We only come across a mention of Joseph’s bones two more times in the narrative—the final time is the interment of these bones, the kevurah, the burial, right at the close of the Book of Joshua (24:32).

But the second time, the middle part of the journey, is at the very beginning of next week’s parashah.  After the Tenth Plague, the Death of the First Born, Pharaoh finally lets the Israelites go.  Next week, we’ll read that: “And it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God led them not through the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was the closer option; for God said, Lest perhaps the people repent when they see war, and they return to Egypt;  But God led the people around, through the way of the wilderness of the Sea of Reeds; and the people of Israel went up armed out of the land of Egypt.  And Moses took the bones of Joseph with him; for he had solemnly sworn the people of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you; and you shall carry up my bones from here with you.”

The question remains, of course: where [the heck] did Moses get Joseph’s bones?  And if the Israelites were in such a rush fleeing Egypt that not even the matzah had enough time to rise, then how could Moses have possibly fulfilled the generations old promise to Joseph?

Now this is where the story gets good—where Indiana Jones and the Midrash meet.  According to the ancient legalistic midrashic text on the Book of Exodus, known as the Mekhilta, during the Ninth Plague, the plague of Darkness, the Israelites were out in the pitch-black persuading the Egyptians to give them their gold and silver on permanent loan.  Where else could they have gotten all the loot that we read about in the desert?

Because Moses was such a righteous man, instead of pilfering the Egyptians, Moses went off in search of Joseph’s bones.  And as the story goes, he ran into Serah bat Asher, a woman who was still alive from the time of Joseph, 400 years later, waiting to show a descendant the path to Joseph’s remains.  According to this midrash, Serah explained that the Egyptians had made a metal casket for Joseph and dropped it in the middle of the Nile.   When Moses realized this, he quickly approached the Nile, took a pebble in hand, and tossed it into the water crying out: “Joseph!  Joseph!  The time of the oath has come which was sworn by God to our ancestor Abraham, that God would one day redeem his sons.  Give honor to Adonai, the God of Israel, and do not hold up your redemption, for because of you we are now held up, and if you don’t come now, then we are hereby freed from your oath.”  Immediately Joseph’s coffin floated to the surface and Moses took it.  (Whoa.)

Such a fantastic, magical story—but why does it matter so much?  Is it about the oath and the promise?  Is it about burial in the Holy Land?  Or is it about burial in the Holy Land? Remember Joseph was embalmed and placed in a coffin—perhaps something like an Egyptian tomb.  Maybe this story and the oath are simply about giving Joseph the proper burial he was due.

Our ancestor Joseph very well may be one of the most well-known of our heroes – among people of all faith backgrounds – but there are 84,000 American heroes that are not nearly as well known.  And this is where Indiana Jones and our military meet.

Based at Hickam Air Force Base – the site of the Pearl Harbor attack in Honolulu, Hawaii, JPAC (the Joint POW-MIA Accounting Command) is made up of all branches of the United States military and civilian scientists.  Their only goal is bringing back each and every one of the 84,000 U.S. service members who went missing during war or military action.  Their mission is a straightforward one: to bring answers to families who may have been waiting 60 years or more to hear anything about a loved one and they call it “the most honorable mission in the military.”

One of the forensic anthropologists at JPAC’s Central Identification Lab, Dr. Robert Mann, understands that just like Moses’ mission, “the task is daunting. It’s incredibly complicated. It goes to the peaks of the Himalayas, it goes to the jungles of Southeast Asia. It goes to the oceans of the Pacific. So from the highest point to the lowest point on the earth, [they’re] looking for missing Americans.”  They are trying to recover remains.  As he tells it: “and we’re going to keep searching, we’re going to keep trying, and we’re not going to give up on these guys and gals who are missing.”  Every person deserves a homecoming.

Maybe that’s the deeper lesson: even in secular culture, the recovery and proper burial of our heroes and our loved ones should be a primary objective.

Those members of JPAC who recover even the smallest portion of a jawbone treat it like it’s the most precious treasure in history—with honor, care and respect.  And yet, it’s shocking that the same is surely not true for many of our brothers and sisters and neighbors and friends.

Though the number reflects the general public and not only the Jewish community, there were 8,740 deaths in Hennepin County just two years ago in 2009.  4,835 of them – more than half – resulted in cremations.  Up from 52% the previous year; 50% before that; 48.5% before that; 46.8%; 44.2%; 43%…a 12+ percentage point increase over the span of six years.  The climb is steady in every county in the state.  And the truth is, I really do understand the impetus.  Cremation is cheaper; it allows you to have your loved one with you in your home; it is faster; cremation is greener, taking up less space in this world.  And the rationalizations go on and on.

But all of these justifications for cremation do not matter.  Because very little is considered less honorable.  We stop at nothing as Jews and as Americans to provide a proper kevurah.  Israel will trade thousands of prisoners merely to ransom the remains of one her citizens.

Joseph’s dying wish was a proper burial, but we know that is not always the case.  For certain, Kibud av v’em – honoring one’s parents – is up there in the Top Ten when it comes to mitzvot.  However, if our parent’s dying wish is to be cremated, we are compelled by Jewish tradition to do the exact opposite, and by doing so, we fulfill the mitzvah of kibud av v’em.

Further, as a deterrent, there is even a tradition that cremated remains are not to be buried in a Jewish cemetery.  And some rabbis have gone so far as to teach that the traditions of mourning, like shiva and sheloshim, are not observed after the passing of an individual whose body was cremated.

Why according to Jewish tradition is it such a shanda to cremate?  The human body, as a vessel for the soul, is merely leased to us, belonging to God on High.  We are obligated as both human beings and as Jews to honor the life that once inhabited that flesh and those bones.  It may be our body or, perhaps, our loved one’s body, temporarily, but we have no right to deface it in any way.  And that is what cremation does.  It literally reduces a person to mere nothingness.  The only way to return the body to God with honor is for it to “return to the earth as it was,” and that is by way of a proper kevurah, a proper burial.

We use the idiom “paying our respects” to describe how we bid farewell to our loved ones and care for the bereaved.  If Moses could do it in the dark of night, rushing to break out of captivity in Egypt…if commandoes can storm the stalwarts of desert palaces…if elite soldiers can forage through the tropics…then we can do it in the freedom of these great United States of America.

This is what Moses does for his great, great uncle Joseph.  This is what our military does for our fallen.  This is what Jews do for other Jews.  This is what human beings should do for other human beings.  And this is what we should all do for each other.

- Sam in South Carolina

Dear Sam: Yes. Run for public office.

We’re getting to know the candidates in the Republican primaries perhaps more than we wanted. But look at a genealogy tree and you can learn a lot about a person… or a people.

Just before Moshe approaches Pharaoh and says “let my people go,” there is a break in the action for a genealogical list: “So and so gave birth to so and so.” And then we read… “Amram took Jocheved for a wife and she bore him Aaron and Moses. Vayikakh amram et yocheved… lo l’isha vateled lo et aaron v’et moshe.” Wait a minute. Isn’t there something missing? Yocheved and Amram had Aaron and Moshe and… Miriam. What happened to Miriam? The Septugiant, the ancient Greek translation of the Torah, the Samartian Torah, the Syriac Torah, and one ancient Hebrew manuscript all include Miriam in this verse. But in our Torah she is absent. Not only absent, she isn’t even missed. Rashi, Ramban, Ebn Ezra, none of them say a thing.

In this genealogy, Miriam is nowhere to be seen.  She is, in the words of feminist theologian Rachel Adler, the “Jew who wasn’t there.” And in the record of Jewish history, the same might be said of Jewish women in general. For sure, there is Queen Esther and the Prophet Deborah. There is Bruriah and Glukel of Hamline. There are, without a doubt, generations of Eshet Hayils, Yiddisha Mammas, Tzidkaniyot. They were home makers and business women and community leaders; women of piety and modesty and learning. These are unsung heroines. But in our collected treasury of Jewish history, they are largely unnamed, silent, peripheral figures. In contrast to extensive record of men, the examples of women that we can call to mind are few and far between.

For all of the respect accorded women and for all of the ways that Jewish law elevated the status of women above that of her neighbor’s, when we look honestly at our history, we can only come to one conclusion- that women were largely sidelined, was inherent to the legal system and cultural attitude of the time in which they lived.  In relation to their fathers and their husbands, women were not independent entities. They were in the category of a slave, minor or ignoramus. They could not inherit like men. They could not (and in some circles still cannot) initiate divorce or serve as a witness in legal proceedings.  Honored and cherished? In many ways, yes. But also separate and unequal.

In December, the Jewish world mourned the death of Dr. Paula Hyman. Hyman was a pioneer in the study of women in Jewish life. A professor of Jewish history at Yale, Hyman was credited with establishing a new field of Jewish history focusing on women. Her two-volume encyclopedia, “Jewish Women in America,” remains a tour de force of women “who were there.”

In 1971, Hyman organized Ezrat Nashim. Ezrat Nashim was a Jewish women’s group that advocated for women’s equality in Jewish life. They presented a manifesto before the rabbinical assembly of Conservative rabbis titled a “Call for Change.” This call inspired the eventual decision to ordain women as rabbis.

“What Jewish feminists are seeking,” Hyman later wrote, “is not more apologetics but change, based on acknowledgement of the ways in which the Jewish tradition has excluded women from entire spheres of Jewish…  Realizing the historical and social factors which contributed to these attitudes, we must… refrain from blaming our ancestors for lacking our own insights. But until we all recognize that a problem exists, we cannot begin to take steps to attain equality for women.” (“The Jewish Women,” Koltun)

Forty years have passed and we have largely answered The Call. We welcomed women to bimah and the boardroom; we understood that if they can be scientists and doctors, they can be Torah scholars too; and we recognized that if a woman can be a Supreme Court judge, then certainly she can serve as a witness in a case of Jewish law. We put women in the cock pit of a fighter plane and placed Miriam cups on our seder tables. We honored our mothers by adding them to our Hebrew names and we rooted ourselves in the fullness of our past by introducing the matriarchs- Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah- to our davening. We did all this and more.

But events of the past few months in Israel make it seem as if little progress has been made.  Again this week, we were shocked by what we heard. Dr Channa Maayan is a professor of pediatrics at Hebrew University’s Hadassah hospital and an author of a book about Jewish hereditary diseases. At the awards ceremony where her book was honored, a male colleague received the prize in her place. Women were not allowed on a stage presided over by Israel’s acting, ultra-orthodox health minister. Henrietta Szold would be turning over in her grave.

By now I’m sure you’ve all head about the eight year old girl in Bet Shemesh who was spit on and called “whore” for supposedly dressing immodestly. But perhaps you haven’t heard about the modern Orthodox women fired from a Jerusalem city council when she asked the Supreme Court to rule against gender-segregated sidewalks. Perhaps you haven’t heard of posters with pictures of women being defaced and removed in Jerusalem. And the list goes on. You don’t have to be a professor of history to know we have a problem.

Now let me pause here with an important caveat: The Orthodox community is diverse. Most hareidi do not behave in this despicable manner they have condemned this behavior. I know my Orthodox neighbors are ashamed of these violent outbursts.

That said, we have the right and indeed the duty to ask, what gives rise to such behavior? I believe it is a theology that claims possession of the absolute truth, that rejects of pluralism, that views the secular world as morally bankrupt, that rejects critical thought and distrusts the outside world.

It is easy to be critical and lay the blame on others. But I want to address our non-Orthodox community.  40 years ago, a “Call for Change” went out. And we changed. With the insights of Jewish history and using the tools of halakha (Jewish law), we carefully developed Jewish tradition in a beautiful, sensible, and holy way. And thank God we did.

These changes which fully included women in Jewish life have expanded and deepened our understanding of Torah. They have enriched the worlds of prayer and healing, of social justice, art, music and more. For sure, much work remains. But we have the right Torah, the right approach. I believe it is a Torah that represents the will of the living God, the Torah of truth.

Still, for all of the positive changes we have instituted, there is one central aspiration we have yet to fully realize- building a truly vibrant, knowledgeable, committed Jewish community. We count women in a minyan but we still struggle to get a minyan. We opened the doors of learning and yet we still have women and men, who cannot read let alone understand basic Hebrew. We said that women were not defined by lighting candles but we have too few homes illumined by the light of Shabbos. We made women presidents of the synagogue but we still have too many women and men who come through the door only occasionally. We said that women’s roles went beyond the kitchen. But we have too few women and men volunteering to bring food to the needy, meals the mourning. We said that women deserve equal Jewish education. But we have too many women and men who outsource education to schools and camps without reinforcing it at home.

With all of our hesed activities, with all of our creative programs and excellent classes, we still have not reached our potential as a community. And no matter how “Torah true” our laws and views are, if there is a not a community backing them, living them daily, those principles are diminished even undermined.

Some might argue saying, “this proves that egalitarianism is a failure.” But was giving women the right to vote in elections a mistake seeing that voter turn-out is low? Of course not. How could we celebrate the birth of a boy and hardly acknowledge the birth of a girl? How could we mark the entrance of our sons into adulthood but not our daughters? How could we allow a woman to remain an agunah, chained to a husband who refuses to divorce her? Whether it was baby namings or bat mitzvahs or gets, the changes we introduced were the right ones. It’s not just that we like Cantor Abrams and the sound of a female voice. We have Torah Emet. We have the Torah of truth. We need a kehillah k’doshah, a sacred community to live it.

Let me be clear: I am not criticizing our community out of some tribal allegiance to Conservative halakha. My concern goes beyond my movement. My greatest fear is that in the future, the only face of the Jewish people will be the face of Jewish fundamentalism like we saw in Bet Shemesh. And this is why I care: because I believe with all of my heart that the Jewish people have something essential to contribute to the world. We have a mission- to be a light unto the nations. The Judaism of Bet Shemesh is not sunshine and light; it is darkness.

But we can be that light. We can be that light because of three fundamental assertions we make: Number one: we believe that to be Jewish is to be fully immersed in Jewish living and invested in this world. Number two: We believe that to be Jewish demands being steeped in Torah while being open to the best of secular learning and critical thinking. And number three: We refuse to separate ritual and ethics, for we know that when the social justice is united with sacred traditions our lives and our world is sanctified.

There can be no “light unto the nations” if we care only about our own, if we fail to look beyond the walls of our self-imposed ghetto. There can be no light if we are closed to the truth of knowledge. There can be no light if the strictness of our observance is not matched by or diligence to love our neighbor.

When did the length of a girl’s sleeves become the measure of frumkeit? When did we humras, stringencies, come to define what it means to be a pious, religious Jew? We have let Judaism be hijacked. And I want it back.

If Bet Shemesh bothers you, if you care about the face of the Jewish people, if you care about your family’s Jewish future- then join me in growing further as wordly, committed, thinking, loving, joyful, inclusive, proud Jews. Don’t let yourself, don’t let your children be the Jew who wasn’t there. If you want Jews to be a light unto the nations, it’s up to you. You are responsible. You can be that light. We must be that light. We have the Torah. We have the tools. But we need you.

In the face of a hillul hashem, a desecration of God’s name, we must strive for a kiddush hashem, to sanctify God’s name and bring light to our people and our world.

Early on, we understand deep down that the strength of Moses’ true character is defined by the intent of his actions.  And so, we are presented with three very important scenes:

The first is a young Moses, about ten verses after he is born – so, let’s say he’s an older teenager – who sees an Egyptian taskmaster beating one of his Hebrew kinsmen.  Moses, recognizing that no one is stepping in to help the beaten Israelite rushes into the fold and kills the Egyptian.

The second scene takes place the next day.  Now two Israelites are engaged in a fight.  Moses again steps in, questioning their actions.  When they accuse Moses of an arrogant power play, suggesting that he might kill them just as he did the Egyptian, Moses flees the Egyptian authorities for fear that they were out to get him.

The third scene takes place at the end of Moses’ personal exodus, fleeing from the Egyptian authorities, when he arrives in Midian.  There, at the well, Moses witnesses shepherds harassing the women trying to fill the troughs for their father’s flock.  The shepherds kept pushing the women back, driving them away from the well.  But Moses steps in and waters the flock for the women.

Three scenes that take place in the short span of about a week, long before Moses is the leader of the Jewish People.

The late, great Torah scholar Nechama Leibowitz understood that these were three initial character defining scenes portraying Moses intervening on behalf of the weak oppressed by the stronger.

Professor Leibowitz asks the question:  why then do we need all three, and why this order?

It’s an inverted dayyenu.  It would not have been enough!  If we had only heard about Moses’ first intervention, standing up for the Israelite beaten by the Egyptian, we might have questioned the selflessness of Moses’ motives, for Moses might have been motivated by his personal sense of solidarity with his people.  And likewise, we might have continued to have our doubts even with the second situation.  Professor Leibowitz suggests that we might have assumed Moses “was revolted by the disgrace of witnessing internal strife among his own folk.”

It is not until we bear witness to Moses’ stalwart intervention at the well in Midian that we come to realize, since both “parties were outsiders” for Moses, that Moses’ “sense of justice and fairplay was exclusively involved” in his decision to intervene.

Just as Moses’ strength of character is defined by his actions, so too the moral fiber of our character is defined by our actions.  By now, many of us are aware of the plight Israel currently faces.  I’m not talking about the threat of her neighbors or terrorism.  I’m talking about the vast chasm between the secularists and the religious observant; I’m talking about the disconnect between the modern orthodox and the fervent ultra-right wingers.

But even with this great divide, there is no doubt, that, thank God, women have always had an important role in the state of Israel.

As AIPAC’s recent Middle East spotlight shared with us:  “In Israeli politics, women have led the way as members of the Knesset, heads of political parties, and ministers in the government. The name Golda Meir, Israel’s fourth prime minister and the third female head of government in modern history, is still revered throughout the world.  Tzipi Livni, former foreign minister and vice prime minister, currently heads the largest party in the Knesset. And last September, Shelly Yachimovich beat four male competitors to become the leader of the Labor Party, the second woman to hold this position.”

“The accomplishments of Israeli women in science and research have garnered global recognition as well. Perhaps the most extraordinary achievement is that of Ada Yonath, winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Yonath is the first Israeli woman to win the prize, the first woman from the Middle East to win a Nobel Prize in the sciences, and the first woman in 45 years to win the Nobel Prize for Chemistry.”

Nevertheless, today, in towns like Beit Shemesh, the “charedi-ization,” the fringe ultra-orthodox religious extremism of these places, is stifling.  The shepherds are keeping the women away from the well.  And that well is not just Torah and not just education.  That well is basic human rights and freedom.  An eight year old should not be afraid to walk to her school – an orthodox girls’ yeshiva mind you – because there are men from the charedi community driving around waiting for her, ready to spit on her and call her “tramp” and “whore,” because the school isn’t “orthodox enough.”

Now is the time for us to share our character with the world.  Now is the time for the future generations – our children, our grandchildren, our great grandchildren – to read our story and understand that we acted as Moses did.  No doubt we’ve stood up for Israelites persecuted by another nation.  We’ve stood up, perhaps, for Israelites persecuted by other Israelites.  But now the shepherds have come and they’re harassing the women.

And this is not only a women’s rights issue.  My father believes, and I agree, that the window of pluralism in Israel is closing, and once it’s closed, it will be shut forever.  If the few transform the country for the many to reflect their system and their beliefs, it will never again be a place for all Jews.  It will never again be the Jewish homeland.  Instead of the Jewish State that Herzl and Ben Gurion envisioned, it will be the state of one Jewish group that Israel’s founding fathers and mothers likely would condemn as anti-Zionist and anti-Jewish.

It is time for us to be Moses; even the man who says he can’t speak so well, he stepped up and stepped in.  So what can we do?

First and foremost we can support Masorti.  Masorti is the Conservative Movement’s presence in Israel.  Masorti not only organizes and coordinates the progressive and more liberal synagogues and worship communities in Israel, but Masorti, specifically, also offers the TALI school system.  TALI is a nationwide network of over 120 Israeli state schools and pre-schools that are committed to providing a pluralistic Jewish education for Israel’s non-observant majority.  They offer something other than the Black Hat Yeshiva or secular school.  Masorti helps the Israelis understand it is not either payos and stoning drivers on Shabbat, or pulled pork barbecues on Shabbat afternoon.

As Rabbi Davis’ letter to our congregation this past Hanukkah reminded us:  when women are told to ride in the back of a public bus and encounter public sidewalks for men only, we know we must intervene.  When women’s roles in military ceremonies are questioned, we know the society calls for a paradigm shift.

And this is what’s even more troubling.  While very much a minority, the ultra-Orthodox political parties wield unseemly power in that same Knesset Tzipi Livni holds office.  Because of the ultra-Orthodox, the Israeli government spends at least $450 million a year in support of Orthodox institutions and programs, with 3,000 Orthodox rabbis on government payrolls.  By contrast, Masorti receives less than $50,000.  There is no doubt that we cannot make up the financial difference, but our contribution, both financial and vocal, can make a significant impact.  You can learn more about how you can support Masorti in Israel by looking at the back of this Shabbat’s Hakol.

But frankly, this is not only about tzedakah and financial contributions.

As we begin this Shabbat telling about one of our people’s darkest chapters, enslaved in Egypt, we also have to remember the bright moments.  We must commit to spreading the positive messages of Israel in the face of these mortifying moments we read about and hear about, and watch on Youtube and on the news.  We must commit to reminding others that there is a better Israel, a purer Israel.  We must commit to reminding people like Ambassador Michael Oren that something must be done to maintain the tangible pluralistic presence that once was the sweetest flavor of Israel.

When our Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, shares her opinion that the treatment of women in Israel reminded her of Iran, you know that we have a major problem on our hands.  Because frankly, these days, I’m less concerned about Israel, God-forbid, getting nuked off the map than I am of an Israel that doesn’t allow USY Pilgrimage and Ramah Seminar groups to visit the Kotel, that requires women to wear a Jewish burka as is already enforced in some neighborhoods.  I am afraid of the Israel that my grandchildren don’t want to spend the year studying abroad in.  I am afraid of the Israel that won’t have diplomatic relations with a female president of the United States.  I am very afraid.

I know that the Masorti movement is not the only answer and to suggest that it is would be simplifying the issues at hand.  But if this is our opportunity to act, to be like Moses, then time is fleeting and we must act.

As the Psalmist wrote (Psalms 137:5-6): If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember you, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth—if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy.

Today, I fear the world, even many of Israel’s citizens, are close to forgetting.  It is our hope and our prayer this Shabbat morning that we never forget the age-old dream of Israel and we never let religious extremism erase either that dream or our history.

But on this first day back to school, my boys wisely and loudly shouted from the back, “go around.” So Nate went around. “Go around,” they yelled again. And with a flick of a button on my dash board, I magically closed Miriam’s sliding door and opened Nate’s. No more traffic jam. Why didn’t we think of that before?

“Hey cool,” one of my kids said, “Look. One door is closing and the other is opening.”

“Yes, that’s actually phrase,” I chimed in while backing the car out of the drive way. As I launched in to a drive time dvar Torah a shout came from the back of the van, “turn up the music.” I guess the kids were more interested in “The Lion King” than an 8:00am sermon on the ride to school.

Well, today’s my lucky day. I get give that sermon. So buckle up.

“When one door closes and another opens.” It’s not only a good way to speed up carpool pick-up. It is the message of our parasha and a lesson worth remembering.

In the Torah, Joseph and his brothers know this principle first hand.  As a young man, Yosef was thrown into a pit and left to die. Of course, he didn’t die. Instead, he was separated from his family and his country, sold into slavery and brought to Egypt. But as fate would have it, Joseph worked his way out of an Egyptian prison to become second only to Pharaoh in all the land. One door closed, another opened.

Joseph’s brothers, in the meantime, assumed that Joseph was dead. And with him gone, the dirty little secret- that they had left him to die in the pit- was secure. But then Joseph revealed himself. A door the brothers thought was permanently closed was shockingly opened.

Next, there is Yaakov Avinu. Jacob had grand plans to retire with a nice little nest egg in the Holy Land when the economy tanked. Famine gripped Canaan and he was forced to take his family into Egyptian exile. Leaving Israel was difficult but he went in anticipation of reuniting with his beloved son. One door closed and another opened.

And finally this morning, we have come to the end of Sefer Bereshit, the Book of Genesis. Egypt is prospering and Jew inhabits the royal palace. What could go wrong? The Book’s final words tell us that Yosef has been placed “in a coffin in Egypt aron b’mitzrayim.” This is an ominous foreshadowing of a slavery that would soon engulf Jacob’s descendants. In this case, a door that was opened was quickly closing.

“One door closes another door opens.” We understand and take comfort in this notion. When faced with hardship, failure and misfortune- the loss of a job, the break-up of a relationship, even the death of a loved one- we sense that our lives are constricted. We feel that our options are limited.  And yet, when we search, we find new possibilities; we become hopeful and see new opportunities.

Now I know sometimes “when one door closes another opens” can be a bit cliché. It feels naïve in its optimism. It is a neat little philosophy all tied up in a bow that when taken to the extreme, can be used to justify suffering. But Jewish tradition invites us to explore and deepen our understanding of this musar teaching.

Parashat Vayehi prompts us to consider openings and closings not just through its stories but how it is written in a Torah scroll. We are familiar with some of the laws of a Torah scroll. A Torah is written on klaf (parchment), with special ink in a very precise way. Not only must the letters be formed just so, so must the blank spaces.

There are two kids of blank spaces in a sefer Torah- p’tuhim, open and s’tumim closed.  P’tuhim are blank spaces from the last letter of a word until the end of its line. You can think of this large break like the beginning of a new chapter. S’tumin are blank spaces just a few letters wide. They are closed meaning that the writing continues on the same line to the end of the column. You can think of these like paragraph breaks.

These spaces serve as the Torah’s only punctuation marks and as indicators of a new Torah portion. Most weeks. Parashat Vayehi is unique in that it is the only Torah portion that begins without an open space. It has neither a full line break or even a tab opening. It is not just satum closed, it is hatum, sealed. That is why it is often hard to find the starting point for our reading.

Why of all Torah portions is this the only one that is closed “lama parasha zo s’tuma?” Rashi explains: “When Jacob died, the eyes and hearts of Israel were closed because of the suffering of the enslavement that had begun mishniftar Yaakov, nistamu eineihm v’libam shel yisrael m’tzaraat hashiabud.”  The new Pharaoh who would enslave the Israelites has not yet arisen- we’ll meet him next week- but already, the Israelites eyes and hearts are closed. The oppression had begun and they are unable to see or feel through their worry, their grief, their hurt. Like Jacob who was going blind, like the Israelites who more and more were feeling closed in an Egyptian coffin, the Torah scroll itself is closed.

In masaket sofrim, the section of the Talmud that explains how a Torah is written, we are instructed regarding these ptuhim v’stumim, these openings and closings. They have to be so many letters wide and start so many letters before the end of a line. The requirements are such that if these spaces are written incorrectly so that an opening is closed or a closing is opened, that section of the Torah is not kosher and must be buried- patuah sheasa stuma stuma sheasa p’tuha harei zeh yiganez. We learn from this that we need both ptuhim and stumim in the Torah and in our lives. For sure we need the openings to be open: We need new opportunities, new hopes and dreams. But sometimes we also need the closings to be closed. That is because often, we can only see the new door open when the old one closes. This is actually the intent of this saying attributed to Alexander Gram Bell: “When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.”

Faced with a closed door, our eyes and our hearts close. But this is just when we most need them open. Just ask Jacob.

Our parasha, “Vayehi, the Life of Jacob” speaks of his death. In this way, writes the Hasidic Rebbei Meir Yihiel M’ostrobatza, “it stands at the border between past and future, equidistant between creation and redemption omedet al hagvul ben haavar v’haatid, ben bereshit v’geula.” It stands at the nexus between the Joseph’s death and Moshe’s birth, between the formation of a family and the birth of a nation.  And in that place of narrowness, “ben hamitzarim,” all eyes and hearts were closed.

At the end of a book about beginnings, there is a closing. But we the reader like Yosef the Tzadik see the larger picture. Reflecting back on his life, Yosef understood that what he experienced as a closing was also an opening. “You intended me harm, “atem hashvatem alei ra’ah,” he says to his brothers. But “God intended it for good v’hashem hasva l’tova.” There is no denying that what Yosef experienced was hurtful. It was lonely.  But he also understands that had he not been sold to slavery, the family would have gone to their grave in Canaan- “s’tuma sheasa p’tuha harei zeh yiganez, a closing left open gets buried.”

“What is the course of my life?” asks Yehuda Amichai, Israeli’s poet laureate in his last book titled, “Patuah Sagor Patuah, Open Closed Open.” “I am like one who left Egypt. The Sea has split before me in two and I walk on dry land. There are walls of water to my right and left, Pharaoh’s army lay behind me and a desert and perhaps a promised land stretches in front of me. This is the course of my life.” Open Closed Open.

Amichai reminds us that though the sea opens up, one must pass through the narrow, constricted straits to reach the other side. Open. Closed. Open. We cannot avoid the closings of our lives. For sometimes there is only one way forward. But as scary and as hard as it can be to pass through, if we can keep our eyes and hearts from sealing shut, we might just glimpse a new opening.

2011 has just closed and 2012 has only begun to stretch out before us. We can’t know for certain the road ahead. But as we back out of our driveway and put the car in gear for journey forward, we pray in the words of our daily blessing, “im y’pateiah ehad mehem o’yisatem ehad mihem” that to live and stand before God, “our openings must be open and our closings closed.”

It seems to me that this common scene was lifted directly from this morning’s Torah reading.  There, Joseph is cast into a pit, and what happens?  Vayeshvu le’ekhol lehem (Genesis 37:25).  The brothers sit down and begin a meal.  While they’re eating, that’s when Joseph gets sold into slavery.

Even the 13^th century French commentator Hizkuni knows the scene from our shoot-em-up movies.  He teaches vayeshvu merahok le’ekhol lehem pen yishmau misham kol tza’akato—they sat down a bit of a distance away to eat lest they hear Joseph’s crying out.  This is not something we might explicitly expect of our ancestors, let alone Jacob’s children—blatant disregard for suffering.

But the story continues generations later, in what we might come to understand as the later sequel to this movie—the Purim story.  According to the Midrash (Midrash Tehilim 10), God told the brothers that, since Joseph was condemned while they stuffed their faces, their descendants were to be sold in Shushan within the midst of eating and drinking, that is, Haman decrees the capture and annihilation of the Jews while feasting (Esther 3:15).  In a sense, the midrash is teaching us: what goes around, comes around.

Fast-forward to modern times, to today.  And we recognize that we are the third installment of this movie trilogy.  How do things pan out for us as the next line of descendants?  In today’s world, there is no denying that we continue to feast while others starve.  And worse, we surely are guilty of distancing ourselves from the cries of our brothers’ suffering.

It would be easy to simply charge all of us with working at Loaves and Fishes or donating socks or giving tzedakah to this organization or that, and leaving it there.  But we would not need such a reminder this morning if we hadn’t lost sight as to why the suffering of our brother matters in the first place.

Believe it or not, just as the Purim story was a connection for us to see into the future as to the prophetic consequence of Joseph’s brothers’ actions, so too is the Purim story a bridge for us to the upcoming holiday season, as well as to how we’ve lost our grasp.

According to the Chasidic tradition, there is a unique relationship between the dreidel and the grogger (Sefer Ta’amei HaMinhagim, Inyanei Hanukkah 859).  The dreidel is held from the top when you play with it and the grogger is held from the bottom when you play with it.  Why do we hold the grogger from below?  The reason is because our ancestors in Shushan fasted and mourned when others suffered.  They noticed that we were all created Btzelem Elohim, in God’s image; they were acutely aware of the presence of a Higher power in the world.  Esther’s appeal to the king worked without bloodshed initially because the suffering was clear and present.  They were reaching up to God, just like raising the grogger bottom-up.

The Maccabees were also aware of a Higher power, but took matters into their own bloody hands. There was no fasting or sackcloth.  There was only battle.  The outcome was still the same – victory that is – but at a higher price: the death of many of their brethren as well.  They were grasping at their own strength as opposed to appealing to God, just like holding the dreidel top-down.

Today, we need to find the fusion of the dreidel and the grogger.  We need to be aware of our own strength but also that of God’s, and God in humanity.  We need to be the ones to march into action to bring those suffering out of their darkness and into the light, especially during this season of lights.  And further, we need also to appeal to God and see God within each other.  We need to find prayer and hope in our hearts for a better tomorrow.

And above all, we need to be presently aware, that when we sit down to dine on Hanukkah this week, as we exchange gifts and gather around the Hanukkah Menorah, it is not solely the misstep of dining while others starve that matters, it is dining ignorant of the fact that we might be the ones doing the enslaving.  Remember, Jacob’s brothers threw Joseph into the pit and then feasted.  We need to be the good guys in the movie and not the bad guys.

As we recall the blunders and the heroics of our ancestors this morning – our ancestors in Canaan, in Persia and in Ancient Israel – we know it is our time to finish directing the final scene in this saga and may it be one that knows no suffering and no captivity.

Our Torah reading this morning is one of the richest treasure troves of biblical narrative.  The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the birth of Isaac, Abraham’s visit with the three angelic guests…  Most famous, however, is Abraham’s near-sacrifice of Isaac.

There, atop Mount Moriah, Abraham raises his knife-wielding hand to slit his 37 year old son’s throat following God’s command—and an angel intercedes.  According to our midrashic tradition, even though Abraham does not go through with the human offering, Isaac still dies out of shock.  His soul flies out of his body.  God thereby returns Isaac’s soul to his body, resurrecting him, just as Elisha does for the small lad in our Haftarah reading.  And interestingly enough, we don’t hear of Isaac again in this parashah.

Abraham returns, descending the mountain alone, and no one asks as to Isaac’s whereabouts.  No one seems to worry or care about Isaac.  In fact, Isaac does not appear again until the fifth aliyah in next week’s Torah portion, wandering in the field toward evening.

Not exactly sure as to how we should translate lasuah basadeh, some of the rabbis say Isaac was out for a stroll.  Others propose that he was davening or meditating or talking with God.  And others suggest he was merely searching.

Yes, we re-meet Isaac next week, and are only reintroduced to him as he first takes notice from afar of his soon to be wife Rebekah.  Isaac brings her into the tent of his deceased mother, Sarah.  He marries Rebekah and loves her.  And the aliyah ends: vayinahem yitzhak aharei imo – often loosely translated as “Isaac was then consoled for the loss of his mother” (Genesis 24:67).  But these words can also be translated as “And Isaac was comforted after his mother died” or even “Isaac regretted his mother’s passing.”

Isaac needed companionship.  Isaac needed family that loved him.  Isaac was a broken man who had lived through something no person should ever have to endure—and did so with what our tradition understands as pride and faith.

Isaac was old.  37 years of age is not old.  40 is not old.  But Isaac was old.  Why?  Because Isaac had experienced tragedy and suffering and conflict.  Isaac had endured heart-break and heart-ache.  Isaac had lived a life to which few of us can even understand or bear witness.

The same is true for the veterans of our armed forces.  They are old.  They are not old in years; they are old in life and in lifetimes.

You’ve heard me before plead for support for our country’s brave military personnel.  But this is a different type of support.  This is a different call.  This is support for our old and our haggard, support for those whose eyes are burned with images we can’t possibly comprehend, whose hearts are etched with names of fallen comrades and near fatal operations.

Our veterans need us.  They need family.  They need friends.  They need our gratitude.  They need our love.  And they need our support.  Simply put, they should not find themselves wandering the earth as Isaac did, scarred for life.

Our father Abraham, knowing that he had to make it up to his son somehow, charged his servant with finding Isaac a wife.  It is not our charge to find spouses or partners for our veterans, per se.  We simply need to shower them with the love and companionship they deserve, especially when they likely have a forever broken heart.

No doubt, Isaac was forever a broken man thereafter.  His eyes so charred by the pain he could not see.  His family fell apart years later with the divisiveness of Esau and Jacob and the encouraged deceit of Rebekah.  And even today, we think of Abraham and recall so much.  We think of Jacob and recall so much.  But Isaac?  He’s the intermediary—the placeholder between the generations.

Our veterans cannot be placeholders.  They cannot become forgotten chapters of history.  We cannot let them become the fuel of the fire for a broken family.  We have to share their stories with pride and we have to listen to their stories with intrigue.  We have to honor their experience and authority and above all we have to recognize that they will always and forever be far older than we are, irrespective of how fewer years than we they may have.

May we all come to honor our elders, our veterans, for living a painstaking life so that we might live ours with greater comfort.

His friend replied, “Sam Cohen, that’s a good American Jewish name.”

Yehudah Tzvi began his long walk up a massive flight of steps leading to the immigration office. With each step he said, “Sam Cohen, Sam Cohen,” in an earnest effort to learn his new name. When he finished carrying his luggage to the top of the flight, he was winded and tired.

And as he approached the booth, an immigration officer blurted out, “Name!?” A flustered Yehudah Tzvi replied to himself, “Shoyn fargesin” (“I already forgot” in Yiddish).

The immigration officer replied “Sean Ferguson, welcome the United States of America!”

The story of name changes at Ellis Island is a common one. According my own family lore, the immigrant officer couldn’t make heads or tails of our family name, “Alexandrovich.” He saw the name Davis written on a near-by crate and so he matter of factly, said to my great grandfather, “You’re Davis.” Otherwise, I guess I would have been Alexander Alexandrovich.

I grew up knowing this story and never really questioned it. But I probably should have been a bit suspicious. I recently learned that by the time Ellis Island was up and running in 1892, there was no shortage of translators and immigration officials themselves were multilingual. The idea that Cohens accidentally turned into Kennedys on a daily basis is a “bobe mayse.” And more likely, it is our bubbies who made it up.  As we know, immigrants often changed their names as a way to fit in to their new country. It was easier to blame Ellis Island for the loss of a family legacy than to admit the truth.” (Dara Horn)

The story of immigration to America in the late 1800s is a deeply Jewish story, not just because so many of the immigrants were Jewish but because the experience was just the latest incarnation of our people’s original immigrant story. “vayomer adonai el Avram, “lekh lekha m’artzekha u’mimoladetekha u’mibeit avikha el haaretz asher areka.  God spoke to Avram saying, leave your native land, your home land, leave fathers house, and go to a goldena medina, to a promised land that I will show you.”

Avram’s journey is the classic immigrant tale, a rags to riches story in which a change in homeland is as much a change in location as a change in faith, culture and identity. Leaving behind mother Babylonia, Avram abandoned his homeland and discarded the traditions of the old country. You can just picture Avraham sailing into the harbor of Yaffo, seeing the lights of Canaan off in the distance and throwing his idols overboard.

Avram’s was an “ivri,” a traveler, a boarder crosser. But there is one important difference between our biblical ancestors and his descendants who landed on these sacred shores. For Avram, his journey to the Promised Land was an aliyah; it was a spiritual ascent, indicated appropriately, by a change in name. There at the boarder to the land of Canaan, God, like the immigration official renamed the patriarch: “lo yikarei od avram ki im avraham. No longer shall you be called avram rather avraham.” And so too, Sarai became Sarah. The additional yod and hey in their names symbolized a deepened relationship with God.

For many American immigrants, their immigration had a very different impact on their spiritual lives. Not ascent but descent. For all of the blessings of freedom and opportunity, America opened up an all together new choice for Jews, the choice to change from Alexandrovich to Davis, to abandon Judaism all together. Stories abound of Jews who left their Judaism somewhere on the way from the old country to the new, their tallis and tefillin left behind with the excess literal and figurative baggage. For this very reason some European rabbis such as the sainted Hafetz Hayim counseled his followers against settling in America saying they would become susceptible to “perdition of the soul and expose the souls of their children to extreme danger.”

Ascent for Avraham, descent for Davis. Well, perhaps it is not quite that simple.

Jonathan Sarna a professor of Jewish history at Brandeis challenges this commonly held way of recounting American Jewish history.  “The stereotypical tale,” Sarna writes, “is one of linear descent. Of a people who start out orthodox and end up intermarrying.”  But that superficial view doesn’t capture the fullness of the American Jewish experience. Ours, Sarna explains, “is a much more dynamic story of a people who lose their faith, and regain their faith, a story of assimilation to be sure but also of revitalization.” In other words, in America Shayn fergessen doesn’t always become Sean Fergesson.  Occasionally, the Fergesons name their new baby Shlomo after his grandfather Sean.

And the truth is, when we dig a bit below the surface, we find that the same was true in ancient times.  Influenced by the writings of the rabbis, we tend to picture the transition from Terach in Ur Kasdim to Avraham in Canaan as one of linear ascent. Terach bowed down to idols. Avraham bowed down to God. But here too, it is not quite so clear cut.  We know, for example, that Terach himself, broke with his past, left his homeland and set out for Canaan in search of a better life. We know as well, that as soon as Abraham landed on the shores of Israel, vayered mitzrayma, he descended to Egypt. Apparently not finding the Golden Land all it was cracked up to be.

Ascent or descent?  Both. Most of us are many years removed from our immigrant grandparents.  The question however, that we must answer is, “which direction are we moving?”

This coming Monday, I am leaving with almost 30 Beth El “Empty Nesters” on a trip that to explore this topic. We will travel to Philadelphia to visit the brand new Museum of American Jewish history. Then we’ll make our way to NY where we will tour JTS, Ellis Island, the Lower East Side and the Center for Jewish History and more.

For some, a trip focused on history is not particularly enticing.  But only a brief look and we can’t help but realize that the history of American Jews and American Judaism is remarkable. It is inspirational: The life we have built, the contributions we have made, the ladders we have climbed. In and of itself, our history is fascinating.  But truthfully, fascinating is not enough.

We are not traveling back with a sense of nostalgia for what was; nor do we study history simply to learn about the past. Rather, as Sarna quotes, “When a people becomes interested in its past life and seeks to acquire knowledge in order to better understand itself, it always experiences an awakening of new life.”

This is the challenge before us, today’s Jewish community. And it is the same one faced by our ancestors in each and ever generation- the need to reinvent ourselves.

Avraham is guided to do just that. Lekh lekha meiartzecha, mimolatdtekha, mibeit avikha.  Mieartzecha, leave your country. Some countries, we are taught, produce heroes, giborei ruah giants of the spirit, but do not rely on this al tismokh al kakh. Lekh meirtzekha. Go forth from your country.

There are people who by birth are blessed with fine qualities and good character. But do not rely on this either gam al kakh al tishan, go forth from your birth place.

Some people have a father who is tzadik v’kadosh, righteous and holy. But do not rely on him as well. Rather, go forth from your father’s house to a land that I will show you. That is, namely, you must forge your own way in life and not depend on others to ensure your personal development and character.

In this insightful commentary of the Daat Moshe reminds us that no matter our history, we must play an active role in shaping our future. Don’t rely on the place, we are told, to shape the person, the past to control the future.  If our ancestors traveled up a spiritual ascent, do not rely on that. If theirs was a spiritual descent, do not rely on that either. Rather, lekh lekha, carve out your own path.

In the words of Sara that conclude his magnum opus, American Judaism “Jews witness two contradictory trends operating in their community- assimilation and revitalization. Which will predominate and what the future holds nobody knows. That will be determined day by day, community by community, Jew by Jew.”

With Halloween around the corner, we see these haunting decorations and adornments popping up all over our neighborhoods. And maybe, just maybe, we have our good friend Noah and his Ark to thank for this.

I would venture to guess that most people here are not aware that Judaism does have a tradition of believing in things like spirits and demons and vampires and werewolves. We read about them in the Talmud and the Midrash, but we rarely teach or talk about it.

The story of Noah and his ark? That is something we discuss with regularity. There, Noah was minding his own business and God tells Noah to stop what he is doing and build a giant floating houseboat. This was God’s plan to restart the world—to wipe out the bad and replenish the good. However, is it possible that God planned poorly? Could God have been wrong in thinking that starting the world with a good seed would eliminate all the bad ones?

We know that we, as human beings, have a yetzer ra—an evil inclination that sometimes leads us astray. But is there a chance that we are not fully responsible for the darkness that clouds an otherwise bright world? As the superstitious thinker that I am, I sometimes feel that there is something else afoot—besides God’s master plan, besides free will and human failure.

God commanded Noah: “And from every living thing, from all flesh, two of every sort shall you bring into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female.” – U’Mikol hachai mikol basar…(Genesis 6:19). We know that the Torah does not repeat itself merely for emphasis, and so the great 11^th Century Torah Commentator, Rashi, recognizes that this repetition begs the question—what is the difference between taking a pair from every living thing and a pair from all flesh? Rashi’s answer is succinct: Afilu shedim, even demons.

According to our Midrashic tradition, God created demons’ souls on the sixth day. However, when God came to create their bodies Shabbat began and God stopped and could not create them (Genesis Rabbah 7:5). Therefore, at least it would seem, in Noah’s mind, God was commanding him to take everything of flesh and blood, as well as everything without body, yet still living. Enter: Demons. Noah brought dogs and cats and elephants and tigers…and demons…onto the ark.

Now, why didn’t we learn this in Hebrew School or at the Talmud Torah? Somehow, “And the Demons, they came on, they came on, by twosies, twosies,” probably wouldn’t fly with little kids. But if you think about it, why did evil and malice continue in the world after God attempted to wash it out with the Great Flood? Because Noah brought demons on board and the cycle continued.

Perhaps not coincidentally, Halloween is Monday. Though its origins are debatable, there is truth to the suggestion that Halloween finds its origins in both Paganism and Christianity. Despite the fact that the majority of Americans do not celebrate Halloween as a religious festival, we do not celebrate Halloween in my house because of these origins and undertones. Still, that is not what primarily bothers me about Halloween. What bothers me is seeing little kids walking around with necks dripping with blood, knives splitting heads, zombie brides, demon spawn, and all sorts of gruesome gore. And it doesn’t sit well by me to say, “Well, it’s all in good fun and it is only make-believe.”

If we elect to celebrate Halloween deciding that it’s completely secular and not religious at all, then let’s not do as Noah did, bringing the demons along with us. Let’s add a little more light in the world instead of darkness. Let the kids dress up as Dora, as princesses, as Superman and as Batman, as Packers players and as Vikings players, as the 1994 Stanley Cup Winning New York Rangers. As walking jokes and as Role models. People and things that inspire and perhaps teach. Not as ghouls and monsters and ghosts.

If it is our birthright to repair this ever-broken world, undoing Noah’s misstep, then celebrating the so-called shedim, these demons, in our world, is not really the most Jewish thing to do.

That is the covenant that God made with us. God promised never to destroy the world again, offering the light of the rainbow to brighten up the stormy sky. May we come to recognize that this covenant is a two-way street, and it is our obligation to bring light to this world just the same, eliminating and not promoting the darkness of the demons around us.

No, I am not referring to Gilad Shalit. I am speaking about Rabbi Meir Rothenburg, the most famous rabbi of 13 Century Germany known as the Maharam of Rotenberg. Rabbi Meir was the leader of Ashkenazi Jewry; he was a teacher of Talmudic giants and a scholar who produced over 3500 legal response known to us today.

In 1285, the Maharam left Germany and headed for the Land of Israel. He left incognito since it was illegal for Jews to leave their towns. But he was spotted on the way by a Jew who had converted to Christianity. He was captured and given over to a local baron who in turn sold him to the Emperor of Austria.

Now understand, in this time, kidnapping was common place; captors knew the value of Jewish prisoners. They knew that Jewish law placed the ultimate value on pikuah nefesh, on saving a life. They knew that if a Jewish community was permitted to sell a Torah scroll to pay the ransom, then all the more so, they could demand a high price for a beloved Torah teacher.  So they set the price at 30,000 marks, an exorbitant sum. Fearing for the safety of their rabbi, the community started to gather the money. But Rabbi Meir protested; he opposed the deal. He refused to allow himself to be ransomed for he understood that it would only lead to a vicious cycle of further kidnappings and ransoms.

For seven years, the Maharam lay in prison. He eventually died there and to rub salt in the wound, the captors did not release his remains. Not until 14 years later, when the Emperor died was a ransom eventually paid to release his remains.

In choosing to remain in prison rather than give in to extortion, the Maharam drew on a teaching of the mishna, codified 1000 years earlier. We read in the mishna,

אֵין פּוֹדִין אֶת הַשְּׁבוּיִין יוֹתֵר עַל כְּדֵי דְמֵיהֶן, מִפְּנֵי תִקּוּן הָעוֹלָם

Captives should not be redeemed for more than their value because paying a high price would lead to extortion and an increase in captives.      Of course, how do you calculate a person’s worth? Ask Aviva Shalit and you bet her son was worth 1000 prisoners. Ask Shvul Schijveschuurder whose parents and three children were killed in the Sbarro pizza attack and you’ll get a different answer.

Israelis were bitterly divided over the deal to free Shalit. From former chief rabbis to ordinary citizens, they took sides in the debate. On the one hand were those who said, Gilad’s blood is not redder than anyone else’s. Echoing Talmudic commentary they ask, is the Israeli that will likely die at the hand of a now released terrorist less valuable than Gilad? Citing halakhic precedent, they submit that tragically, Gilad should be considered a dead soldier that cannot be redeemed.

On the other hand, others find support for Gilad’s release in different texts and different arguments. They content that saving a life now takes priority over the fear that at some future time, this release will encourage more kidnappings or an Israeli death at the hand of a freed terrorist. Besides, they remind us, to maintain morale in the army, soldiers need to know that their country will go to any length to protect them.

This is a dilemma not just for rabbis and politicians. It’s a real issue for ordinary Israelis. Imagine this: You’re at home and you get an unexpected knock on the door. It’s a friend, the mother of your child’s classmate. You know her well. You see her at shul; you share yontif meals. A few years back, you went to the shiva for her daughter who was killed in a terrorist attack. And you where there to give her a hug when the murderer of her child was finally caught and put in prison. Now she stands at your doorstep with tears in her eyes. She is holding a paper and explains that this is a petition to the High Court to stop the release of her murderer. You worry that signing it might jeopardize the release of Gilad Shalit. What do you do? You look her in the eye and you say…

I’ll leave you to continue the debate over Kiddush as I am sure they are doing in Israel. Well respected rabbinic authorities divided over the question, so you don’t need me to weigh in. What interests me today, however, is what this whole story says about Israelis and Jews.

I ask myself, is there another country, another people in the world that would make such a deal? Over the last 54 years, 13,509 prisoners have been released to free 16 soldiers. That’s a ratio of 800-1. Would any other country, any other people make such a deal?

“Israel,” Rabbi Danny Gordis writes, “brings the boys home. No matter what. It may or not make strategic sense. It may be worth it. It may not. But it’s what we do.”

What kind of country operates like that, “it’s what we do?” It may make no sense, but it is who we are? I’ll tell you: a county and a people who pray today and every day, l’hayim v’lo l’mavet, for life and not for death.

Perhaps, it’s true as the head of Hezballah once said, the Jewish people’s aversion to death is a liability; our love of life is a vulnerability.  But today in the words of Hallel that we chanted, afafauni hevlei mavet, when pains of death encircle me, ethalekh b’artzot hahayim, I never-the-less choose to walk in the land of the living.

What kind of country, what kind of people makes a decision that defies logic and strategy “to bring the boys home?” This kind of people:

In 2006, Shalit was captured by militants who tunneled into Israel from the Gaza Strip; they surprised his tank crew and killed two of his comrades. In 2008, Noam and Aviva Shalit set up camp outside the prime ministers office and said they were not moving until they got their son back. And they stayed. There they waited, day by day, year by year. Sometimes there were alone. But often they were surrounded by supporters. Busloads of school children from all over the country came to pay their respects. Synagogues held Friday night services there, and often laid out a long table for Friday night dinner so the Schalit would not be alone. Even those far away, kept Gilad close to mind. They set up a chair for him at their seder tables, recited prayers for him in shul.

There has been lots of talk in the last few years about the decline in the feeling of Jewish Peoplehood.  We no longer have a deep sense of kinship and commitment to our fellow Jews, critics charge. Well, at least in Israel, at least now, the story of Shalit has challenged and changed that perspective- not just because it’s a small country. It’s not just because everyone has children in the army. It’s because we’re mispacha. Think of it, in the Torah we are never referred to as emunat yisrael, the faith of Israel or dat yisrael, the religion of Israel. We are am yisrael, bnai yisrael, bait yisrael, klal yisrael, kenesset yisreal. The people, children, house of Israel. We are an extended mispacha. It’s no surprise then that n Israel, every mother was Aviva Shalit. Every father was Noam.

We can see this message in a symbol of our holiday, the willow.  According hasidic commentators, unlike their the etrog, myrtle and lulav, the distinguishing feature of the willow is they grow together in clumps. You never just find one willow stalk.  That sense of being bound together as community is inherent in the willow.  In Hebrew the willows are aravot. It is related to the familiar word, aravim as in “kol yisrael arevim zel bazeh.” All Jews are responsible for each other.

According to the midrash, Yosef was likened to the willow. Like a willow that withers and dies when cut off from water, so was Yoseph who was taken captive, cut off from his family and who eventually was the first of the brothers to die (Lev Rab 30:10).

In the climax of the story, you’ll remember, Yosef is in Egypt. Jacob his father is home, heart broken that his son has gone missing. Just when all seems hopeless, Yehuda steps forward to rescue his younger brother Benjamin who was being held as collateral in an Egyptian prison, saying, “take me instead of him.  Ki avdecha arav et hanaar (Gen 44:32), I am responsible for my brother. I am aravem zeh bazeh.”  Upon hearing that sentiment, upon hearing “we bring the boys home, no matter what,” Yoseph, the arava, can no longer hold it together. He knows that he and Yehuda are of the same stalk. He reveals himself and is reunited with his family.

That is just the kind of place Israel is. That is just the kind of people we are called on to be. Yehudim, descendants of Yehuda, bound together, b’agudah ahat, in a single bundle. In the Torah Yehuda says, nafo k’shura b’nafsho, our lives are bound together, our souls are connected one to the other. Ki avdecha arav et hanaar thus, I am responsible for the lad, I must bring him home.”

Upon Shalit’s return, Prime Minister Netanyahu expressed this very sentiment in his address to the nation.

“Citizens of Israel, today we are all united in joy and in pain.

“As an IDF soldier and commander, I went out on dangerous missions many times. But I always knew that if I or one of my comrades fell captive, the Government of Israel would do its utmost to return us home, and as Prime Minister, I have now carried this out. As a leader who daily sends out soldiers to defend Israeli citizens, I believe that mutual responsibility is no mere slogan – it is a cornerstone of our existence here.

“Today, now Gilad has returned home, to his family, his people and his country. This is a very moving moment. A short time ago, I embraced him as he came off the helicopter and escorted him to his parents, Aviva and Noam, and I said, ‘I have brought your son back home.’ But this is also a hard day; even if the price had been smaller, it would still have been heavy.

“The State of Israel is different from its enemies: Here, we do not celebrate the release of murderers. Here, we do not applaud those who took life. On the contrary, we believe in the sanctity of life. We sanctify life. This is the ancient tradition of the Jewish People.

“Citizens of Israel, in recent days, we have all seen national unity such as we have not seen in a long time. Unity is the source of Israel’s strength, now and in the future.”

The bonds that ties Jews one to other tie us not just as a nation but across the generations. Today, as we gather on Shemini Atzeret for Yizkor. Even in the absence of our loved ones, we remain arevim zeh bazeh, responsible for them, responsible for continuing their name, responsible for upholding their tradition. Doing so we know that nafsho kshura bnafsham, that our souls will remain bound together.

Despite the example of the Maharam of Rotenberg, despite the codified teaching of the mishna, despite all political and strategic logic we say, “it’s just what we do”

because we are the willow. It’s true, yesterday on Hoshana Rabbah the willow took a beating but it is equally true that the willow was exalted as it was used to decorate the bima.  We too, though we may suffer because of irrational commitment to each other are raised up when we declare, l’hayim v’lo l’mavet, to life and not death. And thus did Netanuyahu close his remarks:

“Today, we all rejoice in Gilad Shalit’s return home to our free country, the State of Israel. Tomorrow evening, we will celebrate Simchat Torah. This coming Sabbath, we will read in synagogues, as the weekly portion from the prophets, the words of the prophet Isaiah (42:7): ‘To bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, and bring them that sit in darkness out of the prison-house.’ Today, I can say, on behalf of all Israelis, in the spirit of the eternal values of the Jewish People: ‘Your children shall return to their own border [Jeremiah 31:17].’ Am Yisrael Chai! [The People of Israel live!].”

On Yom Kippur we look in a mirror. We examine our lives and reflect on who we are. Some of us may see a few more grey hairs, others pimples or wrinkles. But the YK mirror beckons us to look deeper, to probe inside and examine if our deeds are indeed “Snow White.”

A picture I saw earlier this year gave me pause to reflect on what it means to look in the mirror. A friend emailed me a picture, actually a photograph, of huge rally- hundreds of thousands of people, a sea of people spreading out for blocks and blocks. I’d say that the people looked like little ants but really a big blob is more like it. They were an indistinguishable mass. Now all of us have seen plenty of pictures of giant rallies in the news this past year. In this case, the subject of the picture was not important. What was truly amazing was the resolution of this giga-pixel image. I could zoom in from a crowd of hundreds of thousands and could see individual faces; it magnified the picture to such an extent that the masses became manageable, the hoards became humanized.

Thousands of years before pixels or giga-panoramas were invented, our Jewish sages developed an advanced spiritual technology easily downloadable in them.  One such spiritual gadget was a most unusual brakha. It’s a berakha said upon seeing a 600,000 Jews gathered at the Temple: “Barukh ata hashem, hakham harazim. Blessed are you God, wise in secrets.”  Now, that is a strange blessing for such an occasion. You might think upon seeing that many Jews you’d say something like, “Ah, must be Christmas Eve at a Chinese restaurant.” Or you might think since in the Torah 600,000 is the number of Jews who stood at Mt. Sinai, the blessing should be something about God’s revelation. But instead, the blessing is, “God You are wise to the secrets of humans.” What’s the connection to a large crowd?

When I transitioned from my grade school to my High School, I got lost amidst the crowds. When I arrived at freshman orientation on my college campus, I encountered what seemed like masses of people. It took a while for the faceless to become friends, for the nameless to become known. When I first came to Beth El and stood here on the High Holidays, there might as well have been 600,000 people in the congregation. Now, years later, having shared intimate moments in your lives, I see not simply a mass, but a mass of individuals.

To get our hands around groups or movements, people or parties, we tend to clump them together.  We think of them as singular units. Most of the time, this is harmless- we look to the other side of the bleachers, see our opponents and call them “Cheeseheads” or worse.

But sometimes, when seen from afar, those masses become wholly other. We look out and see that which we most definitely are not.  “You know, those people- immigrants, gays and lesbians, liberals, conservative, Arabs, Palestinians.” Lumped together, they loose their identity as individuals and in the processes, their worth as humans. This leads to darkness in our world as relationships go undeveloped or overexposed to scrutiny and critique.

This berakha calls on us to see beyond the labels, to remember the holiness of the wholly other.  Like the “tzalam,” the photographer who shot in high resolution, the brakha brings into focus the “tzelem,” the image of God in all people.

As Jews, we know all too well about being the other. From Egypt to Germany, we have been the world’s outsider. Rather than viewing us as individuals, we were portrayed as a dangerous multitude. The first thing Pharaoh said about the Jewish people is, “rav vatzum mimenu, they are greatly increasing and multiplying, soon they’ll outnumber us.”  So too with Hitler who portrayed Jews as a dangerous mob, an infested pack.

Being the recipient of this demeaning treatment might have made us cold to plight of others. Our tradition, however, demands just the opposite response. Having been a stranger in a strange land, we know what it’s like to be the outcast. Therefore, the Torah repeats over and over, treat the stranger with sensitivity, the crowds with compassion. Look at them as if you are looking in a mirror.

Often, when we look in the mirror, we see Picasso- too fat, too thin, bags under the eyes, teeth too yellow. We wish just once it would call forth, “you are the fairest one of all.” And in truth, the right mirror will do just that.

The tale is told that when the Holy One of Blessing decided to create humans, God wondered what they should look like. So God made a mirror, looked into it and created that very image. After Adam and Eve had been formed, God gave that mirror to them as a wedding gift.

Adam and Eve greatly treasured this mirror for with it they came to understand many mysteries. So precious was it that when they left the Garden of Eden, they took it with them. They could not bear to leave it behind.

But when Adam approached the mirror for the first time outside the Garden, he discovered to his dismay, that it had grown dark. Not a single image took form within it, not even his own. And yet, when he began to repent, to do tshuva for his misdeeds, the mirror grew lighter little by little until they could use it again.

Then it happened. When Eve heard the news of the death of her son Abel, in her grief and mourning, she took a stone and smashed the mirror, shattering it into a thousand pieces- for she never again wanted to see the image of one who had lived to burry a loved one. From then on, nothing remained of the mirror except fragments which were divided among the children. When the flood came, Noah carried a piece of the mirror that had been given to him onto the ark. That fragment, the tale concludes, remains among us today. It is dark much of the time. Bt it is within our reach to bring light to the mirror. (Howard Schwartz). We do so, by looking at the world through God’s lens.

The giga-pixil panorama of a crowd inspires us to pray “hakham harazim.” Our prayers this Yom Kippur day echo the theme. In the Selihot prayers, just before the litany of “A heits For the sins we have committed against You,” we recite a variation on our berakha when we pray, “ata yodea razei olam You, God, know the mysteries of the universe, the secrets of everyone alive. You probe our innermost depths, examining our thoughts and deeds. Nothing is hidden from You. Ein nistar mineged einecha.”

This prayer was written by the second century sage, Rav and we understand it well in the context of our service. On a day when masses of Jews crowd into shuls, we are reminded that God knows and judges us individually. We appear before God as a flock but pass by the Shepherd signally, individually.

As Jews, we are to imitate God. Now clearly, we cannot know another person as God does. We don’t know their innermost secrets. Still, we sense in this prayer not just a description of God but a message for us.

When our instinct is to blur differences, Jewish tradition says, note distinction. Where we might see uniformity, our tradition councils, observe subtleties. Where we might see through someone, we are taught to look deeply into them. This is how we keep the mirror from growing dark. This is how we see people in color not black and white, how we live life in 3-d. It’s how we enlarge our relationships, brighten our world and sanctify our community.

Once, the story is told, Reb Shlomo Carlebach sat in a dingy restaurant presided over by a sour-looking waitress. The woman was unusually homely and unpleasant.

Well, after taking the order, the waitress returned, put down the breakfast and returned to the counter. But after taking one bite of the muffin, Reb Shlomo summoned her back. “My most beautiful friend,” he said to her gently, “are you by any chance the person who baked this muffin?”
“Yeah I am, what about it?” she muttered.
“I just want you to know that this is the most delicious muffin I have ever tasted in my life.”
The woman gave a hint of a smile, thanked him and started to walk away.

“And I also want you to know,” Carlebach continued, “that I have eaten muffins all over the world, but none as wonderful as this.” Again the woman thanked him. But Reb Shlomo still was not finished. “And truly I have to thank you because I was so hungry, and you did me the greatest favor in the world by so expertly baking this muffin, which is surely a taste of the World-to-come.” By now the woman was smiling broadly: “Well gee, thanks a lot, it’s very nice of you to say so. Most people never comment when the food is good; you only hear when they have a complaint.”
Reb Shlomo went on to ask the woman about the special ingredients. He listened attentively and was specific with his compliments, commenting on the muffin’s airy texture, its buttery and fragrant quality. “Watching Reb Shlomo extol the virtues of a muffin,” remarked an observer to the scene, “I was filled with a mixture of amazement and amusement.” But then I saw the woman: “I was taken aback. The homely woman was no more. A few minutes with Shlomo had done the trick. She was transformed. She had become beautiful.” (Telushkin, Book of Values)

On Yom Kippur we look in a mirror. After Yom Kippur, we are to become a mirror to others, a mirror that says, “you are the fairest one of all.”  God is hakham harazim, a knower of secrets in a way we will never be. But we can become mirrors reflecting God’s light. We can develop HDSV “High Definition Soul Vision” that enables us to see God’s image in others and in ourselves.

Today, is a day for reflection. But now, as the hour of Yizkor approaches, when we gaze into a mirror, we also see our past.  Yizkor, illumines a mirror darkened by time and by sorrow. As we gaze into the mirror of memory, we see in our likeness the image of our parents and our grandparents. We look into the mirror and see our children and our grandchildren- their smile and their eyes, their humor and their habits, their disposition and their demeanor. They had a fragment of an ancient mirror. And it continues to brighten our lives when the light of the Yizkor candle shines into the innermost chambers of our hearts.

On Yom Kippur we look into a mirror and sense, “ata yodea razei olam, God, You know our secrets.” You see me for who I am. Now, as I travel through 5772, grant me the power of Your perception. Give me eyes to see beyond appearances, to look beyond labels for then will Your light illumine the mirror.

Inspire me, God, on this Yom Kippur day, to seek and grant forgiveness, to repair the broken fragments of my relationships for then will Your image become clearer.

Help me, God, to notice the nameless, to make out the man amidst the masses. Then will the mirror shine forth with the light of Your countenance that we might know, “You are the holiest One in them all.”

I met Gunny Collier five years after my last high school gym class. Gunny didn’t care if I had an ingrown toenail. We were supposed to run the mile, or better many, many miles, as if people were chasing us in hot pursuit. Gunny Collier used to say to me, “Olitzky, there’s a difference between pain and injury. Pain is just weakness leaving the body. And I want you to hurt.” I never forgot that moment and those words. “I want you to hurt.”

Hurt and pain are probably feelings with which we have a negative association. We remember our parents asking us, “What hurts? Where’s the ouchee?” And we in turn often seek out our physician when something hurts inexplicably. Pain alarms us and the hurt is irritating. And I sometimes wonder if God wants us to hurt too…

We are uncomfortable every year at this time when we recite the haunting words of the Musaf Amidah: B’rosh Hashannah Yikatevun, U’vyom Tzom Kippur Yehatemun. On Rosh Hashanah it is written, and On Yom Kippur, it is sealed. Mi Yihyeh u’Mi Yamut. Who will live and who will die. It is an easy out if we say that only God knows who will live and who will die. We play a significant role as cooperative partner in at least part of that decision and outcome.

No doubt there are cancers and diseases and maladies that cannot be explained scientifically, or even logically, and we lay them upon the shoulders of Divine Mystery. However, there are certain illnesses and ailments about which we can do something.

The past ten Surgeons General of the United States have each reported that, over 85 percent of the disorders for which we seek medical treatment are “lifestyle driven.” We are very much in control of a large part of our existence. In fact, I am going to go out on a limb and suggest that just as three times daily prayer is required of us as Jews, so is our maintenance of sound body and health. We are to treat our body as a palace; we are to treat our life with sanctity and concern. We have a hovat shmirat briut – an obligation to be healthy. And this is certainly not something new.

2000 years ago, Hillel the Elder had just finished teaching his students and walked off in an unexpected direction (Leviticus Rabbah 34:3). Hillel’s students rushed after him and asked as to where he was going. Hillel responded, La’asot Mitzvah, to do a mitzvah – to fulfill a commandment. The students asked, “which mitzvah are you about to do?” Hillel answered, “to bathe in the bathhouse.”

Bathe in the bathhouse? A place of paganism and leisure?! With shock and surprise, the students burst out, “and this is a mitzvah?!” Hillel answered plainly and calmly: “Yes, just as someone is hired to polish and scour the statues all about…how much more so should we who are created by God, in God’s image, take care that our body be clean and healthy.

The bathhouse was a place for Hillel to stay healthy. The shvitz was a place to do a mitzvah. To keep his body pure and clean – embracing his hovat shmirat briut. We know today that good health and a clean body are not only achieved by proper sanitization and hygiene.

Anyone who has recited the long version of the Saturday morning Kiddush is familiar with those oft-repeated and invoked words of Torah: Sheshet yamim ta’avod, v’asita kol melakhtekha, v’yom hashvii shabbat LAdonai elohekha, lo ta’aseh kol melakhah – “Six days shall you labor, and do all your work; But the seventh day is the Sabbath of Adonai your God; in it you shall not do any work…”

All too often we focus only on the end of the verse – that this is a commandment to observe the Sabbath – to keep Shabbat – to maintain a weekly Day of Rest. But what about the rest of the verse? By all means, I would never suggest that our daily occupations are not work…but we usually fail to take note of the first part of this commandment: Six days shall we work! Six days shall we toil! Six days shall we labor! God is essentially saying: “For six days I want you to hurt, and on the seventh day, you will rest and be stronger.” In order to have a day of rest, one needs a week-load of work. That work is for the mind and for the body. That work is exercise.

One day of Shabbat. Six days of work. More so than any of the Mitzvot, we are commanded to keep living. Observances like Kashrut and Shabbat are about how to live, but health and fitness are about staying alive.

I am by no means suggesting that we all need leave synagogue right now and run a marathon. But anything can be added to our lives to increase our daily exercise and our health. Mens sana in corpore sano. A sound mind in a sound body.

Maimonides, both a rabbi and a physician, includes exercise and seeking out proper medical care on his list of Positive commandments, the Thou Shalts. He even includes the inverse – Thou shalt not cause yourself bodily harm – on his list of Negative commandments. Maimonides goes so far as to say that “Bodily health and wellbeing are part of the path to God, for it is impossible to understand or have any knowledge of the Creator when one is sick” (Hilkhot De’ot 4:1). The bitter irony is that often we turn to God most when we are in need of healing. Maimonides sees it as though when we’ve brought sickness upon ourselves, we’ve actually pushed God away, irrespective of our prayers.

Today, for me, cardio is just as important to my daily and weekly routine as is my davening, as are my prayers. But running or using the elliptical are not the only forms of exercise. And exercise is not the only way to keep our bodies in palace-form.

It doesn’t help to exercise and still live unhealthily. Our biggest culprit? The way we eat. Enter: Food. We all know it. We all love it. Judaism is a religion of food. In point of fact, last week was the evening of simanim – symbols. All of us eat apples and honey for a sweet new year. Some families eat fishheads or ram or lambheads so that it will be God’s will that we become a head and not a tail this year. There are many wordplays to encourage the Will of God for the upcoming year and rich, heavy foods are a common theme for us.

On the more concrete, somewhat secular level, there are thousands of diets out there too. And tonight, I am not going to advocate for any one of them. I will merely advocate for healthy eating and moderation. Simply watching what we eat, lowering the “not so healthies” and increasing the “healthies” is a perfectly good place to start.

My father has the rule to take only one serving. No matter what, never go up for seconds. For some that might be the key. Maybe it means cutting out something as simple as all regular sodas from your lifestyle—or perhaps eliminating aspartame or caffeine or MSG or non-organics or refined sugars and bleached flours.

Or, perhaps it is not about cutting out but eating more. More vegetables. More fiber. More protein. More Omega 3s. Find out what it is that will get you back on that healthy track—whatever you might do to up the ante of your nutrition.

And, in reality, some of you are probably already doing a great job staying fit and healthy. But there’s always something more. And it’s not simply about how we look on the outside.

Believe it or not, many of the rabbis of the Talmud were smokin’ hot, good looking guys. Once, Raba said: Any scholar whose inside is not like his outside, is no scholar (BT Yoma 72b). Some understand this to mean if a person’s moral character does not reflect their outward attractiveness, then they are not truly a scholar. Rabban Gamliel went so far as to ban any student from the Bet Midrash, the study hall, whose character does not correspond to his exterior (BT Berakhot 28a). But I would argue that perhaps Raba was saying it does not matter how we look. It’s not even about how we feel about how we look. That is purely superficial. We must find a way to be healthy on the inside AND on the out. This is about feeling good—about feeling well and the concept of wellness in general. This is about overall health. It makes no sense to do Yoga at the gym and then go smoke a pack of cigarettes. It makes no sense to go swim or shoot hoops at the JCC, and then go eat a triple deep fried something or other.

And it doesn’t matter who you are or your stage in life. For some, by doing the daily activities prescribed by the physical therapist is precisely enough to stay on track, to keep one’s body palatial. We know that not everyone can exercise in the same way. Not everyone can maintain their health in the same way. Stretching, blinking, even things we don’t quite think of—yawning and sneezing, singing and laughing. Walking a bit farther to your car, walking to shul…heck, I’ll go for a walk with you if you call me at the synagogue and ask…there’s always something.

Now you may be thinking, “Duh, Rabbi, we get it. Be healthy. Not so novel.” But, the Talmud reminds us that a healthy body must come before a healthy soul. Well, here we are at shul working on our healthy souls. Fine. But after shul, we must work on the healthy bodies. How can we stand before God this evening with integrity and beat our breast with the purest of intentions: Al het shehatanu lifanekha bifrikat ‘ol – We have sinned against You God by rejecting responsibility? How can we spend six hours sitting in services but not even fifteen minutes going for a walk around the block? How can we spend all day fasting merely to binge at the day’s conclusion?

How? By ignoring the simple notion that God may be the skipper on this journey called life, but we are each the personal co-captain, righting the ship, or, unfortunately sometimes taking it off-course.

I’ll close by reminding us of the words of the Psalmist: “I will sing to Adonai as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have my being” (Psalm 104:33). It is our time to sing. It is our time to reclaim our lives. This is our year to be alive. To be joyful in our life. To be healthy in our life. To be healthy in our palace. It is our time to control the “controllables.”

Yom Kippur is about starting over, about priming our system spiritually. All the more so, we should focus on our physical wellbeing, priming our actual systems just the same. And this New Year, I challenge you to tune in to your involuntary rhythm. Tune in to the different gifts that God gave you.

May God help each of us this year to find the inner strength to rebuild our palaces and to polish both our interior and exterior. May we find solace in food and not discomfort and pain. May we find it easy to breathe. May we find it rewarding to live. And may we all have ease in finding ways to escort weakness out of our bodies, embracing the good pain as we’re meant to, healthily maintaining this beautiful gift forged in the Image of the Holy Blessed One. Amen.

In the prairie of Prax,

Came a North-Going Zax

And a South-Going Zax.

And it happened that both of them came to a place

Where they bumped.  There they stood.

Foot to foot.  Face to face.

“Look here, now!” the North-Going Zax said, “I say!

You are blocking my path.  You are right in my way.

“Who’s in whose way?” snapped the South-Going Zax.

“I always go south, making south-going tracks.

Then the North-Going Zax puffed his chest up with pride.

“I never,” he said, “take a step to one side.

And I’ll prove to you that I won’t change my ways

If I have to keep standing here fifty-nine days!”

“And I’ll prove to you,” yelled the South-Going Zax,

“That I can stand here in the prairie of Prax

For fifty-nine years!  For I live by a rule

That I learned as a boy back in South-Going School.

Never budge!  That’s my rule.  Never budge in the least!

Not an inch to the west!  Not an inch to the east!

I’ll stay here, not budging!  I can and I will

If it makes you and me and the whole world stand still!”

Dr Seuss’s, “The Zax” is a favorite of my boys. And while they may occasionally act like a Zax arguing over legos, or homework or bedtime, tragically, this is not a simple children’s story. No, its characters have become commonplace in our world. They are well known- for they are us.

The Zax tells a familiar story of stubbornness and arrogance. There is, however, one important difference between us and them. For the Zax, the world did not stand still. It simply built up around them:

“And they built it right over those two stubborn Zax

and left them there, standing un-budged in their tracks.”

The same cannot be said for us. Our intransigence has led to paralysis. Our obstinacies have brought about stagnation.

In national and inter-national politics, in our personal relationships, we are Zax. We don’t back down. We don’t admit we were wrong. We don’t retract. God forbid, that would be a sign of weakness. When it comes to taxes, war, and Israel, when it comes to Aunt Sally who once did me wrong and my friend Jon who didn’t keep his promise, it’s clear as day, I’m right and they’re wrong.

There is arrogance in this approach for it is based on the premise that you alone have access to the truth. You know what is right and what’s best. In its wake we are left not just with polarization but delegitimization because your belief is not just wrong, it is dangerous.

We understand the psychology of the Zax. We know why we act this way- because we yearn for certainty. At a time when so much in our world looks bleak, we yearn to shape the future by our own design. At a time when problems seem so large and complex, when things seem beyond our control or understanding, we seek assurance that everything will work out in the end. And so, with the determination and conviction of our beliefs we argue our world into being and dammed be anyone who doubts us or gets in our way.

How different our Jewish tradition. Judaism understands that a plurality of opinions and approaches enhances, doesn’t diminish the vitality of a community.

This approach is a hallmark of Conservative Judaism but it does not begin in the modern era. Its origins stretch back to the earliest rabbinic teachings.

The rabbis teach that the Torah has 70 faces, 70 different possible interpretations. And who better to expose those different faces than rabbis who in order to be ordained had to offer 49 reasons justifying why a particular food was kosher and 49 reasons explaining why that same food was treif. Torah study is thus less a search for the answer and more an exploration of sacred possibilities.

It’s no wonder then, the story goes, that when rabbi was asked to settle a dispute and had listened to one side’s argument, he declared, “You’re right!” But then after listening the other side, he nodded and said, “You’re right, too.” Whereupon his wife declared in exasperation, “They can’t both be right!” To which the rabbi responded, “You’re also right!”

Admittedly, this approach is not without its challenges. We read in an early collection of rabbinic writings known as the Tosefta about a student who felt stymied by the very open-endedness of Torah study.

One day he was sitting in the study hall, increasingly frustrated by this multi-vocal tradition of ours and he blurted out: “If the Hillel says clean and Shammai says unclean, if this one permits and that one prohibits, how can I possible learn Torah!?”

I know people like this. They seek certainty. They want black and white, either pure or impure not just in matters of faith but in all of life. Again, we understand. There is great comfort in clarity. Uncertain times create anxiety, fear and vulnerability. (Kula)

The problem is when the search for an answer comes across as, “I have the answer.” It leads to fundamentalism in which my approach is the only reasonable and legitimate one.

“How can I learn when Hillel says the Torah permits while Shammai says it prohibits?” the student asked. The rabbis answer: “ase l’vavcha lev hadreihaderim, make yourself a heart of many rooms and bring into it the words of the Hillel and the words of Shammai, the words of those who declare clean and the words of those who declare unclean.”

Make a heart of many rooms. This is a sophisticated approach whose lessons apply far beyond Torah study. In faith, in politics, in interpersonal relationships, we must develop the capacity to think deeply, to admit uncertainty, to live with ambiguity. It is not that we are to be wish washy, to have no opinion, to take no stand. No, it is that we must inculcate a modicum of humility.

Rabbi David Hartman in his book, “A Heart of Many Rooms” calls on us “to open our hearts to a multiplicity of views and truth. We must internalize two contradictory points of view and at the same time find one way to act, always haunted by the uncertainty that there is another way to live.”

Notice, Hartman concludes, we must “find one way to act.” Appreciating the value of different opinions doesn’t mean we should be paralyzed and formulate no opinion. When the Talmud ultimately decides between Hillel and Shammai it concludes, “both are the words of God, both approaches are holy and valid. But we rule in favor of Hillel. Not because Hillel was right in an ultimate sense but because he was humble and respectful. Unlike Shammai, he quoted the minority opinion thus honored those with whom he disagreed. We could stand to learn from Hillel. We could use a heart of many rooms.

To develop in myself a heart of many rooms means that I have the elasticity to entertain different views without rejecting them at once as invalid or illegitimate.

To develop in myself a heart of many rooms means I can tolerate the tension that arises when I consider a perspective that clashes with my own.

To develop in myself a heart of many rooms means to reject the orthodoxy of my own view and open myself to changing my mind, to modifying my stance. (BJ)

A heart of many rooms is not just about being open-minded. With a heart of many rooms we invite growth, we develop compassion, we open our hearts to others. A heart of many rooms lays the foundation for tshuva, for repairing broken relationships. It offers the possibility of mending a fractured society.

Israel’s poet laureate, Amos Oz described the heart of many rooms when he wrote:

From the place where we are right

Flowers will never grow in the spring

Min hamakom shebo anu tzodkim

Lo yitzm’khu l’olam

Prachim b’aviv

The place where we are right

Is hard and trampled like a yard

But doubts and loves

Dig up the world

Like a mole, a plow

Most of us don’t deal with debt ceilings or negotiate peace in the Middle East. But we do debate national politics around the dining room table. We debate shul politics at during kiddush and Israel’s policies at the “J.” We debate endlessly on-line about every question under the sun- from where to build a Viking stadium, to health care reform. In our personal lives, our debates are no less vociferous. We debate with our families and with ourselves, “Why should I forgive her, after what she did?” “No it’s not my fault.” “Why do I have to?”

We all face moments when someone disagrees vehemently with us. We all experience times when we feel the need to stake out strong position. In those instances, we ask ourselves, how can I make a judgment without becoming judgmental? To object with out becoming objectionable? To show respect to those whose opinions or politics we find repulsive? To be passionate without becoming fanatical? Can my certainty exist side by side with my humility?

Rabbi Brad Hirschfield in his book, “You Don’t have to Wrong for me to Be Right” offers guidance. “We long to be certain of how to live,” he writes, “to know that we have found the right thing to which to commit ourselves. But all too often that commitment overwhelms us and blinds us.” Hirschfield knows this first hand. A former settler who lived in a Jewish settlement in Hevron, Hirschfield came to appreciate the power of empathic listening to create relationships while not ignoring real differences. He offers tools each of us can apply we meet a south-going Zax on our journey north.

First, take the other side seriously. If a person holds a view you find repugnant, they probably feel your views are repugnant as well. But you can’t be someone else’s teacher, Hirshfield councils, until you’re willing to be their student. Understand not just the points of their argument but their motivation, their background. We do so in part by listening and by breathing. Rather than formulating our rebuttal while they are talking, we listen intently. And before launching in with our response, we take a moment to breathe and absorb what they have said.

Next, Hirschfield teaches, we should recognize that they may be right, at least partially. After all, if we are not prepared to even consider that we are ignorant or deluded, then our thinking is as closed as theirs. Moreover, even in the end if we determine they are indeed wrong, perhaps they are only partially wrong. For, to be wrong about one thing, does not have to imply that they are wrong about everything.

Finally, I would add, shmirat halason. Guard your tongue. Be mindful of the language you use. Saying “I believe” or “In my opinion” makes it clear that you know you know you are making an editorial comment, not a statement of fact or ultimate truth. And avoiding using inflammatory words such as “always,” “never” minimizes the likelihood of a defensive response.

Hirschfield does not provide a simple formula for compromise. Instead, this is the groundwork out of a resolution might grow. Now, I am not so naïve to think that all differences can be resolved by good hard listening. I know that in politics or shul life or our personal lives, the differences at times are real and deep. But on this RH when we pray, “may we all be bound together, v’yeiasu kulam agudah ahat, we are reminded that we can know unity without forcing uniformity, that we don’t have to disconnect because we disagree. On this day when God sits and judges and hears our pleas shma koleinu, we know that cannot expect from God what we don’t expect from ourselves.

And so the New Year dawns, we pray: “God, help me fashion a heart of many rooms. When I long for certainty, grant me patience, calm my fears. When I stand resolute instill in me humility. Give me ears to hear and a heart of understanding, lead me on a path to peace. So that when I come to a place, I see You, God, in the other as we stand foot to foot and face to face.”

As the train rolled into the Chofetz Chayim’s home station, the three men saw the throngs of people awaiting the rabbi’s homecoming. The Chofetz Chayim hobbled off the train onto the platform. And immediately, his fans raised him over their heads, cheering, paying no attention to his injuries, and their joy lifted his spirits. They sang and danced and carried him all the way back to the Yeshiva.

The three men from the train saw this and realized that they had just pummeled the great Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan. Instantly, they felt remorse, and ran off the train and darted after the Rabbi.

Upon reaching the yeshiva, they sought out the Chofetz Chayim. They shared their remorse with the rabbi and begged his forgiveness. But the Chofetz Chayim quickly and exactly said, “No.”

The three men were forlorn and left his presence. Still, they were not yet satisfied. The card-players returned to the Chofetz Chayim’s house the next day and again asked his forgiveness. But again, the Chofetz Chayim said “no.”

That evening, the men decided to give it one last try. Interrupting the rabbi’s dinner, the card-players found the Chofetz Chayim, sitting sorely with his son. They gave their best go at pleading once again for forgiveness, but alas, again, the Rabbi simply said, “No.”

The men went about their way, heads hung low. The Chofetz Chayim’s son looked at his father in shock. “But father, doesn’t the Rambam teach in hilkhot teshuvah (2:9), v’zeh shelo machal hu hachoteh — Anybody who does not forgive is the real sinner…? How could you not forgive this man? Doesn’t Judaism obligate us?”

The Chofetz Chayim responded: “Yes, my son, you are correct. We as Jews are obligated to forgive anyone who begs our forgiveness but only if they are cognizant of their wrongs and are remorseful.”

“But weren’t these men remorseful?”

“Ah, and there’s the challenge. The three men on the train attacked a lonely stranger sharing a bench. Their regret only came about when they learned who I really was. They did not wrong me, the Chofetz Chayim. They wronged a stranger. I do not have the privilege of granting them forgiveness; only the stranger does. And that stranger is lost to them forever.”

So on this first day of Rosh Hashanah, I ask the seemingly simple question, what is forgiveness? What does it mean to forgive a person?

[I would define forgiveness as offering a person who wronged you a blank slate, bearing no weight from the offense, and recognizing that they’ve taken a clean start. It is as if the wrongdoing never happened to you or at least it no longer continues to weigh on you.]

Two weeks ago, I was in New Jersey and New York over the course of the 9/11 10^th anniversary weekend. I really did not get a second to focus on the memorials on TV and I spent most of the day trying to distract myself from thinking about it. However I came across an article in the Wall Street Journal by Tim Townsend. Tim Townsend is the religion reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and has an upcoming book about the U.S. Army chaplain who ministered to the Nazi war criminals at the Nuremberg trial. In the article, Townsend posed the question, ten years later, can we forgive the 9/11 terrorists, or more generally, all terrorists? Townsend uses Father Patrick Ryan as a vehicle for his conversation. Father Ryan watched with Townsend as victims leapt escaping the flames from the Towers, falling to their death.

When I read the article, I immediately thought of General Schwartzkopf’s answer to this question—he said and I quote: “I believe that forgiving them is God’s function. Our job is simply to arrange the meeting.”

I’m pretty sure I felt that way on 9/11, and likely the weeks and months thereafter. But I’m not so sure I feel that way now. I thought of the Chofetz Chayim and the Rambam—how could the terrorists be remorseful if they’re dead? Do I even have the right to offer forgiveness?

But then I asked the real question, stemming from the questions I asked moments ago: Why should we forgive in the first place? Why is it our responsibility to offer forgiveness?

Perhaps the reason we should offer forgiveness to people in general is because of imitatio dei: God forgives so we should forgive. But is that really true? Because if that’s the case, then as Rabbi Benjamin Blech would point out, why does God punish Adam and Eve? Why does God punish Cain? And the generation of the flood? The Tower of Babel? Rabbi Blech reminds us that the Torah is replete with retribution, accountability, and the Divine meting out of punishment.

We know, or at least we hope, that God’s forgiveness is present at the core of these very High Holy Days. We repeat again and again: Adonai, Adonai, El rachum v’chanun, erech apayim v’rav chesed ve-emet notzeir chesed la-alafim nosei avon vafesha v’chata-ah v’nakeih. Adonai, Adonai, a God compassionate and gracious, slow to anger abounding in kindness and faithfulness, extending kindness to the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin, and remitting punishment. (Exodus 34:6-7)

But take a moment and look at the text on page 541 in your Etz Hayim Chumash. There’s something missing, no?

The rabbis of the Talmud who chose this text for us as part of our High Holy Day liturgy, they stopped in the middle of the pasuk; Verse 7 ends: Lo yinakeh poked avon avot al-banim v’al bnei vanim al-shileshim v’al ribeim – “yet He does not remit all punishment; but visits the iniquity of the parents upon the children, and upon the children’s children, to the third and to the fourth generation.” The infinite absolute of yenakeh lo yenakeh changes the meaning to what this verse actually says. God is nice, but doesn’t always forgive.

And now we are at a loss: Is God all forgiving or isn’t God? Do we side with the way the rabbis want us to understand the Torah, stopping in the middle on these High Holy Days? Or, do we understand that God is not all-merciful, reading the whole verse in its entirety?

Perhaps it’s a fusion of the two.

In the Talmud (BT Yoma 86a), Rabbi Elazar makes sense of this contradiction by teaching that God “clears the guilt” of those who repent, and does not “clear the guilt” of those who do not repent. – Minakeh hu l’shavin v’eino minakeh l’she’einan shavin.

God is all-merciful and all-forgiving, but unlike the often understood-to-be Christian understanding of God’s mercy, God, and we, therefore, can and should only grant forgiveness to the remorseful and to the penitent. There is no such thing as blanket and blind forgiveness in Judaism.

Think about it: it makes perfect sense. If all of us are to be granted forgiveness carte blanche for saying “ugh, I’m sorry,” as opposed to a genuine life-changing apology, then we’d learn precisely the opposite of what we’re intended to learn. We’d learn that such Divine blanket forgiveness is the opening of the floodgates for a free-for-all granting-of-permission to do whatever we wanted, expecting forgiveness at the end. That in itself is naive and misguided.

So where is the catch and what do we do?

With regard to 9/11, I suppose Father Ryan must’ve known the story about the Chofetz Chayim. The journalist Tim Townsend conveyed Father Ryan’s message: “with the murderers gone along with the murdered, maybe the answer is simply to stand against the evil that was done.” In that sense, forgiveness is a moot point. But “evil is a force in the world, and if we don’t consciously counteract it, the consequences are tragic.” We honor the memory of those fallen by creating a world where there is no need for forgiveness. We build a world where there is no wrongdoing. That’s our hope for the future.

In the mean time, however, in such a broken world as ours today, we must forgive all those who ask it of us if they have a sense of remorse and if we truly were the ones who were wronged. We forgive because God forgives. And if we are the ones that cause wrongs, no matter how great or how small, if we are the ones who promote evil in the world in whatever form, forgiveness does await us – from God and our fellow neighbors – but only if we are penitent and remorseful, and that starts with forgiving ourselves first and foremost.

The real start of Yom Kippur is Rosh Hashanah. Rosh Hashanah is both a new year and a new day.

May this New Year be a true fresh start for each and every one of us—the entire world over.

Zokhreinu L’hayyim Melekh Hafetz B’Hayyim, v’katvenu b’Sefer haHayyim

“Remember us unto life, O King who delights in life, and inscribe us in the Book of Life.”

It is this prayer that speaks most profoundly to us, that voices our deepest desire; that we go on living, that we will have added years. And yet paradoxically, at this season we recite another heartfelt prayer. We also cry out:

Al tashlikhenu l’ait Ziknah, kichlot kochenu al ta’azvenu

“”Don’t cast us out when we get old-when our strength fails us, don’t desert us.”

Old age is something we are all anxious to attain. However, once attained it is sometimes regarded as a defeat. We ask for added years, and yet we fear that which added years bring. This fear was put into words in a moving poem entitled “Written by a Crabby Old Woman.”  It is a poem that I often think of when I visit a hospital or a nursing home.

What do you see nurse, what do you see?

Are you thinking when you are looking at me,

A crabby old woman, not very wise,

Uncertain of habit, with far away eyes,

Who dribbles her food and makes no reply

When you say in a loud voice, “I do wish you’d try.”

Is that what you’re thinking, is that what you see?

Then open your eyes, nurse, you’re not looking at me.

I’ll tell you who I am, nurse, as I sit here so still,

As I do your bidding, as I eat at your will.

I’m a small child of ten with a father and mother,

Brothers and sisters, who love one another,

A young girl of 16 with wings on her feet,

Dreaming that soon now a lover she’ll meet.

A bride soon at 20 my heart gives a leap.

Remembering the vow that I promised to keep

At 25 now I have young of my own

Who need me to build a secure, happy home;

A woman of 30 my young now grow fast;

Bound to each other with ties that should last…

At 50 once more babies play round my knee.

Again we know children, my loved one and me

Dark days are upon me my husband is dead;

I look at the future I shudder with dread,

For my young are all rearing young of their own,

And I think of the years and the love that I’ve known.

I’m an old woman now and nature is cruel’

T’is her jest to make old age look like a fool…

But inside this old carcass a young girl still dwells,

And now and again my battered heart swells.

I remember the joys, I remember the pain,

And I’m loving and living life over again.

I think of the years all too few gone too fast,

And accept the stark fact that nothing can last.

So open your eyes, nurses, open and see

Not a crabby old woman, look closer -

see me.

Is it any wonder then, that when Al Tahlihenu “Don’t cast us out”, was recited in the synagogue of my youth, that the older people seated around me would begin to sob. Tears would run down their faces as the Hazzan would sorrowfully chant Kikhlot Kohenu al ta’azvenu, “When our strength fails us don’t desert us”

Coupled with the fear of physical decline, was a dread of falling into poverty when one could no longer support oneself. That this concern was never absent is reflected in the story told by Jack Lemmon at the funeral of his friend, the actor Walter Matthau. Matthau had taken a bad spill on the set of their 1981 movie”Buddy, Buddy”. The accident left Matthau lying on the floor with a broken collarbone, moaning over and over again “I’m going to die, I’m going to die.”

Not knowing what else to do, Lemmon took off his jacket, folded it, and carefully slipped it under his friend’s head, asking “Are you comfortable?” To which the reply came: “I make a living.”

Most of us, even when we stop working are fortunate enough , to have enough between social security, pensions, investments and savings “to make a living”. Poverty is no longer a major worry, for most of us. And, today when Social Security faces challenges in Congress, we had better work hard to see that it is not undermined and diminished in the future.

Despite the great advances that medicine has made in recent years – we cannot ever hope to achieve eternal youth. Though we can expect to live longer, biologically we are so programmed that we will continue to age physically with each tick of the clock. Sooner or later we will be forced to admit that “we are not as young as we used to be.” None-the-less our attitude towards added years is expressed by the old Jew, who was close to 90 years old. He went to his doctor and complained of a variety of aches and pains. After examining him, the doctor thought he ought to confront his patient with the facts of life.

“Look Zayde,” he said, “you are almost 90. What do you expect? I can’t make you any younger!”

“Nu” came the prompt reply. “I don’t want you should make me younger. Make me older.”

Having no acceptable alternative, we are ready to accept wrinkles and creases, the aches and pains that old age brings.

However the prayer Al Tashlihenu L’et Ziknah” – “do not forsake us in our old age” is motivated by still other fears. Our real fear is not being easily tired, but completely retired. It is not waning eye sight, but diminishing insight. Now we have leisure time and are unprepared for it. So, instead of enjoying our leisure years we curse their emptiness.

Studies by psychologists and sociologists reveal that individuals who make the most successful adjustment to retirement and the inevitable changes brought on by aging are those who have vital and continuing interests and who are open to new ideas, new horizons, new friends, and new experiences. As Martin Buber put is, “to be old is a glorious thing when one has not unlearned what it means to begin.”

And it is never too late to begin. “Old dogs can learn new tricks.” Dr. Wilder Penfield, one of the foremost authorities on the human brain, tells us “disease and disability may overtake men at any age and force them to withdraw from work. But the capacity of the human brain for certain purposes often increases right through the years marked for standard retirement…at 60 the body has certainly passed beyond its greatest strength, and physical demands should be lessened and changed. But the brain quite often is ready for its best performance in certain fields.”

An analysis of the achievements of 400 famous men throughout history revealed that more than one-third achieved their greatest accomplishments after they had passed the age of 60. A surprising 23% scored their greatest success in life after the age of 70.

Simply reaching the age of retirement does not mean that a person’s productive, worthwhile years are over. But it does mean that we must begin to think of productivity and worth in different terms. Worth should be measured by learning and serving rather than by acquiring and exploiting. Usefulness should be measured by concern for others rather than by control of others.

The famous Yiddish writer Sholom Aleichem said: “In the ghetto the young were old, and the old young.” And he went on to explain that this was due to the study of Torah. “The young were old – because they learned to view the world with the wisdom and the experience of the ages. And the old were young, for they continued to study, to grapple with new ideas, and to gain new insights into life and the world”. Study of Torah, was thus more than a religious duty. The Jew found in study Hayyenu v’orekh yameinu “Life and length of days” – meaningful days, exciting years. And the study of Torah can still confer this spiritual blessing upon us.

And not only Torah study, but all study, whether at Elder Hostels, the Elder Learning Institute of the  University, or at study groups, on the web, or through a reading program. For as long as we keep our minds open and alert, as long as we are willing to try a new skill, entertain a new thought, surrender an old prejudice – so long  will we remain vital people.

And life would be richer, through the years if we invested time in the present, cultivating communal interests and becoming involved in activities that can become fulltime at retirement. Our synagogue, our community, need countless volunteers to carry on their work.  Everyone can find a variety of interesting, useful, creative humanly productive things that need doing: tutoring pupils, rehabilitating houses, Bikkur Holim visiting the sick and befriending the aged. Political campaigns need devoted workers whose reward can well be a better social system for ourselves, our children and our grandchildren. The path that leads to a productive old age must be traveled in one’s youth. To feel a sense of worth when retired, you must cultivate worthwhile interests when young.

There is another source of anxiety that lies behind the fervor of our prayer. Al tashlihenu l’et ziknah. “Do not cast us off in our old age,” it flows from what we see to be the status and the fate of the very old and the sick old in the country of the young. Many young people do not extend to the old the common courtesy that is due from one human being to another, rudely ignoring them, rejecting their opinions, and showing impatience with their infirmities and weaknesses. It is as though the aged were an alien race to which the young will never belong.

Ageism, that is to say contempt, for, and discrimination against the aged – is as serious a problem as racism. But with this difference, we may never change color – but, God willing, we will grow old.

I recently read and old Russian fable, which tells the story of an aged father who lived with his son. He was weak and helpless, and his daughter-in-law treated him very badly. She would never allow him to sit at the table, but put him in a corner behind the stove, and served him food in a wooden bowl, fearing that his trembling hands would drop a porcelain dish and leave a mess that would have to be cleaned up. The young couple had a very bright little boy, who childlike copied every movement of his parents.

One day, returning home from a visit, the young couple found their son on the floor, amid a heap of chips holding a piece of wood which he was carving.

“What are you doing?” asked his parents. “What is this piece of wood for?”

“I want to make it into a wooden bowl”, the child answered.

“Why, what do we need a wooden bowl for?” asked the parents in astonishment.

“To feed you from it, when you will be like grandpa! When you will be old, you too will sit by the stove and eat out of the wooden bowl.”

We pray al tashlihenu l’ait ziknah”, “Do not cast us off when we are old” with fervor. Because, we fear becoming the victims of “ageism”, and yet what are we doing to combat it. We worry about the generation gap that separates parents and teenaged youngsters, but do we even think about the gap that separates the old from the rest of society?

What is needed from all of us, is a change in attitude toward the old, well or sick, a heightened sensitivity to their feelings, and the readiness to respect them and treat them as full human beings. We must realize that they need, as do all of us – love, affection and attention. And that they, as do all of us, become lonely and feel neglected, when they are left alone and neglected.

The saddest thing in the world is to hear old people – boasting to each other about their children and grandchildren- who rarely come to visit them, or even bother to call regularly.

The question of how to deal with the elderly is not really a question of what to do with, and for, our parents and our grandparents. The question is really what shall we do with and for ourselves? For as someone once complained, about the time we learn to make the most of life, most of life is gone. Now is the time to prepare for old age by cultivating the art of making new beginnings, by developing worthwhile interests, by serving others and the community, and above all by bridging the gap that now separates the generations.

If we use our time wisely, then we will be able to recite year after year with a full and grateful heart the prayer: Katveinu b’Sefer HaHayyyim L’ma’nkha Elohim Hayyim

“Inscribe us in the Book of Life – so that we may live worthily for Thy sake, O God of life.”

Once, Elijah the Prophet engaged a fisherman in a conversation (Midrash Eliyahu Zutra 14).  This fisherman did not observe any mitzvot and Elijah was flabbergasted as to why.  So, like any other good prophet, Elijah asked the man.

The fisherman explained simply to Elijah: “In the heavens they gave me neither knowledge nor understanding for the study of Torah.”  Elijah responded, “What is your profession?” and the man answered, “I am a fisherman.”  Elijah then asked: “And who was it that taught you how to weave flax into nets and throw them into the sea to catch the fish?”  The fisherman answered, “Good sir, this knowledge was given to me from the heavens.”  Meaning, it was a God-given talent.  Elijah said, “If you learned this from the Heavens, how then were you not given knowledge and understanding of the words of Torah, about which it is written, “For it is very close to you”?

Elijah attempted to point out to the fisherman that what he said was an inability to observe the mitzvot really did not derive from a failure to understand Torah, but merely disinterest in doing such.  Here lies in this story a message of ambivalence, not a lack of education or skill.

The verse Elijah uses to justify the innateness of the ability to understand Torah – ki karov eileikha hadavar m’od – For this matter is very close to you (Deuteronomy 30:14) – this verse is taken directly from this morning’s Torah portion and it’s quite fitting for what’s been going on this week.

We may no longer be a wandering people, and yet, the sentiments of the fisherman seem to ring quite loudly today.

This week, tensions mounted at the United Nations—tensions that have been building for quite some time.  This month, the Palestinian Authority officially launched its campaign to join the United Nations as a full member state, seeking to secure statehood outside the context of negotiations with Israel.  In fact, yesterday, the request was formally submitted.  While a veto by the United States in the Security Council would block any effort to gain full UN membership, a “yes” vote in the General Assembly would raise Palestinians to the status of permanent observer “state,” the status the Vatican currently holds.  There is no doubt in my mind that this action will not lead to peace.

Peace, and what I hope will be a Two-State Solution, can and will only be achieved through direct talks between the Palestinians and the Israelis.  In fact, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that by refusing to meet with Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu and instead seeking recognition of Statehood at the UN, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is indirectly and directly jeopardizing the efforts that the United States is and has been making toward Middle East Peace.

This is why our President recently said that the United States would oppose the Palestinian Authority’s proposal in the United Nations Security Council.  President Obama said that “If this came to the Security Council we would object very strongly, precisely because we think it would be counterproductive. We don’t think that it would actually lead to the outcome that we want, which is a two-state solution … This issue is only going to be resolved by Israelis and Palestinians agreeing to something.”

Susan Rice, our Ambassador to the UN, called the Palestinian move a “mistaken calculation” and a “dangerous diversion,” adding that recognition of a Palestinian state would actually work against the Palestinians’ own interests and would poison the environment for restarting negotiations toward a solution.

So what’s the rub?  The Palestinians’ failure to reach a peace agreement with Israel stems not from a lack of ability or knowledge, but from their unwillingness to negotiate in good faith.  Just like the fisherman who was unwilling to make the effort necessary to observe the mitzvot, though he may have been fooling himself into believing it was because of an incapacity to do so, the fisherman did not observe the mitzvot out of a lack of desire.  We should be so lucky with the Palestinians.  Abbas has plainly demonstrated to the world that the greatest impediment to peace in the Middle East is his lack of desire to achieve it.

But it’s more than a lack of desire.  We would potentially welcome such ambivalence.  I was there at the AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington when Bibi challenged Abbas:  “Israel is unjustly accused of not wanting peace with the Palestinians. Nothing could be further from the truth.  My government has consistently shown its commitment to peace in both word and deed.  From day one, we called on the Palestinian Authority to begin peace negotiations without delay. I make that same call today. President Abbas, come and negotiate peace.”

But now we’re here.  And those direct negotiations barely even got started.  Instead, terrorism and unilateral posturing abounds.

Elijah quoted a verse to the Fisherman, but he omitted the ending.  How does the end of the verse Elijah quoted to the Fisherman read?  “For the matter is very close to you, in your mouth and in your mind to fulfill it” – b’fikha uvilvavkha la’asoto.  You can’t just pay lip service to doing something.  And even once you’ve moved from lip service to a desire to actually doing something, you still have to physically do it.

Abbas has to stop fishing.  He has to stop telling the prophets of today’s world that Israel won’t let him make peace.  He has to make the transition from Peh to Lev to Asiyah, from mouth to heart to action, just as this verse and our parashah suggests.  Abbas has to engage in direct negotiations if the PA really wants peace.  But we all know as Bibi is oft-quoted saying, “When the Palestinians want peace more than they want the destruction of Israel, peace will finally come.”

Where does that leave us?  There’s another strand of tradition about Elijah.  You see, he didn’t only chat up fishermen.  Elijah is supposed to be the one heralding in the Messianic era.  He is the one who is supposed to usher in an age of final peace.  The catch is there is a very good chance that Elijah walks amongst us today.  But we’re not sure who he is or who he inspires.  And so, we’re meant to treat each person as Redeemer, for they may be a pure agent of peace.

And if that’s the case, then it should be our goal not to point fingers at the Israelis or the Palestinians as, conceivably, I’ve done this morning.  Perhaps we should be listening for Elijah’s voice in these talks.  According to our tradition, Elijah folds himself into the masses and could be any one of us.  Who will come out as the true usher of peace?  That I do not know.  But I do know that if we can be agents of peace, and if we can make our voices heard as advocates for the security of Israel and the balance of peace in the Middle East, then we will surely aid in bringing in a better tomorrow—precisely what we pray for on Rosh Hashanah.

The ancient fisherman surely knew that on Rosh Hashanah, there is the custom to eat the head of a ram or a fish during the Festival dinner, invoking the blessing from last week’s Torah portion – to make us the head and not the tail—rosh v’lo zanav.  When it comes to Israel, I worry less about which end we become and more that we still exist.  This year, may we remain as resilient, present, resourceful and harmonious as the many myriad fish of the sea.  And may nobody pluck us out of it.  Amen.

AD: Stop. Rabbi Olitzky, you’re not really going to talk about kashrut, are you?

AO: What are you doing, I am in the middle of a sermon over here.

AD: First of all, you’re not in the middle, you are at the beginning. And I just want to check, you’re not really going to talk about kashrut, I hope.

AO: I was, in fact.

AD: No. Didn’t I tell you, they don’t want to hear about kashrut. They want to hear about ethics, community and spirituality. They want something that’s relevant and meaningful.

AO: Come On! It’s in the parasha. And it is relevant and meaningful.

AD: Ok, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.

AO: Let me start again. Shabbat Shalom. Kashrut is a way of integrating values such as ethics, community, and spirituality into our own personal dietary practice.”

AD: Hold on there cowboy. That’s quite a claim: we integrate values such as ethics,  community and spirituality on our plate?

AO: It’s true but I can’t take credit for the line.

AD: If you can’t take credit, than who said it?

AO: It’s from the Reform movement’s new anthology called “The Sacred Table.”

AD: The Reform movement has put kashrut on the menu of Jewish practice? That’s quite a 180 degree turn isn’t it?

AO: It is. In 1885, the Reform movement more or less rejected kosher laws. And now, most Reform rabbinical students keep kosher.

AD: Wow. I grew up in a Reform synagogue and for many in my community, kosher was practically a dirty word. And when my sisters and I started keeping kosher, my reform parents- they almost had a conniption.

AO: Let me be clear, the book doesn’t go so far as to say that it is a requirement of Reform Judaism to keep kosher. It speaks in a uniquely Reform voice about food choices- everything from responding to hunger to the ethics of consumption.

AD: I really resonate with those questions. Healthy food habits leads to a healthy planet. We know about the value of buying local food. And we hear warnings about water use and methane gas emission that comes from a diet high in red meat. That’s why I included information in the Hakol on Kolfoods; that’s why we encourage people to participate in the CSA through the JCC this summer.

AO: I like that stuff too. But what is most surprising is that this book goes beyond what you might expect in a progressive food agenda. It presents kashrut as a spiritual practice that can instill gratitude, create community and raise our consciousness.

AD: So, wait, Reform Jews are willing to entertain kashrut as such a spiritual vehicle. Do you think Conservative Jews would go for it?

AO: I don’t know. On the one hand, the Conservative Movement never abandoned kashrut. It has always presented kashrut as a mitzvah at the core of living a Jewish life. On the other hand, many in our community would respond exactly like your parents. They see the laws of kashrut as antiquated, irrelevant, and, frankly, idiotic.

AD: I hear what you are saying. Last week I was invited to teach a lunch and learn to the staff of the JFCS. They wanted to explore the topic of kashrut. And I could totally predict the first response.

AO: Wait, let me guess- Trichinosis.

AD: You got it. The old, “kashrut is basically an outdated FDA guideline to keep the Israelites eating healthy.”

AO: Of course, we know this is not true. Academics have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that kashrut was never about physical health. Our Torah commentary says explicitly: “There have always been those, who have sought a hygienic or health related explanation” for the laws of kashrut. “There is no evidence, however, of a broad nutritional or health related basis for the specific dietary classification of the Torah.”

AD: So if it not about health, what is it all about? Cloven hoofs. Fins and scales. Winged swarming things that walk on four legs.

AO: Listen, it is easy to get caught up in all of the details and miss the larger picture.

AD: Which is…?

AO: The medieval Italian rabbi, Abravanel says it this way: “The Torah did not come to take the place of a medical handbook but to protect our spiritual health.”

AD: Say more. What does Abravanel or better, what do you mean about kashrut and our spiritual health?

AO: At the end of the long list of kosher and treif animals, we read “vhitkadishtem v’hayitem k’doshim. Sanctify yourselves and you shall be holy.” In other words, the food we eat has to do with living holy lives.

AD: How so? How does not having chicken parmesan have anything to do with spirituality?

AO: I love how the great modern thinker Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz explains it. Steinsaltz says that the laws of kashrut are based on the principle that humans cannot live a higher, nobler life of the spirit without having the body undergo some suitable preparation for it.”

AD: Sounds like your guy Deepak Chopra’s mind-body connection.

AO: Kind of. But I see more to it. Kashrut can make a personal, spiritual impact in our lives.  Listen, when you eat matzah in a few weeks, you taste your history. It connects you to your people.

AD: Ok, fine so keep kosher l’pesah.

AO: If you only want to feed your souls once a year, ok. But Judaism is to be lived 365 days a year. With every meal, we serve up connection, consciousness, gratitude. We contemplate something greater. We contemplate something higher. And we recognize our unique role in the world around us with every bite. That’s what the Torah is getting at when it says, “v’hayitem kidoshim be holy.” Frankly, that’s just too important to leave for a few days a year.

AD: I don’t know if they’re buying it. Surely you’re familiar with the “custom” of three sets of dishes…you know, one for milchig, one for fleishig and one for Chinese food.

AO: Come on—that’s not fair. First of all, I’d rather have people observe something rather than nothing. The Conservative Movement defined a Conservative Jew as someone who was “learning, willing and striving.” That’s what our humash commentary says: “don’t feel like a hypocrite for not keeping all of the commandments” as long as you are baderekh—on the path. It doesn’t say where on the path. But that we were all travelers on the road.

AD: I like that sentiment. I know from personal experience, it was not easy at first to keep kosher. We should celebrate each and every step people take.  But this quote is also warning us about the plateau.

AO: Ah, the plateau. Many people plateau in their understanding and observance of kashrut somewhere around not eating locusts or maybe pork. Here though, our Movement’s thinkers are gently reminding us not to be satisfied but to continue to grow and to strive.

AO: Well, and that’s why I promote kashrut in the Twin Cities. It’s exactly what you wrote in your article that appeared in the American Jewish World the other week. No one should have to eat treif Chinese food if we want people to grow in kashrut.  There should be a good kosher, Chinese restaurant. It’s why in just a few weeks, when the Twins open up their season at Target Field, I helped create a Kosher Hot Dog stand.
AD: What do you know about Hot Dogs? You’re a vegetarian!

AO: That’s the point. I could care less about hot dogs. But I care that our community has an opportunity to keep kosher—eating quality kosher foodstuffs, and not be forced to sit in the dark or eat treyf.

AD: Ok, you know, I can almost smell the hot dogs already…you’re whetting my appetite… but really I think we are getting side tracked. Come back to kashrut.. Is this even a topic we can discuss?

AO: We’ve stretched this about a good 10 minutes.

AD: No, I am thinking that we need to make kashrut entertaining.

AO: Entertaining? At least one of us is funny.

AA: You boys. You want entertainment, why didn’t you just ask?

AD: Really, you can make kashrut entertaining?

AA: Move over…

AD: Rabbi Olitzky, as funny and creative as the two of us are, I am still not convinced that kashrut is going to resonate with our people.

AO: Listen, food is in. There is the Food Network, America’s Next Great Restaurant, Chowhound. That’s partly why the Reform movement is addressing this topic. People are paying attention more to what and how they eat and recognizing the impact of their food choices on the planet and their souls.

AD: Do you really buy that? That our food choices really matter? I mean a cheese burger matters?
AO: I do. That’s why I brought up this topic in the first place. This is not just a bunch of old laws. This is really important stuff for our lives, our community and our society. We need food to survive. It’s at the very core of our existence. I want to know what’s in my food. I need a sense of discipline that helps prevent me from being a glutton, that helps be grateful for what we have in this world, and for what we don’t. And, if the Reform movement is willing to go out on a limb and ask their congregants to embrace kashrut then I certainly do not think it’s unreasonable for us to do the same. In fact, we should.

AD: Well, and I assume you are volunteering to help anyone who’d like more information.

AO: You kidding me? Talking about food and kashrut? Of course.

AD: I know, me too. Hey, speaking of food, kiddush awaits.

AO: Ok Ok. I’ll just finish with the introductory words to the book The Sacred Table: “Read, educate yourself, build on those practices that you already follow, and eat well.”

Tonight, we will dress in masks. Some will come as Esther. Others as Haman. What will you wear? A cartoon passed my desk the other day. A little school boy stood stark naked with a bottle of booz and dark shades before his terrified mother who cries out, “No, you wont dress up for Purim as Charlie Sheen.”

Purim is a day of levity and rejoicing. But the celebration hides a much darker story. The merriment masks a fear, a fear of evil. There is danger lurking all around. Today, we laugh in the face of the near annihilation of Persian Jewry thousands of years ago. It is much harder to laugh at the destruction in our own day.

Few of us have been unmoved by the tragedy unfolding in Japan. The earthquake which led to the tsunami which resulted in the unfolding nuclear disaster threatens to scare our world and our souls. There is no end in sight to the human suffering. And so we pray that the people in Japan know strength and courage, healing and comfort.

I don’t know about you but I feel a disconnect between our celebration and events playing out half way around the globe. It doesn’t take much to hear God saying, “they are drowning while you sing songs of celebration?” And so we search for a way to make sense of it all, a message of hope. And we find it in an unexpected place.

The custom of dressing in costumes for Purim has an interesting history. There is no actual reference to masks in the megillah. We know that Ahaverous had parties but it doesn’t say anything about a costume party. We know that Mordechai was dressed in royal garb as he was paraded around town and that Esther donned the royal crown before approachin the king. But none of these references are cited as the source for dressing up on Purim.

Now, if you really want a midrashic leap, you might consider the following. The Torah’s most famous masked character is Jacob who dresses up like his brother Esau to seals the birthright. When Esau comes to claim his share he discovers he was tricked by a masked man. We can imagine Esau’s anger and desire for revenge that was passed down to his great grandson, Amalek who in turn passed on his desire to strike back to his descendant, Haman. In this reading, our costumes on Purim mask an uncomfortable story of deceit and retribution.

The earliest written record mentioning masks on Purim comes from the middle ages in Europe. The custom was popularized through the influence of medieval Italian carnivals. Not surprisingly, therefore, it is less common among Sephardi Jews.

Although the word “mask” does not appear in the megillah, we understand well the connection. Esther hides her identity. Prompted by Mordechai, she changed her name. and kept a secret. To her husband Ahaverosh, Esther was present upon demand. Yet part of her remained hidden. Essentially, she wore a mask until it was safe to remove it. And thank God she did. The mask Esther wore saved her life and the life of her people.

Today, as I mentioned, we cannot help by think of different kind of masks. These are masks not for dress-up but for protection, not for partying but life saving. I am speaking, of course, about the masks worn by ordinary Japanese citizens and those worn by special nuclear technicians. Worn to stop the spread of disease and radiation, we pray that these masks will indeed save lives.

Viewing from afar the crashing of waves wreaking devastation, shelters full of misery, and a country turned upside down, we sense another kind of hiddenness- the hiddenness of God. And again, we search for answers in our tradition.

Chronologically, the book of Esther takes place after the close of the Torah. But the rabbis see in the Torah a hint at the future holiday of Purim in an oblique word play. We read in the book of Deuteronomy, “anochai haster asteer et panai, I will hide my face on that day.” “Asteer” which means “hide” sounds a lot like Esther. This leads the rabbis to claim that the Torah foreshadows of the story of Purim including Esther’s hidden identity.

But strikingly, the verse “anochai haster aster” refers not to a person but to God. God says, “I shall hide My face.” And here we must pause. According to this passage, there are times when God is hidden. That is the case in the Book of Esther where God does not appear in the megillah. And I imagine it is true for many as they look toward Japan- God is hidden, overshadowed by waves of water and death.

But turn the phrase over and consider it more. To say that God is hiding is different than saying God does not exist. Neither does it mean that God abandoned us or is even absent. Instead, haster aster means that God’s presence is not readily visible. To claim hester panim, that God is hiding, is therefore not the statement of an atheist or an agnostic. And it’s not heretical. It’s in the Torah. No, it is a profound, a courageous statement of faith. God is, God is present but hidden.

Understand: the very rabbis who believed “with all their heart, with all their soul and with all their might,” these very sages included a book in our holy cannon that doesn’t mention God, that has God hiding. In so doing, the rabbis opened a door to a new theology, one that places a premium on human initiative, one that sees human resourcefulness as essential. Unlike Egypt, we do not expect God to intervene with supernatural miracles. One of my favorite Jewish thinkers, David Hartman, explains it this way:

“My picture of a genuinely religious person is that of a person who is not averse to getting his hands dirty; who does not await divine intervention but who experiences God’s presence in his efforts to discharge the responsibility he feels for the total community.” (Joy and Responsibility)

In other words, those masked technicians, those first responders and relief workers from around the world, they are doing holy work. They and we can peel back the veil slightly and glimpse God in acts of hesed (love) amidst great chaos.

We know that at times the world seems random and topsy turvy. In those times humans are charged with grabbing the rudder and steering.

This is not secular humanism but rather covenantal Judaism. And it demands that we stand up. Stand up in the face of death, stand up when all seems hopeless, when all seems lost. We must stand up and act.

Tonight, we will celebrate and make marry. Far more than the triumph of good over evil, Purim is a celebration of the human hand to shape history, to bring relief to usher in hope. So amidst the dancing and drinking, with masks and costumes, we join our voice to sing a song of faith and find God in the human ability and drive to

“stand up for your people…”

In the Torah, even embedded in sometimes seemingly dry material – cubits and measurements and vestments and instructions – we read what comes across as an awkward, unnecessary piece of information that shouts out screaming for our attention.

This morning is when those two meet. Not only do we have a verse that calls out to us, but this verse also relates to being heard—a verse that speaks to raising the volume.

We learned this morning that Aaron is to wear golden bells and pomegranates all along his garment when he enters the Holy of Holies. The Torah clarifies this saying, "and his sound shall be heard when he goes in to the holy place before Adonai, and when he comes out, and he will not die—u’v’tzeto
v’lo yamut" (Exodus 28:35).

If we are to understand this verse correctly, then the reason Aaron wears all of these little golden bells all along his outfit – just like those we see on the crown and adornments of our Torah today – Aaron wears these in order to be heard. Not in order to be listened to, but in order to be heard.

And why do we want him to be heard? So he will not die.

Now, we ask, somewhat puzzled, why won’t he die? This, my friends, I don’t think is abundantly clear. And I’m not sure Rashi knows what to make of it either. Basing his understanding on discussions in the Talmud (BT Zevahim 83b), Rashi understands that this is a cogent syllogism—from the negative we are to infer the positive. Rashi draws the conclusion: If the bells are on him, he won’t die, and if he enters without them then he will die.

That’s all he gets out of this—and it still doesn’t help us. So why doesn’t he die? Because Aaron, the High Priest, was heard before seen. Because Aaron doesn’t sneak up on God.

Our tradition is less concerned with the severity of the punishment for not making noise, than with the potential underlying message.

Because we are each created in God’s image, we recognize that Divine reflection in every person every day. We see God in each other. We often derive principles for ideal human interaction based on our relationship with God. That is, when we honor and respect one another, we come to honor and respect God. And the conversion also holds true: when we come to disrespect each other, we disrespect God.

One hundred years after Rashi, another French commentator, the B’khor Shor, suggests that just as we learn that Aaron was not to sneak up on God, these clanging bells specifically teach that one should not enter a neighbor’s house suddenly and unannounced, lest the neighbor do or say something that he or she intends to remain private. Because, if we, the unannounced intruder, learn of that which is to remain private, our neighbors will eventually come to avoid us. We’ve violated their trust, their sacred
space. Isolation and exclusion, being forced into a place where we may be able to be loud but no one will listen, that seclusion is a death in itself.

And so, we realize, this is not a message about not disturbing others at the movie theater or the library, or taking care when shouting into our phones walking down the street. The message from these bells is we need give everyone their privacy and their personal space. Everyone deserves their own personal Holy of Holies. If we don’t provide people their private space, then we are forced into our own, unwillingly.

But this comes with a caveat: our etiquette to be a little more quiet, may in fact erroneously lead us to distance ourselves from each other. We are supposed to come closer, we are supposed to commune with each other and with the Divine. However, we are supposed to do so knowingly and willingly. We can decide whom we allow into our private world, and we should let those closest to us in. But we should not force ourselves into others’ and we should not pry. It’s a very delicate balance.

And likewise, the charge for all of us is that when we are about to open up to someone, we should share that with them, we should not catch them off-guard, we should not scare them away. And when we intend to be there for a person to listen or to dialogue or to let them mourn or share their pain, to share pure emotions and sincere feelings, then we must be open and declare: "I am here." Let yourself be heard. And then you will most truly be seen.

Yes, we each deserve our Holy of Holies, but coming together, opening up with and to one another, that is a Divine act, that is when you let God in. When emotions are laid bare, when we touch one another’s hearts, that is experiencing the Holy. And, if anything, experiencing the holy is one of our primary goals in life: not to shout as loudly as we possibly can, but to experience the holy in the everyday and in every way with each other.

If you’re not familiar with the term, the sandwich generation is a generation of people who care for their aging parents while supporting their own children. Carol Abaya recently coined the term club sandwich (or better, kosher club sandwich in our case), referring to those in their 50s or 60s, sandwiched between aging parents, adult children and grandchildren. My mother and father precisely. And though the concept only made its way into the Merriam-Webster dictionary in 2006, really, the rabbis were already advising what would be a sandwich generation 1,500 years ago.

We’re all familiar with the fifth commandment – the one we’ve mentioned already so many times this morning – kabed et avikha v’et imekha – Honor your father and your mother (Exodus 20:11). However, later in the Torah, there is a parallel mitzvah in the book of Leviticus (19:3): Ish Imo V’aviv Tirau – a person should revere his mother and his father.

The two commandments, Honor your father and mother and Revere your mother and father, may seem similar, but the order, is reversed. Father is first with regard to Honor, but Mother is first with regard to Revere.

Now, we might ask: is this about gender roles? Are there some things that we, as children, would first go to our father over our mother to ask for permission? Or perhaps when it came time for discipline—were we scolded by one parent over the other, or do we as parents take on the disciplinarian role while our partner steps back?

The 11^th century Torah Scholar, Rashi, suggests that the Torah placed the mother before the father with regard to reverence, because God knows that a child fears and reveres his father more than his mother. The Torah needed to instruct us to fear our mother because we, by default, fear our father. However, with regard to honor, the father is placed before the mother because God knows that a child honors his mother more than his father because she wins him over with sweet words. We need to be reminded to pay respect to our fathers—or better, that we, as fathers, need to treat our children with sweet words just the same.

We would not be surprised if these gender roles might have held true 1,000 years ago, or perhaps even fifty years ago, but I’m not sure the same is true for today.

Perhaps some of you saw Yale Law Professor Amy Chua’s article in the Wall Street Journal two weeks ago: “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior.” Let me just share with you the beginning of the article:

“A lot of people wonder how Chinese parents raise such stereotypically successful kids. They wonder what these parents do to produce so many math whizzes and music prodigies, what it’s like inside the family, and whether they could do it too. Well, I can tell them, because I’ve done it. Here are some things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to do: attend a sleepover; have a playdate; be in a school play; complain about not being in a school play; watch TV or play computer games; choose their own extracurricular activities; get any grade less than an A; not be the number 1 student in every subject except gym and drama; play any instrument other than the piano or violin; not play the piano or violin.”

This is the mother that speaks sweetly to her children that we’re meant to honor by default? This sounds more like the mother we’d fear by default, or perhaps revere. The truth is, maybe this isn’t the model parent at all. In fact, I’m not sure that in this generation, our children, or some of us for that matter, have a sense of default reverence or default honor.

Professor Chua also writes: “Chinese parents believe that their kids owe them everything… By contrast, I don’t think most Westerners have the same view of children being permanently indebted to their parents.” There, however, Professor Chua may be right, and that’s where our tradition steps in.

Perhaps the parallel verses are not about gender roles at all. Perhaps the advice to the sandwich generation is really about the parallel verbs. Is there really a difference between reverence and honor, between fear and respect?

You see, the sandwich generation serves both as children and as parents. As children tending to their parents’ needs, this generation teaches their children what it means to care for one’s parents—and further, they teach their children what it means to parent as well—a never-ending feedback loop of esteem. The dual-responsibility, serving as both parent and child, has never been so poignant, and yet, the rabbis of the Talmud understood it as the hidden truth sandwiched between these two verses.

The rabbis of the Talmud (Babylonian Talmud Kiddushin 31b) debated over the difference between the words Kabed and Tirau – Honor and Revere. To “revere” means that the child must neither stand nor sit in the parent’s place, nor contradict the parent’s words, nor engage in a dispute to which the parent is a party. To “honor” means that the child must give the parent food and drink and clothes, and take the parent in and out.

When we are children, we hear time and time again “honor thy father and thy mother,” but really it is the “revere one’s parents” that applies during our younger years. To revere means we don’t contradict our parents, we don’t argue with them, we don’t try to assume their role or question their sound advice. We are permanently indebted to our parents. As young children, that’s what our tradition would suggest we come to learn and eventually teach as well. However, most of us, the westerners, as Professor Chua suggests, perhaps we never understood that. And for many, it takes decades before we can master that outlook on life.

Honoring one’s parents is about caring for them, not about not contradicting them. It’s about tending to their needs, about seeing to their comfort. Eventually clothing them, holding their arm to keep them steady, helping them to the bathroom or preparing for them a warm meal.

And with regard to the Wall Street Journal, there’s no doubt in my mind, Professor Chua is likely a good daughter—it’s the good mother about which I have concerns. How do we model ourselves to our children, that is, as model parents, while at the same time, serving as model children to our parents?

We do need to empower our children, just as we empower our parents. We do need to give our children time to be and time to grow and time to learn and time to exist. We need them to know their role as child and we as parent, but that it is our prayer for them that one day they too will become a parent. If we were to combine the mitzvot of our parashah and Leviticus, then the following remains: Honor your children and parents the same. Revere them both as kings and queens, learning from them and embracing them. Do not sacrifice your authority or their kingship, instead rule this world together, ensuring that love and wisdom will forever walk hand-in-hand through the generations.

The fifth commandment cannot stand alone, nor can it be understood by every young child at a young age. The commandment from Leviticus—that is what we really need to digest as children, but parents need to be the ones to express it.

With Honor in one hand and Reverence in the other, we have our marching orders: be the child we want our children to be, but also be the parent our parents were and are to each of us. The perfect sandwich. No doubt, this is no small task, but with Honor and Reverence as our poles, we can walk the golden line that our tradition suggests of us, and not necessarily how theWall Street Journal portrays us or teaches us to be.

There, our ancestor Jacob, lay sickly on his deathbed, and it was announced to him that his son Joseph had arrived to visit with him. Vayaged l’ya’akov, vayomer: hineh binkha yoseph ba eilekha. Behold, your son, Joseph, has come to you.’ Vayithazek Yisrael, vayeshev al hamitah. Israel, Jacob, gathered up all of his strength, and sat up in bed” (Genesis 48:2).

Jacob sat up in bed and awaited his son’s arrival.

Out of respect, we are taught to rise for our teachers. We stand for our parents. We stand for scholars. We stand when someone else gets up from the table or when someone approaches to make an introduction. But why did the frail Jacob sit up for his son?

Just shy of a millennium ago, Rashi suggested that perhaps Jacob thought to himself, “Even though he is my son, he is still royalty, and I will show him honor.” Jacob sat up in bed as a loyal subject to Joseph, the Vice-Pharaoh. It was respect for power and the monarchy. It had nothing to do with their relationship.

However, those of us with elderly relatives, irrespective of our station or stature in life, when we sit at our loved one’s bedside, and we see our relatives struggle to rise in our presence, we know that their shifting is not because we are royalty. Rashi’s interpretation doesn’t truly get to the bottom of Jacob’s reinvigoration. In my humble opinion, this is not about royalty or respect for sovereignty whatsoever.

In that moment – this very familiar, touching scene – we are very much aware that this is not merely a casual sign of respect for one’s son. The words used to describe Jacob’s movements are likely not the words we would use to describe are own families. Jacob had a renewed sense of vigor and calm; the rising in bed is a clue to something deeper.

Jacob mustered up his strength, literally, vayithazek, he made himself strong. And he did so in order to sit up and chat with Joseph.

But then our true question remains: from where did this strength come? Did a doctor enter the room and provide pain medication? Or maybe it was a good time of day, when Jacob was a bit less tired. Perhaps it was a warmer day when Jacob could be more comfortable, and so that gave him the strength to sit up. Or better, maybe Jacob’s sitting up was a sign that he was on the road to recovery.

I know that anyone in this room who has visited the sick, who has fulfilled the mitzvah of bikkur holim, understands precisely what happened without question, and knows that none of what I just mentioned explains why Jacob had the strength to rise.

In the Talmud (Babylonian Talmud Tractate Nedarim 39b), Rabbi Huna taught that one who visits the sick decreases a person’s pain by one-sixtieth. And you can imagine the rabbis’ response to Rabbi Huna’s teaching. “If that is true, then why not send sixty of us to visit a patient?”  That way, if all 60 people gather together, and they each take away one-sixtieth, the ill person will be pain-free! Rabbi Huna replied: “Sixty people? You must have misunderstood me. It is not the number of people that lessen the pain, it is the visit itself! On each visit, one-sixtieth will be lessened, and this unto itself gives relief to the pain. “

This is not dissimilar to Dr. Deepak Chopra’s very popular theories of quantum healing, that our very presence, when we become in touch with another, and we connect deep within ourselves, we can provide true and absolute comfort to our neighbors. Comfort that eases pain, comfort that provides rest, comfort that shows we care and we love and we respect. That is why we have our congregational nurse, Hadassah Zohara. That is why we have our healing cabinet. That is why we gather together as clergy and as congregants and we visit the sick.

We may offer a mi sheberakh here in synagogue, but when we visit the sick, we pray with our feet.

When Jacob heard that Joseph was coming to visit, he did not miraculously recover immediately. His doctor did not administer him any special medication. The strength in that touching moment came directly from Joseph.

With Joseph’s visit, Jacob was able to strengthen himself to live another day, to sit up in bed. This is not to say that visiting the sick will cure a person indefinitely. But with each visit, one more day is potentially tacked on to a person’s life because that is one day fewer of suffering. It is one day fewer of pain. It is one additional day our loved ones can cringe and grimace just a little less.

And it is the message of our parashah this morning, that even after the harrowing journey that became Jacob and Joseph’s lives, we still must model our lives after the relationship between this father and son pair.

As Jacob lay there dying, Joseph mustered up the emotional strength and courage to take away his father’s physical pain. In doing such, Jacob in turn mustered up the physical strength to pay respect to his son and sat up to speak with him and offer blessings.

Inspired, we should all seek deep within ourselves to muster up the strength to chisel away at the pain of our peers, friends and relatives. And that comes in the form of committed physical presence. Being there when we are needed. Being there with our loved ones. And in doing so, in chiseling away at the pain, we’ll all live to see one more day.