Month: April 2023

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Sermons

A Contagion of Hope – Tazria/Metzora 5783

A fascinating news story crossed my desk this past week. It was about Chaim Topol, the Israeli actor who died last month at age 87, and was most famous for playing the role of Tevye the Milkman on stage in London and in the 1971 film version of “Fiddler on the Roof.” 

Some of you know that my family is big into musical theater, and this film loomed large in my childhood. I have seen it many times. Topol actually landed the role of Tevye following his appearance in the classic Israeli film from 1964, “Sallaḥ Shabbati,” which captures the tale of mizraḥi immigrants, those who came from Arab countries to Israel in the early years of the State, and the various ethnic and tribal forces in play during that time. When he first arrived in London, Topol could barely speak English, and learned his lines in Fiddler phonetically.

Topol, it turns out, was also a spy, and due to his international fame and the access to certain quarters which it granted, was able to work as a Mossad operative. He had a tiny camera and tape recorder which he always traveled with, and among his most remarkable exploits was an episode where he and famed Israeli spy Peter Zvi Malkin bugged the embassy of an Arab country by setting up what looked like a dentists’ office next door, and then drilling into the embassy through the wall. When the embassy’s security guards heard drilling and came to investigate, Topol was lying in the dentist’s chair and Malkin was pretending to work on his teeth.

Topol’s son, who went public with his father’s spycraft tales, claimed that his father enjoyed the adventure of working as a spy. It certainly makes sense that an actor enjoyed playing multiple types of roles, and “Mossad agent” is a pretty juicy role, even if there is no audience.

It is a great story, capturing the scrappy tenacity of the early years of the State of Israel, which turns 75 years old on Wednesday. But there is also a reminder here that things are not always as they seem.

That is, of course, one of the implicit messages that our bat mitzvah delivered a few moments ago. Things are not always as they seem. What the Torah describes as a skin disease, tzara’at, can be understood as a metaphor for a range of spiritual afflictions. And when we dig closely into the text of the Torah, we see that this is a completely reasonable conclusion. The symptoms of tzara’at as described do not resemble any disease we know today, and it is notable that the person who determines the course of action for an apparent tzara’at infection is not a doctor, but rather a kohen, a priest. And the thing about some spiritual afflictions is that they can spread easily. They are contagious.

One such affliction today which we seem to have in abundance is fear. We have so many things about which to be fearful: Train derailments! Climate change! Political division! Mental illness! Anti-Semitism! Virus outbreaks! Microplastics in our water! The list is long, and the folks in the news and social media biz are great at playing these things up, because they press our buttons and drive us to click on more articles and videos and ironic memes and so forth. And, of course, those things only serve to make us more fearful, creating a feedback loop of negativity.

That fear is clearly a contemporary contagion which spreads far too easily. It makes me want to, in the words of the Psalmist (Ps. 121:1), look up to the mountains and ask, from where will my help come? What will save us from all the modern plagues we face? Who will save us from the fear with which these things are infusing our lives?

The Psalmist answers (v. 2), as you might expect, that our help comes from God. God will save us from fear. And however you define God, there is quite a bit of wisdom in that. 

In challenging times, which for the Jews have been for the last 2600 years or so, we have always leaned into our framework of ritual and ancient wisdom to give us strength, to provide emotional support when we need it, to provide comfort in times of grief and loss. And that support is still available to us today. That is one reason why there are so many people here this morning: not only because we are a congregation that celebrates benot mitzvah, young women who have reached the age of majority, by calling them to the Torah, but also because we are a congregation that meets daily to engage in prayer, such that we can draw strength every day from our ancient poetry and rituals. Because we are a congregation that engages with words of Torah in many ways.

Psalm 121, was one that we recited in Shabbat morning services on October 27, 2018, after we heard the news about what had happened half a mile away, and we continued to recite that Psalm for a long time thereafter.

When I heard last week about the young man in Kansas City, Ralph Yarl, who was shot and wounded when he rang the doorbell at the wrong house, as he was trying to pick up his twin brothers, my mind immediately went to the contagion of fear. Thank God, 16-year-old Ralph is going to make it – he was released from the hospital four days later, and I hope that he succeeds in his goal of studying chemical engineering at Texas A&M University – it’s a great department. (It’s where I received my first Master’s degree, in chemical engineering.)

Unfortunately, 20-year-old Kaylin Gillis was not so lucky. After driving up the wrong driveway in upstate New York one week ago, she was shot and killed. The shooter’s attorney has said that the accidental trespassers “created an atmosphere and a fear that there was menace going on.” 

What is truly tragic about both of these case is that some of us are so fearful for our own safety that we absolutely feel like we must shoot first and ask questions later. 

Do we feel so unsafe in our own homes that we answer the door armed? Do we value the lives of others so little that we assume that every interaction is going to go badly? Some believe that the way to prevent innocent people from being killed is to arm even more of us. Might this lead to even greater fear, an even greater preponderance of anxious trigger-finger shootings?

Fear is a contagion.  It multiplies. It spreads.

My wife observes that I’ve been sighing a lot lately. These questions are among the many reasons I keep sighing.

There is a reason that the national anthem of the State of Israel is Hatiqvah, a poem written by the Hebrew poet Naftali Herz Imber in 1878. Hatiqvah tells the story of the hope of the Jewish people:

עוֹד לֹא אַבְדָה תְּקְוַתֵינוּ, הַתִּקְוַה בַּתְ שְׁנוֹת אַלְפַּיִים

Od lo avdah tiqvateinu / Hatiqvah bat shenot alpayim*
We have not yet lost our hope / The hope of 2000 years

The source of the phrase “Od lo avdah tiqvateinu,” we have not yet lost our hope, is found in the haftarah we read two weeks ago, on Shabbat Ḥol Hamoed Pesaḥ, from the book of Ezekiel, in that prophet’s vision of the valley of dry bones, which are re-animated by God. And once they are a standing crowd of people, the entirety of the House of Israel, they say, “יָבְשׁ֧וּ עַצְמוֹתֵ֛ינוּ וְאָבְדָ֥ה תִקְוָתֵ֖נוּ נִגְזַ֥רְנוּ לָֽנוּ׃” “Our bones are dried up, our hope is lost, we are doomed.” (Ezek. 37:11)

And then Ezekiel to reminds them that they will be returning to their home, to the land of Israel.

While this vision is understandably a favorite of Zionists, it is also a more universal metaphor. When all hope is lost; when we feel besieged and desiccated and despairing and metaphorically far from home, there is always hope for redemption. There is always hope for return. It is a comforting thought. Things are not always as they seem.

I wish that hope were as infectious as fear. I wish that we could look at the world and not see it falling apart, not see only decline and danger and poison and guns and threats to democracy at every turn. That miserable stuff is simply too easy to see all around us. 

I wish instead that we had a healthier spiritual affliction, one which causes us to see the good in others, the successes of contemporary life, the ways that technology continues to improve our lives, the ways in which we navigate the challenges of the current moment. We do not have to be in the valley of dry bones; we can instead emphasize the redemptive qualities of the world we have right now.

If I had one hope for humanity, it would be that, rather than inclining toward fear of the others around us, we should rather give the benefit of the doubt, and incline toward hope. I pray for optimism to be contagious.

And I am going to go out on a limb here when I say that, while my understanding of God is quite unorthodox and does not necessarily fit the descriptions which come to us from our ancient literature, I firmly hold that it is our willingness to perceive God’s presence in our lives and ourselves that compels us to reach out to one another in love, to see the beauty in all others, to feel the occasionally hidden, yet undeniable yetzer hatov, inclination to good in all people, and in humanity. That perception of God breathes the impetus of love into our being. 

Things are not always as they seem; our fear might mask our hope. But I have to believe that that hope is there, and is infectious, and that with God’s presence, we will be redeemed from fear once again. May there soon be a contagion of hope among us.

~

Rabbi Seth Adelson

(Originally delivered at Congregation Beth Shalom, Pittsburgh, PA, Shabbat morning, 4/22/2023.)

Categories
Festivals Sermons Yizkor

Allies in Faith – 8th Day Pesaḥ 5783 / Yizkor

Passover, like no other holiday, trades in memory, personal and national. Just about every seder* that I have ever attended relies on memories of past sedarim, of family gatherings, of special foods, some which we liked and some which we memorably did not; memories of your funny uncle who would take a sip out of Elijah’s cup when everybody was watching the door, of good times singing Eḥad Mi Yodea and Ḥad Gadya and Dayyenu, of the hunt for the afikoman and of course all the grandparents and aunts and uncles around the table, the people who are no longer with us. And certainly the remembrance that comes with Yizkor at the end of Pesaḥ puts a final flourish on the sense of personal memory that this holiday features.

And also perhaps like no other holiday, Pesaḥ trades on historical memories of our people. Yetzi’at Mitzrayim, the Exodus from Egypt, is not only the foundational moment of Benei Yisrael, the people of Israel, but is also an essential statement of who we are as a people. The family of Ya’aqov / Jacob descends into Egypt as a group of 70 people escaping famine, and emerges 430 years later as a great nation, ready to receive the Torah and inherit the Land of Israel which has been promised to them. 

But this family becomes a nation by experiencing slavery and subsequent redemption, ensuring from the outset that from generation to generation Jewish people would understand what it means to be a slave, to be oppressed and persecuted, to be subjugated by another and denied our own spiritual means. Pesaḥ is therefore emblematic of all the ways in which we continue to act on that arc of slavery and redemption, in which we seek to bring about redemption for ourselves and the world by highlighting the holiness of the others around us.

And we hear that story replayed over and over throughout Jewish history, with the Babylonian Exile and return in the 6th c. BCE; the Roman destruction and dispersion of the Jews from Israel in the 1st c. CE; the Inquisition, the pogroms, the Shoah / Holocaust, the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. 

Persecution and redemption. Displacement, dispersion, and return. These are the major themes of Jewish existence going all the way back to slavery in Egypt. That is why the memories of our people speak so powerfully; that is why the Pesaḥ seder is still one of the most-practiced Jewish observances, because it is so deeply laden with history. The Pesaḥ memory machine, every spring, serves up its products along with the matzah and maror.

As you may know, I grew up in a fairly non-Jewish place, in the rustic and handsome Berkshire hills of Western Massachusetts. My parents had to work hard to ensure that my brother and sister and I had a strong connection to our tradition, our community, our customs and rituals, that we would be deeply connected to that memory machine. Our Conservative synagogue was 17 miles away, a 30-minute car ride. The nearest kosher meat market was in Albany, NY, an hour by car over a mountain. My grandparents and many close relatives with whom we spent some holidays were three hours away in Boston. There was no Jewish day school nearby. 

Williamstown, Massachusetts. Yes, I grew up there.

Virtually all of my closest school friends were Christian, and many were active in their churches. I was often, if you will, the token Jew: the only one bringing matzah sandwiches on Pesaḥ or missing school on Rosh HaShanah. I was always in some sense an outsider. I did not share my personal and national memories with my friends and neighbors.

But one of the things I have come to understand in recent years is that what unites people of faith is far greater than what divides us. We, the Jews, have the potential to be allies with other like-minded Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Bahai, Druze, and so forth.

Consider what we share:

  • Commitment to a framework of holy behavior which elevates and enriches our lives and the lives of the other people around us
  • Cultivation of the values of respect, gratitude, compassion, charity, community, education, and justice
  • Rituals which create meaning for our lives, including regular prayer, holidays, and lifecycle events: birth, coming-of-age, marriage, and death and mourning
  • Understanding that the role of Divinity in our lives provides a template for interacting with others
  • A textual basis for all of the above

Now, of course there is tremendous variation in style and language and the range of values that we hold dear, and of course theology. As just one small example, Judaism tends to emphasize action, Christianity belief. And of course we differ on matters of religious law, and how we read and interpret our shared texts, rituals and foods and customs and so forth. 

But think of all of the potential power contained within all of those which we do share, and how, if people of faith work in concert with one another, we can truly build a better society and a better world.

At the congregational seder last Thursday night here at Beth Shalom, among the 85 attendees were five Christian guests, young adult members of the East Liberty Presbyterian Church who had requested to attend. I was certain that they were quite overwhelmed by the scene. 

But I was really somewhat anxious, given these non-Jewish attendees, about one standard passage of the haggadah, which comes deep into the seder, right as we open the door (ostensibly to invite in Elijah the Prophet). We say, 

שְׁפֹךְ חֲמָתְךָ אֶל־הַגּוֹיִם אֲשֶׁר לֹא יְדָעוּךָ וְעַל־מַמְלָכוֹת אֲשֶׁר בְּשִׁמְךָ לֹא קָרָאוּ. כִּי אָכַל אֶת־יַעֲקֹב וְאֶת־נָוֵהוּ הֵשַׁמּוּ. שְׁפָךְ־עֲלֵיהֶם זַעֲמֶךָ וַחֲרוֹן אַפְּךָ יַשִּׂיגֵם. תִּרְדֹף בְּאַף וְתַשְׁמִידֵם מִתַּחַת שְׁמֵי ה

Pour your wrath upon the nations that do not know You and upon the kingdoms that do not call upon Your Name! Since they have consumed Ya’aqov and laid waste his habitation (Psalms 79:6-7). Pour out Your fury upon them and the fierceness of Your anger shall reach them (Psalms 69:25)! You shall pursue them with anger and eradicate them from under the skies of the Lord (Lamentations 3:66).

Now, it is likely that our ancestors added these verses in the Middle Ages to cry out to God for revenge against their non-Jewish tormentors. It was a statement of defiance in the face of powerlessness, delivered when the door was open to show the gentile neighbors that they were not doing anything nefarious. Our national memory of these times is, to put it mildly, not good.

Our ancestors probably could not have foreseen a day when people of different faiths could be allies against the forces of chaos. That idea was simply not a part of Jewish memory for many centuries.

But that is where we are right now, and that is what I said on Thursday night in the presence of our Presbyterian guests. We should not read these lines as a deliberate insult to non-Jews; we should instead absolutely read them as a statement against those who malign religious faith and attack worshippers in synagogues, churches, mosques, temples and gurdwaras and children in religious schools of any sort.

I do not think that I am the only one here who sees that the chaos grows as our society, as the people around us, grow more distant from religious tradition. Without a framework of spirituality, we create a world without rules, without principles, without dedication to the holiness of the other. Truth becomes relative; we worship the idols of politics and money and power. A world without religious tradition becomes one in which each individual is their own highest authority, where there are no guideposts and no guardrails. 

The power of allyship across religious lines is extraordinarily important today. United, we are a serious force within our society, and not for the purposes of indoctrinating others into our religion, but rather for improving the condition of all people.

I mentioned in this space on the first day of Pesaḥ that the “swatting” hoaxes of last week, which have lamentably continued, are creating fear in our communities. Last week it was Central Catholic; Monday night it was students at Pitt. Our friend Rev. Canon Natalie Hall’s children were in lockdown, subject to very real fear. 

We, the allies in faith, can push back against the forces of chaos, like those who are maliciously causing these security messes. We may not entirely win; chaos has always been with us. But we can do the best we can to build bridges, to heal wounds, to discuss our memories and our history and yes, even our theology and how we read the Torah differently. And that will, I am absolutely certain, go a long way toward helping to cure this fractured world.

When we meet together and learn together and break bread together as allies, we will be prepared to navigate together the many challenges which now plague our society and world. True people of faith know that we accomplish more when build bridges instead of walls, and we must add the sense of allyship to contemporary Jewish memory.

Our grandparents, our parents, the people whom we remember today, came with their families to this country to escape the persecutions of the Old World, to flee the rigid social lines of Europe, where they had always been outsiders. Here we are free not only to practice our traditions, not only to be considered as equals to our non-Jewish neighbors, but also to work together with partners whom our ancestors could never have imagined. 

In their memory, together, we can build a better world. Thank God.

And, if you want an opportunity to learn Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible) in an interfaith setting, please join us for A Conversation Between Christians & Jews Toward Friendship & Discovery. The first session is this coming Sunday, April 23, 2023, and it will be an engaging series focused on building and strengthening connections while studying our shared texts.

~

Rabbi Seth Adelson

(Originally delivered at Congregation Beth Shalom, Pittsburgh, PA, 8th Day of Pesaḥ, 4/13/2023.)

* The Passover seder (plural: sedarim) is a special dinner and storytelling ritual that is observed on the first two nights of Pesaḥ. It includes displaying and eating special foods and telling the story of the Israelites’ Exodus from Egypt.

Categories
Festivals Sermons

The Seder as a Model for Resilience – First Day Pesaḥ 5783

Last Wednesday, I was working out on an elliptical machine at the JCC when I received a text message. It was an EMERGENCY NOTIFICATION, in all caps, from the Jewish Federation Security Team. When I clicked on the included link, I landed at a page which screamed in red letters, “***This is a CRITICAL Notification***,” and explained that there was a BluePoint activation at Central Catholic, and that police were on the scene, and students were being evacuated to Rodef Shalom.

I figured that there was not much I could do, being there at the JCC in my workout clothes and all sweaty, so I went on with my workout. About a half-hour later, I received a notification that the event was a hoax, and as the day progressed, we all learned that a bunch of schools were targeted across Pennsylvania, and that they fell victim to a particular kind of terror attack known as “swatting.”

Of course, it was quite frightening for the students who were evacuated, or who were in lockdown in the building. The next day, I spoke to our friend Rev. Canon Natalie Hall, the rector at Church of the Redeemer on Forbes, and as it turns out, two of her kids were actually in locked-down classrooms. Her teenager was texting her from a closet, and as you can imagine, she was terrified. (A similar event happened at Beth Shalom a few years back when a 3-year-old accidentally hit the panic button and activated the system. Everybody in the building went into lockdown.)

I am grateful that we have systems that are designed to protect us. I am grateful that the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh has poured money into setting up these security systems; you should know that if you trigger one of the BluePoint alarm devices in the building, for Police, Medical, or Fire, not only do the emergency responders know where you are located within the building, but also everybody else who works in a Jewish institution knows that something is happening at Beth Shalom. I had no idea that we were also connected to the system at Central Catholic.

For the children who had to go into lockdown, what happened on Wednesday was completely real. They did not know, at least for a certain number of minutes, that this was a hoax. They were told that it was an active shooter. 

In our zeal to prevent terrorists from actually (God forbid) attacking people, some bad actors have discovered that they do not need to actually attack anybody (God forbid) to cause very real fear and harm. The police were tied up for hours. (Even so, somewhat ironically, I still managed to get a parking ticket, because I forgot to pay for parking at the JCC lot that morning.)

And unfortunately, it seems like fears are multiplying upon each other these days. Parents are afraid of what ideas their kids might encounter, or not encounter, in schools. Religious groups are afraid of growing secularism. Everybody’s afraid that they may be called out online if they say something that contradicts contemporary orthodoxies. Great anxiety now surrounds any type of election. We are all afraid of the water and the air and what might be in it. 

And, of course, here in Pittsburgh, some of us are quite anxious about the upcoming trial for the person who murdered 11 precious souls down the street from here on October 27, 2018. And not just for the details of the testimony, which, I am certain, will be quite unsettling. 

I am personally concerned that one unpleasant sight to which we may be treated will be people from extremist groups protesting the trial outside the courthouse. I hope those people do not show up, but as detestable as they are, they of course have the right to parade their hatred and anti-Semitism before us all, and they may just do that.

Fear, persecution, anxiety, terrorism, hatred, violence, genocide. Sadly, none of these things are new to Jewish life. We acknowledge the many ways we have suffered throughout our history at multiple points on the Jewish calendar, and Pesaḥ is a time that is especially heavy in this regard. The fear, and ultimate triumph, of our people is found all over the haggadah. Just a few examples:

  • In telling the story, the extended midrash on “Arami oved avi,” (“My father was a wandering Aramean,” Devarim / Deuteronomy 26:5-8) details the affliction, misery, and oppression which our ancestors suffered at the hands of the Egyptians. The midrash offers descriptions of the work as futile and the taskmasters as brutal oppressors who beat and terrorized and otherwise layered cruel punishments on our ancestors to maintain the level of fear and subjugation.
  • Elsewhere in the haggadah, we sing of the “ḥad gadya,” the single baby goat, who symbolizes the poor, enslaved Jews, and suffers at the hands of various, ever-larger and more dangerous predators until finally redeemed by the Qadosh Barukh Hu / Holy, Blessed One.
  • And then, of course, there is the moment when we “pour out our wrath” upon our oppressors, indulging in a rare, “Inglourious Basterds”-style fantasy of overpowering our tormentors, as we open our doors to beckon to Eliyahu haNavi, who will redeem us from all present and future harm.

For all the many centuries we have been telling this story, we have been subject to anti-Semitic persecution, and our current moment is no different. The Anti-Defamation League recently reported a significant jump in anti-Semitic incidents in 2022, nearly 3,700. That is a 36% increase over the year before, and a fourfold increase since 2014, when there were 912 incidents reported. 

And put in that context, the seder tells the story of Jewish resilience. We have continued doing what we do, even after the Romans laid waste to Jerusalem, after medieval blood libel accusations, after the Expulsion from Spain, after the Shoah. We keep telling the story of overcoming our oppressors. We keep welcoming in all those who are hungry. We keep singing about the poor baby goat who is redeemed by God.

Resilience is to keep doing what we are doing, and to not be afraid.

My double colleague, Rabbi/Cantor Lilly Kaufman, wrote a piece about fear and the Exodus story in which she pointed out that some fear is normal, but of course it is possible to be overwhelmed or even paralyzed by fear, and our tradition has some guidance for that. Next Wednesday morning, on the seventh day of Pesaḥ, we chant from the Torah about the dramatic escape of the Israelites from Pharaoh’s armies as they cross the Sea of Reeds on dry land. As the Egyptian armies draw near, the Israelites cry out in fear, “Was it for want of graves in Egypt that you brought us out to die in the wilderness?” (Shemot/Exodus 14:11). Moshe responds by saying, (vv. 13-14):

וַיֹּ֨אמֶר מֹשֶׁ֣ה אֶל־הָעָם֮ אַל־תִּירָ֒אוּ֒ הִֽתְיַצְּב֗וּ וּרְאוּ֙ אֶת־יְשׁוּעַ֣ת ה’ אֲשֶׁר־יַעֲשֶׂ֥ה לָכֶ֖ם הַיּ֑וֹם כִּ֗י אֲשֶׁ֨ר רְאִיתֶ֤ם אֶת־מִצְרַ֙יִם֙ הַיּ֔וֹם לֹ֥א תֹסִ֛פוּ לִרְאֹתָ֥ם ע֖וֹד עַד־עוֹלָֽם׃ה’ יִלָּחֵ֣ם לָכֶ֑ם וְאַתֶּ֖ם תַּחֲרִשֽׁוּן׃

… “Have no fear! Stand by, and witness the deliverance which God will work for you today; for the Egyptians whom you see today you will never see again. God will battle for you; you hold your peace!”

Rabbi Kaufman adds, 

Moses speaks about fear without . . . fear. This is perhaps the most important thing he does: he names the overwhelming feeling and confronts it directly and succinctly. He is supportive, confident, and empathic. He speaks not only about what God will do, but about how the Israelites will experience it. Moses promises that they will see God’s redemption, and he predicts a defining shift in how they will see Egypt from now on.

As we face whatever forms of ugly Jew-hatred come our way in the near future, we must acknowledge the fear, as Moshe does, and also look to the future when we will be redeemed from this fear. We have come so far, over so many centuries, and left so many haters in the rear-view mirror. And we have, all along, drawn strength from the framework of our tradition, drawn strength from each other as a community, and drawn strength from the Qadosh Barukh Hu.

Regarding the trial, let me suggest the following: if you are concerned about hearing or seeing unsettling details or extremist protestors or anything that will upset you, try to avoid watching TV news or reading those articles in the paper or online. I myself do not want to hear/see/read that stuff. But also know that, whatever happens, we as a community will of course do our best to keep everybody safe and to keep the haters at bay, to look out for each other and to keep on praying to God for our spiritual well-being.

But something that you might also do, particularly if you are gathered around the seder table tonight with family and friends, is to have a discussion about fear and resilience. Ask the question: “What are we afraid of right now, and what steps are we taking to overcome that fear?” Our tradition wants us to name the fear, to listen to the fear, to address the fear, and to understand that we will ultimately prevail.

Our traditions, our textual framework are there to help us navigate what has always been a frightening world for the Jews. Take these opportunities, on this ḥag ha-ḥerut, this festival of freedom, to demonstrate to each other that we shall overcome. אל תיראו. Al tira-u, said Moshe. Have no fear. 

חג שמח!

~

Rabbi Seth Adelson

(Originally delivered at Congregation Beth Shalom, Pittsburgh, PA, first day of Pesaḥ 5783, 4/6/2023. A version of this sermon appeared in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on 4/9/2023.)