Vulnerability

“Happy is the person who is anxious always. But one who hardens his heart falls into misfortune.”

Proverbs 28:14

“Happy is the person who is anxious always” does not sound like an effective formula for achieving peace and serenity. To paraphrase from the “Life of Brian” – for an adage in Proverbs - it “doesn’t sound very wise to me.” How can we understand this perplexing statement?

The medieval commentators generally cluster around a singular meaning. Since the Hebrew word for anxious (the JPS translation) is “miphakhed” or fear, a number of interpreters explain that a person who fears God will always be happy because this anxiety will prevent him from wrongdoing. For Rashi, the fear is one of punishment. Fearing the consequences of sin, he will employ self-restrain under temptation. For Abraham ibn Ezra, the bar is a little higher. The constant presence of authority reminds him always to set high personal expectations of virtue.

These interpretations make sense in light of the words but not in light of the overall context. Fear of God or punishment may keep you on the straight and narrow but will not make you happy, even if you are pleased with the outcome these tensions generate. Perhaps we find a clue to understanding in the second half of the saying: “but one who hardens his heart falls into misfortune.” In the chiastic structure of this verse, anxiety is the reverse of hardening the heart. The ability to keep the heart open is a source of personal joy.

My friend Liza recently gave me a book called Daring Greatly by Brene Brown. The title is from a speech that Theodore Roosevelt gave in 1910 in Paris: “…who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.” Roosevelt gave us the charge of failing as the cost of taking important risks.

Brown gives us the charge of making ourselves vulnerable so that we are able to take emotional risks with others. She contends that when we hear other people confess to their vulnerabilities, we find them to be courageous. When we confess to our own vulnerabilities, we feel weak. She asks us to see the capacity for vulnerability as an expression of courage and strength in ourselves.

Brown relates this discrepancy in the way we view vulnerability as a function of “not being enough.” If we admit a deficiency, we are affirming a position that says, “I am not enough.” Not wise enough, not thin enough, not a good enough parent or a good enough friend. She quotes author Lynne Twist who writes that our first thought upon waking is “I didn’t get enough sleep” followed later in the day by “I don’t have enough time.” She concludes that “before we even sit up in bed, before our feet touch the floor, we’re already inadequate, already behind, already losing, already lacking something.” This position of scarcity prevents us from experiencing life’s many abundances.

Happy is the person who is vulnerable always. This reading also colludes with the verse right before it: “He who covers up his faults will not succeed; he who confesses and gives them up will find mercy” (28:14). When we are able to articulate our weaknesses, we find compassion for ourselves and others feel mercy for us. We are not objects of pity because we admit our mistakes. We become models of authenticity because we do so.

Leonard Cohen wrote in his song “Anthem,” “There is a crack in everything

That's how the light gets in.” Light comes to us when we are not afraid of the crack.

Shabbat Shalom.

Return to Memory

“We shall return to you…”

Hadran

Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav praised the gift of human forgetting, believing that if we remembered everything, we would paralyze ourselves. We might be lifted by joys unforgotten but total recall would also mean revisiting slights and anguish, anxiety and punishments. It would mean that we could never emerge out of loss.

Rabbi Nahman implies that the kind of remembering one is forgetting involves the arena of emotions. Our emotional memory fields are deep and associative. We might be in the middle of difficult work and suddenly an emotion grabs us and does not let go. It may be anger or pervasive sadness; when we caught in that maelstrom, it becomes hard to find the exit. Rabbi Nahman’s retreat from memory may not be total, but even in a partial state, it is a blessing. I remember writing an AP English essay for my exam on the quote “Time heals all wounds.” I couldn’t argue with the sentiment generally, but the word “all” felt too smug for all the hurt we humans carry.

I personally need a lot more memory back-up in reading and learning. Rabbi Nahman’s blessing of forgetfulness does not work for me there. When I can’t remember the theme of a book I read a few months ago or maybe even the title, I skewer myself. How can I possibly forget something I just read? There have been a number of articles on the benefits of reading even without recall, but it doesn’t seem right to me. Nietzsche once wrote, “The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time.” The up-side of forgetting what I read is that I can buy fewer books since I need only read the ones I’ve forgotten again. But I don’t.

There is a Jewish ritual that speaks powerfully to this act of reading and remembering: the hadran. It is a custom to say this prayer upon finishing an entire tractate of Talmud or another major Jewish work to its completion to acknowledge the momentousness of the end, which is not really an end. The Hebrew root H-D-R means glory; in Aramaic it means return or review. If you pay attention to the opening text of the Hadran, you find both of these meanings. Learning is retained when we glorify what we study and when we review it.

We shall return to you [name of book] and your glory is upon us. Out thoughts are upon you, and your thoughts are upon us. We will not be forgotten from you [name of book] and you will not be forgotten from us; neither in this world nor in the world to come…

Another striking feature of the Hadran is the way we personify the book. For the days, weeks, months or years we study it, it is in our mental embrace. We think about it. It thinks about us. It will not forget us. We will not forget it. The relationship is long-term, stretching far into the future. The dialogical nature of this prayer reflects a deeper approach than respecting the act of completion. It surfaces the nature of immersion. If a book is a true friend then not only does it stay with us and speak to us, it never leaves us because we return to it. The Hadran is not a “good-bye.” It is a “see you later” kind of expression.

Many of us who have trouble remembering what we read, have no trouble remembering people who have made their mark upon us. The Hadran makes the comparison between people and texts explicit. If you do not forget who your friends are, make this book into your friend, and it will come back to you. It will only come back to you, however, if you return to it. Learning, in Jewish terms, is not about completion but about suspension. You need to initiate.

Sometimes we can only remember the affection we have for a text; the content has long ago dissipated. It is at those moments that the Hadran gives us more than a ritual finish line. It gives us a philosophy of study. It comforts and inspires us to continue a relationship. Look at your books some time soon and whisper to your friends on the shelves, “I’ll be back soon.”

Shabbat Shalom

Soft

“The hardest thing in America is to be what one is softly.”

Leon Wieseltier

We insult people by calling them soft. Softness is regarded by some as a limitation. It implies that someone is not assertive or aggressive. He or she may be hesitant, shy, afraid of confrontation, easy to manipulate or lack strength of character. But there’s a softer side to soft. Soft is a compliment; it implies someone who is gentle, thoughtful, not worn down by life’s harshness. It refers to those who speak tenderly, without the need to dominate or exclude. If you want people to pay attention, don’t yell. Speak softly.

Soft might also inspire us to think of people the way we might describe an old couch, a piece of fabric or a pillow: comfortable. Unlike loving gestures, aggression can feel rough, harsh and unyielding – it’s emotional sandpaper. Softness is inviting and warm. It feels safe and open. Something soft is not sharply delineated. In linguistics it describes a sibilant rather than a guttural sound.  

In Hebrew, the word for soft is “rakh,” which ironically ends with a harsh guttural noise. In a noted biblical use of the term, it is employed to describe one of our matriarchs: “Leah had soft eyes, but Rachel was of beautiful figure and form” (Genesis 29:17). The way the verse is translated is a study in contrasts. Soft eyes are compared negatively to beauty of form, implying some defect in Leah that made her unlovable. This might explain Jacob’s natural attraction to Rachel and his feeling of injustice at having to wed Leah first as a ruse of his father-in-law.

One midrash regards Leah’s soft eyes not as the fate of nearsightedness or being cross-eyed but a description of her emotional state. She was to be wed to Esau, according to this midrash, and she wept continuously out of righteousness. She did not want to be married to this crass hunter.

A different reading might posit this verse as a description of two types of beauty: inner and outer. Leah possessed tenderness. Rachel had the magnetism of external good looks. Tender eyes show compassion and curiosity, connectedness and depth. It is this softness that Jacob needed because his life was symbolized by stones: those he slept on, the one he removed from a well and those he used in his pact with Lavan. Hardness is mitigated by softness.

The Wieseltier quote above is from his small and powerful book Against Identity. “The thinner the identity, the louder,” he writes there. Loudness can be a function of superficiality. “It is never long before identity is reduced to loyalty.” Wieseltier offers us the strange and counterintuitive understanding that the less you know about your nationality, ethnicity or religion, the more you express the veneer of pride. Loud cheering can mask ignorance and incivility. Authentic caring often involves a level of nuance or sophistication that is hard to fabricate or manufacture in absence of knowledge. Today, in politics and entertainment, we have come to believe that the louder someone is, the more credible. Being loud, however, is often a reflection of self-absorption and an incapacity to take in the other.

The author Kurt Vonnegut once wrote, “Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness. Take pride that even though the rest of the world may disagree, you still believe it to be a beautiful place.” What would it take to be softer? What would you and others gain by having a softer tongue and softer eyes?

Shabbat Shalom

The Ten Commandments of Friendship

“Friendship or death.”

The Talmud

This short quote on friendship packs a powerful punch. Without friendship, the quality of life dwindles. Friendship can save lives; we learn this both in BT Ta’anit 23a and read it in the book of Ruth. Naomi, powerless and alone, rebuilt her life because another woman even more powerless than she, made her a companion for life. Aristotle wrote that, “A friend is a second self, so that our consciousness of a friend's existence...makes us more fully conscious of our own existence.”

I thought, reflecting on the two central texts of Shavuot, to merge the Mount Sinai narrative with story of Ruth and Naomi.

The Ten Commandments of Friendship I’ve Learned from the Book of Ruth:

#1 Under-promise and over-deliver. Naomi tells Ruth not to follow her because she did not want to be responsible for Ruth’s welfare, nor would she be able to find her a husband. But she did, encouraging Ruth to glean in the fields of a relative and prompting Ruth to reach out to Boaz in chapter three. Too many times friends tell you they were going to do something nice but fail to deliver. Intentions are not the same as actions, not in law and not in friendship. It’s better to under-promise and over-deliver.

#2 Be a friend when times are tough. The friendship of Ruth and Naomi emerges from shared loss and shared companionship throughout loss. “Wherever you go, I will go ends with, “Wherever you die, I will die and there I shall be buried.” As people, we are often drawn to success and not distress. Note: friends remember who was there at a shiva and who was at a bedside during illness. They see through us when we do not make the time or effort.

#3 Be a friend when times are good. Don’t only show up for funerals. Dance at weddings, too. After he won the Nobel Prize, Elie Wiesel shared in an interview that he could tell who his friends were by those who took genuine pleasure in his success and shared his joy. True friendship is not feeling like another person’s success takes away from our own or threatens us. It enhances us. Naomi and Ruth are together at the book’s end, sharing in the love of a new child as they shared in mourning at the book’s beginning. Stick around for happy endings.

#4 Friendship isn’t always even. When Ruth makes her magnanimous speech, Naomi does not respond in words. Sometimes we are too personally depleted to offer back much. Sometimes we cannot reciprocate evenly. But life is not even. The great biblical friendships of Naomi and Ruth and David and Jonathan were not even in terms of giving and taking.

#5 Kindness is the glue of great friendships. When Boaz acknowledges Ruth’s difficult journey to Judaism in the same language used to describe Abraham’s journey, he gives her the gift of kindness and validation. He shows her empathy in a world of harshness. A midrash tell us that these two individuals were divided by every external measure: he was 80, she 40. He was rich and influential. She was poor and an outsider; the glue that transcended these factors was their capacity for chesed, loving-kindness.

#6 Friendship is not static. There are cycles of intimacy and distance. When children are little, they have friends for a day. If you share your snack, you are my friend. If not, I will not speak to you. Adults have better snacks, but they don’t always share. Sometimes life interrupts friendship. Good friends understand that friendship is not static. It evolves and changes, just as individual human beings do. We grow out of certain friendships and mature into others. Naomi emerges as a woman who can give more of herself when life begins to nurture her again, and Ruth was there for her.

# 7 Be a giver. We all know friends who are givers and friends who are takers. Ruth and Boaz were givers. Strive to be the giver and not resent the taker. But also identify other givers so that your own friendship energy is replenished, not depleted.

# 8 Great friendship has staying power for generations. The child born to Ruth and Boaz is named Oved. Oved means service in the most authentic sense of the word. Boaz and Ruth saw themselves as servants of others and acted as if serving others was the very purpose of their existence. As a result, their union resulted in someone named for the humility and generosity that translated into the next generation of love.

#9 Great leadership can emerge from great friendships. We all know that we go places by virtue of hard work and connections. Rather than minimize the significance of those you know and leave it all up to meritocracy, we might understand the favor bank in more generous terms. When we invest in social capital, others also invest in us. Ruth’s friendship with Naomi led her to love Naomi’s people, country and God and eventually produce an heir to it all.

#10 The best kind of friend challenges you to be a better self. Naomi becomes a more generous and loving person as a result of Ruth’s unconditional love and nurturing. The older woman learns from the younger and grows as a result. Naomi moves from someone who self-identifies as bitter to someone who can truly love and give again. She does this because her friendship with Ruth is aspirational. Maimonides explains that there are three types of friends: the utilitarian friend, the delightful friend and the ethically inspiring friend. Seek out friends who inspire.

If you’ve learned a friendship commandment from the book of Ruth – or discover one this Shavuot – please send it over.

Happy Shavuot and Shabbat Shalom

Celebrating Wisdom

“Had the first tablets not been broken, the Torah would never have been forgotten by the Jewish people.”

Rabbi Eliezer

Many of us wonder how it is that we read something and quickly forget it. If only we could remember all that we read and study. Rabbi Eliezer above gives us one hint about retention: if something is engraved upon your heart, you do not forget it. This is how he understands the superfluous words used to describe the Ten Commandments in Exodus 32:16: “engraved upon the tablets.” The verse already mentions the tablets as both the work and writing of God. What could be added by this unusual phrase? R. Eliezer reads it as the relationship we could have had with the original text. Had it not been broken, we would have engraved it within us. It never would have left us.

On Shavuot we celebrate the role of study in our lives by doing additional learning. Many people stay up the whole night immersed in Jewish texts and coffee. Others make a point of attending classes during the daylight hours of the holiday. If you attend as many study opportunities as you indulge in slices of cheesecake, it might help maximize one aspect of the celebration and minimize another!

Another way we celebrate the role of study and how it shapes us as a people is to study the art of studying. How did the rabbis of old believe one should learn and retain knowledge? After all, the great debates of the Talmud are critical not only for their content but also for their method. The rabbis often articulated their notions of pedagogy along with the legal substance of their arguments. They wanted us to know that it is not only about the what and why of knowledge but about the how.

Marilyn Vos Savant (her real name, which means “a person of learning”) made it to the Guinness Book of World Records in 1985 as the woman with the highest IQ (190 before the category was retired in 1990). Here is what one of the world’s smartest people - according to this measure - says about learning, “To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe.”

And here is what some rabbis observed about learning in a section of Talmud devoted to the topic (BT Eruvin 54a-55a):

Beruria: “If the Torah is ordered in your 248 limbs it will be secure. If not, it will not be secure.” Make your body language reflect your learning. Animate the words with movement when you study, and they will become yours.

Shmuel: “Open your mouth and read from the Torah. Open your mouth and study the Talmud, in order that your studies should endure in you…” Say the words out loud so that you hear and ingest them.

There was even a discussion of study as medicine to reduce headaches and throat sores, intestinal pain and bone problems. Why? Because, according to Rabbi Yehuda, “It is a drug of life for one’s entire body.” Some sages believed that engaging in learning as an intellectual and spiritual pursuit distracted the mind, allowing the body to take its natural course of healing. If you are sick, however, please see a doctor in addition to opening a book.

The Talmudic passages also mention the virtue of mnemonic devices and of repetition and review – up to 400 times! Collected together, these statements all point to the most important aspect of learning: retention. In the world of scholarship and mastery, it is not the initial stimulation and curiosity of learning. It is all we do to hold on to what we already know, to engrave it in our hearts.

This Shavuot, instead of learning something entirely new, perhaps we can follow the path of ancient Jewish wisdom and study something we’ve studied before, taking new ownership of it as it seeps deeper into our consciousness. Lather, rinse, repeat. Study, apply, repeat.

Shabbat Shalom and Happy Shavuot

The Stretch

“I stretched out my hands to You, longing for you like weary earth.”

Pslams 143:6

“My spirit failed within me; my mind was number with horror. Then I thought of the dyas of old; I rehearsed all yoru deeds, recounted the workd of your hands [143:4-5]

“Answer me quickly…”

“Do not hide Your face from me…”

“Let me know the road I must take…”

“Teach me to do Your will…”

Shelter in Place

“Remain every person in place; let no person go out of his place on the seventh day.”

Exodus 16:29

I don’t know about you, but last week was the first time I ever heard the expression “sheltering in place,” the order residents and businesses were given by law enforcement during the manhunt in Boston. SPW (emergency code speak) is a term to describe the mandate to seek immediate and short-term shelter, usually from fear of chemical or terrorist attack. It’s a way not only to protect large groups from danger but also to provide the necessary space for emergency workers to handle the situation with sufficient room and efficiency.

Shelter sounded way too comforting for what the authorities requested; they basically wanted people to remain secure while the threat of terrorism loomed close to home. The anxiety of not knowing what was happening added to the mounting pressures of Bostonians to manage a situation mentally that seemed to defy all reason. And looking back at last week’s events, we have a little more time to digest them and think about the notion of shelter generally.

My first thought on hearing the expression “shelter in place” took me to a book that Mary Pipher wrote years ago about family dynamics, The Shelter of Each Other. I always loved that title, capturing as it does the sense of family as refuge and safe space, the place captured by Robert Frost in his poem “Death of a Hired Man:” "Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in." Hopefully it is a place of shelter because you also want to be there. Home is a refuge, a haven, an island of sanity in a world that does not always make sense.

The order to stay home was particularly poignant given the situation. At times of nonsensical violence in a world gripped by pain, we want people to take strength in the places that offer them love, tenderness, understanding and compassion. Where better to go than home to have temporary relief from the volatility of terrorism?

My second thought was the book of Psalms, where the notion of God as a refuge or shelter is stamped all over the short bursts of religious meaning and feeling we call psalms. In the close of psalm 25, for example, as stress increases, the need for protection multiplies: “Protect me and save me; let me not be disappointed, for I have sought shelter in you.” In a first-person plea for attention, the petitioner suffers internally and externally, plagued by the weight of his own sins and the punishing attitude of his enemies. He seeks refuge in God and asks not to be disappointed. God as a last resort must provide the comfort he cannot find elsewhere.

It is not only spaces that provide shelter. People provide emotional shelter, and God provides spiritual shelter.

The word shelter comes from the word for “tight battle formation” in Middle English, implying a place where one can find temporary relief and refuge from difficult external conditions. Often we use shelter as a place to escape bad weather or the perils of homelessness for a few nights. We seek protection and find respite. But there is a big difference between a shelter as a place of temporary escape and the haven or refuge that is implied in Psalms. One is temporary. The other is eternal.

The quote above from Exodus describes Moses’ demand that the people remain where they are on Shabbat and not collect manna but collect double portions on Friday. Not everyone listened to his or her own detriment. They did not trust Moses and put their own needs before that of taking refuge in God’s gift of food, given to them with divine conditions.

Remaining in place when you doubt the place you’re in requires a profound level of trust and faith. It is a miracle that of the thousands of people at the Boston Marathon finish line, two suspects were identified and only days later were caught. It happened because a city trusted its caretakers in public service. We owe them much gratitude for their holy work and for asking us to take shelter when they put themselves in the center of the storm. May we honor the memory of those who died. May God bless those in public service and keep them from harm.

Shabbat Shalom

Tax Season

“Observe that this must be true. For [the government] cuts down trees and builds bridges, and we cross them."

The Talmud

By now, if you are an American citizen, you hopefully filed your income taxes by the April 15th date unless you requested an extension. If you are an American accountant, you are probably exhausted and need a trip to Hawaii. Now that we are slightly past this burden, it is interesting to reflect on taxes from a Jewish perspective. The statement above, attributed to the Talmud scholar Rabba, presents the obligation of taxes as ultimately self-serving. If we cross bridges then we must pay for them. Paying taxes is one way we conform to the Talmudic principle, “the laws of the land are [our] laws.” 

Unfortunately, there are some who make distinctions between Jewish law and federal/state law and are not careful about filing taxes or flagrantly flaunt the law with no intention to pay if they can get away with it. Rabbi Asher Meir, who has a PhD from MIT in economics, observes that distinctions must be made between exemptions and evasions. “It's okay to minimize taxes by taking advantage of legitimate provisions of the tax law, or even by taking a reasonable position on an unresolved question of law. But we cross the line into tax evasion, which is a criminal act, when there is no sincere claim of lawfulness.”

Throughout our history, special taxes were often placed upon Jews to “protect” them before they were citizens, and there are even studies of the role of the tax collector in Yiddish literature. We have taxes mentioned in several places in the Bible. The digitized March 2013 issue of the journal Sh’ma [accessible online] has an excellent collection of articles on Jews and taxes including a discussion of tax deductions for charitable giving, a much debated feature of American tax exemptions that is not true of many other countries. Charity is pure charity.

The one place in Bible that features taxes most prominently is the book of Esther. When Esther was chosen as the contest winner, King Ahaseurus was so happy he made a party and created a tax-break to allow the public to share in his joy: “He proclaimed a remission of taxes for the provinces and distributed gifts as befits a king.” Perhaps he understood that for those in his extensive empire to celebrate, they would need to feel it in their wallets. It was an ancient stimulus package, so to speak.

The Jews of this book were clearly tax payers because when Haman made his request to get rid of them, he had to fill the kings coffers with the 10,000 talents of silver to make up for the revenue generated through Jewish taxation. The treasury would suffer their loss and had to be supplemented for Haman to go through with his plan.

In a fascinating development, when Haman was hanged with his evil brood and the Jews triumphed, Mordechai became vizier to the king, and the king reinstated taxes. “King Ahaseurus imposed tribute on the mainland and the islands.” Because taxes appear in the very last chapter of Esther, one scholar in the Talmud concludes that the king was “wicked from beginning to end.” Some have the custom to boo and hiss in synagogue when this verse is read, the same way that people make noise when Haman’s name is mentioned. Other commentaries connect Mordechai’s rise to the reinstatement of taxes. Mordechai rose to power precisely because he helped his own people while he stabilized the economy.

Robert Half, the famous founder of a job agency, said of taxes, “People try to live within their income so they can afford to pay taxes to a government that can't live within its income.” Ahaseurus lived a life of great excess: lavish 187-day wine parties and year-long beauty pageants. Someone had to pay for them. This is different from Rabba’s view of taxes that we pay for services that we need and should be expected to do so. Think of taxes in this model as the gift that keeps on giving even though we feel its sting at this time of the year. And think of a world where there is no garbage collection, road repair, public schooling, fire department, or police officers – to name just a few expected services – and you might be just a little less unhappy to pay your taxes.

Shabbat Shalom

Life’s a Gamble

“There is no luck among the Israelites.”

The Talmud

Every few years, the Passover program we attend travels to different locations. This year it went to Lake Las Vegas. Our family brings a Torah as one of the two Torahs used for services. It is fascinating getting a Torah through TSA. The Torah must be carried by hand, and sometimes people recognize it in the airport and come over and give it a kiss. On the plane, it has gotten upgrades to first-class overhead bins. This year, as we landed and prepared to take it off the plane, the stewardess stopped us, “You’re taking a Torah to Vegas? Is that for luck?”

It was a precious moment. In truth, taking a Torah would not have helped on the gambling front because the sages of the Talmud took a dim view of gambling. A known gambler is not allowed to serve as a witness because he may not be trustworthy. Gambling, while not strictly forbidden in Jewish law, is not regarded as a promising occupation. It is compared on some level to stealing [BT Sanhedrin 24b] since the gambler bets on the false seduction of winning. The house is taking his money by lulling him into seeing himself as a potential winner, even though the chances of winning are statistically so slim. Someone [this has been attributed to many different people] once said that lotteries are a tax for the mathematically challenged.

The rabbis were also concerned that a loser would come to resent or hate the winner because the loser never really comes to term with his losses. This illusion can break apart relationships and sustain a view of self that all will be OK with another spin of the roulette, pull of the slot-machine handle or another round of black jack. We can easily recoup what we’ve lost. Just one more time…

The sages made another observation that has modern resonances for states that legalize gambling to bolster revenue and alleviate state debt.  The rabbis of old were wary of the notion that gambling contributes to the local economy even if it comes at a steep cost to “innocent” individuals. Since gambling, according to Rabbi Eliezer Danzinger, “creates nothing of value that endures,” it is not regarded as financially beneficial to a community. It takes its toll incrementally, potentially impoverishing citizens until it impoverishes residents by changing the moral fiber of that community.

Government-run lotteries are a common way internationally to raise funds for important projects like roadworks and community centers. They apparently began to concern rabbinic leaders in the pre-World War II years in Europe when many poor Jews became a bit poorer because they participated in the false hope connected to lottery winning. In repsonsa literature, some rabbis permitted lottery ticket purchases, regarding them as a voluntary tax on individuals to support state-sponsored projects. This defense has carried over into the modern State of Israel where community centers throughout the country have been created with just such funds.

While it is true that the dreidel game we play on Hanukah is a form of gambling, this game has been treated as a recreational form of gambling limited by the duration of the holiday as opposed to a portal into addiction. Entering a casino prepared to lose a hundred dollars for the entertainment value of the evening is not what the rabbis had in mind when condemning it. They were concerned about the long-term impact of gambling on the mindset of the individual and the constitution of the community.

         More profound than any of these reasons is the general Jewish attitude to productivity and achievement. It takes work.  Sometimes people play games of chance to relieve themselves of the burden and responsibility of work. The talmudic aphorism above – “There is not luck among the Israelites” - appears in several places in the Talmud and has been interpreted in many ways. Astrological forces have no power over the Jews. But perhaps it means something else. Maybe it means that luck is not the way that we operate. We believe in a strong work ethic. The playwright Wilson Mizner described gambling as, “the sure way of getting nothing for something.” So, to that inquisitive stewardess: no, we were not bringing the Torah to Vegas for luck because if you open the scroll and read it, you realize the truth about luck. The harder we work, the luckier we get.

Shabbat Shalom

Love’s Limits

“By making extraordinary demands, it [Judaism] inspires ordinary people to live extraordinary lives.”

Jonathan Sacks, To Heal a Fractured World

We leave Passover with a keen sense of historical liberation, but ours was neither an easy freedom nor one that came without responsibility. We left slavery for Sinai; a life of commandedness for a different type of commandedness.  This was not obedience for its own sake but for the sake of God and for the sake of becoming a people of transcendence, as is true for all those of faith and belief.

What changed in this transition? Altruism, a feeling or commitment to selflessness, duty and responsibility comes from the French for “the other.” Altruism is an outer directed impulse that pushes down the loud voice of narcissism and self-absorption. It tells us that a purpose-driven life is not one where our own desires matter most. Throughout the Bible, God commands altruism, and it changes us. We become truly free with the capacity to give.

In a recent article, “Ego, Love, and Self-Sacrifice: Altruism in Jewish Thought and Law,” David Shatz, a professor of philosopher and an inspiring teacher, writes that Judaism, “is both realistic and aspirational. It recognizes the reality of self-interest, but affirms the capacity of human beings to escape its grip. It understands that self-interested actions can promote the good of others, but it looks as well at inner intentions and emotions.”

The article is one of many fine essays in Radical Responsibility, an anthology celebrating the thought of Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks as Rabbi Sacks nears retirement. Rabbi Sacks in his extensive writings, makes a compelling case again and again that commandedness can lead to moral greatness and to achieving extraordinariness.

Many would argue that altruism merely masks self-interest. This seems to be supported by a famous Talmudic passage [BT Makkot 28b] that Shatz quotes in his article: “He who eulogizes the deceased will be eulogized at his death; he who buries the dead will be buried when he passes on; he who carries the coffin will be carried by others [when his body is ready for burial]; he who mourns for others will be mourned by others.”

By being present for the ritual needs of others at their most vulnerable, we bolster the chances that we will not be alone in ours. This is not selfish, but it is certainly utilitarian, reminding us of the more positive Yiddish expression of this sentiment, “I will dance at your wedding so you will dance at mine.” The social capital we invest becomes our best insurance policy, but it does not sound particularly altruistic. Love, it would seem, has its limits.

Read differently, however, the passage in the Talmud is not the statement of a person trying to protect himself. It is not stated by him but about him. One who shows particular sensitivity to the needs of others, particularly during trying times, will likely have that sensitivity repaid in the future; we honor those who were selfless by becoming less selfish ourselves. Those who are truly altruistic teach us through their compassion and kindness that we, too, should be more compassionate and kind. They inspire us with their thoughtfulness to become as thoughtful as they are.

Many find the language of command too authoritarian or bossy. I personally find it a comfort. When it’s raining outside, and I’m too tired to pay that shiva call and maybe the mourner won’t even notice, I think of the word “mitzva.” Command. Demand. Responsibility. Obligation. Expectation from on High. Suddenly, that sense of altruism as the clarion call of the other comes to mind. It is not about my creature comforts but about another’s need for human comfort that matters. And usually I get up, and I go. And I never regret it.

Shabbat Shalom

The Passover Jew

“This, too, will be for the best.”

Nachum Ish Gamzu

I tucked into a take-out place and asked the man behind the counter what he could make me in two minutes since I didn’t want to miss my train home from New York. He told me he had something ready and sent me quickly on my way. A block and a half later, I realized I had left my briefcase with my computer in the restaurant. Oy. Now I was definitely going to miss the train. I called the number on the take-out bag, checked that it was there and ran back. The nice man handed me my case, looked at me and said, “Repeat after me: gam zo le-tova.” I repeated the mantra, left the restaurant and took off. I made the train.

Gam zo le-tova – this, too, will be for the best - is a talmudic expression attributed to Nachum Ish Gamzu. Hebrew speakers will no doubt notice that his last name and the expression are parallel, and this is intentional. So much was he known for putting what we call a positive spin on life’s challenges, that his last name essentially became “An eternal optimist.” Nachum was a teacher of the sainted Rabbi Akiba according to the Talmud (BT Brakhot 22a) and himself suffered terrible body paralysis that he attributed to his own failure to feed a poor man quickly enough thus causing the man’s death (BT Ta’anit 21a). Nachum is at the center of many Talmudic miracles even though it is unclear what his real name is. His attitude must have stunned those who could not make sense of his upbeat demeanor and his crippled appearance.

The writer Daniel Pink, in his latest book To Sell is Human, describes this as an explanatory style. An explanatory style is the way we explain difficult life events or negative experiences to ourselves. He calls it a kind of self-talk that we use after events to generate internal understanding, following research done by the psychologist Martin Seligman, the father of positive psychology. Pink writes: “People who give up easily, who become helpless even in situations where they actually can do something, explain bad events as permanent, pervasive and personal. They believe that negative conditions will endure a long time, that the causes are universal rather than specific to the circumstances, and that they’re the ones to blame.” Seligman believed that this way of seeing the world can turn setbacks into disasters and translates over time into learned helplessness.

Contrast this to a positive explanatory style. Difficult events will pass. They are specific to a set of circumstances and not abiding realties, and they are external to the self rather than inherent. Now let’s apply this thinking to the story of the exodus. Those born into long-term slavery, who know no other reality from one generation to the next, cannot but help believe that their situation is permanent, pervasive and personal. The Jews must have done something to suffer the fate of oppression. This helplessness was not of their own making but helps explain the rabbinic dictum that only 20% of the Jews left Egypt when they could. If you internalize slavery so that it not only describes what you do but how you think, you will never leave Egypt, even if you leave. If you have a positive explanatory style, you can be a slave and be free at the same time because you retain an enduring sense of possibility and jump at opportunities for change.

It is a common Jewish behavior to see history as a series of tragedies, strung together like mismatched pearls on a long string of sadness. You can certainly look at our history that way, and you would have a lot of supportive evidence. In this worldview, we view outsiders as suspicious and see the world filled with hate and disappointment. Alternatively, we can look at the explosive Jewish miracles that defy all explanation and push the tragedies far apart, the way they really appear on a timeline. When we focus on the spaces between calamities, we find our longevity, our influence, our creativity, our amazing capacity for meaningful survival and our commitment to social justice.

What explanatory style explains your Judaism? In other words, what kind of Jew are you? The Passover Jew reads the Haggadah and can only come to one conclusion. Nachum Ish Gamzu was right: This, too, will be for the best.

Shabbat Shalom and have a joyous Passover.

The Passover Jew

“This, too, will be for the best.”

Nachum Ish Gamzu

I tucked into a take-out place and asked the man behind the counter what he could make me in two minutes since I didn’t want to miss my train home from New York. He told me he had something ready and sent me quickly on my way. A block and a half later, I realized I had left my briefcase with my computer in the restaurant. Oy. Now I was definitely going to miss the train. I called the number on the take-out bag, checked that it was there and ran back. The nice man handed me my case, looked at me and said, “Repeat after me: gam zo le-tova.” I repeated the mantra, left the restaurant and took off. I made the train.

Gam zo le-tova – this, too, will be for the best - is a talmudic expression attributed to Nachum Ish Gamzu. Hebrew speakers will no doubt notice that his last name and the expression are parallel, and this is intentional. So much was he known for putting what we call a positive spin on life’s challenges, that his last name essentially became “An eternal optimist.” Nachum was a teacher of the sainted Rabbi Akiba according to the Talmud (BT Brakhot 22a) and himself suffered terrible body paralysis that he attributed to his own failure to feed a poor man quickly enough thus causing the man’s death (BT Ta’anit 21a). Nachum is at the center of many Talmudic miracles even though it is unclear what his real name is. His attitude must have stunned those who could not make sense of his upbeat demeanor and his crippled appearance.

The writer Daniel Pink, in his latest book To Sell is Human, describes this as an explanatory style. An explanatory style is the way we explain difficult life events or negative experiences to ourselves. He calls it a kind of self-talk that we use after events to generate internal understanding, following research done by the psychologist Martin Seligman, the father of positive psychology. Pink writes: “People who give up easily, who become helpless even in situations where they actually can do something, explain bad events as permanent, pervasive and personal. They believe that negative conditions will endure a long time, that the causes are universal rather than specific to the circumstances, and that they’re the ones to blame.” Seligman believed that this way of seeing the world can turn setbacks into disasters and translates over time into learned helplessness.

Contrast this to a positive explanatory style. Difficult events will pass. They are specific to a set of circumstances and not abiding realties, and they are external to the self rather than inherent. Now let’s apply this thinking to the story of the exodus. Those born into long-term slavery, who know no other reality from one generation to the next, cannot but help believe that their situation is permanent, pervasive and personal. The Jews must have done something to suffer the fate of oppression. This helplessness was not of their own making but helps explain the rabbinic dictum that only 20% of the Jews left Egypt when they could. If you internalize slavery so that it not only describes what you do but how you think, you will never leave Egypt, even if you leave. If you have a positive explanatory style, you can be a slave and be free at the same time because you retain an enduring sense of possibility and jump at opportunities for change.

It is a common Jewish behavior to see history as a series of tragedies, strung together like mismatched pearls on a long string of sadness. You can certainly look at our history that way, and you would have a lot of supportive evidence. In this worldview, we view outsiders as suspicious and see the world filled with hate and disappointment. Alternatively, we can look at the explosive Jewish miracles that defy all explanation and push the tragedies far apart, the way they really appear on a timeline. When we focus on the spaces between calamities, we find our longevity, our influence, our creativity, our amazing capacity for meaningful survival and our commitment to social justice.

What explanatory style explains your Judaism? In other words, what kind of Jew are you? The Passover Jew reads the Haggadah and can only come to one conclusion. Nachum Ish Gamzu was right: This, too, will be for the best.

Shabbat Shalom and have a joyous Passover.

A Smokin’ Good Idea

“You shall carefully guard your lives.”

Deuteronomy 4:15

Is smoking forbidden in Jewish law? This is an extremely interesting legal issue. Smoking is, of course, a personal preference, and yet the Bible states outright that people should not do anything that will actively compromise their health under the proviso above.

 This past week, The Jerusalem Post covered the story of two rabbis who tried to prevent smoking in their city: Rabbis Shlomo Riskin and Shimon Golan. They wanted to revoke the kashrut license of any food establishment selling cigarettes under the banner of two biblical prohibitions: aiding and abetting another human being who is endangering himself and standing idly by when a life is at risk. The two rabbis said that anyone who sold cigarettes transgressed two legal prohibitions.

 Municipal law, however, forbade the ban because rabbis are only permitted to determine the kashrut of food products. Until people start eating cigarettes, these two rabbis could not forbid their sale. But they could and did begin a campaign to persuade people to view the dangers of smoking within a religious framework as a consequence of their deleterious health risks.

 A few years ago, the High Court ruled against rabbis who tried to ban the kashrut certification of a restaurant that offered belly dancing, which may, if you are not in good shape, actually be worse for you than smoking! Rabbi Riskin regards the problem as profound: "At the very least someone who smokes is transgressing the Torah's commandment to carefully guard your soul, and it could even be considered killing yourself, not to mention the fact that you are endangering others with secondary smoke.

Smoking is a serious problem in many ultra-Orthodox communities where young yeshiva students start as minors. A Haredi marketing firm even leveraged the nicotine withdrawal over Shabbat by producing a clever ad of a havdala set with a pack of Israeli cigarettes on it that said, “Shavua tov” - have a good week - the typical greeting we wish others at the end of Shabbat.

Rabbis who were asked formal legal questions regarding the permissibility of smoking took different sides. Some forbade it because of the verse in Deuteronomy. There was a time when we actually believed that smoking was good for your health. But now that there is enough scientific evidence marshaled against smoking, many rabbis appropriately banned it. Those who permit it do not ignore our verse in Deuteronomy but quote an alternative verse from Psalms that says that God protects the foolish. Smoking is regarded as a foolish behavior, but perhaps God will protect those foolish enough to smoke from endangering themselves. Sounds risky to me. One well-known authority forbade individuals to start smoking but permitted someone already addicted to continue smoking. This shows sensitivity to the difficulties that anyone with addictive behaviors faces and assumes that if no one starts then in one generation the problem would end itself. Those committed to smoking, however, did not pay attention to this voice of authority and found justification in other opinions to their own detriment.

We often use authorities, laws and protocols to protect us from our own worst selves. You can ban large volume cups of soda, but it will still not stop us from drinking them. A kosher lifestyle involves taking care of oneself, even if cigarettes are not under kashrut supervision. Deuteronomy stresses that you have to protect yourself and guard your own life. You cannot expect that someone else will do it for you.

Shabbat Shalom

The Price of Nasty

“You shall neither curse God nor put a curse upon a leader or your people.”

Exodus 22:27

“You are an obvious amateur in Talmud and rabbinic sources. Why show it off?” - comment on website posting of one of my articles. My first thought: what if it’s my eleventh grade Talmud teacher outing my ignorance? Second thought: it’s an anonymous comment filled with rancor and meanness. Get a life.

Many journalists I have spoken to never read writer comments. When asked why - since this should be excellent feedback for writers - their response is almost uniform: “I don’t take crazy people seriously.” Most readers who express themselves subtly and thoughtfully keep their thoughts to themselves, send a letter to the editor or find an alterative route to the author.

This dilemma brought me to the biblical verse above. Why do people curse God or their leaders? Two medieval commentators on this verse suggest that the six verses that come before are about the poor, the widowed and the orphaned. Perhaps in the rage over a personal situation that seems beyond their control, those who are vulnerable curse those they feel are responsible for their circumstances or could possibly do something to change them: God and their leaders. The two Hebrew words for “curse” used in the verse refer, according to some, to an act of defiance and an act of envy. We belittle people for different reasons.

Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra, a Spanish medieval poet and exegete, says that the prohibition to curse God or leaders should be observed “both in private and in public.” It dawned on me that the internet combines the worst of both worlds; you diminish someone in private – anonymously – and then you press submit or send and it goes out into the largest public domain possible. The globe is now the stage for an unimaginable amount of cruelty.

Nation, we’ve got a problem. It’s now been called the nasty effect, and it is more than online incivility. We believe that people must express themselves freely and openly in a democratic state. But what we have not enforced is people taking ownership of what they say. Free speech must come with at least one pricetag: your name. If you are afraid to put your name to what you say – in virtually every instance – you should not be allowed to say it.

Why? Because we readers actually do take crazy people seriously. Recently two professors of science communication from University of Wisconsin studied the impact of reader comments on articles that appeared online. The New York Times published the research in a recent article called “This Story Stinks,” which opens with all of the benefits of the internet: its capacity to bridge geographic, cultural and economic distances and generate meaningful debate. Then, the article posits, “someone invented ‘reader comments,’ and paradise was lost.”

            These scientists were interested in what they call the nasty effect, the impact of reader comments on the way in which we frame and understand an issue presented online. By intentionally placing rude comments or curse words in fake reader comments, they discovered that most readers filtered their own attitudes to the material based on anonymous comments. Once upon a time we thought that reader comments created a more open, transparent dialogue, we now understand that such comments can have the pernicious effect of biasing innocent readers and possibly shutting down open conversation.

Michael Bernstein, a computer science professor at Stanford, was quoted in The Washington Post recently critiquing internet anonymity but also suggesting that it “fostered experimentation and new ideas” since users feel comfortable taking risks when no names are involved.

            The same Ibn Ezra mentioned above, however, points us to a companion verse in the book of Proverbs: “And do not mix with dissenters, for disaster comes from them suddenly…”(24:21). Political dissent is a necessity in creating a fair and just society, but let’s not confuse dissent with plain old anonymous meanness. New research may show this to be the ruin of us, not because crotchety people talk out of turn but because we listen to them.

            Or we can take the Tina Fey approach seriously when she tried to fight this phenomenon in protecting her reputation: “…you should have to put your real name, your address and a current photo” when posting a comment. It is time for more responsible journalism to protect the world of ideas and those who promote them. “Anonymous” just doesn’t work anymore.

Shabbat Shalom

From Fasting to Feasting

“…the same days on which Jews enjoyed relief from their foes and the same month which had been transformed for them from one of grief and mourning to one of festive joy.”

Esther 9:22

Today is the fast of Esther, preparing us for Purim. We are invited into the narrative world of ancient Persia, where we find that the book of Esther is a text of extremes. The king goes from extreme happiness to dejection to anger. The empire was 127 provinces. The post containing the king’s various edicts had to be translated into every language in the kingdom. The story opens with a party that lasted for 187 days. The women who competed for the king’s favor dipped themselves in spa treatments for a year. The declaration of a winner stimulated a tax cut only to be met by a tax hike in the last chapter. Esther summoned her maidens and the people to fast for 3 days. I can barely fast for one. This is not a story of moderation.

This ancient tale took us from the neutrality of assimilation to the victimhood of obliteration to the happiness of unexpected triumph. If you follow our roller coaster of fate and the story’s emotional modulations, you find yourself exhausted by chapter ten. Arguably there is no other story in the Bible that throws us from one set of emotions to their opposite in the span of a few verses. Why employ this literary technique?

To answer this question, we turn to the Torah of Rabbi David Hartman, an intellectual Jewish giant who passed away last week.  We will study his teachings as a way of honoring his memory and preserving his legacy. In his article, "The Joy of Torah," he asks if happiness is a desideratum and frames it with the Talmudic statement: "Commandments were not given for your enjoyment (BT Rosh Hashana 28a). With this kind of attitude, commandments become a weight and a burden to uplift us but not tools to bring us greater joy.

            Rabbi Hartman takes a different view, one that connects responsibility with human dignity and possibility:

In receiving mitzvot, we experience joy in knowing that God accepts human beings in their limitations and believes in their capacities to shoulder responsibility...Divine acceptance empowers human acceptance in the form of our serving God with joy. We manifest our love for God by performing the commandments with joy - that is, for their own sake, and not as a means to have God gratify our needs. When I sense God's love, I realize that the reward for doing a mitzva is the mitzva itself (Ethics of the Fathers 4:2).

In addition to the intellectual joys of scholarship, Rabbi Hartman believes that being a “commanded person before God” offers the joy of knowing that God believes in our capacity to achieve greatness. We do not give responsibilities to those who cannot handle them. By demanding that we aspire and inspire others through kindness and compassion, prayer and study, we achieve the joy that comes with virtue.

            The rabbis of the Talmud believed that Purim was a time when Jews accepted the authority of the oral law, a package of mitzvot and demands. But even a literal reading of the text suggests that as Jews became stronger in their expression of Jewish identity, they stabilized their own position in the kingdom. Immediate joy came from the relief of being able to protect themselves and win in battle. Long-term joy came from achieving stability and influence in the kingdom.

            It is hard to appreciate and experience true joy without the contrast to sorrow. Fasting yields to feasting. Mourning to joy. It’s the Jewish way. As the saying, “All is good in the end. If it is not good, it is not the end.”

Shabbat Shalom and a Joyous Purim

10,000 Hours

“Would you give twelve hours a day?”

Isaac Stern

Legend has it that the famous conductor Isaac Stern (1920-2001) was once confronted by an admirer after a concert who said the following to him: “O, Mr. Stern, I would give anything to be able to play the violin as magnificently as you do.” Stern’s answer: “Would you give twelve hours a day?” He probably wasn’t exaggerating.

Stern was born in Poland but moved to the United States with his family before he was two years old. By fifteen he had his debut as a violinist and spent decades traveling the world with his music.  In his lifetime, he discovered and nurtured talent, bringing to the public eye the famous cellist Yo-Yo Ma and others. He first played in Israel one year after the founding of the State and maintained a close relationship with Israel, visiting and playing during wartime. An obituary in The Los Angeles Times records the moment when during an air raid siren in Israel, Stern’s performance was interrupted. To calm the audience, he played a piece of Bach; the audience put on their gas masks and watched the rest of the performance. Carnegie Hall’s main auditorium is named after him, and it’s not hard to understand why.

The talent Stern exhibited in his youth was honed and developed over a lifetime of playing and discovering the talents of others. Maimonides citing the Talmud writes, “ According to the effort is the gain.” And it reminds me of a Talmudic debate that also involves twelve hours. The sages believed that study demands rigor: hours, discipline and self-sacrifice. They believed the life of scholarship was earned without luxury; to acquire wisdom meant sleeping on the floor and eating bread dipped in salt. This wasn’t a prescription for knowledge. It was a warning against those who believed that study would bring them material success and status.

Study alone would not support a family so one of the debates around Jewish scholarship was how much time should be given to learning Torah in contrast to earning a living. One formula favored in the Talmud is a 3/9 ratio: 3 hours of work (often manual labor) and 9 hours of learning. We wonder how this worked in reality, but then again this is the Talmudic equivalent of Isaac Stern in the scholarship department. You can’t create great scholars unless there is real investment in both the process of study, the skills and competencies that are necessary and the commitment to mastery. Being a life-long learner is all about sequentially preparing ourselves to make study more nuanced, textured and challenging across the lifespan.

The 10,000 hours rule was popularized by Malcolm Gladwell in his best-selling book, Outliers. Gladwell used research that suggested that mastery in any field depends on spending at least 10,000 hours perfecting one’s skills and competencies. Others, like Geoffrey Colvin in Talent is Overrated, write about the importance of deliberative practice. It’s not only about how many hours you put in but about customized practice that helps you improve on your specific areas of weakness. One of the great tests of talent is one’s willingness to practice what one is not good at and the willingness to practice alone.

Sometimes we want outcomes without effort, but current research suggests what our sages knew 2,000 years ago. It takes 12 hours a day, 10,000 hours a life and mental and physical drive to achieve excellence. What would you like to be great at and are you willing to put in the hours?

Shabbat Shalom

Free John Bates

“Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who bestows kindness upon the vulnerable, and who has bestowed goodness on me.”

Jewish blessing

            Those of us who are avid Downton Abbey fans have been waiting patiently to know whether or not John Bates will ever be released from jail, exonerated of his alleged crime, and returned to his loving wife Anna. The dramatic Masterpiece Theater scenes take us to the squalid and dangerous insides of a Victorian prison. It helps us understand the terrible conditions that awaited prisoners and did not always reflect well on our judicial system, here or across the pond, as they say.

If Bates is released from prison, and we find out that the rumor is true that he is Jewish (his real name is Harry Lifshitz), he would make the special blessing above, which many believe should only be said by prisoners accused of murder and other very serious charges. There is a debate as to whether or not one would say this blessing after imprisonment for financial crimes, and according to one source, it is best to check with your local rabbi if you find yourself in this situation (honestly, this the least of your problems).

This blessing is familiar to some because the Talmud records that it should also be said upon several occasions: after you have crossed an ocean, after you have crossed a desert, after recovering from a serious illness and for a woman after childbirth. Many say this blessing after any life-threatening situation.

All of these instances present situations of potential danger where we aware of our vulnerability and rely on God’s grace, even when we may not always feel we deserve it. Each of these situations also involves a significant transition in either time, space or across the life-cycle. It is at these worrying times that we are in greatest need of divine support and human kindness. The thrill of prison release must, no doubt, be tempered by the anxiety of being reunited with one’s family, being accepted in community and finding employment. I find this blessing deeply moving because the word “G-M-L” in Hebrew is more than an act of kindness; it is a spillover of abundance, a shower of grace.

One of the most moving prison-based pieces of Jewish text appears in the 16th century. Many centuries ago, a man named Reuben was incarcerated and asked to be released from jail for Yom Kippur. His request was denied but he was granted another day, of his choice, to be freed from prison to go to the synagogue. Which day or holiday should he request? The question was posed to Rabbi David Ibn Zimra, a 16th century rabbi who authored over 3,000 responsa. Legend has it that he died at 110. Scholars believe he probably died in his mid-90s.

The rabbi considered the possibilities and also reviewed the legal literature where he had first encountered a similar question. The answer given by another scholar was Yom Kippur as it is the holiest day of the year and a time for profound repentance. Reuben’s second choice should be Purim because it is a time of rejoicing in the reading of the scroll of Esther and a time to display God’s great kindness on Jews in history through miracles. But, Rabbi Zimra says, “do not rely upon his words.” He was unhappy with the answer. Instead, Rabbi Zimra bases his answer on the principle that you never skip over the possibility or opportunity for a mitzva. Every day presents us with various choices. Never put off goodness when given the chance. Since Reuben is in prison and does not know if this offer will be sustained, he must leave prison on his first opportunity: the next day.

This is the Jewish version of carpe diem. But it is more than that. Freedom and autonomy are such powerful and primal needs that we should never wait for some future time if we can access them now.

Most of us are not in prison, and we will have to wait and see if Mr. Bates ever makes it out. But there are many metaphoric prisons that trap people today: painful relationships, bad jobs, addictive habits. When we have the chance for freedom we must take it at the very first opportunity. This does not mean running away from a situation; this often leads to later entrapment, like a prisoner who tries to escape and gets more years in prison when he’s caught. Freedom involves the personal maturity to control our lives by making good choices and sustaining them and blessing the chance to do so. Seize today.

Shabbat Shalom

A Friend in Need

“At the sight of misfortune you take fright…”

Job 6:21

American humorist Arnold H. Glasow once said, “A true friend never gets in your way unless you happen to be going down.” This begs the sensitive question of how to get in the way when your friend is on the way down. For our purposes, going down can be interpreted in two ways: 1) the friend in question spirals downward morally or emotionally and needs to get back on track, 2) the friend is suffering from loss, confusion or both and seeks answers and companionship.

 Some people shy away from others in need, even close friends. They may tell themselves it is none of their business or act as if help would be offensive. This may be true, but it may not. It may be an excuse masked in fear. We don’t like seeing other people’s vulnerabilities. “It’s too hard for me.” Really? Seeing friends who are depressed or under the shadow of addiction or marital crisis reminds us often of our own weaknesses and anxieties. But friendship is cyclical, and friends do cycle out of relationships when they feel betrayed or neglected at times of need. Maimonides speaks at length of the importance of rebuking a friend who has lost his or her way but privately and tenderly so that the friend understands your interest is out of love and commitment. You care. You are invested.

 The second circumstance can be more nuanced and difficult: being a friend to someone who is suffering not because of his or her own doing but out of tragic circumstances. We want to be present but don’t always know how to be present. Does the person want to be left alone or is loneliness threatening and painful? Does the person want to talk about the problem or avoid it altogether? Is a friend looking for conversation or distraction? It is hard to get it right, especially when there is no right.

 Both situations qualify for inclusion in Job’s category of misfortune above. Job had a life that went from sweet to sour in a matter of days. He had a wife and three friends, but each of those relationships proved more alienating than comforting. The Talmud advises us not to be like the friends of Job, helping us understand what not to do when friends needs us. What did they do wrong?

When Job lost his children tragically and sat in mourning with scabs and wounds, the biblical text sings the friends’ praises: “When Job’s three friends heard all about these calamities that had befallen him, each came from his home…They met together to go and console him” (2:11). The three friends could not recognize Job, such was his devastation. They broke out into loud weeping, tore their robes and “sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. None spoke a word to him for they saw how very great was his suffering” (2:12-13).

 The silence of the friends during the early days surfaces their kindness, as Confucius wrote, “Silence is a true friend who never betrays.”

The problem was that these friends did not stay silent. They began to speak. They began to judge. Do good people suffer? There must be a reason for tragedy. As each of them speak, Job realizes just how alone he is. His losses were not enough. His suffering was compounded by the knowledge that his wife did not understand him nor did his friends. He felt alienated from and punished by God. Whom do you turn to when there is no one to turn to?

 Job finds the strength to reprimand his friends: “A friend owes loyalty to one who fails,” he tells them. He calls his friends fickle – like a wadi. A wadi is a dry riverbed. It has the shape of a riverbed but has dried out, offering the illusion of commitment but, at close inspection, there is no water. Job’s friends look like friends but, like riverbeds in the staunch heat, “they disappear where they are.” In the end he arrives at a terrible conclusion: “You are as nothing.”

 We cannot be nothing for our friends in need. We need to be something. That something may be just about being present and silent. Sometimes a hug can penetrate a soul much deeper than words.

Shabbat Shalom

Re-Generation

“We hoped that the experiment would succeed and would be tried by others, and we knew that we had a lot to learn.

Joseph Baratz

            On October 29, 1910, ten men and two women founded the first kibbutz in Israel: Kibbutz Degania, not far from the Kinneret. Joseph Baratz, who had the first child to ever be born on kibbutz, was one of the ten men, and in 1960, he wrote his memoirs of half a century of kibbutz life. Eleanor Roosevelt, who visited Degania, wrote an introduction to the book. The social experiment fascinated her, and she observed that the “desire to live in common and share in common” represents “high thinking and unselfishness of action.”

            I saw the kibbutz last week and found an English translation of Baratz’ book and could not put it down. Looking around the green fields and early kibbutz stone buildings, it is hard to imagine what it was like to come to a desolate expanse of swampland, unprotected and rife with malaria. Baratz left his family in the Ukraine with the passion of a young Zionist at age 16 to become a peasant of the soil of Palestine.  He writes of reacting against his upbringing and the surrounding culture, believing that “in order to construct our country we had to first reconstruct ourselves.”

            He was afraid to tell his parents. When he finally confessed his desire to go to Palestine, his father went straight to the rabbi who offered an emphatic “no.” A boy of sixteen should not undertake such a journey; he might “fall among free-thinkers” and drift into irreligious ways. But his parents eventually broke down and gave him the money for the journey. His mother called out as the train left the station: “Joseph, my child, be a good Jew,” and Joseph was off to a new life.

            Joseph found a group of like-minded new friends willing to work the land. All the theory that they had discussed about nature and human nature was then put to the test. Growing food was not about supporting people, as necessary as this was to a country that was not yet a country. It was a philosophical statement for these fledgling Zionists about “the wholeness” they lacked in exile.

The group was totally committed to its goal of living collectively and tending the land and had a heated discussion about putting off marriage and children for at least five years until the kibbutz had initial success. One of the chief debaters against marriage at the time fell in love a month later, married and had the second child born on the kibbutz: Moshe Dayan.

The idea, radical as it was at the time, was that people would lack nothing because they possessed nothing; strength would come from the community and go back into the community. “Nobody would have to be ambitious or to worry for himself.”

Degania, which means cornflower in Hebrew, would, over the next decades, attract some of the most famous Zionists and politicians, including A.D. Gordon, Joseph Trumpeldor, and the poet Rachel. It became a flagship kibbutz, spawning other kibbutzim and collective projects. In Baratz’ words, it fulfilled a dream of what the Jewish nation could become on its own terms: “The land had lost its fertility and it seemed to us that we ourselves, divorced from it, had become barren in spirit. Now we must give it our strength and it would give us back our creativeness.”

The heyday of the kibbutz movement is long past. Much of the social experiment failed, but we also failed it. We have traded group laundry for the iPod, shared dining for Facebook networking. But we cannot forget Baratz’ youthful enthusiasm which turned into a mature philosophy of obligation to land and country. In its largely secular flavor, the kibbutz movement imprinted Israel with values that twinned the deepest biblical connection to the earth with the talmudic sensibilities of collective responsibility.

What will our modern ideologies build to replace what we have lost?

Shabbat Shalom

Unaffiliated?

“Matters of Torah only endure in a person who kills himself over it.”

BT Shabbat 83b

            The Pew Research Center just released a global study of religion whose findings have appeared in newspapers and social media everywhere. They found that one out of every six people has no religious affiliation – the third largest group in relation to religion, equal to the world population of Catholics, about 16 %. Christians double that population. Jews are only about 0.2% of the world’s population. An increasing number of people, however, do not attach themselves to any world faith. This should be of concern to anyone who cares about religion.

Jon Stewart once said “Religion: it’s given people hope in a world torn apart by religion.” In a world where religion has been the source of so much violence and internecine battling, many people will just walk away altogether from faith. But in the absence of religion people may lose a language in which to express deep universal sentiments about love, suffering and community. In the words of a friend who began his involvement in Judaism late in life, “Since I’ve become involved with Jewish life, not one day has passed where I have asked a question about my purpose in life.”

Clergy and religious leaders often spend the majority of their time trying to strengthen faith in those who show a sparkle of commitment, and yet the disengagement of tens of thousands should make us think more about what it takes to enhance faith in the world generally.

            Contrast this spiritual malaise to a passage of Talmud that highlights the role of passion and religion.  A rabbi entered a study hall and suddenly a matter he had studied for many years about an esoteric detail was suddenly clarified for him by one sage and he had yet another level of illumination. One cannot miss a moment of study for int  at one moment, all clarification can occur.  Torah is only attained by one who kills himself in a tent” ‘This is the Torah: A person who dies in a tent (Numbers 19:14)

Rabbi Yonatan said: One should never prevent himself from attenidnging the study hall or from engaging in matters of Torah, even at the moment of death.

I will sing to the Lord for God has been good to me.” “I trust in Your kindness; my heart will exult in Your deliverance.” Psalms 13:6