Sunset in Tel Aviv

My wife Vickie landed in Tel Aviv a short while ago. She left a few days before I do so that, in her words, “I can have some alone time with our son before you get there, and all you will talk about is Rabbi stuff.”

Yes, our son Leo stepped away from a career as the successful founder and Principal of an inner city Oakland, CA, elementary school conceived to give the largely Latino and Black population of the neighborhood a high quality academic foundation. As Principal Leo continually urged his students to be in touch with and to affirm their cultural roots. At age 42 he made the decision to deepen ties to his cultural roots by beginning the five year full time studies program to become a Reform Rabbi. It is mandatory to spend the first year of that study at the Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem. His courses over the next four years will be in Los Angeles.

I look forward to joining Vickie in Israel where Pastor John Danner of Sanibel Congregational UCC church and I will lead a joint tour for our two congregations. As it turned out twenty Jews and twenty Christians registered for the trip.

I so look forward to showing them the Israel I love.

That said, Israel is a complex place. With hostile neighbors on each side, its security concerns are beyond anything most of us in North America can imagine.

Does that make everything Israel does in the name of security just, right and consistent with our religious values as freedom loving Americans today?

My personal answer is, “No it does not.”

But that is a much easier question for me to answer from the safety of Sanibel than it is for the residents of Sderot near the Gaza border.

That is why it means so much to me to help facilitate the opportunity for our congregants to see Israel first hand.

But security and the complex political situation of today are hardly the only reasons I am eager for this trip.

Israel — with a history that goes back to the Bible and technological advances that are blazing a trail into the future — is a marvel of modern civilization. But it is also a society of many complex contradictions, a society that we can begin to understand only when we see it with our own eyes.

I eagerly look forward to embracing those contradictions once again.

Nicholas is my Barber, but he is more than that. Each time I visit him at Tribeca Salon on Sanibel Island I receive not only a fine haircut but a thoughtful, common sense-laced discourse on events of the day and what is meaningful in life and what is not.

My most recent visit was particularly instructive. Nicholas spoke with passion — while his scissors never missed a beat — of the joy he finds in giving things away.

We spoke about several things: the upcoming interfaith trip to Israel that I am leading along with Pastor John Danner of Sanibel Congregational UCC. We talked about religious similarities and differences.

We agreed that “tolerance” as an interfaith goal was insufficient. We must strive for mutual understanding, respect and affirmation. We each can enrich our faith by understanding what most motivates others to practice theirs.

Nick noted that from all of his many customers, who often go on at length on a wide variety of subjects, he looks for the one insightful nugget that can add meaning and texture to his own life.

His words reminded me of the teachings of the second century Sage, Simeon ben Zoma, who taught : “Who is wise? The one who learns from everyone.” (Pirke Avot 4:1)

When he finished my last haircut, he said to my surprise: “Instead of paying me today, give the money to someone you meet in Israel who needs it.” I said I would pay him and also give the money to someone in Israel who needs it, but Nicholas would not accept the money.

So, I gave him a copy of my new book, … And Often the First Jewhttps://tinyurl.com/y6kl8ury that I signed this way:

For Nicholas–

A philosopher and humanitarian

Who also cuts my hair,

And teaches me valuable lessons

Each time I’m in his chair.

April 22, 2019, Earth Day

The world initiated Earth Day in 1970. Great idea! It makes us more conscious of how we care for our environment. Hopefully it also reminds us that we must do a better job than we are doing.

But forgive me if, as Jew I feel a bit smug, because we have had our “Earth Day” for at least 1800 years. It is called Tu B’Shevat.

Tu B’Shevat, the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Shevat falls mid-winter. It is first mentioned in the Mishnah (the first post-biblical code of Jewish law compiled between c. 200 BCE and 200CE) as “the New Year for trees. or that long it has been our people’s de facto Earth Day.

A famous Midrash teaches when God finished creating the world, the Almighty addressed humanity, saying, “You are in charge of and are responsible for this earth. But it is the only one you will get. So preserve and enhance it. Do not pollute or destroy it” (Kohelet Rabbah, Chapter 7). Sound advice for us today.

In the late eighties when then Tennessee Senator Albert Gore, Jr. began his campaign of environmental awareness (which led to his receiving the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2007), he asked me to prepare “a closing homily” for the first meeting of the initiative held in Nashville, the city where I then served as rabbi. On that occasion, I related a venerable Hasidic story told in many different ways about a magnificent goat that lived long ago. The goat had horns so long and beautiful that when he lifted his head, he could touch the stars, and they would sing the most beautiful melody that anyone had ever heard.

One day, a man was walking through the forest thinking of what he might give his wife for her birthday. He encountered the goat, and a brilliant idea jumped into his head. “I could make my wife a gorgeous jewelry box from a piece of one of the goat’s horns,” he thought.

The man approached the goat, which was very tame and friendly, and explained, “I want to make a jewelry box from just a small piece of one of your horns. It won’t hurt when I cut it off, and I’ll just take a small piece. You won’t even miss it!” The goat lowered his head to accommodate the man’s request.

The jewelry box that the man fashioned was indeed beautiful, and his wife adored it. Proudly, she showed it to all of her friends who soon wanted one just like it. You can see where this is going. Soon the goat was inundated with requests to “cut off just a small piece” of one of his horns. Of course, soon his horns were much shorter. The goat could no longer reach the stars, and that most beautiful melody was forever silenced.

This wonderful tale teaches one of the vital lessons of Genesis’ Creation story. We, human beingsnot the crocodile, the elephant nor the lion, though they are stronger, faster, and fiercerare in charge of, and responsible for, this world. Therefore, if we are to pass on a beautiful and healthful environment to our children and grandchildren, we must do a much better job than we are doing now of taking care of it.

What is the best way to celebrate Earth Day? Study and heed the lessons our Sages taught nearly 2000 years ago.

(Much of this essay is excerpted from my book, What’s in It for Me? Finding Ourselves in Biblical Narratives, pp.2-3. It is available on AMAZON.com http://tinyurl.com/jdd4cvn

It is a heady but eerie feeling to preach in a church with a cornerstone with the year 1220 on it and to have one of the community leaders inform you that you are the first rabbi to preach there in the church’s history. “Many of our worshippers,” he continued, “have never seen a Jew before.”

It was not a unique example. When I spoke in German churches in towns and villages like Schulensee, Kaltenkirchen, Bordesholm, Husum, Friedrichsstadt and even in cities as large as Leipzig, Neumünster or Kiel, I was almost always the first rabbi to ever speak there, and for many worshippers, I was the first living Jew that the worshippers had ever seen.

To be “the first” is both a privilege and a burden.  I am ever mindful the impression those to whom I speak will have of Jews and Judaism depends on what I say and the way I say it.

For four years it has been my privilege and that of my wife Vickie to spend part of the year in Germany. There, in addition to my work in synagogues and churches, we teach together in German high schools about the Holocaust.  To facilitate our lessons, we use a wonderful exhibit about Vickie’s own 97-year-old mother, Stefanie Steinberg. She was born in Breslau and was uprooted along with her family in 1936 when the Nazi government informed her father, a respected Radiologist who had served in the German army during World War I that he could no longer be a physician in Germany. The family moved to Barcelona, but after the Civil War erupted in Spain, the family dispersed, and Stefanie lived in a Kinderheimin Switzerland.  When she was 17, she made her way to New York and eventually to Los Angeles and San Francisco.

High School students find her story enthralling, and some have reached out to connect with her personally. Almost all the students to whom we speak have never seen a rabbi before; many have never seen a Jew.

“Being the first” causes Vickie and me to feel a special responsibility similar to the one I feel when I speak or teach in German churches. We want students to know about the Shoah, and its horrors. But I constantly say to students and parishioners to whom I speak:

Wir können die Vergangenheit nicht ungeschehen machen, aber wir können gemeinsam an einer besseren Zukunft arbeiten.We cannot undo the past, but the future is ours to shape.

If in some small way, our experiences in Germany and the essays in this book can somehow contribute to that besseren Zukunft –that better future, our efforts will be amply rewarded.

A Reflection on Micah

As I put the finishing touches on the 6000-word essay, I am writing for The Oxford Handbook on the Minor Prophets, a memory from the beginning of my career comes vividly to mind:

His mother walked into my office shortly before I began my internship as Rabbi at the fledgling 58-family Temple Isaiah in Columbia, Maryland in 1973. “My son was scheduled to have his Bar Mitzvah on May 18 before my husband was transferred and we moved here,” she said with a slight air of desperation.” Can we celebrate it here on that date?”

Since the congregation had no B’nai Mitzvah scheduled, I quickly answered, “Sure.”

“You must understand,” she continued, Jeff has great difficulty with Hebrew, does not have a lot of self-confidence. I worry that with all the time we lost in our move that he won’t be ready.”

“Don’t worry,” I replied with all of the confidence befitting a wannabe rabbi who had never prepared a Bar/t Mitzvah student in his life, “I guarantee that that when the big day comes you will be very proud!”

It took hard work to keep that promise, but at his Bar Mitzvah Jeff did beautifully.

He effectively taught the congregation the essential lesson of Parashat B’hukotai that if we all followed God’s commandments, we could indeed create a just, caring and compassionate society. Yes, we can create a world where, in the words of the parasha,  – No one shall cause fear (Leviticus 26:6)!”

That magical phrase appears eleven times in our TANACH, most famously in the Prophet Micah (4:4) who dreamed of the day when all of us would sit under our vines and our fig trees with none to make us afraid.

To me those words represent the highest possible hope for humanity: a world where no one will have to fear war, physical or sexual assault. If we are to uphold our end of our Covenant with God, we must not only dream of a world where no one will fear that he or she will go to bed hungry, lack adequate clothing or a home to protect them from winter chill and summer heat. We must work in whatever ways we can to make that dream reality.

Yes, that is our highest goal: a world “with none to make us afraid!”

As Rabbi Tarfon once taught: “It is not incumbent upon us to complete the work, but neither are we free to desist from it.” (Pirke Avot 2:16)