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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let me put my bias out front. I love daily minyan. It is one of the must unappreciated parts of Jewish life. The sense of community and belonging that come from daily prayer and the sense of peace it brings to the whole day, are feelings that I can not get if I pray alone and they make getting up early worth the effort.

I began my davening life just before my 13th birthday. My father bought me my first pair of tephillin and showed me how to put them on. Then he gave me a small siddur. Inside the cover was a list of about ten page numbers. He told me to learn those ten prayers first and when I got good at those ten, to add another new one. We did not have a daily minyan at our synagogue at that time (although there is a morning minyan now). My father and I sat together in the living room of our home, and prayed together every day until I went off to college. I continued to pray by myself until I discovered daily minyan when I started Rabbinical School in Los Angeles. In the minyan at Adat Ari El in Los Angeles, I became part of a group of old men (woman were not part of the minyan until a couple of years later), most of whom were well over 70. I learned to laugh and joke with them and shared their good and bad days. For the hour or so we were together in the morning and then again in the afternoon, we became close friends and looked out for each other. Eventually I learned to be Shaliach Tzibor, the one who leads the davening, I started reading Torah there and in my final year at the University of Judaism, I was the Ritual Director of the minyan at Adat Ari El.

I have gone to minyan every time I could, at synagogues all over the world. I have come to believe, as one of my minyan friends, Morrie would say, “It is the heart and soul of our synagogue.”

I came to terms many years ago that I would never be able to “sleep in” in the morning anymore. I came to realize that there would always be a minyan that I would need to attend before I would go about my work. Minyan frames my day. The morning (Shacharit) service helps me put my day into perspective. Saying the liturgy that I have come to know so well, gives me sacred space to put the activities of the day into proper perspective. “I had so much to accomplish,” says a poem I once found, “That I had to take time and pray” (http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/4-7-2005-68242.asp ). It now is rare that I lose patience and get angry at anyone during the day. My siddur has at the beginning of the service, “I hereby accept the obligation of fulfilling my Creator’s mitzvah in the Torah: Love your neighbor as yourself” as a reminder that we all have to get along. The early morning blessings for our body and soul and for keeping close to Torah and away from sin remind me of what I need to concentrate on when I am going through my day. The frustrations are just inconvenient; I try to keep my focus on what is important.
Ashrei gives me a chance to symbolically recite the entire book of Psalms three times daily. Shema gives me the chance to publicly affirm each morning and evening the theology that is at the core of my life. Three times a day I say the Amidah, adding my personal prayers for the health of family and friends, for justice and peace and often add a prayer for what is happening in my life as well. Others at Minyan can take off their Tephillin before Aleynu and rush on to work, I only remove my Tephillin after the last Kaddish and then I sit for a few moments more reading a book with a thought for my day.
In the afternoon, I set an alarm so I don’t forget to get to minyan at the end of the day. It helps me make the transition between work and home, so that when I get home for dinner and my evening responsibilities, the pressures and worries of my office are all put away until tomorrow.
There are barriers to joining a minyan. When we are beginners we need to learn the special melodies that go with daily prayer that are different from the nusach for Shabbat and Holidays. Since there are some who only come for Kaddish, it may take a couple of days until the “regulars” come and say hello. It is hard to always be welcoming to those who use the minyan and then forget about it for the rest of the year. Yes they daven fast, but they know the secret to daily prayer. We don’t have to all be on the same page all the time. When we find a prayer that speaks to us that day, we pause and spend some time there, and then catch up when that prayer has said all it will say that day.
I teach that anyone who wants to see a daily miracle should attend a daily minyan, either morning or evening. Every day we need to find ten all over again. What happened yesterday does not count. There can only be a minyan when ten adult Jews walk in that door. Some days I think we will never make it and suddenly it swells to twenty Jews. Other days I think will be easy and we struggle to get the tenth in the door.
We have been a lifeline to some who were living alone. We have strengthened those who have lost parents, spouses and yes, even children. All of us at minyan are wounded in some way and we support each other. The old guys often celebrate with good scotch, but I could never imaging drinking scotch before breakfast. In my minyan community, I can share what concerns me, and my senior friends speak with experience to let me know that my concerns are either well placed or not. They have been there before and I have learned much from speaking and listening to them. We are all graduates of the school of hard knocks and we have much to share with each other. Minyan gives us all a reason to get up each morning, so that we can be there for each other.
What is the value of saying the same prayers over and over again each day? Well, first of all the prayers are the same, but each day I find that I am different and a different prayer speaks to me. Second, peace comes into my life as I welcome familiar prayers back again each day. Third, over the course of the year, there are subtle differences in the liturgy that help me be sensitive to the passage of time and sensitive to subtle nuances in my life as well. Finally, as taught by Rabbi Max Kiddushin, there is a kind of “normal mysticism” that comes when we say the same prayers every day. There is something more that comes from praying familiar prayers over and over again that is not found in the translations on the opposite page. Prayer by prayer, each word, each song, each thought helps me discover a new way to find God in my life. If I am unsure, suddenly words pop off the pages that make me feel better. When I am sad, a familiar passage suddenly lights up with new meaning that brings hope and joy back into my life. When I am too full of myself, I find that the siddur helps me make room for God.
There is not a minyan in the world that does not miss a day from time to time. No matter how traditional the community, no matter what time the minyan meets, no matter how many members the congregation has. There is that special feeling that everyone gets when the tenth person comes in that door because that is the moment that binds the group together in prayer. If you ever feel alone and unappreciated, come to minyan early, and they will be overjoyed to see you and count you in their group. They do it not out of a sense of duty, but out of the joy that comes when we bind ourselves together as a community of ten.
Join a daily minyan. It will seem strange at first but the people there will welcome you to join them in prayer. Keep coming and see how quickly they warm up to you. How they get you involved in their lives and how they intertwine so beautifully in your life. It is almost never intrusive or rude, only a group who care for each other as they thank God for daily renewing their lives.
At minyan, I have learned never to take tomorrow for granted, and to thank God for the gift of today.