Of Curses and Thrills

Abuse of mind-altering drugs; probably the most extreme
example of seeking a novel, thrilling experience without
regard for the consequences.

This week’s Torah portion begins with a simple equation.  Look here!  I place before you today a blessing and a curse.  The look here – re’eh in Hebrew – is the classic attention-getter.  Likewise, the binary choice, which is then explained.  The blessing [will come] if you obey the commandments that I place before you today.  The curse [will come] if you do not follow the commandments of the Lord your G-d, and you go astray from the path that I am prescribing for you today.

This is a theme that permeates the Book of Devarim, or Deuteronomy; in seminary the professor called it ‘the Deuteronomistic theology’ because it first finds its full expression in this, the fifth book of the Torah.  Follow G-d’s law, and you will be blessed; don’t follow it, and you will be cursed.  The premise of the equation, is that because Israel has been chosen as G-d’s vessel for propagating His message and law to humanity, the good that happens to them is not accidental.  Rather, it is by G-d’s design.  BUT…if Israel falls away from G-d’s design, then curse will follow.  Bad consequences.  And exactly what does G-d have in mind as the symptom of ‘going astray’ that would trigger the threatened curse?  The third verse continues to spell it out precisely:  following other gods which you have not known.  One translation illuminatingly translates which you have not known – asher lo yedatem – as ‘in order to have a novel spiritual experience.’

Many of us spend our lives searching out novel experiences, in order to spice up our lives.  I know that I do.  Earlier this summer, I went for a week’s cruise aboard a sailing yacht as a way of searching out a new and pleasant experience.  People travel to places they’ve never been – the more ‘exotic’ the better.  Or they try new thrills, such as bungie-jumping or whitewater rafting. (Done the latter, not interested in the former…)  For some, their thrill-seeking of choice involves introducing mind-altering chemical substances into their bodies and brains.  All these experiences can be described, on some level, as ‘spiritual’; they induce a heightened sense of one’s self that makes the experience something greater, more transformative than one would expect.  But are these the kind of experiences that the Torah is warning us against?

Perhaps the last in the list:  the use of mind-altering drugs.  We tend to associate such practice with the decade of the 1960’s when the practice of taking illegal and dangerous drugs first became widespread enough as to characterize, in many people’s minds, a generation.  But in truth, the use of such drugs predates the 1960’s by a few thousand years.  They were part and parcel of the sacred practices of a number of pagan cults in antiquity, cults that the Torah with its prescriptions and proscriptions must be seen as a complaint against.

If I’m correct about this, G-d is not here telling us that we must live boring, predictable lives free of excitement.  Rather, He is saying that we must not enshrine the sensory overload associated with thrills, to the level of a spiritual purpose for living.  Specifically, it can be seen as a caution against the kind of sense-heightening that comes from mind-altering substances and experiences.  But why should such practice be singled out among all others?

In short, such thrills feed the soul’s desire for more and more, imprisoning the individual to continue seeking such thrills to the point of not tending to the ‘mundane’ details of life.  And if the Torah has a message for us, it is that we must remain grounded and always tend to exactly those sorts of things.  Both in the realm of the physical – taking care of ourselves, our families, and our neighbors.  And the spiritual – offering regular sacrifices (now, the ‘sacrifice’ of prayer) to G-d and studying the Torah in order to discern what our duties are.  

Descending into the mind-prison of drug abuse, is probably the ultimate antithesis of living the Torah.  And perhaps, the current explosion in use and abuse of mind-altering drugs, is a symptom of how far away from G-d's Law we have descended.  We have definitely brought on whatever bad consequences - 'curses' in the Torah's language - that beset us.

The Original Cause and Effect: a Thought for Parashat Ekev

Every weekly portion of the Torah offers us multiple lessons for living.  Sometimes, to see them requires that we look considerably beneath the surface.  But sometimes, the lesson is out there in the open, for all to see the second they glance at the page of the text.

This week’s Torah reading provides such a lesson, in the very opening words of the portion.  It is perhaps the Original statement of cause and effect, the epitome of the If, Then statement.  If you heed these rules and observe them carefully, then the Lord your G-d will faithfully keep the covenant He made on oath with your ancestors.

All our lives we are aware of the centrality of the if, then proposition.  The concept is so powerful, because it applies to just about everything in life.  Although we have a tendency to think of much of our lives as being out of our control, the truth is that we have an incredible power to determine our own destinies as we remember, and practice, the principle of cause and effect.  We understand that every action has its consequences, so we decide and act in such as way as to influence the consequences.

This is a powerful concept:  one that, at its heart, most of us would rather see go away.  Today, we have a tendency to attribute consequences to just about everything other than how we have acted.  It’s not my fault!  We blame things on others, and those things that we can’t blame on others, we blame on our sicknesses and conditions…which are not our fault!  In a sense, it is much easier to attribute some failing or shortcoming on external factors.  The child in us, is always in search of the unconditional.  But a big part of growing up, is accepting responsibility, and acting with the knowledge that we are, in fact, responsible for our fate.

Our Torah reading is telling us about cause and effect in a specific instance, that of what it will require if we are to not abrogate the covenant that G-d made with the people Israel in ancient times.  But in reality, it is a lesson that can be applied to just about anything and everything.  Shabbat shalom.   

On Ancient Walls and Lamentations

Jews affiliated with Masorti Judaism gather at the temporary
prayer platform in Robinson's Arch archaeological park, for a
service that will start after sunset. 

Last night, Clara and I joined a small group from our congregation, which in turn joined with Jews affiliated with Masorti (Conservative) congregations from around Israel, for a gathering at the Western Wall in Jerusalem.

As you may remember from my writing about it a few weeks back, or from other sources, there has been a controversy surrounding a compromise hammered out between the Netanyahu government, the Rabbinate, the non-Orthodox movements, the Jewish Agency and representatives of diaspora Jewry, to build a permanent prayer pavilion at the southeast corner of the Western Wall, in the archaeological park known as Robinson's Arch, for prayer services that don't meet the Orthodox rabbinate's parameters:  mixed male-female groups, or women wanting to wear tefillin (phylacteries) and read Torah.  All three practices are proscribed in Orthodox Judaism.  Non-Orthodox have been defying the rabbinate in holding non-conforming services at the main Western Wall plaza for years, on the basis that the Wall belongs to all Jewry - not just the Orthodox.  These service usually take place on Rosh Hodesh, and result in violence and arrests.  The compromise was to designate an area in the vicinity of Robinson's Arch for the non-conforming prayer, and to build a permanent prayer pavilion, or platform.  A temporary platform has been built and is in use, but it is not suitable because it is not handicapped-accessible.

As night falls, a crowd of 300-400 has gathered for the non-
Orthodox service including the chanting of the Book of
Lamentations.

The non-Orthodox movements, and a number of allies such as Natan Scharanskiy (currently head of the Jewish Agency) and members of the government, were up in arms, and there were a number of demonstrations against the government.  I did not participate, because I'm not one for demonstrations.  And this is just not a hot-button issue for me, although I don't appreciate the government changing its mind and going back on its word, apparently because the Hareidi parties had threatened to bolt the coalition which would force new elections.

But this felt right to me, to 'demonstrate' by asserting our rights by being at the wall on this most somber of occasions.  So Clara and I joined the group, and we're glad we did.

There's something beyond apprehension about the stones of Jerusalem, something mystical that one cannot quite quantify.  So so sit on the stones that the Romans tossed down from the Temple Mount so many centuries ago, to chant the Book of Lamentations, just felt more emotional, more moving than doing it in the synagogue.

Our group numbered several hundred, but it was clear that there were thousands of Jews in the Western Wall Plaza just north of where we were.  When we finished and began to disperse, there was an incredible traffic jam getting away from the Old City.

Interestingly, as our service ended a number of Orthodox Jews (so surmised from their dress) entered our part of the wall.  This was not to interfere with what we were doing, but to gain free entry to the archaeological site, where one normally has to pay an admission fee.  As few noticed that there was an 'alternative' reading of Lamentations and dirges just ending, and several seemed to ask respectfully why what we were doing was different.  Of course, the answer was that it wasn't particularly different, except for the mingling of men and women during the service, and the inclusion of women's voices among the readers.

Surely, just as there was a 'political' dimension to our presence at Robinson's Arch, there was also a political overtone to the large Jewish presence at the Wall last night.  This was after all the tensions over the past two weeks over who controls security on the Temple Mount.  Interesting that there were a number of Muslims in the crowd at the Western Wall.  I wonder why it was not intrusive that they had to pass through metal detectors - as did everybody else - to get in?

It was interesting that, just as the chanting of Lamentations was underway and strong, it was time for the final evening Muslim prayer; the sound of the Muezzin's call to prayer blended with the voice of the reader leading the chanting.  And for some reason, it didn't sound like a clash!  Rather, the voices and their minor-key wails seemed to blend nicely.  Too bad it wasn't Sunday; we might have heard the bells of the Christian basilica join in the chorus.  At such moments, when you're not watching the nightly TV news, it is possible to envision a future when the various religions can share the Holy City.  That that has not yet happened, much less the sense that all Jews can equally share their own portion of it, is reason enough for lamentation.  

Symbols on the Chart: a Thought for the Three Weeks and Parashat Devarim

Jews gather on the evening of the Ninth of Av, to read the Book
of Lamentations, and to chant dirges

Nowadays, when we think of the word ‘maps’ we tend to think of the digital variety.  As in:  I’ll look that up in Google Maps.  Or:  I’ll put the address in Waze and I’ll find it.  We don’t think much of the paper kind of map, the kind you spread out on the table and study to find the places that matter to you.

Well, I’m studying for a skipper’s license here in Israel.  And one of the tests that the Ministry of Transport insists that candidates pass, is a test in chart navigation. (In the maritime world, maps are referred to as ‘charts.’)  So, the other night, I came home from class with a rolled-up chart of the Israeli coast and spread it out on the dining room table.  And Clara watched me, and asked:  What’s that??!  (Okay, I’m kidding…she knows what a map is!  But she was surprised to see it, and said:  What, you can’t use GPS??!)

Well, no; we can’t!  We have to learn the conventional way of finding our way in coastal waters.  We’re studying bearings and courses and winds and currents, and especially how to read all the symbols on a chart that show you where you are.  Someday, you’ll be out there on the water, and the GPS will fail.  So you have to learn to use a nautical chart, the seaman’s version of a road map, to find your way.

It reminds me of how we ‘find our way’ in Jewish terms.  In a sense, we have a road map:  Torah.  And I use here the word ‘Torah’ in its broadest sense:  the totality of the Jewish tradition, including the Holy Scriptures, the prescriptions of the Rabbis, and the many layers of exculpatory commentary on the whole thing.  It all, collectively, serves to enable us to find our way in our ongoing encounter with the Holy One.

And just as we have a set of symbols on a map or a nautical chart, which helps us to understand the information presented therein, Torah provides a rich menu of symbols that help us to understand the information contained therein.  And important among those symbols, is the annual cycles of calendar observances that help us to understand and contextualize the lessons that Torah has to teach us.

It is important to be regularly reminded of important facts and wisdom that we’ve already been taught.  That’s the whole purpose behind the book of Deuteronomy, Devarim, which we begin reading this Shabbat in the Jewish world.  As you probably know, the Written Torah consists of five books, thus the sobriquet Five Books of Moses, or Humash in Hebrew.  Well, guess what?  The fifth of the five books, Deuteronomy, is basically a repetition of what the previous four books taught us.  Its form is a series of valedictory sermons that Moses, Moshe Rabbeinu, delivered to the People Israel as he prepared to hand over the mantle of leadership to Joshua Bin Nun, before Moses’ own death.  The name Deuteronomy, is Greek for ‘second telling.’  The Torah has its own way of showing us that it is not enough to learn something once.  It must be repeated, in different terms that help us to ‘get’ it.

These Three Weeks of Preparation, which began with the fast of 17 Tammuz (2 weeks ago) and end with the fast of the Ninth of Av (next week) are a way for us to remember, and learn from, the experience of the ancient Israelites.  It’s not just that first the Babylonians, and later the Romans, destroyed the Holy Temple on the Ninth of Av in two widely separated years of history.  Rather, the aligning of these events challenges us to understand why these destructions, and other disasters in Jewish history, happened.  And a contributing factor – a major contributing factor – in each event, was disunity among the Jewish people.  When I say ‘disunity,’ I don’t mean simple disagreement.  Rather, I mean the kind of deep and complete fealty to doctrine over brotherhood, that causes one Jew to think of another Jew as The Other, as an enemy of the Jewish people.  Unfortunately, one sees more than hints of this mindset even today among Jews, in particularly during the last few weeks as the Rabbinate here in Israel has sought to narrow the definition of who is a Jew and whose concerns are legitimate.  It is perhaps for just such a time, that we find ourselves once more confronted with the Three Weeks and the lesson of the danger of Jewish disunity.

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.