17 Tammuz at the Hartman Institute

Yesterday was the 17th of Tammuz.  This is a public fast day, the start of the Three Weeks of Mourning that end in the Ninth of Av.  This is one of the most difficult parts - to me - of the Orthodox way of life.  Imagine that; at the height of summer, one must go into mourning and not enjoy (for examples) the beach, or music.  And just at the time here in Israel, when beach and music festival seasons are in full swing!

Okay, but seriously!  It isn't just me; if one is not completely inculcated in a mindset where the Beit Mikdash as a symbol of Jewish nationhood and connection to G-d is absolutely central, it is hard to really feel a need to spend another three weeks - after the first month of the Counting of the Omer, which has a similar status - in mourning over events that took place two millennia ago.  That's why strict adherence to the mourning customs of these three weeks, are probably a sharp boundary between the Orthodox and non-Orthodox.

I'm thinking about this because I spent yesterday at the Shalom Hartman Institute, in Jerusalem.  We Reform rabbis - really, all non-Orthodox rabbis - are quite familiar with Hartman and especially its summer learning program that attracts many diaspora rabbis of all streams.  I've never attended the program myself, but many of my colleagues have and they all rave about the experience.  What I didn't know until I came to Israel, is that Hartman has also carved itself out a role in the breaking down of barriers between the various 'camps' here in the State of Israel; it has made itself an important voice for inter-camp respect and dialogue.  So when the rabbi of my congregation, Gustavo Surazski, invited me to join him in spending the say at Hartman, I jumped at the opportunity.

Probably needless to say, the recent decision by PM Netanyahu's cabinet to trash the Western Wall Agreement, was high on the agenda.  But rather than spend the day fulminating about it - and believe me, the temptation was there! - the speakers who set the tone for the day urged everybody to instead consider as more important the personal communication, face-to-face, that we engage  in with our more-traditional cousins.  Instead of publicly decrying the double-cross, perhaps we should try to hold respectful dialogue, where we try to understand why some Jews are not exercised about the decision, while we try to make them understand, why we are.

I know...that's very Covey-ish, straight from The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.  Habit Number Five:  Seek first to understand, then to be understood.  Does this tactic work?  No, not as a tactic.  If it's only a tactic, it will never work.  But if it's a mindset and a way of life, it can effect change...if ever so slowly.

And that's, I think, the key to many aspects of Jewish observance.  Some of my more traditionalist cousins like to say that immersion in traditional observance is a sort of prophylaxis against assimilation and intermarriage.  As such, they reduce it to a tactic.  But as a tactic it will never work, because for those not assimilated into the way of life that it demands, it's just more restrictions and constraints that most of humanity - including most of the Jews - does not feel are necessary.  But when Torah becomes as mindset and a way of life, then it is possible to consider the full range of traditional practices and observances, and adopt them as a joyous program for life.  Yes, perhaps even three weeks of mourning in mid-summer!

I'll keep repeating the Fifth Habit through this Shabbat, to get me past the sermons that will surely issue forth from the Chief Rabbi and others of traditionalist bent, who will liken Reform and Conservative Judaism to the Zimri and Kosbi in this week's parasha, whom Pinchas slew and was considered by G-d to be justified and even praiseworthy.  While cringing about these sermons, I'll think about trying to understand, and consider what I can do to support the work of the Shalom Hartman Center.  A shout of kol hakavod to the Hartman Center and the work of creating dialog between Jews!

A Hope for America, from Israel

A dear friend here in Israel, is also an American immigrant to Israel but has been in Israel for many years.  He in turn has a friend, another long-time American oleh, who some years back went home to the US to take a visiting faculty position at Norwich University in Vermont.  Now this man was not young and, being unused to the harshness of the Vermont winter after so many years in Israel, he spent much of his time at Norwich indoors, and he ended up watching a lot of American news and commentary TV.  This was during the years of the George W. Bush Administration.  When he returned to Israel, he told my friend:  the level of discourse was terrible...people shouting one another down, talking past one another, saying nasty things...it was just like Israel!

Many years ago, the American-Jewish commentator, Dennis Prager, contrasted American and Israeli politics.  Observing that the level of noise and rancor was considerably higher in Israel, he attributed it at the time to the effect of the two different systems.  Israel's, which was and still is fractured into many small parties, grants a large amount of power and influence to tiny parties that can only win one or two seats in the 120-seat unicameral Knesset.  As a result, small populations can sway policies on large issues that affect the entire country.  (We saw an unfortunate example of that last week, when PM Netanyahu overturned a previous agreement in order to keep two Ultra-Orthodox parties in his coalition and in so doing, caused considerable damage to Israel-Diaspora relations.)  In America, as Prager observed back then, almost the entire base of political power is in the hands of the two major parties, Democrats and Republicans, which both straddle the center.  In Israel, the power rests at the fringes.

I'm sure that now, over a quarter-century later, Dennis Prager would no longer hold to that assessment.  Whereas back then, one used to frequently hear frustrated Americans opine that there was little to no difference between the Democrats and the Republicans, today there is far more air between the platforms and policies advocated by the two parties, and in the amount of rancor each expresses towards the other.  So, what changed?  Well, for one thing newer laws on campaign financing make it much more difficult for candidates to raise money on their own, and since they are far more dependent upon their parties' apparatus to fund their campaigns, the parties require much stricter discipline in their legislative behavior.  It sounds noble to declare that one is voting for the candidate, not the candidate's party.  But in the reality of today's party politics the character of the candidate is far less relevant.  And we're poorer because of it.  Gone are the days when the Tip O'Neill-led House of Representatives (Democrat) could work together with the Reagan White House (Republican) for the good of the country.  Instead one sees, at least in the current Administration and Congress, a hatred so deep that one wonders if anything, short of a national emergency of the proportions of World War II (G-d forbid!) could get the two parties to work together.  It's that bad!

BTW, I don't attribute the entire phenomenon of the fracturing of American political dialog on campaign finance reform.  There's far more to it, including a lack of public expectation that discourse will be civilized and perhaps even, a reward from the electorate to the candidate or party who can out-nasty the other.

So, when I hear what this American-Israeli said about the American political scene a decade or so ago, and realize that things are probably far worse today, it pains me.  Whatever could be said about the dysfunction of the political system in Israel, which also pains me, the more-mature and more deliberately-designed American system should compare positively as a point of national pride.  But today it is hard to say, with a straight face, that it does.

I know that it is bad form to accentuate the negative on America's Independence Day, the Fourth of July.  Believe me, I agree that we have much of which to be proud considering our nation's achievements, how it has and still does add to the goodness of the world.  But right now, I also wish that the tenor of our national discourse would also be something, of which to be proud.

May all Americans, whether they live within the borders of the USA or choose, for whatever reason to live elsewhere, resolve on this 241th Anniversary of the founding of the American Republic, to do all we can to restore her image to one that other nations should consider worthy of emulation.  

On State Sanction of Religion

Hareidi ('Ultra-Orthodox') and Secularr Jews clash over
Shabbat observance

This week, I'm going to take one of my periodic departures from writing about the weekly Torah portion to focus on an issue that has very much captured the attention of the Jewish world this week.

As I hope I've successfully conveyed in this blog over the past half-year or so, I love living in Israel.  After spending much of my life, especially my professional life as a Rabbi, 'in the woods' in Jewish terms, it is a joy to wake up every morning in a country where being Jewish is 'normal,' not an 'outsider' status.  For Jews, Israel is a very special place, a country whose importance far transcends its tiny size and population among the countries of the world.

That said, there are aspects of the country's religious landscape, whose wisdom escape me.  And not only me; as many of my readers abroad know, in the Jewish State most Jews could not care less about Judaism.  The split between the religious and the secular was long assumed to be about 80% secular/20% religious, but based on the results of the 2015 election the split is now understood to be more like 75% secular/25% religious.  The 'religious' group (in Hebrew, dati) are what we commonly call outside Israel, Orthodox.  That begs the question:  in North America, the majority of religious Jews are not Orthodox, but identify with other streams of Judaism such as Reform and Conservative.  Do such 'non-Orthodox' Jews exist in Israel?  And where do they come out in the figuring of the 75/25 secular/religious split?

The answer is that those belonging to non-Orthodox congregations, or otherwise identifying with those Jewish streams, constitute a very small minority of Israeli Jews.  I have heard a figure of 10% for Reform and Conservative combined, but I think that is a gross overstatement.  And of those who might claim Reform or Conservative affiliation on a survey, most consider themselves at heart 'secular' Jews who melt into the majority of non-religious except at key moments of life and an occasional synagogue visit to prove they can.  So instead being generally seen as legitimate religious alternatives to Orthodox Judaism, the Reform and Conservative movements are seen in Israel as transplants from the Jewish diaspora.  And some immigrant Jews who identified with those movements before they came to Israel, cling to them in Israel out of nostalgia.  I do not believe this is entirely accurate, as we have in our Masorti (Conservative) congregation in Ashqelon, more than a few veteran and native Israelis who come from either Dati or secular backgrounds but became involved with our congregation for a number of reasons.

The reader who has gotten this far might be tempted to ask at this point:  Why does this matter?  If Reform and Conservative Judaism don't seem to resonate with significant numbers of Israeli Jews, who cares?  More specifically, if the non-Orthodox get written out of the Western Wall or the process of conversion of Judaism, why does it matter?  These are two decisions by the Netanyahu government that have the Jewish world inflamed this week, the latest crisis that threatens to cement the split between Israel and the Jews of the rest of the world.

The answer is that religion plays a different, wider role in Israel than in the Western World in general - and certainly, most relevantly, the USA in particular.  In America, the non-Orthodox Jewish streams have flourished for the same reason that so many Christian and other denominations have grown and flourished and become important elements in the religious landscape.  And that is the ironclad separation of church and state - but not religious faith and state - that is mandated by the Establishment Clause of the US Constitution's First Amendment.  In Israel by contrast, the religious landscape is entirely based on the state's ceding of certain personal status issues - marriage and divorce for example - to the different religious groups.  To the different officially-recognized religious groups, that is.  So Jews turn to the state-sanctioned (Orthodox) rabbinate, Christians to the handful of churches with official recognition, and Muslims to their officially-recognized counterpart.  All of these recognized religious bodies receive state funding and sanction, and all other Jewish, Christian and Muslim bodies do not.

This creates a social climate where the recognized religious bodies - in particular the Jewish section of the Ministry of Religious Affairs - try to coerce the vast number of non-religious citizens to behave in religious ways.  But they largely fail, because citizens of a modern, democratic state are unlikely to be coerced.  Probably the most visible ways this plays out, are in Shabbat closings of essential services such as public transport, and in marriage.  Since there is no civil or non-Orthodox alternative to the Rabbinate's hold on personal status, non-religious Israelis flock overseas for civil marriage, then return home where their marriages are recognized by the relevant government ministries - except Religious Affairs.

This coercion, in turn, fuels the public's distaste for religion, period.  And that's too bad.  In the land where the Jewish people found their origins as a people bound to their G-d, the majority of Israelis simply don't care about G-d at all, or about religion, that set of practices and beliefs that express a people's longing for an encounter with G-d.  Would a different role for religion, or a different way of recognizing the various religious streams, make much of a change in this reality?  Who knows?  But I do know that it's unfortunate that religion, in demanding an official role for itself - which by definition, narrows the religious landscape to those religious groups that are officially sanctioned - has become so irrelevant in a country where religion could matter a whole lot more.

Will We Ever Learn? A Thought for Parashat Korach

It always pains me, at least a little, to offer my thoughts on Parashat Korach (Numbers chapters 16-18).  It shouldn't.  The portion offers a narrative that that offers a - may I use this phrase, cliched by certain politicians? - Teaching Moment regarding dissent and conflict.  Moreover, it was my son Eyal's bar mitzvah portion, so it should - and does - bring forward many fond memories of an important family milestone.  But nevertheless it makes me look at the world around me, from the Jewish community moving outward to the greater world in ever-widening concentric circles, and realize that year after year, we learn nothing.  If a great national tragedy causes us to introspect and take a lesson that will make us wiser, stronger, and better, then that is ultimately for the good.  But if we keep engaging in the behaviors that led to the tragedy, then all the suffering that came with the tragedy is meaningless.  And unfortunately, that's where we are today.

Korach is a Levite who, with a group of 250 of his kinsmen, rebels against Moses' leadership.  Now I realize that, in my last blog installment, I asserted that Moses' leadership was on a downward trajectory to where Hashem would ultimately decide that Joshua Bin Nun must take over the reigns.  But that has not yet happened.  If Moses' leadership is faltering to the point that it would cause harm to the people Israel, there is not yet any indication thereof.  And remember, Moses is the leader whom G-d Himself chose despite Moses' not thinking he was up to the task.  Besides, Korach and his followers have not laid out a platform that indicates they have any better an idea of how to lead the people to success.  They simply want to be the ones in charge.

As I already pointed out, Korach and his followers are Levites.  That means they're not laymen.  Not rank-and-file.  They are members of the tribe which, as a whole, has been set apart from the people Israel to serve important functions in the cultus that serves as the nexus between Israel and Hashem.  They enjoy an exalted position.  But they want more.  They are drunk with the power they now wield, and it makes them want more.  And they want it so bad, that they are willing to push aside those specifically chosen by G-d for the highest positions:  Moses, his brother Aaron, and Aaron's sons.

Korach's only complaint against Moses is why do you lord it over to G-d's people?  But his only solution is to replace Moses with himself...so he, Korach, would then be in the position to lord it over to G-d's people.

Unfortunately, so much of the conflict we experience is of this nature.  We're ready to condemn leaders - at whatever level - for their failings, real or imagined.  But the conflict becomes about unseating the leader about whom we object, with little or no thought of a better way forward.

I'm not going to draw parallels to the national political situation in the USA, because they are all too obvious.  But I have seen this Korach Syndrome in effect at so many levels, in so many settings.  Seeing it operative over and over in Jewish religious life, drove me into retirement from the rabbinate years before I had planned.  It was just heartbreaking to see it tear at the fabric of the community, year after year with no end in sight.

I'm not suggesting we should not allow conflict, or that we should quash discussion of any issues that might lead us into conflict.  Rather, we should take heed to the Rabbis who used the conflict of Korach and his followers to teach us about conflict:  Conflict for the sake of Heaven (conflict for the purpose of finding a better way) as opposed to Conflict not for the sake of Heaven (conflict for conflict's sake, for usurping the current leadership).  The former is healthy - when carried on within certain constraints and parameters - and the latter is patently unhealthy.  As these important chapters come around once more, let's try to give Korach's rebellion a fresh look and really take the lessons it offers, to heart.  Shabbat shalom.

Unfit for Leadership?

Charlton Heston as Moses at his best in 'The Ten
Commandments'

My apologies in advance for not posting NEXT week; I'll be travelling and don't expect to be able to get to a computer.  But here's a thought for THIS week...



No, this isn't an essay about President Trump, please no!  It's about Moses!  But actually, there are parallels between Moses and Trump - as well as any flawed leader...and they're ALL flawed to one extent of another.

All leaders are flawed, because all PEOPLE, whether they aspire to leadership or not, are flawed.  But when one aspires to leadership, one's flaws become visible for all the world to see.  And they become more critical.  Say I have a 'locker room sense of humor,' such as Trump is popularly seen to possess.  If I'm just Don Levy, an individual, then if my humor offends you, you can just decide not to admit me into your circle of individuals who matter to you.  To put it more plainly, you can decide that my friendship is not worth having to listen to my jokes.  BUT...if I have insinuated myself into your life somehow, say by being elected your president, then you can't just ignore or avoid me.  I'm in your life whether you want me there or not.  That's why, if you particularly take exception to my expression of humor or whatever, you are likely to constantly question my fitness for whatever office I have managed to acquire.  This is why we are unforgiving of the foibles of presidents, congressmen, generals, or (much lower down the hierarchy) rabbis.

Moses, while being a giant of a man, is flawed.  He begins developing a short temper and loses his ability to deal rationally with the people Israel and even with G-d at times.  This causes his downfall.  It isn't that he should be an object of scorn.  Rather that his fitness for continuing to lead the people Israel comes into question.  Here, at the point in the Torah's narrative that we are reading these weeks (this week's reading, Beha'alotecha, begins with the eighth chapter of Numbers), he is starting to lose it.

Of course it is only human - and Moses is, if anything, human - to be reluctant to step down from leadership.  It is difficult after a time, to separate oneself from the entity one leads, and to see its continuance after one's pulling out.

Fortunately for Moses - and for the people Israel - G-d sees and recognizes Moses' developing unfitness, and ultimately decrees that the mantle be passed to Joshua bin Nun.  That doesn't happen this week (in the cyclical reading of the Torah), but the events we read about now definitely lead to it.

But the Jewish tradition fortunately does not develop a contempt for Moses just because his time as a leader ultimately passes.  Rather, we revere him.  The Rambam (Maimonides) called Moses the chiefest of the prophets, and I don't know of a Jew who would disagree with that assessment.

Leadership is an elusive quality.  It is rarely possessed, and it is rarely possessed permanently.  When it presents itself to us, it is our task to recognize it and to follow it.  Sometimes, it takes a powerful discernment to recognize it.  And to know when it is time to move on.

The Virtues of a Crowd

A Crowd, South Korean-style

This Sunday evening, we had a special program in Ashqelon.  A troupe of a couple hundred South Koreans came to mingle with the locals and put on a spectacular show.  Actually, two shows:  the first was a sing-along of Hebrew songs of praise to Hashem, which got the Israelis dancing and smiling; the second was a bigger production, a celebration of Korean culture and the world-view that Israel sits at the center of significance for Koreans of the Christian faith.

Many of Ashqelon's residents who attended the show, were overwhelmed.  While I heard only praise for it, some wondered if it had been over-done.  But I was thinking about it afterwards.  Koreans, and Asians in general, respond positively to the big spectacle.  Their cultures do not celebrate the individual as Western culture does, rather the virtue of the collective.  But Israel is, in that respect, very Western.

Dukhanen - the Priests offering the Blessing - at
the Western Wall

But, wait!  Tomorrow (Wednesday), there will be a huge gathering at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, where dozens - perhaps hundreds - of Cohanim will together bless the nation.  Thousands will be on hand to witness the spectacle.

And then of course, there's the original mass spectacle which we celebrate with this festival of Shavuot:  the giving of the Torah.  That was also an occasion when the entire people Israel - by some counts perhaps 2.5 million souls - was assembled.  This factor is the reason why, not only to religious authorities but to historians as well - all agree that something of great significance happened at Sinai, and that it is burned into the collective Jewish conscience forever.

In that spirit, despite that it did seem a bit overdone, I would submit that the spectacle of Sunday night's show should be taken as evidence of the sincerity of the Korean people in their ahavat Yisrael - their love of Israel.

A joyous Shavuot to all!

On Realpolitick and Peace

President Obama's reception in Saudi Arabia, 2014

The week before last, I was on a flight from London to Denver and seated next to a young man who seemed pleasant, but until the end of the flight we had almost no interaction.  Not surprising:  nowadays passengers on especially long flights tend to bury themselves in their in-seat media - or their own electronic devices that they've brought on board - and interact with one another far less than passengers tended to a generation or so ago.  But in the last hour of the flight, when the I-94's (customs and immigration declaration) were passed out, the young man turned to me for help.  He was Saudi Arabian, a high school student coming to the USA to stay with an American family for half a year as an exchange student.  His English was very basic, too basic for him to fill out the I-94 without assistance.  So I helped him, responding in kind to his pleasantness.  Even though I'm no fan of his country, especially given its intractable stance towards Israel, I tried to see the kid as just a human being who was feeling some anxiety over the relative-minor challenge of filling out a US government form.

President Trump's Reception in Saudi Arabia, 2017

I was thinking of the encounter this weekend, when President Trump went calling on the Saudis.  In addition to the very real (and I think, valid) gripes I have concerning the Saudis' behavior vis-a-vis Israel, I have a hard time seeing the Saudis as anything more than opportunists, wanting to hide behind American power while holding values that are anathema to us.

All this aside, it was hard for me not to take delight in the sort of reception that the Saudis gave the US President, not to mention his entourage which included his Jewish daughter and son-in-law (the latter especially, Jared Kushner, being well-known for his pro-Israel views.)  As we remember, Trump's detractors frequently call him an Islamophobe, and accuse him of sowing hatred towards Muslims and the Islamic world.

Well, either his Saudi hosts didn't read those opinion pieces, or they are too smart to take them seriously - and I suspect it's the latter.  It is very telling that the 81-year-old Saudi monarch, King Salman bin Abdulaziz, endured triple-digit temperatures (fahrenheit) to greet President Trump and his entourage on the tarmac at King Khalid International Airport.

The Right Wing media is awash in pictorial contrasts between the grandiose and extremely warm reception accorded POTUS 45, and the decidedly tepid greeting given President Obama, his immediate predecessor.  This, despite that Obama was seen as being extremely sympathetic and deferential towards the Islamic world - so much so that many reasonable people have wondered if he's a 'closet' Muslim - while Trump is seen by some as an Islamphobe who supposedly wants to rid America of all Muslims.  Although I generally have no taste for political statements via meme, I think the contrast is important and telling.   

And let's not forget also, the reception accorded Trump when he spoke to the conference of leaders from Arab and Islamic countries, on Sunday night.  Did any of them turn their backs, or walk out when Trump spoke?  Of course not.  If Trump is a Muslim-hater, that information somehow didn't reach this crowd either.

Instead, the leaders at the conference in Riyadh listened respectfully to what Trump had to say, because he was addressing an issue of mutual concern:  Radical Islamic Terror of the kind fomented by Iran, which country scares the bejeezus out of them.

(I experienced this myself years back, when I spent five months in Qatar in 2006.  I wondered why the tiny Gulf Emirate, sponsor of the anti-western cable network Al Jazeera, allowed the US and allies to use their country as an operational base for running Operation Iraqi Freedom, including the launching of strike missions from their soil.  Well, I got an earful of why, on the few occasions when I managed to have a conversation with a Qatari:  whether they agreed with our Iraq policies or not, they wanted us in the neighborhood to keep Iran in check.  Iran, not the US, is the enemy they fear.)

This illustrates a great paradox of statecraft.  A leader who is seen as strong, proud of his own country, and forthright even if that means that he says things that uncomfortable to others, is respected and is far more able to engage than a weak leader who is seen as fawning and/or insincere.  Trump is clearly seen in other world capitals as the former, while POTUS 44 was the latter.  Whether we particularly like the Saudis, or they us, or not, it doesn't especially matter as long as we respect one another and can work together towards our common interests.

One of those common interests is, of course, the realization of peace between Israel and her Palestinian neighbors.  As long as the US President was seen as the local policeman, forcing Israel to conform to his particular vision of how to make peace with no clear indication that it would get the Palestinian leadership to make any kind of confidence-building moves themselves, he was an impediment to peace - far more than the 'illegal' Israeli 'settlements.'  Perhaps President Trump, despite all the scorn heaped upon him by his detractors who see him as in way above his head, DOES have a real chance to make a difference in helping this festering part of the world to solve its problems.  Given the spectacular welcomes he received this week, first in Saudi Arabia and then in Israel, perhaps he isn't as clueless and without substance as some think him.  At least, let's give him a chance and see.