Erev Yom Kippur 5780 Change vs. Transition

Every year, the finals of the International Bible Contest are held in Jerusalem. While not as glamorous, or as enriching as America’s Got Talent, American Idol, or Dancing with the Stars, or the National Spelling Bee, in some circles it is considered to be quite prestigious. In the months leading up to the finals, national contests are held and only the best of the best make it to Jerusalem. I know we have folks here on this Erev Yom Kippur who “know their Bible” so I thought I’d begin tonight with some preliminary questions. Please do not shout out the answers or raise your hands, but if after hearing the questions you think you have what it takes to win, drop me a note and I will submit your name.

1)    Why do we spend forty years wandering the desert after the Exodus?

2)   Why do we need the period of the judges before we can have our first king – Saul?

3)   Why could Saul’s reign not be successful or David’s kingdom remain whole after the death of Solomon?

While the International Bible contest is real, these are not actual questions and you cannot qualify by answering them. In fact, though, these questions lead to a deep truth about Jewish survival and finding a path to a successful Yom Kippur.

Let’s review the answers.

1)    We spent forty years in the desert because a people enslaved for 400 plus years could not quickly transform into a people ready to be free. It took those years in the desert to recover from the trauma of oppression and allow a new generation to move forward.

2)   After all those years in the desert as a loose confederation of tribes, we needed the period of the judges to allow us to move slowly to a more united people, much like the United States first had to have the Articles of Confederation and only then, the Constitution.

3)   Why did the Kingdom need to split apart? Because evidently the reality of living under a new governmental system was a burden we were not fully ready to accept.

The answers contain both the reason I picked the questions and their connection to our personal and communal Yom Kippur work. Each of these stories represent a major change in our historical mythos and the transition surrounding the change, successful or not. They reinforce that when we make changes we need to understand and prepare for the often-bumpy road that we call transition.

In 2000, my first High Holy Days at Temple Beth Zion in Buffalo we had just concluded the N’ila service and was leaving the bema. An older man, was escorting two women toward the exit. The kindly motioned for me to step in front of them. The man then said, “That’s not how Rabbi Fink (who by the way had retired in 1956) conducted High Holy Day services!” One of the women jumped in and agreed with him. I stopped and smiling I turned around and said: “Rabbi Fink was a progressive thinker and leader in the Reform movement who always kept up with, and sometimes led changes in Reform practice and ritual.” The other woman replied: “You know he’s right about Rabbi Fink. Maybe he would have done things differently today.” Without missing a beat, the man jumped in and simply said: “Nah”. Forty-four years and three rabbis later, this gentleman had never adapted to the change in services. Decades later he still had not transitioned from the past and thus rejected possibility the changes could be positive

For years, “change management” has been a part of business culture and practice. We know that every change presents new challenges, small or large. Change management practices tend to focus on the practical aspects of making change but often ignore the emotional toll it takes on the people impacted by the change.

Historian and business consultant Dr. William Bridges altered our understanding of change and transition. Following the death of his wife, he saw that when change happened, a period of time, a transition, was needed to adapt to the change. As he writes: “…transition occurs in the course of every attempt at change. Transition is the state that change puts people into. The change is external (the different policy, practice, or structure that the leader is trying to bring about), while transition is internal (a psychological reorientation that people have to go through before the change can work).” At this time of year, as we examine our behavior and evaluate the positive changes we need to make, understanding transition need to come to the fore.

Bridges then outlines the three processes of transition: Saying Goodbye or endings; The Neutral Zone (explorations); and Moving Forward (new beginnings.)

Think about the behavior you would like to leave behind and the behavior you hope to move to and as I speak, think how the three processes of transition will challenge and support your change.

Saying goodbye to a behavior starts with knowing you want or need to change. Some may seem easy but in reality, challenge us. I am going to use a relatively benign example. Your job is to apply it to the behavioral changes you have chosen during this season of repentance. 

Seriously, how hard is it to not answer an email when it arrives. You feel the vibration or hear the sound, or see the icon bounce, there is no need to read it or look at it. You know you should be focused on your task at hand, your family, your friends, but to actually stop, to say goodbye, to leave behind the quick glance takes a great deal of effort, thought and commitment. Why? In part because it is what you expect of others when they receive your email. In part because it has become society’s expectation of you. Be honest now, in part because you want to feel that important.

Once you have made the commitment to not to continuously check your email and you have actually stopped, now comes the difficult part, exploring the neutral zone.

To quote Bridges: “Even after people have let go of their old ways, they find themselves unable to start anew… The neutral zone (explorations) is uncomfortable, so people are driven to get out of it. Some people try to rush ahead into some (often any) new situation, while others try to back-pedal and retreat into the past. Successful transition, however, requires… time in the neutral zone.” He goes on: “It’s like Moses in the wilderness: it was there, not in the Promised land, that Moses was given the Ten Commandment; and it was there, and not in the Promised Land, that his people were transformed from slaves to a strong and free people.”

Isn’t easy to just look at your email one, two, or maybe just 3 extra times? Or maybe, even though you’ve committed to just check your email “when you rise up and when you lie down”, you quickly discover that you really do need to check your email once more time “while you walkest by the way.” Until we begin the change, we cannot predict if we will slide back into the behavior or slide into zealotry. Each change will take more or less time in the neutral zone. Without the appropriate time in the neutral zone at best the change fails, at worst it becomes oppressive.

Finally, we can begin to move forward toward new beginnings, and even more positive growth. But wait for it, yes, moving forward into the new beginning, we realize our new behavior leads us to another change and process of transition. As Bridges cites the need for wandering through Sinai before entering the Promised Land, once there, we changed from nomads to settled agrarian and urban people. First the judges and then the prophets were needed to push us to return and grow along a path of goodness and righteousness. Similarly, the cycle continues throughout our lives. Just as each year we find ourselves at these days of awe, challenged to change for the better. Challenged to successfully transition. Moving from our own Sinai, through our own desert, through our own promised land.

Yom Kippur Evening, 5779: We Were Strangers

“My sweet daughter-in-law, I love you as if you were my own blood but, you cannot come with me it is illegal.” “Mother, I will not leave you. I will risk the danger of crossing the river. Whatever the future holds, I will not leave your side.” “But my daughter!” “Hush, I know the danger but I trust in you, your family, your people.” “It will not be easy child. The only work you will find will be picking crops.” And so they traveled together. The young daughter-in-law seduced a man. They married and had an anchor baby. Who had a son. Who had a son who became the greatest leader in our nation’s history.

Too subtle? Ruth the Moabite, a people that Torah law states should never be allowed in our community, flaunts that law to stay with her mother-in-law, Naomi. Eventually her great grandson, David, rises to the kingship of Israel and, becomes the progenitor of the Messiah. Why was Ruth’s great-grandson chosen for this honor? Because he knew our people’s story of being aliens in a foreign land, and his great-grandmother’s story of being an alien in our land.

We Jews, of all peoples on this planet, should not need commandments to welcome the stranger, to love the stranger as ourselves. Why? Because, as we say each Pesach, we were aliens in the land of Egypt and we know the heart of the stranger. Thus, our hearts and our actions must reflect our understanding of the needs of others who must flee their homes to escape oppression, or rape, or death, or to provide a better life for their families.

If there is one thing I miss from Gates of Repentance, it is the listing of the sin of xenophobia, the sin of fear of strangers. As I said on Rosh Hashanah: “We are all guilty of this….You know you are guilty of this. I know I am…. We all, without exception, make assumptions about people who are from other countries, people who are poor, people who are rich, people who are a different race,… The list goes on.”

We are not only Jews, we are Americans. It breaks my heart seeing hope in America being shunted aside and, xenophobia, rule. We began to shut our doors with the immigration laws of the early 1920’s. These laws were specifically designed to keep out Southern and Eastern Europeans. In their immediacy, these new immigration laws kept out Jews trying to escape the Communist revolutions and counter revolutions. Later, our the United States used these immigration laws to turn away Jews escaping the coming horrors of the Shoah, the Holocaust.

A true story. On Thanksgiving eve 1938, Secretary of State Harold Ickes, a Christian and a Republican in Franklin Roosevelt’s cabinet, gave a speech proposing a plan to resettle Jews on farmland outside Anchorage, Alaska. He said this could be: “a haven for Jewish refugees from Germany and other areas in Europe where the Jews are subjected to oppressive restrictions."

Bills were introduced in the Senate and the House but never passed. The charge to defeat the resettlement was led by Alaska Territorial Governor, Ernest Gruening, a Jew. Gruening did not want these kinds of Jews with their strange dress and accents in his state.

A year later, in 1939, the United States turned away the ship St. Louis, forcing its Jewish passengers to return to Europe and the Nazi’s final solution. Even those who survived the camps and the war suffered fear and trembling. Can you ever forget the pictures of those Jews crowding, beseeching, on the St. Louis’s deck?

In 1942, fear, especially xenophobia, again raised its ugly vile head as President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 authorizing the round up of people who were at least 1/16 Japanese and placing them in concentration camps. Close to 60% of these internees were American citizens by birth or by naturalization. 1/16th, Japanese means having a Japanese great-grandparent. That number 1/16th should echo in your souls. King David was 1/16 Moabite. Hitler determined that anyone who was 1/16th Jewish would be subject to the final solution. 

Incredibly, many of the interned Japanese Americans volunteered to fight in the war. The military established the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and sent them to fight in Europe. The 442nd became the most decorated unit in United States military history. It also suffered large numbers of casualties.

I learned this story about one of the casualties, Sgt. Kazuro Masuda from Rabbi Ed Feinstein of Valley Beth Shalom in California. Sgt. Kazuro enlisted while interned at Manzanar Concentration Camp in Orange County, California. In Italy, on the night of July 6, 1944, he turned back two major counteroffensives and inflicted heavy casualties after firing at the enemy for twelve hours. Eventually, Sgt. Masuda was killed in action. In 1945, General Joseph Stilwell, flew to the Manzanar concentration camp.  There, on the porch of the shack in which the Masuda family was forced to live, General Stilwell pinned the Distinguished Service Cross on Sgt. Masuda’s sister Mary.

At that ceremony was an army Captain who spoke these words: “The blood that has soaked the sands of a beach is all of one color. America stands unique in the world; the only country not founded on race, but on a way and an idea. Not in spite of, but because of our polyglot background, we have had all the strength in the world. That is the American way.”

Forty three years later, that Captain, Ronald Reagan, now President signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 providing redress and restitution to the Japanese who had been interred in the camps. At that ceremony he said: “… (W)e gather here today to right a grave wrong. More than 40 years ago, shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry living in the United States were forcibly removed from their homes and placed in makeshift internment camps. This action was taken without trial, without jury. It was based solely on race, for these 120,000 were Americans of Japanese descent.” He then told the story of being present for the presentation to the Masuda family. Two years earlier, President Reagan, signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 which reformed our immigration system, allowing thousands upon thousands of people to come out of the shadows with no fear of being forced to leave their homes in America.

President Reagan, the archetypal Republican, decided that, when it came to people who made it to our shores, America should be built on hope and not on fear and hatred of the other. Quoting John Winthrop on the Mayflower President Reagan said: “We shall be a city upon a hill….” He continued: “America has not been a story or a byword. That small community of Pilgrims prospered and driven by the dreams and, yes, by the ideas of the Founding Fathers, went on to become a beacon to all the oppressed and poor of the world.”

My family’s story while similar to many of yours. has a unique twist. My grandfather immigrated to Canada from Russia sometime before 1913. There he met my grandmother, also a Russian immigrant. They married and, in 1913 had a son, my father, to go with my grandmother’s two daughters from a previous marriage, his half sisters, Lil and Mae. Six months after my father’s birth they moved to Philadelphia to be with the rest of my grandfather’s family and had a second child, my aunt Ruth. Several years later, my grandfather applied and became a United States citizen. My father and his sister were minors and therefore were naturalized under of their father’s citizenship.

My father spent 18 years of his life serving in the military both overseas and in the States. After serving in the Pacific theater for the entirety of World War II, he was honorably discharged in 1945.

In the fall of 1971 I spent a semester in Israel. My father, who had never left the United States except under the auspices of the United States military, decided to visit me in Israel. In the spring of 1971, taking his birth certificate and his naturalization papers, he applied for his first passport. His application was denied. The reason? He had been naturalized on his father’s papers and not on his own. The Government, after 58 years of living in America, 18 of which were in the military, declared he was not an American citizen. I will never forget the pain in his voice and on his face when he told me what happened that day. Thankfully our Rabbi reached out to our Congressman who arranged another interview for my father. Before the interview he had to obtain sworn and notarized affidavits from his two older half-sisters, Lil and Mae,  and others who had known him throughout his life to swear that he was in fact the Nathan Rosenfeld who arrived in America at the age of six months, and that he had never become a citizen of another country. A year later, long after I was home, he finally got his passport which sat in a drawer unused until the day he died.

When I read last week that our government started revoking the citizenship of Americans born in Texas, stripping the citizenship of people who were legally naturalized, and established a “Denaturalization Taskforce,” I felt a hot poker pierce my heart and soul. We have surpassed the sin of xenophobia and moved to the sin of hating the stranger, the one who is different that lives among us. We learn from the easy way the Nazi government revoked the citizenship of German Jews, that one day it could be us. While first it may be people from our southern border, unless we and our neighbors publicly draw a line and stand up for the strangers living among us, it could easily one day be us in this sanctuary. How do I know? Just ask Gwyneth Barbara of Fairway, Kansas. On September 10, a mere eight days ago, in an interview on KCTV Ms. Barbara told how she was denied a renewal of her passport because she was born at home and not in a hospital her birth certificate, with its official raised seal from the county, did not constitute proof of being born in the United States. The passport office in Houston told her that she could submit any of the following as proof of citizenship: “Border crossing card or green card for your parents issued before your birth.” She had neither as both her parents had been born in the United States, as had her mother’s family since the 1600’s and her father’s family since the 1700’s. The passport office also said she could provide early religious records or a family Bible as proof of citizenship. Her family was not religious so she did not have those either. In America, a government official decided a Bible or Baptismal record was better proof of citizenship than a birth certificate. Finally, she turned to her Republican Senator Jerry Moran’s office for help. A few days later she received her passport with no explanation or apology. If the government can deny Gwyneth Barbara’s citizenship, it can certainly deny yours or mine. Suddenly it is no longer just about the stranger, it is about our neighbors and us.

We know the heart of the stranger for we have been the stranger. We are commanded to love the stranger as we love ourselves. We are not commanded to fear, hate, or oppress the stranger, as we have been feared, hated and oppressed.

We are taught that atonement, does not come from our prayers on Yom Kippur. Atonement only comes when we take positive action to change ourselves and undo the wrong we afflicted upon others. Let us stand up to fear. Let us confront bigotry and hatred. Let us rebuild hope and kindness within ourselves, within our nation and our world. Paraphrasing Isaiah: Let my house, my country, my world be a house of hope for all peoples, not just those like us.

Erev Yom Kippur 5778

Rabbi Harry Rosenfeld

Congregation Albert

Albuquerque, NM

Art Garfunkel just published a new memoir. So of course I have been thinking about my favorite Simon and Garfunkel songs. There was a time in my life when my favorite song was “The Boxer.” Its depth and meaning suffused my soul with young adult angst. And then, there was the mystery of the missing verse.

Yes, that illusive verse, that rumor held, was the final straw that led to the demise of the greatest duo of all time. On the original single and album versions there is that haunting flute solo, (pause for flute). But with the Concert In Central Park, the veil lifted and revealed some of the truest, most depressing words ever written:

(Sing)

Now the years are rolling by me

They are rocking evenly

I am older than I once was

And younger than I'll be

But that's not unusual

No, it isn't strange

After changes upon changes

We are more or less the same

After changes we are

More or less the same

(Invite everyone to sing La La La...)

If changes upon changes leave us more or less the same why do we come here each Yom Kippur, year after year, hoping, praying, dreaming to be better. To be different. Why is it that people, including every one of us, never seem to change?

Rabbi Shai Held of Mechon Hadar in Jerusalem posits four ways of thinking about this question. Why people do not change?

First - That’s just who I am. - I hate myself when I use this to explain my behavior. I was born this way (the nature argument) or, my upbringing made me this way (the nurture argument). In the 12th Century, the RaMBaM, Moses Maimonides wrote his code of Jewish law, the Mishnah Torah. The first two laws in the laws of repentance tackle the issue of nature versus nurture:

With regard to all the traits: a person has some from the beginning of his conception, in accordance with his bodily nature. Some are appropriate to a person's nature and will [therefore] be acquired more easily than other traits. Some traits he does not have from birth. He may have learned them from others, or turned to them on his own. This may have come as a result of his own thoughts, or because he heard that this was a proper trait for him, which he ought to attain. [Therefore,] he accustomed himself to it until it became a part of himself.”

This sounds as depressing as Paul Simon’s lyrics. We are born with or learn or take on negative characteristics. It is easy to say: “That’s just who I am.” But, what responsibility do we have if these things are embedded within us?

The television show E.R. answered this question for me. George Clooney’s character, Dr. Doug Ross, blames his father for all his negative traits. The womanizing, the difficulty forming lasting relationships, lack of impulse control. Clooney lays into his father on a bridge overlooking the Chicago river. At the end of the tirade establishing his father as the cause for all his issues, his father looks at him and says (and I paraphrase): Your first 18 years were my responsibility. Since then it is on you. You do not like who you are, be a grown up and find the strength to change.

Ah - were it only that easy. Our habits are deeply engrained in our being. Even if the will to change is strong, we may need help and support. Maybe that is why we gather as a community on Yom Kippur; to find that support.

Second - We are fixed and immutable. Here I am going to stick closely to Rabbi Held’s teaching. He refers to the verse in Deuteronomy when Moses says to the Israelites: “I was standing between you and God at Sinai that day.” The Hebrew used for the word “I” is - אנכי,(Anochi) not the simpler and more common אני. In fact, אנכי usually occurs when God speaks in the 1st person as in the 10 commandments! אנכי I am Adonai your God.

Rabbi Held points out that Chassidic tradition teaches that from his ego Moses’ uses the word אנכי as if to say: “I am on par with God.” From this perspective, in order to leave behind our negatives, we have to be willing to let go of who we think we are and let go of the stories we think define us.

Rabbi Held teaches that the Chassidic master, Rabbi Levi of Berdychiv would have the same conversation with himself each night. “Tomorrow I am going to behave differently, better.” One of his students overheard Reb Levi repeat this each night. Finally he approached the Rebbi: “Master, you said that last night.” the Berdychiver replied: “Yes, but tonight I mean it.” We want to change. Usually we do not. But we can. We are capable of change.

Third: We see freedom as a right. - When it comes to Liberty and Justice For All, freedom is a right. When it comes to our personal behavior we do not have the right to act anyway we please. For most of our history, Judaism extolled the blessing of free will. Judaism also taught that with free will comes responsibility for our choices and accepting the consequences that result.

The great Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik taught: “Free will should implant in man [sic]... a continuous awareness of maximal responsibility… without even a moment’s inattentiveness!... It is a positive commandment to be conscious of the existence of free choice which makes man [sic] responsible for his actions... One is forbidden to take one’s mind off the principle of free choice, for it was not given to man [sic] only from without or by tradition; it is also something in the nature of self-discovery and must always remain part of the self—the knowledge that man [sic] can create worlds and destroy them.”

How to cultivate responsibility? Start slowly. Look at the ice-cream case. Decide what you would like and walk away. Ice-cream does not do it for you? Pick something that does and work your way up from there.

Fourth and finally, We are reluctant to delve deeply into ourselves. - we know that everybody recites each of the על חייט (Al Cheit) confessions even if we did not commit that sin, just in case we did, and it is certain someone in our community did. “The ways we have wronged You by hardening our hearts...through gossip and rumor...through violence and abuse, through dishonesty in business...by losing self control”

Conducting business honestly may be easier than not losing self control, but both represent deeper parts of ourselves that need repair, that need healing. 

If you have a crack in the foundation of your house, you can seal it. It is not hard. Even I can do it! But, chances are that another crack will open if you do not find the cause of the crack. Sealing the crack is like changing a behavior. Preventing other negative behaviors from replacing it requires a deeper inquiry into who you are. Fixing the manifestations only allows other manifestations to surface. We need to go deeper into ourselves to find what is broken and mend it.

Another example: We talk about people who quit smoking eating more. This is based in reality. The presenting addiction, smoking, is replaced by a seemingly more benign addiction, eating. But, as most recovering addicts will tell you, they are still addicts.

Making deep and lasting changes requires courage. Looking into our own abyss is scary and we risk getting lost. We know that courage does not equal being fearless. Courage is about how one deals with the fear. Again, perhaps we join together on Yom Kippur to support each other in facing our fears. When asked how do two people find their way out of a forest, the Kotsker, Rabbi Menachem Mendl of Kotsk answered, “Join hands and find the way together.” 

Looking into ourselves, we ask “Who am I?” If you know the answer, your ego, your אנכי is getting in the way. The proper answer, the liberating answer, to “Who am I?” - “I’m not sure.” Uncertainty, combined with curiosity and a desire to be better drives us deeper to really change. And then, once you repair that level of depth, the curiosity and desire to be better drive you deeper to a new place of “I’m not sure.” and you find something else needing change.

Another time the Kotsker was asked: “What does it mean to really take awe of God seriously.” He replied: “Working on myself. It is a great sin to see yourself as a finished product.”

When a student asked: “Who is a good Jew?” He answered: “Anyone who wants to be.” The student asked: “Who would not like to be a good Jew?” The Kotsker answered: “Someone who thinks he already is.”

This Yom Kippur may we face ourselves. May we go deep. Let us hold each others’ hands as we find our way together. May we be blessed that after changes upon changes we are no longer more or less the same.

Yom Kippur Morning 5778

Rabbi Harry Rosenfeld

Congregation Albert

Albuquerque, NM

Michele and I invited some friends from out of town to come with us on the congregation’s Israel trip this coming April. (There is still time to sign up. Information is on the table in the rotunda!) They sent an email a few weeks ago outlining the reasons they did not want to go.

1. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s right wing government’s treatment of Israeli Arabs and obvious disdain of any kind of meaningful peace process.
2. The numerous corruption scandals concerning Prime Minister Netanyahu and his family, including his son’s recent anti-Semitic online posts, and his using the defense of “it is my enemies spreading fake news.”
3. The Israeli government’s kowtowing to the Orthodox parties for decades and denying equal rights to non-Orthodox Jews most recently by reneging on an agreement to establish an egalitarian prayer area at the Kotel - the Western Wall.
4. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s claim to be the Prime Minister of all the Jews.  They did not have the opportunity to vote for him so he cannot represent him. (I know Mr. Netanyahu claims that title, but I cannot imagine anyone actually wanting it!)

I agree with every single point except the part about not going to Israel. Like many of you, my consciousness of Israel began in 1967 with the Six Day War. Looking back, I can count on one hand, with fingers to spare, the number of years there was an Israeli government the majority of whose policies I agreed with, and yet, the current government is, in my opinion, the worst and most corrupt ever. When I recently addressed the Southwest Hispanic Leadership Council of AIPAC I said so clearly and without hesitation.

And now, to paraphrase the immortal Paul Harvey, here is the rest of the story which I also told it to the Hispanic Leadership Council.

I love Israel. Let me tell you about the Israel I love.

Fifty years ago this past June, the Israel I love rescued 300 Vietnamese boat people. In fact it was Menachem Begin’s first official act to instantly make them citizens of Israel.

The Israel I love brought to Israel and saved 135,000 Ethiopian Jews and many of their non - Jewish family members. Their integration into Israel has not been perfect and often times difficult but they are full and equal citizens. 

The Israel I love sponsors camps, schools and nature programs bringing diverse groups of young people together to see each other as human beings and break the cycle of indoctrinated hate. Camps like ILAN bring disabled Jewish, Arab and Palestinian children together across the country. Wings of Peace brings Jewish and Arab middle and high school students together throughout the year and for a week each summer to learn to see each other as individuals.

The Israel I love comes up with cutting edge treatments for cancer, Alzheimer’s, ALS and Parkinson’s.

The Israel I love sends humanitarian aid and assistance to any country that needs it and will accept it. They have sent rescue workers to Haiti, numerous African countries, Japan, and even the United States. They work in Gaza bringing humanitarian aid.

The Israel I love is providing life-saving medical treatment to over 3000 Syrian refugees. Ismael Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas who has sworn to destroy Israel, sent his mother-in-law, daughter, and granddaughter to Israeli hospitals. They were admitted and treated without hesitation.

The Israel I love will take in me, and every other Jew, if, God forbid, we ever need to flee.

The Israel I love is the only place in the Middle East where the LGBTQ community has equal rights and can live openly. There are pride parades in almost every major Israeli city, including Jerusalem.

The Israel I fear for has ISIS, Syrian, Russian, and soon, Iranian forces on her borders.

The Israel I fear for is one that continues to be led by those who think the only way to survive is to copy the militaristic and discriminatory regimes of the Middle East.

The Israel I yearn for transforms me from a member of a minority into a member of the majority sensitizing me to understand what it means to be both a minority here and, as a caucasian, a member of the majority.

The Israel I yearn for no longer needs to be a refuge for the oppressed of our people and all others.

The Israel I yearn for is no longer seen as a pariah.

The Israel I yearn for is home to some dear friends.

The Israel I yearn for is my home and yet it is not.

The Israel I hope for finally grants religious freedom to all, including non-Orthodox Jews.

The Israel I hope for looks into its ethical heart and finds a way to make peace with its Palestinian neighbors.

The Israel I hope for leads the world in pursuing justice and making peace.

The Israel I hope for is one that fulfills the prophecy of being a light unto the nations.

כן יהי רצון – So may it be soon and in our day.

ONE WHO LOOKS FOR A FRIEND WITHOUT FAULTS WILL HAVE NONE - Erev Yom Kippur 5772

ONE WHO LOOKS FOR A FRIEND WITHOUT FAULTS WILL HAVE NONE

Congregation Albert

Erev Yom Kippur 5772

Rabbi Harry Rosenfeld

My parents told me to never discuss politics or religion with people I hardly know. See how well I listened to that advice? Unfortunately, they did not teach me that the same applies to giving a sermon about Israel. It is the most dangerous sermon a rabbi can give. On the other hand, I would not have taken that piece of advice if it had been offered. 

There is a Chasidic proverb: One who looks for a friend without faults will have no friends.

In 1971, I left for a high school semester in Israel. Coming from a lower middle class family, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. My host family was an upper class Israeli family living in Ramat Gan, just outside Tel Aviv. Unlike 90% of Israelis at that time, they owned a single family house with a yard, two cars and two telephone lines. By Israeli standards, and mine, they were rich. I went with my Israeli brother to an elite school in Ramat Aviv, an even richer suburb of Tel Aviv than Ramat Gan. Like my classmates, in addition to phys. ed I took גדנה pre-army training. 1971 saw Israel in the midst of the war of attrition. Surrounding my elite high school was an 8 foot wall to protect us from terrorists. Of course what was the first thing they taught us in pre-army training? How to scale that wall. 16 years old, living in the lap of luxury, going to a school where the grades did not count toward my high school GPA, so… whenever the mood struck, that is, whenever I didn’t feel like going to class, over the wall I went to the nice little café across the street from the school.

One day, after spending an hour or so in the café and not being ready to return for my classes, I began to wander the streets of this rich suburb, Ramat Aviv. To this day I can remember the route I took. From school, I walked past the Tel Aviv museum, past what in Israel were mansions and then I literally and figuratively turned a corner that has shaped my relationship and understanding of Israel to this day. There, in the heart of this luxurious upper class Israeli neighborhood, stood tin roofed shacks with half naked children in torn clothing, malnourished animals and outhouses. Hearing Hebrew all around me I had stumbled into the Israel few outsiders ever see. Half way through my six month sojourn, I saw the Israel no one had ever described to me. Thus began my complex relationship with Israel.

My next trip to Israel was for Rabbinic school. I left 2 days after the raid on Entebbe and my plane followed the same route as the hijacked plane. Arriving in Israel I, like rabbinic students before me became friends with an Old City Palestinian merchant, Abed. That year my friends and I spent many an afternoon drinking tea, people watching, discussing the world and the complexities of Israel/Palestinian relations. Ever since, until he sold his store to his nephews, on my every trip to Jerusalem I found myself on a languid Jerusalem afternoon enjoying Abed’s hospitality and sharing our lives. Through the years, I have listened to his stories about his family’s land being taken to build a West Bank settlement, the struggles his children have had in Israeli universities and the restrictions he faces as a citizen of no country. Not an Israeli, not a Jordanian; with no country to call his own. My complex relationship with Israel continued and deepened.

In 2006, I visited hospitals in northern Israel struck by Hezbollah’s missiles. I met with Holocaust survivors in Haifa who in the aftermath of Hezbollah’s missiles were suffering flashbacks of being bombed in Europe. I saw stacks of thousands of Hamas rockets collected from the fields and school yards of Sderot. Who could not be moved?

The only police who tried to beat and arrest me during a protest march? Israeli. The only people who have tried to blow me up? Palestinians. How could my relationship with Israel be 2 dimensional black and white? How could it be any less than an elaborate tapestry woven from a thousand shades of hundreds of colors?

Make no mistake. I am, without question or hesitation, an unabashed supporter of Israel. In back of the sanctuary and in the lobby you will find cards forms to fill out to join me as an investor in Israel by purchasing Israel bonds. For nearly 20 years I have been active on the national level of federation to do what I can to support collecting tzedakah for Israel. At the same time, I fervently believe that when it comes to Israel, absolutist jingoism is not the way. AIPAC and JStreet and of course Israel’s enemies all preach their truths in the easy two dimensions of black and white. True support of Israel requires an acceptance and understanding of her subtleties, the internal and external challenges she faces. Just as with our closest family and friends,  the beauty of the relationship exists in getting past the surface black and white and knowing the ever shifting grays and seeing the dullest as well as the brightest hues.

The world holds Israel to a higher standard than any other country. In a recent Washington Post op-ed, Robert Bernstein, the former president and Charman of Random House and the current chair of the group “Advancing Human Rights” wrote: 

“Human Rights Watch, which I founded 33 years ago, continues to attack many of Israel’s defensive measures during war, yet it says nothing about hate speech and incitement to genocide. To cite just one example, the speaker of the Hamas parliament, Ahmad Bahr, called in April 2007 for the murder of Jews, ‘down to the very last one.’ Imagine what leading human rights groups would say if this same speech and incitement were coming from Israel, aimed at the Palestinians.
“Human rights groups, which could be highlighting the crimes of Arab dictatorships against Israel and each other, have instead chosen to focus primarily on Israel. They continually discount the extraordinary steps Israel takes to protect civilians on both sides — steps approved by military experts, such as using pamphlets, phone calls and even noise bombs to scare people away from a location before a bombing — while whitewashing Hamas’s desire to eliminate a whole country as just bluster and meaningless words. One would think that, of all organizations in the world, human rights groups would particularly believe that words matter. Words inform intent and influence action. Words and actions need to be taken seriously, especially when they are sponsored by governments.”

Mr. Bernstein is absolutely correct. However, we should hold Israel to a higher standard just as we should hold ourselves. Hopefully the difference between the double standard we hold verses that held by others is manifested in the intent behind the differing standards. Just as we expect more out of our parents, our children, our families because we love and care about them we expect more out of Israel because her people are our family.

During these Days of Awe we strive to search the deepest recesses of our selves with brutal honesty. Hopefully, we focus on our successes as well as where we need to improve. Without defensiveness or hubris but rather with gratitude and humility we find the complexity of our lives and learn the truth of who we are and where we need to grow and improve. If we look inward and see only the good we do not know ourselves. If we look inward and see only the bad, we cannot help ourselves. In either case we cannot really love ourselves.

The same is true in our relationship with Israel. To love, support, care for Israel and her people, we need to open our eyes and see it all, the good and the bad, the beauty and the ugliness. Just as we would do for ourselves and our families, we need to stand proud and defend Israel against those who wish to destroy her while we resist those in our community who condemn all who disagree with their one true vision of Israel right or wrong. Only then can we say we are אוהבי ישראל – lovers of Israel.

There is a Chasidic proverb: One who looks for a friend without faults will have no friends.

Erev Yom Kippur

I don’t know the reason why Rome fell. I don’t the reason why the Persian Empire, the Greek Empire, the British Empire or even the Soviet Union fell. To be more precise, I don’t know the reasons they told themselves their great empires collapsed. What I do know is the reason we told ourselves as Jerusalem fell and the Temple was destroyed first by the Babylonians and then 650 years later by the Romans.

The year: 586 B.C.E. Imagine yourself sitting atop the roof of your home in Jerusalem watching as the Babylonian army breeches the city wall, sacks and loots first your home, and then God’s home, the sacred Temple built by Solomon. Gazing at the destruction about to engulf you a verse from Psalm 22:2 comes to mind: אֵלִי אֵלִי לָמָה עֲזַבְתָּנִי My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

See yourself now sitting in exile on the banks of the Tigris. The head of your community rises and expounds, echoing the message of the great Biblical prophets: “God did not forsake us, rather we caused the destruction of our Temple, we caused our own exile because we sinned. What were our sins: עבודה זרה, גלוי עריות, ושפיכות דמים - idolatry, sexual impropriety and the spilling of innocent blood.” And so you and your community make a vow: “If we are allowed to return from exile, reestablish our Temple and our lives, we will change our ways and teach our children to avoid these sins through which we brought destruction upon our heads.”

A few generations pass. Picture yourself looking down from above as you see your descendants return from exile, rebuild the Temple and reestablish Jewish life in Jerusalem and Israel. Look with pride at how your children’s children’s children seem to remember the lesson you taught and avoid those 3 great sins that brought destruction so many years before: idolatry, sexual impropriety and the spilling of innocent blood.

A more generations pass and you again look down to check in on your descendants. There you see your, well who knows how many greats, grandchild sitting on top of a roof, just like the one you sat on, watching the Roman army breech the city wall, sack and loot first her home, and then God’s home, the sacred Temple built by the returning exiles from Babylonia. As she sits gazing at the destruction about to engulf her that same verse from Psalm 22:2 comes to her mind: אֵלִי אֵלִי לָמָה עֲזַבְתָּנִי My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Confusion envelops her mind. How could this be? We heeded the warning of our ancestors and have, for the most part, avoided the 3 great sins.

See your descendant sitting in exile on the banks of the Tiber. The head of her community rises and expounds, echoing the message of the great Biblical prophets: “God did not forsake us, rather we caused the destruction of our Temple, we caused our own exile because we sinned. What was our sin? Yes we avoided the sins of our ancestors but we have our own single sin equivalent to all 3 of theirs: שנאת חנם - Baseless hatred, hatred for the sake of hatred, hate with no thought of the cost or consequences of that hate.”

How do I know these were the reasons we told ourselves about the two destructions of Jerusalem and our exiles? Because our Talmudic and Medieval rabbis continued to teach them to us! In the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Yoma - the tractate discussing this great and awesome day of Yom Kippur - we are taught: “But why was the Second Temple destroyed as they studied Torah, followed the Mitzvot and did Gemilut Chasadim - Acts of Loving Kindness? Because within it was שנאת חנם. This teaches us that שנאת חנם is the equivalent of all three sins (that caused the destruction of the First Temple) - idolatry, sexual impropriety and the spilling of innocent blood.”

The ancient Rabbis not only proclaimed שנאת חנם to be the cause of the destruction of the Second Temple, they told us how שנאת חנם spread. Tractate Taanit teaches: “And the second interpretation of the language of retort, hints at the sin of the Second Temple שנאת חנם, which comes from lashon hara - malicious speech.” The great Rabbi Judah Lowe of Prague in his compilation of ethical laws from the Talmud, Netzach Yisrael wrote: “And thus they said that שנאת חנם is equivalent to the 3 sins (for which the First Temple was destroyed) for שנאת חנם defiles and causes chaos within the entire human soul. But the 3 sins only defile one part of the soul each while שנאת חנם defiles the whole soul in its entirety, because the essence of the human soul is wholeness, it is singular and all of the strength of life that exists. Hatred tears the soul apart and this is against the essence of the soul.” He continues: “All of Israel was like a single person when there was one altar... By means of שנאת חנם and hateful language, the city and the Second Temple were destroyed.Using hateful language, splits and destroys unity.”

Each year, multiple organizations beseech rabbis to speak to their particular issue on Yom Kippur. They know that this night, more of you will hear our words than any other single occasion during the year. This year, advocates for health care reform, ending the wars, ending hunger, GLBT rights, and a plethora of other causes have sent me mail: postal service mail, email and voice mail literally begging me to speak on their behalf. But as I considered each, one theme kept coming back to me - שנאת חנם.

Many have called for a return to civility in our public discourse but I believe that the issue is deeper. We have devolved into a culture of hate. Politicians, preachers and commentators not only vehemently express their disdain for positions other than their own, they call upon their listeners and followers to hate those with whom they disagree.

It is easy to find their words. A quick Google search produced Rush Limbaugh calling for a reinstitution of segregated buses, a Baptist pastor expressing his hatred for President Obama, encouraging his congregation to take loaded weapons to the President’s appearances and saying that killing the President would not be murder or even a sin, two sitting governors, a gubernatorial candidate and several state legislatures calling for secession from the United States (an issue I thought was settled with the blood of over 700,000 Americans spilled in the Civil War) plus thousands of other hits about our supposedly respected leaders promoting the hatred and demonization of others. We are a country that allows free speech and I am glad we do. But, as we all know, our words can heal or hurt, cause our souls to soar to the heavens or draw us into the depths of evil.

In ancient times, we committed the sin of שנאת חנם by using language to debase and divide, not build up and unify, and thus were the Romans able to take advantage of our divisiveness to conquer and condemn us to exile.

The Rabbis, who valued debate and disagreement so much they respectfully include even losing positons in their literature, understood that sowing hatred was inherently different. They knew that after true debate and disagreement, once a decision was made, all came together to support it. Once they even punished the head of the great Sanhedrin for publicly humiliating another Rabbi who had disagreed with him. We are taught in Tractate Berachot: “ Rabban Gamaliel remained sitting and expounding and R. Joshua remained standing, until all the people there began to shout and say, Stop! and he stopped. They then said: How long is he [Rabban Gamaliel] to go on insulting him [R. Joshua]? Come, let us depose him! ” And depose him they did.

So what are we to do? It is incumbent upon each of us to stand up and call out the haters and promoters of hate for what they are, in fact we are commanded in tomorrow afternoon’s Torah portion to do so! Lev. 19:17-18; “You shall not hate your neighbor in your heart... You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against your countrymen. Love your neighbor as yourself: I am Adonai.” It is also incumbent upon us to follow the law just a few verses earlier: “You shall not go up and down as a slanderer among your people; nor shall you stand idly by while your neighbor bleeds; I am Adonai.” Our Rabbis equated שנאת חנם with the spilling of innocent blood, with murder, and where blood is being spilled, we cannot stand idly by.

This past Friday, members of Westboro Baptist Church came to Park Slope in Brooklyn to stage one of their hate filled protests in front of tour sister Congregation Beth Elohim. Westboro is located in Topeka, Kansas and its pastor, Fred Phelps, and members travel the country protesting at the funerals of patriots, prominent people, the victims of disaster like our neighbors on Flight 3407, soldiers killed in Iraq and Afganistan claiming that these heroes, our honored dead, are burning in hell because God killed them and was punishing them for the sin of America tolerating Gays, Lesbians and Jews.

During the protest, church members held up signs saying “The Jews killed Jesus” “God Hates Israel” and “Anti-Christ Obama”. Members of Beth Elohim gathered in front of the synagogue as their Rabbi, Andy Bachman, blew the shofar. The sound of the Shofar drowned out the hate filled shouts of Phelps and his congregants. The sound of the Shofar calls up so much in our being - it is a call for freedom for all, a hope for the coming of Messianic times and this past Friday in Park Slope, a call for us to stand up against those who promote שנאת חנם with their words and deeds.

The choice is ours: Will we allow the haters to go unchallenged and risk the breech of our walls and the destruction of all that we hold as sacred? Or will we hearken to the sound of the Shofar and work to keep those who preach and practice שנאת חנם from destroying us all?

The choice is ours.