Parshat Shelach Lechah
Saturday Morning
2011

1. Shabbat Shalom

2. As the People of Israel move through the desert from Mt. Sinai to the Promised Land, they begin to complain. I can tell you, from my time leading a tour to Israel, when people are traveling, they do a lot of complaining. The food is too hot, too cold or there is not enough to eat. The schedule is too hard, or to light, and they don’t want to see the sights you have chosen. Even when they have a wonderful day, travelers have a tendency to latch on to the one problem they encountered and they quickly forget all the good things that may have happened. Think about this, we could be spending the night in the presidential suite, but if the bed is too hard, that is all that we will remember.

3. Of all the rebellions, the rebellion of the spies is clearly the most serious and the one with the greatest punishment. If this were just about the leadership of Moses and Aaron, then the rebellion of Korah would be a greater problem. If this were just about food, then the lusting after meat would be the greatest problem. What was it about the report of the spies that makes this the most serious rebellion in need of the strictest punishment?

4. On the one hand we could say that this is a leadership issue. The leaders of all the tribes go on this scouting mission and when they come back, most of the people take their cue from their leaders. If the leadership of the tribes would not be behind the effort to conquer the Promised Land, it would not be possible to enter the land. This would leave the people stuck in the wilderness. It is not a good thing but not worth a terrible punishment.

5. I believe that the issue here is not about the leaders of the tribes going out on a spy mission. Rather the problem lies in the way they make their report on what they have seen. Everyone agrees about the facts of the case. As we read in our Parsha, “We came to the land that you sent us to; it does indeed flow with milk and honey, and this is its fruit.” They showed the people a cluster of grapes that was so heavy that it took two men to carry the cluster back. But when it came time to interpret the facts of the case, here there was a great problem. The spies’ report in our Parsha concludes, “However, the people who inhabit the country are powerful, and the cities fortified and very large; moreover, we saw the Anakites there.” they conclude their report saying, “and we looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and so we must have looked to them.” In other words, the land was filled with giant people living in giant cities protected by giant walls. We will be like insects, easily crushed.

6. This is not a problem of facts, it is a problem of perception. How big are these so called “giants”? How many people exactly are in these “large” cities? Just how tall is a “giant” wall? And if the scouts feel small in relation to the walls, well that tells us more about the scouts than it does about the inhabitants of the land. It is hard for us to know the facts about the inhabitants of the land if we are viewing them from the perspective of grasshoppers. The essence of the failure of the spies is that they did not believe in themselves and they did not believe in the power of God to secure them a victory.

7. Now we can see why this rebellion is punished so severely; it is a failure of faith, faith in themselves and faith in God. They had no way of knowing how the inhabitants of the land looked at them. We will learn in Parshiyot yet to come, that the Moabites so feared the People of Israel that they hired a man to curse them. In our haftara we learn that the inhabitants of the promised land were terrified of the People of Israel, having seen how they had completely vanquished all their enemies. Maybe the People of Israel were small like grasshoppers, but, apparently, to the inhabitants of the Promised Land, they were like a swarm of locusts, devouring everything and everyone in their path. No wonder that Caleb and Joshua are horrified by the report of the majority of the spies and no wonder God takes this lack of faith so seriously that God determines that this generation must die in the wilderness so that their children can inherit the land that their parents are too insecure to conquer.

8. The late Rabbi Bernard Raskas once wrote, “Many of us treat religion as we do the little plastic case on an airplane labeled, ‘pull down only in case of emergency.’ Those of us who seek religious integrity realize that it isn’t just an emergency hatch to be used for sudden escape when disaster strikes. To be of real use in time of trouble, [faith] must have become a regular and disciplined part of our lives long before there was trouble. Otherwise, it is very likely to be merely an exercise in futility.” If we need to be strong to recover from an illness, we need to exercise before we get sick. If we want to know what to do in an emergency, we need to learn about emergencies long before we have to encounter one. If we want to have faith in times of distress, we will need to have faith in the good times as well.

9. Understanding goes a long way when we are in unfamiliar surroundings. We once took our three children on a surprise trip to Disney World. We woke them up early in the morning so we could have a full day in the park. My son started complaining right away that we had promised him a trip to Disney World and we had yet to fulfill our promise. His sister, older and paying attention to the road, saw the signs we were following and said to him, “Pay attention! Don’t you see that we are on our way right now to Disney World?” A little understanding changed his misery into excitement.

10. We too have a hard time having faith. Like the People of Israel, we don’t always stop to consider where we are going and how we are going to get there. All too often we are wandering through life without any idea of what our goals might look like. We complain often about the bumps in the road and the hardships of living life day by day. But without goals, we are like travelers without a map and too embarrassed to ask for directions. We will never get to our destination.

11. But if we are lost, whose fault is that! We may be destined to win the lottery but we will never fulfill our destiny if we never buy a ticket. We may be destined for fame and fortune but we will never attain it if we never go any further from home then to our mailbox. We could be living lives of adventure and excitement but we need to be home in time to make the early bird dinner!

12. Rabbi Lawrence Kushner tells a story of a time that he and his wife went on a vacation to the Rocky Mountains, to a resort on a pristine mountain lake. There were all kinds of trails to hike and paths to explore. There were also signs everywhere warning about bears. They said that the bears could run faster than people, climb higher than people and and were very dangerous to confront. “Do not get close to the Bears” the signs warned. On the first morning at the resort, when the Kushners went down for some breakfast they met one of the park rangers who had stopped in for a cup of coffee to ward off the cold mountain morning. The Kushners and the ranger talked a bit about the park and the animals and finally the rabbi asked the real question on his mind. He asked, “You don’t think the bears will come this close to the resort do you? If we were to take the easy hike around the lake, we would not confront any bears there would we?” The ranger took a slow sip of coffee and thought about the question behind the question. Finally the ranger answered, “If I could tell you that there were no bears out there then it would not be a wilderness would it?” The rabbi and his wife took their hike and had a wonderful week in the mountains.

13. Our fears tell us more about ourselves then they tell us about the world in which we live. Sure there are dangers out there, there are lions and tigers and yes bears. There are con artists, crooks and unsavory people. There are all kinds of sudden dangers we may have to confront if we leave the comfort of our homes. But if we are to enjoy the wonders of this incredible world, we are going to have to have some faith that everything will turn out alright in the end.

14. I am always amazed when people tell me that they have never visited Israel. It is such an extraordinary land and the Jews who live there are an inspiration to Jews everywhere. Why do Jews choose not to visit the Promised Land? Many times it is because they are afraid. They are afraid of Arabs. They are afraid of terrorism. They are afraid of getting hurt or killed because Israel is such a dangerous place. The reality is that acts of terrorism in Israel are so rare that it is still news whenever one happens. Israel is one of only a few nations that are able to offer security for her citizens in spite of the dangers all around. I remind you that more people die on Interstate 95 each year than die of terror related activities in Israel. Israel may have other issues in society, but personal security is not one of them. It is only fear that keeps people away, a fear based on how they see themselves rather than on the real situation in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv.

15. We need only to take the time to learn about Israel, to learn about our city, to learn about bears to know when we are placing ourselves in danger. When we know what is dangerous, we can have more faith that things will turn out well. God had given us good minds so that we can prepare ourselves for whatever life may bring. It is often only ignorance that keeps us home and afraid. The early Hasidic Masters used to teach that a person with a lantern never has to be afraid of the dark. A person with the lamp of learning never has to be afraid of what goes bump in the night.

16. The lack of faith our ancestors had in themselves and in God resulted in 40 years of wandering in the desert. Not because God was not powerful enough to bring them victory, but because they did not have the heart for the fight. Each day they wandered they had to face the fact that it was only their own fear that kept them from their goals. Let us resolve not to let our fears get the better of us. Let us spend some time each day learning about the world, learning about the the things that we fear so that if and when we have to confront them, we will be ready.

17. Let us stretch our minds, widen our horizons and face our fears. Let us have faith in God that whatever we may encounter, we can face it and overcome it if we but prepare ourselves in advance. We can aspire to the stars if we turn our eyes upward to God. God has given us great talents to take us to distant and wonderful places. All we need to do is to prepare our minds and have faith, faith that we can understand more, do more and be more than we ever thought possible. With that kind of faith, everything in life will be, for us, as a blessing.

May God bless us with courage, understanding and faith so that we may get the most out of all of our days as we say…. AMEN AND SHABBAT SHALOM

Parshat Naso

Sermon Saturday Morning

2011

1. Shabbat Shalom

2. I have always been fascinated with the gifts that the princes of the twelve tribes of Israel bring to the dedication of the Mishkan in this weeks parsha. What is the appropriate gift to bring to the dedication of the portable sanctuary at the center of the Israelite camp? What should a tribe bring as a gift to the “housewarming” as it were, to the place where God’s presence would dwell? Talk about a homeowner who has “everything”! And yet, each of the princes brings a gift on behalf of his tribe.

3. The two most interesting things about their gifts is that they all bring the same gifts to the Mishkan and the gifts are items that will be very useful to the priests who will serve there. They bring bowls and ladles filled with flour and incense and they bring gifts of cattle, sheep and goats to create herds from which the daily sacrifices can be obtained. The gifts the princes bring are identical so that they say more about the givers than they say about the gifts. There is no rivalry between the tribes. They all work together and in concert for the good of the sanctuary. In short, they do what is best for the community over what is best for themselves.

4. This approach to life is hard to find anymore. We look around us and we see that there are so many more people who are only interested in what is best for themselves than those who even think about the community. Neighbors who keep a clean and tidy home are often the ones who are littering the communal space around us. Politicians who are elected to serve their districts spend most of their time raising money for their reelection and avoiding all that could derail their campaign. News organizations that should be reporting for the public good end up filming and publishing whatever drivel sells their advertising. The sad story of Casey Anthony and the death of her daughter should only be a painful tale of a very sick mother. That the trial has become so lurid and sensational is because the News organizations have figured out that the public wants to see it, so they sell advertisng so they can give us as much as we want.

5. Now we have a culture where there are so many people who want to tell us what we should be thinking about. Not because it is for anyone’s well being, but because it suits their personal agenda. I had a friend once who used to say, with his tongue in his cheek, “If I want your opinion, I will give it to you!” I have people come up to me all the time and ask why I “never” speak about Israel in my sermons. I have come to understand that this really means, “Why don’t you ever tell everyone that you agree with me about Israel?” The right wingers want to hear me vindicate their point of view and the left wingers want me to vindicate their point of view. There are very few people who really want to hear about what is actually happening in Israel because, right or left, the reality makes them both uncomfortable. Just over these past few weeks, President Obama, did not say that Israel must return to the 1967 borders and Prime Minister Netanyahu did not really disagree with the President at all. If you think that the President DID say they should return to the 1967 borders you are watching Fox news and listening to the pundits on the right. If you think that the rift between the President and Israeli Prime Minister is a welcome breath of fresh air, then you have been listening to the news and to the pundits on the left. The truth is in the middle and if both sides are unhappy, that is a good sign that something important has been said. So after all the shouting and posturing on the right and the left, the truth of the past weeks is that Israel and the United States agree that Israel and the Palestinians must talk to each other and make painful concessions. Oh, and that Hamas will not be a part of the negotiations no matter what agreements they sign until they give up their guns and recognize Israel’s right to exist. All in all, I was pretty happy with our President, with the Prime Minister and the way they agree on the path to peace. I sometimes disagree with them both, but this time, I have to admit, I agree with them both wholeheartedly.

6. A woman called me to ask for my help in repairing the rift between her and her daughter. The daughter had made a decision that the mother disagreed with and she wanted me to resolve their problem. The family was supposed to have had dinner together on a birthday and at the last minute, the daughter had to cancel and the mother was heartbroken that the family was apart. She wanted me to referee the argument. “Can you do that?” she asked. “No” I replied, “the only way this problem will be resolved is if you both get together and talk it out. I can facilitate the conversation but you both have to want to resolve the disagreement.” But then I went on. I told her that I could not comment on her daughter’s position, since she was not on the phone and I could not hear her side of the story. I then told the mother that whatever decision had been made, that decision was in the past and it was too late to change it. The real issue is if there could be a resolution by making a better decision in the future. It didn’t matter anymore that the family was not together for a birthday, what matters is if the family can find a reason for the family to get together again soon. When we only can see our side of the story, we can’t always see the path to reconciliation in the future.

7. A couple of years ago, Newsweek magazine asked its readers to tell them what parts of the magazine they liked and what parts they did not like? What parts did they want to see more of and what parts could they leave out? To the editors’ shock and surprise, the part of the magazine voted out was the gossip page. The readers said they just really didn’t care what was happening to Lindsey Lohan or to Brad Pitt. The editors were “thrilled” to be able to remove what they had thought was an indispensible part of the magazine.

8. I came across a saying by Fredrick the Great, the king of Prussia in the 18th century. He said, “The greatest and noblest pleasure which we have in this world is to discover new truths, and the next is to shake off old prejudices”. Truth is not about who is right and who is wrong. Truth is about doing what is best for someone else. Sometimes the best answer is not what will make everyone happy, it will be what will make everyone equally unhappy. Being wrong is not a sin, it is a necessary part of learning how to be right.

9. I can tell you for sure that the tribes of Israel in the desert did not always get along. The big tribes often overwhelmed the smaller ones. Some were quick to assimilate bad habits into their tents, as Shimon will do in the upcoming parsha of Hukkat. Sometimes they will act in self interest as three tribes will do by asking not to enter the Promised Land because the land they were already on was good enough. But when it came to their faith and to their sanctuary, they were of one mind and one heart. When it came to God, they knew that they had to reach out to a higher standard in personal relationships. Moses did not have to tell them what gifts to bring. They knew what was required and they got together to make sure that what the Priests needed, the princes would provide. And not just for the priests either. The princes also provided to the Levites, oxen and wagons to help carry the parts of the Mishkan when they traveled from camp to camp. They got together and made sure that the right number of wagons were available.

10. If we can put our own needs aside long enough, we can realize that everyone has something that they can teach us and that every event has something in it that we can learn. It does not matter at all our age or ability, our background or level of education. When we are learning, we are growing. The idea is not to just grow older, but to grow in wisdom and in understanding. That is why we pause in our service to learn from the Torah and to learn from our Teacher, our Rabbi. It is not enough to go through the prayer book; we have to open ourselves up so that the words of Torah and the words of the Siddur will go through us; changing our direction, our understanding and leaving us open to explore new ideas and to test new theories.

11. It is not enough to just listen to one news broadcast or read just one newspaper. On any given day I am constantly comparing news items. I look at the news from eleven different news sources and even then I challenge myself to see if there is a hidden meaning behind the headlines. Getting at the truth is never easy and we should not expect that anyone can do it for us. When we hear politicians and pundits shouting at each other or at us, they are really saying that we should only listen to them and to ignore everyone else. That is a good sign that we probably should be doing just the opposite, listening to everyone else and ignoring what they are shouting.

12. The world is not a simple place and making sense of what is happening is not a simple activity. Let us remember the example of the princes of the tribes in our parsha. If we come together for a common cause, we will bring peace and completion to the world. If we place our own needs before everyone else, we will only spread discord and divisiveness. The Torah tells us to seek peace and even blesses us in this parsha with the prayer “ May the Lord bestow His favor upon you and grant you peace.” May God grant us the peace that comes from loving our neighbor as much as we love ourselves, listening to them as we would have them listen to us. May this be the peace that pervades the world as we say …

1. Shabbat Shalom

2. As the Book of Vayikra\Leviticus comes to an end, we find a series of laws concerning the relationship between the farmers and the land. Six years we are allowed to till the soil but on the seventh year, we are to let the fields remain fallow. After seven of these sabbatical years, there is a Jubilee year where not only the land is not sown but the farm slaves get to go free as well.

3. On the one hand, this is one of the most important texts in the Torah. The idea that freedom is not just something to be treasured but that it is a divine right for all human beings. We are told to “proclaim liberty to all the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof.” Even the land is to be set free from its crop rotations. Indeed, it is said that the reason the Canaanites were driven from the land was because they did not let the land have its sabbaticals. The Torah is specific; if Jews don’t give the land its time, then they too will be thrown off of the land.

4. But there is a dark side to these laws as well. Try to imagine, if you will, about what a modern representative from a farm state would say about such a law today! I can hear him now, “What!! What is this Torah that would tell me when and where I can plant my crops? What kind of a God would have the nerve to tell me when to plant and when to leave the land fallow? I have been farming this land my whole life. I grew up on a farm. My father was a farmer like his father before him. This Government has to get out of my hair and let me go about my business.”

5. It is a difficult question, however, about what kind of a God tells us when we can plant and when we should refrain from planting. This kind of a law does not sound like it is a religious issue at all. Dedicating some of the harvest as a tithe may be a religious requirement, but not planting at all? What are we supposed to eat if we don’t plant any crops? Are we supposed to rely on God for our sustenance? How is that supposed to work?

6. Some people might say that we are supposed to live, during that sixth year, on our faith. That if we have the faith that God will not let us starve, then we will find that we do have what we need to live in the sabbatical year. And yet our tradition tells us that our lives should not rely on miracles. Like the man who prays to win the lottery but does not buy a ticket, or the congregation who gathers to pray for rain but nobody has enough faith to bring an umbrella.

7. Some would say that this is an example of how God tells us to do things for our own good. That the reason God has us keep our fields fallow every sixth year is because it lets the nutrients in the soil replenish. But now that we have modern fertilizers and up to date farming techniques, we no longer really need to keep these Torah laws. You see, they say, we are better farmers than God. Is God just about educating our ignorant ancestors? It is a matter of pride that we are too modern to need a God like this.

8. There are pious people who might look at these laws and say, “I don’t know why God does not allow us to plant in the seventh year, but if we are smart, it is not a wise idea to get God angry. God could send us blight to destroy our crops, or disease to strike down all those needed to harvest the fields. If we plant in the seventh year, God will send invaders and criminals to burn our cities and steal all our grain. If we plant when we are not supposed to, then God will “get us” for our disobedience.

9. This is the way that it has been for many centuries. Making sense of the Torah and of Jewish Law all boils down to what kind of a God we believe in. Is our God a god who would test our faith, forcing us to rely on a miracle? Or is our God one who teaches us good science and then gets out of the way? Maybe our God is a punishing god, looking for an excuse to bring down on our heads the wrath of heaven? Which of these Gods would you want to make your own?

10. The problem with these answers is that they all depend on a God who knows everything, who is all powerful and who is everywhere at the same time. Only pagans think that the gods can be sleeping. Only idols can be limited to a particular place or time There can be no power greater than our God and there can be no knowledge that is unknown to our God. God loves us and cares about us and must be committed to providing for our needs. Is this not what we see when we think of God: sitting on a throne in heaven, omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent; looking down on the earth and establishing justice for all of God’s creatures?

11. Everyone knows someone who has a problem with this way of envisioning God. It is to be expected, I guess, since this is the God we learned about as children in Religious School. But as we grow, we discover problems with the old man in heaven. We find that sometimes we don’t get what we pray for. That sometimes God does not answer our prayers. We discover that bad things happen to really good people and the wicked seem to elude punishment. We wonder, why we should believe in God if God can’t be like Santa Claus, giving us all the goodies we want? If God does not deliver to us what our hearts desire, then what good is He? God may have all the power, but God can’t command us to love Him.

12. There is a different way of looking at God, and a more mature way of considering what God can be in our lives. The first step in finding our way back to God, to finding a more spiritual way of understanding God, depends on us being able to see ourselves and our place in the world differently. We think of our selves as strong and independent. Yet we know that we are the result of the work of many people in our lives. Our lives have turned out according to the way we were taught by parents, teachers, clergy and friends. We are hardly independent; we have always relied on others and we still rely on others in our daily lives. As long as we are learning and growing, we depend on each other. We are not people who exist, we are “events” we are the ever changing result of all the experiences of every moment in our lives. We have created our own selves by the decisions we have made, and those same decisions help us create our own world as well. Every time we make a decision, we choose in the present, how the past will shape our future.

13. In this model of humanity, God is found in our decisions. Remember what we read at the end of the book of Devarim? The Torah teaches us that God gives us a choice every day, to do good or bad, to choose life or death. We are commanded to choose life. These are very confusing verses. After all, God wants us to do good, but we are given the choice to do evil. Why can’t an all powerful God at least help us make good decisions? Also, what kind of a choice is life and death? Can we think of anyone who would choose to die?

14. When we consider that God can be found in our decisions, these verses become clearer. God does not make the decisions, we do. God wants us to choose well, but we have to make the choice. Each choice we make defines who we are today and helps shape our future. But God cannot know our future any more than we can know our future. The future depends on the choices me make at every moment in the present. If we choose well or if we choose poorly, we then go on to the next choice. Teshuva is our ability to make better choices. We always have the freedom to choose good and not bad. And if we wonder why anyone would choose death over life, we only need to point to those who choose to drive a car when they are impaired, or who choose to smoke a cigarette when they know the health hazards, or those who choose to ignore speed limits and traffic lights. We live by our choices and God is found in how we choose.

15. When we choose the good, God is happy, when we choose poorly, God is sad. If many people choose poorly, God can regret what God has created. When bad things happen to good people, it makes God and good people both sad and angry and we want to repair this flaw in the universe. On the other hand, when we see justice done, for example the demise of Osama bin Laden, even after ten years, God and humans are happy. When people make terrible choices they bring much chaos into the world. Good people making good decisions, however, brings God into the world and pushes back the chaos so that it cannot overwhelm us.

16. This is not kid stuff anymore. This is an adult God, one whom adults can learn about and learn from, a God that cares about us and about the world. This is an understanding of God who does not punish us for sins but who wants us to avoid sin and chaos so we can grow and learn and live better everyday. This is a way to find God in acts of kindness and compassion.

17. Teaching theology in a sermon is always a very complicated lesson. It is only possible to hint at the possibilities of what God could mean to our daily lives and to our spiritual lives if we were to consider God in a different light. This is why I am offering a short summer learning series, after Shul on Shabbat to talk about the God we believe in and the way we can bring that God into our lives. On three Shabbatot in a row, May 28, June 4 and June 11, in the weeks before and after Shavuot, when we celebrate the giving of the Torah, we will learn, over lunch, what it means to believe in God and how that belief can color all that we do. Call the synagogue office during the week to make your Lunch and Learn reservations.

18. One of my teachers compares learning about God to painting his living room. It was a hideous shade of green. They asked about painting it white but the painter looked at the walls and said, “I think that under this paint is some real wood. Three days later, after much sandblasting and varnishing, a beautiful wood wall was there for all to see and appreciate. So too, we have struggled so long trying to understand God as the immovable force in the universe, but maybe, underneath the centuries of accumulated philosophy and paint, there is a beautiful room, waiting for us to uncover its secrets. Join us starting on May 28 and bring the ancient beauty and wisdom of Jewish theology into your home and into your life.

SHABBAT SHALOM

1. Shabbat Shalom

2. A few weeks before an important election, three university professors went on a fishing trip high up in the wilderness of Alaska. One professor was a research physician, one was a geologist and the third was an astronomer. As they sat in their boat and fished, they talked about how evolution has changed biology over thousands of years. They talked about the ages of the rocks that were found in the mountains towering above them. They talked about the vast distances between the stars and galaxies.

3. Through all these discussions, the fishing guide who piloted their boat, sat in silence and listened to the conversations of the professors. Finally, he broke his silence with a flood of questions for the teachers. “Are the rocks really that old? How many millions of years did it take for human beings to evolve? Are the stars really that many billions of years away? Is everything around us just a small part of something that is so inconceivably vast and ancient?” The professors patiently answered all his questions and when he finally digested all these ideas he said, “Then I guess it really won’t make much of a difference who wins the election.”

4. As candidates for President of the United States begin to consider a run for office, and Congress and the State Legislature debate the large issues that divide us, it is important to remember that in the vast reach of time and space, all too soon, the debates and conflict will be forgotten and the issues of our day will fade into an inconsequential moment in history. For many of us here, we don’t need to be university professors to understand this. We can just look back over the years of our lives. What used to be so important to us, has faded into the background and what we concern ourselves with today would have been unimaginable to us forty years ago. Rabbi Jack Riemer teaches that when he was younger, he was impressed with clever people, now he appreciates people who are kind. Years pass by as a dream and we discover that most of what we spend our time on is of little lasting importance. That Osama bin Laden was killed is important. To see a picture of his dead body, whether or not he was armed, put up a fight, whether or not the Pakistani government knew he was there or not, these will be forgotten in just days, when something new will come along and we will wonder why we spend so much time discussing it as if it mattered to the grand scheme of the universe. There may have been a “wedding of the century” in England, but will anyone still remember it a century from now?

5. But if elections and the news do not matter over the course of history, then what does matter? What makes a difference in the vast halls of time? Clearly this is a moment we can reflect on the Torah. Over thousands of years, our ancestors, our parents and our people, have turned to Torah to answer the great questions of life in a very deep and spiritual way. This week, the Parsha seems to address something as simple as the calendar, but even in a listing of holiday dates, there is much that is important that the Torah comes to teach us. So what does Parshat Emor have to say about the eternal essence of life?

6. The Torah teaches us that one day can be wasted time, or it can be sacred time. A day can make no difference or it can make all the difference in the world. If we think back over our lives, we can recall certain days that were very important in our lives. Some of those days we made important. The day we got married is a day we always remember. The day our children were born or were brought home is a day that is never forgotten. Each of us remembers one birthday or one anniversary that was special because we were with people we loved and they made our day unforgettable. We may not recall all the wasted days in our lives, but we do remember those where we had to rise above our surroundings. If we served in the armed forces during war, we may clearly remember the details of battles we once fought for our country. We may remember the fear of sitting in our homes as a hurricane battered our community. Maybe we have survived a fire, a terrible accident or a dangerous situation. Maybe our memories are focused on remembering the death of someone we loved, our parents, a spouse, or maybe a child. On these kinds of days, minutes turn into hours and a day turns into an eternity. The events of these days are etched permanently into the granite of memory.

7. Little things sometimes play a big part of what remains important long after time has past. An act of kindness that someone shared with us is not soon forgotten. I was trying to remove a tree that had fallen in my yard after a hurricane. My son and I were taking turns chopping it with an ax. A man from the neighborhood came by, saw us working and offered to bring his chain saw. Within a few moments, what would have taken us all day, was quickly turned into a small pile of firewood. I offered to pay the man but he refused and explained, “I once ran out of gas on a dark and rainy night and walking the two miles to the gas station, nobody stopped to give me a hand. I decided then and there to offer my help whenever it was needed. I am glad I was able to help.” I was glad too and I have never forgotten him. The first time I put a sandwich into the hand of a homeless man who had not eaten at all that day, I saw a smile that remains impossible to forget. I am sure that you have such memories as well.

8. The calendar in our Parsha inspires us to see time in a sacred way. Every day is important but the seventh day is holy. Every week is important but the seven weeks of the Omer are to be lovingly counted. Every month is important but the seventh month, with Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur and Sukkot is a very holy month. Every year is important but the seventh year is a holy time where debts are canceled and the land is allowed its sabbatical rest. Every seven year cycle is important but at the end of seven of these sabbatical cycles, the fiftieth year is so holy that all slaves are released and freedom is proclaimed throughout the land. Day after day we mark holy time. Pesach reminds us of how God redeemed us from Egypt. Shavuot reminds us of the day we met God at Mount Sinai and the Torah which is the record of that meeting. Sukkot reminds us of how God was with us as we journeyed through the wilderness.

9. Compared to the vastness of the universe, our lives seem so small and trivial but the Torah reminds us that who we are and what we do does make a difference. Every little effort we make to ease the burden of someone else ripples through time. For my neighbor, a cold rainy night turned into a lifetime of helping others. There is a story of the Indian holy man, Mahatma Gandhi, who, when he was a young man, was traveling to New Delhi by train. When he arrived in the busy central railroad station, he found that he had been robbed. His wallet was gone and he had no idea how he would find a place to stay and how he would get a bite to eat. He sat despondent in the train station until a stranger found him and asked him, “What is wrong?” Gandhi told him his story. The man then bought dinner for the hungry student and gave him some money to get to a hotel and stay for the night, so he could contact his parents and they could make arrangements to get the student what he needed. Gandhi was elated and asked the man for his name to pay him back. The man refused to give his name. He said, “Once I arrived in this station and found that someone had stolen my wallet. A stranger came up to me and bought me dinner and helped me on my way. Now I come to this station looking for young men who were like me, and I pass on the kindness he gave me to others”. One act of kindness, a lifetime ago, made the difference in the life of Gandhi and that kind act colored all of Gandhi’s life as well.

10. A friend of mine lost both of his parents within a week of each other. His life fell apart. Michelle and I tried our best to help him at that difficult time. We were only students then so we could only invite him for Shabbat dinner, help him with the many issues he had to face in resolving his parents estate and, since he was a student also, help him by bringing home his homework and making sure he did not fall behind in his classes. A year later he was telling other students how he survived this terrible year. He mentioned our name in passing. I said to him, “What did we do? There was so much you had to do and we felt so helpless”. He looked at us puzzled and said, “What did you do? Why you did everything, I would not have made it through the year without you.” “But what we did was so little!” “What you did I will never forget.”

11. We have to go through life as if each day is significant and important; that this is the day that we will do that one thing or experience that one event that will change our life and the lives of others. It is as if that one moment we are a messenger from the Holy One, delivering our message to someone in need, or in that moment we are receiving a message from God that we have been waiting for our whole life. It may last only an instant, but the meaning of our whole life may be revealed in that moment.

12. There is so much around us that is trivial and, in the scope of the universe, insignificant. But there can be so much more in our lives if we can open ourselves to the possibilities that come with a spiritual life. Yes, it is possible to spend a day down by the clubhouse pool, with friends telling jokes, sharing stories and maybe a bit of gossip that is going around the community. But life can be much more than that. We can drive a neighbor to the doctor or to shul on Shabbat. We can visit someone who is sick and in need of our healing touch and our kind word. We can add to our shopping list the list of a friend who can’t get out to the store. We can say a kind word to anyone who seems to be having a bad day. We can give some cold water to a service man who is working out in the hot sun. We can be a friend to someone who just needs a friend.

13. It may not make a difference in the grand scheme of things, who wins the election, but it does matter each and every time we show someone else that we care about them, their feelings, their wants and their needs. A little kindness can go a long way; it can go on to the end of the universe and exist until the end of time.

May we bring joy and light into the darkest places and may our love for each other and for God fill every moment in time and every point in the cosmos as we say Amen and Shabbat Shalom

1. Hag Sameach

2. If Pesach is known to American Jews today, it is known as a “Family” Holiday. We gather together as a family for a Seder. We come from all over the country to sit together at a Seder table and even if we don’t do all of the parts of the Haggadah, we are together as a family; laughing , crying, arguing and well,… just being a family. This is what makes Pesach different from all the other holidays. The Yamim Noraim are all about synagogue. Sukkot is about waving the Lulav during Hallel and Musaf in shul. Shavuot is gathering together for an all night study session at the synagogue. Only Pesach has, as its main focus, a meal at home with the family.

3. But we know that just getting the family together for Pesach is not an easy thing at all. First of all, our children are very busy in their lives; sometimes they cannot take off the time to come home for Seder. Sometimes we have to go to their homes if we want to have a Seder with the family. Sometimes someone in the family is sick and can’t travel for Pesach. There are families where one person is not talking to the other one and won’t join a Seder if their “enemy” is there. What happens when there is a divorce and the grandchildren have to choose which Seder they will attend? My Seder had a lot of family who made it to Delray to join us. But there were others who did not come. My daughter and her husband are working for Pesach at Camp Ramah Darom as they have for many years. A nephew was sent overseas by his boss. And even though both my sons and their wives came, it took us a month of planning to make Pesach with the family vegetarians. No… getting a family together for Pesach is no easy task.

4. And when we do get the family together, the Haggadah reminds us that everyone comes with a different perspective on the Seder. The story of the four children, the Wise, the Wicked, the Simple and the One who does not know how to ask; this story tells us that we have to adjust our Seder to meet the different needs of our guests. Some may be very interested in the Seder, some might care less about the service and more about the food. Some may only ask simple questions and some just sit and watch and never say a word about all that is going on.

5. One teacher noted that the four types of children are inside each and every one of us. Sometimes we want to know more about what is happening. Sometimes we just want to skip ahead and eat, sometimes we think we are asking silly questions and sometimes we watch, and observe and wonder just what is going on. When we pay attention to the different personalities at our family Sedarim, we should also note that the same personalities can be found in ourselves as well.

6. My friend, Rabbi Paul Kerbel of Atlanta, GA recently wrote about the wicked child at the Seder. I know his children and they are all very nice. It is no wonder that he never really thought about the wicked child. This year as he looked over the Haggadah, the question of the wicked son jumped out at him. He began to ask his own questions: Who is this “wicked” child? What did he do to be called “wicked”? Rabbi Kerbel notes that in the Talmud, the sages ask, “Did he rob or steal? Did he break any of the Ten Commandments?” Rabbi Kerbel writes, “There is no evidence this child did anything that requires calling him “Wicked”. Except for one thing. He asks his father “What does this service mean to you?” not, what does this service mean to our family or to our people; what does it mean to you!”

7. Maybe in ancient days, this kind of a question would be an insult to parents and family. Certainly the Haggadah treats it as if the question is a major offense. But if we look not just at the question but at the one who is asking the question today, it does not seem to be the paradigmatic question for a wicked child.

8. Who here has not had a child or a grandchild question what we think are issues long ago decided? Who here, at some point in our lives, has not questioned the way things have always been in life? Is it really wicked, evil and unloving to ask someone we care about why they bother with some old tradition? Our children today ask us why we don’t use our computers more, why we still get our news from newspapers and not online, why we are still wearing the same dress we got years ago and not indulged ourselves in buying something more stylish and modern. Does this mean they are wicked? When they ask us why do we still go to shul on Shabbat, why do we still light Shabbat candles, why do we bother to keep the house kosher, do we consider the question rude or do we understand the place where our children and grandchildren are coming from?

9. Maybe the adjective “wicked” is too strong a word. Maybe the child or grandchild who asks the question is only “rebellious” calling out to us to question authority, to examine our lives and not go into the future without contemplating who we are and why we do the things we do? Is this wrong? Is this a reason to snap back at our children “Clearly you would not be worthy of redemption”? As I look at the question of the rebellious child, and compare it to the question from the beloved wise child, I see two questions that are not so different. The wise child wants to know how to do a Seder; the rebellious one wants to know why we do a Seder? They are two sides of the same coin. What good is doing a Seder correctly if it has no meaning for us? What good is wanting a meaningful Seder if we don’t know the details on how it is done? We need to ask both questions and we need both children to remind us of our responsibility, the responsibility to pass on to the next generation the religious and spiritual meaning of the Exodus from Egypt and how we commemorate that event in our lives.

10. Seen this way, children who argue with their parents are not wicked; they are acting out of love. Sometimes, when we are tired or distracted, we may not appreciate the questions or we may jump to a conclusion that our children are being critical of us and we resent the intrusion. This is one way parents and children become estranged; it is one reason that we choose to stay apart from those we love because we are not prepared to face the questions they ask or think about the answers they need. Sharp words are exchanged and a rift is created. The reply to the wicked child in the Haggadah does not foster good relationships between parent and child. The parent needs to craft a better answer and the child needs to understand the question could be considered an attack on something important and valuable to the parent.

11. Yizkor comes four times a year, on the four major holidays on the Jewish calendar. We are here to remember the love and life we shared with our parents and with our brothers, sisters, maybe our spouse. Maybe we are here because we remember children who died way before their time. But the unanswered question today is always, will there be someone to remember ME at Yizkor? It is a hard question to answer. We could just outright ask our children, “Will you say Yizkor for me when I am gone?” But are we really prepared for the answer?

12. There is a real possibility that our children may answer, “What does this ritual mean to you?” To you and not to them. How are they to know what this ritual means to you and what it could mean to them? They have never attended a Yizkor service. Our tradition is to send our children out when it is time for Yizkor. They have never seen the service and cannot know what it is all about. Why should they care?

13. A rabbi was once walking down the street and was asked to join a Shiva minyan in a home he was passing by. He agreed and inside found a peculiar sight. All the items in the house said that a religious Jew lived here. But clearly the children, from the way they wore their kipot to the way they could not handle a prayer book told the story of children disconnected from their Judaism. The Rabbi asked the children, “How is it that your father was so pious but it did not rub off on you?” The oldest son replied, “Father was a holocaust survivor. He kept his religion in secret. Perhaps it was a vestige of his experiences in Europe. Whenever he needed to do some ritual act, he went into his private study and we were just in the dark about what he was doing in there. I guess, over time our curiosity about it died out and we ceased to care anymore.” The sons of the deceased once asked, “What do these rituals mean to you?” and they never got an answer and soon they didn’t care.

14. Last fall, I added a prayer to our Yizkor book, a prayer for those who still have living parents. I got a lot of heat for adding that prayer to the book. Why should someone who has living parents have a prayer in OUR Yizkor service? If the parents are living, they have no business being at Yizkor? The prayer is an insult to those who have lost their parents. I ask you, is it so wrong to have our children join us for Yizkor, to see us cry for our parents even though they have been gone for twenty years or more? Is it so wrong to let them know that the bonds of love are eternal bonds, and that it is love, not duty, that brings us to this service? How will they know the meaning of this service unless we tell them, explain it to them, show them?

15. The Wicked/Rebellious child is not so wicked and not so rebellious. Our children want to know what these rituals mean to us. Why do they move us so much? Why do we get up early for minyan? Why do we keep Kosher? Why do we go to shul on Shabbat? Why do we insist that our children and grandchildren join us for a Pesach Seder? Why do we stop everything in our lives to make the time for Yizkor? How will they know if we don’t tell them? How will they know if we don’t really know the reason why we are doing these and so many other rituals? Maybe we don’t tell them because we are not really sure ourselves. If so, than it is time to ask ourselves some hard questions and, if we don’t like the answer, we may need to pay a visit to the Rabbi.

16. The question of the rebellious child is OUR question. That is why it strikes so deeply into our hearts and souls. We never took the time to seek the answer. Maybe our parents or grandparents never really got the chance to tell us. Maybe we have forgotten the answer over time. Maybe we never really liked the answer we got. So Yizkor should be the time to renew our search for the meaning of the Mitzvot in our lives, to stop worrying about how to do Mitzvot correctly and to concentrate our efforts on why they are so important to us. Once we are secure in what the rituals, the Mitzvot and our faith mean to us, only then can we answer the questions of our children.

17. Unless, of course, we decide to learn together with our children. What would a rebellious child say if we answered his or her question by saying, “I don’t know why I am doing this ritual, how about we learn about it together and see what we think?” That way, instead of pushing a child away, we will embrace them and give them a memory they will never forget.

18. May the memories we recall and the memories that we are creating always be a blessing in our lives and in the lives of the generations yet to come … as we say Amen and Hag Sameach

1. Hag Sameach

2. A number of years ago, Rabbi David Wolpe, the senior rabbi at Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, made world headlines by claiming, on Pesach, that the biblical story of the Exodus was all a myth; that it never happened. The Bible story, he said, was just a story and there was no proof that it had ever actually happened. You can imagine the reaction from all over the world. Jews from everywhere condemned the Rabbi, calling him a heretic for not believing in the words of the Bible. After all, if the Bible says something, it has to be true.

3. The Christian community was not too far behind. It was as if Rabbi Wolpe had attacked the core of their faith. They said it does not matter if there is any proof of the Exodus or not. Our faith tells us that the Bible is the true word of God and only the Devil claims that the words of the Bible are stories that can be ignored. Clearly the Rabbi was in league with Satan. The Jewish community was very embarrassed by Rabbi Wolpe, and accused him of bringing down on our community the wrath of all American Christians.

4. The newspapers had a field day with the whole controversy. I have yet to meet a reporter who does not have a hard time with the Bible. Bible stories seem to be the classic example of poor reporting. News reporting is based on the five “W”s – Who? What? Where? When? and Why? The newspapers where only too happy to report on this “scandal” that the words of the Bible might not be true. The reporters lined up all kinds of clergy to offer testimony on whether they agreed with Rabbi Wolpe or not. These reporters all but snickered as priests, rabbis and theologians argued over what the Bible says or does not say.

5. What got lost in all the shouting was the fact that, for most biblical scholars, there is little doubt in their minds that what the Bible records as the exodus of the Jews from Egypt is unsupported anywhere else in the Middle East. The fact is we just don’t know what is historically true in these Bible stories and what is not historically true. We don’t know if any part of the Bible prior to King Ahab is accurate from a historical perspective. Some evidence from archeology seems to support the accuracy of the Bible; other evidence raises some serious questions. In the end, there is, so far, no way to be certain.

6. Perhaps you are aware that there is a controversy in Israel right now about if the palace of King David has been found. Excavations in Jerusalem, where the ancient city of David was located have produced a massive structure. Could this be the palace that inspired King David to want to build the Temple? Scholars are divided over the evidence so far. If so, it will be first direct evidence of King David every uncovered.

7. As for the Exodus, it is doubtful that any real archeological evidence will be found. The Egyptians don’t mention it; but they never wrote about their defeats. There is no record in any other culture of the slave revolt and exodus from Egypt. Wandering Jews don’t leave behind much of a footprint in history. And the story in the Torah is maddeningly difficult to pin down as to its time in the historical record. For example, did the plagues happen over the course of weeks or over the course of a year? Was the plague of darkness a solar eclipse or a massive sandstorm? The description of slavery in Egypt seems to fit the way Egypt treated her slaves, but they never mention Jewish slaves, Joseph or Moses. All the kings of Egypt were called Pharaoh, so which one was the Pharaoh during the Exodus? There is no way to know.

8. Historical truth, however, is not the only kind of truth. When we recite our Seder, when we declare that the Exodus is not a memory of the past but a living present: when we declare that WE are the Hebrew slaves that God liberated from slavery; we affirm that there are important truths about life and liberty that are found in this story. It is these moral truths that make the Exodus so important to Jews and to all of western civilization.

9. The Hasidim have a tradition, the founder of their movement, the Bal Shem Tov, when he would need a miracle, would go into the forest, build a special fire and say a special prayer and the miracle would always come from God. His successors, over time, forgot the special place in the forest, the way to build the special fire and they even eventually forgot the special prayer. But the later Rebbes would tell the story of the Baal Shem Tov, the special place, the special fire and the special prayer, and just by telling the story, the miracle needed would occur. This is not a tale about magic and superstition, rather it is telling us that stories have their own power, and the accuracy of the story does not impair its ability to make a difference.

10. We happen to live in a time and place where Jews have experienced an unprecedented amount of freedom and security. There is no question that the United States has been good for the Jews. Whatever anti-Semitism we may have encountered over the past 200 years, has been small and almost inconsequential compared to Christian Spain, Ancient Rome and Biblical Egypt. How are we to understand the meaning of the freedom we experience every day without the context of slavery and degradation? The Rabbis of the Talmud understood that the lessons of the Exodus were far more important than the historical events; that freedom is more important than dates; that evil oppressors must be opposed; that the creation of all people in the image of God is more important than the divine right of kings. How were they to take these enduring lessons and have those of us who are smothered in freedom, see, feel and taste the meaning of oppression and liberation? The Seder was created, not to assure the historical accuracy of the Exodus, but to insure that the lessons of Egypt would not be lost on future generations who did not know Pharaoh.

11. It is not enough to just read the Haggada at our Sederim. It is not enough to race through the book and share family stories and recipes. Sharing family history is important but the duty of the Seder, the Mitzvah of the Seder, goes far beyond a family dinner. The reason that Pesach is important and the Seder is one of the most observed Jewish rituals is because it speaks to something far beyond us and our families. It is about finding ourselves in the long history of the Jewish People. It is about taking our place at the table, and taking our turn at telling the story.

12. Karpas dipped in salt water is not just an hors d’oeurve, but a symbol of the many springtimes that were drowned in the tears of the slaves. Haroset dipped in maror is about the bitterness of slavery and the sting of the taskmaster’s whip. At the beginning of the Seder, the matza is not just bread, but it is the bread of affliction, the bread made in haste by our ancestors because they did not have time to properly bake bread. They had to get up early and serve their masters. By the end of the Seder, the matzah has a new meaning; it is the bread, cooked in haste, as our ancestors prepared for their journey to the promised land. It is no longer poor bread but the bread of redemption; it has a new meaning and although the ingredients are the same, the bread of redemption just tastes better than the bread of affliction.

13. How joyful is freedom? How do we celebrate our God who freed us from bondage? If one cup of wine equals normal joy in life we celebrate with no less than four cups of wine, to symbolize our overflowing joy in celebration of the great redemption. Then we fill a fifth cup, the cup of Elijah, who represents the even greater joy that will come when God will finally redeem the entire world. The entire Seder is a service of joy and remembrance. We remember the agony of our ancestors who despaired of every being free, and the sudden way in which God made their freedom possible. We also celebrate at our Seder that we too were slaves, are slaves, and with the help of God we too can be free. We can be free of all that chains us down and prevents us from meeting all of our potential in life.

14. At the end of the Seder, at the end of the last song, we affirm that someday God will come and destroy the Angel of Death; that we will eventually be freed even from our fear of death. The God who freed our ancestors who went down into Egypt and suffered slavery with our people, that God still feels our pain and continues to work to heal our souls. That affirmation does not depend on historical accuracy or archeological evidence. It only depends on us opening our hearts to the story and our souls to all the possibilities that come when our bodies are free.

Amen and I wish everyone a happy and Kosher Pesach and a meaningful second Seder.

1. Shabbat Shalom

2. In the wilderness of northern Canada, the trails freeze at the beginning of winter and don’t thaw out until it is almost summer. One unpaved trail had a sign posted at its entrance which read, “Be careful of the rut you choose, you will be in it for the next ten miles”.

3. At the Rabbinical Assembly Convention last week, that seemed to be the unwritten theme of the event. For the last 50 years, our Movement has been in a rut and only now are we beginning to climb out of it. It has been a particularly nasty rut. Our congregation is only thirty-seven years old so we are not responsible for getting Conservative Judaism into this rut, but since almost all of us come from some other congregation up north, we have not really thought at all about the rut we are in; after all, we were in the same rut as every other synagogue so why should we be different?

4. What is this rut we are in? Somewhere, long ago, synagogues began to worry more about raising the money needed to pay the bills than about what kinds of spiritual teachings they were imparting to their members. Somewhere in the middle of the last century, Bar and Bat Mitzvah was about requiring membership and paying school fees and not about transitioning a child into the world of Jewish adults. Or maybe the world of Jewish adults was so focused on money that we just forgot about the Judaism that was supposed to be the reason that synagogues existed.

5. I am not blaming anyone here for this particular rut. I suppose there was a long history behind how it began and why it was so enduring. We forget that the Jews who came to the United States at the beginning of the twentieth century were not the most pious of Jews. When they arrived here, the Sephardic Jews who had been in this country for a century, were embarrassed by these greenhorns, and the American Jewish community, as it was at that time, focused on making the Eastern European Jews into good Americans. The Jewish stuff was often overlooked. The immigrants were only too happy to leave their Judaism behind. It is said that New York Harbor must have thousands of pairs of tephillin on its bottom, thrown there by immigrants as the first thing they would do when they sighted the Statue of Liberty. The real religious Jews stayed in Europe and were killed by the Nazis. The Zionists all went to Palestine. The Jews who came to America were those who were, more often than not, the ones ready to leave what they knew of their faith behind.

6. The children of these immigrants also played a role in getting us into this rut. Moving from the cities to the suburbs, they built there great synagogue cathedrals, built by famous architects, to rival the churches in the surrounding community. These buildings came with large mortgages and large staffs that made dues and fund-raising a crucial component to synagogue life. Adult Jewish Studies was not important. Torah Study was not important. Judaism could be taught to children, but the real adult work of the synagogue was fund-raising.

7. For the past ten years, there has been a trend among modern young Jews, to move back into the gentrifying inner city; to places very much like downtown Delray Beach. There these young Jews, to the chagrin of their parents, decided not to build big synagogues, but to gather in small minyanim, in homes and in small rented spaces, where they created their own hybrid services, Traditional nusach, community singing, an all Hebrew service but with egalitarian seating, honors and participation. They kept their costs down by not having a school for children; they either sent their children to day schools or charter schools; by not having a building and a staff to maintain and having everyone pitch in rather than to hire a cantor or rabbi. The elders of Judaism in American cried “gevalt” these young people are not participating in “Jewish Communal Life” meaning they were not “paying their way” like everyone else. They had chosen to get out of the rut and see their faith as one that made spiritual demands on them, but not financial demands. It is a whole new world.

8. At the Rabbinical Assembly Convention, we noted that the problem with Conservative Judaism is not in its philosophy nor its commitment to Jewish Life, but in the way synagogues have lost their way. The Movement’s synagogue organization, The United Synagogue for Conservative Judaism, is in the process of having to completely restructure itself. It has to prepare for a world that is not about membership of families but the engagement of Jews into Jewish life. It is not about how much each Jew pays, but about how involved each Jew might become, in study, in social action and in the ritual life of the congregation.

9. My children do not belong to a synagogue. They have a “Kehillah,” a community, where they daven. Kehillat Hadar, as it is called, has no membership dues. They have instead a minimum suggested donation for the High Holy Days and that is what carries them through the year. Many of the young adults make donations in honor of life cycle events in their family. Sponsoring a Kiddush means going out and buying the food and then calling some friends to come help you set it up for after the service. The Kehillah only meets on Saturday mornings. They have weekday study classes and they are attached to a Yeshiva, called Yeshivat Hadar, where young Jews can study more intensively. They organize community service projects where those interested can participate. Hadar does not have a board or officers. They only have a “Leadership Team” who pitch in to help in whatever way is necessary and to insure that the service and other events are properly supported. They have no advertising budget. They communicate strictly by email, website and Facebook. They have thousands of supporters and over 200 young Jews attending every Shabbat.

10. Another nearby model on the upper west side of Manhattan, is an old congregation, its building is over 100 years old. Thirty years ago, they were ready to close their doors. But as new kehillot formed around them, they invited four of these communities to use their building and to help them pay for the upkeep. Slowly the different communities fixed up the building, worked out ways to share the expenses and to repair the common areas. The original congregation took out the first ten rows of pews in their large sanctuary, and put in a circle of moveable chairs with the bima on the floor in the middle of the circle. Congregants only go on the Bima when they need to take out or put away the Torah. Three of the groups share one Kiddush after the service. The fourth group has its own Kiddush most weeks. Since members of one group may also attend other groups in the building, sometimes the different groups will join together on a Saturday morning and share the davening and the Kiddush in honor of a wedding or a Bar/Bat Mitzvah. The groups are not rivals; each one supports the others.

11. Services on Shabbat morning start at 10 AM. Why should anyone have to get up early on Saturday? Most are finished by 12:30 or 1 PM. Many members go to each others homes for lunch. Services are almost always led by members. The synagogue has a Rabbi and a Cantor, but they mostly guide the service from the side. Even the sermon is given by members about ideas that they found when they examined the parsha. Sometimes, at the end of a service, a coordinator announces that there are still some weeks where they need someone to read Torah, lead the service or give a sermon. By the end of the Kiddush, usually the openings have been filled.

12. Each kehillah has a wide range of ages and Jewish abilities and each encourages its members to grow in their Jewish ritual abilities. None of these Kehillot depend upon a school or pre-school for supporters. The participants understand that everything costs money and they are not afraid to pay for what the Kehillah has to offer. Every night, a number of homeless men are brought by the city to sleep in the synagogue basement. Volunteers from the congregation’s multiple kehillot check them in and a few stay up all night in case there are any problems to be addressed. Long before morning minyan, the homeless are taken to social service centers to help them get back on their feet and the volunteers from the synagogue go back to their regular work.

13. The Rabbis at the convention got a good chance to see what life outside the rut could look like. We did not discuss how we could “save” synagogues, but how we could transform them into places of Jewish spirituality and learning. How a synagogue could be a place that could change the life of a young Jew looking for a way to make a difference in the world. Helping young families teach their children, by example, Judaism, in a community that is supportive of their observance of Shabbat and Kashrut. How a synagogue could be the center where Jews of all ages could learn how to lead a service, study the Bible, or share their Jewish journey with others who are also seeking to get more out of life.

14. Perhaps it is time for all of us at Temple Emeth to get out of our rut. To ask ourselves what is it that I would like to learn to enhance my connection to God? Maybe it is time, after all these years in synagogue, to get up and lead a part of the service, to discover the special spiritual feelings of leading the congregation in prayer. To have the aliya to the Torah I was never given the chance to have. To learn to read from the Torah, to chant the Haftara or to give a D’var Torah about something I learned about or found in the weekly parsha. Is it really enough to just sit in the pews and say “amen” from time to time? It is good to be with friends on Shabbat morning but could our time here be so much more? Which is more important, being on the same page as the Hazzan or feeling grateful to God for the blessings that were received this week? What does it mean to pray and to speak in the presence of God and our fellow Jews? How should we express our gratitude? In what way could we use our faith to express how thankful we are for good health, for the food we eat, for the shelter our homes give us from the storm and for the miracles of medicine that give us more days to get more out of life?

15. Everyone has the right to worship in his or her own way. Judaism does not have a creed or a liturgy that demands only one proper path to God. We need to be open to new possibilities in prayer, so that our words do not become rote and monotonous. That our prayer should not be in a rut. We need to find our own way to feel closer to God, using our siddur as a guide but not a GPS that demands we follow the route that it picks. And if we have others who travel a different path, we should celebrate together our differences and not insist that our way in prayer is the only way.

16. We have already traveled too far in these frozen ruts. It is time we allowed ourselves to be seduced by the extraordinary landscape that is our Jewish world. To bask in the sunshine of learning, to explore the caverns of our souls and to climb the mountains of participation and practice until we reach the mountain top where we can better see how God has connected all of life in one spirit. And how our life is connected to the whole and how our participation has made all the difference, to ourselves, to our families, to our grandchildren, to our friends and to God. It is time we all stand up, raise ourselves out of our ruts, and discover that every day is another opportunity to go and grow with God. May this be our plan for whatever years lie ahead as we say Amen and Shabbat Shalom.

1. Shabbat Shalom

2. Whenever we talk about the Red Cow, the laws from the book of Bamidbar about purity and death, we usually talk about the mystery of the ritual. A fully red cow is burned to ash on the altar. When a small amount of these ashes are mixed with water and sprinkled on someone who has been contaminated by contact with a dead body, the most severe form of ritual contamination, the mixture removes that contamination and the affected person is restored to a state of ritual purity. But anyone who has to handle the red cow during the burning process, automatically is contaminated with a lesser form of ritual impurity and must go the the mikveh that night.

3. That mystery, why the ashes make pure the contaminated but contaminate the pure has been the subject of many sermons over the years; but I want to consider today another aspect of this odd sacrifice. The ashes of the red cow are the only way to remove the contamination that arises from contact with the dead. Death is something that human beings have feared probably since the beginning of time. We have extensive myths about what happens when we die and where our consciousness goes to after our body dies. One minute we are alive, body and soul, the next moment we are just a lifeless body. One minute we are breathing and alive, the next moment our breath is gone and no amount of help can make us alive again. God gives us our life when we are born and we are not sure how that happens. God takes our life when it is over and we are not sure how that happens either. It is all very mysterious, unexplainable and therefore frightening.

4. The sacrifice of the red cow is how we attempt to stop the inevitable march of death through our world. It was believed that if we get too close to death, death will come to us; the ashes of the red cow make that death go away, until the next time we have contact with it. We could discuss here the fact that ancient civilizations had no understanding of germs, disease and infection. We could discuss whether our ancestors really believed that the ashes of the red cow would help us cheat death. It would be a very fascinating discussion but I would like to take this in a very different direction. The red cow is not the only way humans can cheat death. There are many people, in all of history, who have given us life by giving up their own. Like the red cow, they are the heroes, who in death brought life to the world. And this week we had a number of heroes to remember.

5. This week was the 100th year since the tragedy of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. I know that nobody here was alive and remembers that tragedy, but it was a single disaster and the deaths that occurred have saved many lives over the years. The details of the disaster should be well known. 146 people, mostly women, died in the disaster, from the fire, from asphyxiation, or from blunt trauma from jumping to escape the fire. The fire began on the eighth floor, in a bin full of cuttings from the the past weeks. The workers, mostly immigrant women but there were also 17 male workers, on the ninth floor had no warning of the blaze below them until it arrived. There were three exits from the floor plus the elevators. One of the exits was locked to prevent theft. The foreman on the floor escaped without unlocking the door. The outside fire escape was in poor condition and quickly fell from the side of the building killing all those who were on it. The elevator operators kept the elevators running saving as many as they could until the flames caused the rails of the elevator to buckle and they were no longer useable. Some of the victims pried open the elevator doors and jumped down the shaft to their deaths. The one last internal staircase within three minutes was filled with smoke and flame and then blocked by bodies both up and down.

6. The fire department arrived quickly but their ladders could only reach the sixth floor, well below the fire on the ninth. A crowd of people quickly gathered around the building and what they saw was a nightmare. To escape the flames, the women jumped from the windows only to die on the pavement below. Eyewitnesses said that they saw one couple, a man and a women, kiss and then jump together. There were safety nets held by firemen but they could not handle those jumping from such a high floor. Women in the crown fainted as they watched, one by one, the women jump to their deaths. Men charged the police line trying to get into the building to save those trapped inside.

7. When it was all over, it would take a long time to identify all of the bodies. In fact, the last six unidentified bodies were only given names this past February. There were huge funerals for the victims of the fires and thousands attended, and marched down the street in solidarity with those who died. The owners were tried for manslaughter but were acquitted in a criminal trial. There was a civil lawsuit and they did have to pay each of the victim’s family a fine; and there was an insurance settlement that also paid the families of the victims.

8. But there is more to this story. It was this tragedy, the worst industrial accident in the history of New York City, that accelerated the labor movement in this country. Labor Unions became strong advocates for safe working conditions and the rights of workers. The fire marshal of New York City initiated a citywide investigation and found over 200 other factories with similar conditions to the Triangle factory, placing their workers in similar danger. New York State and later many other states, began to pass fire safety laws designed to prevent another disaster like the Triangle fire. Today, whenever you see a sign in a store that reads, “This door must remain unlocked during regular business hours” it is a reminder of the lessons learned from the women who died in the Triangle fire. The exits in this room, the fire alarm equipment, the emergency lighting and the fire suppression equipment all are in place right here because of lessons learned in the Triangle fire. There is a monument to the disaster on the building in New York City, which was rebuilt and in use today, in memory of those who died. But their deaths have saved countless. Yesterday was the 100th anniversary of that tragedy.

9. In the recent tragedies in Haiti, Chile and Japan, we have seen a similar heroism. There are men and women from all over the world who have flown directly to the center of each disaster and worked in horrid conditions, to enter buildings and save the lives of those trapped inside. These rescue squads, with special dogs trained to sniff out the living and the dead, risk their own lives to help others. The rescuers in Japan I want to single out for special note because the quake in Japan was so great that there were some very severe aftershocks. Each aftershock brought another alarm about another possible tsunami. As soon as the danger passed, however, these brave rescue workers went back to their work to save more lives.

10. And in Japan, there are another breed of heroes. There are, right now, 50 men who are braving certain death to continue to work in the damaged nuclear reactors in Japan to prevent a meltdown and a mass radioactive contamination of the surrounding area, an area that may include Tokyo itself. This week, three of the men stepped in radioactive water, that seeped into their protective clothing and they had to be sent to the hospital to be treated for elevated radioactivity. They have struggled to enter the damaged buildings, to find ways to pump water into the reactors and to reattach power cables to get the safety equipment and the emergency sensing equipment working again. They have volunteered to endure long exposure to four times the usual limit of radiation, in order to save the lives of those who live within a fifty mile radius of the damaged plant. One by one, they are working to secure the radioactive reactor cores and the pools that hold the spent nuclear fuel. The reactors will never be able to be used again but these heroes work on to prevent the further escape of radiation. The lessons that are being learned from this emergency will be used in every other country to assess the risk and to discover new ways to keep humanity safe from nuclear radiation.

11. The priests of the Temple of Jerusalem endured their own brush with death, to create the ashes that would help save others from death’s contamination. To save a life, says our tradition, is to save the world. We could look at this ritual as a vestige of a bygone era, or we can see it as a lesson about heroism in the human spirit. Sometimes people die. Some tragically in fires and natural disasters. Some by running into danger to save the lives of others. I am privileged to work as a chaplain for the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s office. I get to work with these heroes often. Every day they go out, never knowing what the next hours may hold in store for them. Each time they say goodby, they remind each other, “Stay safe”. I put on my Kevlar vest for eight hours a month. They put theirs on for each 11 and 1/2 hour shift. They run into danger so we don’t have to. They too are heroes.

12. As I reflected on the history of the Triangle fire, I began to wonder how many more men and women would have to die before we can see real gun reform laws in this country? According to Newsweek magazine, since the killings in Tuscon, Arizona, over 2500 Americans have been killed by gun violence. How many more have to die before we can have some sensible gun control in this country?

13. Parshat Parah is our annual reminder that sometimes each of us are called upon to be a hero to someone else. Maybe we don’t risk our lives, but when we offer a hand to help those in need, we have also saved a life. A friend of mine once stated that a hero is just like anyone one else but he or she is brave just a few minutes longer. Let us brood this day, not on the mystery of how the ashes of the red cow worked, but on the mysterious part of the human psyche, which brings others to sacrifice their lives so that many others can live. We owe them all, this Shabbat, our deepest gratitude.

May God help us learn the lessons of life from the sacrifices of others, and may our lives be longer and better because they lived and died. Amen and Shabbat Shalom

1. Shabbat Shalom

2. In the Midrash, Bereshit Rabbah, it teaches that “Every blade of grass has its angel that strikes it and whispers, “Grow, grow.” The Midrash is telling us that part of the very essence of nature is that everything, and by extension everyone, must grow. I have always found this idea fascinating in that every living thing does not grow naturally, but the angel must strike it and insist that everything has to grow.

3. I thought of this quote this week as I contemplated the beginning of our third book of the Torah, the book of Vayikra, the book of Leviticus. As I have often mentioned, these weeks of the year are not easy weeks for us Rabbis to create sermons around them. The last two parshiyot of Exodus are basically a repeat of the three parshiyot that came before them. Now we will have two parshiyot dedicated to the why and how of sacrifices and then, after a short side story, we will go into the definition and care of skin diseases. I suspect that many of my colleagues will be turning this week to Libya, Wisconsin or Charlie Sheen rather than spend any time on which animals were to be brought to the altar, how they were to be slaughtered and how they were to be burned.

4. But I had occasion to speak this week with a member of our congregation about the siddurim that we are using. He was unhappy with the book because there were prayers inside that he felt did not belong in a siddur. I asked him what prayer does not belong in our Siddur and he noted that the translations were different and that he was not in favor of the inclusion of Imahot, the matriarchs in our Amida.

5. Now let me be clear that prayer is, by its very nature, a very personal activity. We may sing together some of our prayers, we may read responsively in English and listen attentively when the Amida is repeated aloud. But, the essence of prayer is not found in the words of our siddur but in the way these words enter our hearts. That is a very personal journey and praying is thus a very private and personal activity. We gather together to pray but we are solitary in our praying. As a poet once said, “each of us has prayers no one else can utter, each of us has thanks that no one else can offer.” We can strengthen each other when we pray together but we can not really pray unless we feel our prayers in our heart.

6. I understand that prayer is a very complicated activity and I did not fault my friend for his discomfort over a new prayer book. But it did get me thinking about how far prayer has come in Judaism and what will become of prayer in the future. It is an important topic and I want to address it this Shabbat and next Shabbat as well.

7. The Torah is very clear in our Parsha; if we wish to bring our hearts near to God, we need to bring to the altar, something of some value to us. A cow, a ram, a goat or even a couple of birds that the poor might bring, are not inexpensive offerings. One had to give something meaningful if one expected God to take note of the offering. In the very beginning of the Torah, in Genesis and the story of Cain and Abel, Cain brings an offering of fruits and vegetables from his garden, but Abel brings the choicest firstling from his flock. God notes the special value of Abel’s sacrifice and does not accept the mediocre offering of Cain and thus jealousy comes into the world, followed by death.

8. As we can imagine, if we know that God wants a valuable offering, then, people being human, after all, soon become competitive as to who can bring the most valuable offering. My ram beats your goat. My ox trumps your ram. Before you know it, children are being sacrificed in order to be that much closer to God. Were it not for the explicit refusal of God to allow Isaac to be sacrificed by his father, I wonder if the people of Israel might have also crossed this line.

9. Many Sages note that the reason there is so much detail in Leviticus over sacrifices is to limit the one upmanship that subverts all that the sacrifice is about. It is not the offering that makes the difference in our approach to God. What makes the sacrifice meaningful is the meaning we give it in our hearts. There were those who brought sacrifices to the Temple in order to atone for their sins. They had no intention of stopping their sinning but the expensive sacrifice would absolve them of guilt over the past so they could go on sinning. A man who cheated his customers in business all the time could bring an ox to sacrifice and be cleared of all guilt. He could then go on cheating his customers. The sacrifice was just “the cost of doing business.” Is it any wonder the Prophets of the Bible insist that the person who sins, repents and sins again, will not find forgiveness, even on Yom Kippur. To draw close to God, you have to feel the need for God in your heart.

10. Every morning and every afternoon the priests in the Temple offered a daily sacrifice. The people of Israel believed that as long as these sacrifices continued, God would be happy with the people of Israel and would not let any catastrophe overtake them. Should these daily sacrifices stop, then surely doom would come to Jerusalem and to the Jewish People. The destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 586 BCE and then again in 70 CE, was as traumatic an event as one could ever imagine. That it would no longer be possible to sacrifice to God would mean that we would not just be exiled from our land, but we would be banished from the presence of God. How could we possibly pray without bringing an offering? As the Romans burned the Temple, the Sages were gathering in Yavne to try and save as much of our faith as they could. They could have allowed other altars as our people had done before Moses was commanded to build the Mishkan in the desert. But they did not. The Sages of Yavne decided that service of the heart is more important than service at the altar.

11. As I explained to those who study with me every morning before minyan, these early prayers were not fixed prayers. In much the same way as the Rabbis did not tell a person what kind of animal to bring to sacrifice, they did not tell a person what words to pray. The sages did teach the proper formula for a blessing but the words of prayer were not set in the time of the Talmud. The great Rabbi Eliezer said, “If a man makes his prayer a fixed task, his prayer is no prayer.” Another Sage taught, “Prayer should not be recited as if a man were reading a document.” And Rabbi Acha said, “a new (i.e. different) prayer should be said every day.” If we are to pray with our hearts, we must use words that rise from our hearts. In the time of the Talmud, they did not have a prayerbook. The service was led by a man trained to make his prayers fresh every day.

12. But that is not the end of this story. The Midrash then explains this free style of prayer in more detail. We read in the Midrash, “It happened once that a disciple was reading the Amida in the presence of Rabbi Eliezer and shortened his prayers. The other students said, “Master, do you see how he as shortened the prayers?” But Rabbi Eliezer said, “He has not been shorter than Moses who said in the Torah “Heal her, O Lord, I pray” (Numbers 12:13). At another time, another student in a similar situation prolonged his prayers. The other students said to Rabbi Eliezer, “Master, did you notice how he prolonged his prayers?” but Rabbi Eliezer said, “He did not prolong his prayer more than Moses, when he says in the Torah, “I fell down in prayer before the Lord for forty days and forty nights” for Moses said to himself, there is a time to shorten prayers and a time to prolong them.”

13. As the centuries went by, there were poets that seemed to compete as to who could make the longest, most beautiful poetry for prayer. The services, using these complicated piyutim, grew longer and longer. Later Rabbis, abbreviated these piyutim to save time in the service. El Adon that we recite in our Shacharit service on Shabbat is just a small remnant of a much longer, complex piyut. On Yom Kippur, Unetane Tokef is also just the last part of a long complicated piyut that has fallen mostly into disuse. The Birkat Hamazon has a different beginning if two people are reciting it, if three people are reciting it or if ten people are reciting the Birkat. There were also additional beginning formulas for when there were a hundred or a thousand reciting the prayer together. The beginning for these large groups fell into disuse. There just was no need to gather that many together to thank God for a meal.

14. By the time printing was first used to create a prayerbook, the Jewish world already had two different kinds of prayer. The Sefardim of the Middle East and North Africa had one tradition of prayer and the Ashkenazim of Europe had a different tradition for the words and order of the prayers. And yet, both traditions allowed for new prayers to be added to the service and, when the service got too long, they took out the prayers that no longer were needed. Groups felt free to add and subtract from the siddur as they pleased. The ability to put together the service any way one wanted explains how the Hasidim of Eastern Europe, following the lead of the Rabbi Isaac Luria in Sfat, began to use the Sephardic siddur instead of the Ashkenazic siddur in use by Jews in the rest of Europe.

15. Modern Jewish philosophers note that every time someone wants to create a new denomination in Judaism, the first changes they make are in the siddur. The Reform movement in Europe created a new prayer book and they have the tradition of rewriting that book every couple of decades or so. Our Conservative movement began with each congregation printing their own siddur. Eventually, Rabbi Morris Silverman adapted the book he used in his synagogue and eventually his book became accepted in the entire movement. The Sim Shalom prayerbook we use is the second attempt to create a new siddur in our movement. The first attempt was a one volume siddur for daily, Shabbat and holiday use. Now there are two volumes of Sim Shalom, one for daily minyan and one for Shabbat and Festivals. When Mordechai Kaplan decided to break with Conservative Judaism and begin a Reconstructionist movement, the first book he wrote was the Siddur. In the Orthodox world today there is a transition going on from the old Art Scroll siddur to the more compact and easy to read Koren Siddur.

16. The history of prayer is not the history of one book, but it is the poetic history of how Jews have released the feelings for God that they have in their hearts. It all began with a sacrifice, but it evolved away from killing animals to offering our words as true expressions of what we feel inside. Some people still pine for the Temple that is gone but most Jews today, of all denominations, would not like to see a return to animal sacrifices. Rambam says that sacrifices were just a concession by God to those who needed a tangible way to worship. Jews who lived in the time of Maimonides, were far too sophisticated to need to offer an animal to feel close to God.

17. Next Shabbat we will look to how Jews today look at prayer and the prayerbook. For now let us be content that we neither have to dash the blood of our sacrifices toward the curtain of our ark nor do we have to fall on our faces in prayer forty days and forty nights. It is enough just to direct our hearts to God and let the yearning of our heart, draw us closer, in holiness to God.

May God help us find the best words to express the longing in our heats and may our prayers be as acceptable before our Creator as once our ancestor’s sacrifices were accepted. Amen and Shabbat Shalom.

1. SHABBAT SHALOM

2. Shabbat Shekalim always falls just before the beginning of the last month of the Jewish Year. We are used to thinking that Tishri, the month of Rosh Hashana is the new year, but the Torah considers the month of our independence, Nisan, the month of Pesach, as the real first month. Shabbat Shekalim always falls on the Shabbat before Adar, or second Adar when we are in a leap year.

3. As we enter the last month of the year, we are reminded that taxes are due. The Torah teaches us that every adult Jew owes one half shekel at the end of every year. This Shabbat is our reminder that this tax is due. It was a flat tax on every adult and it served not only to fund the Temple but as a way of counting citizens. It was the same tax for the rich and poor alike and so by counting the money, we would know how many adult taxpayers were in the country.

4. There actually are many different kinds of taxes in Judaism. Maaser was the first ten percent of the crops that were due to the priests. Every third year there was a tax that would go to the poor. There was a tax of the harvest that was supposed to be transported and consumed in Jerusalem to improve the economy in the Holy City. First fruits from a tree and the first born of animals were to be given to the Temple. Kings in Israel could impose a labor tax; not money but a certain number of days that able bodied men or women would be required to perform state functions. What we would call “Charity” today is not so much a voluntary contribution but a requirement of God that we owe those in need in our community. That is why it was called, Tzedakah, or “Justice” because turning your back on the helpless and poor was considered injustice and a sin.

5. From ancient times to the present, taxes have always been a source of controversy and sometimes pain. The kingdom of Solomon was divided over the high taxes his son wanted to impose on the people of Israel. Jews in the ghettos of Europe were often taxed to pay the salaries of those that would oppress them. Americans fought our Revolutionary War over the problem of taxation without representation. In Israel today, there are those who criticize Israel because some Orthodox Jews who pay little or no taxes seem to get a disproportionate amount of tax dollars to support themselves and their yeshivot. The proverb teaches us that the only sure things in life are death and taxes. The difference between death and taxes though, is that death does not get any worse every time Congress meets!

6. Taxes today are a big part of our news. Ever since the presidency of Ronald Reagan, taxes have been labeled very bad by our political leaders. It is a common belief that we pay too much money in taxes and that the government wastes our money so we never get any tax money returned. I remember well the first time my daughter got a paycheck. She called me that day and asked me about taxes. She had no idea that taxes would be taken out of her paycheck. She had counted on her salary but not on the payroll deductions. She understood the concept but was not happy about how it reduced what she had hoped to earn.

7. Unlike the flat tax of the Bible, most taxes in this country are “progressive” taxes. The more you earn the more taxes you pay. A greater burden of taxes are thus collected from those who can afford to pay them. Judaism teaches us that even the poor need to give Tzedakah, but clearly the mitzvah / obligation of giving Tzedakah is greater the more money we have. I like to remind my students that if somebody earns $10,000, and has to pay 10% in taxes, or $1000, that is a huge bite out of the money he has earned. On the other hand, a person who earns 10 million dollars, and has to pay 10% in taxes, has to pay a million dollars in taxes, but since he still has nine million in the bank, it has not cramped his style at all.

8. Taxing the rich therefore has always been a favorite target in Congress. Those who have more, pay more. It is a simple system and it has only one major problem. It is a lot less interesting to tax the rich when we start to earn enough to be a part of that club. Rich people spend a lot of their money on finding ways not to pay taxes. Sometimes these deductions are legitimate and the tax savings are legal. Sometimes these deductions are not legitimate and the failure to pay taxes on the money is criminal. Judaism is very clear on the subject of taxes. We are entitled to every legitimate tax deduction possible. Jewish law, however, does not let us refuse to pay legitimate taxes owed. We have a religious duty to pay what we owe and to pay it on time. This is not only a law for the rich, but a law for all of us. The price of living in this country is the taxes we pay.

9. The other side of the tax discussion is what we spend our taxes on. Judaism has its laws regarding what a government is supposed to provide. Government provides us with safety and security, it must help those who are poor, punish those who break the law, regulate business so that nobody can claim an unfair advantage over another and provide for schools, hospitals and other public services. If we depend on a public service, we must also be prepared to pay taxes to support it. This week a group of Christian ministers wrote an article for a newspaper that federal, state and local budgets should be “moral documents”. The article was the source of much discussion on the radio this week. Should religious values and morals have a place in our budget debate? The reporters were claiming a separation of church and state made certain that religious values not be considered in the deliberations of government. But we forget that the separation of church and state only goes one way, government is not allowed to spend tax money on religious institutions of any kind, but religion can advise our representatives on what our priorities should be.

10. Budgeting, for a family, for a synagogue, for a state and for the federal government is all the same. A budget always reflects our values. What we value most, we make sure is funded in our budget. That which is of little value, is pushed to the back. Classic budget battles are over which programs we value most. In the case of the federal budget, do we value defense spending over heating oil for poor families? In a state budget, we can argue about paying more for teachers or for police officers. Creating a budget is always about weighing the different values we have and assessing a price tag for each one.

11. If your family budget is anything like mine, there are two types of budget items. Those that are fixed and those that are discretionary. I do not have much control over my electric or water bill. Unless I am prepared to do without air conditioning and hot water, there is really little I can do to make these expenses lower. Discretionary income, like my bill for cable television and my credit card bill, I have more direct control over. The only problem is that they represent only a small part of my budget. If we really want to control our budget, we will have to directly face the major expenses. We may have to move into a less expensive home. We may have to purchase a more modern air conditioner that is more energy efficient. We may have to replace our toilet and shower head to consume less water. We may have to drive less to get a handle on the ever increasing cost of gasoline. For most of our budget, we will have to make some serious changes to our lifestyle if we hope to get our spending really under control.

12. Government has pretty much the same problems. Most of what they need to cut would require great changes in the way American’s live their lives. Should Social Security be for everyone or only for seniors who have no other retirement plan? Should the government take more control of healthcare to contain health costs? How much defense spending is too much, which military equipment is necessary for our troops and which items are expensive wastes of money? Much of government’s discretionary spending is such a small part of the budget, it is almost useless to try and use it to reduce the deficit unless we are talking a ten to twenty year time frame.

13. Budget battles get nasty when, as in the case of the State of Wisconsin, one side tries to undermine the values of the other. Minorities often filibuster or shut down government to secure some compromises from the majority party. When there is a spirit of cooperation, a budget battle rarely will cause much confrontation. But in these days of toxic relations between parties, nobody wants to compromise an inch, and the only people happy are the news media who get a juicy story to cover. I think, however, that I would have more compassion for the governor in this battle if had not, just before he presented his budget, given the rich in his state a huge tax reduction. If he is so determined to balance the budget, why does he feel the need to do it off the backs of public employees?

14. There is a lot of talk these days of tight budgets to change our tax structure to something fairer and simpler. A value added tax may make more sense than a regressive sales tax that is a greater burden on the poor. Eliminating all deductions on Federal Income Tax would insure that everyone would pay taxes and they would be lower for everyone. Taxes have to be high because so many people take advantage of all the deductions. If we remove the deductions and everyone would pay their fair share, then it would mean we would not need to tax at such a high rate. Tax deductions are the way our representatives show us that they are looking out for our needs. Demanding services and then expecting to have exemptions so we don’t have to pay for them is bad budgeting and part of the reason that we are in so much tax and budget trouble today.

15. The half shekel tax for the Temple is no longer collected. The Temple was destroyed two thousand years ago and the need to support it stopped. The early Zionist movement talked about using the half shekel as a membership fee to bring about the redemption of Israel. It has long been a custom on Purim to give a half dollar as a symbolic half shekel to provide for the synagogue or for the poor. The half shekel may no longer be an official tax but it still can do much good in the world, from support of Israel to strengthening our local Jewish community. Complaining about taxes may be our favorite occupation but taxes can do a world of good in our lives and for the world. In ancient times as well as in our modern era, the problem is not about the money, but in the way people feel about it.

May God help us to use our taxes wisely to bring peace and prosperity to our nation and may we gladly pay for the government that we need and for the protection that it secures on our behalf. May our taxes no longer be a source of contention or strife, but the doorway to a better life for all as we say….

AMEN AND SHABBAT SHALOM