Friday, December 28, 2012

Here are some more thoughts on the current Gun Debate

Last year after the events unfolded at Penn State I wrote a blog about the sacrifice of children. You see Judaism was in part a response to the pagan world and the story of the Binding of Isaac was a response to the practice of child sacrifice that was so prevalent in the ancient world. Those students who rioted in response to the firing of Joe Paterno placed an American cultural value before a sacred religious one… And now today I want to know if we are doing the same thing again. I keep on wanting to sing Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA… I keep on thinking of all of the eulogies that we offer for soldiers and people killed in the line of duty… What are they defending? I believe the constitution to be a holy document… But the problem is that we are allowing it to be used for unholy things. Can we really be proud to be Americans when we advocate for dangerous tools of murder to be readily available? Can we really be proud of a document that is used to advocate for unlimited numbers of bullets to be placed into guns at a time? Can we really be proud when our one singular basic duty of protecting children is second to the second amendment? When does the madness end? When can we be safe from the bullets flying about our world? Judaism destroyed child sacrifice and America seems to have resurrected it… We must not allow for their deaths to have occurred in vain. We must push for the children who are still here to be safe because of those who died. After all, isn’t that the constant refrain for soldiers: (he died so you could be alive).

We live in a world that continues to victimize children on a regular basis. We live in a world that witnesses child prostitution, child marriage, child slavery, child soldiers and so many more evils. Children should be playing with toys, not attending funerals. Children should be stopping our lust for evil and power not being victimized by it. Children should be laughing and not crying. Schools should be safe and not dangerous. But all of these clichés have come to a screeching halt. All of these clichés are no longer the case. We in America brag about the quality of life we enjoy here, and we brag about freedoms unlike anywhere else in the world, but what freedom is there when even a five year old is not entitled to life and safety in a classroom? We all have some deep soul searching to do right now. We all need to come together and agree that enough is enough. For me it was enough when gangs were killing each other in the cities. For me it was enough when police officers were being killing while on duty. For me it was enough when people watching a movie were slaughtered. But I am just one person, we must all work together to see that the unthinkable has happened and that our children demand and deserve better. Kids should be at birthday parties, not at funerals. But the funerals will continue so long as we do not put their safety and well-being ahead of some words on paper that have been abused and misinterpreted for countless generations.

There is a midrash about the binding of Isaac that he was blinded on that day by a tear drop from his father’s eye. Might we be doing the same thing? Might we be causing irreversible damage to our most precious assets because of our adherence to the second amendment? We as the adults are shedding tears, them as children are being permanently damaged. This is not right; it never was and never will be. Isaac survived with some scars. For all but 26 of us we are just as fortunate, but for the remaining 26 may we be wiser and move forward knowing that we have a responsibility to the dead to not have let them die in vain?

There are no answers, only questions. And right now we need to ask ourselves what we are doing to make fewer Isaacs and more children? What are we doing to regain our pride in being Americans? And lastly, at what cost does our freedom come? The answer can never be the lives of our young.

Thursday, December 27, 2012

Where to Go From Here?

Okay, here goes nothing. I am not sure where this is going to go so hold on tight. Just the other day I threw out my nerf gun. I made a decision that I needed to be consistent, and I needed to accept that a gun was a gun. I cannot allow for a gun to be a toy... it is not okay. The last night of Hanukah, our synagogue had a great party at a family fun venue, which included laser tag. As I was suiting up, the person in charge was giving us instructions. Our guns had unlimited ammo; we could activate rapid fire. The whole thing was quite frightening to hear as we were all aware of the previous day’s events. I became very uncomfortable shooting a laser at these little kids and eventually left and did something else. It just felt wrong.

With regards to the plagues of our society we need to recognize that the problems lie all over the place. We are arguing over the first and the second amendments, and it appears as if most would rather be purists than have sensible legislation. The limit on the first amendment is accepted as being the idea that a person is free to swing his arms but that freedom ends where my nose begins. We also refer to the understanding that it is illegal to yell fire in a crowded theater. What is the limit on the second amendment? As it stands it is limitless. Might we suggest that the limit is your right to carry a gun ends where my right to safety begins? Might we argue that guns that can murder and maim mass numbers in a matter of seconds are the limit? If the first amendment has a limit, then certainly the second must as well. But we all seem to acknowledge that the problem is not only the actual guns. A major contributing factor is the glorification of guns and violence. I am a huge hockey fan... I actually have three religions: 1) Judaism, 2) Hockey and 3) Disney. With regards to hockey I love the sport, but Americans are destroying it. When I attend hockey games I am there to see skill and to see goals and stopped shots. I appreciate a good check and/or defensive play; I do not enjoy the fights. I am disgusted by the fan reaction to fights versus the fan reaction to goals. They cheer so much louder for fights. These players are on sharp skates and on slippery ice and they are boxing, it is dangerous and the fans cheer them on more than when they score a goal. We have some sort of obsession with blood and suffering. We have some sort of obsession with pain and agony. We have some sort of obsession with violence in general. I watched the first episode a few years ago of the show Boardwalk Empire. I never watched it again after the scene of the man beating the pregnant woman. It is all in the name of entertainment and I realize it is supposed to be make believe, but it is not entertainment to me. I have met too many battered women to know it is not make believe. When I wrote my paper on violent and misogynistic video games, I did so hoping to prove their legitimacy and innocence... I found quite the opposite. The paper is posted here:http://www.rabbinicalassembly.org/sites/default/files/public/halakhah/teshuvot/20052010/videogames%20Dorff%20Hearshen%20Final.pdf. Just because the first amendment gives us the right to make such material, does not make it okay. Just because studies on the real dangers of such games are inconclusive, does not mean that they are okay. And just because it is fantasy does not make it okay. There is nothing entertaining about dehumanizing women. There is nothing entertaining about murdering innocent civilians on purpose. There is no value in degrading our God-made souls and inviting in such lewd and violent images. I do not blame the entertainment industry for what happened in Connecticut, but they are not allowed to get away free from all of this. I love the words from a great poet/singer - Jack Johnson: 
"Cookie Jar"
Jack Johnson
i would turn on the tv, but it’s so embarrassing
to see all the other people, i don’t know what they mean
it was magic at first, when they spoke without sound
but now this world is gonna hurt, you better turn that thing down
turn it around
“it wasn’t me,” says the boy with the gun
“sure i pulled the trigger, but it needed to be done
because life’s been killing me ever since it begun
you can’t blame me because i’m too young”
“you can’t blame me, sure the killer was my son
but i didn’t teach him to pull the trigger of the gun
it’s the killing on his tv screen
you can’t blame me, it’s those images he seen”
“you can’t blame me,” says the media man
“i wasn’t the one who came up with the plan
i just point my camera at what the people want to see
it’s a two way mirror and you can’t blame me”
“you can’t blame me,” says the singer of the song
or the maker of the movie which he based his life on
“it’s only entertainment, as anyone can see
it’s smoke machines and makeup, you can’t fool me”
it was you, it was me, it was every man
we’ve all got the blood on our hands
we only receive what we demand
and if we want hell then hell’s what we’ll have
i would turn on the tv, but it’s so embarrassing
to see all the other people, don’t know what they mean
it was magic at first, but let everyone down
and now this world is gonna hurt, you better turn it around
turn it around

You see the problem is all of our problems; we are all guilty and have blood on our hands. We all have so much to do to make this better. The violence in media is a problem. The stigma of mental health care and lack thereof is a problem. The lack of laws to police these issues is a problem. The availability of deadly weapons is a problem. Our lack of collective memory is a problem. We have so many issues that we must contend with and we must overcome. We have to make this world better for our children and we must be willing to sacrifice some things to achieve such a world. What we have right now is not the right answer. What we have right now is a freedom that is leading to mass chaos, no discussion of issues and sole focus on the rights of the individual as opposed to the good of society.

Friday, October 5, 2012

What we got right in the past year

This year I made a decision in preparing for Yom Kippur that I did not only want to remind God of the bad things I had done in the past year.  I did not want to portray myself as a sinner exclusively… And I felt that the people in the room would agree.  And so I set out to write an additional confessional prayer for our services that allow for us to confess the good things we have done.  I come from a point of view that we choose to do what we do.  We all have choices and make them on a regular basis.  We will, at times, make the wrong one… But often we make the right one and we need to be able to rejoice in that.  It was in this spirit that I wrote the following words and now pass them on to all of you for your reflection and use.

יום כיפור 5773

רבונו של עולם, Master of the World:

Today is יום כיפור, the day that the books are sealed. We call today יום הדין the Day of Judgment. Today our people gather around the world to confess the times that we missed the mark and we are fully aware that there are plenty of such occasions. But God, is this really a fair trial when we are only allowed to testify our guilt and not our merits??? We have enumerated the case against us, now we must enumerate the case in our favor:

For the times we have run to do a מצוה rather than run away…

And for the times we visited a sick person rather than ignoring their loneliness…

For the times we stood up for the innocent when we could have looked the other way…

And for the times we celebrated Shabbat in any way shape or form rather than treating it just as an ordinary day…

For the times we studied your תורה rather than play games…

And for the times we smiled at strangers rather than walking right by…

For the times we said thank you for things other people did rather than nodding in acknowledgement…

And for the times we did the work rather than taking the easy way…

For all of these actions, O God, acknowledge them, count them and help us to multiply them.

For the times we recycled rather than throwing something away…

And for the times when our neighbor needed our advice and we gave it rather than saying we had no time…

For the time we gave clothing away rather than keeping it for ourselves…

And for all of the money for צדקה that we gave rather than keeping it in our banks…

For all of the holidays we celebrated with intention rather than going through the motions…

And for the times we told the truth rather than telling a lie…

For the times we told others how we feel rather than holding it all inside…

And for the times we looked at Your world and said wow rather than not even noting its majesty…

For all of the art that we have created to beautify Your world rather than junk it up…

And for all of the children we have educated rather than turning them away from knowledge…

For the times we recognized we had enough rather than coveting…

And for the times we called our loved ones rather than waiting for them to call us

For all of these actions, O God, acknowledge them, count them and help us to multiply them.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

9/11 Time for reflection and courage

I remember as a child when I learned the important three numbers 9-1-1.  Our parents taught us these three numbers so that we would be able to call for help in case of an emergency.  I remember in 2001 when these numbers were stolen from our language and turned into the memorial that they are now.  No longer were the numbers 911 linked to life saving, they were linked to memorial and sadness.  They became linked to tragedy and bigotry.  I wonder if anybody who dialed 911 on that morning recognized the two.  Part of me also wonders if the cowards who carried out these terrorist actions saw this.  It is curious that our 911 is a symbol of our national collective belief in the sanctity of life and a communal view that all lives are worth saving vs. their viewpoint that there are infidels in the world that should never be saved and indeed should be murdered in cold blood.

We would be mistaken to believe that Islam is responsible for this tragedy.  We would be mistaken to assert that Christianity should be to blame for the Holocaust.  There are aspects that were used, but in reality they were abused by the criminals in both cases.  No religion endorses the murder of the innocent, and no believer in God will condone such heinous actions.  These were not religious actions, they were political and terrorist ones.

We should be very proud in the United States that we have a society that embraces religions of all shapes and colors.  We should likewise be proud that we have people who do not subscribe to any of these.  But we never should condone the drive to uproot faith from our public discourse nor from our society.  If people choose to believe they should be embraced and if people choose not to believe then they should be embraced.  People who try to stifle the viewpoints of other people are in a way taking a page out of the playbook of the people who committed these crimes: stifling discussion. I was reminded today of an ongoing debate over a cross from the World Trade Center site.  http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/10/atheists-continue-battle-against-world-trade-center-cross-at-memorial/?hpt=hp_t2&hpt=hp_t2.  Why this is an issue is beyond me, but what upsets me is that there is a movement to remove God from the United States.  I am not a Christian, and yet I support the cross being there not because it is a Christian symbol, but because it is a religious symbol.  I would love them to make a Jewish Star and a Crescent Moon with it as well.  I would like them to make all other symbols of faith.  Because while everyone is busy blaming God for this and religion for this... What they are missing is that God was not in the planes going into the buildings... God was in the people running in to rescue the others.  God was absent in the hearts of the terrorists, but was alive and well in the eyes of the people crying in their living rooms asking why.  God was not in the Koran that was usurped and desecrated by Al Qaeda, but was in the scriptures of all of the people who went to Synagogues and Churches and Mosques afterwards to pray and be consoled after the tragedy.  There are people who want you to believe that God is the source of all hatred and war.  But when it comes down to reality the conflicts are over money, power and grudges.  The wars are not God made, they are human devised.  We must see that while we push God out of the world in our violence, we bring God back into the world when we embrace humanity and other people.  God is in the response and that is why the cross belongs there in the eyes of this rabbi.  I have no problem living in a majority christian country that provides me with the room to be a Jew.  I have an enormous problem living in a Godless country that drives God out of every public place.  Leave the cross there as it is a source of comfort, and continue to accept and acknowledge that there are multiple approaches to God, including none at all, and from there go forward and continue our healing from the time our sacred 911 was stolen from us.  Go forward and restore 9-1-1 into our national consciousness as the lifesaving numbers and not the ones that murdered.  May generations to come have faith in these numbers and that they will be there to lift us up and not tear us down.

May the memories of all of the souls lost on September 11, 2001 rest in peace and may their loved ones find comfort in their memory and their legacy. 

Friday, August 24, 2012

Parshat Shoftim in NYC

One of the first gifts our daughter, Ayelet, ever received was a Tzedaka Box.  It was one of the first gifts because it was given to us long before we were ever pregnant.  It was a gift from the manager of the Judaica store from the AJU before we graduated.  Since Ayelet was an infant we began to give her change and have her put money into the Tzedaka box to teach her the value of giving.  Last Thanksgiving we had a Young Family program here at MJC and we made Tzedaka boxes that looked like bagels, this was based on the wonderful book Bagels from Benny. Since she made that one she has wanted to use it every shabbat.  I realized around that time that we needed to teach her more about what this means.  Here was the problem, WE gave her OUR money and SHE placed it into some container that did not affect her at all.  She did not give anything up and she did not see where the money was going or who it was helping.  I began to bring her piggy bank down with us to the dining room and began to give her some money.  I would explain to her: “Ayelet, here is some change.  It is now yours and you can do with it as you want.  You can put it in your piggy bank and save it for you to buy something, or you can put it in the Tzedaka box and give it to somebody who needs help.  You may also choose to save some for you and give some to other people.” I was so impressed that she chose to keep some, because it meant that she understood the principle and that she still gave some away.  The thing about Tzedaka Boxes is that they are often too removed from the actual giving.  We are obligated to give, not because we are good people but because God commands us to do so.  Quite often we have these beautiful boxes that cost an enormous amount of money and we fill them up but we do not realize when we do so that ultimately that money will be given to a needy person or an organization.  It is too divorced from its reason, and we often do not actually play a role in the act of Tzedaka.  Tzedaka is not about charity, it is not about being a charitable person. It is about correcting the wrongs of this world not out of choice but out of obligation to God and to humankind.  That is why it is called Tzedaka/justice and not charity/choice. 

So last Sunday we were in NYC.  We were on 5th avenue, and in case you are not familiar with the types of stores on 5th avenue, they are very expensive ones and very busy ones as well.  Regardless, as in all places in the world poverty is still present and impoverished homeless people are there in large numbers.  As I was walking to meet Carrie and Ayelet I saw a homeless person and I was about to give him money and then I stopped and thought it would be better to have Ayelet do it, and so I waited.  When I found them it appears I was too late, Carrie had already done the same thing.  We had food with us for Ayelet and she was given the choice of keeping it or sharing it with the homeless people.  She asked if they were hungry and we said yes, and she said give them the food.  We had her give them them food as that was what we were trying to teach her.  She brightened their day and she provided them with some much needed food to get them through the day as well.  We also gave her some money to hand to them.  When we were on Madison heading to dinner we happened upon another homeless man.  We offered food and he said he did not want chicken or meat, and we told him we had yogurt and cheese, and he was so happy.  Then we realized we also had animal crackers left as well, and we handed those to him.  He refused them, and said “those are your daughter’s,” and she smiled at him and said she wanted to share them with him.  He was near tears and we were as well.

Here is the issue: we have made it a little to easy to dehumanize the homeless amongst us. We have demonized them, and turned them into pariahs.  Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel writes about the prophets and how they would decry a civilization that condoned one homeless person, what would they say today?  Are there homeless drug addicts? yes.  Are there homeless people with mental issues? yes.  Are there homeless people who have made bad decisions? yes. And if helping these types of people is wrong then I accept being wrong.  But who could argue helping a person with none of the above is wrong.  We must help the homeless reclaim their own humanity that our society has robbed them of, and in return we will regain a portion of our own humanity.

In this week’s Torah portion we learn the famous phrase: צדק צדק תרדוף, Justice… Justice you shall pursue.  Many wiser scholars have written on this verse: why the double of justice and why the pursuing?  The traditional answer is that the double use of justice is that justice must be carried out in a just way.  Robin Hood would not pass this test.  And the pursuing question is traditionally understood to mean that we must go out and make this happen, we cannot wait for the opportunity to perform this commandment to present itself to us, we must make it happen.

I believe these are both correct.  It is a non-religious idea that the ends justifies the means, and we must not allow ourselves to become complacent and to fall into the trap of doing bad because it results in good.  Likewise we must not sit idly by waiting for the opportunity to observe the mitzvah of tzedaka, we must go out and make it happen.  But how about another way of looking at it.  We are commanded to do it ourselves and we are commanded to lead our children to do the same.  Perhaps we could say the doubling of justice is to teach us to go out and double it through doing tzedaka ourselves but also by raising children who will do the same.  And with regards to pursuing, I think we might also be able to say that even if this act of giving could cause me to live without a little, and thus need to pursue more, or worse; leave myself feeling pursued… we must still do it.

Lets make a world worthy of our prophets and through doing so we will make a world worthy of God as well.

Friday, August 3, 2012

Who is to blame?

I want to begin with some beautiful words from Jack Johnson:

"Cookie Jar"

i would turn on the tv, but it’s so embarrassing
to see all the other people, i don’t know what they mean
it was magic at first, when they spoke without sound
but now this world is gonna hurt, you better turn that thing down
turn it around

“it wasn’t me,” says the boy with the gun
“sure i pulled the trigger, but it needed to be done
because life’s been killing me ever since it begun
you can’t blame me because i’m too young”

“you can’t blame me, sure the killer was my son
but i didn’t teach him to pull the trigger of the gun
it’s the killing on his tv screen
you can’t blame me, it’s those images he seen”

“you can’t blame me,” says the media man
“i wasn’t the one who came up with the plan
i just point my camera at what the people want to see
it’s a two way mirror and you can’t blame me”

“you can’t blame me,” says the singer of the song
or the maker of the movie which he based his life on
“it’s only entertainment, as anyone can see
it’s smoke machines and makeup, you can’t fool me”

it was you, it was me, it was every man
we’ve all got the blood on our hands
we only receive what we demand
and if we want hell then hell’s what we’ll have

i would turn on the tv, but it’s so embarrassing
to see all the other people, don’t know what they mean
it was magic at first, but let everyone down
and now this world is gonna hurt, you better turn it around
turn it around

 

Every time we have an instance of grotesque gun violence in our midst we hear the same refrains from all sides.  The left demands stricter gun laws and the right demands that safety is obtained when all can defend themselves in the same way.  We then enter the discussion of the violence in the media and media outlets bring in great psychologists to argue that there is no evidence that violent media leads to any of this… The other side really has no argument because, well that pesky lack of evidence.  In the words of Jack Johnson, “It’s so embarrassing.”  You know what is embarrassing is that Huey Long’s words of so many years ago, “violence is as american as apple pie,” still are all too true.  You know what is embarrassing is that instead of bridging the divide between the two sides we refuse any common sense legislation that could help. You know what is embarrassing. on the same day that families were being notified that their loved ones would never come home again, that while people were at the bedsides of their loved ones holding on for dear life… people in the media dared to ask: “what does this mean for the movie?”  And then the question of violence in video games came up and I could not stand it any longer.  I watched expert after expert explain how violent video games are simply an outlet… That they do not correlate with an increased likely hood of homicide, except for when they do.  But here is the question which they ignore: if we are what we eat, then are we what we consume? And if we are what we consume, then what does our massive consumption of violence in the media say about us.  I while back I co-authored a paper on this subject with Rabbi Elliot Dorff, here is the link to it. In that paper we laid out an argument as to why violent and misogynistic video games should be banned from the Conservative Movement and should be reconsidered on the whole. We understood that they are protected by the 1st amendment as has been upheld time and again.  However, that makes no difference.  You know what isn’t protected by the 1st amendment, yelling fire in a crowded movie theatre.  Very interesting that that is the paradigmatic example of the limits on the freedom of speech.  When the speech places people in danger we have a limit. 

We continue to pass the buck.  We continue to blame everyone but ourselves, and now we have done it again.  Lets be clear on one thing, the guilty person is in custody.  But lets also recognize that the guilt does not end with him, it begins with him.  Nobody can diminish his guilt we can only recognize our own as well.   We have allowed for a culture that glorifies violence to become the norm.  We have allowed for our children to be desensitized to violence and have somehow made it okay to see violence.  In researching the above mentioned paper I was shocked at the gross double standards that existed in the families of America.  Sex was bad, violence was either good or more likely: acceptable.  Nudity was off the table, guns and bombs were the table.  We have basically created an environment where the first wish of God, that we be fruitful and multiply, has become viewed with such bitter disdain while the antithesis of all human life has become a simple expression of free speech. There are rules of war in our world today and many people scoff at this because war is inherently the absence of all rules.  And yet there are rules.  The Torah also had rules regarding war and interestingly enough these can be seen as perhaps a desire to temper our violence in the world.  If God could not do away with all violence, then at least He could assure that there would be parameters.  But I think the issue goes back further.  God saw the world was falling apart at the seams and He needed to repair it.  His decision was that He would restart it by means of a flood. The evil that was in the world prior to the world is described after the flood through the new allowance that we could eat meat.  God gave us permission to eat meat because our bloodlust was so strong it was the only thing He could do to curb it. The definition of a Hasid is someone who goes beyond the bare minimum of the law.  We need to become hasids in our view of violence.  We must not just sit and watch as our society continues to glorify the destruction of God’s creations.  We must not allow ourselves to be conned into believing that it is okay to harm other people.  And this brings me back to the conversation of the media and violence.  When we think video games we need to recognize that a great deal of adults play them.  However, the primary audience has always been and will continue to be children.  When we look at the top selling video games we see the majority have both violence and misogyny in them. If we want to play innocent and act as if these games do not get used by children, then go ahead.  But in reality they are being played more and more often by younger and younger children.  If we are to teach our children that violence is bad and never allowed, then we must show them that violence is not only bad in real life… it is bad entertainment as well.   In the words of a report by the National Organization of Women quoted in a paper online: “…if the games are just an escape, what does that say about how we escape? Is this our definition of 'fun' now? Is this how we 'play'?”  I am concerned about what it means that we find degrading women and degrading human worth as entertaining.  I am worried about not so much the physical consequences but the spiritual and emotional ones.  There are mixed findings in the medical literature and there are valid arguments on both sides… But I would like to promote the argument that while the freedom of speech gives these companies the right to publish this material… the freedom of the market provides us with the freedom to buy something else. 

A gunman viciously murdered innocent people watching a movie about a man who puts his own life on the line to see to it that justice exists in this world.  That gunman is alone the guilty person to be punished for the crimes he committed.  We as a society have some important work to do as well.  We are not guilty but innocent we are not either.  We must work to make a society where entertainment is something that works with our values and not against them, where murder and maiming are not acceptable and where a better world could be created because of the art that is being produced in it.  It is up to us to fight violence not just in the streets but in our entire existence.  May the souls of the 12 victims rest in peace, and may those who were injured begin the long road back to physical and emotional well being. 

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Hockey and Shabbat: A Match made in Heaven and MJC

I grew up in Michigan and in Michigan we are really big hockey fans.  We love our hockey more than we love many things.  I have often joked that I have two religions: Judaism and Hockey.  Here in New York we are big hockey fans as well.  We have the Rangers and the Islanders to follow and we enjoy their incredible legacies of success.  We also have an incredible group of Jews who truly revel in being Jewish and connecting with other Jews.  I thus saw a natural entry to bring people together.  Early on here I began to hear from countless people that we should play some Hockey.  But we all know how the time gets away from us and we fail to put these projects together.  But this year I said it was now or never, and so we have created the MHL, Midway Hockey League.  Each Shabbat we gather in our parking lot and we set some tables on their sides and we create a street hockey rink.  We have had as many as 10 people playing at once and they range from teens to people with kids in college and beyond.  We have also begun to attract a fan base and they are becoming loyal enough to show up in the heat.
But there is something funny happening.  I am constantly being asked how this is possible.  I am being asked how we can play hockey on Shabbat.  And I want to share not only why it is permissible, but why it is important and crucial to do it.  Shabbat is more than a day to come to shul and communicate with God and our community.  It is more than a dinner of chicken and soup.  It is more than challah and it is more than taking a nap.  Shabbat is a taste of olam haba, the world to come, and it is something that more Jews can see the beauties of.  I realize that it is not a very compelling case for Shabbat to simply sell it as a day in services.  I realize this because it is not what gets people into Shabbat... Shabbat is compelling because it is a day where a person gets the opportunity to look back and look ahead.  It is a day when a person gets to reconnect with people and God. And it is a day when a person gets to stop creating and begin appreciating all that is around us.
The prohibitions of Shabbat are only 50% of the observance of Shabbat.  When a person refrains from doing the prohibited acts of labor they are halfway there, but what of the positive?  What of the pleasure?  To begin lets understand the prohibitions of Shabbat.  There are 39 (or as the mishnah calls it 40 less 1) prohibited acts of labor on Shabbat. Those acts are all derived from the various activities that went into the construction of the mishkan/tabernacle in the wilderness. Those 39 acts of labor are all creative acts.  They are acts that manage to change the world in a way... that bring about something new that might not have existed beforehand.  We refrain from those acts because we need to spend one day content that the world that we inherited is good enough without us adding to it.  We need to accept that our role is to sometimes put our egos to the side and rest knowing the world will keep rotating without our creating new things. Not one of the 39 says hockey is forbidden.  There is no prohibition against physical strain, against shooting a ball on net, against wearing skates or anything else.  There are two issues that are already resolved. One of the acts of labor is to not carry from one domain to another.  From private to public or other combinations.  I could carry my Hockey stick from my house and thus break shabbat.  However, I leave it at the synagogue before shabbat.  But this is a moot point because we live within an eruv in our community and the eruv was a rabbinic method to prevent people from feeling trapped at home on Shabbat and allow for them to carry things out of their houses.  This was extremely important to women who were left at home to care for kids.  Without an eruv they would never leave.  The other legitimate issue about hockey and shabbat is the risk of something needing repair.  We are not allowed to repair things on shabbat and so we should really stay away from doing things that could put us into a situation that would lead us to repair something.  Rollerblades do need maintenance, but you could argue that this is not "fixing" anything at all.  However, this is also a moot point as we do not really permit any types of repairs of our equipment at our games.
People want to paint Shabbat as some ancient archaic practice that chains us to not using modern day conveniences.  I feel bad for those people because they will need to remain on the periphery while those of us in the game of Shabbat will enjoy our relationships with God and our fellow people which we nurture and strengthen on Shabbat.
Our shabbat hockey game has become a social outing for kids and adults alike.  People bring their kids and the kids bring their own skates and sticks and shoot around on an extra net.  The kids visit our nursery school playground and play.  Our adults socialize and cheer us on.  The whole experience really is the ultimate shabbat experience. We might not pray and we might not have challah and wine... But we bring  to life the greatest goal of shabbat: oneg shabbat/sabbath joy.  We end each game by wishing one another a shabbat shalom and mention seeing each other the next shabbat.  This is in an essence the reason why I think we must do this.  I think this is what makes Shabbat here a piece of the world to come, and this is why I think you must come participate.  We meet most shabbats at 3:00pm in our parking lot.  We will not be there this shabbat, July 21 as I am on vacation. We will resume on July 28.

Go Team MJC  

Friday, June 1, 2012

A week of equality

Three things happened this week that make me very optimistic about our world heading into Shabbat.  Every day we watch the news we grow more negative and pessimistic about our world, and yet there are always rays of hope.  My first ray:
I have a long standing reason that I provide for people when they ask me why I do not move to Israel: there is no job for me there.  To be more accurate, the Conservative Movement in Israel has very little money and as a result many rabbis are not able to make it there.  You might ask why the Orthodox are able to do so much better.  Part of the answer is that they are funded by the government.  Their clergy receive part of their income from the government of Israel.  And this has been forbidden for the non-Orthodox world for many years.  But just this week it was announced that the barrier is beginning to fall, and that non-Orthodox rabbis are beginning to receive rights.  This is not a 100% victory, but it is a step in the right direction.  It is interesting to me that the opposition to this from the Orthodox is filled with words about how this will harm Judaism, and how the non-Orthodox world has created their own religion.  I have long believed that one of the greatest aspects of the Talmud is that it preserves the disputes and does not hide them.  I have long defended the Orthodox philosophy and mode of Judaism as a valid expression of Judaism.  I have done so because I do not believe in a world where only one way can be the right way.  I do not believe that only one stream of Judaism can hold the path to God.  It is entirely plausible for us to be right side by side with people of opposing views and they are correct as well.

The second great accomplishment of the week was a Massachusetts based Federal Court struck down components of the Defense of Marriage Act which denied the rights and privileges of marriage to people of the same gender.  Watching homosexuals and lesbians being denied the same rights as me and my wife has long been a moral stain that I am too aware of in our country. The basic idea of calling a law, the "Defense Of Marriage Act," should make us question what is being done.  A claim that two men creating a lifetime commitment to one another is somehow threatening heterosexual marriage is absurd.  In what way is your marriage threatened?  In what form are you afraid of your way of life? To deny a segment of the population the equal rights of all other people because of the way they are wired, the way they were born, because of their chemistry is discriminatory and does nothing to move our world forward, and everything to move us back.  

The last thing is something that will not be as well known, this week The Conservative Movement approved the ceremonies for marriage/commitment and divorce for homosexuals and lesbians. This brings to a close the process that began in 2007 when our movement began to recognize gay and lesbian rabbis, and to in theory recognize their lifelong commitments to their partners.  We were left without a standard way in which to make and dissolve these unions.  Now we have it.

So what is all of this about.  Last week we began to read the book of במדבר/Numbers.  It begins with a very important census that is divided into all of the tribes which make up the people of Israel.  The people of Israel would not have been the people of Israel without the Danites, without the Benjaminites... They would have been something else.  As Jews we can never allow ourselves to believe that elements of the Jewish community are not in it.  That there are outsiders in our midst.  We cannot discriminate because we are all there, we all are puzzle pieces in the puzzle of Judaism.  The same is true of the United States.  We are not a melting pot of assimilation, we are fruit salad of acculturation and that fruit salad tastes better because all of the flavors put together.  America is not only for heterosexuals, only for men, only for Christians, only for whites... America is for Americans and visitors and immigrants and anybody who loves freedom and values equality for all.  This is not just some lofty goal, it is in a nutshell what makes us exceptional and makes us unique.  I understand that this sounds so idealistic, and a bit ridiculous patriotism, but I truly believe that this is the purpose and the mission of our country and of Judaism and we have lost our ways many times.  This week we took some giant steps back on the path to where we belong.

Shabbat Shalom

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Resolution: Years in the making

I have always been a fan of symmetry.  I have always liked stories that stick to a theme and that begin with a presentation of a conflict which is ultimately resolved in the end.  I have always liked this because it is neat and clean and it provides us with a way in which to frame our studies.  But life is seldom this simple.  Life is often complicated and we cannot depend on putting everything back in its place and to have our bookends lineup.  It is for these reasons that I tend to be taken aback by the times when the scenario is neat.  Such is the case I would like to discuss right now.  The story of Ruth.  In order to understand the story of Ruth I would like to first discuss another Biblical story: Judah and Tamar.

Monday, May 14, 2012

A tribute to MCA Adam Youch


This past שבת/shabbat, we read פרשת אחרי מות - קדושים.  I love the two names of this double פרשה/portion: after death and holiness.  If we put the two titles together and add in the next words of the second portion we get אחרי מות קדושים תהיו, after death you shall be holy.  Judaism is not about death, or death being a sanctification.  We are all about life and this world. We believe very deeply in living in this lifetime and making the most of it.  SO then how do I explain those words?  After death, you shall be holy.  It is all about how we respond to death and loss.  It is all about the capability to continue and to sanctify the lives of those who came before us through living lives they too would have been proud of.  We become holy by being the next link in the chain and by keeping the world a beautiful place as it was when our loved ones were here.
I grew up in the 80s and 90s and if I was to create a soundtrack to my life I would have to include the Beastie Boys.  I have always loved their music, and I have always enjoyed their fun lyrics.  Trying to find a way of honoring one of their members who just last Friday lost his battle with cancer is not easy because the substance of their lyrics is never clear, and more often is an exercise in rhyming.  With all of that said, there is one song that sticks out to me right now in summing up the world in their eyes, and a positive way for all of us, Alive.  "Dip dip dive so-socialize, Open up your ears and clean out your eyes, If you learn to love you're in for a surprise, It could be nice to be alive."  This is the refrain throughout the song that addresses their political views and their love of diversity and NYC.  What I think is significant about this line is the similarity between love and live.  We get in ruts at times, and begin to feel lost.  We look for light and do not find it.  When things are tough we don't see any positive.  And then we learn to love the simple things, the diverse things and the world, and we realize how nice it is to be alive.  There is a Yiddish saying about a man who cried he had no shoes, until he saw a man who had no feet.  We allow ourselves to walk around feeling low, and what we must do is walk around and embrace the majestic world that God has given us.  The tragedy is that we spend to many of our moments feeling and doing things that we would never be happy knowing it was our last.  We spend too much time and too much energy on hatred and separation.  We spend too little time coming together, and too much time growing apart.  MCA lived to be 47 years old... That is far too young.  People die at all ages... Few people are ever ready for death because they have failed to see what it means to be alive.  This world is ours to make work and make beautiful.  The next time you are left with a choice to love/embrace or hate/push aside, ask yourself what your decision says about you and the way you see being alive.  "Open up your ears and clean out your eyes, if you learn to love you're in for a surprise, it could be nice to be alive."  

Friday, April 27, 2012

Firing Teachers for Having Children


In reviewing the news yesterday I learned of a teacher in Indiana who had been fired for utilizing IVF in order to realize her and her husband's dream of having children.  Click on this link to see an article about it: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2012/04/catholic-school-teacher-claims-she-was-fired-for-using-ivf/1#.T5q7gKumiSo.  This case is quite involved and while I want to be on one side i find myself understanding the other.  
Lets begin.  In the eyes of the Jewish faith we are commanded to procreate.  One of the earliest commands given to humans was פרו ורב, be fruitful and multiply.  This is found in the 28th verse of the entire Torah. Our tradition has understood this strange repeating of the same concept to be an allusion to the view that Judaism sees sex for both procreation and for pleasure to be valid and to be blessings from God.  The issue for me is that this verse says: 
וַיְבָרֶךְ אֹתָם, אֱלֹהִים, וַיֹּאמֶר לָהֶם אֱלֹהִים פְּרוּ וּרְבוּ וּמִלְאוּ אֶת-הָאָרֶץ 
Or in the english language: And God blessed them and said to them "be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.  That blessing is lacking in far too many people today.  1 in 8 couples are plagued, not blessed and they feel a deep lacking in them that cannot be filled in the same ways that it is filled for the other 7/8 of the population.  To have your work and your religion then turn around and tell you that you are unwelcome, and that the various modes of realizing that blessing are to be forbidden to you seems to be a great betrayal.  I want to be careful here because I am not a Catholic and I am not intending this to be seen in any way as bashing the Church.  I am calling on them to revisit this issue and to try to find a way to at least support those going through this.  I am not asking that they give their blessing, I am asking that they perhaps find new and innovative ways to deal with it.
I asked myself the other day if I would be in favor of firing a teacher at a Jewish Day School who did not keep kosher, and the answer was no.  However, I could see that being a valid decision of another leader, just not my own.  The problem is that the two are not comparable to one another.  A couple trying to attain the blessing of parenthood and a Jewish person eating at McDonalds are not comparable in the magnitude of what they convey and what they mean.  You see to the Jewish people keeping kosher is central to our identity and our tradition, and yet the request that leaders adhere to the dietary laws is not so intrusive on the lives of the leaders.  But the opposite is partially the case in the IVF conundrum in the Catholic Church.  The Church's view on questions of life and when it begins and ends is central to who they are today.  But asking that all of their leaders and teachers adhere to every one of their positions in all cases is as intrusive as it can get.  I pray that Emily Herx and her husband are able to realize their blessing of parenthood soon and with as little emotional trauma as possible.  I pray that they can understand that this is not a simple decision made by the school in which Emily taught.  But I also pray that the Church can soon revisit this issue and see that the tradition which is the foundation on which their tradition was built, has made it a point to try to being this blessing into fruition for as many of our people as possible and try to find a way through which they can help bring that blessing to their people as well.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

ברוכים הבאים ושלום - Welcome and Hello


Friends,
We are so excited to have this new website and all of the great features that come with it.  Just as we are celebrating the birth of the Jewish People at פסח, we are also celebrating the building of our own new people online.  The time between פסח and שבועות we call the עומר period during which we slowly work our way from being newly freed slaves to being free people to serve God.  During this time of growth please stop by our new site and our blogs to watch us grow.
If you want to see past blogs they are still available at http://ravhearshen.blogspot.com.
All the best,
RJH