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“And they drew too close, and they died.” — Leviticus 16:1

This week’s Torah portion opens by recounting the horrible events outlined earlier in the Torah, when Aaron’s two sons try to gain physical access to God by offering a prohibited sacrifice. No sooner do they offer this sacrifice than God consumes them in a fiery rage. Through these tragic deaths, God teaches a lesson: Touching the Divine realm is powerful and dangerous… best to keep a respectful distance.

Of course, at this time when we are required to remain apart from one another for the sake of our health and safety, these words about drawing too close take on a very different meaning. Physical contact is dangerous right now; we can look, but we can’t touch. Though political debates about when to emerge from our quarantine and resume our normal conduct abound, it will be a long time until we re-engage in physical touch with the comfort and ease that we did only a short time ago.

So what do we do when we can’t draw near to other humans and can’t get too close to God?

This week, we reach the very center of the Torah — both physically and spiritually. If we were to open the entire scroll, we would find ourselves exactly halfway between the beginning of the Torah, which tells of the creation of the world, and the end, where we find the Israelites preparing to enter the Holy Land.

What we find at the epicenter of the Torah is the fundamental lesson of what it means to be a Jew. This set of commandments is often referred to as the Holiness Code. It teaches:

“You shall not pick your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen fruit of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger: I the Eternal am your God.”

“You shall not steal; you shall not deal deceitfully or falsely with one another.”

“You shall not insult the deaf, or place a stumbling block before the blind. You shall fear your God: I am the Eternal.”

“Do not deal basely with your countrymen. Do not profit by the blood of your fellow: I am the Eternal.”

“You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against your countrymen. Love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Eternal.”

“The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love your neighbor as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I the Eternal am your God.”

The Talmud (Tractate Shabbat, page 31a) tells a famous story of a man who comes to convert to Judaism. He says to the great Rabbi Hillel: “I will convert if you are able to teach me the entire Torah while I stand on one foot.” Hillel accepts the challenge, and without missing a beat, he responds with the words from this week’s Torah portion: “Love your neighbor as yourself. This is the entire Torah and the rest is its interpretation. Now, go and study!” Through this story, the Talmud teaches us that the essence of all of Judaism is to be kind to our fellow human beings.

As humans, we are not able to access God physically. Even if it were possible, we learn from the Torah that coming too close to God is dangerous business. And right now, we are likewise not able to access other humans. But at the center of our Torah, we learn the fundamental principles that guide us: take care of those in need; be honest and forthcoming with others, don’t take advantage of them; love your neighbor; love yourself.

When our usual anchors are gone, these eternal values remain. And perhaps by living out what is written in this Holiness Code, we can draw nearer to our neighbors and to God, even when we can’t get too close.

You know the phrase, “The perfect is the enemy of the good”? It comes to mind when reading through the beginning passages in this week’s Parshat Emor (Leviticus 21:1-24:23). The Torah in Leviticus, a priestly manual, is concerned with the purity required both when offering sacrifices and partaking of the sacrificial meals. The exactitude was necessitated by the Biblical mindset and its reflection of an ancient understanding of an exacting God. Aaron and his sons must be “scrupulous”; donations are “sacred”; any error would lead to a “profanation” of God’s name. So severe is the approach that any trace of the “unclean” on one partaking of the sacrificial meal would lead to the harsh judgment of being “cut off from before” God.

This is one manifestation of the Biblical God. God is Almighty. God is El Shaddai. God is El Elyon, Most High. God saves Noah’s family and a pair of each animal but destroys all the rest of life with the Flood. God burns Sodom and Gomorrah to the ground. And of course, God causes plagues and brings down Pharoah in order to free the Children of Israel from human bondage in Egypt.

While the drama, the power, the epic nature of these narratives enthralls children and makes for riveting entertainment in Technicolor, is this the God we know to be true? In the later books of the Hebrew Bible, a different image of God begins to emerge.

The story of the prophet Elijah is the clearest example, perhaps. After a violent encounter with the prophets of Baal, a Canaanite god, Elijah flees to the wilderness as far as Sinai, and finds himself, like Moses before, at Mount Horeb for forty days and forty nights.

וַיָּבֹא־שָׁ֥ם אֶל־הַמְּעָרָ֖ה וַיָּ֣לֶן שָׁ֑ם וְהִנֵּ֤ה דְבַר־יְהוָה֙ אֵלָ֔יו וַיֹּ֣אמֶר ל֔וֹ מַה־לְּךָ֥ פֹ֖ה אֵלִיָּֽהוּ׃

There he went into a cave, and there he spent the night. Then the word of the LORD came to him. He said to him, “Why are you here, Elijah?”

וַיֹּאמֶר֩ קַנֹּ֨א קִנֵּ֜אתִי לַיהוָ֣ה ׀ אֱלֹהֵ֣י צְבָא֗וֹת כִּֽי־עָזְב֤וּ בְרִֽיתְךָ֙ בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל אֶת־מִזְבְּחֹתֶ֣יךָ הָרָ֔סוּ וְאֶת־נְבִיאֶ֖יךָ הָרְג֣וּ בֶחָ֑רֶב וָֽאִוָּתֵ֤ר אֲנִי֙ לְבַדִּ֔י וַיְבַקְשׁ֥וּ אֶת־נַפְשִׁ֖י לְקַחְתָּֽהּ׃

He replied, “I am moved by zeal for the LORD, the God of Hosts, for the Israelites have forsaken Your covenant, torn down Your altars, and put Your prophets to the sword. I alone am left, and they are out to take my life.”

וַיֹּ֗אמֶר צֵ֣א וְעָמַדְתָּ֣ בָהָר֮ לִפְנֵ֣י יְהוָה֒ וְהִנֵּ֧ה יְהוָ֣ה עֹבֵ֗ר וְר֣וּחַ גְּדוֹלָ֡ה וְחָזָ֞ק מְפָרֵק֩ הָרִ֨ים וּמְשַׁבֵּ֤ר סְלָעִים֙ לִפְנֵ֣י יְהוָ֔ה לֹ֥א בָר֖וּחַ יְהוָ֑ה וְאַחַ֤ר הָר֨וּחַ רַ֔עַשׁ לֹ֥א בָרַ֖עַשׁ יְהוָֽה׃

“Come out,” He called, “and stand on the mountain before the LORD.” And lo, the LORD passed by. There was a great and mighty wind, splitting mountains and shattering rocks by the power of the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind—an earthquake; but the LORD was not in the earthquake.

וְאַחַ֤ר הָרַ֙עַשׁ֙ אֵ֔שׁ לֹ֥א בָאֵ֖שׁ יְהוָ֑ה וְאַחַ֣ר הָאֵ֔שׁ ק֖וֹל דְּמָמָ֥ה דַקָּֽה׃

After the earthquake—fire; but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire—a soft murmuring sound.

A “soft murmuring sound,” or, as it is often translated, a “still small voice.” Not the thunder or the wind; not the earthquake or the fire; but a still, small voice. Not revenge, not destruction, not a raging, punishing God but a God of word, even a whisper, of truth, goodness, kindness, justice and love.

These two images are present in Judaism because our Biblical tradition bequeaths to us a sacred text, God’s word, as Truth. And yet it is the sages and rabbis of the early common era under Greco-Roman rule who mediate the text with interpretation, aware of their own place in the chain of tradition, already 1300 years removed from Moses’ time. The centrality of the text remains; our understanding evolves.

One hint of this in our parshah itself can be found in the way that after the demanding perfection and purity of God, a kind of otherworldly sacrality and holiness, the narrative shifts to a delineation of the seasons. Time, ever-changing as the cycles of the sun and moon, is also a manifestation of structure and organization. It is “both-and,” malleable and static, changing and permanent. Seasons change, we say, and we structure our lives and adapt to the external world accordingly. But the changing seasons and structures of time found in Torah also root us in permanence and eternity. In the spring we recall our Exodus from Egypt; in early summer we receive Torah on Shavuot; in the fall, with the harvest, we recall the fragility of life; we repose in preparation for the darkness at the onset of winter. And as winter turns to spring, the cycle begins all over again.

So why this business of the perfect being the enemy of the good? Because very quietly, one might even say in a “still small voice,” the parsha says:

וּֽבְקֻצְרְכֶ֞ם אֶת־קְצִ֣יר אַרְצְכֶ֗ם לֹֽא־תְכַלֶּ֞ה פְּאַ֤ת שָֽׂדְךָ֙ בְּקֻצְרֶ֔ךָ וְלֶ֥קֶט קְצִירְךָ֖ לֹ֣א תְלַקֵּ֑ט לֶֽעָנִ֤י וְלַגֵּר֙ תַּעֲזֹ֣ב אֹתָ֔ם אֲנִ֖י יְהוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֵיכֶֽם׃ (ס)

And when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap all the way to the edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger: I the LORD am your God.

Time, the seasons, and our loyalty to God, are fundamentally expressed here as the commandment to feed the poor and the stranger; to dedicate portions of the land we harvest, unconditionally, to those who are most in need.

We may strive for holiness; we may yearn for the sacred; we may want to bathe in the grace of the Divine; but let us not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. We have to remember to structure our concept of time around giving to and protecting those most in need.

I saw a marvelous example of this on Thursday during a bike ride into the city. Between entering Manhattan on the Manhattan Bridge and leaving again via the Williamsburg Bridge on Delancey Street, I passed through the Lower East Side where I encountered New York State Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou handing out 750 kosher meals provided by Re-Think, to mostly Orthodox Jews living around East Grand Street. For two months now, the Assemblymember, along with countless others in the city, are rallying to the side of those most in need, the poorest and most vulnerable New Yorkers of every faith and every background. I also met Patrick Mock, a 26 year old son of Chinese immigrants whose bakery, 46 Mott, is making 120 free meals a day for the hungry in his neighborhood. And here they were, helping their Jewish neighbors, showing love and compassion and generosity from the “corners of their fields,” giving as obligation, which the time of crisis demands of us. Face masks in place; gloves on hands; social distancing observed with perfection, but not enough perfection to be the enemy of the good.

It was a New York moment to be sure but it was also a Jewish moment, a human moment, a snapshot in time of what good and compassion and kindness look like. As I wheeled away, an elderly woman showed up to get the last of the meals but before she packed it away, she asked, “Is the chicken boiled or baked?” A brief moment of levity, a wish of “good Shabbos” exchanged between a Jew and a Chinese American public servant, and a sense that despite these perilous times, we will see our way forward.

For Shabbat tonight and Havdalah tomorrow, please join the JCP community at 6 pm here on Zoom. See familiar faces and feel the warmth of being together even when apart.

Do we reopen the economy, or do we stay home to contain the spread of COVID-19?

This is the dichotomy that is being presented to us in current social discourse. This is the dichotomy that is further polarizing our already deeply divided nation. But do we really face a dichotomy between saving lives and saving our economy?

We know that right now, people in food service, entertainment, sports, travel, and nearly all other industries are experiencing true financial devastation. They don’t have jobs, and when our nation can return to business as usual, will jobs even be there to be had? That so many people are experiencing the violence of poverty during COVID-19 is an injustice. But does the only way forward involve forcing people to return to their jobs and risk their lives?

This week’s Torah portion, Behar-Bechukotai, can help shed some light on how we think about the economy. First, we learn about the concept of the Sabbatical year:

“Six years you may sow your field and six years you may prune your vineyard and gather in the yield. But in the seventh year the land shall have a sabbath of complete rest, a sabbath of the Eternal: you shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard” (Leviticus 25:3-4).

Even in normal times, the Torah tells us that the economy would close somewhat every few years. God recognized that the land needed a break, and so did the people who cultivated it. Farmers couldn’t sell produce during that year, but there was still enough food from the previous years to carry everyone over. For six years, the market was more active; every seventh, it was quieter. Even more disruptive to the economy is the second economic concept taught in this Torah portion, the Jubilee year:

“You shall count off seven weeks of years—seven times seven years—so that the period of seven weeks of years gives you a total of forty-nine years. Then you shall sound the horn loud; in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month—the Day of Atonement—you shall have the horn sounded throughout your land and you shall hallow the fiftieth year. You shall proclaim release throughout the land for all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you: each of you shall return to his holding and each of you shall return to his family…for it is a jubilee. It shall be holy to you…for the land is Mine; you are but strangers resident with Me” (Leviticus 25:8-12, 23).

Talk about closing the economy! Here, the Torah teaches that every 50th year, a person transfers ownership of her land to its original owner. People are also released from their debts during this year. According to the Torah, we are supposed to experience an economic revolution twice per century. Why? To remind us that while we might establish ourselves in a particular place, and become accustomed to certain economic norms, we are not the final arbiters of economic life; God is. 

The practice of the Jubilee year is complex, and the Rabbis of the Talmud discuss how improbable it is for the Jubilee year to be observed as it is described in the Torah (Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Rosh Hashanah, page 8b).

But however improbable it is to put into practice, the concept of the Jubilee year teaches us that though our markets may be structured in particular ways, we can and should strive to create systems that promote fairness and justice. If the way we currently do business will endanger lives, maybe we need to rethink the way we do business. Of course, this is aspirational; but after all, we are a people of aspiration.

As we continue to pare down our lives, to buy less and spend less, we have the opportunity to think about and support what matters most: the charities and initiatives that take care of the most vulnerable, and the communities of which we are a part. Though no one anticipated it, we are undergoing an economic revolution not unlike the upheaval of the Jubilee year. Maybe on the other side, we will rebuild a market where financial security and the value of life are not pitted against each other, but go hand in hand.

There is a great scene at the beginning of Monty Python’s Life of Brian, where a crowd is gathered to hear Jesus recite the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus is teaching off in the distance so it is a bit hard to hear and we, the viewer, are in the back with the riff-raff. “Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall inherit the earth,” one of the most famous lines in Western religious history, is uttered in muddled speech from this perspective and one character says, “I think it was blessed are the cheesemakers,” to which a second character responds, “What’s so special about the cheesemakers?” And yet another answers, “Well obviously it’s not meant to be taken literally; it refers to any manufacturer of dairy products.”

This is Scripture as allegory. As metaphor. As text which invites you to interpret broadly, to even mis-hear it, and in the case of this legendary comedy troupe, make you laugh.

But this week’s Torah portion, Bamidbar (Numbers 1:1-4:20) is as stark and unadorned as the very wilderness in which it is set. The Children of Israel are in the Sinai desert on the first day of the second month of the second year of their liberation from Egypt. This journey in the sparse and unforgiving desert where they are reliant on the miracle of wells and manna from God, will be a gruelling and challenging signal moment in Jewish history that will last a full forty years. When Bamidbar opens, there are 38 more years to go. This week in Beersheva it was 93 degrees. Imagine walking in circles for 40 years like that. Not fun. Talk about Zoom fatigue.

There is an all too relatable sense of disorientation in the desert, hence the classical tropes of desert mirages; of hallucination brought on by thirst; of anger, discontent, rebellion. All of this is brought to bear throughout the Torah narrative as the Children of Israel slowly lose the generation that was born into slavery and build a new nation made up of those who only know what it means to be free. The brutal conditions of the wilderness are meant to scrub Israel clean of the brutal conditions of slavery. This is the beginning of the end of the slave mentality as we know it. At least in the Torah.

There will be the destruction and exile of the Babylonian conquest in 586 BCE. The utter devastation and dispersion from the Land of Israel by the Romans in 70 CE. The Crusades and the Inquisition in Medieval Europe. Massacres, pogroms and dislocation in the Pale of Settlement, culminating in the Holocaust and genocidal anti-Semitism during the Second World War that took more than 6 million Jewish lives.

The older I get, the more amazed I become that we have not only survived as a people but have thrived; have not just made it over the finish line but have made meaningful and transformative contributions to Western civilization for nearly two thousand years of exile and diaspora as one of the world’s smallest yet profoundly influential civilizations in human history.

Why? Theologians, historians, and philosophers, along with rabbis and mystics — all great minds — have pondered and attempted to answer this question. Sermons, books and articles populate the literary landscape of millenia with their theories.

But I’ve got to tell you that since the quarantine for the COVID-19 virus began, the most prosaic of answers has satisfied that question for me. Why do Jews survive crisis after crisis and what can we share with our neighbors about the path forward, always the path forward?

“And the Lord spoke unto Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the Tent of Meeting, on the first day in the second month, in the second year after they were come out of the land of Egypt, saying, ‘Take ye the sum of all the congregation of the children of Israel, by their families, by their parents’ houses, according to the number of names…” (Numbers 1:1-2)

Reason for Survival Number One: Show up. State your name. Be counted. Ninety percent of life is showing up, they say. So do it. It actually makes a difference. Presence is everything when it comes to making it through a challenging time. At baby namings and brises; at bar and bat mitzvahs; at graduations and weddings; in the hospital room, at the graveside, in a shiva home. Show up and be counted. The wondrous fabric of Jewish life is held together by radical accountability of presence. Say it: Hineni. Here I am.

In the Haftarah for this Shabbat, the prophetic reading from Hosea, we encounter the prophet in the midst of darkness and great sorrow. His heart is torn by a sense of betrayal, tragedy and abandonment. It seems that his world has come undone, not an unfamiliar feeling for any of us in these dark days. But the destruction and dislocation give way to the light and the hope of love. Hosea starts low but strives for and finishes high, promising in the face of a seemingly insurmountable brokenness a glorious reunion of love and purpose.

“I will break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the land and I will make them to lie down safely. I will betroth thee unto me forever; I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness and justice and in lovingkindness and in compassion. I will betroth thee unto me in faithfulness and you shall know the Eternal, That I Am.” (Hosea 2:20-22).

Reason for Survival Number Two: Hope conquers fear. And hope is not some abstract concept unreachable, far out of our hands. Hope is near to us and best expressed through our daily encounters with others: In the execution of justice and righteousness that gives us hope in the ways we settle conflict and dispute; in lovingkindness and compassion, expression through our care for others, especially those most in need; and finally in the faithfulness of presence, in the promise made by uttering the phrase “Here I Am.”

Metaphor has its place, to be sure, in our reckoning with ancient messages and meaning. But sometimes, as Sigmund Freud notably said, “A cigar is just a cigar.”

Be Counted. Do Good.

“As morning dawned, there was thunder, and lightning, and a dense cloud upon the mountain, and a very loud blast of the horn; and all the people who were in the camp trembled…Now Mount Sinai was all in smoke, for the Eternal had come down upon it in fire; the smoke rose like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled violently. The blare of the horn grew louder and louder. As Moses spoke, God answered him in thunder” (Leviticus 19:16, 18-19).

This is the scene in which we find the Israelites just before the Ten Commandments are revealed to them.

It is this noisy, mighty, powerful, and eternal revelation that we recall and celebrate each Shavuot, the holiday that begins tonight at sundown and lasts until Saturday evening.

As the Jews wander through the desert, disoriented and confused, they receive wisdom and reassurance, in the form of the Torah, to guide them on their path toward a bright future.

We at JCP want to provide you with our collective wisdom, our own Torah, share what we have learned about ourselves and about this community during this unprecedented moment in history.

Here are our very own “Ten Commandments” of Community:

1. We can get through anything when we remain connected to each other.
2. Community doesn’t dissipate in the absence of a physical space.
3. The simplest acts are often the noblest.
4. Watching family, friends and neighbors rise to the challenge of caring for others is an endless source of inspiration.
5. Zoom is the best and worst innovation of the 21st century.
6. We are all responsible for each other’s health.
7. Doing our part for the greater good, even when separated, can bring us all together.
8. We all need far less than we thought we did to be happy.
9. We were baking challah before baking bread was cool.
10. Live in the now, call on the past, and look to the future. We’ll get there together.

We wish you a holiday filled with discovery, introspection, and your own moments of revelation. We hope you will celebrate with us at our events listed here!

A day after the protests started I called my old friend Y. We grew up together in Milwaukee and in second grade we both got sent to the principal’s office because I defended his right to punch a kid who called him a racial slur. Often the only African American in a sea of white, he is long used to the challenges of being Black in America. He was more worried about MAGA militias being activated and resigned to, even cautiously jaded by, the slow march of progress.

I texted a young pastor friend to check in. “Difficult days, Rabbi. Holding on by a wing and a prayer. How are you doing?” We are holding our friendship close, faith leaders doing our best in this evil wind to hold our feet to the ground and keep our heads held high for better days.

Another exchange, with my friend W, a schoolteacher in Newark. We share a fondness for the work of Eric Foner and believe studying history can save us. “Andy!!! How do you think?! Frustrated, trying to teach social justice to my students, basically doing what I do each day. Happy the charges were upgraded and all charged. I haven’t marched, getting total hip replacement in 12 days. If I was fit, I’d be out there. Thanks for checking in my friend!”

Another Brooklyn pastor kept it simple. “Overwhelmed. Let’s check in later.”

That last message says it all. It captures the way we all feel. Overwhelmed, exhausted, confused, angry, frightened but perhaps above all determined not to accept the status quo as such but to seize the double plague of coronavirus and trenchant American racism as an opportunity, despite limitations, to not only imagine but to create a better future.

Rachel’s and my three daughters, like many of your children, are in this fight with both feet. God willing they will be the generation — reared under eight years of President Barack Obama, the nation’s first and, as of yet, only African American commander in chief — that truly shifts the tide of change. They’re marching, making signs, phone-banking City Hall as well as the Senate and Assembly. They get all their information from texts and Instagram. In a matter of minutes, hundreds and then thousands can be mobilized. In our Brooklyn epicenter, the marchers are overwhelmingly young; remarkably diverse; and in many scenes that I have observed, white kids stand in front of Black kids to protect them as a kind of human shield.

The standoffs are tense, without question. And they can be inexcusably violent. I have witnessed the use of batons and pepper spray by members of the NYPD when words and patience would have deescalated the situation. And those recorded moments will be appropriately investigated by a trusted public servant, New York Attorney General Tish James.

It captures how many of us feel about both the protests and the violence, which is to hold a collection of extremely difficult and painful realities in our hearts and minds at once.

1. The anger, pain and deep frustration of systemic racism, often coupled with police abuse and violence, has reached a boiling point from which it will be hard to turn back. Millions watched George Floyd die. It is as indelible in my own mind now as the torture of journalist Daniel Pearl. Daniel Pearl died proclaiming he was a Jew. George Floyd said, “I Can’t Breathe!” which has become a dystopic declaration of Black identity in the custody of a law enforcement officer out to do no good.
2. Technology, for all its flaws, is saving us and traumatizing us all at once. We bear witness to Ahmaud Arbery’s lynching and watch in stunned silence, quickly turning to rage at one person’s capacity to inflict harm and death on another. This particular mirror into our souls causes all people of conscience and goodwill to shudder in horror and this particular mirror allows us to bring to justice those very perpetrators of the crimes that are tearing our nation apart.
3. If it is fundamentally true that the overwhelming number of protesters are not looters then it is also true that the overwhelming number of police officers are not racist or violent. When I march in Brooklyn I hold up my signs of protest and thank cops on the route who are offering protection for us all. Like the protesters, many of these cops are also young and have dedicated their lives to public safety. I have seen cops hug protesters; take a knee with protesters; and pose for pictures with some of the very people demanding more accountability, oversight, and justice in the application of the law.

Are these easy answers? Of course not. But such is the complexity of a nation founded on principles of “liberty and justice for all” when, at the time of its founding, Native lands were being violently stolen from indigenous nations and the Middle Passage brought millions of Africans, against their will, to work as enslaved persons, as three-fifths human, and to wait from 1619 to 1865 until — as the result of more than 600,000 dead Americans in the Civil War — they could be declared free.

But by 1875, Reconstruction was rolled back and Jim Crow dominated. The Equal Justice Initiative estimates there were nearly 5000 Black men and women lynched in the early twentieth century, a bright white vigilante justice that echoes across generations when our screens show us Ahmaud Arbery being shot dead and Eric Garner or George Floyd pleading, “I Can’t Breathe.” A death penalty with no judge and no jury and no trial is called a lynching. Plain and simple.

Early rabbinic law found not only lynching but any death penalty to be morally repugnant. In the Talmud it is stated that “Any Sanhedrin that executes once in every seven years is called ‘murderous.’ Rabbi Eleazar ben Azariah says ‘once in every seventy years.’ Rabbi Tarfon and Rabbi Akiva say, ‘Had we been members of a Sanhedrin, no person ever would have been put to death. Rabban Shimon ben Gamaliel remarked, ‘They would also multiply murderers in Israel.’” (Mishnah Makot, 2:1)

But even when lynching abated in the United States, other forms of violence against the Black body continued unabated. The indignity of Jim Crow separate seating and separate facilities, which only began to unravel in 1954; being denied the right to vote, finally encoded in federal law in 1964 and 1965 but what was the price? The blood of Medgar Evers; the blood of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner; the blood of Malcolm X; and ultimately the blood of Martin Luther King Jr.

In the exact same way; in precisely the same way, this is how Jews feel when we see Jews killed for the simple crime of being Jewish. Our hearts tear in agony; we are in disbelief that anti-Semitism still exists; we raise our voices to all those who will listen; and we work like hell to ensure that we will have done everything in our power to make sure it never happens again. With Poway and Pittsburgh; with Buenos Aires and Paris; with Brooklyn, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem we know still what it is to die for being a Jew and what it is to fight, yet again, to be a Jew living in peace and freedom.

And so of course we are allies of our African American brothers and sisters in this profoundly painful moment in our country’s history. Their house of God is our house of God; the trace of the Divine Image in them is a reflection of the selfsame Divine Image in us. This moment, our moment, requires radical empathy, the patience to listen, the willingness to stand together against hate, and the will to ensure that the laws of our shared land are observed with both justice and compassion. It cannot and will not be any other way.

There are a few practical things we can do.

One, we can work on legal reform by embracing the calls to repeal section 50A of New York State law which currently prevents transparency in policing. Both the NAACP and New York State Senators and Assemblymembers are advocating for this and asking for support.

Two, we can challenge all assumptions. “This course is designed to rid you of your slogans.” That’s what Professor George L. Mosse taught his students at the University of Wisconsin. George was a refugee from Nazi Germany who knew what it meant to flee for one’s life and knew what it meant to triumph over injustice. Why are people angry? Why is there violence? Are all cops bad? This is a moment for all of us to push ourselves by listening and learning and opening our hearts and minds and souls to the pain and suffering of our neighbors. So talk to a cop. Talk to a protester. Listen! The one good thing about this damn pandemic is that none of us have anywhere to go. We have the time. Let’s use it.

Three, join us to do that learning. Rabbi Deena is starting a monthly anti-racism book group. Email her to join and learn by reading, discussing, and debating. And this coming week I will be launching a series of Zoom interviews with scholars and activists around questions of racism, anti-Semitism and white supremacy in America today. First up will be a talk on Wednesday at 1 pm with Professor Tony Michels and photographer Gillian Laub, who both traveled to New Orleans last year to interview David Duke. Register here to attend the discussion. Now is a good time to remember the exceedingly wise words of Rabbi Tarfon: “The day is short; there’s a lot of work to do; many are lazy; the reward is great; and the Master of the House is pressing.”

Not the master who lorded over and enslaved us in Egypt; nor the master who enslaved and abused on plantations throughout the American South; but the Master of the Universe, the Holy, Blessed God, who made each and every human in the Divine Image. Neither Black nor White but Divine.

The very God who said to Moses at the end of this week’s Torah portion, Naso, “Tell your brother Aaron and his sons that this is the way you should bless the people: ‘May God bless you and keep you; may God’s face shine upon you and be gracious to you; may the Divine Countenance be lifted up toward you and grant you peace.’” (Numbers 6:22-26)

When we keep and bless one another; when we shine our best selves with grace toward one another; and when we are lifted up and lift up one another, we can discover and know peace.

That moment is now.

Though separated by over 2,000 years, we ask ourselves the same question as did the ancient Israelites in this week’s Torah portion, Shelach-Lecha: “What awaits us in the future?”

The Israelites, disoriented and afraid as they wander through the unknown wilderness, send 13 spies to the land of Israel to scout out their ultimate destination:

“When Moses sent them to scout the land of Canaan, he said to them, ‘Go up there into the Negev and on into the hill country, and see what kind of country it is. Are the people who dwell in it strong or weak, few or many? Is the country in which they dwell good or bad? Are the towns they live in open or fortified? Is the soil rich or poor? Is it wooded or not?’” (Numbers 13:17-20).

When I read these questions, I can hear Moses’ anxiety. Once we get to where we’re going, he wonders, will we be able to thrive? Will we be able to feed ourselves and our families? Will we get along with our neighbors? Will we even like living in the Holy Land?

Right now, our world is in its own kind of midbar, its own kind of wilderness. We are distant from one another, and distant from the existence that felt conventional and routine to us. We are living in limbo between our “old normal” and what will become our “new normal.” And many of us share that anxiety that Moses felt millenia ago: When we arrive at our destinations, will we like what we find? Will we be proud to live in our society? Will it be a place where we will feel happy raising our children? Will it be one where the promise of liberty and justice is truly fulfilled for all?

In the biblical story of the spies, 11 come back with negative reports: “We came to the land you sent us to; it does indeed flow with milk and honey…However, the people who inhabit the country are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large…We cannot attack that people, for it is stronger than we…The country that we traversed and scouted is one that devours its settlers. All the people that we saw in it are men of great size.. and we looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and so we must have looked to them” (Numbers 13:27-33).

Only Joshua and Caleb, two of the spies, return with a message of hope: “Let us by all means go up, and we shall gain possession of it, for we shall surely overcome it” (Numbers 13:30).

Like the 11 Israelite spies, we know that we as a society face giant challenges, and will continue to face them when things are “normal” again: brutal policing; racial segregation in our neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces; lack of access to adequate housing and healthcare for people of color; the list goes on and on.

It’s easy to feel like the 11 spies, who come back to the Israelites with a report of insurmountable obstacles that they will face in the Promised Land. I feel like a grasshopper in the face of these enormous problems, which have been part of the fabric of our country since before its founding. I understand why, after hearing this report, so many of the Israelites wailed and cried: “It would be better for us to go back to Egypt! Let us go back to Egypt!” (Numbers 14:3-4). It can be hard to face what’s ahead.

But there is no turning back for the Israelites, and there is no turning back for us. It is our job to muster the bravery of Caleb, who felt confident that the Israelites could overcome the challenges that faced them.

We do have an advantage over the Israelites: we can work to shape our future; we don’t have to journey forward with our heads bowed, hoping for the best. We are scouts who can help to create our destiny and transform our society into a place where we all want to live.

How can we be part of the change? To transform a society, we first have to name its problems. I hope you will join JCP’s “What We Can Learn: Antiracism Book Group” so that we can better understand racism in our country, which we hope will lead us to meaningful and impactful action. You can also attend our Wednesday afternoon speaker series, “What We Can Do,” during which Rabbi Andy interviews prominent leaders in our community so that we can learn about their important work and how to support it. You can read more about what it means to invest in the institutions that keep Black people safe and to divest from the police. You can also join me tonight at 7 pm on Instagram Live (@jcpdowntown) for a brief Shabbat candle-lighting to help recharge and energize for the work ahead.

Today is Juneteenth, which commemorates June 19, 1865, the day when Union soldiers came to Galveston, Texas to tell enslaved people that they were free. 155 years later, we know that there is still much more work to be done. But with deep engagement and persistent effort, we can take on the mindset of Caleb; though we might feel like small grasshoppers now, we have the power to contribute to changes that will make our society better.

I mean, it’s the perfect scenario for dealing with your political opponents, isn’t it? A rebellion is on your hands; hundreds are amassed against you; and you call upon God to judge the matter. The earth opens up, swallows your foes whole, and just like that, there is peace in the realm.

Imagine the painful divisions in our own nation handled with such swiftness and ease.

In this week’s Torah portion, Korach, Moses and Aaron face such a crowd, 250 angry and jealous men, arrayed beside Korach, Dathan and Abiram, who are demanding that Moses and Aaron share power, accusing them of hoarding holiness unto themselves. Korach, like Moses and Aaron, is from the Tribe of Levi and stakes his claim on the notion that leadership should be more evenly distributed. Dathan and Abiram are from the Tribe of Reuben and represent for the narrative a wild jealousy over inheritance, power, land, and leadership. It’s an ugly scene. 

Korach’s Rebellion, Julius Schnorr von Karolsfeld, 1860The battle lines are clear. It is a fight for the future. It is in the heat of the moment. And if the insurgency is not dealt with quickly, the nascent enterprise of Israelite freedom could be perilously sunk into the quicksand of their desert wandering. History is littered with such sputtered failures.

The narrative arc of the story, set deep in the mythos of Biblical language, is fantastical. For a generation which miraculously made it through parted waters; heard God’s commanding voice in the thunder and flame of Sinai; and gathered ample portions of quail and manna to sustain themselves by fresh water wells on their journey; perhaps the earth swallowing up rebels was not such a stretch.

But for us today? This is the material of Bible-thumping street corner preachers or erstwhile subway prophets (remember those?) interrupting our otherwise solitary laboring in books, iPhones, or traversing city blocks from one appointment to another. We don’t really believe in or have much time for prophecy and divine retribution anymore.

And of course, everything old is new again, because the sages of the Talmud didn’t have much time for it either. When Israel went into Exile, the rabbis taught, God went into Exile, too. Not as the thunder and the fire, but as Elijah taught, as the “still, small voice,” as conscience, faith and deed. Reversing the exilic process would take work, not miracles; patience, not the broiling flames of momentary passion; and dialogue, not the singular pronouncement from “on high.”

What is the story of Korach really about? What is any conflict or rebellion really about? It’s about grievance; it’s about the demand that claims be addressed; it’s about one wanting to rid oneself, like a stain or an intolerable pain, of the experience of injustice. And in the same manner in which water wears away stone, it’s about the recognition of the fundamental notion that nothing happens overnight. Change takes time:  second by second; minutes by minute; hour by hour; day by day; year by year.

Criminal justice advocate Bryan Stevenson of the Equal Justice Initiative tells a humorous story about the time he met Rosa Parks early in his career. She asked him who he was and what he was all about. She wanted to know his plans. And man, did he have plans. He listed for this giant of the Civil Rights movement all the ways he was going to tackle historic injustices like racism, mass incarceration, inequality in policing and before the law. And Parks eyed him up carefully before saying, “You’re going to be tired, tired, tired.” It’s a charming moment which you can watch here in Bryan’s Ted Talk. His point hits home.

Addressing grievance requires the focus of urgency right alongside heroic patience. How do we address injustice without wearing ourselves out?  How do we offer a rebuke without alienating others and ourselves in the process?

The Talmud tells the story in which the sages, in their own day, are asking if anyone even knows how to rebuke another person. “Rabbi Yohanan ben Nuri once said, ‘I used to complain about Rabbi Akiva and Rabban Gamliel would rebuke him. But I truly know that each time Akiva was rebuked, he loved me more and more! For it says in Scripture, Do not rebuke a scoffer, for he will hate you. Rebuke a wise man and he will love you. (Proverbs 9:8)

Rabbi Akiva in Mantua Haggadah, 1568The scholar Barry Holtz points out, in his biography of Akiva, that the Sages are really getting it — a definition of how to rebuke and how to receive rebuke. In each encounter, fundamental criticisms must be given and received with love. This is the essence of wisdom. Holtz reminds us that what would surely have undergirded the Sages’ enterprise (especially in a time of great tumult, revolt and division under Roman rule in Second Temple times) was the Torah verse, “You shall not hate your brother in your heart. You shall surely rebuke your neighbor but bear no sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance nor bear a grudge against your countrymen. Love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Eternal.” (Leviticus 18:17-18)

How we correct others and how we allow ourselves to be corrected — herein lie the seeds of a more fruitful and prosperous social discourse. There is more than enough fire and brimstone to go around. What we need are the nourishing waters of wisdom, understanding and patience in order to endure the many ordeals we face in our cities and capitals across the land.

“The arc of history is long but it bends toward justice.” That is also one of Bryan Stevenson’s favorite quotes. Righting the intolerable wrongs of the past and the present takes courage; hard work; even a righteous, steely indignation that can forge new forms and institutions predicated on equality and freedom for all. But building a truly just society also requires patience, hope and love.

A talking donkey?!

Many of us likely remember the delightful character, Donkey, voiced by Eddie Murphy, from Dreamworks’ Shrek, released almost 20 years ago.

But the story of a talking donkey was not original to Dreamworks. Indeed, a talking donkey plays a key role in this week’s Torah portion, Chukat-Balak.

At this point in their journey, the Israelites continue to wander through the desert, warring with hostile kings, searching for food and water, and fending off vicious animals. It’s a story filled with trials, challenges, and adventure — not unlike the Shrek franchise!

The Moabite King, Balak, sees how the people of Israel have prevailed in their battles against strong and powerful kingdoms, and he becomes nervous… What if his kingdom is next?

In a drawn-out and detailed episode, Balak sends for Balaam, who we might categorize as a local shaman or seer. Balak’s request to Balaam? To put a curse on the Israelites so that they may be defeated in battle. Balaam accepts his task but warns the king: “I can only utter the word that God puts into my mouth” (Num. 22:38). In other words, Balaam is just the messenger; it’s God who calls the shots.

Balaam heads out (with his talking donkey in tow, of course) to the encampment of the Israelites to fulfill his mission of cursing them. But as soon as he approaches, though he tries to curse the Israelites, a blessing spills from his mouth:

“Who can count the dust of Jacob, or number the dust-cloud of Israel? May I die the death of the upright, May my fate be like theirs!” (Num. 23:10).

Balak, furious, asks Balaam to try again. And the second time, despite his efforts, he recites another blessing:

“No harm is in sight for Jacob, No woe in view for Israel. The Eternal their God is with them” (Num. 23:21).

Balak gives him one last chance, but to no avail. On his third attempt to curse the Israelites, Balaam bestows another blessing in its place:

“How fair are your tents, O Jacob, Your dwellings, O Israel!” (Which is, of course, the translation of the Hebrew song, Mah Tovu). (Num. 24:5).

Alas, the Israelites receive three blessings in the place of three curses, and Balak and Balaam part ways.

The narrative is suspenseful and gripping. But the question is never asked: Why are the Israelites immune to Balaam’s curses? What was their powerful defense against damnation?

The Talmud provides an interesting and unexpected answer:

“We ask: What was it that Balaam saw that so inspired him? He saw that the entrances of their tents were not aligned with each other, ensuring that each family enjoyed a measure of privacy. And he said: If this is the case, these people are worthy of having the Divine Presence rest on them” (Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Bava Batra, page 60a).

The Talmud tells us that the Israelites, through a time of uncertainty and hardship while wandering in the desert, were still decent to one another. They tried to protect each family’s privacy. They tried to respect each other, even when it likely took great fortitude and effort. They treated each other with humanity, even when it was hard.

How will we, as a community of Jews and as members of our nation, bring blessings upon ourselves and our society? The Talmud gives us the answer: we become worthy of blessing when we treat all our fellow humans with deep respect and love, even when doing so isn’t easy.

As we celebrate the Fourth of July, the day of America’s Independence, may we respect one another when our opinions differ, may we engage with one another even when we are forced to stay apart, and may we support one another through the uncertainty of it all. If we can do this, we can withstand anything.

Yesterday’s date on the Hebrew calendar, the 17th of Tammuz, marks what the Tradition says is the beginning of the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem, which occurred three weeks later, in 586 BCE. It was a national calamity the likes of which the Jewish people had never known. And it would be repeated, following exile and return and 600 years, when the Romans sacked Jerusalem in 70 CE, giving birth to a two thousand year Jewish diaspora from the blood and flames of destruction. In rabbinical literature, this time period known as “the Three Weeks” is considered a national time of mourning, which is reflected in the Haftarah readings for the next several Shabbatot. Lamentations, the Biblical dirge written to commemorate the destruction of Jerusalem, states clearly that “Judah has gone into exile because of misery and harsh oppression; when she settled among the nations she found no rest; all her pursuers overtook her in the narrow places.”

The 17th of Tammuz is a fast day; the 9th of Av is a fast day as well. This ancient custom, shared for millenia by faiths across the globe and used even by contemporary spiritualists as a cleanser of bad vibes, is designed to focus us internally on our personal responsibility for destruction that supposedly comes from the outside world.

For example, the rabbis deployed the phrase “because of our sins we were exiled from the land” to indicate that as the prophets warned, our people’s fealty to idols and false gods provoked God to allow other nations to conquer Israel. We might understand this to mean that ancient Israelite culture lost its way, fell off a path of righteousness, perverted the values meant to undergird the obligation “to care for the poor, the widow, the orphan and to free the captive.” Selfishness and narcissism — a worship of the self — were seen as corrosive false worship. In the Roman era, the Sages expanded their reasons for the destruction and exile by looking even more closely at intra-Jewish behavior. The factionalism of the people tore the nation apart; trust was broken; violence threatened all around. “Because of free and causeless hatred,” the rabbis stated, God allowed Jerusalem to be destroyed again.

It may be tempting for the contemporary reader to reject such an analysis of cause and effect. Our post-Enlightenment tools of critical thinking would claim simply: God doesn’t work that way.

And yet, as we examine things more closely, even in our own day, who among us would say that when things go wrong, it is not due in large measure to human agency? Why is there poverty? Why is there racism? Why anti-Semitism? Why mass incarceration? Why are basic services like an excellent education and accessible healthcare so difficult to fulfill? And when we experience the kind of unrest that we have recently seen over these past many weeks, surely it is not punishment from God (late-night cable televangelists notwithstanding).

Indeed, from the smallest catastrophe to the greatest, there is human agency and responsibility. This has always been Judaism’s message. It is why we argue, why we protest, why we march, even to war, when every reasonable definition of doing what is right is threatened by those who would destroy the good, oppress the helpless, and seek gain only for its own reward. Tradition says we are God’s partners in the ongoing acts of creation, each and every day. Rabbi Tarfon, perhaps in a nod to the skeptics, said, “Ours is not to finish the task but neither are we free to sit on the sidelines and watch.” Or kibbitz. Or criticize.

We all gotta do something to make this world a better place.

The opening lines of Jeremiah, the 7th century BCE prophet who foresaw Jerusalem’s destruction, are the verses that comprise this week’s Haftarah. Like Moses before him, Jeremiah is a reluctant prophet. Chosen from birth to serve God, he is even touched by God, in the mouth, signalling either his own speech impediment or the acquisition of a particularly powerful skill of accessing a Divine voice in order to guide the people.

This motif (also shared by the prophet Isaiah as Robert Alter points out) is one of Judaism’s most enduring ideas: that the truest leadership comes from humility, even reluctance at first, and then blossoms into fortitude, vision and a tenacious duty to justice.

“And the Eternal reached out His hand and touched my mouth, and the Eternal said to me, ‘Look, I have put My words in your mouth. See, I have appointed you this day over nations and over kingdoms to uproot and to smash and to destroy and to lay waste, to build and to plant.” (Jeremiah 1:9-10)

It is a terrifying notion and a harrowing task. It brings to mind President Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural, where he said, a short time before his own death:

“Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

Lincoln’s words are their own American prophecy. Jeremiah survived attempts on his life; Lincoln did not. But their messages are the same: We can see God’s hand in our troubles only insofar as we deploy what we know to be true about God for the betterment of all humankind, sharing a world that is built upon a “just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

These are hard days for our community, our city, our nation and the world. That is undeniable. But the alleviation of suffering; the ability to love our neighbor; and the determination to not allow our spirits to be broken are Jeremiah’s uplifting reminder to us that the power to grow, change and heal is in our hands.