An Update to My D'var Torah for the World Union for Progressive Judaism on this week's portion, Vayera originally published in 2019

 Given the events in Israel since October 7, 2023, I felt the need to edit the last part of this D'var Torah.

In this week’s Parasha, Veera, it is as if we meet two different Abrahams. One a man of faith and strength, willing to stand up for justice, even against God. The other a man of faith who blindly follows God, regardless of the justness of the command.

 

Throughout my childhood, and in Rabbinical school, I only learned about the Abraham who begins a defining trait of Jewish tradition, the questioning of God. Moses carries on this tradition, as do the early Rabbis, the early Chassidic masters, and our own Progressive Jewish Movement. To this day, that is the Abraham I try to emulate and encourage others to do the same, by questioning injustice.

 

But we cannot ignore the “other Abraham”. That is the Abraham that twice allows his wife Sarah to be taken into the harems of kings. The Abraham who twice sends his son Ishmael into the desert, perchance to die, because Sarah asked him to. The Abraham who meekly follows God’s order to take his son Isaac to the mountain top and kill him as a sacrifice.

 

In the case of Isaac, the text tells us that God was testing Abraham. The question is: what was God was testing? 

 

I believe that God was not testing Abraham’s inherent faith but rather, the need for even a great person like Abraham to repent his sin and be sure he understood of the value of human life. It is obvious from earlier parts of this weeks and last week’s Parshiyot that Abraham lacked the understanding that the preservation of human life supersedes nearly all other commandments and was willing to murder his own son Ishmael by sending him out into the desert to die. Abraham, who stood up to God in defense of Sodom and Gomorrah did not stand up to his human wife and twice banished Ishmael and Hagar.

 

We know that a central part of our repentance involves a commitment to not repeat behavior that falls short. Now the test begins to make sense. Has Abraham repented his near murder of Ishmael? Obviously not. Abraham obediently takes Isaac up the mountain, binds him on top of the altar, and reaching for the knife prepares to slaughter him. Abraham fails this test of the sincerity of any repentance or remorse of leaving Ishmael to die in the desert.

 

Tuesday, I was listening to Rabbi Jeff Salkin’s podcast: Martini Judaism For those For Those Who Want To Be Shaken and Stirred. His guests, Abigail Pogrebin and Rabbi Dov Linzer, spoke about how October 7 and this year have changed their view of the Akeida. After seeing the sacrifices being made by Israeli parents by sending their children off to defend their land, they now understand how Abraham could be willing to sacrifice Isaac.

 

I totally disagree with them. The Israeli parents sending their children to defend their land, is an act of sacrifice but not one of potential murder. Abraham was willing to murder Isaac. There is no equivalency between the two.

 

The following chapters in Genesis confirm that in God’s eyes, Abraham failed. How do we know?  Because God never again speaks to Abraham, As the next verses say: “And Abraham picked up the knife to slay his son. Then a messenger of the Eternal called to him from heaven: Abraham! Abraham! And he answered, Here I am. And the messenger said, “Do not raise your hand against the boy, or do anything to him. …”

 

The messenger of the Eternal called to Abraham a second time from heaven, and said, By Myself I swear, the Eternal declares: Because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your favored one, I will bestow My blessing upon you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven and the sands on the seashore; and your descendants shall seize the gates of their foes.

 

All the nations of the earth shall bless themselves by your descendants, because you have obeyed My command.” (Genesis 22)

Yes - Abraham tried to obey God’s command and in doing so earned a blessing for himself and his descendants but failed the test. God never speaks to Abraham ever again even though he lives for several more decades. Their personal relationship has come to an end even though Abraham always tried to put faith and obedience to God first and foremost in his life. Abraham fails the test because he forgot that each person, including his sons and his wives, is made in the image of God and his or her life is precious. In his old age Abraham has become a fanatic. He hears God tell him to kill his son and, even though in the end he stays his hand, he loses everything. He never again sees his wife Sarah until she dies and he needs to bury her. Isaac and Ishmael, the sons he tried to kill, never see him until he dies, and they come to bury him.

 

While Abraham eventually remarries and has more children and wealth, but what of Isaac? Here I agree with the poet Barbara D. Holender who, in her poem “The Binding” writes:

 

“Of course Isaac was sacrificed--

what else can you call it?

Three days on the road and no answer, 

and then the answer--the knife,

no need to plunge it in….

 

They say it came out right

at the last minute,

it didn’t really happen.

I say the wounding lasted forever.

 

So Abraham came down from the mountain

and went on his way.

 

And Isaac? He’s still up there

trying to figure out

who can you trust in this world.”

 

 

May we never fail the test. May we follow the example of our Jewish and Progressive forebears and always stand up for justice and call those who commit unjust acts to account, regardless of their position, even if it is God.

 

A Trip From The Past To The Future

It had been 51 years since I last stepped foot in the cities of Lod/Lydd/Lydda and Ramla. I was 16, and along with 20+ other teens was living just down the road for the summer at Ben Shemen youth village. We were exchange students through what is now called Heller High/EIE and would walk to Lod, or if feeling lazy, take the bus to one of those towns for the afternoon. We studied Hebrew as a group, but worked in the fields with the residents of Ben Shemen as we prepared to spend the fall semester with our Israeli families.

Lod and Ramla were exotic. Arabs and Jews living together. We never even thought about whether the waiters in the cafes were Muslims, Christians, or Jews. We practiced our broken Hebrew on them and they smiled at our efforts (or maybe they were laughing at us.) I kept that idyllic 16-year-old’s vision of Lod and Ramla until about 9 years ago when I read Avi Shavit’s book  My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel.

In his book, Shavit describes the 1948 massacre and expulsion of the Arabs in Lod, perpetrated in part by Israeli soldiers, some of whom were from Ben Shemen. He talks about the thousands of Palestinian residents of Lod who were forced into the main mosque and St. George's church. He places us in the mind of the scared teenage soldier, who fired a rocket into the mosque killing hundreds of men, women, and children. The idyllic vision was shattered. So, when I saw that one of the field trips included in my program at the Shalom Hartman Institute was going to Lod, I immediately signed up.

Physically, Lod had barely changed in 51 years, but the reality on the ground had. We met our guide Dror Rubin at the Lod Chicago Community Center in the Ramat Eshkol (the old city neighborhood of Lod.) Dror is the Director of Inter-Community Partnership for the Center and since 2016, he has been a senior facilitator for “Search for Common Ground”, one of the world’s largest organizations for peace building. After a brief introduction and history lesson, we walked to the newest public building and museum in Lod, The Mosaic Museum which embodied much of the reality of today’s Lod, even though it is not the mission of the museum.

When contractors were excavating to lay a new water line twenty-five years ago, they discovered a large, intricate mosaic from the period when Lod was the headquarters of the Roman Legion. Archeologists determined that it was from the house of a merchant who lived next door to the headquarters. You can see the damage the excavator did in the pictures, but fortunately, it was left largely intact. The mosaic was preserved and some American donors decided to build a home for the Mosaic in Lod, near where it was found. The museum was completed and ready to open when the riots of May 2021 began. Here in the city where St. George, who Christian tradition says slew the dragon is buried, the dragon fires burned again. Responsibility for the riots and the atrocities that were committed, lay with both Palestinians and Israelis and some tensions simmer to this day. Early in the riots, the windows of the Mosaic Museum were shattered and Molotov cocktails hurled inside. What was supposed to be a symbol of unity and a home for some economic growth, was shattered. Thankfully the damage was minimal but it took 14 months for the museum to finally open. We were among the first visitors from outside the city.

Standing outside the museum, we met Hilda Kadasa Bahalul,

who for the past twenty years, has been working as a consultant and facilitator of women's groups. For the past ten years, she has been working as a community coordinator for the Arab community in Lod. She is an amazing woman who creates activities for Arab women and works for civil rights for Palestinians that live in Israel but are not citizens. While she is an Israeli citizen, because she was born in Gaza, she has an understanding of the issues the non-citizens face. She told us uplifting stories about women whom she had helped leave abusive relationships, and about a program she created to teach young girls and women how to ride bicycles.

She also talked about the struggles she and other Palestinian women have faced. At age 52 she is about to complete her B.A. in Humanities at Ariel University3d and is helping others like her find advanced educational programs. Hilda also spoke to us about how her daughter has had to postpone her wedding because neither family could afford a venue large enough to hold the celebration. 

Spontaneously, twenty plus "wealthy" American rabbis were pulling 100 NIS notes to help her pay her tuition and for her daughter's wedding. She refused to take the money unless we told her it could be used to help pay for the programs she runs. We readily agreed to let this remarkable woman use the funds as she saw fit.

Back at the community center, we heard from three other speakers. Rami Younis, who is making a film entitled "Lydd in Exile" that describes the events of 1948 from a purely Palestinian perspective. He was forthright in telling us that his film was totally biased and one-sided.

Lod, and other small Israeli towns, are seeing the establishment of Zionist-Religious settlers (i.e. Hardi Jews) moving in. Their stated goal is to buy homes and property from Palestinians and make these cities 100% Jews. Lod is a major focus of these settlers and this, in part, contributed to the May, 2021 riots. Rabbi Yehuda Gilad, principal of the settlers’ high school came to talk to us and it felt like he came from a different reality. From his perspective, there was no conflict between Arabs and Jews in Lod, and there never had been. While he did not use the term "fake news", it was implicit in his words that any talk of conflict was just that, fake news. He claimed that they were moving into Lod because housing there was cheaper than the cities, especially nearby Tel Aviv, which is true, but he totally ignored the reality that they only bought property that belonged to Arabs, often at higher than normal prices to incentivize the Palestinians to sell their homes and leave town.

Our final speaker was Mine Abu Luban, a Palestinian member of the Ramla city council. He talked about Ramla as a different reality. years before the Zionist-Religious settlers began arriving in Ramla, the community had established a religious leadership council consisting of the local Muslim, Christian, and Jewish senior clergy. Thus, when the settlers began to arrive and advocate for free reign in moving out Arabs from their homes, the religious leadership council stepped forward as a united body to oppose them. This slowed, but did not stopped the takeover by the settlers, and, when the May, 2021 riots began, the council was able to promote dialog and minimize the rioting and its impact. We did not go to Ramlah, but our tour leaders reassured us that what he said was true.

We concluded our time in Lod with a walking tour back to our bus. Normally, St. George's Church (1260 C.E.) is closed to the public, but a group of Christian pilgrims were visiting so it was open and we were able to see the incredible beauty that was within. Unfortunately, we were not able to see St. George's tomb.

St. George's is next door to one of the main mosques in Lod and down the street from a row of synagogues representing the different ethnic Jewish communities of Lod, Ashkenazi to Sefaradi, Bene Menashe to Yemenite. Fifty-one years ago, one of the most moving times at Ben Shemen was when our leaders took us to Lod on Tisha B'Av and we went from synagogue to synagogue experiencing the rich diversity of the Jewish communities there.

Three-quarters of my life have passed since I was last in Lod. My memories of seeing it through the eyes of an idealistic, "innocent" 16-year-old will never leave me. In 1971, I learned to see Israel, not in black and white, but rather in grays. Through the years, I have learned to see Israel through a prism and take in the multitude of colors that is its reality; the glory and the tragedy, the incredible progress and how much work still needs to be done.

May Israel and her residents know shalom uv'racha - peace and blessings.

Back Home In Jerusalem

As I sit here on the hotel patio under the shade of an umbrella and feel the refreshing Jerusalem breeze, I marvel that it has been over three years since I was last in Jerusalem. I signed up to attend the Shalom Hartman Rabbinic Summer Program for the summer of 2020, which thanks to COVID, was cancelled in both 2020 and 2021. Arriving here last Friday, I let out a long held breath and an ease began to settle on me. A feeling of being in my second home.

Since classes do not start until tomorrow (July 5,) I have been free to just walk the city. Much has changed here in these past three years, let alone in the 46 years since I lived here. On the simplest level, as the city has grown, the number of bus routes has grown exponentially. Most of Jaffa Road has been taken over by the light rail. Yet, Jaffa Rd. also remains the same, even from 46 years ago as many of the same stores are still there and open for business.

I have spent the past three days re-exploring the parts of the city I’ve always loved. From Machaneh Yehudah to the interior of the Jaffa Gate, from the dozens of parks just off King David Street to the cafes along King George, to First Station (the old Jerusalem train station). The aromas and flavors are the same, The languages have changed. I’ve heard no Russian so far, and not as much English.

To prepare for this summer, I’ve been taking online Hebrew lessons through the Rosen School at Hebrew University. Today I had a real blessing. The class starts at 8:00 PM Albuquerque time which is 5:00 in the morning in Israel. For some reason I woke up about 4:30 this morning so I decided to sign into the class and am very glad I did. None of the other students signed on so our teacher and I spent the hour just talking. Unlike walking the streets here where I’m immediately spotted for the American I am and people default to English, Ronit and I spent the entire hour conversing in Hebrew. The conversation showed me both how much Hebrew I’ve actually retained over the years as well as reinforcing how much Hebrew I’ve forgotten. As they say, use it or lose it. 

While I have reconnected over dinner with colleagues I haven’t seen in decades, essentially I am here alone as Michele doesn’t arrive until the 13th. Over the past three days I’ve walked over 20 miles and today is not over yet. The sounds of the city remain the same. Okay, to be honest, there is more traffic noise. What a pleasure to be someplace where it is safe to walk most everywhere. The drivers may honk impatiently at each other, but if you are waiting at a crosswalk, the drivers proactively stop to let you cross. Even the so-called rude Israeli drivers respect those of us who travel by foot.

Memories and reminders are flooding back. Not just the places I frequented over the years but more reminders of people. I stopped for a soda at a restaurant that a kind older colleague invited me to join him and his daughter after Shabbat services. I walked by the old Bezalel Academy buildings and thought of a former student who took his year abroad to study in their dance program. Sweetness fills the air.

It is good to be back home and odd to not be home. But that is the way it is here in a place which is still struggling with own multiverse of identities. The air is sweet, the memories sweeter, and the promise of new experiences even sweeter yet.

Antarctica part 3 - Life on a Zodiac

My apologies for taking so long to post part 3. Internet on the ship was very limited and the journey home took us 23 hours. 

I begin the meat of the post, I want to acknowledge our ships crew, especially the captain, Andriy Domanin. Captain Domanin is from Ukraine. I can only imagine his, and the other Ukrainian crew's feelings and concern for family, friends, and country when the ship received the news of the Russian invasion. Our hearts were with them all.

Our four days going up and down the Western Side of the Antarctic Peninsula consisted of two zodiac trips a day. On the first and last days one of the trips was just touring up and down the coast and around the islands. All the other trips involved landings.

The first trip was pretty miserable. It was a zodiac tour around some islands in Cierva Cove. Everyone was pretty miserable. It rained, snowed, and sleeted the whole trip as we navigated through 5 foot swells. My waterproof gloves were not waterproof enough and my rain pants, that I'd had since Alaska, were so old they shredded. Thankfully, I was able to get some duct tape to hold them together until the ship could find me an alternate pair! Thankfully, my long underwear and wool socks from my Anchorage days were great. 

That afternoon we arrived at Mikkelson Harbour, the home of an Argentinean research station. The sun was out, the seas were calm and the seals and penguins were everywhere as we first step foot on the seventh continent. Our faith in the decision to take this trip had been restored!

Rather than try and describe the beauty of the trip, here are the list of other stops we made and the rest of the post will be photos and videos: Lion Sound, Useful Island, Neko Harbour, Cuverville Island, Davis Island, and Hydruga Rock.

And now the videos and pictures!

Antarctica pt 2 - The Drake Passage

People on the SilverSea passenger Facebook page warned us that to cross the Drake Passage we would need scopalene patches, wrist bands and seasickness pills.  We got patches before we left, applied them the evening we were leaving the anchorage off Puerto Williams and went to sleep as the ship began its entry in to the Passage.

The night was a bit rough and a few times thought I would roll off the bed. Fortunately, it wasn’t an issue. At both breakfast and lunch, we noticed that people were missing and overheard several people say their roommate skipped the meal because they weren’t feeling well. Sometime after lunch, I realized my patch had come off in the shower. Even though I felt fine, I replaced it before dinner.

At the pre-dinner briefing, people reported seeing several whales. We are terrible spotters and saw nary a whale or any other mammal. People said birds were plentiful but all we saw was one lone albatross.

The passengers are mostly older, like us, but there is one father with a couple of 20 something children, and what may be two or three younger honeymooners. There are also some folks in their 40’s-50’s. 

The second day crossing the Drake Passage was just like the first without the one albatross. Again, I lost my patch in the shower but this time didn’t replace it and I was fine. Michele is more talented than me and her patch didn’t come off until she consciously took it off the next day.

We went to sleep to the gentle rolling of the ship as we finished our passage through the Passage, awakening the next morning to our arrival at the Antarctic Peninsula.