

I would come on up even to 1863, and watch a vacillating President by the name of Abraham Lincoln finally come to the conclusion that he had to sign the Emancipation Proclamation. But I wouldn't stop there.

I would even come up to the early thirties, and see a man grappling with the problems of the bankruptcy of his nation. And come with an eloquent cry that we have nothing to fear but "fear itself." But I wouldn't stop there.

Strangely enough, I would turn to the Almighty, and say, "If you allow me to live just a few years in the second half of the 20th century, I will be happy."

Now that's a strange statement to make, because the world is all messed up. The nation is sick. Trouble is in the land; confusion all around. That's a strange statement. But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars. And I see God working in this period of the twentieth century in a way that men, in some strange way, are responding…

Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop.

And I don't mind.

Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land!

Friends, we live in a great nation, but it is not as great as it can be today. One candidate, the one who won the election, pledged to make it great again. Yet, my friends, making our nation great is our job, not his. And that greatness is not just as great as it has been at some point in the past, even if we agree with what that means, but as great as it can become.

Our job is to be there standing up for all of those who are persecuted, to end bigotry and discrimination, to bring comfort to all those who are suffering, to the hungry, to the homeless, to the fallen and to the hopeless. It is to stand alongside those of every race, ethnicity, religion and sexual orientation and bring light and hope into their lives, not just to live up to Isaiah’s vision that we Jews may be a light unto the nations, but to join with others in making our nation a light unto the nations, a beacon light of freedom and hope for all peoples.

And that light must not only shine into the alleyways of our cities, but into the impoverished homes in our countryside and one shuttered factory small towns.

This would be true no matter who won the election this week. The task of making our nation and our world the best they can be is ours, not someone else’s, not the job of someone who won an election or even of every one who won elections. It is our job and we cannot keep from doing it, no matter how daunting it appears.

Lekh lekha! Lekhi Lakh! It’s time to get up and move. Move from a place of despair, hopelessness, anger, sorrow and hatred. To a place of caring, a place of tolerance and understanding of different points of view, to hope and to love. Let us bring light, and not shade, into our world.

If we can do that, we will bring blessings into our lives and into the lives of those who encounter us, and along the way help those blessings spread across our nation.

And we shall be a blessing.

Shabbat Shalom.