#DafYomi (4a-b) Thought for the day

Learning to say "I don't know" isn't just about not getting caught trying to fake it 'til you make it. It's about humility, self awareness and most of all being willing to make space for partnership, alliance, learning from others. We are discussing the "Shema" and we are obsessively trying to work out exactly when it can be said. But it can only enter the heart when we put our ego aside. Only when we are capable of admitting that we are not all knowing, can we truly "hear" the calling to proclaim the oneness of G?d.

#Dafyomi (3a-b) Thought for the day.

Salvation cannot come by us mourning in the ruins of the past. We must carry on the journey wherever it will take us.
Anyone who has ever done miluim knows that night shifts can be boring, and listening out for odd noises can be a great distracting game. But there is also something about being awake in the middle of the night (with little to do) which can make one lose track of time and place and even a sense of self sometimes.

?נפש. וינפש. מתי הנפש מתעורר - עם הגוף שלנו בבוקר? או כשהגוף ישן

#Dafyomi (2a-b) Thought for the day

The daf finishes,
"בין השמשות כהרף עין זה נכנס וזה יוצא ואי אפשר לעמוד עליו".
The critical moment (or any moment) is actually very literally intangible - it can't be caught, or touched - "אי אפשר לעמוד עליו". In searching for meaning we must recognise that if we try too hard to nail something down, hold it to a particular place or time, it will slip from our fingers. Why do we ask at the beginning of the mishnah from what time can we say Shema in the evening? To teach us that any time can be THE time, it is different for the poor man, the Cohen, the people, etc. Find YOUR time. Grasp YOUR moment. Because, in the blink of an eye, it has gone.

Let's get rid of antiSemitism

Something I wrote three years ago (at least) but never published - obviously parts of which borrowed from some Facebook conversation I was having.

Now, I know what many of you are thinking - well of course I agree with that. We all want to get rid of antiSemitism - you're not saying anything new there. The question should surely be: HOW?

Right?

Wrong.

I am not suggesting we fight a "Campaign Against Anti-Semitism". I think, in fact, I might be saying the opposite.

I would like us to stop using the term antiSemitism. It has become so confused, so intangible, so meaningless that it is less useful to use it than not to use it. What do I mean? Let me explain.

Anti Semitism is / was a scientific (anti-scientific) racist movement of the late 19th and early 20th century that posited that Jews were a race and that believed that "the races" were in competition over the earth's resources and that Jews would do anything to destroy the other races upon whom they fed as parasites. Now - I understand that the meanings of words often change over time. I understand that people will use words in a way that the originator of such a word would not necessarily have understood - all this, I understand. BUT.... the word must then be useful for it to continue to be used - my claim would be that antiSemitism is virtually never useful, and that other terms could be more so. I am wary of labelling anything antiSemitic, since I am not sure what the point of doing so is. Discourse around antiSemitism has become inherently political.

AntiSemitism was the first racism. Let's just use racism. 

Why do we care about what we care about? Or rather - why do I?

The combined female population of Alabama and Georgia is about 4.5 million. The female population of Iran is around 45 million. Roe vs Wade came to the US in 1973. Similar legislation was passed in Iran in 1978. Why do so many of my feminist friends care about the women of Alabama and Georgia but none seem to care about those of Iran? (Americans exempt from this criticism).

On the other hand:

We have just witnessed gay marriage in a (Legally autonomous part of) China (Taiwan). And at the same time, we know that China is herding up millions of Uyghur muslims in concentration camps. Why have seen no-one mention both?

On a similar vein of dealing with complexity and nuance: Why do my zionist friends think that Israel cannot be both an ok-ish place for gay people to live (despite disgracefully not recognising/forbidding gay marriage) and a terrible oppressor of human rights (of Palestinians) at the same time? (LGBTQ folk exempt from this criticism).

In other words - when did we stop caring about values, about responsibilities, about Justice about Human rights and started caring only about political positions? And perhaps more worryingly - why am I using we in this sentence and not I? When did I start pretending that this is not just as true of me?

Do the ends justify the means?

I can't help feeling upset and betrayed by some of my friends in the Jewish community of the UK and in particular those who support Yachad who seemingly went out of their way to involve the British Government in the affairs of Israel and the Palestinians by urging the British Foreign Minister to back an anti-Israel resolution at the UN.

Anyone who knows me knows that I agree that settlements are a road-block to Peace and we should be dismantling them, not expanding them. But that is not the point. The fact that these representatives of the Jewish community in the UK believe that the correct cause of action is to exert influence on the British government who in turn will use the UN to bully Israel, as it has done for decades is a complete inversion of the concept of Jewish peoplehood. Moreover for those who believe the ends justify the means - I ask - what is the end? If the end is Justice for the Palestinians - in what way has this helped at all? The only end served by the ridiculous means of the terribly anti-democratic UN is to continue the singling out of Israel as an international pariah. Anyone with any ounce of sense can see that Israel (which receives 10 times the sanctions any other country does) is not nearly one tenth as guilty of war crimes as most of its immediate neighbors. Syrian president Assad has killed more Palestinians in the last 3 years than Israel has in the 50 years of occupation - and yet you have chosen to urge Boris Johnson to pressure Israel? How is it not clear that the UN's anti-Israel agenda has nothing to do with helping the Palestinians?

Yachad pretends it is Pro-Israel, but I find it an incredibly privileged arrogant understanding of that term, if you believe that that means you should try and use the British government to pressure the Israeli government to do what you want. That isn't pro-Israel. Pro-Israel is: if you have a problem with the actions of the government of Israel, come tell the government of Israel - don't go behind the government of Israel's back to help its enemies gang up on her. Or wait - I assume you don't think Egypt, Malaysia, Venezuela, etc.... are also pro-Israel? The main (perhaps the only) argument supposedly Pro-Israel supporters of this vote will and can make is that this is good for Israel and only bad for Netanyahu and the right wing government which he leads which is harming Israel as well as the Palestinians. It is an interesting argument, but also viciously condescending. I can't stand Netanyahu and will do all I can to defeat him and vote in a government committed to peace. But unless you believe Israel is not a democracy, he is (unfortunately) our democratically elected head of government. So he, and his government, are the ones for now that decide what Israel does, what is pro or anti-Israel in international diplomacy, and to claim that you know better, while not being here is simply unbelievable arrogance.

This basically comes down to whether you believe the UN is a good way of affecting change in the Middle East, a just way, a fair way. Anyone who believe it is, is either foolish, deranged or does not have Israel's best interests at heart.

Yom Kippur Sermon 5777

Drasha for pre-Neilah/post Yizkor YK 2016.

The gates of judgement are closing… Neilah – the locking of the gate is nearly upon us. For many, the message of Yom Kippur can sometimes seem to be one of fear-inducement for the sake of piety. We call this day, a day of judgement. We induce the fear of one being called to a mighty court. Just in case we weren’t scared enough by the summons, over and over the text of the mahzor finds every possible way to talk about Death. Were the editors of the mahzor trying to scare us into being good, when they included the terrifying U’netana Tokef piut from the middle ages which ask who will die by fire and who by water? I believe not. Of course those who shaped and designed the Yom Kippur experience over the millennia have wanted us, the pray-ers to think about fear – but not because they wish to scare us to piety, but because they wish to alert us to the perils of giving in to such fear.

This morning, Libby chanted so beautifully from the Torah:

הַעִדֹתִי בָכֶם הַיּוֹם, אֶת-הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֶת-הָאָרֶץ--הַחַיִּים וְהַמָּוֶת נָתַתִּי לְפָנֶיךָ, הַבְּרָכָה וְהַקְּלָלָה; וּבָחַרְתָּ, בַּחַיִּים--לְמַעַן תִּחְיֶה, אַתָּה וְזַרְעֶךָ

I have brought to witness upon you today the heavens and the earth, and I have places before you Life and Death, Blessing and Curse. Choose life! So you and your children may live.

Yes – this is judgement day – yes, we are asked to face our fears. But we are being judged on the decisions we make today – whether or not we are going to give into our fears.

Each of the central texts that we read throughout the High Holidays has a fearful climax. On the first day of Rosh Hashannah, we read the story of Hagar and Ishmael being sent into the wilderness – can we imagine that kind of fear? The fear of the unknown – of leaving behind all you have, of being forced to set out on a journey where the end is out of sight, where death may easily take you. In our day, some of the descendants of Ishmael are making those journeys of fear as we speak – fleeing home, towards the unknown.

On second Day Rosh Hashannah, we read the story of Yitzhak. It starts off as a nice family camping trip, with everyone checking they have brought bug spray and enough water. It ends with Yitzhak on the barbecue, about to become the entrée for a campfire meal. Can we begin to comprehend that fear?

On Yom Kippur, we read the story of Yonah, thrown overboard to wallow in the depths of the sea – once again, it is hard for me not to think of those drowning in the seas of the Mediterranean, who leave their homes because getting into a rickety wooden boat to travel across the sea is LESS scary than what’s happening at home. But Jonah, of course does not drown, rather he is swallowed by a great fish.

And none of these stories end with death – not by the scorching fire of the sun, nor by the water, nor by the sword, but with redemption. They don’t point us to the fear of death but rather they ask of us – how do we overcome the fear that resides within us? How do we choose life? How do we choose NOT to fear?  

In our own day and age, it seems like we are all too ready to give in to fear. Many of you will have read of the current wave of attacks by people dressed as clowns. This is a real crime wave started from a hoax playing on people’s fears. The people behind these so called pranks are weaponising fear. And they are not the only ones. It almost seems we live in the age of terror. Wherever we look we seem to be trapped between those using violence to stoke fear and those stoking fear with violent results.

The politics of fear of today stand in complete contradiction to the message of Yom Kippur and to all that the Jewish tradition has had to say about how politics should be used. Jewish political thought, in its modern guise of Zionism taught us that we must come home in order to take charge of own affairs – to become a normal functioning people with a state. There was no place for historical bogeymen, no eternal Amalek’s, no enmity based on superstitions and religion. The Zionist ethos was a hopeful one – in which Israel would be able to determine its own future, create peace with its neighbours based on rational negotiation of tachles, real-world, economic and political issues.

This was the Zionism of the greatest proponent of hope our country has known in its recent history. I talk of course of President Shimon Peres. He knew that fear paralyzes. It does not allow us to go forward, through the gates of opportunity. Only hope can allow us to do that.

Yom Kippur is a Shimon Peres kinda day. It is a day, in which one of the central messages, delivered in our Haftarah from Shaharit, chanted seamlessly by Emily, is (to paraphrase Yeshiyahu):

Religion Shmeligion, Fasting, Shmasting. Get on with making a better society.

This is a day in which we name our fears – not to scare us – but make us aware of their pernicious effect on us. We need to talk about dying by fire, by water, by sword, not because we wish to be afraid of them, but the exact opposite, so we can put our fears out into the world, so they do not torment us from within. So we can overcome them. We use the imagery of death not to scare ourselves, but to remind ourselves that IN LIFE - we have the option of conquering our fears – taking our destiny into our own hands. In many eulogies, President Peres was quoted as saying:

“Optimists and Pessimists die the same way. They just live differently. I prefer to live as an Optimist.”

Yom Kippur is the opposite of the politics of fear. Rather than asking us to act out of fear, it is asking us to look into ourselves, recognize our fears and rise above them. Rise above the basest elements of our humanity, to reach those parts of us that our closest to divinity.

In discussing the process of reflection on Yom Kippur, the Midrash in Pesikta Rabbati relates that R. Levi said:

“God appears to Israel like a mirror in which many faces can be reflected; a thousand people look at it, it looks at each of them.”

And this may seem to be a very lonely experience, even a vain one – just each of us and a mirror - but there should be no such thing as a lonely Jew. Like nearly all Jewish rituals, Yom Kippur can only be done together, as a community. For this reason, our Kol Nidrei service reminded us, right at the beginning of this day:

אנו מתירין להתפלל עם העבריינים

We permit ourselves to pray with the sinners

If we all say it together – I may think he’s the sinner – but he thinks I am: We are all in this together.

As we look into the mirror of Yom Kippur, we see our fears deep inside of us, and only we see what is inside of us, but we stand surrounded by our community – transient though it may be for many of us. Their fears we do not see – but their faces, their humanity – that we see. When we try digging ourselves out of our individual holes, we are urged to look to our community – to continue to be hopeful, optimistic, to continue to believe in the goodness and potential of humanity in order to help us on our way out. If we give in to fear, allow ourselves to be ruled by negativity, we will never escape death to truly live.

If one prefers a different metaphor from the mirror, the Mishnah in Masechet Yoma (8:9) uses the metaphor of the Mikveh. Yom Kippur is the mikveh, through which we pass to purify ourselves to enter the new year. From the waters of the mikveh, we emerge re-born, full of hope to face a new year of life.

When this country chose a national anthem to signify what it meant for this nation to be reborn, brought back to life, it chose HaTikvah. At the end of our services we will sing that song of hope – not as a piece of nationalistic pride, but as a reminder that only Hope allows great things to be achieved, or as our teacher, our Nasi, our Shimon said:

“For me, dreaming is simply being pragmatic.”

May we all merit a year of hope. A year of dreams. A year where we will conquer fear. A year of choosing life.  

Shana tova.