On One Foot: Joshua Hammerman's Blog

Author of "Embracing Auschwitz" and "Mensch•Marks: Life Lessons of a Human Rabbi - Wisdom for Untethered Times." Winner of the Rockower Award, the highest honor in Jewish journalism and 2019 Religion News Association Award for Excellence in Commentary. Musings of a rabbi, journalist, father, husband, poodle-owner, Red Sox fan and self-proclaimed mensch, taken from essays, columns, sermons and thin air. Writes regularly in the New York Jewish Week and Times of Israel.

Showing posts with label kohelet. Show all posts

Thursday, April 21, 2022

In this Moment, April 22: End of Pesach, Paschal Goat Nabbed in the Nick of Time on Temple Mount; Is Love the Key to Meaning in Life? Jewish Voters' Priorities

In This Moment

Watch our Zoom Seder (above right), and check out more photos and chat box comments

Happy Pesach and Shabbat Shalom!

As we head toward the conclusion of the festival, while services will continue to be presented remotely, primarily on Zoom, we are moving ahead with our long awaited transition back to in-person Shabbat morning services - this week (which also happens to be the 8th day of Passover and Yizkor). We'll be in the sanctuary for Friday night (with guest musician Koby Hayon and Rabbi Ginsburg, who will talk about his recent trip to Spain and Portugal, joining Cantor Kaplan and me) and Shabbat morning - so join us, either in person or online. Given the uptick of the infection rate, we are returning to a recommendation that people wear masks at our services if they are up to date on vaccinations; for others, masks are required. A reminder also that our offices are closed for the 7th day on Friday, and there will be no 1 PM minyan that day. Also, make sure to light your Yom Hashoah yellow candle next week. Holocaust Remembrance Day falls next Wed. evening and Thursday.

A few weeks ago, I speculated that the rare confluence of Passover, Easter and Ramadan might lead to a more peaceful holiday season. Unfortunately that's not been the case in Jerusalem, with provocations by extremists on all sides. But in the midst of the activity on the Temple Mount, there was one moment that I found both unnerving and touching, and maybe a little humorous: seeing the Israeli police confiscate a number of goats that fundamentalist Jews wished to sneak onto the Temple Mount for purposes of a Passover sacrifice. Such sacrifices ended when the temple was destroyed in 70 CE. For the past two thousand years, the vast majority of A-list Torah commentators have expressed relief that the sacrificial system is gone for good. Rav Kook, the first chief rabbi of modern Israel, believed that in the Messianic era, human conduct will have improved to such a degree that animal sacrifices will not be necessary to atone for sins. There will only be non-animal sacrifices to express thanks to God. Incidentally, based on the prophecy of Isaiah (11:6-9), Rav Kook and others believe that the Messianic period will be vegetarian - we will live in complete harmony with nature.

(Click here to read the introduction to Rav Kook's "Shabbat ha-Aretz (The Sabbath of the Land) and see an excerpt at the bottom of this Shabbat-O-Gram)

Thankfully, for everyone's sake, most especially the goat's, the perpetrators were caught, and one little goat lived to graze another day. But the Temple Mount Faithful are breeding these animals for slaughter, so for them the long term prognosis is not good. Really gets my goat! Our services this weekend, are guaranteed to be 100 percent goat-free! Meanwhile, read this truly great poem by Yehuda Amichai.

Is Love the Answer to the Quest for Meaning in Life?

Or Nature?

Or Nothing?

The Song of Songs is read during Pesach and Ecclesiastes on Sukkot. These exquisite biblical books can be read in tandem, presenting opposite sides of the question of the point or pointlessness of life. Such is the perspective of a an essay on TheTorah.com website. Ecclesiastes claims that everything, even love, is evanescent, while the Song argues that love is the answer, for as the poem states, love is as strong as death. Is the Song an answer to Ecclesiastes? Does spring compensate for autumn?

The interplay between the two is striking, and seems intentional. Ecclesiastes claims all is vanity, "Hevel Hevelim," whereas the Song counters by calling itself "Shir Ha-Shirim." The parallelism of this couplet is striking, as if they were meant to be juxtaposed, and they are read exactly half a year apart. What is the key to understanding life? Kohelet's emptiness or Shir ha-Shirim's vision of harmony? Vanity or harmony? Accepting inevitable death, or defying it with the power of love?

Or is the answer in fact "none of the above," and that nature is the secret to a meaningful life? On this Earth Day, it's a fitting thought. Walt Whitman wrote in his work, "Specimen Days and Collect,"

After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, love, and so on—have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear—what remains? Nature remains; to bring out from their torpid recesses, the affinities of a man or woman with the open air, the trees, fields, the changes of seasons—the sun by day and the stars of heaven by night. We will begin from these convictions.

I've been reading the book, "The Sunny Nihilist: How a meaningless life can make you truly happy ," by Wendy Syfret. Fun reading to squeeze between hospital visits and funerals. Actually, it is surprisingly upbeat, much like Ecclesiastes. She sides with Walt Whitman, saying, "Like many millennials, I've found that accepting the futility of my small life has deepened my commitment to environmentalism. Understanding that the only constant is Earth itself, I find that its protection becomes more important than any singular interest of mine."

It comes down to our recognition of the impermanence of our lives - not only our mortality, but the understanding that within a century or two, all memory of our ever having existed will have vanished, though maybe that is now changing, given the digital footprints we can leave behind. So we look for those things that can extend our existences beyond our little lives, in both directions - deep into the past and far into the future. Communing with nature does that, as does protecting the planet. So, to a degree, does love. Love and legacy go hand in hand - the deeper the love, the stronger the impact, the more it extends beyond ourselves and our little lives. Mitzvot are also an extension of that love - for God, for humanity, for life itself. But is that enough to make life "meaningful"? Ecclesiastes says no. Song of Songs says emphatically, yes!

We read in chapter 8:6-7 of Shir ha-Shirim:

On Passover, when hope springs eternal and spring inspires hope eternally, we are inclined to go with the optimism of "Song of Songs." Love does conquer all. Even death. But by October, we'll sink back into Ecclesiastes' creature comforts, enjoying the moment, the fruits of our harvest, everything, including love, while it lasts. Because nothing lasts forever.

Either way you look at it, as a "Song of Songs" romantic or an Ecclesiastes cynic, the answer is in our Bible and both of those books are authentically Jewish. The most authentically Jewish answer, in fact, is to shuttle between them both, just as surely as we shuttle between the seasons.

Illuminated manuscript above from British Library collection: Initial-word panel Shir (song) inhabited by a bear and a unicorn, 'Duke of Sussex's German Pentateuch', Germany, 14th century (Add MS 15282, f. 296v).

Shocking but not Surprising:

Jewish Voters' Priorities

Screen grab of anti-Israel display recorded this week near her Harvard dorm by a grandchild of a TBE member.

What issues are Jewish voters prioritizing? The answer given by this recent survey done by the nonpartisan Jewish Electorate Institute is, everything but Israel, which is a remarkable transformation, though a trend that has been accelerating for a long time.

Four percent???

Compare these numbers to prior surveys over the past half century and the difference could not be more dramatic. I first saw this poll being discussed on Israeli television this week (see the screen shot to the left, with Israel and Iran, in enlarged orange and white letters, taking up the last two spots). There was no shortage of hand-wringing on the program, with a the bulk of the blame going to anti-Israel activities on the left. That's much easier to do, I suppose, than to look in the mirror - but the numbers speak for themselves, and they should be alarming, no matter who is at fault. No question that the other issues in this survey are all important.

Below you will find these numbers broken down by religious denomination. They show the differences between Reform and Conservative to be nominal, but the gap between the progressive movements and Orthodox to be massive on many issues, including Israel and anti-Semitism. Not especially surprising, but still shocking. But note that even among Orthodox, Israel was preferred as a top-two issue by fewer than one in five (!).

Here's the dirty little secret. Given the choices presented here, Israel would not have been one of the two issues I would have chosen. Maybe the problem is not Israel or us, it's that we are facing so many acute crises all at once, and at the moment, Israel appears to face less immediate dangers (or does it?). How often in our history have we confronted, at the same time, a global pandemic, an evil dictator intent on global conquest, and a serious internal threat to democracy, all as the planet simmers? But I am left wondering whether, if other legitimate crises were added to the list - mental health, for instance, or human rights...if there were fifty issues on the list, would Israel still finish at or near the bottom?

Where would Israel appear on your list?

Friday, October 18, 2019

Older and Smarter? Honoring our Music Makers, Charlottesville Suit, New Pew Stats, Shabbat-O-Gram

Shabbat-O-Gram

All creatures great and small loved our Sukkot Blessing of the Animals!

See more photos from our fall album

Click here for my Yom Kippur sermons (text and audio)

Click here for my Rosh Hashanah sermons (text and audio)

Click here for Cantorial Soloist Katie Kaplan's comments

Click here for Rabbi Gerry Ginsburg's First Night Rosh Hashanah Sermon

Shabbat Shalom and Happy Sukkot!

As the festival nears its conclusion, we have a very busy weekend ahead of us.

On Friday evening we will hear from Amy Spitalnick, Executive Director of Integrity First for America, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization dedicated to holding those accountable who threaten longstanding principles of our democracy - including our country's commitment to civil rights and equal justice. Most notably, IFA is the organization supporting Sines v. Kessler, the lawsuit filed by a coalition of Charlottesville community members against the Nazis and white supremacists responsible for the violence. She will speak at the conclusion of services, to be led this week by myself and Katie Kaplan.

Speaking of Katie Kaplan, she and Beth Styles will be our honorees at Monday evening's (6:30) Simhat Torah services. Here's your chance to thank them for stepping up to bringing such joy and deep resonance to our recent High Holiday services. People are still buzzing about the music from this past High Holidays. Simhat Torah is also a chance to celebrate the Torah, with song, dance and - of course - candy. It's not just for kids! Katie will be co-leading that service with me. Also join us for Sukkot/Shabbat services on Sat. morning, when we read the book of Ecclesiastes (Kohelet) and on Monday morning at 9:30 for Sh'mini Atzeret and Yizkor. Yizkor will begin at about 10:30. if you can't make it, here are some Yizkor prayers you can do at home. A reminder that our office is closed for the conclusion of the festival on Monday and Tuesday. Don't expect email or phone replies on those two days.

For kids and parents, this Shabbat morning features two (count 'em, two!) special events, Shabbabimbam for pre-schoolers and "Kids in the Round," a Shabbat service for slightly older kids (see the flyer). And we'll all come together with the main service for lunch afterwards.

Also this weekend, Sukkot highlights include an eighth grade Sukkah N'Smores at my sukkah on Sat night, while the Men's Club is chowing down on Steak and Scotch at the temple, a Men's Club breakfast and ICRF speaker on Sunday morning, and then on Sunday from noon to 1:30, join us next door at our annual Open House and Sukkah Hop at the Hammermans.

The beat goes on next weekend. Next Friday night, the 25th (and also the next morning, which will be our first Shabbat-in-the-Round for this season, we'll commemorate the anniversary of the Pittsburgh pogrom by joining Jews across the world for the second annual "Show Up For Shabbat." See the flyer at the bottom. And the weekend after that, we'll celebrate with Neshama Carlebach and learn about the Jews of Cuba from scholar in residence Stephen Berk. And so much more to come!

- Ten Things the Sukkah Symbolizes

- History of Shmini Atzeret and Simhat Torah

- How Simhat Torah Came to Be

Person-to-Person Food Drive

We are grateful to all who contributed to our Person-to-Person food drive this year, as well as to those who stocked the shelves - and especially to Ken and Amy Temple, who have coordinated this project for many years. Ken received this letter of thanks from Person-to-Person this week:

Hi Ken,

Sincere thanks for once again leading this momentous food drive. It was a great day and I know I always feel a great sense of satisfaction as we close up after sorting. It's been a great pleasure working with you and everyone at Temple Beth El. And while your participation in organizing will be missed I'm sure you have left the drive in capable hands with Sharon and I look forward to continuing our mission with her.

As I shared Sunday, the High Holy Drive is our second biggest drive next to the Postal Food Drive. So, as you probably know, by Polly's count, this season Temple Beth El delivered 550 bags and after Sukkot and all the other Temples are finished we expect a total of well over 1,000 bags or 10,000 lbs. of food! The pantry is bursting at the seems and you should all be very proud in knowing that you are helping hundreds of families in their everyday struggle to stability in a very expensive part of the country.

As you know P2P is a community supported agency and your partnership in this mission is invaluable. So, on behalf of P2P, please extend a big, heartfelt thank you to everyone at Temple Beth El for their love and generosity in food donations and time sorting!

We look forward to working with you in the fight against hunger!

Sincerely,

Rick

Rick Nixon

Manager, Food/Stamford Warehouse/Mobile Food Pantry

Person-to-Person - 50 Years of Transforming Lives

An update on America's changing religious landscape

The pollsters at Pew continue to monitor the rapid changes taking place among religious groups in America. This week, a significant new study showed the decline of the percentage of Americans who are Christians is continuing at a rapid pace. 65% of American adults describe themselves as Christians when asked about their religion, down 12 percentage points over the past decade. Meanwhile, those who classify themselves as having no particular religion (the "nones") are continuing to grow in number, now nearly passing the number of Catholics.

Meanwhile, according to the survey, the share of U.S. adults who identify with non-Christian faiths has ticked up slightly, from 5% in 2009 to 7% today. This includes a steady 2% of Americans who are Jewish, along with 1% who are Muslim, 1% who are Buddhist, 1% who are Hindu, and 3% who identify with other faiths (including, for example, people who say they abide by their own personal religious beliefs and people who describe themselves as "spiritual").

Also, the number of those who attend church regularly is declining (see chart above). Today, 17% of Americans say they never attend religious services, up from 11% a decade ago. Over the past decade, the share of Americans who say they attend religious services at least once or twice a month has dropped by 7 percentage points, falling from 52 to 45 percent.

Tell you what - if we can get 45 percent of our congregation to come to services once or twice a month, I'll be one very happy rabbi! I am happy to say that our service attendance, much like our membership, has grown over the past several years, and attendance this summer and fall has been terrific.

There's a lot to digest in this new study about the shifting spiritual practices of Americans.

Young and Smart vs Old and Wise

Are we better off with an 78-year-old president or a 37-year-old one? These are very real questions that people are asking these days. Of course, no one should generalize about these matters - every individual ages differently. But the question is one that is very relevant this week of Sukkot, as Jews around the world read the book of Ecclesiastes (Kohelet).

I recently read a provocative article on the subject by Arthur Brooks in the Atlantic, entitled, "Your Professional Decline Is Coming (Much) Sooner Than You Think." You can read it here.

Brooks writes that according to research by Dean Keith Simonton, a professor emeritus of psychology at UC Davis, success and productivity increase for the first 20 years after the inception of a career, on average. So if you start a career in earnest at 30, expect to do your best work around 50 and go into decline soon after that.

Decline soon after 50? Oy.

He adds: "Much of literary achievement follows a similar pattern....Poets peak in their early 40s. Novelists generally take a little longer. When Martin Hill Ortiz, a poet and novelist, collected data on New York Times fiction best sellers from 1960 to 2015, he found that authors were likeliest to reach the No. 1 spot in their 40s and 50s. Despite the famous productivity of a few novelists well into old age, Ortiz shows a steep drop-off in the chance of writing a best seller after the age of 70. (Some nonfiction writers-especially historians-peak later.)"

On the other hand, wisdom, according to Brooks, increases even as mental acuity falls. "There are many exceptions," he writes, "but the most profound insights tend to come from those in their 30s and early 40s. The best synthesizers and explainers of complicated ideas-that is, the best teachers-tend to be in their mid-60s or older, some of them well into their 80s." He cites a number of Buddhist and Hindu sources on wisdom to make that point.

Jewish sources concur with what he shares of Eastern religions - like this passage from the Talmud (Pirkei Avot 5:24), which, at a time when lifespans were compressed, the aged were respected for their life experience.

He [Yehudah ben Tema] used to say: The five-year-old is for [learning] Scripture; the ten-year-old is [of age] for the Mishnah; the thirteen-year-old, for [the obligation of] the mitzvoth; the fifteen-year-old, for [the study of] the Talmud; the eighteen-year-old for the wedding canopy; the man of twenty is to pursue [a livelihood]; that man of thirty [has attained] to full strength; the man of forty to understanding; the man of fifty is to give counsel; the man of sixty [has attained to] old age; the man of seventy to venerable old age; the man of eighty, to [the old age] of strength; the man of ninety [is of the age ] to go bent over; the man of a hundred is as though already dead and gone, removed from this world.

The book of Kohelet is the product of an entire genre of biblical and post biblical material known as "Wisdom Literature." For its author, the specter of death colors all of life. Death for Kohelet is contradictory, to be both welcomed and feared; but as one ages, death's proximity vastly increases wisdom. Kohelet adopts the perspective that youth is wasted on the young, on those who have not yet learned to appreciate those fleeting moments of peak strength.

ח כִּי אִם-שָׁנִים הַרְבֵּה יִחְיֶה הָאָדָם, בְּכֻלָּם יִשְׂמָח; וְיִזְכֹּר אֶת-יְמֵי הַחֹשֶׁךְ, כִּי-הַרְבֵּה יִהְיוּ כָּל-שֶׁבָּא הָבֶל.	11:8 For if a man live many years, let him rejoice in them all, and remember the days of darkness, for they shall be many. All that cometh is vanity.
ט שְׂמַח בָּחוּר בְּיַלְדוּתֶיךָ, וִיטִיבְךָ לִבְּךָ בִּימֵי בְחוּרוֹתֶיךָ, וְהַלֵּךְ בְּדַרְכֵי לִבְּךָ, וּבְמַרְאֵי עֵינֶיךָ; וְדָע, כִּי עַל-כָּל-אֵלֶּה יְבִיאֲךָ הָאֱלֹהִים בַּמִּשְׁפָּט.	9 Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thy heart, and in the sight of thine eyes; but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment.
י וְהָסֵר כַּעַס מִלִּבֶּךָ, וְהַעֲבֵר רָעָה מִבְּשָׂרֶךָ: כִּי-הַיַּלְדוּת וְהַשַּׁחֲרוּת, הָבֶל.	10 Therefore remove vexation from thy heart, and put away evil from thy flesh; for childhood and youth are vanity.

Rabbi Zalman Schachter, a founder of neo-hasidism and Jewish renewal, wrote extensively on "Age-ing and "Sage-ing." To hear him speak of spiritual eldering is to hear a modern version of Kohelet. In this excerpt, he speaks of how each human being is put here to share one insight, harvest it, and pass it on. Old age is not a time of diminishing capability, but of cultivating new spiritual and intellectual opportunities.

Rabbi Zalman Schachter: Spiritual Eldering (excerpt) -- A Thinking Allowed DVD w/ Jeffrey Mishlove

Kohelet teaches that life is short - that to everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven. Israel's great poet Yehuda Amichai begs to differ, suggesting that life is too short for the Kohelet's allotted seasons to be distinct, that the time to wail and the time to dance can and often do overlap. From this poem (below), we learn that we don't have the luxury of waiting for wisdom to arrive in our old age, and youth passes too quickly to give in to declining mental acuity. We can be smart and wise - and chew gum simultaneously. The brain, at any age, can multitask. There is time for everything, if we put our minds to it.

Perhaps the reason there are few best sellers written by people in their 70s has nothing to do with brainpower, and more to do with the rampant ageism of publishers.

Yehuda Amichai - A Man In His Life

A man doesn't have time in his life
to have time for everything.
He doesn't have seasons enough to have
a season for every purpose. Ecclesiastes
Was wrong about that.

A man needs to love and to hate at the same moment,
to laugh and cry with the same eyes,
with the same hands to throw stones and to gather them,
to make love in war and war in love.
And to hate and forgive and remember and forget,
to arrange and confuse, to eat and to digest
what history
takes years and years to do.

A man doesn't have time.
When he loses he seeks, when he finds
he forgets, when he forgets he loves, when he loves
he begins to forget.

And his soul is seasoned, his soul
is very professional.
Only his body remains forever
an amateur. It tries and it misses,
gets muddled, doesn't learn a thing,
drunk and blind in its pleasures
and its pains.

He will die as figs die in autumn,
Shriveled and full of himself and sweet,
the leaves growing dry on the ground,
the bare branches pointing to the place
where there's time for everything.

Hag Samayach (Happy Holiday)

Rabbi Joshua Hammerman