Rabbi Jon's Website and Blog

Shabbat Chanuka: The Kavannah of Giving

Like most rabbis, I dislike the way so much of the focus of Chanuka shifts from the nerot, the lights, to the presents kids receive.

But I also know that giving, at any time, is a profound Jewish act.  Last week during Shabbat evening services, we davvened in our small chapel.  Usually one of the members passes around the wine and grape juice when it's time to sing the Kiddush.  Sometimes when we're in the chapel, the tray is nearest to me and I carryng it around.  Last Shabbat I felt a tremendous kavvanah, a spiritual focus, as I brought the tray around, stopped by each person or two, and extended the tray to them to take a small cup.  In those couple of minutes, I felt that I was being given a great privilege.  That I was fortunate to be the one that night to give a cup of something so sweet -- to have just a small moment of giving -- to each and every person in the room.

There is at least a small connection between Chanuka and giving.  During Shabbat Chanuka, we always read from the story of Yosef.  This week in Parashat Miketz, Yosef is elevated to the position of Pharaoh's vizier, his chief of staff, second in power only to Pharaoh.  When famine strikes in Canaan, his brothers come down to Egypt for food.  To procure food to bring home, they end up having to appear before Yosef, whom they don't recognize in his Egyptian clothing.

The twisting road of reconciliation between Yosef and his brothers is told, this week and next, through a series of acts of giving.  The food that Yosef sends them home with, the coins that he hides in their bags.

The word in Hebrew for the food-provisions that the brothers seek is shever.  The same word means "broken."  How interesting!  The brothers come to seek shever/provisions, and they land in front of the person they have the most shever/broken relationship with.  In order for Yosef to find a way to forgive, and to bring the family back together, he has to transform the brokenness into giving.  Initially, he uses giving as another power with which to manipulate his brothers.  Eventually, Yosef's love for them and for his father will overcomes all the history, and he wants nothing more than to be together and to feed his family.

Giving is not instantly or automatically redemptive or healing.  But on Chanuka, I just notice that giving is a part of Yosef's process of healing.  It's a modality he has to use, and to learn how to use.

So too, gifts on Chanuka can be gratuitous, wasteful, spoiling, and over the top.  Or, in the right proportion and with the right kavvanah or focus, the giving of gifts can be filled with love.  For the giver, even more than the receiver, the act of giving a present is a moment to savor.  With gratitude for being able to give something that sweetens the candlelighting even more.  Giving gifts is not what Chanuka is about.  But it too can be a moment of light.

Parashat Vayeshev: Tim Tebow, Meet Yosef

Here was the thing about Yosef:  No matter what, God was with him, and he prospered.

Yosef was left by his brothers, and brought to Egypt and sold.  As soon as he arrived in the house of Potiphar, an official of the Pharaoh, "Adonai was with Yosef, and he became a prosperous person, and so he was in the house of his Egyptian master" (Genesis 39:2).  Then, when Potiphar's wife accused him of sexual wrongdoing, and he ended up imprisoned, "whatever he did, Adonai made it prosper" (39:23).

I thought of this aspect of Yosef this week, in the context of something that seems fairly insignificant.  Tim Tebow is a professional football player, quarterback of the Denver Broncos.  Since his days as a college quarterback at the University of Florida, he has been known as a devout and religious person.  He gained some national notice in 2010 during the Super Bowl, when he was in a commercial with his mother about her decision not to have an abortion when she was pregnant with Tim.

In the football world, Tebow is regarded as an unusual quarterback who may well not last.  But this season he took over the leadership of his team, and has led them week after week to, dare I say, "miraculous" comeback victories.  When he scores, his end-zone ritual of bowing in thanks has become known as "Tebowing", a new minitrend.  (At teebowing.com, a fan site, there are pictures of people doing this all over the world, including the Kotel in Jerusalem.)

Essentially, Tim Tebow is inviting us to see him like Yosef:  whatever he does on the field, God is causing him to succeed.  (What other explanation could there be, since football experts don't buy into his skills?)  The sports radio programs, especially the last two weeks, are now full of debate about whether his overt displays of religiosity are appropriate, over-the-top, offensive, a turn-off to fans, etc.

Now this is football, and just to be clear, there are other places that need the divine spirit much more than the end zone.  But these kinds of cultural discussions do hold a mirror up, and it's worth checking on what we see.

So first I'll say that, as a religious person, I see something of a double standard.  We tend to expect a certain amount of bad behavior from professional athletes, and a good deal of childishness, offensive behavior toward women, and barroom brawling is overlooked.  Or, explained away as part of the scene, "where they come from", or what not.  Though to be fair, I think the expectations on athletes are rising, and the storm after Penn State is a good indication of that.

But a lot of people are simply ridiculing Tim Tebow because he is religious, in an open and enthusiastic way.  Say what you will (I will say what I will just below) -- Tebow's ethic is a positive influence on his team and community.  People praise him as a super teammate, and an inspiring leader.  For him that flows from his faith, and why shouldn't it?  Athletics is a discipline, and his faith feeds into his excellence.  He's not harming anyone, he's lifting people up.  That's some of the best of faith.  If people are uncomfortable with that, let them be as uncomfortable about greed in sports generally.  It's still acceptable in America to condescend to religious people, especially to evangelical Christians.  Not only to worry about having them impose their religious, but to degrade them as cute or quaint or from another era.  That simply shouldn't be.

Still, Tim Tebow is not Yosef.  The big differences are these.  First, the Torah tells us that God prospered Yosef not when Yosef was on top, but when he was on the bottom.  When he was a slave, a prisoner -- not a superstar.  Second, the Torah tells us what other people saw in him, or what was obvious about him from an outside perspective.  You don't see Yosef calling attention to himself in Egypt as blessed by God.  He had done that in the past, when he was little, bragging to his brothers about his dreams of being in God's favor.  But he grew up.

Yosef came to experience God's blessing, and to become a channel for prosperity.  But he was probably the same age as Tim Tebow when Yosef learned not to flaunt it.  God didn't need Yosef to spell it out for other people.  It was enough for him to live it.  There was, or would be, a reason for Yosef to bear that kind of blessing.  It wasn't football; it was family, and to save his people.

Hopefully if Tim Tebow stick around, he'll grow into this as Yosef did.  For his own growth and sense of perspective, and for the good name of religion in America.

Parashat Vayishlach -- Penn State and the Rape of Dina

Now Dina, the daughter of Leah whom she had borne to Yaakov, went out to see among the daughters of the land.  And he saw her:  Shechem son of Chamor the Hivite, chief of the land, and he took her and he lay with her and he raped her.  Then his soul was drawn to Dina, daughter of Yaakov, and he loved the young woman and spoke tenderly to the young woman... (Genesis 34:1-3)

This is the only story we have about Dina, the only daughter of Yaakov and his wives.  She might be literally a teenager or a young adult woman.  The language of yetzia, "going out", is used also about Yaakov himself and about Moshe, when they were teenagers or young men.  And this is what happened:  she went out to be among other young woman, "to see".  And her life was interrupted by another "seeing", from Shechem son of Chamor, a powerful man.  The result -- the twisted love from him, and the revenge against Shechem's people by Yaakov's sons -- is the only result we hear.  We don't hear any more of Dina's story.

Part of the cruelty of sexual assault and sexual abuse is the physical violence.  Part is the taking over of a life -- the hijacking of the victim's own story, own path.  Dina's story opens with something so interesting -- we don't have other biblical stories about young people going out among themselves, other than to herd sheep or draw water.  What were they doing?  What kind of interesting young woman were they?  But now, we have only "the rape of Dina" and nothing else.

In the verses I've quoted, the Hebrew word for young woman is read aloud as na'ara, but the written Hebrew in the scroll says na'ar -- a lad, a young man.  Against the backdrop of the Penn State sexual abuse scandal this lept out at me.  Shechem's assault was against a young woman, but it could have been against a young man or a boy.  The violence, the consequences, are the same.

We ask:  what more is there to learn?  What more might we not already know about rape, abuse, assault, sexual harrassment?  So this year the Torah isn't coming to teach us something we don't know.  Instead, it is reminding us of all the things we do know.  We're reminded, through Penn State and Syracuse University, that we have not finished building systems of accountabiity, so that those who witness or suspect sexual abuse are obligated to come forward.  We have not finished building cultures or havens that protect abusers.

Rabbi Brad Hirshfield of CLAL, reflecting on Penn State, recently made the case for vigilance, which he defines like this.  Vigilance means a willingness to be more on guard than usual on behalf of people who are especially vulnerable.  To put aside even loyalty and the presumption of goodness we usually have about other people, and for the sake of those who are vulnerable to entertain the possibility that the worst may be true.

Rabbi Hirschfield argues that being vigilant does not mean thinking that everyone is an abuser or even that every secondhand story one hears is true.  It does not mean giving up our faith in others, in teachers and coaches and advisers.  But when something credible comes to us, we have a duty -- especially to children -- to pursue it, to confront if we can, to see that it's not swept under the rug.

There are all kinds of reasons it is hard.  It's easier to be a bystander, not to take sides, not to get involved.  But the fact is:  abuse, whether it's physical or sexual or emotional, is real and it happens, and there is no part of our society that is yet free from it.

So we have to remind ourselves of our duty not to turn away if we know or if we hear something.  Children especially need to know that if, God forbid, they have to summon the courage to speak to us about something that happens to them or to a friend, that we will listen and not dismiss it, or look for reasons not to take it seriously.  We -- their parents.  We -- their teachers, their youth group leaders, their rabbi.

It's the same in the case of adults who tell of abuse or harassment.  The kinds of things Herman Cain was accused of occur in private.  They are the situation of Dina and Shechem, where one person holds particular power over the other -- whether it's financial or emotional or physical.  It's hard to prove, and incredibly frightening for the victims to contemplate what might happen if they speak out.  Those who have been abused or threatened or harassed stand in a position of particular vulnerability, especially against the powerful, whether it's a boss or a coach or any kind of leader.

We have to keep reminding ourselves that no one is beyond reproach simply because of their position of power.  Certainly not a football coach, and not even a person who fancies himself the President of the United States.  It is our duty, imitating God, to look out for the less powerful, for the vulnerable.

That is vigilance, one of the things we need reminding of.  The other is that we have to tell our children that we will listen if, God forbid, they have to tell us about something that happened to them or to someone they know.  We have to be there if a friend or a neighbor, God forbid, has to tell us that they are in danger, to be ready to call the police if necessary or to find safety.  In our community, one place to turn in a case of abuse of any kind is Bridges, which is one of the best organizations in our area for victims of domestic or child abuse in any form -- the phone number 24 hours a day is 603-883-3044.

In our synagogue this week, it is USY Shabbat, a celebration of youth and leadership.  They are the truest honor to the legacy of Dina, daughter of Leah and Yaakov.

For Shabbat and Havdalah

Miscellaneous:

• For some reason I couldn't get the link for this Mi Chamocha melody to work the regular way, so here it is again.
  
  
• L'cha Dodi by Craig Taubman, which the kids will lead us in tonight
  
  
• For Havdalah, follow this link to a melody originally by Rabbi Shefa Gold and this one to Debbie Friedman's Havdalah blessings
  
  
• My past online Dvar Torah on Parashat Vayetze
  
  
• I've been teaching about a word, phrase, or short section of prayer each week on Shabbat morning.  The teaching sheets have the Hebrew words, transliteration into English, and translation, along with a short explanation of how these words might be used in your prayer practice.  They're online here.
  

Giving Thanks

The Hebrew word for Jew is Yehudi, after our ancestor Yehudah (Judah).  The h-d part in Judah's name is the root of the word Todah, which means "gratitude" or "thank you."  When Judah was born, his mother Leah explained his name:  "This time I give thanks to Adonai."

In other words, a Jew is by definition a person of gratitude.  For traditional Jews, the first words uttered on waking in the morning are Modeh Ani, "Thankful am I."  Rabbi Shai Held teaches that in this prayer before we get to the word "I", the focus on self, we turn to God in gratitude for the fact that we are alive another day.

So even though Thanksgiving is not a Jewish holiday per se, thankfulness is a fundamental religious quality.  Some of us are thankful because now is a time of comfort, good health, family serenity.  Others are thankful for blessings that emerge or become apparent at difficult times:  support during illness, encouragement during unemployment, friendship amidst loss or feeling adrift.

And we know that many in our own community, in our families, in our world, have fewer blessings to count at Thanksgiving than they deserve.  We should ask ourselves not only, What I am thankful for?  But also:  What am I doing, so that through me someone else has what to be thankful for?

A couple years ago I recorded a podcast about the middah (ethical character-quality) of gratitude.  It's mostly about cultivating a habit of thankfulness through everyday, seemingly banal or neutral experiences -- gratitude as the opposite of complacency.  It's pretty good and placid, if you'd like to thank more about thankfulness from the standpoint of calm and comfort.  Lately I've been thinking a lot about what gratitude and hakarat hatov ("recognizing goodness") means when life is difficult.  The audio doesn't speak to that, and it's something I hope to have more to say about soon.

I hope that wherever you are in your life right now, you can have a day of gratitude tomorrow.

L'shalom,

Rabbi Jon

First Reflections on the Storm

I say first reflections in that I began to have them earlier in the week.... We've had a couple of half-minyan services this week since the snowstorm.  Taking time for the maariv prayers, I saw the first section in a bit of a new light.  We praise God who "designs the day with wondrous skill" and rotates the seasons with regularity.  Yet of course this week, the days have been strange and the weather unseasonal.

Surely, though, the author of this prayer was well aware that the climate and seasons vary.  I can only think that he directs us, as the sun goes down on each day, to take a step back and marvel at the overall pattern behind the variations.  And to see that no matter how cold or warm, how dry or wet, we experience the same rising and setting sun, the same rotation of the stars (we rotate of course, not they).  What the author of the prayer sees, when the light of day is gone, is that there is something dependable even when the day that ended seems very unusual.

And then, even more importantly, the prayers don't stop there.  The second section is about Torah and mitzvot.  I experienced that this week as a reminder.  It's tempting to let the weather sidetrack everything, to decide that complaining and getting by puts everything else on the back burner.  But that's a luxury.  There have been a lot of people doing a lot of mitzvot because of the snowstorm.  Those electrical workers doing the dangerous work, up high and under the gun, were making our place safe again, not just convenient.  People found ways to do small kindnesses, making sure the intersections were orderly or even, I read in the paper, bringing a power strip to Barnes and Noble so one person wouldn't monopolize an outlet.

And of course, I hope the week reminds us of bigger pictures -- that some people live in countries where power is unreliable all the time; that some people in our city can't afford electricity and heat in the winter; that we all use too much energy and water.

So this week I learned a new thing, about the sequences of the prayers.  From the wonder at nature's rhythms and power, to the daily imperative of living wisely through mitzvot.

I hope you are safe and warm.  Shabbat shalom!

Parashat Bereshit: Why Do We Begin Again?

I love the few moments on Simchat Torah when we read the end of the Torah, and then read the beginning.  One minute Moses is on top of a mountain, surveying the whole Land of Israel, the Torah is recounting all the wonders and teachings, and the people are getting ready for the exciting next chapter in their land.  It is literally the high point!

And then...."the earth was formless and void, darkness over the face of the deep...and God said, 'Let there be light' and there was light!"

It's dramatic.  It's jarring.  It's particularly jarring to go back and realize how much of a climb we have to start again.  To go through all the difficulties of beginning -- Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, the Flood, the tribulations of the first mothers and fathers, just to get to Moses again.  Then all the difficulties in Egypt...that's what we'll be reading into the winter.

I was thinking about this question of why we do it.  Why we willingly rewind, so we have to reread and relive all of the difficulties that we know are coming.

It can't be that we believe that life simply repeats itself in an endless circle.  That's the view of the beginning of Ecclesiastes in the Bible -- there is nothing new under the sun.  (We actually got that out of the way last Shabbat, where in some congregations Ecclesiastes is read on Shabbat during Sukkot.)

The Sfat Emet taught about the Exodus from Egypt that it happened so quickly that it takes all the generations to truly explain its meaning.  So too with the entire Torah.  Even after some 2000 reading cycles, maybe more, we're still unearthing all that is hidden in the Torah.  There are some things there that only we -- the people of the year 5772, not the people of 5771 -- can find, understand, and make real in the world.  By virtue of who we are this year, and who the world is this year, and how our relationship with God is different this year.

The legacy of Eve and Adam, Sarah and Abraham, Moses and Miriam, are still unfolding through us.  We go back each year, to study that legacy.  We live forward each year, knowing each week that our lives are adding another chapter to theirs!  That we live not only as ourselves, but as the projection of the people we are reading about.  This week, the consequences of our study of Adam and Eve's decisions will play out somewhere in a way or in a setting where they never have before.  (Listen to congregant Terry Watterson's online audio Dvar Torah.)

The arc of the whole Torah is still thrilling.  God creates a world and seeks partners -- who will they be?  Two humans, all of their descendents?  A single couple, and their slowly growing family that becomes a nation?  How long until that partnership flowers -- one lifetime, hundreds of years?  Can it endure slavery, exile, or even the normal difficulties that go with learning something new and demanding?  (That goes for both God and the Israelites!)

That's the big story, and along the way are all the little stories and teachings that beckon for our attention.  Each of them is still not fully understood -- perhaps not even by God -- so we go together into another year.  From darkness and chaos, slowly and gradually toward the top of the mountain, where Moses is looking out in wonder at what we will do with it all in the new year.

Bringing Home Gilad Shalit

Today the Israeli government approved a deal to bring home Gilad Shalit, a soldier who was abducted in 2006 by Hamas.  Negotiations over some kind of prisoner swap have been going on off and on ever since.  Prime Minister Netanyahu authorized, and the cabinet approved, a deal that will release hundreds of Palestinians involved in terror attacks against Israelis.

Here is the text of Prime Minister Netanyahu's remarks before the Israeli cabinet meeting:

Today, I bring a proposal to the Government for a deal that will bring Gilad Shalit home alive and well; bring him home to his parents Aviva and Noam, his brother Yoel, his sister Hadas, his grandfather Zvi, and the entire people of Israel. Two and a half years ago, when the government was formed, I took upon myself, as my first priority, to bring Gilad home to his people, to his family – to bring him home safe and sound.

At the time, Gilad was already held in captivity for two and a half years, with no visits from the Red Cross, with no visits at all, and we did not know what state he was in. The first step I took, and we approved it here in the Government, was to get a video recording of Gilad, and we all breathed a sigh of relief when we saw it. We saw that he was functioning, physically, mentally and cognitively. We saw that he was functioning well. We knew that he was healthy and that he was alive. I regarded that tape as an insurance policy, because it obliged the Hamas before the international community to safeguard him, to keep him alive and maintain his health. But that was obviously only the first step.

The most important mission that we had was more challenging – to actually bring Gilad home. To that end we held long and tough negotiations through the German mediator. These negotiations were based on a framework outlined by the previous government. They were long and exhausting and despite all our efforts, a deal was not reached.

I must point out that not a day went by without us trying various ways to bring Gilad
home, any way possible, and that didn't work either. In the last few weeks, the
negotiations were renewed in Cairo, this time with the Egyptian government as mediator.

My instructions to the team were to adhere to the principles and framework that are
important for the security of the State of Israel, which I will detail in the meeting.
There is an inbuilt tension between the desire to bring back an abducted soldier, or
citizen, and the need to maintain the security of the citizens of Israel. This is my dual responsibility as Prime Minister.

The deal I am bringing to the Government expresses the right balance between all of
these considerations. I do not wish to hide the truth from you – it is a very difficult
decision. I feel for the families of victims of terror, I appreciate their suffering and
distress, I am one of them. But leadership must be examined at moments such as this, being able to make difficult, but right, decisions.

I believe that we have reached the best deal we could have at this time, when storms are sweeping the Middle East. I do not know if in the near future we would have been able to reach a better deal or any deal at all. It is very possible that this window of opportunity, that opened because of the circumstances, would close indefinitely and we would never have been able to bring Gilad home at all.

Therefore, for all of these reasons, I instructed the team to put their initials on the deal last Thursday, and today it was finalized and signed by both sides. I thank my Military Secretary Maj. Gen. Yohanan Locker, the Chief of the Shin Bet Yoram Cohen, my personal envoy to the negotiations, David Meidan and his predecessor Hagai Hadas. I thank the team that has accompanied them all these years.

I thank the IDF, the security forces for doing everything they could regarding Gilad
Shalit. I also wish to thank the German mediator, and the Chancellor Angela Merkel who supported his mission all along. A send a special thanks to the Government of Egypt and the Egyptian Intelligence Services for providing much assistance in mediating and helping us reaching this agreement.

This morning I Invited Noam Shalit to my residence, and I spoke on the phone with the mother Aviva and the grandfather Zvi. I told them that I am keeping my promise and I'm bringing their son and grandson home. I told them, "I'm bringing your boy back." I am happy that I succeeded in fulfilling the Jewish decree of redeeming captives, and if all goes as planned, Gilad will be back in Israel in the next few days with his family and his people.

The Nation of Israel is a unique people. We are all mutually responsible for each other, as our Sages said: "He who saves one soul, it is as though he saved an entire world." Tonight, I bring the Government a proposal to save Gilad Shalit, to finally bring him home to Israel after five years.

Some Sukkot Thoughts

Last night at our shul's Ritual Committee meeting, Larry Rubin read from a terrific Dvar Torah he found by Rabbi Oren Hayon from Dallas.  Here's the link to the whole thing.  Here is the beginning just below.  My own page on Sukkot is here.  Chag Sameach!

D'var Torah: Making Homelessness Our Home
September 28, 2009
by Oren J. Hayon

(Originally published in Ten Minutes of Torah and Reform Voices of Torah)

Like a giant tent spread atop three tall pillars that support it and give it shape, the Jewish year is held up by the Shalosh R'galim, the "three pilgrimage festivals." Pesach commemorates the joy of liberation and freedom, Shavuot acknowledges the power of God's word revealed in Torah, and Sukkot reminds Israel of nights spent in fragile huts during its wilderness sojourn. 

Pesach and Shavuot celebrate spiritual fulfillment, times when God anticipated Israel's needs and acted bountifully and graciously to fulfill them. We were granted political and national fulfillment on Pesach, when we were led out of the painful grip of slavery. Atop Sinai, we were given the wisdom of Torah, and we celebrate its spiritual and intellectual fulfillment on Shavuot. But Sukkot, in contrast, does not celebrate substantive fulfillment at all. Instead, it acknowledges the insecurity and uncertainty of desert nights spent in frail temporary shelters.

Stranger still is this fact: each of the pilgrimage festivals has an alternate name which alludes to its purpose and religious symbolism. Pesach is called Z'man Cheiruteinu, "the Time of Our Freedom." Shavuot is called Z'man Matan Torateinu, "the Time of our Receiving Torah." And the name that tradition ascribes to Sukkot is Z'man Simchateinu, "the Time of Our Joy."

Might not this be a better title for some other holiday? What, after all, is so joyous about the memories of being homeless and directionless in the desert? Read more...

 

Prayer, continued

I have been updating and uploading for my page on tefillah (prayer), including the weekly study sheets about specific prayers, phrases, and words that I began creating last month.  I'll shortly add on my sermons page the words I shared last week on Rosh Hashanah about prayer.