Friday, March 22, 2024

TBE Bar/Bat Mitzvah Commentary, Video and Screen Shots: Joshua Friedman on Shabbat Zachor



Shabbat Shalom!


Today is a special Shabbat called Shabbat Zachor.  It means the Sabbath of Remembrance. So what are supposed to remember?  We are supposed to remember what the evil nation of Amalek did to the Jewish people after they escaped many years of slavery in Egypt.  The Jewish people finally escaped Egypt after being slaves to Pharaoh for many years.  They were walking through the desert, hungry, thirsty, hot, and tired, and suddenly, this group of bullies called Amalekites attacked them, especially those people who were in the back and were tired and weak.  Why did they attack them?  We don’t know - maybe it’s out of fear or jealousy or maybe they were just scared of the Jewish people because they were different. After this attack, God says that we should always remember what Amalek did and “blot out Amalek’s name”. It's a way of saying that there are consequences for being mean and attacking others, and sometimes you have to take strong action to make sure it doesn't happen again. However, is violence always the best solution?  Aren’t there other ways to work things out? 

 

The story of Amalek reminds me of the theme of fighting against really bad leaders who hurt others for their own power.  Evil leaders like Hamas who attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.  Hamas is a terrorist organization and they killed at least 1,200 men, women, children, and infants in one single day.  It was the largest and most brutal massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. I remember hearing this news and couldn’t believe it.  I was just in Israel a few months earlier for the first time with my family and got to meet my cousins who live in Israel. I was so worried Hamas would hurt them because they were attacking so many innocent families in such an evil way.  Like the nation of Amalek, Hamas believes that the Jewish people should be destroyed and will not stop until that happens.  Hearing this makes me feel scared.  How could this be happening today? Could this happen to me?  There are not many Jewish people in my school and I remember wearing my “Stand for Israel” sweatshirt the day after I went to the Washington DC rally feeling very proud.  Another boy pointed it out and made a rude comment and I could respond one of two ways “fight back” or “ask them why they said what they said”.  I chose the latter and it threw him off that I was calm and wanted to have a conversation about it.  They didn’t have a response.  It made me realize that sometimes people have no reason for being mad or not liking someone and instead of figuring it out, they take the easy path by being angry.

There are so many sides to what is happening in Israel and it is very confusing to me that people could hate the Jewish people so much that they celebrated when they hurt or killed innocent people in such violent ways, even children who are my age or younger.   But then I think about the Palestinians who have to live with Hamas as their leader and what’s happening to the Palestinians.  It also isn’t fair since they are caught in the middle and are now dying from starvation and the war.  So in this situation, are we supposed to wipe out the memory of Hamas, similar to wiping out the memory of Amalek, by wiping out all who support Hamas?  Many people think that Israel is trying to do that.  They think that Israel wants to kill an entire population of people and they are being blamed for defending themselves.  Israel is often seen as the “evil one”. 

In my opinion, Israelis should have the right to defend themselves and rescue the people who were taken hostage.  They should have the right to stand up against an organization that is filled with so much evil against the Jewish people but at the same, I just wish the solution wasn’t war.  But Israel is left with not many choices since Hamas won’t agree to the cease-fire.  And so it gets very tricky. 

Nothing good comes from fighting.  It causes so much unnecessary stress.  Disagreements with friends and even with our own family happen all of the time but holding grudges never solves any problems.  If there is someone you have been upset with then talk it out. Just remember that we can’t change the past.  We can only move forward.  Give people the benefit of the doubt, have empathy, and listen so we can spend more time spreading kindness and less time waking up being mad.  Do things you can control like doing good in this world, which could be our way of destroying the idea of Amalek. 

And that brings me to my Mitzvah Project, Lasagna Love, which is all about spreading kindness, one lasagna at a time.  Lasagna Love’s mission is to do small acts of kindness that can make a big difference in someone’s life.  For people who might have lost a loved one, who just came out of the hospital, or are having trouble making ends meet, they can request a lasagna. No questions asked!  So every week or so, we are matched with a family in the area who just needs a delicious home-cooked meal.  This little act of kindness can make a big difference. We have helped families where the mom has MS and just wants a break from cooking for her kids, another person who just got out of the hospital and lives by herself so having a home-cooked meal brought a smile to her face, and another family who just immigrated to the United States and never had lasagna before so they wanted to see what all the hype was about!  Families are so grateful for the support and I love being able to help my neighbors that I didn’t even know before!  By the way, Lasagna Love is a national organization so even if you don’t live in Connecticut,  please check it out for your local community and spread the love of a delicious lasagna for a family in need!














Thursday, March 21, 2024

In This Moment: 100 Days; Purim and Palm Sunday: Perfectly Paired; Latke v. Hamentashen Debate

 

Mazal tov to Joshua Friedman

who becomes Bar Mitzvah this Shabbat!

In This Moment

The Last Hundred Days

Friday marks exactly 100 days until my tenure as Beth El's senior rabbi ends, according to my day-counter. When a politician begins a term of office, the first hundred days are considered a landmark opportunity to get things done. Presidents are evaluated on the accomplishments of those first hundred days. In religion, however, change can be glacier-like (a metaphor that no longer works in these days of climate change). In the Catholic church, change is measured in centuries, not days. So we might as well forget the first hundred days. But what about the last hundred? What should a rabbi strive to accomplish during this time frame?


I gave some thought to my agenda for the last hundred days and here's what I came up with.


  • Presidential Pardons - People line up during the final days of a US president's term for pardons. In contrast, during my last hundred days I'm not expecting to grant them; perhaps to ask for a few. It should be a time when - as at the end of Yom Kippur - the gates are fully open, at least metaphorically, since my office is currently too much of a mess for many meetings to be held there. But certainly, anyone who wishes to clear the air about anything is most welcome to be in touch. Times a fleeting!


  • Laying the Groundwork - or not - for what's nextWhen new clergy come aboard, one of the cardinal rules is never to make big institutional changes for a considerable period of time. Some say six months; others six years. Those who go too fast almost always pay a steep price. The departing rabbi, especially one who has been there for a long time, who understands the culture and has gained the trust of the congregation, can make things easier for the successor by enacting new policies that otherwise might seem controversial. I'm not planning on any radical changes at this point, but we have made some over the past few years, especially with regards to the inclusion of interfaith families and LGBTQ. These will clear the way for an easier transition.


  • W.P.A. - No, not FDR's Works Progress Administration from the New Deal. His first hundred days are the standard from which all others are measured. For me, W.P.A. stands for Write about Past Activities. I've found myself looking back at my 37 years here in Stamford, and my 42 years of work as a pulpit rabbi, to track some of the societal changes that have impacted me as well as ways I might have made a mark. This is also a natural time to wonder what has become of the thousand b'nai mitzvah students I've worked with, the hundreds of couples I've married, or those who have become Jews by choice - people whose lives I may have touched, and who've definitely touched mine. So I'll continue to spend time over the next hundred days reflecting back and sharing some of those reflections, with you and with our local Jewish Historical Society.


  • Counting Blessings and cherishing each remaining day. I've tried to do that all my life. No reason to stop now!


  • Restore Israel's Security and nurture the hope for a better future for Israel and her neighbors. This is work that will continue long after I've left my position here. Rabbis never stop being rabbis and I will continue to engage.


  • Keep Trump Out of the White HouseEvery day I will wake up and ask myself, what can I do today to keep this most dangerous presidential candidate, the one who has the gall to tell me that I hate my religionaway from power.


That's enough to keep me plenty busy for these last hundred days. Plus, moving out and moving in. As you can see below, the bookshelves are starting to fill up in my study at my new home.

Click to read this week's piece on Purim and Palm Sunday. And don't forget to subscribe to my Substack page if you want to continue receiving my emails. After Pesach, In This Moment will no longer be sent out to the TBE email list. My weekly digest of Jewish ideas and information will switch over to Substack exclusively. Most of the content will remain free, though for-pay subscriptions will also be available. Don't miss a single issue! And tell your friends and relatives!

Recommended Reading

5

The Schumer/Netanyahu Thing

See video below: Israeli comedian Lior Schleien (their Jon Stewart) explaining why Israelis - including Likud supporters - are so frustrated at the prime minister right now. Subtitles by Daniel Gordis, who, as a center-right Israeli that typically has supported Netanyahu and completely supports the Just War in Gaza, has his pulse on the sense of betrayal Israelis feel. Most support the war, but they also want elections ASAP. And for good reason. The prime minister has zero credibility, and in order to fight, you need to believe what your leaders are saying.

As for the controversy over Schumer's calling for Israeli elections, Gordis writes: "No one here is taking kindly to Chuck Schumer’s telling us when we should have elections, but as for Bibi being the source of much of Israel’s trouble, that is no longer a very controversial assertion."


And that's the crux of the matter. American Jews are getting caught up in the political crossfire, with Democratic leaders trying to create arbitrary red lines and clumsily attack Israel because it's good politics (which in itself is noteworthy - since when is attacking Israel good politics? Since Bibi), and the leader of the G.O.P saying that Jews who vote Democratic should renounce their Judaism.


Meanwhile, Bibi threatens to go into Rafah but has no intention of doing so for a while. (See HaaretzWhy Rafah Has Become a Political Battleground Between the U.S. and Israel). Bottom line: There's no prospect of a Rafah operation before the late spring, at the soonest, so why is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu constantly talking it up, and why are U.S. President Joe Biden and other senior members of his administration serially warning against it?


In a statement last week, Netanyahu said that he had authorized plans for a Rafah attack. Ha'aretz points out that there were a number of false and misleading details in that statement. For one thing, Prime Ministers don't authorize military plans. Netanyahu is grandstanding to delay elections there and to influence them here.


And over here, Jewish organizations are rushing to take pro and anti-Schumer positions.


I was surprised that Schumer went as far as he did - he is by nature very cautious - and knew that mainstream Jewish organizations would rush to distance themselves from him. Listen to Lior Schleien and you'll understand why it hurts Israel for American Jewish to prop up this far right government and its leader right now, when a center-right broad coalition led by Gantz, Lapid or Bennett or just about anyone else would be far better able to safeguard Israel militarily and diplomatically - and democratically too. See below how. according to the Democracy Index. Israel is no longer considered a liberal democracy. Sen. Schumer, who loves Israel "in his bones," demonstrated that he understood the ultra high stakes of this moment.


Based on today's news, it seems like Senator Schumer is on board for a bipartisan invitation from Congress to the Israeli Prime Minister. I hope he leaves his props at home.







  • For 1st Time in 50 Years | Israel No Longer Considered Liberal Democracy; Global Index Cites Judicial Coup (Ha'aretz) As a result of the Israeli government's judicial overhaul and repeated attacks by ministers on the country's justice system, Israel has been downgraded from a "liberal democracy" to an "electoral democracy" by one of the world's most important indices for assessing the nature of a country's governmental system. For the last 50 years, Israel has been in the highest tier of the rankings, but as of this year's downgrade, Israel is now on an equal status with countries like Poland and Brazil. V-Dem is a leading international database for measuring the type of democracy found in over 200 countries. The database classifies countries into four categories: Closed autocracies, electoral autocracies, electoral democracies, and liberal democracies.


Latke Vs. Hamentashen Debate

Latke V. Hamentaschen Debate - There have been many great debates in world history: Lincoln vs. Douglas, the Scopes trial, and of course that all time classic, "tastes great" vs "less filling." Jews have been avid debate fans ever since Abraham took it to the limit with God over the future of Sodom. But no debate has stirred up Jewish passions over the years more than the one that we feature today: Latkes vs. Hamentaschen. And so it is only natural that this great debate has turned up online. Dozens of sites analyze this great match-up, giving it the hype it deserves. This is the Super Bowl of Kosher Culinary Combat. And for rabbis and academicians, this is the Super Bowl of "pilpul," the art of taking Talmudic logic to absurd extremes. I was all over this classic controversy in a Shabbat-O-Gram from 2001. Most of the links found there, alas, are no longer operational. See some background here. You can watch a classic rendering in the video above, from the University of Chicago, which has sponsored these debates for decades. Read coverage of that debate on NPR.


Since it's Purim, here are two pro-Hamentashen arguments, based on principles of halacha: A). You can only make 1 blessing on a Latke; while if you eat the dough and filling separately, you can make 2 blessings [Boray Minay M'zonot and BVoray P'ri Ha'etz] on a hamentash. We all know that 2 brachas are better than 1. B). The whole essence of the mitzvah of latkes is something secondary to the actual latke - namely the oil. Hamentaschen, on the other hand has its essence tied into the actual hamentash - not what it's cooked in! Also, by baking the hamentash with a little oil sprayed on the cookie sheet, you can even fulfill the mitzvah of Chanukah on Purim!






From the front page of today's Yediot. "Purim in Blue and White." These two young girls are dressed up as iron-sword warriors, in the spirit of the times. The current war is called "Operation Iron Sword." So art imitates life and there is no escaping reality, even behind the masks of Purim. On the other hand, even these young children jump at the chance to support their older cousins,, parents and siblings, who are off defending their country. Not much to smile about this Purim - but they are smiling nonetheless. And we are smiling more because of them!

Tomorrow's Front Pages

If the correct front page doesn't appear, try again later this evening



Haaretz

The Jerusalem Post

Yediot Achronot

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Friday, March 15, 2024

Schumer, Wiesel and the Zone of Indifference

 

Schumer, Wiesel and the Zone of Indifference

Wiesel taught us that indifference is the greatest sin. It, more than evil, is the opposite of good. That's why American Jews can't ignore the suffering in Gaza - and Schumer understood that.

I am a Wieselian Jew. And if you are Jewish, you probably are too.

This generation of Jews - especially American Jews - has been brought up on the ethic of Elie Wiesel, who, more than anyone else, defined and formulated our post-Holocaust worldview. Others were influential - Heschel, Buber, Mordecai Kaplan, Soloveitchik and Schneerson, to name a few. But if the Holocaust was the most formative event of the past century, Wiesel was the prophet whose ethic of responsibility emerged as the most salient teaching to emerge from that cataclysm.

And for Wiesel, the First Commandment of post-Holocaust Judaism was always "Thou shalt not be indifferent!"

For anyone who is a Wieselian Jew, it is simply impossible to turn aside when innocent people are suffering. Which is why it is now impossible for American Jews to ignore what happened in Israel on October 7. And it is also now impossible to ignore what has happened in Gaza since October 7. We just can’t. It’s at the core of our Judaism - our post Holocaust ethic as inculcated by the Prophet of Buchenwald.

Three items for your to-do list for this weekend:

1) Watch Chuck Schumer's speech on the Senate floor, where he went where no one of his stature has ever gone before in calling for a change in Israeli leadership. See the full text and summary of main points here. Read it all. It's a well-considered, realistic (really) roadmap to get us from an intolerable present to a potentially promising future.

2) Watch the Oscar winning Holocaust film, "Zone of Interest," not with an eye toward what director Jonathan Glazer said (no, he did not refute his Jewishness) about the dehumanizing corrosiveness of Israel's occupation, but rather toward what Steven Spielberg said in calling it "the best Holocaust movie I've witnessed since my own... especially about the banality of evil."

3) Then watch or read Elie Wiesel's White House speech from 1999, "The Perils of Indifference."

It was instructive for me to watch all three, back to back to back.

What Schumer did was so unprecedented - in some ways courageous and in some ways way past due - that it can be best understood as a response to the very form of indifference to suffering that "Zone of Interest" exposes: A family living an idyllic existence in the shadows of hell, yet showing no interest in looking over the fence, or even glancing at it, despite being completely aware of what was going on. This film made me squirm, in its own way more shocking than raw footage of the crimes themselves. To see the crematoria and gas chambers being sanitized by cleaning crews was the perfect way to demonstrate how the disinfectant numbing the conscience was just as potent as the "disinfectant" used to kill the victims.

While analogies linking the Holocaust to Israel's attacks on Gaza are unfounded and abhorrent, let’s set that aside for the moment and instead focus on the film's overall message of dehumanization and indifference to suffering. If we do, we can hear a compelling summons - a cry as distinct as those muffled cries heard in the background of nearly every scene of the film.

Schumer understood that no degree of suffering gives anyone license to stand idly by while others suffer. He acknowledged the "pure and premeditated evil" that occurred on October 7. Playing on the Hebrew meaning of his last name, he called himself a "Shomer Yisrael," a guardian of Israel and claimed to speak for the majority of American Jews, and I think he does. American Jews cannot stand idly by when innocent people suffer. Especially when it is on our (American and Jewish) watch.

In the film, the only one who is moved by the cries on the other side of the wall is the family dog. Other non human principals also seem to engage: birds, flowers, the commandant's beloved horse, the sky, with puffy cotton-clouds mingling with constant plumes of grey smoke, and the water, polluted with human remains. The earth cries out with the blood of Abel.

But the people are indifferent to the suffering. They go about living their lives as if nothing is happening next door. In fact, they love their lives so much they don't want to leave. Free slave labor, and confiscated possessions from former neighbors. The Nazi leader doesn't feel a pang of conscience as he designs more efficient crematoria. The Zone of Interest was in fact a Zone of Indifference.

Elie Wiesel repeated his First Commandment repeatedly at the White House before multiple presidents - including Reagan before his trip to Bitburg and President Clinton in the video above. (See transcript here.)

Here is an excerpt from this classic speech, "The Perils of Indifference."

Indifference, after all, is more dangerous than anger and hatred. Anger can at times be creative. One writes a great poem, a great symphony. One does something special for the sake of humanity because one is angry at the injustice that one witnesses. But indifference is never creative. Even hatred at times may elicit a response. You fight it. You denounce it. You disarm it.

Indifference elicits no response. Indifference is not a response. Indifference is not a beginning; it is an end. And, therefore, indifference is always the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the aggressor -- never his victim, whose pain is magnified when he or she feels forgotten. The political prisoner in his cell, the hungry children, the homeless refugees -- not to respond to their plight, not to relieve their solitude by offering them a spark of hope is to exile them from human memory. And in denying their humanity, we betray our own.

Indifference, then, is not only a sin, it is a punishment.

Wiesel's gospel of engagement is what propels American Jewry more than any other ideology. More than "World Repair," more than wokeness, more than social justice, more even than Zionism. All of these can be seen as derivatives of the Wiesel Doctrine, "Thou shalt give a damn” - about all suffering people. About Jews first, to be sure, but never just Jews. And that mindset that has become our calling from the moment the gates of Auschwitz closed for good, from the moment Wiesel first articulated them in “Night.”

He taught us that indifference is the greatest sin. It, more than evil, is the opposite of good.

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And it is the Wiesel Doctrine that does not allow us to ignore the plight of innocent Gazans, much as we might prefer to, much as we might be entitled to, much as Wiesel himself might have done with regard to Palestinians, especially later in life, when he turned rightward. Some have accused him of having had a moral blindspot there, and it's easy to imagine how outraged and heartbroken he would have been after seeing what happened to Israelis on October 7.

But Wiesel's creed of non-apathy would still demand that we open our eyes to suffering of innocents on the other side, even when some on that side are lethal enemies. And the fact that Israel's far right is not open to such compassion, or even to accepting responsibility for deaths on their own side of the fence, is why American Jews are so torn right now, with Schumer articulating that angst. And that is why so many American Jews, in order to express our deepest Jewish convictions, are at odds with this Israeli Prime Minister - though not with the Israeli people.

Some Israelis feel that Wieselian pang of conscience too. And most no longer trust their leader. They sense that something is not right, and most Israelis don't want to lose their only friends in the world. Despite the anger. Despite their justifiable rage. Despite the evil of their enemy. They don't want to become what they hate.

Neither do we, as American Jews face our greatest challenge: to avoid taking up residence in the Zone of Indifference.