Great read to get a sense of how some Israelis are handling the Iranian missle strikes. Not all Israelis of course. There are plenty without safe rooms within easy reach; there are some who sit alone and have no one to sing with; cry with; lean on. I think this is one of the few times I have shared a link to another article – but I know alot of you will appreciate the sentiment, the strength, the honesty. And as I said in the title its a great read. These are tough times and our world is playing a dangerous waiting game. And while we wait – we have each other.
Tonight is Shavuot (at least as I am writing). It is the holiday on which we celebrate the first fruits of the Spring harvest and the revelation at Sinai. It is one of the least observed of our holidays even though it is Biblically mandated and has an important message. It reminds us that at our core we are a people with a mission. We are a people who listened and accepted the revolutionary idea that there is meaning to our being beyond the limits of our bodies. Whatever you believe about the narrative in Exodus that recounts the Sinai experience complete with a golden calf and shattered tablets, we have accepted its truth and its commandment: that there is a higher law whether filtered through historical writings or delivered from a Divine Source right into the hands of Moses our teacher.
Some people think there is only one way to live the mission: black hats, black coats, covered hair, fidelity to ritual and halacha. I think every individual has the right to find their own way and there are many paths that lead to Sinai. When Tom O’Brien and I taught at FAU Lifelong Learning, we would end our session with a slide with an image of a path in the woods with the words: “Walker there is no road; the road is made by walking.” I don’t remember where we found it, but it has always spoken to me about how we make our way through life by living it with appreciation and purpose. Life is a gift. It might also be an accident but it’s still not to be taken lightly.
The Sinai lesson is that the paths we forge are not for our sole passage but that the generations that came before us and the generations that will come after us are depending on how we walk and where we put our feet. The Shavuot story reminds us that we all stood at Sinai; we all heard the words and accepted the obligations. We are called Israel – the one who struggles with what it means to be human or to put it in traditional language – what God wants from us. And If truth be told, we are having a hard time with it right now. How to defend ourselves and still look ourselves in the mirror, How to stand up to hatred without hating back. How to listen to the voices in our community and nation that we don’t agree with and not write them out of our circles.
You know I am speaking about Israel and her current government. You know I am speaking about the United State and our current administration. You know I am writing this to myself because this holiday we begin tonight says: We can do better.
I’m feeling very nostalgic this Memorial Day. The part of Memorial Day where we are called to remember our war dead. It used to be called Decoration Day and originated a few years after the Civil War ended. One in fifty Americans died in that war and Decoration Day began as a way to respect the sacrifice of those soldiers both North and South with the decoration of their grave sites in 1868. The term Memorial Day grew popular after WW I and became the official name of the holiday in 1967 with the intent of remembering the fallen of all American wars.
There is a part of me that likes the original name of Decoration Day. My mind goes to how do we decorate their memories. What are the terms of respect we can give them? I know they didn’t die for mattress sales. They died because they believed in our country. The values we hopefully all share of freedom for all, dignity and respect for each other, the promise of justice and due process, the pursuit of the right to be our truest selves without government’s dictates.
I happened to have served in one of America’s Wars. The one we call the Vietnam War; the one the Vietnamese call the American War. When Eileen and I visited Vietnam as tourists ten years ago, one of the very impactful places we visited was the American War Museum in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). Impactful, instructive and immensely sad – how this war that still makes no sense cost the lives of almost 60,000 Americans and countless Vietnamese and for what. How the government consistently lied to us – yes, the American government and it didn’t matter which political party. These men and women whose graves we decorate this weekend died for the idea of a country we are still struggling to live up to.
Yesterday I went to a street festival in our little town of Brevard, NC. There was blue grass music, food trucks with a lot of smoked meats, cotton candy, funnel cakes and open-air booths with t-shirts, ceramics, jewelry and lots of things we didn’t need. People were walking around with all kinds of outfits and hats – people of all different sizes, shapes, shades. One woman wore a Trump 2028. I sighed (deeply) and reminded myself – they died for her right to wear it – no matter how abhorrent to me.
So how do we remember and how do we decorate? With respect for their sacrifice; with a commitment to the core values of this country no matter what the administration; with a pledge to preserve the promise of our founding words – we are all created equally; we are all deserving to pursue our vision of happiness in whatever form or modality we choose. And it is all about “ we the people…”
So let me remember one – he died when a helicopter was taken down by the Vietcong in the Central Highlands. He was from the Upper Midwest, a JAG officer who befriended me and reminded me of my rights as a Chaplain but that’s another story. He also gave me a gun and told me no matter what the regs said, I should keep it near even if I couldn’t officially carry it. His name lives inside of me as well as his kindness, caring and compassion. His memory is a blessing.
So eat hot dogs; find good sales; but remember, our freedom comes with sacrifice.
It feels like every year there is a new item to add to your Seder plate or a new reading to insert before the second cup or the eating of answering of the four questions or the telling of the story. This year its lemons. Lemons for their color; lemons for their taste; lemons for the hostages sitting still in darkness and wondering if they will ever see the light. I like how the tradition grows and how it adapts. I like that it is not frozen in time or place but that it is living and breathing.
Yes there is an order to the Seder. And I follow it more or less. And the words written centuries ago take on different meanings almost every year it seems. Like the word “enough” – in Dayenu – it would have been enough. Yes. the poem/song lists all the things we have historically experienced as a people from leaving Egypt to discovering Torah and Shabbat, from building the Temple to entering the Land. Any one of them would have been enough. But there’s another way to roughly translate Dayenu. (Hebrew scholars look away!) It is enough. Enough with war; enough with Hamas terrorism; enough days the Hostages have lived in tunnels; enough bombings and death of the innocent both Palestinian and Israeli; enough tariffs, enough ICE, enough presidential privelege and power grabbing; enough shirking of congressional responsibility in leading this country.
The trick in leading a Seder is to balance the ritual, text and free flowing discussion. People sometimes tell me that they went to a “real” Seder where they read the whole Haggadah and even went back after the meal. If I could rewrite the order of things I would put Elijah before hard boiled egg – Elijah is the harbinger of hope and promise – that opening of the door isn’t just to welcome a spirit to sip the wine. that opening of the door is an act of faith that we can make tomorrow better than today.
Of course we’re not doing so good with today. Hence the lemon. The piece I saw says put the lemon on the Seder plate and slice it right before Maror. Add it to your Hillel Sandwich – so the bitterness of slavery and sweetness of freedom are integrated with the sharpness of the hostages’ fates.
At LabShul, one of the out there congregations in our country has a heading on their Seder instructions which I love. SEYDER: Say More/Read Less. So here’s my take: This is all about a discussion. It is not about slavishly following the text. It is reacting and intereacting with the tradition. It is about interrupting the leader. it is about questioning the rituals. It is about lemons, oranges, and olives.
I take a yoga class about once a week and the teacher consistently ends the class with “In case no one has told you yet today, ‘You are freakin amazing. Namaste.’”
I believe her. We all are.
To be living to this age; to be living in this age; to be able to look back and be proud of most of your yesterdays; to know that the work is far from done and to know that it might be getting harder and harder to believe that it every will be done. I take that back. It won’t ever be done. The art of being human takes a lot of effort, and we rise and fall and fall and rise almost as often as we breathe in and breathe out.
That’s an exaggeration of course. The art of being human is knowing that nothing seems to remain the same. On my way to Yoga, I was listening to NPR. They were discussing the Administration’s executive orders and their impact on graduate students who are studying and doing research here in some of our most prestigious universities. Deportation orders; ICE arrests; threats of “defunding” grants and programs and tying so much of this to protecting Jewish students and being pro-Israel and anti-Hamas all were included the in conversation. Throwing all of this up against a wall painted red and black with the words “Free Speech”.
I am waiting for all of this to backfire. That means I am afraid the day will come when the tide will turn and resentment against the Jews will grow for having privileged and protected status. I know it isn’t logical and it’s probably a function of my generation. But I am very wary of the Administration’s motives. They can turn on a dime. Witness: Zalensky.
But enough. This is what I know (in Biblical parlance): Gird your loins. The fight is far from over. The walls of the city may be breached but with will and confidence and faith in each other we can rebuild – and believe that not only are we ‘freakin ‘ amazing but so is our country. In the words of Jewish tradiiton: may it come soon and in our days.
That’s what I said recently at a discussion of how we could protect ourselves from the executive order to neuter diversity, equity and inclusion programs in our society. It seems that there is an AI program that measures DEI influence in an agency, charity or federal program by searching out specific words. I was proud of my organization that stood up against what I am going to characterize as bullying by saying we will not abandon our principles while we will also monitor how this all plays out. For many charitiies, federal grants are involved – that means money and funding.
It was really unbelievable to me that we were even having a discussion. But it doesn’t stop. Yesterday a headline in The Forward read: “Military Schools Remove a Book about Ruth Bader Ginsburg Because of ‘Equity Ideology” “A children’s picture book on Ruth Bader Ginsburg has been pulled from the shelves of U.S. military schools. ‘No Truth Without Ruth: The Life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’ was just one of several books removed from the shelves at Pentagon schools last week. ‘Freckleface Strawberry’, a picture book by actress Julianne Moore about a girl who struggles to accept her freckles, was also pulled, as was ‘Becoming Nicole‘, a biography of transgender activist Nicole Maines.
It starts with the books. Images from book burning in Berlin float in my mind. Piles of books considered subversive because they were written by Jews become bonfires. Words written in German, in Hebrew, in Yiddish, in French, in English become smoke and ashes. And we know where all that lead.
I am not suggesting that’s where we are but I am worried about what this country is becoming. Not the ‘never again’ thing; but a society which cannot tolerate differences. The Forward journalist proposes that the Ginsburg book might have been pulled because of the Executive Order which requires schools to teach “how the United States has admirably grown closer to its noble principles throughout its history” and urges “celebration of America’s greatness and history.” Apparently Ginsburg’s struggle for women’s rights and social justice are not a part of America’s greatness. Apparently all those who believe we can be better than we already are are wasting their time and breath. Apparently as a society we are where we are supposed to be. That leaves little room for growth. That leaves little room to learn from the past. That leaves little room for books that challenge us and help us grow. That leaves little room for different opinions or ideas. It is scary to think what we are becoming.
I could go on but I can’t. Not today, not when the news from Israel this afternoon is that the Bibas family is coming home in coffins. It’s hard not to cry.
PS – the image of the clown at the top of this blog is painted on what was then called “The Forvetz” – from when The Forward was still printing in Yiddish. Eileen and I have a pair of them – one where the clown is “happy” and this one. I’ll let you decide what all that means.
I’m not surprised; I am disappointed. I’m anxious and hopeful at the same time. I’m reticent to even write these words, after all I am living relatively securely in Florida and the things that worry me do not include missiles raining on my head from as close as Gaza and as far away as Yemen. The cease-fire news yesterday was a blessing. But even then, I feared optimism was somewhat premature.
Maybe we know too much; maybe we think what we know is really not the truth. As of this writing, Netanyahu is saying that Hamas is reneging on part of the deal and the Israeli cabinet meeting to discuss and hopefully ratify the agreement has been postponed. That was 14 minutes ago according to the Times. What will happen next is unknown to me although given President Biden’s announcement last night of the work that his administration has been constantly doing to achieve cessation of hostilities and a return of the hostages it is hard to imagine that it will fall apart again.
But there is Monday and the inauguration of President Elect Donald Trump. It so echoes Carter/Reagan and the freeing of the Americans from Iran in 1981. Who wants to give whom what? Who is afraid of whom? Is Netanyahu ready to give Trump the gift of making the deal? Is Hamas afraid of Trump’s threat to bomb the hell out of them?
Sad. Disheartening. I hope by the time you read these words, my fears, anxiety, disappointment will be something of the past and there will be a new day dawning with the hostages returning home and guns silencing as hints of a permanent peace rise out of the darkness. It’s probably going to take something the Bible would call a miracle. It’s immensely risky because the forces of evil are real in this world and everything I know says that its name is Hamas. It’s definitely going to take courage and faith. But I am not so sure there are any other good alternatives – so read these words as a prayer.
A prayer for peace; a silent petition to all that is good or God in the world for sanity; a petition for joy to come in the morning even though we all know it will be tinged with sadness for all those whose deaths we mourn.
So let me tell you what we are doing for New Year’s Eve. We are going out for a fairly early simple dinner (no five star Michelin restaurant here – a tad above a hamburger and salad). Then home for bridge and some combination of Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen – might have to throw in a little Nashville or Ryan Seacrest – although I really like Anderson and Andy especially when they get mildly outrageous. I also made a big deal about what to serve for dessert. I wanted to make that classic icebox cake with the Nabisco Chocolate Wafers and whipped cream – the one you put in the refrigerator overnight but to the best of my knowledge, Nabisco has stopped making them – at least that’s what Publix and Google say. So, I settled for a Fresh Market Chocolate Fudge Pie with Whipped Cream on the side. We will see if it is as good as it looks.
All of this is my way of admitting to myself that I am nervous about 2025. Every year I get one more year older and even though my birthday isn’t until almost the end of the year, I wonder if I am getting closer to my last birthday. In the last six months I have participated in the funerals of three friends. And when I say participated, I mean officiated. And one of my friend’s girlfriends is participating in MAID in the next few days. She has a terminal disease, and her quality of life is rapidly deteriorating. She lives in a State that allows Medical Assistance in Dying and I am in awe of her courage. It is both an act of faith and an affirmation of what quality of life means. I am almost afraid to say this, but I hope I never have to make a choice like this.
All of this is my way of admitting that I am not in control of what this year will bring. Will the hostages in Gaza come home? Will there be an end to this multi-pronged war that Israel is fighting. What will our new president do? Will he act out of a place of revenge and anger or somehow find a way to represent the interests of most Americans who want to live in a free country with security, freedom, and justice for all – a country that respects the rights of all no matter their race, religion, country of origin or sexual identity. And I know I haven’t mentioned the suffering of the Palestinians who are bearing the brunt of the pain that ultimately Hamas has reigned upon them, because if Hamas hadn’t attacked on October 7th, they would be living in a different world. And so would the Israelis driven from their homes near Gaza and the border with Lebanon.
And I could go on. But I am going to go back to my anticipation of the fudge pie and whipped cream and I am going to stop writing and go and get Eileen’s car washed. A good thing to do for the New Year. Sometimes it is the little things that make the difference.
Some of you are not going to like this but I am “unplugged” which means I am not connected to any power grid that might like to restrict what I have to say. So, I am going to tell you that I haven’t been this excited about the possibility of our national politics as I am right now. And I am willing to admit that I might be being manipulated and or naïve and or played but I like the feeling, and it is a combination of hope and joy.
There you have it. If you have been watching the Democratic Convention you know where this is all going. I am excited to vote for something once again as opposed to voting against someone. I love the enthusiasm; I love the excitement; I love the belief that this country with all its flaws and problems is an America filled with promise and filled with potential. And even if we disagree or differ in how we see tomorrow or yesterday, we are one nation, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.
I just finished rereading “When Breath Becomes Air” by Paul Kalanith. One of the sentences that stopped me was: “The word ‘hope’ first appeared in English about a thousand years ago, denoting some combination of confidence and desire.” I wonder if that means that people didn’t hope before or there was just no way to express the emotion in English. Actually, I’m not really sure what that sentence means. I don’t think people can live without hope. Or maybe I shouldn’t generalize. I can’t live without hope.
The dictionary defines hope as the expectation or belief that something expected will happen. I think you can hope that something unexpected can happen as well. Like: I hope there will be a hostage deal and Hamas and Iran will stand down and Israel can live in peace. Like: I hope that we can have a substantive discussion on the future of our country and stop the name calling and childish snipes at one’s race or name. Like: I hope that the next Congress can govern and not quibble and put our country’s interest in place of their own. Like: I hope my grandchildren’s’ America is safer, brighter, fairer, more prosperous and healthier that my own.
I happen to believe that hope and faith are interconnected. In my world to have faith is to believe that your life has purpose; it is a gift; you are here to make this world a better place, sometimes just by smiling, sometimes just be voting, sometimes just by loving. Neither faith nor hope are passive – they demand action, and they have the power to change our world.
By the way the image at the top is moss. Moss has a mind of its own, growing in really unlikely places. I like it cause it is fairly unpredictable, like hope.
As I was hiking the High Falls Loop in Dupont Forest this morning, I listened to one of my go-to podcasts about Israel. Produced by the Hartman Institute, it is called “For Heaven’s Sake” – Israel at War Day 284. The hosts were discussing what normalcy means at this time in Israel. Somewhere on the walk, they used the phrase “living between the cracks” and I thought this did not just apply to Israel. It is what we all are doing – living and making the most of what we have and who we are ignoring or skipping over the cracks in the sidewalk we call the world today.
I really don’t know where to begin – the former President who denies that he lost the election is running to become president again surviving an assassination attempt by inches; the sitting President who has a fifty-year record of public service is bowing out of the race to serve four more years and no one really knows the real story there. (Except I wouldn’t be fair or honest if I didn’t let you know that I am in awe of his willingness to let go of the reins of power and praise him for thinking of the country first. No matter what the motivation and forces that made this decision. I admire him and wish more politicians put country first. And yeah…. It wasn’t a quick or easy decision, and it did look like for a time that the trappings of power were too seductive to ever let go – but he did the right thing. And hopefully his legacy will reflect that.)
The current Vice-President, a woman of color, seems to be on track to cement the Democratic presidential nomination. If successfully winning the presidency she will become the first woman president and it is probably about time. It’s not like all the kings’ men have been consistently effective. From my perspective, it is probably also the right time to celebrate the multi-cultural demographics of our country. From my perspective, we are not a White Christian Country. And there of course is the rub and the challenge and the pitfalls. Change is hard for us all and change is necessary – without change there is no growth.
When I came home from my hike I sat on the porch and put on my Spotify liked songs. One of them is “Try to Remember.” The lyrics are so another generation and a different world. Can you imagine someone writing a contemporary song with the line: “Try to remember when life was so tender that no one wept except the willow…”
No one wept except the willow. I weep for the callousness; I weep for the vitriol and violence; I weep for lies and I weep that it is hard to know who or whom to trust and what we call the news on one station is opinion on another. And I pray we can collectively come out of this whole – a united states – with a new face looking forward. And out of the cracks will grow a new tomorrow.
Eileen and I went to see Judy Collins the other night at the Brevard Music Center. She confidently walked on stage in a bright pink long dress with a black sequenced jacket. She proudly announced that she was 85 and from mid orchestra she was looking good. She peppered the concert with a lot of good stories and corny jokes. One of the many things I did not know about her was the relationship she and Leonard Cohen had. She credits him with “pushing” her to write her own songs and throughout the concert sang many of his more esoteric pieces. The concert was delayed for a half hour because of serious thunder and lightening but 2000 people still showed up even some June bugs or fireflies. They flashed in the dark as so many of us celebrated this night of memory.
One of the Leonard Cohen songs she sang was “Priests”. It’s an elusive and mysterious song/poem about love, memory, loss – all that is holy. I went online to try and put the lyrics into one complete and cogent paragraph. I failed. For me it is the wedding of the haunting melody with the words; it is the marriage of the lyrics with the melody to my own memories.
This all came home to me yesterday when I learned that my friend and colleague, Rabbi Fred Pomerantz died. I knew he was having health issues, but he wasn’t supposed to die. I don’t know whether he loved being a jazz musician first and a Rabbi second or there was no way to separate the two. He was a drummer and the beat of his life and career were intermingled with great joy and deep pain. This is not the place to eulogize him, but it is the place to remember the intersection of our lives from Cincinnati to Closter. It was filled with laughter and tears, it was complete with searching and finding, questions about how to live so that the days of our lives didn’t become material for a soap opera. He was creative, funny and unique all in the service of our people and our Judaism.
Judy Collins isn’t that much older than Freddy or me. She stood on that stage for over an hour and a half and amazed me with her stamina. Sure, she had cliff notes; sure, she turned to her musical director to ask him for details she temporarily forgot; sure her voice has changed. But that’s life – it is all about change – nothing remains the same – and nothing can be taken for given or granted. And it was refreshing to be with her as she proudly celebrated who she was at this stage of living.
Between Judy and Fred it reminded me that no matter how old or how young, our challenge is to make a sacred noise, to sound the bells, to beat the drums, to hear the music of Divinity or the Universe pulsing through our cells. The challenge is to love it all; appreciate the moment; grow the good; minimize the bad; celebrate the remembered and forgotten. Be all you can be even when it isn’t all you were.
rabbiunplugged 