24 Hours on the Streets of Jerusalem

Dear friends,

A couple of hours after arriving in Jerusalem I went out for an evening stroll with my mother and my son. We’d walked half a block when we found a group of men waiting on the street for two more people to show up to complete a minyan. Certain street corners of west Jerusalem become synagogues these days for half an hour twice a day. We stopped to pray the evening prayer, enjoying the quiet ancient murmurings with them, and continued on our way. We expected a quiet evening.

We walked over to to Aza Street and sat down in a sidewalk cafe for a drink. As we’re chatting, a crowd began to gather across the street. More and more people with Israeli flags coming in from all directions. “He fired the Defense Secretary,” we hear, “It’s a spontaneous protest.” The young crowd gets the protest started with chants they have been leading for weeks. “Democracy or rebellion!” Within minutes the crowd has grown to hundreds and the intersection has been shut down. Jews of all types and ages are singing together: “If there will be no equality we will overthrow the government – you’re messing with the wrong generation!”

The energy is infectious. People are focused, determined, and most surprising to me, happy. As am I, swept out of my despair and cynicism into this sudden demand for sanity.

My skepticism is real. I chant “De-moc-rat-ya” with the full knowledge that this country has never in its history been a true democracy for all its citizens. Until 1970 all its Arab citizens lived under military rule. Three years before that ended, the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza began, a brutal military occupation lording over millions of stateless, rights-deprived Palestinians, most of them refugees, many of whom have been forced out a second time even from their places of refuge. It is in large part for the Palestiniansp, now in their 58th year of occupation that I join these protests. They are the ones who will suffer most if the separation of powers in Israel is demolished, as these laws the ultra-right is working to pass are designed to do.

Another endangered population here, which would certainly suffer as well are those known as “smolanim,” or “leftists.” Right wing assailants have brutally attacked protesters, a continuation of many years of vilification (despite the fact that many of the protesters are right wing.) Driving back from the airport a few hours before this protest my father told me he doesn’t want to end his life in prison. “And that’s not a remote possibility.”

At the protest, I’m happy to see several protesters holding signs saying “There is no democracy with occupation.” This tells me two things: on a personal level, I can bring my full self to this protest. I can use the word “equality” as a prayer for full human equality - as I understand the Torah to demand - and not just the compromised equality that has accompanied the state up til now, as I think many of the protesters understand it. On a public level this tells me that the anti-occupation bloc has been accepted as a legitimate part of this protest; that the understanding that the protests and the occupation are inextricably linked is sinking in.

It’s 10:45pm and the protest has grown tremendously. My son, Matan and my mother have returned home but I couldn’t leave. Now I am marching through the streets of my childhood with thousands of people. I’m walking next to two young poets, who chant a rhyming couplet they make up on the spot, and we all repeat it:

צאו מהמרפסת – המדינה קורסת!   

Get off that balcony – the country’s falling apart!

צאו מהסלון – מנעו את האסון!  
Get out of your living room – prevent the disaster!

   צאו מהמטבח – המדינה בפח!
Get out of your kitchen – the country’s in the garbage!

   צאו מהאמבטיה – הצילו ת-דמוקרטיה
!Get out of the bathtub – save democracy!

There are Israeli flags everywhere, torches, chanting, and now we’re in front of the Prime Minister’s house shouting “Shame! Shame! Shame!” More and more people join this nighttime rebellion. We hear that the Ayalon highway in Tel Aviv is also closed down, as well as the main thoroughfare in Haifa. Eventually, I give in to my jetlag and make my way home. My parents breathe a sigh of relief as I walk in the door, since they heard that protesters broke down the barriers to the PM’s home, and there were arrests and injuries.

The following morning the papers are reporting that Netanyahu is about to capitulate. The entire country will be on strike. The main workers union, the airport, universities, high school students council, the banks, reserve soldiers, everyone is on strike until this plan is called off. But Netanyahu is held hostage by his openly racist coalition partner. We walk over toward the Knesset, where protesters from around the country are heading. All roads lead there today, as is obvious from the blue and white flags bobbling in that direction wherever we go.

Not everyone agrees with us though.

“Take that kipa off your head,” a cab driver yells at me, “you leftist sons of ——-!” Someone offers us a flag. I demure, but Matan takes it and we walk by the national library and are soon engulfed in an incredible multitude in front of the supreme court. The energy is that same infectious celebration from the previous night. There is an enormous amount of people, probably in the hundreds of thousands, each with their own signage or t shirt. Somehow, we find my brother, two of his kids and my father. I’m standing next to my nephew’s wheelchair taking in the sounds, when his care taker, Yaron says: “Radical aliveness.”

Among this huge multitude are smaller groups with their own agenda within the agenda. I pass by the socialist gathering with their red flags, the LGBTQ group with their pink and rainbow flags, the military group with their black and blue flags, and stop in front of the largest of these mini-groups, the anti-occupation gathering. Here there are Palestinian flags, and big white banners in Hebrew and Arabic. Some people are holding signs that read: “From the river to the sea all the people must be free!” These are the best organized of all the protest groups, since many of them have been gathering in Sheikh Jerrah every Friday for the last decade to try to protect the Palestinian residents there from the takeover of Jewish supremacists. They are organized in a big circle with twenty to thirty drummers. In the sea of blue and white flags I finally feel truly at home in the embrace of a richer, less compromised form of justice. “From Sheikh Jerrah to Bil’in Hura Hura Falestin!” (Arabic for: Freedom Freedom for Palestine!)

There is one Israeli group sadly absent from this protest, and that is the Palestinian citizens of Israel. The sea of Jewish stars, the stomping down in the early protests against the Palestinian flags, the requests from the protest organizers that Arab leaders not come so as not to alienate the center and right wing protesters, have all done their work.

As I see it, the only chance for lasting democracy here is a meaningful partnership between Jews and Arabs. If Israel truly is what its Declaration of Independence says it is, a place of equality for all that retains a Jewish character, then, amazingly, it is the Palestinian citizens of Israel who hold the key. Without their support the demographics of the country are such that a Jewish theocracy is more likely, or an even more unequal ethnocracy. They are another reason I join these protests. The suggested laws could easily lead to outlawing non-Jewish political parties, and it’s not unlikely that the next step would be revoking their right to vote.

It’s hard to move in this mass of happy protesters, but we somehow make our way down toward the Knesset, where we hear some speeches. On the way I bump into old friends, and into one of my commanding officers from the army, Yair Golan. When he was deputy chief of the IDF he warned that processes taking place in Israel are reminiscent of 1930’s Germany. Now he is a leader on the left. He shakes my hand warmly, his smile full, this strange complex happiness we are engulfed in shining out of him.

I’m wearing on my shirt the word שויון, “Equality” in Hebrew. Shivyon is a modern word that hearkens back to a word from a verse in the Psalms: שויתי יהוה לנגדי תמיד  “I place YHVH before me always.” The idea is that no matter what you’re doing, it’s as if you are constantly cognizant of God as your guiding purpose, seeing God in front of your eyes. The word Shiviti, “I place,” or “I imagine” is where the Hebrew word shivyon comes from. Shiviti is like placing all those created in God’s image in my sight, as a constant reminder of our humanity, and our responsibility. A country of people who do that would be my kind of Jewish State.

The speaker is talking about this governments war on women: “In the three months since the government formed, nine women have been murdered: More than the number of women in the Knesset,” she says. The government has shut down laws meant to protect battered women, and this proposed legal revolution is certain to further reinforce the patriarchy. “The only time the government cares about women who get murdered,” she says, “is when it is an Arab killing a Jewish woman.”

Eventually we make our way out of the protest. In the streets of nearby Bet Hakerem most of the people walking by are protesters. The falafel stand is packed with them. Even the trains and buses from around the country are filled with people singing chants of revolt.

That evening at my brother’s place outside of Jerusalem, as we gather in front of the television to watch Netanyahu’s speech, my sister in law tells her kids: “This is a liar.” Like much of the country, this time has brought her to the streets, even though she normally isn’t especially active politically. My seven year old nephew says: “He’s like Pharaoh.” As soon the PM utters his opening words, “Three thousand years ago,” my sister in law asks whether we could turn it off. This is the level of tolerance in much of the country for the man who’s been Prime Minister for most of the last decade.

He starts by comparing “both sides” of the country to the mothers who came in front of King Solomon, each claiming the baby is their own. He denigrates the protesters against him and smiles when he speaks of his pride in those who came out in his favor, holding such signs as “Leftist traitors,” and “Stop the dictatorship of the Supreme Court.” The PM’s clear implication tonight is that his side is making the sacrifice of postponing the laws, because they are the true mothers of this baby called Israel, so they won’t let this country fall apart. The wise King Benjamin sees the truth.

Despite this temporary victory, the happiness of the protest, and the hope it brought are dissipating. Nobody trusts the PM, not even the members of his cabinet. The future looks dire. He kept his coalition from collapsing by promising to start an extra governmental militia led by the most violent and extreme cabinet member. One of the chants at the protest was “We are not afraid.” That may be true while we’re there, but the truth is that most of the protesters came precisely because they are seriously fearful for their future. This is another reason why I protest. Israel, built with huge sacrifices of blood, sweat and tears to offer a necessary safe-haven for Jews is on the verge of unravelling. It is not the idealistic vision I was sold as a kid, nor is it a beacon of Jewish ingenuity. It is a nation state, as vicious as any other, which is the beautiful place where my family and many close friends live. Right now the only hope for preventing it from devouring itself are these protests.

I come out of these historic 24 hours, and the few strangely quiet days that followed them with a distinct faith in the capacity of people in this country to activate. The government still plans to pass these laws. The demonstrations continue. But the majority has, for now prevailed, and that is no small achievement for any protest movement.

One of my favorite biblical words is Kumah, rise up. Moments such as these are Kumah moments. They carry the breathtaking ecstasy of freedom. This Shabbat Hagadol, the great Shabbat before Passover, we will raise the Torah and sing:

קוּמָה יְהוָה וְיָפֻצוּ אֹיְבֶיךָ וְיָנֻסוּ מְשַׂנְאֶיךָ מִפָּנֶיךָ

כִּ֤י מִצִּיּוֹן֙ תֵּצֵ֣א תוֹרָ֔ה וּדְבַר־יְהֹוָ֖ה מִירוּשָׁלָֽ͏ִם׃

Rise up YHVH and scatter your enemies,

Let the haters flee from before you

For Torah comes out of Zion,

and the word of YHVH from Jerusalem

Let the word of radical aliveness rise up from Jerusalem and bring safety and joy to all who share and love this land.

 
Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Misha

Women's Torah

Dear friends,

As promised, some words from Dr. Lizzie Berne Degear, our scholar in residence this year. Lizzie and I will be leading a special interfaith Shabbat service this evening at First Pres with some amazing guests from other faiths. I hope you can make it.
Rabbi Misha.

Happy Women’s History Month from Lizzie Berne DeGear, our esteemed Scholar in Residence!

I’m about half way through my year as scholar-in-residence with the New Shul, and I’ve been loving it. Engaging with many of you at services, celebrations, and chevrutahs has been  enriching and downright enjoyable. I hope to see you at our interfaith liberation Shabbat this evening at First Presbyterian Church at 6:30pm. Some women friends of mine will be joining us to share their powerful experiences of liberation within various faith traditions, including Catholic, Muslim, Hindu and Aboriginal. 

Today, as a self-described feminist of faith, I’m thrilled to be engaging you here as I reflect on the importance of Women’s History Month. 

“Women’s history” is not just about highlighting women in history, it’s about bringing women’s focus to our histories and revealing truths that have been obscured. This March can be a time to wake up to all the ways that “his-story” has shaped our limited understanding of our world. It’s an opportunity to expand our lens to include her story… and her story… and her story. 

I’m particularly fascinated by the impact of these expanded lenses on scholarship. From archaeology  to zoology, there is a paradigm shift underway. Over the past decades, as more and more women have had access to higher education in their chosen fields, slowly but surely women have been able to mentor the next generation of scholars.  Women have been working together as colleagues, and women’s ways of knowing are beginning to shape each discipline. The patriarchal assumptions that have had a grip on virtually every form of academic study are slowly (oh, so slowly) dissolving into new ways to understand and interpret our past and the world around us today. 

I get a thrill every time I come across these new ways of telling the stories that constitute scholarship.  I’m thinking of the work of archaeologist  Elizabeth Wayland Barber, author of Women’s Work: the first 20,000 years.  On excavation sites in the 1970’s,  she was the only one among her archaeology colleagues who had experience in weaving and sewing. She saw clear links between patterns that appeared on Bronze Age Mediterranean pottery and familiar weaving patterns.   After she was told that there was no way the technology for weaving could have existed that early, she spent the next seventeen years researching and making sense of data that had been ignored.  Thanks to her we now have a window onto the extensive technologies of prehistoric textile manufacturing. 

I’m thinking of the radical theoretical work of  physicist Karen Barad, author of Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. As a feminist thinker, Barad has introduced an approach to physics that is a game-changer, upending assumptions baked into Western scientific theory. 

So, here at the New Shul, how can we celebrate Women’s History Month? Well, for starters, we can revisit any of our favorite subjects and ask ourselves:  How are feminists and womanists looking at this subject these days?  We can follow that curiosity and see what new vistas open up when we revisit a favorite subject, prod it a little,  and take a closer look.  

And, of course, we can bring this new lens to the subject of our Jewish history. We can honor that there is a major stumbling block inherent in our Jewish authoritative texts. Most of our Torah (the first five books of the Bible) and our  torah (all of the written teachings and laws that hold a place of authority in Judaism) consist of men in our past writing about what men in their past wrote about. It can be a very limited lens on our vast Jewish story. 

Grammatical fact: the rarest verb form in the Hebrew Bible is the third person feminine plural. This is because the men who wrote those texts were not focusing on the wisdom that emerged from the female collective. And, quite frankly, they didn’t have access to that wisdom. But that doesn’t mean such wisdom didn’t emerge and thrive during every moment in our Jewish history. It did! It does!  Women’s collective experience and wisdom are absolutely part of our Jewish story, dating all the way back to its beginnings.  Discovering this wisdom and experience, listening to our female ancestors, and receiving the bounty they still hunger to share with us has become a passion that drives much of my scholarship. There is so much there to discover! I take seriously the admonition that opens the book of Proverbs: “Forsake not the torah of your mother” (Proverbs 1:8).

As we approach Passover, I have been taking a closer look at Miriam. Following the clues, I am beginning to discern a whole branch of ancient Jewish knowledge that invoked her leadership, bringing focus to plant medicine and healing. More than a sister with a tambourine, was Miriam our earliest Jewish doctor?

As Judy Minor, the head of our New Shul va’ad,  puts it: Every week of Torah study is an opportunity to tap into our Jewish herstory.  As we study, and as we are tasked with the responsibility to pass along our stories to future generations, how might we broaden our understanding so that we may give  future generations the gift of a more complete picture?

Women’s History Month is a reminder to probe deeper, an incentive not to take anyone’s account of history at face value. March might be coming to an end, but we can let it launch us into a year-round adventure of discovery. 

Shabbat shalom,
Lizzie Berne Degear

Reclaiming Hidden Voices

Dear friends,

"In all the travels of the Israelites, whenever the cloud lifted from above the tabernacle, they would set out;  but if the cloud did not lift, they did not set out—until the day it lifted. So the cloud of the Lord was over the tabernacle by day, and fire was in the cloud by night, in the sight of all the Israelites during all their travels."

Thus ends the Book of Exodus, with words that seem relevant to me this week since we moved out of our place a couple days ago. At Torah Byte yesterday we calculated approximately how many Israelites there were in the desert, and got to something like 2,000,000 including children. Moving a group that big seems even harder than moving a family in Brooklyn. Which is to say that this won't be the longest or deepest letter I've ever written. But I did want to highlight some historical women who showed up in my studies and thoughts this week, it being Women's History Month. 

One of the great prophets who foresaw a massive move of the nation from Israel to Babylon was a woman named Chuldah. Today, she doesn't have the same name recognition as her contemporary Jeremaiah,   but he knew she was the greatest prophet around during the early days of his prophecy when she was still alive. When Josiah, king of Judea asked her whether his religious reforms will save the nation from being exiled she flatly says no. It's too late. That great forced move is upon us. Josiah looks for another prophet who will provide a better answer, but the tone of Jeremaiah's prophecy changed from hope to doom. He knew that out of everyone, she's the most connected to the truth. A few decades later her prophecy came true.

This week's parashah also mentions some women, though not by name. They are women of wise hearts (חכמת לב) who volunteer their skills to build the tabernacle, that moving holy space we kept in the desert. Last Shavuot, Dr. Lizzie Berne Degear taught us about the women's weaver guilds of ancient times, who it seems have penned some important biblical passages. The wise-hearted women in this week's parashah are described as weavers and sowers who volunteer in great numbers, without whom it seems the tabernacle could not have been constructed.

Next week I'm excited for you all to read some of Lizzie's words about her scholarly work. Perhaps the main focus of Lizzie's work is the reclaiming of women's voices from ancient times. She shines a light on the tremendous influence wise-hearted women had on our tradition, and the ways in which these voices were buried by the patriarchy.  She can help us migrate away from the male-dominated view of our tradition.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Misha

Polyamory, Poligamy and other Forms of Insanity

Students, parents and teachers at the Garden of Stones of the Museum of Jewish Heritage yesterday.

Dear friends,

Whenever I hear stories from my polyamorist friends I feel a combination of admiration, jealousy and gratitude. I find myself admiring their ability to overcome norms we’ve been fed for so long, and step outside of the gloriously, completely insane project of monogamy. I find myself jealous of their freedom, of the explorations they are conducting, both physically and emotionally. And I find myself grateful for the path I’ve chosen, and its innumerable gifts. From the safety of my rich monogamy I ask myself: could I do that?  

This week’s parashah is not about polygamy. It’s about two lovers who are obsessed with one another. It’s about cheating, jealousy, rage and commitment. It’s about what happens when a desperate lover feels abandoned and strays toward another.  

“Set me as a seal upon thy heart,” they say to one another, “As a seal upon thine arm; For love is strong as death, Jealousy is cruel as the grave; Its flashes are sparks of fire, the burning flame of Yah.” 

This is the fiery love affair still going on between the people of Israel and our God. This week’s Parashah describes one of the most tumultuous moments in this relationship, the sin of the Golden Calf, where the people love another form of divinity.  

“When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, the people gathered against Aaron and said to him, “Come, make us a god who shall go before us, for that fellow Moses—the man who brought us from the land of Egypt—we do not know what has happened to him.” 

Yesterday, walking around the Museum of Jewish Heritage with 30 students and parents, I found myself wondering about this love affair between Israel and God. These eleven and twelve year old kids looked at objects of Jewish life in Europe before the war. A ketubah, an etrog holder, a grand Sukkah painting; The physicalization of this age-old love story. Then they saw evidence of a thousand years of persecution, Nazi stereotypes of Jews, photos from Germany, Poland, Ukraine. They passed by a Torah scroll saved from a synagogue on Kristallnacht, a photo of Jews making matzah in the ghetto, a pair of tefillin that a survivor of Sobibor said kept him alive. Even through that darkest of nights, the love affair continued, for some. 

Most of us, however, who live in the shadow of the Holocaust, live with a very serious abandonment syndrome. Our lover stranded us, and now we walk alone, with only one other to love. Is it a wonder, therefore, that we live in this age of Golden Calves? “Calves everywhere,” my brother described it to me on the phone this morning. 

And yet, despite my brain, my heart stubbornly loves. A sickness I long to feel, and when I do I know all is as it should be, even as I have no idea where I might find my beloved. 

"Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you— if you find my beloved, what will you tell him? Tell him I am sick with love."

Some people can have multiple lovers at the same time. This Misha who’s writing these words has loved Lord Siva and Ganesh, Jesus, Allah, the sun and the moon, and countless other divinities. Nowadays he bows down before this one intense and crazy lover, the God – or lack thereof – of Israel. 

PS
Many of you have asked me for the recording of the conversation about what's going on in Israel we held on Tuesday. It is available, so feel free reach out and I will share the link.
For those of you asking how you can help:
This Sunday at noon at Washington Square Park there will be a protest demanding a democratic Israel. Bring flags and signs or just show up. In addition, The New Israel Fund has created an emergency fund raiser, to which you can get more information and donate HERE.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Misha

Beautiful Demons

Dear friends,

Purim conjures the best and worst memories. Ridiculous feasts, family gatherings, insane Jerusalem karaoke parties, drunken laughter, silly costume duos with friends, moments of the deepest honesty and most liberated dancing. And also times when that loosening unraveled horror, bad drunken behavior, nastiness, parties gone wrong, and most prominently February 25th, 1994 when Baruch Goldstein, Yimakh Shmo (may his name be blotted out) murdered dozens of Muslim worshippers in the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron.   

This year I’m feeling both extremities, and we’re going to try to go in both directions at once at the Shul. Sunday we will party in person, and Tuesday night we will Zoom through what’s happening in Israel/Palestine. 

As Purim of 5783 approaches, I find myself oscillating between the improvisational ease of the jester and the deep sadness of the prophets. My homeland, where I grew up and where my parents, brothers, sisters-in-law, nieces and nephews and many of my best friends live, has morally and structurally collapsed. At the same time it has also woken up, stood on its feet, risen into collective song. I read the news and scratch my eyes: the Jews have performed a full-fledged pogrom. The Israeli Minister of Defense says the Palestinian village that was attacked should be “wiped out by the state.”  

Hundreds of Jews, including my father went to that village today to show solidarity. Their buses were stopped by the army, forbidden to show empathy. So they walked instead. Tear gas followed, people beaten. My father made it through and sent pictures of a serene mountain village. My friend, Avital’s father didn’t fare as well. Her father, Avraham Burg, is the former Chairman of the Knesset and director of the Jewish Agency. This is the person who used to be the lead representative of Zionism in the world – today there were videos of him pushed to the ground by Israeli policemen, preventing him from reaching Hawara.  

It’s hard for me to think of anything more upside down than that. 

And then there are the incredible protests that everyone I know there has been a part of. This Wednesday the country was shut down by Israelis who know that if this isn’t stopped the country as we understand it is finished. Streets blocked all over the country, protests in front of elected officials homes, an array of hopeful, forward looking activity, the likes of which I have never seen in Israel or the US. It’s a celebration of political expression, imperfect though it may be. 

So the upside down is itself upside down. Mirrors and masks and costumes galore.  

Our job seems to be to celebrate the groundless upside earth we stand on, and that’s what we will do this Sunday. The artist Uncutt will paint dancer Dorian Cervantes after leading us through his exhibit of Protect Yo Heart – art based on the verse from Proverbs. Fabio Tavares will unravel himself in movement. Wine and food and DJ and music and VR goggles and ancient stories and a rejoicing over this fragile insanity we live. 

And then our upside-down job is to understand what’s going on so we can stand with sanity. Tuesday evening Rabbi Amichai and me will try and give you our perspective, answer and ask questions, and help us all find some solid ground on which to stand together on our heads. 

Purim is there to release our demons. Let’s make sure they are beautiful demons of liberation, not ugly demons of destruction. 

Hope to see you at both events! 
Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Misha

The Activating Heart

by Itamar Dotan Katz

Dear friends,

One of my teachers toward ordination was a Hasidic drummer who went by Reb Dovid. Studying Talmud with him, which I was lucky enough to do weekly for seven good years, was a careful text study of ideas in the form of a whirlwind of thought. R’ Dovid also knows about money. Most people don’t know him as a drummer but as the director of an energy consultancy company. And he knows about spirit. At least as many people know him as an avid student, who spends hours every day at the House of Study. One of the simplest and greatest lessons he taught me was this: money does not belong to us. We feel generous when we give tsedakah. In truth we are just passing along what we were holding onto as custodians.  

Rabbi Dovid’s notion can free us to transform our most physical, mundane and dangerous property, with which many of us have weird, screwed up relationships, into goodness, love and purpose. Money can ruin us, or it can elevate us. 

This week’s Parashah is called Trumah, Hebrew for donation. When we come to build the tabernacle, the abode of God in our midst, we first take a Trumah from “every person whose heart so moves them.” Out of the thing that is entirely utilitarian we build the most ephemeral, the most useless, the most ridiculous – to imagine that God needs an abode is absurd, especially for theists! - place we have; and thus the most important.  

Trumah is the Bar Mitzvah parashah of my nephew Nahar. I’ve probably mentioned him before, because he’s this incredible person who teaches those around him how to be present and find joy. He’s also in a wheelchair and severely disabled since a car crash when he was an infant. Nahar’s was a Bar Mitzvah for the ages. I remember him up by the Torah, hitting the button that would play the recording of the Torah blessing: “Barchu et Adonai Hamvorach!” I remember all of us replying, “Baruch Adonai Hamvorach le’olam va’ed,” and then waiting as he found a way to bring his hand to the button again to complete the blessing. And I remember the deep connection that emerged that day between Nahar and the words: איש אשר ידבנו לבו, “every person whose heart so moves them.”  

Trumah means donation or gift, but it comes from the root “to raise.” A donation has the power to raise the dirt to the heavens, to raise selfishness to giving, to raise depression to quiet joy. Every person whose heart so moves them can take part in the raising up of spirit. You can look at Nahar today and see a nineteen-year-old who can’t speak or move freely, or you can experience his great soul, if you allow your heart to move you into a space of generosity.  

It is through this generosity that the things we value most are created. This Shul was created by such an energy by Holly and Ellen and many others, and maintained through the love, work and donations of countless others over the years. The same is true for our arts institutions, our justice workers, and most other organizations of value in our society.  

This Shabbat I invite you to make a donation. Elevate your money. Or rather, pass on the money that landed in your hands. I’ll name a few organizations and initiatives that seem especially important right now. Choose one or more or all of them, or give to one of your own causes. 

1. This little Shul that could, The New Shul is, as per, on the brink. No joke. Help us HERE! 

1. VOCAL NY is on the front lines of the valiant and perpetual fight against homelessness and poverty in this city. 

1. The Freedom Agenda is working to close the stain on this city known as Rikers Island. 

1. Torat Tzedek : The Torah of Justice is leading the precarious charge for a Judaism in Israel/Palestine that is based on the inherent value of every human life. 

1. HIAS has been the leading American organization working for refugees for over a century and is needed now more than ever. 

1. The Multifaith Alliance for Syrian Refugees is hard at work supporting those who have lost their homes in the recent devastating earthquake. 

1. Jews for Racial and Economic Justice is a local org that partners with other communities on issues such as fair pay for home-care workers, police accountability and combating hate.  
   One example of their work is taking place tomorrow night, where in response to the white supremacists Day of Hate, JFREJ is leading a Havdalah Against Hate, which we can all easily join from wherever we are.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Misha

Beyond the Flags

by Gili Getz

Dear friends,

Before I left my house last Sunday to participate in the weekly demonstration against the legal overhaul that would demolish the separation of powers in Israel, I debated what symbol or slogan to bring. Israel’s outwardly racist Minister of National Security had recently begun to enforce an old ban on Palestinian flags, so perhaps that’s the thing to wear. After all, the Palestinians are the ones who would suffer most if this overhaul took place. On the other hand, there are those who claim that this is an internal Israeli issue, removed from the larger conflict, and the way to beat this law is with Israeli flags. Indeed the protests in Israel have been a sea of blue and white flags. Maybe a joint flag is the right move, I pondered? Or maybe all this flag business is nonsense. I printed out a slogan in Hebrew from demonstrations past: “Jews and Arabs refuse to be enemies,” taped it to my jacket and headed out. 

When I arrived at Washington Square Park, I learned that one of the other speakers, an Israeli American named Udi Aloni, didn’t feel comfortable speaking since there were only Israeli flags. A few minutes later, however someone showed up with two flags, one Palestinian and the other half Israeli half Palestinian. She gave Udi the Palestinian one and he came into the fold. As soon as he came near the other few hundred folks assembled an argument ensued. Several loud voices demanded that Udi remove the flag. “This isn’t what this protest is about,” they said. “It’s about democracy,” he roared, “From the river to the sea all the people must be free!” “This isn’t the time for that,” they answered. 

Palestinian flags have been an issue at the demonstrations in Israel too. The first few weeks, in classic fashion, the left couldn’t agree, so there were two separate demos in Tel Aviv. Since, they have found a way to bring everyone together, so long as those with Palestinian flags stay in a corner off to the side. Here in New York, the demonstration kept coming back to this bitter argument.  

When it came my turn to speak, I described my worry that if this overhaul passes, my nieces and nephews will have no future there, that my father would be arrested for his peace activism and the courts would be powerless to help him.  

I then spoke about the opportunity this moment offers for the country to change course. The first ever event of “the faithful left,” Jews whose God speaks to them not of land but of the value of every human life, drew 700 people in Jerusalem last week. Maybe even the association between right wing policy and being a religious Jew could be challenged. 

There is hope in this moment: Imagine half of the US going on strike and instead of going to work showing up in Washington to demonstrate. This coming Monday will be the second in a row in which something like that takes place there. It is a hopeful “Kumah” moment, in which the people are rising up. My friends there describe a marvelous scene in which Israelis of all types are protesting, including some settlers, ultra-orthodox Jews, Mizrahi, Ashkenazi, gay, straight, old and young.  

But one population is notably absent. It’s hard to ignore the tribal tone of these calls for democracy. A Palestinian citizen of Israel was beaten up last week during the demonstration in Tel Aviv because he was calling for an end to the occupation. Even in New York the mere sight of the Palestinian flag threw people into a rage. Events like these turn my positive feelings to what my father called “dark hope.” 

From my vantage point, this moment offers an opportunity to join Jews and Arabs together for democracy. Otherwise, the country will not only continue to rule over half of the population there without giving them basic rights – as the Israeli courts have allowed mind you - but it will also remain on track to become a restrictive theocracy for all. The coalition agreement between Netanyahu and the ultra-orthodox Shas includes a clause to give the religious courts - where women are not allowed to be judges, and often prevented from speaking - equal power to the civic courts. Preventing this government's legal overhaul from happening is crucial to creating a sustainable future. 

Before I closed my remarks, I pulled out my grandmother, Dina z”l’s book and showed it to the crowd. The year before she passed, she was reading the prophets. I quoted the prophet Amos’s words, suggesting two paths available to the Israelites of old. One leads to exile – “Israel will surely be exiled from its land” - and the other to a peaceful joy:  

“They shall rebuild ruined cities and inhabit them; 
They shall plant vineyards and drink their wine; 
They shall till gardens and eat their fruits.” 

But perhaps it’s the final verse that my Savta ever quoted me that is most relevant: 

לֹא־נָבִ֣יא אָנֹ֔כִי וְלֹ֥א בֶן־נָבִ֖יא אָנֹ֑כִי כִּי־בוֹקֵ֥ר אָנֹ֖כִי וּבוֹלֵ֥ס שִׁקְמִֽים׃ 

“I’m no prophet, nor the child of a prophet. I’m just a shepherd who grows figs.” 

Don’t label me with titles, says Amos, or weigh me down with your flags. Any visions I may share, grow out of nothing but my simple human life. 

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Misha

Transcending the Physical

by Cindy Ruskin

Dear friends,

“Rabbi David of Lelov was frustrated. He had devoted his life to matters of spirit. He ignored the talk of the town, the news and gossip, and instead focused on eternal matters. He followed the laws of his ancestors, prayed, did acts of loving kindness and charity, studied and taught. And yet, he was still stuck in the physical realm, thinking about his needs, his pains, his desires, his worldly aspirations. He couldn’t transcend this body of his no matter how hard he tried. 

He looked to the Prophets of old and found that many of them lived with little food or drink, not to mention sex. Following the advice of a mystic several hundred years before his time, Rabbi David decided he would deprive his body until it left him to unite with his spirit. For six years he fasted all week long, eating only on Shabbat.   

When the six years had been completed, and the seventh was upon him, he awaited the spirit’s appearance. “Now,” he thought, “God will be with me.” But no such experience took place. Dispirited, he committed himself to another six years of fasting between Sabbaths. After twelve years of fasting, however, no transcendence emerged. The rabbi still thought about food and sex, he still felt jealousy and resentment, still sought the approval of others, was still consumed with desires. God had not appeared to him as he had thought. “Surely,” he thought, “I must be very close. But some invisible door is blocking me from entering to see the Queen.” 

The rabbi knew who would be able to show him that door and unlock it. So, he travelled all week to the village where his old friend, Rabbi Elimelech lived and taught. He arrived on the eve of Shabbat, and entered the small synagogue, which was already filled with beautiful singing. When the prayers had been completed, the song turned to warm smiles and a sweet sense emerged of a community that had entered together into a new mental space. Rabbi Elimelech, with his son by his side, approached each person and greeted them warmly, with embraces and warm words. Everyone, that is, except for Rabbi David, whom he passed by without a word. 

R’ David was distraught. He was offended, humiliated, deeply hurt. Sitting in his room at the inn late that night he calmed himself down. “Many years have passed. I look different, so much thinner than I was, and grayer and older. He must not have recognized me. I will return tomorrow for the morning prayers.” 

The next morning again the prayers rose high, and the people lifted one another toward the heavens with their singing. But when the post-prayers Kiddush was completed, and all had drunk some wine to warm their souls, again Rabbi Elimelech greeted each person – except for Rabbi David.  

This time R’ David was angry. His mind raced with fury. “How could he do this to ME?!” He packed his small bag so that he could leave as soon as Shabbat ended and planned not to return to the little shul ever again. But as the evening approached R’ David found his legs pulling him toward the Shul. He knew that R’ Elimelech always speaks words of wisdom during the final meal of the Sabbath before the holy day ends, and he couldn’t get over his draw to hear what he would say. So he placed himself outside of the shul by the open window. The assembled community drank their vodka and savored their pickled herring and other delights as they shared stories and sang nigguns. At last R’ David heard the voice of his old friend. 

“You know,” opened Rabbi Elimelech, “People come to me with a gaunt and sad body, after having fasted and tormented themselves for twelve years. They believe they have done penance, removed the barriers between themselves and God. After that they believe themselves worthy of the spirit of holiness, and they come to me to help them through the threshold. They are ready to walk through the door and come in front of the queen, and just need me to show them where this door is.” 

The rabbi paused, took one more sip of his vodka, and continued. 

“But the truth is that all their discipline and all their suffering is less than a drop in the sea: all that work they’ve done does not rise to God, but to the idol of their pride. Such people must turn away from everything they have been doing, and begin to serve God from the bottom up with a truthful heart, a full belly and a song on their lips.” 

These words cut R’ David to the heart. His breathing stopped, his legs failed, and he reached his hands to the wall so he wouldn’t fall over. When his breath returned, he felt his body tremble and tears burst out of his eyes like a river.  

When the Havdalah prayers were concluded, R’ David opened the synagogue door in great fear and waited on the threshold without entering. Rabbi Elimelech rose from his chair, ran over to R’ David and embraced him. “Blessed is the one that comes,” he cried out. He helped the broken rabbi to the table and sat down by his side. At this the rabbi’s son couldn’t contain his amazement: “Father,” he said, “This is the man you turned away twice because you could not endure the mere sight of him!” 

“Not at all,” replied the rabbi. “That was an entirely different person! Don’t you see that this is our dear Rabbi David?”  

This Hasidic story was adapted from The Penitent in Martin Buber's Tales of the Hasidim. 

This Sunday I invite you to join me at noon at Washington Square Park for the demonstration against the Israeli government's terrifying plan to gut the court system, where I've been asked to share some words.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Misha

Kafka on Faith

Dear friends,

“A man cannot live without a steady faith in something indestructible within him, though both the faith and the indestructible thing may remain permanently concealed from him. One of the forms of this concealment is the belief in a personal god.” 

Kafka’s great aphorism deserves our attention. Let’s examine part I: 

“A man cannot live without a steady faith in something indestructible within him” 

Yesterday I asked three twelve-year-olds what their take on God was. Within seconds the conversation turned to the afterlife. “I can’t imagine everything just ending, turning black,” Arthur said.  

It seems to me that Kafka is making a psychological observation. Human beings live with the constancy of their ever-present selves. We are incapable of imagining our self - whatever that may be or not be - not being. So long as we are alive, we believe we will always live. 

אם אני כאן הכל כאן, said Hillel in the Talmud: “If I am here than everything is here.” ואם איני כאן אז מה כאן, he continues: “and if I’m not here, than what is here?” 

Even in our most broken moments, when we see nothing in ourselves that is strong and enduring, we cannot shake the notion that we are a part of what is. We imagine being dead and look for some other stage or state of being. Which isn’t to say we all believe in the afterlife in our logical brains.  

Part II: “though both the faith and the indestructible thing may remain permanently concealed from him.” 

Let’s first look at "the faith," and then at "the indestructible thing" itself. 

Would we all say that we believe there is something indestructible in us? That we will, in some fashion, continue to exist forever? Certainly not. Even those who do believe in a neshamah, or soul that transcends our physical existence, have their moments of doubt. We are all in some sense agnostics on this question, even if we claim to be believers or non-believers. This is the concealment that Kafka is revealing. We have all witnessed death, if not of human beings than of animals, bugs, plants. We know that life ends. So we go around thinking that we know we will end. But the Kafkaesque fact is that we believe we won’t. We have, according to Kafka, a type of Emunah Shlema, complete faith, in the existence of the eternal in us. 

Now let’s look at this “indestructible thing.” There are certain things that cannot be taken from any human being. The Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish wrote: 

"It is possible for prison walls 
To disappear, 
For the cell to become a distant land 
Without frontiers."

Darwish is describing the imagination. Freedom of the mind, a person’s way of thinking, cannot be taken away. Something about us is indestructible, is it not? Maimonides calls it the Tzelem Elohim, the image of God, our non-physical aspects, primarily our mind. Do we view it as indestructible? Not always. We walk around unaware of or underplaying our uniqueness and brilliance most of the time.  

“Both the faith and the indestructible thing may remain permanently concealed” from us. 

Part III: “One of the forms of this concealment is the belief in a personal god.” 

Maimonides laid what all 613 commandments in the Torah are. The Talmud taught that’s the number of commandments, but no one had ever defined which exactly they were because there are so many different ways to understand every line in the Torah. As soon as he begins, with what Maimonides calls the first commandment, there’s massive controversy: 

The commandment to believe in divinity. And that is that we believe that there is an Origin and Cause, that He is the power of all that exists. And [the source of the command] is His saying (Exodus 20:2), "I am the Lord your God." 

Not only does his biblical source: “I am the Lord your God,” not sound like a commandment, but to command anyone to believe in anything seems silly. Many wiser and more learned than me have written about it, so all I’ll say in our context is that perhaps what we are being commanded, if indeed we are commanded to do this, is to bring to mind that inescapable faith in the indestructible within, which we so easily live without in our conscious minds. In other words, this commandment seems the most impossible – to believe in some permanent truth – but it’s actually impossible not to follow, because it’s built into our humanness. Our job is to keep pulling it out of hiding. 

What’s tricky for me in Kafka’s phrase is the word “personal.” I’m not clear what exactly a personal God is, or what Kafka meant by it. One could certainly read Maimonides’ words as having nothing to do with a personal God. He speaks of “origin and cause” and of a “power of all that exists.” It’s the biblical quote that complicates this, when it uses the phrase “your God.” Now it sounds personal, even if it was used in the plural, God speaking to all the Hebrews.  
For Kafka, the notion of a personal God is one of the ways in which we conceal the faith we have in the indestructible in us. We think we are working on faith, when in fact we are concealing it further. We relinquish our indestructible and put it in the hands of God. We await salvation. We disempower ourselves by removing the indestructible from inside us to outside. Maimonides did believe strongly in separating the self from God. He thought we are commanded to believe that this origin, cause and power exist “שם,” over there. My instinct is different. In my translation of Psalm 30 I rendered the phrase “Adonai Elohay,” normally translated “Lord my God” like this: 

“You 
Who are my self and all at once” 

Tomorrow night I hope you can meet me for cocktails and some Zohar at Cowgirl, a bar on Hudson Street from 6-8pm. We’ll mark Tu Bishvat, the New Year for the Trees. Perhaps the trees can teach us about this question of faith: the indestructible and ever-lasting in the trees, which dies and is born, is both a part of the earth and a unique entity that keeps the world in balance.  
Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Misha

Our Whispering Past

Protesting to close Rikers Island Jail yesterday

Dear friends,

* The promised note with words from Dr Lizzie Berne Degear had to be pushed back, and will be coming soon. Instead I offer some reflections on the past week:

Seventy-eight years ago today Auschwitz was liberated. What does it do, Auschwitz? Mostly it sits there in our consciousness, an elemental energy pulsating outward. “This is what human beings can do,” it whispers. “Be scared.” “Be brave.” “Be grateful.” “Be Jewish.” “Take words seriously.” “Care.” “Act.” “Remember.” Different whispers at different moments, different commands to different people. 

Here are a couple whispers that I’ve been hearing this week. 

This evening we will get the video of Tyre Nichols getting beaten to death by police officers in Memphis. We will put it in the category of African American lives taken lightly by police.  

In Palestine we reached 29 people killed this year. Every day this month at least one life taken by Israeli soldiers or police. Five kids. A 60-year-old woman. Men in their prime. Some involved in violent resistance, others not. Lives cut short.  

In New York City the mayor gave his State of the City address yesterday as a large group of protesters demanded he hold to his campaign promise and shut down Rikers Island. Maia and I stood holding a banner with the names of two of the 19 people who died in custody there last year. We heard family members of the deceased describe their loved ones. Most of them described people with mental illness, and indeed around fifty percent of the jail population there suffer from mental conditions.  

It is a known fact that the Nazis first exterminated people with mental conditions and other “undesirables.” The first people to be murdered in in the earliest gas chamber facility, Brandenburg An Der Havel, were mentally ill prisoners. We are, thank God in a completely different situation than 1940 Germany. But since visiting Brandenburg An Der Havel I carry the understanding that what led to Auschwitz was the false distinguishing between people with value and people with no value. These people matter. These don’t.  

So, when we were chanting “Treatment not Jail” yesterday, I could hear whispers from our past. And when we heard a bereaved mother describe the violence in their neighborhood when her son was growing up, the racialized segregation in our city came into focus, and with it more whispers from our past. 

They all matter. Those killed by police like Tyre Nichols, those killed by the IDF like Magda Obaid, those who died by neglect in Rikers as they await trial like Mary Yehudah. Each of the approximately 1.1 million people murdered at Auschwitz. 

There is something incredible that happens at protests sometimes, when you find yourself speaking words out loud. When we chanted “Treatment not jails,” over and over yesterday, the truth of it all, the pain and suffering it implies, the justice behind that simple demand all flooded my consciousness. Those whispers I was hearing were allowed out in the hopeful act of speaking truth with my fellow city-dwellers. 

I remember a protest in Red Hook about ten years ago, before “All Lives Matter” became the anti-BLM slogan. My family and I were some of the only white people marching. At one point in the protest, the chant led by the mostly Black residents of the local NYCHA housing units turned from “Black Lives Matter” to “All Lives Matter.” I was amazed at the generosity of spirit displayed by this underserved, historically oppressed community. And I was further amazed at the feeling that accompanied speaking these words out loud with others. All lives, every single one, matters. There’s no doubt that what we need to be chanting in the US is Black Lives Matter. But it’s too bad that ALM was co-opted by those standing in the way of equality. What a hopeful, prayerful statement it is – every single one of our lives – yours, mine and that of every person - matters.  

May that be the lesson of our whispering past. 

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Misha

She Torah

Hayley Antonelli

Dear friends,

(*There's a little invitation to a protest I don't want you to miss at the bottom.)

"I’d like to speak the blessings in the feminine,” Ella told me. “What would that be in Hebrew?” 

It would start “Barchu et Adonai Hamvorechet.” 

“And then?” 

“Bruchah Adonai Hamvorechet le’olam va’ed!” 

At her ceremony, for the blessings that officially made her a Bat Mitzvah, Ella flipped the gender of God. It took a young woman from a family of four women to soften the male-dominated idea of God for all of us in the room and suggest a Jewish Goddess instead.  

This is not a new idea of course. In the Amidah we find the phrase “מודים אנחנו לך”, We thank You, in the feminine. There are many such examples in the prayers. Yah, as in Helleluyah is considered the feminine presence of God. In one of the central Kabbalistic depictions of divinity we find a trifecta of Gods, among them the Nukba, or female Goddess who plays a central role in the divine structure of things.  

But overwhelmingly God is referred to grammatically as male, and that is the beginning of patriarchal thinking. How we speak is how we think is how we behave. There’s an obvious link from the male God to the death of Mahsa Amini and the oppression of women worldwide.  

Since Ella’s Bat Mitzvah I began addressing God in the feminine in some of my prayers. The result has been a widening and welcoming of the idea of God. I continue to keep many of the prayers in the traditional male form, since beneath these notions of gender is a wider understanding of the genderlessness of God. God is the place of no separation, beyond definition, transcending ideas, identities, anything human thinking can produce.  

That’s why many of us try in English at least to avoid gendering God altogether. Sometimes the pronoun “they” fits. More often no pronoun is better. But we have to use language unfortunately. 

These last few months, a group of us has been gathering on Zoom to learn from our scholar-in-residence, Dr. Lizzie Berne Degear. Lizzie has been connecting us in powerful ways to the feminine in our tradition, and to the female roots of our tradition that have been buried under the male-dominated face of the last two millennia. She is opening our minds not only to female divinity, but also to pieces of the Jewish bible that could have been written by women. She has invited us to experience an ancient reality of women teachers, with a sweet and beautiful and inviting Torah on their lips. 

Imagine a Torah written by women. Imagine Jewish law written by women. Imagine how that affects your connection to Judaism. 

In next week’s letter you will hear from Dr. Lizzie in her own words about her work. 

This week’s Parasha opens with a multi-gendered mesh of divinity: 

“And Elohim spoke unto Moses, and said to him, I am YHVH; And I appeared unto Avraham, unto Yitzchak, and unto Ya’akov, as El Shaddai, but by my name YHVH I did not make Myself known to them.” 

Of the three versions of divinity in these verses none are overtly gendered. Elohim is plural, grammatically meaning “gods.” YHVH is an unpronounceable mis conjugation of the verb “to be.” “El Shaddai” includes both male and female connotations, the word “El” denoting a male god, and “Shaddai” literally meaning “my breasts,” and harkening back to pre-Jewish Middle Eastern goddesses. 

We have a lot of undoing to get through on route to this liberated divine fluidity that will allow all of us to be ourselves. 

Before I sign off, I’d like to invite you all this coming Thursday to join our BLM chevrutah and protest the city’s inability to protect the human rights of the incarcerated, and to demand action to close the stain on this city that is Rikers Island Jail, where 19 people were killed last year in custody. Details HERE. Email Maia if you can make it, she's coordinating our group.

If you like, try this blessing in the feminine when you light the candles this evening: 

Bruchah At Adonai Eloheynu Malkat Ha’olam Asher Kidshanu Bemitzvoteha Vetzivtanu Lehadlik Ner Shel Shabbat. 

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Misha

One Small Step

Aztec Sun God

Dear friends,

Ezra Klein’s wonderful interview with Judith Shulevitz about her book The Sabbath World, which I suspect many of you have listened to (and if you haven’t you should) reminded me of a task I had promised myself to complete a few years ago and never did. We have a seven-year cycle of annual themes at the School for Creative Judaism. This year we’re in the third of the seven called the Year of the Storytellers. Last year was the Year of the Peacemakers, before that the Year of the Philosophers, and before that was the seventh of the cycle, which is naturally the Year of Shabbat. During that year I had planned to invite families to try keeping Shabbat, even if just once. Our great grandparents probably all kept Shabbat every week their entire lives. Maybe, I figured, we should try it once. I never got beyond suggesting that families light candles. As my son, Manu (who turns 6 today!!) would say: “I got shy.” The one reliably good thing about the Jews is that we don’t proselytize. Why mess with that? 

Well, because the other reliably good thing about the Jews is our greatest addition to the world, Shabbat. So today I’ll beg your forgiveness for my brazenness and attempt to complete my unfinished task from a few years ago in a slightly different manner. I’ll leave the theory and reasoning for why we may want to practice Shabbat, or to enhance our current Shabbat practice to Ezra and Judith. You could also re-read Heschel’s prologue to The Sabbath, which lurks in the background of the interview. 

By the end of this note I’ll have invited you to choose one small way to practice or to enhance your current practice of Shabbat. The reason I won’t suggest anything big has to do with the snail-paced development of my personal practice over the course of about fifteen years and counting. Today I’d say I keep Shabbat, (though Orthodox Jews would look at my practice and heartily disagree) and it’s often the best day of my week, the bedrock of my sanity. Had I gone any faster, I would have rebelled and given up. I’d like to share with you the process that brought me to this point. Maybe it’ll strike a chord or ring a bell or give you some ideas on how to go about this.  

The primordial beginning of my adult Shabbat practice was going to the theater every Friday evening. Living in the Village helped with that. But that was still sporadic, so I don’t include it as the first step. At the time I would on occasion light candles or do Kiddush and Motzi. The first thing I added as a weekly Shabbat occurrence to which I held for many years was that on Saturday mornings I would pick up a book that had nothing to do with my work and sit in bed for an hour with it. I remember a couple weeks of Jack London science fiction stories. Things like that. Anything that pulled my brain away from the practical. For a good couple of years that was my Shabbat. 

Those were the years in which smart phones came into their own, so I rapidly changed from checking my email once a day to many, many times a day. That’s when I added the Shabbat morning no email clause. This would be key. Something to build on. Over the course of a few years I lengthened the time from just the first couple hours after I wake up, to noon, to after lunch. Then I added Friday evening. I kept stretching the time until I comfortably stopped checking my email during the entire Shabbat. 

With email out of the way I began to add the internet in general. I stopped surfing the web, reading online newspapers or whatnot. If Shabbat can free me of my obsession with work, it might also be able to pull me out of this world, this century, the particular noise we live with during this round. 

Simultaneously there were family practices developing during those years. I now had a family, kids, other people to mark Shabbat with. The main difference between Heschel’s version of Shabbat and that of Shulevitz is that Heschel puts the onus on the individual, while Shulevitz doesn’t think it’s doable without community. My beginnings on this path of making Shabbat holy, different, separate were solo adventures. Had I not, however, had a family to have Friday night dinner with every week it would have all fallen apart.  

There were several other big steps that came later. I stopped working. Well, rabbis work on Shabbat often so.... you got me. But I’d argue that any person of faith whose practice is not ripe with contradictions is a person of little faith. A big step for me was giving up falling asleep in front of the tv on Friday night, as I’d been doing since childhood. This came when I decided to give up screens, a big and blessed leap that took some years to complete. Those of you who have been over for Shabbat dinner may be able to attest to the fact that I still do take to the couch at some point and doze off, but at least I dumped the TV.

Other rituals were added. Our family developed a kind of game we would do every Friday evening that created an opportunity for each of us to share a story about our week. The kids got their wish of Saturday morning screen time, which they keep religiously. I learned the Talmudic maxim “Whoever doesn’t sleep on Saturday afternoon will be tired all week,” and began taking that nap too seriously. The practice developed and grew.

Today, I avoid travel on Shabbat with three exceptions: to go pray (interpreted rather widely to include arts, protests and a few other categories), to go be with loved ones and to go to nature. I speak and text with friends and family. I continue to add to my list of do’s and don’ts. Most weeks I’ll say a quick kiddush on Shabbat lunch. Most weeks I’ll say the Blessing after the meal on Friday night. Most weeks the family will come together on Saturday night to do Havdalah. 

I still get accused of lack of consistency and free-flowing interpretation, and I certainly profane even my own Shabbat rules here and there, thank God. But overall, I feel strong in my growing practice, and am no doubt strengthened by it. And it may even be rubbing off on my wife and kids, who knows? 

All of this to say that I invite you to think of one small step toward Shabbat. It could be a minor prohibition like half an hour of not touching your phone, or a decision to avoid something that brings you stress. It could be a moment you consciously engage in something you love. It could be lighting the candles, or doing Shabbat blessings, or blessing your kids. It could be calling your parents or siblings or friends. It could be preparing a great meal. It could be meditating, or reading the weekly Torah portion. It could be going to Shul. Anything that creates a different time, even if it's just a minute or ten, or whatever you can hold to. Choose one thing and do your damndest to stick to it. It’s the ongoing nature of it that will make it work. 

We are a community, and knowing that we are all out there working toward a practice is what will make this take root. I highly doubt you'll regret it.

I would love to talk or email with you about your Shabbat, so please reach out and let me know what you’re up to, or what’s in your way. The tradition teaches that when all the Jews keep Shabbat the Messiah will come. We need to take care of ourselves, this tells us, and we need each other. When we work toward those goals the world takes one small step toward its redemption. 

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Misha

Living With The Hidden

Aztec Sun God

Dear friends,

In season six of The Sopranos the king mobster Tony Soprano tells his psychologist what he learned from his recent experience taking peyote. “There’s something else out there.” His life is crashing in on him. His son just tried to commit suicide. Danger, death and difficulties surround him. “Like what,” she asks. “I don’t know.” “Alternate universes,” she asks skeptically. “Maybe,” he answers seriously. 

Every now and again we are given a glimpse of realities we don’t usually inhabit. We come across a person living a completely different life to ours and see it for a second. We look back at our lives and wonder at the strange and perfect logic of it all. We see a magnificent little bird in some tree. We know for a moment the goodness that sustains us.  

As we carry our loved ones to their graves we recite:  

יושב בסתר עליון בצל שדי יתלונן
The highest sits in hiding,
resting in the shade of the Goddess. 

Our lives are a dance with the shadows, with what we can and can’t see there in the dark. 

The great peacemaker, Stephen Cohen, who worked in secret to broker the peace between Israel and Egypt, as well as other later agreements, was also a great believer in the existence of angels. Steve z"l, who was a close family friend, spent decades shuttling secretly between Arab and Israeli leaders, creating relationships of trust with vilified enemies of Israel such as Assad, Arafat, Hussein and others, that he would then transform into diplomatic breakthroughs. He knew how to harness unseen powers toward peace, so he knew that unseen powers existed. I wasn't surprised to hear at his funeral that he held a strong belief in the protective power of angels.

The rabbis experienced our existence as the continued miraculous victory of unseen forces of life over what they called “Mal’achey chabalah,” angels of destruction. We are surrounded at all times by tens of thousands of these negative angels, they taught. But we live, thanks to the unseen powers of divinity.  

In this week’s Parasha a human being gets a glimpse of these worlds, the hidden reality going all the way through to the end of time. 

Before his death, Jacob calls his children to him:
“Gather around so I can tell you what will happen to you in Acharit Hayamim.” 

Acharit Hayamim, explained by the rabbis as “the end” or “the end-times," is commonly understood to be when the Messiah comes, the dead rise and war and suffering cease. The literal Hebrew meaning, however, gives it a twist. Acharit comes from the word Acher, meaning different. What we understand as the end of days could instead be thought of “different times,” days that are essentially different.  These are the times when those hidden realities become apparent, where our circumstances stop blocking us from experiencing the realities of truth and love, אמת וחסד which are ever-present. 

These times, the rabbis teach us, are in our grasp today. We can work on living with the hidden, walking with the unseen, breathing the unknowable. Will we succeed? 

Rashi famously explains Jacob’s invitation to his sons as follows: 

“He wished to reveal the end but the Shechinah departed from him and he began to speak of other things.”  

God intervened to make Jacob unable to communicate what he saw. Had he not, we would be living with the sad reality of knowing the hidden realities. Thank God they are there for us to discover. 

Join me this evening on Zoom for music and more talk of the hidden realities of our lives. Meditation with Michael Posnick at 6:10, and a condensed Kabbalat Shabbat at 6:30.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Misha

Happy 2023!

By Itamar Dotan Katz

Dear friends,

Wishing you all a happy, healthy, peaceful and fulfilling 2023.

May hate turn to love
Fear to security
Sickness to health
Sadness to joy
Pain to sweetness
Confusion to confidence
Despair to faith
Anger to peace
Poverty to riches
Horror to beauty
Oppression to freedom
Nastiness to generosity.

Slava Ukraini!

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Misha

The Menorah

Theodor Herzl, “The Menorah,” in Harry Zohn, trans., Zionist Writings: Essays and Addresses (New York: Herzl Press, 1973), vol. 1, pp. 203-206. 

Dear friends,

The way we tell the Hanukkah story has the power to shape how the next generation will think about Judaism. It’s been told in many different ways, with the emphasis changing from one generation to the next to fit the political needs, philosophical spirit and general zeitgeist of the times.

This Sunday afternoon (2:30pm at First Pres, ALL ARE WELCOME! sign up HERE) we will gather to look at some of the history of the way the story has been told. We will hear some Hanukkah songs from different historical periods, and through them get a sense of what each time period emphasized, and why. While adults explore these histories, kids will prepare a short play I wrote called: The Real, True and 100% Accurate Story of Hanukkah, which they will perform for us before we ascend into latke eating and candle lighting.  

For now, I bring you one short retelling of the Hanukkah story and its relationship to our experience of Judaism, as well as to the way Jews are viewed by the world at large. It was first published 125 years ago, on December 31st, 1897, by a secular Austrian Jew who would become the most influential Jewish person of the 20th century, Theodore Hertzl.  And it's eerily resonant today.

The Menorah 
by Theodore Hertzl

Once there was a man who deep in his soul felt the need to be a Jew. His material circumstances were satisfactory enough. He was making an adequate living and was fortunate to have a vocation in which he could create according to the impulses of his heart. You see, he was an artist. He had long ceased to trouble his head about his Jewish origin or the faith of his fathers, when the age-old hatred re-asserted itself under a fashionable slogan. Like many others, our man, too, believed that this movement would soon subside. But instead of getting better, it got worse. Although he was not personally affected by them, the attacks pained him anew each time. Gradually his soul became one bleeding wound. 

This secret psychic torment had the effect of steering him to its source, namely, his Jewishness, with the result that he experienced a change that he might never have in better days, because he had become so alienated: He began to love Judaism with great fervor. At first he did not fully acknowledge this mysterious affection, but finally it grew so powerful that his vague feelings crystallized into a clear idea to which he gave voice: The thought that there was only one way out of this Jewish suffering — namely, to return to Judaism. 

When his best friends, whose situation was similar to his, found out about this, they shook their heads and thought he had gone out of his mind. How could something that only meant an intensification and deepening of the malady be a remedy? He, on the other hand, thought that the moral distress of modern Jews was so acute because they had lost the spiritual counterpoise which our strong forefathers had possessed. People ridiculed him behind his back. Some even laughed right in his face. But he did not let the silly remarks of people whose judgment he had never before had occasion to value throw him off his course, and he bore their malicious or good-natured jests with equanimity. And since his behavior was not otherwise irrational, people eventually left him to his whim, although some used a stronger term, idee fixe, to describe it. 

In his patient way, our man displayed the courage of his conviction over and over again. There were a number of changes which he himself found hard to accept, although he was stubborn enough not to let on. As a man and an artist of modern sensibilities, he was deeply rooted in many non-Jewish customs, and he had absorbed ineradicable elements from the cultures of the nations among which his intellectual pursuits had taken him. How was this to be reconciled with his return to Judaism? This gave rise to many doubts in his own mind about the soundness of his guiding idea, his idee maitresse, as a French thinker has called it. Perhaps the generation that had grown up under the influence of other cultures was no longer capable of that return which he had discovered as the solution. But the next generation, provided it were given the right guidance early enough, would be able to do so. He therefore tried to make sure that his own children, at least, would be shown the right way. He was going to give them a Jewish education from the very beginning. 

In previous years he had let the festival which for centuries had illuminated the marvel of the Maccabees with the glow of candles pass by unobserved. Now, however, he used it as an occasion to provide his children with a beautiful memory for the future. An attachment to the ancient nation was to be instilled early in these young souls. A menorah was acquired, and when he held this nine-branched candelabrum in his hands for the first time, a strange mood came over him. In his remote youth, in his father’s house, such little lights had burned and there was something intimate and homelike about the holiday. This tradition did not seem chill or dead. The custom of kindling one light with another had been passed on through the ages. 

The ancient form of the menorah also gave him food for thought. When had the primitive structure of this candelabrum first been devised? Obviously, its form had originally been derived from that of a tree: The sturdy stem in the center; four branches to the right and four to the left, each below the other, each pair on the same level, yet all reaching the same height. A later symbolism added a ninth, shorter branch which jutted out in front and was called the shamash or servant. With what mystery had this simple artistic form, taken from nature, been endowed by successive generations? And our friend, who was, after all, an artist, wondered whether it would not be possible to infuse new life into the rigid form of the menorah, to water its roots like those of a tree. The very sound of the name, which he now pronounced in front of his children every evening, gave him pleasure. Its sound was especially lovely when it came from the mouth of a child. 

The first candle was lit and the origin of the holiday was retold: the miracle of the little lamp which had burned so much longer than expected, as well as the story of the return from the Babylonian exile, of the Second Temple, of the Maccabees. Our friend told his children all he knew. It was not much but for them it was enough. When the second candle was lit, they repeated what he had told them. And although they had learned it all from him, it seemed to him quite new and beautiful. In the days that followed he could hardly wait for the evenings, which became ever brighter. Candle after candle was lit in the menorah, and together with his children, the father mused upon the little lights. At length his reveries became more than he could or would tell them, for his dreams would have been beyond their understanding. 

When he had resolved to return to the ancient fold and openly acknowledge his return, he had only intended to do what he considered honorable and sensible. But he had never dreamed that on his way back home he would also find gratification for his longing for beauty. Yet what befell him was nothing less. The menorah with its growing brilliance was indeed a thing of beauty, and inspired lofty thoughts. So he set to work and with an expert hand sketched a design for a menorah to present to his children the following year. He made a free adaption of the motif of the eight arms of equal height which projected from the central stem to the right and to the left, each pair on the same level. He did not consider himself bound by the rigid traditional form, but created again directly from nature, unconcerned with other interpretations which, of course, continued to be no less valid on that account. What he was aiming for was vibrant beauty. But even as he brought new motion into the rigid forms, he still observed their tradition, the refined old style of their arrangement. It was a tree with slender branches, whose ends opened up like calyxes, and it was these calyxes that were to hold the candles. 

With such thoughtful occupation the week passed. There came the eighth day, on which the entire row of lights is kindled, including the faithful ninth candle, the shamash, which otherwise serves only to light the others. A great radiance shone forth from the menorah. The eyes of the children sparkled. For our friend, the occasion became a parable for the awakening of a whole nation. First one candle — it is still dark and the solitary light looks gloomy. Then it finds a companion, then another, and yet another. The darkness must retreat. The young and the poor are the first to see the light. Then the others join in, all those who love justice, truth, liberty, progress, humanity and beauty. When all the candles are ablaze everyone must stop in amazement and rejoice at what has been wrought. And no office is more blessed than that of a servant of this light. 

Shabbat shalom and Happy Hanukkah!

Rabbi Misha

Healthy Insanity

Dear friends,

“We have to learn to speak Jewish,” said the activist rabbi.  

We were gathered in an Upper West Side living room to hear from Rabbi Arik Ascherman about the state of human rights work in Israel/Palestine after the elections. Rav Arik, an American born Reform rabbi has been living in Jerusalem and doing the work for several decades. He ran Rabbis for Human Rights for 21 years, and for the last six has been running Torat Tzedek; The Torah of Justice. I’d been to other such events with him before. This time, however, he didn’t spend much time describing his daily work accompanying Palestinian shepherds to their pastures, where they’re routinely attacked by settlers, or other such activities. Instead, his focus was on preparing for this next stage, in which the extreme far right will be in charge of both policy and police. He was talking about the need for lawyers to give a chance for the work on the ground to have an impact, and protect activists.  

What was amazing about his talk was that I could not detect a hint of despair. Imagine spending your whole life in the streets fighting police brutality and racism, getting beaten, arrested, almost killed, and then the head of the Proud Boys gets instated as the Minister of Police. You might think he’d be contemplating a return to the States. Instead he’s diving in deeper. 

What amazed me more was his hopeful suggestion that we might be able to change the tide of a religious right wing that has washed over the country by changing our language. “The language of human rights and democracy doesn’t speak to them. We have to learn to speak Jewish.” He explained how their language revolves around the Jewish texts and traditions, and the times when he’s managed to get through to them have been when he’s quoted Torah, Talmud or Midrash. 

There is of course a lesson for us here in the US, and people all over the world. If we really want to have a chance to reach the religious right, we have to speak in their idiom.  

We got a beautiful taste of how that could look this Tuesday night, when a Black reverend from the south told us that voting is “a prayer for the world we desire,” and that “democracy is the enactment of the idea that we each have within us a spark of the divine.”  

We have been stepping away from our faith-worlds for too long, ceding the space to those who define religion as a conservative, selfish way of being. Warnock and Ascherman point us to a path of illogical faith – the belief that we might be able to have a conversation with people who see the world as the opposite of how we see it. What seems impossible, they tell us, should be attempted.  

Speaking Jewish, in the sense that Ascherman suggests, is an attempt to do the impossible with words. To reach another who seems beyond reach.  

On Monday night in another living room in the financial district we gathered to hear from another faith-hooked realist. Rabbi Or Zohar told us about life in the Galilee, where there are equal numbers of Jews and Arabs living in an escalating landscape of polarization. His organization, Spirit of the Galilee, works to create meaningful local ties between the two communities. They learn each other’s faith languages, through an ongoing inter-faith gathering of religious leaders from the region.  

When the terrible Jewish-Arab riots erupted in other parts of the country last year, the ties forged between these different communities were key in preventing the same type of riots in their area. The trust built through learning each other’s languages allowed for clear communication during a time of crisis. Rabbi Zohar was able to speak to and calm a group of Jews talking about taking the law into their own (armed) hands, while his Christian, Muslim and Druze partners in nearby towns managed to bring an end to the burning tires that kept appearing on the road leading up to his village. 

Rabbi Zohar’s efforts are a type of “speaking Jewish.” It’s hard work. Close to impossible. But with persistence it can create a crack in what often seems like a sealed shut reality.  
These faith leaders continue to work toward the good because that is the work, not necessarily because it will work. It’s a type of insanity that, like John Lewis’ “good trouble” we might call “healthy insanity.” Sometimes, though, God sees these prayers-in-action, the universe responds, and a shift occurs thanks to the dogged work of these perfectly healthy insane people. 

May we all find the faith, courage and drive to speak Jewish. And may we enjoy a shabbat brimming with healthy insanity. 

Shabbat shalom,

Rabbi Misha

The Core of Jazz and Prayer

The Miles Davis Quintet playing All Blues, which we're going to hear this evening to the words of the Friday evening Psalm, "Shiru L'Adonai Shir Chadash."

Dear friends,

On March 2nd, 1959 six musicians converged at a recording studio on 30th Street in Manhattan. The band leader had given the others some sketches of scales and melody lines, no sheet music, little instruction other than to improvise. After briefly going over the music, they began recording what would become what many consider the greatest Jazz album of all time, Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue. 

Miles was bringing a new sound based less on chords, the bedrock of Jazz until that time, and more on modality. He was looking for greater freedom, for a living sound, for what he called “spontaneity.”  

Paradoxical though it may seem in a tradition that gives us the same words to say every day at the same time (and lots of them), this is what we are taught to strive toward in prayer. In Mishnah Avot we find: 

אַל תַּעַשׂ תְּפִלָּתְךָ קֶבַע, 

Don’t make your prayer fixed. 

Keva can also be translated as stuck in place or in time, automatic, something lifeless that you do without thinking.  

In music like in prayer, we are after the moment in its bright uniqueness. The rabbis talk about the word Kavanah as integral to prayer. Kavanah is normally translated as intention, but if we think about it in Jazz terms it transforms. A musician takes a solo. We can normally tell if they’re feeling it, if they’re going somewhere internal, if they’re listening and attuned to the other musicians. That’s Kavanah. It’s what you’re trying to hit, and in prayer what we’re trying to hit is this amorphous glob of meaning and time we call in English God, or in Hebrew Adonai, YHVH, being itself. If we are lacking Kavanah, we miss the mark.  

Another way to say it is that kavanah means play. When we are playing, we are present, we are beyond ourselves, we are in company. The psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott said it this way: 

“It is in playing and only in playing that the individual is able to be creative and to use the whole personality, and it is only in being creative that the individual discovers the self.” 

This, to my understanding is what Miles was working on, and what the rabbis in the Talmud were about when they jammed on the purpose of prayer. It’s what the Kabbalists were doing when they riffed their insanity into a book we now call the Zohar. It’s what we do when we come together as Jews to eat, pray or study. 

The Hebrew word for play is Lesachek. It’s practically the same as the word in Hebrew for laughing, letsachek. The bible actually uses both words interchangeably. Like there’s no laughter without spontaneity, there’s also no play without it, or prayer, nor is there great music. We plan to have all of the above this evening at Voodo Fe’s art gallery in Clinton Hill, The Spot, where, immersed in Voodo’s collection of Miles Davis art and fashion we will bring in Shabbat to the spontaneous sounds of Jazz. 

Hope to see you there!

Shabbat shalom,

Rabbi Misha

Living in the Entrance

Dear friends,

Two years ago, a guest at our Shabbat service from Women for Afghan Women, Nilab Nusrat shared with us memories of how back in Afghanistan, her father used to invite poor people into their home for dinner. Susan Berger, the daughter of Holocaust survivors, echoed Nilab with stories about how her grandfather in Poland used to do the same on Friday evenings, seating the guest at the head of the table. No matter if the guest were smelly, in rags, or anything else, if any of the kids would do anything but show them respect, they would be sent away. 

This was the state of affairs in many Jewish and Muslim communities until not that long ago. There existed a competitive spirit among Jews in the old country who wanted to make sure they fulfill the mitzvah of “hachnasat orchim,” or bringing in guests. 

How far we’ve strayed! When was the last time you invited someone in from the street? Why, I ask myself, does that seem like an impossibility in today’s world?  It’s not like there’s a shortage of homeless people in this city. In fact, the estimates are rising, close to 80,000 people. I walked around midtown yesterday. It’s impossible to ignore. 

The Jewish drive to be hospitable comes in large part from this week’s parashah: 

The Lord appeared to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day. Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby. When he saw them, he hurried from the entrance of his tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground. 

He said, “If I have found favor in your eyes, my lord, do not pass your servant by. Let a little water be brought, and then you may all wash your feet and rest under this tree.  Let me get you something to eat, so you may feast your hearts and then go on your way—now that you have come to your servant.” 

“Very well,” they answered, “do as you say.” 

Abraham and Sarah spring into action, rushing and running to fix a full meal for the guests.

The opening image already points to a difference between how we live and how our ancestors did. A man sits at the entrance to his tent. Instead of sitting closed up in an air-conditioned apartment with the curtains closed, as we often do, he is facing the world, waiting to interact with it.

The rabbis understand him to be communing with God as he sits, some imagining him in prayer or meditation. Nonetheless, his outward facing position leads him to “raise his eyes” and see the three figures nearby. Although he is in the midst of a divine revelation, he wastes no time, ditches God and runs toward the passerby to invite them in. 

“Receiving guests is greater than receiving the face of God.”
This is the lesson the rabbis learn from this chapter. Even though in their eyes experiencing the face of the Shechinah, the presence of God is the greatest thing that could happen to a person, “the goodness that nothing can beat,” the very purpose of the spiritual life, still greater than that is to be in the world, bringing those in need into your home. 

Nechamah Leibovitz writes: “This receiving of guests is the best example of Ahavat Habriyot, loving other people, of helping others, it is the entire space of the world, the good deeds and acts of kindness between one person and another.” 

That’s why Abraham and Sarah keep running and hurrying throughout this story. There is nothing more important to them. 

If we can’t live like our ancestors there are other things we can do. 

Yesterday I was proud to participate in the inaugural meeting of Tirdof, New York Clergy for Justice. After some opening words and blessings, we joined the meeting of Vocal NY, to hear about their efforts to ease the plight of the homeless and end it altogether in this state. There are a few campaigns they’re working on, including Free to Pee, in which they are demanding the city reopen hundreds of public restrooms. As if the humiliation of being homeless isn’t enough, we live in the city ranked 80th in access to restrooms in the US. They spoke of the tens of thousands of rent stabilized apartments in the city that sit empty, and of the renewed criminalization of homelessness by the current administration. Read more about their campaigns HERE. 

We can live in the entrance to our tents instead of behind the blinds. We can face outward. We can look up and see the state of our city. We can live up to the call of our tradition by supporting the efforts of those on the front lines of homelessness. 

“How great was the influence of these verses on our ancestors during their years in exile,” writes Leibovitz about this week’s Parashah, “that even a poor person among Israel would not want to sit down to their Shabbat dinner table if there were no guest in their house. So much so that even the poorest and most decrepit and isolated Jewish communities of Eastern Europe could pride themselves – unlike fancy capitals on both sides of the Atlantic to this day – on the great words of Job: “No stranger shall sleep outside.” 

Insha’Allah we live to see that one day in our time. 

Shabbat shalom,

Rabbi Misha

Meet Ben Gvir

Dear friends,

I try to avoid electoral politics in my writing. I’m not a political authority of any type. But this week’s election in Israel carries both cultural and spiritual messages that are relevant to American Jews, and offer lessons for Americans in general.

You’ve likely heard by now that the winner was Benjamin Netanyahu. Though he will likely manage to escape punishment for his crimes and run the government, he is not the big winner. The person who has become perhaps the most powerful person in the country, upon whom governments will rise and fall, is the head of the party called Jewish Power, Itamar Ben Gvir. This won’t be fun, but I’d like to introduce him to you, since in essence, 70% of Israeli Jews (including those who voted directly for him and others who voted for parties willing to make a coalition with him) voted for a government that he holds tremendous power over.

Some of you will remember the name Baruch Goldstein. He was a doctor from Brooklyn who moved to Hebron, and on Purim day, 1994 entered the mosque inside the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron and murdered 29 Muslim worshippers. I remember the discussion the following day in my Jerusalem high school, in which most of the class expressed outrage, but in which one kid, Motti, expressed complete support for the killing. That’s the position Ben Gvir took as well. The following year on Purim he dressed up as Goldstein. Until this recent campaign, with his attempts to portray himself as slightly more moderate than he is, Ben Gvir had a poster of Goldstein hanging in his home. There’s a video of him in 2020 standing by that hanging poster in his living room, holding his baby girl and saying to her: “He’s a tzadik, a righteous man, a hero.”

Ben Gvir had a teacher that some of you will have heard of as well. His name was Meir Kahane. Another Brooklynite who became a member of the Israeli Knesset until the court outlawed his party because of its outright racism and hate. That party, Kach, is currently on both the US and Israel’s list of terrorist organizations. Kahane espoused Jewish supremacy. He advocated the forced transfer of all Arabs from Israel. It was in those years that the chant “Mavet La’aravim,” “Death to the Arabs,” became commonplace. Last night some were chanting it when Ben Gvir took the stage to celebrate his victory. Ben Gvir is the first to admit that there are close to no differences between his party and Kahane's.

It’s not just Arabs Ben Gvir dislikes. He was a big supporter of the infamous “Smolanim bogdim” campaign, in which people hung signs that read “Leftists are traitors.” Ben Gvir, an attorney, represented one such person in a lawsuit against them for unfurling such violence-inducing language in public. Recently, Ben Gvir clarified the same thing about Arabs and leftists: not ALL leftists are traitors, nor are ALL Arabs terrorists, he said.

In a similar move, he recently called LGBTQ people his “brothers and sisters.” In 2016, though he said that “they have no place, neither in Jerusalem nor in the State of Israel.” His reasoning is germane: “(the state) must have a Jewish character.”

In this “Jewish character” lies what I perceive to be the deeper lesson we can learn on this side of the world.  According to its website, Jewish Power supports “enacting meaningful reforms to the systems of power in order to strengthen the Jewish character of the State of Israel.” He means to gut the Supreme Court and the entire democratic structure of the state. And has the support of the other parties in the Israeli right. It is this same “Jewish character” that drives his reasoning for banning MK’s who “undermine the state” from serving. There are a few such MK’s on the left who Ben Gvir has already said should be expelled from both the Knesset and the country. Some of them he has called “terrorists.” This is a word he uses for a wide range of people. One of his main election pledges is to instate a “death penalty for terrorists.”

In a way, all of this is noise. He’s the type of character, the likes of which we certainly have here, who invites a lot of bla bla bla in the news. The difference is that Israel is a place in which things are immediate and close. Ben Gvir isn’t David Duke who sits tucked away in his lair making statements. My friends have bumped into him in Hebron, in Sheikh Jerrah, in the South Hebron Hills - all places where real people are being actually kicked out of their homes in large numbers, actually physically attacked, actually killed. This is a place where things get real quickly, where a statement about the Jewish nature of the state is translated into subjugation and suffering. If Ben Gvir becomes the Minister of Internal Security as is expected (despite the fact that he never served in the army because they said he’s too racist!) he will have a very real impact over millions of people’s lives.

What is this “Jewish character” he’s talking about? I hear “Jewish character” and think of Mel Brooks. To Ben Gvir it evokes supremacy over other nations. To me, if a Jewish state has a purpose it’s to be a home for the wanderers, a refuge for “the stranger, the orphan and the widow.” Ben Gvir’s teacher stated it like this: “The purpose of the State of Israel is revenge against the nations. There is no greater or more just attribute than revenge, for it gives life to God.”

This election suggests that “Jewish” means something radically different to the majority of Israeli Jews than it does to us. This last Knesset had a self-defining Reform Jew for the first time, Gilad Kariv. When Kariv walked out on one of his speeches, Ben Gvir said: “I was so happy that the one who represents those who want to destroy all of what’s holy to Jews doesn’t want me in the Knesset.” He’s talking about us!

Yes, there are millions of Jews in Israel who we align with. Yes, the incoming Prime Minister does not believe, like many in his future cabinet that the law is secondary to the Torah. Nonetheless, as Israel embraces Ben Gvir, we are associated with his version of Judaism.

That is why in moments like these I often find myself struggling to pray, study Torah, or do anything Jewish, simply because of the association with the abhorrent face the Jews have put forward. I wonder whether the decline in religiosity in America in general has more to do with changing philosophies, or with the public face of religion. If religion means no right to choose, so I don’t want to be religious. If religion means subjugation of women and LGBTQ people, how could I be religious? If religious means not believing in science, why would I be religious? Though it’s not just a Jewish problem, when I see those who claim to represent me behave distastefully, my instinct is often to disassociate from the Jews altogether.

There’s one Jewish person I know who’s seen it all. His name is Norman Lear and he’s a hundred years old. 10 years ago he said to me: “It’s time to take religion back in this country.” I thought of those words when the election results rolled out Wednesday morning. I knew then that my faith is my own, and that it is connected to the source of being and truth as strongly as anyone else’s. I also knew that my faith world commands me to pray on such a day, and to study Torah, and to not hide who I am.

So eventually I did manage to do some studying that morning. I put on my kipa with a mix of sadness and pride, fatigue and strength, and opened a book of Torah interpretations by one great Israeli, Nechamah Leibovitz z”l. She was expounding upon the episode in this week’s Parashah known as the Brit Ben Habetarim, or the Covenant of Parts. Abraham splits several sacrificial animals into two parts and is told to pass between them. A vulture comes down and tries to get at them, but Abraham shoos it away. The commentators see the vulture as those who try and stop us from performing the sacrifices, from doing what we do as Jews. Leibovitz writes:

“If they succeed in cutting the connection between this nation and her god, and if the Torah will - God forbid - be forgotten from Israel, there will be no existence any longer for this nation.”

We liberal American Jews are such a nation, and must never let the connection with our God, or vision, or truth be cut, lest this beautiful thing that we’ve created be lost. We are not one iota less Jewish than Ben Gvir or any other Jew, even the most supremely extra ultra orthodox.

The Jews who believe in this other version of “Jewish” that has many elements we find distasteful are also a nation. They stand on the other side of the aisle. Between us is poor Abraham, shooing away the vultures like some kind of optimistic Sisyphus.

My rabbi tells me we are one nation, not two. He says that Ben Gvir and Mel Brooks are both inside of us, just like they exist outside of us, and our job, like Abraham’s is to contain both. We are commanded to do what we can to rid ourselves of our inner demons, and our society of the external ones. One of the best ways to do that is to be who we are, no matter who is embarrassing and defaming our public face. Another is to look reality in the face. This was our challenge this past week. And this will be our challenge this coming week. And the week after that.

Yair Asulin wrote in Haaretz yesterday that “the failure of the ‘change block’ (the side that lost the election) was the failure to be able to look reality in the face, to listen to it without judgement, without thinking that we know everything, without imagining that the truth necessarily exists on our side.” He goes on to suggest, like several other left wing thinkers that this moment offers a rare opportunity to create a new, compelling vision for the country. But he offers a warning to go with it:

“Abandoning “god” to the hands of those who abuse it for bad purposes, without understanding how elemental this feeling is in many people’s consciousness, how critical a player it is in any new social story or any new movement that seeks relevance; that abandonment is one of the greatest sins of ‘the change block.’”

In the face of the rise of Ben Gvir and the vengeful faith he espouses, let us not abandon our God of compassion, and stand tall for the Judaism of equality, care and justice that we know and love.

Shabbat shalom,

Rabbi Misha

Words, Reeds and Slipping Tongues

Dear friends,

There are those moments in which the words slip out. You didn't mean to say what you said but had every intention of saying it differently.  

There are those moments in which the words don’t come out. You meant to say what needed to be said but it wouldn’t come out. 

What is it that governs the balance of what stays in and what comes out? What makes us falter with too many words, the wrong words, not enough words? What should we do and not do after we make such a mistake? 

One clue our tradition gives us is this: The quill with which a Torah scroll is written must be made from a reed. I’ll get back to that in a bit.  

Last week I was quiet. People would ask me things and I’d look at them silently. This was, as you might imagine, frustrating to them. I wasn’t engaging much with the world at large either. When I checked the news from Israel, I found that a racist Jewish supremacist of the most abominable type was poised to become one of the strongest people in the country in the upcoming elections. I took that information in and kept my silence. I don’t think either of those examples is what the rabbis meant when they said: “Silence is a fence around wisdom.” 

This week I spoke. By Monday evening I had referred to a friend several times in the wrong gender pronoun. I didn’t even notice it until they gently pointed it out. Later in the week, when a complete stranger emailed me with a critique of my educational methods based on a photo they saw online, I sent back two emails with a critique of theirs, based on their email. That might be closer to what the rabbis meant about silence and that fence. 

What was it that made me act so differently these last two weeks? 

I studied such questions in the lead-up to the High Holidays, and on Yom Kippur I presented some of my thoughts on the matter to you all. I was hoping to improve my own relationship with words, and to get us all thinking how we might do that. As I was speaking words about words on Yom Kippur, my tongue slipped. Something I hadn’t intended to say came out.  I felt it happen, with the beginning of what one might call awareness, but didn’t quite catch it in the moment. I’ve since spoken to a few people about it, some caught it and others didn’t, so it certainly was miss-able. But it also certainly hurt a few people and caught the ears of others.  

“Words,” I said, “are what created us.” In explaining this, I described the verbal communication between two people, which leads to new life. “Most of us, maybe all of us wouldn’t be here in this room if it weren’t for those words spoken between our parents. Between our father and our mother.” 

I had intended to make a point about the power of words to create, but the ad-lib in the moment showed how words hold the power to exclude. In front of me were several people who come from a variety of parental situations that don’t include a father and a mother.  

My notes that night didn’t include the words father or mother. They emphasized the fact that this may not be true for everyone in the room. So what was it that made them come out the way they did?  

I remember the moment. I had liberated myself from my notes. I looked around the room. For a split second I considered whether any of the people I was looking at may fall into a different parental category to mine. No one person I happened to look at did, but of course there were many in the room I wasn’t looking at (if you are one of those people and I haven't called you, I apologize). I felt, as one sometimes does, connected to the words I spoke. I had my own parents in mind. And I spoke the words “father and mother” out of my experience. For a second or two, I suppose I lost sight of the people to whom I was speaking and slipped into myself. 

The same thing happened this week when I mis-gendered my friend, as most of us have done many times. We lose sight of the other’s experience and speak from our own. This, I remind myself in moments of guilt, is natural to us humans.  

Emmanuel Levinas describes natural human behavior as a selfishness that is miraculously overcome when we see another’s face. Our natural state of mind is to think about ourselves. Even truth itself is in large part a subjective experience. Speaking from our own experience is often all we can do. This is important to remember, especially when that leads us to hurt people we love. But when we see – really see – another person’s face we are drawn out of our natural selfishness. That is when we can perform the human miracle of stepping out of ourselves and doing for another.  

I should say at this point that there’s a major difference between spewing hatred that is claimed to be a slip of the tongue, and unintentionally losing track of what you’re saying. The recent Anti-Semitic tweets that have caught the public eye are good examples of patterns of hatred, rather than mistakes by well-meaning people. 

So, what are we meant to do when we slip? How can we see the other’s face, even after we’ve failed to do so? Admitting and apologizing is a good start of course. In some cases, there are things we could do to try and avoid slipping again. With gender pronouns, for example I’ve been advised to try the PPP: Pre-Pronoun-Pause.  

The Jewish tradition takes words very seriously, so much so that wrong use of words is in some cases considered worse than murder. And still, once the words have been spoken, we are taught not to dwell on them: act and forgive; forgive yourself if you’re the offender or forgive the offender if you’ve been hurt.  

A Talmudic story goes to the heart of the matter: 

Once Rabbi Elazar was riding along the riverside on his donkey, and was feeling happy and tired because he had studied much Torah. 

There chanced to meet him an exceedingly ugly man, who greeted him, "Peace be upon you, my master!" R. Elazar did not return his salutation but instead said to him, "How ugly this person is! Are all the people of your city as ugly as you?" 

"I do not know," said the man. "But go to the craftsman who made me and say to him: How ugly is the vessel which you have made!" 

Realizing that he had done wrong, R. Elazar dismounted from his donkey, prostrated himself before the man, and said to him, "You are right. Forgive me!" But the man replied, "I will not forgive you until you go to the craftsman who made me and say to him, 'How ugly is the vessel which you have made.'" 

R. Elazar kept on walking after him until he reached his city. The residents of the city came out to greet him, saying, "Peace be upon you, O Teacher! O Master!" Said the man to them, "Whom are you calling 'Master'?" Said they, "The person walking behind you." 

Said he to them: "If this is a 'Master,' may there not be any more like him in Israel." 

"Why?" asked the people. 

Said the man: Such-and-such he has done to me. 

"Nevertheless, forgive him," said they, "for he is a man greatly learned in the Torah." 

"For your sakes I will forgive him," said the man, "but only if he does not act this way anymore." 

Soon after this R. Elazar entered the study hall and taught: "A person should always be flexible as the reed and let them never be hard as the cedar. And for this reason, the reed merited that of it should be made the quill for the writing of the Torah.” 

The holiest words, the ones that should never be broken – those are written with the intention of flexibility. Let us remember that the next time that harsh, hard judgement bubbles up in us over a word uttered in error. Perhaps that might open the door to apologies, forgiveness and improving our relationship with spoken and unspoken words.
Shabbat shalom,

Rabbi Misha