I Fought the Law and the Law Won.

First of all, I hope you vote on Election Day. The only excuse possible is that you already voted early by absentee ballot or in early voting. It is a mitzvah to vote for the candidate of your choice.

Whenever election time comes around there is always talk of the separation of Church and State. It is one of the fundamentals of our Bill of Rights, is incorporated in the very first amendment to the Constitution and is the subject of much heat by those who are passionate about it one way or the other. Some feel that religious sensibilities would be good to inject into government and others want there to be a complete wall separating the two, a wall that can never be broken.

Those who know me understand that whenever there is a choice between one way or the other, I go for a different path. The impasse between the pro and con sides in this debate over Church and State is due to the intransience on both sides. Each only sees what they want to see and perhaps they don’t understand why the amendment is written as it was.

First of all, I believe that, the founders of this nation were religious men. They may have had issues with the denominations and the formal church as it existed in their day, but they believed in God and they prayed to that God. They had no doubt that their experiment in democracy was blessed by the Divine. They were not trying to eliminate religion from the state, only to temper the role of religion in the political system.

Rabbis are often asked to recite invocations before city council and state legislative sessions. Even Congress opens their sessions with invocations. Many of my colleagues do not like to perform these invocations citing their belief that it violates the Church/State barrier. The invocation needs to be nondenominational since the people present represent many different faiths. Some clergy get this right; others seem not to be able to pray without invoking the name of Jesus, no matter how offensive such a prayer might be to those present.

I never turn down an opportunity to offer an invocation at a government event.

While I feel that it is important that government does not pass laws establishing one religion or making life difficult for another, I also feel that religion has something to say to government. It is not about whether this or that law should be passed, but that there is a need to note that while Congress can say if an action is legal or not legal, only religion is in a place to say if an action is right or wrong. This is why I oppose religions lobbying for passage of laws that promote their world view, but insist that religions speak out about laws that go against their understanding of right and wrong.

Let me take one controversial law: Roe vs. Wade and the right for a woman to have an abortion. In this country, it is legal for a woman to have an abortion. It is her legal right. But it does not make it the right thing to do. The implications for the mother and the fetus are very disturbing. I personally don’t like abortions but Judaism understands that sometimes they are needed. What I teach, therefore, is that abortion may be legal, but is not to be considered a form of birth control. It is my duty to teach that women should not get into a situation where an abortion may be needed. It is my duty to teach men and women the responsibilities that come with sexual activities. Abortion may be legal, but it is not good. It is only a last resort solution to the most dire of circumstances.

In business, there is a similar situation. It is not possible to pass legislation to cover every possibility that a person can think up to defraud a neighbor or a client. Therefore we religious leaders have a responsibility to teach ethical behavior and insist that, while the law may allow certain types of business dealings, these still may not be the right thing to do. Keeping the law is never enough. One has to go beyond the letter of the law to do what is right. The story of Rabbi Shimon ben Shetach teaches this lesson. He bought a donkey and when his students brought it home, they discovered, hidden in the bridle, an expensive pearl. They had bought the bridle and the donkey so, by law, the pearl belonged to the Rabbi, but he returned it to the seller since clearly the price of the donkey did not include the price of the pearl. He was not required to do it, but he did it anyway and received a blessing from the seller for his honesty and ethical behavior. No matter what business laws are passed, we have a religious obligation to go beyond the law.

We think of government with three branches, Legislative, Executive and Judicial. But there is fourth “branch” of government, religion, which must speak to what the other three are doing. Our founding fathers could not imagine a world where faith and religion did not speak to issues of right and wrong. That is the holy work that religious people and clergy perform. Not making laws, but living by a standard that goes beyond what a law can do. Laws are needed to protect us from ourselves. As the Talmud, in Mishnah Avot, 3:2 noted, “Pray for the welfare of the government, for without it, people would eat each other alive.” But government without religious sensibilities can never fully govern the lives of its citizens. Segregation was legal until religious leaders taught that it was not right. Quotas were legal until religious people demanded that they end. All the laws of Congress could not stop discrimination until religious leaders instilled in their congregations the idea that all of us are created in the image of God.

Religion needs government to equally represent the needs of the people. Government needs religion to teach what the law can’t teach: that we all must live to a higher standard.

I Heard It Through The Grapevine

I will not vote in November.

I have already voted. I sent in my absentee ballot a couple of weeks ago. In my mind, voting is one of the most important things a person can do. I don’t care how long I have to stand in line or how many pieces of identification are required; I have voted in almost every election since I have been old enough to vote. I would like to say I have never missed one but there have been special elections that somehow escaped my notice. I research the candidates and try to make the best decision possible.

This presidential election has had some interesting twists to it. The dive in the economy helped change the tone from that of just one negative ad after another to some real talking about priorities and issues. We finally got an issue that got us beyond the name calling and got us voters to take a look and ask ourselves if we trust this candidate or that candidate to get us out of this mess we are in.

In the Jewish community, it should come as no surprise that there are Jews who back the Democratic candidate Barak Obama and those who back the Republican candidate, John McCain. Each side is as passionate as the other about who would make the best President of the United States. The days in which Jews all voted in a block are long gone. It is a wonder that we can even talk about the “Jewish vote” any more as something different than any other group. We have soccer moms, hockey moms, NASCAR dads, seniors, Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Greens, Communists, Socialist, East Coast Liberals and Midwestern Conservatives. We have our own religious right and our secular left. The only things I can say about the Jewish vote is that we vote.

People talk about Israel as a concern for the Jewish vote. But again, we are all over the map when it comes to Israel. I don’t think that there are too many Jews who are looking to dissolve the Jewish state, but we certainly don’t agree on how Israel should conduct her domestic or foreign policies and how the United States should or should not deal with Israel as a matter of our own foreign policy. Should Israel negotiate with the PLO? With Hamas? With Hezbollah? Should we divide Jerusalem, give back the West Bank, exchange prisoners to get back Israeli kidnapped soldiers? Who should be negotiating with the Palestinians? What should or should not be on the table? Israelis themselves are split on these issues and the Jewish community in the United States is also split.

There are many who say that Jews should vote for their interests in the United States, and not look at foreign policy to Israel as a lone issue. There are many issues in this country that we have strong opinions about. We discuss in our communities issues like health care, the war in Iraq, taxes and governmental regulations. We are worried about sending our kids to college and if we can afford to keep our homes and if we will be laid off in the months ahead.

If Judaism has any issue with the current campaigns, it is in the area of personal attacks. That people disagree on issues is to be expected, but Judaism insists that we treat each other with respect at all times, even at the end of a very long and difficult election season. A campaign that criticizes the plans of an opponent should not be criticized because that is what this season is all about, what plan do we think is best for this country in the years ahead. If a criticism is followed by a different idea, then we should listen and be aware of the differences. It is another matter when there are personal attacks about things that happened long ago as if they have any bearing on where we are today. Everyone grows and changes and not one of us lives our life without some regrets about our past. Destroying the character of someone else is a serious sin. The politicians tell me that this kind of negative campaigning is what moves people to vote. If this is so, then we need to give the entire country lessons in civic and civil responsibility. If our government is locked up most of the time, it is because everyone is so angry with the way we talk to and about each other and have forgotten that compromise and negotiation are how things are supposed to get done. Forget about whether or not we should be sitting down and talking to our enemies, we need to remember that we need to sit down and negotiate with lawmakers from the other party. This is hard to do in our culture of screaming at each other the most hurtful names we can find.

I have seen people I respect repeat the most derogatory slanders that they have seen but not substantiated over the internet. I have seen good people worry about nonsense that is being passed around as true. The media regularly scolds the candidates and their parties for telling lies and stretching the truth in campaign materials. There is no reason to be passing on such dirt. Even if we get it from a reliable source we should not be repeating it to others. This is very wrong. If we want to convince a friend, a family member or a neighbor to vote for our candidate, then we should speak of policies and platforms. We are guilty of Lashon HaRa, evil speech, if we pass on to others the personal attacks even if we get them from a reliable source. It applies not only to the campaign, but in every aspect of our lives. Sending out slanderous emails to defame someone else is a sin. There is no other word for it. A popular actress in S. Korea committed suicide because of the hateful false things that were being said about her on the internet. That they are written is bad; if we pass it on, we are guilty.

I don’t advise any of the campaigns but let me leave with this one piece of advice. We may not be responsible for all the hate that is out there. But we know, first hand, the dangers of hate speech and ugly rumors. I hope that we will have the sense and the wisdom to know what to do when they arrive in our inbox – we should just press “delete”.

And we will be making the world a better place, one conversation at a time.

Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind?

My friend and colleague Rabbi Irwin Kula, the director of CLAL recently shared with me some of his feelings about Politics, Jews and Israel. He noted that Democrats seem to favor diplomacy in dealing with the Israel/Palestinian issues, and Republicans are more inclined to support Israel no matter what the situation may be. So it is no surprise that Jewish Democrats and Jewish Republicans both see themselves as the true defenders of Israel when all they are really doing is finding in the words of the candidates a justification for their own pre-existing notions of what support for Israel must imply. It has very little to do at all with what the State of Israel might really need at this juncture in history. Rabbi Kula notes that it is almost as if Israel is not a real state anymore, but some kind of a “test” American Jews use to explain perhaps our own inner spiritual life, rather than the political reality of the modern state. We tend to pick and choose the data that fits our needs and that best helps us confirm our positions.
All of this, he implies, leads to the kind of political pandering we see from the candidates for national office today, each one trying to say the right combination of “code” words that will gather the most people to vote for the candidate. Rabbi Kula expresses concern that someday our non-Jewish fellow citizens will begin to ask exactly what this “support” for Israel is all about and the answers may mark the end of, or the erosion of, American support for the State of Israel.
Rabbi Kula is right. In this day and age, it is very hard to speak of Israel as “my home land, right or wrong”. To be sure there are plenty of Jews and Jewish communal leaders who will not tolerate any negative speech about Israel. They feel as if there are too many enemies of the State and of Judaism to give them more words with which they can attack us. Such people think that if we only speak good of Israel, that others will not speak bad of her. This has led us to ignore all the problems that Israel is facing and to put our heads in the sand about how we can find solutions.
I agree with Rabbi Kula but would paint this picture a bit differently. I do not feel that the issue is one of American politics but of Israeli politics. My daughter came back from her Rabbinical School year in Israel very unhappy with Israel. She was appalled by the way they treated gays in Jerusalem and with the corruption in government and the social problems she encountered. Frankly I am unhappy with all of that and more. I don't like the way Masorti/Conservative Jews are treated by Israeli politicians or by the government. I don't always like the foreign policy decisions of the State and I don't like the way the Israeli political parties pay for votes by giving money to people who promise to vote for them while infrastructure crumbles.
My time in Minnesota, where the 35W bridge collapsed last year, only points to the fact that we should be profoundly unhappy with things is this country too. Perhaps the coming elections here and in Israel will change things, but maybe they won’t. The point is that there is much here in the USA that needs improvement, but we don't go around saying this country is not worth the time or trouble.
For both the USA and Israel, there are good and bad. The fact that college students are still filling Birthright programs and returning energized is a good thing. That Americans still go to Israel to live is another good thing. I agree that nothing can be changed as long as American Jewish leadership does not address the flaws in Israel and in the USA. When we talk only good about Israel we will not help them change what needs changing. Years ago, when they told us American Rabbis did not count, we protested, withheld support and showed them that we do count and the situation in Israel changed.
What we need today, at the leadership level, is a conversation with Israeli leadership about the serious issues that will affect how much money is raised at UJA and through Israel Bonds. We are seeing a new generation of Jews in the United States, who did not grow up without a Jewish State and who don’t understand why it is a State where we can’t talk about her flaws. If they are to support Israel, they will want to know about civil rights for homosexual citizens, of Arab citizens, for Masorti Jews and for all other minorities who don’t seem to be able to get a fair shake in the Jewish State. When National leaders start asking the hard questions to politicians in Israel, they will listen, like it or not, because Israel still depends on our financial and political support. Military support is one thing, we do need to make sure that the Palestinian issues are not perceived out of the context of a 60 year long war, but we also need to ask the hard questions about fiscal responsibility, corruption and basic civil rights.
We need to stand up for these qualities in this country as well. No matter if the conversation is about Israel or America it is not "My Country - Right or Wrong" but, as stated by Senator Carl Schurz back in 1872, "My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.”
Our obligation as Jewish leaders could not be summed up better.

The Things We Do For Love

I was reading this past Shabbat, the first book in a series on “Jewish Choices, Jewish Voices” by two friends, Rabbi Elliot Dorff and Louis Newman. The topic of this first book was Jewish attitudes about the body. The middle section of the book had a series of essays by different people about their Judaism and how it colors their decisions about their bodies. I wanted to have a quote from the book to show you here but I packed it up and put it away already so I will have to go with my memory (which I admit is not always so good since I forgot I wanted to quote a section before I packed up the book).

In the section on tattoos, there were a couple of essays about why Jews would decide to display their Judaism through body art. All were all quick to point out, correctly, that a Jew with a tattoo is still permitted to be buried in a Jewish cemetery. What intrigued me, however, was the fact that each one noted that the Bible is clear and explicit that marking or cutting the body is forbidden (Lev. 18:28). One went so far as to note that this had been interpreted to mean that one had to do both, cut the body and leave a permanent mark in order for it to be a sin. (There is also one authority that insists that the only prohibition is not to tattoo on the body, the name of God. Everything else would be okay). In every case in the book, however, this biblical passage was not to be a deterrent to the author for getting a tattoo. Their love of the art, their love of their bodies and their love of the freedom to do what they wish, was too great to let this biblical passage deter them from decorating their bodies with Jewish and other symbols.

There are a number of points of discussion here. First, how is this different from the prohibitions of homosexuality that are just as explicit in Leviticus and which we feel can no longer apply because of the great hurt and discrimination they bring to the homosexual community? Is body art today fundamentally different than the reasons for tattoos in ancient times? What happens to Torah when we just ignore passages because they just don’t speak to us? Where does this leave us in relationship to adultery and illicit sexual relations? Is this a fine example of a “slippery slope”?

I find myself recalling a story of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berdichiv, an early Hasidic master. On the eve of Pesach, he sent his Hasidim to bring him all the Turkish tobacco, all the Austrian silk handkerchiefs and all the hametz in Berdichiv. The Hasidim were puzzled. The first two items were often smuggled across the nearby border to avoid custom duties. The hametz, was forbidden to be in any Jewish home on the eve of Pesach. The Hasidim made their rounds and the Jews, unhappy with the Rabbi’s call, still parted with the contraband. Soon there were two tables filled with tobacco and handkerchiefs, but the hametz table was empty. “God in Heaven”, prayed Rabbi Levi Yitzchak, “the Austrian king passes many laws, and hires soldiers and custom agents to collect his taxes and you see how little the people fear his laws, but you, God, you have no soldiers and no custom agents only your law in the Torah, “You shall have no hametz in your homes, and see … see how the whole community keeps your laws! Why God have you not redeemed us?”

Why do we keep the laws of the Torah and the Rabbinic Laws as well? Is it because we fear the wrath of God? Certainly there are those who see the good that comes from our commitment to the values of Judaism and our commitment to Mitzvot. But why are we so quick to just ignore the laws that we are unhappy with? What is it that inspires us to follow God’s command even though we no longer fear divine punishment?

I would like to think the answer is love. If we love God, we follow what God requires. Much the same way we do all kinds of things for the ones we love; we listen to God because we love God and God loves us. I do lots of things for my wife, not because I find them fulfilling (like taking out the trash) but because I know it is a way I can show her that I love her. My children call home not because I require them to call, but because they love their parents and go out of their way to show their love. I found myself wondering if these proponents of tattoo art would continue to add tattoos if their beloved asked them to stop? It made me wonder how much their love of God limits the way they live their lives. I don’t want to declare all tattooed Jews as sinners; I want them to show their love of God by living their lives answering the call of God in the Bible.

Unlike homosexuality, this tattooing prohibition in Leviticus is not asking anyone to give up something that is part of the very essence of who they are as a human being. Domestic violence begins when a person makes unreasonable demands on their partner that escalates into a controlling nightmare. But here, with body art, it is not an issue of the essence of what it means to be human, it is a matter of art, style and taste. God asks us not to cut and mark our bodies. Do we love God enough to pay attention? God asks us also to live a moral and ethical life, something much harder than forgoing a tattoo. God asks us to limit the things we are permitted to eat and to refrain from working one day out of seven. These are serious matters that cut to the very essence of what it means to be a Jew. These are areas where we Jews show a deep and abiding love of God.

Tattooing is nowhere near this crucial in Jewish Life. Is the art so important that we ignore the call of a loving God? God will not deny us divine love if we mark our bodies, but should we not show our love for our bodies and for God by leaving the “canvas” blank? Rather than decorate my body, I decorate my life with acts of kindness and with acts of love to my fellow human beings and to God.

Ninety-Six Tears

Today is a day for crying.
Today is the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av, Tisha b’Av, the day when many tragedies befell our people. Today we commemorate so much death and destruction in Jewish History. Even if historically, not every tragedy fell on the ninth day of Av, we set this day aside, to cry, to fast and to remember that every day is not a day of celebration.

I know that sometimes is seems that every day is a day of tragedy in Jewish History. Isn’t that the joke on the Internet: “They attacked. We won. Let’s eat!” That is the essence of Hanukah, Purim, Yom HaShoa, Yom HaAtzmaut, Yom Yerushalayim and clearly, Tisha b’Av. Maybe Passover fits this model too. But all those other days are not fast days. Why is this day, the ninth of Av, called the “black fast” (in contrast to Yom Kippur, the “white fast”)?

At the study session I was at last night the Rabbi asked what I thought was a pretty interesting question. Today is the day that we commemorate the destruction of the first and second Temple in Jerusalem. The Sages ask the question, “Why was the Temple destroyed?” Rabbi Ettedgui of Minneapolis last night asked us, “Why do we ask about the Temple? Why not ask why Jerusalem was destroyed or why was Israel destroyed or why were our people sent into exile? The easy answer is that the Temple was the heart and soul of the Jewish people at that time. Its destruction implies all the other tragedies of the day.

But if Tisha b’Av is all about the Temple alone, it would not have survived all the centuries as the darkest day on the Jewish calendar. We have moved on without the Temple. Service of the Heart (prayer) has replaced the sacrificial service of the Temple. It is very rare today to find Jews of any denomination really advocating the rebuilding of the Temple. Orthodox Jews are content to wait for God or the Messiah to rebuild it. For most of the other denominations, it is just a vestige in our prayers. We remember what our ancestors USED to do in the Temple, but we are not interested in doing it ourselves. For most Jews, Tisha b’Av is about the destruction of Jerusalem. It is about the end of Jewish independence for over 2000 years. It is about the hope that sustained our people that someday we would once again, be free in our own land.

Today we are free in that land. Today, there is a living state of Israel with Jerusalem as its capital. The Midrash says that as the Temple burned, the ancient priests threw the keys to the city up in the air where a Divine hand grabbed them and took them up to heaven. In 1948, the British gave the keys to Zion gate into the hands of the Rabbis of the Old City, in the days before it fell to the Jordanians. Today, the entire city of Jerusalem is under control of the State of Israel. So what meaning should Tisha b’Av have for modern Jews?

I believe that there are two meanings to this day. First, it remains important to mark the many misfortunes that befell the Jewish People on this day. The Talmud indicates that this was the day the spies gave their evil report of the land and the people cried that they would not enter. For this lack of trust in God, the Holy One decreed that since they cried that night without reason, God would give them a reason to cry. That was the night they were all doomed to die in the desert and only their children would inherit the land. This was also the date of the destruction of the first and second Temples, and the day that Betar, the last stronghold of the Bar Kochba rebellion, was captured. It was also the day the Romans ploughed up the city of Jerusalem so that it would never be rebuilt. Later history includes many disasters on the ninth of Av. Jews were expelled from England in 1290 and from Spain in 1492 and from Vienna in 1670. Three thousand Jews died in the Chmielnikcki massacres on this day. Even World War I began on Tisha b’Av, a war that made refugees of thousands of Jews. In 1942 the Nazis ordered the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto, the largest ghetto under Nazi control.

But second, we need to acknowledge the different status of Jerusalem and the Jewish People in our modern time. We are now a free people living in our own land. In spite of all the problems, it remains not only a homeland for our dispersed people, but Israel is also the defender of Jews all over the world. From Iraq to Entebbe to Argentina, Israel has been there to see to it that Jews are not persecuted anymore in any corner of the globe. From the time that Israel came into existence, we were no longer a wandering, homeless people. Like it or not, as Rabbi Daniel Gordis writes, we Jews have our own platform on the world stage, a platform that we have missed for the 2000 years of our exile.

I believe therefore that the “black fast” of Tisha b’Av needs to be shortened. We should read Aicha (Lamentations) and Kinot (elegies) and the mandated readings from the Torah for this day. But when we are finished, after Mincha, after about 2 pm in most places, it is time to break our fast in recognition of how far we have come since those days of insecurity and upheaval. We acknowledge our past with our fast, and take note of our present by breaking our fast early. We have tradition and, in the face of our new situation we effect an appropriate change. We fast to commemorate the darkness, and break the fast so that we can dwell in the light.

There comes a time when our crying must end. There is still much to cry about on Tisha b’Av, but there is also a modern Israel in which we should find joy. Tisha b’Av should be about both.