A Hearing Problem

“They have ears but cannot hear”

— Psalms 135:17

Are you overly-aware of the ambient noise in a confined space? Does the crunching of someone else’s popcorn at a movie theater ruin the movie for you or the sound of sniffling become so distracting you cannot pay attention in a meeting? Join the club. My friend Rebecca directed me to a New York Times article about misophonia – hatred of sound - a hearing condition described as acute irritation when hearing certain noises. Dr. Barron Lerner in “Please Stop Making that Noise” shares his own frustration at sounds that make him absolutely crazy and drive him to distraction. A 2013 study identified the noises that irritate misaphones most: lip smacking, swallowing, pen clicking, typing, breathing and other nostril noises.

Lerner observes that for him one of the greatest irritants as a sufferer is what he calls the “incredulity factor.” It is hard for him to believe that other people are not as irritated as he is by the same sounds. It is as if they simply cannot hear these noises when, in fact, they were not registering them as significant or distracting. Friends and relatives would get frustrated that Lerner was paying too close attention to sounds they easily tuned out.

This dissonance made me think of the biblical expression above that appears in a number of places, both in the singular and plural: “They have ears but cannot hear…” We tend to interpret this verse as not listening to what one is told to do: the sin of unresponsiveness. But perhaps this can also refer to the fact that some people hear what others do not. There are those who are acutely aware of the sounds of injustice. Others don’t hear the cry. There are mothers who hear the sound of their own children crying but are impervious to the whimper of someone else’s child. Our selective hearing never ceases to amaze.

We find one example of this in Jewish law as it relates to prayer. Maimonides in the fifth chapter of his Laws of Prayer creates a list of eight acts people should do to prepare for moments of supplication and contemplation. One is “controlling one’s voice.” Maimonides explains: “A person should not raise his voice during his silent prayer [the Amida] nor should he pray silently. Rather, he should enunciate the words with his lips, whispering so that he can hear himself. He should not make his voice heard to others unless he is sick or distracted. In such instances, he is permitted [to be audible] except when praying with others lest they be disturbed by his voice.”

I must confess to being a shul misaphone. I appreciate that it is difficult to strike a balance between praying so that you can hear yourself – an exercise in amplifying intention and concentration – and making so much “noise” that it gets I the way of the prayer space of others. Often people who articulate each word out loud are regarded as particularly pious, except by those of us who regard this behavior as spiritually selfish. Prayer hogs – ironic, I know - chant with the Torah reader, pray loudly and hum tunes with the cantor or hazan. Misaphones unite.

We live in community, which means we have to tolerate the conversation, opinions, noises, smells and behaviors of others. This is a challenge for misaphones who hear what others ignore. What’s the solution? The Talmud [BT Ketubot 5b] asks a few questions about human anatomy that have to do with our ears. In the spiritual rather than anatomical view, why is it that an earlobe is shaped to fit inside an ear perfectly and why do the tips of fingers fit so easily into the ear? It’s so that these two parts of the body can be used to close up the ear from gossip, tale-bearing and harmful speech.

And yet, even so, we do not walk around with our lobes or fingers in our ears. We would look odd. Perhaps this passage of Talmud is offering us a metaphor that we must teach ourselves to close our ears much the way we teach ourselves to close our eyes so that we can live with others whose noises would otherwise disturb us.

And then – when tolerance for others runs low – there are always noise cancelling headphones.

Shabbat Shalom

Long Live the Queen

“Vashti refused to come...”

— Esther 1:12

True story: we once had a neighbor who had a dog named Vashti. One day, I stopped him on the street and asked him why he gave the dog that name. "It's simple. The dog refused to listen."

Vashti gets a lot of heat. She seems to be vilified everywhere. Even bad dogs carry her name. In Talmudic aggada, she is accused of making a party with immoral intent, told to come to her husband's party wearing only a crown, and refuses on the grounds that she's covered in leprous pimples or had grown a tail [BT Megilla 12a-b]. Her refusal had little to do with modesty but a lack of humility. As royalty herself, she refused to listen to her husband's demand and tried to put him in his place as someone beneath her in class and station: "You used to be the stable boy in my father's house, and you used to bring naked harlots before you. Now that you have ascended the throne, you still have not changed your habits." The same Talmudic pages accuse her of taking Jewish women to serve her, asking them to parade before her without clothing and then work for her on Shabbat. Because of this, tradition says that she was executed on Shabbat. 

The midrashic collection, the Yalkut Shimoni contends that she denied Ahashverosh permission to rebuild the Temple. This seems far-fetched to derive from the little bit of text we have about Vashti in the Book of Esther but in midrashic tradition, Vashti is the granddaughter of Nebuchadnezzar who destroyed Solomon's Temple and the daughter of King Belshazzar from the book of Daniel who drank out of Temple goblets at parties. The idea was to weave these characters together to demonstrate a pattern of anti-Jewish behavior in the family DNA.

Much later, in the 16th century when a spate of commentaries on Esther surfaced, Jews of the diaspora used the text to question their relationship with royalty in the century following the Inquisition. We're not at all surprised to find readings that equate Ferdinand with Ahashverosh and Isabella with Vashti. For Jews who were converted, burned at the stake or exiled, there was a certain comfort in believing that fate could change and that irrational decrees by the king may one day be overturned in their favor.

This all seems quite unfair to poor Vashti, who ultimately takes a hit for Persia and is banished from the book if not actually executed. She simply disappears from its verses and is replaced with one verse sharing the king's sober remorse. If we do a close reading of the verses, Vashti seems modest, humble and appropriately defensive of her propriety. If anything, the king's anger seems misplaced, an anger that subsided when the impact of alcohol left him and he could see his own behavior more clearly.

"Queen Vashti also gave a banquet for the women in the royal palace of King Ahashverosh. On the seventh day, when King Ahashversoh was in high spirits from wine, he commanded the seven eunuchs who served him--Mehuman, Biztha, Harbona, Bigtha, Abagtha, Zethar and Carcas-- to bring before him Queen Vashti, wearing her royal crown, in order to display her beauty to the people and nobles, for she was lovely to look at. But when the attendants delivered the king's command, Queen Vashti refused to come. Then the king became furious and burned with anger."

Vashti was asked to be an object on display and refused. It was beneath her, princess or not. The reason, according to some later scholars, that Vashti takes such a hammering is that Jews had to blame someone for the indignities and injustices they experienced at the hand of royalty. Because Jews of the medieval period often enjoyed a special relationship to the king as servi camerae who paid taxes and enjoyed protection, the relationship between the monarch and the Jews could not be tarnished, even when it contradicted reality. In such instances, it was a lot safer to blame the queen.

I offer another reading based on Esther as comedy rather than tragedy. Throughout history, men know what to do with beautiful women. They do not know what to do with powerful women. The fact that the King must consult his advisors about a private marital spat that then gets "tweeted" out to the whole kingdom to re-establish the security of the husband in every household shows just how comedic this scene is. The midrash had to make her ugly in order for us not to like her. Insecure men suffer at the hands of very secure women. But perhaps one day, in a gender-blind society, influence and kindness will trump both power and beauty.

Happy Purim and Shabbat Shalom!

Long Term Memory

“For behold I create a new heavens and a new earth. And the former things will not be remembered or come to mind.
”

— Isaiah 65:17

This week, once again, I forgot where I was parked. I shaved at least twenty minutes off a productive life looking for my car. Those of you who are also guilty of this memory offense, please write and console me. Tell me I am not alone. What really gets to me is how my memory works when it's working. Why is it I can remember obscure things in books that I read years ago but cannot remember where I put my glasses an hour ago? Why can I remember what someone was wearing to an event but have no idea who spoke at the lecture or what they said?

I did remember an excellent article from a New York Times Book Review from 2010 on the value of reading books when you can't remember them at all. I just couldn't remember anything it said. And I have written about it before. That is why people like me thrive on search engines. I usually remember just enough to find what I need. And I did. In a wonderful article called "The Plot Escapes Me," James Collins describes the memory of reading a book - like where he was or what he felt about it - while not remembering anything about its contents. "Anecdotal evidence suggests that most people cannot recall the title or author or even the existence of a book they read a month ago, much less its contents." 

Collins spoke to a professor of child development who assured him that there was value to his reading habits even if he could not remember plots, place names or characters because books impact our reservoir of knowledge and shape our brains even if the details are long gone.

I thought about this in relation to a piece of Talmud I came across in Daf Yomi, the daily Talmud cycle, this week. It was a passage among many on testimony. Giving testimony legalizes memory. It can determine the fate and future of another person or many, and this particular passage made a remarkable claim:

With regard to testimony - until sixty years have passed, it is remembered, and if more than sixty years have passed, it is not remembered. That is not so. There, it is where it was not imposed upon him. However, here it was imposed on him so he remembers his testimony even after a greater period of time.[BT Ketubot 20b].

Astonishing. I guess long-term memory was better two thousand year ago if our sages could have a debate about whether or not events were memorable 60 years earlier  - or more, if a memory was "imposed" upon another person. I suppose an imposition would be if that person was specifically tasked or self-tasked with remembering an event so that he or she could be a witness to history or trauma or particular joy. According to this view, when someone tells us not to forget what we've seen, it adds an extra layer of responsibility or weightiness to our eyes and ears. If music and fragrance sit in our long-term memory boxes then perhaps other information can get stored there as well. Philip Roth, however, claims that not only do we forget things that matter. Sometimes we forget things that matter too much. Maybe the pressure of some memories has a release valve and escapes into the ether of Lethe. An act or event disappears into oblivion because we cannot afford to keep it.

The quote above from Isaiah explains another reason memory leaves us: "For behold I create a new heavens and a new earth. And the former things will not be remembered or come to mind." Sometimes in the sediment of memory, we add a new layer that wipes out the old one. A new heaven and a new earth surpass the old world and its assumptions so we move on and can no longer remember things another way. I did not grow up with computers, but I cannot imagine a life without them now. I did not have a cellphone until I was in my thirties. How did we communicate? I had no GPS. How did I get anywhere? For two thousand years, we had no homeland. Now we cannot envision a world without one. When a new universe replaces and enhances an old one, we tend to forget life before it.

And one day - in a new heaven and a new earth -  I will never forget where I parked my car.

Shabbat Shalom

Snow and Chocolate

“Your lips drop sweetness as the honeycomb, my bride; milk and honey are under your tongue. The fragrance of your garments is like the fragrance of Lebanon.”

— Song Of Songs 4:11

Snow and chocolate. Now I have your attention. This week, a lot of the North East is covered in snow and after the initial appeal of its silence and beauty, it seems that it's put a lot of people in a bad mood. Digging out cars, wading in slush, recouping financial losses and occupying bored children and their parents can be trying, even for the most patient. This week, the world also lost a chocolate king: Mr. Michele Ferrero. The maker of Nutella and lots of well-known confectionary delights from Ferrero Rocher chocolates to Kinder Eggs, Ferrero died in his home in Monte Carlo at age 89. He was one of Italy's wealthiest men, and he made products that put people in a good mood. The message this week: fight snow with chocolate.

The human desire for sweetness is well-documented in the Hebrew Bible and usually associated with honey, the natural sweetener most common in the ancient Near East. The verse above from Song of Songs describes the lips of a lover as dropping sweetness as the honeycomb. On the face of it, the text is describing the potency and magic of a romantic kiss following the seduction of taste with the magnetic pull of fragrance. The sages of old reinterpreted the first part of the verse to refer to the study of Torah, which is like "milk and honey" under the tongue, and the second - the smell of clothing - as mitzvot related to clothing: tzitzit, tallit, the clothing of the priestly class.

A brief tour of verses from Proverbs and Psalms associates sweetness with Torah study, kindness and wisdom:

““The wise in heart are called prudent, and the sweetness of the lips increases learning,”
”

— Proverbs 16:21

“Kind words are like honey, sweet to the soul and healthy for the body.”

— Proverbs 16:24

“My child, eat honey, for it is good, and the drippings of the honeycomb are sweet to your taste.”

— Proverbs 24:13

“If you have found honey, eat only enough for you, lest you have your fill of it and vomit it out,”

— Proverbs 25:16

“How sweet are Your words to my taste. Yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth.”

— Psalms 119:103

These verses all suggest that language that is sweet will reach across the abyss of distance and create intimacy if eaten in moderation. If wisdom is associated with sweetness, it will have greater reach and impact. Just think of a harsh or particularly cruel teacher and how learning shriveled in his or her classroom. Sweetness expands our capacity for knowledge, kindness and self-discovery. Bitterness diminishes us and it diminishes learning. We don't often remember the specific lessons we learned from someone or the conversations, but the general emotional associations of sweetness or bitterness linger and leave a particular taste in our mouths long after distinct memories have faded.

According to The New York Times obituary of Michele Ferrero, Nutella was created during wartime rations. Because cocoa was hard to get and expensive, Ferrero's father - who owned a pastry shop - used hazelnuts and a cocoa blend to produce a less expensive but still very sweet spread. In 1964, his son rebranded the product as Nutella. A commemorative Nutella stamp was issued last year in Italy to celebrate its 50th anniversary.

The Ferrero family took the bitterness of war and offered us a product with lingering associations of sweetness. To amplify the importance of sweet associations, we have a very old custom that when children study Hebrew texts for the first time, we put honey on the letters that they lick off the page. The idea is that at the very germinating of literacy, a child associates Jewish learning with that which is sweet.

In the book of Judges, Samson killed a lion and later saw a honeycomb in its carcass. He created a riddle out of the experience: "Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness." [14:14]. Although it was a visual enigma, it was also offering a message to live with riddles, like the contradiction of something strong bringing forth sweetness. It's a worthy aspiration. Now close your eyes for a moment and think of a learning experience of strength and sweetness and a person who is strong and sweet. What ingredients combined to create that lingering association? Consider the lingering associations others - children, parents, colleagues -  have with your words, your actions and your wisdom.

Bitter or sweet?

Shabbat Shalom

He/She Politics

“A woman must not wear men’s clothing, nor a man wear women’s clothing, for the Lord your God detests anyone who does this.”

Deuteronomy 22:5

This past week’s New York Times education supplement carried an article on gender politics in university, specifically on what is being called the third gender, an ambiguous place that is not male or female. The author presents the identity conundrum: “For years, writers and academics have argued that gender identity is not a male/female binary but a continuum along which any individual may fall, depending on a variety of factors, including anatomy, chromosomes, hormones and feelings. But the dichotomy is so deeply embedded in our culture that even the most radical activists had been focused mainly on expanding the definitions of the two pre-existing categories.”

For those who belittle this conversation and think it is irrelevant, visit Facebook and have a look at the gender terms you can choose to describe yourself. As of today, there are 58 of them. Most of us are used to going to the doctor’s office and checking off male or female in the category of gender. But those forms are fast changing and adapting to a different reality. On updated forms “sex” today refers to the biological formation of chromosomes, hormones, reproductive capacity, gonads and external anatomy. “Gender” refers to the way one feels about one’s personal sense of masculinity or femininity. Gender activists will make the case that there are many choices on that spectrum. What many of us only considered a one-box choice suddenly became a line that we marked somewhere that seemed to apply to our small and specific sense of self in the wider universe.

This is not a new conversation. The Talmud discusses several legal cases involving those with both sexual organs and those with unclear biological gender features. These terms, however, are not about gender feelings but about scientific categorization for the sake of determining particular Jewish responsibilities within the law. The biblical verse above gets to the more subjective issues of gender – this new sliding scale of self-identity – because it talks about external coverings and behaviors apart from biological destiny.

Medieval commentators range in their understanding of what is prohibited when it comes to cross-dressing. Most believe that the problem is not in wearing clothing of the opposite sex but in doing so in order to disguise oneself for the purpose of sexual co-mingling or promiscuity. A man dresses like a woman in order to gain entrance into a women’s locker room. The problem is the lie and the behaviors that follow from this lie. It’s not the clothes. Others argue that the verse points to something more subtle, a behavior associated with pagan rites and magic or some kind of sexual deviance. Some translate “kli gever” not as male clothing but as male objects and suggest that this prohibits a woman from carrying a gun, for example. We’ve moved far afield, from clothing to the combat zone. This would also apply in the reverse. Behaviors and implements associated with women – like make-up – are forbidden to men.

We are on a pretty slippery slope here because as we know, over time, men stopped wearing earrings (then started again) and long tunics and women started wearing business suits. Fashions change. Perhaps this is why many medieval writers saw this verse in terms of an illicit behavior rather than a superficial matter of covering.

One could say that the verse itself acknowledges that gender identity can easily become blurred and, therefore, must be affirmed by engaging in practices and dress that cement one’s identity. The verse is strong. God abhors these behaviors. How do we explain this judgmental and harsh language?

Basic identity questions can force us into states of such great confusion that they become destabilizing. We don’t know who we are, and we don’t see ourselves fitting in with the accepted categories we’ve been offered. We don’t find it easy to check off a box. One of the reasons for the multiplicity of gender terms now is a result of people failing to find any one category as sufficiently descriptive of who they are and what they feel about themselves.

I think God was on to something in terms as asking us to make that choice and affirm it in dress and behavior. When you are unsure of who you are it can be excruciatingly painful to form relationships with others, with God and arguably - most importantly -  with self. Maybe it’s too generous a reading, but I think what God detests is our failure to name ourselves. It can lead to self-hate and hate of others.

This may be too modern a reading for some or not modern enough for others. Either way, it’s time to take the conversation on religion and gender identity seriously. It’s an extremely hard conversation. That doesn’t mean we can avoid it.

Shabbat Shalom

A Pre-Purim Drink?

“Wine cheers the hearts of men, oil makes the face shine and bread sustains

human life.”

Psalms 104:15

Alcohol, it says in Judges 9:13, “brings joy to God and man,” having both sacramental and recreational uses. The verse above in Psalms makes a similar point. Contrast this to the wisdom in Proverbs: “Give strong drink to him who is ready to perish and wine to the embittered. Let him drink and forget his poverty and remember his misery no more” (31:6-7). Drinking does not only heighten experience, it can obliterate memory. So according to Jewish tradition, is drinking good for us or bad for us? It depends…

One midrash travels us through the trajectory of drinking and how its impact depends on its quantity. Legend has it that when Noah was about to plant his vineyard after the flood, Satan came along as a gardener and buried the carcasses of a sheep, a lion, a pig and a monkey in the ground of Noah’s vineyard to teach Noah a lesson about drinking. When a person drinks a little, he becomes sheepish: timid and reserved. When he drinks more, he can have the ferocity of a lion. Too much causes him the embarrassment of piggish behavior and even more will turn him into a monkey (Midrash Tanhuma, Noah 14).

I thought of this midrash when I read Rabbi Abraham Twerski’s latest book, The Rabbi and the Nuns. Scion of a Hasidic dynasty, Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twerski has spent the better part of his life working not as a rabbi but as a psychiatrist treating addiction. For twenty years, he ran the psychiatry department at St. Francis hospital and developed a special relationship with its nuns and the priests in the Pittsburgh Diocese.  “Why do nuns and priests become addicted to alcohol or other chemicals? Because they are human beings.”

Rabbi Twerski developed a deep regard for those he worked with and tried to understand the strains of loneliness, celibacy, and rigidity that may have contributed to addiction in this community. “Strange, no one asks why do nuns and priests become diabetic or develop asthma. This is because these conditions are diseases that can affect anyone. Alcoholism and drug addiction, however, are not thought of as diseases but as moral failures, and, therefore, devoutly religious people are expected not to have these conditions.”

He once treated a 34-year old priest who almost died of alcoholism and was given the last rites but finally stabilized. Rabbi Twerski administered Antabuse, a drug that makes even a drop of alcohol taste repulsive. The priest was not sure how he could conduct mass without taking a sip of wine, but Rabbi Twerski was not budging and suggested grape juice. The priest said it was not allowed. Then Rabbi Twerski pulled a Talmudic maneuver and called a local bishop who had been promoted to a cardinal and was at the Vatican. He asked for a special dispensation to save this young priest’s life. The cardinal took the request all the way up to the Pope, who quickly issued a dispensation permitting any alcoholic priest in recovery to use grape juice. This may be the first time a Hasidic rabbi saved a priest by going to the Pope.

This is sensitive work because sacramental use can turn into abuse. “Denial of the problem is common to all alcoholics and addicts,” Rabbi Twerski reminds us but, “The denial is even greater among people who feel that their reputation is at stake.” Priests and nuns who are alcoholics are “desperate to keep it a secret” – and some do, even from themselves.

It is an important reminder as we welcome in the Hebrew month of Adar II and approach Purim, a festival of joy where we feast and drink. Many “very religious” people get stone drunk under the guise of observance and use the holiday as an excuse to let it all go. If there is anything we learn from the story of Purim, it is a lesson straight out of the Alcoholic Anonymous playbook (and Peter 5:7): “Let go and let God.” Letting go and letting God does not mean that we are powerless but that we are capable of letting go of excess baggage and trusting that Higher Powers are at play in determining our destiny. We step into the risk that eventually redeems us because we believe we are not alone. Wine is supposed to heighten this sense of intimacy and faith in God while not blurring our capacity to feel anything at all.

As we enter Adar II, we need to enhance our happiness and our trust of God and each other. And we don’t need to abuse alcohol to get there.

Shabbat Shalom

Losing It

“If you see your fellow Israelite’s ox or sheep straying, do not ignore it but be sure to take it back to its owner.”

Deuteronomy 22:1

I don’t know about you, but when I lose something, I believe the object in question has just taken a temporary hiatus from my possession and will soon make its way back. In Jewish law, a person who loses an object can have “yai-ush” - relinquishment or despair of ever seeing it again. Once a person lets go mentally, it lessens or negates the obligation to return the object. I’m just letting you know that I’m never letting go. Things I lost in sixth grade are still coming back. The central thesis of A Place Called Here by Irish novelist Ceceli Ahern is that all our lost objects end up in a mysterious land, home to single socks, twenty dollar bills, and one earring.

In Jewish law, there is no such enigmatic place because we’re too busy returning lost objects. Even a thief cannot assume that the owner of a lost object has relinquished it [BT Gitten 55a]. The mitzva to return something lost appears in Deuteronomy: “If they do not live near you or if you do not know who owns it, take it home with you and keep it until they come looking for it. Then give it back. Do the same if you find their donkey or cloak or anything else they have lost. Do not ignore it” [22:2-3]. This mitzva is the subject of much rabbinic discussion. We are not, according to Jewish law, allowed to leave the object where we find it, ignoring our responsibility to seek out its owner. This only applies if the item has minimum worth (the value of about two cents) and if the owner himself values the object. In other words, something that is of little financial value to the finder may have great sentimental worth to the loser.

If an object has been left in the same place for a very long time, it is assumed that the owner has let go of ever retrieving it, and you do not have to go to any length to find its owner. Yet, if the item has distinctive markings or is in a place with little foot traffic, then your obligation to return it remains. Interestingly, although you have to do everything within your power to publically document that you have found this object, you are not obligated to spend your own money to return it unless the original owner will compensate you.

The degree to which we obligate the finder has to do with our understanding of how deeply troubled the owner is to lose the object. No wonder prayers have been written to help find an object. There is something powerful, almost mystical about being reunited with something you’ve lost. A Jewish prayer cites a midrash based on a story in Genesis 21 that Hagar and Ishmael, her son, were dying of thirst: “Rabbi Benjamin said: ‘Everyone is presumed to be blind, until the Holy One, blessed be He, opens his eyes, as it is written, ‘God opened her eyes and she went and filled the skin.’” The finding of a lost object - the opening of the eyes to see what is really there - is spiritually very gratifying. Christians pray to Saint Anthony. One prayer I found contains these beautiful lines: “At least restore to me peace and tranquility of mind, the loss of which has afflicted me even more than my material loss. To this favor I ask another of you: that I may always remain in possession of the true good that is God. Let me rather lose all things than lose God...”

I close with a true story, whose details I hope I do not muddle. Many years ago, I was teaching in several gap year programs in Israel and carpooled with another faculty member to one of the programs. Impressed with a student in one of my classes, I asked my colleague if he knew her. He told me she had a fascinating story. She was set on studying in an ashram in India. On the way, she stopped off to see family in Israel. Her relative took her to a class in the Old City of Jerusalem on the topic of ha-shava’at aveida, returning lost objects. The minutiae of Jewish law bored her to tears; she told her relative that this was precisely why she was going to India: to escape the legality of Judaism for the spirituality of an ashram. She studied for months with a guru. One day, she was walking and talking with her teacher, when they saw a lost wallet. He pocketed it and said the Indian equivalent of “finders, keepers, losers, weepers.” Suddenly, she recalled her Shabbat in Jerusalem. But this time, the class did not seem so boring. It seemed honest, authentic and ethical. She left India and went back to Jerusalem, where I had her as a student. And thus, returning lost objects helped her return to the tradition in which she was raised.

Shabbat Shalom

Jewish Body Language

“As water reflects a face, so too a person’s heart reflects another.”

— Proverbs 27:19

Remember the etiology of the narcissus flower? Narcissus, a very attractive Greek hunter, fell in love with his own reflection in a pool of water and drowned, leaving us with the name of a beautiful flower and a term in psychology for those overly self-absorbed: narcissism.

We find a different reading of water's reflective powers in the book of Proverbs from the verse above. Instead of reflecting ourselves, we find that an image speaks back to us that should make us sensitive to others.

In the Talmud [BT Yevamot 117a], one scholar understands this verse as a plea to the emotions and one to the intellect. The Talmud is discussing whether or not a mother-in-law can provide testimony to support her daughter-in-law in the case of a husband presumed dead that would permit the daughter-in-law to re-marry. The rabbis debated the question of self-interest and possibility of emotional pettiness in this relationship and cited this verse in Proverbs as support. Namely, the mother-in-law/daughter-in-law relationship is often fraught with tension. The daughter-in-law picks up on negative signals from the mother-in-law and then those feelings are returned, just like water reflects the face of one who looks at it, citing our verse in Proverbs.

If one person has strong, negative body language towards another, the feeling is likely to become mutual. Sometimes we don't realize the way our faces talk. When someone grimaces or rolls his eyes at something another person says, everyone in the room picks up on it. No words are needed to pick up on the insult. Daniel Goleman, the pioneer of emotional intelligence studies, along with his co-writers in Primal Leadership, presents research about the body language of leaders. Even when they don't speak, people are busy reading their faces and posture to determine if they feel good or bad about a presentation or an idea. "Leaders manage meaning for the group," they contend, even and sometimes especially, when they don't speak.

Weaker chimpanzees, researchers tell us, will smile at a stronger chimpanzee to show that it is vulnerable and not hostile. Studies also show that people who are good at interpreting body language will watch the mouth and not the eyes since it seems to reveal the most about what someone is thinking.

Rabbi Yehuda, however, interprets the verse differently as referring to an intellectual experience: the more Torah one studies, the more Torah he understands. Rashi, the eleventh century French commentator, writes that if a teacher shows a positive countenance to his student, it is more likely for that student to become a scholar himself. Without the teacher's non-verbal encouragement, Rashi contends that the student will never become a scholar. This places a strong educational and moral responsibility on the shoulders of teachers. Be careful about what your body language says to those studying with you

Clearly, we pick up and respond to the emotions we receive. This is likely the reason that Ethics of the Fathers [1:15] recommends we greet every person with a "beautiful face" because that face or look will be returned to us.

This week, we closed the study of Tractate Yevamot in the Talmud's daily cycle. It was a very long tractate and to honor its completion, I shared the teaching above and would like to share one more that held particular meaning for me.

The Talmud records a drowning incident of the famous scholar Rabbi Akiva. When asked how he survived, he said he grabbed hold of a "daf" - a plank of the ship's wood and held on to it for safety. It carried him to shore [BT Yevamot 121a]. Rabbi Meir Shapiro  of Lublin, the founder of the Daf Yomi program - the daily study cycle that takes 7 ½ years to complete - based a sermon on this story to encourage people to study the Talmud based on the wordplay for plank - called a daf . Just as Rabbi Akiva held on to a "daf" and it saved him, so can the regular study of Talmud save us. I know that it has personally served as a wonderful anchor and daily discipline for me and others, especially in an ever-changing world.

We all need to find that which spiritually grounds us as we get tossed about. We find that in the people who reflect warmth and love to us. We find it in community. We find it in study. But we only find what grounds us spiritually if we're looking for it.

Shabbat Shalom

Many Faces

“As water reflects a face, so too a person’s heart reflects a person.”

Proverbs 27:19

Remember the aiteology of the narcissus flower? Narcissus, a very attractive Greek hunter, fell in love with his own reflection in a pool of water and drowned, leaving us with the name of a beautiful flower and a term in psychology for those overly self-absorbed: narcissim.

We find a different reading of water’s reflective powers in the book of Proverbs from the verse above. Instead of reflecting ourselves, we find that an image speaks back to us that should make us sensitive to others.

In the Talmud [BT Yevamot 117a], one scholar understands this verse as a plea to the emotions and one to the intellect. The Talmud is discussing whether or not a mother-in-law can provide testimony to support her daughter-in-law in the case of a husband presumed dead that would permit the daughter-in-law to re-marry. The rabbis debated the question of self-interest and possibility of emotional pettiness in this relationship and cited this verse in Proverbs as support. Namely, the mother-in-law/daughter-in-law relationship is often fraught with tension. The daughter-in-law picks up on negative signals from the mother-in-law and then those feelings are returned, just like water reflects the face of one who looks at it, citing our verse in Proverbs.

If one person has strong, negative body language towards another, the feeling is likely to become mutual. Sometimes we don’t realize the way our faces talk. When someone grimaces or rolls his eyes at something another person says, everyone in the room picks up on it. No words are needed to pick up on the insult. Daniel Goleman, the pioneer of emotional intelligence studies, along with his co-writers in Primal Leadership, presents research about the body language of leaders. Even when they don’t speak, people are busy reading their faces and posture to determine if they feel good or bad about a presentation or an idea. “Leaders manage meaning for the group,” they contend, even and sometimes especially, when they don’t speak.

Weaker chimpanzees, researchers tell us, will smile at a stronger chimpanzee to show that it is vulnerable and not hostile. Studies also show that people who are good at interpreting body language will watch the mouth and not the eyes since it seems to reveal the most about what someone is thinking.

Rabbi Yehuda, however, interprets the verse differently as referring to an intellectual experience: the more Torah one studies, the more Torah he understands. Rashi, the eleventh century French commentator, writes that if a teacher shows a positive countenance to his student, it is more likely for that student to become a scholar himself. Without the teacher’s non-verbal encouragement, rashi contends that the student will never become a scholar. This places a strong educational and moral responsibility on the shoulders of teachers. Be careful about what your body language says to those studying with you

Clearly, we pick up and respond to the emotions we receive. This is likely the reason that Ethics of the Fathers [1:15] recommends we greet every person with a “beautiful face” because that face or look will be returned to us.

This week, we closed the study of Tractate Yevamot in the Talmud’s daily cycle. It was a very long tractate and to honor its completion, I shared the teaching above and would like to share one more that held particular meaning for me.

The Talmud records a drowning incident of the famous scholar Rabbi Akiva. When asked how he survived, he said he grabbed hold of a “daf” – a plank of the ship’s wood and held on to it for safety. It carried him to shore [BT Yevamot 121a]. Rabbi Meir Shapiro  of Lublin, the founder of the Daf Yomi program – the daily study cycle which takes 7 ½ years to complete – based a sermon on this story to encourage people to study the Talmud based on the wordplay for plank. Just as Rabbi Akiva held on to a “daf” and it saved him, can the regular study of Talmud save us. I know that it has personally served as a wonderful anchor and daily discipline for me and others, especially in an ever-changing world.

We all need to find that which spiritually grounds us as we get tossed about. We find that in the people who reflect warmth and love to us. We find it in community. We find it in study. But we only find what grounds us spiritually if we’re looking for it.

Shabbat Shalom

A Special Seventy

“Master of the Universe, let us make up. It is time.
How long can we go on being angry?”

— Elie Wiesel

"In my childhood, I did not expect much from human beings. But I expected everything from You," Elie Wiesel writes in a prayer to God. Over the years, through the darkest of suffering, Wiesel confesses his anger at God, at writing harsh words against God and wondering what was worse: God's silence or God's absence. Over time, Wiesel questions if he has been fair to put so much expectation on God's shoulders and so little on his fellow human beings, "...Auschwitz was not something that came down ready-made from heaven. It was conceived by men, implemented by men, staffed by men." Wiesel ends his powerful prayer by requesting renewed intimacy with God. It is time to make up.

Wiesel's prayer is contained in a potent small book of essays, 70 Days for 70 Years, created for exactly this season. This week we started the project, a collaborative effort of England's United Synagogue and other organizations to provide a book with 70 essays to mark the 70 years it has been since the Holocaust. In 1985, 40 years after its liberation, a man named Rabbi Shapira went to a commemorative event at Thereisenstadt Concentration Camp. Rabbi Shapira worried, as an orphan of the Holocaust, how his own family in the future would hold on to these dark and formative memories. He asked Yad Vashem for 30 names of children who died in the war to give to 30 children in his town to perpetuate their memories more personally. 

In 1995, 50 years after liberation, Rabbi Andrew Shaw gave 5,000 English students 5000 names of those who died in the Shoah and asked that they study in their memory for 50 days. These are small acts we do to redeem those who died; they live on in our memory, our learning and in our acts of kindness. It's an inspiring global Jewish project, and you can get involved and take your next steps to living memory. It's just one click away.

Avner Shalev, chairmen of Yad Vashem, opens his remarks in the book with this line from David Berger, originally from Poland, who was shot and died in Vilna in 1941. "I should like someone to remember that there once lived a person named David Berger." David had a keen sense of his mortality and the danger that lurked everywhere about him. This is the kind of sentiment we expect from someone old and wise, who had lived fully and had much to share. But David Berger was only 22 when he died. He had so much more to do on this planet. He left us one wish: that someone remember that he once existed.

Seventy is a special number is Jewish tradition. Seventy people, we read in Exodus 1, went down to Egypt and became our fledging Jewish nation. Later, Moses gathered 70 elders to assist him with the running our the Israelite community. There were seventy men in the Sanhedrin, our great ancient court, and we have a tradition that there are 70 faces of interpretation. In the Talmud we speak of 70 languages as the plethora of languages spoken in the universe. On Sukkot we offer 70 sacrifices on behalf of all the nations. We like to think of seventy as a number of true globalism. 

As a global Jewish community, there could not be a better time to reflect on Jewish suffering and pain; the world is larger than ever and sometimes more frightening than ever. We sometimes forget about the alarming rhetoric that stirred the pot of anti-Jewish hatred then, even though the world offers up its reminders from time to time. Perhaps we can take on Elie Wiesel's approach - using this time to renew old relationships through earning every day for these 70 days in honor of the people we've become in these remarkable 70 years since then. 

And maybe through this daily study and reflection, we can strengthen our relationship to faith and God as a way of redeeming the darkness. "Master of the Universe, let us make up. It is time."

Shabbat Shalom

When Will the Facts Change?

“A prisoner cannot free himself from jail”

— BT Brakhot 5b

The Talmud celebrates the healing powers of R. Yohanan ben Zakkai. He would visit the sick, discuss the illness and suffering with the patient, and then hold out his hand to raise the other person from his pain. Then he himself got sick, and R. Hanina raised R. Yohanan out of his illness. Why, the Talmud asks, could the gifted healer R. Yohanan not heal himself? "Because the prisoner cannot free himself from prison." There are certain situations we find ourselves in that trap and obstruct us, physically and spiritually. We make think we can function independently in all matters, but sometimes we realize just how necessary others are in relieving our pain, opening our horizons and freeing ourselves from the shackle of negative or limiting thoughts. 

This famous Talmudic expression has traveled far beyond its original context. It has been used to show how "un-free" we become when we put ourselves in situations that actively compromise our integrity or our goodness. We put ourselves in the prison of desire, addiction, seduction, or lies and then we cannot release ourselves. We have become the prison, and we do not have the keys. Sometimes, if we have really damaged our emotional or moral compass, we don't even realize we're in prison. Free will seems like it belongs to someone else, as if it were something we once owned but lost.

What can we do about it? The international photo-journalist Dewitt Jones believes that creativity and problem-solving come when we can relieve ourselves of old behaviors that lock us into stagnation: "Our patterns, too long unquestioned, become our prisons. Break the pattern! And see the scene before you with new eyes." Don't let the pattern become the prison. 

In medieval religious philosophy, many regarded the body as the prison of the soul. While the soul aims for meaning, transcendence and eternity, the body it is trapped in feeds itself on material and short-term desires. Jones tells us that our routine behaviors can function as prisons for us. We lock ourselves in our assumptions, our opinions and our long-held views of life, and we fail to see that we are no longer as free as we once were. Our eyes, Jones believes, can help us break this cycle if we give permission for our eyes to see the same situation differently. 

I thought a lot about this Talmudic expression when I read a recent review of Tony Judt's posthumously published essays, When the Facts Change. Judt was an English born critic who worked on kibbutz and had an early love for Israel that changed into an almost maddening anger at its perceived injustices. Samuel Moyn writes in The New York Times Sunday Book Review that Judt was better at posing vexing problems to Israel than finding solutions. But Moyn dismisses problem-solving as the role of an intellectual. The "proper role" of an intellectual, he argues, is to offer up and analyze problems "early and exigently before a wide public."

Really? The smartest in society should not content themselves with critique and leave the solutions to politicians and policy makers. Public intellectuals should help us get out of our prisons instead of locking us in for longer with detached observations alone. Tony Judt wrote a response to the criticism that he contradicted himself. "When the facts change, I change myself. What do you do?" he replied.

Judt changed his mind because when the facts changed, he allowed himself to be released from the prison of former views. Sometimes, however, the facts do not change. What then? Sometimes the expectation of learned helplessness becomes its own prison. In recent weeks, many of us feel that anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism have become the new norm, an old/new prison for us. Old because we've been in the thick of it for so long. New because every time we face a new terrorist attack or painful criticism, it seems to surprise us but it shouldn't. I worry that we have stepped deep into this prison. We cannot get ourselves out, and sometimes we don't even see the prison walls anymore.

Name your pattern. Name your prison. Consider how long have you been trapped behind its bars. According to the Talmud, you will not be able to let yourself out. You'll need help. Who will you allow in to help? It's time.

Shabbat Shalom

Hugs R Us

“...he threw his arms around his neck and kissed him. And they wept.”

— Genesis 33:4

Did you see the article in last week's Wall Street Journal on hugging? I had no idea that hugging had become such big business. For about a dollar a minute, you can be professionally hugged, cuddled, tickled or spooned. Some cuddlers make up to $80 an hour ,and if you have the Cuddlr App, you can find your own hugger. Of course, there are some boundaries lest anyone get the wrong idea. Many professional cuddlers have rules about showering and brushing teeth before a visit, but if you smell sweet and control yourself, it seems that if you're 'out of touch,' you're in luck.

“Thousands of customers across the country are booking appointments with professional cuddlers in at least 16 states.”

— Wall Street Journal, Jan 8, 2015

The article and subsequent online discussion around it raises the important issue of the human need for touch and affection. Medical and consumer research tells us you are likely to have a better experience in a doctor's office, store or restaurant if you have even been lightly patted or touched. Most people unconsciously register this as an act of concern and compassion. You're more likely to get better tips, be less likely to be called in a medical malpractice case and more likely to get a compliment for your service.

There are a few famous biblical hugs worth mentioning at this juncture. Disclaimer: none of them involved any financial transaction.

Hug Number One

Jacob and Esau reunite after a long separation and with a lot of anxiety expended preparing for the meeting. It not only went more smoothly than expected, it surfaced deep emotions for both sides, as we read in Genesis 33:4 - "Esau ran to meet Jacob and embraced him; he threw his arms around his neck and kissed him. And they wept." There are negative rabbinic readings of this reunion, but the text plainly read is unmistakable. This hug was a real emotional embrace.

Hug Number Two

Here we look at another brotherly reunion in Genesis, one previously defined by rivalry and danger. Joseph reunites with his brothers who suspect him of revenge. They stand in quiet disbelief while Joseph reveals himself and says that he has come to terms with their difficult relationship and forgiven them. He sees his younger brother. He has ached for Benjamin, and we as readers cannot wait to see them unite with each other, as Genesis 45:14-15 record: "Then he [Joseph] threw his arms around his brother Benjamin and wept, and Benjamin embraced him, weeping. And he kissed all his brothers and wept over them. Afterward his brothers talked with him."

Hug Number Three

This famous female, platonic hug was preferred to a kiss. Orpah kissed her mother-in-law when parting, but Ruth held on with affection and admiration to the woman who taught her so much. As Naomi mentions how she feels punished by God and isolated - a woman who lost everything - the women weep: "At this they wept again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law good-by, but Ruth clung to her. 'Look,' said Naomi, 'your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.' But Ruth replied, 'Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me.' When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her" Ruth 1:14-18 takes us to a moment of loss and hope communicated powerfully by the simple act of an embrace.

As we read about these non-professional cuddlers, we see three reasons that you could never pay for such a physical transaction: 1) each embrace was not about mere physical touch but about the acceptance of the other - in each case a non-obvious recipient of the embrace. The hug was the Bible's way of telling us that a significant fracture was on its way to healing. 2) Each embrace was followed by conversation. The hug came first but was immediately followed or pre-empted by talk, explanation or revelation. 3) Each hug signified the beginning of a new stage of relationship where the past was not forgotten but was put to the side to give space for a new relationship to emerge.

You can pay for a touch. But you cannot put a price on intimacy, and intimacy is not something you can buy. You have to earn it.

Your hugs may be worth up to $80 an hour. So find those worth hugging in your life who you'd never charge and show them through touch and talk how much you value them in your life. Hold that hug just a little bit longer than usual because... well, because you can.

Shabbat Shalom

Groaning and Moaning

“And God heard their moaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God looked upon the Israelites and God took notice of them”

— Exodus 2:25-25

God took notice, a verse in this week’s Torah reading tells us. What does it mean to take notice, especially to notice something or someone others fail to notice? Andy Warhol once said, “I always notice flowers.” Well, Andy, flowers are almost always noticeable. We are drawn to look at that which brings us pleasure, not that which brings us pain, especially inanimate objects of beauty which don’t challenge our sensibilities. We turn away from that which disturbs us because once we catch a glimpse of it, we can no longer pretend that we do not see it. The visual intake creates obligation.  On a verse in Proverbs, “What brightens the eye gladdens the heart...” (15:30), Rashi observes that what brightens the heart is natural phenomena - lakes and mountains, a gorgeous landscape. It lifts us up and carries us to happy places. Not so with trauma. We look away from the homeless woman on the street because if we do not notice her, she does not exist. The eye can be very selfish.

And it is not only God who takes notice here. In Exodus 2, Moses looks at that which others turn away from: a rotten and cruel taskmaster, an Israelite fight, a group of innocent shepherdesses being harassed. To take notice is to pay attention, to focus, to give one’s full mind and heart to something. It took almost two chapters of Exodus for God to respond to the pain of the Israelites under Pharaoh’s harsh and demonic rule. According to Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, God only pays attention to the Israelites’ cry when they actually moan. In the first chapter of Exodus, when forced labor is introduced and Pharaoh makes an edict about the male children, the Israelites withhold their pain saying nothing. There is no protest, no outcry, no advocacy, no prayer.

Rabbi Soloveitchik believed that redemption rests with a word. I cannot help you if you do not express your pain and your need. But the moment you do, I have a responsibility to you that I cannot deny. Only when Moses was introduced into the story in chapter two do the people then cry out to God, and God notices them. Rabbi Soloveithcik contends that only once a redeemer was introduced into the story could the people stop withholding their pain and cry out because there was someone to hear it. It is a very basic building block of our humanity and leadership. Help people express pain and they will be one step closer to redeeming their suffering.

This week I heard Dr. Mona Fishbane speak powerfully about the verse quoted above. Citing the Hasidic scholar Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev, she drew my attention to all of the verbs used in the verse: to hear, to remember, to look and to notice. All of these verbs create a trajectory of compassion. She cited Sue Johnson, a leading couples therapist, who writes that, “Most [couple] fights are really protests over emotional disconnection. Underneath all the distress, partners are asking each other: Can I count on you, depend on you? Are you there for me?...Do I matter to you?....The anger, the criticism, the demands are really cries to their lovers, calls to stir their heart.”

After suffering, people ask the same question of God that they ask in their most intimate and important relationships. Do you notice me? Am I important to you? How would I know that?

We redeem others first by noticing - noticing that something has changed in their life situation or their disposition, their attitude or their looks, their interests or their needs. Sometimes we make the mistake of assuming we know everything about another person. We don’t have to notice anything new. But people are active, dynamic beings living in a constantly changing and evolving universe. Perhaps we don’t want to notice because it will exact a cost upon us. Our noticing obliges us to pay closer attention, to be more responsible, to engage in greater empathy.

God and Moses are teaching us to pay attention, to look at that which is not easy to look at and to redeem the pain of others because we paid attention.

What will you notice differently because you are paying greater attention?

Shabbat Shalom

2014 Year in Review

““It’s not a pretty world, Papa.”
“I’ve noticed,” my father said softly. ”

— Chaim Potok, My Name is Asher Lev

As Jews, we say goodbye to 2014 with some nostalgia and a lot of good-riddance. Chaim Potok warned us. It’s not a pretty world. It’s true. We did not win any Nobel Prizes, a rarity, but if you’re feeling sad about this, you can go to the Israeli city Rishon Letzion and visit Tayelet Hatnei Pras Nobel, a street honoring all past Jewish Nobel prize winners with a plaque to each. But nine new tiny Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered by a post-doctoral researcher at Hebrew University, Dr. Yonatan Adler in 2013 and in 2014 the news was made public. They are now being analyzed for the significance they may yield on Second Temple Judaism.

It’s not a pretty world when three precious Israeli teenagers were kidnapped then murdered in those desperate months of May and June while we collectively held our breathes across the globe. It was the summer of Gaza tunnels, a closure of Ben Gurion airport, civilian casualties, the death of so many soldiers and a war no one seemed to win.

The tensions were not limited to Israel. On April 15th, a man with a history of anti-Semitic rhetoric shot a boy and his grandfather in a Jewish Community Center in Kansas City and then hit an elderly woman in an assisted living facility.  Four people were killed in a Jewish museum in Brussels on May 29th. This was a year of escalated anti-Semitism around the world; from France to Crimea, Jews were victims once again of irrational hatred. This propelled an escalation in aliya this year. Over 5,000 Jews from the Ukraine made their permanent home in Israel in 2014. A full one percent of French Jews were expected to move to Israel in 2014. By August 31st, the number was 4,566. Fighting back, more than 400,000 young Jews from 66 countries have visited Israel on a Taglit Birthright trip as of the close of this year.

We all love the positive energy of start-up nation thinking so here are 3 Israeli inventions that are hitting the market just about now to make you qvell: ReWalk Robotics, an exoskeleton system that helps people who are paralyzed learn to walk again. Then there’s the Opgal/Lumus night vision system, an app that mounts a low-cost night-vision camera on an Android phone for security purposes and Stratasys/Objet, a joint Israeli-US company that is one of the top producers of advanced 3D printing equipment that may change food production and has been used in medical advances. Israeli scientists have also developed an early MRI test for trauma from brain damage. Israelis now even have an app for dog-lovers called Dogiz, a social network for dog owners.

Notable deaths in 2014 include that of Robin Williams who called himself an “honorary Jew” and Ben Ammi Ben Israel, an American born religious leader of the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem. Of course, the military leader and legendary political figure Ariel Sharon died on January 11, 2014 after having a stroke that incapacitated him in 2006. Founder of the Jewish Renewal movement, Rabbi Zalman Schachter Shalomi, fled the Nazis and became a Lubavitch Hasid and joined with Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach to do outreach to a generation of Jews, many more interested in weed than creed. He died on July 3, 2014 having been a spiritual force for a generation of American Jews. We lost another 3 rabbis in the Har Nof Massacre on November 17, including Rabbi Moshe Twersky of the Soloveitchik family. It’s not a pretty world.

On a more positive note, that same family celebrated the receipt of the Israel Prize in the field of Jewish religious literature by scholar Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein on the occasion of Israel’s 66thbirthday. No prize, however, can ever make up for the loss.

In September, with the onset of Rosh Hashana, Jews in Israel welcomed the seven year shmita or sabbatical cycle from the biblical chapter of Leviticus 25. This mandates that land lie fallow for an entire annual cycle and is said to increase abundance during the other years of the cycle.

Yossi Klein Halevi’s book Like Dreamers won the Sophie Brody Medal in 2014. Matti Friedman won the Sammy Rohr Prize in Jewish Literature for The Aleppo Codex and Sarah Bunin Benor was runner-up for Becoming Frum. The year’s end also saw the walk-outs of The New Republic’s executive and literary editors Frank Foer and Leon Weiseltier over a disagreement about the magazine’s direction. This year PJ Library gave out its 5 millionth book to a young Jewish reader.

Our year ended with the release of Alan Gross on December 17th  in exchange for 3 Cuban prisoners serving in US jails. Communities worldwide protested his arrest and the five years he spent in a Cuban jail. Gross, now 65, joined his family as the best Hanuka present they could have asked for.

So here are three “Jewish” resolutions for 2015:

• Fight any and all anti-Semitism. It’s back, it’s ugly and it cannot be tolerated.
• So much good is coming out of Israel. Make 2015 the year to strengthen your relationship to Israel.
• Win a Nobel Prize. It makes our people happy.

God, please let 2015 be a prettier year for us all. We need it.

Shabbat Shalom

Rededicating Ourselves

“One of the most important challenges today is to educate towards commitment: commitment to the nation, to the family, to society, to the state and to Judaism’s world of values.
”

— Rabbi Yehuda Amital

The brutal attacks against police officers and the raging protests around the country contesting police authority and its boundaries have made me re-think public service. I wonder what it must be like to be afraid of a police officer. I also wonder what it must be like to be a police officer in this country who entered the police force to bring together his patriotic impulse with a chance to serve the country and now finds himself a target of hatred and suspicion. Deuteronomy commands that as soon as we enter the Land of Israel, we put in place offices of justice - "You shall appoint judges and police officers for your tribes in all the places that the Lord, your God, is giving you...(16:18) - but I wonder who is rushing today to become a police officer in this charged and potentially lethal climate?

This led me to consider what it means to dedicate oneself and then re-dedicate oneself to public service in light of the these tensions. As we say goodbye to another Hanuka, it's a good time to think about what commitment means and what we want to recommit ourselves to moving forward. Hanuka means "dedication," and the holiday is named for the rededication of the Temple of old. Rededication is an interesting concept; it demands a statement of beliefs and priorities that we should, on occasion, re-affirm in word and deed. After all, how often do we re-commit ourselves to our values? What would that look like? People do have re-commitment or renewal ceremonies when they re-affirm marriage vows or re-commit themselves to their faith, but this is not standard practice.         

Maybe we don't talk enough today about public service. In the quote above, Rabbi Yehuda Amital, in his book Commitment and Complexity: Jewish Wisdom in an Age of Upheaval, challenges us to consider what it means to educate towards commitment. For many people, commitment is a foreign language. We like to educate today for choice rather than commitment. Put a plethora of options before people and let them decide. It takes us longer to make decisions because there are so many possible choices. Commitment seems to diminish our hard-won freedoms. If commitment feels far away then re-commitment is even further away.

Rabbi Yehuda Amital (1924-2010) was a leading Jewish scholar in Israel and a member of the Israeli cabinet. He moved to Israel in 1944 after serving in a Nazi labor camp; his entire family was killed in Auschwitz. He rebuilt his life in what was then Palestine, was ordained as a rabbi, served in multiple wars and then founded the elite yeshivat hesder, Yeshivat Har-Etzion, an academic center that combines high-level Talmud study with army service. Rabbi Amital understood something about personal commitment and educating others for service. It is not an easy business: "The very notion of commitment to a cause or an object runs contrary to the concept of freedom. Therefore any commitment - whether to the nation, the state, society, or to one's spouse and family - has no place in an era of freedom of the individual." 

 In the critical conversation we are having as a country about the role of the police so many issues are being thrown into this explosive cocktail: race, violence, security and power. One of the conversations that we have yet to have is about the nature of public service. How can we make sure that the best and the brightest strengthen their commitment to public service - either as professionals or volunteers? It's almost too easy to protest and too difficult to sit around the table together and talk about justice, humility and patriotism. Rabbi Amital warned us: "Simplistic thinking must be avoided. A person must fight against superficiality and understand the complexity of the world..."

At this season of dedication, what are your doing to serve the public? What are you doing to thank someone who does?

Shabbat Shalom

Channukah and Every Day Heroism

“What will I answer when called to account?”

— Job 31:14

Michael Jordan once said, “Not every flying hero has a cape.” Few of us can fly like he can, but he makes an important point about heroes. As we celebrate the heroism of the Maccabees and think about miracles of old this Hanuka, we should take a moment to ponder our own modern notions of heroism. Who are today’s heroes?

Arguably, today we don’t have heroes. We have celebrities, glittering personalities with brand name attraction. Once you introduce a cape and tights into the hero persona, you lose the sense of ordinary, every day heroism that is lauded in Jewish life. The poet and artist Brian Andreas perhaps said it best:“Anyone can slay a dragon...but try waking up every morning and loving the world all over again. That’s what takes a real hero.”

In Hebrew, the word for hero is “gever.” As an infinitive, we would say that a hero is someone who overcomes difficulties with resolvem - “le-hitgaber.” In the Hebrew Bible, we use the term “chayil” and attach it to a man or woman of nobility or valor. We find this portrait of quiet heroism in two places in Scriptures: the book of Proverbs and the book of Job. In the spirit of Maya Angelou’s distinction between heroes and she-roes, Proverbs 3:10-31 offers us the woman of valor. Take a few minutes one day to read this passage in English, and you will find a woman who is hyper-productive, who opens her arms to the poor and needy, who clothes her family, who speaks pearls of wisdom, who knows the difference between beauty and integrity.

Take a look at Job 31 and you will find the male version of this kind of heroism. As if in a court of law, Job argues in his own defense that he spent a lifetime cultivating his moral strength and humanity. He kept his eyes to himself and resisted temptation. He did not “walk in falsehood” nor “deny justice” to his household and those who worked for him. He did not keep his bread to himself “nor let the eyes of the widow grow weary” with suffering. In his protestations he says, “...no stranger had to spend the night in the street, for my door was always open to the traveler.” He did not rejoice over his wealth nor keep his money to himself. He did not gloat over his enemies nor wish them trouble. He made sure that all who worked with him had their fill of his meat, the most expensive part of the meal.

Job creates a picture of a life of purpose and generosity. He, like the unnamed woman of valor, was a person who opened his eyes to the anguish of others. His life was a conduit for service. Job felt confidant that he could make a case for his goodness, asking the question that all of us must ask when we have an opportunity to do right: “What will I answer when called to account?” That is the question the hero asks.

Funnily enough, Florence Nightengale used an appropriate image to blend quiet heroism with our holiday: “I am of certainly convinced that the greatest heroes are those who do their duty in the daily grind of domestic affairs whilst the world whirls as a maddening dreidel.” Drop the cape. Not everyone can leap buildings. Who has to? We need to be every day heroes who can elevate ourselves through goodness and service.

 What will you answer this Hanuka and beyond when called to account?

 Shabbat Shalom and Happy Hanuka!

Take Heed

“Just as it is a mitzva for a person to say that which will be heeded, is it a mitzva for a person not to say what will not be heeded, ”

— BT Yevamot 65b

The word "heed" is an unusual word; it's formal and heavy and wouldn't be used in casual conversation. Maybe it needs to be re-introduced into common parlance because it means more than simply listening. A careful sort of attention or notice must be given to meet its demands, the kind of attention that in these days of distraction is harder to come by. We heed warnings or ignore them at our own peril. We think of Arthur Miller's Death of A Salesman: "Attention must be paid,"and wonder what kind of focused attention that is.

But what happens when we give feedback that no one pays heed to? This becomes an ongoing dilemma in parenting and partnering, in business and in education. Any time we are trying to grow someone else, there will be resistance, push-back, defensiveness and even heartbreak. One of my favorite verses on mentoring comes from Proverbs: "Correct a wise person, and he will love you. Correct a fool, and he will hate you" (9:8). We understand the sentiment well. If we give feedback to people who are responsive - who heed what we have to say, know that it comes from a place of love and concern and know that it's not so easy to say - then our words can take root. But if we correct fools, we might not know who the fool really is - that person for ignoring us or ourselves for the wasted breath.

 But it's not so simple, as any supervisor or spouse can attest. Sometimes we speak out and the response we get is initially defensive, pained or angry but over time, the words we say seep in, and we notice change. Sometimes a "wise" person nods a head in agreement, hears feedback, expresses concern and then continues doing whatever it is he or she was doing wrong in the first place. In other words, determining who is wise and who is not is more complicated than it looks. 

 Maimonides in the seventh chapter of his "Laws of Character Development" expounds upon this conundrum and begins by writing that, "It is natural that a person's personality and actions are influenced by friends and colleagues and adheres to the expected norms of behavior. Knowing this, he should surround himself by those who are pious and wise to learn from their behaviors. He should also, subsequently, keep a distance from the wicked who follow darkness, and not learn from their behaviors." Then Maimonides quotes another verse from Proverbs about who we should associate with as a prooftext: "One who walks with the wise will become wise, while one who associates with fools will become foolish" (13:20). All good advice. If you want to be a better person, be around good people and then you will grow even without the admonition. You will improve simply by virtue of good role-models and high expectations of personal goodness.

 In the event that this is not enough at times, Maimonides continues in law #7 and suggests that, following from Leviticus 19:17, we admonish those who are doing wrong. He advises us to help those in need of correction by telling such an individual that he is causing himself harm, rather than merely irritating others. He suggests an atmosphere of respect and privacy, the use of gentle language and communicating again the abiding sense that the correction is for his own welfare. Maimonides concludes with a plea to responsibility, which I will translate loosely: "Whoever has the possibility of correcting a sinner and fails to do so is responsible for that sin since he had the opportunity to do something about it."

These are all helpful recommendations, but they don't resolve the feedback dilemma for us. How do we know who is wise and who is a fool when it comes to issuing criticism? How do we hear it? Think of a piece of feedback or criticism that you have hear about yourself for years - especially if it has come from more than one person - that you have not "heeded" - paid any special attention to. Write it down.

What is it about this issue that is making you so "hard of heeding"?

 Shabbat Shalom

The Tongue as Sword

“Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.”

— Proverbs 12:18

This week, the United States Supreme Court heard arguments in a case about the use of threatening language. The case revolves around Anthony Elonis, who is estranged from his wife and posted threats on his Facebook page using the form of rap lyrics after she left him and took their two children. He said he would kill her, shoot up a school and slit the throat of an FBI agent. One biblical verse kept coming to mind for me as I learned more about the case: "Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing."

The language Elonis used was graphic and violent: "There's one way to love ya, but a thousand ways to kill ya..." and then the language gets more painful until Elonis concludes that "Revenge is a dish that is best served cold with a delicious side dish of psychological torture." His estranged wife received a restraining order but this did not stop him. A week later, he posted this message, among others: "Fold up your protective order and put it in your pocket. Is it thick enough to stop a bullet?"

Lawyers defending Elonis say that he was merely venting his hurt and frustration over the split up and had no intent to act on any of these threats. The language he used is not different from the lyrics of many rap singers today and the language content of many violent video-games, raising a question with huge implications. What constitutes free speech and what constitutes an illegal threat in the age of Cyberspace? The government is arguing that it does not matter what Elonis intended if his language would feel threatening to a "reasonable" person, the way the federal court generally determines if a verbal threat is violent. What's under question is what constitutes a standard because free speech is a First Amendment right. You may not like what someone says, but it does not mean that he or she is not free to say it in this country.

This argument gets to the heart of language itself. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg asked the momentous question of the bench: "How does one prove what's in somebody else's mind?" You can only really judge people by what they say. Yet in an age where we exaggerate and use expressions of violence in non-violent ways all of the time, it is increasingly difficult to determine the veracity of language: "I could kill for that hamburger right now." "Slay me." "If I say that again, shoot me."

It will be fascinating to see how the court rules this summer on this case. In the meantime, the case should make us all a little more sensitive to language and its intentions. Words can heal. They can also pierce like a sword. Even when the sword is removed, the scar remains. I find at moments like this, a tour of some other verses in Proverbs provides solace:

• "A soft answer turns away anger, but a harsh word stirs up wrath" (Proverbs 15:1)
• "The tongue of the wise speaks knowledge, but the mouth of fools pour out folly" (Proverbs 15:2)
• "Whoever keeps his mouth shut and his tongue silent keeps himself out of trouble" (Proverbs 21:23)
•  "Whoever guards his mouth preserves life; one who one who opens his lips wide comes to ruin" (Proverbs 13:3)
• "Do you see a man who is hasty with his words? There is more hope for a fool than for him" (Proverbs 29:20

If you could carry around one of these verse in your wallet to remind you of the responsibilities and perils that come with language, which would it be? Perhaps it would be this verse from Psalms, the one that is uttered before we begin the Amida, "Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my Rock and Redeemer" (19:14). The mouth represents speech. The heart represents intention. When words and intention are well-aligned in goodness, the words that come out of us bring more healing and beauty to the world. We shouldn't be satisfied with anything less.

Shabbat Shalom

The Story of a Life

“I will fulfill the number of your days...”

— Exodus 23:26

Remember Harry Chapin, that great and sad musician whose life was cut short? He wrote a beautiful, melancholy song, "The Story of a Life" where a young man, presumably himself, starts his days conjuring images of all the dreams he will one day fulfill: "Great tales of love and strife, and somewhere on your path to glory, you will write your story of a life." No surprise, in the song he reaches mid-life and his dreams crumble and the story that he writes is suburban and small, not at all descriptive of the real life of Harry Chapin. The story of a life should be told not in years but in mystery and majesty: "Where's the magic story of a life?"

I thought of this song given the recent coalescence of a piece of Talmud in the daily cycle with the death of former mayor of Washington, D.C., Marion Barry. The Talmud debates the meaning of the biblical verse: "I will fulfill the number of your days..." [BT Yevamot 50a]. The Sages of the Talmud were puzzled by this expression from Exodus. Does it mean that God pre-ordains the number of days of each human life, in which case we could never "earn" additional days or lose them based on our behavior? This would seem to contradict other biblical verses that indicate that we can extend our days through our goodness and selflessness. One Sage argues: "If he is deserving, God completes his allotted lifespan. If he is not deserving, God reduces his lifespan." In other words, our lifespan is predetermined; if we use our days well, we get to live it to the very end and if we don't then years are cut off. This approach punishes those who are not deserving, but does not reward those who are genuinely worthy. 

 Some Sages did not love this answer for that reason and offered, instead, a baseline approach. God determines the lifespan for each person and if found unworthy, years are taken away but if he or she is particularly exemplary, then years are added. It seems only fair in this math equation that there is addition as well as subtraction. Other commentaries on the Talmud state that this verse applies to generations instead of individuals. 

Marion Barry died this week at the age of 78. He was DCs mayor for four colorful terms, colorful being perhaps the nicest way to say it. He had been charged with sexual assault, arrested for drug use and did jail time - and was then re-elected on the slogan "I may not be perfect, but I am perfect for DC." A whole book on leadership could be written on this slogan alone. He was literally a case study in intemperance in Barbara Kellerman's Bad Leadership while he was still alive. Barry had Chapin's magic story of a life nailed; obituaries of him read like a work of fiction. But his contributions are likely not what the Talmud had in mind when it asked us to earn our years.

One commentator on the Exodus life calculus interprets the verse to mean that each day offers the opportunity for us to fulfill our unique goals. If we fail to fulfill them, we will be accountable. If we use each day well, we will deserve additional days in order to complete the lofty goals we have, as if each individual lifespan adjusts to accommodate what we want to squeeze out of it. This need not be taken literally. It offers us the challenge of fulfilling our daily potential, understanding that each day is another opportunity to add an exceptional page to the story of our lives.

If every day could be an entire chapter in the story of a life, then how exciting is your autobiography? Toss this conversation starter around with the turkey at your table this Thanksgiving: describe a great ordinary day of your life.

So where's the magic story of your life?

Shabbat Shalom

On Resolve

“Do not be afraid. Do not lose resolve”

— Deuteronomy 1:21

These have been such difficult days. It seems that virtually everyone I speak to is despondent or confused or both. People wonder if the violence and despair in Israel will ever end and how to make it to the end of the day without hope. Loss is everywhere. A few weeks ago, people were afraid to go to a mikve. Now there's fear about stepping into a shul to pray in the morning. Both fears are very different but very real in different ways. Sacred institutions which felt safe are now under question.  But should they be?

We all have to be careful and vigilant. But we can't let rare, extreme and unusual circumstances tarnish the holy, loving and healthy Jewish spaces that we have come to call our own. And most importantly, we cannot lose hope. We cannot lose faith, and we cannot lose trust because when we lose those three precious spiritual commodities - hope, faith and trust - we lose Judaism.

When Moses begins his farewell speech at the beginning of Deuteronomy, he points out a dream and then he points to the problems on the way to the realization of all dreams. He looks out at his nation - our nation - and says, "The Lord your God has increased your numbers so that today you are as many as the stars in the sky" (1:10). Finally, after so many generations have passed, the impossible dream given to Abraham had been realized. He looked out on a sea of people and affirmed that we had indeed become those sparkling, numerous stars that no one could have imagined in the early chapters of Genesis.

And then Moses reminds the people of an attitude that got in the way of the realization of this dream. People on the journey lost hope. Some traded in the big picture because of small material complaints along the way. Some wanted out of this immense spiritual adventure because they were terribly afraid of enemies, harking us back to the days when scouts gave a bad report of the land: "You have reached the hill country of the Amorites, which the Lord our God is giving us. See, the Lord your God has given you the land. Go up and take possession of it as the Lord, the God of your fathers, told you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged" (1:20-21) God tried to put fear into perspective but to no avail. Many people would not continue. They took their own route and perished at the hand of unexpected enemies.

There are several different translations of "Do not be afraid; do not get discouraged." I like the translation "do not lose resolve." Fear and discouragement are different. You can be afraid to start a new venture or be scared to confront a problem. But then you take a leap of faith and jump into the unknown. The trick at that point is to not lose resolve, to keep going because new fears and anxieties will surface and present their challenges. You have to keep renewing your sense of resolve that inspired courage in the first place, not despite the dangers and risks but because of them. Risky, impossible challenges are often the only ones worth making.

Anne Lamott in her latest book Stitches:A Handbook on Meaning, Hope and Repair asked how we can find coherence in a world where children are massacred in their schools and friends are dying of illness. She imagines all of these incoherent pieces of sadness and tragedy lying everywhere, making no sense. And then she creates a metaphor for responding to pain: "We live stitch by stitch, when we're lucky." We live in the moments between, focusing on the way that we stitch, the way we put together into a pattern of meaning that which seems puzzling and vexing. "You have to keep taking the next necessary stitch, and the next one, and the next," Lamott advises: "Without stitches, you just have rags. And we are not rags."

We are strong. We cannot be doubled over in so much pain that we forget to stitch together joy with our unhappiness and purpose with our pain. Persecution is not our only or most important legacy. We gave the world hope, faith and trust. We are still here. We are still thriving and actualizing a beautiful future. The price, however, is horrendous and impossible at times But the cost of losing hope is greater. Be strong and of good courage, we read in the Bible. And when that fails us, then at the very least, do not be afraid and do not lose resolve.

Shabbat Shalom