TBE Bar/Bat Mitzvah Commentary: Malkam Sabloff on Shmini

For most kids, when they think of their favorite childhood memory, it usually takes place at a baseball game, or, for the other half of you, a hockey game, or a celebration of some sort.  But for me, my favorite childhood memory took place when I was about eight years old, at, of all places, the allergist.

My mom had prepared eggs at home and brought them in a little purple container, and in front of my doctor, I took my first real bite of eggs.  I ate a little bit – and we waited. Then a little more, and we waited. In all, we were there for over three hours. And in the end, the doctor declared me allergy free.  My last remaining food allergy had cleared up.

Since birth, I had been unable to eat eggs, soy, wheat and dairy.  On the other hand, I could eat peanuts! It was bad. I had to carry my own snacks to parties. For 8 years my mom had to bake egg free hallah for me.  My family would buy a regular hallah and I would just have a roll. One time my mom, after learning how to bake without eggs, made an eggless hallah and said, “We’re all going to eat it together.”  For the first time, I was not separate with my roll. I cried.

So I’ve come to appreciate food in a special way.  

It’s fitting that my portion of Sh’mini contains the laws of Kashrut, explaining how the act of eating can help us to live holy lives.  My portion tells us which kinds of animals are considered acceptable. For instance, a cow is kosher, a lion is not. By the way, breaking news: bacon is not kosher.  

But kosher is not just about what you can or can’t eat.  It’s about acting with kindness toward animals and having reverence for life.  Kosher animals have to be killed painlessly. Also, these laws help us to understand that we are what we eat.  We don’t eat birds of prey, like vultures or eagles, because eating then would make us more violent. We tend to eat docile animals like chickens, or cows.

At my house we say, “food is medicine.”  We have to be mindful of what we put into your body and its impact on us.  I learned that from my allergies.

There’s also a social element to kashrut.  All the holiday foods bring families together, as we just saw with our Passover Seders.  Cooking and mealtime at my house are very important.

Dinner is my favorite time of day. I’ve even prepared our family dinner with my brother several times.  Eating together is very important for my family. It’s always been a priority. No TV is in the room, no phones are allowed at the table.  I savor these meals – in fact, I’m always the last to leave the table.

Speaking of the table, in my house, it’s all about the table. The table is so important in my house, that we switched the living room with the dining room so that we could make room for a bigger table.

So the dining room has become the room where we spend the most time.  Our lives revolve around it. It’s where my day begins and where my favorite part of the day happens. Several times a week, my family hangs around the table after meals to play board games.  

Because of my history of allergies, when I go to a new restaurant, I sometimes get nervous about the food.  In fact, I get nervous about a lot of things. A lot of people in my family get nervous! But for me, it’s something I’ve been fighting for a long time.  So for my Mitzvah Project, I chose to sell bracelets with individualized messages for people – words to comfort and inspire them. They are called “My Intent” bracelets.  I’m going to be creating each bracelet made to order. The proceeds of this mitzvah project will go toward the Cystic Fibrosis Walk. My family has been participating in it for the last several years.

So I hope you all now understand why food is so important both to me and in the Torah.  As they say, “Noshing is sacred.”

Your tax return is a sacred document

By Joshua Hammerman | 16 hours ago

(RNS) — April 17 is Tax Day in the U.S. We get a two-day reprieve this year because April 15 — the traditional day — was on a Sunday and April 16 is Emancipation Day in Washington, D.C., a legal holiday commemorating the 1862 signing of the Emancipation Act by President Abraham Lincoln. It’s also Patriots’ Day in Massachusetts and Maine.

So we have an extra couple of days to reflect on what Ben Franklin considered the only certainty of our world (along with death). Taxes have never been popular, and recently they’ve been castigated and chopped with particular glee by Congress and the White House. My purpose here is not to debate that tax cut, nor to discuss the merits and demerits of supply-side economics, but rather to focus on the bright side of paying taxes.

For not only does Jewish tradition acknowledge the importance of taxes, we have an entire Shabbat devoted to them. We call it Shabbat Shekalim, one of four special pre-Passover Sabbaths reminding us to prepare our homes, hearts and municipal institutions for the upcoming holiday. Millennia ago, one way that was accomplished was through the annual gift presented to the national treasury to support the Temple sacrifices.

The fact that Shabbat Shekalim always comes in late winter, around the time when I need to be reminded to get my own taxes in order, is one way that I have tried to imbue the secular calendar with the rhythms of Jewish sacred time. It also reminds me that the giving of taxes is in itself a sacred activity. Corny as it seems, I improvise a blessing when I put my completed tax forms in the mail, realizing that this money is going to help people who are in need, which helps my nation to maintain a position of moral leadership — plus, a good chunk of this money also helps to preserve Israel’s security.

If you’re looking for a blessing to recite, take a peek at the Birchot HaShachar, the morning blessings recited in the daily liturgy. Almost all of them work well for a tax blessing. (The Open Siddur Project offers a creative interpretation.) Our taxes provide food for the hungry, health care for the sick, housing for the homeless and shelter for the refugee, security for Israel, clothing for the needy, protection of the environment (“who spreads out the land upon the water”), a just penal system and freedom from fear of crime (“who releases the bound”), and an education system that teaches us to treat our neighbors with dignity and respect (“who created us in God’s image”).

I understand that people should be able to take advantage of incentives to reduce the tax burden.

That’s why God invented accountants. But tax evasion, whether by an individual or corporation, should be looked on with deep scorn. We pooh-pooh it by referring to it in benign terms, such as “white-collar crime,” rather than what it is, a direct violation of “Thou shalt not steal.”

In the Talmud, Samuel states “The law of the land is the law.” To which the ancient scholar Rava replies, “Observe that this must be true. For (the government) fells trees and builds bridges, and we cross them.”

Back then, it seems, they were able to pass an infrastructure bill.

The key here is that it is prohibited to cheat tax collectors unless the taxes are illegal — and the Talmud discusses those exceptional cases when they are illegal.

There is plenty of room for disagreement as to where our tax dollars should go. Some bemoan the ballooning deficit, while others feel the defense budget is bloated. For those who don’t have the time to read the recently passed 2,232-page omnibus spending bill, it’s important to know at least in general terms what’s in there. It’s also comforting to many that the bill emerged from genuine bipartisan compromise.

I’m not thrilled about everything my hard-earned dollars will be supporting, but I am a proud taxpayer nonetheless. That’s why it is so important that our moral leaders — who include our political and religious officials — set the example in rendering to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s. For politicians that means releasing their tax returns — and it goes without saying that it also means actually paying their fair share of income taxes — while working toward a more just system of taxation. For religious leaders it means encouraging their flock to pay up, and to set an example of paying taxes with gratitude rather than reluctance. That could even mean reciting a blessing when dropping that fateful envelope in the mail.

This year of all years, we need to look at our tax return as a sacred document. In doing so, maybe we can reimagine what the promise of America can mean for its own people — and the world. 

(Rabbi Joshua Hammerman is the spiritual leader of Temple Beth El in Stamford, Conn., and author of “thelordismyshepherd.com: Seeking God in Cyberspace.” The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.) 

Shabbat-O-Gram for April 14

Shabbat - 

O - Gram

The Shabbat-O-Gram is sponsored by Matthew and Kelly Sabloff in honor of Malkam's Bar Mitzvah this Shabbat

 

A big crowd gathered here last Sunday to hear Georgia Hunter speak about her best selling Holocaust novel , "We Were the Lucky Ones,  That astonishing lecture was followed by another stirring presentation, at our community Yom Hashoah event, by the daughter of Righteous Gentile Irene Gut Opdyke.  It's hard to recall a week when we were privileged to hear two speakers who were so inspirational.

Shabbat Shalom! 

Mazal tov to Malkam Sabloff and family, as Malkam becomes bar mitzvah this Shabbat!

Thank you to David Camner, who spoke last Friday night.  Here, in pdf form, are the lecture notes for his Healthcare Plan, which he share with us last week.  and speaking of research, Sally Levine recently did lots of research on where to donate medical equipment and supplies.

Welcome back to Cantor Fishman, who will be joined by Chris Coogan and myself in leading services this evening.

Next Wed afternoon and evening, we will join with the community in a very special Israel @70 celebration at the JCC. Cantor Fishman is directing the music.  Our kids are helping with the big Lego project.  I can't wait!  Join us!

The Power of Ten

Who knows Ten?  Carol Krim knows ten - the number of minyan, as today she completed her eleven months of Kaddish and provided a lovely breakfast after minyan.  Carol has supported the minyan for years, but this year has been special.  To thank everyone, Carol wrote a tribute to our morning minyan "regulars."  Only when you have experienced the embrace of fellow sufferers, day after day, morning after morning, can you understand the true power of communal prayer.

With Carol's permission, I'm sharing her tribute, in the hopes that it might encourage more people to help us out.  Start with one day a week.  Even once a month, you can feel the love in the room. Minyan attendance often goes under the radar in comparison to more high-profile volunteer opportunities at a synagogue, but there might be no more important task.

What I have learned while saying Kaddish at TBE .... 

by Carol Krim

Beth usually knows what page the Torah reading is on.
Harvey gives the 'start' time and felt badly when he missed minyan once due to the snow. Today is his birthday.
Warren gets to services a lot before work and loves to daven the first line of a paragraph aloud.
Susan Schneiderman leads each passage slowly and deliberately and loves coffee.
Bert practices his Torah portion in his car and wishes everyone a happy day.
Steve D. reads Torah every Monday.
Sy and Harriet are a great team.
Mark L. sold his RV after traveling to almost every state.
Gail sings harmony every Monday.
Rob chants Rosh Hodesh Aliyah every month.
Dick F.  travels farther now that he moved downtown.
Irwin davens quietly while waiting for service to begin.
Stu loves morning minyan.
Phil always comes with a smile.
Susan Sabreen is active with Indivisible  and Jewish Historical Society.
Sol's Father lived in the Bronx.
Rabbi has a really lovely davening voice early in the morning.
Gerry is almost done his Rabbinicial studies.
Steve L. comes every Monday.
Jim B.  wears his red down vest all year round....
Barbara J. loves to hike.
Jerry R. comes on Tuesdays.

Sharon and Jeff became grandparents again.

Karen H. Has a lovely voice.

Neil S. joins in all the prayers.

Eileen does it all beautifully and efficiently and forgets nothing. Frank would be proud.

Allen came graciously when I called home.

Music to our ears is when the metal hangers jingle, meaning someone else has arrived to help make ten.

Thank you to everyone who comes regularly and thank you to all those who went out of their way to help me say Kaddish. I appreciated all you did. I also attended services in Bethesda, California, Florida, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Long Island, Orange, Mt. Kisco, NYC, Agudath and Stanford Sierra Camp in Lake Tahoe,  and appreciated every friendly face who made it a point to welcome me.

With Yom Hashoah still on our minds: 

-  Interesting reading - Thane Rosenbaum's "Is there anything left to say about the Holocaust?"

-  Holocaust Awareness and Denial Levels Around the World

-  Survey reveals gaps in knowledge of Holocaust history Americans believe it can happen again.

- See the study - 7 in ten Americans say fewer people care about the Holocaust than they used to

- Holocaust timeline

The study indicated that:

• Nearly one-third of all Americans (31 percent) and more than 4-in-10 Millennials (41 percent) believe that substantially less than 6 million Jews were killed (two million or fewer) during the Holocaust
• While there were over 40,000 concentration camps and ghettos in Europe during the Holocaust, almost half of Americans (45 percent) cannot name a single one - and this percentage is even higher among Millennials.

Can Pigs Fly...and be Kosher Too?

You may have seen the recent news that a noted rabbi in Israel has declared that laboratory-manufactured pork is not only Kosher - but you can eat it with a glass of milk!

Kashrut, which is the prime topic of this week's portion of Shmini, is one mitzvah that has been near and dear to me - and not just because I proclaimed the era of the Kosher Oreo as a benchmark in American Jewish identity.

We'll be discussing this piggish question at services tomorrow.  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.

So what of the "whys"? Why Kosher? Louis Jacobs writes, "Unlike the ethical and moral precepts of Judaism, the dietary laws seem to defy human reasoning. Why should it matter to religion what a man eats and, if it does matter, why are these particular items of food singled out as forbidden?" Maimonides believes it was a matter of good health.  Nachmanides sees it is beneficial to the soul rather than the body.  The Torah sees these laws through the prism of holiness.

From my perspective, the "whys" boil down to identity, spiritual discipline, ethics and social connection.  Kashrut preserves Jewish identity as a contact point for Jews across the globe and across the ages. Culture, after all, is transmitted though the stomach.  Tastes and smells are deeply embedded in our childhood memories.  Kashrut enables us to eat ethically and not indiscriminately, focusing on the sanctity of life and the pain of the animal.  It turns eating from a basic biological instinct to a sacred activity.  

So join us tomorrow morning to see whether pigs can fly - right onto your dining room table!

The More Things Change...

I've gotten wind of a rumor that in several weeks there will be an anniversary celebration of some sort.  It can't have anything to do with me, because I just arrived here yesterday.

But this 30 year anniversary thing has given me reason to look back through my files, and I've discovered two things:

1) I've been running in place the last three decades, pushing harder and harder but with little to show for all that huffing and puffing.  

 

And 2) Everything has changed dramatically. 

Exhibit A: The bulletin from October, 1992 (my first year as senior rabbi,) - see excerpts here.  On page 9, you can see my explanation of what a tallit is.  What I say on this page is nearly identical to what I told our 7th graders two months ago at the "World Wide Wrap."  Some things haven't changed one iota.  

But the section on the right hand side entitled, "What about women? - That part is different.  Back in 1992, very few women in this congregation wore a tallit.  While it's still considered optional, far more wear them now.  But the real shocker is that back then, I embarked on a campaign to have B'not Mitzvah girls wear them.  Before this article was written, not a single one had broken the ice.  But the culture has changed dramatically.  For a girl, equality in public ritual is seen now as a right, not a privilege.  Almost every Bat Mitzvah girl now wears a tallit here.

Is TBE a more inclusive congregation now than it was 30 years ago?  Hard to say.  Have we been a force for good as social changes have come about?  Also hard to say.  But while we may not have been the ones to steer the ship, I'd like to think that at least we've been on the boat, rowing as hard as anyone, and occasionally, just occasionally, setting an example that others could follow.  We did that with LGBT rights, for sure, as I spoke about in my seminal, autobiographical Yom Kippur sermon in 2007.  Ours is a God of love.

And now, just last week, our board signed on, nearly unanimously, to the HIAS Welcome Campaign, and now a task force will be determining just what we as a congregation can do to alleviate the plight of refugees worldwide, as has always been the Jewish way.

So some things have changed dramatically over the past thirty years, and we've changed along with them.  But somethings have not - our core belief in a God of love and a culture of welcoming the Other being among them.

Shabbat-O-Gram for April 6

Shabbat -  O - Gram 25 years ago, (April 6, 1993, Passover) Daniel Max Hammerman was born.   Here he is at his bris a week later (the "cut heard 'round the world") Happy Birthday, Dan!  So proud of the mensch you have become! ------------ Shabbat Shalom and Happy Passover Passover ends this weekend.  On Friday morning our festival service at 9:30 will feature a D'var Torah by Gerry Ginsburg.   Shabbat morning's service, the 8th day of Pesach, will include Yizkor prayers. Keep in mind that our office is closed on Friday and that phone calls and emails will be answered after the festival.  There is no early minyan on Friday, just the later, festival service.  If you are planning that traditional Post-Pesach Pizza, the festival ends at about 8:30 on Sat. night. On Friday night, I'll be joined by special guest speaker, David Camner.  David is a health care expert, who will lead a brief discussion at the end of service, on "Health Care: Jewish Dimensions, Practical Solutions." David, who attends our Shabbat services regularly, has developed healthcare plans at about 100 companies, including Xerox, Olin, Citibank, and Ben & Jerry's.  He has also inspired me and others in the courageous way he has confronted his own serious health challenges.  I'm very appreciative that David can speak here this Friday night. Yom Hashoah 5778   Next week is Yom Hashoah, this year we are commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.  Above is a photo of last summer's TBE group standing at the Ghetto Fighters' monument in Warsaw.  Read about the uprising here, and come to two important events this week: On Sunday at 10 AM, TBE Sisterhood welcomes author, Georgia Hunter, who will describe her family's extraordinary journey out of Poland during WWII, which was the inspiration for her book, "We Were the Lucky Ones." On Wed. at 7 PM at Temple Sinai, at our annual community Yom Hashoah commemoration, Jeannie Opdyke Smith, the daughter of Irene Opdyke, a Righteous Gentile (and subject of the Broadway play "Irene's Vow") who risked her life to save the lives of Jewish people during the Holocaust, will speak about her mother's legacy, and the power of one person to make a difference. And Wed night would be the best time to light the yellow candle sent to you by our Men's Club.     The Yellow Candle™ was created in 1981 by FJMC clubs in Canada, New England and elsewhere to keep alive the memory of the Six Million who perished in the Shoah. The Candle is modeled after a traditional Jewish memorial Yahrzeit candle that burns for 24 hours during periods of mourning and on the Yahrzeit anniversary of a family member.  The candle's yellow wax serves to remind us of the yellow arm band which Jews were forced to wear during the Nazi regime. A photo on the candle container shows young people visiting Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. This reflects the importance of teaching our youth the lessons of the Holocaust and of remembering the Six Million. See the Yellow Candle home page for more information, and thank you to all who helped to prepare and distribute the candles this year. Wandering and Welcoming Photos of the Interfaith Seder at Grace Farms by Adrian Fernandez and News 12 Welcoming the stranger is a key theme of Passover. It was the theme of last week's Interfaith Seder at Grace Farms. Click here to see the supplement we put together for that Seder.  At services on the first two days of Passover, I dug down into the topic of migration, Jewish values and the Exodus. I shared an excellent source packet, "Immigration in the Haggadah and in Jewish Law" created by Rabbi David Siff, which intersperses Haggadah quotes and specific laws from the Middle Ages about migration between communities.  Also see "Loving the Neighbor/Loving the Stranger," a packet by Rabbi David Seidenberg, which includes every Torah law that mentions the stranger. I shared all three of these packets with our board at last night's meeting. Given that the topic of migration is both timely and timeless, and given the clear connection between this topic and Passover, it felt right to discuss it last night. At services last week I also reviewed the new book by bible scholar Richard Elliot Friedman, "The Exodus: How it Happened and Why it Matters." I highly recommend this book. Friedman analyzes all the literary and archaeological evidence and states that the real question should not be whether it happened but whether it was big. Nearly all scholars recognize that there were Western Asiatic people in Egypt, including Semites. They were everything from lower class and slaves. He states, "Most scholars agree that the biblical narrative has a historical core, and that some highland settlers came, one way or another, from Egypt." His theory is that the only tribe that left Egypt were the Levites. Only Levites have Egyptian names, main characters are all Levites. He backs up his claim with lots of evidence from biblical and other sources. What's important to know about the Levites is that they were perpetual outsiders, sojourners both in Egypt and then, later on, among the tribes of Israel. They never had land holdings of their own. The word Levi in fact means "attached" or "joined." And it is because of their unique experiences that the Torah speaks of the need to not mistreat the alien 52 times - that's 52 more times than such a claim is made in all other ancient near eastern law codes and texts combined! Friedman even demonstrates that the command to love our neighbor is speaking less about the guy next door as the sojourner, the alien among us. We should love the stranger because we know his soul, for we were strangers in Egypt. "The exodus led both to monotheism and toward this exceptional attitude toward others." Friedman writes. "The two, ethics and monotheism, went hand in hand from the beginning....The exodus of a group of people from Egypt happened. It made a difference. It still makes a difference." If you belong to a book group that might be interested in an accessible biblical who-done-it that is relevant to Jews and non-Jews alike, I recommend this one - and I would be delighted to come and facilitate the discussion. Shabbat Shalom, Rabbi Joshua Hammerman

Dr. King, Pesach and the Urgency of Now

Nachman of Bratzlav stated about the Exodus:

"One needs to leave Mitzrayim (Egypt) with great haste. This is the essence of the quote from Torah, "For they left Mitzrayim and couldn't tarry, and also they didn't make provisions [for the journey]." (Exodus 12:39) This truth is recapitulated in each person and in each era. In each person and in each time, there can be found a residue [of Mitzrayim], the cravings and woes of this world, and this is the essence of the exile in Mitzrayim. This is the essence of Pesach. At the moment of the Exodus from Mitzrayim, a great light from on high was revealed, as is known; and at that time, promptly, Israel went out in great haste and they couldn't tarry. For even if they had remained there even one more instant, they would have remained a remnant there, as is known."

We are also coming up on some important anniversaries in our country. Wednesday, April 4, will mark 50 years since the slaying of Dr Martin Luther King. Exactly one year before he was killed, on April 4, 1967, he gave a very important speech at Riverside Church in NY, for the first time speaking out forcefully against the Vietnam War. What he said that night reminds me somewhat of what we are hearing from those teens in Parkland who have decided to move from their tragedy in a new way, bypassing the "thoughts and prayers" and all the evasion that has followed most mass shootings, and breaking the silence.

On April 4, when King spoke about Vietnam, he was going against the advice of many of his friends, who said to him:

"Why are you speaking about the war, Dr. King? Why are you joining the voices of dissent?" "Peace and civil rights don't mix," they say. "Aren't you hurting the cause of your people?" they ask. And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment, or my calling. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live."

King added:

"Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. And we must rejoice as well, for surely this is the first time in our nation's history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movement, and pray that our inner being may be sensitive to its guidance. For we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us."

I've been watching the Ken Burns series on Vietnam that was broadcast last fall by PBS. It's taking me a while, so I just got up to the episode that mentions this speech by Dr. King. It resonated so much with me.

Last week, I was talking about the March for Our Lives with a veteran of the '60s Vietnam protests, who shared the observation that when she was in college and she and her classmates marched against the war, it saddened her that no adults marched with them. Given what we now know about how successive administrations systematically lied to the American people about Vietnam over the course of decades, leading to the senseless deaths of over 50,000 American soldiers and many more innocent civilians, one wonders if things would have turned out differently if more adults had recognized the urgency of that moment and turned against the war sooner, rather than just shrugging and saying, "Kids these days..."

Given the terror that students of all ages now live with every day - not that different from that fear felt by students of draft age in the '60s - it is important that they not march alone this time. As Martin Luther King said, "A time comes when silence is betrayal, and that time is now."

Back on April 4, 1967, Dr. King concluded:

"We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood-it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, "Too late."

Every 18 months, more Americans die by gunfire than died in the entire Vietnam War, which is why I understood last week's march to be another reminder of the urgency of now.

Here's how King concluded this speech at Riverside Church, quoting the poet, James Russell Lowell:

Once to every man and nation comes a moment to decide,
In the strife of truth and Falsehood, for the good or evil side;
Some great cause, God's new Messiah offering each the bloom or blight,
And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light.
Though the cause of evil prosper, yet 'tis truth alone is strong
Though her portions be the scaffold, and upon the throne be wrong
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.

"And if we will only make the right choice, we will be able to transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of peace. If we will make the right choice, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our world into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. If we will but make the right choice, we will be able to speed up the day, all over America and all over the world, when justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."

There comes a moment when each of us must decide, whether to act or sit tight. For some, that moment came when the last plague struck. For others, it came on April 4, 1967 - or on the very same day the following year.

For all of us, on some level, as we sit around our tables this week, that moment is now.

Shabbat-O-Gram for March 30

Shabbat- 

O-Gram

Assorted Israelites and Egyptians at last week's Chocolate Seder.  Click here and scroll down for lots more pics from our Passover events and here for Women's Seder photos.  And send me photos from your family Seder to add to our TBE Family Passover Album.

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Click below to watch the speeches of TBE's Alyssa Goldberg and Dana Horowitz at last weekend's Stamford March for Our Lives, along with Paul Simon singing "Sounds of Silence."

 

Shabbat Shalom and Happy Passover

Join me for Passover festival services on the first two days, Shabbat morning and Sunday, both at 9:30 AM.  On the first day (Saturday), I'm going to review a fascinating new book that upends everything we've ever thought about the Exodus and history: The Exodus: How it  Happened and Why it Matters, by Richard Elliot Friedman.  

A Passover Handmaid's Tale: Freedom From vs. Freedom To

"There is more than one kind of freedom," says Aunt Lydia in Margaret Atwood's dystopian novel, "The Handmaid's Tale," recently brought to life in an award-winning miniseries; "freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from. Don't underrate it."

If the average American we're given the opportunity to choose between two types of freedom, there is no question that "freedom to" would win hands down. It is "freedom to" (choose) that has been embraced by so much of the world, especially since the fall of the Berlin wall. It's "freedom to" that separates democratic societies like ours from dictatorships and kleptocracies. It's "freedom to" that gives women control over their bodies and business investors control over their bank accounts.  It's "freedom to" that gives us at least a shot of electing our leaders without coercion or illegal manipulation.  It's also the "freedom to" live a dignified life that was so cruelly denied an octogenarian French Holocaust survivor who was murdered in Paris this week.  FDR would have conflated that with a "freedom from" in his famous "Four Freedoms" speech, the freedom from fear; but Atwood's book defines "freedom from" differently, as the opposite of "freedom to," particularly in regard to choice.

"Freedom to" is the American way. Margaret Atwood sought to protect this freedom - that's why she constructed her novel's terrifying Orwellian theocracy called Republic of Gilead just at a time, in 1985, when religious fundamentalism seemed the wave of the future, with Iran just having fallen to Khomeini and with the Moral Majority on the rise in America.  Things aren't so different today.  In an appearance last year, Atwood was particularly concerned about growing restrictions on abortion in the US, comparing it to slavery "to force women to have children that they cannot afford and then to say that they have to raise them."

Bruce Miller, the executive producer of mini-series, posited that Gilead is "a society that's based kind of in a perverse misreading of biblical laws and codes," modeling itself after morally problematic narratives from Genesis.  Atwood said that Gilead embodies the "utopian idealism" present in such notorious 20th-century regimes as Romania and Cambodia, as well as earlier New England Puritanism (although both Atwood and Miller add that the people running Gilead are "not genuinely Christian (or) interested in religion; they're interested in power."

Passover also celebrates "freedom to" - in particular the freedom to worship as we please and the freedom for Jews and others to collectively identify and thrive as a people. But Passover also celebrates "freedom from," reminding us that traditional Judaism places very defined limits on free choice. We are not free to enslave and other people, for instance, or murder, or eat Wonder Bread at our Seder table.

Our task as post-modern, autonomous and self-reflecting Jews is to define our own limits, either by the painstaking method of trial and error, or by voluntarily buying into the intricate system of preset limits known as "halacha," which is simply translated as "the way."

Or, as is the case with most of us, something in between.

The Margaret Atwood in us says, "Don't trust any outside authority. Decide for yourself. If you are sucked into a preset system, you lose that precious freedom to choose."

We tend to believe her. We've been trained to be skeptical of authority, especially one claiming divine authorship.  We've been burned too often by those in power.  

But we are tired - tired from all our freedom. It's hard to have to choose all the time - there are so many choices: an infinite number of things to read, shows to stream, places to go, items to purchase. We yearn for structure in our lives, a framework that can help guide our choices, and maybe, just possibly, make a few for us.  We also understand that within halacha there are still a myriad of choices, and that most will not lead to the nightmarish world of Atwood's novel. Sometimes it's just nice to be home on a Shabbat afternoon and know that going to the mall is not an option.  It makes me a little less free but a little more free at the same time - free to read great books like "The Handmaid's Tale."

Since the enlightenment, Jews have lived with this tension of "freedom to" and "freedom from," a dialectic epitomized by the celebration of Passover.  The great paradox of Passover is that although it is our most difficult holiday to prepare for (admit it - making bricks out of straw was a snap compared to making a Seder) and one that binds us to the most restrictions, the Seder is nonetheless and most widely observed ritual.

Go figure.

In the end, the more we buy into Passover and its elaborate set of rituals, and the more work we put into preparing for it, the more we get out of it.

On this festival of freedom, we celebrate the freedom to do with it what we wish. We are free to question tradition and to scoff at it. But equally powerful is our freedom to enrich our lives by scouring counter tops, exchanging sets of dishes, and obliterating each and every breadcrumb, thereby turning just another April evening into a night different from all other nights.

More Seder Starters

Here are some more Seder resources, in addition the many I shared last week.

From ALEPH (Jewish renewal) with its more spiritual, Kabbalistic approach, see these resources, including how Reb Levi Titzchak of Berdichev saw the Four Children on an ascending ladder of spirituality, where the "wicked" one is actually on a higher level than the wise.  Shades of Elphaba!  And see below the Omer art of Joy Krauthammer, based on the Kabbalistic emanations of God.  We begin counting the Omer on the second night of Passover. 

 

Below are the "Four Questions and Four Conversations" we had at this week's Interfaith Seder, based on the topic of welcoming strangers: 

1. What is the meaning of home at a time when 65 million people are refugees and when the average American moves 11.4 times in his/her lifetime? There are now an estimated 258 million people living in a country other than their country of birth - an increase of 49% since 2000. An unprecedented 65.6 million people around the world have been forced from home. Among them are nearly 22.5 million refugees, over half of whom are under the age of 18. There are also 10 million stateless people who have been denied a nationality and access to basic rights such as education, healthcare, employment, and freedom of movement. The UN reports that nearly 20 people are forcibly displaced every minute. 

2. The Five Books of Moses instruct us to love three different things: God; your neighbor; and the stranger. But the command to love the stranger is repeated 36 different times. Why this added emphasis on the stranger? 

3. Why is it even more important now than ever that our society become radically inclusive? How can we do that? 

4. What are we to make of the following rabbinic commentary on what happened during the night of the Exodus? 

The Last Night in Egypt: Knocking in the Night 

When Moses said: "I will smite all the firstborn" (Ex. 12:12), some of the Egyptians were afraid and some not; those who were afraid brought their firstborn to an Israelite and said: "Do please allow him to pass with you this night." When midnight struck, God smote all the firstborn; as for those who took asylum in the houses of the Israelites, God passed between the Israelites and the Egyptians, depriving the latter of life while leaving the Israelites alive. 

The preceding midrash (rabbinic story) describes what happened on the night of the last plague, the slaying of the Egyptian first born. Egyptian mothers have taken their first-born children to the homes of Israelites and beg the Israelites to take their children in so they will escape death. What would you have done? What should they have done? Keep in mind that a) these were their oppressors for 400 years, b) God's plan was to smite them, so they were defying God if they took them in and c) historically, the midrash came from the 10th century (Exodus Rabbah 18:2), a time of considerable persecution. The Israelites tried to save the Egyptians but could not alter God's plan. Even though it was doomed to failure, they had the courage to try. One wonders whether that was also part of God's plan all along.

Dr King, Reb Nachman and the Urgency of Now

Nachman of Bratzlav stated about the Exodus:

"One needs to leave Mitzrayim (Egypt) with great haste. This is the essence of the quote from Torah, "For they left Mitzrayim and couldn't tarry, and also they didn't make provisions [for the journey]." (Exodus 12:39) This truth is recapitulated in each person and in each era. In each person and in each time, there can be found a residue [of Mitzrayim], the cravings and woes of this world, and this is the essence of the exile in Mitzrayim. This is the essence of Pesach. At the moment of the Exodus from Mitzrayim, a great light from on high was revealed, as is known; and at that time, promptly, Israel went out in great haste and they couldn't tarry. For even if they had remained there even one more instant, they would have remained a remnant there, as is known."

We are also coming up on some important anniversaries in our country. Wednesday, April 4, will mark 50 years since the slaying of Dr Martin Luther King. Exactly one year before he was killed, on April 4, 1967, he gave a very important speech at Riverside Church in NY, for the first time speaking out forcefully against the Vietnam War. What he said that night reminds me somewhat of what we are hearing from those teens in Parkland who have decided to move from their tragedy in a new way, bypassing the "thoughts and prayers" and all the evasion that has followed most mass shootings, and breaking the silence.

On April 4, when King spoke about Vietnam, he was going against the advice of many of his friends, who said to him:

"Why are you speaking about the war, Dr. King? Why are you joining the voices of dissent?" "Peace and civil rights don't mix," they say. "Aren't you hurting the cause of your people?" they ask. And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment, or my calling. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live."

King added:

"Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. And we must rejoice as well, for surely this is the first time in our nation's history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movement, and pray that our inner being may be sensitive to its guidance. For we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us."

I've been watching the Ken Burns series on Vietnam that was broadcast last fall by PBS. It's taking me a while, so I just got up to the episode that mentions this speech by Dr. King. It resonated so much with me.

Last week, I was talking about the March for Our Lives with a veteran of the '60s Vietnam protests, who shared the observation that when she was in college and she and her classmates marched against the war, it saddened her that no adults marched with them. Given what we now know about how successive administrations systematically lied to the American people about Vietnam over the course of decades, leading to the senseless deaths of over 50,000 American soldiers and many more innocent civilians, one wonders if things would have turned out differently if more adults had recognized the urgency of that moment and turned against the war sooner, rather than just shrugging and saying, "Kids these days..."

Given the terror that students of all ages now live with every day - not that different from that fear felt by students of draft age in the '60s - it is important that they not march alone this time. As Martin Luther King said, "A time comes when silence is betrayal, and that time is now."

Back on April 4, 1967, Dr. King concluded:

"We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood-it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, "Too late."

Every 18 months, more Americans die by gunfire than died in the entire Vietnam War, which is why I understood last week's march to be another reminder of the urgency of now.

Here's how King concluded this speech at Riverside Church, quoting the poet, James Russell Lowell:

Once to every man and nation comes a moment to decide,
In the strife of truth and Falsehood, for the good or evil side;
Some great cause, God's new Messiah offering each the bloom or blight,
And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light.
Though the cause of evil prosper, yet 'tis truth alone is strong
Though her portions be the scaffold, and upon the throne be wrong
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.

"And if we will only make the right choice, we will be able to transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of peace. If we will make the right choice, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our world into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. If we will but make the right choice, we will be able to speed up the day, all over America and all over the world, when justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."

There comes a moment when each of us must decide, whether to act or sit tight. For some, that moment came when the last plague struck. For others, it came on April 4, 1967 - or on the very same day the following year.

For all of us, on some level, as we sit around our tables this week, that moment is now.