Month: August 2018

More Thoughts for the Month of Elul

~ slfuchs ~ 2 Comments

One of my most precious possessions is a copy of the Talmudic tractate Kiddushin printed in Munich in 1946 on presses once used for Nazi propaganda.

A Talmud printed on an erstwhile Nazi printing press is a powerful symbol of our privilege to use our time, our talent and our material resources to help replant vibrant, progressive Jewish learning and living in the places where the Nazis tried to destroy them.

In this volume (page 40B) we find one of the most uplifting of rabbinic teachings whose message is particularly appropriate during the last month of the year, the month of Elul: Each of us should see ourselves as half innocent and half guilty, as though our good deeds and our bad deeds completely balance one another.  If we then commit one good deed, we tip the scales in our favor!

What a marvelous metaphor! How wonderful a place would our world become if each of us went through life committed to making our next deed a good one.

My late and beloved Ulpan teacher in Israel, Sarah Rothbard, used to say, “It is not just a gift for Jews that we created a Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) and the forty-day period (starting at the beginning of the month of Elul) leading up to it. It is a gift for all humanity.

Most of us were not given the talent to cure cancer or bring about peace in the world. But we each have talents and abilities

Our goal—particularly during the days of Elul—is to ask ourselves, “What particular talents and abilities do we possess? Are we using them only for our own enrichment and enjoyment? Or do we—and if not can we—find ways to use these gifts for the benefit of others?”

Without doubt these are hard questions.But if each of us grapples with them seriously, we will leave future generations with a better world.

 

 

 

 

How I Think of God

~ slfuchs ~ 6 Comments

As the Hebrew month of Elul, the month before Rosh Hashanah begins, our tradition urges us to turn our thoughts toward the spiritual realm of life. Toward that end I want to share with you the way I think of God and the role the Eternal One plays in my life.

I understand God in two specific ways:

  • God is the invisible, incorporeal force Who initiated the process that led to the evolution of the world, as we know it. The process was orderly and purposeful. I believe God created humanity to be in charge of and responsible for God’s world.
  • God is a Force that lies in potential within each of us that wants each of us to use the talents with which God has blessed us to make the world a more just caring and compassionate place.

We have free will.

In many ways the aspect of God inside of us is like a muscle. We must cultivate and strengthen that muscle if it is to be useful to us.

We humans are not puppets.

God wants us to do good, but God does not make us do good.

There is both good and evil in our world. We can choose to incline our thoughts and actions in either of those directions. God wants us to use the minds with which we are blessed, to analyze the ramifications of choices we make, and choose to perform acts of kindness and caring that make a difference in the lives of others.

There is much about God that we cannot understand, that we will never understand.

As humanity continues to solve the mysteries of life and gain greater mastery over the forces of nature, the possibilities for both good and evil multiply.

A prime example is the internal combustion engine. The invention allows us to get from point A to B at speeds unimaginable even100 years ago. Yet no one can deny that invention has claimed the lives of millions of people.

Two things are clear to me as we continue to unravel life’s mysteries:

  • The gap between what we know about God and what we cannot understand will always be infinite.
  • The consequences of our choices for good or for evil will escalate dramatically.

At the end of the day, though, God’s desire for us today and forever is the same as God’s desire for humanity at the time of creation: to use our talents to make a more just caring and compassionate society. Each of us must choose whether and in what ways we wish to work toward that goal.

 

 

 

 

 

I Will Stay on Facebook

~ slfuchs ~ 1 Comment

While I remain incensed by Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to leave the Facebook microphone open to those who spout the venomous lies of Holocaust denial, I am not closing my FB account.

I am most grateful to the many of you who urged me not to leave the field open to Holocaust deniers without providing my counter voice. Your arguments have persuaded me to remain

My recent shoulder surgery, as did my serious illness in 2016, reminded me once again of the great value of this forum The best explanation of why FB is so important to me I can offer is to repost my essay, “Saving Facebook,” that appeared in The Jerusalem Poston February 3, 2013:

 

“Rabbi Fuchs to Have Open Heart Surgery,” read a late-June 1996 headline on the first page of the local news section of The Nashville Banner.

While I had neither hoped for nor wanted such publicity surrounding my surgery, the headline symbolizes the difference between the surgery I underwent at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville back then and the more complex open-heart surgery I underwent at the Cleveland Clinic on November 29, 2012.

In Nashville, because I was known in the community, my surgery to replace a congenitally defective aortic valve attracted more attention, advice, visits and support than I could ever imagine.

By contrast my surgery in 2012 was in Cleveland where I knew almost no one.

My Connecticut cardiologist encouraged me to have my much more complex 2012 procedure done in a major heart center where they do lots of these atypical procedures.”  With his encouragement, we settled on the Cleveland Clinic.

It was a great choice.

The surgeon, Dr. Lars Svensson, is world-renowned, and the medical, nursing and technical care were all superb!  The problem was that except for one incredibly wonderful and supportive family with whom we are very close and a couple of very gracious and concerned rabbis, we knew no one in Cleveland.

The love and care I continue to receive from my wife Vickie is priceless, and my three adult children all interrupted their very busy lives to fly in for the surgery from both coasts.  But after a few precious days, my children – as they should have – flew back to their spouse, children and professional responsibilities.

Into the breach in a surprisingly meaningful way entered FACEBOOK.

When I travelled the world for an 18-month period as President of the World Union for Progressive Judaism – making 65 visits on five continents and living both in Israel and in New York City – I checked in on FACEBOOK only occasionally and posted even less frequently.  Since my surgery, I have been a frequent contributor.

Why?

I repeat the words I posted from Cleveland two days before my operation with even more feeling than when I originally wrote them:

“FB friends, if ever you wonder whether the short messages of encouragement and support you are thinking about writing to people facing difficult challenges in the lives (illness, surgery, loss of a loved one or a job a few examples) do any good, trust me they do.  My FB contacts have made the surgery I face Thursday and the events leading up to it much easier to deal with, and I am very grateful to each one of you who has reached out …”

One of the first things I did when I returned from intensive care after the operation was to post the following: 

“Dear FB friends, it is still difficult for me to type, but I have read with deep gratitude (and will surely read again and again) each and every one of your messages to me.  I cannot express how much they mean. Although I feel as weak as a kitten, your prayers, thoughts and good wishes have given me strength…”

It was strength I needed.  People I knew in elementary and high school, college and grad school, in the three communities I served as rabbi and in my travels for the WUPJ have lifted me up.  Some I knew intimately; some I had never met in real life. I have tried to pay it forward because lifting the spirits of another is a huge return on an investment as small as typing a few short words or even simply clicking “LIKE.”

 

As I anticipated my recent cataract procedures many people told me, “Oh, cataract surgery is nothing.” For me the thought of somebody cutting on my eyeballs was far from, “nothing.” Although it did not reach the level of my two open-heart procedures, my anxiety level was high. Once again, the support I received from people at every station and locale of my life was so comforting. Today, I repeat with more fervor than ever:

Clicking LIKE matters and encouraging comments matter even more!