In This Moment, April 23: Does Jewish Law Mandate Vaccinations? Bystanders and the Chauvin Trial; Breaking Down Real Barriers, Virtually

In This Moment The Shabbat Announcements are sponsored by Lisa and Eric Strom in honor of their daughter, Sarah, becoming a Bat Mitzvah on Shabbat morning.

Shabbat Shalom and welcome back (in body or spirit)! Mazal tov to Sarah Strom, who becomes bat mitzvah here this Shabbat. On Friday night, we'll have services outdoors (weather looks good), livestreamed so everyone can participate. We are coming off of Earth Day and with so many exciting plans being made to safeguard our planet, here are three things to remember about Jewish Values and Earth Day. The Chauvin Verdict was a great source of relief and excitement for so many who have wondered aloud whether whether that proverbial long arc of the moral universe might finally be definitively bending toward justice. My op-ed for the R.N.S., "Bystanders in a Digital Age: The Heroes of the Derek Chauvin Trial," was picked up by The Washington Post. It speaks of how bystanding 'aint what it used to be; in fact, there really is no such thing as a pure bystander anymore. The mitzvah found in this week's portion of Achare Mot - Kedoshim (Leviticus 19:16), not to stand idly by the blood of our neighbor, has been rendered nearly obsolete with the proliferation of cell phones and cameras nearly everywhere. No one can stand "idly by" anymore. If you are at the scene of a crime, you need to get involved, because you will be found.

200,000,000 Shots! This week Americans received their 200 millionth vaccine shot - and yet there is grave concern that too many people are backing away from taking it. Stamford's health commissioner called me this week to discuss what religious leaders can do to spread the word that these vaccines are safe and absolutely necessary. Jewish sources resoundingly concur. In short, they say, "take the shot!" So if your question is: Does Jewish Law Mandate Vaccinations? The answer is YES!!!! If you don't believe, me, take a look at this packet that I put together (presciently) in 2019, prior to Covid-19, but remaining relevant nonetheless. See also this more recent responsum, written this year: "Does halakhah require vaccination against dangerous diseases such as measles, rubella, polio and Covid-19?" by Rabbi David Golinkin, which passed the Committee of Jewish Law and Standards by a vote of 13-0-0. Rabbi Golinkin concludes that Jews are obligated to vaccinate themselves and their children, excepting only cases where vaccination would endanger an individual with pre-existing medical conditions that prevent it. Jewish schools, synagogues, and the government of the State of Israel are permitted to require vaccination. The CJLS also passed "Vaccination and Ethical Questions Posed by COVID-19 Vaccines" by Rabbi Micah Peltz by a vote of 18-0-0. This consistent message is also connected to this week's portion, which speaks of the need to save lives as the Torah's highest value. As Rabbi Peltz writes: The Torah emphasizes that we need to take responsibility for the well-being of those around us when it says, “Do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor.” This is understood to mean that we do everything we can to safeguard the health of others. There's that verse again! I'll talk more about this at services on Friday night. Share the packets, especially with your recalcitrant friends. I'm especially concerned about young adults, who are now eligible. My advice - and halacha's - take the shot!

Praying Out of the Box We saw with last Shabbat's bar mitzvah just how much we can do with just a little out-of-the-bima thinking. Our hybrid service was wonderful both for those on-site and remote. At one point we had a split screen where the student's grandmother read the prayer for the State of Israel FROM Israel (see photo above) - and in real time, those in the sanctuary responded "Amen." I'm looking forward to many more such dramatic moments. The breaking down of barriers between, between in-person and remote prayer, combined with the experience of online community generated this past year by our Zoom services, reminded me of reflections I shared at the dawn of the internet age, in the late '90s, when I was putting together my initial thoughts about spirituality and cyberspace for my book, thelordismyshepherd.com:Seeking God in Cybersplace. For the past several years, and for good reason, we've become very skeptical about social media. But back in this period, before there was a Facebook, we saw the potential for community building and breaking down barriers. Covid brought us back to that - and last week's service was a stark reminder of the power of this medium, at its best See below a brief excerpt from that book: Alone/Together: Breaking Down Real Barriers, Virtually When we are alone in front of a blipping screen, there is sanctity and there can be community. One is truly alone, yet simultaneously in the presence of millions, and easily in the presence of a minyan who are like-minded. In any chat room, by definition, if there are ten people in the room who chose to be there because of that basic concern, whether it be saving the whales or nominating Jerry Springer for President, these are ten like-minded people. The masks come off, the hearts merge, and the aloneness is transcended. The experience of finding that minyan is incredibly powerful, obliterating boundaries, dissolving differences....                We find God on the Internet because it binds us all as One.                The Sh'ma, that central affirmation of monotheism, is speaking not about an abstract being "out there," but as that glue, that woven knot, that web, that binds us all. Jewish theologian Arthur Green has written: "In it we declare that God is One -- which is to say that humanity is one, that life is one, that joys and sufferings are one -- for God is the force that binds them all together. There is nothing obvious about this truth, for life as we know it seems infinitely fragmented. Human beings seem isolated from one another, divided by all the fears and hatreds that make up human history. Even within a single life, one moment feels cut off from the next. To assert that all is one in God is our supreme act of faith." Think about it: When we receive e-mail, unless the correspondent specifies where he or she lives, the geographic address remains unknown -- and irrelevant. The artificial barriers of space are broken down. When I read the Israeli newspapers every evening before I retire, I'm reviewing the stories that my Israeli sister is just waking up to. Even though we live seven time zones apart, my spiritual clock is in Jerusalem. The barriers of time have been obliterated. When my son Ethan checks out the major league baseball scores on the ESPN website, then shifts to my synagogue's site to see himself listed along with other 6 and 7 year olds on our temple's junior baseball league (our teams are the Lightning and Matzah Balls), his uniqueness as an athlete and a human being are placed on the very same level as that of major league baseball players. This dissolves artificial barriers of talent, income and age, affirming that all human beings are of equal and infinite worth. When with just a few clicks I can gain access to resources of rabbinic commentary larger than the combined libraries of all the great rabbis throughout the ages, the barriers of access to knowledge have been washed away. When a single click can shuttle me from Newt Gingrich to Greenpeace, from Alvin Toffler's conservative "third wave information age" to what Frank Rich has called a "whopping stealth victory for the counterculture," we have dismantled the intellectual boundaries separating left from right. The Internet is a grand party to which everyone is invited, and which everyone has in common. Everyone is part of the same single in-group. Everyone, that is, who has access to it – and as computers become more common in public schools and the Internet more affordable and available through other means (e.g. cable television) – that access will become increasingly democratized.  The Internet is the first real Main Street that we've ever had.

Above, a scene from last week's service, and below, Hebrew school returns to in-person outdoor classes.

Shabbat Shalom! Rabbi Joshua Hammerman

In This Moment: Porky's Revenge, In-Between Times, Vaccine Passports

In This Moment April 9, 2021 Click to watch this week's Town Hall event with Senator Blumenthal Shabbat Shalom! A busy week, highlighted by our Town Meeting with Senator Blumenthal (was that an official 2022 kickoff that I heard, on his home Zoom?) as well as Yom Hashoah. In Israel, Bibi received the mandate to form a government, but the numbers do not currently favor him. Read Marc Shulman's excellent analysis of what's going on there, and this piece about the racist party that would become part of a prospective right-wing government. Tonight will mark our last scheduled Friday night that is totally virtual, although it should be noted that beginning next week, each week we will decide on Thursday whether to revert to a Zoom-only service because of weather concerns. So check your local listings. In any event, all services will still be available at home, so no one should feel pressured to attend in person. Shabbat morning I'll be discussing the portion of Shemini, which features the Torah's most comprehensive discussion of the laws and concepts of Kashrut.  Here is the discussion packet and fact sheet on Kashrut, and some links to additional "How tos" and "Whats."  With its roots in the Bible, the system of defining which foods are Kosher was developed by the rabbis of late antiquity. Its application to changing realities has been the work of subsequent generations, including our own. Tomorrow I'll focus on that most quintessential of Kashrut's foils, the pig - and did you see in today's NYT how wild boars are taking over Haifa? Sweet revenge for the porcine family! And yet, at the same time, on the front page of Ha'aretz today, archeological proof that the taboo against pork was strong even in medieval Oxford (where there is no shortage of bacon and lard, so I hear). So lots of piggledy wiggledy to discuss tomorrow. The Place In Between We've reached a strange "in-between" place, a moment of liminality, between one stage of our lives, and the next. Religion lives in these spaces; as we stand at a threshold, where we can shed one identity and begin to assume a new role. For many of us, as we exit from the year of Covid, we will be leaving behind loved ones who never quite got here. Our good friend Rabbi Vicki Axe is commemorating the first yahrzeit of her beloved Harold, and she has pulled together her thoughts into a podcast and lovely essay, "Love and Loss in the Time of Covid." You can link to the essay and podcast here. Speaking of love and loss, I was enraptured by the new season of Shtisel and would love to participate in a discussion about it. Let me know if you are interested . Meanwhile, to get us started, see this perceptive essay from the Forward. Whatever our situation, the next few months are going to be transitional, and then some. Over the past several days, I've been dealing with people planning all those postponed weddings and namings - and for those who are getting married after having spend Covid under the same roof as their future spouse, it will be as if they've already been married for a decade even before the glass is broken. The consensus is that the timespan of Covid living can be measured in dog years. So we are about to enter the most religiously charged few months of this generation. Really, we entered it a year ago. But it will not end when the doors open. It will be raised to a new level. Let's make the most of this time of growth and change. What do Jewish sources have to say about this return to "normalcy" following extraordinary events? See David Golinkin's "Jewish quotes on a return to normalcy," from the JPost. Vaccine Passports As we prepare to cross that threshold, there has been much discussion of so-called vaccine passports, and whether vaccination should be required for admission to schools, businesses, sporting events and, oh yes, places of worship. This should not be a politically-tinged conversation (just like masks shouldn't be). Last week, the libertarian party of Kentucky was called out for what Forbes described as "an extremely poor comparison of vaccination passport programs to the yellow Star of David that was forced to be worn by Jews during the Holocaust." (See for yourself: "Vaccine Passport Comparison To Holocaust Symbols Stirs Debate.") Israel has been implementing a Vaccine Passport system for about a month. And it has worked. I believe it makes sense to generally require vaccination or accurate texting when people are going to be in close quarters, once vaccines are available to all who want them. There will be exceptions, such as with children. This midrash explains why: A group of people were sitting in a boat. One person pulled out a hand-drill and proceeded to drill a hole beneath their seat. The fellow passengers screamed at the incredulous sight and asked, “What do you think you’re doing?!” The hole-driller dismissed the question and responded, “What do you care? Am I not drilling under my seat?” They replied: “Because you are sinking the boat with us in it!’” (Vayikra Rabbah 4:6). That is precisely why we will need to reenter society with our vaccine passports in hand. Below is the full quote of the midrash, for you to clip and save - and place it in your wallet, right next to your vaccination card. Rabbi Joshua Hammerman ‌ Temple Beth El 350 Roxbury Road Stamford, Connecticut 06902 203-322-6901 | www.tbe.org    A Conservative, Inclusive, Spiritual Community