Monday, April 29, 2013

Rosh Hashanah Sermon 5755: The Kosher Pig


First Day Rosh Hashanah: The Kosher Pig
Rabbi Joshua Hammerman
I'd like to entitle this sermon, "The Kosher Pig."
I didn't invent the term. Rabbi Richard Israel, the Jewish chaplain at Brandeis, recently published a book with that title. It all stems from a story he tells, about a pious Jew who was told by his doctor that he had a rare disease, one that could only be cured by eating pork. Now Jewish law states that in order to save a life any of its provisions can, in fact must be broken. But that wasn't enough for this man. Although he was allowed to eat pork, he determined that the pig had to be slaughtered in the kosher way, painlessly, before he ate it. So he brought the pig to the local shochet -- the shochet got a special knife that would never be used on a Kosher animal, he fumfed around a little bit because he had never slaughtered a pig before, then he slaughtered the pig, in accordance with halacha. Then, as is customary, he examined the pig's lungs, to look for blemishes -- so it could be glatt/ smooth/ and that's all that glatt means. He had no idea what he was looking at, but he finally concluded that the pig had no serious blemishes. "So, nu," the man asked, "Rabbi, is this pig kosher?" "The rabbi examined the lungs for some time and the declared, "It may be Kosher, but it's still a pig."
Kosher pigs. Modern Jewish life is filled with Kosher pigs. Utter inconsistencies that we sometimes hardly notice, but they are there, and they are enlightening.
Last Passover, you might recall, began on a Saturday night. For weeks leading up to that date, I received numerous inquiries from congregants as to when one should stop eating bread: on Friday morning, or Saturday morning. The traditional answer, I told people without hesitation, was that the house should be virtually hametz-free on Friday, before Shabbat. Now why is that? Because one is not supposed to clean a house on Shabbat, or do the kinds of things we do to get rid of hametz: burn it, sell it, etc. The kinds of things most Jews do every week -- on Shabbat. To be "consistent" with his normal practice, the non-Shabbat observer should simply have ignored my advice and eaten bread until Saturday morning. That week, however, many people had their houses ready for Passover by Friday afternoon because they wanted to do Passover "right", when in fact they were rushing their preparations in order to keep a Shabbat rule they don't normally keep. Another inconsistency. It's kind of like the guy who drives to shul on Yom Kippur but tells the policeman writing him a ticket that he can't put money in the meter on yomtov.
Richard Israel loves this kind of Kosher Pig situation. A few other examples he gives: "Rabbi, I am marrying an Episcopalian woman. Can I get married during the week after Passover?"
"Rabbi, we are going to dinner at the home of a woman whom we know uses lard in her cooking. We're kosher, but we don't want to embarrass her. After dessert, may we put milk in our coffee?"
And another: "An Orthodox rabbi has just made a serious pass at me. Do you think he will want me to go to Mikva before I have an affair with him?"
One commercial fisherman in California called his rabbi to see if it was kosher to use pieces of squid as bait when he goes fishing. An interesting question, because squid has no fins and scales and is unkosher; but does it affect the Kashrut of the fish caught? A fascinating question, except that he called the rabbi on Saturday morning to ask it. Does placing a call on Shabbat morning disqualify someone from asking a question of Jewish law? Does answering that call disqualify the rabbi from answering a question of Jewish law?
Harold Kushner tells of another beaut. He was at a clergy meeting, and everyone brown bagged their lunches. The local Reform rabbi brought a ham and cheese sandwich, and before he began to eat it, he paused and recited the motzi. His Orthodox colleague said to him, "Aren't you being a hypocrite, saying that prayer over blatantly non-Kosher food?" He replied, "Not at all. The Jewish dietary laws don't impress me as religiously valuable; but the habit of thanking God for having food to eat impresses me very much." Kushner's reaction is interesting. He disagrees with that rabbi's evaluation of the dietary laws, as do I, but he appreciates the seriousness of the response. A good Jew, he concludes, cannot be measured by checking someone's dietary habits or counting how often someone prays. A good Jew is someone who is constantly striving to become a better Jew.
My friends, all of these people are, to some degree, serious Jews, and for that alone we must commend them. We might laugh at the inconsistency, we might even call it hypocrisy, but if they are hypocrites, we should all only be so hypocritical.
Websters defines hypocrisy as being from the Greek for acting a part, pretending to be what one is not. And we know a hypocrite when we see one: As Adlai Stevenson once said of Richard Nixon, "He's the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree and then mount the stump to make a speech for conservation." That's hypocrisy, but we all must learn the difference between hypocrisy and inconsistency, between pretending and striving, between going half way in earnest, and throwing it all away without giving it half a chance.
And you know, a little hypocrisy isn't so bad at times. It's not the worst sin to pretend a little, to play out what we may not fully believe. Sometimes -- often-- when I pray, I don't feel it, I certainly don't agree with every word. But I utter the words, over and over again, and I help others to pray, and somehow, just because I've remained open to the prayers, a time does come when the words reveal worlds to me, and it all comes together. It happens. It really does. But for the person who says all or nothing, who refuses to pray, because he thinks it means nothing to him and he doesn't want to be a hypocrite, the gates of wonder remain closed.
And to be a hypocrite often means that at least you've set high, virtuous goals for yourself, even if you don't always live up to them. I'd rather do that, and fall short, then set no high standards at all. That's why religious leaders and politicians are so often called hypocrites while John Gotti never is. Religious leaders have to ask us to aim high, while some people are forever stooping to reach their ideals. Most of us are so afraid of being called hypocrites that we take the easy road. If we expect little of ourselves -- we usually deliver.
This year, let's resolve to use the "H" word a little less. Yes, hypocrisy can be very destructive at times, no question about it, especially when someone famous lets us down. But there are far worse sins. The word is overused, so my first pledge of the new year is that you'll hear no more of it from me today.
Inconsistency is a better word, especially regarding Jewish ritual, those commandments between human beings and God, Ben Adam L'Makom as they are called. When it comes to the other kind of commandment, between human beings and their neighbors Ben Adam L'Havero, we should aim for moral perfection, even if we don't achieve it. And we don't. We never will. But in questions of Jewish ritual, we have to try to be serious about it, we should also aim high, but we shouldn't be so quick to condemn those who are inconsistent. Let's be Kosher Pigs. Let's be inconsistent...consistently. And let's not cop an all or nothing plea and then cop out. The stakes are too high.
We have a new Kosher butcher in town. So let's see rabbi, the questioner begins, I don't keep a Kosher home; wouldn't it be hypocri..hypo..hyaaachooo for me to support it?
Absolutely not, because:
A) Without non-Orthodox support, the butcher will not survive and the whole Jewish community will suffer greatly.
B) The store sells Israeli products. Do you support Israel?
C) You can meet your friends there and talk about the rabbi's sermon. A Jewish food market is a place where Jewish communal life is lived, with Jewish smells and Jewish sounds and Jewish words, not to mention Jewish food. I spent an hour there with my kids last week, before I even got to the food. This is how it was where I grew up. And all this can now be yours. It's here. And you don't need to keep a completely kosher home to make this culture part of your life.
But most of all, here's how the kosher pig would look at it. Go part way! Buy kosher chicken and take it home and cook it in a non-kosher pot. The chicken won't tell. And with each bite you'll be making a small statement about the sanctity of life, kindness to animals and the unity of the Jewish people. Go part way! Go out to a non-kosher restaurant and eat dairy, or simply avoid pork or shellfish. Or if that's difficult, avoid it once a month. And at that time think about why you're avoiding it, because for Jews eating is a sacred act, it grants dignity to life, and holiness comes from making distinctions, by exercising self control. Try it. It is still a mitzvah to abstain from shellfish, even while continuing to eat cheeseburgers. Moment magazine calls this Judaism a la Carte. In a recent article, Jack Wortheimer shows some valid concerns about the consequences of this kind of relaxation of standards. What will happen to the next generation, he asks, will they know what Judaism truly stands for? My question is: do they know now?
The crisis in Jewish continuity is an emergency and calls upon all of us to sell Judaism as it has never been sold before. Study after study has shown that the age of ethnicity in American culture is over. If there are to be Jews here in a century, it will be because of the religious component. People with the choice to opt out of Jewish life will do so unless they are convinced of the power of the Jewish idea. And if Jews are willing to reintroduce themselves to idea, we in the clergy have got to meet them half way.
Even the Orthodox are inconsistent. Dennis Prager points out how Orthodox Judaism condones inconsistency, but in just the area where we have stated it should least be condoned -- the mitzvot between people. Tradition states that all Jews should give 10% of their income to tzedakkah. That's what it says. But if a person gives 8%, do we say that he or she has not given tzedakkah? Of course not. Yet, when it comes to observance of laws between humans and God, the ritual laws, the attitude shifts to all-or-nothing. A shomer (observer) of Shabbat is defined as one who does not violate a single one of the 39 Shabbat prohibitions, and their hundreds of derivatives. Violate just one and you are m'chalel Shabbat, a violator of Shabbat.
As Prager concludes, one of the terrible consequences of this attitude is that a small number of Jews observe every detail of Jewish law, while the vast majority of Jews completely ignore Jewish law, here and in Israel.
It's time to value partial observance of ritual the way we value the 8% tzedakkah donation. It's still tzedakkah. And the kosher chicken in the unkosher home is still kosher. And the person who bought it is a Jew who keeps kosher. The ancient rabbis understood the value of the Kosher Pig. After all, didn't they go around encouraging Jews to greet each other every Yom Tov by saying, "Hog Sameach?"
The Jew who lights candles on Friday but then goes to the movies, still, to some extent, keeps Shabbat. A person who takes his or her child to a little league game and then comes here afterward for the last ten minutes of services, in uniform, and the kiddush or lunch, is Shomer Shabbat that week, because the sanctity of Shabbat has been recognized, if only a little bit.
To be a Jew means to struggle, (the word Israel literally means one who struggles with God); We've got to struggle, even if it means making difficult compromises. Our lives are filled with tough Jewish decisions. So compromise, compromise to the hilt, only never let it appear that Judaism comes second to anything else. The Jewish tradition can compromise -- but it must never be allowed to lose.
For Judaism to grow it must speak to our real lives. The Rabbinical Assembly recently created quite a stir by releasing the report of its commission on human sexuality. It affirmed what our tradition has always said, that sexuality is a gift as sacred as any, not evil in any sense, unless it is abused. Godliness is expressed through loving relationships between people. The great controversy arose in that the report pointed toward the potential for holiness in some non-marital relationships without necessarily condoning them. It created in effect a sliding scale of holiness, with marriage at one end, as the ideal state, and non-consensual relationships at the other extreme, where there is no holiness, only exploitation. Many who objected were afraid that this sliding scale is really a slippery slope, making a mockery of all traditional standards. I see it otherwise. A sliding scale is the perfect model for observance in our times. We recognize the ideal, but we also validate the striving.
This letter takes a large step toward meeting people where they are. Engaged couples living together, and that's about two thirds of the ones I interview; senior citizens sharing a deep friendship, in what is being called the Florida syndrome; singles well into their thirties and forties, or beyond, who want nothing more than the warmth of human companionship. Judaism does speak to them too. God is present wherever there is love between human beings. The letter discusses what goes into a loving, holy relationship, marital or otherwise, beginning with honesty, trust, commitment, sensitivity and patience. These are things I want to talk to couples about, but I can only do it if I can meet them where they are at.
Franz Rosenzveig, the philosopher, was once asked if he wore tefillin. His answer, given half a century ago, resounds now more than ever before: He replied, "Not yet." And being a Kosher pig means saying "not yet" to things, all the while working toward the "yet." The danger of "not yet" alone is that it creates inertia. We give up too easily rather than going even part way. Most Jews aren't philosophically opposed to being more Jewishly committed or involved. We are just set in our ways. We do things the way we've always done them. And inertia cannot be overcome gradually. As Yitzhak Rabin said last year after his stunning accord with the PLO was reached: "You don't leap over a chasm in two steps."
That's why a Conservative Rabbi in Massachusetts initiated a campaign last year to get his congregants to buy lulav and etrog sets for Sukkot. To shake us out of our inertia, Rabbi Jay Rosenbaum got over a hundred of his congregant families to shake a lulav, many for the first time. And this year, we at Beth El and Conservative Jews all over the country are all learning how to make a lulav shake. It's a little thing. One small, easy mitzvah. But it's a beginning. And, like the wave at a football game, the waving of a room full of lulavim can create an energy that can lift us all over that chasm in one leap. The lulav is for everyone, of all ages; it is hands on, literally, it has its own beautiful fragrance and colorful pageantry. It summons us to answer to the cycles of nature as we listen to the early winds of autumn through the rustling of its leaves. The lulav begs us to respect all different kinds of people, and to love all different kinds of Jews. And the lulav and etrog, representing all parts of the body, call upon our hearts and mouths to speak as one, to aim for consistency in thought and deed, even if we fall short. The new campaign is just beginning to shake us from our inertia; Beth El's modest goal is 50; we're on our way to reaching it. And you get a free t-shirt if you order.
Rabbi Rosenbaum's campaign is another example of how our movement is breaking away from the old all-or-nothing approach to bring people closer to Judaism, not out of guilt, but by exploring each mitzvah individually, and finding new meanings to old ways. This year, he's chosen another campaign for his shul: to have more people wear non-leather shoes or canvas sneakers on Yom Kippur. "The campaign is called "Sneak into Shul this Yom Kippur." Not to look more pious, but to express, in a concrete way, our desire to walk in kindness and simplicity, to refrain from association with the taking of life on that one day, and to avoid luxury, which dulls the edges of our conscience. The ritual gets us back to basics, to those durable gym shoes of childhood, which cover our nakedness rather than flouting our accomplishments. And it has a pragmatic purpose: it reminds us, every time we look down at our feet, that Yom Kippur is different, that being Jewish means daring to be different, even to look a little foolish at times, and that repentance is hard work. You gotta roll up the sleeves, put on the old high tops and get down and do it. Jewish educator Joel Grishaver calls it "sweeping the streets of God's chambers." He says, "I think God finds joy in my yellow Converse sneakers. Even if God doesn't, I smile and find an inner joy which empowers my sweeping." Ladies and gentlemen: It's the shoes. They even have a theme song: "Walk like a Jew: Walk like a Jew, Walk like a Jew this Yom Kippur; and this is how, don't wear dead cow, when you come to shul this year."
I urge you to consider both of these easy, simple, yet powerful rituals. They're very inexpensive. No one's suggesting that you change your life or give up something tasty here. The big test of this sermon's effectiveness, however will be not in whether we go out and buy a lulav or wear non-leather footware next week. I hope more people will overcome the inertia and give it a try. If many do, things could get very interesting here. And lots of fun. What a surprise it would be. But leave that aside: the big test will be in how we react when we see someone else doing it for the first time. When we see the person next us wearing a pair of Keds, and we know that he's no holier than we are, what will we think? And let's just say that a cold snap hits and that person is also wearing a leather jacket? Will we overcome the temptation to use the "H" word? Even to think it? Can we do it? What will we call that person?
Call us what you like: Striving Jews, Serious Jews, Not Yet Jews or Kosher Pigs, but just don't use the "H" word. Whatever you call us, Judaism is sunk without us. The battle for Jewish continuity will be won, one mitzvah at a time. It begins by changing perception. And we've already gotten off to a good start here, folks, even before Yom Kippur sneakers and Sukkot lulavim, there was the miracle of the daily minyan. Once upon a time, the perception was that we rarely if ever get a minyan, except during peak times of the year. It was defeatist. This summer, the call went out and you answered. And we have had a minyan every morning in this building, more than ten, every morning for 42 consecutive days. The last time we missed was July 25, and on that day we had 8. The landscape is changing before our eyes. Shabbat morning is exciting, every week, even during the summer. One mitzvah at a time. We'll win the battle for continuity.
When I was in Israel this summer, I purchased a beautiful new tefillin bag, a blue satin satchel with a star of David embroidered on it. This bag was not purchased from one of the shlock shops on Ben Yehudah Street. It was not mass produced. It was hand made by an elderly person at Yad L'Kashsish, Lifeline for the Old. At this unique workshop in Jerusalem, senior citizens and the handicapped create gift items sold in their shop, and these are labors of love. When I open my tefillin bag each morning, all I can think of is the person who made it, and how much love flowed through those hands holding the needle and thread.
Let Judaism be your art form. Let it color your inner life, as you weave your own tapestry, sing your own song. Yours will be different from mine, and from your parents; it will be yours. And 35 centuries of dust and dreams and bloodshed and hopes and exultant joy, of burning candles and crumbling matzahs, all will be recreated as if brand new, within each of us. The shofar will startle you, our morning minyan will awaken your spirit, the kosher chicken will sensitize you, you'll leap across that chasm in your Keds, and the lulav will shake you up as the love flows from your hands to the waving branches of the world around us. There is indeed an H word for each of us to take home today. Holiness. Let us embrace it, let's embrace it all -- even if only half way.

Sunday, April 28, 2013

David Ortiz's Expletive: A Lesson From Leviticus (Jewish Week)


David Ortiz's Expletive: A Lesson From Leviticus
04/26/13
Special To The Jewish Week
At Fenway Park, with Bostonians celebrating the end of their excruciating, week-long siege, Red Sox slugger David Ortiz wrapped things up in one brief exclamation.  "This is our (bleeping) city!" he cried, and the crowd went wild, while in bars across America, millions of people turned to total strangers and asked, "Did he just SAY that?"
Well, I taped the event and yes he did.
ESPN managed to bleep it out.  But NESN was not so fortunate.  Neither were the radio broadcasts and all the five year old children at Fenway that day; but that probably doesn't matter, because their parents weren't exactly covering their kids' ears.  Everyone was just happy to be happy, and Ortiz' expletive apparently was the most emphatic way to express that.
I admit. I was too busy laughing through my tears to worry about the ballplayer's proclamation, moved as I was by the pregame tribute and the indefatigable nature of my hometown, and relieved that the bombers had been caught.
But now, it's time to question whether we have gone too far, to the point where every (bleeping) conversation is beginning to sound like a Nixon tape.
​Why do we need to swear so (bleeping) much?  Have we lost the ability to converse, to articulate emphasis without resorting to insulting people's sexual behavior, especially in regard to their mothers?
Simon Critchley wrote recently in the New York Times, "We know swear words are literally meaningless... Yet they carry a force that compels us."  Thousands of years ago, Leviticus said essentially the same thing.  In chapter 24, two Israelites are having a fight.  One had an Egyptian father, which may have been the cause of some resentment or friction between the two.  Who knows?  But the end result was that one of them blasphemed, and the punishment was determined to be stoning. 
​On the face of it, the whole thing seems absurd, like the scene right out of Monty Python.  Come to think of it, this WAS a scene from a Monty Python flick.  But the deeper message of this passage, and of the entire book of Leviticus, is that words matter.  Jewish tradition compares the one who gossips to a murderer.  The very next verse, in fact, deals with the laws of murder, making this comparison most explicit, not just for the idle gossiper, but specifically for the one who curses God.
​For what does it mean to curse God's name? If, as we read in Genesis, every human being is created in God's image, that divine part of us that is the essence of our humanity.  To insult God is to debase our own innate godliness, our human capacity for goodness and kindness.  
Sometimes curses can be a creative way of dealing with powerlessness.  We see that in the colorful Yiddish curses that have sprung up.  And Jews have had good reason to shake their fist at the heavens.  When Job's wife implores, "Curse God and die," Job has every reason to do just that - but he refuses to, recognizing that God's blessings and curses are intertwined.  In fact, the very word translated as "curse" in Job 2:9 is "barekh", which also means to bless.  Job refuses to render God one-dimensional, the source only of evil and not of life's blessings too.
That's what cursing does. It turns God into a stereotype.  Once "bleeping" becomes your only way of express passion, you are unable to communicate creatively, to probe the complexity of deeper feelings. 
Swearing takes the bedroom and turns it into the bathroom.  Rather than elevating the mundane experiences of everyday life, as the holiness code of Leviticus implores us to do, swearing does just the opposite.  It takes all that is sacred and holy and tosses it onto Job's ash heap.  All swearing is ultimately a form of blasphemy, a choice not for life but decay and stagnation.  To swear is to succumb to impulse rather than to rise above it.
​I confess.  I swear -- but only rarely.  So when I swear, you know I'm mad.  You can just ask my kids.  Sometimes we all lose control.  But when I encounter supposedly pious Jews with foul mouths, it makes me wonder how far their piety really extends.  If they are so abusive with language, so unable to control themselves from inflicting verbal blows on God, are they really able to control their gossip, their tempers, and even their physical abuse of others?  Can someone who has garbage constantly coming out of his mouth really be vigilant about the kashrut of the things that go into it?  Are people that needy of appearing cool? 
Everything that we hold sacred came into the world through divine speech.  And now we are losing the sanctity of speech. 
​I don't blame David Ortiz for this.  He didn't cause the problem  Even the FCC gave Ortiz a pass.  His passionate outburst did reflect how Bostonians felt after finally being released from the grip of the psychological - and real - pressure cooker of a horrible week.   
Studies show that our society hasn't gotten worse, at least since the Swearin' '70s, just that foul language has become less regulated since the days of George Carlin's pre-HBO "Seven Words you Can't Say on Television."   Nothing wrong with more freedom. What's wrong is, once the thrill of breaking one taboo is gone, it's all too easy to go on to the next one.
As our society rightly focuses its attention on our addiction to violence and guns, maybe we should spend a moment reflecting on that instant when that anger first gets out of control.  Long before the pressure cookers and semi automatic guns, long before the bloody video games, there is filthy, unchecked language.  Long before bullets, it is the words that wound. Creation began with words and social disintegration does too.
 ​In the Beginning, there were words -- and none of them began with an F.

Friday, April 26, 2013

Shabbat-O-Gram for April 26


Shabbat-O-Gram
For Earth Day - see below
  
This Shabbat-O-Gram is sponsored by Hilary and Craig Feinstein,
in honor of Zachary becoming bar Mitzvah this Shabbat


In my prior posting, I discussed many of this weekend's exciting happenings. So now I move on to more substantive matters:

David Ortiz's (Bleeping) Expletive: A Lesson from Leviticus

Last weekend, with Bostonians celebrating the end of their excruciating, week-long siege, Red Sox slugger David Ortiz wrapped things up in one brief exclamation.  "This is our (bleeping) city!" he cried, and the crowd went wild, while in bars across America, millions of people turned to total strangers and asked, "Did he just SAY that?"

Well, I taped the event and, although his accent is not always easy to decipher, yes, he did.

ESPN was on tape delay, so they managed to catch it and bleep it out.  But NESN and the MLB Network were not so fortunate.  Neither were the radio broadcasts and all the five year old children at Fenway that day; but that probably doesn't matter, because their parents weren't exactly covering their kids' ears.  Everyone was just happy to be happy and Ortiz' expletive apparently was the most emphatic way to express that.

I admit.  I was too busy laughing through my tears to worry about the ballplayer's proclamation, moved as I was by the pregame tribute and the indefatigable nature of my hometown, and relieved that the (bleeping) bombers had been caught.

But now, a week later, it's time to question whether we have (bleeping) gone too far, to the point where every (bleeping) conversation is beginning to sound like a Nixon tape.

Why do we (bleeping) need to swear so (bleeping) much?  Have we lost the ability to converse, to articulate emphasis without resorting to insulting people's sexual behavior, especially in regard to their mothers?

Simon Critchley wrote recently in the New York Times, "We know swear words are literally meaningless.... Yet they carry a force that compels us. This is why many of us like to swear a lot. It feels really good to swear and really bad to be sworn at. Swearing always aims at something intimate, something usually hidden, which is why the words are often so explicitly and violently sexual." 

Thousands of years ago, the book of Leviticus said (in this week's Torah portion) essentially the same thing.  In chapter 24, two Israelites are having a fight.  One had an Egyptian father, which may have been the cause of some resentment or friction between the two.  Who knows?  But the end result was that one of them cursed, meaning that he blasphemed God's name, and the punishment was determined to be stoning. 

On the face of it, the whole thing seems absurd, like the scene right out of Monty Python.  Come to think of it, this WAS a scene from a Monty Python flick.  But the deeper message of this passage, and of the entire book of Leviticus, is that words matter.  Jewish tradition compares the one who gossips to a murderer.  The very next verse, in fact, deals with the laws of murder, making this comparison most explicit, not just for the idle gossiper, but specifically for the one who curses God.

For what does it mean to curse God's name? If, as we read in Genesis, every human being is created in God's image, that divine part of us that is the essence of our humanity.  To insult God is to debase our own innate godliness, our human capacity for goodness and kindness. 

Sometimes curses can be a creative way of dealing with powerlessness.  We see that inthe colorful Yiddish curses that have sprung up over the centuries.  And sometimes Jews have had good reason to shake their fist at the heavens.  When Job's wife implores him, "Curse God and die," Job has every reason to do just that - but he refuses to, recognizing that God's blessings and curses are intertwined.  In fact, the very word translated as "curse" in Job 2:9 is "barekh", which also means to bless.  Job refuses to render God one dimensional, the source only of evil and not of life's blessings too.

That's what cursing does. It turns God into a stereotype. In rendering God one dimensional, it renders all language one dimensional.  Once "bleeping" becomes your only way of express emphasis and passion, you are unable to communicate creatively, to probe the complexity of deeper feelings.  It all comes back to the bleeping expletive.

Swearing takes the bedroom and turns it into the bathroom.  Rather than elevating the mundane experiences of everyday life, as the holiness code of Leviticus implores us to do - in what we eat, who we love, how we treat our neighbors and how we talk - swearing does just the opposite.  It takes all that is sacred and holy and tosses it onto Job's ash heap: our food, our physical expressions of love, our body parts, our holy anger - even God's divine self.  All swearing is ultimately a form of blasphemy. it is a choice not of life but of decay and stagnation.  To swear is to succumb to impulse rather than rising above it.
  
I confess.  I swear - but only rarely.  So when I swear, you KNOW I'm mad.  You can just ask my kids.  Sometimes we all lose control.  But when I encounter supposedly pious Jews with foul mouths, it makes me wonder how far their piety really extends.  If they are so abusive with language, so unable to control themselves from inflicting verbal blows on God, are they really able to control their gossip, their tempers, and even their physical abuse of others?  Can someone who has garbage constantly coming out of his mouth really be vigilant about the kashrut of the things that go into it?  Are people that needy of appearing cool?  Is (bleeping) swearing the only password into society these days?

The universe, the commandments, everything that we hold sacred came into the world through divine speech.  And now we are losing the sanctity of speech. 

I don't blame David Ortiz for this.  He didn't cause the problem. (In fact, to be blunt, it was Yankee fans who started it, with all those indignant chants about Boston, which I bet they regret now!)  Even the FCC gave Ortiz a pass on that one.  His passionate outburst did indeed reflect how Bostonians felt after finally being released from the grip of the psychological - and real - pressure cooker.  But it is sad that there wasn't another way to say "This is OUR CITY!"

Studies show that our society hasn't gotten worse, at least since the Swearin' '70s, just that foul language has become less regulated since the days of George Carlin's pre-HBO "Seven Words you Can't Say on Television."   Nothing wrong with more freedom. What's wrong is, once the thrill of breaking one taboo is gone, it's all too easy to go on to the next one.

As our society rightly focuses its attention on our addiction to violence and in particular to guns, and on the danger of super-empowered angry young men armed with violent language and Ak-47s, maybe we should spend a moment reflecting on that instant when that anger first gets out of control.  Long before the pressure cookers and semi automatic guns, long before the bloody video games, there is filthy, unchecked language. Long before bullets, it is the words that wound. Creation began with words and social disintegration does too.

In the beginning, there was the Word.  And it didn't begin with an F.

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See also last week's parsha packet, "Don't Stand Idly By"

Coming Together

Lag B'Omer is a nice time for Jews to come together to celebrate our common heritage.  That's what families will be doing this Sunday afternoon at the JCC, a Lag B'Omer celebration sponsored by several local congregations.

Another significant partnering will take place on May 7, Jerusalem Day, here at 7:30.  I'll be joined by a Reform rabbi and a Reconstructionist one, Rabbis Jay TelRav and Nicole Wilson-Spiro, as we discuss some remarkable events happening in Israel right now in the area of religious pluralism.  Mark your calendars for this special, free seminar from the Hartman Institute's iEngage series, co-sponsored by the Board of Rabbis, UJF and JCC:

"Pluralism at the Plaza and Human Rights in Israel: Is the Sharansky Plan a Game Changer?

As a democracy, Israel is committed to being religiously pluralistic and to providing equal rights to all of its citizens, Jews and non-Jews alike. Does Israel's Jewish dimension serve or hinder these commitments? What principles and ideas ought to govern Israel's policies on these issues? Does the new Sharansky plan to bring Jewish diversity to the Kotel Plaza, along with the success of the Women of the Wall, mean that non-Orthodox streams in Israel have now achieved the legitimacy they have sought for so long?

For more background on the Kotel plan, see "A Note from Sharansky"

And this just in:   More great news on the pluralism front. A Jerusalem court upheld a ruling defending the right of women to wear a a tallit at the Kotel without being arrested.   I recall how ashamed I was a few years ago when one of our teenagers proudly showed me the tallis she had just purchased in the Cardo and, as we descended toward the Kotel she asked if she could put it on. I grabbed it and shook my head, saying "You could get arrested." Now she can wear it and take her place proudly among her people. We are outcasts no more! And just as importantly, Israel can at last become a light unto the Jews. All the Jews.


Time to "Lag" On!

  

Lag B'Omer is this Sunday.   OK so, what is Lag B'Omer?  It's complicated.  Click here for the web journey answer.



Little Orphan Annie is not the first to have extolled the virtues of tomorrow.   It's done in this week's portion. Leviticus 23:15  speaks of the Omer, that 49 day period of counting between Passover and Shavuot, of which Lag B'Omer is the 33rd day.  The portion addresses the question, when do we start counting?  The traditional practice is to begin counting on the second night of Passover.  But the Torah doesn't say that. In our portion, it states, "Mi'macharat ha-Shabbat," literally "on the morrow of the Sabbath (Fox)."

O.K., so we begin counting the day after Shabbat? Not so fast.   

For a Jew, tomorrow is never merely the day after today. Tomorrow is the better day that we are forging, one day closer to redemption, one day closer to an eternal Shabbat. And if redemption does not arrive tomorrow -- to paraphrase that well-known song from the Israeli musical pantheon, "Machar" -- then perhaps it will the day after tomorrow.   

Problem #1 with this verse: Which Shabbat? The one during Pesach? The one after PesachRashi and others conclude that because no specific Shabbat is mentioned, the word Shabbat is not referring to Shabbat at all.

Come again?

This matter later became a major point of dispute between the rabbinic sages and a heretical sect called the Boethusians, who interpreted the term literally, claiming that the Omer had to be brought on a Sunday, the day after Shabbat, and the counting begin then. Logic might tell us to climb on the Boethusian bandwagon here, but the rabbis faced another dilemma:

Problem #2: When does Shavuot fall? If we're to begin the count always on a Sunday, Shavuot will fall on a different Hebrew date every year. Now we're used to that here in America. Many of our holidays are set not by specific dates but by days of the week (Thanksgiving, Presidents Day, etc.). But Shavuot, as the rabbis understood it, is most analogous to the Fourth of July, which always falls on, well, the Fourth of July, and for good reason. The day marks the birth of America as a covenantal entity. The Declaration of Independence established a dramatic, new relationship between government and governed. It was the birthday of an idea. Shavuot, at least since rabbinic times (though not in the biblical period) marks a similar birth, the ratification of the covenant of Sinai, and it needed a fixed date. The only way to do that was to interpret "the morrow of Shabbat" to mean not Shabbat itself, but rather some fixed date related to Passover.

So, when is Shabbat not Shabbat? Well, some have suggested (e.g. Michael Fishbane, as quoted in Everett Fox' notes) that Shabbat originally meant "full moon," which coincides with the first day of Pesach. Therefore, we begin the counting on the second day of Pesach, on the "morrow after the full moon." But the most widely accepted rabbinic view is to see Shabbat as a verb rather than a noun, as an indication of the act of resting rather than THE day of rest; thus rendering the verse, "on the morrow of the day of resting." The term could refer to any day when we don't work. The day of resting being alluded to here would not be Shabbat at all, then, but rather the first day of Passover, when work also is prohibited.

Lovely.  So the rabbis fixed this original hitch in the Jewish calendar by reprogramming the Torah at Shabbat's expense. They solved the world's first Y-Jew-K glitch by manipulating our cerebral software so that the word Shabbat would not be understood as the day called Shabbat. "Just erase that day from your memory banks, members of the Jewry," the sages are telling us.

Is it just me, or does this form of rabbinic doublespeak bother anyone else out there?

Before we all join the Boethusian foreign legion, let me offer up a compromise solution. Here's a way to have our hallah and eat it too, with some matzah and blintzes on the side.  Click here to read the rest of the commentary.


Earth Day


In honor of Earth Day, the opening of Mill River Park and the upcoming installation of 847 solar panels on our roof:


  
Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi Joshua Hammerman

 

Earth Day


Earth Day


In honor of Earth Day, the opening of Mill River Park and the upcoming installation of 847 solar panels on our roof:




  
 

 

David Ortiz's (Bleeping) Expletive: A Lesson from Leviticus

Click here for parsha packet "Is Swearing Kosher?

Last weekend, with Bostonians celebrating the end of their excruciating, week-long siege, Red Sox slugger David Ortiz wrapped things up in one brief exclamation.  "This is our (bleeping) city!" he cried, and the crowd went wild, while in bars across America, millions of people turned to total strangers and asked, "Did he just SAY that?"

Well, I taped the event and, although his accent is not always easy to decipher, yes, he did.

ESPN was on tape delay, so they managed to catch it and bleep it out.  But NESN and the MLB Network were not so fortunate.  Neither were the radio broadcasts and all the five year old children at Fenway that day; but that probably doesn't matter, because their parents weren't exactly covering their kids' ears.  Everyone was just happy to be happy and Ortiz' expletive apparently was the most emphatic way to express that.

I admit.  I was too busy laughing through my tears to worry about the ballplayer's proclamation, moved as I was by the pregame tribute and the indefatigable nature of my hometown, and relieved that the (bleeping) bombers had been caught.

But now, a week later, it's time to question whether we have (bleeping) gone too far, to the point where every (bleeping) conversation is beginning to sound like a Nixon tape.

Why do we (bleeping) need to swear so (bleeping) much?  Have we lost the ability to converse, to articulate emphasis without resorting to insulting people's sexual behavior, especially in regard to their mothers?

Simon Critchley wrote recently in the New York Times, "We know swear words are literally meaningless.... Yet they carry a force that compels us. This is why many of us like to swear a lot. It feels really good to swear and really bad to be sworn at. Swearing always aims at something intimate, something usually hidden, which is why the words are often so explicitly and violently sexual." 

Thousands of years ago, the book of Leviticus said (in this week's Torah portion) essentially the same thing.  In chapter 24, two Israelites are having a fight.  One had an Egyptian father, which may have been the cause of some resentment or friction between the two.  Who knows?  But the end result was that one of them cursed, meaning that he blasphemed God's name, and the punishment was determined to be stoning. 

On the face of it, the whole thing seems absurd, like the scene right out of Monty Python.  Come to think of it, this WAS a scene from a Monty Python flick.  But the deeper message of this passage, and of the entire book of Leviticus, is that words matter.  Jewish tradition compares the one who gossips to a murderer.  The very next verse, in fact, deals with the laws of murder, making this comparison most explicit, not just for the idle gossiper, but specifically for the one who curses God.

For what does it mean to curse God's name? If, as we read in Genesis, every human being is created in God's image, that divine part of us that is the essence of our humanity.  To insult God is to debase our own innate godliness, our human capacity for goodness and kindness. 

Sometimes curses can be a creative way of dealing with powerlessness.  We see that inthe colorful Yiddish curses that have sprung up over the centuries.  And sometimes Jews have had good reason to shake their fist at the heavens.  When Job's wife implores him, "Curse God and die," Job has every reason to do just that - but he refuses to, recognizing that God's blessings and curses are intertwined.  In fact, the very word translated as "curse" in Job 2:9 is "barekh", which also means to bless.  Job refuses to render God one dimensional, the source only of evil and not of life's blessings too.

That's what cursing does. It turns God into a stereotype. In rendering God one dimensional, it renders all language one dimensional.  Once "bleeping" becomes your only way of express emphasis and passion, you are unable to communicate creatively, to probe the complexity of deeper feelings.  It all comes back to the bleeping expletive.

Swearing takes the bedroom and turns it into the bathroom.  Rather than elevating the mundane experiences of everyday life, as the holiness code of Leviticus implores us to do - in what we eat, who we love, how we treat our neighbors and how we talk - swearing does just the opposite.  It takes all that is sacred and holy and tosses it onto Job's ash heap: our food, our physical expressions of love, our body parts, our holy anger - even God's divine self.  All swearing is ultimately a form of blasphemy. it is a choice not of life but of decay and stagnation.  To swear is to succumb to impulse rather than rising above it.
  
I confess.  I swear - but only rarely.  So when I swear, you KNOW I'm mad.  You can just ask my kids.  Sometimes we all lose control.  But when I encounter supposedly pious Jews with foul mouths, it makes me wonder how far their piety really extends.  If they are so abusive with language, so unable to control themselves from inflicting verbal blows on God, are they really able to control their gossip, their tempers, and even their physical abuse of others?  Can someone who has garbage constantly coming out of his mouth really be vigilant about the kashrut of the things that go into it?  Are people that needy of appearing cool?  Is (bleeping) swearing the only password into society these days?

The universe, the commandments, everything that we hold sacred came into the world through divine speech.  And now we are losing the sanctity of speech. 

I don't blame David Ortiz for this.  He didn't cause the problem. (In fact, to be blunt, it was Yankee fans who started it, with all those indignant chants about Boston, which I bet they regret now!)  Even the FCC gave Ortiz a pass on that one.  His passionate outburst did indeed reflect how Bostonians felt after finally being released from the grip of the psychological - and real - pressure cooker.  But it is sad that there wasn't another way to say "This is OUR CITY!"

Studies show that our society hasn't gotten worse, at least since the Swearin' '70s, just that foul language has become less regulated since the days of George Carlin's pre-HBO "Seven Words you Can't Say on Television."   Nothing wrong with more freedom. What's wrong is, once the thrill of breaking one taboo is gone, it's all too easy to go on to the next one.

As our society rightly focuses its attention on our addiction to violence and in particular to guns, and on the danger of super-empowered angry young men armed with violent language and Ak-47s, maybe we should spend a moment reflecting on that instant when that anger first gets out of control.  Long before the pressure cookers and semi automatic guns, long before the bloody video games, there is filthy, unchecked language. Long before bullets, it is the words that wound. Creation began with words and social disintegration does too.

In the beginning, there was the Word.  And it didn't begin with an F.

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Mill River Park, Tzahal, TBE's Mission


 Artist's rendering of Cherry Tree Groves at Mill River Park
 

On the heels of Earth Day and with spring finally springing up around us, we focus our thoughts on our precious and beautiful natural surroundings.  Next week, Phase 1 of Mill River Park will be dedicated and opened to the public, and a 12 acre parkland oasis will suddenly bring new life to Stamford's urban core.  We will anticipate that opening this Friday night, hearing from TBE's own Arthur Selkowitz, the Mill River Collaborative's chairman, who has been spearheading this project. 

During our 7:30 service, Arty will give us a sneak preview of the park and what it means for our community.  Sustainability has long been a prime focus of TBE's mission, as evidenced by the new plantings in our Finkelstein Mitzvah Garden.  And we are brimming with anticipation at the imminent installation of 846 solar panels on our newly renovated roof, which will soon supply 70% of TBE's energy needs (stay tuned for more about that).

Israel is another prime focus of our mission, and on Friday night we'll be welcoming three IDF soldiers, here as part of the JCC's annual Tzahal Shalom program.  The soldiers are being hosted by Beth El members Nancy and Brad Benjamin, Stacey and Eliot Essenfeld and Joy and Barry Schwartz. 

We also celebrate this Shabbat the bar mitzvah of Zachary Feinstein, and the ufruf of Liron Sissman and Steve Labkoff, who will be sponsoring Friday night's oneg.

Much to celebrate, with spring finally in the air!

Finally, two beloved people will be remembered this weekend. We'll be hosting a memorial service on Friday at noon for Larry Bloch, principal for a generation of our Hebrew School students.  And this Sunday at 12:30, the tennis court at Westhill High School will be dedicated in memory of Stephanie Becker, immediately preceding the "Out of Darkness" community walk to benefit the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

Rabbi Joshua Hammerman

Monday, April 22, 2013

Yom Kippur Day 5773: (Not) Too Big to Fail


Yom Kippur Day 5773 – (Not) Too Big to Fail

Last December, I wrote an article that was began to circulate in the blogosphere and then, after being picked up by Fox News, went viral.   You may have heard about it.  It caused somewhat of a stir.  It was my fifteen minutes of shame.  Although local response was much more muted, the article caused embarrassment to at least some of you, and until now, I have not had the chance to personally apologize.  I expressed my feelings to the board personally and circulated a written statement.  But given the charged political climate, which in our society has pretty much eliminated the potential for reasoned discourse, I chose not to fan the flames with a more detailed response and turned down several offers to defend myself on national television and in the press. 

It was a failure – my failure – a failure to communicate, primarily; to communicate my ideas properly. Not a moral failing or character flaw, as some tried to portray it, though those stinging accusations caused me to place a large mirror in front of my face; but in my line of work, a communication failure is no small thing.   I take responsibility for every word I write and speak – there have literally been millions of those words since I came here 25 years ago - and, I know that everything that I say or write not only represents me, but also you, to some extent, and, to a degree, the entire Jewish people. 

That’s what it’s like to be a rabbi.  Every word counts.  And this is the right time and place for me to apologize to you – to clean up this bit of unfinished business as we move forward together into the new year.
I am humbled by the fact that the local community was so supportive.  Beth El’s leadership acted responsibly and sensitively.  And the reaction of my fellow clergy from the interfaith council, and in particular the letter they wrote defending me, was perhaps the moment in my life when I felt most directly touched by God’s love.  I am grateful to them and to all of you. 

The full story of what happened last winter will have to wait for another day.  In fact, the intended message of that article was precisely the point I made last week on the first day of Rosh Hashanah, when I said: “There are those who seek to use religion as a lever to divide us rather than as a banner to unite us.  But religion has a role to play – a very important role – in a world of upheaval.  It can help to bring people together.” I said it much better last week then I did last December. 

Today, though, I don’t want to dwell on the question of religious extremism.  Today, I’d like to jump off from this to focus on a more appropriate topic for Yom Kippur: failure itself.

I’ve learned quite a bit this year about the nature of failure in our “gotcha” society, and how important it is to get back up and not be afraid to risk falling again.

In this unforgiving environment, especially in an election year, it’s not just rabbis who face added scrutiny.  Candidates certainly do, and we see almost daily examples of words being twisted or taken out of context.  No good phrase goes unpunished. And when they clearly misspeak, no admission of failure is tolerated.  It’s considered a sign of weakness, when in fact most of us would consider it refreshingly honest.

This is where the world is right now. Our country is now more polarized than at any time since the Civil War, and in an age of 24/7 news coverage, whatever people say can and will be used against them, even if they said it eons ago.  The list is endless of people whose misstatements have fed the partisan, political body-slam machine. 

Some pundits – on the left and the right – deliberately try to be provocative, and when they really cross the line – we’ve seen a few horrible examples of that this year – they issue pseudo-remorseful clarifications for political expediency, and then a week later they are right back at it.  But most failures aren’t deliberate; they are simply slips of the tongue or on-the-spot miscalculations.

Why can’t we just relax and recognize that people make mistakes?  It’s OK to make them, and it’s OK to confess to them, and it’s OK to forgive them.   Clint Eastwood talked to an empty chair.  No big deal… I speak to empty seats all the time.

Which reminds me of a joke.  Two men were watching a John Wayne movie and one said to the other, “I’ll bet you a dollar that John Wayne falls off a horse within five minutes.”  The other man accepted the bet and within five minutes, John Wayne fell off the horse. 

 The man wanted to pay, but the first man refused saying, “I saw the film already and can’t accept your money.”  The second man replied, “I saw it too.”

 “Then why did you accept the bet?”

 “I didn’t think John Wayne would be foolish enough to make the same mistake twice.”

No one is too big to fail.  Not even John Wayne.  Some corporations might be too big to fail. Some banks might be.  Some auto manufacturers might be.  But that’s what makes them different from human beings.   

No person is too big to fail

Failure is not an option… it’s a given.  It is inevitable.  We’re all going to fail at some point.  Moses did.  King David did, big time.  Murder, theft and adultery: the trifecta - and his lust-driven crime inspired some of the liturgy of the Sh’ma Kolenu prayer.  We all fail. 

Heck, even God fails.  Back to that midrash that I’ve been quoting this week:  Imagine, God created and destroyed the world several times over before hitting upon the right combination.  In chapter 6 of Genesis, God even expresses regret for having created human beings.  Commentators are aghast that a supposedly omnipotent God could feel that way.  But the verse is right there, right before the story of Noah and the Flood.  It’s hard to ignore.

  וַיִּנָּחֶם יְהוָה, כִּי-עָשָׂה אֶת-הָאָדָם בָּאָרֶץ; וַיִּתְעַצֵּב, אֶל-לִבּוֹ.

“The Lord regretted making the man – God was heartbroken over it.” 

What’s that all about?

We can find a clue in the only other usage of that expression “Vaynachem Adonai” in the Torah.  It’s in 

Exodus 32:

 וַיִּנָּחֶם, יְהוָה, עַל-הָרָעָה, אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר לַעֲשׂוֹת לְעַמּוֹ

"And the Lord repented of the evil which he had spoken of doing to God’s people.”

It’s the Golden Calf incident – and God is convinced by Moses not to destroy Israel.  In the case of the Flood, God regrets having created humanity and destroys everything and starts again.  In the case of the golden calf, God regrets wanting to destroy, has mercy toward the people and steps back from the precipice.

A blogger called “The Curious Jew,” points out the “great distinction between Flood Logic and Golden Calf Logic. Flood Logic assumes that the world must be perfect, and that wickedness cannot be tolerated. (There the God of Justice reigns) …In Golden Calf Logic, it is the God of Mercy who is dominant, God who understands the flaws and who is able to tolerate wickedness, comprehending that these errors can be rectified.”

Interesting.  It’s almost as if God undergoes a process of growth in the Torah, something that is, by the way, very consistent with how the ancients viewed God.  The lesson here is not to expect perfection.  By the time we get to the Golden Calf, which, as failures go, was a doozy, God has learned that no one is too big to fail.
God has learned it.

And the word Vayinachem, which here means “repented,” can also mean “was comforted.”  In that translation, the verse from Genesis could be read, “And God was comforted at having created humanity – though also disheartened.”  The comfort could come from the knowledge that although the experiment looked like a failure, God recognized that this human being would be a resilient creature.  Yes, things were going to get hairy.  Moses would hit the rock and David would hit rock bottom – but in the end it would be OK.

Failure is not an option. It’s a given.  So how do we deal with our own shortcomings?

The Yom Kippur liturgy is all about responding to failure.  The Kol Nidre prayer is a perfect example.   All the oaths, vows and promises that we could not fulfill…well, they’re annulled!  Done!  We get a mulligan!  We tried our best.  It’s OK!  We know we’ll do better next time.  Can’t stop making promises – even if we can’t fulfill them all.  But we can’t give up trying.  And this afternoon at mincha we read the book of Jonah, a story where everyone messes up – and everyone gets a second chance. We’ll be taking a closer look at that book during our break, for those who wish to stay around.

In Silicon Valley, they call failure the "F word" that entrepreneurs say all the time.  For every high-tech business success, there are countless failures – but there failure is accepted, or even welcomed, as a guide for future success.  One investing partner at Google ventures said, “In my mind, the ones who have no fear of failure are merely the dreamers, and the dreamers don't build great companies.”

Everywhere you look these days, outside of the politics and the media, that is, people are extolling the virtues of failure.  And if ever you want to read about the desirability and inevitability of failure, look no further than commencement addresses. 

Aaron Sorkin told graduates at Syracuse this year, “To get where you’re going, you have to be good... Every once in a while, you’ll succeed.  Most of the time you’ll fail, and most of the time the circumstances will be well beyond your control.”

Sounds like an episode of everything Aaron Sorkin’s ever written.

Steve Carell told graduates at Princeton this year, “When I was in college, I wouldn’t ‘text’ a girl to ask her out on a date. I would ask her, in person. One human being to another.  And when she said no, which she always did, I would suffer the humiliation and self-loathing that a young man needs for his, or her, personal growth.”

Brian Williams told grads at the George Washington University, “I told them when they called, I said: ‘You know, I dropped out of G.W. It was my third and final attempt at college.’ And they said: ‘Oh, no, that’s cool. Come on ahead.’ 

Newark Mayor Cory Booker, at Bard: “I believe in my heart of hearts that it is better to have your ship sunk at sea than have it rot in the harbor.”  Love it!  Though I would prefer a third option.

And Atul Gawande, the physician and author, said at Williams College that what great hospitals prove to be really great at was rescuing people when they have a complication, preventing failures from becoming catastrophes. ... “They call them a ‘Failure to Rescue.’ More than anything, this is what distinguishes the great from the mediocre. They don’t fail less. They rescue more.

He makes failure sound like a good thing. And it is.

One of our teens, Andrew Young, spoke of failure in a valedictory speech at his Middle School graduation last June.  We need to be motivated by our failures, he said.  We can’t all get the same trophy.

So how can we take failure and grow from it?

First, we learn to accept it and embrace it. 

A few weeks ago I was talking to our congregant Bruce Kahn and the subject turned to his extraordinary father of blessed memory.  George Kahn was a salesmen extraordinaire and 40 years ago he wrote a book that is seen by many as a salesman’s bible.  It has had several versions, one called “The 36 Biggest Mistakes Salesmen Make.”   There are lots of mistakes listed there, everything from “Running with the pack” to “Giving up too quickly” to “coming back with the same old pitch.” But what does George Kahn put as the number one mistake salesmen make?

Rationalizing away your failures. 

It’s OK to fail, he states. It’s not ok to shirk responsibility for it.  You can come up with every excuse in the book – but you’ll never grow from it unless you own it.

Another way we can grow from our failures is to help others deal with their failures.  Again, this doesn’t work in the intolerant, cutthroat areas of life, like politics, journalism, sports, business, academia, social media, locker room gossip or, come to think of it… just about everywhere.
But let’s try harder.  Everyone deserves a second chance, something illustrated by this story:
A woman was at work when she received a phone call that her small daughter was very sick with a fever.  She left work and stopped by the pharmacy to get some medication.  She got back to her car and found that she had locked her keys in the car.

She didn't know what to do.  She called home and the baby sitter told her that the fever was getting worse. She said: "You might find a coat hanger and use that to open the door."

The woman looked around and found an old rusty coat hanger that had been left on the ground, possibly by someone else who at some time had locked their keys in their car. But she had no idea how to use it, so she bowed her head and asked God to send help.

Within five minutes a beat up old motorcycle pulled up. A bearded man who was wearing an old biker skull rag on his head. The woman thought: "This is what you sent to help me?"

However, she was desperate.  The man got off of his cycle and asked if he could help.

She said: "Yes, my daughter is very sick and I've locked my keys in my car. Please, can you use this hanger to unlock my car?"

He said "Sure." He walked over to the car, and in less than a minute the car was opened.

She hugged the man and through her tears she said "Thank You SO Much! You are a very nice man."

The man replied, "Lady, you probably should know that I just got out of prison yesterday – I was in prison for car theft."

The woman hugged the man again and with sobbing tears cried out loud "Oh, thank you God! You even sent me a Professional!!" 

Yesterday’s car thief can be today’s good Samaritan.   Everyone deserves a second chance.

A third strategy for dealing with failure is to drown it in success.

Rabbi Joseph Telushkin tells the story of how his grandfather interpreted the verse from Pslam 34 “Sur Mayra v’aseh tov,” “turn from evil and do good.”  He said that if one is given water filled with salt to drink, you have two choices.  You can either desalinate the water – very expensive and not practical.  Or you can add so much fresh water that the salt will become virtually unnoticeable. 

The same goes with failure.  You can waste your time being aggravated about something that can never be changed or undone, or you can instead do so many acts of kindness that eventually they will overwhelm the earlier wrongful acts and make them seem much less significant.

When I was accused of having antipathy toward conservative evangelicals, I made it my business to try to understand them better and to reaffirm the centrality of interfaith dialogue in our work here.  At AIPAC, I went to a session led by some evangelical leaders and established a correspondence with one of them.  It’s been helpful.  I got to share some of my concerns about campus proselytizing and end time prophecies regarding Israel.  I now have a better understanding of how such matters do not need to interfere with our mutual support of Israel.  But efforts at dialogue won’t stop there.

A local Muslim representative will speak here at a Shabbat service in January.  Many of us are guilty of lumping people into groups. And in December, we’ll be hearing from an award winning filmmaker and author who will tell us about her friend, a Palestinian from the Old City of Jerusalem, who has spent the last two decades working for peace.  We need to be the congregation that brings groups together, and, given my experiences this year, I’m more determined than ever to do that.

In whatever way we feel we’ve fallen short of the mark, we can overwhelm the bad with good.

Incidentally, if you feel you need to overwhelm your sins with goodness, overwhelm us withyour presence at Shabbat services.  That’s my prescription: Take two minyans and call me in the morning. 

4)  We also need to acknowledge that life is difficult.  

As M Scott Peck has written, once we truly know that life is difficult--then we can transcend it.  Once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.  It becomes a given, a baseline.  And understanding the messiness of life helps us to forgive our own imperfections, and those of our neighbors.

But, 5), despite the obstacles, we mustn’t play it safe. 

Elie Wiesel said famously that the opposite of good is not evil but indifference.  Similarly, I believe that the opposite of life is not death but irrelevance.  The opposite of life is purposeless life - a life that was never really lived. 

Now it’s possible to be relevant in destructive ways, so one’s life must also be guided by humility and kindness, what we Jews call menschlichkeit.  But we can’t fear risking failure, because even if we opt for the 
path of least resistance, failure will still happen. 

It’s easy to doubt yourself when confronted by failure, as I did.  It is easy to wonder whether a lifetime of good work can be wiped away in an instant.  It is easy to deflect blame and stoke up internal anger.  It is easy to lose sleep. I did all of the above. I waited for everyone else to lift me up when I needed to do that myself.
And in the end, I realized that only I can define my legacy.  Not Twitter, not my Facebook profile, not Google and not even Fox News – or MSNBC, for that matter.  Our legacy is in our hands, and much of how we will be remembered has to do with how we rise when we have fallen short.

When Aly Raisman was warming up for the floor exercise in the women’s team gymnastic finals at the recent Olympics, a blogger named Matthew Hunt noticed that she was showing a couple of big misses in her routine, causing the announcers to question whether she was ready for a gold medal performance.  Of course she was and that’s why she is now our “Hava Nagila” Hero.   He speculated that she might have been falling on purpose. “Was she practicing failure in front of an audience?” Hunt wondered.  Making errors during warm up practice seems like exactly the right time to get the “failures” out of the way.” 

It’s like that 2006 Nike commercial with Michael Jordan.  “The commercial opens with a scene of Michael getting out of his limo and walking into the arena.  While walking through the tunnel he is shaking hands and giving nods to the security and maintenance staff.  The voiceover begins with him recognizing that he has missed over 9000 shots in his career and lost almost 300 games, and 26 times he has been trusted to take the game winning shot… and missed.  The commercial ends with Michael walking through doors into the “Players Entrance” and finishes with his insight, “I have failed over, and over, and over again in my life… and that is why I succeed.”

On Yom Kippur, we’re not just talking about sinking jump shots and sticking the landing.  We’re talking about Ashamnu, Bagadnu, Gazalnu.  We’ve betrayed, we’ve stolen, we’ve become violent, we’ve caused others to do evil, we’ve lied, we’ve scoffed, we’ve rebelled, we’ve been scornful, stiff necked and corrupt. Serious stuff.

So pick your failure today.  You don’t have to be proud of it.  You only need to grow from it. For no one is too big to fail.  As we’ll read next week on Sukkot in the book of Ecclesiastes, (7:20), “Ki adam ain tzadik ba’aretz asher ya’aseh tov v’lo yecheta.” “There is no person so perfectly righteous that he does only good and doesn’t mess up.”

The Kotzker rebbe says, "The main element of sin is not how a person has sinned, for he is only human, and he could not withstand the test. The main element of sin is that a person may repent at any moment, but does not. And this sin is greater than the transgression itself.”  As we’ve learned time and time again in our society, the cover up is always worse than the crime.

We’ve failed.  But in our failure lies the seeds of forgiveness and ultimately, salvation.   Nachman of Bratzlav taught, "In the very obstacle that blocks you from discovering God is precisely where God is waiting to be discovered."

I end with a story:

A few weeks ago, with the world seemingly crashing down around us,  I was driving downtown late Friday afternoon and turned on the radio to hear yet another severe thunderstorm warning.  Now we’ve gotten used to those around here.  Heck, we now have so many tornado warnings in Connecticut these days that I’m tempted to hop on my bike to visit Auntie Em.

But this was different.  Usually you get those fronts that go from west to east, extending for hundreds of miles, with those daunting orange and red cells on Doppler radar.  But this had been a lovely day. No storms on the map at all, until five in the afternoon, when suddenly these clouds formed randomly - just over me!  it seemed like God was playing some kind of cruel joke. 

And this wasn’t just any Friday.  It was the day when we were planning to have services at Cove Island Park. Normally, if severe weather were in the forecast we would have cancelled for sure.  But it was too late - 5 o’clock – and it started to rain hard. I called the cantor who was a mile ahead of me and we decided to hold off on taking any action until we saw what was going on down there. We figured that if no one was there, and the decision would take care of itself.  So as I drove downtown through the Friday afternoon traffic, I had a sense of foreboding, that events had spun out of control – a microcosm of the world itself – but in this case I would be responsible for putting people in harm’s way, by not cancelling an outdoor event during a severe thunderstorm.

But then, everything began to change.  My spirits were lifted as I drove past our beaming renewed downtown, the Mill River Project on the right, then all the activity on Bedford St, then, as I approached the Cove, the new Chelsea Piers on the left.  When I arrived at Cove Island, the rain suddenly stopped.  It didn’t stop up here, I later found out.  It just stopped down there.  And not only did we have a service on the beach, but a hundred people showed up – all ages– a hundred meshugenahs like me who had defied the dark clouds.  Talk about faith! Families were having picnics on blankets decked out in the sand and children were running up to put their toes in the water. A gull sat on a ledge just above us, and when I announced the page, he suddenly began squawking out what sounded like Lecha Dodi.  I announced that the oneg was being sponsored by the Seagull family.

And then, someone pointed it out, over to the left, looking toward the coast of Long Island, there it was - a rainbow.

A rainbow – that eternal symbol of assurance to Noah and his descendants that God would never again destroy the earth, that humankind would get another chance.    It was the sign I needed that our world too will get better, that no apocalypse is at hand.   It will get better - but only if we take responsibility for it.
The service was spectacular.  Not a drop of rain fell on us.  Toward the end, I looked up and there was a blue sky right above us.  It was surreal. I commented about how wonderful it was that we had this service and that the skies had cleared completely.  But the second, and I mean the second the service ended, it began to rain.  

“Man plans, God laughs.”

Ten days ago, I implored us to defy predictions of a 2012 Apocalypse, our confidence boosted by the God Particle, which propels us forward, confident that the arc of Jewish history bends toward love. Then we learned that there is only one Jewish people but many ways to be Jewish, and no shortcuts to getting there. Last night we saw how our tradition compels us to choose life.  And today, we grow from our mistakes.
A unifying thread to all these sermons has been that fascinating midrash positing that God destroyed other worlds before settling on this one; it speaks of a God who embraces life, a God who even makes mistakes, but never stops creating, and is never afraid to try again.  A perfect God who models imperfection, a deity who grows from failure.

And a God who also models forgiveness.

If God could bear the imperfections of Abraham, Moses, Aaron, Jacob, Sarah, Miriam and David – so must we forgive our own – and those of others. 

And may we, and those dear to us, be granted a year of personal fulfillment, good health, spiritual growth, intensified connection with the Jewish people and the community, and the simple joy of being alive – today and every day.  Amen