Sunday, November 29, 2020

God Prefers Parishioners Who Aren’t Dead (Times of Israel)

 FEATURED POST

God prefers parishioners who aren’t dead

The most essential service we clergy can provide is to help people survive until next Shabbat -- or to whenever the vaccine brings immunity. Nothing else matters
Thousands attend the wedding of the grandson of Satmar Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum in Brooklyn on November 8, 2020. (Screencapture/YouTubue)
Thousands attend the wedding of the grandson of Satmar Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum in Brooklyn on November 8, 2020. (Screencapture/YouTubue)

In a surprising and reckless move, last week, the US Supreme Court sided with conservative religious groups in scrapping New York State’s Covid attendance limitations. As a religious leader, I strongly oppose that decision.

For those of us who work in religious institutions, there is no question that we deliver essential services, but my synagogue does not need to be physically open for that to be the case. Congregations with integrity have understood that our most essential purpose is in saving and enhancing lives. We were alerted to some of the dangers unique to our ilk early on in the crisis, when a church choir rehearsal in Skagit County, WA led to the infection of 53 members.

There was something about a lot of people praying together that was getting them sick.

But despite this, there are some clergy who have led their congregations astray and into the pit of disease and death, by flouting protocols and reopening prematurely, sometimes even breaking the law, and encouraging their congregants to shun masks and spacing when it is common knowledge that crowded church services can be superspreading events.

Like that Tampa, Florida pastor who was arrested in April for defying the authorities by holding services for hundreds of parishioners. Or the pastor in San Antonio, who later apologized for encouraging hugging at his church, resulting in at least 50 cases of the coronavirus. Or the Louisiana pastor who was arrested for defying stay-at-home orders after holding live services for hundreds of people. Or the church in Seoul, South Korea, that flouted regulations and was later found to be linked to more than 5,200 cases.

It’s a Jewish problem too. Like that super-spreader Hasidic funeral in Brooklyn that drew 2,500 people. And then there was Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky in Israel, who said that yeshiva students should stop being screened because “it could lead to a mass loss of Torah study.” Then he went on to contract the virus (and recover).

Or the pastor in Maine who, after officiating at a super-spreader wedding, knowingly spread it to his congregation, defiantly mocking state and CDC guidelines, stating that God wants him to expose his people to disease. He said, “I want the people of God to enjoy liberty.”

Give me liberty, or give me breath!

Well, the God I pray to prefers parishioners who are not dead.

Or the thousands who attended a California megachurch, the Grace Community Church. Pastor John MacArthur defied a state order and 6,000 – 7,000 people showed up.

“We don’t orchestrate this, MacArthur said. “This is a church. We don’t ask people to make a reservation to come to church,” he said.

Well, maybe they should. Many do.

“We opened the doors,” he added, “because that’s what we are, we’re a church, and we’re going to trust those people to make adult decisions about the reality of their physical and spiritual health and how that balance works for each one of them,” he said. “Nobody’s forcing anything, they’re here because they want to be here.”

They apparently believe that God wants them to be sneezing all over each other.

They clearly did not read this passage from the Talmud:

If there is plague in the city, gather your feet, i.e., limit the time you spend out of the house, as it is stated in the verse: “And none of you shall go out of the opening of his house until the morning.” (Bava Kamma 60b)

The Supreme Court is encouraging misguided clergy to do precisely the opposite, and to lead their trusting congregants off a cliff.

Leviticus 18 teaches:

 וּשְׁמַרְתֶּם אֶת-חֻקֹּתַי וְאֶת-מִשְׁפָּטַי, אֲשֶׁר יַעֲשֶׂה אֹתָם הָאָדָם וָחַי בָּהֶם: אֲנִי, יְהוָה

Ye shall therefore keep My statutes, and My ordinances, which if a person do, they shall live by them: I am the LORD

We are told, regarding the mitzvot of the Torah, “V’chai bahem,” Life takes precedence over just about everything else in Jewish law, including Shabbat observance.

The Talmud teaches that Shabbat is holy only because we are alive to observe it. It isn’t holy in a vacuumIf a Shabbat falls in a forest and no one is there to observe it, it is irrelevant. If the coronavirus kills all of us, when Friday evening arrives, there will be no Shabbat. We “make Shabbos.” If we don’t make it, it doesn’t get made.

So preserving life takes precedence even over Shabbat observance. You are required to profane one Shabbat if that will enable you to live for many Shabbats to come.

The most essential service we can provide is to help people survive until next Shabbat — or to next March, or to whenever the vaccine brings immunity. Nothing else matters. All the rest is commentary.

With vaccines so close at hand, encouraging unnecessary risk by populating our places of worship prematurely is the equivalent of asking congregants to be like those thousands of unlucky soldiers who died on Armistice Day, when all seemed so serene on the Western Front.

We are all responsible to keep one another alive. Religion’s role is to remind us of that fact, imploring us to accept willingly and gratefully the public health advice of experts — even if it means our staying away from the pews for a while.  The Supreme Court should do nothing to detract from that essential objective.

The God I pray to wants us to stay inside, while the pandemic rages on.


https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/god-prefers-parishioners-who-arent-dead

Friday, November 27, 2020

God Prefers Parishioners Who Aren’t Dead

My response to the Supreme Court ruling scrapping attendance limits in houses of worship during the pandemic, excerpted from my Yom Kippur sermons:

For those of us who work in religious institutions – there is no question that we deliver essential services.  But our building does not need to be open for that to be the case.  We are proving that at this very moment.  And those religious institutions with integrity have understood that our most essential purpose is in saving and enhancing lives. We were alerted to some unique dangers we confront early on when a church choir rehearsal in Skagit County, WA. led to the infection of 53 members.  

There was something about a lot of people praying together that was getting them sick.

 

But despite this, there are some clergy who have led their congregations astray and into the pit of disease and death, by flaunting protocols and reopening prematurely, sometimes even breaking the law, and encouraging their congregants to shun masks and spacing when it is common knowledge that crowded church services can be super spreading events. 

 

Like that Tampa, Florida pastor who was arrested in April for defying the authorities by holding services for hundreds of parishioners. Or the pastor in San Antonio, who later apologized for encouraging hugging at his church, resulting in at least 50 cases of the coronavirus.  Or the Louisiana pastor who was arrested for defying stay at home orders after holding live services for hundreds of people.  Or the church in Seoul, South Korea, that flaunted regulations and was later found to be linked to more than 5,200 cases.  It’s a Jewish problem too.  Like that super spreader hasidic funeral in Brooklyn that drew 2,500 people – and then there was Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky in the Haredi community of Beitar Illit in Israel who said that yeshiva students should stop being screened because “it could lead to a mass loss of Torah study.”  Meanwhile, an increase of some 114 percent in Beitar were testing positive. 

 

Or the pastor in Maine who, after officiating at a super spreader wedding, knowingly spread it to his congregation, defiantly mocking state and CDC guidelines, stating that God wants him to expose his people to disease.  He said, “I want the people of God to enjoy liberty.” 

 

Give me liberty, or give me breath!

 

Well, the God I pray to prefers parishioners who aren’t dead.

 

Or the thousands who attended a California megachurch, the Grace Community Church. Pastor John MacArthur defied a state order and 6-7,000 people showed up.

 

“We don't orchestrate this, MacArthur said.  “This is a church. We don't ask people to make a reservation to come to church,” he said. 

 

Well, maybe they should.  We do.

 

“We opened the doors,” he added,  “because that's what we are, we're a church and we’re going to trust those people to make adult decisions about the reality of their physical and spiritual health and how that balance works for each one of them," he said. "Nobody's forcing anything, they're here because they want to be here."

 

They apparently believe that God wants them to be sneezing all over each other.

 

They clearly did not read that verse from the Talmud:

 

If there is plague in the city, gather your feet – and stay home!


Leviticus 18, which is the Torah portion for Yom Kippur afternoon, teaches: 


 וּשְׁמַרְתֶּם אֶת-חֻקֹּתַי וְאֶת-מִשְׁפָּטַי, אֲשֶׁר יַעֲשֶׂה אֹתָם הָאָדָם וָחַי בָּהֶם:  אֲנִי, יְהוָה 

 

Ye shall therefore keep My statutes, and My ordinances, which if a person do, they shall live by them: I am the LORD

 

We are told, regarding the mitzvot of the Torah, “V’chai bahem,” Life takes precedence over just about everything else in Jewish law, including Shabbat observance. 

 

The Talmud teaches that Shabbat is holy only because we are alive to observe it.  It isn’t holy in a vacuum.  It needs living people.  If a Shabbat falls in a forest and no one is there to observe it, it is irrelevant.  If the coronavirus kills all of us, when Friday evening arrives, there will be no Shabbat.  We “make Shabbos.”

 

So life takes precedence even over Shabbat observance.  You are required to profane one Shabbat if that will enable you to live for many Shabbats to come.

 

Donniel Hartman reflected on this lesson and concluded that at this moment – what’s the most important thing  we can do?  To live.  Connecting t/o that core instinct is not trivial anymore.  All the rest doesn’t matter.  All the rest is commentary. 

 

“You shall live by them.” “V’chai Bahem” The priority of life is a powerful moral statement.

 

Hartman is saying that the Torah does not think it’s acceptable for people to take actions that put lives at risk.  It is not heroic to go to a bar.  It doesn’t make you a warrior to take off your mask and to shrug it off and say, “People are going to die.” That can never be acceptable. Because simply saying “people will die,” even though we know that they will, never makes it acceptable. We should never try to normalize 200,000 deaths. 


“It is what it is” is never what it should be.

 

We are profoundly interconnected. Did you know that 70 percent of the coronavirus that spread in the first wave in Israel came from America?  In Israel, they could have called it “the Brooklyn Virus.”  I understand more than ever before that I can be a source of harm for people.


We are all responsible to keep others alive. 

Thursday, November 26, 2020

In This Moment for November 27: A House Divided

 In This Moment

 Shabbat-O-Gram, November 27, 2020

Mazal tov to Ilana Gilbert, who becomes Bat Mitzvah this Shabbat morning. The Shabbat-O-Gram is sponsored by Lori and Raphael Gilbert in honor of  Ilana.


Screen grab from last week's Bar Mitzvah Zoom service for Owen Herz.  Click here for Zoom Recording, Screen Grabs and Owen's D'Var Torah for Toldot, along with a list of Hebrew dog commands, courtesy of Owen's Mitzvah Project,  The Israel Guide Dog Center.



On Sunday, over 50 of us enjoyed a tour of the Way of the Patriarchs, given by old friend and super tour guide / educator Peter Abelow.  Watch it here.  Peter is involved in a new virtual touring website called "Israel is Beautiful," which provides excellent tours of many of Israel's most famous - and some off-the-beaten-track - sites.  See it at 
https://israelisbeautiful.com/.  Peter will be returning for a Hanukkah-themed tour on Sunday, December 13 at 11 AM.

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A House Divided

In one of his most famous addresses, President Lincoln said, "A house divided against itself cannot stand."

But sometimes a household needs to be divided in order to survive. And that is the case this week, as millions of Americans are heeding the advice of experts and staying separate on this holiday.  It's excruciating for many, though not a difficult choice when faced with the alternative of placing loved ones (and total strangers) in grave danger.  On Thanksgiving day, my family will be Zooming with relatives from coast to coast, having cancelled some travel plans, but knowing that there is now officially light at the end of the tunnel, in the form of vaccines.

This is not the first time when household division made everyone safer.  This week's Torah portion of Vayetze details the comings and goings (really the goings and comings) of Jacob and has family.  The return, which is completed in next week's portion of Vayishlach, brings Jacob face to face with a potential massacre of his family at the hands of his brother Esau, who came toward him with an army of 400.

Jacob's plan is to shower Esau with gifts, but he devises a back up strategy if that stimulus doesn't work.  He divides his camp into two.  That way, if one side is attacked by Esau's viral anger, at least the other half of Jacob's family will survive.  It is the first case of family distancing on record.

As Jacob bids farewell to half his family, and with the existential threat on his doorstep, he utters one of the most heartfelt prayers of the entire Torah in Genesis 32:  Katonti mikor hahasadim u'mikol ha'emet....



As you read this, listen to these words rendered into beautiful contemporary Israeli songs.  Here are two versions:

Katonti
Katonti

Katonti - HaZamir 2019 Gala Concert
Katonti - HaZamir 2019 Gala Concert


Listen to these songs and reflect on these verses as you sit down for your real and virtual Thanksgiving dinner.  The fear of Jacob is reflected in our own.  The patriarch realizes how small he is, how ill equipped to defeat this foe. Ramban finds a prophetic quote to back up this feeling of futility:  "How will Jacob survive, as he is so small" (Amos 7:2).
 
The greatest danger to us as we face this overwhelming third wave of Covid is a sense that we really understand this disease, that we've been here before.  But we have not.  While March and April were bad in this area, we've never seen the entire country afflicted with such overwhelming force at the same time.  Complacency and Covid fatigue are dangerous, but the gravest danger of all is a false sense of control.  Masks and outdoor ventilation are helpful, we now know, but they are not foolproof.

Which is why we need to split our families apart.  Right now, as with Jacob and sons - and wives and daughter, and lots of sheep - a house divided is the house that will stand.


Here is a suggestion for your real / virtual dinner - and do plan to touch base with us at our morning minyan on Thursday, and at our services this weekend.


Happy Thanksgiving and Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi Joshua Hammerman

A house divided will stand (Times of Israel)

 FEATURED POST

A house divided will stand

As Jacob the patriarch had to split up his household for safety, this year we too are separated. And that's a good thing
(iStock)
(iStock)
In one of his most famous addresses, President Lincoln said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
But sometimes a household needs to be divided in order to survive. And that is the case this week, as millions of Americans are heeding the advice of experts and staying separate on this holiday.  It’s excruciating for many, though not a difficult choice when faced with the alternative of placing loved ones (and total strangers) in grave danger.  On Thanksgiving day, my family will be Zooming with relatives from coast to coast, having canceled some travel plans, but knowing that there is now officially light at the end of the tunnel, in the form of vaccines.
This is not the first time when household division made everyone safer.  This week’s Torah portion of Vayetze details the comings and goings (really the goings and comings) of Jacob and has family.  The return, which is completed in next week’s portion of Vayishlach, brings Jacob face to face with a potential massacre of his family at the hands of his brother Esau, who came toward him with an army of 400.
Jacob’s plan is to shower Esau with gifts, but he devises a back up strategy if that stimulus doesn’t work.  He divides his camp into two.  That way, if one side is attacked by Esau’s viral anger, at least the other half of Jacob’s family will survive.  It is the first case of family social distancing on record.
As Jacob bids farewell to half his family, and with the existential threat on his doorstep, he utters one of the most heartfelt prayers of the entire Torah in Genesis 32:  Katonti mikol hahasadim u’mikol ha’emet….

As you read this, listen to these words rendered into beautiful contemporary Israeli songs. Here are two versions:

Katonti

Katonti – HaZamir 2019 Gala Concert

Listen to these songs and reflect on these verses as you sit down for your real and virtual Thanksgiving dinner. The fear of Jacob is reflected in our own.  The patriarch realizes how small he is, how ill-equipped to defeat this foe. Ramban finds a prophetic quote to back up this feeling of futility:  “How will Jacob survive, as he is so small” (Amos 7:2).

The greatest danger to us as we face this overwhelming third wave of Covid is a sense that we fool ourselves into thinking that we really understand this disease, that we’ve been here before.  But we have not.  While March and April were bad in the NY area, where I live, Americans have never seen the entire country afflicted with such overwhelming force at the same time.

Complacency and Covid fatigue are dangerous, but the gravest danger of all is a false sense of control.  Masks and outdoor ventilation are helpful, we now know, but they are not foolproof.  Today, in order to protect ourselves, many families will voluntarily stay apart. In the Torah, Jacob shows us that such a decision requires a selfless humility that can help us to confront enemies seen and unseen.  Covid may be microscopic and microbial, but we are the ones who are small.

Which is why we need to split our families apart.  Right now, as with Jacob and sons – and wives and daughter, and lots of sheep – a house divided is the house that will stand.

Rabbi Joshua Hammerman is author, most recently, of “Embracing Auschwitz: Forging a Vibrant, Life-Affirming Judaism that Takes the Holocaust Seriously” (Ben Yehuda Press, 2020)

Monday, November 23, 2020

In the Footsteps of Abraham

On Sunday, we enjoyed a tour of the Way of the Patriarchs, given by old friend and super tour guide / educator Peter Abelow.  Watch it here.  Peter is involved in a new virtual touring website called "Israel is Beautiful," which provides excellent tours of many of Israel's most famous - and some off-the-beaten-track - sites.  See it at https://israelisbeautiful.com/.