Rabbi Robert Scheinberg's page

Thoughts on Hoboken public school holiday celebration issue

2011-12-20T12:28:00.000-08:00

From time to time, I offer some comments about issues in Hoboken’s civic life that are somehow connected to the Jewish community or Jewish issues.

Hoboken has attracted some press coverage because of a decision regarding a Hoboken public school's holiday celebration (you can read about it here).

My comments are printed below. Permission is granted to reprint or forward what I have written, but please include my blog web address, rabbischeinberg.blogspot.com, so the comments can be read in their entirety.

First, the Hoboken Jewish community is very diverse. There is no unanimity in Hoboken’s Jewish community on this (or almost any other) issue. For this reason, I emphasize that the opinion I express below is my own, and it is not necessarily the opinion of the United Synagogue of Hoboken or its members.

Jews are a minority in the United States. Choosing to raise children as Jews in the United States entails an acknowledgment that there will be some special challenges - as well as some special opportunities - that come from raising children in a minority culture. Each year, the December holidays provide Jewish familes with the challenge of affirming a minority culture, as well as the opportunity to help children to understand that there’s nothing wrong with being different. In fact, one of the most important and useful adult skills that parents can inculcate in their children is a deep comfort with being different from the mainstream.

One of the great blessings of this country is that minorities are not merely tolerated, but encouraged to be fully a part of this country and encouraged to thrive. This is one of the values that has made our country great, and has made New Jersey and Hoboken great. Public schools, especially, are places where we celebrate both our commonality and our diversity. To my understanding, the Board of Education’s decision has enabled more students to feel that their diversity is validated, while not limiting any student’s opportunity to celebrate Christmas. Thus It appears to me that this is the kind of pluralistic perspective to which we ought to aspire.

It has been disheartening to see some of the public discourse on this issue. I usually prefer to avoid reading the ‘comments’ sections of web sites, because they give the opportunity to anyone with an internet connection to make anonymous attacks on others. Certainly many of the hurtful comments I have read about this issue are in sharp contrast to the warmth and respect that I have almost always felt in my face-to-face interactions (whether agreements or disagreements) with Hobokenites of all religious and cultural backgrounds. Especially at this festive time of year, I hope that those in and outside of our Hoboken community will address this and other issues with the spirit of civility that has characterized our country at the best of times.

"10 Jewish Things to Do Before You Die": Yom Kippur Sermon from 2008

2011-10-05T19:31:00.000-07:00

This was a Yom Kippur sermon from 2008 .... but as I was looking over it I decided I liked it enough to put it on my blog.

One of the themes of Yom Kippur seems to be making lists: lists of categories of vows that get annulledin Kol Nidrei; lists of sins to which we confess in Al Chet; lists of lovedones who have died, whom we remember at Yizkor; and perhaps most importantly,the lists we make inside our minds: Listsof people to apologize to and to reconcile with, and lists of changes we pledgeto make in our lives during the coming year.

List making is in vogue this year in a big way. Look at recent or current best selling books like “101 Things to Do BeforeI Die,” and “1000 Places to See Before You Die.” These books address the phenomenon of “lifelists” - lists of things that people want to accomplish at some point in theirlives. It’s a practice adapted from birdwatchers who keep lists of the varieties of birds they have seen and aspire tosee, and of mountain climbers who keep lists of the mountains they have climbedand aspire to climb. There are bookswith sample life lists and suggestions for creating your own life lists, and ofcourse there are web sites where you can keep track of your progress towardsyour list and take a peek at what’s on others’ lists: items like running in a marathon; climbing atall mountain; skydiving; learning a new language; and - of course - losingweight. And the first “life-list-themedmovie” is coming out in December (which makes me think this trend has probablypeaked already).

Even if you haven’t written a life list written downyourself, you probably have a list of your life goals in your mind. Some say that keeping life lists is popularbecause it’s a practical and tangible way to feel that you are accomplishinggoals and that your life has direction. It also permits us to do the difficult but essential work of confrontingour mortality, but in a softer, gentler, even fun way! And everyone loves checking items off a listwhen we’re done with them.

On the one hand, I look at the “life list” phenomenon and I see obvious andappealing parallels in Judaism. Onemidrash teaches that over the course of one’s lifetime, one should make aneffort to have a child, plant a tree, and write a book – as these are threeways to perpetuate one’s influence and legacy in the world after one is gone. There are some of the mitzvot – the commandments– that are described as incumbent upon every Jew at least once in their lives,such as the commandment to assist in the writing of a Torah scroll. And of course, the Jewish life list parexcellence is the list of the 613 mitzvot, the 613 commandments of the torah – though,traditionally speaking, that’s not a list of items that you do once and checkoff.

But at the same time, it is clear that most life lists arewritten in the spirit of personal fulfillment, rather than in the spirit ofpersonal responsibility that Judaism tends to encourage. Items on a life list are thought of as newexperiences to be collected, new thrills to be sought, rather than commitments tobe fulfilled to God and the community and the world. And the focus is on novelty, rather than onregularity. Checking items off of a listonce they have been accomplished is very different from Jewish tradition that promotesspiritual discipline, that encourages us to take the most important activitiesin our lives and work them into our regular routine.

But sometimes we are so used to talking about Judaism and Jewish practice as aresponsibility, and an obligation, that we forget that many traditional Jewishpractices

Fit quite perfectly on a life list – activities that are fascinating and engaging,that give the satisfaction of accomplishment, and that enable a deeper level ofappreciation of life. In fact, thosepeople who make a commitment to do Jewish things on a regular basis, as theirown spiritual practice or as their commitment to the mitzvot, usually STARTEDto do Jewish things on an OCCASIONAL basis because they found them to belife-enhancing and personally fulfilling.

So whether or not you keep a life list, I’d like to sharewith you a list of ten experiences that I strongly encourage every Jew to haveat least once over the course of their lives. Per the recommendations of the “life list” experts, the items on thislist are ambitious but achievable. Someof the items on this list – you may already do all the time; some of them – you may never have done. The goal for all of them –traditionally speaking – is that they get incorporated into one’s regularroutine. But nothing has ever gotten incorporatedinto someone’s regular routine until it has been accomplished once.

So here is Rabbi Robert Scheinberg’s list of 10 Jewish Things to Do before youdie:

(And yes, a copy will soon be on the synagogue web site, asthere’s no note-taking tonight.)

1: Lead a Passover Seder.
The Passover Seder is the best example of the educational ingenuity ofthe Jewish people.

Our sages were so wise to say that, the seder, the mostimportant Jewish educational experience of the year, ideally takes place in thehome, rather than in the synagogue, meaning that every Jewish family is askedto produce a cadre of knowledgeable people who know how to lead a seder. The experience of preparing to lead a Seder canbe one of the most intellectually challenging, thought-provoking andentertaining tasks of a Jewish year. Andit’s a palpable way to experience continuity with thousands of years of Jewishhistory. Many of us experienced PassoverSeders in our childhoods. If they weredone right, the memories are magical and timeless. I know I will carry the memory of mygrandfather’s seders of my childhood throughout the rest of MY life. If you can create such an experience for thenext generation, it’s a way for YOU to continue to have an effect for manydecades into the future. Every spring, Ilead training courses to help to prepare a new group of seder leaders for theJewish world, and it could include you.

Visit Israel

Jews who have grown up in the United States are oftenunprepared for the emotional impact of visiting Israel for the first time, whereJewish culture is the normative culture; where Hebrew is not just the languageof old books, but of television and government and traffic signs; where thestories of the patriarchs are not just world history, but LOCAL history; and where- in the alliterative words of the medieval poet Yehuda Halevi – shamha-shekhinah shekheinah lakh - you have a sense that the Shekhina, thepresence of God, is your neighbor. Jewswho have returned from their first trip to Israel almost invariably express tome how deeply moving and engaging the experience was, how it helped them tobegin to understand the mysteries of Jewish history and Jewish identity. For many of them, they felt a sense of‘home-coming’ upon arrival to a place they had never seen before, but thattheir ancestors had seen in their dreams for 2000 years. If you’re under age 26, you simply cannotpass up the opportunity to go on a Birthright Israel trip – all expenses paid. Andthink about our first ever Congregational trip to Israel this coming August, aboutwhich you’ll hear more tomorrow.

take an introduction to Judaism course, or a more advanced course in a Jewish topic, as an adult.

As you may know, most Jews who get a Jewish education in theUnited States conclude their formal Jewish education at age 13, which meansthat they’re cutting out just as it’s getting interesting, just as they arebeginning to develop the intellectual and spiritual maturity to understand whatJudaism is really all about. One of thefailures of American Jewish life is that we have sometimes forgotten that Judaism’sfor adults, not for kids.

Imagine an adult trying to operate in the world with a13-year-old’s understanding of personal finance, or – even worse - a13-year-old’s understanding of relationships and human sexuality. That’s roughly analogous to the experience ofan adult trying to operate in the Jewish world with a 13-year-old’sunderstanding of Jewish tradition.

There are courses offered here at the United Synagogue ofHoboken of varying lengths,

Including our state-wide 24-session introduction to Judaismcourse that fulfills the bulk of the requirements towards conversion toJudaism, which is starting on Wednesday November 7.Classes in Kabbalah, inJewish history and beliefs, and in Jewish ethics are also on the horizon this fall. If you don’t know how to read Hebrew, it’snot so easy, but it’s not so hard: youcan actually learn in a FREE class, right here, beginning at the end ofOctober. And classes on truly EVERYJewish subject you could imagine are available in Manhattan – so take advantage of our presenceat the very center of the very largest Jewish community in the history of theJewish people! - as well as audio and internet self-study courses to fit anyschedule. Contact me and I will help youfind the course for you.

Keep one full traditional Shabbat.

When’s the last time you spent an entire day withoutspending any money, without using a computer or a cell phone, without driving,or watching TV? If you spent such a dayrecently – unless you are already in the habit of keeping a traditionalShabbat, or unless, God forbid, you were sick – you were probably on vacationin a beautiful natural setting. Andthat’s the effect of Shabbat at its best – a vacation from the distractions ofeveryday life that weigh us down and prevent us from being the people we are. As we said earlier in our service, ‘u-vayomhashvi’i shavat vayinafash.’ On theseventh day, God rested, and fully activated the nefesh, the soul, ofthe world. Different Jews celebrateShabbat in different ways – but once you have experienced the cleansing andrestful effect of 25 consecutive Shabbat hours, you will understand and experience subsequent Shabbatot differently,regardless of the exact manner in which you choose to commemorate them.

Read from the Torah.

If you can read Hebrew, and you can reasonably carry a tune,and you can set aside a few hours a week to practice, it would take you aboutone month to learn to chant a very brief section from the torah during ourweekly Shabbat morning services. Thepower of reading from an actual hand-written Torah scroll, written in almostexactly the same way that it was written thousands of years ago, cannot beexaggerated. As one of our membersquoted so movingly in a presentation last Yom Kippur, “Even more than you wantto read from the Torah, the Torah wants to be read by you.” We have had a number of people in ourcommunity learn to read from the Torah this year. It’s a project that immediately promotes someonefrom passive observer of synagogue life to full participant. Volunteers to help you are standing by.

6. Do a Hesed or social action project ona grand scale.

I’m nottalking helping out at the soup kitchen – I’m taking that for granted. I’m talking MUCH bigger. Preferably involving travel. In the last few years, people from ourcommunity have built schools in Nepal;built housing in New Orleans and in CentralAmerica; delivered medical supplies to Israel;lobbied elected officials on Israel-related issues in Washington; amid all kinds of pro-bono andvolunteer efforts. Considering that timeis our most important life resource, even more so than money, many of us makethe commitment to donate some of our precious vacation TIME to mitzvahwork – whether under Jewish auspices or not. For parents looking to educate children in Jewish social andhumanitarian values, the example we set by devoting our vacation time tovolunteer Hesed work is very powerful. There’s a special depth to the friendships that are forged by people whomeet through volunteer projects. And youremember the experience long after a ‘normal’ vacation fades in your memory.

7. Acquire atleast one Jewish skill that you do with your hands rather than your head.

Judaism is meant to be experienced with the whole body.

The full range of Jewish ritual involves constructionprojects, like building a sukkah; it involves arts and crafts, like creating atallit, tying tzitzit knots, writing Hebrew calligraphy, or crocheting a kippah;

It involves ancient musical instruments, like the shofar –

and it even involves feats of strength – such as Hagbah, thelifting of the Torah scroll.

Yes, the stereotype is that Jews are all cerebral – but it’snot true.

If the cerebral bias of Jewish life holds you back,

This may be the invitation you’re waiting for

To acquire one of these skills,

To do something you enjoy and be a resource for yourcommunity at the same time.

6. Visit a synagogue in a non-English speakingcountry besides Israel.

Among my most treasured Jewish experiences

Have been my visits to synagogues in Eastern Europe,

And my interactions with the Jewish communities there.

We talk about how the prayerbook is in Hebrew in part sothat Jews from around the world can pray together –

but relatively few people get to see the miracle of how thisfunctions in practice,

how people of diverse backgrounds and cultures and evenlanguages

can be united through the words of the Shma or the Kaddish.

People in our community sometimes ask me for help findingsynagogues in places around the world they will be visiting, on business or forpleasure – from Vilnius and Madrid,to Singapore and Tokyo.

Through the network of rabbis around the world, I cansometimes arrange home hospitality for a Shabbat meal,

Adding an additional level of meaning and adventure to thetravel experience.

9. Do a Siyyum– an ambitious self-paced Jewish study project.

It takes just a few minutes each day to read the weekly Torahportion,

and to complete the study of the entire Torah over thecourse of a year.

Oryou could look at the comprehensive books of Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, which areideally suited to self-paced study – one of his books is even divided intoexactly 365 chapters.

Rabban Gamliel said in Pirkei Avot:

:v®bP¦,tO t¨N¤J 'v®b§J¤t v®bP¤t¤Jfk r©nt«T k©t±u

Don’t say, “I will studywhen I have a free moment.”

Because who ever has a freemoment?
The things that are our true priorities

are thethings we actually schedule in to our lives.

And you wouldbe amazed at how much you can accomplish in just a few minutes a day

To help youto feel part of the Jewish conversation.

Fulfill Maimonides’ 8^th Level of Tzedakah.

In Moses Maimonides’ famous hierarchy of the various ways toengage in charitable giving,

He says that the highest method is

נותן לו מתנה אוהלוואה, או עושה עימו שותפות, או ממציא לו מלאכה,

One whogives a needy person a gift or loan, or creates a partnership or a job,

כדי לחזק את ידו עד שלא יצטרך לברייות ולא ישאול

to helpthe needy person to become self-sufficient and no longer dependent on the needsof others.

Ingeneral, Maimonides encourages us to give tzedakah in ways that are IMPERSONAL– to spare the one who receives tzedakah any embarrassment.

Butthis highest level of tzedakah

Happensexclusively in the context of a personal relationship.

Myfamily likes to tell the story of the businessman

Who,several decades ago, took an interest in a relative of mine at a time of severefinancial and medical stress,

And gaveher a job and the support and connections necessary to help her to get to the United Statesand begin a new life here.

Thebond between his family and my family persists to this day.

Inaddition to all the other tzedakah that you give,

Atleast once in your life, you could probably be that kind of angel for someoneelse.

Of coursethere’s a lot that didn’t make the cut.

StudyTalmud. Be a tenth person in a minyan.

Serve on asynagogue board.

Host aShabbat dinner.

Serve on ahevra kadisha – a Jewish burial society, which is one of the most spirituallypowerful things you can do.

Clean up anold Jewish cemetery.

Go to aJewish meditation retreat.
Go an entire week without speaking any Lashon HaRa. ( Ok, an entire day.)
Yes, I’m offering to be your Jewish life coach, free of charge,

And we canfind the mitzvot that are right for you, right now.

(And itshould be obvious that such items as bringing items of food to a food drive, orpaying a shiva call, or visiting someone in the hospital,

I haven’tmentioned them because those are mitzvot that belong on your ‘week list’ oryour ‘month list,’ not your ‘life list.’)

On Rosh HaShanah, I described Mitzvot as “commandments,” as responsibilitiesand acts of love,

As “leaps ofaction,”

A spiritualdiscipline to which Jews commit ourselves,

Ascompromises of our sovereign self.
But this is only one side of the story.
Mitzvot are also opportunities for life-enhancement,

opportunitiesfor living more deeply, more thoughtfully,

With greaterkedushah – greater holiness.
In the image of Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf, mitzvot are gemstones scattered on adirt road,

Free for thetaking.

But theREALLY beautiful ones are partially embedded in the dirt road already.

But if youtake the time to kneel down and pry them free,

You won’t bedisappointed.

During this new year of 5768,

May you meritthe opportunity to add many mitzvot to your life list

And may youfind great satisfaction in checking them off again and again and again.

Many thanks to Rabbi Avis Miller, whose "life list" sermon published several years ago in Rabbi Jack Riemer's "World of the High Holy Days" inspired me in writing this sermon.

2nd day Rosh HaShanah sermon 5772/2011: "Change your perspective, see the invisible gorilla"

2011-10-02T20:46:00.001-07:00

Ten years ago, two experimental psychologists at Harvard,named Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons, created what has become one of themost famous experiments in the behavioral sciences.

Before you read further, you may want to try thisdemonstration:

The participants in this study in the study were given a simple task. They justhad to watch a brief video that included several people passing basketballsback and forth to each other. Three of these players were wearing white shirts,and three were wearing black shirts.

The task was simple: watch the ball that was being passed among theplayers with the white shirts, and count how many times the basketball waspassed. This was not such a difficult task - most people came up with the rightnumber.

But then, the participants were asked: did you noticeanything unusual about this video? Amajority of participants said, no, not particularly. But - if you watch the video again -- you seethat right in the middle of this basketball game, strolls a person wearing agorilla costume. He walks to the verycenter of the court, beats his chest a couple of times, and walks away. And more than 50% of the participants in thestudy had absolutely no idea, which is why this experiment became known as the‘invisible gorilla’ experiment. Youcouldn’t imagine that you could be oblivious to something as unusual as aperson in a gorilla costume. But the participants were so focused on the taskat hand, that it crowded out all other information. They saw only whatthey expected to see.

The psychologists gave a name to this phenomenon – theycalled it ‘inattentional blindness.’ (see http://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Gorilla-Other-Intuitions-Deceive/dp/0307459659) Somany participants were blind to the gorilla because they simply were focusingon other things, and they were oblivious to anything they did not expect tosee.

Now I was paying pretty close attention to our Torah readings yesterday andtoday - these biblical readings with which the Jewish people have welcomedthousands of new years. And I can say with certainty that our torah readingscontain no invisible gorillas. But the invisible gorilla phenomenon, however,is not unknown in the Torah.

First, in the torah reading we read yesterday. You’ll remember that Abraham has sent Hagar and Ishmael into the desert. For whatever the reason, they are giveninsufficient water, and the water runs out. Hagar fears that her sonIshmael is going to die of thirst. Butthen, at the last possible moment, an angel of God calls out to Hagar, andtells her that God has heard the cries of the child, and they will be saved.

Usually, when we tell the story, we understand the next thing that happens as amiracle -- suddenly, a well of water appears, to revive Ishmael and Hagar. But that’s not exactly what the Torah says. What we ACTUALLY read yesterday, was “ויפקח אלקים את עיניה ותרא באר מים - God opened Hagar’s eyes, and she saw the well of water.” The implication is that the well was there allalong, but for some reason Hagar was unable to see it.

An ancient rabbi in the Midrash, Rabbi Binyamin, had a provocative comment onthis line: he said:

אמר רבי בנימין הכלבחזקת סומין עד שהקב״ה מאיר את עיניהם מן הכא ויפקח אלהים את עיניה

this verse shows that all people areconsidered to be blind until God opens their eyes. (Genesis Rabbah 33:14)

Why was Hagar completely oblivious tothe well that was right in front of her, that was the answer to all of herhopes and prayers? Perhaps for the samereason that 50% of people missed the invisible gorilla. We are unlikely ever to see that which wedon’t expect to see. Perhaps Hagar wasso despondent that she couldn’t see what was right in front of her face, eventhough it was what she was yearning for more than anything else.

If this were the only example in our torah readings of someone who wasoblivious to something hidden in plain sight, we could say that this is onlyHagar’s problem, not our problem. Butactually, there’s a similar example in our torah reading from today.

This morning, we read the provocative story of the binding of Isaac. The story reaches a climax as Abraham isholding a knife over Isaac, ready to slaughter his son, when at the lastpossible moment, an angel of God calls out to Abraham and says “Avraham!Avraham! (and Abraham says “here I am”) God says: Don’t extend your hand to the boy, and don’t do anythingto him. Now I know that you are someonewho fears God, and you would not withhold your only son from me.” And then we read וישאאברהם את עיניו - Abraham liftsup his eyes, וירא והנה איל אחר נאחז בסבך בקרניו - and he saw - here was a ram, caught inthe thicket by its thorns.

Rabbi Avi Weiss notes absurd about this episode. Rams are not small animals. The idea that there could be a ram caught inthe bushes in close proximity to Abraham - and that Abraham would nothave noticed until he lifted his eyes - this is bizarre and improbable.

Unless you consider that, at that moment, Abraham wastotally focused on fulfilling what he regarded as an absolute divine command. It was as if everything else in Abraham’s lifedid not exist. On the one hand, thiskind of total focus can be beautiful - like the focus of an artist or anathlete who is so devoted to an activity that he or she is oblivious toeverything else in the world. But in thecase of Abraham, this single-minded focus on a task strikes us as diabolical. Perhaps Abraham knew that the only way hecould possibly carry through with this act would be to be willfully blind toeverything else in his world.

Who knows: maybe the ram, being caught in the thicket, maybe THAT was thefirst sign that was given to Abraham, to tell him not to slaughter his son butto slaughter the ram instead. But eventhough that sign was the answer to all of Abraham’s prayers - sparing his son’slife - he was so oblivious to it that God had to proceed with Plan B. And Plan B was to get an angel to call out toAbraham to get him to stop, and evenTHAT had to happen twice, and then FINALLY Abraham notices the ram that heshould have seen all along.

Both Hagar and Abraham, for different reasons, are blind to their environment. After Hagar endures one defeat after another,perhaps she assumes that she will never succeed -- she stops being able to even recognize whatsuccess looks like when it encounters her. And Abraham’s blindness may have come from hisdetermination to fulfill exactly what God wished for him, and to silence anymisgivings. But in both cases, bothAbraham and Hagar miss the things that are right in front of their noses thatcould bring them blessing.

The Kabbalistic tradition - the tradition of Jewish mysticism - helps us toconsider this phenomenon of people being oblivious to the things that they needthat are right in front of them. Kabbalisticmasters like Rabbi Isaac Luria, and the Baal Shem Tov, used theexpression מוחין דקטנות ‘mochin de-katnut’ -- which is anAramaic phrase that means ‘small consciousness,’ or ‘constricted consciousness.’ We fall victim to ‘mochin de-katnut’when we view the world through the narrow perspective of our own ego - without the perspective that would come fromtaking a broader view.

Actually, if you have spent some time in Israel, youmight have encountered the Hebrew slang term ראש קטן ‘rosh katan,’ whichliterally means ‘small head,’ and basically conveys a very similar meaning to ‘mochinde-katnut.’ In Israel, someone who is a ‘rosh katan’ is typically a government bureaucrat whoslavishly follows rules with absolutely no sense that they’re supposed to bepart of a bigger picture or a higher goal. A rosh katan is someone who is verycomfortable mastering his or her own minor fiefdom and has absolutely no interestin anything outside of it, Saying, “I don’t know. I just work here.” It’s someone who misses the forest - not forthe trees exactly, but for just one tree.

But fortunately, the Kabbalists noted, there is a solution. That solution is to step back and adopt abroader view, a broader perspective, what they referred to as mochinde-gadlut, or ‘a larger consciousness’ or ‘expanded consciousness.’ Only when we attain mochin de-gadlut canwe truly experience the world the way it actually is, rather than from ourskewed personal perspective.

For me, a powerful visual image to describe this contrast is those pictures ofthe earth that are taken from space. Whenwe are down on earth, our issues and problems seem like the very most pivotalmatters of our lives, bringing us stress and anxiety, and anger and sadness. But just go up several thousand feet -- andthose problems and crises look mighty small and petty. And if you keep on going up, further andfurther, until the earth looks like a peaceful blue ball, and you couldn’tpossibly take a side in any conflict anymore because of how minor ANY conflictseems in the vast expanse of space, then you have arrived at mochinde-gadlut. That’s expanded consciousness. But we seldom truly get there. That’s the “God’s-eye’ picture of the world. We live down here on earth – so necessarily wespend most of our time with our ‘mochin de-katnut’ -- but it playstricks on us. We see illusions, we seeonly what we are primed to see, and we miss the most obvious things right infront of our eyes that could strengthen us, and make our lives ever more fullof blessing.

Rabbi Rami Shapiro has a provocative interpretation of the name of this holiday- Rosh HaShanah. Of course, Rosh means ‘head’ , and ‘shanah’ means ‘year’ - soRosh HaShanah means ‘head of the year” or “beginning of the year.” But “shanah’ also can mean “changed.” So “Rosh HaShanah” can also mean, if you area little creative with the Hebrew grammar (as the Hasidic tradition has beenfor hundreds of years!), “a head that got changed.”

And that’s our task as we approach a new year - to change up our heads, to movethem from katnut to gadlut - to move them from a narrow focus on our ownneeds, through the lens of our own egos, and ignoring everything else, to movethem to a broader focus on our lives and the lives of others and our world.

And it really works. Think about theinvisible gorilla again. The only reasonwhy ANYONE didn’t see the gorilla was because they were so involved in the taskthey were assigned - they were paying attention to just one small facet of thevideo rather than to its entirety. Had they simply been watching the video andgiven NO instructions, of course they would have seen the gorilla. There is so much we miss about our lives andabout our world simply because we have zoomed in too close on one facet, or oneperspective.

Yesterday I told you a little about my trip to Ghana this summer and theexperience of learning about global poverty from a Jewish perspective. (see http://rabbischeinberg.blogspot.com/2011/10/sermon-for-1st-day-of-rosh-hashanah.html) But today I want to tell you aboutanother part of my trip. While we werein Ghana, we took one day off from the “Challenging Heights” school where wewere working, and we traveled about 2 hours away to one of the most infamoussites in all of Africa - the Slave Castle at Cape Coast. It is one of the largest of the slave castleswhere, over the course of hundreds of years,
millions of Africans from all over West Africa were brought in shackles andsent out to the Americas to be slaves. We saw the dungeons where people werestored as merchandise, and what was labelled the “door of no return” that leddirectly into the hold of the ship. Notsurprisingly, the experience reminded me of the experience of visiting Naziconcentration camps – the only other sites of atrocities that I have evervisited.

Especially jarring for us was to see the upper floors of the castle - theliving quarters of the captains and the merchants who operated this humanwarehouse and who managed to carry on with life as normal. There were school rooms where their childrenwere educated. There were beautifully tiled and decorated bedrooms. Most shocking of all, was the church, built intothe complex. Right outside the churchwas a peephole that descends several stories straight down, so that when thecaptains were at prayer, they could still keep an eye on the slaves down below.
We tried to imagine how someone could be so oblivious to the contradictionsbetween what they were doing in the church, and ostensibly learning in church andthe view of the misery of human cargo right outside the church. That’s ahorrific example of mochin de-katnut.

One of the captains of one of those slave ships was a mannamed John Newton - who must have spent some time sleeping and eating in thosebeautiful rooms and maybe some time worshipping in that church. Maybe even peered down that peephole. But many years later, after a religiousconversion experience, he came to terms with what he had done those yearsearlier, and he was the composer of the well-known Christian hymn “AmazingGrace.” This is part of what he meant when he wrote the famous words “wasblind, but now I see.” What courage ittakes to move from a narrow perspective to a wide perspective, to admit thatone was previously blind to something that now seems so evident. It’swhat we refer to as the process of teshuvah- repentance and reversal and renewal. But - as myteacher Rabbi Gordon Tucker has written - if a Jew had written the hymn, we wouldhave written it differently. In ourtradition, what opens our eyes is not “Grace”. Rather, it is our own evolving sense ofresponsibility that opens our eyes.

One of my favorite things about the “invisible gorilla’ experiment that Imentioned
is how incredulous people would get when they were told that there was agorilla in the video and that they had missed it. How could that possibly be!? But then, when they would watch the videoagain, the feeling that would come over them is humility. They would understandthat they possess less than perfect information about the world, a willingnessto concede that their brains and eyes were playing tricks on them, and agreater willingness to accept the perspectives of others. And similarly, takinga broader view of the world, adopting the perspective of gadlut,
is absolutely necessary if one wants to resolve a conflict. Conflicts remain intractable as long as bothparties remain with a ‘rosh katan,’ as long as they both look at theconflict from their own narrow perspectives.

This year I have been especially frustrated by narrowness I have seen in thepolitical world. I’ve been frustrated tosee elected officials engaging in political brinksmanship not truly out adesire to pursue wise policies for their constituents but out of a desire toscore cheap political points.

And The State of Israel is so precious to me that it bothers me intensely tosee so many people who approach it from the narrow perspective of mochinde-katnut. I am frustrated that so many supporters of the Palestinian causehave absolutely no room in their consciousness for any of Israel’s concerns,and seemingly have no regard for its people. And I am similarly troubled by some supportersof Israel who refuse ever to acknowledge any Israeli mis-step, or that there isany way that Israel has contributed to the current stalemate.

Just last week, our community welcomed a guest speaker, Ishmael Khaldi ofIsrael’s Foreign Service - a man with a very unique perspective because he’s aBedouin Muslim. Though he is not Jewish,he is grateful to be living in Israel. Andthough he has his share of critiques of Israel, he is proud to embrace Israelas his country and to represent it in the halls of diplomacy. When he described his hopes for Israelis andPalestinians in light of last week’s events at the UN, it seemed to me that hereflected the perspective of mochin de-gadlut - of an expanded consciousness, that knows thatthe real truth of a situation often transcends one’s own perspective, and thatreal truth can even embody contradiction. He told us that of course he agrees that thereshould be a Palestinian state - thatthat is both the path of justice as well as the best way for Israel to ensureits short-term and long-term security. Andhe said, now is the time for Israelis and Palestinians to ‘break their headstogether,’ to make all the hard choices that they have to make, to arrive at anagreement. And: if thePalestinians’ effort to gain elevated status at the United Nations is part oftheir process of making those hard choices, then it will bring peace sooner. But- if the Palestinians’ United Nations gambit is an effort to AVOID making thosehard choices, and to evade responsibility, then it will delay peace.... andpossibly even delay it to the next generation or beyond.

But as frustrating as it has been to see so many examples of the narrow perspective,mochin de-katnut, in the political arena, I have had the great blessingof seeing some beautiful and loving examples this year of mochin de-gadlut- of people resolving their differences by taking a broader perspective.

Just two examples that come to mind. Ithink, for example, of a divorced couple I met this year. Despite more than a decade since theirdivorce, there is true and enduring enmity between the ex-husband and ex-wife.Butthey decided that they would both walk down the aisle together at their son’swedding – surprising many -- because they wanted to demonstrate that their lovefor him and his new bride trumped their history of conflict.

Or I think of a few heartwarming examples this year in our community ofextended families that include people with a wide variety of relationships withJudaism, where Judaism has often been a source of conflict in the family, butat times of family life cycle celebration, the members of the family wiselydecided to put their family relationships first. This sometimes involved Orthodox and even hareidifamily members stretching themselves to participate in non-Orthodox religiousceremonies that weren’t exactly their cup of tea, and sometimes vice versa. The power to adopt a broader perspective is inour hands at all times.

Let me conclude with one more story, that comes from oneof the most extraordinary books I read this year, by my colleague Rabbi NaomiLevy. It’s called “Hope will Find You.” http://www.amazon.com/Hope-Will-Find-You-Waiting/dp/0385531702 She writes:
“One day my daughter, Noa, who has physical disabilities, asked me if she couldhave a rock climbing party for her twelfth birthday. I froze. I’d always beenso careful to protect Noa from disappointment. I’d gone to great lengths tocreate parties where she wouldn’t get left out or feel that her friendssurpassed her. I said, “No, I don’t think it’s a good idea.”….

But day after day Noa kept pushing for the rock climbingparty. Eventually I gave in. But I was still worried.
On the day of the party Noa put on a climber’s harness, and to my amazement,she pushed with her legs and pulled with her arms and boldly made her way upthe wall. It wasn’t easy, but she climbed and climbed. She was fearless,beaming with joy.”

Rabbi Levy would say that until that day, she had seen every rock and everybump in her life and her daughter’s life as a frustrating and painful barrier, impedingthe progress of life the way it was supposed to be. But on that day, she realized that herdaughter had never experienced life that way – she had never had anypreconceived notions of what life was “supposed to be.”

She writes of the lesson that she finally learned from her daughter, that nowseemed so obvious though she was unable to see it before: “In climbing, it is the smoothest surfacethat is the most treacherous. A rough rocky landscape is fertile ground forascension. If you want to rise up, don’t fear the bumps. Turn every stone into a step.”

From Hagar and Abraham, to Rabbi Levy: Thedifference between despondence and blessing is rarely a difference of lifecircumstances and more often it’s a difference of awareness and perspective.

This Rosh HaShanah, may you have the blessing to change your head, to widenyour perspective.

May you have the courage to see the unexpected and to find blessings right infront of your face.

(many thanks to Rabbi Gil Steinlauf for making the link between the Chabris/Simons experiment and Hagar, and to Rabbi Sue Fendrick for the link to mochin de-katnut/gadlut.)

Sermon for 1st day of Rosh HaShanah 5772: "Hagomel la-chayavim tovot" - "Who bestows favor upon the undeserving"

2011-10-02T09:47:00.000-07:00

(photos are by Rabbi Will Berkovitz and Rabbi Suzanne Singer)

Baruch atah adonai - eloheinu melech ha-olam - ha-gomel la-chayavim tovot - she-g’malani kol tov.
"Blessed are You, Adonai our God, who bestows favor upon the undeserving, and has bestowed favor onto me."

Several minutes ago, I invited you to join with me in reciting this blessing - all those who recovered from illness, or had surgery, or extensive travel, or who had endured any other brush with danger during the past year. It’s the traditional blessing of thanksgiving -- - the Birkat ha-gomel - that is recited upon such challenging moments of life.

More than 12 years ago, I recited this blessing in this congregation after I was attacked on a subway platform and realized how grateful I was to have survived the attack. And ten years ago, many of us remember how - on the first shabbat after 9/11 - every single person who came up to the torah for an aliyah - a torah honor - recited this Birkat ha-Gomel blessing - because every single person either had worked in the World Trade Center, or had managed to escape from the world trade center or from the vicinity on 9/11.

But listen closely to these unusual words again. "Blessed are you, Adonai, hagomel la-chayavim tovot. Who bestows favor upon the undeserving."

In this blessing, of course, “the undeserving” – is us. This is a blessing that acknowledges that the fundamental unfairness of the universe sometimes accrues to our advantage. Some people have a brush with danger and they emerge safe and unscathed – not because they have greater merit than those who do not so lucky, not because they have been singled out for divine reward because of extraordinary things they had done, but rather because God is “ha-gomel la-chayavim tovot’ - the one who bestows favor upon the undeserving.

When we have a brush with danger, we have a special responsibility to experience a commonality with those who have suffered -- to understand that, by rights, their fate could, or even should, have been our fate - and to contemplate the obligations that are ours as a result of our good fortune.

This summer, I learned a lot about gratefulness, and unfairness, and responsibility when I spent nearly two weeks in Ghana, in West Africa, together with a group of 15 other rabbis, organized by the American Jewish World Service. I spent those two weeks in a fishing village called Sankor, just outside the city of Winneba, along the Atlantic coast. We worked with an organization and school called “Challenging Heights.” (www.challengingheights.org)

The motto of “Challenging Heights” is essentially a Christian version of the Birkat ha-Gomel that we said earlier today. The motto of ‘Challenging Heights’ is: “To whom much is given, much is expected.”

Now, to understand WHY the motto of Challenging Heights is “To whom much is given, much is expected,”
you need to understand some things about Ghana and about Sankor.

In so many ways, Sankor is just like Hoboken. The people, by and large, are extremely friendly. There are adorable children everywhere. The town is right on the water - in this case, the Atlantic Ocean. (As far as I can tell, here’s a Google Maps link of Sankor.) And it’s a genuine community - people live much of their lives outside, together with their neighbors.

But then there are many ways that Sankor is different from Hoboken. In particular: in Sankor, the most severe social problem has been families selling their children into slavery. The people there are poor enough that sometimes, families will allow their sons to be contracted for labor on fishing boats, from as young as age 6.

When people ask me if there was a highlight from my trip, my answer is obvious: It was the opportunity to meet and learn from a valiant and visionary Ghanaian man named James Kofi Annan, the founder of the “Challenging Heights” organization with which we were working. And this is James’ story.

He was born in the fishing village of Sankor about 38 years ago. In fact, the house where our group stayed was the home in which James lived for the first few years of his life. James was the youngest of 12 children,
and his parents simply had more children than they could afford. At age 6, they contracted with a child labor broker and sent him away to work for the fishermen –for just $40 for each two years of his labor.

For those seven years, he and the other boys who were captive with him were forced to work 17-hour days. They couldn’t go to school. They endured lashes and abuse. Everyone was always getting sick, from drinking from the same lake water that they also used for every other purpose.

The fishermen wanted young boys on their boats because children’s fingers are smaller and better able to untangle the fishing nets when they get tangled. But when the nets get tangled - it’s usually deep under water. Fishing nets were expensive - at $200 apiece - and sadly, boys were cheap. James told us how half of the boys who were imprisoned with him drowned, and how he almost drowned himself on two occasions.

Somehow, James came to the conclusion that there must be another way to live. He said he remembered his mother telling him about a dream that she once had, in which she dreamt that some day, one of her children would learn to speak English. James began plotting his escape at age 11 but only managed to escape at age 13. He finally arrived back to his parents, expecting them to be overjoyed to see him -
but while his mother WAS overjoyed to see him, his father wanted to send him back to his master.

He was completely illiterate and uneducated at age 13, but enrolled himself in school, and somehow managed to excel at everything - even though he got almost no support from teachers and from classmates -- and certainly got absolutely no support from his family or community of Sankor, which regarded him as a failure. He managed to get a scholarship to college - the first one from Sankor ever to go to college. And after college he started to work for Barclays Bank -- as you can imagine, his starting salary was several times higher than that of anyone else who had ever lived in Sankor. And, he said, he had made a promise, to God and to himself, that if he ever managed to be free from slavery, he would devote his life to the needs of the neediest people of his community, so that what had happened to him would not need to happen to others. After all, he said, ‘to whom much is given, much is expected.” Words that were originally his personal motto, and then became the motto of his organization, Challenging Heights.

His organization assists freed slaves, giving them an education and psychological services, and works with the police to identify and apprehend child labor traffickers and masters. They also run a school for the neighborhood, to try to get the people in the community to appreciate the value of education and the evils of child labor.

And our task was to represent the American Jewish World Service, to assist in building an information technology center at the school, alongside the Ghanaian construction workers, and also to get to know the students - many of the boys were rescued from the fishing boats as James had been, many of the older girls had equally harrowing stories, as they were rescued from sex trafficking. And now they are learning to read, to do math, to use computers, to speak English, and to dramatically improve their chances for their future.

Please imagine for a moment the experience of sixteen rabbis, from all across the Jewish spectrum - Orthodox, Conservative, Reconstructionist, Reform - gathered under the African sky to hear James tell his story. We, for whom slavery is such a key part of our community’s story, a theme that has animated the mission of the Jewish people, felt we had found a brother, or even an ancestor, as we heard in his story echoes of our own people’s stories. Stories of cruel taskmasters. Stories of children being thrown into the river. Stories of people keeping alive an ancient and completely irrational dream that someday they could be free- whether these dreamers were living in Egypt or in Auschwitz. And, eventually, stories of escaping from slavery, of passing through the sea to freedom, with a new life mission - with gratitude to God, ha-gomel la-chayavim tovot, to the one who bestows favor upon the undeserving.

I know I will be thinking of James at every Pesach Seder for as long as I live.

But James is not our ancestor, but our contemporary. And the crimes that were inflicted upon him still continue.

When I mentioned to some people before my trip that I was going to Ghana with a group of rabbis, I would sometimes get the response: “I didn’t know there was a Jewish community in Ghana.” Actually, there is a small Jewish community in Ghana, but as is clear, that’s not why we went. The people we met were so utterly, completely unfamiliar with Jews - truly, the one and only thing they knew about Jews was that we were building a technology center for them and with them. As you can imagine, Jewish history being what it is, being that kind of emissary of the Jewish people feels great. But we’re not talking about a photo-op here. We’re talking about a fulfillment of a traditional Jewish value that has been around for the entire history of the Jewish people.

Abraham, the first Jew, had a commitment to social justice that even predates the torah reading we read today. He intervened in a regional conflict to restore captives to freedom, and then appealed to God for just treatment for his neighbors. In an episode shortly before today’s torah reading, God says, “I know Abraham, that he will command his children and his household after him, ושמרו דרך ה' לעשות צדקה ומשפט
to follow the ways of God, to do justice and equity.” (Genesis 18:19)

It’s a value that comes not only from Jewish tradition, but from Jewish experience. Jews have never had any problem judging other nations based on how well or how poorly they took note of our suffering at difficult times in our own history. So showing concern for people at their time of crisis, whether in Hoboken or Jersey City, in Haiti, in Ghana, in Tunisia, or anywhere in the world - is simply a way for Jews to extend the courtesy that we wish had been shown to us each time we experienced a similar crisis.

Rabbi Abraham HaKohen Kook, who was the first chief rabbi of Israel and a leading early religious Zionist,
wrote an eloquent prose-poem about how some people sing the song of themselves, investing all their energy into their own self-fulfillment. While others sing the song of their people or their nation, looking beyond their own needs and working for the betterment of their entire nation. And there are still others who look beyond their own peoples and nations and sing the song of all of humanity. And then there are those who look beyond their allegiance to humanity as they sing the song of all of creation.

But according to Rav Kook, what is the ideal? - the one who sings all these songs at the same time, as a שיר מרובע shir meruba, a four-fold song. (Kook, Orot Hakodesh, Volume II, pp.458-45; see http://more.masortiworld.org/environment/space/israel/Fourfold_Song_Art_Exploration_Activity.pdf)

Rav Kook’s words, from nearly a century ago, grow in their relevance. We face a looming environmental crisis. There is poverty in our nation, in our region and in our city. Israelis face terrorist attacks, and Israel faces a campaign of delegitimization. And many of us ourselves, as individuals, are enduring the effects of the economic crisis, facing job loss, loss of homes, or helping others through similar crises. Adding to this the fact that fully half the word’s population lives in abject poverty is enough to make the most energetic among us want to throw up our hands, to give up. What difference could WE possibly make? Don’t we have enough issues already?

And Rav Kook reminds us: not only do we not have to choose, but we CAN’T choose. The song of the individual, the song of the nation, the song of humanity, and the song of the world -- are meant to be sung in harmony. The most authentic answer to the question, “does Judaism say you should give tzedakah to organizations that help Jews, or organizations that help everyone?” -- is ..... "yes." And I especially like fulfilling this Jewish value in a distinctively Jewish way –whether it’s through volunteering for the Hoboken shelter as part of the synagogue community, or through working with organizations like American Jewish World Service.

But back to James’ story. There was something from his story that many of us did not understand: Why was his motto “To whom much is given, much is expected.” James was given nothing -- even less than nothing. Everything he achieved, he achieved on his own. If he had simply walked away from Sankor -- even if he had walked away from Ghana, or walked away from Africa – and he certainly had that opportunity -no one could have blamed him. To whom nothing in particular is given, from him nothing in particular is expected.

But James explained: much WAS given to him - by God, by the world - and this gave him an obligation to serve others. And we understood: some people look at the circumstances of their lives and they see nothing but their own independent achievements, how they have pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps.
And they expect that same independence from others. And other people look at the circumstances of their lives and are full of gratitude for the opportunities and kindnesses they were given, they interpret the arc of their lives as a confirmation that God is ha-gomel la-chayavim tovot - הגומל לחיבים טובות - the one who bestows kindnesses upon the undeserving. They regard themselves as the ones to whom much was given
and from whom much is expected.

And the crazy part is --- as we learned from James, which of these categories you put yourself in
has almost nothing to do with the circumstances of your life. It has everything to do with your outlook on life.

The American Jewish World Service (www.ajws.org) brought our group of rabbis to Ghana to learn about issues of global poverty from a Jewish perspective. And truly, statistics I had known in the abstract, with my head, I started to understand with my heart.

For example: I started to understand what it means that the world looks a lot more like Ghana than like Hoboken. Before my trip, people would ask me, “Of all places, why are you going to Ghana?”, as if it was a remote place that bears very little relevance to “real life.” But going to Ghana for me was not going to some remote and irrelevant place. Going to Ghana was me leaving the ivory tower and going to see the world as it actually is. 20% of people on earth subsist on less than $1/day. And an additional 30% subsist on less than $2/day. (see http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS/0,,contentMDK:20040961~menuPK:34480~pagePK:64257043~piPK:437376~theSitePK:4607,00.html)
And how easy it is to forget that those people have so much in common with us, wanting the same things for themselves and their children that we want. If you line up the entire world population in order of wealth,
almost the entire American population would be clustered at the 90th percentile and above. And in a place like Hoboken … whatever challenges we’re facing, from a material perspective, most of us are among the most fortunate people who have ever lived on this planet. While at the same time, there are more people living as slaves today than at any point in human history. - estimates range from 12 to 27 million. (http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/18/us-slavery-idUSTRE74H63V20110518) So Chapter 1 of the book of Exodus is going on NOW - but it’s even bigger than the original Exodus.

We are the chayavim חייבים, the undeserving ones, who have managed to win a cruel and unforgiving international lottery, where we can take our electricity and our running water for granted, we have regular garbage pickup, and fasting is something we can do next week for spiritual development and for the fulfillment of a mitzvah, not because we don’t have food.

In Hebrew, the word chayavim חייבים can mean ‘undeserving’ - but it can also mean ‘obligated.’ We are the chayavim חייבים in that we have obligations to the world that are not yet met. So much was given to us, and as a result, much is expected from us.

But I learned that figuring out exactly what IS expected from us is more challenging than I had imagined. So I would like to share with you four ways that I learned that Jewish tradition can inform the way we fulfill our responsibilities to the neediest part of the world.

First: make sure your help is actually helping.
There’s a lot of helping in the world today that is clearly not done with the sense that all that much is expected from the donor. Ruth Messinger, president of AJWS whom many of us met when she visited our synagogue in November, visited our group in Ghana and told us a story she learned from former Secretary of State Colin Powell. Shortly after the devastating east Asian Tsunami in 2005,the highest point on the island nation of Sri Lanka was a mountain of blankets that had been donated by people around the world.
Only problem is that the temperature hardly ever gets below 70 degrees there.

Obviously, whenever it is possible, donating cast-offs, donating what we were going to throw away anyway,
is an important method of tzedakah and is mandated by Jewish law. Something well known to anyone who has catered an event here at the synagogue, for which the leftover food is appreciated by the guests at the Hoboken Shelter. But if this is the ONLY paradigm for our generosity, then we are choosing the way to help others principally because of the way it benefits US, rather than by the way it benefits THEM.

Sometimes, this kind of giving can even do damage. In some regions of Ghana, Western-style clothing is referred to as “broni-wa-wo” - which means “dead white people’s clothes” -- because there are such immense quantities of it donated by Americans to Africa, so it’s sold very cheaply. And the unintended consequence is that it has helped to decimate the African textile industry.

Sadly, something similar sometimes happens when the United States provides food aid in times of famine and economic disaster around the world. We learned that US law dictates that food aid must be delivered in the form of food, rather than cash. But when the American corn, or grain, arrives in those countries,
sold at very low prices or given away for free, the local farmers cannot compete against the free or subsidized American grain. The goal may be to contribute to the economic stability of a region in crisis,
but sometimes the effect is sometimes the opposite.

No wonder the Talmud, and Rashi, and other commentators instruct that it’s the needy person him or herself who is in the best position to guide the benefactor about what he or she needs. And this is why American Jewish World Service is a grantmaking organization that finds the people with the vision, like James,
and gives them resources to help them to transform their vision into reality.

Second, give sustainably.
There’s a reason why, when Moses Maimonides made his famous hierarchy of eight levels of tzedakah,
his very top level was -- giving someone a job or loan or grant that will help them to dispense with other people’s aid. It’s simply the most efficient use of resources.

I was so surprised to find out that American Jewish World Service has what I initially regarded as a rather draconian policy against giving any kind of gift to any individual. But we quickly understood the reason for the policy. Once we experienced the extraordinary need, it was like we were paralyzed - no matter how much we could possibly give, it wouldn’t be enough. We were living by very meager standards compared to what we are used to, but still it was so different from the living conditions of the people we met.
most people in the village, and most kids in the school, couldn’t possibly afford the 5c for half a liter of purified water, so they drank water from the tap – something we were warned never to do. We had the good fortune to be able to hire a Ghanaian chef to make three delicious (kosher) meals for us every day, and
we felt guilty at eating this food on the premises of Challenging Heights. The kids did not appear to be malnourished, but they may never have had the experience of eating until they were full - and they were sometimes asking us for the leftovers at the bottom of the pot.

In helping us to understand the 'giving policy,' our group leaders explained to us: What kind of behavior do we want to incentivize? Do we want these kids to grow really really good at ingratiating themselves to American volunteers, so they can get a a little extra food or a little cash? Or do we want to do whatever we can to encourage them to strive for the kind of authentic self-sufficiency that can help them to succeed in the world? (Seen from this perspective, perhaps the greatest act of beneficence in James’ entire story may have been the scholarship that he received to go to college, which set so much else in his story in motion.)

Third, don’t assume that help flows in only one direction.
Here’s a story, not from Ghana but from Hoboken. Several years ago, the Hoboken shelter was renovating and wanted to put up a sign at the entrance to the shelter with a biblical quote that was somehow connected to the work of the shelter. They asked me for some suggestions. So I made a list of quotations, such as the verse from Deuteronomy that says

לא תקפוץ את ידך לאחיך האביון, כי פתוח תפתח את ידך לו
“open your hand to your needy brother.” (Deut 15:7-8).
I showed my list to the director of the shelter, and to her credit, when she told me that I had completely missed the point, she did so very gently. She said: “We’re not looking for a quote that divides the world into two categories, the helpers and the people being helped. In any interaction, who has any idea who’s doing the helping and who’s being helped?”

Actually, thousands of years ago, in the Midrash, Rabbi Joshua said the same thing: תני ר' יהושע, יותר ממה שבעל הבית עושה עם העני, העני עושה עם בעל הבית.
More than what the benefactor does for the needy person, the needy person does for the benefactor.” (Vayikra Rabbah 34:8). The line between the two is truly blurred.

Obviously I did not go to Ghana because of my prowess as a construction worker. More than I went to work, I went to learn. And what I learned was myth-shattering and paradigm-breaking. I learned that they have a lot to learn from us. But we also have a lot to learn from them.

My colleague Rabbi Toba Spitzer wrote about our experience: “what folks there lack, we have too much of. They don't have enough food; we have way too much, and have to come up with bizarre ways to restrain ourselves from over-eating. They don't have enough hygiene; we have too much - [leading to] ….so much antibiotic use that we're breeding super-bacteria. They have too little privacy; we have too much, [with so many people experiencing social isolation]....” They have too few possessions; we have too many. They have too little electronic connectivity; we have too much. Certainly their lives need to begin much more to resemble ours. But in some ways, ours need to begin much more to resemble theirs.

And fourth: Don’t despair.
Problems of global poverty look intractable. And truly, every single problem that I have ever faced, or discussed, in my life now looks very manageable by comparison. But there are replicable solutions to the problems of global poverty - and we saw with our own eyes how one person’s passion really did transform a village.

In the famous words of Pirkei Avot: (2:19) לא עליך המלאכה לגמור - ולא אתה בן חורין להבטל ממנה
It’s not up to you to complete the work - but you are not free from doing what you can.

May your new year 5772 תשעב bring blessing, good health, and peace to you and your loved ones. And may it bring each of us many opportunities to express gratitude to God, הגומל לחייבים טובות - who bestows kindness on the undeserving - שגמלני כל טוב - and who has granted such kindness to me.

High Holy Days -- Sing along!

2011-09-25T10:43:00.000-07:00

At our synagogue -- as at many synagogues -- the most powerful moments of the High Holy Days are connected not only with words, but with music.

If you're joining us for the High Holy Days in Hoboken this year and you want a refresher of some of the melodies we will be singing, click on the links below. We'll add more sound clips as time goes on.

Mekhalkel hayyim be-hesed -- the special high holy melody to this passage from the Amidah

Avinu Malkeinu -- perhaps the most well-known congregational melody for the High Holy Days

Hayom -- 'hayom' means 'today.' We sing this rousing prayer at the conclusion of the morning service on each day of Rosh haShanah and Yom Kippur. The words (actually, 'word') are very simple to sing along.

Kevodcha malei olam -- New for our synagogue this year. This melody was composed by my colleague Cantor Ken Richmond, with whom I served on the Mahzor Lev Shalem Editorial Committee. The words are from a medieval Spanish Hebrew poem by Yehuda Halevi, and the melody was composed in honor of the new Mahzor Lev Shalem. Sheet music is at http://rabbinicalassembly.org/mahzor/mahzor%20music/Yah%20Ana-Richmond.pdf

Od Yavo Shalom: This contemporary Israeli song in Hebrew and Arabic has become a classic... and no High Holiday experience is complete at USH without it -- here's a recording of the USH Choir together with Cantigas.

Kol Nidrei -- The most famous melody for Yom Kippur evening. traditionally sung three times.

Shanah Tovah!

Thoughts on Yom HaShoah / death of Bin Laden

2011-05-02T09:51:00.001-07:00

Thoughts I shared with my community today by email:

Today is being observed in Israel and throughout the world as Yom Ha-Shoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. I have pasted below the comments that I made at the Jersey City Yom HaShoah commemoration yesterday. Our Learning Center students in grades 4-7 will participate in a Yom HaShoah educational program tomorrow.

Also today, we are focused on the fact that one of the most fearsome people our world has known since Hitler has been killed. After 9/11, I remember thinking - and sharing with this community - that whereas comparisons between contemporary figures and Hitler are always overblown, in the case of Bin Laden the comparison is not inappropriate. It seems oddly fitting that he was killed by American special forces not only on the day of Yom HaShoah on the Jewish calendar, but also on the anniversary of the date on the secular calendar when Hitler killed himself.

Thinking back to those days in Hoboken immediately following 9/11, when we learned of all the terrible ways that this tragedy touched our own community, I can only pray that the survivors of the attacks, and those who continue to mourn loved ones, can take satisfaction that the world is finally rid of Bin Laden.

While I understand the motivation of those who have greeted this news by dancing in the streets, there are some good reasons why I am not among them. Our world remains precarious, and terrorism remains an ever-present threat. Some around the world are greeting the news of Bin Laden's death in very troubling ways that show their true colors (see, for example, the statement of the leader of Hamas in Gaza: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110502/wl_mideast_afp/usattacksbinladenpalestinianshamas). And Jewish tradition counsels us to tread carefully with our emotions when our enemies fall. (On this last point, I have also pasted below some comments of a more scholarly nature that I wrote today to some colleagues, discussing Judaism's ambivalent perspective on the suffering of enemies, from the perspective of the history of Jewish liturgy.) I can't feel much joy today, but I feel relieved, and hopeful that we can succeed in building a better world.

================================================================================================

Rabbi Scheinberg's comments at Yom HaShoah Commemoration, May 1, 2011, Congregation Bnai Jacob in Jersey City

My colleague Rabbi David Ebstein tells this story that takes place in the early 1990’s.

He was developing Jewish educational programs in the Former Soviet Union
immediately after the fall of communism.
He travelled to the city of Minsk, the capital of the new country of Belarus,
and a city with a historic Jewish community that was largely destroyed during the Holocaust.

One of the synagogues in Minsk survived the war, and that’s where Rabbi Ebstein went for services on that Shabbat.
In the midst of the service, an old man walked into the synagogue
and - surprisingly enough - began dancing in the aisles to the melodies of the synagogue service.
He seemed so full of joy and enthusiasm.

Rabbi Ebstein asked him, why are you so happy?”
And the man responded: "Because I used to be the last Jew on earth."

What did he mean?
During the war he escaped to the forests of Belarus….and survived.
After the war he married a woman who was not Jewish, and kept his Jewish identity a secret.
Because he was illiterate, and his village was so isolated, he never met or saw any other Jews.
He thought that the Nazis had annihilated all the Jews,
and he assumed he was the last Jew on earth.
One day, his son, a train conductor, told him that in the great city of Minsk,
his train had driven by a synagogue where Jews prayed.
This man was incredulous. He just had to find out where the synagogue was.
Visiting the synagogue for the first time was like a rebirth for him --
and eventually he moved to Minsk.
He says that whenever he sees Jews praying in the synagogue,
it fills him with tremendous joy,
because it reminds him of how he used to think that he was the last Jew on earth.

Part of our task on Yom HaShoah
is marking the unbearable devastation of our people -
a wound from which we can never fully recover.
But part of our task on Yom HaShoah
is taking note of just how miraculous the rebirth of the Jewish people has been.
The State of Israel was created just 3 years after the liberation of the camps.
In most of the world, Jews live in conditions of freedom, equality, and opportunity.
While in some cases Jewish communities are precarious, and Jews around the world do face real dangers,
there is so much to celebrate about these 65 years since liberation.

Thousands of years ago, the prophet Ezekiel comforted his community of exiles in Babylonia
with a vision of dry bones --
the prophet saw a vision of dry bones reassembling themselves into the shape of human beings,
then miraculously being covered with flesh and coming alive.
And he was told: these bones represent the people of Israel.
Even though they say
יָֽבְשׁוּ עַצְמוֹתֵינוּ
our bones are dry
וְאָבְדָה תִקְוָתֵנוּ:
and our hope is lost,
I will open their graves, and bring them to the land of Israel
יד וְנָֽתַתִּי רוּחִי בָכֶם וִֽחְיִיתֶם
And I will breathe my spirit into you and you shall live.

In Ezekiel’s vision, the Jews say avdah tikvateinu אבדה תקוותינו - our hope is lost -
like the man from Minsk, they think they are the last Jews on earth.
but the words of Hatikvah turn around Ezekiel’s words,
as we say od lo avdah tikvateinu עוד לא אבדה תקוותינו - our hope is not yet lost -
may we express gratitude for our revival
and may we remember always to take delight in every demonstration of our vibrant Jewish future.

=========================================================================

Rabbi Scheinberg's comments on reacting to the suffering of enemies, from the perspective of the history of Jewish liturgy - May 2, 2011

In my opinion, anyone who thinks that this issue is very simple, in one direction or the other, is not considering all the variegated evidence.

Two things to consider, from the history of Jewish liturgy, about how we react at the suffering of enemies / wicked people:

(a) I was surprised the first time I learned that the prevailing interpretation I had heard about removing drops of wine from the wine cup at the seder when we mention the ten plagues -- that we do so to diminish our full cup of wine and to demonstrate less than full joy at the plagues that afflicted Egypt -- is a relatively late interpretation, found first in the Haggadah commentary of Abravanel (late 15th/early 16th c) and popularized by S.R. Hirsch (19th c). Earlier (and many later) interpretations regard the wine-pouring as a vengeful gesture or as an imitation of God's 'finger' - etzba elohim hi - in inflicting the plagues. This reinterpretation can be considered among the many ways that a traditional inclination to vengeance has been blunted in the modern era. (Another example, among many: in the blessings after the Haftarah, prevailing practice is to say "ve-la'aluvat nefesh toshi'a bimhera be-yameinu," "May You save the despondent of spirit speedily in our days' -- but this is clearly an example of Christian censorship or self-censorship of the printed liturgy, as manuscripts (and Yemenite siddurim to this day) have the text 've-la'aluvat nefesh tinkom nakam bimhera be-yameinu,' 'May You surely seek vengeance on behalf of the despondent of spirit, speedily in our days.')

(b) And on the other side: It is striking that the Gemara (RH 33b-34a) draws major conclusions about the sounds of the shofar from the use of the word 'uteyabev' in the Song of Deborah (Judges 5), describing the wailing of Sisera's mother as she comes to the realization that her warrior son isn't coming home. This seems to me to be a remarkable, even over-the-top, demonstration of universalism: our cries to God on Rosh HaShanah are supposed to resemble, in some way, the cries of a bereaved mother, even though the son she is mourning is our enemy. The song of Deborah itself shows absolutely no sympathy to Sisera's mother and in fact gloats over her sadness -- but the Gemara appears to encourage us to consider her humanity. (While some would argue that this verse is only cited for linguistic reasons and it's inappropriate to draw any conclusions about how we should think about Sisera's mother, I would disagree. Bringing the original context of verses to bear on a sugya that quotes them is absolutely interpretive fair game.)

Bin Laden is clearly in a different category from the Egyptians suffering from the plagues (including many presumably innocent people) and Sisera (who may have been a ruthless warrior but who was a military opponent of the Israelites rather than a terrorist). But overall, what I feel Jewish tradition is guiding me to feel at a moment like this -- as I feel Jewish tradition often guides me to feel -- is......challenged to at least consider something contrary to my natural inclination.

links to Sheva Brachot files and other wedding materials

2011-04-13T13:29:00.000-07:00

At many Jewish weddings, the recitation of the Sheva Brachot (Seven Wedding Blessings) is done not by the wedding officiant but by family and friends.

Here is a copy of the Hebrew / English / transliteration of the Sheva Brachot, together with sound files (which can be downloaded one by one, or all together in one zip file).

If you find these resources useful and are not from the United Synagogue of Hoboken community, please go to www.hobokensynagogue.org and send me a quick note -- and mazal tov!

http://www.scheinberg.net/rabbi/sheva_brachot_english_hebrew_and_translit.pdf

http://www.scheinberg.net/rabbi/sheva_brachot_mp3s.zip -- all the mp3s below in one zip file

http://www.scheinberg.net/rabbi/sheva_brachot_1_borei_pri_hagafen.mp3
http://www.scheinberg.net/rabbi/sheva_brachot_2_shehakol_bara_lichvodo.mp3
http://www.scheinberg.net/rabbi/sheva_brachot_3_yotzer_ha-adam.mp3
http://www.scheinberg.net/rabbi/sheva_brachot_4_asher_yatzar.mp3
http://www.scheinberg.net/rabbi/sheva_brachot_5_sos_tasis.mp3
http://www.scheinberg.net/rabbi/sheva_brachot_6_sameach_tesamach.mp3
http://www.scheinberg.net/rabbi/sheva_brachot_7_asher_bara.mp3
(please note: this order of the sheva brachot is for the wedding ceremony itself. When recited as part of the birkat ha-mazon after the wedding feast and during the first seven days of marriage, the order is different (blessing #1, 'borei pri ha-gafen,' is moved to the end), and this alternate order is what is found in many benchers and siddurim. )

Baking Hamentaschen in Shichigahama: reactions to the Japanese earthquake

2011-03-16T12:05:00.000-07:00

This is a modified version of an email that I sent to my congregation yesterday.

The news reports of the damage from the earthquake and tsunami in Japan just keep going from bad to worse to unimaginable -- with the death toll now revised at over 10,000, several villages and cities reduced to rubble, and the possibility of nuclear disaster.

David H., a member of our synagogue, has numerous direct connections to this tragedy and asked me to send the following reflections to you. David lived and worked for many years in the town of Shichigahama, in the area that was hardest hit by the tsunami. This town of more than 20,000 inhabitants is now mostly destroyed. David's words help to communicate in very personal terms how devastating this situation is. Below David's remarks are some suggestions for how we can assist. (If you wish to contact David, you may contact him through me.)

Friends,

By now, I am sure you have seen the horrific and terrifying images of the disaster that occurred in Northern Japan on 3/11. Whereas I am very thankful that my wife’s family lives in the southern island of Japan and was unaffected by the earthquake and Tsunami, I have a very deep personal connection to the affected region. I want to share some thoughts with you in hopes of painting a picture of picture of a place and a people that I know seems very distant and unrelated to our daily lives as Jews and as part of the Hoboken community. In doing so, I hope that you will see some of the connections we share with Japanese and be moved to support them in this time of their most dire need.

From 1998-2001 I was privileged to be employed by the Japanese government as a Coordinator of International Relations (CIR) on the JET Program. You may be surprised to hear that the Japanese government through the JET Program is one of the largest single employers of American college graduates in a single foreign country. This is only one of many Japanese sponsored initiatives that represent Japanese openness and generosity to furthering peaceful international relations.

What may further surprise you is that Japan also has a long history of supporting the Jews and Israel. Japan was one of the earliest nations to recognize Israel as a state. In Japanese-occupied China, Jews were allowed to practice religion freely, and historians continue to discuss and debate the possibility that Japan was willing to spare the Jews of Europe in what is known as the Fugu Plan. Chiune Sugihara, the Japanse consul to Lithuania, spared the lives of thousands of Jews (and saved the renowned institution of Jewish learning, the Mir Yeshiva) by issuing exit visas via Japan to China during the war. Again, I could go on and on.

For my three years on the JET Program, I lived, worked and represented small coastal community of Shichigahama in Miyagi prefecture. My responsibility there was to promote grassroots culture, sports and economic exchange. Japan is often characterized as a “closed society” -- but you must know that this just isn’t the case. People often asked how I could survive in rural Japan keeping kosher, and I can tell you it was because every one of my colleagues and neighbors knew just what I could and couldn’t eat, and they unconditionally assured that there was something at the table for me, whether it be a working lunch or a festive banquet. Participants in the international and English clubs that I ran there -- a wide range of professionals and housewives -- reveled at the opportunity to cook Hammentashen on Purim. At Hannukah, I made the rounds of Shichigahama’s three elementary schools to help the kids make latkes, and the holiday was built into the curriculum accordingly.

At our wedding in Tokyo in 2005, 40 of my Shichigahama friends travelled the 250 miles so they could experience a Jewish wedding first hand, donning yarmulkes and dancing the hora. At the reception, they enjoyed individual challahs, that were prepared as a surprise for us by Izaki-san, an 80 year old woman who has spent half her life as the chief cook of the JCC in Tokyo. When I visited Shichigahama in December 2010 for the first time in almost a decade, my colleague immediately displayed my wedding photo on his cell phone from 5 years prior, still fascinated by the experience.

I can’t tell you how helpless I feel now, seeing images of what has happed in Sendai, a place as familiar to me as Hoboken. Andersen Cooper stood on top of 10 feet of debris in front of the very market in Shichigahama where I did my daily shopping. Ishinomaki and Kessenuma, towns that have been reduced to rubble, are the places I would go on the weekends to watch movies or visit friends. My friend Yuko said her uncle clung for life as he watched his wife and his house wash away. Friends who were of good means and wealthy communities now write that they are without food, water or heat. I haven’t been able to get through to people are closer to me than people I grew up with.

This is not the first disaster that needs our assistance and there continue to be many other worthy causes that demand our attention. But now, more than ever, the people of Sendai and of Shichigahama need us. I hope you will understand from what I have shared, that Japan is much closer than you think.

David H.

=====================================================

There are a number of ways that the American Jewish community can assist at a time of tragedy like this. The following are four organizations that are collecting funds now, which you could consider among the many organizations engaged in disaster relief.

Jewish Coalition for Disaster Relief: https://www.jdc.org/donation/donate.aspx?type=JCDR (a coalition of many American Jewish organizations that channels donations to reputable organizations working on the ground after disasters)

Jewish Federations of North America: http://www.jewishfederations.org/page.aspx?id=238775

IsraAid: Israel Forum for International Humanitarian Aid: Israeli non-governmental organization for disaster relief -- http://www.israaid.org.il/

The Jewish Community Center of Japan is collecting funds for distribution as well -- see http://www.jccjapan.or.jp/ -- but please note that the bank wire transfer fees for foreign currencies are very high.

David also mentioned to me that there is a Facebook page for "Friends of Shichigahama" on which additional updates may be posted regarding ways to assist.

We pray for recovery for all the injured, comfort for all the bereaved, and for all those affected by this tragedy, the strength to begin again.

What graffiti on the Kotel can tell us about Egypt

2011-02-07T09:01:00.000-08:00

What messianic graffiiti on the Kotel can teach us about Egypt

delivered Sat., February 5, 2011 / 1 Adar I 5771,
United Synagogue of Hoboken

Who in their right mind would think of writing graffiti on the Kotel, one of Judaism’s holiest sites, the last remnant of the Temple that stood in Jerusalem thousands of years ago?!

This is a question that is asked by many tourists to Israel when they visit the part of the Kotel referred to as “Robinson’s Arch.” This is a section of the Western Wall of the 2nd Temple plaza that was buried in rubble for thousands of years.

If you visit Robinson’s Arch, you can see a large Hebrew inscription carved into one of the Western Wall’s stones. It’s actually a quotation from the Haftarah we read this morning, the Haftarah designated for the confluence of Shabbat and Rosh Hodesh [the first day of a Hebrew month]. It’s from the Book of Isaiah, 66:14: Ur’item, ve-sas libchem; va-atzmoteichem ka-deshe. “You shall see, and your heart shall rejoice, and your bones shall spring up like grass.” The inscription actually cuts off in the middle of a word, as if the artist were interrupted in the middle of his work. It doesn’t look like professional stonecutting; it looks more like graffiti. Hebrew Biblical graffiti from thousands of years ago. (That alone is a great reason to visit Israel. Where else are you going to see Hebrew Biblical graffiti from thousands of years ago?)

Since this inscription was discovered in 1969, archeologists and historians have been trying to figure out why someone would chisel these words into one of the stones of the Temple.

The first question is, how could someone have chiseled these words, perhaps twenty feet above the pavement. The presumption is that it was done after the destruction of the Temple, at a time when the rubble was high enough that he could easily have reached that point on the wall.

This is one current speculation: the most likely time for this inscription to have been written
was about 1600 years ago, when, for a brief period of time, a Roman emperor named Julian was friendly to the Jews and even invited them back to Jerusalem to begin the reconstruction of the Temple. The theory goes, this anonymous stonecarver was so moved at the prospect of the rebuilding of the city of Jerusalem that he remembered how, in an earlier time, after an earlier destruction, the prophet Isaiah had given his community hope and inspiration. Following the destruction of the First Temple, the prophet had reassured them that one day they would return to their homes and their lands, and one day they would rebuild the holy sites that lay in ruins.
This graffiti artist felt that he was beholding the fulfillment of Isaiah’s words in his own day:
“You shall see, and your heart shall rejoice!”

Sadly, though, the Emperor Julian died, and any plans to rebuild the Temple were indefinitely put on hold – and so they remain, 1600 years later.

It’s happened so often throughout Jewish history. Against a backdrop that was often bleak and oppressive, there would be moments of great optimism and hope, that would lead many Jews to the conclusion that God was finally going to fulfill the promises in the prophets, that the oppression and exile were going to end, and Jews would have their sovereignty restored, in a world at peace.

But sadly, so often, that optimism was too good to be true. Such was the case with the anonymous stonecutter and so many others throughout Jewish history whose hopes were dashed by reality.

Often, this Jewish optimism and hope for redemption were bound up in the belief in a single charismatic individual. One of the most illustrious of the rabbis of the Talmud, Rabbi Akiva,
lived nearly 2000 years ago, under Roman oppression. But there was a Jewish rebellion at that time, led by a warrior known as Bar Kochba. And Rabbi Akiba was so optimistic that Bar Kochba’s rebellion would succeed and end the degradation of the Jewish people that he proclaimed Bar Kochba as the Mashiach - the Messiah. But a more sober colleague responded to him, עקיבא, יעלו עשבים בלחייך ועדיין בן דוד לא יבא Akiva, ya’alu asavim bi’’hayyayikh ve- adayin ben david lo yavo. “Akiva! grass will be growing from your cheeks, while you lie in the grave, and the Mashiach, the descendant of David, will not yet have come.” [Yerushalmi Taanit 4:5]

In the Middle Ages, too: At a time of terrible bleakness, the Jewish world was transfixed by the arrival on the scene of a charismatic mystical scholar, Shabbetai Tzevi, whose followers proclaimed him as the Mashiach. And among the most embarrassing moments in Jewish history were those moments in the mid-1600’s when Jewish communities were so despondent that they were convinced that Shabbetai Tzevi and his followers were sure to come flying overhead on clouds or a magic carpet to bring them all to the land of Israel - and of course their hopes were dashed.

And so it has been with every Messianic movement in Jewish history - the reality doesn’t live up to the hype. And this makes many contemporary Jews skeptical of messianic movements at all - taking the attitude of Rabbi Akiva’s colleague. “I’ll believe it when I see it.” But in every generation there have also been the Messianic dreamers, who read world events as a confirmation that the world is poised for dramatic improvement. And it could be said that without those dreamers, we would forget what we aspire to.

The world this week has been focused on Tahrir Square in Cairo where as many as a million Egyptians have gathered to demand an end to the oppressive regime of Hosni Mubarak. There is so much that resonates with Jews when we hear the voices of the protesters. For our people, Egypt is where our own struggle against tyranny began. Egypt is where the Jewish people first learned to value freedom - and it is natural to feel kinship with Egyptians who are also valuing and working for freedom - there are so many parallels to our own story. Even the square where the largest protests are taking place - Tahrir Square - has a name that is closely related to an important Hebrew word from OUR story. Tahrir is the Arabic equivalent of the Hebrew word ‘Shichrur,’ meaning ‘liberation,’ One of the Hebrew names for Israel’s War of Independence in 1948 is מלחמת השחרור milhemet ha-shihrur. Those of us who remember the euphoria of the fall and winter of 1989, where every day seemed to bring another revolution in another formerly communist country, greet with excitement the possibility of a similar domino effect throughout the Arab world bringing greater freedom to their citizens just as it brought relative freedom to Eastern Europe.

And then at the same time -- a widespread reaction in the Jewish world and in the United States is that Mubarak may have been a cruel dictator, but at least he has been OUR cruel and stable dictator --Israel’s only ally in the Middle East, maintaining a cold peace - but a peace nonetheless - for these past 30 years. And if he were to fall, there’s no guarantee that the next government would prioritize peace with Israel - and if the Muslim Brotherhood steps into this power vacuum, as the best-organized of the opposition groups currently, then a worst case scenario is that Egypt could turn into another Iran -- an Islamist state sponsor of terrorism, antagonistic to everything American, with the goal of wiping Israel off the map - but this time, sharing a border with Israel.

So the debate about this Egyptian popular uprising seems to mirror the debate about messianism throughout Jewish history. Some people are like the messianic enthusiasts- celebrating with the protesters, looking forward to the collapse of the Mubarak regime, and furious that skeptics are raining on their parade. While others are saying “not so fast”. This may look like a cause for celebration, but it’s truly a disaster in the making. It will get worse long before anything gets better.

Determining which side is right and which side is wrong is a task too challenging for the Middle East policy experts, and certainly impossible for me. But what I can do is provide the context of that anonymous stonecutter. On the one hand, in his prediction that the prophesies of Isaiah were coming true, he was tragically wrong. And his unfinished quotation stands as a cautionary note for all those who get swept up in messianic fervor.

But on the other hand -- picture yourself as one of those Israeli archeologists in 1969 who discovered this inscription. The graffiti artist thought that Isaiah’s words of reassurance and renewal were being fulfilled in his own day. Not even thirty years after the Holocaust, seeing the Jewish people returned to its land and building a free society, those Israeli archeologists must have been thinking exactly the same thing. The graffiti artist wasn’t wrong. he was simply 1600 years ahead of his time. But he, and others like him, are the reason why that dream stayed alive.

The more I study Jewish history, the more convinced I am that the answer is to strive to balance our enthusiasm with our skepticism. Without the necessary skepticism, we are like Rabbi Akiva, wide-eyed and setting ourselves up for dramatic disappointment. But if we ONLY have the skepticism, we lose our dream and our motivation to work towards the world’s perfection.

Perhaps this is what the paraphraser of Maimonides’ Thirteen Articles of Faith had in mind, writing paradoxically in the Twelfth Article of Faith: אני מאמין באמונה שלמה בביאת המשיח, ואף על פי שיתמהמה עם כל זה אחכה לו בכל יום שיבוא. “I believe with perfect faith in the coming of the Mashiach -- and though he may tarry, despite this I wait for him every day that he should come.” In other words, integral to the belief in the Mashiach is the belief that the Mashiach will tarry.

And in more contemporary times, the modern Hebrew poet Shaul Tchernichovsky wrote: שחקי שחקי על החלומות - laugh, laugh, at all my dreams,.... אאמינה גם בעתיד אף אם ירחק זה היום, I will believe in the future, even if that day seems far off.

Baruch Dayan Emet -- Debbie Friedman z"l .... and prayers for healing for Representative Gabrielle Giffords

2011-01-09T21:26:00.000-08:00

My note to our congregation on January 9, 2011, in memory of Debbie Friedman, and out of concern for the victims of the shooting in Tucson:

Whether or not the name of Debbie Friedman is familiar to you, you are likely to have heard (and probably sung) her music. For the last twenty-five years or more, she has been the most outstanding composer and performer of contemporary American Jewish synagogue music. Sadly, she died today, in her late 50's, after a bout with pneumonia, and after many years of serious health challenges.

Debbie Friedman's music has been like a soundtrack for many important moments of my life. At age 15, the first time I ever conducted a choir, we sang her "Dodi Li." When Naomi and I got married, her "Lechi Lach" was played during our procession. We sang songs from her album "Renewal of Spirit" as we approached the birth of each of our children. Most Shabbatot of my adult life have concluded with her "lai lai lai" melody for the blessings of Havdalah at the end of Shabbat. Numerous times I have sung her"Beyado Afkid Ruchi" at the bedside of people who were approaching death.

In the life of our congregation, all of our preschool and Learning Center kids have sung her call-and-response"Alef Bet" song to teach them the Hebrew alphabet. We sing her "Oseh Shalom" most Friday nights, and her "Mi Sheberach" Prayer for healing every Friday night. In fact, Debbie Friedman is the person who, more than anyone else, taught American Jews how to harness the healing power of musical prayer. Drawing in part from her own struggles with illness, her "Mi Sheberach" and many other compositions have been mainstays of American Jewish prayer services for healing. The words of "Mi Sheberach" remind us that a "cure from illness" is not the same thing as "healing." Sadly, the cure does not always happen -- but the healing is always possible. The traditional formulation is "refu'at ha-nefesh u-refu'at ha-guf," which she translated as "renewal of body, renewal of spirit." (See here for some words from Debbie Friedman about healing.)

More than twenty years ago, when I first met her and had the opportunity to sing in a choir she was leading at a conference for Jewish educators, I remember being amazed: here was a Jewish musician, who had the stage presence that I would expect from a "regular" musician. Remarkably, (at that time at least,) she was not able to read music, but this did not stop her from composing melodies that were simple yet profound and that perfectly captured the traditional texts to which she set them, and that seemed perfectly designed as receptacles for heartfelt prayer.

I haven't even mentioned Debbie Friedman's joyful music for kids, or the pioneering role she played as a woman in synagogue musical life. Her loss profoundly touches our community and American Jewish communities across the religious spectrum.

According to the Talmud: אמר רבי יוחנן משום רבי שמעון בן יוחי: כל תלמיד חכם שאומרים דבר שמועה מפיו בעולם הזה שפתותיו דובבות בקבר.

"Rabbi Yohanan said in the name of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai: Any time someone quotes the teachings of a deceased scholar, it is as if that scholar's lips are speaking from beyond the grave." (Eruvin 96b). Debbie Friedman made her life a blessing, and her lips will continue to sing from beyond the grave for as long as individuals and communities use the musical gifts that she brought us.

(The memorial gathering for her that took place at the Jewish Community Center of New York this evening can be seen at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/service-at-the-jcc.)

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In a cruel coincidence, Debbie Friedman's "Mi Sheberach" was sung earlier today in Tucson, Arizona, at Representative Gabrielle Giffords' synagogue, as her friends and family gathered for prayers of healing for her and others injured and bereaved after the shooting spree that killed six and left Representative Giffords in critical condition. As Americans and as Jews, the horror of that event is beyond words, as we join in with the prayers for healing and for comfort.

While only the gunman and his co-conspirators (if any) have apparently committed murder and attempted murder, this event sounds a cautionary note for any who engage in inflammatory political speech. Many of us remember the weeks and months preceding the assassination of Israel's Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, when violent political rhetoric (mostly from people who had no intention to provoke violence) set the stage for violent action by making it less unthinkable. May we and our leaders take the words of the Book of Proverbs to heart: מות וחיים ביד לשון - "Death and life come through the power of the tongue." (18:21) The words we choose to use, especially when we refer to our adversaries, can have painful consequences, or healing consequences.

Yom Kippur Yizkor sermon 5771/2010: "My Eulogy"

2010-09-27T20:53:00.001-07:00

The old man asked me, “Will you do my eulogy?”
I don’t understand, I said.
“My eulogy?” The old man asked again. “When I’m gone.”
His eyes blinked from behind his glasses.
His neatly trimmed beard was gray, and he stood slightly stooped.
“Are you dying?” I asked.
“Not yet,” he said, grinning.
“Then why -
“Because I think you will be a good choice. And I think, when the time comes, you will know what to say.”

This was a dialogue that took place between two men, one of whom was a rabbi.
But probably not the one you would guess.

I just read to you the opening words of Mitch Albom’s book, “Have a Little Faith,”

Published earlier this year.

And these words are a transcript of a conversation that Albom,
the best-selling author of “Tuesdays with Morrie” and other books,
had with his childhood rabbi in Cherry Hill, New Jersey,

Rabbi Albert Lewis of blessed memory.

Rabbi Lewis was a giant among contemporary rabbis.
There are actually a number of people in our community who knew him.
He retired after serving his congregation for over 40 years,
as it grew from just a few families to over one thousand.
And shortly after his retirement, Rabbi Lewis contacted his former student, Mitch Albom,
and made this unusual request.
“Will you do my eulogy when I’m gone?”

Well, Mitch Albom was certainly surprised and completely intimidated by this task.
While he had a strong Jewish upbringing, he had been very distant from Judaism since he graduated from high school.
But what ensued was a series of meetings between the author and the rabbi
over the course of the next eight years --
meetings ostensibly so that Albom could learn what he needed to learn about Rabbi Lewis’s life
so he could deliver an appropriate eulogy.
But, as Albom writes, “As is often the case with faith,
I thought I was being asked a favor,
when in fact I was being given one.”

Albom’s friends thought this was the most crazy and disturbing thing they had ever heard.
“You go to his house like he’s a normal person?”
“Aren’t you intimidated?”
“Does he make you pray while you’re there?”
“You actually talk about his eulogy?: Isn’t that morbid?”

But, as Albom writes, the opportunity to have frank and direct conversations with someone about all those things you don’t discuss in polite company -
issues of faith, life mission, aging, illness, death -
was an extraordinarily powerful and liberating experience.
And presumably, this was exactly according to Rabbi Lewis’s plan.

Jewish tradition has a sneaky way of getting us to think about death
at moments when it would otherwise be the farthest thing from our minds.
The traditional text of the ketubah -
the marriage contract, signed on a day of maximum joy in a couple’s life -
includes a provision for what would happen upon the death of one of the partners.
When a baby is born, we tend to give the baby a name that echoes the names of previous generations, so the birth of a baby is often commemorated by focusing on prior deaths in the family.
Every single synagogue service includes the Mourners Kaddish - a memorial prayer and an opportunity to comfort mourners in our midst.
In a world in which we can shut out the news that we’re not interested in,
we can associate primarily with people of whatever age and life stage we choose,
where death tends to take place under sterile conditions in a hospital, rather than at home surrounded by family -
being part of a religious community is one of the few ways that people at EVERY life stage
are continually reminded of death in a concrete way.

In fact, this Jewish confrontation with death is one of the significant themes of the High Holidays,
and especially of Yom Kippur.
and in fact, this theme figures prominently in one of the most famous contemporary Jewish stories of spiritual awakening.

The story takes place in Germany, in 1913.
It’s a story about a university student in his mid-20’s named Franz.
Franz is Jewish - kind-of. He had a Jewish upbringing,
but being Jewish has been of only marginal importance in his life.
Mostly because it was experienced as a kind of a barrier,
that could potentially make it harder for him to pursue a career, get a university appointment,
or to be regarded as an equal to all other Germans.
Many of Franz’s Jewish friends, actually, had converted to Christianity.
In the intellectual community of his university,
Christianity was presented as a dramatically more advanced religion than Judaism.
Trust me, there was no ‘Hillel Foundation’ at the University of Leipzig in those days;
No one to guide Jewish young adults to develop a positive relationship with Judaism.

Finally, Franz resolved to convert to Christianity.
But he was an intellectual, so he decided to convert to Christianity in a particularly thoughtful way.
He thought: Jesus was Jewish -- so the most appropriate route into Christianity would be first to re-attach myself to my Jewish roots,
and then to embrace Christianity from within Judaism.
So even though it had been years since he had taken part in any Jewish ritual or holiday,
he decides: the High HOlidays are coming up. I will go to synagogue for Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur,
and then - after Yom Kippur - I’ll convert to Christianity.
he writes home to his mom. Mom, guess what?
I’m coming home for Rosh HaShanah.
Get me a ticket, because I’m coming to shul with you!
And his mother practically screams for joy.
and they go to Rosh haShanah services together

at the Reform synagogue in the city of Kassel, where he grew up.
Then, a couple of days later, mom asks him:
Tell me, Franz, you haven’t set foot in a synagogue since your bar mitzvah!
Don’t get me wrong! I’m delighted!
But why the sudden change of heart?
And Franz patiently explains: Well, you see, mom,

I decided to convert to Christianity,
and I thought I would convert to Christianity from within Judaism, like Jesus,
so I’m giving this Jewish thing one last hurrah,
and next week I’ll go for Yom Kippur, and then I’ll become a Christian.
and mom interrupts him and says: What?! Like hell you are!
Don’t you DARE come to synagogue to make a mockery of us!
I’m going to tell the ushers at our synagogue
that if you show up, they should throw you out!

Franz may or may not have realized that his mother’s anger was not primarily about theology,
but about the tragic relationship between Jews and Christians over the centuries.
From her perspective, Franz had decided to defect from the oppressed
and join the oppressors.

But Franz is thinking: I can’t believe that the one time in my life when I really DO want to go to synagogue - they don’t even want me.
So Franz is forced to locate a different synagogue -
he goes to Berlin and finds a much more traditional synagogue than he had ever been to in his life.
And he goes there for Kol Nidrei -
and then he comes back for Yom Kippur day.
And what he experiences there -- changes his life forever.
Not long after Yom Kippur, he writesin a letter to a friend,
"After prolonged, and I believe thorough, self-examination,
I have reversed my decision. ....I will remain a Jew."

Some of you already know that Franz in this story is Franz Rosenzweig,
one of the most influential Jewish theologians of the 20th century.
He retained a life-long admiration of Christianity,
but after his Yom Kippur experience, he knew that he would live his life as a Jew.
He never wrote about exactly what it was that he experienced in that synagogue that utterly transformed him.
Perhaps like most spiritual experiences, some element of it was ineffable - beyond words.
But we can guess what moved him, based on his passionate writings about Yom Kippur.
Franz Rosenzweig seemed to have been especially moved by the way that the people in that community
came face to face with their own deaths.
He would write about this as one of the central themes of Yom Kippur.
The people in that synagogue wearing white,
wearing the kittel that is modeled after the Jewish burial shroud,
even lying prostrate on the floor, as we will do shortly -
Rosenzweig described all this as a kind of rehearsal for death,
as a confrontation with mortality,
but done in such a way as to permit the worshippers

to go on living, maximally engaged in this world

while also looking ahead to the next world.

Rabbi Irving Greenberg details additional ways that Yom Kippur helps us to confront death.
The fearsome Unetaneh Tokef prayer, describing ‘who shall live and who shall die,
who shall live out his days and who shall not live out his days.
Fasting makes some of us look and feel like ghosts.
Even the Shema, which we will recite together at the very conclusion of Yom Kippur,
resembles the final words of the Vidui’, the death bed confession.

This confrontation with mortality may be one of the most important and powerful themes of Yom Kippur,
but that doesn’t mean that anyone actually wants to think about it.
We would take any opportunity to deny that death is something that is ultimately going to happen to us.

You know the story about the rabbi who in the middle of his Yizkor sermon on Yom Kippur,
pounds on the table and says ‘Wake up to the fact that
Every single person in this congregation, myself included, is going to die!”
And as he expected, everyone’s suddenly very alarmed,
except for one man in the 3rd row whose face breaks out into a broad smile.
And the rabbi is so shocked, he points to this man and says, ‘so why are you so amused?”
And the man shrugs his shoulders and answers, “Well I’m not from this congregation. I’m just visiting my sister.”
(Have a Little Faith: A True Story, by Mitch Albom, p. 231, adapted.)

One of my colleagues has noticed that recently there has been a profound sociological shift in the American Jewish community. -
that it used to be that one of the things that a Jewish adult would naturally do
would be to make some kind of arrangements for his or her own burial -
whether in a family plot, or with one of the thousands of Jewish burial and benevolent societies that thrived in immigrant communities in the United States.
But today, he says, it is not uncommon for there to be a mad dash immediately after death,
with the surviving relatives struggling, within 24 to 48 hours, to make all the decisions about burial location and rituals,
based on their ‘best guess’ of what the deceased would have wanted.
And my colleague suggests that this is because, for many of us,
that mad dash after death --
is actually easier than -- having a conversation with our loved ones about death.
And that’s a reality that he as a rabbi finds very disturbing.

There’s a precedent for this attitude in the Talmud -
this extreme fear of death that makes loved ones shudder at the thought of death
such that they refuse to even say the word.
This classic and disturbing story tells of the final days of Rabbi Judah the Prince,
Such an outstanding leader that -- when the Talmud simply refers to someone as ‘Rabbi,’ he’s the rabbi they’re talking about.
He was deathly ill, and his distraught followers made a prayer vigil around his bed
And they announced: Anyone who tells us that Rabbi has died,
will be slain by the sword!
(In the world of pastoral care, we refer to that as ‘denial.’)
But it’s Rabbi’s maidservant who notices what the students are oblivious to:
that he’s suffering terribly,
and that he has made his peace with the end of his life.
First she prays that he die a speedy and painless death,
but to no avail.
then she takes bold and provocative action.
She throws a jug from the roof to the ground. It smashes, making a loud sound
that startles the students, who momentarily stop praying -
and at that moment, Rabbi dies.

There are numerous ways to interpret this story.
But it’s clear who comes off looking good in the story -- the maidservant,
the caregiver, who has a greater understanding of what the patient is actually going through.
And it’s clear who comes off looking excessively personally needy in this story - the students,
who are so distraught by the approaching loss
and its effect upon THEM
that they can’t talk about it or think about it in anything resembling a realistic way.

Some of us read the article in the New Yorker last month by the physician and writer Atul Gawande about end-of-life medical care
that has quickly become a must-read for anyone involved in medical decision-making.

At one poignant point in the article, a physician who is herself a palliative care specialist
speaks with her father,
who is going to have serious surgery that has a chance of leaving him paralyzed.
Knowing that she will be his health care proxy, to make decisions in case he is incapacitated, she asks him directly - despite all of the difficulties and the awkwardness-
she asks him directly
to tell her what kind of medical interventions he would want.

She said, ‘I need to understand how much you’re willing to go through to have a shot at being alive and what level of being alive is tolerable to you.’
And her father thought for a moment and then responded,
‘Well, if I’m able to eat chocolate ice cream and watch football on TV,
then I’m willing to stay alive. I’m willing to go through a lot of pain if I have a shot at that.’

And she was surprised - she thought he would have made a different choice -
She never remembered him watching a football game on TV even once.
But she used his statement - about chocolate ice cream and watching football on TV -
to guide all her subsequent decision-making.
She would ask her father’s doctors about his chances of being able to do these things.
And as a result, she provided the doctors with medical decisions based on this criterion -
in the aftermath of the surgery, and then for the following ten years, whenever there was a need for a health care proxy.
And she says, she is so grateful that she got those instructions from her father.
She would never have wanted to do something that he would not have wanted -
not, God forbid, to keep her father alive if he didn’t want to be suffering,
and not, God forbid, to allow her father’s life to end if he would have preferred to stay alive despite the pain.
That conversation, awkward as it was, was a beautiful and sacred gift
from father to daughter, and from daughter to father --
just as hard and awkward conversations often make for the holiest of moments.
But how much better when those hard and awkward - and holy - conversations
take place earlier, under conditions of good health.

This is why – when I work with couples who are preparing to get married,
I give them a list of lots of difficult questions to ask each other –

Including questions about these hard issues, like health care, and death, and burial.

Because the right time to have those conversations is not at the moment of serious illness.

And having a sacred conversation about those issues,

Early on, and in detail,

can help a couple to cement their spiritual bond.

Of course, I am leaving one important question unanswered.
What happened with Mitch Albom
and his eulogy for his Rabbi, Albert Lewis?
Well, in the year 2000, when he was first asked,
Mitch wondered how he could possibly eulogize Rabbi Lewis -
the man who himself had given thousands of eulogies throughout his lifetime..
Well, he had eight whole years to think about it.
Through numerous meetings, he amassed audio tapes, notes, photos,
newspaper clippings, the texts of Rabbi Lewis’s sermons,
all for the purpose of creating for him the most fitting eulogy.

And in the year 2008, Rabbi Albert Lewis died, at age 90.
And yes, Mitch Albom delivered the eulogy -
and he did not have to consult a single note, or photo, or newspaper clipping, or audio tape.
He learned something that all rabbis and clergypeople quickly learn -
that a eulogy is not like another journalistic assignment.
Because of the circumstances of his relationship with Rabbi Lewis -
because of the spiritual depth of their sacred conversations -
he had only to search his memories and open up his heart.
When he stopped speaking, there was not a dry eye in the synagogue.
As the old Jewish proverb says,
‘devarim ha-yotz’im min ha-lev nichnasim el halev.’
The Words that come from the heart
are the words that enter the heart.

But Mitch Albom’s eulogy did not quite compare with what came next.

One of Rabbi Lewis’s grandsons walked up to the bimah, holding a cassette tape,

Put it in the player, and pressed play.

And a familiar voice rang out over the loudspeakers, and it said,
“Hello my friends, this is the voice of your past rabbi speaking!”

Unbeknownst to anyone -- Rabbi Lewis had recorded a farewell message
shortly before his death - only his caretaker and companion knew about it -
and she delivered it to the synagogue on the day of the funeral.

And Rabbi Lewis spoke briefly, as if from the grave, for perhaps one minute.
He alluded to moments of special joy in his life,
as well as moments of terrible pain,

like the loss of his daughter at a very young age,
and how his faith and the strength of his family and community

had helped him to endure.
And he answered the two questions

he said he had been asked the most throughout his life.
One was, “Do you believe in God?” He said that of course he did.
The other question was, “What happens when we die?”
Does the soul have an existence that is separate from the body?
To which he answered: “ My answer...is yes.
but friends, I'm sorry, now that I know, I can't even tell you.

You’ll have to find it out for yourselves.”
And the room dissolved in laughter.

Rabbi Lewis had given Mitch Albom the gift of gentle but frank conversations about the end of life.
And in an unusual and even playful way,
he gave that gift to his community,
by presenting death not as a word to be whispered, feared and avoided,
but as something to be approached with courage and confidence,

and even with a bit of laughter.
Not everyone faces death this way, and not everyone should.
Just as every life is unique, so is every death. There is no ideal.

But we are wiser when we take the invitation that Jewish tradition offers us

To think about death from time to time, from year to year.

About how our life would be summed up.

About how we would want to be remembered.

Rabbi David Wolpe tells the story of a man at age 93

Who continues to be comforted by the consoling words that his mother had said to him

While lying on her deathbed, seventy years earlier:
“Do not be afraid. It happens to everyone.”

And as the book of Psalms reminds us -

limnot yameinu ken hoda ’ - ve-navi levav chochma.
Teach us to count our days, teach us to regard our days are numbered -
then may we attain a heart of wisdom.

Let us now take a moment of silence as we call to mind the faces and voices of those whose memory we recall today during our Yizkor memorial prayers.

Shofar introduction: Rosh haShanah 5771 / 2010

2010-09-14T08:23:00.001-07:00

Shofar Introduction - Day 1:

one long blast.
three short blasts.
nine very short blasts.
and again, one long blast.
Why do we blow the Shofar in this peculiar pattern?
There are pages and pages of traditional Jewish writings about ‘why do we blow the shofar on Rosh HaShanah.’
It’s an alarm to wake us to our task of repentance; it’s God’s coronation clarion;
it reminds us of Abraham’s sacrificial ram,
along with dozens of other explanations.
but none of these answer the question: What is the meaning of the blasts of the shofar?
Why that particular number of blasts, in that particular order, over and over again? When we blow the Shofar,
we blow it in patterns of 3 or 4 notes.
We start with a Tekiah - one long blast.
followd by Shevarim - a set of 3 small blasts / or Teruah - a set of 9 very short blasts -
or sometimes both - 3 blasts followed by 9 blasts.
And then to round out the pattern,
we have Tekiah - one long blast again.

It was the 17th c master, the Shnei Luhot Habrit [Rabbi Isaiah Horowitz],
who first interpreted these blasts
as corresponding to the stages in the process of teshuvah - repentance.
Tekiah - we start out whole.
Shevarim - we break ourselves down.
Teruah - sometimes we are utterly shattered.
And Tekiah - we emerge whole again.

But another hasidic master, Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum,
described these three shofar calls slightly differently:
Tekiah - we are born whole and we strive to live with integrity.
Shevarim Teruah: our life is filled with errors, mistakes, actions we regret.
We are broken and shattered.
But then we have tekiah again - we can correct our mistakes and emerge whole again.

And the 20th century mystic and religious Zionist known as Rav Kook
gives yet a third explanation
of this pattern of shofar blasts:
Tekiah - the world was created complete.
Shevarim - human beings, and natural forces, have broken and shattered the world.
Teruah - sometimes it seems broken beyond repair.
But- Tekiah - wtih God’s help, we can rebuild it again and make it whole.

So it occurs to me: this is a new Jewish Rosh HaShanah parlor game.
Anyone can play.
Here’s one:
Tekiah - In 1905, a thriving synagogue was founded in Hoboken, New Jersey.
Shevarim - But by the 1930’s, the Jewish population started to decline.
The remaining synagogues in town start merging with each other.
The synagogue is a shadow of its former self.
Teruah - by the 1970’s, there are no more than 50 Jewish individuals living in Hoboken,
the building is in a shambles,
and any rational observer would tell you that this Jewish community has absolutely no future.
but then - Tekiah -- younger Jews move into the area, and steadily, over the last 30 years,
the United Synagogue of Hoboken revives itself beyond its founders’ wildest dreams.

Or here’s another one:
Tekiah - last week I met with a man who told me about his childhood, his parents, and the wholeness and wholesomeness of his early life.
Shevarim - Teruah - he fell into a life of alcohol and drugs.
his life became, as they say, unmanageable.
Tekiah - through AA and other programs, this year he celebrated 18 years of sobriety,
sponsors others, and lives a life that is whole once more.

How about this one:
Tekiah - A beautiful family is proudly led by a wise and compassionate matriarch.
Shevarim teruah: suddenly, at too young an age, she is stricken with a devastating illness, that ultimately takes her life. her family is shattered - they cannot imagine rebuilding and going on without her.
Tekiah: it’s now a year later. their life is different now than it was before,
they remain devastated by the loss,
but they have found ways to keep her memory alive,
to perpetuate her important values,
to find wholeness in their own lives,,
and to achieve a wholeness even in her absence that they never imagined they would be able to achieve.

For some of us, it may feel that that final tekiah is never going to come.
Tekiah - a man and woman in their 50’s, never before married,
meet, fall in love, get married, and buy the house of their dreams.
Shevarim Teruah: The economy is in utter disaster. Lost jobs. Lost health insurance.
And now they’re just hoping and praying that the powers that be will see fit to adjust the terms of their mortgage.
And they’re still waiting for that final tekiah.

Or Tekiah - a couple has a beautiful baby boy - their first born child..
Shevarim Teruah: within a few days, they get the diagnosis from the doctor,
that tells them that their life with this new child will likely be more complicated,
more challenging than they had assumed.
They’re rejoicing in the birth of their son, but also mourning the loss of some of the dreams and assumptions that they had about parenthood.
They are confident that that tekiah will come, that point when once again they will feel whole,
but it hasn’t happened yet, and sometimes they can’t believe it ever will come.

But seen this way, blowing the shofar on rosh haShanah
is the most radical act of faith --
not faith that everything always turns out as we wish, because it won’t,
but faith that our stories can have an Act III in which we can achieve wholeness again.
A faith that Shevarim and Teruah are followed by Tekiah -
and sometimes, even, followed by Tekiah Gedolah.
And so, as we listen to the sounds of the Shofar today,
as we listen to each pattern of wholeness, brokenness, wholeness,
let’s focus on the wholeness and brokenness of some aspect of our lives and our world.
And let our shofar blasts be our prayer
that, for all of us, our broken notes - our sheveraim and teruah -
always be followed by a whole note, a tekiah -
and ultimately - even a tekiah gedolah.

2nd day Rosh HaShanah sermon 5771/2010: "Spirituality of Food"

2010-09-14T07:53:00.000-07:00

Art Linkletter, who died earlier this year at age 97, was the host of various TV shows that interviewed kids and got them to say “the darndest things.” I have a friend and colleague whose college roommate was chosen to be on this show when he was a little boy in the early 1960’s. This was a big deal for his whole family. His siblings, parents, aunts and uncles, and his grandparents, were all watching.

I should add that this boy’s family was Jewish. As was the case with many families of Eastern European Jewish immigrants, the grandparents remained extremely traditional -- but the boy’s parents’ generation, less so.

Art Linkletter comes up to the boy and says, “What is your favorite food?”

The boy thinks for a moment, and then says, loud and clear on national television, “Bacon.”

And apparently you should have seen the eye contact between the grandparents and the parents immediately after they saw that, because until that very moment, the boy’s grandparents thought the parents were still keeping kosher.

In that story, what are the Jewish traditions about food? An outmoded set of rituals that you do to placate the older generation, practices that real Americans have dispensed with already. If you retain them, it’s only to spare yourself the embarrassment of stories like the one I just told.

But here’s another Jewish food story.

Once, an Orthodox rabbi, a Conservative rabbi, a Reconstructionist rabbi, and a Reform rabbi
travel to India together. It sounds like a set-up for a joke - except that it really happened. This was one of the most celebrated interreligious dialogue events, and the subject of a now-classic book, The Jew in the Lotus, by Rodger Kamenetz.

It all happened almost exactly 20 years ago. The Dalai Lama, leader of Tibetan Buddhism,
noted that his community was having difficulty raising their children to treasure their identity,
especially since so much of the Tibetan Buddhist community was in exile from their homeland of Tibet. One of his followers suggested: “If you’re concerned about how to transmit culture and heritage and identity, even in exile, you should really chat with the Jews, who have managed to do it for 2000 years.”

The Dalai Lama was intrigued, and he encouraged a diverse group of Jewish leaders, including several rabbis, to travel to Dharamsala in India, where he lives, to meet with him and his community. He asked them various questions about what has been the secret of the survival of the Jewish people for two thousand years. Was there anything that his community to do to emulate the success of the Jewish people?

Early on in the trip, the rabbinic participants concluded a meal in India and then recited the birkat ha-mazon, the blessing after meals, as is natural for a group of observant Jews. One of the participants, Rabbi Joy Levitt (today the director of the JCC of Manhattan), noted the utter surprise of the Dalai Lama and his followers.

What is that, the Tibetans asked.

A prayer of thanksgiving after food.

What does it say?

Well, it starts out thanking God for the gift of food, then goes on to thank God for our connection to the earth, to the land of Israel, to the city of Jerusalem.

And the Buddhists asked, incredulously, ‘And you say this prayer every day?”

They answered: Different Jews may recite it with different frequencies, but traditionally it’s recited after every meal, approximately 2-3 times a day.

Immediately when the Dalai Lama heard about this, he instructed two young Tibetan monks
to compose a similar prayer to help Tibetan Buddhists around the world to focus their attention to Tibet at the conclusion of every meal.

Rabbi Levitt says: “I was stunned by this new light cast on this very familiar prayer.
I have recited Birkat Hamazon for my entire life - and yet had never really grasped its role in preserving the Zionist dream in the hearts and minds of Jews throughout the generations. Since my return from India, I have never recited those words without thinking both of the Tibetans and of my deep longing for Zion at peace.”

Our community learned this story from the Jewish environmental activist Nigel Savage, when he visited our community in January. The story highlights one of the greatest things about interfaith dialogue, which is that when you look at your religious tradition through the eyes of someone else, you come to see extraordinary aspects of your own religious tradition that you never noticed before.

Additionally: it is nice to see that Judaism and Buddhism have a kind of a symbiotic relationship. Judaism has learned so much from Buddhism about Buddhism’s specialties -
like meditation, like having an embodied spirituality through physical practices like yoga, and cultivating awareness of the present moment. And Judaism has been able to help out Buddhism with Judaism’s area of spiritual expertise. And what is Judaism’s area of spiritual expertise?
Yes... the spirituality of food.

You think I’m kidding? Just start by thinking about the Jewish holidays. From hamentaschen, to apples and honey, to latkes, to figs and carob, each holiday has some special food and some special food practice. There are days like Shabbat when you’re supposed to invite people to eat in your home, days like Sukkot when you’re supposed to eat, not inside, but OUTSIDE your home, and then days like Purim when you’re supposed to send your food out so that it can be eaten in other people’s homes in your absence. There are days like Shabbat and other holidays when Jews are encouraged to drink wine, and days like the first 9 days of the month of Av when Jews are supposed to avoid wine. There are days like Shabbat when we can eat but not cook,
and days like Tisha B’Av when we can cook, but not eat. On Passover we’re supposed to play with our food - making outlandish concoctions of bitter and sweet that no one would ever eat of their own volition. Actually, Passover, with all its foods to be avoided, is in a category by itself.
Like “Iron Chef” but in reverse. And on Yom Kippur we’re not supposed to eat at all (though many of us spend that entire day thinking about food all the time). It’s a mitzvah to serve and eat food at a bris or a wedding. It’s a mitzvah to bring food to a shiva house. There are blessings before food, and after food, that differ based on what the ingredients of the food are: if it grows in the ground, if it grows on trees, if it’s one of 7 special kinds of produce from the land of Israel.
And believe it or not, with all of this list so far, I actually haven’t yet mentioned the system of kashrut - which prohibits certain foods entirely, which prohibits eating certain foods in combination, and which requires that many foods, actually all meat, be prepared in particular ways. All of this means that observant Jews have to be pretty aware of exactly what they are eating, and when, and what the ingredients are. Yes, every culture has its special foods - but not quite like THIS. And every religion has some kind of ritual surrounding food - but again, not quite to this degree.

But very few people look at this entire system and see it for what it is - reframing the act of eating so it is not a mere biological function, and not merely a social and recreational activity,
but a spiritual practice. An act of holiness.

It was a preschool parent who first pointed out to me that someone who comes to a Jewish preschool, watching the prayers that were recited, how holidays were celebrated, and the content of many of the songs, would quickly get the impression that Judaism really is all about food.
It’s only after they become adults that they realize that it’s really partially true. In fact, the 18th c. Eastern European mystical sage known as the Darche Tzedek went so far as to say: “The main service of God is through eating…and the tzadikim, the righteous ones, meditate as they eat, in love and fear of God. They eat like they are praying.”

In fact, this is exactly how we might describe what is most distinctive about a Jewish spiritual approach to the world. Jewish ritual specializes in making each moment special, in sanctifying mundane and everyday actions. And what could be more mundane and everyday than the act of eating?

For each of the past 13 years, I have had the opportunity to teach introductory classes in Judaism for kids and adults. Without fail, the one topic that is hardest for people to connect with
is kashrut -- the Jewish dietary laws. Not surprisingly. For someone who didn’t grow up with them, they seem outlandish, they seem like the very most irrelevant part of Judaism. And many people from this community have told me so. In all these years, I have not broached the subject on the High Holidays.

But as time goes on, I have a feeling that the food-oriented dimension of Judaism is being catapulted into the category of the MOST contemporary and MOST relevant facets of Judaism.
We’re increasingly realizing that our relationship with food is a most important facet of our relationship with the earth and all its inhabitants. And a relationship with food holds one of the keys to a Jewish understanding of our relationship with God and the world.

It has often been my practice to choose a particular mitzvah, or set of mitzvot, to highlight on the 2nd day of Rosh haShanah, My goal today is not to get anyone to suddenly start keeping kosher.
But if kashrut is utterly distant and irrelevant to you, perhaps I can shed some light on why some people, including me, find it to be valuable. And if Kashrut is significant in your life, perhaps I can give you some new ways to think about it, and to articulate it to the people who will inevitably ask you why you’re still living in the 18th century.

When I started teaching about Kashrut, often I would be asked, “How could your food choices POSSIBLY be connected to ethics and spirituality?” Interestingly, I don’t get that particular question so much anymore. Because today it’s obvious that food is connected to ethics and spirituality.

A fundamental message of kashrut is that different food choices carry different ethical implications. Twenty years ago, Rabbi Harold Kushner said it very bluntly when he boiled the essence of Kashrut down to one principle: “Eating meat is a moral compromise. There is a difference between eating a hamburger and eating a bowl of cereal.” And he correctly noted that Kashrut is not really about food - Kashrut is about meat: what kinds can be eaten, how it is to be slaughtered, how it is to be prepared, and what it is to be served with and not served with, because, of all foods, meat is what uniquely requires the taking of a life.

But today we would probably expand upon Rabbi Kushner’s statement. Writers like Michael Pollan, Barbara Kingsolver, and others remind us that there are lots of moral compromises involved in the act of eating that we might not even have been aware of. Sure, eating a hamburger involves the taking of a life, and eating a bowl of cereal doesn’t. But suppose this hamburger came from the meat of a calf that was allowed to run free on the farm throughout its life, without injections of hormones or other interventions, fed healthy feed, and then slaughtered in a painless manner? And suppose the grain for this bowl of cereal was sprayed with potentially dangerous pesticides, harvested using exploited foreign labor, and then sold by a company with a terrible record of treating its employees? Now which one is the greater moral compromise? It’s harder to tell, isn’t it? If we take the themes of kashrut to heart, we should try to figure it out – and to minimize the inevitable ethical compromises we make when we eat.

The last couple of years have highlighted ethical lapses in food production - especially the production of meat. And sadly, much kosher meat - which is really supposed to adhere to a “higher standard” - falls short of what is ethical in terms of treatment of animals, treatment of workers, and treatment of the environment. We can be proud that within the next year, Conservative Judaism will begin to mark products with its ‘Magen Tzedek’ - a seal of approval, similar to a kosher supervision symbol, that marks kosher products that adhere to a set of objective standards to ensure that people - whether they keep kosher or not - who want to bring an ethical sensitivity to their act of eating can easily do so.

But kashrut is not only about ethics. It’s also about awareness and holiness. One of the implications of Judaism’s focus on food and food rituals is that it makes it that much harder to eat mindlessly if you’re keeping track of whether foods are kosher or not, and what blessing you’re supposed to say over them. And thus keeping kosher, ideally, encourage mindful eating.
Does this mindfulness happen all the time? Of course not. But it’s the ideal, and ideals never become realities unless someone makes the effort. In fact, the sage Tzadok ha-Kohen of Lublin used to say that even if you eat just one food each week in a mode of true awareness and appreciation, that elevates all the less mindful eating you did that week. I don’t know if that’s true, but I do know that many people around the world could probably benefit if they ate even one food item each week in a state of mindfulness and awareness.

A unique initiative that our synagogue community has undertaken this year is our sponsorship of a CSA - Community Supported Agriculture, in which people in our community purchase a share of the produce of a New Jersey farmer that gets delivered to the synagogue every week, thanks to the initiative of a number of people from our community, especially coordinator Julie Steinberg, and many volunteers. We didn’t do this just as a service to our members. We also did it for Jewish spiritual reasons – because the experience of eating is transformed when you have a bond with the producers of the food, when you know something about the story of the food.

I first began to understand how contemplating the origins of our food enhances our spiritual connection to our food and the earth, the first time I saw a sign language interpreter
sign the Hamotzi, the blessing over bread. The blessing, of course, goes, “Blessed are you, Adonai our God, ruler of the universe, hamotzi lechem min ha-aretz. Who brings forth bread from the earth.” And the interpreter signed it very literally, in a set of signs that I can’t replicate here, but that looked like he was extracting bread from the earth. Of course, bread doesn’t literally get extracted from the earth. The process by which we get bread from the earth is so tortuous that we may usually eat bread completely oblivious to where it came from. But the goal of the blessing is to help us to focus our attention on the food’s origin. In fact, most of the Jewish blessings for food include a reference to the food’s origin. And food educators note that one of the ways to help people to eat more consciously, and make food choices more consciously, is to encourage them to consider the ‘back story’ of their food and where it came from.

Coming off of a year of multiple environmental disasters, we can only hope that tomorrow’s decision-makers will feel a closer bond with the environment than today’s decision-makers -
that they will regard it as a partner to be cooperated with rather than a victim to be stripped of its resources. And perhaps a deeper awareness of the earth as the source of our nourishment
can help them to develop a new understanding of their relationship with the earth. If we’re going to succeed in rectifying over a century’s worth of environmental damage, it’s going to happen through a combination of corporate and government initiative, and the outlook changes and lifestyle changes of people like you and me, coming to a new understanding of our relationship with the earth.

Human beings are remarkably adept at tuning out routine experiences, at becoming jaded and unfazed by almost anything, so long as it happens frequently enough. Ralph Waldo Emerson said about the stars in the sky: “If the stars should appear one night in a thousand, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the City of God which had been shown!...” It’s specifically because the stars, and other amazing phenomena in the world are around all the time, that we ignore them. And similarly, the miraculous act of eating becomes mindless routine because it happens so regularly. The Jewish rituals around food, ideally, defamiliarize us,they slow us down just enough to appreciate eating as a gift from God.

Then there’s another dimension of Kashrut -the Jewish identity dimension. Is Jewish identity a function of who you are inside, or is it a function of what you do? The answer is clear -- and demographic studies of the Jewish community plainly indicate: It’s possible for someone to feel very Jewish inside, but they are going to have a very hard time transmitting that Jewish identity to the next generation unless there are demonstrable Jewish things that are part of their lives on a regular basis.

Someone from this community who was starting to adopt kashrut once told me: Listen: I understand all the spiritual and ethical reasons for keeping kosher. But let me tell you what Kashrut really accomplishes for me. Every day, on an hour by hour basis, I am thinking about being Jewish, because, for the first time in my life, the fact that I am Jewish is affecting my choices about what I order in a restaurant, what I pick up in the supermarket, what I am ordering from FreshDirect. Before starting to keep kosher, I might think about being Jewish, say, a couple of times a week,or from shabbat to shabbat, but this keeps my Jewish identity ever present. And without kashrut, I don’t know what else would do that for me.”

Like everything else in Judaism, Kashrut is not an all-or-nothing proposition. Some people observe the laws strictly in their entirety, while others chart their own relationship with the tradition. While traditional Jewish texts certainly urge the former, they also recognize that many people do the latter. This year, may our individual teshuvah processes include ways we can deepen OUR relationships with God and with the world; may we challenge ourselves to bring ever greater awareness to even the mundane aspects of our lives, so that we can truly declare, along with the angels: מלא כל הארץ כבודו - the entire world is full of God’s presence.
Shanah Tovah!

Rosh HaShanah 1st Day 5771 / 2010: "Letter from the Ark"

2010-09-14T07:50:00.001-07:00

Shanah Tovah! Here is the text of my sermon from the 1st day of Rosh HaShanah 5771 / 2010. Other sermons will be posted shortly.

Some things that I have learned about this year that I didn’t learn in rabbinical school:
The difference between the New Jersey Registry of Historic Places

and the National Registry of Historic Places.
Different types of smoke detectors

and which ones can get set off by carpentry dust.
and - that that eagle and those lions are actually removable.

We have talked about what an intensely challenging year this has been for many of us,
for most of the people in our region, our country, and throughout the world.
But this is also a time of great triumph and celebration for this community -
because, as we know, this has been the year that we have FINALLY completed our renovation - through its various phases -
and we hope you are pleased with the result!
yes, like all construction, it took a little longer than expected.
For example, The bar and bat mitzvah kids from 2005 whose families were initially concerned that their special days and events would be displaced by the construction-
they are actually starting college this fall.
As they say, time flies when you’re doing a historic renovation!

I imagine I speak for many of us when I say that it is a special joy
to gather here today
in this inspiring place for prayer and reflection and celebration -
in this space that remains just as historic as ever,
but is a good deal safer than ever – more accessible than ever -
and also, just as exquisitely beautiful as it was on the day it opened in May 1915.
and I am so full of gratitude to all those who made this happen - which is, actually, almost all of you -
and especially to those volunteers who steered the project along,
through fundraising, team-building, organizing, making architectural and aesthetic decisions, and seeing the project to its conclusion.

Construction is something I know absolutely nothing about.
but generously the committee often consulted with me about various decisions,
especially aesthetic decisions.
So this morning I want to tell you the story of the back wall of the ark.
As you know, the ark is the focal point of our sanctuary,
and it’s where we keep our Torah scrolls.
And as far as we can tell, throughout the history of this synagogue,
the inside of the ark was covered with fabric.
So Louise Kurtz and Harriet Taub went in there a few weeks ago to replace the fabric
and also - to see what was underneath that fabric.
And you won’t guess what they found.
Another layer of fabric.
And another layer. and another layer. And another layer.
Until eventually they discovered that behind it all was some nice quality wood.
And when our restoration artist saw this, she said,
“Why don’t we put gold paint or gold leaf on the inside of the ark?
We already had plenty which we used to re-gild various items on the exterior of the ark, as you see -
why not the interior also?

So in their generosity, Ken and the committee posed the question to me:
is there any reason why we shouldn’t put gold on the inside of the ark?
Being a rabbi, I can’t really listen to a question like that
without various biblical verses getting replayed in my head.
And the question made me think of a passage in the book of Exodus, Parashat Trumah,
that describes the construction of the ORIGINAL ark of the covenant -
the ark from the Mishkan, the traveling sanctuary during the period of wndering in the desert.
In that passage, we read: וצפית אותו זהב טהור מבית ומחוץ תצפנו (Exodus 25:11)
The ark should be covered with gold, both interior and exterior.
And I thought, that’s a good enough reason for me.
Now our ark can emulate the ark in the Tabernacle.
So you may not have noticed it, but the next time the ark is opened,
you’ll see that the inside is colored gold.
(By the way - in case you’re wondering, it’s, um, not real gold,
which would be beyond our means just now.
Though if you find that disappointing,
and you’re fortunate enough to be in the position to do something about it,
chat with Ken during kiddush!)
But here’s the part of the story that absolutely no one else knows.
Even I didn’t know this part of the story until I started writing this sermon.
Is it a true story?
Let’s just say it depends on what your definition of the word ‘true’ is.
Or call it a ‘midrash’ if you prefer.

This past Saturday night, late at night, I checked inside the ark
and there was a letter-size envelope.
It was labeled “Star of Israel” - but then the words “Star of Israel” were crossed out
and written over it were the words “United Synagogue of Hoboken.”
And under that were the words “To the Community.”

Upon glancing at it, I realized that this truly extraordinary correspondence
was intended for the entire community,
and so I would like to read it to you now.

“Dear United Synagogue of Hoboken Community:

Welcome back to your sanctuary!
This will probably be the most unusual letter you will ever receive.
Yes, people usually think of me as an inanimate object,
as a glorified storage area with a pretty curtain.
But I will have you know that from the perspective of Jewish law,
I am a ‘kli kodesh’ - a holy object for holy use.
And for this reason, I wanted to express my appreciation to the community
for making the decision to adorn my interior with gold.
Let me tell you why.

Your rabbi is aware, and perhaps has even told you,
that this is how the Torah describes the creation of the original ark -
the Aron ha-Edut in the Mishkan, in the Tabernacle.
That it is says, וצפית אותו זהב טהור, מבית ומחוץ תצפנו.
cover it with pure gold, on the interior as well as the exterior.
And it feels great for me to have something important in common with that original ark.

But here’s something I bet your rabbi didn’t tell you.
The ark in the Tabernacle was different from me.
THAT ark was simply a box that held the tablets of the 10 commandments.
It would never get opened. Only its outside would ever be visible.
And that’s what made our sages so perplexed about this commandment
to put gold on the INTERIOR of the ark.
Why? It’s not like anyone will ever see the interior.
So save a little gold - no one will ever know.
And yet, the Torah commands that you’re supposed to put gold on the interior, anyway.
And so, the sages in the Talmud
came to regard the ark, with its gold on the exterior but ALSO on the interior where it would never be seen,
as a powerful metaphor for a person.
everyone knows what you put on your exterior.
other people see your clothes, your face, all the physical manifestations of your self.
And everyone sees how you act in public, what you say, what you do when people are looking.
But -- except for certain particularly intimate friends,
most people never genuinely see who you are inside.
It’s only you, and God, who really know what you are like on the inside.
So when the Torah tells us that the ark was covered with gold both inside and out,
that led the sages to say that we must each be the same way.
In fact, the Talmud comments in tractate Yoma (72b),
[Amar Rava:] kol talmid hacham she-ein tocho ke-varo, eino talmid hacham.
Any sage whose interior is not like his exterior -
is not a real sage.

So it’s my hope that any time I am open,
people in your community will see the gold and be reminded of the importance of ‘tocho ke-varo’ -
of having one’s interior match one’s exterior.
For a very small number of people, the ark may help them to confront
the reality that there is a dramatic distance between how they are perceived by others
and how they genuinely are on the inside.
people who abuse the trust of others; people who carry the mantle of integrity as a cover for dishonesty and corruption;
people who are perceived as kind and generous in their professional or civic life but then come home to terrorize their families.
For people like that, hopefully seeing the gold will be a warning for them that their lives are in serious disorder.
But it’s my experience over these last 96 years
that that’s not really the kind of people who frequent your synagogue.

As far as I can tell, each person has a secret self.
For all people, there is probably some gap between the people they genuinely are
and the people as they present themselves for public consumption.
But there have got to be places that can truly be your ‘sanctuaries,’
places where you can be most genuinely yourselves.
It’s my hope that the synagogue ought to be one of those places.
So hopefully when the ark curtain is opened,
you can see the gold, and it can remind you to check in with your core,
to connect with your innermost self....in the process known as teshuvah.

And then I am sure there are some people who have forgotten that they have gold inside -
especially this year, people who have felt beaten down, discouraged,
concerned about meeting their life goals,
and even questioning their worth.
For you, my prayer is that when you see gold inside the ark
that it will remind us of all the beauty and purity at your core,
that nothing can take away from you –

And that the true measure of a person’s worth has nothing to do with possessions or employment, but with chesed – with kindness.

And this community as a whole, also, can learn something
from the gold inside the ark.
For years, so much communal energy has been invested in the exterior beauty of this community
and the state of its physical building.
As important as that process has been, and as exquisite the result,
now is the time to remind the community about interior beauty,
about the need to nurture the soul of the community along with its body.
And the gold inside the ark can be a useful reminder
that the success of any synagogue or house of worship truly has almost nothing at all to do with the physical space,
and everything to do with the quality of the relationships that are forged there, the depth of the learning and caring and spiritual striving that is accomplished there.

But honestly, all this is only PART
of why I wanted to thank you for putting gold on my interior walls.
Because there is yet another way to understand the symbolism of mi-bayit u-michutz tezapenu:
“the ark should be covered with gold inside and out.’

Maybe some of you recognize
that the word ‘bayit’ means ‘house,’ or ‘home,’ and ‘chutz’ means ‘outside.’
So whereas figuratively they mean ‘interior and exterior,’ they also mean “at home” and “away from home.”
‘bayit’ can also refer to one’s home turf, or one’s home community,
and ‘chutz’ can refer to the rest of the world.
And that leads to one of the most significant questions that Jewish communities ought to ask.
In your community, is Judaism primarily concerned with what happens to other Jews?
or does Judaism have a universalistic vision that is concerned with all people and all of creatures?

And I am gratified that you have chosen that the knd of Jewish community you want to live in
is one that is covered with gold both on the inside and on the outside.
Demonstrating that your priorities are both -- to look inside, at the Jewish community,
and also to look outside - at the world as a whole.

After all – now brace yourselves for a provocative statement:

After all, God isn’t Jewish.
According to Jewish tradition - and this is essentially a unanimous view -
God is the creator of the entire world,
and in that role God and shows special concern for every species, every nation, and every individual.
There are numerous citations in the Bible that suggest
that God has special relationships with many nations -
that God has redeemed many peoples from their various captivities,
so don’t feel so special about the liberation from Egypt.
The book of Deuteronomy teaches
that God specifically assigned some of the heavenly spheres and planets as objects of worship for the other nations,
which seems to imply that God has some degree of tolerance for different religious beliefs and practices.
Whatever the idea of the Chosen People may mean,
there’s one thing we are SURE it doesn’t mean -
which is that Judaism as a religion is correct to the exclusion of all others.
And of course, that’s something beautiful
that sets Judaism apart from many other major world religions.
Christianity, in its classical form, dreams of a perfect world in which everyone is Christian.
Islam dreams of a perfect world in which everyone is Muslim.
And what does Judaism dream of? A perfect world in which JEWS are Jewish -
and other people constitute a diverse mosaic just as they do today -
but in this perfect world, everyone is good, just, generous, compassionate, and gentle.
That’s how Jews have always dreamed that you create a world at peace -
not by walloping everyone until they accept your ideas,
but by encouraging them to maximally be themselves.

And these theological messages are reinforced by the Jewish historical experience.
Having been slaves in Egypt - inclines Jews to work to liberate others from their oppressions.
The experience of the Holocaust - in which we sadly note the paucity of ‘righteous gentiles’ who risked their lives to save the lives of Jews -
inclines Jews to be the righteous to save the lives of others.

And Judaism expresses a universalistic vision in charitable giving.
feeding the hungry, visiting the sick, redeeming captives -
a Jew is obligated to do all of these things for people of all backgrounds and religions.
This is, in part, why your congregation was a founding constituent of the Hoboken Shelter,
and you remain one of the 5 congregations that support it and commit each year to provide a big chunk of its funding.
And I hope your rabbi is taking every opportunity to remind you that Ruth Messinger, the international human rights advocate and president of American Jewish World Service,
is visiting your synagogue on Oct 16 - I was amazed with excitement when I heard about it.
American Jewish World Service is an organization whose mission is to fulfill the Jewish value of tikkun olam - of ‘being agents for the repair of the entire world,’
responding at trouble spots around the world, places like Haiti, Darfur,Pakistan,, in the name of the American Jewish Community.

From everything I have seen, from my vantage point over the course of this century:
for an organization like the American Jewish World Service to be one of the larger and more successful American Jewish organizations today
is a remarkable transformation.
This would not have happened one hundred years ago/
no way could there have been a Jewish organization that is so saturated with Jewish values and Jewish teachings
and that exists primarily to serve the non-Jewish world.

Over the last 96 years, there are a lot of people who have sat in those pews in which you are now sitting.
And I bet you can guess what were the burning issues on their minds.
Certainly sometimes they were focused on the large issues in American society- the great depression; world wars and local wars, the civil rights movement.
But for most of them, for the largest part of that 96 years,
the issues that loomed largest were the Jewish issues.
Pogroms in Russia. anti-Semitism in Germany. The horrifying news of the Holocaust. the effort to create the modern state of Israel. the suffering and expulsion of the Jews of Arab countries. And Israel’s lengthy effort, having arrived and integrated the neighborhood of the middle east, to convince its neighbors that it had no plans to disappear.
I couldn’t possibly count the number of meetings, the number of impassioned speeches,
the tears that were shed in this room over these 96 years
out of concern for the welfare of the Jewish people around the world.
And such efforts continue to be relevant
for as long as Jews are threatened or in danger anywhere.

Jews are not only a religion, but also a people, a family.
Jews experience kinship with each other, based on common experiences and a common history,
just as two family members have a special bond because of common experiences and a common history.
And with a common history like that, it’s not so surprising
that most 20th Jews were especially focusing inward, on Jewish concerns.
Increasingly, younger Jews tend to have a more universalistic outlook.
Which is wonderful for all the reasons I mentioned before.
But I get concerned when I see it taken to an extreme.

Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach used to remark that if he would encounter someone who proudly affirmed, “I am a Catholic,’ then that person was usually a Catholic,.
Someone who would proudly announce, “I am a Protestant!” was usually a Protestant.
And someone who would proudly announce, “I am a human being!” -- was usually Jewish.

Jews were often the among the first ones

\to jump on the bandwagon of radical universalism -
in part because it seemed to fit in so naturally

with their understanding of Jewish values:
honor the stranger; respect every human being,

created in God’s image and thus a reflection of you.
But somehow, the universalistic promise tended not to get delivered to the Jewish people.
The Jewish Russian novelist, David Bergelson, was murdered by Stalin in 1952.
Before his death, he recalled
"I traded in my six-speared Jewish star for a five-speared Soviet star
and the sixth spear is stuck in my heart."

Somehow, throughout the twentieth century,
universalists embraced the noble goals and aspirations of peoples around the world - except that often the Jewish aspirations,
including the need for perennially homeless Jews to have SOME place around the world where they can live in peace and security,
were classified as parochial whining.

Increasingly there is a gap between younger Jews and older Jews
in terms of their connection to Israel.
For many older Jews, that connection is automatic.
it comes out of the experience of history, of anti-semitism,
of either memory of, or great familiarity with, the era before there was a Jewish state;
memory of the unabashed anti-Jewishness of Israel’s Arab neighbors.
And for many younger Jews, the connection is not so automatic.
Even with the amazing Birthright israel program, they are less likely to have traveled to Israel, less likely to know Israelis -
so that when they read in the news about threats to Israel’s security,
they aren’t as likely to conjure up the faces of actual Israelis they know
who are dealing with the consequences.
They are less likely to have a strong Jewish identity oriented around a sense of peoplehood.
They regard the issues of right and wrong to be cloudier,
more likely to question aspects of the Zionist narratives they have been taught.

I’ll let the rabbi speak more directly about Israel if he wants to,
but here are my two cents.
When you think about Israel, and when you speak about Israel,
remember that, at your synagogue, the ark has gold on the inside AND on the outside.
May the gold on the inside remind you
that if you are Jewish, then Israel is family.
and may the gold on the outside remind you that you should be moved by the suffering of ANY individual in the world.
You can be a passionate supporter of Israel without agreeing with every Israeli policy.

You can be a critic of Israeli policies while also acknowledging that there is a tremendous amount of criticism of Israel that is unfair and anti-Semitic.
And you can emphatically reject the delegitimization of Israel, while still conceding that like every society, Israel has serious faults and failures.

You can celebrate Israel’s successes while also addressing those faults in a way that demonstrates that you understand that the issues are complex,
and in such a way that people living in Israel would not perceive you as indifferent to their real and unique security predicaments.

Thousands of years ago, Hillel taught us to come to the most appropriate balance between the needs of the self and one’s own group,
and the needs of others.
Im Ein Ani li, mi li? If I am not willing to take a stand for myself, who will be for me?
u-kshe-ani le-atzmi -mah ani? But if I am ONLY for myself, what am I?
ve-im lo akhshav - eimatai? And if not now, when?

And Rabbi Harold Schulweis expresses a similar idea with the image of the Shofar.
blow into the wide end, and the shofar makes no sound.
but if you blow into the narrow end, THROUGH the wide end,
then the call of the Shofar can be heard.
Judaism begins by focusing on the narrow - on the Jewish people -
but ends up transforming the world.

I know I have taken a lot of your time reading this unusual letter.
But I hope it will give you something to ponder,
to translate your physical surroundings into kavanah,
expressing your hopes, prayers, and thanksgiving at the cusp of a new year.

Each year, my favorite part of the High Holidays is at the Neilah service, at the conclusion of Yom Kippur,
when streams of people come up to spend a moment standing right in front of the ark.
Perhaps this year, the gold on the ark - inside and out - will help you to connect with everything that is golden in your life, in your soul, and in your community, and in the world.
In this new year, may each of these be ‘tocho ke-varo’ – beautiful inside and out.

Signed
Your Aron Kodesh, your holy ark.

Shanah Tovah!

High Holidays Teleconference - Wednesday, September 1

2010-09-01T17:13:00.001-07:00

Here are some links to resources for the USH High Holidays Teleconference Class on Wed., Sept. 1. (I expect to post a link to the audio recording of the class soon.)

Source sheet on teshuvah and prayer for the High Holidays

Unetaneh Tokef prayer from new Mahzor Lev Shalem

Kol Nidrei prayer from new Mahzor Lev Shalem

"Getting the Most out of the High Holidays" pamphlet from USH

Torah blessings - text and sound files

2010-06-28T13:50:00.001-07:00

Here are files to assist you if your family or friends need to brush up on the Torah blessings that are recited when one is called up to the torah for an aliyah.

Torah blessings in Hebrew, transliteration, and English - pdf file

Torah blessings - mp3 sound file

Pesach resources

2010-03-23T14:28:00.001-07:00

Here are some Pesach resources for people participating in the "Spicing Up your Seder" conference call on Tues March 23.

Ron Wolfson's article "Ten Tips for a Great Seder" is a classic and a succinct way to present great seder suggestions.

Jewishfreeware.org has downloadable haggadot - all for free - making it easy to customize your own haggadah. The site also has a tremendous number of stories, songs, readings, etc.

Some more great free downloadable haggadot are:
Alex Weinberg's child-friendly Haggadah
The Haggadah of Valley Beth Shalom Synagogue in California, edited by Rabbis Ed Feinstein and Harold Schulweis

If you want to do the game of putting the steps of the seder in order, you can download a large-size version here

Rabbi Scheinberg's Seder songs CD and the words (including songs at the end of the seder in Yiddish and Ladino)

Lots of sound clips of Echad Mi Yodea from around the Jewish world, in Hebrew, Aramaic, Yiddish, Ladino, Judeo-Italian, etc.

The discussion sheets I have used for the "My Father was a Wandering Aramean" section of the Haggadah (intended for adults) can be accessed here

Music of the Passover Seder

2010-03-04T15:31:00.000-08:00

http://web.mac.com/mfishbein/Seder_Songs/Seder_Songs.html is my recording of the music of the Passover Seder, together with the words to the songs and prayers, in Hebrew, Yiddish, Ladino, and English transliteration. (Words available here.)

Friday Night Service recording

2010-03-04T15:24:00.000-08:00

http://www.scheinberg.net/rabbi/Friday_night_service_recording_scheinberg.zip includes sound files of the entire Friday night service as sung at the United Synagogue of Hoboken. There's a track list in the .zip file. This is useful for people who want to learn to follow along with the Friday night service or who would like to learn to lead the service. Many thanks to Leo Hmelnitsky who originally helped me to record this.

sound file resources for Zayin (7th grade) class at USH

2010-03-02T15:10:00.001-08:00

SOUND FILES:

Torah blessings:

www.scheinberg.net/rabbi/torah_haftarah_blessings_with_trope.pdf - text of Torah blessings and blessing before the Haftarah
www.scheinberg.net/rabbi/torah_blessings.mp3 - sound file of Torah blessings

Haftarah blessings and Haftarah materials:

www.scheinberg.net/rabbi/torah_haftarah_blessings_with_trope.pdf - text of Torah blessings and blessing before the Haftarah
www.scheinberg.net/rabbi/blessing_after_haftarah_with_notation.pdf - text of blessing after haftarah
www.scheinberg.net/rabbi/blessing_before_haftarah.mp3 - sound file of blessing before haftarah
www.scheinberg.net/rabbi/blessing_after_haftarah.mp3 - sound file of blessing after haftarah
www.scheinberg.net/rabbi/haftarah_trope_musical_notation.pdf - musical notation for Haftarah trope

Shabbat morning service:
www.scheinberg.net/rabbi/torah_service_and_musaf.zip (sound files for torah service and musaf)
www.scheinberg.net/rabbi/torah_service_and_musaf_sheets.pdf (text of torah service and musaf)

What do the rabbis have to do with the mayors? - What you need to know about the Jewish side of the New Jersey corruption scandal

2009-07-23T21:20:00.000-07:00

Dear friends,

I wrote the following, to sum up some of my experiences today, and to clarify some very deep misconceptions about the role of Jews and rabbis in this scandal.

Incidentally, the single most helpful thing I have read to explain the scandal is the Department of Justice press release, here: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/2009/07/doj-press-release-on-nj-corruption-and-money-laundering-arrests.php.

====================================

What do the rabbis have to do with the mayors?
What you need to know about the Jewish side of the New Jersey corruption scandal

What do the rabbis have to do with the mayors?
A nervous caller to my office this morning was certainly wondering.
"Rabbi Scheinberg? Are you okay?"
"Yes, I'm fine."
"Because my neighbor just told me that the mayor and the rabbi in Hoboken were arrested! I said, 'no, not Rabbi Rob, there's no way!' But she said, 'You know, sometimes it's the people who seem most trustworthy are the ones who you have to watch out for..."

Thus began my day this morning. Over the course of the day, I had more conversations with people who had read the headlines, including the words "Hoboken" and "rabbis' and "arrested," and were concerned that perhaps I, or the synagogue, were involved in the corruption scandal.

Later in the day, as I walked around Hoboken and children waved to me and said, "Hi, Rabbi," or when I visited someone in the hospital and introduced myself as the patient's rabbi, I got a sense that, to those who overheard the conversations, the title commanded less respect than yesterday, and that the word "rabbi" had been dragged through the mud today. And it made me furious at those rabbis who ostensibly share my religion but seem to overlook the Jewish ethical tradition, just as I am furious at the corrupt politicians. The traditional term for these religious leaders is "mechalelei ha-shem" - "those who desecrate God's name."

It was fascinating to see the initial news reports that sought to make sense of this peculiar story that included both corrupt politicians and corrupt rabbis. In those early hours, reporters and commentators struggled to come up with a coherent narrative that linked corruption with money-laundering and that linked the misconduct of the politicians with the misconduct of the rabbis, and that somehow linked it all to that tantalizing news about trafficking in human body parts.

And it was disheartening to see how the story motivated many on-line anti-Semites to make blanket condemnations of rabbis and Jews in general as responsible for the woes of Hudson County, New Jersey, and the United States. (Just look at the comments sections of nj.com for plenty of examples.)

By mid-day, people who were following the news reports closely realized that there were really two almost completely separate stories here: the rabbis/money-laundering story, and the politicians/corruption story.

What did these two stories have in common? Simply that it was the same cooperating witness, Solomon Dwek, who assisted the FBI in all these investigations. He is a member of the Syrian Orthodox Jewish community on the New Jersey Shore. In the course of being prosecuted for his own financial misconduct, he chose to become a cooperating witness, presumably to reduce his own punishment. He then gave the FBI access to whomever he could. He started by giving them access to the institutions and leaders of the Syrian Jewish community in Deal and Brooklyn, exposing the elaborate money-laundering scheme. Then, he started to approach various mayors and political leaders, posing as a developer and dangling bribes in exchange for preferential treatment in the zoning process.

So what do the rabbis and the New Jersey mayors have in common? Almost nothing, except that their arrests happened to take place on the same day, and the same witness was involved.

It is of course terribly damaging and embarrassing to the Jewish community that there were so many observant Jews, including at least five rabbis, apparently involved in financial misconduct. But headlines like "Mayors of Hoboken, Secaucus, and several rabbis arrested in corruption probe" make it appear that rabbis are the big players in corruption in New Jersey, when that is obviously not the case. And as the witness in the case was an Orthodox Jew from the Syrian community, it is not surprising that that's the first community to which he led the FBI. Had he been from a different ethnic or religious group, it could have been a different group in the headlines.

But for those who catch just snippets of the radio news bulletins, or those who quickly scan the newspaper headlines, all these distinctions will sadly mean nothing. The mayors and the rabbis will always be linked in their minds, and the story will be seen through the lens of whatever stereotypes about Jews and rabbis they already had.

Comments on corruption arrests in New Jersey

2009-07-23T11:50:00.000-07:00

Here is the note I sent to the congregation earlier today.
Yes, it makes for interesting reading next to my comments at Mayor Cammarano's inauguration (see below).

Dear friends,

You may have seen the news reports this morning about the arrest of Hoboken's Mayor Peter Cammarano, as well as various other political leaders and religious leaders in New Jersey, by the FBI in a wide-ranging corruption and money laundering probe. (Linkhttp://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/07/nj_officials_ny_rabbis_caught.html).

Many of us find these arrests shocking. If the allegations are true, these political and religious leaders have violated the public trust in a major and unacceptable way and need to suffer the consequences of their actions. The situation is a reminder to us of the high degree of ethical behavior we demand from our public officials and institutional leaders. I hope that the judicial system will yield just verdicts in their cases. In the meantime, I think of them and their families and empathize with what they are going through right now. They are innocent until proven guilty, and if any of them are innocent, I hope that this can be discovered swiftly with minimum further disruption to their lives.

You may also have seen that among those arrested were some rabbis, and some Jewish institutions in Brooklyn NY and Deal NJ are under investigation. That the headlines include the words "Hoboken" and "rabbis" and "arrested" has already led several people to contact the synagogue with concern about whether our synagogue is involved, or whether I am involved. The answer, as you certainly guessed, is categorically "no." I learned about this situation for the first time at about 9am this morning. It goes without saying that our synagogue's financial management is a model of ethical propriety. Our community has absolutely no ties to the Jewish institutions which are being investigated.

As we pray each Shabbat morning:
"Our God and God of our ancestors, we ask your blessings upon our city, and our country,
and its leaders and advisors, and all who exercise just and rightful authority.
Teach them insights of your Torah, so they may administer all affairs of state fairly,
so that peace and security, happiness and prosperity, justice and freedom, may forever abide in our midst."

Shalom,
Rabbi Robert Scheinberg

Rabbi Scheinberg in an Egyptian magazine

2009-07-17T11:00:00.000-07:00

Last Shabbat I mentioned the article about me in Arabic in an Egyptian magazine. This happened a few years ago and I have never gotten the article translated. It occurred to me that I should post it here so that anyone who wants to translate it can do so. The magazine is called "The Voice of Arabism," or "Sot Al-Oroba," and the author is Yehia Gad-alla El-Tawil. I believe the article focuses on interreligious activities in Hudson County NJ.

Inauguration Day in Hoboken

2009-07-01T19:26:00.001-07:00

Dear friends,

I was honored today to speak twice at Hoboken’s inauguration festivities.

First, this morning I spoke at the Interfaith Service at Our Lady of Grace Church, in honor of the new mayor and councilpeople. I was asked to share a text from Jewish tradition and to use it as a basis for identifying some of the leadership challenges for the new mayor and council. My remarks are below.

Second, I was honored to deliver the benediction at the conclusion of the inauguration ceremony this afternoon. Those remarks are also below. (You may notice that some of the wording is adapted from the Prayer for Our Country that we recite every Shabbat during our services.)

The day had many highlights for me. The inauguration ceremony featured a masterful speech by Newark’s Mayor Cory Booker, along with speeches by Governor Corzine, Senator Lautenberg, and a very gracious acceptance speech by Mayor Cammarano.

I have to share, though, that the emotional highlight for me was when Councilman Ravi Bhalla spoke immediately after being sworn in. You may know that Councilman Bhalla is now the highest-ranking Sikh official in the United States government. I was close enough to see that he took the oath of office with his hand on a book of the Sikh scriptures. After being sworn in, he told the story of how his father had arrived to the United States 40 years ago on a science scholarship, knowing no one and with not more than $50 in his pocket. His father had been animated by the dream that the United States was a place where people were truly free to be different -- and now, 40 years later, his son’s inauguration as a Councilman was a fulfillment of that American dream. As he spoke, I was thinking about the first generations of Jewish immigrants to the United States, animated by that same dream, and their excitement when Jews were first able to attain elected office despite their minority status.

Later on on Wednesday afternoon, at the City Council meeting that immediately followed the inauguration, USH member Dawn Zimmer was unanimously elected as Council President, and she took her oath of office with her hand on a Chumash (a Jewish edition of the text of the Torah with commentary). Seeing Dawn’s Chumash and Ravi Bhalla’s book of Sikh scriptures filled me with pride at the way that our country and our city value diversity and welcome the participation of the various stones in our community’s mosaic. That image will certainly be on my mind as we approach July 4.

Bivrakhah (with blessings),

Rob Scheinberg

Rabbi Robert Scheinberg’s remarks, Hoboken inauguration interfaith service, July 1, 2009, Our Lady of Grace Church

On behalf of my community, the United Synagogue of Hoboken,
I bring greetings, congratulations, and best wishes to you, Mayor-Elect Cammarano,
and to you, councilmembers-elect Bhalla, Marsh and Mello.
We wish you much success in the leadership of our community.
Every week during our services, we'll be praying for your success, good health, and wisdom
as you address our city's challenges.

I appreciate the invitation from Mayor-Elect Cammarano and from Father Santora
to speak personally, to share a text drawn from Jewish tradition
that is connected to some of our city's leadership challenges.

The following is a story from the Jerusalem Talmud (Tractate Yevamot 13a), a holy Jewish text from more than 1500 years ago.

The residents of the town of Simonia needed a leader and teacher and judge for their community.

They approached Rabbi Judah the Prince, the greatest rabbi of his generation, for his guidance.
He sent them a scholar whose name was Levi.

When Levi arrived to Simonia for the first time, the residents had constructed a huge dais for him to sit on, to honor him.
They seated him on the dais
and they proceeded to ask him a question of religious law.

But Levi was unable to answer.

They asked him a second question, but again he was unable to answer.

The people of Simonia said to themselves, so perhaps he is not an expert in religious law.

They then asked him a question of Biblical interpretation.

but again, now a third time, Levi was unable to answer.

The people of Simonia reported back to Rabbi Judah the prince: Is this the kind of scholar you sent to us!?

Rabbi Judah the Prince responded: I swear to you, I sent you a scholar every bit as good as myself!

Now Rabbi Judah arranged to meet with Levi and asked him the same questions that Levi had been asked in Simonia.
And to each question, Levi gave an excellent answer.

So Rabbi Judah asked Levi: Why is it that, when they asked you the very same questions in Simonia,
you were unable to answer?

And Levi responded: when I arrived in Simonia, they constructed a huge dais for me
and had me sit on it,
and I became so impressed with my own importance that all my wisdom suddenly left me.

Hoboken inaugurates today leaders of tremendous intelligence and wisdom
and political skill, and articulateness and passion and zeal to serve.
And our leaders will need every ounce of that intelligence and wisdom
to address the considerable challenges our city faces:
to bring a government back to fiscal responsibility, to plan for a city's future,
to care for the needs of its residents, with a special responsibility to those who are most vulnerable.
And meanwhile, to address lingering unresolved tensions, decades old,
among sub-communities in our city.
If there has ever been a Hoboken leadership team that could accomplish all that - this is that team.

But the story of Levi reminds us that even the wisest of us
can have our wisdom suddenly leave us
when we're sitting on a dais that's too high.
In our country, in our state,
in our county, and so regrettably, in our dear city -
intelligent and promising leaders
have sometimes become impressed with their own importance,
forgetting their covenant with their constituents
and the sacredness of their task.

When we look at the heroes of the Bible,
some of the greatest are the reluctant leaders -
Moses leads only after his arm has been twisted.
Isaiah regards himself as unworthy to lead until God reassures him.
Only then does he say, "here I am - send me."
They are willing to serve, but able to balance their confidence with humility.
They know that it's not all about them.

And so - my prayer for the mayor-elect and councilmembers-elect,
and all Hoboken's elected and appointed leaders:
may you learn the lesson of Levi.
May you balance your confidence with humility.
may you balance your decisiveness with careful consideration.
may you balance your zeal to speak with a readiness to listen.
may you balance your loyalty with a willingness to forge creative alliances.
May you remember that any dais of any size
can have a distorting effect on your wisdom -
and it's your wisdom we so desperately need.

And may you work together to lead Hoboken

to the bright future we know we can achieve.

Rabbi Robert Scheinberg, Benediction at Hoboken Mayoral and Council Inauguration, July 1, 2009, Howe Athletic Center:

Let us pray for our city and its leaders.

O Source of Life whom we know by so many different names,

We are grateful to live in a country that strives for liberty and justice,

a country where the people has the privilege to choose its leaders-
and to invest them with their authority.

Holy One, we ask You to send your blessings upon all the residents of our city,

people of all ethnicities and religions and careers and incomes and interests and walks of life,
who make our city a blessedly diverse mosaic.

Together, in true harmony, may we work to safeguard the ideals and free institutions
that are the pride and glory of our country and our city.

And, we pray, send your blessings upon our new Mayor, Peter Cammarano, and our new Councilpeople Bhalla, Marsh, and Mello,

together with our city's other elected and appointed officials.

Keep them in good health,

And grant them the wisdom to administer all their duties

with fairness and sensitivity.
May they balance confidence with humility,
and decisiveness with careful consideration.

May they go forth in peace to work together

to bring justice, equity, and prosperity to our community.

==========================================

Rabbi Robert Scheinberg

United Synagogue of Hoboken

115 Park Avenue
Hoboken, NJ 07030

(201) 653-6696

rabbi@hobokensynagogue.org

www.hobokensynagogue.org

links to Rabbi Scheinberg's audio files

2009-01-20T08:41:00.000-08:00

Shalom everyone!

This page (at least for now) is for me to include links to audio files and other downloads for people in my congregation (United Synagogue of Hoboken) and other who are interested.

http://www.scheinberg.net/rabbi/Friday_night_home_rituals_and_songs.zip - this is the Zip file for my recording of Friday Night Home Rituals and Songs.

My Havdalah recording: http://www.scheinberg.net/rabbi/havdalah_music.mp3

My High Holiday Nusah recordings (please note that these are large files - over 100 MB for #1 and #2. Recorded in Jerusalem, 1995. Thanks to Rabbi Marc Wolf for putting them in digital format.)

http://www.scheinberg.net/rabbi/High_Holy_Day_Nusah_Tape_1.mp3

http://www.scheinberg.net/rabbi/High_Holy_Day_Nusah_Tape_2.mp3
http://www.scheinberg.net/rabbi/High_Holy_Day_Nusah_Tape_3.mp3

Kol Nidrei as sung at USH